• Multiple and mysterious class cancellations—what’s going on? 🤔
• This week in technical issues—glitches or growing pains?
• You can now book Low Impact Cardio classes—yes, please! 🏋️‍♀️
• Peloton partners with Generali Berlin Half Marathon—big moves on the global stage! 🌎🏃‍♂️
• Rebecca Kennedy is out with an unspecified injury—sending healing vibes! 💐
• Denis Morton re-records a purged class—second chances never felt so good. 🚴‍♂️
• Mariana Fernandez is on the mend—glad to see progress! 💪
• Bradley Rose’s recent health scare—we’re wishing him all the best! ❤️
• The latest artist series features Kesha—ready to be “Raising Hell” on the bike? 🎤🚴
• March Artist Series overview—so much music, so little time! 🎶🎨
• Sara Haines (from The View) shows off her amazing Peloton workout room—goals! 🚴‍♀️📺
• TCO Top Five—your weekly recap of listeners’ favorite classes. Did yours make the list? 🤩
• This Week at Peloton—what to expect from your favorite fitness fam. 🏋️‍♂️📆
• Peloton’s latest music-themed classes—Rising Pop editions are here! 🎵✨
• Celebrating Women’s History Month with inspiring themed rides. 🚴‍♀️🌸
• I.P. HIIT rides over 30 minutes 😢—will they be missed or not-so-much?
• New Spring apparel just dropped—refresh your workout wardrobe. 👕🌼

Plus we interview Troy Taylor from Tonal to get the scoop on Tonal 2. Don’t miss this jam-packed episode of updates, insights, and all things Peloton! 🚴‍♀️🔥

—

Watch the episode here

Listen to the podcast here

Multiple and Mysterious Class Cancellations Plus our Interview with Troy Taylor

Before we dig in, I feel like we should give people an update on the GoFundMe that we’ve been doing for Helper Bee Tina because it’s positive news.

I checked it before we came down here and we have topped $12,500. I appreciate that people have been sharing this. Our goal is to raise as much money as we can to help out. It sounds like it’s a two and a half year treatment program for Mason. In the last couple of weeks, he has been going to get his treatment. He’s there getting his treatment. Last week, his platelets were a little on the low side but not so low. They couldn’t do treatment, but they had to do a blood draw to make sure that he was in a good range for them to be able to do treatment. I have been keeping up with Tina to find out how things are and they have started a new tradition of daily watching an episode or two of Modern Family to keep spirits high. I love that

That’s 12 seasons.

That’s the goal to keep things normal, funny, and silly. I love that for them. They are on week four. That’ll end the first 30 days of treatment and then they go into a new phase. Tina is a planner like me. They don’t know what that looks like at all. They know it’s going to be 60 days, but they don’t know what that consists of. That’s driving her a little crazy. It would be driving me crazy, so I get that.

They’re holding up incredibly well. We talked about this a couple of weeks ago, but I want to say it again. Part of the reason we’re raising this money is because the hospital they are going to is a couple of hours away from them and it is out of network. Anything that insurance doesn’t cover, it’s going to get expensive, and they have to travel two hours to get his treatment every week. It’s going to incur a lot. There’s going to be a lot of expense. That’s why we are raising money for Tina and her family. We all want to rally around Mason and send him lots of good vibes.

Thank you to everyone who has donated.

Thank you all so much. It’s very helpful and Tina has expressed so much gratitude. She can feel the love from the community and she appreciates it.

What pray tell do you have in store for people?

We have a fun interview with Troy Taylor. We are going to be discussing all things Tonal 2. It was fun. Troy is a great guy to talk to. It’s a fun interview. We also are going to be talking about all these class cancellations that Peloton has been putting out this week. We have a few updates on technical issues. We are also going to talk about the newest class that you can book online to do live. We also have a new listing. Peloton has partnered with a new race. We’re going to talk about that.

We also are going to be talking about a few updates for instructors. We have Rebecca Kennedy and an update on her recent injury. We will be talking about Denis Morton and what class he recorded. We have an update on Mariana Fernandez who’s on the mend, and then Bradley Rose had a crazy health scare. We’re going to talk about that. We will cover the newest artist series and a new celebrity sighting, as well as all of the fun content coming up in the next month.

I should say, as part of shameless plugs, over on the Patreon, we will be talking about kettlebell tips. We will also be talking about where Peloton’s latest pop-up store will be. Also, Daniel McKenna chimed in on the Instagram with taking a stroll down memory lane. We will explain all about that over on the Patreon, which is available at Patreon.com/TheClipOut. For $5 a month, you get all sorts of bonus content. You get ad-free episodes and then, of course, we like you extra. If we get them early, you get them early. We’ve had a couple people sign up in the last few weeks, so thank you.

Don’t forget, we’re available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, iHeart, TuneIn. Wherever you find a podcast, you can find us. While you’re there, be sure to follow us. Maybe leave us a review. You can find us on Facebook at Facebook.com/TheClipOut. While you’re there, like the page and join the group. Sign up for our newsletter over at TheClipOut.com. I will send you a weekly newsletter with the links and stuff to all the things we talked about. If you want to read more about it, it’s right there for you, and then the Patreon that we plugged. There’s all that. Let’s dig in. Shall we?

We shall.

‐‐‐

We have had multiple and mysterious cancellations. Not all of them are mysterious, but some of them are mysterious because we’re like, “What did you schedule it for in the first place?”

I can see it because today is the 5th for the Power Zone one. Matt Wilpers had a class that was canceled. It was canceled for the 8th but he was in Tokyo. I don’t know if that means like, “We’re canceling this because Matt is going to be taking a little bit more of a break after his recent marathon.”

