This week on The Clip Out, we’re talking all things Peloton and fitness! It’s a packed episode filled with updates, tips, and a few surprises. Don’t miss out—grab your headphones and catch up on everything happening in the Peloton universe. Here’s what’s coming up in Episode 399:

💥 Peloton’s Superhero Challenge Turns to Kryptonite: What went wrong with Peloton’s latest challenge? We break it down.

📈 Peloton’s Earnings Call Recap: How’s Peloton performing, and what does it mean for members? Get the financial highlights.

🔊 PSL Audio Issues: Some members have been experiencing glitches. We discuss the sound of silence (literally).

⚙️ Platform Problems: More tech troubles on Peloton’s platform? Here’s what’s going on.

🌱 Dr. Jenn’s Tips for Going Vegan: Thinking about adopting a plant-based lifestyle? Dr. Jenn offers practical advice for Peloton users.

😱 Erik Jager Causes a Panic: Wait until you hear what Erik did to scare his fans!

💔 Hannah Corbin Sprains Her Ankle: We’re wishing her a speedy recovery—what this means for her schedule.

⭐ TCO Top Five: The weekly roundup of your favorite Clip Out listener-recommended classes. Which ones made the list this week?

🗓️ This Week at Peloton: From new classes to noteworthy updates, don’t miss what’s happening this week!

🎯 TCO Radar: Spotlight classes you need to try, including artist series, BHM celebrations, and more class highlights.

🛍️ Peloton Apparel Sale: Save 40% on your favorite Peloton merch. What’s included in the deal? Get the scoop.

🎉 Peloton Birthdays: Send a big happy birthday to Ross Rayburn this Sunday, 02/19!

Rob Torino joins us this week to share his experience using Peloton every single day! Learn how it fits into his fitness routine and get inspired by his dedication.

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Watch the episode here

Listen to the podcast here

Becoming The Community Coach With Rob Torino

Welcome to The Clip Out episode 399. What was that look?

I don’t know. I don’t know what’s going on in my head a lot of times until it comes out of my mouth, and then it’s like, “Oh dear.” You might say, “Oh dear but I don’t.”

I know. You say whatever pops out of there.

I’ve been doing that. Maybe we’ll save that for the Patreon, the fist fight I got in with some douchebag on the internet.

Let’s save that, please.

I shut him up real quick, didn’t I? That was pretty epic. About Peloton, I thought perhaps we should start with discussing Helper Bee Tina.

That is a nice idea.

Sometimes good things fall out of my mouth.

That’s true. For those of you who have been listening to the show for a while, you are quite familiar with us bringing up Helper Bee Tina. She writes the TCO Top 5 every week in addition to a ton of other articles she’s written over the last couple of years. She is having an awful week. She took her son to the hospital on Sunday. They’d all been sick with the flu at her house and he was feeling weak so they went to the hospital.

The hospital starts checking on him and they immediately find that all of his white blood cell counts are off. They admit him. They did a bunch more tests and by 4:00 on Monday, they were like, “He has leukemia.” He had been planning to look at colleges this weekend. He has a 4.6 GPA. His mind was finishing high school and ready to start college. Now they’re like, “We have a two-year treatment plan for you.”

It is going to be a rough ride because the hospital where they have him is two hours away from their house. I have no idea how they’re going to swing that. It’s also out of network for their insurance. Why are we bringing this up? Please send thoughts, prayers, etc., to Tina Fryling and her son Mason. I also have posted in a lot of places a GoFundMe for her to help offset those awful crazy expenses that she will be incurring. If there’s anything you can do, please donate like $3. That’s helpful.

Please do that. If you can’t, I understand. Either way, would you please share? That’s still helpful. You may not think that’s doing much, but getting it in front of other people is how you keep those fundraisers going. She means a lot to me personally and you, Tom. She is part of our inner circle but she also is a wonderful Peloton friend and has been for a long time. She’s done a lot for this community. If you look through her Facebook, you will see that every time something comes up, she’s posting fundraisers for other people. She’s an amazing attorney. She’s an amazing mom. They need all the help they can get. That is all of that.

Pivoting back to your normal episode stuff, what pray tell do you have in store for people?

We have an interview with Rob Torino. He is a member of the Peloton community also. He feels that he is very good at supporting people. We get into talking about that. We also hear about his very interesting Peloton journey. He’s a fun guy to talk to. We had a lot of fun talking to Rob. We’re going to talk to him, but after that, we also have several things coming up in the Peloton news.

We’re going to talk about this crazy superhero challenge that Peloton did. It’s crazy because it did not go the way they had planned if there was even planning. It’s not even clear. It’s a jump ball. We’re going to talk about also the new Get To Know Me Challenge. We’re going to do a little bit of a recap of the earnings call. We’re going to talk about the audio issues that Peloton London has been experiencing. We have a visit from Dr. Jenn. One of our listeners had specifically emailed me and asked me for Dr. Jenn’s tips on her daughter going vegan. We got some help from her.

We should be clear that the daughter wants to go vegan.

She wants to, and the mom wants to be supportive. Not like the mom is making.

The mom is not imposing this on the child.

We also have several in the news instructor updates. What’s going on with Hannah Corbin? What’s going on with Erik Jäger? We have a bunch of content to discuss with you. We’re going to talk about the apparel sales that are happening. That is all for the main episode.

 

Over on Patreon, we’re going to be talking about racing catheters.

A little background, we got into quite a deep dive on how people go long distances with peeing themselves. One of our listeners gave us some ideas. This racing catheter is one of those.

It’s a thing and we’ll talk about that. We will also talk about what’s going on with Xponential Fitness.

It is a drama.

I feel like we have a Netflix documentary in our future about Xponential Fitness. They own a lot of franchises like Pure Barre, CycleBar, Club Pilates, Stretch Lab or something. There’s a bunch. That’s pretty fascinating.

It is quite the journey.

Peloton rolled out teams last week and the weirdos and perverts are already on it.

They are showing themselves.

We’ll do some deep dive on Peloton’s Super Bowl spot. It’s all on the Patreon. If you’re not familiar, you skip this part a lot. Over on Patreon, it’s Patreon.com/TheClipOut. For $5 a month, you get all sorts of bonus content. We record an extra episode every week. With stuff we didn’t have time to get to in the main episode. You also get ad-free episodes for the main episode. If we get them early, you get them early. It helps the show fund the cost of editing, web hosting, writing the articles, and all the things like that. If you have the means, it’s a nice way to help out and we try to give you a little extra for it.

