Tonal Adds Descriptions To Custom Moves, Unveils Programs + And We Interview Troy Moppin

Last Updated: April 20, 2023By Crystal OKeefe (#ClipOutCrystal)Tags: All-in-one Weight Exercise Equipment, Best Home Gym Equipment, Home Exercises, Home Gym Equipment, The Superset, Tonal Exercises, Working Out At Home

DescriptionCustom Movements can now be given descriptions!
Programs+ is here!
Tonal has added new moves.
Don’t miss Tonal’s Workout Guide For All Body sizes.
We have details on the Tonal Eclipse Challenge
Tons of new content.
Tonal supports the Trevor Project with Pride Give Back classes.
The newest Tonal talk is Content & Curriculum with John Christie.
Book Club: One Live by Megan Rapinoe
The Tonal Community Calendar has been updated.
Coach Woody’s Reverse Training is on June 9. Happy birthday!

All this plus our interview with Troy Moppin!

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Watch the episode here

Listen to the podcast here

Tonal Adds Descriptions To Custom Moves, Unveils Programs + And We Interview Troy Moppin

You finally got to meet Kate in real life.

I did. What a special evening. I have been looking forward to that. We have tried to make plans to meet her for three years.

Though, I haven’t met her. I stayed at home and took care of the kids while you went on gallivanting around the West Coast.

I was a gallivanter. I brought back a special souvenir.

You did. You brought back the rona.

I coast the whole family on a trip to Hawaii.

We were supposed to leave for Hawaii on Friday, and on Thursday morning, you woke up feeling like s*** and took a test, and you were positive for the rona. Luckily, we had the insurance.

I’m glad it was several days later that we decided to record because I would have been balling. I could not. I still feel terrible. I feel awful that happened to our family, and I caused it. If I hadn’t taken the trip, it wouldn’t have happened.

What was the lag time between when you get infected and when you manifest symptoms and test positive? You might have got it here somehow. You were only in LA for 36 hours. It’s really hard to say but you have been vaxxed and boosted. You wore a mask on the plane and at the airport. I’m a little fatalistic about it at this point because now we have things to help us. Originally, we had nothing. Now we’ve got vaccines and medicines. We are not in an at-risk group, nor is anyone in our household. We also have the luxury of being a little bit more fatalistic. Some people don’t. It sucks. Your case, because of your vaccine, has been very mild.

I can’t believe how much better I feel. That happened Thursday. Now, I feel like a different person. Monday morning was rough. I’m not going to lie.

You certainly had a rough weekend but rough like you were uncomfortable.

I never had the shortness of breath. I never had the loss of taste and smell.

We didn’t feel like you were in danger or needed to call a doctor.

When I say rough, it was like a really bad flu. When you feel achy all over, and there was fever and was walking up the stairs because I was so achy hurt, but now, I’m feeling a lot better. I even did a twenty-minute walk plus run. I was a little scared. I almost tacked on a Tonal, and I don’t want to overdo it because I need to work since we can’t take a vacation to Hawaii. I’m saving my vacation time.

We took the insurance money that we better get and booked a cruise. The kids will still get to go somewhere with first-world problems. They were very bummed. It’s funny because we always have this conversation amongst ourselves of like, “Do the kids even really care about these things,” because they are like, “I guess we are going.” When it was the day before, like, “We are not going,” they were like, “What?”

What credit to everybody in this house, everybody was so nice, and nobody made me feel guilty. I made myself feel terrible but nobody else did.

They weren’t jerky about it but I could tell that they cared about these things. That’s a pleasant surprise.

They were very glad that we got something else booked for later.

In the first week of August 2022 will be gallivanting as a group this time. I went and got my second booster on Saturday.

Everybody else in the house is still testing negative, so only me that has it. Everyone I hung out with last time is still COVID free. It’s just me.

What pre-tell do you have in store for people?

There is so much fun stuff happening over at Tonal. We are going to talk about all the new features, the new things happening, challenges, new books, new everything. That’s all coming at you. There’s so much exciting stuff.

Before we get to all that shameless plugs, don’t forget we are available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and wherever you get your podcasts, you can find us. While you are there. Be sure, and maybe leave us a review. That’s always helpful. Also, follow us, so you never miss an episode. You can also find us on Facebook at Facebook.com/supersetpodcast. While you are there, like the page and join the group to keep up on Tonal things in between episodes. You can watch all of these on YouTube at YouTube.com/theclipout, the name of the podcast that started it all. Everything lives on that YouTube channel, so swing on by there, and you can watch these. There’s all that. Let’s dig in. Shall we?