Between the marathon and the jet lag. Yeah.

I don’t know if it’s that. Maybe it’s something completely different. Maybe he got an amazing offer. It’s a little mysterious because we don’t know, but it was class. On 3/8, there was a Power Zone class that was scheduled at 8:00 AM and that has been canceled.

There was also a Queens of Pop Full-Body Strength with Rebecca Kennedy. That was supposed to be on March 2nd, but that got canceled. She had an injury, but we’ll talk about that later in the episode in Instructors In The News. That one is not mysterious.

It was at the time when it first popped up. We were all like, “What is happening?”

We then have a HIIT and Hills ride.

It was supposed to take place on March 7th and that has been canceled. It was with Olivia Amato. What’s interesting about this is that on the 7th and 8th, with both of those classes being canceled back to back in two separate days, you can’t help but wonder if something is going on in the studio that they had to cancel that. With it being back to back with two different instructors, there’s nothing about that that’s obvious. That’s part of the mysteriousness that we don’t know. Benny also had to cancel this weekend because he had to have surgery. He announced over the weekend that he had to cancel one of his classes. He thought he would be ready in time, and he was not. Poor guy. I hope he’s okay.

We have a This Week in Peloton feature. Now, we have This Week in Tech Issues.

On March 4th, some members have started reporting that they are having issues accessing their schedule. Peloton has listed that as currently investigating as of today. They don’t have a fix. They don’t have like what happened. It’s unidentified. We’re aware and they’re investigating. We had talked about the Apple TV requesting to log in after the app update.

They can’t get this one.

It did say that it was going to be rolling out this week, so they have a fix. It’s been released and they expected it to be rolling out to members over the next week. By the time you hear this, in theory, that should be fixed. You can also go to the Apple Store and update the app to 15.100 and that should immediately resolve the issue for people. Those are the two things that are hanging out there. There’s also the challenge and profile dashboard discrepancies. What Peloton had said way back on the 14th is they had identified the root cause, and they were going to implement a fix and backfill it, but it’s still listed as not done. We leave that out there as well.

There is a new class type that people can now book.

Yeah, first time low-impact cardio. It’s interesting because number one, it’s Rebecca Kennedy. Will she be back in time? That’s the question.

I guess it is low impact. My philosophy is all cardio is low impact if you’re lazy enough.

People love the low-impact cardio. It’s ‘80s, ‘90s driven. You have the step aerobics going on. People love it.

Get your leg warmers on.

This is the first time you’ve ever been able to book this in person. We thought that was worth noting because people are excited about this one. If you’re looking, I’m sure it is going to continue to stay full. At the moment, it’s still up on the booking site. If you keep going back to check, maybe you’ll get lucky and get in on a wait list. It’s going to be on March 13th.

Peloton has partnered with the Generali Berlin Half Marathon. I don’t speak German, but Generali sounds like Spanish, like federali.

I could see that. Peloton has partnered with them before and. I vaguely remember that, but to be honest, some of these things start to all roll together. This race will take place on April 6th. As you said, it’s a half marathon, Erik Jäger is going to be there. Jeffrey McEachern and Susie Chan will all be there as well. There’s going to be events happening at the Expo and on race day. It’s probably a good opportunity to meet all those instructors if you haven’t yet. That would be a good place to do that.

If you happen to be in Berlin.

 

We do have listeners in Berlin. That’s a thing. Germany is small enough that even if you’re not in Berlin today, you could be in Berlin if you wanted to.

I’m American. I always forget that people and other countries speak multiple languages. We don’t do that.

You can go to almost any other country and they speak English. A lot of people speak English. I’m dropping it before I start saying things that I get yelled at.

We are guilty of it too.

Yes, we are.

Coming up after this, we’re going to have Instructors in the News. We’re going to talk to you about what’s up with Rebecca Kennedy and Denis Morton re-recording a class. Stick around.

‐‐‐

Rebecca Kennedy is out with an unspecified injury.

She took it to the Gram. She said that she was hoping that rest and PT exercises that she had been doing were going to be enough to get her back into the studio, and she found that they were not. She’s going to do what the doctor tells her and she said it’s the same advice that she would give any of us, which is to go to the doctor, listen to the doctor, take your time, and get healthy. That’s what she’s going to do, which is what she should do. This is why I say I don’t know if she will be back in time for the 13th. We all hope that she will. That is going to be a Sabrina Carpenter Low-Impact Cardio. I hope it is because Rebecca is the one who brought low-impact cardio to Peloton. I would hope for her that that class is able to happen.

That’s so much easier said than done. It’s so hard when you’re injured to give yourself a day off or several because that’s what it is.

Denis Morton has re-recorded a purged class.

I love this story that he put up on his Instagram. It says, “Once upon a time, I did a 15-minute full-body stretch. I had no idea how much people enjoyed it until it disappeared. This is that same routine, released at midnight, bookmark it.” It was listed as a stretch before. This time around, it is a 15-minute yoga flow. If there was a stretch that you loved from Denis and you have asked for it to come back, look for it. It was released on February 28th, and as Denis said, bookmark that so you have it for at least four years before everything gets purged again.

Theoretically.

Yeah. We can’t promise anything.

It’s funny though that when they record classes, they get purged. Do you know what it reminds me of? When TV shows switched from black and white to color, a lot of them would re-record episodes. They would remake some of the episodes that they thought were better received. They would have them in color, knowing that a lot of the black and white episodes would be purged in time. My Three Sons aired for 15 seasons or something. The first 5 or 6 seasons are all black and white. You never saw them in reruns. It’s like two kids leave, and they replace them. They flipped a color and then that was all you ever saw in syndication with the color ones. Yeah. What makes you think of it?

