by John | Oct 28, 2013 | Your Fitness Business
We're seeing a crazy number of new small/independent/boutique studios opening all over the world – which is awesome. I love being part of a growth industry, not to mention how all these new studios need Instructors!
But what's driving all this growth? I know that a whole bunch of studios have opened, who's owners will tell you that their initial motivation came from hearing my first interview with Bill Pryor/Spynergy Consulting; Start Your Own Indoor Cycling Studio from 2010.
But there has been another force at work in our industry; SoulCycle.
Google Trends is an interesting service where you can observe the popularity for a particular subject over time. The data is based on mentions in prominent media and Google searches. You plug in a few search terms and Google displays a trending line to show the popularity of the topic and easily compare with other searches.
So here's a comparison between the search terms; Soul Cycle and Spin Class – with apologies for omitting the ® which isn't normally used in an article or search.
Through the wonders of technology, Google makes it possible for you to see and interact with the results.
Admittedly, I needed to try a few different search terms before I found this one that I feel most accurately reflects the impact SoulCycle has had on the popularity of Indoor Cycling. “Spinning” alone doesn't work as there are too many uses of the word that don't apply. I did try to add Flywheel into the mix, but there are very few mentions of searches.
Google's data only goes back to 2004 – it would make this more interesting if we could see back before then. The graph does show “Spin Class” as relatively flat until the first mention of SoulCycle in the fall of 2005. I'm not sure we can draw a direct correlation (but I'll try anyway) to the noticeable uptick around the time we launched ICI/PRO in the fall of 2009 and then again around the time of Bill's interview in 2010 🙂
Love them or hate them, SoulCycle has had (at least by this method) a hugely positive effect on the visibility of Indoor Cycling and small studios.
by John | Jul 24, 2013 | Class DVDS & Videos, Featured Studios, Instructor Training
SoulCycle paying Instructors $130 a class may sound like a lot to many of us, but it will be closer to minimum wage once Peloton Cycle studio opens in NYC this fall.
Teach to a full house of 50 riders and expect to receive $500.00 for your efforts. This isn't a typo – this outfit is planning to compensate Indoor Cycling Instructors up to $500.00 a class. Teach a regular schedule of 13 packed classes a week and you'll be interviewing stock brokers for ideas where you should invest your $300,000 annual compensation.
Want to work for Peloton Cycling? Check to see if they're hiring here.
Update 10/1/2013 – I have an interview up with Peloton Cycle's COO Tom Cortese where you can learn a bunch more about their plans.
From a Well and Good in NYC article
To that end, Peloton has borrowed a lot from boutique studios and what riders are addicted to, starting with the charismatic instructor. “Instructors who can command an audience and have great fitness knowledge are arguably like actors, they should be paid as such. We’re tripling what the going rate is to work at a studio,” says Foley, adding that with this platform, Peloton teachers will become “global celebrities, capable of reaching thousands of riders at a time, instead of 50.” (We’re expecting defections any second now.) – I'm assuming they're referring to defections from SoulCycle & Flywheel – John
Peloton's goal here, as I see it, is to recruit the very best 10 Instructors… not just the 10 best Instructors in New York, but the 10 best Instructors from anywhere on the planet. $300k should be enough of an incentive to motivate just about anyone to pack their bags, move to a new gig and start teaching in the Big Apple.
How can they afford to pay Instructors so much?
The financial “Holy Grail” for Peloton is delivering on-demand classes to home users riding their new Peloton Indoor Cycles. This bike looks very cool/well designed and they recently raised over $300,000 using Kick Starter to fund the design and early production.
Created by John Foley, the former president of Barnes & Noble eCommerce, Peloton has built a sexy at-home bike that won’t look out of place in your high-design living room. It comes with a 22-inch tablet-like, touch-screen monitor that allows you to ride along with live classes at Peloton’s 50-bike studio in New York City (opening in Chelsea in the fall), or stream one on-demand.
So your potential class size is limited only by the number of those new cycles they sell.
I'm dying to learn more about all of this; the new Indoor Cycle, the technology, their plans for the Peloton Studio… everything. I'm working on getting a representative on the Podcast ASAP.
P.S. Peloton is accepting applications 🙂
by John | Jan 20, 2013 | Engage Your Students, Featured Studios, Instructor Training
SoulCycle founders Elizabeth Cutler and Julie Rice
I'm really curious how you would respond; would you teach for SoulCycle?
But before you answer, imagine you had the following conversation at the end of your last class…
A women approaches while you're collecting your stuff.
“Hi [wlm_firstname].” “My name is Elizabeth Cutler and I really enjoyed your class tonight.”
You respond; “you're welcome Elizabeth.” “I enjoyed seeing your smile there in the back.”
Then she looks you square in the eye and asks a question that could change your life…
“I'm one of the founders of SoulCycle Indoor Cycling and we are opening a new studio near by, later this Spring.”