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Tonal now has custom moves.

This is really cool because this has been asked about since day one when I joined Tonal. In this post, Kate is like crossing another one of the feedback Friday List. You can now write your own custom movement description. You can write a description to bar move, rope move, etc. If you are doing a bar move and you want to do something, let’s say you had three different custom bar moves. It can’t really look at your stats then and tell the difference between bar move 1, bar move 2, bar move 3, and now, you can because you can see these custom descriptions. This is a huge deal for people that use the custom workouts. This is amazing.

I don’t know enough to do a custom workout. I don’t trust myself. I’m like, “I do what I’m told and don’t ask any questions.”

I respect that, Tom. You are still new to weightlifting. That is okay. There are a lot of people in the community that do their own custom workouts, and then they want to be able to see the difference in how they perform. I should say Tonal is still not progressed tracking for these moves just yet. Hopefully, that will be an additional feature, but now, you are able to go ahead and add a description. You can do your own tracking, which is pretty cool.

While we are talking about moves, there are all sorts of new moves. I’m still skeptical of new moves. They were like, “You can do a rack squat.” I was like, “What sort of witchcraft is this? I don’t know if I want any part of this.”

That is why you just do what you are told and don’t do anything.

I did the rack squat, and it was fine. The only thing I won’t do is the thing where they make you lift the barbell lift with your neck. I don’t do that one.

It’s a barbell bench squat.

That’s what they want you to think is. It’s a barbell neck lift.

I can do it just fine. I don’t know what the problem is.

I guess you have a stronger neck than I do.

The cool thing is they added all these moves but that was some time ago. The new news is that they have updated all the forms in five with all the instructors. Over in the OTC, you can look up any move, new or old, and you can get a form in five. If you are struggling with a move, be sure to check out that feature. Obviously, if you know somebody who is new to Tonal and struggling with something, make sure to send them over to the form tips in guide seven or the form in five. There’s a whole bunch of them out there.

They will help you with the Bulgarian neck lift.

That’s one of Tom’s custom moves.

I created a custom move for the Bulgarian neck lift, and then I don’t do it.

He’s as bitter as he sounds.

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We also have now Programs+.

I am so excited about this. People have been a little pushy and concerned about the lack of four-week programs that have been coming out. There has been a lot of speculation about why that is. I’ve seen Kate post things that it will all make sense soon. On June 1st, 2022, it all became clear. The newest Programs+, the newest feature, had just dropped. What it means is that you take a program four weeks long, and now you can change the levels beginner, intermediate and advanced. You can enroll in any of those three, and then you can make each individual workout shorter or longer, depending on your schedule. If you have to, you can even adjust the difficulty as you go along.

I’m a big program guy. I like the four weeks ones because I don’t want to have to think about it. I will pick, and then I’m done for 3 to 4 weeks or 3 to 6 weeks, depending on how fast I do them. There are times when you are like, “We’ve got to be somewhere.” If I could shorten one up by ten minutes, I would totally take that deal sometimes.

I was looking at the different programs. There are three of them that launched, all three again or four weeks. The power of you with Coach Gabby, that’s focusing on get lean. You have a training camp with Coach Paul. That’s about building muscle. Tom, that’s probably going to be the one you are going to want to do.

Stop and appreciate the milestones and gains that you see on a daily basis. Share on X

That’s the one you want me to do, is that what you are saying?

No. That’s based on your goals. Strength made me with Coach Woody is building strength. This is very cool. They clearly have to film these differently, and that’s why we haven’t seen any four-week programs in a while.

Remember that kind of choose your own adventure version of Black Mirror, and they had to film 30 hours of content for the viewer, a 90-minute movie? I bet you it’s like that.

It makes sense that it took a while. It’s a little bit longer, and this is going to go over very well. I am super excited about it. I’ve seen a lot of positive comments about it over in the Official Tonal Community.

It’s also nice too because you can take, “Maybe a lower body,” I will do a lighter version of it. Maybe what we need is how like, if you have a gambling problem, you can call 1800 bets off to voluntarily ban yourself from casinos. Maybe there should be an 1800 number we could call to voluntarily remove this option for difficulty settings for the lower body. You see a lower body out and he was like, “It’s leg day.”