You can also find us on Facebook at Facebook.com/TheClipOut. While you’re there, like the page, join the group. You can sign up for the newsletter over at TheClipOut.com, where we will send you a weekly newsletter with all the links that we throw at you throughout the show. You can watch all of these over on YouTube at YouTube.com/TheClipOut. There’s all that, let’s let’s dig in. Shall we?

We shall.

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Peloton began their superhero challenge. I have in the headline that it turns into Kryptonite. For fellow nerds out there, I feel like I need to acknowledge that not only is Kryptonite something that would affect Superman, not Captain America, but also that Kryptonite and Superman are our DC properties, whereas Captain America is a Marvel property.

Thank God we got that straightened out on day one.

I wanted to have a little superhero joke in the headline, but I feel like I need to acknowledge to my fellow nerds that I do understand mixing comic book metaphors. Don’t at me. I am very much aware. What am I supposed to say? Captain America doesn’t have a weakness in the same way. His archnemesis villain is the Red Skull. To compare Peloton to Red Skull, which is an escaped Nazi, seems a bit strong.

We got enough of real Nazis. There’s plenty of that happening in the world.

I just want people to know that. Now, Peloton superhero challenge. I also want to put in the headline complete dog sh*t.

That’s fair. I appreciate you soft-pedaling a little bit. You don’t want to be too mean.

There’s so much complete dog sh*t in the world. We need to soft pedal.

That’s true. Here’s the short version and then we can dig into the longer version. The short version is Peloton released this challenge and they had indicated that when the challenge dropped, you could get your regular bronze, silver, and gold badges as typical. When you hear superhero challenge and there’s going to be a special collection, what’s the first thing you think of?

There will be special new classes designed around this?

 

It didn’t even take Peloton, and you thought that. That’s amazing.

Especially, for something that’s high profile as partnering with the MCU.

Now that you mentioned that. Not only is it high profile for Peloton but they mentioned it. They pushed the movie on the earnings call last week. They legit were like, “Go Captain America moviegoers.” They know this is a big deal. That’s important because you need to understand that the classes that they included in the challenge were completely lackluster. They were classes from 2024. There were six classes but no new content. There was one class that was from this year. Everything else was from 2024.

There were only six but you needed seven to get a gold badge. I know, for people out there listening, “They dropped another class.” They did and it was a nice live class with Alex and Anthony Mackie. He is Captain America in the new version of Captain America. That did drop on 2/10, but why didn’t it drop with the rest of the challenge, and why didn’t they make it clear that it was going to drop?

“If you are built up to it, do these,” and then you cap it off. No pun intended except it was intended.

I know that a lot of people thought or had heard there was another class coming. I get that, but it’s on Peloton to make it clear. We shouldn’t be guessing that. I expected better classes. What exactly about a stretch makes that a superhero thing?

You have to limber up for you to fight crime.

Some people think it’s as simple as what the people were wearing that these classes got chosen because, in some of the classes, they’re wearing red, white, or blue. They think that’s how they chose these classes and maybe it was. I’ve never seen something that came across as so lazy on a challenge, and it’s everywhere. Everyone is complaining about it. This is not a me thing. This is everybody, and of course, the predators. You know how they are. They were the first to jump in.

Peloton got zero sympathy over on Peloton. The amount of times that “lazy” has come up is crazy, but then you have to wonder. Is it laziness or is there something going on? Maybe you guys might have gotten rid of a few extra people who might need their jobs back because then, they released the new challenge called Get To Know Me. First of all, get to know who. That was my first thought. I hadn’t read it yet. I just saw the headline.

The idea of it is great. It’s what almost every community in Peloton on Facebook or Instagram has done over the last seven years. Take a class with every single instructor. Peloton thought, “We finally have teams, so let’s do a challenge.” I think that’s what they were trying to do. Now, you can take a class with every single one of the instructors and get a special badge for it, but wait. There are some problems.

Number one, the first day that they came out, you couldn’t find them. If you search, you still can’t find them. They are under Collections. That’s where you have to go, and then when you do pull up the collections, none of their names are on the classes. There’s a picture right of Alex Toussaint, but it doesn’t say, “Get to know me, Alex Toussaint.” It just says, “Get to know me,” or whatever.

I know a lot of people out there who are like, “Who doesn’t know Alex Toussaint?” Okay, but if the purpose of this is to get you to ride with instructors or take classes with instructors you don’t normally take classes with, it stands to reason that some of these people are going to be people you don’t recognize.

It also seems to be a programming thing because somebody was digging around and found out that on collections, none of them have the instructors’ names on them. I have not verified that. That’s just what I was told, but it’s still weird. Once you take a class, you are also, on the first day, not getting a check mark saying you have completed the class. To recap, we have a challenge that includes you taking classes with 54 different instructors and there were no check marks. If you took a class yesterday or three days ago, you didn’t know. You have to go into each class and see.

The other thing is these are all five-minute warm-ups. Nothing wrong with that. I love it. It’s short and sweet. It gives people easy in and out. That’s great. When they put the challenge together, they didn’t have all the instructors do a similar thing. You might take a class with one instructor, let’s say Aditi and she’s like, “He’s some yoga,” and then she does some yoga. You might take a class with Matt Wilpers and he’s like, “I used to be an accountant.” He tells you all kinds of things about him. Only one of those is a get to know me. That is not a knock against Aditit. I feel like somebody is not doing a quality check here. Somebody is not saying, “We want these to look consistent and be consistent.” That’s a shoddy problem. I don’t feel like that’s on the instructors. I want to be clear about that.

It’s almost like it was a simple without their input and some of them happen to have classes where they talked about themselves. Some of them didn’t or maybe they did but it was in a longer class and they wanted quick bursts so people could check them out.

It’s not good. Did they record all of these brand new for the series? It doesn’t appear that all of them did just by looking. Maybe they did. If there were a very clear get-to-know-me, I’m filming this today so you can get to know me and for the challenge, then we would know. There isn’t that. The other thing is, when they first put up this challenge, to get a gold badge, you only had to take a class with 52 instructors. There are 54. They’ve now changed it to 54.

