Robin Arzon has her baby!

John Mills joins us to discuss Pelton’s dominance on the Prophet Brand Ranking Index.

Peloton acquires a new 75,000 sq. ft. distribution center.

Delivery times are starting to get shorter.

Yes, there was another purge. No, your favorite instructor wasn’t targeted.

The Android App gets another update.

Dr. Jenn – Tom’s Secret, Continued

NBC News talks about Black fitness stars including Tunde.

Click Orlando talks to Adrian Williams.

Jess Sims gives Pop Sugar some tips on a quick workout with a backpack.

CNET has a Bike vs. Bike+ comparison.

Parade Magazine spotlights the best 20-minute Peloton workouts.

Peloton Closet – How to prepare (and not overspend) when a big sale hits.

Echelon slaps back at Peloton’s patent suit.

Tonal partners up with Nordstrom.

Peloton celebrates Women’s History Month.

There’s a new Artist Series featuring Megan Thee Stallion.

The Mothers Day Collection is live on the UK Site.

Becs Beasts are doing a virtual half marathon on April 10.

All this plus our interview with viral video sensation Kim Holderness!

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Watch the episode here:

Listen to the podcast here

Robin Arzon Has Her Baby plus our interview with Kim Holderness

How is it going?

It’s good.

I feel like I haven’t seen you in ages.

You’ve been working so much. They’ve been working you like 10, 12-hour days and on the weekends and it’s been very busy in your world.

60 hours plus 2 podcasts equals one very stressed out Crystal. That’s what I found out.

I found that out as well.

You found out that makes a crabby Crystal.

I would not say that when you’re in earshot. Our guest is Kim Holderness. The 5 Stages of Peloton, if you haven’t seen the viral video.

Just to be clear, there’s more than one video that they have that’s about Peloton or that mentions Peloton. If you haven’t seen it, do your homework. Check it out because it’s humorous.

This was everywhere. It was on the OPP nonstop. People were sharing it on the group nonstop.

I think in an hour, I counted it was posted 25 times in the OPP.

Everybody was going crazy for it. If you don’t recognize the name Holderness Family, as soon as you see them, you’ve almost certainly seen one of their videos over the year. They have racked up tens if not hundreds of millions of views on YouTube. They’re very recognizable, even if you don’t necessarily know their name. She was great to talk to. That is what you have to look forward to on the interview end of things. What pray tell do we have to look forward to on the topic end of things?

Articles, Robin and her baby. There’s going to be a Dr. Jenn segment because we’re going to talk about you part two. A whole bunch of different Peloton articles. We have a Peloton Closet segment, we have competitor news segments and some new features coming. Things like that to talk about.

Before we get to all that, shameless plugs, don’t forget we’re available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, iHeart, wherever you find your podcast, you can find us. While you’re there, be sure to subscribe first off so you never miss an episode. You’ll know right when it comes out, it will be in your phone like magic. You can also leave us a review so the people that come along after you know that maybe we’re worth giving a shot. There are always new people getting Peloton so one of the easiest things you can do to help the show, if you like it, you want to support it, is leave a review or share it on your Facebook page, Twitter or whatnot.

You guys are so great. Thank you for all of the wonderful reviews that you’ve left. You’re amazing.

At the beginning it was like, “I’ll read the iTunes reviews,” and then when I get caught up I’ll read the Facebook reviews. That’s a good problem to have. Please, let’s continue that problem. Thank you. This review is from bermudamom and she says, “I started listening to this funny and informative podcast about a year ago. My method was to listen to the new episode each Friday and sprinkle the old episodes in between other podcasts throughout the week. I’m sad because I’m all caught up and I only get to listen to the funny banter between Crystal and Tom once a week. If you own a Peloton, this podcast is a must listen and I highly recommend going back and listening to all the episodes to get an understanding of how this great company and its equipment have evolved. Also the hosts and their guests are pretty great too.”

What a sweet review.

The leaderboard name is bermudamom.

I hope to see you on the leaderboard. I probably already have. There are a lot of people on the leaderboard these days, I don’t know if you’ve noticed.

Thank you very much for that. Also, don’t forget we have a Facebook page, Facebook.com/TheClipOut. While you’re there, like the page and join the group. The group is easier for you to start conversations. If you just posted on the page, I don’t know who goes and looks at that but in the group, people might see it. Our YouTube channel, if you want to watch these episodes instead of reading them, you can go to YouTube.com/TheClipOut. If you want to see Dr. Jenn’s reaction to my big reveal last episode, trust me, you’ll want to see it. You can do that at YouTube.com/TheClipOut. Sign up for our newsletter, where you can get all the links, stories, and stuff emailed straight to your inbox weekly mostly, at theclipout.com. There’s all that, let’s dig in, shall we?

—

At long last, Robin Arzon birthed a child.

She had her baby.

 

It feels like it’s been nine months. 

Actually, I don’t think it has been that long.

No, because she didn’t tell us the day she conceived. That would be weird.

She announced in September 2020, I don’t remember the exact day. I feel like based on some input that I got from Peloton Prophet that she might have had her baby lately. That’s what the Peloton Prophet feels.

That makes sense also because People Magazine had exclusive photos and all that. It’s also nice to know the baby’s name is Athena and apparently, her college has already been paid for, courtesy of People Magazine. 

Her full name is Athena Amelia Arzon-Butler. That is a lot. I love that it’s a triple A.

If her car ever breaks down, they have to come and pick her up for free. Clearly, they worked out a deal with People Magazine, good for them. 

I loved how timed everything was because the People Magazine exclusive came out. I posted it and it was about three minutes later, Peloton and Robin both posted. It might have been a little bit closer to ten minutes but it was pretty darn quick and then everything started flowing. Look how adorable that baby is. She’s beautiful. That’s not day one newborn. There were a few days which I don’t blame her. I’m just saying, I am not judging her for having a People exclusive and putting her baby in this. I think it’s so crazy.

If you’ve got some outfit that wants to pay you a ton of money, absolutely do it.

Think about how crazy that is. When we started this podcast, she was just a person who taught classes. She was an amazing teacher, I don’t mean to take anything away from her but she sure wasn’t getting exclusives in People Magazine. A few years later, here we are. That’s amazing.

Speaking of that, just about how things have changed in the world of Peloton, let’s take a quick gander at all the people on Instagram who decided to chime in.

First of all, I have no idea how many people have liked this, but kid you not, ten minutes after this post was done, it was 25,000 likes. That’s insane.

We have some screen grabs of people on Instagram who you might recognize that wished the Arzon-Butlers congratulations. They’re all blue checkmarks.

They all have been verified on Instagram. It’s insane.

Here’s Mandy Moore.

Can you even believe that? That’s crazy. Snooki and then Rich Roll. She’s been on Rich Roll Podcast several times. I noticed that name too.

Christy Turlington.

It’s just crazy. Shape Magazine, Questlove, Venus Williams, Reese Witherspoon, Al Roker. It’s like a who’s who of people over on Robin’s baby congratulations.

It’s funny, you need to see it. Congratulations to the new mom and dad and the new person who’s entered the world.

We are super happy for them.

—

Joining us is the one and only John Mills. John, how is it going?

I’m doing great and doing wonderful. I’ve got power now, it’s all good. It was supposed to be down for an hour then it was down for five hours. It started getting cold.

Did you not have to do work now? Did you get out of that? I’m trying to look for an upside.

I tried to act like, “This power thing. I don’t know if I can work,” but they didn’t fall for it. Everybody was like, “Just call us and you can do web, that’s on your phone.” Nobody fell for it. I had to work.

How long did the battery on your phone last? Especially if you’re web accessing all day.

It got close but I made it.

You posted about the sixth annual Prophet Brand Relevance Index. We should say this is not the Peloton Prophet.

Unrelated Prophet.

They stole that from us before we came up with it, which was very rude.

I don’t know if I’m good with this Prophet.

They do a ranking of the most relevant brands based on consumer feedback. Coming in at number one was Apple but coming in at number two was Peloton. I don’t think there’s much suspense there, given the subject matter of this podcast.

That’s a pretty big deal.

That was awesome. I was surprised, I thought that was great, right up there with Apple. I was a little confused at number three was KitchenAid.

I get that. I feel your frustration. Can you imagine if it was Echelon? 

You’re right.

Here’s what I get confused by KitchenAid on this list, first off, I get Apple and Peloton. Even though I’m not an Apple guy, people have deep passion for Apple. People have deep passion for Peloton but KitchenAid, I’m like, “Who gives a s***?” They make the cheap toasters, right?

Who’s out there washing dishes just singing? I don’t know who’s excited about the KitchenAid.

“This spatula is awesome.”

