TCO 212 | Try All The Instructors

212: Robin Arzon Is Back In The Studio plus our interview with Danielle Verwey

Last Updated: June 18, 2021By Tags: , , , , ,

TCO 212 | Try All The Instructors

 

McAfee finds a new security issue with Peloton.

We have new instructors! Callie Gulickson and Rad Lopez.

FORME and Barry’s partner up.

ICON Health & Fitness changes its name.

What does Peloton’s FCC filing for a new monitor really mean?

Dr. Jenn – How to get up early for your workouts.

Robin Arzon was back in the studio recording new content.

CNN rates Peloton accessories based on your favorite instructor.

Peloton has an official date for its Australian launch.

Peloton debuted a new post-lockdown ad.

The Hollywood Reporter talks about the “Hollywoodization” of Peloton.

Jill Woodworth spoke at the Bank of America Merrill Lynch 2021 Global Technology Conference.

Rolling Stone featured Head Of Music Gwen Bethel Riley.

Is Peloton dangerous for men’s junk?

Angelo does a check-in with Crystal and Tom’s MetPro journey.

The latest “Ride To Greatness” win goes to @TeamValidate.

The latest artist series features Big Freedia.

Don’t forget to wish a happy birthday to Selena Samuela (June 22) and Andy Speer and Denis Morton (both 6/23).

All this plus our interview with Danielle Verwey!

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Watch the episode here:

Listen to the podcast here:

Robin Arzon Is Back In The Studio plus our interview with Danielle Verwey

I am back to health and you are almost there.

I am 70% back to health.

I think it’s closer to 80%.

I can hear the blood flow in my head right now. We have an apology to make.

The last time we talked about Sam Smith, we kept calling Sam Smith a he.

It is the incorrect pronoun, which was a mistake and an accident on our part. We’re not trying to make a statement of some kind. We were doing the show on the fly and it snuck by us. We wholeheartedly apologize for that.

The correct pronoun is they. We will get it right going forward. We are very sorry for that. We understand how important it is to make sure that those pronouns are correct. I wanted to mention though that when I was corrected someone mentioned to me that Ben and Leanne both had to re-record Sam Smith classes that they had done because they used the wrong pronoun.

They fell in the same rhythm.

The reason I want to point that out is how easy it is to make that mistake because keep in mind, those are scripted. We’ll talk about it a little bit later in the show, but there’s a whole thing that came out about how scripted these rides, runs and classes are. My point being is not to pick on Ben and Leanne. My point is that one, they went and back in and redid it because it is that important to get it right. Two, it’s that easy to do because we’ve been doing it a certain way for a long time. That does not make it right.

It also doesn’t mean it’s malicious.

That is my point, not malicious.

Now that we’ve gotten that out of the way, what pray tell do you have in store for people?

There is a lot of interesting news. We’re going to go through and talk about some things that normally we talk to John Mills about. We’ll get to that in a moment. We had a visit from Dr. Jenn and she talks about some things that you can do to make sure that you’re getting up early if you struggle with that. Also, Angelo from MetPro stopped in. I want to point this out because I know some of you get a little weird about our segments. I use the word weird as an over-encompassing description. I’m saying weird because different people have different reasons for skipping it. My point is that if you’ve been curious about MetPro, I highly encourage you to listen because Angelo is doing our check-in on the air.

We thought instead of doing our check-ins in private, we would record one. You could hear what it sounds like when you’re talking to your coach about things you did or didn’t do. We’re fresh off of vacation. We put on some weight, if you’ve seen any of the food pictures on our Facebook pages. He walks us through that and normally week to week, we try to keep it more broad-based nutritional advice so it’s not so MetPro-ey, for lack of a better word. We thought this would be interesting to let people peek behind the curtains and get an idea of if you’re a MetPro customer, what you could expect to hear.

I wanted to point that out for those of you who haven’t had a chance to listen or might skip that sometimes. I am super excited to talk about some of these articles that came out about Peloton. There are some things to discuss, not to mention, we had two brand new instructors joined the team. We need to talk about that as well.

Before we get to all that, shameless plugs, don’t forget we’re available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, iHeart, Tune-In, wherever you can find us. While you’re there, be sure and follow us so you never miss an episode. If you would be so kind, maybe leave us a review. We have a new review. This is from Nevertheless She and it says, “Motivation and information. If you have a Peloton and haven’t listened, you are missing out. This podcast is the perfect blend of motivation and information. You will hear motivational stories that will keep you pedaling, as well as all the info you need to stay current on all things Peloton. The hosts are engaging and so easy to listen to. Crystal is the best C out there.” The leaderboard name is Nevertheless She. Thank you very much.

I’ve seen that leaderboard out there. I believe I’ve exchanged some high-fives. Thank you very much for leaving such a kind review.

Also don’t forget, we have a Facebook page, Facebook.com/TheClipOut. While you’re there, like the page and join the group. Sign up for the newsletter at theclipout.com. Sorry, we missed a week or so because we were on vacation and that’ll fire back up here. You can also watch these episodes at our YouTube channel, YouTube.com/TheClipOut. While you’re there, be sure and subscribe to that as well.

You’ll be able to see my face whenever Angelo talks about how much weight we gained.

It was not insubstantial. There’s all that, let’s dig in. Shall we?

We shall.

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McAfee found some security vulnerabilities in Peloton products.

I want to start by saying that these features or problems or vulnerabilities can only be exploited upon if you are physically in contact with the device.

You access this vulnerability through the USB port, which sounds a little dirty now that I say it out loud. You have to be physically present with the equipment to do that. People can’t just hack into your computer and do stuff too. It’s not like sneakers.

In addition to that caveat, I want to make sure to mention that it is only for the Bike+ and Tread users. What can happen is once somebody has accessed it through that USB, they can go in and put a malicious ware like Trojan horse in it. It’ll look like it’s all operating fine but in the background, it’s not. In addition to that, one of the things that you can access when you go in the background is a map of where all of the Bike+ and Treads are, physically. That could be a problem because if you were a hacker, you could then go find those people, find identities, do things that are bad with all of that. This was discovered a few months ago in that coordinated Vulnerability Disclosure Program, which is the same program that was used to report the last issue that we discussed. Peloton responded in about two weeks. It wasn’t a long period of time. They fixed it and it sounds like June 4th is when this was fixed. Peloton pushed out a mandatory update to fix the affected devices. It has been fixed and this article was held until that was done.

TCO 212 | Try All The Instructors

 

I’ve noticed that lately with these breaches that people tend to sit on them. By the time we’re hearing this story, it’s been corrected, which I appreciate.

If you have a Bike+ or a Tread at home, you don’t need to worry about this unless you’re letting someone into your home, but also it’s been fixed. People ask me why I included it. I included it because there are Pelotons in public spaces. Especially if you’re staying at a hotel or you live in an apartment building that has one, that could be a big deal because they could get to all of your personal information. That is concerning because they could also access the webcam through this particular malicious vulnerability. It’s all fixed and all better.

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We have new instructors.

We do have two new strength instructors. Callie Gulickson and Rad Lopez joined the team. It’s interesting to note that according to Connect The Watts, they were listed as its first strength-focused instructors. We know that these two are strengths instructors but that is their primary teaching. That’s interesting because all of the other instructors have been tread instructors that also teach strength. We have talked about the fact that Tiger, the new strength device is coming out. We know what it looks like because we’ve seen pictures. We’ve talked about that here. If you missed that episode, go back a couple and you’ll hear all about it.