I want to know who are the two that they got left out.

I’m going to leave that alone. What is happening? These are not difficult things. When it came to the superhero challenge, I didn’t even get into the part about if you took the classes on the first day, you didn’t get a check mark. If you took any classes that were not in the challenge, you got a check mark. You got a badge that you did something, and you didn’t even take the classes. It’s insanity.

They might have chosen a class from three years ago in the superhero challenge. If you took it three years ago, you got a badge now. Are you kidding me? What is going on? What is happening? That’s why your pun of being Kryptonite or dog sh*t is accurate. I want to say one more time. I’m not picking on the instructors. I feel like Peloton has done better in the past. They need to do better. I could have gotten past the get-to-know-me stuff. That’s not that big of a deal. If you’re going to partner with a multi-billion dollar partnership, you think somebody would hit a double or triple check on that sh*t. Come on.

 

That’s very high profile.

We keep watching shows lately in Philo where we have to watch commercials. There are so many tie-ins to this movie and they are done well. That’s all I’m saying. By the way, there’s a Peloton tread in this movie. Peloton could have done better.

From there, let’s pivot to the earnings call.

Here’s the deal. Usually earnings calls are like, “I thought it was good, but everybody else hated it.” This particular time, people were super happy. They were they were like, “Oh.” The stock went up. The bottom line is that Peloton improved all of its forecasts for the rest of this fiscal year. Not only did they improve the forecast but there were two quarters in a row of having positive free cashflow. There’s going to be an actual profit in the future, and they are ahead of schedule on their cost-cutting measures. I’m just saying maybe a little too ahead of schedule based on what I’m seeing with the challenges.

I know they’ve been working hard on that and I know that that’s super important, and they do need to do it for Wall Street to give them the props that they deserve. I do understand that. I’ve already said what I had to say there. This was the first call that the new CEO Peter Stern was on. He did a nice big plug for the Captain America movie. He also was very nice to his co-workers, unlike good old Barry.

He was not warm and fuzzy.

Peter did a good job at that. He and Liz Coddington did a great job of fielding questions. The questions this time around were fairly easy. They were soft bally. Because they did such a good job of answering, there wasn’t a lot for people to come back at the end.

If it is so good, what is there to complain about?

What’s the takeaway here? There were a few big takeaways for me. Peter Stern mentioned that the stuff that we’re seeing with personalization was like a little tiny taste, a little tiny drop in the bucket. We’re going to see a lot more of that. They also talked about how they are being so careful with their marketing spending. They talked about the Watt challenge, the three brothers about challenges. That was a part of their trying to bring in men. They said that was very successful. They said that yet again, strength is the fastest-growing modality. It’s right behind the bike. It’s doing great. They’re going to keep doubling down on that. That’s going to keep growing. They are going to keep having the personalization. Those were the big things.

The biggest question that came out as a follow-up from people listening on the call was what’s going to happen if there are tariffs. Who knows? We’re a month in and every day is like chaos. I don’t know what tomorrow brings. Originally, Trump had said, “We’re going to give tariffs to China, Mexico, and Canada.” They ended up getting a stay on that for 30 days for Canada and Mexico, but not China.

Peloton said, “Even if all of those are put into place, our cost of goods sold would only go up one percentage point.” That’s if all three got put into place. They don’t have any hardware coming in from China, Mexico, or Canada. The cost of goods sold that would increase by that 1% is because of Precor and apparel. That’s where it would be coming from. I thought that was good news, given there’s such a big question mark as to what is going to happen. I thought it was all good news.

The stock market seems to agree.

Customer satisfaction has gone from 3.1 in 2024 to 4.3 this year. That’s huge. Their net promoter score is up. Now they just have to keep it that way. I’m just saying that the challenge was not a great way to start that.

Especially when MCU applies or appeals disproportionately to men, this is designed to bring in new people. It’s designed to bring in male people.

Maybe they’re thinking of bringing in new people, so it doesn’t matter if our classes were from a year ago. Maybe that’s what they’re thinking. I don’t know. I’m just saying to bring your A-game. This was a big deal.

If you’ve been having issues with audio, when you take a class featuring a London instructor, you are not crazy.

Sam Yo spoke about how there had been updates to the audio, specifically in London. I will also say it wasn’t too long ago, a couple of weeks ago, we talked about the fact that they had gotten those special ear monitors.

I wonder if there’s some sort of correlation.

Maybe somehow the disconnect is it didn’t go as well in London as it did in the United States. I don’t know. Some people are saying they are struggling to hear the London instructor specifically. Even when you change the balance, they’re sounding very quiet. Sam Yo is a good example because he has a very quiet voice in general so people are struggling. We’re hoping that is something they’re going to get fixed hopefully soon.

It is quite fun to build somebody up and be supportive of others. Share on X

It seems like that should be a simple fix. We deal with audio a lot around here.

I know, but think about how many terrible podcasts we struggled with for years before they managed to level out their sound.

That is true. People don’t see the value.

I know Peloton does see the value, but I don’t know how quickly because I don’t know how expensive it is. I don’t know what is involved. Is it because of the ear things? If they spend a whole bunch of money making custom ear things, that could be a problem.

This is pretty important to the brand.

I know. I feel like this is a complete week.

I know. You’re a blowtorch.

These things need to be brought up. It’s what’s happening. This is what’s happening.

These are issues that Peloton is aware of and is working on because they’re the ones who report these.

That’s true. Back on February 11th, it’s been a couple of days, the team identified an issue that was forcing members to re-login on Apple TV after their app was updated or a force quit. They’re working on fixing that. They also had another one that said, “Program achievements are currently not accessible.” I don’t know. Now you can’t do the Superhero Challenge at all.

That’s one way to shut you up. Coming up after this, we’re going to talk to Dr. Jenn. She has tips for going vegan or for your kids to go vegan if they so choose to. Stick around.

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Joining us once again via the magic of Zoom tube 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, VH1’s Family Therapy with Dr. Jenn, or her long-running radio show, The Dr. Jenn Show. She’s written four bestselling books, including The Relationship Fix: Dr. Jenn’s 6-Step Guide to Improving Communication, Connection, and Intimacy. It’s Dr. Jenn.

