• Peloton introduces the Standby List, a new way to join studio classes.
• Peloton’s 2025 Fitness Trend Predictions
• Holiday classes now expand to include Kwanzaa-themed workouts.
• Movement Tracker filter added to Peloton’s Strength library.
• Jenn’s Tips on balancing instructor guidance with recuperating from injuries or fatigue.
• Jess King surprises us with a holiday secret involving Santa!
• Hannah Frankson teams up with the Minnesota Vikings’ cheerleaders.
• Marcel Dinkins hosts the Virginia Beach Shamrock Marathon.
• Matt Wilpers announces he’ll be running the 2025 Tokyo Marathon.
• Peloton launches the latest Artist Series featuring the Backstreet Boys and Fortnite.
• A Peloton bike spotted in Justin Baldoni’s gym (star of Jane The Virgin and It Ends With Us).
• Josh Mankiewicz shares his Peloton experience.
• Peloton is mentioned in a recent episode of AppleTV’s Shrinking.
• TCO Top 5: Listener-recommended Peloton classes you need to try.
• This Week at Peloton: Highlights of what’s new and happening in the Peloton community.
• Peloton rolls out Strength Classes for Skiers.
• Celebrating Camila Ramon’s birthday on December 18.

Don’t forget to subscribe, leave a review, and share the podcast with fellow Peloton enthusiasts!🚴‍♂️

—

Watch the episode here

 

Listen to the podcast here

 

Peloton Studios Adds Standby List And Our Interview With Liz Nikol

Welcome to The Clip Out episode 391. This is Crystal D. O’Keefe.

This is Tom O’Keefe. It’s the time of year when the Saint Louis Film Critics Association nominates movies. They nominate all the movies on Sunday, and then you have a week to watch any of the movies that they’ve nominated that you might have missed.

He’s only seen two this year, which means he’s watching three to four movies a day. I love this time of year but I hate the movie watching. That movie you made me watch was awful.

It’s one that was very proud of itself.

It’s just not my thing in any way, shape, or form at all.

I don’t think we can say the name of the movie because it is too early. It doesn’t open yet.

Send me a DM, I’ll tell you.

I’m technically embargoed. This is not the movie podcast. I could theoretically have my critic license revoked.

I’ll say this. It’s freaking long.

It’s longer than it needs to be. It’s a good-looking movie and well-acted. It just goes on and on.

Send me a DM if you’re at all curious. I’ll tell you. I can tell you. I’m not embargoed. I didn’t sign anything.

I think you’re embargoed through marriage.

I’m not saying it publicly so it’s okay. I can give somebody my opinion on the DL on the DM.

What pray tell do you have in store for people?

We have an interesting interview with Liz Nikol. She is a Peloton member but she’s also a therapist and she’s also super into lifting and hardcore on the floor. She has an interesting backstory. She was working across the street from the World Trade Center on 9/11. She had breast cancer at age 29. She has changed careers.

She got a doctorate at age 43, and then her dad passed away from Alzheimer’s, then she found out that she has Alzheimer’s genes. We go down some rabbit holes with Liz, but it’s a great conversation. I recommend that people stick around to tune in to that. We also have the newest on the standby list that Peloton has been doing quite at least since the summer. Now, all of a sudden, they’re pushing it. It’s weird.

They are acknowledging its existence.

Peloton decided to do some fitness predictions, but they’re not the same.

Do they get a tarot card reader?

They didn’t. Theirs were based on silly little things called trends or whatever.

They and their data. Nerds.

We’re going to talk about holiday classes and a little issue that came up with those. Some stores are closing that we’re going to talk about. We’re going to talk about a new filter that got added. We talked about that on the DL. We have a visit from Dr. Jenn and she talks about how to balance listening to the instructors, but also listening to your body, which is tough for some of us.

I’ll listen to your body for you. You listen to the instructors and I’ll take care of the other part.

We also are going to talk about Jess King and Santa’s secrets. We are going to talk about Hannah Frankson visiting Minnesota for the Vikings cheerleaders. That was interesting and some other things like that. We have an artists series. We have three celebrities. People are Pelotoning all over the place. We’re going to talk about new content that has dropped and we have birthdays.

Before we get to all that, shameless plugs. Don’t forget, we’re available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, iHeart, and TuneIn. Wherever you find a podcast, you can find us. While you’re there, be sure and follow us so you never miss an episode. Maybe leave us a review. That’d be nice for a Christmas present. Do you know what would also be a nice little Christmas present? Patreon, Patreon.com/TheClipOut. It’s $5 a month. For that, you get ad-free episodes and you get bonus content.

We record an extra episode every week of 20 to 30 minutes, depending on how chatty we are. We’ve been very chatty lately. It’s all the energy drinks. If I get you an energy drink, the bonus episodes will be longer than the regular episodes. We’ll have to start to clip The Clip Out. You get that. If we get them early, you get them early. Lately, we’ve been getting them super early.

I think the production team wants to go on holiday.

I guess. They’re so early. Here’s how early they are. The Patreon members already have this episode.

That’s early.

It’s very early. I don’t even know how they’re doing it. I don’t even know why we’re continuing to talk because it’s already done.

They are lightning fast over there.

It helps the show. There’s a lot of costs involved in something like this. That helps offset a lot of the costs like the website and the hosting.

Also, the articles because we pay our authors. Lots of things. What are we talking about over on Patreon?

We’re talking about tips for logging into the Strength Plus app. People were having some struggles and we’re going to help you not struggle. We’ve got the TCO gift guide.

It’s pretty good too. There’s a lot.

Alex K surprised some people or all people with a delivery. We’ll talk about that. We’ll also talk about exercises you shouldn’t be doing. Was it all of them?

We know your take on exercise.

They know how much I love it. Unfortunately, in the article that we found, they tell you what to replace it with. I was like, “Cool, they’re scratching it off. Oh, there are replacements. That’s no fun. I didn’t have to do that anymore, and they gave me something different.” We will talk about all that over on the Patreon. Also, You can find us on Facebook at Facebook.com/TheClipOut. While you’re there, like the page and join the group.

You can watch all of these on YouTube at YouTube.com/TheClipOut. Finally, I know we throw a lot of links and stuff at you. If you’re ever trying to figure out where to find those links, you can get them sent to you mostly weekly in the newsletter that we send out that you can sign up for at TheClipOut.com. There’s all of that. Let’s dig in. Shall we?

We shall.

—

Peloton has been doing this for a while secretly.

Quietly is more appropriate.

They’ve been running a standby list. Do they have boarding groups?

They do not. Technically, they do have boarding groups because you have cards that are different colors, but when you go in, a lot of times, people can only get into a Peloton class on a waitlist. This is in addition to the waitlist.

What is the difference?

The difference between a waitlist and a standby list is a waitlist is the same as logging into the studio. The class is either full or waitlisted, or it has a spot that you can buy. If you can’t go in and buy the spot and it doesn’t say full, it’ll say waitlist. It fills up to a certain point and then they give a certain amount of waitlist spots. Nobody knows exactly how many because it changes, depending on if it’s yoga, strength, cycling class, etc. It’s a percentage of however many people they allow in the class you have a waitlist. Once that waitlist is full, it’ll say full. There are three things. You can either buy a class, the class is full, or waitlist.