I could totally see being like, “I could totally handle 60 minutes of programming. Let’s go except on leg day.”

Thirty minutes is easy, and then we all get knocked over like weeble wobbles.

I’m really excited to see it and what else Tonal has planned. I have a feeling we are going to have some other surprises coming up.

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There’s a cool blog post we wanted to point out for people from Tonal, and it’s a Workout Guide for All Body Sizes.

It’s all workouts that are off the floor, low impact. They are easy on the joints. They are for every person and everybody. If you scroll down, Tom, you can see that they have a whole bunch of different options. It’s a guide like we’ve seen before for Get Strong and Get Lean, but now, there are all these different ones saying, “Here’s a guide that you can use for people that might need to do some modifications.” We’ve got Get Lean. That’s the name of the program. Starting Out with Tonal, Beginner Heat. That’s a good one. Those are all for beginners.

For intermediate, we have 20-in-20: Ignite and then How Paul Built His Body. If you wanted to do build muscle for beginners, there’s Off the Floor with Coach Natalie, Best for Beginners, Slow and Strong, Great Glutes, Find Your Strength and Balancing Act. For intermediate, you’ve got Push and Pull Power, Strong is Beautiful, and Side by Side. If your goal is to improve fitness, there’s the Knees With Ease Challenge with Coach Liz. There are also some different workouts like Low Impact Muscle Builder.

There are a couple of different ones you could go from there. These are workouts. You got Fit For All Bodies, Low Impact Legs, Quick Fit: Strong and Smart. There’s a ton of them in there. There are lots of different options. Plus, there are a whole bunch of options for cardio. If you want to see which cardio classes you should be taking and bootcamps. This is an excellent guide. Make sure you save this. This is really good to have for people who are new to Tonal and asking questions. Put it out there a lot when people are asking because there’s bar, strength, mobility, hit and everything, all the different ones that they do. Be sure to check this out.

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The June Tonal Eclipse Challenge is upon us.

This is a fun program. In this particular program, you take any of the four-week programs, and you match it with a bunch of different classes that Tonal suggests to you. Basically, you are just trying to do a workout every single day for the entire month of June. The cool part is besides just being fun and fit. There are also flash giveaways and daily doses of motivation from Tonal coaches. Every day there’s a new post with a video. The fun part about this is that so many people are on the go in the month of June. If they have an off-the-trainer program, they are doing, and if they want to do a fifteen-minute workout every day, they can still join. It’s awesome.

I have a dumb question. Is there an eclipse now? Why is it called an Eclipse Challenge?

I have no idea.

Points for owning it and not just make it something up.

I’ve been really sick. I didn’t have time to check. What’s your excuse for not looking it up?

It’s because I didn’t care.

Why did you ask about it?

I was curious. I thought someone out there might want to know, and they probably do but we don’t have the ability to tell you.

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As always, tons of new content, and we thought we would go through some of it with you to give you an idea of what is new and waiting for you.

Not just the new programs we talked about because we went through all those new programs but there’s also a bunch of other new content. There is more. There’s a new quick fit. There’s upper body burn with Coach Allison for fifteen minutes. There’s the full-body blast with Coach Jackson. You are going to get a full-body workout in thirteen minutes. Not to mention fire in motion with Coach Paul, not sure how he manages to make fire but he does, full-body, fourteen minutes.

There’s new cardio. Cardio for all levels with Coach Natalie, full-body in sixteen minutes. Plyometric cardio with Coach Jared, 30 minutes. New mobility mastering aerobic mobility with Coach Jared. I am very intrigued by that. It’s 33 minutes full-body. New recovery, lower body ease with Coach Nikki and new warmup. Warmup for all with Coach Natalie. Yoga, short stretch flow, and new Pilates long and lean legs with Coach Francis. There are many great options. We are so lucky to get all of this content. It’s incredible.

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June is Pride Month, and Tonal has a way for you to participate and sweat.

Tonal is going to be hosting for Give Back Classes to raise money for The Trevor Project. The Trevor Project is a non-profit organization focused on suicide prevention among LGBTQIA+ youth. There was a class on June 1st, 2022, live with Coach Liz at 4:30 PM. On June 6th, it was on-demand with Coach Pablo, June 13th on-demand with Coach Allison and June 24th live with Coach Brendon and then that one is at 4:00 PM Pacific Time. The other thing to mention is there’s also our amazing Tonal LGBTQ & Allies partner community.