That makes sense.

Mariana Fernandez is on the mend.

She posted a sweet post. It was very touching, about being in her recovery area. She talked about how she had a rough go of it. She had three races that she couldn’t start. She was not able to have any New Year’s resolutions this year. She said that she had no sense of self. What she thought was a virus led to post effects, and she had to stop her SSRI, which for many is an antidepressant. She said to not knowing what was happening to spiraling two months, chronic nausea, 4G eyes, doctors later, going back on all my meds, all the FOMO, a supremely relentless support system. That’s a lot.

It sounds like she is in the process of getting back to herself and she’s getting there. Center all the love because she’s a wonderful, caring, and thoughtful person. I know it’ll mean a lot to her to hear from people, but she said that for her, it was another lesson in taking care of your mental health and how you talk to yourself, especially during an injury. To your point. It’s a lot easier said than done to take a step back.

Especially when you’re entire life career is built around fitness. It’s so much a part of your identity when you’re somebody like this.

You can’t help but question on some level like, “Am I still relevant if I get hurt?” The answer is yes, just to be clear, but I can only imagine that’s the thing that goes to your head in these moments. Our love to Mariana.

Speaking of health stuff, Bradley Rose had a bit of a health scare.

The picture you’re seeing if you’re watching is coming from Bradley Rose’s wife, Sophia. Bradley posted about this as well, but his didn’t have captions. That’s why we used Sophia’s. In a nutshell, they have been going through a tough time. February was awful between buying our first home and moving, then not having a place to live for two weeks because the house wasn’t ready, then navigating a cancer scare, not to mention her being five to six months pregnant, and having to work on top of all of it. She’s so grateful that this is the conclusion. Bradley was worried that he had cancer and came back okay. He’s all right and they’re all right, but that’s a lot to go through. Our love to them as well.

‐‐‐

The latest artist series features Kesha.

I’m excited about this. Love the Kesha. I mean not to know from Teen Mom Love Kesha.

Janelle from Teen Mom, love the Kesha. She’s willing to go to jail for it and lose her children.

It’s Kesha. That was one of the best moments in reality TV. This is going to be a fun one. There are classes. They’re going to be an outdoor run with Kesha. It’s going to be on demand coming up this week. There’s also going to be a German ride with Mila. It’s going to be 20 minutes, and then there’s going to be a 30-minute glutes and leg strength with Callie. Not to mention a power flow with Mariana, a ride with Cody, a walk plus run with Jess King, and a row with Katie. All of that is happening. By the time you hear this, it will all be out. It’s very exciting.

We also have an overview of all the artist series coming up in March. They have some big names.

We talked about Kesha. There’s also going to be one for Sabrina Carpenter, Sheryl Crow, and Lady Gaga. Remember, March is Women’s History Month. I love what they are doing here. There’s a nice mix of genres. There’s a nice mix of age ranges and a nice mix of wonderful artists here. I’m excited about this one.

Whenever I hear the name Sabrina, I automatically go in my head, “Teenage Witch.” I will never not do that.

That’s perfect.

‐‐‐

If you watch The View or the third hour of Good Morning America, Sarah Haines is on there. She posted a clip from her workout room and you could see multiple pieces of Peloton equipment in there.

I see the bike. I see Peloton weights in her hands, which she is doing. I also see the tread in the background. Good for her. That’s cool.

It’s neat to see their workout space and see all their other half lives.

I’m like, “Is that LVP on her floor?” The luxury vinyl thing.

The response has been universally positive—people are stoked. They love the convenience of working out at home, and they enjoy coming together in group fitness classes to lift heavy, whether squatting or deadlifting. Share on X

In a workout room nonetheless.

I know.

‐‐‐

We will now take a look at the TCO Top 5, where you tell us your favorite classes, and then we tell you, you were right. Number one is your favorite strength class.

This was taught by Callie Gullickson on February 26th. It was a 20-minute glutes and legs class. Sarah Lester nominated this class saying, “Do not let the beginner classification deter you. This is a great class for all. It’s simple but effective, and it could have been used in a hypertrophy class stack. Just increase the weight you are lifting. This will be on repeat for me.”

Congratulations, Sarah Lester. You were right. Everyone else was wrong.

Tom has bestowed rightness upon you.

Number two, your favorite ride.

This class was taught by Robin Arzon, which hasn’t hit the top five in a while. This class was taught back on September 12, 2024. It was a 45-minute interval in arms. Yes, she’s wearing yellow. I know somebody will ask.

You and I know that.

It was a contender for the unstackable. It ultimately didn’t win out, but Courtney Marissa said, “I should have known I was in trouble when I saw those sparkly yellow shoes. This ride was disgusting in all the best ways. There was a 5-minute and 45-second warm-up that foreshadowed the long interval sections for the rest of the ride, power intervals with resistance at 65 or higher, speed intervals, and a max effort block at the end with high resistance springs when I was already pretty gasped. This ride kept me breathless nearly the whole time, but Robin coached it well.”

Congratulations, Courtney. You are wrong about the unstackable but you were right about the favorite ride. Congratulations to you. Up next, your favorite row.

Katie Wang taught this class. It was on March 1st. Melissa Solon recommended this class. It was a 20-minute ‘80s row. Melissa said, “It had a fantastic playlist and a mix of easy, moderate, and challenging intervals, great coaching and motivation, plus the playlist of all your favorite ‘80 songs.” You can’t go wrong there.

Congrats, Melissa. You were correct. Number four, your favorite strength class.