Also, before we get any hate mail, we’re not bagging on KitchenAid. It’s just not exciting. 

You buy a spatula. Here’s the metric on how you judge the spatula, did it spatule? My food has been efficiently spatuled. That’s the last you think of it. You’re not like, “This KitchenAid spatula is so much better. I can’t even think of another company that would make a spatula.”

As you said, I’m not bashing on KitchenAid. I love my dishwasher. I’m just saying Amazon was 10. Every day I’m getting 2 or 3 packages from Amazon and I’m assuming they may be up there with KitchenAid.

I understand this one. 

I have two theories on Amazon, we’ll hear yours first.

My theory is that Amazon gets a lot of hate because of how they treat their employees. If Peloton, who’s amazing, also treated their employees like crap, we would all not feel amazing about Peloton. Amazon gets a lot of points taken off for that.

I think there are a lot of people that don’t like that. I think there were a lot of people that have probably had a package show up late or get lost and then they get stuck in the phone tree and they’re mad at it. Also, there’s a political element because Trump and Bezos don’t get along. There are probably some people that are like, “They don’t think what I think so I don’t like packages coming to my house.”

Those are good points.

I’ll go with the dishwasher and the spatula.

Costco, I get, because we have a passion for it. I have a passion for Costco.

I have spoken many times about my love for Costco.

Didn’t you write a blog post about it a million years ago?

I think I did. I talk about Costco the way other people talk about Jesus. I’m like, “Do you have a personal relationship with Costco? I do. Have you heard the good news?” Instead of communion, there are $1.25 hotdogs.

They got rid of the Costco that was around me so I have to drive a distance to get to one, but I was a member for a long time as well. I was there often. Every time I went, I was buying something I didn’t go for.

 

You walk in and they’ve got it in bulk. What are you going to do? It’s amazing. Good prices. You can buy a tub of butter at Walmart or Schnucks or whatever, your local grocery store chain and it’s like $7 for this little thing or you can buy a tub this big for also $7. It’s a no-brainer. I don’t care if I don’t need that much butter. It’s a better deal.

Did I mention $1.25 hotdogs?

We went down a rabbit hole.

At the bottom of that rabbit hole, $1.25 hotdogs that had been nibbled on by a bunny. Speaking of buying in bulk, Peloton bought some square footage in bulk in Middleborough, Massachusetts. 

Another last mile distribution center.

Somebody said this is number three for Massachusetts. They also theorize, I have no idea if there’s any truth to this or not, that maybe one of those will be replaced by this new one because Peloton is outgrowing it. Maybe that one’s going away and they have this new one. I have no idea if that’s accurate.

I’m not clear on that either. The fact that they announced it and then they talked about the square footage and the fact that it can be expanded, there’s room to expand it so it can get larger and who were conserved because of where it’s located. I thought it was exciting. The numbers are going down too. I was out there again looking.

We’ve got that screenshot. “Oh snap. Coming down.” It was like 6 to 10 on the regular bike and now we’re at 4 to 9 weeks on the delivery. I posted that and then two seconds later, you went to look and it was already down. Could it really have been a correlation that quickly? Could they have already had it in progress? 

I’m sure it was in progress. I’m still on there with the refresh. I’m checking all the time.

No matter what anybody says, you were the first one in the community to be watching that. I’m giving you props for that because you’ve been helping us with that number for a long time.

What’s the number we’re waiting on? What did it use to sit at? What was the normal number?

You used to be able to get a bike in three weeks.

That’s what I’m waiting on. 2 to 4, 3 to 5-week range, I think we’re back to normal.

I feel like it might be a little bit longer on that Bike+.

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I thought early on, I was hearing that people were going in and they were hitting the bike first. At the time, the bike delivery times were lower, but now you look at Bike+, everybody’s going after that.

I think that it’s a couple of things. Some time has passed and people are a little more comfortable with the Bike+. You have new people that had been putting off the purchase of a bike and now they had time to observe and see what’s going on. They’re like, “I’m going to go with the Bike+.”

Obviously, everybody has different thresholds for what they can afford and that’s fine. For most people, you’re in for a dime and for a dollar. If you’ve already been like, “I can drop $1,800, I guess I’ll spend another six and get the top of the line with the swivel and all the stuff. That way I’ve got all the stuff and I’m done.”

I don’t know how many people think like this or not, but having already been through one swap of a monitor, to me, I’d rather have the most recent bike because if nothing else, who knows when the next generation is going to be out for the original bike? If you were a generation two and you pass on the Bike+ and now you’ve got to pay for it out of pocket.

That’s a good point because there have been 3 or 4 generations of the monitor. If you’re thinking that right up front or if you know about that experience, you probably would start with Bike+.

It’s good to see those delivery times coming down.

They’re headed in the right direction.

I will let you know if they change again.

Thank you so much for joining us. Until next time, remind everybody where they can find your timely updates.

They can find me on Facebook in my Run, Lift & Live page or group. They can find me on Instagram, @RunLiftAndLive or at RunLiftAndLive.com.

—

There was another purge.

It was a biggie, again. I have so much to say about this. First, I’ll do the facts. Number one, it approached all instructors. It touched all instructors that were still in the library and it also meant at the end of it that almost everything before 2018 is gone. There are a couple of rides that squeaked through, but not much. I want to talk about the fact that people lost their minds again. Here’s the thing, everybody thinks it’s only their instructor.

That their favorite was targeted.

If I look at Robin’s group, they were writing Peloton and demanding that their rides were put back. I saw the same thing, I think it was Denis Menaces, I don’t mean to call any groups out. Not that anybody feels passionate, my greater point is that because they are people’s favorite instructors, it feels like they were unfairly or they were impacted more. The other big thing that happens here is that people feel Peloton needs to communicate this. Here’s the one time I’m going to disagree with Peloton being more transparent because I don’t care what rides they picked or if they gave you a 30 days heads-up, everybody would still complain. I know that everybody would still complain because they shouldn’t have gotten rid of this. Aren’t they looking at the metrics? They’re doing all those things. No one’s taking rides from 2017, 2016. I’m not saying zero rides, I know some of you do it over and over, but most of you on the holdup.

I will say I saw one complaint that I thought was valid for pulling a class. They pulled an FTP class. I know people like to go back and do apples to apples on that stuff. They probably should work to try and leave those because I know when you’ve got to go back and take it again, people want to take the same thing. Like I said, apples to apples. I do think that they should try and leave the FTP classes alone, if at all possible.

One thing I do think Peloton should be transparent about is how they’re choosing those classes because that would help tamp down some of the frustration. On the other hand, I also don’t because every time I come up with a theory on why it should be, somebody tells me how dumb it is, “That’s a dumb reason,” which I’m not even saying they’re wrong, but if all the reasons are dumb, you can’t please everyone.

Also, there’s an image thing at stake. They want the Peloton classes to look a certain way and so they don’t want the classes from 4 and 5 years ago because they don’t look like that anymore.

I don’t think that’s all there is to it.

I don’t think it’s all there is, but it plays a role.

I think how many times people are going back to listen or watch those classes or use them, when you compare it to the number of the classes that are being used every day, it’s a very small number. Another thing that people are really upset about, whether you agree with the reasons or not, because of the timeline that they deleted classes from, the number of 45-minute rides has decreased. In general, the population of 45-minute rides has decreased and they’re not replacing them as quickly as they were before.

You got stacking them.

You do but that’s not what certain people want.

 

Sure, but I think that’s the mindset from Peloton. “We gave you stacking so there you go.”

Anyway, lots of people are mad. It’s already calmed down. Give them a few days and they’re over it.

It’s like when a radio station fires a DJ and they don’t tell you that they’re going to fire that DJ, every once in a while you get one that retires, but for the most part they don’t tell you. You just wake up one day and your favorite DJ is gone. It’s like Soviet Russia, that person never existed, they never address it and then you get really mad for a week and then you get used to the new person and everybody moves on.

You get zero closure.

There was an update to the Android app. When we were creating our run of show list, this update was not available on the iPhone, but it was available on Android.

It’s also on the bike and on the tread. They’re rolling it out slowly, I don’t know if it’s on everybody’s bike and tread because somebody that I talked to told me it’s been on their bike and tread for a few weeks. I don’t know when it popped up on mine because as helpful as it is, I haven’t been using it.

We haven’t said what it is. 

What it is instead of having everything split on your schedule by strength, yoga, cardio, meditation, etc., for a given day, let’s say you want to look at everything on Sunday, instead of having to flip from strength to yoga, to cardio, etc., you can hit a button that says all. It will show you everything that’s live that day, which is how it used to be back at the beginning because they only had cycling and strength so it was easy. I miss that. I’m glad to see this coming back. I feel like this is another way to think of scheduling changes are coming. All of these things, they’ve been beta testing and playing around with. I think there’s going to be this big reveal where everything comes together, a transformer or something.

