Christine D’Ercole Wordshop Comes to Aria Bootcamp

The Peloton instructor brought her trademarked self-talk workshop to Jennifer Rowley’s Aria Bootcamp for emerging opera singers at the Cleveland Institute of Music.

Christine D’Ercole Wordshop sessions are usually built around Peloton members working through mantras on a bike. This week, the Peloton cycling instructor and Masters World Champion track cyclist took the format somewhere new: an opera training program. D’Ercole led a session for emerging artists at Jennifer Rowley’s Aria Bootcamp, held this year at the Cleveland Institute of Music.

Wordshop is D’Ercole’s trademarked workshop built around self-talk. Participants examine the stories they tell themselves at home, at work, and under pressure, then work to rewrite the parts that no longer serve them. The framework centers on four phrases: I Am, I Can, I Will, I Do. D’Ercole has used the format with Peloton members and corporate groups, and this marked one of its more unusual applications: a room full of opera singers preparing for an intensive audition season. This particular Christine D’Ercole Wordshop for Aria Bootcamp was a unique interpretation and included a special Happy Birthday rendition for her.

What Aria Bootcamp Does

Aria Bootcamp is an artist training program founded by operatic soprano Jennifer Rowley, designed to help singers build a five-aria audition package ahead of the audition season. The 2026 program ran August 3 through 15 at the Cleveland Institute of Music, with faculty drawn from the Metropolitan Opera’s Lindemann Young Artist Program, Santa Fe Opera, and conservatories including Juilliard and Curtis. Rowley, who is also a Peloton member, invited D’Ercole to speak to this year’s group of singers as part of the seminar lineup.

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Christine D’Ercole (@iamicaniwillido)

Singers Share Their Own Mantras at the Christine D’Ercole Wordshop

According to D’Ercole’s own recap of the session, the singers each shared their own I Am, I Can, I Will, I Do statements, describing where they currently stand in their training and what they hope to accomplish. D’Ercole said she left with pride in what the group accomplished by working through their internal narratives during the session, and thanked Rowley for the invitation to work with what she called a new generation of voices.

The pairing makes sense given Rowley’s connection to Peloton. Aria Bootcamp’s own announcement of the visit noted that Peloton has played a significant role in Rowley’s life, which shaped her decision to bring D’Ercole in to work with this year’s singers.

An Unexpected Overlap

Opera singing and endurance athletics share more physical ground than they might seem to at first glance. Both demand extended breath control, core strength, and the ability to perform under pressure without losing form, the same qualities D’Ercole has built her cycling career on. That overlap may be part of why her Wordshop framework translated so cleanly to a room of singers rather than cyclists.

It also puts D’Ercole in interesting company within the Peloton instructor roster. Fellow instructor Zacharias Niedzwiecki trained as an opera singer before moving into a fitness career, essentially the reverse path. There’s no direct connection between the two instructors or this event, but it’s a lovely coincidence to have a cyclist having coaching opera singers and an instructor who once trained to be one.

A Theater Background of Her Own

D’Ercole’s path to Peloton runs through the theater world herself. Before cycling, she studied theater at Carnegie Mellon University, with early ambitions toward a Broadway career. That background may explain some of what made the Aria Bootcamp visit click. She isn’t just borrowing performance-world language for a fitness audience. She spent years in it before cycling became her focus.

A Different Kind of Class

D’Ercole has built a following on the Peloton platform around leaderboard motivation and racing credentials, but Wordshop represents a separate track in her work: speaking and coaching built entirely around language and self-talk. The Christine D’Ercole Wordshop expereince with Aria Bootcamp singers extends that work into a field with no direct connection to cycling or fitness, built instead around performance pressure and audition-season nerves. It’s the kind of crossover that tends to happen when an instructor’s message travels further than the platform that built her audience. Pretty amazing!

The Clip Out is an independent Peloton news site with reporting, analysis, and community insights. We deliver breaking updates, feature reporting, and expert context on the stories driving the community and the industry.

Our weekly podcast offers deeper conversation and perspective, and you can find us on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, iHeart, TuneIn, and YouTube Music. You can also follow us on our socials on Facebook, Threads, Instagram, BlueSky, and YouTube.

See something in the Peloton universe that you think we should know? Visit us at theclipout.com and submit a tip.