Your options last for about 45 seconds on a good day.

Your waitlist lasts for another 45 seconds.

Is standby a waitlist for the waitlist?

No. It’s different. That’s all through the studio booking site. With standby, you don’t even mess with that. You go straight to the studio and you get there 45 minutes before the class and you freaking hope. That’s it.

You might as well be loitering around all day.

Most of us do anyway when we’re there.

It’s like if a slot opens up that day, there’s no point in going to the waitlist because they’re probably not close enough.

That’s not true. They will prioritize the waitlist. If you can get on the waitlist, always do waitlist. Waitlist is a priority over standby.

If you’re on the waitlist and it’s the day of, you need to be there. If you’re on standby and waitlist, you’ll beat out somebody who’s just on standby, but they’re not going to call somebody on the waitlist. They’re not going to be like a restaurant.

They’ll email you and tell you have a spot open, but a lot of times people miss those. If you’re not there at that hour, you weren’t planning on taking that class. If there’s a spot that opens up, they just want to fill it. We’ve been to the studio and there’s been times they’ve been like, “Do you want to do the class?” That’s because they have a spot open and there’s nobody on the waitlist for it. That’s what standby would be. Standby is what you do.

They try to get me to do it.

You won’t actually take the class, but if you did, you have already done it.

 I just said no.

Exactly. The interesting thing about it is that this is the first time that Peloton has officially pushed it. They’ve never said anything about it on social media. They’re giving people another option. The big question is why? There are a lot of raised eyebrows.

Is the attendance in the class dropping? They are like, “We had empty bikes. We don’t like the optic. Sure. Why not?”

That’s what everybody says. Here’s the thing, a lot of people aren’t going to go all the way to the studio if they’re on a waitlist because they can’t guarantee they’re going to get in, especially if you live far away. There are also a lot of people who will go and snag the class at the last minute drop. People are like, “I can’t get into the studio.” Yes, you can, because if you don’t get in the day that class is released, you’re still going to have six weeks of waitlist opportunities.

I do think there’s a lot more opening up. I don’t quite know why attendance is down, but my thought process is the people who want to go and haven’t gone in three years because they couldn’t get a spot have completely given up. There are so many people from the OG world who were like, “Why I’m not doing that?”

It’s like the pretty girl who can’t get a date for prom because everybody thinks somebody already asked.

It’s exactly that. I do think it’s the most logical explanation of what’s happening here.

They scared people off. It reminds me of when the Pope was coming to Saint Louis. There were all these news stories for months about how bad traffic was going to be. They’re like, “In Colorado, people were parking their cars on the highway and walking away because they were trapped for so long,” and then when we got here, everybody took the day off.

It’s like a city holiday.

There were no cars on the road.

There were no businesses open. The entire city shut down. You would have thought we had a snowstorm or something.

 

It was crazy. I didn’t see roads that slow again until COVID. There were no driving problems at all.

That’s exactly what we have going on here.

It’s a Pope visit to PSNY. On the Peloton press section, they have their 2025 Fitness Trend Predictions.

The one that instantly draws my eye is also at the top of it so that’s probably why. It’s “The Running Boom Continues.” Running is going to be big. They predicted running will continue to increase in popularity with personalized training programs and tools being used to help runners reach their goals. That’s why they launched their Pace Target classes on the Tread and Tread+. They also talked about the fact that Sydney Australia joined the Abbott World Marathon Majors.

Also, a fun little fact that I saw. I have no idea. I have not tested the validity of this, but if you got into the Sydney Marathon this year and you only need one star left on the original six stars. There are a lot of people who assume that if they go to Sydney and they get that sixth star, they can get their final medal. According to some guy on the internet, so you know it’s true, he said that it’s not true that you still have to finish the original six to get your original six-star medal. Sydney is not going to count for those six stars. It’s going to be a seven-star medal and it’s separate. It does make sense, but I hadn’t thought about it. I’m not doing them so it doesn’t affect me.

They also talked about AI-powered fitness and more personalized workouts and how it’s all leading in that direction. That has been something that Barry has been pushing since he started at Peloton. That was always his big thing, personalization. It’s the Netflix way, so that does not surprise me. They talk about their form feedback and all the awesome things they do with AI technology. That is going to be more and more. We’re going to see more personalization across the board. They talk about longevity and recovery. They’re talking about external studies that show that physical activity can increase life expectancy.

That is not exactly a hot take.

It is not. They are also showing that it increases intelligence in children. If you workout, there’s a high degree of correlation.

If you workout, your kids will be smarter?

No. If your kids workout, they will be smarter.

I was like, “Why would that work?”

They talk about recovery and how important that is. Some people are wondering if maybe they’re going to have a real honest-to-God recovery program next year. Maybe they’ll start having some real recovery tools. That would be interesting. We don’t know. Those are just thoughts.

It makes you wonder if they think these are the trends that they’re then going to try to get out in front of those people.

It feels like they’re calling out their own roadmap without saying it’s a roadmap. That’s what it seems like.

That seems logical.

They also talked about strength training and how it is Peloton’s second most popular modality, which we know because we listen to the earnings calls. They think that the popularity will continue with a particular focus on moving well and goal-oriented strength training. They talk about there needs to be accessibility, but there also needs to be structured and specific training goals. I’ve been saying that to Peloton for years.

They’re finally listening to you.

No, they’re not.

You’re the 2025 trend.

Anyway, that’s what they’re saying. All of those are pretty obvious. I don’t mean like, “Why are you talking about them?” I just mean I don’t think they called out anything that was shocking here, but I do think that they are there telling us what they plan to be working on over the next year. I don’t know exactly how it’ll all come to fruition but I’m excited to see whatever they decided to do.

Peloton announced this week that holiday classes will now include Kwanzaa. Hopefully, in the future, it will include spelling Kwanzaa right.

Let’s hope so. If they post these classes and spell them the wrong way, people are going to lose their minds and they should.

I’m surprised they didn’t get lit up over that.

This is one person’s little little screenshot. Maybe they did. I didn’t go back and check. Everybody who had seen this instantly noticed it.

I noticed it and I’m bad at spelling.

It’s like they turned Kwanzaa into Pizza.

It was with two Z’s and one A instead of one Z and two A’s. I was like, “I don’t think that’s right,” then I was like, “I guess I have it wrong,” and then I got the red squiggly. I was like, “Is Kwanzaa not in the Microsoft dictionary? Is Microsoft racist?” then I was like, “They spelled it wrong.”

I think that’s a new one though because they’ve done Boxing Day classes. They’ve done Christmas classes, and they’ve done Hanukkah last year. I think Boxing Day was added last year. I think this is the first year for Kwanzaa. They also talked about how they’re going to have their New Year’s content in their top 50 countdown. If people were wondering, they are planning on having that as well.

We have two store closures. One doesn’t count because it was a pop-up. If you’re going to pop up, you’re going to pop down. It was always intended to go away. It’s not a sign of failure. That was in Bondi Junction. I remembered how to say that properly.