The other interesting thing is both of these instructors have a boxing history. That adds the fuel to the fire that boxing will be added because we have six instructors now that have boxing backgrounds. I feel pretty confident that is coming down the road at some point. I don’t know about the schedule on that one. That’s pretty cool. Callie Gulickson, I have heard from people that she was at Alo Moves before, which is another company that teaches classes. I’ve heard tons of great feedback from her other classes prior to moving to Peloton. Both instructors had their initial premiere classes. If you haven’t had a chance to take them, make sure you do. Let’s see what happens with these guys and what happens with the Tiger announcement. Roar indeed.

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No John Mills for this episode. He wanted to take a little time to himself. His mother sadly passed away. Our condolences to him. That’s not going to stop us from stealing things from the Run, Lift and Live page.

You can’t call it stealing because I talked to John and he gave us permission.

He found a story about FORME is partnering up with Barry’s.

It’s called Barry’s Bootcamps. That’s been a thing for a while. This is interesting because we’ve seen this happen before with another company. It was on John’s page. I already forgot what it was.

It’s like Beachbody partnered up with somebody.

Yeah, and they’re taking the content from Mirror and now they’re taking the content from FORME and they’re using it in these locations. It’s also interesting to me because FORME is in this weird place. They did all this advertising and said that they were coming out with this device that was like Tonal, but you didn’t have to have a wall. You could use these feet things that will look like skis whenever you propped it up. Right before it was supposed to come out, they said, “Due to COVID, we’re not going to be able to come out with this right away.”

Now they have a device that looks like a Mirror. I’m still unclear if the other device is ever going to make it out into the real world. That’s the history of FORME. I’m mentioning that because it’s very similar to Mirror, then they’re now using a very similar technique to what Mirror did. I find that all very fascinating. John pointed out in his posts that Barry’s only has 70 locations worldwide. Most of them aren’t in the US. John was like, “How popular are these?” I know they’re very popular because Rebecca Kennedy who’s at Peloton came from Barry’s Bootcamps. Now she’s a huge deal over at Peloton.

It’s one of those things where maybe they don’t necessarily have official locations, but people get certified to teach in that manner like how Mad Dogg does with Spin.

I didn’t get that impression. I got the impression of there weren’t that many locations. I did not do any of my own research on that so I can’t say for sure. I know that Rebecca Kennedy taught actual classes at Barry’s Bootcamp location. Other than that, I don’t know much about it. I know that people who like Barry’s Bootcamp have always spoken very highly of it. That’s all I know.

While we’re talking about competitors, ICON Health and Fitness announced that they are officially changing their name to iFit.

This is another one that we found on John’s page. He mentioned that he thinks that this is them getting ready for the big merger because it’s one of those things to get all their branding in place, which makes sense.

It’s always been confusing where some of it is called iFit but it’s ICON Health. This probably should have already happened. I’m glad that makes it easier to keep it all straight in our heads so thanks, iFit.

Thanks for cleaning up that old branding situation.

There was an interesting FCC filing about Peloton and monitors.

Specifically, it was a Tread monitor. That led to a lot of speculation about what this means. I don’t think it means anything because I was working through this with our patent filing guru, Paul Bradley. He went through the past FCC filings. FCC filings are all about the communication between the monitor and the TV or the monitor and like the airwaves.

The FCC is the Federal Communications Commission and they regulate the airwaves. In the late 1920s, they classified the radio band as a natural resource so they could regulate it, which is why the government can regulate the content on television but not on cable because cable doesn’t go over the airwaves.

When you jump off the bike, do standing yoga. Share on X

Paul Bradley had two theories on this. One is that it might have something to do in preparation or in response to Peloton’s lawsuit that they have with Dish because we know that there’s some issue with how they’re using the FCC airwaves. The other thing and we both agree that this is probably more likely is that this is something that Peloton does for every monitor. It’s been a while since the Peloton Tread came out. If you look back at when the different products came out and when the FCC filing, this is in line with that. I think this is normal. It’s version two. It says, TC1 VS2 and before it was TC1 VS1.

I think Wi-Fi is regulated by the FCC. It might be if the Wi-Fi for the device is in the monitor, if that’s where that lives, it could be as simple as that.

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Joining us is Dr. Jenn Mann, licensed marriage, family and child therapist, and sports psychology consultant. If you need proof, USA Gymnastics is pretty impressive. You also know her from VH1’s Couples Therapy with Dr. Jenn or VH1’s Family Therapy with Dr. Jenn, or her long-running radio show, The Dr. Jenn Show. She’s written four bestselling books, including The Relationship Fix: Dr. Jenn’s 6 Step Guide to Improving Communication, Connection and Intimacy. It’s Dr. Jenn, Hello.

It’s so good to have you back.

Thank you. It’s always great to be here with you guys.

Our Clip Out community enjoy hearing your answers as well. We have another question for you. This one is from Lena. She wants to know tips for waking up early mornings or does she just needs to do it? She finds it harder if it’s in the winter months. Evening workouts don’t agree with meals and her legs need to calm down enough to fall asleep. Thanks in advance.

I feel you, Lena. I am so not a morning person. You guys can attest like I left my own devices, my natural biorhythms, I’m up until 2:00, 3:00 in the morning. I would sleep in if I had no work and no kids, didn’t do anything so I get it. I have two daughters who are ice skaters, which means that typically when we are not in the midst of COVID and the rinks are closed, I have to get up at 4:00 in the morning, three days a week to take them to the rink. I feel you Lena on a very deep and profound level personally and professionally. Some of my tips are going to be healthier than others. I’m going to share them with you because they’ve helped me.

The healthier tip is to have a set bedtime. Make sure you’re consistently going to bed at the same time in order to have what they call good sleep hygiene. You want to consistently be going to bed at the same time. The sleep experts say that even on the weekends, you should be continuing that bedtime because consistency is key. I don’t know many people who are still going to sleep at 9:00 at night if they have to get up early on the weekends. At the same time, you always want to have that balance you need to have a little fun in your life. You don’t want to get up at 5:00 in the morning to exercise and have no life. That’s not healthy either. That’s the first thing.

The second thing is you want to make sure that when you are going to sleep, that you’re in a fully dark room, that you should not be having any blue light from your screen or anything like that for at least an hour before you go to sleep. All the studies show that it messes with your circadian rhythm and your ability to fall asleep because your brain sees a light and it goes, “It’s daytime. It’s not time to sleep.” It perks you up instead of helping you to fall asleep. I do recommend Peloton’s meditation, especially the sleep meditation.

I’m a huge fan of Ross Rayburn. I love his meditations because, at the beginning of all of his meditations, he says things like your mind may be wandering right now. I’m always like, “How did you know, Ross?” That is part of your meditation process and that’s okay. I’m like, “Okay. I don’t have to worry.” I love his meditation because he calls out all the things that my brain does before I go to sleep. He’s like, “That’s part of your process. You may be a little fidgety right now. That’s okay.” I do recommend doing meditation and doing it in bed so you can fall asleep to the meditation. I do that every single night. Thank you, Ross Rayburn.