They are more than meets the eye.

I heard and I haven’t seen it. I saw pictures of it but the same friend who sent me this and said that it was on her bike and tread for a few weeks, she also told me that they’re completely changing the schedule. When you look at the schedule, it’s more like the old version of the schedule. It used to be where you click on it and it’s not this big graphic of the class anymore. It’s like a scrolling page of all the different classes you can take. At least from her experience, it was more difficult to find where you click start to start the class. I haven’t seen it on my bike yet so I don’t know.

—

People might remember last episode, my big reveal.

People were legit shocked.

It’s intimidating and flattering that it’s the fastest downloaded episode in the history of the show.

It cracks me up.

It’s been crazy town. Thank you for that. We’re always happy when people download. If you haven’t read that one, you might want to go back and read it, but I revealed that I’d been secretly using the Tonal for a little over a year. Dr. Jenn was very surprised. This is the continuation of that conversation. It was pretty lengthy, we don’t want to just turn it into a whole episode.

Dr. Jenn starts off by talking to you about cardio and then we also get into your eating stuff at the end. 

I believe last episode, it left off where I said that I wanted to punch cardio in the d***. Here you go.

When you’re ready to start cardio, you let me know and I’ll help you.

I don’t know that I’ll ever be ready for that. I hate it.

I get it. You probably see me post about it and heard me talk about it, I am not a runner, or at least I used to say that about myself. I hated running. I didn’t understand running and now, I’m a runner. That’s been an identity shift for me, as well. It’s been positive and it’s also been something that has made me feel like I can overcome something and work through things that are difficult. That has been a boost for me in terms of my own self-concept when it comes to health and fitness.

Crystal had an interesting theory on my hatred of cardio.

He feels like he’s having a panic attack because he was saying that he doesn’t like how flustered he feels. Because he’s not used to his heart rate going up, it feels like a panic attack every time he does it. 

That makes a lot of sense. What I would recommend for you, even though you are not asking for my help, I should give it anyway, what I would do is start with a five-minute warm-up ride on the bike. You can be sitting down, which I think is always the best form of exercise. I prefer lying down, that’s my personal favorite. Matty has a couple of that and so does Olivia, the whole thing is going to be on your back. I would recommend a five-minute warm-up and to not let your heart rate get too high where it makes you feel anxious and to keep the tension low so you’re not pushing too hard just to get you in the groove. That’s the perfect starting point for you, five minutes.

I don’t know about the bike.

He’s thinking more of the tread.

Do a five-minute walk.

She’s got a point is all I’m saying.

Keep it low-key and small.

Is that a normal thing? Do other people have that same reaction to cardio because I have never heard that?

Anytime your heart rate goes up and you don’t expect it to go up, it feels like a panicky feeling. I never became aware of it until I started working out on Peloton because some of the instructors mentioned it. It helps so much with the breathing when you’re aware of it because you can say, “I need to breathe through that.” Your first reaction is like, “I can’t. I’m going too fast. I’ve got to slow down.” It’s this panicky feeling. I never realized that’s what I was feeling.

The first time I ever took a Spin class was 100 years ago. It was at a gym called Sports Club LA and by coincidence, the person on the bike next to me was Robert Shapiro, the attorney. At that time, I was in my 20s and he seemed like he was 100 years old. He was probably my age now. I remember I was on the bike and I didn’t know how to clip in, I didn’t know what to do and he was advising me and he was so sweet. He was helping me out. We were doing the class, he is pedaling and he is kicking my ass. I literally felt like it was the closest thing I’d ever come to having a heart attack without actually dying. I felt like, “My heart is going to pound out of my chest.” It was so intense and overwhelming but I kept looking at him and going like, “This guy is like 70 years old. If he’s still going, I’ve got to keep going.”

I get what you’re saying and the key is to start keeping your heart rate lower. I know for me, my endurance was never great when I started, but now I have been running consistently for probably about a few years. I did running a couple of days a week but now I’m doing it quite a bit. I feel like I have a different set of lungs than when I got my Peloton originally. Even when I’m not exercising, my lungs, it’s hard to describe and maybe you have this experience too, I feel like I have healthier different lungs with a better capacity in my day-to-day life. Once you get enough time, you’ll start to feel a difference and you’ll also start to become more comfortable with that speedy heart feeling that tends to happen when you’re doing your cardio. It also might make you feel better to do a heart scan, get an EKG, just so that you know you’re healthy and that you can do this.

It’s never a bad thing.

Sweat is gross and I hate it on me.

Then you shower and it’s fine.

I’m so happy because I worry about you, Tom. I’ve been very worried about you.

I always felt like my lack of exercise was offset by the fact that I don’t have a lot of other vices. I don’t smoke, I really don’t drink, maybe 1 or 2 times a year. I’m not piling on to the lack of exercise. That should count for something, right?

He has good reports when he goes to the doctor. I have to give him that.

She’s always mystified.

I do worry too. What is keeping you alive? You don’t eat fruits and vegetables.

How can you not eat fruits and vegetables? They’re so good.

They’re gross.

It’s a texture thing. 

I gag.

That sneaky chef book, the one where Jerry Seinfeld’s wife will sneak vegetables into other food.

My throat is like The Princess and the Pea. I will find it. If we get a pizza, Italian sausage is what I want on my pizza. If a stray shred of a black olive just happens to finds its way. There’s no sneaking past me, I will know and I will gag. 

It’s instantaneous. It’s crazy. In fact, somebody sent him an article about ARFID and we read it. I’m starting to think that he has it.

What is that?

In the article, they called it a type of eating disorder where your body rejects food and they think that it could be based on either neurological or emotional issues. They consider it a type of eating disorder. I had heard of ARFID before but I have never heard of it referred to as an eating disorder. That was new information to me. I think that Tom has it because I have never heard anybody describe it the way he does. It is a very similar description of when they see it, or smell it, or taste it, it’s just instant gag. That’s what he does. 

There’s no rhyme or reason to what makes you gag. A lot of people when you tell them, they think that they have it like, “I can’t stand celery.” It’s not as simple as like there’s a food you don’t like.

The article described it as instead each person has safe foods that they can eat. As they go through life, it tends to narrow. There are less and less safe foods unless they make a concentrated effort to have a larger variety of safe foods.

Is there a therapeutic approach to this with a dietician or something?

I believe it was a psychological approach. I want to say that it was the same treatment that they do for PTSD. I think that was one of the things they mentioned. 

Here’s a line from the article, the author I think was a woman, she was saying, “Other safe foods for me are idiosyncratic. For example, chicken breast is a safe food for me but wings, legs and thighs are not. Yellow and orange peppers are safe, but not red. Dishes made with ground beef have a high chance of being safe but steak or lamb chops are never safe. Most kinds of ice cream are not safe for me, only plain vanilla is always safe and only if it’s rock hard. Broccoli and onions are safe but mushrooms, asparagus, beets, tomatoes, olives and turnips, all invoke a tightening of the throat.”

Do you have any safe fruits or vegetables?

No. I’ve never been able to find one.

Not even in pie. He doesn’t only hate apples, he hates apple pie.

I understand that. I don’t like apple pie. I feel you on that. What about a mango popsicle?

The fake flavors are okay. I could never choke down a pineapple but I could eat a Dole Whip at Disney World.

Could you have a pineapple bar that has real pineapple in it?

Not if it was chunks of pineapple. 

Puree might be okay?

I might be able to do that. I didn’t know that was a thing. As long as it felt like a popsicle.

That’s interesting.

This person talks about the misery of going to dinner parties and I’m like, “This is so me.”

These people will ask, “What do you want to eat?” Tom is like, “Just whatever. Make anything.” He won’t eat while he’s there.

I’ve been to dinner parties where people comment uncomfortably on what I’m eating or not eating and I’ve been to meals where the only safe foods for me were quite literally, bread and water. I’ve done that. I’ve been to many conferences for work where I sit there and cut up the salmon and slide it around the plate, I eat the dinner roll, I drink the water because I don’t like tea, then I’m out the door. I’ve gone to fancy restaurants where on the way home we had to stop for food.

That’s normal in our house. 

It sounds like it’s something that imprisons you and that it’s worth seeking and finding out who the best specialist is on this and try to work on this because it’s hurting your life.

Instead of paying the dues to the gym, you could rent a bike and download the Peloton app. Share on X

When people go to fancy restaurants and they eat the pretty food and I’m like, “That’d be great but I’ll get a burger.” I love burgers. Don’t be mad at me burgers, I still love you. It would be nice to eat other things but I can’t. I’m jealous of the foodies. I wish I could enjoy that stuff.