Exercise is probably more powerful than truly taking a prescription medication. Share on X

Thank goodness. Now, you know how to say the other one?

Leipzig.

Okay. I’ll go with it.

I think that’s how you say it.

That is in Germany. It takes 14 hours and 45 minutes to get there from here. A ticket from Saint Louis is $2,000.

It’s a good thing we weren’t planning on going to that store. One, we can’t afford it too. Two, it’s closed. If you were planning on going to one or both of those, they are not there.

They are not there. Don’t do that.

A movement tracker filter has been added to Strength.

Isn’t that interesting? Do you even know what that means?

No. I was just reading the words because you couldn’t tell.

I felt like that’s what you were doing.

It’s like when I try to tell somebody about sports and I’m just reading the headline.

When they came out with the Guide, one of the things that they did was they had a movement tracker added to it. In other words, any class that is specifically designed for use with the Guide is a movement tracker class.

It’s looking at you.

Right, but now you can filter on the app for those classes.

The significance of that is?

One significant is it has long been rumored that they were working on the ability for the next generation of the bike to have the Guide on it. However, that got put on hold with all the cost-cutting, so I don’t know when that’s going to happen. It’s interesting that they’ve now added this to the app. It feels like an iteration or a move forward in that direction. Perhaps that is a movement towards that new product. That’s one thought. The other thought is that it’s there, so you can stack your classes because if you are using the app to stack your classes and you can’t get to your Guide classes, then you can’t make your stack.

Somebody that has this Guide, which I think a lot of people probably do at this point. I know the Guide hasn’t been a runaway success, but they blow them out cheaply enough that a lot of people have been like, “For $45, you got me.” There’s probably a lot more out there in the wild than there used to be.

I would agree with that. It’s not like this is a hot feature, but at the same time, you can take any class on it. I use it all the time for yoga classes because it’s something I can do in the living room and it interfaces with the TV perfectly and I don’t have to mess with it, but it doesn’t work on a TV downstairs, which is where I have my weights. I’m not going to carry all my weights upstairs.

It’s like you workout before the workout, so you warm up. Coming up after this, we’re going to talk to Dr. Jenn. She’s going to have tips on how to balance following instructor directions while your body is recovering and how to deal with that guilt. Stick around.

—

Joining us once again is Dr. Jenn Mann, a licensed marriage, family, and child therapist, and sports psychology consultant. She was a five-year national team member in rhythmic gymnastics, and sports psychology for USA Gymnastics. It’s Dr. Jenn.

Hello.

We have another question for you. This one comes from Maya Carter Hallward. She said that she was injured and she was trying to hold herself accountable to not add every time the instructor asked her to, but it’s this balance that she’s trying to find because she gets her heart and body going, then they say to add. She’s like, “Maybe I can handle it,” but then she doesn’t want to push and she wants to heal. How can she balance that?

Perfectionist much?

Is this her nom de plume by chance?

No, it is not.

I joke when I say perfection as much, but it’s a bigger issue. What I’m hearing in this is your competitive desire to be good to do it right, to do what the instructor says, and to follow the instructions even when it is to your physical detriment and could harm you. I get this as a former elite-level athlete. I was trained to do that and I’ve had to learn to untrain myself largely in doing that.

What this tells me about you as a person is you don’t want to be overriding your pain threshold and your instructions from your doctor to win the gold star when it’s going to hurt you and slow down your recovery. For her, this is a great opportunity to practice the skill of honoring your body, slowing down a little, and doing things a little more gently for a short period of time to heal. The more you do that, the faster you’re going to heal, and then you can go hard and do everything the instructor says,

To me, we need to look at this as an opportunity to learn a skill that’s necessary in life. There’s going to be a day when we’re all a lot older. Hopefully, 110. We need to slow down a little or change our workout to honor our bodies while continuing to grow and be healthy and all of that. We need to start to work on that early on in our life so we don’t hit that 110 and suddenly go, “How do I do that? I never did that before.” and harm ourselves.

 

It’s hard because even if you want to honor your body and it’s not a matter of perfection, in that moment, sometimes it’s difficult to tell what you can do without hurting yourself. It’s hard to listen to your body.

A lot of us have spent a lot of time tuning out our bodies. We tune out our bodies for a lot of different reasons. We tune out our bodies because of trauma, especially sexual trauma and physical trauma. We tune out our bodies because of cultural pressures to look a certain way. That then pushes us to dislike our bodies. We disconnect from our bodies. We tune out our bodies for eating disorders, addiction, and all kinds of things that we go through. Tuning into our bodies and honoring our bodies is part of the healing process for all of those things and more.

If you’re tuning out your body too, when you’re trying to do the right thing for it, it’s hard to trust yourself. You think you’re letting yourself off the hook. You think, “I can’t listen to my dumbbell body saying don’t lift that or don’t run out,” or whatever.

I could get deep here. When you say trauma, you think about all the children of alcoholics or children of parents with personality disorders. I think of all these things because they get so used to that. Everything that they are being told in their life is “You are wrong,” and so they don’t trust anything.

Also, all of the children of those people and things that you named have had to tune out of their own wants and needs. Some of that is bodily. Some of it is emotional. As a result, we are very well-practiced at it, but part of the problem with it is A) When you do that, it’s hard to stop doing. B) When you tune out the bad stuff, let’s say you’re hurt and you have an alcoholic parent who can’t take you to the doctor. You tune out that pain to survive it and get through it.

When you tune out the bad stuff, you also tune out the good stuff. You don’t get to be selective of what you tune out when you disconnect and disconnect. You’re missing both sides of the coin which makes your life less rich. It makes it a little more in black and white instead of color. It dims a lot of things in your life. What we want to be able to do is be in touch with the pain, physical and emotional. We want to be in touch with all of these things so that we can also get the flip side of the incredible joy that life has to offer, the greatness and the beauty that life has to offer, physically and emotionally in every way.

Well said.

That’s why we have her.

I know. She needs to be in my pocket every day.

She’d be like, “Don’t do that. Have you thought about stopping? What about that?”

I had a therapist friend who I had referred someone to. The person was doing an obsessive-compulsive ritual repeatedly over and over and had struggled with it for years and years of his life. The therapist looked at him and said, “Cut it out,” and he stopped. I don’t know why. I guess that’s what he needed to hear at that moment. He had a lot of pain for years and years. You just never know what intervention is going to work.

From a job security standpoint, that’s like one and done. That’s a bad business model.

The goal should always be to help people move on and not need you.

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

People can find me on all social media @DrJennMann, especially on Instagram and also on my Stories, where I post my Peloton workouts.

Thank you.

—

For the next segment, we have a warning. If you have children in the car, we will be discussing the magic of Christmas.

You probably want to hold off listening to this conversation in front of tiny ears.

Just a heads up. We’ll give you a second to pause.

Here we go.

Jess King ruined Christmas.

You would think that’s what our headline said based on the way people reacted.

I just made up that title, “Jess King ruins Christmas.”