Hello.

It is so good to see you. I have a question from one of our listeners. I don’t remember her name, but she was asking specifically for you to give ideas on how to help her kids become vegan because she is not and she knows that you’ve been doing this for a long time. She was hoping you could give her some great ideas.

I’ve been vegetarian since I was 9 or 10 after seeing a documentary that showed the slaughterhouses, which made me vegan for way more decades than I’d like to admit. I have been vegan for fifteen years now. I’m also certified in plant-based nutrition from Cornell. I have a little bit of experience with this and there are a few suggestions. One is you want to look at what are the regular family meals that you enjoy together and see how to veganize them.

There are a lot of things that you can do. If your family likes meatloaf, there are tons of lentil meatloaf recipes where you can replace one protein for another. A lot of people initially like to switch over from a regular chicken to a tofu chicken. There are a lot of great meat replacements and cheese replacements. Vegan pizzas are super easy, especially at home.

There are also some great books for younger kids. There’s a book called Vegan Lunch Box that has the cutest little lunch box recipes. Every picture is so cute and how to do cute little cutouts with PB&J, and all the stuff. I always look at them like, “I wish I was that mom.” I admire those moms so much. I wish I could have been that mom, making my child fresh perfect meals for every lunch. A lot of us are working moms. I didn’t get that one down. My kids are 18. It’s too late for me.

Those replacements are great. If you’re someone who likes to cook, start by getting a collection of vegan cookbooks. Chloe Coscarelli is my absolute favorite. She’s the one who got me started cooking. She is an incredible incredible cookbook author. Her recipes are very approachable. During the pandemic, I started cooking and I started with her books. They’re so approachable. There’s also one that’s called Five Ingredient Vegan that has super easy recipes. That’s a go-to for me. There are so many great vegan cookbooks.

In the old days, we had the pyramid. One of the things we’ve learned is that the pyramid is corrupt. The pyramid was created by a lot of industries that were benefiting from the pyramid. What we’re looking at for plant-based meals is 50% of your meal coming from plants, 25% coming from protein, and 25% coming from carbohydrates if you’re someone who is looking at your food in those terms.

 

As you know, I’m very much about no deprivation and about listening to your body. What we know now is that there are a lot of chemicals in our foods that were not in our foods decades ago. They are making us sick and also preventing us from being able to listen to our body as well. The less processed foods that we’re eating, the more we can tune into our hunger and satiation cues. I think that’s a good starting point for her hopefully. That’s what I would recommend to begin with.

Those are great suggestions. Thank you.

What are your thoughts on the Impossible Burger and things like that? I know that has some baggage to it.

My thoughts about have evolved over time. I am I’m an ethical vegan. I don’t eat meat. The number one reason to me is if it has a face, I don’t want to eat it and I don’t want to eat anything that came from it. To me, it’s no different than my pet dog or my pet cat. I wouldn’t kill them and eat them. I don’t eat meat because I love animals. In terms of health, there’s a lot of mixed information out there in terms of the environment. It’s less mixed information.

If you are vegan because of the environment, you’re better off having an Impossible Burger or one of the meat substitutes because of the terrible stress on the environment from factory farming. On the other hand, if you are vegan for ethical reasons, then it’s a good choice. If you’re vegan because you want to eat as clean as possible, then it’s still processed food that isn’t coming straight from the source. I’m a believer in moderation. I’m a believer in not depriving myself. I love a good Impossible Burger but I don’t all the time. I don’t want to eat them all the time, but if I want a burger, that would probably be my first choice. I enjoy them when I do eat them.

That is a helpful way to describe it because there’s no way to be perfect on all of those levels. If you wanted to be ethical and moral, and have no chemicals or nothing process, that’s hard. It’s good to understand where the person is coming from.

I’m good friends with a woman named Kathy Freston who did Oprah’s vegan challenge. She’s written a number of great books about being vegan. I love her approach for new vegans because her approach is very much of love and acceptance. You don’t have to do all of it at once. You don’t have to be a perfect vegan. Nobody is a perfect vegan. She’s very much like if you’re looking to gently ease into this, try not eating one animal or be like, “I’m not going to eat pigs” or “I’m not going to eat cows,” and then see how that goes, and then take another baby step she. She has a very moderate gentle approach to becoming vegan.

It depends on what is your driving force. When I first became a vegan, I read tons of books. One of the books I read was about the ethics of eating. I was like, “I’m going to be a vegan.” Cheesecake and Ice cream have always been my favorite food. At the time, a lot of my favorite ice cream places years ago didn’t have vegan ice cream options. There were vegan ice cream options, but they weren’t as exciting as they are now.

I loved Cheesecake Factory’s cheesecakes. If I can’t find a substitute cheesecake, then maybe once in a while, I will eat a cheesecake. I read this book about the ethics of eating. In it, the author said, “If you feel ethical that it’s wrong to eat animals and eat things that come from animals that are harmed in the process of taking that milk and eggs and stuff, then it’s the emotional or the moral equivalent to saying, “I don’t believe in stealing but once a week I’m going to steal because I want to.” I had one piece of cheesecake and I kept hearing that in my head. I was like, “I don’t think this is for me. This is not in keeping with my morals and values.”

It depends on what your motivation is, but I give anyone a lot of credit for making that switch. Give yourself permission to do it imperfectly. You’re going to learn as you go. There are so many great people to follow on social media and Instagram. There are so many great cookbooks and great books that are guides to becoming vegan or vegetarian for some people who want to become vegetarian as opposed to vegan. Utilize all of the great tools that are out there to help you do this.

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

You can find me on social media, especially Instagram at @DrJennMann.

Thank you.

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Erik Jäger caused quite the panic this week.

I’ll tell you this. People love Erik Jäger. He innocently posted that he was packing up his apartment in London and had to move, but then he posted he was in Berlin. The crowds went nuts. They were like, “Oh my God. He quit Peloton. He’s never coming back.” It’s an understandable reaction. Don’t worry, we’re in the middle of a contract negotiation. No one is leaving until at least June.

We’re in the middle of a contract cycle.