 

This is inhibiting your life. It’s got to be addressed.

I feel like they should pass a law. Every restaurant should have a burger for people like me. Just a burger. The worst, when there’s a burger on the menu and they bring it out on some fancy French roll with onions on and I’m like, “I’m at a fancy restaurant. If I ordered the burger in a fancy restaurant, it’s because I don’t want the fancy food. Nobody came to Chef Fancy Pants to buy the burger. If I’m buying the burgers, it’s because I didn’t want to be here so bring me a normal burger. Don’t make it weird.”

We can go to one restaurant. That’s pretty much it.

Every Mexican restaurant should be legally required to have chicken tenders on the menu. We would go to Mexican restaurants all the time if I could just order chicken tenders.

I hope you are able to find someone that can help you with it, at the very least for your health, but also for your social life and well-being. Any time you have something that imprisons you like this, it’s important to be able to find a way out.

Let’s see if we can find a specialist locally.

I don’t think Missouri’s going to have one.

I don’t either.

Everyone’s doing telemedicine. It doesn’t matter where they are.

It’s a good point. In Missouri, they’d be like, “Eat your meat and potatoes and shut up.”

There we go, the cat’s out of the bag. Everybody knows everything. People know I’m a weird eater but that was a pretty in-depth conversation about how weird of an eater I can be. I don’t like it. I’m not being stubborn. I don’t like it. Anyway, thank you for your patience and support and all that. Next episode, we will return with Dr. Jenn in her regularly slotted format.

—

NBCNews.com had an article about black fitness stars and how they have been utilizing their platforms. Of course, you’ve got to feature a Peloton instructor in there. 

We’ve got Tunde and Chelsea Jackson Roberts featured right there. Chelsea had an amazing quote in here. This article is all about using their platform to do more than just exercise and it’s a pretty uplifting article. Simultaneously, Jackson Roberts understands what her position means to young black girls who are watching, “How dare I not use this as an opportunity to acknowledge my past in order to get rooted in this moment right now, to make sure people who come here after know there’s something here for them.” She said so well.

She went in-depth on that. When we interviewed her about what that was like being in a pretty white space that yoga has traditionally been, at least in America. If you want to read more about that, you can read our interview with her from a couple of episodes back. That is out there. If you want that link, it will be in this week’s newsletter, you can sign up for that at theclipout.com. On the heels of that, ClickOrlando.com, which they must be running out of web names in Orlando, if that’s what they’re going with. They interviewed Adrian Williams, a flip side to this coin, how Peloton instructors are continuing their education beyond Black History Month. It’s not just for February anymore.

Adrian talked about how he has been weaving in his culture and his roots in those classes. It’s not just a one-time thing, it’s not just for this month that he always does that. He sees it as an opportunity to grow and they also included Tunde in this article. There are quotes from both and good information about their classes and how they feel about teaching a Peloton.

POPSUGAR had their weekly Peloton article.

Remember back when it used to be never.

They talked to Jess Sims and she gave people a way to work out without weights, utilizing their backpack.

I love it. It’s a full-body strength workout. It’s quick and easy. All you need is a backpack. You can get it done anywhere.

When we’re allowed to travel again, you can do it in the airport and look weird, but you can do it.

Sometimes I just need to move. If we ever get to travel again, maybe you can do that while you’re on vacation instead of doing the Tonal.

CNET had an article you can share with your friends whenever they ask you, “Should I get the Bike or the Bike+?”

I think this article is not super exciting or anything, but it breaks everything down well. For somebody who is considering which they should buy, this is a good article to send them. It breaks it down very simply.

If you’re tuning in to this podcast, you’re probably already a Peloton diehard so there’s not much for you in this article, but as more and more of your friends are like, “I’m thinking about finally getting one,” and when they ask you this question, “Bike or Bike+?” Here’s a way for you to do it. Send them something where you don’t have to type it all out yourself. Send this to your lazy friends. We came across the We Got Goals Podcast and they are interviewing Jess Sims.

Episode 225, they interviewed her. They got a nice in-depth interview and not only do they have a podcast, but you can also check it out on YouTube. Whenever we send out the newsletter, we will have links for both. I love these kinds of interviews with instructors because it gives you all the in-depth information and they speak very frankly. What’s the word? Candid, that’s the word I’m looking for. I love that.

John Mills found this article from Parade Magazine and it’s a list of the 25 best 20-minute Peloton rides and then featuring a picture of someone not on a Peloton, they could be an app user.

I would also say, keep in mind that Peloton probably did not okay this article. They didn’t send them the images.

Probably they went to Stock photos and went ‘Spin bike’ and then Mad Dogg sued them. I thought it was interesting. John Mills also pointed out that he was like, “You didn’t get a hip hop ride mentioned until one of the last five classes. Why is that?” I was like, “Again, it’s Parade Magazine.” This is an insert in your Sunday paper, the readership is going to be a little older but it also shows you how popular Peloton is getting once again. This is the third article that we’ve seen from Parade Magazine about Peloton.

Like you said, that goes to the older generation. I find that fascinating because my parents have nothing to do with technology. I know there are a lot of people over the age that my parents are and use it. That’s amazing but it shows how it’s spreading.

I also think that because of the pandemic, there are probably a lot of older people that wouldn’t necessarily embrace technology like this that are coming around on it because they don’t want to go outside. That’s their option.

Maybe they couldn’t go outside because of the weather.

—

Joining us once again is Torrey from Peloton Closet.

We were chatting offline and I was talking to you about the Peloton warehouse sale and we got to talking about other sales that are out there. I know that that took you down a rabbit hole. Tell us about that.

Thank you so much for bringing up a topic that affects all of us, or at least most people who love clothes, stuff, which I think is a lot of humans. People love their stuff. There’s something about human nature where we get excited about stuff we love when we see it at what feels like a bargain price, a super low price. Heading into that warehouse sale, a sample sale or any kind of sale, I wanted to talk about some tips for those who need a little help maintaining our equilibrium and our ability to make good decisions.

Crystal.

Why are you picking on me, Tom?

How many leggings have you got?

It’s great to have a lot of leggings but it’s not great when you end up buying a pair of leggings that was 50% off and then they don’t fit your style, maybe they don’t even fit you and you got seduced by that low price model. It’s going into those situations and plan.

What are you giggling about, Tom?

I was thinking that I do get seduced when your leggings are 50% off.

Sorry, Torrey.

I have such an inappropriate joke I could make right now but I’m not going to. Moving on, let’s talk about how to prep for that warehouse sale, that sample sale or any kind of sale of your favorite brand. First of all, we all learned in elementary school that failing to plan is planning to fail. For someone who loves shopping as much as I do and loves a good deal as much as I do, you have to get in there and prep. Normally if I’m going to a sample sale, I will do some research on the brand. Especially when you get into a scenario when you can’t return, I’ll make sure I know the brand, I know how it fits me. A lot of times in a warehouse sale or a sample sale or any kind of sale, things aren’t returnable. You are stuck with that item and I would always say, “Do your research. Know the fit. Know what a small, medium or large is or whatever their sizing is so you don’t end up with something that is not wearable once you bring it home and try it on.”

That’s a good tip.

The second thing for me, it’s assessing what you already own and looking to say, “I wear these black leggings three times a week so buying a second pair might make sense.” “I have these green shorts and nothing matches with them. A top, t-shirt, sweatshirt totally makes sense,” versus, “Let me grab these hot pink thing that’s 60% off,” and have no place in my personal style or personal taste. That’s especially for Tom because I don’t want you in hot pink.

I’m going to second that. I don’t want to see you in hot pink either. 

Cody had a great pair of hot pink shorts but I don’t see that look for Tom.

I’m more earth tones.

It works for some people. The earth tones work better for you. I have a question about that. When I assess my wardrobe, here is how this goes, Torrey, “I definitely am overwhelmed by this. I give up. I’m going to buy what I like.” That’s where it stops. Are there other tips for assessing because it all is very overwhelming in there?

It gets crazy. For me, I know what my style is and I don’t wear super wild stuff even though I look at Peloton instructors and I look at other people around them. “That looks amazing on you but I’m not that person.” It’s accepting who you are, what looks great on you, and what you’re comfortable with. Tom is an earth tone guy, then a royal blue tank top is not going to be something he’s going to wear even though it was $5. To some extent, shopping is like dieting. You need to create a budget for yourself. When you walk into one of those situations, you might be thinking, “I’m going to spend X dollars,” or if you’re trying to be on a diet, you’re like, “I’m not eating chocolate today.” It might be exercising a little self-control and setting some plan for yourself. “I have $50 to spend. I’m going to spend $50. If this thing doesn’t fit in my $50 budget, I’m going to make some choices.” Walking in and telling yourself that at least helps me maintain the ability to make good choices, to not purchase something that isn’t in my personal style to get lured by that low price point.