This was taught by Rebecca Kennedy on February 21st, our anniversary. It was a 20-minute arms and shoulders strength. BC loved this class. She said, “Rebecca hits it out of the park again. I hadn’t done a strength class in a week and a half, and this was the perfect class to get back into it. Playlist was perfection. Millennials in particular will love it. It was all about shoulders, triceps, and biceps.”

Congratulations, BC. You were correct. Although I think you have to change your name to BCE. That’s what we say these days now. It’s a woke. Finally, number five, your favorite unstackable run. Who got it right?

Oliver.

Way to go, Oliver.

This was taught by Becs Gentry on March 1st, 2025. Oliver said, “This class had five intervals with challenging hard and very hard pacing, with disgusting,” that’s the second time we’ve heard the word today, “disgusting inclines thrown in. This was a great class for anyone with spring races in mind, and one to push yourself and get some miles on your legs. An eclectic mix of music combined with Becs’s experience as a runner made this a great class, but not one to do as a stack.” That’s so true. I love that one. Plus Becs in the picture has the “Don’t F with me” look. She’s serious. It was destined to be.

We will now take a look at this week at Peloton.

This week is all about the outdoor runs. On Sunday, March 9th, there’s going to be a live outdoor run with Susie. It’s going to be 30 minutes long. I think this is the only fourth or fifth outdoor live run that Peloton has had. I think it’s Susie’s first, so that’s fun. We have a few tips for that. We also have brand new dance cardio classes dropping. Emma, Hannah Corbin, and Jess King all have classes dropping as well.

We have post-meal walks, which we all know are fart walks.

John, Camilla, and Susie are dropping some. They’re going to be 10 minutes. I love that Helper Bee Elizabeth wrote, “As The Clip Out says, nothing beats a good fart walk.”

We also have benchmark strength classes.

There are five new ones and it’s going to be Rebecca, Matty, Jermaine, Robin, and Andy, all doing classes in the benchmark strength collection. That’s awesome. I said Elizabeth, but it was Kimberly. Kimberly wrote this. I’m so sorry.

We have a new music-themed class series, Rising Pop.

You might remember that they have Rising Country. They started doing that series, and they started having a lot of the country stars coming in and doing award season and things like that. Now, we have Rising Pop. It is going to be all the up-and-coming pop artists. There are several classes out there on demand already because Peloton posted this after they had already done the classes. I don’t know what is happening.

Maybe it should be called Risen Pop.

I don’t know. It might be time to bring in a social media person from high school. I’m just saying. I know they’re trying to cut costs. They can intern. Maybe they should bring in an intern for the summer. Maybe they should focus on the social media. The weekends have been brutal lately. I don’t know what is going on. Somebody is not doing this right. Anyway, there’s a bunch of these. There’s also going to be a couple of Lanebreak classes that are going to be popping up as well. I will probably be taking those because I enjoy the Lanebreak classes.

Peloton is celebrating Women’s History Month.

There are a bunch of different classes. As we talked about earlier, there’s going to be several of these new artists coming up this month. In addition to that, we are also going to see Rebecca’s Queens of Pop strength. We’re hoping that still happens later, then Alex K’s Women Who Mix row, and then on March 5th, there’s going to be an encore of Jess Sims Hip Hop Heroines, and then Mila’s Vocal Legends walk on March 7th, and then Becs Queens of Pop row that’s going to be taking place live on March 8th, Cliff’s Hip Hop Heroines ride in German. I think that’s it. Of course, there is the collection we’ve had over five years of those. Lots of fun classes coming out.

Peloton was also commemorating International Women’s Day.

Saturday is International Women’s Day. They talked about how, “Because being a woman is a sport, show us what yours looks like. Whether that’s a woman’s endurance, your passion, running miles, running the day, whatever, show us your game,” and then they said, “Reply to the story with photos and videos of you in sport. Send the story to your team of strong women so they can join in, and turn on notifications to celebrate women owning their power all month long,” which is awesome. However, to my point earlier, they forgot to turn the feature on where you can reply. Whoops. I’m just saying.

As someone who controls the social media account for a concert venue and does the email, I hate it. I’ve done stuff like that.

What I bet happened, in defense of Peloton, even though I’m making fun of them, was it’s probably scheduled ahead of time. A lot of these features don’t work properly when you’re scheduling ahead of time. If they’re using a third party to go in and schedule it, then you’re not able to mess with the details on things like that. I don’t know if that was it, but it makes me wonder if that was it.

 

That makes sense. Now, our in memoriam segment, if you have a 40, pour one out. RIP, HIIT rides over 30 minutes.

This might have been in place for a while. Officially, Ally said the other day during her 30-minute Tabata class that they are no longer teaching any type of HIIT rides over 30 minutes, so 30 minutes is the max. They might have a 45-minute HIIT and Hills, but you’re not going to see a 45-minute HIIT ride. I felt like I needed to specify that so somebody doesn’t come back to me and tell me I’m wrong. I will say most people are super nice about how they say things. I get that it’s a question. In this particular case, I think they may have quietly done this.

Also, it’s such a minor tweak. Why make a big deal out of it? You’re going to get people yelling at you for no reason.

Honestly, if it’s HIIT that you’re doing properly, 30 minutes is plenty. You don’t need a 45-minute ride. Maybe there is a 45-minute run still. I don’t know. That was what she said.

‐‐‐

More items have been added to the Spring apparel line.