The other thing is sometimes if you’re having trouble sleeping, what happens is you get anxious that you’re not sleeping and you’re like, “It’s 2:00 and I have to be up in five hours. What am I going to do? Now, I’m going to have a terrible workout.” When you get yourself worked up about that, you tend to get more anxious, which prevents you from sleeping. Here’s my unhealthy tip. Sometimes if I know I’m going to sleep without enough time, I think of my sleep as a nap, I will say to myself, “I’m going to take a little nap now and then I’m going to wake up and workout.” For some reason, it shifts my thinking. I get less panicked about not getting enough sleep. I also wake up with a different attitude. It’s my own weird quirky tip.

The other thing is I recommend putting your workout clothes out the night before. Pick it out, especially if it’s something that’s fun to wear, that you can look forward to. Crystal, you and I have bonded on way too many Peloton apparel purchases so I know you can relate to this. Sometimes it helps. I remember one time my executive producer on Couples Therapy would say, “I liked your outfit today. I can tell you’re walking differently.” I kind of blew it off but then when I thought about it, I was like, “That’s true.” It’s the same thing with my workout. Before Peloton, I used to have two workouts. I wore them over and over again. I find that when I have something fun to wear, as silly or as superficial as it is, it helps perk up the workout a bit.

It’s knowing that, and if you’re putting out your workout wear the night before, the other thing to do is to start to visualize your workout. Imagine yourself in that clothes. Imagine yourself on the treadmill. A lot of the time, I do this before my long run because that is always more of a mental struggle for me than anything. The night before I will try to pick the class that I’m taking so I can try to get myself psyched about it. I will put out my clothes and I’ll try to imagine myself in that outfit on the tread like go in that full 45 minutes or 60 minutes because that’s a challenge for me mentally.

The last thing I would say is to look at what is the best time for you to workout. There are times where we say like, “Everybody workouts in the morning” or “I read an article that said workouts in the mornings are better.” You may be better at 11:00 at night. If that works for you, then go with it. Do an honest analysis of your psychology and biorhythms, what is the best time for you to workout, and then go with that.

Even if a morning workout is better, if you’re not going to do it, it’s better to do it at night.

Sometimes people will pick a morning workout because then they’re like, “If I miss it, I can try at my lunch break or before dinner or after I put the kids in bed.” They’re giving themselves a little room for error, which I get it. At the same time, what tends to happen is when we don’t keep promises to ourselves, we start to think of ourselves as someone who doesn’t keep promises to ourselves and perpetuates it. You want to set yourself up to succeed and keep that promise.

That’s true.

I totally do the nap thing that you said. I’ll get mad at myself like, “I only got an hour to sleep now.” I’m like, “If I came home and it was 4:00 in the afternoon, you could take a nap for an hour.” I’d be like, “Sold.”

It just came to my mindset when I do it.

Thank you so much for joining us. Until next time, where can people find you?

People can find me on all social media @DrJennMann. If you want to see what Peloton workouts I’m doing, you can check out my Insta Stories because every day I post the workouts that I have done and you can check it out there. You can also find me in InStyle magazine. I have a weekly sex and relationship column that gets posted every week.

Thank you.

—

We are getting closer to the return of Robin Arzon. Everyone keeps asking, “When will she be back?”

We still don’t know exactly when she’ll be back. What we do know is that she recorded in the studio. She posted on all of her socials and it said, “Don’t call it a comeback.” She was like starting her stuff. She was obviously at the Peloton studio. I think the caption said something like, “I’ve been somewhere I haven’t been in a while,” or something to that effect. There’s also been a lot of speculation around Robin’s return. Will her first ride back be in the Heights ride?

If I was a betting man, I’d say yes. We know that she’s planning one because she told that to Lin-Manuel Miranda in her interview with him. Also, the movie’s not doing as well as they had hoped to. I think that they would also want to do it to try and help the movie out to raise more awareness about the film. It is a good movie. If you have HBO Max, you already have access to it. You can go watch it for free on HBO Max. It’s the play that he wrote all the music and songs for before Hamilton. That’s what gave him the juice to get Hamilton produced.

It was enjoyable. We watched it the other night and I liked it. I love Hamilton more but it was good and the Heights was good. It’s like a once in a lifetime amazing achievement type of thing. I’m just saying that for people who might be holding it to that standard. I just want to be like, “It’s not that good.”

It’s like Highway to Hell is good but it’s still Back in Black. CNN had an interesting story, 20 Peloton accessories to buy based on your fave instructor.

They went through and talked about items that your favorite instructors have inspired. For example, for Cody Rigsby, a Britney Spears tank top, which would be perfect. I thought this was interesting. They took one from Etsy and said like, “Get your life together, Boo!” Can they even do that? It’s not owned by Peloton but do they have permission from Cody to do that? That’s his saying?

I don’t know unless he’s trademarked it. I don’t know that there’s much they can do about that.

That was a side thought I had. They suggested other things like they had stuff for Robin. She always wears bandanas. They joked that she’s never met a bandana that she didn’t like. They had things about jewelry. They had a t-shirt based on her most successful ride. People think it’s her most successful ride. I don’t know if it actually is, but the Hamilton ride. She wore a tank top that day that said, “Rise up.” They have a t-shirt in there that says, “Rise up.” It’s little things like that. They also mentioned some things for Emma Lovewell, Ally love and Alex Toussaint. If you haven’t gotten a chance to see that, you probably ought to check it out. You might want to purchase something.

I also think it’s fascinating that that’s CNN worthy.

It’s CNN Underscored. I don’t know where CNN Underscored falls into the CNN realm of things. For everyone out there, they got Cody Rigsby’s hometown wrong. I already multiple people contact me. I didn’t do it. I copied and pasted exactly what the article had. You would think that if it was pure CNN, that would have not got past a fact-checker but I don’t know.

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People are always looking for things to augment their home gyms. We talked about this in the past and people seem to dig it, but FightCamp.

It’s cool because you can learn to box or kickbox from real fighters.

People who actually had been in the ring, punching and being punched.

They are teaching you. It’s also a great way to get your kids included on a fitness journey with you while teaching them valuable skill.

Everybody’s worried about the fitness equipment around their kids right now. Here’s something that’s super safe. It’s a bag and gloves and an iPad. There’s no moving parts or anything like that.

There’s no equipment that could hurt a child and you would be right there as a parent. If they’re punching on the punching bag, they’re not going to knock that thing over. That’s not going to happen. Let’s talk about what it is. FightCamp is made for beginners to experience. Whether you’ve never done any boxing or you’ve done some boxing and you want to keep up your skills. This works for you. It also comes with all of the gear you need to box at home. They have a range of things you can get. You’ve got your bag, smart trackers, gloves, wraps, and the stand that sits underneath the bag that you can fill with sand or water or gel as we did.

If you already have a bag at your home, you don’t have to buy one. You can just buy the trackers and stuff. It’s one less thing you got to buy. If you’re interested, you can buy the other stuff. That saves you some money as well. You can pay for your FightCamp for 24 months for less than the cost of a boxing gym and get it right away.

FightCamp offers free shipping with a 30-day money-back guarantee. Go to JoinFightCamp.com/clip.

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We have an official launch date for Peloton Australia.

The app is already live in Peloton Australia but the actual Bike+ will be on sale on July 14th, Bike and Bike+. I’m sorry, I’m confusing everyone. I don’t think that the Treads are on sale there. That’s what I was trying to make sure of. They’re not on sale anywhere but I don’t know if there is a plan to push them out to Australia or not. There could be. At the moment, you can experience the Bike and the Bike+, and they will be coming out on July 14th. They’re going to have their showrooms open in multiple cities, Sydney, and Melbourne. You can go in and learn about the bikes. You can try out the bikes. It’s very cool.

