TCO 257 | Accessibility In Peloton

257: Tunde’s New Book Is Released Plus Our Interview With Jillian Curwin

Last Updated: May 11, 2022By Tags: , , , , ,

TCO 257 | Accessibility In Peloton

 

  • John Mills is back to talk about the upcoming earnings call.
  • FitOn launches a celebrity-based fitness app.
  • Dr. Jenn – How to balance the bike, tread, and recovery.
  • Shape and USA Today profile Tunde in support of her new book.
  • Joslyn Thomspon Rule is now a Tread Bootcamp instructor.
  • Aditi Shah was on the South Asian Trailblazers podcast.
  • Emma Lovewell was featured on Mind Body Green, Global Circulate, and Pop Sugar.
  • Kirsten Ferguson sits down with CafeMom.com.
  • Robin Arzon talks to Elle about her Holiday Gift Guide.
  • Cody Rigsby will be a part of PFLAG’s Parent Day.
  • Peloton’s YouTube show “On The Leaderboard” is now available as a class.
  • Lanebreak scores can be higher on Bike+.
  • Cnet has good things to say about Lanebreak.
  • Dara Treseder is on the Cannes Lions jury list.
  • Women’s Health Magazine reviews The Guide.
  • Relevant Magazine discusses the spiritual aspects of Peloton.
  • Angelo joins us with tips for what to do when what you’ve been doing stops working.
  • Jennifer Garner talks to Shape about her IG post with Dr. Chelsea Jackson Roberts.
  • Rebecca Kenney celebrates 4-years of Tread classes.
  • Peloton launches a new series to prep you for a 5K.
  • Peloton has your guide to The Guide.
  • Anna Greenberg had an IG story about how to take prenatal classes before you’ve announced.
  • Peloton 4 Parkison’s shattered their fundraising goals.

All this plus our interview with Jillian Curwin!

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Watch the episode here


 

Listen to the podcast here


 

Tunde’s New Book Is Released Plus Our Interview With Jillian Curwin

We haven’t talked yet. It’s another one of those days where we run in, sit right down, and start the show. Speaking of running, you’ve been doing a lot of that lately.

Not compared to a lot of people. I talked to people all day long that are like, “I’m going to pair my mileage back to 30 miles this week.” My mileage was 9 miles. For me, it’s a lot.

You’ve been trying to up your speed.

I have this hope that maybe I’ll get to a point where I feel comfortable enough saying, “I am training for a marathon.” I haven’t quite pulled the trigger on that, but I am working on improving my speed. That has been my goal. I’m in this place where I go back and forth between a strength workout and then doing a run. I have my speed day and I have my mid-distance run day, then I have my long run day. That’s what I’m working on right now.

You’ve been getting faster already.

I was about 15-minute miles and I’ve already gotten to 14-minute miles.

You’re moving the ball forward.

It’s crazy how much I have to push myself to be able to get faster. It’s such a weird thing because I feel like I’m going so fast and I’m not. It’s such a strange thing. I ended up taking a lot of Susie Chan classes, which I have to recommend to people. If you haven’t gotten a chance to take classes with Susie, you need to do that. She’s so fun. She’s so accessible. She doesn’t do a ton of talking.

She definitely tells a story here and there, but there are large silences. Not uncomfortable silences, but she’s not chattering the entire time, which sometimes people don’t like. I just want to make sure people know, plus her playlists are so good. She did an ’80s class that I took the other day. The last class was Paradise City by Guns N’ Roses. That is such a great class to run to because of the rhythm. She did a progressive speed throughout the class. Every time the chorus came on, we increased. It was great. I loved it.

What pray tell do you have in store for people?

John Mills is back. He’s going to be joining us. We’re going to be talking about the earnings call. We also have this little FitOn announcement that has nothing to do with Peloton. It’s a competitor thing, but I’m curious about John’s thoughts on that. We are going to chat about the changes they made to the One Peloton Club.

Dr. Jenn drops by and she talks about how to balance the bike, tread, recovery, and all the things. There are a ton of updates on all the instructors. They have been everywhere. We also talk about all of the new content Peloton has been putting out. We had a visit from Angelo and he talks about what to do when what you’ve been doing stops working. There is a lot. We’ve got some celebrity updates and there are some celebrations to be had.

Before we get to all that shameless plugs, don’t forget we’re available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts. Wherever you find a podcast, you can find us. Wherever you find your podcasts, you can find us. While you’re there, be sure to rate, review and follow us so you never miss an episode. You can also find us on Facebook, Facebook.com/TheClipOut. While you’re there, like the page and join the group. Check out our YouTube channel, YouTube.com/TheClipOut, where you can watch these episodes.

Finally, I know we throw a lot of information at you over the course of an episode. If we throw a link at you that you want to circle back around to and you can’t find it, the best way to find it is to sign up for the newsletter at theclipout.com and you’ll get a weekly digest of all the things we’ve talked about. You can click on them right from there. There’s all that. Let’s dig in. Shall we?

We shall.

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Joining us is John Mills. John, welcome back.

How’s it going? What’s happening. I gained a little bit of weight. I was eating a lot of stuff.

Are you sure you gained? Maybe it’s the camera.

I’m scared to get on the scale to tell me exactly how much. I know I gained but I don’t know.

Do you have one of those electronic scales that recognizes the different people in your house? The worst is when you gain so much, it no longer knows who you are.

Now I’m scared.

It happened in this house. I’m just saying. It happened to both of us.

It seems to be about 10 pounds.

Yeah, 10 pounds is the cutoff. If you gain 10 and it’s possible to gain 10 pounds in a week. I want to let you know that it’s possible. Here’s the deal. It’s mostly water weight so don’t stress. As a MetPro coach, this is what I tell people, John. Don’t even look at the weight until you’re back for three days, then we’ll deal with whatever is left. Don’t even worry about it.

That’s what I’m going to do. I’m scared anyway. I’m avoiding that scale.

It is what it is. It’s not like it’s changing.

It’s like bills. Just because you don’t open them, doesn’t mean you don’t owe the money.

I’m ignoring the scale like they’re not even there.

Did you have a nice trip?

The trip was amazing. I loved it. The intent was to take my dad to see a family that he had never met because his father moved to San Diego as a part of the great migration. African-Americans were leaving the South to go to California back in the ’40s. He left that all behind. He had 4 or 5 brothers and a couple of sisters. My dad had uncles and aunts who all had family, the root descendants. He has never been there. His father didn’t talk a lot about it. We wanted him to meet some of his descendants. He had four first cousins that were still alive. They’re in their 80s and 90s.

He had never met them. His grandparents were buried there. His grandmother died in the 1918 flu pandemic. She was buried in an African-American cemetery. This is a lot that we wanted to take him to and it was his birthday weekend. We did a lot of stuff. It ended up being an amazing trip.

That’s cool. You have deep vacations. I feel so shallow. That is so cool that you did that. I think that’s amazing. I love that you took the whole family too.