She didn’t. Here’s the thing. She talked about this very bluntly saying that the magic of Santa is not real. I guess she had some experience when she was a kid and she feels the need to share it in the middle of the class because apparently, she did this last year too. Last year, it turned into a big old thing because some people got upset about it and it got posted on the OPP and there was a lot of hate. Every time I posted it this year, I thought we worded it so nicely.

One, it was not mean. It was more of an FYI. There was a Christmas trigger warning. We’re like, “If this is important for you, heads up.”

It’s crazy to me that this is the same group of people that if I don’t put a trigger warning before a conversation about sexual trauma, food disorders, or eating disorders. If I don’t put something like that, I get so much hate, but then we put a trigger warning out to let parents know, and then it’s all this crazy defensiveness about Jess King. She doesn’t need you to defend her. She’s a grown woman.

You weren’t attacking her. It’s a warning to people who may be upset and they got a blindside.

It’s crazy the people who got so mad about this. It was like nobody was mad. You’re the one who’s mad. Nobody over here was mad. We were just saying, “FYI.”

Do we know what the story is?

Whether you have a medical condition or a mental health condition, just tell somebody and ask for help. Share on X

I don’t know the full story. I got the impression that something happened to her and that she felt like there was a trauma around it. I guess she feels the need to traumatize everyone else in return. I don’t know. I don’t know exactly what she said but she feels the need to talk about that trauma. It’s probably part of her memories of Christmas. It probably comes up in this way every year. I do find it interesting that since becoming a mother, it’s been something she’s talking about more instead of less.

I never wanted to lie to Sydney about anything. I agonized over whether or not to tell her about Santa. For me, it was magic and everyone around her was telling her that. At some point, you’re going against that. The kid doesn’t need that drama is what I’m trying to say. You’re adding a label and I have no idea whether or not she told her kids or not. I don’t even know. I am not judging her whether she did or she didn’t. I’m saying for my child, that’s what I decided.

The other problem is if you have a little kid who knows and they tell the other kids. Now you end up ruining it for other kids.

That’s making that decision for other parents.

Whether you mean to or not, it ends up being the end result. It’s so baked into the culture that some fights aren’t worth having. For me, I have no recollection of having ever believed in Santa Claus. My parents were sending us to Sunday school and the Sunday School teacher was like, “I don’t believe in lying to children. I came home one day and was like, “There’s no Santa.” My mom was like, “What?” I said, “The Sunday School teacher said.” My mom lit up that Sunday School teacher.

I get the impression that you get a little of your temper from your mother when you feel that you have been wronged.

My dad had it too.

You got it from both sides.

Yeah. If that’s a recessive gene, I was going to get one.

I wouldn’t want to cross her.

On the upside. I didn’t have to go to Sunday School anymore. That was a net positive.

That is for you. I would have felt the same way. I thought the most interesting thing about this was people’s responses. To us, it was like a little note. It wasn’t a big deal, but the judgment that came out of it for saying that we were judgy was so funny because they’re like, “Why are you even listening to a class with Jess King without headphones on? You have children. What is wrong with you?” Kids come in and out of rooms. I hate listening to these classes with headphones. I did that the first year we had the Peloton and I haven’t touched them since. I can’t stand them. I don’t have to use them on the bike because I get so sweaty on the bike. That’s disgusting.

I was using them on the Tonal and then they broke. I bought a little external speaker to hook it up to because it’s cheaper. Now, I don’t want to wear headphones.

Once you get used to it, it’s hard to go back to headphones. If I had a little one, I probably wouldn’t listen to it anyway. Also, the judgment of people thinking that you shouldn’t listen to an explicit class around a child. I’m not judging parents who feel that way, but that’s never been how we’ve been. We cuss in front of our children and always have.

It’s not just a priority.

People who smoke in front of their kids or drink in front of their kids, you can’t do that in front of them because then they’ll learn how to drink or they’ll learn how to smoke. I thought people’s reactions were fascinating. That’s not on my bingo card for this week. I was like, “I don’t know that we caused drama, but we did.”

You’ll never know what will set them off. Hannah Frankson was hanging out with the Minnesota Vikings cheerleaders.

I don’t know why. I didn’t get to get to the bottom of this. Did you look at the video or anything? Do you have any idea?

I don’t watch videos of cheerleaders, honey. I’m a happily married man.

I guess it was some kind of visit. I don’t know.

All those went by fast. It looked like they said they were at the TCO Arena. I was like, “Is that a thing?”

Is that a thing? We need to go there. We need to get pictures there. I guess we’re going to Minnesota.

We’ve been there before.

We have, but now we need to go to that specific place in Minnesota.

I have no idea. It was her hanging out with the Minnesota Vikings.

She surely have a great time. The one thing I did see people mentioning, and several people thought it was pretty funny, is how she was like, “People in the Midwest are so nice.” She didn’t know because she was not from here. She’s like, “This is very different from New York.” I guess Minnesota would feel very different from New York if those are the only two things you’ve ever experienced in America. I thought it was funny, but that happened.

Marcel Dinkins is once again hosting Virginia Beach’s Shamrock Marathon.

I feel like this is the third year she’s done this. For the last two years, she’s been the announcer person. She’s been hosting it. She’s hosting it in some way but then she also runs it. I don’t exactly know how that works, but then Marcel’s Army shows up and wants to hang out and lots of Peloton people do. I had never heard of this marathon until she started going there and talking about it. It’s a big one, so if you’re a Virginia Beach person, or if you want to go to Virginia Beach and do a marathon, or if you’re Irish, this should be your first marathon. It’s the Shamrock Marathon.

Speaking of marathons, Matt Wilpers will be running the 2025 Tokyo Marathon.

 

I guess he’s going for his Abbott Majors because he’s done several of them at this point.

Coming up after this we’re going to talk about the latest artist series. It’s not an artist series but I put it in that segment anyway. We will also have three celebrity or celebrity-adjacent Peloton sightings. Stick around.

—

The latest artist series features Backstreet Boys, without the “The.”

When did they drop that?

I don’t know. I hate it when bands do that. The worst is the Eagles dropped the “The.” One day in the early 2000s, they were like, “By the way, we’re not The Eagles, we’ve always just been Eagles.” I was like, “I’m pretty sure I have album covers that said The Eagles.” Don’t gaslight me, Don Henley.

Anyway, Backstreet Boys, they’re back. I was never in a boy band so I could care less about this. I never was into them. I don’t know their songs. I know if I hear them, but I couldn’t tell you which one is New Kids on the Block and which one is Backstreet Boys.

I Want It That Way?

I literally don’t know. Anna Barber would know and she would be upset that I don’t know.

She would be furious.

Moving on, I don’t know anything about Backstreet Boys. I know a lot of people are excited about that though.

There’s an artist series with Backstreet Boys.

There’s going to be a whole crap ton of classes too.

There should be. They’re very popular.

Yeah. Just because it’s not my thing doesn’t mean I’m mad at it. It’s great when people get to do the classes. Seven different classes that they’re going to have and that’s just the English classes. Two German classes are also coming up as well, so nine classes total. I Want It That Way is in our article because Nikki wrote the article and embedded a playlist.

Nikki loves the boy bands.

Nikki loves the artist series to put the little embeds in, which I don’t blame her because they look cool.