We know we have at least until June. For a lot of the instructors, we have until next June. People were panicked. He quickly took to Instagram to say, “I’m going back to London. I’m on holiday in Berlin, but I’m going back to London.” He’s going to be on holiday for two months. I think he’s in the middle of his 12-week thing. That weird cycle, so he’s going to go home. He needs to find an apartment in London, which is what he was asking for people to help with. In the meantime, he was over in Berlin. Even though it’s a separate country, I have to remember and other people might too, it’s a quick train ride.

It’s super close. In America, everything is so far apart.

You couldn’t think of being like, “Tomorrow, I’ll run to New York from here for us. I’m going to run to New York tomorrow and get a new apartment.” You’re not going to do that, and then be back in Missouri the next day. You can do that in London/Berlin. Everything is okay. Erik is staying.

A crisis that was not averted.

 

Hannah Corbin had a rough week. She slipped coming out of the bathroom and she twisted her ankle and it is bad. It looks like a big old tennis ball on the side of her ankle. Poor thing.

That’s quite the sprain.

We’re glad that she’s okay. We hope that she will be all healed up very soon.

She’s probably like, “Can I start my 12-week furlough now?” Change of plans.

“Somebody wants to trade with me?”

They’re calling Erik Jäger, “Furlough canceled. It’s Hannah Corbin now.”

Going back to that whole furlough confusion, part of the reason it also got confusing is because Jon Hosking is going to be in New York this week. Erik or John. I’m not even clear who because it was so crazy. One of them was like, “I won’t see you for two months.” Everyone was like, “Jon Hosking is going to be in New York for two months?” It was chaos.

Coming up after this, we’re going to talk content. We’re going to give you the TCO Top 5 and give you some classes that are on our radar so they should be on yours.

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It is time for the TCO Top 5, where you tell us classes and we tell them back.

It’s true, although we did a little modification this week. This is dedicated to Tina. Nikki ended up riding it. We had to do it on short notice. What we ended up doing was we sourced these all from within the TCO group so we could meet the deadlines that we needed to do.

They’re all classes from the Superhero Challenge.

No. There are still very great classes on here. Just because we source them doesn’t mean that we don’t love them.

Number one is our favorite Black History Month.

I think you would love the playlist on here. I’m hearing that it is amazing because it was a soul ride and we’ve got classes. We’ve got songs like Chain of Fools and Midnight Train to Georgia. It has a great playlist. Liz Nickel brought this up.

Can I inject something about Midnight Train to Georgia?

Of course, you can.

I saw a comedian do this once. I saw him do it live. I’ve never seen it done again but I love it. The next time you listen to Midnight Train to Georgia by Gladys Knight and the Pips. The Pips are interjecting things as exclamations to what she’s saying. The next time you listen to the song, approach it with the idea that Gladys Knight sings a line, and then the Pips are mocking her for doing this. It works but it completely changes the song. It’s hysterical.

A little mansplaining.

Every time I listen to the song now, I hear it as the Pips making fun of Gladys Knight for wanting to go back to Georgia for this guy, and it’s fun. I just want to put that out there.

Anyway, one of our brand new helper bees, Liz Nichols, wrote that she loved this ride. She said, “I don’t typically love soul music but every single song Ally played, I wanted to sing along with. It reminds me so much of my childhood. Her energy was amazing and she was inspirational and motivational in the things that she said. It felt as if she was glowing through the screen. It was also a super workout like a 7.5 for me.” That class was taught on February 9th by Ally Love.

 

Number two, your favorite core class.

This is a core class that is taught by Robin Arzon and it features a foam roller. It was a 15-minute core strength taught on January 29th. Stephanie Latos loved this class. She said, “Have we shouted out this class with the foam roller? She’s wearing pink. The next level for core connoisseurs.” We’ve got yellow and then we’ve got pink.

Pink is a notch below yellow.

It’s tough because it’s core. If she was wearing yellow and doing core, forget it. You’re not going to make it. It is not going to happen.

Number three, your favorite new app feature.

Technically, not a class. Marie K. Burdick loved this. She loved the personalized plans feature. This has been out on the Guide for a while. They recently rolled it out to the app and it’s only on the app. You can’t get it everywhere else. We have an entire how-to guide if you need it to get started. Marie wanted to shout out the personalized thing. It was her second week into it. “Great mix of classes to choose from, flexibility with adjusting the schedule, and suggesting classes. I probably never would have picked it on my own. It is kicking my butt.” That’s great. Stephanie Latos concurred saying, “I agree. It’s such a nice feature for those of us who can benefit from structure mixed with many fun class options. I love that people are enjoying it.

Number four, your favorite 45-minute ride.

Jess King taught this on January 6th. Tom Gilday suggested this class. He said, “The 45-minute house ride with Jess King was spicy. A challenging mix of climbs and flat road intervals. It’s a great workout. You’ll be glad you took the class when you’re done.” Sounds like you’re going to need an extra towel though.

Number five, you’re unstackable. It’s a ride.

Karen Smith is responsible for the unstackable. It was a 30-minute Tabata with Olivia Amato. Olivia is known for being the glitter assassin. You add Tabata into this mix, we have a burner. This is all the way back from 10/4 /2021. She said that this was unstackable. It is a typical Tabata format but she kept the resistance high with cadence pushes. Karen had thought she was going to do a short five-minute core class afterward, but she could not bring herself to do it after worth going back into the archives for.

We will now turn our eyes to this week at Peloton, where they have a strength stack with Rad.

He did a whole stack. It’s two classes. It’s a 20-minute glutes and legs, and then it’s followed by a five-minute core. That was going to be live. That’s cool because it’s nice to have a stack. There are also some other classes coming up this week. The Seven Continents recap run with Becs Gentry was supposed to drop on demand on Wednesday. It’s going to be a 60-minute run where Becs going to reflect on her experience running across all seven continents. That’s going to be one to do. That’s going to be an audio-guided scenic collection. If you have trouble finding it, remember it’s in the audio, so probably outdoors. That’s where you are going to find that.

We also have Morning Mobility with Matty Maggiacomo for fans of alliteration.

It was his first Morning Mobility class. It’s designed to help with movement and flexibility. That is going to be available on demand on February 13th at midnight.

A 45-minute mixtape ride with Jenn Sherman.

It’s a crowd favorite.