They dropped another round of it. Beautiful yellow color came out this time. I hear from the women, lots of one shoulder. We don’t like it, get it out of here. Some people do or they wouldn’t be doing it, but lots of pretty colors. They had this weird tie-dye thing that I’m not sure how I feel about. One curious thing is the prison scrubs. I’m not understanding what’s happening here. I do love the dream blend. I love the dream blend, but these look like prison scrubs, especially the oatmeal color, I don’t know what somebody was thinking.

Orange is the new Peloton.

That’s what’s happening. Also, reportedly, now you need to hit $100 to have free shipping.

How much did it used to be?

It started at $50, and then I know it went up to $75. This person who brought this to my attention said that this happened this week. It was the first time they had seen it at $100. Other people told me they thought that it had already been $100 for a while. I’m not confident either way because I haven’t been buying for a little while.

You have no way of knowing because when’s the last time you’ve spent less than $100 or so?

I never spend less than $100.

You were safe as a kitten from shipping charges. I’ll tell you that.

Please, it’s broad. It’s $100. Come on. I don’t know if it’s been $100 or if it was $75. It was $75 the last time I ordered. I’m not clear if this is new or not. Some people are saying it’s new, so I’m throwing it out there. It is pretty hard to order under $100, so you’re probably going to be safe to get your free shipping.

Coming up after this, we have our interview of the week. We’re going to talk to Troy Taylor from Tonal. He’s going to tell us all about Tonal 2 and all the new things they’re doing. We tried it out. It was pretty spiffy. You’ll hear all about that, coming up next.

 ‐‐‐

Introducing Troy Taylor & His Role

Joining us via the magic of ZoomTube from Tonal is their Vice President of Performance Innovation. It’s Troy Taylor. Troy, how’s it going?

I am doing very well. Thanks for having me on.

I want to be the vice president of coming up with those vague but important sounding job titles.

It’s got VP in the title. He is a very important man.

I’m not sure about that, but as I alluded before we came on recording, you can ask me what my title is. The description of what I do might be a little more complex, but we’ll be good.

That’s fair. It’s so exciting. Tonal just released Tonal 2, and we got a chance to try it, but we want to hear from you exactly what all these changes mean. We were super stoked to be able to try the Tonal 2.

It’s pretty spiffy.

Tonal 2 Unveiling & Aero Mode Features

It’s beautiful. You tell us, what are you most excited about with the Tonal 2? Let’s start there.

I’m personally most excited actually about Aero mode that you got the Tonal Training Lab, which is a take on a combination between cardio and strength training. It feels not dissimilar to a rower. It’s got that variable resistance. The harder you pull, the harder it resists. You can change that like the gears on a bike. It brings this cardio element to Tonal, which we haven’t had on Tonal before.

You can do all these different movement patterns. You can do this more like a skier type pattern. You can do med ball slam, what we call the Aero pull. You can lunge, twist, and all these strength-based movements while working the heart, lungs, and cardiovascular system. For someone who doesn’t do as much cardio as they probably should, it’s been a game changer for me for getting in 5, 10, 15 minutes of high-intensity cardio where before I wasn’t doing it. There’s a lot of other things, but that’s probably my number one.

Should we explain to people how it works so they can envision what we’re talking about?

Are you going to explain it?

I was hoping Tom might.

I wanted to hear where he was going to.

You got the arms, you put the arms all the way up, which you’ve never done before. You’re raising the roof with your Tonal. The arms are all the way in the air like you just don’t care, but you do care. You then push them together. Your rope device has a double-headed T-lock. The rope attaches to both of the arms, and then you pull down.

He did pretty well.

You put it in the highest position. It’s got a lot of this pulling element. It’s getting lats. There’s a little chest activation, but you’re also squatting and hinging. It’s this full-body movement.

You don’t assign a weight to it, which is fascinating.

That’s the part that’s more similar to a rower.

 

In rowing, they call it the catch, which is where you’re trying to compress and you’re pushing in there. It’s heavy. You’re pushing against the force of water or a flywheel or something like that. It’s got that feeling, and then it’s lighter on the end. It’s this rhythmic fluid motion, but you can do all these different movement patterns on it.

The one that mimics the ball slam, my core was lit up the next day. I was like, “That was amazing. I want to do it again.”

There’s nothing quite like that. If you’ve ever done med ball slams, lifting up high and slamming it between your legs. You’re doing that on repeat for 30 or 60, as long as you can keep going to do it. The core activation is something special.

What do you feel people are going to be most surprised at?

I think the most surprising is how heavy 250 pounds feels. The old Tonal is 200 pounds. Because of the way that electromagnetic motors work and the lack of inertia, it feels heavier than the free weight equivalent. We did the research and it feels like it’s about 250 pounds, the normal Tonal 1. Tonal 2 at 250 pounds feels more like 300 or 315 pounds. It’s heavy. As someone who had to record some social videos, lifting and deadlifting 250 pounds, I’m like, “I can do that. I could do a set of 10 and go 3 reps out.” This facial expression is the one I have to make.

It’s a lot of weight and not everyone needs that, but there are certain populations. I think Tom is maxing out mini sumo squats, as I remember, mini-sumo squat. It provides that extra resistance, which I think is surprising. For those who have never felt Tonal, it’s like,” There’s no way.” You then hit this button, and then the dial keeps going up and up. You’re like, “That’s heavy.”

We should say for people who have never used a Tonal, when you hit the button, especially at the higher weights, it doesn’t instantly go to that weight. It’s not an on-off button.

It’s an on-off button, but it eases into it.

The weight slowly ramps up so it doesn’t send you flying as it goes from 0 to 125 pounds.

No. It also is like, “Are you sure you want to go to this weight,” whenever you first turn it on. That’s why you do the calibration at the beginning, so it can figure out what’s best for you. You’re not just pinging it all the way to the highest level.