While we’re talking about Peloton Australia, they have also ramped up their fight against Apple Fitness with a 90-day free app trial for Australia.

If you are a brand new user, you can now try Peloton for free for 90 days in Australia.

TCO 212 | Try All The Instructors

 

They’re coming in hot. Peloton debuted their first post lockdown ad. It all takes place. It looks like the Rear Window, except nobody’s getting stabbed.

It’s a cool ad. It’s all these apartments strung together. In each one, somebody is doing something different on either a treadmill, a bike or they’re doing something on the app, yoga, outdoor run.

I feel like this is the first ad that doesn’t feature the bike. It’s about, “Here are all the things that you can do with Peloton. It’s not just a bike.”

This Adweek article says that that was the whole point of it. It was to highlight the entire ecosystem of Peloton availability, not just one thing. You nailed it, Tom and people have overwhelmingly liked this ad.

Attention for an ad that’s not negative. Enjoy it while it lasts.

I’m sure somebody will complain about it.

The Hollywood Reporter had a lengthy and interesting article about the Hollywoodization of Peloton.

I felt like this article is made for you, Tom, because it takes all of the things that you talk about like pop culture and TV.

How it’s like an old-time movie studio, who has said that for years? For years I’ve said that. It also talks about us. We’ve got mentioned in the Hollywood Reporter.

It cracks me up because it talks about how Peloton tries to trace the leaks.

That we leaked it to the world and that they try to find out who told us that stuff. You won’t, Peloton. It can’t be done.

We should not issue a challenge.

They’ll be like, “Let’s see what kind of legal department The Clip Out has. That’ll shut them up real quick. See, who’s laughing now?” I can’t tell you what a difficult conversation it was with the gang over on my other podcast. I got a podcast all about movies that I’ve been doing that’s three times as long as this podcast, and then The Hollywood Reporter doesn’t write about the movie podcast, they write about the Peloton podcast. That’s okay. They’ll live, but there are so many movie podcasts. They’re one of many. We invented the idea of a Peloton podcast. You can’t take that away. This article is fascinating when it goes into details about how much work goes into every class and how scripted they are. They don’t necessarily feel scripted but they are, which is a testament to the quality of their product.

People are a little uncomfortable because they feel like it takes away from the authenticity of the instructors. Keep in mind, when we say scripted, the instructors are the ones scripting it.

It not written for them. It’s written by them. They want to know what’s going to be said so they can produce it properly. They said that when Robin Arzon revealed that she was pregnant, they knew going in that she was going to reveal that in the 25th minute so the camera could pivot around and show the baby bump that they had been hiding previously.

Her husband was there. He was in the shot. It was beautifully done, but it couldn’t have been that beautifully done if it was a surprise.

That’s the thing. If you want those moments, there’s a show aspect to that. If you want to enjoy those moments, you can’t just wait for them to happen organically. You’ve got to put a little effort into making it be that way. That’s how it works. Sometimes it’s not sexy to see how the sausage is made.

I find it fascinating. I know not everybody does.

That’s why their content is so much better than everybody else’s.

That’s the thing. People think that you can just sit down and hit record, whether it’s something like this show, Robin Arzon announcing that she’s pregnant, a commercial or anything. It is not that simple. There’s a lot of work that goes into it. The way you know that they’re doing a good job is because you didn’t know that. You didn’t know that it was scripted, that Robin was going to do that in the 25th minute. You probably knew that they all knew but you didn’t know to what degree it was.

There are so many people out there that still think when they watch a stand-up comedian, they’re making that stuff up on the spot.

Until I met you, that’s what I thought. I had no idea that that was a thing, that they were working on it and they had done this a million times before.

There are some that are a little bit looser than others, but they know exactly what they’re going to do.

I was one of those people but that’s the good news. Peloton is at such a high level that we don’t even know. These newer instructors, it’s going to take a little bit more time. The other part that this article talks about is that you don’t just start off day one as a Peloton instructor. Those instructors, especially the new ones, are hired six months before we hear about them. That’s why you’re always hearing all these rumors about such and such letters in the background, their names and stuff like that. You’re hearing that because Peloton hires them so far in advance and they hire them to train them.

They get them up to speed.

They can do things like look at all the different cameras so that they understand how the scripts work so that they use the same terminology that the other instructors do. It’s not good if you have all different people telling you different things.

When I talk about how Peloton is like a TV station, that’s what TV stations do. When they started the Tonight Show, when they were bringing Conan up when he took over the late-night show, he did a month of shows that nobody ever saw. He did them in the studio. They would bring in people from other NBC sitcoms that were in the building so he could get a rhythm of doing it. They did the same thing with Jimmy Fallon. Before he went live on air, they streamed them online back before anybody watched things stream online just so they could get the feel of what it was like to put a show out. That’s how professionals do it.

That’s quality assurance and it’s important. I believe that Peloton even does that. I think they do these classes with Peloton employees and other instructors too so they can get that real-time feedback and hear how things are going. It’s cool and I love seeing how the sausage is made, whether it’s about an instructor and all of the details of their life and what they do every day, or if it’s this. That’s cool to me. I enjoyed this article.

Jill Woodworth spoke at the Bank of America Merrill Lynch 2021 Global Technology Conference.

Jill had a few things of note to mention. She said a lot of good stuff but I’m highlighting a few. One, Peloton delivery times are back to pre-pandemic levels, 1 to 3 weeks. If you place your order a month ago or two months ago, I’m not talking about that. I’m talking about brand new orders. That’s where we’re at right now. There are exceptions to that. It’s not every city. That’s not every location. That’s where we are. Another thing she mentioned is the smaller tread is expected to be back on the market mid to late July, which is right in line with what we’ve been hearing. Keep in mind, that is the “regular tread.” It’s the smaller one. The larger one, the news is it’s going to take months to redesign. For you guys out there waiting for it, you’re going to have to wrap your head around that. It’s going to be months and there’s nothing we can do about it.

Another thing she talked about was the new production facility and the Precor production facility. She’s saying that they are going to play a significant role in continuing to lower price points for its bikes and treadmills down the road. I thought that was very interesting. She said that they will be producing bikes out of the Precor facility by the end of 2021 and that it will bode well for prices for our consumers and broadening our audience. You don’t hear about companies lowering prices very often.

She also said to expect new offerings from Peloton after the company made a spate of “tuck-in acquisitions,” which we’ve talked about here. That’s your Otari, the wearable company. She said that it’s going to accelerate our investments in R&D and new products. This last point, I want to make sure that everyone gets it, is right in line with our prediction that you’re going to see Tiger this fall 2021. I thought that was absolutely fascinating. Business Insider had all of that to report.

Rolling Stone featured Peloton’s Head of Music, Gwen Bethel Riley on their Future 25 list.

Riley talked about a lot of things in this article, a lot of the highlights of how much Peloton has changed music and how they do music since she’s been there. She’s had a lot to do with that and deserves a lot of that credit. One of the things that she mentioned that stood out to me is she talks about how she is eager to get more celebs into Peloton as guest instructors and to play around with BPM. She said to expand the diversity of class offerings and find more ways to introduce younger Peloton users to legacy artists through workout materials. The examples she gave is a fast pop song might be slowed down for a nice yoga flow or a ballad adapted into a cardio hit, which I have seen. Especially in the yoga flows, I am seeing that a lot. They take these artists and they use a version that’s slowed down and I dig it. That’s something I would listen to every day but I like it for yoga.