I have no doubt because it’s Jenn Sherman and it’s got music.

She loves to make her mixtape. Sunday, February 16th, 10:00 AM Eastern. I’m sure you’re going to be hearing all about her time at the Super Bowl. That happened last weekend because you know she loves the Eagles and they won. You’re going to be hearing a lot about it.

We will now check out the TCO radar, classes that are on our schedule and therefore, should be on yours.

Trying to be positive and making people feel good can make your day even better. Share on X

Black History Month is the entire month of February. We told you last week, but I wanted to repeat it quickly. Peloton is dropping a lot of content over the last couple of years. Each week, they are also highlighting new classes that they are going to be doing. Ash had this week a 60-minute row class on the 9th with members in the studio. That is her second 60-minute class. That was very exciting, then on Sunday, February 9th, the Kirsten Gospel Glow outdoor run, then Ally had the Supreme Soul Ride, and then on Monday, Marcel had the Platinum Hip-Hop Producers Run..

We also have new Lanebrake levels.

DJ John. Michael dropped a little nugget telling us we had a couple of new ones this week. There’s a 30-minute low impact, then on the tread, it was a 15-minute endurance ‘60s pop, and then a 5- 5-minute cooldown afro beats, and the other one on the bike beside the low impact was a 15-minute Latin. There you go.

We also have some post-Super Bowl workouts, A Case of the Mondays.

Peloton did this. I think we’re also going to talk about this on the bonus too. We’re going to do a deep dive into the marketing push that Peloton did for the Super Bowl. There was a brand new commercial that dropped. The short version is that they had two classes that dropped on Monday and they were directly related to the Super Bowl and they were both called A Case of the Mondays. There was a ride with Ally and a meditation with Chelsea.

If you can’t get enough of Kendrick Lamar, Peloton got you covered.

They are featuring encore classes on February 12th. These are both from 2022, but there was a Jess Sims boot camp and there was a Tunde ride back from 2022.

The artist series is spotlighting One Republic.

There are going to be live classes this week. There’s going to be a premier from Charlotte and Marcel. There’s also going to be a Friday Premiere with Ben. Tons of content are coming with One Republic.

There’s more Black History Month stuff coming up because it’s a whole month.

New classes for the week of the 12th. We’ve got Joslyn’s Black and Brilliant Walk, Cliffs’s Funk Bodyweight Strength, and Katie’s Funk Row on February, 12th, then Black and Brilliant with Camila on February 14th.

There are all sorts of Valentine’s Day classes in store for people.

There’s going to be a special Walking Talk with Matty. This is going to be hilarious. An R&B ride with Hannah. She’s asked for crush messages to be submitted because she wants to record them. She said that too many people didn’t understand the assignment so she ended up not reading them. She reported it last week. We know that Club Hosky is coming to PSNY this week. We know that he’s going to be in Matt’s class, and we have the big two-hour ride with Christian Vande Velde and Matt Wilpers. Not only that, Christian Vande Velde is also doing that same day a 60-minute class right before.

Finally, Selena is coming back to New York.

Here’s another big thing. This is big news. Selena has officially confirmed she is on the recording once-a-month plan. We have gotten indications of that. We have certainly seen that is the history of it, but she has announced it on Instagram. She will be at PSNY from February 17th through the 23rd. She’s going to teach a bunch of live classes. She’s going to record that content and then it’s going to drop over the several weeks after that. She indicated there’s going to be a live pace target run, three live strength classes, that can afford an unofficial split, and some surprises as well. We are so happy to have Selena back. Remember the instructors want us to show our support by taking our favorite classes and riding them.

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Peloton apparel is having a 40% off sale.

If you spend over $150, that’s pretty easy to do. I want to say that it does not exclude the brand-new dropped spring apparel that a lot of people had their eyes on. There are a couple of collabs that have been excluded from recent sales. They are also not excluded from the sale.

That runs through February 19th.

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Finally, we have one birthday this week. It belongs to the former instructor extraordinaire. He’s a former instructor. He is still extraordinaire to be clear. Ross Rayburn.

 

Happy birthday to Ross Rayburn.

His birthday is on February 19th.

The same day that the sale ends.

Get him a little something. I’m sure he wants more Peloton swagger.

Happy birthday, Ross.

Coming up after this, we’re going to talk to our interview of the week, Rob Torino. Stick around.

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Joining us via the magic of ZoomTube is Rob Torino. Rob, how’s it going?

How are you doing?

We’re good.

Nice to meet you and nice to be here.

How Rob Discovered Peloton

Thank you so much for joining us. I would love to start with some background of where in your timeline of fitness Peloton came into view and you decided “This would be a good fit for me.”

Fitness has been going on for quite some time for me in and out of periods. With Peloton, like many of us, it was brought about by COVID. I used to go to our local Y all the time, five days a week. Once COVID hit, everybody was shut down. In my corner there, we had this little old digital analog elliptical bike that I used to use. One day I came home from walking my dog and my daughter said, “We bought a Peloton.”

I was like, “Us? Okay, cool.” We ordered it in about mid-July or so. Finally, at that time, it took two and a half to three months to arrive. We got it sometime in mid-September. I just looked it up recently. I forgot the actual date though. I took my very first ride with Tunde and I’ve been on it every day since, except for vacations, business meetings, and hernia surgery. Otherwise, you cannot keep me off on Christmas morning, New Year’s Eve morning, Easter morning, birthdays, you name it. I’m back there pedaling and sweating.

Rob’s Sports Background And Active Lifestyle

Were you always an active person through school when you were younger, or is this something that you just started getting into as you were in your adulthood?

I’ve always been playing sports throughout my life, in a college career with fraternity, intramural sports, football, volleyball, and softball. I was always active. We used to do some running, but nothing major. I did a 5-mile Memorial Day run probably 35 or 40 years ago. On the other side of this, you cannot see it, we got the Peloton tread. I did my very first 10K run with my good buddy Kimi C1313, shout out to you Kimi.

For her 40th birthday, she says, “You name it, we’re running.” Another shout-out to Nurse Jackie1818. We did a 10K run in the rain. It wasn’t ideal, but to Kimmy’s credit, she’s a monster. She’s a beast. She stayed with me every step of the way. There has always been some form of active athletic sports and exercising for a long time. You can see the grays.