As the person who has done some of that R&D testing on how fast or slow that ramp-up should be, 0 to 250 in 0.0 seconds is a little jarring. It takes about 1 to 2 seconds, and it ramps up. I feel we have the sweet spot of like I can feel it long enough, but it’s not so long that it takes too long.

That’s good. That is tricky because I remember when I first started using Tonal, I would try to get a rep in before it all the way clicked in. It’s like I can do ten. No problem.

You’re only cheating yourself.

I know, Tom. That’s back before you even used Tonal. You don’t even get to weigh in on that.

I was surprised at how smooth it is, which is an odd thing to say because it’s not as if I felt like the Tonal that we currently have isn’t smooth. This one was like butter.

It’s next-level. Tom compared it to driving in a nice car and then taking it up to like that luxury level. I don’t even understand what you guys did, but it’s amazing. That was most surprising to me because I thought it was going to be the same machine, just a little heavier. You guys had it with all kinds of things.

That’s been consistent feedback at the Training Lab of like, “It’s so smooth. How do you explain that? My last Tonal is smooth too.” If you use Tonal, the first inch or two, you’re getting the motor moving as well as you’re going. That’s what we’ve managed. When I say we, it’s the firmware engineers, the super-smart mathematicians, Alberto and Colin, who are back then coding. It’s essentially with the upgraded motor control board that’s in the new Tonal 2. Essentially, I think it’s over 10,000 times a second that it can respond to the motor. It feels so smooth.

There is a ton of math wizardry and coding to make it happen. The result feels smoother throughout. Particularly at that low rate repetition, low weights at like 5 pounds, you’re doing internal or external rotation or lateral raises or front raises or reverse flies. It’s not uncommon for 5, 6, 7, or 8 pounds to be the weight that people are lifting. On those, it feels lighter. We’ve managed to get a heavier one on the top end, but it almost feels lighter on the low end, which is appreciated by our members so far.

I was using Tonal 1 this morning. I was doing the reverse fly. I have to do it on such a lightweight. It’s also like you use momentum on those lightweights in a different way than you do when you’re doing bicep curls or bench presses on the Tonal. I have to push myself to not let myself use the momentum, and that’s hard because I want to just be done. Reverse flies are not my favorite.

I don’t think that they are many people’s favorites. They’re a good exercise for your rear delts, but they take a lot of strict form and I will make my muscles contract rather than swing my back or move something else. It takes some discipline to make them effective.

Back to Tonal 2. The Tonal Training Lab, what has been the response of people coming in? I know we were super stoked. Is everybody super stoked when they get there?

It’s been incredible to see the response. Just to give a little context. In your home, that’s where we’ve existed. We have some retail showrooms, but with the Tonal Training Lab, we put ten Tonals in a room and invited members and non-members to come and work out with our on-camera coaches. We opened in mid-January for the very first classes. You guys were in probably a week after that. It’s been universally across the board that people have been so stoked. They love working out in their own home and the convenience of doing that. Coming together, lift heavy in a group fitness class like you’re squatting or deadlifting some heavy weight.

You’re also doing this cardio. You’re also doing some resistance core exercises. It’s been pretty special, the camaraderie and the group mentality. The number of PRs that have been hit because people are pushing harder is insane. It’s been awesome to see the relationship with coaches. You can probably see this in the Peloton studio, but people have spent hundreds of hours with these people, but never met them. Now you get to think, and you’re like, “I know this person, but I’ve never met them.” It’s like this long lost mentor thing introduction. It’s been special.

It was neat watching everybody come in and greet the coaches and greet each other. Also, it struck me as so interesting because we have a leaderboard at home, when you’re doing a live class on Tonal, you still have a leaderboard. You can see other people working out and how many pounds are being lifted. It is somehow different to see the pounds go up when everybody is standing around you. It’s impactful to be like, “We just lifted how much?” That’s neat.

One of the classes, like eight people in the class, had over 100,000 pounds in a 45-minute session. Some big lifting. Lots of PIs in that session, but just to see the collective work and things is special. Someone also hit their 12 million pound mark during the class. They got the pop-up of 12 million pounds being lifted. It’s cool to share those moments in the flesh.

In the class we took, somebody hit 6 million. I was like, “I didn’t even think about that because I’m closing in on 10 million.” If I had thought about it, I could have tried to do a few more and tried to hit it right in the class.

Taking it easy. You should have worked harder before you came, Tom.

I didn’t do the math. I’m sure all the Peloton people listening are like, “Tom, come on.”

We talked about it all the time.

I had to worry about it.

He’s never hit a PR in public. He’s never taken a class. This was like a whole new way of thinking. At home, if I’m working out and he’s working out on the Tonal, every time he hits a PR, I’m like, “You hit a PR.” He’s like, “Okay.” I’m like, “Where’s my celebration?” He doesn’t ever.

Tom is deeply intrinsically motivated. He doesn’t need the external reward, the badges, the streaks. He’s just got that desire to work because it’s deep within him. He cannot find it sometimes, but it’s there.

That doesn’t track at all.

He’s trying to help you.

You always want to innovate and bring in new technology. Share on X

With weightlifting and PR, I always feel with Tonal, if you lift 20 pounds long enough, at some point, it’s going to go 21 and now you got a PR.

That’s the thing. That is the beauty of Tonal. If you were doing it at the gym, you might never go past 20 pounds. That’s the beauty of Tonal.

If you consistently lift, it will progressively overload you. You’ll hit a new PR.

Innovative Drop Sets & Training Techniques

Speaking of overloads, let’s talk about drop sets.