What’s also amazing is we went to this African-American cemetery. It’s not maintained. We were trying to find his grandparents that are buried there. We couldn’t find them. Although there are markers there for them that a retired police officer found for us nine years ago because the writing isn’t on them anymore. He had to use forensic lighting to figure it out.

Since it’s been nine years of leaves and winters, now it’s back buried below something and we couldn’t find it. I got to bring a team of people back to East Texas with rakes so that we can go through this place to go find these markers and replace them with a headstone once we find it. Some people from my group that live in the area volunteered with rakes. It’s all good. I’m all excited. I got another trip coming up.

Look at you doing impactful things. I feel so silly next to you.

One last thing. I got an event at the Webb-Deane-Stevens Museum on June 19th in Wethersfield, Connecticut. It’s a paid event so no one can listen to it. You have to buy a ticket to the museum to see the event. I’m doing a lecture there. I’m Prince Mortimer, who was the Connecticut slave that died at the Wethersfield Prison. Anybody from Connecticut or that is in the area that wants to go to that event hit me up and I can get to the detail. They’re going to do a press release on it. When they do that, I’ll put it out.

That has been quite a journey that you have been working on. Every time you get a chance to share that story with people, that is so cool. That sounds like a big event.

It’s going to be cool. I’m all excited about it. I also spoke to the town’s local Historical Society. They’re still working towards the plans to create a marker at the burial site where Prince Mortimer was buried. We’re still in collaboration getting that going. I don’t know when that will ever happen. We knew that was going to take a long time, but they’re still working on that angle. It’s been a lot of big stuff and a lot of good stuff happening.

Look at all you’ve done. That’s all because of you having those conversations and doing that research and putting that information out there. That’s cool, John.

I appreciate it. Thank you. Anybody who wants to attend the event, I’ll post it as soon as they create the press.

Remind us, we’ll mention it again on the show. Tell people about it. That’s great. I guess we should talk about Peloton now. I thought we’ll just remind people that the Peloton earnings call is coming up. This is the one that’s going to be in the morning. It’s going to be Tuesday at 8:30 AM Eastern.

This is the second one in a row that they’ve done in the morning. I don’t know what the reasoning is behind the morning. My assumption is if you think you have good news, then the morning is probably better because it’s prior to the market opening, and thus you can affect the price more.

They were doing great news ones in the afternoon though.

The other thing that goes against that is they laid off 2,800 people the last time they had it in the morning. I’m not saying that that’s happening this time. Just to be clear. A lot of people seem to be under the impression that they’re changing it because there is new leadership that is Berry. It’s just a way to distinguish himself from John. I have no idea.

Is it maybe like playing Warped Tour? The earlier in the day you go, the less important you are. They don’t get the headline anymore.

No two bodies are the same, so trying to find a way to standardize some shorter bikes would be an interesting challenge. Share on X

I think the last earnings call they thought was going to go well because that was after the layoff of the folks, and now they were announcing big changes. They thought it was going to go well.

It’s like it was bad news but the market would react positively to it because you’re making adjustments like, “Yes, from the fact, that’s what we like to see.”

They thought it was going to be like, “They’re making some good adjustments.”

That is an interesting theory. I thought they did it that morning because it was like, “Get it over with, rip the Band-Aid off.” I have no idea. You could be right. I have zero opinion on it. It’s easier for us because they’re going to do it on Tuesday. They’ll do it at the beginning of my day before it gets crazy busy and we’ll be able to record.

They’ve made some changes to the One Peloton program that you want to talk about.

They changed a bunch of the pricing. This One Peloton Club is now $59 a month. I was reading about it. Somebody posted it in your group. I think it was Andrew. He was saying that he felt like there was no reason not to join it now because the payoff time was such that it was the exact same difference between the equipment price. You might as well do that.

That’s crazy because now you have to buy it out within a year. You can only pay $59 a month to rent it and you get a year warranty. Why would you not? I don’t understand why they won’t let people who have ever been a member in the last year be part of it. It’s like they don’t want you to change from being an existing member and paying the full price to rent. I don’t understand that.

I think they don’t want you to be like, “That’s a better deal.”

Why would you not do it for three months or four months? It’s not that we’re people that own a second home, but there are tons of Peloton users that own a second home. Why not let them rent it for however long instead of that?

Because they don’t want to rent you a bike.

It says rent a bike.

That’s marketing but they don’t want to rent you a bike. They want to remove the barrier to you getting this bike into your home, then hopefully you fall in love with it and you never send it back. They don’t want people to do the thing where it’s like, “Send it to my summer home for three months.” That’s not the business they want to be in.

It’s a couple of things. The $59 is for the bike. It was $70 for Bike+. The reason why Andrew was saying that there’s no consequence and you probably should do it is because if you subtract from $44 a month, which is monthly for the subscription, and you take that and you expand that over to 12 months, the cost that you pay after 12 months is exactly what you would have paid if you just bought it outright. You’re not losing anything. Why take the risk? That’s the point he was trying to make. Why wouldn’t everybody do this?

The reason I think that they’re not offering this to anyone else is because they still have that alignment of if you have multiple products, then you’re paying one subscription. I guess it wouldn’t apply to two bikes. I don’t know. You’re right. Why don’t they let everybody do it? It’s another subscription. The pretense is to grab another subscription. That would be another subscription.

If they think that you’re deliberately only doing it for a short period of time because it’s your summer home.

They’re also not putting anything in place that keeps you from wanting to do that. Whether it’s their second home or not, there are going to be people that will do it. I see it like all you’re doing is yet again alienating the people who have been your audience the longest. It doesn’t make any sense.

When we go to Hawaii in June, you should rent one for the month for $59 and have it dropped off at your hotel rooms.

That’s the other thing. It’s very limited markets. It’s like 30 markets or something. There are none in the state of Missouri. There’s only one in the entire Midwest column and that’s in Chicago. I don’t consider Atlanta the Midwest because I call that the South.

I hadn’t thought of that though. You’re right. An existing bike owner is more likely to go, “This is a good idea. I’ll take this for a couple of months and send it right back.” The new subscriber might be less likely to do that. Maybe that’s their thinking.

It makes sense but I sure wish I could use that. I wish they had it in more places. I would like to try it out. I would like to understand somebody going through that process and trying it out and how they feel about it. If anybody out there is doing it let me know. I would love to interview you. We’ll have a whole conversation about it.

It’s a hard push for more subs, which makes sense. They’re trying to push subs, but it throws my mind into this thought process of what is this doing to revenue and what is this doing towards their statement that they were going to be profitable by fiscal 2023, I think they said? What is this all doing?

I don’t what it’s doing but I don’t think we’re going to hit that.

That’s where I’m at. I can’t wait to hear what they say on this call.

I don’t know. We’re going to get another big push from Blackwell.

Finally, digital fitness platform FitOn, I guess it’s how you say that.

I don’t know anything about it. I thought it had something to do with iFIT or something.

They got a collaboration with Nautilus.