At least they’re still there. You’re better than me.

I tell people that I don’t have a forehead. I got a six-head.

Whenever people complain about gray hair, I’m like, “I’d love to have gray hair. I’ll trade.” I thought it was funny too about the leaderboard name. After the show Nurse Jackie, I don’t know if I would be using that as my leaderboard, but I came up with something different. RN Jackie.

 

She’s a nurse and she’s Jackie, so I guess it fits for her.

She must have taken a lot of heat when that show was on.

Riding The Bike And Doing The Runs

I would think. I understand you have the tread and the bike. Do you take both kinds of classes? Do you do runs and biking or do you stick to the bike mostly?

Monday through Friday at about 5:25 AM, Eastern Time, we’re on the tread. That ends with a quick stretch and a quick change of shoes, By about a quarter to 6:50, we’re on the bike for another half hour and then off to the races for corporate life. Saturdays and Sundays, we’re on the bike. We do Matt Wilpers whenever he’s around and live. I love the 120-minute classes. Not every weekend, but once or so, I’ll get on the tread and run in the summertime. I love being out, 90 degrees and better. I love it, so then I’ll take the phone with me and do one of the outdoor runs or whatnot, and run outside.

We are polar opposites. I hate the heat. I cannot stand running in the heat. I can run outside, no problem. I’d rather run in the rain, I’d rather run in the cold. Forget that heat, it’s awful.

There was a pun intended with that polar, right?

Exactly. What about strength classes? Do you do those at all?

I tend to do OCD. I’ve been avoiding them as much as possible. We’re doing core workouts together. We’d hop off the bike. We’d jump in and I would do the core. I have some lower-back issues and stuff like that. I started doing some of the core work. My back issues were like 99% gone. I try and hit core every day. I’ll stick with that. We do bike boot camps as well.

Getting a good mix in then.

We try.

If it’s every day, he does tread and then hops off right under the bike.

I was thinking of mixing with strength. Strength is such a thing.

Never enough for you.

It’s not that it’s not enough.

That’s what it’s like for me.

All you do is strength. Don’t get me started, mister.

I’m here to mediate now.

Getting Two Classes In the Studio

Have you ever been to the studio, Rob?

Yes. I have been fortunate enough to have two classes, both with Ally. My buddy Kimmy C1313 and I met up there. It was the first time. Unfortunately, we didn’t get to take the class together, but it was the very first time. I think it was February 2024 or so when I finally got into a class. The ironic thing is we’re like two kids in a candy shop going gaga. She got pictures with Maria Fernandez. I got Rebecca Kennedy to use the phone because I suck at selfies. She took a selfie for me. She was like, “Yeah.” She was so gracious. It was cool.

We came back and went back to our houses and the next morning, both Kimmy and I had new profile pictures. The ironic thing is in her profile picture, I’m more featured in it, and in my profile picture, you cannot even tell it’s me. She’s in the front and I’m in the background with the Peloton studios behind us. It’s pretty funny. It was not planned. We were laughing hysterically the next day. Later on, I got another Ally Halloween ride past Halloween. What a vibe, what an experience. It’s Christmas morning.

 

Did you dress up for the Halloween ride?

No. I just wore a black Peloton shirt. I didn’t get dressed up. We kept it low-key. I got to meet so many people that I’ve known for years that I don’t call them Instagram friends. I don’t call them Peloton friends. Jennifer out in LA, shout out to those guys and prayers for them. Long-standing buddy Mighty Little Mom. We got to meet out there. We’ve been high-fiving and messaging since probably 2021 when we got to meet up. It was a cool experience. Britt, the love squad Peloton crew. I met her too. She was phenomenal. Along with Elaine, I got to give that polka dot and give her a shout-out as well. This is a shout-out session. I’m sorry guys.

You’re like an instructor.

He’s got a screen rolling by and he’s making sure to give them out all as he goes through. Very nice.

It’s funny, I’ve never intended or thought of it but so many people messaged me and contacted me saying, “Coach, what are we doing?” I used to spearhead so many classes. We have our daily group, Soaked with Sweat. I created that hashtag, and we ride every day. We did a couple of Team Peanut Butter on some of the PZ challenges. I had another group that was riding for a while at night times. Coach is my nickname, which I find that funny. It’s weird to hear, but people like it so I’m like, “I’ll ride with it.”

The Story Behind Rob’s Leaderboard Name

Does that mean that Coach is in your leaderboard name?

Absolutely not. Originally, if you could see it up there, it’s one of our Christmas gifts that we used to do when we did the grand bags with our group. Originally, it was Robbo ST. My initials are RST, Robert Salvatore Torino. My nickname in college was Robbo. Currently and probably for about almost two and a half years now, Hot Girl SHIII. How that came about was Mallory Mad Mal had done an Instagram post and she was scrolling on her thing and said, “Look at all these hot girls doing their hot girl sh*t.” All these girls and then who’s in the middle there? I was like, “I finally made it. I’m a hot girl, yes.”

I did it as a joke and the next couple of rides, the amount of followers that I was getting was crazy. Every ride I did, I was getting ten new followers. I was like, “This is good.” There was me and my little Fido Dino biker hat. That’s currently my leaderboard name. I kept the curse out of it for folks like Ally and Matt. It’s not in their vocabulary, which is cool. It’s gotten some good plays, some fun play. When Camila first started and she was doing the live Mondays, we were all geeking out because she was like, “That’s right. Hot Girl SHIII, you’re working up on a Monday, waking up on a Monday morning at 6:00 doing this. This is a hot girl sh*t.” It was pretty funny. I have a couple of those in my clips. It’s hysterical, I think.

It reminds me of when I worked at a grocery store forever and I started like in the ‘80s and everyone that worked in the service desk, everybody said office girls.

It’s a long time ago.

I got promoted.

When you have long hair.

I got promoted from checker to the service desk and then they were just like, “What are we going to call them now?” I was like, “I say we keep saying office girls.” People get mad when you can’t say chairman anymore. I’m like, “I say we stick with office girls. Fair is fair.” They were like, “Okay.” I was an office girl.

It’s very appropriate.

We have something in common.

I know I was not a hot office girl.

You were just an office girl.