Also, I’m including in the artist series. I know it was driving you crazy because it’s technically not an artist series.

It’s not at all. It’s not about technicality. It has nothing to do with an artist series.

Fortnite.

Not even close. It is a collaboration that has nothing to do with music.

It takes artists to make video games. It’s an art, like film is an art. They have this Fortnite thing.

It’s called the Checkpoint Abby Challenge. There are these little mini-games that you can play in Fortnite and they’re called Abby’s. This is Peloton showing up in Fortnite as a branding game. It’s a workout and you do Battle Royale and it also has you running and stuff, and then you have to hit checkpoints. You find the Peloton P coins, which are golden, and then you get to beat your best time. It’s like mini-games. They’re mini-games, but they also have a cool golden Peloton bike in there and then little Peloton gold coins in there. I think that’s neat, but I have absolutely zero interest in playing. It’s good that Peloton is doing things like this because they already have me. They need to expand to new people. It’s smart to do that.

—

Our first celebrity sighting is Justin Baldoni. He is recovering from an injury. He posted a video on his Instagram. You can spot a Peloton bike in the background.

If you don’t know, he’s from Jane the Virgin and It Ends With Us. In the TCO group, we tease Nikki a lot in a good way because she constantly has her investigator spyglass on. She spotted this thing. Did you watch this video? It was like a little tiny corner.

I had to watch it a couple of times. I was like, “Where is it?”

I was like, “How did you see that?” She’s like, “In my defense, I have followed the sky for a long time.” She had on a spyglass and zoomed in. I couldn’t believe she spotted that.

If you’re watching on YouTube, this image you’re seeing right now is the image where the Peloton pops up. I had to watch it through twice. It doesn’t stay up for long, so then I had to watch it again. I had to pause it at the exact right spot. A lot of effort went into this image that you’re probably not even looking at because you’re listening to this episode because all you think about is yourself. It Ends With Us was the movie with Blake Lively that came out not too long ago. It did very well before I got upset about it. It’s about domestic abuse but they didn’t tell anybody it was about domestic abuse.

It was based on a book. I said that to Sydney, and she got all upset with me. I guess the youngs are very anti this movie. I was like, “Really, because I read this book and it’s good.” She was like you are saying good things about domestic abuse. I can’t remember the word they used for it. I was like, “Am I?” I thought it was a good story. It’s about people who are real. We all know that. It’s just a book.

I have not seen the movie. I haven’t read any full articles, but people got in their heads that the movie is tacitly approving of domestic abuse. I haven’t seen the movie, so I can’t say if that’s accurate or not.

 

I don’t know, but that’s what I was told.

It is now on Netflix if you want to check it out.

We should probably watch it because it’s a good book.

I don’t have the time to watch a different movie.

We can watch it in January.

To get nominated for an award, I’m not watching it in the next 72 hours.

Colleen Hoover wrote the book I’ve read several of her books and I like her books. I think you would like the story but I don’t know what they did when they film adapted it. I don’t know.

The next item up for bid in our celebrity free-for-all is Josh Mankiewicz.

I love Josh Mankiewicz and we were talking about how much weight he’s lost.

We watch Dateline every week. Every time there’s a repeat, we’re like, “Have people stopped murdering? There are no more murders? Should I be upset or happy?”

It’s a real challenge.

It is a conundrum. He popped up the other week and we’re like, “He’s lost a lot of weight.”

70 pounds.

Good for him. He’s talking to Parade Magazine about his weight loss journey and he said that Peloton has played a huge role in it. He said that he didn’t go on any specific diet. He was like, “I stopped eating this stuff that I knew I shouldn’t be eating but was eating it anyway, and then I rode my Peloton a lot. My wife bought me a Peloton and I rode the hell out of it.”

Good for you, Josh Mankiewicz.

Well done. I know that’s not easy.

It is not.

Finally, Peloton got a mention in the latest episode of Apple TV’s Shrinking.

We do like that show.

It stars Jason Segel and Harrison Ford and other people whose names I can’t remember. If you have the Apple TV, it’s over there.

It’s good.

—

It is time for the TCO Top Five, where you tell us classes and we tell them back to you, and then Crystal tells me I didn’t say it very well.

That sums it up.

Item number one, favorite ride.

This one was a landslide favorite. Sam Yo’s Wicked The Movie ride.

Wicked right now is huge.

Also, Sam is Sam. He is a nerd right along with us. He loves Broadway right along with us. He had a great time in this class. He dressed up and his Wicked outfit. It was going to end up in the top five. A lot of people recommended this one. Christina said it was a fantastic ride. She laughed, she cried, and an overall blast. “I’m glad we have this, following the film. You too can join over 40,000 followers or Pelotoners who’ve already taken this class and defy gravity during this ride.”

It’s popular. Normally, you go to be the Turkey Burn to do these numbers.

I have to say though that I’m a little sad that Matty and Olivia’s Two For One did not end up on this list but maybe you all might take it for next week and recommend it.

 

They can branch out and do other Wicked.

I know you don’t want you too much at once so I hear that.

Number two, favorite arms and intervals ride.

This was taught by Leanne Hainsby Alldis. This was taught way back in September. It was a 30-minute interval and arms ride. Margaret Robertson nominated this class. She said it starts with 8 minutes of intervals, then 10 minutes of upper body, and then finishes with 8 minutes of intervals. She loves this because she feels like in short enough time, she can go all out during those intervals and she’s able to push, but then she still gets in some upper body works. That’s great. That’s excellent.

Number three, your favorite run.

My girl Mariana. I was talking to her today. She couldn’t get on the subway. She was trying to leave Jersey waiting for a train.

Why would anyone ever want to leave Jersey?

She was trying to go back to New York and they had announced three trains. None of which had ever shown up. She had on her New York hat. I told her that she was cursing herself because she was wearing a New York hat in Jersey. She eventually got to the studio and all was well.

I’m going to go on a limb and say it happens a lot.

She taught a 60-minute endurance ride on November 21st. Karen Smith said that she loved this class. “Mariana always brings such light positivity to her classes. Base pace run with some small hills, Mariana’s classes always go by so quickly because I’m focused on her and her words.” It’s so true.

Number four, your favorite stretch.

Andy Speer of all people brings in the stretch class. He’s made the top five many times but not for a stretch. This is new. This is a 10-minute hip mobility class taught by him on December 4th. Mindy Jensen is recommending this class. She said, “Andy starts a class with standing hip cars that you repeated at the end to see the difference after the class, and having that gauge reiterates the importance of taking these classes regularly. It’s only 10 minutes but it has big results.”

Finally, the class so tough that you are legally forbidden from stacking it. It’s your unstackable.

Our girl Marcel Dinkins is also going to be at Virginia Beach for the Shamrock Marathon taught a 45-minute walk plus run on November 24th. Sarah Lester nominated this class. She said, “It’s been a while since I’ve taken a class with Marcel, and this class is all focused on hills and it is tough. It’s a good thing Marcel is an excellent coach and gets you through it.” She also said, “Side note. I don’t think Marcel gets enough credit for what a great coach she is. Every class has a different focus.” That is true.