Tonal just released drop sets. They are on 2, but they’re also being released to Tonal 1. Tell us about drop sets because we have lots of questions.

Drop sets are a time-tested training technique that most people have probably done in the gym. They are most commonly done with dumbbells and affectionately called running the rack. You start on one side of the rack or a heavier side. Maybe you’re doing bicep curls. Start with, let’s say, the 30s, and you rep them out. You get relatively tired. You drop to the 25s. You put the 30s down, put the 25s up, and go through for as long or as far as you want. There is a ton of research around it that it’s a time-efficient way of training. It gets you close to failure.

Those are the reps that contribute the most to muscle growth and hypertrophy. It keeps you relatively close to failure for the entire set. If you only have time for one set, it’s quite a reasonable way of training with a lot of research evidence behind it. We wanted to take that concept but bring it into the 21st century, automate it, and make it even more time efficient and potentially effective.

Essentially, what we’ve done is we instigate this system where we give you your eight rep weight, starting weight, and we do a calibration set before it to make sure the weight’s dialed in particularly. Tonal will increase or decrease your weight, depending on how strong you are on that given day. It starts with your eight-rep weight.

Because we measure velocity and range of motion, and all this data on you every single time you lift, when we get sense that you’re close to about two reps from failure, we reduce the weight just a little bit. You don’t reach failure, but you’re just two reps from failure. That’s because the research evidence suggests that’s the sweet spot between stimulus and fatigue. It’s where you stimulate a lot of hypertrophy, but the fatigue is not as much as it is with failure.

We keep you there for as long as you can sustain it. It might be 6 reps, 8 reps, or 10 reps. Every time you get back to that point, which is every 1 to 3 reps, we reduce it a little more and we reduce it a little more. You ride this wave of failure or two reps from failure for, on average, about 20 reps until eventually we say, “We’re not going to drop the weight any more than before, and then you can push through.” It’s a fun training technique if you’re into that.

It gets an incredible pump, and you get a lot of volume in a very short period of time. We have some preliminary research that says we get similar amounts of muscle growth in about 38% of the time of traditional sets of training with drop sets. It’s not exactly the same level of things, but almost a third of the time, you get very similar outcomes. It’s super time efficient. If you’re busy, you don’t have time to go in and do a 60-minute training session and do 6 or 8 sets per muscle group, you can go in, do this calibration set, do a drop set, and be sure that you’ve hit your muscle-building stimulus for the day.

Record-Breaking Workout Totals

That’s fascinating. I saw a guy in one of the Tonal groups saying that he has a custom workout that he does over and over again. He has a lot of data points of like this is what I normally do on this workout. He said he did in one workout that he normally does. He struggles to get to 33,000 total pounds within the workout, and that he did the drop set version of his custom workout, and he hit I think 42,000 or 44,000 pounds.

That’s incredible.

What is the machine gauging? How strong is your power as you push?

Let’s say, bicep curl. Maybe I’m not going all the way up to my shoulder anymore, but I’m still doing it fast. Would that count, or would it be taking both of those into consideration?

Velocity-Based Training & Proximity To Failure

It’s looking at the range of motion and velocity. The primary variable that it’s looking at, as long as your range of motion is not shortening a terrible amount, is velocity, which is what’s the signal for the most part, so the speed that you’re lifting. There’s a concept from my previous background in elite sport around velocity-based training where you measure the velocity of every rep, and you can work on strength at certain velocities, speed, others, and power.

You can use that concept as we are in drop sets to determine your proximity to failure or how close to failure you are. In order to be able to do that, you need to be lifting concentrically as fast as possible because that gives you the clearest signal. On a lot of the drop set stuff, we’ll say, it’s a nice control, two-second eccentric, fast as you can concentric. It’s an eight-rep weight. It’s the intent to move fast, not moving fast, that matters.

The weight is relatively heavy, and you’re close to failure. Both of those were meant to slow down, but it’s the intent to move quickly. That gives us a very clear signal of that’s close to failure, and we’ll reduce the weight accordingly. As long as the range of motion is decent, and you’re completing about a minimum of 80% of the range of motion, it’s the velocity signal and the velocity drop. We looked at 10 billion reps. I think it’s close to 10 billion reps.

Some insane number of reps have been measured across all these different movements. We get to understand what the velocity is associated with one rep from spotter kicking in, two reps from spotter kicking in, and three reps. We can then back calculate the algorithm to say that this is two reps from failure. Using that big data set and some machine learning algorithms, you can back out where that failure speed should be.

It’s nice to see an algorithm finally being used for something positive.

Product Innovation: Tonal One Vs. Tonal Two

In 2025, we got to take those wins where we can get them. We like hearing the positivity of that. One question I keep hearing a lot is, we have a Tonal 1, Tonal 2 came out, is my Tonal 1 obsolete now? Is it just a hunk of junk hanging on my wall?

Am I a loser for having a Tonal 1?

Tonal 1, by the way, I worked out on it today. It’s incredible still. The amazing piece of device that you loved on January 6th or 7th is still the amazing piece of device. As a product, you want to innovate. You want to bring new technology. By bringing drop sets to Tonal 1, we want to acknowledge that this is an incredible piece of kit. If you don’t upgrade, no problem. We’re going to continue to service you. We’re going to continue to release features. It’s not that everything is now going to be Tonal 2 focused on things.

Also, we released this product 6, 7, 8 years ago. We want to be able to innovate on Tonal 1 and bring new things like Aero, this heavier weight, or the front-facing camera in SmartView to bring something fresh and new into the market. Some people will think that that’s worthwhile and an upgrade and something they want to do. Many people will not. We are 100% fine either way.