I thought this was interesting because they are now going to be doing a new program where it’s all about chronic conditions and helping people who are older. It’s going to be targeted toward them. Older adults and Medicare recipients are going to have access to these classes that are specially tailored to them. I thought that was interesting. It was particularly interesting because we all know that because of the Baby Boom era, there are billions of people that are in this demographic and no one is targeting them. None of the connected fitness is. I think that’s fascinating and smart. I don’t know anything about their product or if it’s any good, but I found that fascinating.

When I saw this, I thought these Peloton instructors do a lot of stuff that I can’t do. I’m not all that old but I thought this might be helpful for me. It’s not a bad thing. It’s just that my injuries or are there X-ers are in this place too? Not just Boomers.

I think there are absolutely X-ers. I was just thinking of people that haven’t joined the technology segment. I was thinking of people like my parents who shunned technology. They’re not that bad but they don’t like any of this stuff. I thought if there were programs that were dedicated to them, that would resonate with them. I’ve heard people in the Peloton community say before, “I would love to have an instructor that was older than I felt represented by.”

TCO 257 | Accessibility In Peloton

 

Cycling is something that you can do for years even if you can’t run. There are things you can do, but I also think that even Tonal, which is focused on mobility, they do so many things to help you with your mobility and staying fit. I genuinely believe that strength training is the biggest way for all of us to stay mobile. I find it interesting that there aren’t a lot of programs that are out there that are targeted toward older adults. I think it’s interesting.

What’s also fascinating about this is I heard that FitOn has over ten million subs. They’re freemium, and then there’s paid. The fact that they have this collaboration with Nautilus, you can get to this content on the Nautilus equipment along with this type of content. It’s interesting that it’s catering to an older crowd. It sounds like they’re going to have classes that are structured toward solving certain ailments or certain needs, chronic conditions. It would seem pretty interesting to me as I was reading it. That hasn’t been a Peloton thing but it makes me wonder if maybe that’s a route they should look into.

They tend to go with whatever is the coolest. Prenatal and postnatal have been a big thing for them. Obviously, other countries are going to be more of a priority. I have no idea. I think they should at least consider it. It would be worthwhile.

Especially as their members age. It’s something to keep them engaged as they mature.

Do you remember back in the day when Fit Fab 40s first started up, that was a group. Many of the ladies that were in that are now in their 50s. That’s only one such shift. There are tons of those. The longer Peloton is around, the more they need to think about that.

This is why all OB Radio went from playing Frankie Valli and the Beach Boys to playing Rod Stewart and Elton John. They’re still targeting the same age demo. They just have to play different music to do it.

When I started with Peloton, I was in my 40s. I felt like I could keep up a little bit better than I can now that I’m in my 50s. That could be just because I’m more lazy and more out of shape or because I’m older. I don’t know which one. I haven’t figured it out yet.

Psychologically, I’m all kerfluffle because since I never worked out, I’ve never been able to do more. I’m sure I’m way worse than I would have been having I always been doing stuff. Because I’ve never done anything, I have nowhere to go but up.

The moral of this story is don’t start working out until you’re 50.

I should have done that. I wouldn’t have this problem.

Tom is always saying that his body is in new condition.

I would say it’s gently used. On that note, John, thank you for joining us. Until next week, where can people find you?

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

Thank you so much.

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Joining us once again is Dr. Jenn Mann, licensed marriage, family and child therapist, and Sports Psychology consultant. You may 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.

Thank you for joining us. We have a question from Julie Ann Schindler. She says that she finds it very hard to balance running and spinning. She wants to do it all but there’s not enough time and her hips beat those recovery days. I know you get this one.

This is probably one of the easiest questions that you have asked. There are a few keys to this. One is don’t do both things on the same day. Alternate, which is actually better for injury prevention. Also mentally, it’s nice to be able to go back and forth and do something differently. You use your brain very differently for running and cycling.

I have dates like Monday, Wednesday and Friday are my cycling days. Tuesday, Thursday, and then either Saturday or Sunday are running days, then I have an active rest day. You want to alternate it and you want to have that balance. The other thing is, and a lot of people will grunt when I say this, but you got to stretch. I know from experience that if you don’t stretch and you are running and cycling on a day-to-day basis, your muscles will get so tight that you will get injured.

As Crystal knows firsthand, I’m a big fan of Hannah Corbin’s foam rolling classes. Glutes class especially to me is the key to not being injured. I got injured pretty bad a few years ago. Once I started integrating that in, that made a huge difference. In a dream world for me, 10 minutes of foam rolling before I workout and then 5 minutes at the end of stretching. Chelsea has two 5-minute pigeon classes that to me are the perfect class because after you go for a run, the last thing you want to do is stand up. I like to be lying down or sitting down after running at all times.

That five-minute class is just enough to open up your hips and let go of all of that tension in your hips. You don’t have to stand up. There’s too much energy and it’s just five minutes, which is doable. Even when you’re like, “I’m so done with my workout,” five minutes is doable. Chelsea is wonderful. That class is so great. Integrating stretch at the beginning and end, and alternating. The other thing is I would add in other disciplines, especially gentle things like yoga. Make sure you’re doing a core workout because those are muscles that you need when you’re running and cycling. Finding that balance is very important.

In the Chelsea workout, the one you’re talking about the stretch, I also like how she makes everything so accessible regardless of your level of stretchability. She makes all of those very easy for you to jump into.

She’s very relaxed and I look all for those factors. She’s so relaxed in that class.

Crystal always gets on me because I’ll do the pre-stretch but when I’m done, I’m like, “I’m done now.”

I’ve been trying to get Eric to stretch for years now. I have not been successful.

That must be a boy thing. I guess girls do it too.

We all like to do what we’re good at. We don’t like to do what we’re not good at and what is harder. Stretching is one of those things. It’s not like, “I lifted 100 pounds.” Stretching is not You totally get them on the tread and the bike. I’ve never yet had high-fives in my stretch class.

It’s because they can’t reach it. They are all pretzeled up. In my head, I’m like, “Just get to the stuff I got to do.” It’s not like a macho thing. It’s more like, “I don’t want to be here anyway.”

If they could somehow do the stretch in the middle, you’d be all about it.

We need to listen to disabled people when we're saying that something isn't accessible. Share on X

If they snuck it in, that might work. I don’t know. My parents tried to put peas in my mashed potatoes and I caught that. It doesn’t work at all.

We have to conceptualize something like stretching differently. Instead of looking at it as its own activity, we have to look at it as longevity creation. It is the key to being able to exercise for decades as opposed to a few years. If you’re not stretching and you are on your tread in your bike, you’ve got a limited number of years I believe. I’m not an exercise physiologist, but I think you’ve got a limited number of years where your body is going to let you get away with that. Maybe if you’re in your 20s or 30s, you can do that. If you’re in your 40s or 50s, forget about it. Your body is going to say, “No, we’re done. You’ve got to stretch. That’s it.”

I do the pre-stretches at least right there and then a little bit. I will say that while I don’t enjoy stretching, I enjoy Crystal stretching immensely.