They are going to be hosting their own Pride events. You can join that group as well. Everybody is welcome. We interviewed the host. He said that everyone was welcome, as long as you are kind and supportive. As long as you are an ally, you can be part of that group. They have lots of events going on, so make sure you check out that group as well.

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June 1st featured a new Tonal Talk. Kate sat down with John Christie to talk about content and curriculum.

Tom, I’m not sure if you made the connection here but this came right after the Program+ announcement. There was a lot of in-depth discussion about what those Program+ can and can’t do and what could or could not be happening in the future. If you haven’t gotten a chance to check that out, you definitely want to.

Actually, what was going through my head is Tonal should call it corerriculum. That’s my little free gift to you, Tonal.

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A new month means a new book for the Book Club. This time it features One Life by Megan Rapinoe.

She’s got a fascinating story. This particular book talks about her brother’s struggle with addiction. Her decision to publicly come out as a lesbian and the controversy that erupted after she kneeled during the National Anthem at a soccer game in support of Colin Kaepernick and racial justice. There have been so many times I’ve heard this woman’s name. I’m super curious how this book will go. It’s very interesting. I can’t wait to know what other thoughts are on it as well.

I should clarify that I don’t know anything about sports. Some people are like, “You don’t care about women’s sports.” I don’t care about men’s sports either.

I feel like we’ve said it but in case we haven’t, you only know those basketball players.

The Harlem Globetrotters and The Bad News Bears. That is the extent of my sports knowledge and Rocky Balboa, not Marciano. What did we watch this 2022 during the Super Bowl? We watched a bunch of catfish that we had banked on the DVR.

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The Community Calendar has been updated for the month of June.

Don’t forget. There are four different Tonal partner communities. We’ve got Tonal Moms, Tonal Dads, Tonal LGBTQ & Allies, and Tonal XXL Community. The June Community Calendar has all of the events that have been turned in at the beginning of the month. Plus, they probably add more each month. They posted June 2022 but there are probably things going on. Since it’s Pride, there’s probably a lot of fun stuff going on in each group.

That would be my guess, so check it out.

A lot of squares filled out there.

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June 9th is slash was depending on when you read. It will always be right, just be closer in the future. It’s Coach Wendy’s birthday reverse training.

Her reverse training birthday workout is going to be on June 9th. Make sure and check that out. That’s always fun to be the ones telling them, “Here’s what you are going to do.” Thirty-five burpees in a row.

Now with custom moves, you can make up all crazy stuff.

Put in a bar move with my description.

Don’t make it weird. I’m putting that out there. You know people can be.

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Joining us is Troy Moppin. Troy, how’s it going?

I’m pretty good.

I have noticed that you have been on the Official Tonal Community page for quite a while. When did you find Tonal and decide this is the machine for me?

I have been looking on and off it for a couple of years now but in July of 2021, we ordered it, and we got ours about August 2021.

It feels like it has been longer than that. You are pretty active. What made you decide you wanted to try it? Were you interested in strength training? Was it because of the awesome technology like myself or was it something else?

I started walking back in May of 2021 and decided I needed to add something to supplement that process. Honestly, I haven’t worked out in a gym since I was in high school and didn’t know what I was doing anymore. With the features of spotter and that stuff, I was like, “It’s a lot safer.”

Tom and I always say that our favorite thing about it is that you don’t have to think. You don’t need to be a person who’s super experienced with weights. Even if you had forgotten everything you did back in high school makes it super easy to pick up the Tonal and start doing your thing.

Especially with the AI, it does everything for you.

It sure does. Do you do the programs? Do you do the one-offs? Do you do a combination? What’s kept you motivated?

Mostly, just the programs. I made the mistake of thinking I was better than I was and started with one of Coach Pablo’s programs, and he destroyed me.

It will dissuade you of that notion quickly. I have told the story before. I took my assessment and immediately laid down on the floor and took a nap.

I also had the problem of, “You are saying it was a beginner program,” and, “Yeah, no.”

It’s an advanced beginner. That’s what it was.

I need an embryonic program. What’s before beginner?

That’s something we should probably talk about because a lot of people think it’s beginner, intermediate, and advanced are based on how new you are but it’s about the moves. It’s trying to be less complex, not necessarily easier. You can make any of the programs, whether they are beginner, intermediate or advanced hard if you increase the weights. If you are new to exercise, Coach Pablo is still going to kick your butt. Do you have a favorite coach on Tonal?