Sometimes sales like these, they’re high pressure. Especially being in that warehouse sale, it was like one of those bridal things that you see on the news every year.

There are clothes flying everywhere.

It was like a Bugs Bunny cartoon.

“I’ve got a medium over here,” and you’re scrambling.

Everyone’s throwing everything into their bag because God forbid they don’t grab that thing right now.

When there’s a Peloton bra for $5, I honestly don’t even care what size it is. I have to buy it because somebody I know needs that.

I end up with three Peloton bras that way. Before you get concerned, none of them were hot pink.

That’s at least a start. That instinct to throw something in, it brings up another point. Always check sizes when you are in one of those scenarios. I have come home where I was shopping in my own size and something was mislabeled because it’s hectic, chaotic and I come home with a sports bra that I think was intended for a child. Because it was in my size, I assumed, without double-checking the label, which I have learned. Checking to make sure when you’re in that frenzy that things are labelled appropriately or in the right section because it does get hectic. I see all the people who are working those sales frantically trying to re-sort merchandise. Always double-check. Rookie mistake to come home with the thing that you believed was size medium because it was in the medium section. That’s not how it works at a sample sale or a warehouse sale.

It’s a very good advice.

Those are some of my main tips and the best one of all is you save 100% when you don’t buy it in the first place if it’s not something that you love and need.

Prepare, go into this with the mindset of what you need, double-check the sizing and make sure that it’s something you want before you buy. 

Don’t be a jerk. Don’t grab everything just because it exists. Crystal, I’m not saying you’re a jerk but those five friends of yours, maybe not every single one of them was praying, “Crystal will come home from the sale with a sports bra for me.” I would say moderation.

In my defense, it was the last day of the warehouse sale and by the time we got there, there was not much left. If you ever go to a Peloton warehouse sale, if they ever have them again in person, the way that it works is it starts at a certain percentage when they open and then the percentage goes up throughout the weekend. The downside of that is there’s less left at the end of the weekend. The lines were literally wrapped around the block. There was no way to get in before we did. It was hours in line.

I can’t even imagine what that would look like if they tried it now.

I can’t either.

If everything was back to normal, how much more populated it’d be there. It would be a madhouse. I think ultimately, sale or no sale, don’t be a jerk is a good piece of advice.

That is always a good piece of advice.

You never go wrong with that one.

All of your advice was good. I know in the heat of the moment, I have a lot of trouble following that advice. I need you to prep me if we ever get to go to a warehouse sale, I’m going to have a whole talk with you.

I want to be standing next to you in line when we’re going to that next warehouse sale and we will help support one another in making good choices.

Thank you so much for joining us. Until next time, remind everybody where they can find you.

 

 

I am on Instagram, @PelotonCloset. I am on Facebook, PelotonCloset. Let me shout out the Reddit community, I love the Peloton group tier, PelotonCloset. The website is at Peloton Closet. I’m low on the leaderboard, at the very bottom riding as PelotonCloset.

—

Peloton is always involved in a lawsuit. It looks like Echelon has tried to slap back at Peloton about their patent infringement suit. From what I can gather from reading this article, they’re basically saying that you should have included it in this other suit and you didn’t, now you’re trying to sue us twice for the same thing. It did not get dismissed, but the first one I think they reached some agreement on but they were saying this one should have been in that. It doesn’t sound like they’re going to get a lot of traction on it from the tone of this article. We shall see. My favorite line is the very last line of the article. It’s a quote from Steven N. Feldman, lead attorney for Peloton. He said in a statement to Law360, which is the website I got this from, “While the motion lacks proper basis, Echelon’s continued efforts to avoid responsibility for its clear infringement are at this point unsurprising.”

Counsel for Echelon declined to comment.

They could only comment if someone says it for them first and then they can copy it down. Tonal announced, and I thought this was interesting, that they’re partnering up with Nordstrom.

They’re going to open shops in 40 Nordstrom stores across the country. It’s going to be like a tiny little Tonal shop in the women’s fitness area. It’s a good cross-promotion for both of them. I love how it elevates both of them.

They said that they’ve started expanding their athleisure wear department and it’s gone well for them. They’re looking for things to draw more people into that department to sell more. They figure if they can sell you a Tonal, they’re going to sell you leggings to use while you’re wearing the Tonal. I thought it was fascinating and this puts them in a lot of the same malls that you see Peloton in. Nordstrom is going to be an upscale mall.

Not only that, but you can try the Tonal. That’s a big barrier for a lot of people.

I think it is too. It’s not an inexpensive machine. It’s even more expensive than the hurdle people had to get over on Peloton. There are going to be a lot of people that are going to go check it out. 

I’ve heard from a lot of people that are buying. I don’t know if it was your announcement, this announcement, the stars aligned.

If you do, be sure to use promo code, The Clip Out, at checkout to save $100 off smart accessories. Peloton is gearing up for Women’s History Month.

When they first posted this on their blog, they talked about that there was going to be a whole bunch of surprising music in store in March 2021. They followed it up by the next article and they started with Megan Thee Stallion. That’s how they’re kicking off Women’s History Month, #WorkLikeAHottie.

I feel so old. I can honestly say I’ve never heard a song by her.

Only really work with brands whose products you love. Share on X

I know she is super, amazingly popular but that’s all I know about her.

All I know is that she’s very popular and I’m too old to know.

This might be my great moment to check it out.

It worked for Lizzo. The Peloton Mother’s Day Collection is up but only in the UK.

Mother’s Day in the UK is in March.

Mother’s Day in the UK is linked to Easter and so it’s celebrated on the fourth Sunday during Lent. It moves around a lot. It’s not necessarily always in March. It could drift a little bit, but their Mother’s Day is different than ours. They also call it Mum’s Day. I don’t know if they do or not. I’m making that up.

I don’t know if they do or not either, but what I do know is that in this collection, you can get a Peloton Mum shirt and that’s pretty awesome. I am hoping that we will see the same collection or at least a variation on it whenever we have Mother’s Day here in the United States.

That seems like a safe bet.

We’ve had amazing Mother’s Day Collections before but it’s never been this large. This is the largest I’ve ever seen. Somebody reach out to Tom if it goes live, tell him to hurry up and buy stuff right then so I don’t have to. It’s weird to buy a Mum’s Day for yourself.

It sells so fast. I don’t know what you want. I don’t know what your sizes are.

Nevermind. I’ll do it.

Just send me the bill. Finally, Becs’ Beasts are doing a Virtual Half Marathon on April 10, 2021 with Becs.

There are two ladies that are spearheading all of the information about this, we have Divya Harrison and Megan Dirmati. This Virtual Half Marathon is going to be on April 10, 2021. It’s for the Virtual Woman’s Run Series. It benefits Girls on the Run. It can be run at any time but it does have to be on April 10, 2021, any time of day. They think that some people are going to run the tread and some members are going to run outside. They posted about it like, “Is there any interest?” and there was a tremendous amount of interest. They have 225 members registered. Some people are doing a 5k only, 10K only, or a double, a half and a 10K. That’s just the number with Becs’ Beasts. They also have teamed up with Andy Speerheads, they’ve registered under their own team and the race director is thrilled that this is occurring. They even have gone at sea, they have t-shirts made. This is going to be a huge event. Becs has promised to do something special on that day. They don’t know what it is. It’s going to be a surprise and they have a big birthday surprise for Becs as well.

Hopefully she doesn’t read, or we just ruined it.

That’s why I said a big surprise for her. I didn’t say what the surprise was.

I feel it’s pretty safe, that she’s probably not reading.

You never know. I didn’t want to ruin it, but congrats to Becs’ Beasts. We’re cheering you guys on and hope everything goes well.

—

Joining us is Kim Holderness. In 2013, Kim and her husband, Penn published XMAS Jammies, a seemingly innocent video Christmas card intended for their immediate family. Overnight, that video went viral. They’ve been making goofy videos ever since. If you read this blog, you’ve almost undoubtedly had your social media feed taken over by their video, The 5 Stages of Peloton, starring our guest, Kim Holderness. To back up, she’s more than just silly videos. Before Holderness Family Productions, she worked as a correspondent for Inside Edition, as well as a television news reporter. In 2008, she began her own business, Greenroom Communications, which is now part of the digital marketing agency Walk West. She’s co-created a health and wellness on-demand course. Ladies and gentlemen, and all points in between, Kim Holderness.

Thank you for that introduction. Thank you for having me.

Thank you. It’s super exciting.

It’s weird to see you in real life. I’m seeing that video over and over again.