I’m sure that is a lot of fun at your house.

Thank you so much for the wonderful advice. Until next week, where can people find you?

You can find me on social media @DrJennMann. You can also find me in InStyle Magazine, Hump Day With Dr. Jenn, sex and relationship advice.

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I know you were super excited about our Olive & June partnership.

I am so excited. I absolutely adore Olive & June. It’s the first time I’ve ever been able to do my nails at home and actually feel good about them. They don’t feel like a six-year-old painted them. I’m not good at painting especially my right hand with my left hand.

That’s something I never thought about because I’m a boy. Not that boys can’t do it but this one doesn’t. I never thought about that if you’re right-handed, how do you do your right hand or vice versa?

When you get the Olive & June Mani system, it comes with all the tools you need, including my favorite, the little cleanup tools. You have a little paintbrush. If you miss something or you get outside the lines, then you have a little cleanup brush that you can get. It makes a huge world difference. Not to mention the poppy. It’s a little thing that goes on top of all of your nail polish. You can hold it in your hand. It’s much more ergonomic to be able to paint your nails. It’s so much more comfortable. The whole system is a game-changer for painting your nails at home. Seven days, no chips.

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Don’t forget, we are having our live Mani masterclass for The Clip Out members. You can join that by going to The Clip Out group.

There will also be a link in the newsletter.

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Tunde’s book is finally released into the wild.

It officially came out on May 3rd. Michelle K got to interview Tunde ahead of the launch of her book. She got to talk to you Tunde about the power of letting go, which is one of many themes of the book.

Tunde was also featured and USA Today.

They talked about how Tunde found strength in rejection and loss. She said that to her, failure doesn’t exist. I think she was on the Today show as well.

She has certainly been making the rounds. She was in a Las Vegas newspaper. She has been certainly out there pushing it and she should.

I think it was the Good Morning America not the Today show. She was on one of them. I don’t recall which, sorry. That’s very cool for Tunde.

Joslyn Thompson Rule is now a tread bootcamp instructor.

Very exciting news for Joslyn. She is one of the tread instructors from the UK. She’s amazing. I love her classes and now she’s going to be teaching tread bootcamp. That is fun. I love seeing that lineup be expanded again. She’s an excellent teacher for it.

Aditi Shah was featured on the podcast South Asian Trailblazers.

They said that it was their first trailblazer in fitness that they had interviewed. That is very cool. It came out on May 3rd as well. They only have 39 episodes so it’s easy to find.

Emma Lovewell’s publicist has been working overtime. She has got three articles. The first of which is from MindBodyGreen.com.

It talks about how Emma cleans her workout clothes, and how she keeps them fresh and clean. We’ve covered this topic on The Clip Out. It was back when Peloton closet was on. We talked through that. Some of these same suggestions are in here. She had some name brands that you can try as well.

She was also featured on a website called GlobalCirculate, which I don’t know what that is.

TCO 257 | Accessibility In Peloton

 

I don’t either. I guess this actually originated in an article that she had in PopSugar. It might be a repeat.

That’s the other place, PopSugar. One is repurposing the other.

That makes sense. She talks about how she lives to make you feel invincible. She talks about how her parents were hippies and they were into wellness even before it was popular to be so so. She talks about that and her gardening and things like that. I think all of these articles might have originated from PopSugar and they were repurposed.

The internet is so sneaky. Kirsten Ferguson is featured on CafeMom.com.

It’s a great link where it talks about prioritizing movement, mindfulness and self-care. She ought to know. She’s a wonderful mom. She’s a good friend judging by how well she took care of Jess Sims at her first marathon. She certainly is a wonderful cheerleader for everyone in the “Ratchet Mom Club.” That is what everybody uses for their leaderboard hashtag when they’re on with Kirsten and I love it. She made Robin an honorary member of the Ratchet Mom Club when they did their two-for-one run.

Speaking of Robin she is Elle.com talking about her Mother’s Day gift guide.

I love the title. Of course, Robin Arzon’s Mother’s Day gift guide includes massage guns and Peloton bikes. What else? She also talks about necklaces and fragrances and other things like that. Lots of good ideas in there. If you haven’t seen it, definitely check it out.

Cody Rigsby will be joining PFLAG’s Parent Day 2022.

He’s going to be joining some other people. If you don’t know what that is, it’s an event that is for parents of LGBTQ, folks, parents and allies. It will be occurring on May 22nd at 2:00 PM Eastern. It will be on the PFLAG‘s website if you want to check Cody out.

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Peloton’s latest YouTube show was called On The Leaderboard and people liked it, but everyone was complaining that they couldn’t participate because they interview a celebrity while they were utilizing the tread.

The interesting thing is when they made it a class that you can take on the bike or the tread. You can take it to either place. If it’s something that’s important to you, I’ve heard a lot of people saying that they’re taking it as a cool-down, either the bike or the tread, then they watch it because they’re about ten minutes. They’re not super long. That way, you’re taking it. You’re able to listen to it but you’re still getting a good workout.

That’s good usage. I came across something interesting about Lanebreak that someone posted in the OPP. First off, Heather, you have threaded the needle. You posted something in the OPP that was actually useful and interesting so hat tip.

I didn’t read the comments but hopefully, she didn’t get roasted. It’s hard not to get roasted. First of all, let me say that I love Lanebreak. I think it’s a ton of fun. Apparently, this is bothering people because your top score for your rides on the Bike+ is different from the regular bike.

You can get more points on a Bike+ than you can on a bike.

Even if your output is identical. She goes through and gives examples about how she did the highest score on spinning records, volume one, which is five minutes. She got 50,080. The same ride on a Bike+ did everything perfectly. At that time it was 50,200. It’s 120 points higher but the output was exactly the same.

She tried it again with another ride and the highest score that she was able to get was 42,675. With the Bike+ it’s 42,795, exactly 120 points higher. She’s basically saying it would be great if Peloton could fix this and make these scoring consistent across all versions of the software. According to what she’s read, it sounds like she’s saying that her guess is that it has something to do with the software versions because the bike is on NOC42A, and the Bike+ is on PTY64A.

I was thinking that. I was pretty sure that this is a PTY64A thing.

You were that specific. I love the way this woman’s brain thinks because she did that. She was like, “All the rides were done at mid-day on the same day with no updates to the software that day.” She was as careful with it as she could be.

She’s trying to rule out any other variables.

I found it super fascinating and I’m just wanting to share. Thank you for sharing something interesting and educational.

You don’t have to go hunting through the OPP for that if you get the newsletter at theclipout.com. There will be a link directly to this post. You can click right through and read it because it’s a pretty lengthy explanation. I did think that it was an interesting take on what exactly is happening.

True to the OPP, “What is Lanebreak?” is the comment.

OPP, you never fail us. Speaking of Lanebreak, CNET has a review of Lanebreak.