We will now take a look at this week in Peloton, starting with Strength Streak.

This is all about maintaining consistency and they have new benchmarks and strength classes to kick things off. The idea is that you take these classes and they are with Cali, Joslyn, Rebecca, and Rad. They are all joining Katie to teach these classes and they are on the strength collection page. You take them and then you’re able to see where your strength rises to. You have one class that’s your benchmark and then you keep increasing. By the end, you take another one and then you’re able to compare.

It’s like FTP for strength.

It’s a good way to say it.

Peloton has added strength for skiers.

These classes are going to drop on December 13th on demand. It’s going to be a program that’s going to drop both in German and English on December 13th. There will be classes that are going to be with Irene, Matt, and Andy.

—

Finally, and by finally, I mean our last Peloton-related birthday of 2024.

This is it. Assuming we didn’t miss any.

That is the biggest assumption, but we’re pretty good. This is the last one of 2024 that we know of. It’s Camila Ramon on December 18th.

Happy birthday, Camila.

Happy birthday. Coming up after this, we have our interview of the week with Liz Nikol, so sit tight.

—

Joining us today is Liz Nikol. How is it going?

Great. How are you?

How Liz Discovered Peloton

We’re good. We’re so glad to have you here. I like to start these conversations by finding out how you originally found Peloton. What led you to here? How did you get here?

I started spinning late in life. I turned 50 this 2024. I took my first spin class when I was 40. I took it at my local YMCA and it was the first exercise that I ever fell in love with because it didn’t hurt me. I enjoyed it. I’m a real music buff who listens to just about anything. It was exciting for me to go to different kinds of musical classes, so much so that by the time I was 45, I wanted to get certified in spinning.

 

I did that and I started teaching at the Y. I taught spin for about two and a half years and then the pandemic happened. You hear the story a lot. I was home for about a month with no gym and no spin bike. I was losing my mind. I felt like I didn’t have an outlet and it was the perfect time to grab a Peloton. I thought I was just going to be getting a bike, but I’ve gotten so much more. I do so many more things than just ride the bike.

When you say you have so much more, does that mean more exercise equipment or more classes that you took?

Both. I bought the tread and we’ve talked about a possible rower down the road. I take all of the floor classes too. I use it for just about everything it can offer. I feel like I owe them more money than my monthly payment.

I’m sure they’ll take it. As a former spin instructor, any degree of guilt?

A little bit, I didn’t go back to teaching again. I was asked back and the only reason I didn’t go back was that by the time the gyms opened up and they were having classes, my dad had gotten sick and I couldn’t manage my regular full-time job along with caregiving for my dad, and so I didn’t go back. Once I would have been able to go back, I was happy with this community. I’m sure you hear this all the time. My gym was not very close to me. It was about a 15-minute ride. Between driving there, getting changed, being at the gym, and coming back, it turned into a two-hour-long event or more. I don’t like having the time back in my schedule. I’m a home person for now. I like working out at home.

You then got to pose for all the photos after the class or is that just Peloton? I only know this world. I thought that happened to all of them. I don’t know.

National events, maybe.

That’s not because you’re not a good enough instructor. It’s that just Peloton is different.

There is the air of celebrity around them because you see them on your bike.

The instructors who used to be spin instructors before Peloton, it’s not like they were huge celebrities before they came to Peloton. It’s not like they took photos with people before either. Peloton is just different.

When I listen to Jenn Sherman, she’s very similar to the spinning instructor that I learned from and who I wanted to emulate. The way she does all kinds of music from all different genres, even her directions for me come out of the original spinning world. I can see how some of the early people made the transition and good for them. Who would have thought you could make a real-life job out of being a spinning instructor?

Your full-time job is as a therapist.

Movement Is The Best Medicine

Correct. I’m the director of behavioral health at a big medical group here in New Jersey. I’m also a therapist. I’ve been a therapist for many years and I still see some patients myself.

You said that movement is the best medicine. I’m curious if there was a specific moment that led you to that. Has it been things that have happened in your life in general or do you just love to move?

Many different answers to that question. If I think about my job, I am prescribing exercise all the time. It is known for being one of the best things that can help with depression, panic attacks, overwhelming anxiety, and stress. In this world that we live in these days, everyone is over the top in terms of all the things that they’re dealing with, and trying to manage their regular life, plus everything going on in the news. Exercise helps, and what I find when I’m working with someone and I’ve met them one time, prescribing exercise gets me the most the quickest.

Over the long haul, we have to work on their family issues, their thoughts about things, and how they interact with the world. If someone is depressed and not doing much, I get them to agree to only 10 to 15 minutes of exercise of any kind to start, like going for a walk. Even if they didn’t enjoy it, the fact that they did it at the end and that sort of motivation of like, “I couldn’t get myself to do something yesterday, but I got myself to do something today,” is powerful. We can take people almost 50% back if not more than that with exercise when they’re struggling with a mental health condition.

I’ve tried to encourage people to exercise. Everyone from people who’ve never exercised a day in their life, and then maybe we’re talking about going for a walk, to people who used to do something impressive. They used to run marathons. They used to teach spin classes. They used to do whatever. Because they’ve become so depressed or their life has gotten smaller, they’ve stopped doing those things, as well as other things.

It’s like how we can begin to point you back in a direction toward doing things that make you feel really good. At work, I’m using it all the time, but then in my own personal life from a health perspective, it’s so critical. It can change the outcomes for so many different situations and diseases. It makes you feel good. I’m a big advocate. I believe it’s probably more powerful than truly taking a prescription medication.

Have you been an active person you’re entire life? I know you said you didn’t take a spin class until you were 40, but have you been doing other active things?

I was like a lot of people. When I was younger, I played basketball in high school. I did not exercise in college at all, except for walking. After that, I’d go through these periods where I joined a gym. I go for six months, then I wouldn’t be going, then I would stop. Work got in the way. Life got in the way. I moved and the gym went away.

You’d start little home projects like, “I’m going to do Pilates at home,” and then you do the DVD for two weeks, then you stop. I had bits and starts of lots of different things, but I never found something that I committed to the way I committed to a bike. Before 40, I was somewhat out of shape. I could keep up but I wasn’t doing anything extra.

Liz’s Fight With Breast Cancer

I was just curious because when we were communicating before the interview, you told me you had breast cancer in the past. You were quite young, 29. I didn’t know if movement helped you through any of that or if anything there precipitated change.

I look back on that now and I find myself thinking. I wish that I had had so many different things at that time. If you think, 29 for me was 2003. The internet was newer, the cell phones were newer. No one was sitting at chemotherapy like on their Instagram or following these people who are influencers that can make you feel good about what you’re going through or whatever. You brought a book with you to chemo. That’s what you did.

I think now of how different I would approached going through treatment if I had been an active person going into that, and I wasn’t. I would have benefited so much from moving my body more than I did during that time. I would say that to anyone going through it now if you have. It doesn’t matter if it’s the Peloton community or your local YMCA or whatever it is, move. Your outcomes will be so much better.