I’m sorry about that. Here’s the little secret about me. I’m an introvert and it benefits when a lot of people watch your video. When something goes viral, when it gets posted on other people’s pages, and it takes on a life of its own, the little community we have online, it’s safe and wonderful and everybody’s so supportive. I try to answer as many comments as I have and I love that environment. When it goes to other places like this video did, it’s not as safe and cozy. I don’t always love it when stuff goes crazy viral.

That’s when the d-bags come out.

What can people possibly say that’s negative about that?

When it goes to other people’s pages, I don’t know and I don’t look. I learned the hard way not to do that. It is 2021 and people are going to find a way to have something negative to say, and because I’m a middle-aged woman, oftentimes it’s my appearance that people get consumed with like I’ve gained weight or I’ve lost weight or I need Botox. I get Botox once a year and they want more.

How do you deal with that? I get so consumed when people say anything negative. I don’t even see the positive.

I don’t deal well. I’ll be transparent. I call my husband a human Golden Retriever because he’s like Teflon when it comes to that stuff. When somebody says something about our videos, he’s like, “You’re right, they are cringey. It’s terrible,” and then, “What do you want for dinner?” That’s all it is.

I always tell her, “You’re not popular until people don’t like you.”

The community on our page is mostly positive. That’s why it’s there. If there’s one negative comment and 1,000 positive comments, I will zero in on that. It’s not great. It’s not good for my mental health. None of it. It’s not important, somebody with a weird screen name who’s probably had something going on in their life. I have no wisdom to impart on you except for it sucks and I still hate it.

It’s an occupational hazard.

It’s nice to know that even you with all of your views and all the people out there, it affects you too.

If 1% of the people are d-bags and you go from 2,000 views to 200,000 views to 2 million views.

That’s more d-bags you get to see every day.

It cuts a little bit when they say stuff with your kids or they make judgements that aren’t true. I want to go a little keyboard warrior and I want to fight back on all of them and shut it off.

You’re just giving them what they want, but I get it. It’s hard not to get sucked into it.

Ultimately, I know you can’t change their minds. They’re still like, “What good are you going to do to put anything out there?”

It’s pointless.

Something you never see on the internet is like, “Good point. You’ve changed my mind on this.”

I’ve told people to call us out if they think we’re doing something that’s offensive to marginalized communities. They call us out on that stuff. It was a little bit of a misunderstanding. We had done some posts about Black Lives Matter. We had gone to some protests. We’ve done all the stuff and then somebody jumped in and hadn’t seen that we’ve done that. They’re like, “You just posted this.” We didn’t post anything for a week and then we posted something of our normal jazz hands. They’re like, “You didn’t even mention this.” I was like, “I’m going to let you know, if you scroll back, you don’t get to see everything we do, but please call us out.” We’ve opened ourselves up to that a little bit. I digress, Peloton.

When did you find Peloton? Was this recent for you?

You mentioned the wellness program that I have with my functional medicine doctor. I’ve always done strength training at home, but those are quick workouts and it’s part of that program. I always thrived more in a gym atmosphere. I did Orangetheory. I was a member at The Cycle Studio locally and then the pandemic hit. It never occurred to me to have a piece of a stationary bike in my home. That wasn’t even a thing. The world shut down and we do work out all the time. It’s 100% for mental health. I work out every day to get moving. I needed something.

Our cycle gym, for $150 a month, instead of paying the dues to the gym, you could rent a bike. I brought the huge Honkin gym bike into my house and downloaded the Peloton app. The stages were authentic. I had taped my iPad to the handlebars to do classes. It doesn’t line up with the resistance and all that stuff, but it was still a great workout. I did a couple months of that, and then I was on a walk one day. I saw my neighbor down the street and we were chit-chatting. She’s like, “I’m going to sell my Peloton. I’ve had it for two years. I’ve used it twice but it’s not working for me.” I was like, “I got it. I want it.” She lives down the street. We drove Penn’s SUV over. We loaded it in. I bought it from a neighbor and that was it, then the addiction started.

Do you have a favorite instructor?

I have three that I rotate through. I’ll do Robin’s classes, Ally Love, and then Cody. Now I’m getting into Alex Toussaint. I’ve taken a couple of his classes, and then Kendall Toole. I’m a creature of habit, but I’m trying to switch it up a little bit.

I joke to Tom that there are ten stages of Peloton. You went through the first five. You’re going to have to do another video. There are more stages that come because now you’re obsessed with the instructors you’re obsessed with. You’re going to want to start training for something and that’s going to be a whole thing, and that’s going to take you through a cycle. You’re then going to come back around and you’re going to be like, “I want to have fun again. I want to focus on just the fun.” You’re going to have a whole new set of instructors for that.

I signed up for the alerts on the treadmill thing. Cody got COVID. As a mom, I was obsessed with like, “How is he doing? He hasn’t been posting anything.” To the point where my producer, and she’s a friend of mine, she bought a bike off a neighbor too. She’s like, “Cody hasn’t been doing his classes. I wonder if he’s sick. I wonder if he has COVID.” We were stalking his Instagram feed. We’re so worried about him. It’s a big deal.

Since the beginning of January 2021, every time an instructor takes off for more than a couple of classes, everyone panics. Chase Tucker is not on the schedule for the next two weeks and people are in full panic mode like, “Where is he? Is he okay?”

I’m worried about my people. I’m old enough to be their mom. As a mom I’m like, “Cody, did you come back too fast? Do we need to get sign off from a cardiologist?”

We’re all doing it. We want them to be okay because we love them so much. They’re part of our lives.

I always thought this would be a temporary thing during the pandemic, now we’re going in a year. I was never great at working out at home for more than twenty minutes. I could do twenty and I was watching the clock the whole time. This has been great. My husband did a few in the beginning. I bought him the shoes too. He is so competitive that he saw the leaderboard and he thought he needed to win. First of all, I’m singing half the time. I don’t even pay attention to any of that stuff. I think I’m last. I don’t know. He’s coming in and he took 5 classes where he was in the top 20, but he hurt himself. He’s 46 and you shouldn’t do that. He did two classes for the first time since last summer 2020. He’s like, “I took it easy. I was 4,000.” I was like, “How many?” He’s like, “120,000.” He promises me he’s going to take it easy and go slow. I’ve encouraged him to not even look at it.

Does he know that every bike has a different configuration? Assuming you have the regular bike, not the Bike+, every bike has a different calibration. You could do the ride on your bike and do the ride on my bike and have a completely different output. That’s why you cannot go by the leaderboard.

There are people like the aforementioned d-bags.

They go in and jack their bikes.

First of all, this is all new information. This is like stage six Peloton. I don’t pay attention to that which makes me glad. There are rides and I’m like, “This is all I’ve got. If I’m making it to the top half, I win.” Can you jack your bike up?

Yes. You can change the calibration to it. There’s a calibration kit you can get for your bike. The idea behind the calibration kit was because sometimes they become too hard. There can be something that goes wrong with your bike over time and maybe it’s a little bit off. The whole idea of the calibration bike is to fix it. People, sometimes, take that too far and they will calibrate it in such a way that makes it super easy. If you watch people’s videos, you can even see it. There are times that people are leisurely riding, flipping their hair, and they have a 400 or 500 output on their screen at any given time. You cannot go by the leaderboard. You need to tell your husband that because he needs to know.

The other thing in terms of not getting too focused on the leaderboard for real is he also needs to remember that there are legit professional athletes in these classes. There are NBA players, NFL players, and Major League Baseball players.

He’s a 46-year-old CrossFit guy but he’s so competitive. I cannot wait to tell him that this is not apples to oranges. Not everybody’s in the same plane.

If it drives him crazy, you can always get the Bike+ because it auto-calibrates, and then it takes that out of the equation. Everybody with a Bike+ evens the playing field. Everyone is the same who has a Bike+.

He’s also competitive and cheap. I don’t think we’re getting the Bike+. That’s why when I’m like, “The treadmill.” He’s like, “We can go get a treadmill down at Costco.” I’m like, “No, we’re not doing that. We’re going to wait for the Peloton treadmill.”

You need the jump buttons. They’re amazing.

You’re already paying for the subscription so you might as well get the one where it’s baked in. There’s something to be said for the convenience.

That’s my line and I’m sticking to it.

I’m curious about all the videos you do. I was reading on your website and it says that sometimes you work with brands. That made me wonder. The Peloton one sounds like that was organic. That was based off of real life. How do you decide when it’s a real-life video or you’re helping a brand take it to the next level? How does that work?