Yeah, it’s Pablo.

Do you post all the time on the Official Tonal Community? What inspired you to do that?

I’m a quintessential average guy. I figure if I can do it and motivate somebody else to do it, it’s a win-win.

Do you get a lot of feedback from people?

Quite a bit, yes.

What do they say?

They are surprised at how much I can stay consistent. I’m always getting advice and putting myself out there. I’m completely an open book.

That’s nice. When it comes to anything you are doing that, you are not 100% sure of, people in general, not you specifically, the Royal you, I feel like it is hard to put yourself out there because you don’t know. You are not an expert. When you are learning and doing something new to you, learning it in front of other people can be tough. It can give you a lot of humility.

The internet loves to humiliate us.

I feel like the Tonal community is generally supportive. Have you had any negative comments or has it been mostly supportive?

It has been supportive. Our admins do a good job at weeding out the negative people.

I totally agree. I hope it always stays like that. That would be amazing.

Have you had any significant gains or progress that has surprised you thus far?

The shirt that I’m wearing now, I haven’t worn in longer than I can remember. It was my favorite shirt for a long time.

Have you had enough progress that people outside the Tonal community are like, “You are making progress?” Is that exciting? Do you sing the praises?

I worked in juvenile corrections, so the kids are quick to point out your negatives, and even they are like, “You are looking good.”

What a day brightener? Teenagers, especially, don’t say anything nice most of the time. We have two living here, and they are teenagers.

It’s fascinating because the nerd culture has been around long enough now to where I have all sorts of nerd things that I love. You can see a Mystery Science Theater logo behind me here. The teenage nerds are like, “That’s old man nerd stuff.”

It’s a different nerd. She came home with a pair of pants that looked like Genco’s from the ’90s. I was like, “The ’90s are back.” She was like, “These are new.” I was like, “Those were totally a thing in the ’90s.”

It’s hard to put yourself out there when you don't know, and you're not an expert. And when you're learning something and doing something new to you, learning it in front of other people can be tough. Share on X

Wide-leg jeans were all the thing.

It’s even got the metal loops on them. I was like, “You look like you are going to see a Deftones concert.”

What are your long-term goals when it comes to Tonal?

My medium-term goal is I want to get back to my driver’s license weight of 220. I guess my perfect goal would be to be down like 190.

How far are you into your goal now?

I lost a lot of motivation in January and February 2021. It burnt out. I slipped backward but that’s cool because it happens to everybody. I weighed myself now at 245. When I first started my journey, this is before Tonal. This was back in May. I was 350.

Is there something that changes or de-motivates you? Do you think you got burnt out?

I got burnt out. I was hitting it too hard and doing too much. I’m going to take a day off. Everybody is struggling with employment as far as finding people to work, and corrections have been hit incredibly hard. I was working a lot of extra hours and tired.

That’s understandable.

I think, too, in the beginning, the losses, the milestones, they come fast and furious. It slows down a little bit. It’s easy to backslide. I don’t think that’s uncommon at all.

People talk about it all the time. I was watching the scale too much. I was probably building a lot of muscle, so I was adding weight. I got discouraged because it was going up and down. It wasn’t clicking that my clothes fit better.

You get so focused on one metric that you stop taking into consideration all of the other data points, saying that, “This is working. Don’t give up.” I started my exercise journey on the Peloton end of things. I was doing a lot of cardio and found Tonal through Peloton. Whenever I was doing Peloton, I started doing power zone challenges all the time. It’s because they were taking up a tremendous amount of time and the structure was super similar, my point was I stopped finding joy when I was doing it.

I had to go back to working out for fun, again, finding the fun. I feel like with Tonal, you can do that in a lot of different ways because there are your live workouts, which I find a lot of fun. There are so many communities building up around Tonal that people like to work out together. That’s fun. Finding your own milestones in your own little things to work on. All your posts are good because it reminds people to stop and appreciate those milestones and the gains that you do see on a daily basis.

I’m a data nerd. I love seeing numbers. I think one of the things that people get too focused on, especially on the community is a strength score. People get hyper-focused on it. When you do Tony’s new program, it will lower your strength score. It’s completely radically different. People get discouraged. They stop going at it as much.