They call it a music video game, which I found interesting. They say that it’s a fun way to workout indoors. All these different articles that have been coming out compare it to Dance Dance Revolution. They compare it to Guitar Hero and things like that. I definitely see the Guitar Hero, not so much the Dance Dance Revolution, but it’s nice to hear. They also ask, should you buy it? Probably not. Don’t buy Peloton just for the Lanebreak. I do agree with that. Although I have to say they keep adding stuff. They’ve added a bunch of rock classes. We’re going to hear later about the Red Hot Chili Peppers collaboration. They added Red Hot Chili Pepper to the Lanebreak classes. I think they are tons of fun. They’re a great add on to any other workout.

The Cannes Lions jury list has been released.

Do you know anything about this?

Not a thing.

I was hoping you did. It sounded pop culture. I thought you might.

I don’t know. I keep thinking of the Cannes Film Festival. I don’t know if this is related to that or not. It’s officially called the Cannes Lion International Festival of Creativity.

Try it all, try everything, and figure out what you like and don't like. Share on X

I guess there are all these juries that get together and benchmark creativity from other companies. The reason it’s here is that Peloton was added to the jury list. That is the whole reason. I don’t know what that means. I don’t know how exciting that is, but I found it interesting.

It had happened and now you know about it.

That’s what we do here.

We explained things even though we don’t know what we were explaining.

We’re not explaining it so much as we’re informing.

Women’s Health Magazine has a review of the Guide.

They said they tried it and here is the absolute honest truth. They said it was genius. I was surprised at that. I have been seeing so many people post how much they love it and how that tracker keeps them so engaged. I don’t get it. I’m not against it. Don’t get me wrong. I even enjoy it. I like it.

It’s like, “This is something I’ll do again,” but you don’t love it the same way when you got the bike and it was all you could talk about. You’re not like, “Tom, let’s get rid of The Clip Out and start The Guide Out.”

I am not. They talk through the pros and the cons. I feel like we’ve already talked through that so I’m not going to go through all that again. They didn’t have anything. I felt like that was new to add. I think it has been covered. It’s interesting to me. It either hits or it doesn’t. It goes back to what we’ve already talked about. If you are a person who is new to strength and you’re not sure about things, this is a great add on for you.

If you’re used to Tonal, you’re going to maybe find it a little lacking. Most people aren’t used to Tonal and so it’ll be fine. Maybe even more than fine. Maybe it’s impressive.

People are excited that they’ll keep adding to it. We’ll see.

RelevantMagazine.com writes about this spiritual practice of crying on a Peloton.

They typed in any recommendations for a grief ride. They were really surprised to see all of the different suggestions that people gave. They were dealing with their grandmother’s death. They were in the process of their own grief. They were very surprised about that. It goes into a whole religious conversation and their experience. This is very much from their perspective. I’m not going to get into that, but I did think that it was interesting.

I also wanted to bring it up for people that this is the type of thing that they want to hear about, regardless of how you feel about religion or your comfort in talking about it. There are a lot of people that talk about the Peloton classes are a spiritual experience for them. Particularly, Ally Love’s Sunday class that she does. I wanted to include it. You can take that and do with that what you will.

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Joining us once is Angelo from MetPro here to answer your carefully crafted nutritional questions. It’s Angelo.

Thanks for having me back, guys. I’m looking forward to it.

We’re grateful that you keep coming back despite our antics. Thank you. Julie Bergman wrote in. She says that in the past few months, she has gained weight but she hasn’t changed her nutrition or her workouts. Does that mean that her body got used to the routine? If so, what should she change to lose those few extra pounds?

Julie, you brought up a topic that’s an important aspect of understanding metabolism. Your metabolism will drift. There will be seasons. Of course, we would need more information to properly identify what’s taking place in your exact scenario, but I will share some overarching trends that we have observed.

Sometimes individuals will start a meal plan because they want to lose weight. At some point along the way, we tend to have this psychological conversation with ourselves. “Why should I bother exercising or eating clean or whatever?” The thing we’re trying to talk ourselves into, just give ourselves a pep talk to stay focused on good habits, “f I’m not losing weight, I could eat whatever I want and be XYZ weight.”

The truth is most key people don’t drift in a stable pattern. Most people drift in an upward pattern. Most people, if not acted upon, will express at some point a similar sentiment where I haven’t changed my eating. I haven’t changed my exercise, but my weight is drifting up. Your metabolism can do that to you, especially as you get older. It’s one of the frustrating things that I myself have experienced. It’s a little different in your 40s than it was in your 30s than it was in your 20s.

However, we are not without resources. It is certainly not a foregone conclusion and you can easily solve this, Julie. What you want to do is identify a lever. Decide are you going to change something with the effort of losing that weight that you’re starting to see drift up or are you going to try and rev your metabolism? We would have to have a little bit deeper dive for me to give a recommendation on whether you should start by revving your metabolism, or if we could easily turn a few dials and focus on some quick pounds lost. That’s going to come down to your personal leverage.

Here are the questions that I would be asking a client in determining that. The first thing I would be asking is what’s your overall intake like calories and energy level intake. Is it low, medium or high? The second thing is what’s your overall carbohydrate intake. Is it low, medium or high? The third thing is, is there any additional exercise we can add or is there any optimization to your exercise that we can add? Those would be the four things we would look at.

If across the board, the answer is low. There’s nothing I can add and there’s no optimization to be had, that’s a good indication that you shouldn’t try and lose weight now. You should focus on speeding your metabolism. That’s going to involve gradually increasing your intake, followed by restriction of your intake. If you find that there are a few levers you can pull, figure out where it’s going to be least painful.

If you are already low on your calories, don’t keep yanking on that lever. It’s not going to produce the desired outcome. If you’re higher on your calories, that’s going to be an easy lever. Some simple swaps where for one carbohydrate or one macronutrient over the course of the day. Swap it out for vegetables or even some low calorie, low glycemic fruits like berries. Something simple like that can have a significant impact on dropping your calories a bit.

If you find you don’t have a lot of leverage there, but you realize that when you’re adding up your overall macros, your carbs are still pretty high. Make a concerted effort. Don’t drop your calories, just reduce carbohydrate intake a little bit. If your carbs are already modest, don’t yank further on that lever because here’s, what’s going to happen. You’re going to yank further on a lever that you don’t have. Your body is going to become more sensitive. You’re going to end up losing 0.5 pound, and then because your body is more sensitive, the next off event, weekend getaway, you’re going to gain 2 pounds back and the math isn’t going to work in your favor.

Probably the one where hopefully I can be the most help is the exercise optimization. What you might try is trading some of the current exercises you’re doing for lower hypertrophy, and higher output as far as calorie burn. That’s going to be tied to your respiration and your breathing activity. This is one of those nuanced things, Julie, that I can’t answer without a conversation.

One of the things that we see is when somebody is participating and resistance work or type two muscle fiber training, they get a little bit of drift upward in their body weight because they’re adding lean mass gradually over time. Sometimes I will see that with a lot of HIIT training or a lot of high resistance sprint pedaling because that will elicit a good muscular response in the lower body.