You see it on YouTube a lot where people will play with the keys of a song and they’ll take a pop song and play it in the minor key, then all of a sudden, it sounds sad.

That’s a very good point. I thought that this was very cool and I am very excited to see it. She also said that Peloton is plotting some off-platform entertainment initiative involving events behind the scenes content and apparel. I can’t wait to see it.

InsideHook is asking the hard-hitting question. Is too much time on the Peloton crushing your junk?

This is the same “news outlet” that reported about Peloton members falling in love with their Peloton instructors. For those of you who wrote to me about how dumb this was, I know. It was funny. It was posted in an ironic sense. It’s not because I was worried about men’s pelvises. I’m good.

You had to breathe a sigh of relief knowing that I don’t ride the bike when you saw the damage it could do to my junk.

From a medical perspective, everything they’re saying in this article is true but it’s true about anything. This isn’t about Peloton. They use Peloton as a click-bait for sure. Any bike can cause these problems, whether it’s outdoors, indoors, etc. Even if you’re using the bibs that add cushion, it can still cause these problems. I am not at all saying that people should not ride their Peloton or ride any exercise bike or ride outdoors. I am saying that medically, the information they’re providing is correct but it’s not affecting every single person or causing these problems.

It’s not exclusive to Peloton. It’s to bikes in general. It’s just silliness.

It made me giggle in the same way with, “Are you falling in love with your instructors? Peloton members are falling in love with their instructors.” Anything to get a click.

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Joining us is Angelo for MetPro. I thought we’ll have it a little different. Angelo has been my coach, but he’s now officially Crystal’s coach as well. We thought this would be a good situation. We’re going to see what MetPro is like. He’s going to walk you through one of our sessions where we recap where we’re at, how we’re doing and how we’re not doing. What a great time because we both just got back from Disney.

We gain 10 pounds each. This could be a little awkward.

We’re so in love, we even gain the same amount of weight while we’re on vacation.

You have no idea how happy I was that he gained the same amount of weight that I did.

You have no idea how happy I was that I gain the same amount as you do. I was very happy. I’m normally glad that you’re on Zoom so we can see you, but now I can see the disappointment in your eyes.

Go ahead and let us have it.

First of all, you had to have enjoyed it. This was a one day trip. You guys went and you indulged and you enjoyed. I do believe that is exactly to the letter what my directions were.

It was. You were like, “Go and have fun.” You gave us tips. I think it was a little easier for me with how I liked to eat than it was for Crystal. You were like, “Lay off the carbs at breakfast and then have lunch with a dessert, whatever you want to do. It’s the same with dinner but don’t sit there and graze throughout the day.” By and large, we were successful with that.

There were a couple of days we were not and that was because we were sick for a couple of days. There was a lot of ice cream consumed on those days because our throats were so sore.

I had frozen lemonade. That’s a fruit.

I had been eating oatmeal every day for breakfast. That was a switch for me to go to just eating the eggs. I was eating a breakfast bowl thing that had eggs and bacon. For the most part, we managed to do that.

We were walking a lot like 12 to 15 miles a day.

Our lowest was shy of 10,000 steps. That was the only day that we were under 10,000.

We had a couple of days where it was 18,000 or so.

That was a pretty fantastic text exchange. When you told me your steps and I told you that you went on a pilgrimage.

I did because Disney is my religion.

First of all, I’m going to get called out by our clients. They’re like, “Wait a second. You told them only three meals a day?” We had a strategy this time, which was different from the last time you went on a vacation. The strategy this time was to gridlock and time gauge where the bad eating was going to be. Typically, the first thing I want to know when somebody is going to go on vacation is, “Let’s talk about your snacks. What are you packing in advance? What tools are you going to have?” in this case, I wanted to do it a little different because I knew that there was going to be an element of, “The lines are getting longer, our pass is up, we got to be here at this time,” and then the day never goes as planned.

My wife and I are huge Disney fans. Anytime we go, we know how that works. You get there and all of a sudden, it was an unexpected longer line. Now we’re here and it’s a shorter wait for this attraction or whatever the case may be. I knew that you would need at least a good break at lunch, a good break at dinner. By gating the bad food, it’s so easy to graze all day. People ask me about this with Super Bowl parties. They say, “What can I eat?” You can eat anything you want but you have to eat it with the meal. The problem is you can eat it at a meal because you’re only going to fit so much quantity in your belly in one sitting.

If it’s what you’re going to eat over the course of the day, then that’s because you can walk by the bowl and grab a handful of chips or grab a little bit of this, a little bit of that and do some big damage. That being said, we managed to do a little bit of damage. However, this is fixable. This is repairable. When you told me, “We’re going to Disney for a week,” I asked you, “Are you going to Disney again for a week next month or the month after?” If the answer is no and you’re not doing this every other month and you have a special trip, what I want you to do on that trip is enjoy yourself. That’s why I’m so mean to you.

BGM is amazing because it's all black women and women of color coming together wanting to be the healthiest version of ourselves possible. Share on X

That’s it. My favorite story about this is I had a client who called me up and she said, “Angelo, I got into the candy dish.” It was around the time of year where they had those leftover heart-shaped candies, the “I love you” candies, the ones that taste like chocolate. I said, “Do you mean to tell me that after three weeks of nailing your meal plan, you cheated with chocolate-flavoured heart-shaped candies?” She said, “Yeah.” I said, “Next time I want to hear Tiramisu or apple crumble.” The thing is saving it up. Don’t nickel and dime me. Don’t nickel and dime yourself. What I want you to do is say that you have a good routine. The once in a while trips, the once in a while vacations, you’re going to do a little damage but as long as we’re winning the war, and here’s my definition of winning. All things being equal, you drift back into the routine, not out of routine.

People say all the time, “Angelo, what do I do? I got an event on the 24th of this month?” I tell them, “If you can tell me the dates that you’re going to cheat on your diet, you are doing fine.” “It’s the middle of the day on Tuesday afternoon. I’m bored. Nothing’s going on. I’m nickel and diming myself.” That’s what undermines your results. Before we left, you guys were on a cutting cycle. We determined that and we were doing exceptional. In fact, I believe you both hit personal records on progress during that time. I’m very proud of you. You guys did excellently. Normally, what we would have done was a process called up adjusting, a metabolic revving cycle for a little bit longer prior to your event. I made a call not to give you quite the full runway because we were dropping pounds so well and that’s fine.

What you’re going to find is after you’re back within about 3 to 4 days, you’re going to see what damage you did. Already, you guys are down 2, 3 pounds overnight. You didn’t burn 3 pounds of fat because that wasn’t 3 pounds of fat. That was 3 pounds of water and inflammation, getting the lead out after being on your feet, walking around and being sore from that many miles a day, having that much sugar crammed in such a small amount of time. You did an impressive job of that.

There was definitely some sugar and some chocolate.