That is a good point because I have been focusing on the lean programs a lot lately with Tonal. Whenever you focus on the lean programs, you are lifting more reps but it’s not as heavy. I’m not super strong anyway. It can be a pretty low volume and that can affect your strength score. If you are not doing heavy reps on those same moves that you were doing within the last six months, your score is going to go down. That doesn’t mean that you are not strong. It doesn’t mean that you are not gaining or benefiting from that. That’s a good point. It’s like the scale. It’s one metric. Not the only metric.

I’m lucky that, however, I’m wired. I don’t see that very often. I tend not to pay attention to that stuff. Crystal gives me trouble all the time because she will come down and be like, “You’ve got a PR.” I’m like, “Is that what that noise means? I was trying to figure out how to make it stop.”

Those fears motivate me. For Tom, it doesn’t bring him any joy. For me, I feel like that workout counted because I got a PR.

I always feel like it adds a pound. If you do it long enough, it will add a pound.

If you will do it long enough, that’s still an accomplishment, Tom.

I hate goblet squats. That is the devil.

The heavier you get, the harder they are. I don’t mean with your legs hanging on to that thing.

It fights you.

I wish there were a better button like on top or something. When you are getting the 70, 80-pound range, it’s like, “I might let go and do some damage.”

It can be scary.

I’m getting to that point as well. You can feel it pulling against you. If they do one where they are having it flex or whatever, and it’s going up and down. I’m at 76 but it will shoot up to 90. It’s like I’m holding a snake.

I have always called it there’s a little devil in that box. When I make him sweat, and you hear that fan kick up, I’m like, “Yeah.”

You guys are a lot stronger than me. I don’t think it ever comes on whenever I raise it.

I don’t know. I have never heard a fan come on. Maybe I have headphones on, and maybe it’s coming on. I don’t know.

If you want to hear a fan come on four weeks to fat loss.

I’ve done both weeks twice, and I haven’t heard it. I’m clueless as to what’s going on. I didn’t realize the noise was a PR until she pointed it out. I was like, “Is this something that does sometimes?” I opt into the goblet squats because I always swap that out if it gives me the front barbell.

That one is uncomfortable in the sense that it’s not a good way to put on everything.

It was like, “What if we took a goblet squat but also someone punched you in the throat?” I’m like, “That’s an interesting take on exercise. I’m going to pass on that but thanks.”

It’s not your favorite move.

I have never been able to get it to work, I watched the tutorials and tried the different things, and I’m like, “Goblet squat.” If it won’t let me swap it out, that program is dead to me. The only time I have ever dropped out of a program is when it pops up. If it doesn’t let me swap it out, I’m like, “I’m out. You are done. Moving on.”

There was a guy on the boards that had this Mad Max-looking like chest thing with two metal rods that you can set on. It distributes the weight across your shoulders.

I have tried to convince him. We should try that but he’s got no interest.

If I could swap it out, I’m like,” That’s fine. That’s plenty.”

What is your favorite thing about Tonal, Troy?

I love the idiot in a box thing. All you got to do is turn it on, and it does everything for you. It keeps giving you that little carrot of the PR, the reps, the volume, and all that stuff. It’s like a video game.

You said Coach Pablo is your favorite. You have to be taking other classes because you mentioned the Tony Horton one. What other coaches do you tend to gravitate toward?

I don’t have a thing. I pick something. It sounds fun, and go with it.

What sounds fun to you?

Anything that doesn’t have goblet squats?

There aren’t many of those programs anymore. Do you do the two-week ones? Have you tried many of those?

No.

I like the four weeks. I liked that I didn’t have to think. That’s part of what I like about four weeks is I don’t have to worry about it for a month. Two weeks, I’m like, “I got to pick another one.”

Here’s the real question. Do you pick your next program the day you finish the last program?

Usually.

You two are Tonal twinsies.

I don’t want to come down next time and spend ten minutes trying to figure out what I want to do. I’m like, “I’m going to do it now while I’m winded. I don’t have the energy to walk back up the stairs.”

The less you can think, the more you overthink it.

I’m in the exact same place where if I give my head any room to contemplate out, I will bail. I want to come down, hit a button, and go before I figure out an excuse.

Do you do any other workouts, or is Tonal your go-to?

The weather’s getting nice again, so I started going out and walking. I finished 4-mile. My wife and I bought a NordicTrack S22.

Is that a bike?

Yeah, it’s a bike. I stole it, to be precise. It was normally $3,000. Dicks was moving into the new 27-inch model. They had it on sale for $1,500. I was like, “I will take it.”

That’s definitely not you stealing it. That’s you getting a good deal.