It was interesting because normally brands will approach us. I feel lucky to be there that the brands will come to us and want to work with us. Sometimes it’s a good fit, sometimes it’s not. Our family rule is we only work with brands where we love this product. It is something we love and that we would suggest to a friend. It would make your life better because I’m telling you about it. Peloton was not an advertisement for Peloton. That was some of the d-bags who came out like, “This is an ad.” I’m like, “No, this is the opposite of an ad because we pay them. I bought the bike.” The Peloton social media people reached out to us through Instagram. I was a little nervous because it’s not like we were 100% complimentary especially in the beginning. They’re like, “We have all seen the video. We think it’s hysterical. Can we share it on our channels?”

We don’t always do that because there’s back to that original thing when somebody else posts your video, it doesn’t always go great, but we’re like, “Sure. They have a huge audience.” If it is a way to have some synergy there, we sent them the Dropbox link and they posted it organically on their Instagram. That was never meant to be an advertisement for Peloton. It was something that happened in my life, but it was a good case study for how brands should handle marketing and advertising. Let the creators be authentic to what their experience is.

Sometimes when a brand partnership, and there have been that we’ve gone down the road of like, “I love this product. I love this company.” We’ve walked down the road of trying to create content to help market and they’re like, “You have to say our name 3X. Within the first seventeen seconds, you have to say this. You get this angle of the product.” It doesn’t look authentic. The audience doesn’t know it and we’ve had to say like, “Thank you, but this isn’t going to go great.” Whereas Peloton, in the beginning, we told the story of how I rolled my eyes at the ad in December of 2019. I found it ridiculous, but it worked and I loved it.

I know a lot of times clients have issues where they come to a creator because they like the attitude. When you give them the attitude, they’re like, “Not.”

“Could you soften it a bit? Can you say super positive things?” That gets tricky. That’s why we are careful about who we work with and the brands we do work with, that we 100% love them.

That comes top down from Peloton. We interact with Peloton to some degree. We’ve had instructors on and whatnot. We hosted a Q&A with the CEO, John Foley. When we had our pre-conference call meeting about what that presentation was going to look like, one of the people on the phone call was like, “Tom, you’ve got to dial it down a little bit because you get a little out there sometimes.” John Foley was like, “Absolutely not. We want The Clip Out to be The Clip Out. This is what they do.” I say this all the time. I book concerts for a living, I’m like, “You don’t hire Gallagher and then tell him to not smash watermelons. You knew what you were getting when you hired Gallagher. Why would you say that?”

My first introduction to Peloton, I listened to that podcast How I Built This. I listened to that about the chance he took on it. I loved the origin story of Peloton. I loved it as a business concept. It just didn’t work in my life at that time. We were rolling our eyes at them in the beginning and then they loved the video. That is cool to hear.

I get that. There are lots of products that I feel that way about. If there’s too much hype around something, I do the same thing. I roll my eyes at it and I’m very skeptical. Sometimes it works out that I like it, and sometimes it doesn’t. There has been so much hype around Peloton that I get why people would come into it with like, “Seriously?”

Something somebody said, one of the other d-bags was like, “It sounds like you were in a cult.” I’m like, “A little bit.”

It’s a healthy cult.

The kind where you’re obsessed with your heart rate.

The kind where it doesn’t expect you to ostracize your family. When the pandemic is over, when the vaccine is in the water supply, and we’ve all been microchipped or whatever, do you think you’ll stick with Peloton or do you think you’ll head back to the gym?

I’ll stick with it. What I’ve discovered is that the amount of time savings. When I went to those gym classes before, you have to get there early to get a good position and the whole thing. The driving there and then driving back, and the time you’re in the shower. My workday was starting. By the time I left the door to go, showered and back at my computer because we’ve always worked from home, it was a two-hour ordeal. I feel like it is such as a quick, easy thing. I’m keeping it. I am freaked out enough. I don’t see me personally returning to a big gym space anytime super soon. Although it’s been proven as safe and there’s been low transmission at gyms, and that’s good too, but for me personally, I’m going to hang out at home for a bit.

If you have the means, and in this case, you already have the equipment, at some point, what’s the upside?

It’s working for me right now. I’m sticking with it. They’re stuck with me.

Do you do any of the other content or do you do the bike rides? How is that working?

I’ve done the bike boot camps a couple of times. It is weird. The strength training stuff, I kind of do on my own, but then I’ve done some yoga. I super suck at yoga. I’m terrible at it but I’m trying. It feels very approachable. I’ve done some yoga, but mostly it’s the bike. I live in North Carolina and right now it’s disgusting, but when the weather is nice, I will do the runs. They’re on the treadmill and I hit play on my phone and go for it.

Many times, they’ll be like, “If you are running outside, here’s the halfway point. Go ahead and turn back.” It makes it accessible.

I haven’t done that in 2021 because the weather has been disgusting, but soon I’ll start doing that.

How does the halfway point work? If you’re running a long period of time, the halfway point in terms of your energy level isn’t the same way as the half point in terms of your distance.

I used to run half marathons and I’ve no interest in ever doing that again. I’ll do a half-hour or 45-minute and that’ll be just my out. I’ll run out because I know the trails around here. I’ll do a walk back and I’ll listen to an audiobook or a podcast. That was my Saturdays and Sundays when I had more time. I would tack on something.

That’s a good way to do that. As far as the video, how long does it take you to record something like the Peloton video to put those five stages together?

I wish I could tell you that we spend a lot of time on our videos perfecting our craft, but we don’t. We have no time for more than one take. I was talking to Ann Marie, who’s my friend producer, and we’ve done a lot of these five stages of fill in the blank videos. I was like, “We need to do five stages of Peloton.” It wrote itself. We sat there, we opened a Google doc, and she and I were just “yes-anding.” We wrote it in probably fifteen minutes. We have this weird costume closet. The next day, we shot it in less than an hour. It wasn’t a long shoot. Most of the time, it came from me having to change outfits. It was a super easy edit. We shot in an hour and edited in an hour or two maybe, and then we post it the next day. The videos that we spend a lot of time on don’t do as well. The ones that we slapped together like, “One take, you’ve got one take. I could’ve done that better but no, we don’t have time for that.”

I loved when you dressed up in the wicked costume.

I’m curious, the timeline of your journey with these videos. You mentioned you have a producer. At what point did you realize we need to bring in outside help?

In 2013, Penn and I put out that Christmas video. It went viral, but because we’re idiots, we didn’t realize that you could make money off YouTube or Facebook. For the next two years, we would put out videos occasionally because it was fun to do, but we were working for other clients with our company, Greenroom, which is now part of Walk West. We were still doing full-time video production and social media for other companies for that first two years because we’re complete idiots.

Finally, it got to the point where we would get approached by brands, and then we were starting to monetize on YouTube that we’re like, “We’re making more money doing this.” It didn’t make sense. We still sit on the board and we parachute in for bigger video projects like a behind the scenes. Penn has done some stuff that’s gone viral for people behind the scenes over the past few years. That’s probably like six videos a year we’ll do for other people now. We probably went two years of just he and I doing it, cranking it out. It was hard on our marriage because although we have different jobs, there was never a time when we weren’t working. We had zero boundaries about work. It was like on the phone at bed at night, “Did you do this? Why didn’t you do this?”

We have a book coming out at the end of March 2021. We went to counseling. We have a great marriage, but when it’s consumed with work and when your work is your family, it got twisted. We both said, “I’d rather be married than do this stupid video thing.” We needed a change. We’d had some photographers and producers come in and nothing stuck before, and then Ann Marie, who we had known for a while came in. She has a musical theater background but is an expert in social media. She’s a unicorn. She was able to take enough off of both of our plates that our relationship changed.

We were able to work together from 9:00 to 5:00, and then be married. That was several years ago. Last February 2021, we hired somebody else named Sam who helps us edit graphics and website. She helps shoot stuff. She shoots stuff on her own. We hired her in 2020. That’s two full-time people, but then it allows us to be like, “I have an idea for a video. We can shoot it. We can send it off to Sam who can edit it, Ann Marie can post it.” We were in masks. If they come over, they’re in masks somewhere distant, but mostly they’re working from home. We can shoot it, do all that stuff, and then send it off. We discovered that we could do more of what we are good at if we took the chance and invest it on people who could do what they were good at. I sucked at keywords, SEO, blog, and web design. I can’t do that.

The psychic weight of it and the stress of it, it changes all the time. How you upload a video. If I’m always doing that, I can’t think of this silly script about wearing a green screen and Peloton. The timing of bringing on Sam right before everything shut down was fortuitous as well. We are like, “How long can we afford two full-time people?” We were doing the math and it was super scary. We’re like, “This makes it work.” Because we had them, we could create more. We needed help. We took the leap, and it has so far worked out. They’re amazing, creative, and hard workers. That helps too. I recommend anybody, whether it’s getting a babysitter so you can get your stuff done, getting help, and getting it out of your head. For the first three years, we couldn’t have afforded to bring anybody on, but as soon as you can, I’m 100% a fan of outsourcing even if it’s freelance, hourly, keywords, SEO, any of that stuff, do it. It’s helped us grow.