I would imagine it makes you feel like you’re a little more normal because you’re doing something so normal and good for your body. Now as a therapist, it’s not a surprise that a lot of my therapy patients over the years have also been cancer patients because I’m open about the fact that this is who I am. Doctors know they’re allowed to say to the patient, “I know this therapist who’s had cancer. Would you like to see her?” We immediately have this connection and I’m very encouraging right from the get-go.

Within a week of diagnosis and talking to people about moving their body, and if they haven’t been doing it before they even start all of the garbage that comes next, “Can you start something slow now? Can you do a little yoga? Can you start stretching? Can you go for a walk? Let’s get you doing it before you need it.”

That’s powerful to have already gone through a journey that somebody is about to go through, and also have the therapeutic background and this education. You take that tool, as well as all your therapy education, and give them that tool as well. That’s very powerful.

I was a career changer. In my first eight years of work, I worked for a brokerage firm in New York City and I was a human resources person. I worked in the building across the street from the World Trade Center. I was there on 9/11. After that, like many people, I re-evaluated my career. I was a Psychology major and undergrad. I always thought I would be a therapist but that led in a bit of a different direction.

After that, it took me a year and a half to quit. I applied for graduate school and I quit my job. I was only one month into my program in graduate school when I was diagnosed with breast cancer. I will never forget my mom and I were at the doctor’s appointment where I got my diagnosis. After the doctor walked out of the room, she turned to me and said, “I don’t know how you’re going to do it, but you are somehow going to help people because of what you’re going to school for, and the fact that this happened.”

 

Years later, I got this job at this medical group where I’m now that has a cancer center. Very early on, I said to my boss that I didn’t want to necessarily make it my expertise because working with cancer patients is hard. It can be triggering for me too. I’d like to make a portion of my work focused on that. It’s the best part of my work.

When Exercise Finally Stick

When you said that you flirted with exercise throughout your life and fitness starts, but then at 40, it seemed to stick. What made it stick for you then in a way that it didn’t previously?

One of the things that came out of getting breast cancer was I left a bad marriage. The thing about cancer that’s interesting is if you do it right, you reevaluate your life. You look at things that aren’t working and you say, “This isn’t great for me. I want to make some changes in some areas.” My ex-husband was a great guy but when I got sick, he went missing. It wasn’t his cup of tea. He worked harder. He was gone longer. After it was all said and done, I couldn’t forgive it.

At that point, I was imagining I might be sick again. I found myself thinking, “Would this be the person I want by my side if I were to get sick again?” I didn’t. With the help of my parents and a lot of friends, I decided to leave that. In my mid to late 30s, I met my current husband who is the love of my life and it was all meant to be. He was a chiropractor and so he was active. As a result of us blending our lives and then he ultimately ended up moving in with me here, it was like, “Let’s join the gym together.”

That was where it started. Probably for about a year before the spinning classes, I was on the elliptical. I was walking on the treadmill. I was maybe playing around with weightlifting a little bit, not knowing what I was doing, and then I finally felt strong enough or confident enough that I was like, “I’m going to try it. How bad could it be? If I hate it, I’ll never go back,” and the rest is history.

I’m glad I was nice to you when you got hit by the car.

Luckily, that’s who you are. I chose better the second time too.

We all did.

I’m not saying that people should assume that the first marriage isn’t going to work out, but as you get older and you go through life of any kind, you start to evaluate things and look at a life partner in a very different way than you do when you’re twenty.

If I could have everyone not get married until they were between 35 and 40, that would be the best choice because you don’t know who you are. Life takes you in different ways. You don’t know what your career is going to be. You think you know but you don’t know where that’s going to take you. You don’t know where you want to live. You don’t know a lot of important things about yourself that could change over those first ten years after school or twenty years if you didn’t go to school. Find out who you are first and then find the person.

Navigating The Loss Of A Father

Also, make sure you know who they are.

Especially that.

That will help.

Sometimes that can be surprising, I found out.

That’s true, good or bad. A bit of change but also on a sad note, your dad has passed away from Alzheimer’s. You also found out that you have that gene. I don’t know much about that. Does that mean that you could get Alzheimer’s or does it mean you will? If you do something to prevent it, then it won’t happen. Do you do they even have that medical knowledge yet?

This was a year of learning and it was not something that was on my bingo card for this year at all. Anytime you get news, you freeze for a moment and you’re like, “I don’t understand what this means,” but the type of person that I am, I then choose to voraciously read, listen to podcasts, and try to get as much information as I could.

The crazy part about this is when my dad got sick, we didn’t know it was Alzheimer’s. He was I don’t want to say misdiagnosed, but they thought that they could help him with brain surgery. They did brain surgery and after he came out of surgery, he declined significantly. It was a long decline. It was almost four years but we never knew what his diagnosis was.

As I knew he was dying and we were in the last couple of days, I started doing all of this research online. I found out about a program in New York City where when somebody dies with a brain disorder, you can have their brain go to this hospital. After nine months, they will send you a very detailed report of what your loved one died of. It was hard. My dad had a PhD in History. He taught for many years. He was the most brilliant person that I knew and it killed me to watch everything that happened at the end. I felt like I needed to know.

I got this report back in February of 2024, and it was Alzheimer’s. He might have had the original condition that he had surgery for but then this was all so going on. That’s why things went so poorly after surgery. I sent a message to my neurologist who I had seen for migraines in the past. I said, “Now I have this information. Do I need to do anything?” She was like, “Come in. Let’s talk about it.” By the time I saw her, she did what you would expect anyone to do. She did a baseline MRI, she did all of the blood work, and then she casually said, “We’ll do some genetic testing.”

I left not a care in the world. I didn’t think about it. Three weeks later, she called me up. I’m not a scientist by nature so I didn’t understand what she was saying. She said, “You get genes. One from your dad and one from your mom for different things.” When it comes to this Alzheimer’s gene, which is called APOE, there’s a number after it, 2, 3, or 4. Four is the bad one that you don’t want.

I had two of these jeans. It means not only did my dad at least have one but my mom also probably had one. I got the double whammy of having two of these jeans. That only happens to 2% of our population. This is a rare thing. My mom did go get tested shortly thereafter and she only has one. It appears I got one from each.

As I did the research in those first couple weeks, it was crushing because the numbers were so terrible. I have a 60% chance higher than the average person of getting Alzheimer’s. When you saw someone who is so brilliant that after two years, my mom couldn’t care for him at home. He ended up in a facility. He died in the facility. Those last six months are the memories emblazoned on your brain. You would never want to be that person for your loved one.

All I could think of was me and my husband are like 50. I don’t know when this could happen, 5 years, 10 years, 20 years. Is he going to have me in a facility? It was a lot to absorb, but the best news about it, and the thing that I would celebrate and talk to you about exercise, is that they’ve learned a lot about people who have this gene in the last couple of years.

It’s not definite that the gene turns on. You can do things that promote a better healthier lifestyle that could either prevent the genes from turning on or they might turn on much later in life. One of the things that come up again and again in the list of maybe 4 or 5 things that all of these wonderful researchers who have written books and do podcasts, and things have said is that exercise is the number one most important thing that you can do if you have an Alzheimer’s risk.

