Inside the Cult of Group Fitness — SoulCycle, Peloton

Hot Takes & Deep Dives

Jess Rothschild

Rhony, Tv & Film, Andycohen, Rhobh, Realhousewives, Bravotv, Vpr, Rhoc, Bravo, Popculture, Rhop, Pumprules, Bethennyfrankel, Lgbtculture, Rhod, Realhousewivesofnyc, Rhoa, Vanderpumprules

4.7 • 1.4K Ratings

🗓️ 27 November 2023

⏱️ 54 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Jess is a joined by a career fitness professional to go inside the culture of their former cycling employer, while Jess shares her personal experience with SoulCycle. We go deep on: lack of certifications required to teach spin, the “training programs” at different studios, instructors abusing drugs, sexual accusations from riders and the “God Complex” cult of personality these studios cultivate. Plus, stories from Equinox/Soul corporate, the Peloton fall-out and more.

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Check out Jess' docu-pod series FINDING FIRE ISLAND about the history, mystique and lore of Cherry Grove & The Pines.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Welcome back to Hot Takes and Deep Dives and the cult of Boutique Fitness,
0:19.2	particularly in New York City is something I've wanted to explore for a while now. Now I could
0:25.3	have done this or tried to with former soul cycle instructors but many of them have
0:30.9	NDA's so I think I found someone even better.
0:34.9	Now my guest is going to be anonymous,
0:37.2	but not anonymous with his experience
0:39.0	deep inside this complicated industry.
0:42.0	Hi, oh my God, I'm so excited and nervous to be here.
0:44.8	No, don't be.
0:45.6	No, we just had a pep talk that you can anonymize.
0:49.2	So to just tee this up, you and I went to Barry's boot camp about a month ago and after class we were basically
0:56.4	chatting about how deep I was in the cult of soul cycle around maybe 2013 to 2016, 2017.
1:05.0	And the more I learned about your career,
1:08.0	I basically pitched this idea to you,
1:11.0	and so here we are.
1:12.0	Where do we start? Okay here's where we're going to start. How did you actually
1:16.7	get into the fitness industry? Yeah so I think similarly to most fitness professionals. I say that most fitness professionals do have a
1:27.7	BFA and musical theater because that's like pretty much what happens like
1:32.0	you move to the city like me with the BFA
1:34.9	musical theater which what does that degree do for you in life not much and you try
1:40.0	and find day jobs and a lot of us who don't want to work I didn't I was like you know I want to try not to work in a restaurant I don't like the hours are crazy like I don't know that I have the mental capacity to like deal with net like assholes and then not make any money from it.
1:56.0	So I had a different array of jobs and I found fitness as a great, front desk work is a great place to start and you got free fitness out of it.
	...

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