We will continue to release all of our content, or the vast 99% of our content will all be eligible for Tonal 1. Drop sets are available on Tonal 1 and will continue to produce features for both Tonal 1 and Tonal 2 moving forward. Some things might be exclusively Tonal 2, but certainly, the intention is not to make everything Tonal 2-focused.

If a class or program includes the Aero movement and you have a Tonal 1, will it just not show up as an option for you? Will it show up and be ghosted out? Will it swap out a different move for you in that program? How does that function?

If I were the VP of Product Innovation, I would answer that perfectly.

Can you get that guy? He sounds like he’s who we need to be talking to.

Number one, we’re launching workouts, not programs, on Aero. The Aero workouts only show up on Tonal 2. If you have a Tonal 1, you don’t see them. They’re exclusively for Tonal 2. As we build programs for Tonal 2 and with Aero, we’ll work through a combination of things, whether it’s only available and you don’t see it, or we have a body weight or an equivalent move on Tonal 1 and 2, and things. We’re working through some of those logistics and operational pieces, but those are the questions that our product team is working through, and which is the best way.

We want to maximize stage time and the opportunity for the coaches. We want to have our biggest hits taken by the largest portion of our membership. We’re not going to do anything that alienates or exclusively pushes people. If they don’t have access, therefore, we’re not going to do it. We’ll look through ways of what’s the most seamless way of doing this that makes the most sense. It doesn’t make sense to me that you see this workout that you cannot do. We’re probably not going to do that, but we’ll either do substitution or will ring fence certain Tonal 2 content so you don’t see it.

That makes sense. You mentioned the front-facing camera that adds in the corrections. I liked that. I would have liked to have been able to see more in the Tonal Training Lab. The day we were in there, the lighting was dark.

We went super dark. It probably didn’t do the best experience for highlighting that feature. There’s a certain mood you want in a group fitness class. It doesn’t go with video capture.

That is fair. I was excited about it, especially with the squat. My left knee, I always have issues with it. I have to take a band and put it around my knees so that my knees do the appropriate movement. I would be so curious to see it right in front of me and what Tonal is picking up. I am excited about that feature. I know it’s not a huge thing, but I loved that you had the selfies at the end. I love that so much. It’s so fun.

I’ll be honest, it didn’t make my top five things of what I thought it was going to be. It’s fun in a group fitness to take a selfie. I’ve taken a couple at home too. No one is seeing them, but I’m like, “I got a pump, let’s show it.” No one reviewed this image. From correction, it’s valuable to be able to see. I have a tendency when I’m doing that pull down, so my shoulders come up, I cannot keep things.

It’s been helpful in giving me the right cues to do that in real time. Popping up, I can both see myself, and I get the visual text coaching cue. My balance on my left knee, particularly, I’ve had ACL reconstruction three times and my proprioception and balance isn’t that great. I keep getting this, “Maintain your posture.” It’s a useful cue for me to keep up.

 

What we’re seeing quite a lot is people are going back and reviewing because it automatically records all of those and uploads to the app immediately. You have every single rep that you’ve done on Tonal recorded instantaneously in the app. You can go back and check. Maybe I don’t want to look at it at the moment. I’m just focused on working hard, but when I get home or after I’ve showered, I can look and see my form and review myself and give myself some cues and things. It’s a fun feature. It doesn’t help to make it pitch black in the Tonal. Don’t tell anyone.

I won’t.

In my selfie, I look like a very short Bigfoot.

I never got my selfie. It didn’t upload to my profile. I was so sad. I never got mine.

You needed push notifications on your app switched on.

That’s even sadder.

You outed yourself. Can you believe that she doesn’t have her push notifications turned on, Troy? Are you going to stand for this sort of thing?

I thought I did.

I got mine sent to me. I guess I used the whole app properly.

You’ve been diligently reading all the manuals.

I do things.

I was not expecting this from you two. I’ll be playing around with this. I’m figuring it out.

Is there anything else that you would like to say about Tonal 2 or the future of Tonal before we wrap things up?

I think we’ve covered it. We covered 250. We covered Aero. We covered the smart view camera. We covered drop sets. There’s a whole bunch of internal updates that make things faster and smoother, better Wi-Fi, better Bluetooth, better motor controls, stronger rope, stronger plunger, the pin piece that operates the cart. Just basically upgrade to the entire system. I think those are there. The Tonal Training Lab that you guys trained at is open until the end of February. If anyone is in or around the New York area in SoHo until February 28th, come and check us out and get a workout with our coaches in person.

It’s pretty cool. I highly recommend.

If people want to find you on the interwebs or Tonal, where should they go?

Tonal.com, you can find all the information about Tonal there. I’m on Instagram under @StrengthScienceTroy. I post quite a lot of Tonal content on there. On LinkedIn, just search for my name.

Thank you so much.

I appreciate it, guys.

‐‐‐

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

People can find me on Facebook at Facebook.com/crystaldokeefe. They can also find me on Threads, Bluesky, Instagram, and of course the Peloton leaderboard @ClipOutCrystal.

You can find me on Bluesky and Threads at TomOKeefeJr, or 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 at Patreon.com/TheClipOut. For $5 a month, you get all sorts of bonus content. You get early episodes if we get early episodes. You get free ones and we like you a little bit more. That’s it for this one. Thanks for tuning in. Until next time, keep pedaling and running, and rowing.

Bye.

 

 

Important Links

• Tonal
• Tonal Training Lab
• Troy Taylor on LinkedIn
• Troy Taylor on Instagram
• 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
• Peloton’s website
• 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

 

 

Love the show? Subscribe, rate, review, and share! https://www.theclipout.com