If that is one of your favorite methods of training, what you might do is continue with that HIIT training style, just increase the RPMs and decrease the resistance slightly. You may still get a very good calorie burn without the corresponding lower body muscle growth. Those are some little nuances. For all I know, you may not be doing any of those things and it can be a totally different conversation. If you know your levers, you’ll have a starting place to make an intelligent decision about the next steps. Feel free. Julie, if you want to reach out and have a deeper dive conversation. I’d be more than happy to visit with you about it.

That’s very nice of you.

TCO 257 | Accessibility In Peloton

 

If other people would like that sort of advice, where can they find you?

Find us at MetPro.co/tco.

Thank you.

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Shape.com had an interview with Jennifer Garner where she demonstrated how to do three easy stretches, but it also was based on an Instagram post she did with Dr. Chelsea Jackson Roberts.

You probably remember that Jennifer Garner and Chelsea Jackson Roberts do Instagram posts together a lot. In a recent one, they were doing stretches. They were showing how to do these stretches. That got turned into the Shape article. That’s pretty cool. How fun.

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The latest artist series features the Red Hot Chili Peppers.

It’s part of the Rock 22 Challenge. All of the classes will be included in the Rock 22 Challenge. Just a reminder, only one of those Rock 22 classes per day counts, regardless of how many you take. There are eighteen different classes for this Red Hot Chili Peppers collaboration. There were tons of different kinds of classes. There was a run, a bike ride, strength and yoga. It’s across the board.

—

It’s our weekly roundup of the hodgepodge of Peloton things that we don’t know how to file or at least things that I don’t know how to file.

Rebecca Kennedy posted that it is officially been four years since Peloton launched the tread.

That seems like just yesterday, you were bitching about how you didn’t have yours yet.

She was originally hired in July of 2017. Her first task was to hire instructors. She hired Matty, Olivia and Andy right out of the gate. How crazy is that? Congrats to the team. It has been a wild ride. I do remember that first homecoming when all the tread instructors were out there and no one was talking to them. I remember being like, “This will be different next year,” and it was.

There’s a new program to help you prepare for a 5K.

This one is all about your speed, preparing for getting your best 5K time. The first couple of weeks, you start with a walk-run, then you get into your long-distance run classes, and then you have a recovery week. In weeks 3 to 4, the schedule stays pretty much the same, but the distance and the duration and how difficult it is gets a little bit harder. They’ve added Becs Gentry, Jon Hosking, Susie Chan and Marcel Dinkins. They are all part of this one. Somebody had asked how is this different from the original five weeks? I think that one was more designed to get you started. This one, think of it as adding speed and a little more power to your 5K.

It’s helping you level up. They have a guide for the Guide for you.

That’s not what this is. If you read my note, it says live classes started on the Guide. That’s what this was about. It’s called the Strength Roll Call. Those classes are every day, five days a week at 7:30 AM Eastern. There are lots of people complaining about how that’s 4:30 AM on the West Coast. I know but none of the classes ever work for me either so it doesn’t matter. At any rate, it’s cool that we are finally seeing the live classes. You were able to see all the different heavy lifting programs. That’s what this class is for and lots of people counted themselves. So far, success.

Finally, Peloton is celebrating Asian Pacific Islander Heritage Month.

I guess we’re not getting a clothing line for this. As I mentioned a couple of weeks ago, that was included in the Mother’s Day package instead.

That’s an interesting pivot.

There were tons of classes that they are doing for Asian Pacific Islander Heritage Month though. I am very glad that they stuck with that. You will be able to take a whole bunch of classes on your bike and tread all month long so enjoy. More content that Peloton released this week. They released Strong As A Mother classes. There are thirteen different classes. It’s a collection celebrating Mother’s Day.

There were prenatal classes, postnatal classes, yoga, prenatal yoga, and all kinds of things. It was very interesting to see the variety of classes. Also, on the subject, Anna Greenberg did an IG story. She talked about how people had been asking her how to hide their prenatal classes so that people didn’t know they were pregnant before they were ready to share that they were pregnant.

I never thought about that. It makes a lot of sense.

It does but there’s no way to hide your classes. You can’t hide the classes you take. She gave people two suggestions. She did say by the way that there’s no way to do that at this time. Maybe that will be something that happens later. She did talk about the two options you have. It’s to delete your classes or use a separate account that nobody knows about and use that one to take your classes. Two options for you, shared by Anna Greenberg.

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Finally, an update on Peloton 4 Parkinson’s. They absolutely crushed it. They’ve been crushing it every year. They’ve seen major gains but the gains were even major in 2022.

In 2021, they’ve raised $63,000 and they had 28 all-day riders. In 2022, they had 42 all-day riders and they raised $105,000. Congratulations to Peloton 4 Parkinson’s. You guys do an amazing job. We’re so happy you’re out there doing it. Thank you for allowing us to be a sponsor.

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Joining us is Jillian Curwin. How is it going?

TCO 257 | Accessibility In Peloton

 

I’m good. How are you?

Do you watch the Super Bowl?

I do. I do not know who to root for, though, because I always usually root for the underdog, which would be Cincinnati, but I grew up in a Rams family. Part of me feels like out of family loyalty, I need to root for the Rams. I’m hoping for a good game.

Personally, we are not in sports at all. We do not care, but we do care because we are from St. Louis.

You are rooting for the LA Rams. Have you become a fan since they came back to LA or are you a fan before?

My dad was born and raised a Rams fan and that was when they were in LA. He stayed loyal to them when they moved to St. Louis. When I grew up, we were loyal to St. Louis. Now that they are back, he is okay with it. I feel like it was the Rams. I see where the dilemma is.

We may not follow sports, but we are salty. I will get into the Peloton stuff. When did you first hear about Peloton? When did you decide to pull the trigger that this is the equipment for you?

I have heard about it. I remember seeing the famous ad that came out right before the pandemic like everybody else. I was one of the people who, during 2020, needed some way to work out. I liked to bike outside, but I was quarantined in South Jersey and it was cold. I still wanted to find other ways to work out. I liked lifting weights and everything. I asked around and said, “Can you do Peloton without having the bike or the thread?” The overwhelming response was, “Yes.”

I signed up. They are offering a three-month thing in the pandemic. I was like, “I’m sticking with this.” I started with only doing strength and did a little bit of the cardio on the floor classes. I would do some outdoor once it started to get nicer weather out. I did that for about a year. I went to visit my friend, Lydia, who was also a little person in the DC area.

She has the bike that I now have, which is advertised as a kid’s bike. It is more like an adaptive bike. She uses that and that is how she would take all the cycling classes because that was the one thing that I was dying to take. I wanted to do cycling because I loved riding my bike. I did that and I said, “This is going to be my present to myself when I finally moved to New York City.” I have been riding since March of 2021, and I’m obsessed with it. I love it.

First of all, I love hearing that. I want to know why you decided to move to New York City, especially in the middle of a pandemic. I’m curious about that.

