Boost Your Base with Power Zone and Peloton

Peloton’s all-new Boost Your Base: Power Zone program is landing on Monday, April 21. What makes this program extra special? It’s Peloton’s first live Power Zone program, designed to help you build strength, endurance, and confidence over eight weeks solid work.

 Here’s the full scoop on what to expect, how it works, and a look back at Peloton’s Power Zone evolution.

What Is Boost Your Base?

Boost Your Base is an 8-week Power Zone program created to push your limits and take your fitness to the next level. Designed with both live and on-demand class options, this program gives you the flexibility to train with a global community while maintaining your own schedule.

Here’s what your weekly schedule will look like:

• Mondays and Wednesdays: On-demand Power Zone rides tailored to help you build your stamina and strength.
• Saturdays: Live Power Zone rides where you can join your fellow Peloton riders in real time, feel the energy, and challenge yourself.

The program is crafted to be team-oriented, encouraging riders to support and motivate each other throughout the eight weeks. With Peloton’s expert instructors leading the way, you’ll not only boost your base fitness but also have a ton of fun doing it.

Why Try Power Zone Training?

Power Zone training is all about training smarter, not harder. Using your Functional Threshold Power (FTP) as a personalized baseline, rides are broken into specific intensity zones that help you build endurance, strength, and recovery.

Peloton’s implementation of Power Zone training is unique in its structure and accessibility, taking the guesswork out of effective training by offering rides with a variety of instructors to suit every style of coaching and musical tastes.

What are the benefits of Power Zone training?

• Efficient Workouts: Every minute on the bike has a purpose.
• Personalized Training: No matter your fitness level, Power Zone is tailored to your capacity.
• Measureable Progress: With consistent FTP tests, you’ll track your improvements over time.

Peloton breaks it all down for “newbies” here.

The Evolution of Power Zones in Peloton

Peloton’s Power Zone training has seen incredible growth and innovation over the years. For all the Power Zone veterans, here’s a refresher on how it’s evolved into what it is today.

• The Early Days: Peloton introduced Power Zone rides as a way for riders to train with data-based metrics. It quickly gained a dedicated following.
• Progressive Programming: Peloton has offered programs called “Build Your Power Zones,” “Discover Your Power Zones,” and “Peak Your Power Zones” in previous years. These classes gave a structure to follow, on one’s own timetable using On Demand classes from the library. Members report they enjoy really digging into the concepts and practice with these.
• Advanced Features: The Peloton Bike+ enhanced Power Zone rides with features like Auto Resistance. This allows for smoother and more intuitive adjustments during rides. The addition of the Power Bar on Bike tablets was also a welcome addition to the rider experience.
• International Expansion: Peloton has extended Power Zone training globally, including programs and classes in other languages, such as the recent addition of German classes, and the epic “Global Power Zone 120 Minute Ride” class featuring all the instructors tag teaming a live ride from PSNY and PSL.

Now, with Boost Your Base, Peloton is stepping up its game even further, offering its first-ever live Power Zone program and opening new doors for reimagined community engagement.

Burning Questions About the New Power Zone Program

What about the Power Zone Pack?

It’s so exciting to imagine a way that Peloton will harness the energy of the Power Zone faithful into a weekly commitment, but you may be wondering, isn’t there already something like that out there? Yes, the Power Zone Pack is a robust Facebook-based group of teams who opt in to ongoing 6- and 8-week challenges year-round. The PZP, as it is known, has had its own evolution over the years, growing from a Cycling-based experience to a more flexible training program that offers its members opportunities to pursue weekly plans that include 3 or 4 Rides of varying lengths, or 2 Rides plus 2 Runs or Rows. It also offers optional weekly add-on class pairings in Strength and Yoga. How will PZP fans respond to Peloton’s new program? Time will tell!

How will Peloton use Teams?

Recently, Peloton did add the Teams functionality to member dashboards. While I personally have joined a few new Teams that were created by groups I already associated with on social media, I really haven’t embraced the mini challenge opportunities there. I am curious to see if Peloton leans into this and improves it for this purpose. Because having a community during these long challenges is not only critical, it makes it fun!

How do Live Challenge Classes Work?

Many Power Zone riders already know that Matt holds a weekly “long ride” most Saturday mornings (I am personally guilty of structuring my entire day around these rides so that I can “see” all my “regulars” most of whom I’ve never met but I love to ride with week over week for several years in this slot…). Peloton’s announcement indicates that as part of their 8 weeks, there will be a live ride programmed every Saturday. (It may or may not be Matt’s morning ride.)

However, with Peloton members living all over the world, here at The Clip Out, we wonder if the one weekly opportunity to be live with one’s teammates is going to be possible for everyone. Without the real “live” feel, this might just feel more like their other programs already in the library. But on the other hand, the need to make that live ride can force extra accountability. This added motivation may be what some members want and need.

Speaking of live classes, Helper Bee Jen thought that it would be a great idea to kick things off with a live scheduled FTP Test ahead of the April 21 kickoff. We don’t see one yet, but maybe that will be a game-time addition! There is also the chance that an instructor might “host” their own live FTP ride and let members know on their IG pages, as CDE has done in the past.

Aren’t Peloton Programs (vs Collections) Kind of… Restrictive?

In a word, yes. The difference between them is that Programs must be taken at the pace Peloton dictates while Collections can be taken in any order and are more of a guide. We wonder, here at The Clip Out, what will happen to members’ progress throughout the 8 weeks of this new challenge, if they are not able to complete a given ride or need to take a short break. Sometimes illness, vacation, or just life can interrupt even the best laid workout plans. Will members have to restart the program if they fail to stay on track? We hope not! (For more on Programs and Collections, check out this article!)

So…Will a Week of Power Zone Let Me Reach my Other Fitness Goals?

One thing I’m very curious about is seeing if Peloton’s new AI-enabled “Personalized Plan” will dovetail with this at all. As a seasoned Power Zone rider, it can be hard to balance everything you want to do during challenge weeks (and it’s good to switch up your focus). But I wonder if the tech is there to really help members add these Monday and Wednesday On Demand Power Zone classes plus the Saturday Live Ride, plus the right kind of in-between day classes customized to help them reach their goals and stay accountable.  Right now this feature feels a little loose to me, but I hope it gets stronger with this program addition!

With All the Other Programs, Who is This One For?

Members are as curious as we are as this program announcement got underway! One member asked, will this be geared for beginners and then get progressively harder? Another member wonders if the classes programmed as the On Demand rides for each week will have had members in them when they were recorded, or will they draw upon older direct-to-camera classes and feel more similar to existing programs in that regard? Some people are distracted by studio riders while others feed off their energy. We shall see!

What Do You Think?

We are excited to see what details Peloton shares in the next few weeks with more specifics about how this will work. What are your thoughts? Will this help you get on the PZ bus or will you let this one pass you by?

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