I’m like, “What are the odds that I started exercising ten years ago, and then five years ago at the start of the pandemic?” At the start of the pandemic, Peloton started doing so much more that I’m in a much better shape in my life now to say and I can do even more. I’m going to try to do even more now because I know about this. I no longer feel the way this started six months ago.

I was like this is a death sentence. This is worse than having cancer because you don’t know when it’s going to hit. There’s nothing they can do for you. The doctors don’t seem like they know what they’re doing. Even my own neurologist was like, “I guess you should go into Manhattan and join a clinical trial.” There wasn’t like, “We can do all these things and we can make it better.” There was nothing much to say. I could tell by the way she acted. She was crushed for me.

I love having this community because I was already starting to lift heavier because of being now older middle-aged woman, and hearing all the importance of as you age, the best thing you can do is start lifting. I was already starting to do some of that anyway as I was getting older. I have expanded my horizons now in terms of the kinds of exercises I do. I’ll try anything.

You want to keep your brain active and doing even movements that your body is not used to because it’s more neural pathways that you create. I hope that I can be someone who takes this like not-so-great news, but turns it around. I want to be in that 40% of people who don’t end up with it. That’s what I’m going to try.

We’re cheering you on. That’s what we want for you too. I love that you’re taking such a proactive stance about it. That’s a very positive one.

 

It’s fascinating that exercise is what makes the difference. My first thought would be to read books more or do things to keep the mind active, but then your dad was a History professor. I think he was using his mind at least two days a week.

In his lifetime, he played tennis. He rode a regular outdoor bike. I don’t want to say he over-exercised, but he was active. The thing that has also come up that I would say to everyone, we’ve been reading a lot about this lately, is sleep is so important. Sleep is finally getting its day. I will tell you, sleep is not something that I’ve prioritized. Before this information, I was a night owl. I would say on a general night, I would get about six and a half hours of sleep, but I like to stay up late. I’m later than my husband.

We talked about my dad now as we look back and learn all these risk factors. My dad was not a good sleeper. He also had some anxiety. It wasn’t uncommon for my dad to go to work every day on three and a half or four hours of sleep. He did exercise. He wasn’t a very healthy eater and he did a lot. He was bright. He kept his mind active. He read the New York Times.

He did the crossword puzzles, and all that stuff, but something besides having the gene didn’t go well for him. If I had to take my guess, it was all of the poor sleep he had for many years. For the audience, that’s another thing. If you’re not prioritizing your sleep, do anything you can to get good 7 to 8 hours a night of great sleep.

I took a nap right before this.

Tom is prioritizing sleep.

Just Ask For Help

What is your leaderboard name?

Just Ask For Help.

That’s a good one.

They are very appropriate. That’s nice.

That’s coming from so many different parts of my life. A lot of times, patients who come in for therapy have thought about asking for help for a very long time before they say, “I need help.” Regardless of if you have a health condition or you have a mental health condition, at some point, tell somebody and ask for help.

Liz’s Preferred Peloton Instructor

Do you have a preferred instructor?

I am so all over the map. That may come up from my original spinning class. The thing I got known for by people taking my classes at the gym similar to Jenn Sherman is you could have a Metallica song followed by a Barry Manilow song. I was all over the map. Music drives me. I’m the person that looks at the list of songs first and I’m like, “I like most of these. This would be a good class,” which can be anything. I do listen to a lot of different kinds of music, but the music is almost more important to me than the instructor.

I have some favorites. If I’m taking a spin class, I tend to like Hannah Corbin. I like Bradley Rose. I like people who have a lot of energy but don’t kill you. I’m 50 and I can’t be killed anymore. As much as I love to follow Olivia on Instagram, I don’t take an Olivia class because she would kill me. When Kendall was here, I would take her once in a while for a mental health ride or a Metallica ride, but she would kill me. I wouldn’t want that every time. I like the instructors that are middle of the road. You feel like you got a great workout. It wasn’t super easy but it also wasn’t so hard. Now that I have a tread and I’m not yet a runner, congratulations, Crystal by the way on a marathon. That’s otherworldly for me.

Thank you.

I can’t even imagine. I’m dreaming of doing a 5K. That’s what I want to try to do someday. I’m walking on the tread a lot. Even for walking, you find someone you might not like on the bike. Rebecca Kennedy, I’ll take it for the core. The thing that made me buy a tread was that I was staying in a hotel and I jumped on a treadmill and I took a Rebecca height. I was like, “I like her for this.” It’s funny how you like different instructors in certain mediums, but you might not like them in others.

Robin is not one of my favorite people on the bike. I don’t dislike her. She’s just not a go-to for me at all but put her on the tread, it’s like a different person. I cannot explain it but it is completely different. I have found that with a lot of instructors. I like them in one place but not as much in another. It’s the way that we perceive it as we’re moving. The way that we connect as we’re moving is different. It’s fascinating.

For people who’ve been doing it a long time, if they think they don’t like somebody, I would also say as we change, you have to go back. My husband and I have had this conversation many times. We both did not like Rebecca Kennedy. We both follow her in some capacity, the hardcore on the floor calendar. When she would come up two years ago, I was rolling my eyes and I was like, “I’m going to do this.” What I’m realizing now is at the time I wasn’t in quite as good shape as I might be now. The classes felt so much harder, but then if you feel defeated often, you tend to not like somebody. Now, as she’s grown also, her instruction is so good.

She’s gotten a lot more technical in her instruction. It’s a great thing. It’s not like she was ever not a good instructor, but how she calls out the movement is very different than it used to be in a good way.

Right now, she’s teaching Pilates. When Kristin McGee left, she was such a great Pilates instructor. That was a big loss. Rebecca is killing it. She’s good at Pilates. You have to give different instructors a chance and a try.

 

That’s good advice, which we were going to ask about. You already answered that question.

Every single one, when they put up those challenges online where you get the printout with every single instructor in a month or whatever they decide, three months, you have to check them all off. Do it. You will be very surprised. You might have read things online or on a Facebook page or whatever and you would think you don’t like somebody and then you’re like, “This was different.” Not only try the instructors but also try every class that’s out there.

Liz, thank you so much for taking time out of your day, to join us. People don’t know when they hear this, but it’s Black Friday.

She could be shopping right now.

Thank you so much for joining us. Before we let you go, let everybody know where they can find you in all the places if you would like to be found.

On Instagram, I’m Liz Nikol just like my name. If you’re interested more in the counseling therapy side, then on LinkedIn, I’m Counselor Chick.

If I were picking a counselor, I’d be like, “This is someone I can talk to.” Thank you, so much.

Thank you, guys, Happy Holidays.

Happy Holidays.

—

I guess that brings this episode to a close. Until next time, where can people find you?

People can find me on Facebook.com/crystaldokeefe. There are some other socials that you can find me and they are @ClipOutCrystal, Bluesky, Instagram, TikTok, and the leaderboard.

You can find me on Blue Sky and Threads at TomOKeefeJr. You can find me on 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 Patreon. For $5 a month, you get all sorts of bonus content. We’re going to record it right now. We’ve been pretty chatty. It could be a big one. That’s it for this one. Thanks for tuning in. Until next time, keep pedaling, and running, and rowing.

Bye.

 

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