When it’s like 50% off, you are like, “I almost feel like I did something wrong.”

It’s in a good way.

That will be fun. Some content to get you more cardio. Do you ever do cardio on the Tonal too?

Not as far as individual programs but when it comes up in the strength partying, the Get Lean programs, yeah.

If they bake it in, you will do it.

It was Coach Francis that had one of her cardio en fuego, and that was a bad day. I could not breathe. It was fun but it was devastating.

I’ve done that one. I have a couple of cardio ones because sometimes I do MetPro for my eating portion, which has been very helpful for me. Sometimes my MetPro pro coach will be like, “You need more cardio.” I have a couple of those cardio things banked. They are challenging but not too challenging. I go and snag them. I got them all queued up.

He doesn’t like to do on the bike, the treadmill or anything like that. He likes to keep it all on the Tonal. He’s a Tonal purist. What about people getting started? What advice would you give to them?

Don’t look at the numbers at all. In the first few programs, the roadmap is great. It’s a nice progression, and you can judge like, “This is a little too easy.” Either maybe go to the next one, and do a few extra reps but don’t think that you can go into this, especially if you were a gym rat. It’s way different than free weights. It is a lot less forgiving. Don’t overdo it.

It’s realistic when you are first getting started to focus on the moves and the form and don’t pay attention to any of the other details. That’s good.

Does your wife use it at all or is it just yours?

She uses it.

I guess she’s digging it, too?

Yeah. She’s noticed quite a bit of improvement on the scale side.

That’s awesome.

She gets frustrated when she can’t do some of the moves, about the weights but I’m like, “You were doing less last week, so you are making improvements. It’s going to be hard.” That’s the whole point. It’s meant to be difficult.

All the coaches will tell you, “Form is more important than weight.” It doesn’t matter if you move it from Point A to Point B if you are not moving it in the proper manner. There’s no shame in taking it down a notch or two if you can’t do it. I forget what move it was but I did it. I was like, “I can’t do this.”

Early on, I can’t remember what it was either. I even remember when we interviewed Coach Nicolette. I was telling her I was struggling with it. She was like, “You should try moving it down, get the form and build yourself back up and go back to what you were doing but build it back up.” Your advice to your wife is correct. That is good advice.

I would do something to keep my strength going. If it was a meditation class or something but I wasn’t doing any real strength training. Having been off for two months, you would have to turn the weight back down to get into the swing of things.

That first workout, when you come back, you are sore.

Yes.

The most I’ve taken off so far was like a week when we went on vacation but that first couple reminds you. It’s not like a cardio thing where when you are on vacation, if you wanted to, you could jog or hop on a bike at the hotel or something.

You could lift the free weights.

I wouldn’t know what to lift.

It’s 25% less.

The hotel staff calls the police because there’s a crazy man talking to the weights in the gym.

That would happen. He would end up yelling at something, and some inanimate object would be yelled at.

He’s ranting about his calculator not working. Our machine smells like asparagus. Get him out of here. Be banned from the best Western. 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 if you would like to be found.

It’s Facebook. I’m old now. I don’t understand Twitter. I don’t do TikTok.

I don’t want to do any of that. That’s too much. It’s funny. I never did that. The only thing I ever latched onto was Facebook. I have a Twitter, and I do it sometimes but not much. I do Facebook, and that’s plenty.

The fact that Instagram and Twitter are together. You get reels, watching it, and you get half of the story, and you are like, “Where is the other half?” It irritates the ever-living crap out of me.

Crystal was frustrated with me because she will be like, “I sent you that on Instagram.” I’m like, “What?” I’m looking at it. I’m like, “I don’t understand what I’m supposed to read.”

I feel the same way about Twitter. I’m like, “I don’t know what this person is responding to. I can’t find the damn thread.” I hate Twitter. We sound so old now. Troy, thank you again for doing this. We appreciate it.

No problem.

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That brings this episode to a close until next time. Where can people find you?

Not on my couch, hopefully. You can find me on Facebook at Facebook.com/crystaldokeefe, and you can find me anywhere on the Tonal leaderboards at @ClipOutCrystal.

You can find me on Twitter @RogerQBert or on Facebook at Facebook.com/tomokeefe. You can find the show online at Facebook.com/supersetpodcast. Also, don’t forget, you can watch all of these over at our YouTube channel, YouTube.com/theclipout. That’s it for this one. Thanks for tuning in. Until next time keep lifting.