What I think you guys are probably interested in and what the audience might want to know is, what’s next? What’s next is we’re going to get right back on track where we were. Surprisingly, what we’re not going to do is we’re not going to go into a fat-burning cycle. We’re going to get rid of the extra. We’re going to get you back to where you’re at. Here is the reality. A lot of times, what I want to see post-vacation is I want to see someone get back to their pre-vacation weight. Here’s the truth, based on your analytics and where you’re at, it’s not going to happen. I don’t want you to be disappointed if you don’t get all the way to your pre-vacation weight, but you will get very close. We’ll get you within 1 or 2 pounds of it. The reason is having to do with where your metabolic rate is at. It’s because of the success you had and you were at your lowest of lows right before you left. We’re going to get close to that and then we’re going to do a revving cycle. However, we are going to do a shorter revving cycle than what I would typically do because you already started it.

You did a little revving. Your body is used to a few extra calories and plenty of carbs. We’re going to make sure we skim off the top and get you back down close. We’re going to do a revving cycle. This time, we’re going to keep leaning in on the exercise where we bring you up to a moderate carb intake, and you guys have been crushing it on this front. I’m going to keep you there probably 2 or 3 weeks because when you factor in the other week, that’ll be plenty of time. We’re then going to go back to a cutting cycle but the next cutting cycle will be different. At least it will be different for you, Tom. We’re not going to stair-step you down like we did the first time. We’re going to do more like this previous and we’re going to cut and pull the rug out for you. I do expect that you guys will hit another all-time low on your next cutting cycle. We’re in mid-June so it’ll probably be early to mid-July. You guys are going to be absolutely cooking. We got this.

That’s what we have to look forward to. I’m glad to hear that we didn’t completely destroy ourselves.

You guys are doing awesome. What we’ll do is at the end of the week, I’ll reach out to you and we’ll recap and look at your numbers at that point. I know this sounds counterintuitive but what we’re going to do is by the end of the week, if you’re still dropping, we’re going to let it ride another week. If you’re not dropping, we’re going to increase because that tells me this is about where your body is going to get and so we’re going to go into the revving cycle.

Thank you so much. Until next time, where can people find you?

MetPro.co/tco.

Don’t forget we have a contest going on where if you go to that website, download the app from there or set up a consultation call, you will be registered to win six free months of MetPro, all the bells and whistles. Go check it out.

—

We have a new winner in the Ride to Greatness.

It’s the winner because it’s the final win.

That was the final. Greatness had been ridden to.

It has for this season. Alex made sure to say that that’s it for season one. The winner for season one was in fact Team Validate. It was back and forth. It was a very hot match but it came in the end.

Congratulations to Team Validate.

—

We have a new artist series this time from Big Freedia.

I would like to mention right off the bat that Big Freedia identifies as a gay man, ambivalent about her pronouns but typically goes by female pronouns she and her. I looked that up, everyone. I wanted to make sure that I got it right. Another timely artist because we’re in Pride month. I love that. In 2020 they had, True D. Smith and she is amazing. I haven’t gotten a chance to listen to Big Freedia yet but I am hoping that I love it as much as I do True D. Smith.

—

We have three birthdays.

We’ve got Selena Samuela, June 22nd and then Andy Speer and Denis Morton both on June 23rd.

If you’re writing birthday cards, you’re going to be getting hand cramps.

Also, my dad’s birthday is June 23rd, if anybody needed to know that.

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Joining us is the very patient, Danielle Verwey. Danielle, how’s it going?

TCO 212 | Try All The Instructors

 

Guys, how’s it going?

Danielle, let’s talk Peloton. You’ve had your Peloton for a while, but I don’t know exactly when. How did Peloton come into your life? When on the timeline did that occur?

I started as an app user back in 2018. I saw the bike on a late-night infomercial. I mentioned it to my husband and he was like, “I’m not buying that bike. It’s almost $3,000. You’re out of your mind.” I’m like, “I love spinning. I’d love to have a bike at home.” I already had the ProForm Tour de France bike where you can ride the Tour de France and the console on it stopped working. It was almost $2,000 when I got that bike. He was like, “No way I’m putting out that money again on another bike.” A friend comes to me and says, “You can use the app.” I started using the app and riding the spin bike at the gym. I fell in love with it. I was riding all the time. At Christmas, he surprised me with the bike. I got the bike in December 2018.

Redemption. He really came through.

I had no idea that the bike had been sitting in my basement since November of 2018 because this was when back when delivery was fast.

How did he hide that?

I didn’t use my basement often.

That’s a little disconcerting.

What else does he hide down there?

He could have a sex dungeon in that basement. You would know.

If he has a second wife down there, she can come to take care of the kids. That’d be nice.

You don’t want to let a good sex dungeon go to waste. I can’t imagine having the bike in the basement and never knowing.

I have no idea. He had our oldest son come and take me out. We were supposed to go out to lunch, but I was like, “Let’s go work out.” I took him to the gym and we worked out. They delivered the bike. I literally missed the truck leaving out of my house. He said they probably pulled up ten minutes after I pulled out. They delivered the bike. I had no idea. On Christmas morning, he put the shoes under the tree. When I got to that box and opened it and I’m like, “Is there a Peloton in this house?” I’m like, “Screw the kids. Screw Christmas. I’m going to my bike.”

Were you like, “I left your gift in the car, it’s going to be a minute?” I’ll be back in 45 minutes.

You then come back all sweaty.

You’re grabbing the Walgreens cooler by the lapels, “What’s the most expensive gift do you have?” You’ll be like, “Congratulations. I bought you 75 cartons of Marlboro Lights.”

I’m sure she got him something good.

I don’t know what they normally do for Christmas.

I don’t remember what I got him that year. I think I had him a new iPhone. He’s the better gift buyer of the two, but that’s because I want more stuff. I’m easier to shop for.

I can start by saying that Tom’s a better gift-giver, but it’s because I want more things. I’m stealing that.

We had those years where one out gifts the other. It’s blatantly obvious. It’s gone both ways. We’ve both been on the receiving and non-receiving end of that where there’s nothing that fits perfectly. That’s always a rough day.

If it’s rough for me, I did not care.

I wish I could do that, Danielle. Turn it off and I’m like, “Whatever.”

She got him a good gift though.

She said she didn’t care either way. She had done and she moved on and she enjoyed her bike. It’s good for you because if you get something that exciting, you need to be able to enjoy it. Otherwise, what’s the point? Were you exercising all the time with the app? Was it like when you got the Peloton, it changed how much you were exercising? Did it stay the same? How did that work?

I haven’t worked out for a long time. Working out has been my thing. I’ve been boxing. I’ve run seven and a half marathons, a bunch of 10Ks, several 5Ks. I start teaching a boxing class at my local gym right before the pandemic hit. I had already been spinning. I had been spinning for years back in the day when they used to only play electronic techno music. That’s how long I’ve been spinning.

That’s fun though back then. Whenever you would spin and it was so loud. You could feel the beat. I have zero ability to keep up with the beat. For me, that was super awesome to do back then. Music now doesn’t have as much beat.

Those classes were amazing back then in 2000, 2001. They were so good. I’ve been working out for a long time. When I got the bike, I started working out more with the bike, but I didn’t start working out as much with the Peloton bike until the pandemic hit and I couldn’t go to my gym anymore because I belong to several gyms. I was still doing my gym thing and the bike at home and trying to fit it all in.

Do you do the bike content? Are you doing other Peloton content? Have you gone back to the gym? How’s that looking?

I don’t see myself as going back to the gym. Not anytime soon. I do miss sometimes lifting heavier weights. At home, I have almost a full gym. I do all the content on Peloton. Stretching and yoga, I probably do about that much, the smallest possible amount of stretching and yoga. I do everything.