For the COVID purposes, it is the absolute worst place on earth and you are like, “Sign me up.”

I was supposed to move. I graduated in 2019 and I did not have a job yet, but I was a couple of months away from getting a job in New York City, but at the time when I needed to find a place to live, I did not. I had friends from college who were like, “We need a fifth roommate. Would you want to be a roommate?” I said, “Sure.” I was not right. I did not know what I was doing.

It is almost like in all of New York, with 4 roommates and 5 people.

I was like, “I could afford this. It was only an hour by commute.” I did not have a job yet. I was like, “Let’s do this for a year. I will figure out where I’m working and moved to the city.” This was 2019. 2020 comes around. I’m like, “I’m not going to New York.” I went home with my mom to South Jersey. It was around May of 2021 when things started to seem normal-ish and everyone was talking about, “We are going to go back to the office.” I was working at an Italian agency at the time. Our clients are going back to work, and I was like, “I think it was time.” This was when things were normal.

That brief window, when we were like, “We got the vaccine. Everything is over.”

I was six weeks in there before everything started going crazy again.

I was like, “Let’s do it.” I moved in May of 2021 and it was great until the Omicron came and wiped us all out again.

It has been the weirdest several years ever. Even weirder is that it does not feel like several years have existed. I still will be like 2021 and I’m talking about 2019. It is not 2021 anymore. My brain still cannot catch up with that. Tell me about this adaptive bike. Is this a Peloton bike or a different brand that is specifically adaptable for a kid? Tell me more. I need to understand.

It is not Peloton at all. It is a different brand. The intent is for it to be designed for kids, but for little people, it works because our average height is between 3’6” to 4’10” or so. That is our usual height range. This bike could work for us. I tried it at her apartment, and it is easy to ride. It does not show you resistance. You are able to adjust the resistance. You have to go by feel. She uses an app to track her cadence because it does not have a cadence screen.

She said that I would need their crank arm shorteners. They attached to the pedal crank arm and they shortened, even more, the distance between the seat and the pedal. It does make it a little easier for our feet to reach. I got the bike, the crank arm extenders and I downloaded the app to check my cadence. What I usually do is I will have it on my computer and I will do the rides from there.

We have talked to people who are hard of hearing and have their vision impaired. There are all different kinds of ways to make Peloton work for them, and we even talked to a gentleman. He was an amputee. He had a special bike that he hooked up to the Peloton. In front of it, there was a trainer that he had built especially for it. I am inspired by all of the creativity that goes into all of these different ways to adapt for Peloton. Do you want to say what the name brand is in case anybody out there is looking?

It is the X Side. I do not know who the actual company is because I found it on Amazon.

As far as adapting, have you felt the community has been supportive of your journey? How has that felt for you?

The community has been supportive of the little person. I know a lot about the little people who have seen my posts and seen other people post about it are getting the bike. They are joining. It is interesting because, from an early age, I remember being told by my doctors and my parents is the two best exercises for me to do as a little person are biking and swimming. It has a low impact on the joints. You get a good cardio and it is the whole body but not being able to do it inside has always been a problem.

Everybody wants to do it because we grew up riding our bikes. To be able to have this adaptive bike and to be able to do something like Peloton, where the classes are there. It is easily accessible. There are many options to choose from depending on your tensity and what you are in the mood for. Our community has been very supportive and I like the Peloton community when I post celebrating a milestone, has been supportive, which is always surprising when I see the comments, likes and everything.

We are a supportive bunch. We like to cheer each other on.

Is a bike like Peloton even adaptable for people in your community or is it a non-starter?

It can be. I have a friend in North Carolina whose friend had a Peloton. What they did was they bought the crank arm shorteners. They were able to put it on the bike and he was able to reach the pedals. I think the distance to the handlebars is still too far away but he is able to ride. He is on the leaderboard and taking classes. When he showed me that he was able to at least do that adaptation, it blew my mind. There is still work to be done, but it is possible. I believe it is.

I know there is something that you can buy. It is a third-party thing. It is not through Peloton, but it is a thing that you can buy for the handlebars. There is a thing that you can do to extend those. I have trouble reaching the handlebars and I’m 5’6”. I have the seat pushed all the way forward. Even if it could push forward any further, it would not be good for my knees. I would not have the proper angle, but I always feel like I’m reaching a little much for those handlebars. I have them up pretty high because of that. It is always a weird angle. I’m hoping if they ever make another version after the Bike+ that they add some more options that you can customize a bit more. That would be nice.

TCO 257 | Accessibility In Peloton

 

What is the official height cutoff for the Peloton?

The official is 4’10”. Correct me if I’m wrong. You probably know this better than I do. I think that is standard across all exercise indoor bikes.

I would say that is probably because it feels it is always out of reach. I’m 4′. I know the max of a dwarf is either 4’8″ or 4’10”. Someone will correct me if I’m wrong, I’m sure because I have never been able to ride other exercise bikes, not just Peloton.

I can’t remember when we talked to Snooki because she is diminutive. She is 4’8”. I can’t remember. Did she talk about any exceptions?

She said that she was able to ride it. She did not say this, but in my opinion, it is probably that it is a little off, a little uncomfortable, but she is able to ride. I remember there was like a brouhaha last 2021, somebody posted in the New York Post. It was a comedian that was 4-foot something. I do not remember exactly her height, but I remember it was under 4’10” because that is when I realized that spin bikes are all 4’10”. It is the cutoff for indoors.

She was saying that like, she was frustrated Peloton did not have that ability to be able to go less than 4’10”. It was right around the time we talked to Snooki. We asked about that because of it. She was able to ride the bike fine and enjoyed riding the bike. It also depends on the proportions because everybody has different arm lengths too. The other people that are 5’6” like me do not have problems reaching the handlebars because I don’t have short arms compared to some people. That’s just a different thing.

My type of dwarfism is we are inherently disproportionate. I have shorter arms and legs supporting an average-sized torso. I would be curious to see why he still could not reach the handlebars, even though with the adaptation, he was able to reach the pedals now on a real Peloton. There still has to be a figuring out because no two bodies are the same. To try to find a way to standardize some shorter bikes would be an interesting challenge, but I hope one that they rise to at least.

Barry is over there like, “I’m going to put that on my backup to-do lists.”

You have a podcast. Tell us about that.

It is called Always Looking Up and it is a place where I talked to members of the disabled community, the little person community, as well as allies in both communities about what it is like to live as a little person, a disabled person or if they are an ally, how they are involved in the communities. It is a place for my guests to share their stories and to have conversations because often, we feel overlooked or unheard. This is a for people to have their stories be told.

The things you take for granted, whoever you are, because it takes an injury to realize, “My back. If anything on my back hurts, it affects everything.” If you have the tall cabinets as we do in our house, I can’t reach the top shelf. You do not see outside of your own bubble, whatever your own bubble is, a lot of times. I can understand how that does feel that your community is overlooked. Are there things that are always an issue that would be easy things for the community and the world to solve if we were paying attention?