That’s fair. You mentioned going off to your corporate world. What does that entail?

I work in insurance for an insurance company doing compliance reporting for workers’ comp insurance. It’s a gig. It pays the bills, pays the mortgage, and pays the Peloton membership. We’re okay with it. We’re good.

Are you the one who follows people around to make sure that they’re injured?

Stay the course. Whatever you are doing, do not give up. Share on X

No. I’m the one that if we don’t do our job right, they get shut down for not having any insurance.

Being The Coach And Embracing Positivity

Please keep doing your job. We were messaging before we started recording. You said that you’re known for being supportive of other members of the community. You also mentioned that your nickname is Coach. I assume those are related. How did you originally become a supportive person? Is that something that came naturally to you or did you see a need that needed to be filled? How did that work?

I feel like in the world, too many people love to complain and love to get noticed by being negative, knocking people down. It’s easier and more fun to build somebody up, to be supportive to say if I had a crappy workout, “You weren’t sitting on the couch.” Something is something. Trying to be positive, help people out, make them feel good, make them feel better, and it’s a better day for me when somebody throws you back a smile and says, “Thank you, I needed that.” It makes life better. Positive is positive. Negative is negative. It’s in the words right there. I came up with that one.

I like it. I’m curious what your take is on the official Peloton page on Facebook.

I don’t go on Facebook. I’m strictly an Instagram guy. Facebook had gotten too political. I got caught in a whirlwind with people and all kinds of crap was happening. I don’t deal with it. Social media, Instagram is where I’m at. I peek my head on Facebook every now and then for a friend or my kids. I stay off of that. Peloton, I love the pages on Instagram.

I was curious because what people refer to as the OPP is the Official Peloton Page which is a group, not a page, but it used to be a super supportive group. It used to be very much what you were describing. The bigger and bigger Peloton has gotten, the more nasty and cesspool that place has become. You could post something as simple as the sky is blue and then people will lose their sh*t and go off. It has become awful over there. I was just curious. There are still very positive people in that group, but they are a lot harder to find.

They are drowned out.

That’s where I’d rather be, hot girl sh*t, than lose my sh*t.

I understand.

That works out better for me.

Rob’s Preferred And Favorite Instructors

I like that. Do you have a preferred instructor?

Not really. There are a couple of instructors I won’t say that I won’t take. If you throw Ally, Tunde, Matt Wilpers, Denis, and Alex, if you say go take a class, I’m going to have to close my eyes and do Eenie Meenie Miny Moe. You get a sweat with all of them. They’re a vibe they all bring their own little thing to the table. If they’re screaming it out and shouting you out on the leaderboard out there, I’m happy with them.

That’s fair. What about on the tread? Any favorite instructors on the tread?

I got a couple there. I enjoy Selena Samuel on the tread. I wish and I would love that she would come on the bike boot camp along with Joslyn Thompson out in London. Becs jump on the bandwagon there. Everybody likes Becs Gentry. Maria Fernandez, I enjoy her, and Matt also.

Lots of great instructors.

I call him Matt like he’s my buddy.

There’s that parasocial relationship.

Advice For New Peloton Users

I think most Peloton users are guilty of things like that. Do you have any advice for people just now entering the world of Peloton?

Be consistent. Don’t get frustrated and do you. I tell people that all the time. If they had a problem with the bike, they got a different bike they had a bad day. They say it themselves. Today’s not the same day as yesterday. You may have had a PR yesterday, but not today. Stay the course, give it your best that day, and show up tomorrow. I always tell people they like to, “I’m celebrating my milestone, my 100, my 500, my 1,000.”

To me, the big one is 501 or 1,001 because you can easily get complacent because you hit that milestone. You’ve done so many, but showing up that next day and then keep going every day, no matter what you got. There have been quite a few times, especially Sundays, I like to take as pretty much as my relaxed day. I’ve gotten a new pair of sneakers and did something. Stay the course. Don’t give up. Show up for 501, 1,001, or 1,501.

 

Especially when you’re like, “I don’t want to work out,” those are the most important ones to do.

It’s true.

It’s going to be 8:00 at night. You’re going to be like, “I think I’m going to go on there.”

Closing Words And Episode Wrap-up

Rob, thank you so much for taking time out of your day to join 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 the leaderboard, it’s Hot Girl Shiii. On the leaderboard, I got my Instagram on there. It’s @RTorino1965. Hit me up, follow me, and I’ll follow you back right away. Get on the leaderboard and we’ll high-five away. I have to warn you, if you ride with me, you’re not getting one high five, you’re probably going to get about 1,001 high five. It’s my thing.

That’s a lot of high fives.

I love doing it and people love it. I tell people, “If it’s annoying, let me know” I have one person say, “A little bit too much there Torino.”

Thank you so much.

Thank you. My pleasure.

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

People can find me on Facebook, Bluesky, Threads, and Instagram @ClipOutCrystal, not to mention the Peloton leaderboard.

You can find me on Bluesky and Threads at TomOKeefeJr, and on Facebook at Facebook.com/tomokeefe. You can find the show online on Facebook.com/TheClipOut. While you’re there, like the page, join the group. Don’t forget our Patreon, Patreon.com/TheClipOut, where for $5 a month, you get all sorts of bonus content and we like it a little extra. That’s it for this one. Thanks for tuning in and until next time, keep pedaling, and running, and rowing.

Bye.

 

 

Important Links

• Rob Torino on Instagram
• Peloton
• The Clip Out on Apple Podcasts
• The Clip Out on Spotify
• The Clip Out on iHeart
• The Clip Out on TuneIn
• The Clip Out on Patreon
• The Clip Out on Facebook
• The Clip Out on YouTube
• Crystal O’Keefe on Facebook
• Crystal O’Keefe on Instagram
• Crystal O’Keefe on Threads
• Crystal O’Keefe on Bluesky
• Crystal O’Keefe on TikTok
• Tom O’Keefe on Twitter
• Tom O’Keefe on Threads
• Tom O’Keefe on Facebook
• Tom O’Keefe on Bluesky
• Dr. Jenn Mann’s website
• The Relationship Fix: Dr. Jenn’s 6-Step Guide to Improving Communication, Connection and Intimacy website
• Vegan Lunch Box
• Five Ingredient Vegan

 

 

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