I like the stretching and the yoga, but I always feel like I’m not doing enough. Even though I know that I should be able to fit it in, it’s like, “If I only have an hour to work out, then I feel I have to get something like cardio or strength in.” Yoga always goes to the bottom. The stretching does too. It always goes to the bottom of the list.

I’m not a huge fan, but you know what I found? One of my friends recommended doing the standing yoga in place of the five-minute post-ride stretches. I liked that better. Maybe you could try doing that. When you jump off the bike, do standing yoga. I find that the stretch is better.

Do you look for a specific one? Does it target certain things? Are you looking for standing yoga like stretching your hips or is it like any of them?

It’s any of them. I grab a standing yoga and do that one instead of doing a five-minute post-ride stretch.

I don’t know what standing yoga is. It’s yoga while you’re standing, but I don’t get it.

You’re the one doing it, so you tell me, Danielle, but I hear it as like you’re still getting the stretch, but it’s done in a yoga flow. Therefore, she’s getting a better stretch out of it.

When you do the figure four stretch where you put your foot on your knee and you sink back, the way they have you do it when you’re doing standing yoga, I get a much better stretch. I don’t know if it’s the instruction that they give with it, the way they lead you into it. I can think deeper and get a better stretch than if I were to do the regular figure four stretch. I don’t know what the difference is. It is just a stretch, but it’s the way they put the movements together that maybe makes it a better stretch. It is literally yoga standing. You don’t ever get on the floor. Dance chair yoga too, I haven’t tried that. If you’re stuck at your desk, you can do chair yoga.

That’s good for people who have, like myself, bad posture. It’s good to do chair yoga, but I forget to do that stuff while I’m working.

I haven’t tried chair yoga yet, just the standing one.

You could combine them and stand on your chair.

That doesn’t sound like a good idea.

You are a moderator for Black Girl Magic: The Peloton Edition.

I became a moderator. It hasn’t been that long. I’m relatively new to the group. I love that group. It’s a lot of spunk.

How did you find your way to them since you found them late in your Peloton career?

I’ve been part of the group for a little bit. I found them through the Official Peloton Page. Someone commented and said there’s a Black Girl Magic group. I’m like, “I’ll join.” I invited myself. No one was inviting me, so I’m like, “I’m inviting myself.” I joined. I started posting my workouts. What happened was when everyone started the work from home, people were confused about how to work out. No one’s used to working from home. It’s several years that I’ve worked remotely, so I know how to fit it into my day and I had it all planned out, so I’m like, “I’ll share my workouts with you guys. You guys can work out with me if you want to or not.”

I ended up creating a swarm schedule. People were following my workouts all the time. I was like, “I’m the self-appointed swarm ride organizer.” Now it’s literally a thing. We have multiple times during the day now where people ride. We have an early morning, mid-day, evening, late nights, so the West Coast and get on. I make up a schedule every week. All the ladies follow it. They take pictures and I post the collage of us and tag the instructors in Peloton.

How do you choose the ride?

It used to be random. It would be like, “Let’s do this, that, and the other.” In doing it for so long, I came up with a rhythm. Every day, we’d follow the same format. Mondays are always Milestone Monday with Love Squad, because right at the height when they stopped recording in the studio and Ally couldn’t do any live shout-outs, she started doing Milestone Monday, where she would ride on-demand class. Afterwards, she’d pop on Instagram live and give a shout-out to anyone who had told her that they were hitting a milestone. Milestone Monday became a thing in Love Squad. We always ride with them on Mondays. Tuesday is Tabata Tuesday. On Wednesday, I decided we would do bike bootcamp. Thursdays, we usually do some HIIT class like hitting hills or maybe we’ll do a climb. Friday is the fun day, so you forget about all the torture I put you through Monday through Thursday.

What constitutes fun? Is it all standing yoga?

It will be like a theme ride or something that’s not as difficult. Maybe a Club Banger or maybe even a low-impact. Mostly, it’s the theme rides though. The Black History Month rides are good ones or the Artist Series. Any of the ones where the instructors generally don’t go crazy.

Do you ever throw the DJ rides or runs in?

We have not done a DJ ride yet. We need to do one, for sure.

I don’t know if your group has a lot of tread users, but DJ John Michael also does the tread DJ Run with Adrian. You get the bike rides and tread DJ runs.

We have a whole tread group too. I have yet to do a DJ Run with Adrian. He’s there on Friday nights and on Friday nights, I’m like, “It’s time to have some wine. I’m not running. I’m sorry.” Technically I have four children, but I’m like, “I have three children that have driven me crazy all week with homeschooling. I’m not doing anything on Friday night.”

I don’t blame you at all. If you can relax, you could.

Do they always homeschool or is that a pandemic thing?

That’s a pandemic thing.

How old are your kids?

Our oldest is 26 and then we have 16, 12, and 9.

You’re in the thick of it.

I tell people all the time, I’m like, “The way we space them out, we always are in a shitty time.” You got a toddler, infant, or a moody teenager. We don’t get the break because they’re all going through one of those awkward stages at some point.

They’re always going through one. I bet you if a 26-year-old probably is still going through one.

He’s good. It’s funny because my youngest tells me all the time that he is my favorite. He’s like, “I’m your favorite.” He’s the only one that looks like me. The other ones look like my husband. He’s named after me. He’s Daniel. He’s saying, “I’m your favorite.” I’m like, “I’m sorry, you’re not.” PJ, which is our oldest, I’m like, “He is my favorite.” He’s completely self-sufficient. He’s paying his bills. He bought a house. I’m like, “He is my favorite.”

That’s our goal for all of them, isn’t it?

The next one to leave then becomes the favorite.

It’s like a carrot and a stick. Inject some capitalism into the equation like it’s the free market taking over and some competition to make the kids work harder to be your favorite.

You’re not just a moderator for the Black Girl Magic: The Peloton Edition. You also are an admin on the You Get To Crew. You’re a busy lady in the Peloton world. How did you become an admin? Were you part of forming the group for the You Get To Crew? Was that like you found them and worked your way up the admin ladder?

The BGM has a tread tribe group. They put together a schedule. Jess’ boot camps were on there all the time. I started taking her tread to boot camps a lot and then I would make these funny Snapchat videos cursing her out for almost killing me. She was highly amused by them and started reposting them. I found out she had a Facebook fan page. I joined the fan page. I comment here and there. I was pretty active and they all laughed at my Snapchat videos. Who doesn’t love a filter in a funny voice? Nicole reached out and was like, “We would like you to be an admin.” I was like, “What?” Here we are.

Normally, I wouldn’t put you in this position. You’re an admin in two groups and I normally wouldn’t ask you to pick a favorite, but since you’ll pick a favorite child, it doesn’t seem like a big deal to pick a favorite Facebook group that you admin. Here we are.

I love them equally.

I’m not sure what it says. You’re more worried about offending the Facebook groups than your children.

The groups are so different. I love BGM because it’s all black women and women of color coming together who are all working towards the same thing, wanting to be the healthiest version of ourselves possible. The You Get To Crew was all people of all walks of life who were brought together because of our love of Jess. They’re so very different. There’s mingling because there’s a lot of people who were in Black Girl Magic who is also in You Get To Group. There’s a lot of crossovers. It is so different that I couldn’t say I love one more than the other because I love them for different reasons.

They fill a different need.

Having said that, each one fulfills a different need for you, from the perspective of somebody who was curious about those groups, what’s unique about each group should they want to join?