It is a lie to say there are a select few but I think the biggest solution to that is for the world to realize that disability affects everybody. It is the world’s largest minority, but it is also the only minority that anyone can join at any time. When talking about making things accessible, it does not make them inaccessible for people who would not need the modifications. It is making it more accessible to everyone. It is worth the cost because it could affect everyone. Everyone could use these modifications. It is not just affecting the disabled community and disability does not discriminate.

A good point about it is it does not make it inaccessible to other people. It is as simple as something that we would take for granted now like cutouts and sidewalks.

They were not a thing several years ago.

How many times is a cutout in the sidewalk, as someone who does not necessarily “need one,” make your life easier? You are trying to get something in your car, you got a cart or a dolly. You are like, “We go over here.” Before, it would not have been an option. You have not thought of it, but now it is there, you are like, “There was something.” The doorknobs that are not knobs. How many times have you carried something? Now, you can push it with your elbow. You can open the door and I do make the noise.

We once had a babysitter that was born without arms. We had never thought about how inaccessible our doorknobs were until she became our babysitter. It was like, “Oh my gosh.” Just having that ability because she uses her feet for everything. She would use her feet to open doors and not have a traditional doorknob, having the kind that is ADA-compliant is so much easier for her. What other examples can you think of that are things that we could as a society do?

We need to listen to disabled people when we are saying that something is not accessible. I remember I went to a theater before the pandemic and I asked for the accessible handicap, accessible bathroom was and at first, they did not know. They told me it was across the street in a building four floors up. There are several problems with this. One, there should be one here. I do not understand why there isn’t. Two, I’m a disabled person who can walk, but there are many disabled people who can’t and you are telling them you have to go across the street to the bathroom in a span of ten minutes.

Not realizing that is a problem is a problem in itself. They need to listen and be willing to change. Society is stubborn. They do not want to change and adapt. It is like, “Enough is enough. You need to start adopting.” Especially after dealing with the pandemic where people are now having to deal with disability more and it is affecting the disabled community at greater rates. We have to start listening more.

I have never been in a movie that was on Broadway. I was like, “This is ridiculous. I wish I did not do it and I wish I did.” I wish I said, “Fine. I will go across the street, but you need to tell everybody at the theater why you are holding up the show.” I wish I did. If I go back to that theater. I will make that stand because I do not think they put a bathroom that is accessible since.

In general, older cities like New York do not have as much room to make those modifications. It is more expensive. Here in the Midwest, as Tom says all the time, “One good thing that we have is space. We have a lot of space.” Even downtown, where there are older buildings, still nothing compared to as old as in New York, there is room to be able to expand. There is not as much, but when everything is on top of each other like it is in New York, it does make things a lot harder to be able to change things easily from a construction standpoint.

Not to play devil’s advocate a little bit. I’m sure some of those Broadway theaters are historical landmarks. They have the problem of, if you want to start covering the walls and stuff, you get those people out there that are like, “But this is history.”

If they were in that situation, they would not want to do it either. I love that theater and they are landmarks, but there has to be a point where like, “We need to make this accessible to everyone. Accessibility should not be a reason to keep something the way it is. It needs to change.” Also, realizing it is not a one size fits all solution. There are many different disabilities out there. The easiest solution isn’t always the best solution.

I’m talking about it in a silly way, but it is not a silly thing. It is a very real problem. I’m a jerk. I would be like, “Somebody needs to bring me a cup. I pay $300 for these tickets. I’m not missing a minute. You bring me a cup. It does not matter what play we are seeing. The next musical number is Singin’ In The Rain.”

Do you have a favorite instructor that you like to take classes with?

I am a Kendall fan. I’m a knockout. I love her classes. Her metal rides are insane. I do not know why I do them. I do not know why I like them. I think I must like pain at some level. I love her rides.

They are very intense. Clearly, you like the intensity. What about your other classes? You said you take strength and other classes. Do you have other instructors that you gravitate to when you take those classes?

When I do those classes, Jess Sims and Ben Alldis are my top two, for sure. I would work out and I would have Jess on, he would watch me and goes, “I do not like her.” I’m like, “You are not doing the workout, so you do not get an opinion here.” He sees what she is making me do and she’s like, “I do not like her.” I’m like, “You are not doing the workout. You have no say in this matter whatsoever. If you are doing the workouts, you could curse her out like the rest of us do.”

You have to earn the curse out the crew. You can’t curse her out.

What she is doing is sometimes awful and mean, but you have to earn that right to curse her out.

She is so sweet when she does this.

TCO 257 | Accessibility In Peloton

 

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

Try it all. Try everything. Figure out what you like and what you do not. It is adaptable. There is a lot that they are doing right now. They brought on Logan that Peloton could be accessible to so many people who thought that they could not do it. Even if you do not have access to the bike and the treadmill right now, they offer so much that it is worth trying and seeing what works for you.

Do you do treadmill classes? Is that something you do?

I do want to go to the gym. I do not have a treadmill. If I need to not ride my bike for a day, I will go and do one of the walk runs. I will do the hikes on the treadmill to do something a little different. I’m not the biggest running person. The Peloton got me into running. Once I do that outdoor, oddly enough, but I’m still not the biggest running fan.

If you like Jess Sims, you should take the 2 for 1 Black History Month with Adrian and Jess Sims. It is one of my all-time favorite classes because they tease each other the whole time. It has a great soundtrack, and he gets on Jess for being a stinker in her classes. You might enjoy it. If nothing else, just watch. It is one of those that is entertaining to do.

What is your leaderboard name?

@Jillian_Ilana.

Before we let you go, remind everybody where they can find you in all the places, your podcast and things like that.

I’m on Instagram @Jill_Ilana and my podcast is Always Looking Up. We have an Instagram @AlwaysLookingUp.Podcast. My website is JillianIlana.com, where I blog about being a little person in an average height world. You can find me on the Peloton leaderboard.

Thank you so much for taking time out of your day to join us. This has been a lot of fun.

I also want to say thank you for the inspirational posts that you put on Instagram. It is always such a joy to see how much you are enjoying your workouts. That always keeps me going, seeing people enjoy their workouts and celebrating them. Thank you for posting and thank you for being part of our show. I appreciate it.

Thank you for having me. This 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 and the Peloton leaderboard @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. Don’t forget our YouTube channel, YouTube.com/TheClipOut. That’s it for this one. Thanks for tuning in. Until next time, keep pedaling and running.

 

Important Links

 

About Jillian Curwin

TCO 257 | Accessibility In PelotonI’m a dwarf (little person or LP) and have been frustrated by the fashion industry for not designing for people like me. Yet, I came to the realization that I’m more frustrated at myself for not doing something about it. I can’t sew, I wish I could, but I can speak and am choosing to do so here. What I’m saying does not diminish the fact that great strides have been made in the fashion industry to be more inclusive of different body types and abilities. My point is that there is still a long way to go. I hope you join me on this journey and who knows? We may wind up changing the world.

 

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