The only positive for Peloton
Peloton is, by all accounts, on fire, and I don’t mean in the positive spin of emoji vernacular 🔥, but in the actual temperature of the board room. They laid off nearly 3000 people, removed their CEO, and slashed their fiscal revenue prediction by close to a billon dollars earlier this week. And yet, their connected fitness programs, led by their stationary bike, still have millions of subscribers who continue to pedal.
I used to think the concept of “spinning” was a little culty, wondering how and why friends would get up after a night of drinking to attend a class with their favorite instructor. Endorphins are a hell of a drug, that’s true, but there had to be something more to keep people invested in riding with the same instructor at the same time week in and week out.
After recently moving into a Peloton home, it’s starting to make a little more sense. During the winter months and the WFH years, it’s nice to be able to close your laptop and hop on a bike without leaving the room. It’s a burst of a workout just an arm’s length away, something not taken for granted multiple floors off the ground in a big city during a pandemic.
So the ease of use and the obvious exercise benefits are big reasons for the continued engagement of devotees, but we also have to talk about the instructors. Peloton has an armada of attractive cheerleaders on bikes who are either very convincing performers or genuinely want the people taking their classes to find enjoyment in pushing themselves enough to feel the burn, but not quite overdo it. And in a sea of negativity, a little pep talk goes a long way.
Anne Helen Petersen, of Culture Study, points out the differences between Peloton personalities and other influencers you might follow in her “Unified Theory of Peloton.” “While reality stars, influencers, and YouTubers float across our vision, passively consumed, often while multi-tasking,” she says, “a Peloton instructor has your full attention.”
It’s true. You’re strapped in, maybe just trying to run out the clock or maybe trying to set a new personal record, and there’s only one voice in your ear. It’s not a drill sergeant but a friend who wants you to cross the finish line with them. Last night, as I was trudging through the second half of my ride, the instructor said something like, “Get out of your head and into your strength.” It made me laugh at first (and maybe it is 5% a wink to those of us who think we’re too cool for platitudes), but it also made me keep pedaling.
Most of us have trouble with the getting on the bike, the blank page. And after that there’s the matter of going on once the resistance literally turns up. But there’s something about being in the defenseless position of physical exhaustion that disarms your normal bullshit detector and lets in these nakedly motivational speeches.
I don’t think the people with Live Laugh Love signs in their foyer are necessarily happier, but I do think there’s something to accepting small doses of positivity wherever you can get them. Even if you go back to laughing after you catch your breath.