If you’re a woman of color and you’re looking for your group of people who identify or most likely face the same challenges as you, then that’s the place to go. We find a lot of people who are new to Peloton. They go on the Official Peloton Page. They ask questions that are more suited to be answered by another person of color. If you wear your hair natural, how do you deal with it when you’re sweating all the time? What products do you use? First of all, the Official Peloton Page, I’m sorry, is toxic, no matter the question.

I can imagine. It would be gross.

We found a lot of people that are over there. If you have things like that and you want to connect with a group of people who look like you, who experienced the things as you, then come over and join Black Girl Magic. If you love Jess, then you’re going to want to join You Get To Crew. We welcome everybody. If you have a love of Jess and you love cursing her out, it’s even better. We curse her out on the regular. I am the OG of the group. Thank you very much.

I have a question about Black Girl Magic, just a point of clarification. You said women of color. Is it not for African-American women or is it for others? I’m not trying to play semantics? I didn’t know and I wouldn’t want someone to not join it if they didn’t think that it was open to them.

If they identify as a black woman, then it is for them. If they are multi-racial, they’re more than welcome. If they don’t identify as a black woman, then that’s not the place for them.

Try all of the instructors and don't take it so seriously. Share on X

I didn’t know if I was misinterpreted, so I wanted to make sure that I had a handle on it. Thank you for the clarity.

You’re welcome.

Would you like to share about the health issue that you have to balance with exercise? Do you feel comfortable sharing about that?

Sure. It was several years ago. I was out running and I almost passed out. I called my husband. We went to the ER because I thought I was having a heart attack. They couldn’t find anything. Long story short, after multiple fights and seeing many specialists, it turns out that I have scarring in my lungs. My lungs are only functioning at 65% capacity. Apparently, I’ve had asthma for all of my life and it went untreated. For anyone out there who’s suffering from asthma, make sure you’re using your inhaler. I thought I grew out of asthma I had as a child. I thought it went away, but apparently, I learned how to deal with the asthma attacks. It went untreated for years and cause scarring.

TCO 212 | Try All The Instructors

 

I didn’t even know that was possible.

Me neither.

I have heard people say like, “I had it as a kid.” I’m not a doctor, I was like, “I thought that’s the thing if you had it, you had it.” Now I wonder if maybe they still have it and don’t realize it like you.

They don’t exercise as hard as Danielle.

Is that what brought it to the forefront, just the exercising in general?

I don’t know. I have no idea why all of a sudden it became a problem, but it’s not a problem until it is a problem. We were playing soccer when I first found out I had it. Later on, when I was probably maybe 20. They say it was exercise-induced and I used an inhaler for that. I didn’t feel like I was having any asthma attacks. I wasn’t using an inhaler on a regular basis. Apparently, I was having many asthma attacks and not knowing it. Therefore, not using an inhaler.

When you’re exercising and your heart rate gets up, is it like what you thought was being out of breath from exercising were smaller asthma attacks? Is there a way to distinguish now that you’re aware of the situation or no?

Now my chest feels tight. It feels like someone is squeezing my chest or that someone’s sitting on me so then I know that I’m having an asthma attack. It’s funny because my second son, he has asthma since he was about two. I remember him saying to me one day we were sitting there and he’s like, “Mom, you’re having an asthma attack.” I’m like, “I’m not.” He’s like, “I can hear it. You’re wheezing.” I was like, “I’m not.” He’s like, “Mom, you’re having an asthma attack.” I was like, “I don’t have asthma. I’m not having asthma.” Apparently, I’ve been having asthma attacks and my child was telling me and I was like, “I’m not. Go away. What are you talking about?” I found that out. Right now, I use three different breathing treatments throughout the course of the day, as well as a monthly injection to keep it under control.

Now that you’re aware of it and you can do the things you need to do to help you navigate it better, has your exercise change? Has it gotten better or worse?

It’s gotten worse from where I was and that’s because my lung function has decreased from where it was. That’s why it, all of a sudden, became a problem. It caused me to decrease from where I was because I was working out three hours a day. Now, I’m lucky if I get two on the weekends. I still work out a lot. I’m not going to pretend like I don’t work out like a crazy person, but I do work out a lot. I felt like I worked out at a harder intensity before than I do now. Part of it too is that I’m so aware. The attacks were waking me up in the middle of the night. I literally felt like I couldn’t breathe and couldn’t get air in. I’m very hypersensitive to it now that I’m like, “I don’t want to feel like that.”

I have another favorite question for you. Who is your favorite instructor? I feel like I would know based on the fact that you admin an instructor group, but then I’m like, “I really don’t know.” You’re going to be like, “I’m not going to say Jess and let that go to her head. I cuss her out all the time.”

She’s going to be like, “My favorite is Ross Rayburn.”

I do have a date with Ross every night though. My favorites are Ally Love on the bike. I try not to miss any of her live classes. I’ve hit every bike milestone with her. She’s only missed me for two shoutouts, ever. Off the bike, it’s Jess.

What is your leaderboard name?

It’s @AFitCookie.

Do you have any advice for people who are entering the world of Peloton?

Try all of the instructors and don’t take it so seriously. People get so worked up over the leaderboard and where they fall with their numbers. I tell this story a lot to people who are new, who are joining groups, they’ll say, “I had my bike at home.” I was riding. We went on a trip. I stayed at a hotel in Nashville. I beat my PR on that bike by close to 100. I came home. I said to my husband, I’m like, “My bike is broken.” Something’s wrong. I called Peloton. They came out, this was all pre-pandemic, they came out, the guy was like, “Your bike is perfect.” I was like, “It’s not perfect. I beat my PR close to 100. I need these numbers to match.” He’s like, “Your bike is fine. Hotel bikes are notoriously horrible at maintenance. They don’t take care of them. They don’t calibrate them. They beat them to crap. The hotel bike is off.” I was so pissed, but I’m like, “That’s a good story for someone who’s new because that tells you that not all bikes are created equal.”

If you’re in a Bike+, it should be different because they are supposedly auto-calibrated. They should be equal. If you’re on the original bike, you can’t compare your bike to someone else’s bike, just like you can’t compare your journey to someone else’s journey. You don’t know how long they’ve been riding. You don’t know what they’re doing. There’s a woman who rides with an oxygen tank. “You don’t know someone’s story, so don’t get so hung up on the numbers.” Get on the bike, get on the tread. Do your thing. Have fun and enjoy it.

That’s a mentality that will serve you well in many other areas of your life. Thank you so much for taking the time to join us and for being patient with us. Before we let you go, where can people find you?

I am on Instagram and Twitter as @AFitCookie. My Facebook is Danielle Verwey. That’s where you can find me and on our leaderboard.

Thank you for joining us. We appreciate it.

We do. Thank you.

Thank you. It was so much fun.

—

I guess that brings this episode to a close. 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 the tread @ClipOutCrystal.

You can find me on Twitter @RogerQBert or Facebook at Facebook.com/tomokeefe. You can find the show online at Facebook.com/TheClipOut. While you’re there, like the page and join the group. Wherever you’re getting your podcast from, be sure and follow us so you never miss an episode. If you get bored at work, swing on by YouTube at YouTube.com/TheClipOut, where you can watch these episodes and see the faces that Crystal makes at me when I say something that upsets her, which is often. That’s it for this one. Thanks for tuning in and until next time, keep pedaling and running.

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