Do you get recognized when you go out and about?

It’s sweet. Nobody’s mean to us, especially when the four of us together and when we used to travel. Airports and Target, that’s where families hang. Everybody is kind.

You’re probably in a weird spot in terms of being recognizable. In my day job when I was telling people like, “I’m going to interview this person.” When we have bigger guests, “Look who we landed.” They didn’t necessarily recognize your name, but I was like, “Come here.” I would show them the video. Every single person that I worked with was like, “I know who they are.”

You enjoy the most when you allow yourself to have fun and not concentrate so much on the numbers on the side. Share on X

A lot of people are like, “Aren’t you those people?” It depends on my mood. When we used to not wear masks, they’re like, “Are you those people?” A couple of times I’ve been like, “No, I hate those guys.” Mostly, everybody’s super sweet. We’re in North Carolina and it’s such a small world. He used to be on the news here, so people still recognize him from being on the news.

Did he do the wacky human-interest stories?

He was a sports guy forever and he transitioned to news, believe it or not. He was a serious newsman, which is weird.

There’s a guy locally that does the more human-interest type of stories. Their personalities are similar. In my head I was like, “He must be the human-interest guy.”

Those were his favorite. He had a couple of ongoing segments he would do. Those were his absolute favorite. That’s what he gets to do all the time so it’s fun.

Do you want to share your leaderboard name with people or would you prefer not to?

I don’t share it because I am such a wacko. I can be crazy competitive, but I don’t know how that works. If I feel like people are looking at what I’m doing, can they see?

They can’t see you as a person, but they can see where you are in the leader board. If that bothers you, then don’t.

Whereas Penn, when we did that Peloton video, I went under his signing because I didn’t want to ruin my stats. He got 1,000 people follow him. He’s like, “What does that mean?” I was like, “It’s nothing.”

It’s more people for you to compete with. You’ll love it.

Nutrition, wellness, and everything that you do, do you have certificates for that? Is this something that’s an interest for you? Tell us about that.

I go to a functional medicine provider. I’m a middle-aged mom and I was so tired forever and ever. I went to my OB, and then I went to my primary care physician. I’m like, “I work out like crazy. I eat so healthy and I’m tired all the time.” They didn’t want to give me medicine. I’m a believer in medicine, but they’re like, “You’re a mom, you’re going to be tired.” I went to this functional medicine provider. Her name is Dr. Harriet Hansell. She put me on this program called Well Body Reset. It’s based on intermittent fasting, nutrition, and functional exercises. She’s like, “Do this for 28 days and then come back to me and tell me how you feel.” It was life-changing.

I was like, “More people need to hear about this.” She already had a waitlist at her practice. I helped her create an online course. It’s an online course about the science behind all of the food, the intermittent fasting, and the functional exercises. It’s a Facebook group. It’s been great. Penn calls it my passion project because I believe that no matter what age you are, no matter what size you are, you should feel good. It’s not about a particular body type or getting to a certain jean size. It’s about how you feel. There’s been such amazing results. That’s the Well Body Reset and that’s how that came to be. It’s been great.

You’re fairly new to Peloton, but do you have any advice for people getting their bike?

I’ve enjoyed it most when I’ve allowed myself to have fun and not concentrate so much on those numbers on the side. That’s how I choose to have it. I exercise exclusively for mental health reasons. If I can allow myself to stop and sing along to Britney Spears and not worry about losing a place on a leader board, it keeps it fun. If it keeps it fun, I’m going to keep doing it. That’s what’s worked for me.

Thank you so much for taking time out of what is undoubtedly a busy day to join us. We greatly appreciate it. Before you go, remind everybody where they can find your stuff, so they don’t have to wait for someone to push it into their Facebook feed.

We are @TheHoldernessFamily on Instagram. Penn likes to say it’s like wilderness but with a Ho. We’re on Facebook and YouTube. We have a website. We have a book coming out. We’ve got some stuff going on.

Congratulations on all your success. Thank you for highlighting Peloton in the way that you did. Thank you for joining us. We appreciate it.

I appreciate it. Thank you so much. It’s been so cool to be welcomed in the Peloton community and people didn’t shun me for making fun of it in December 2019. Apologies to the community. I plead for your forgiveness.

We’ve granted you that dispensation.

Thank you.

I am looking forward to that book. I feel like it is specific to a lot of the struggles.

I feel like you are going to be our mentors because we’re going through some of those things right now.

You can’t not if you’re working together. Even people now who don’t work together, but have to work from home in the same space together are encountering a lot of these things. The book is called Everybody Fights: So Why Not Get Better At It? We do believe fighting is a love language. We do believe that when you argue, it doesn’t have to be knocked down and drag out. You do learn more about your partner and their boundaries. We learned the hard way. We wrote this with our marriage counselor. We’re passengers on this flight. This is the path we walked. We were never on the brink of divorce. We loved each other very much, but it was rough. It was a lot. We did the work and we walked through it. We’re on the other side of it and so much better for it.

Thank you for joining us. This has been a lot of fun.

—

That brings this episode to a close. What pray tell do you have in store for people next episode?

Next episode we are talking to Andrea Verdone Gorsegner. Andrea is the woman who rode for 24 hours straight. What a fun interview. She’s amazing. I absolutely love talking to her and I apologize for butchering her name.

We got her after she had done the rides. She has all the details on what it was like to ride her Peloton for 24 consecutive hours. She did this interview and then went and immediately took a nap. That was me.

That’s always you.

Until next time, where can people find you?

People can find me on Facebook at Facebook.com/CrystalDOKeefe. They can find me on Instagram, Twitter, the bike, and of course the Tread, @ClipOutCrystal.

You can find me on Twitter, @RogerQBert or on Facebook at Facebook.com/TomOKeefe. You can find the show online, Facebook.com/TheClipOut. While you’re there, like the page, join the group and wherever you’re getting your podcasts from, be sure to subscribe so you never miss an episode. That’s it for this one. Thanks for tuning in. Until next time, keep pedaling and running.

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• https://People.com/health/peloton-instructor-robin-arzon-welcomes-daughter-athena-amelia/
• https://www.SouthCoastToday.com/story/news/local/the-gazette/2021/03/02/peloton-signs-75-000-sf-lease-61-leona-drive-middleborough-last-mile-distribution/6877828002/
• https://www.NBCNews.com/news/nbcblk/it-s-not-just-exercise-black-fitness-stars-use-their-n1259186
• https://www.ClickOrlando.com/features/2021/02/28/how-your-favorite-peloton-instructors-are-continuing-their-education-beyond-black-history-month/
• https://www.PopSugar.com/fitness/try-jess-sims-strength-workout-with-backpack-48192194
• https://www.CNET.com/health/peloton-bike-vs-peloton-bike-plus-how-the-models-compare/
• https://www.YouTube.com/watch?v=SwP8HhcMcig
• https://Parade.com/1172863/korinmiller/best-20-minute-peloton-rides/?fbclid=IwAR33xOvacsWkrnkK4wCFiFYw8qaBlbhrEZD0Zoud-SApVM7fGqMVewq9Vx0
• https://www.Law360.com/ip/articles/1360206?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=section
• https://Blog.OnePeloton.com/womenshistorymonth-2021/?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=organic_social&utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=organic_social&sf139604254=1&fbclid=IwAR3TYYTYYOnwrHw-biXLTpiR2Y_kiTYdhlZvB9IBd4vzCRmejYNWIW_CMBY
• https://SAGWagonSwag.com/search?q=becs+beasts
• https://www.NYRR.org/Youth

About Kim Holderness

In 2013, Penn and Kim hit publish on “XMAS Jammies” – a seemingly innocent video Christmas Card intended for their immediate family. Overnight, their video went viral on YouTube and they ’ve been making goofy videos with their family ever since. Seven years later, their videos have resulted in over a billion views and 4.5 million followers across social media. Their family also continues to be one of the most sought-after content creators for family brands.

Today, they own their own company, Holderness Family Productions, where Kim is Chief Executive Officer and Penn is Chief Creative Officer. As well as creating content for their channels, they also work alongside brands and agencies to shape product launches and marketing campaigns. Their book about improving communication in a marriage will be released Spring 2021.

Before Holderness Family Productions, Kim Holderness worked as a correspondent for Inside Edition as well as television news reporter. In 2008, she began her own business, Greenroom Communications, which is now part of the digital marketing agency, Walk West. Kim is an entrepreneur at heart. She has most recently co-created a health & wellness on-demand course.

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