“Would you consider being one of our Instructors?”
Flabbergasted by her offer, you open your mouth to respond. But before any sounds come out she continues…
“I realize that you have a devoted following here [wlm_firstname] and I'll understand if you say no.
“Before you decide, I'd like to explain that our Instructors earn on average $50,000 per year, many considerably more, teaching 8 classes a week. We really want to keep you once we have you, so we offer a full benefit package that includes excellent health insurance.
“So what do you say [wlm_firstname]?”
“Are you ready to teach at SoulCycle?”
Want to teach at SoulCycle? Find Job Listings for SoulCycle, Flywheel, CycleBar and all other cycling studios.
What prompted this post is a fascinating article; The Carefully Cultivated Soul of SoulCycle in New York Magazine.
Do you have any participants like this person, who sounds like she's traded one unhealthy addiction for another?
“I would do anything that I could to afford these rides,” says 27-year-old Jaime, who often takes thirteen classes a week (estimated cost: $21,632 per year). She’s arranged her schedule to have Mondays off work so that she can always be at her computer the moment classes are released. She counts her instructors among her closest friends. Her social life revolves around people she’s met at SoulCycle. On the anniversary of her father’s death, her instructor had the class ride to “Nessun Dorma” from Turandot, one of Jaime’s father’s favorite operas. “I’m seven years sober. You don’t really get love and acceptance and encouragement and self-gratification from a cocktail,” Jaime says. “I mean, I … this is what I need in my life, and it just so happened it’s an exercise class.”
Interesting how the founders of SoulCycle split along the lines of Indoor Cycling 2.0 – entertainment based vs. results driven classes.
But as much as the performative aspects keep riders coming back, they have also driven more serious athletes away, often into the open arms of Flywheel, where a metrics-based workout is coupled with more self-restraint. Though Ruth Zukerman declines to discuss her exit from SoulCycle, some chalk it up to a difference in instructor style. “It’s a slippery slope, because sometimes when you build these superstars, it kind of goes to their head and they become divas,” she says. “Yes, be entertaining, be inspiring, but at the end of the day, it’s about the rider. It’s not about you.”
Now I realize that there are many who would recoil in horror at the thought of being affiliated with SoulCycle…
But why?
They're clearly offering people a form of exercise they enjoy and are willing to pay big money to attend. Spend a few minutes looking at the Instructor bios and you'll see most have the same (if not better) credentials than many of the Instructors that I know personally.
by Jim Karanas | Apr 28, 2021 | Master Instructor Blog
Update from John: This post was originally published in June of last year, shortly before we lost Jim. I thought Jim's wisdom could add to our current conversation about SoulCycle, so I'm re-publishing this today.
By Team ICG® Master Trainer Jim Karanas
Why would anyone want to do it? It’s crazy. What about the bike? Connecting with it. Feeling the road. How can anyone NOT want to feel the road? Rhythm, timing, breathing. It’s in our DNA.
It won’t last. Silly trend. Dance parties on bikes with music videos can’t last. You can’t even call it training. It’s just physical movement, not sure it’s even considered exercise. It’s totally without direction.
There are some heavy hitters out there who will slam Non-Authentic Indoor Cycling and talk about it with contempt. Read the blogs and forums. It’s important to have beliefs — something you stand for that defines you as a professional.
Am I sure? Absolutely not. Is Non-Authentic Indoor Cycling bad for Indoor Cycling? That’s a good question and the topic of this post.
I teach Authentic Indoor Cycling. I ride bikes outdoors and always seek to bring to my students what the road and trail teach me. The bike has taught me many lessons that I’ll share with anyone who wants to attend my classes and has the patience to listen to my rhetoric.
Fitness reached a pinnacle with indoor cycling. Finally, we had a way to communicate fitness concepts that were not based on hype or adrenalin. Eclectic music. Quality training. Depth. Achievement. Millions of dollars in revenue!
It wasn’t only about the money, but do you really believe that indoor cycling would be here today if it didn’t make money? Fitness is a $12.5-billion industry, and indoor cycling helped it get there. Whatever makes money will drive fitness.
Zumba is a classic example and should be a lesson to everyone. It’s simple choreography, not unlike what I used to teach as an aerobics instructor back in the ‘80s, with the addition of a little Latin dance and hip-hop. The instructors don’t even cue. Yet Zumba is a half-billion-dollar-a-year company. Which shows you what dazzling branding, marketing, and a single-minded focus on building a culture can do for a fitness program.
Do you think Zumba is a fad? Not with those revenues.
What about non-authentic indoor cycling? How about SoulCycle? It hurts; it really does. But if you believe that SoulCycle is going to fade away because it’s not authentic, then I believe you’re misguided. The SoulCycle brand is strong, their marketing is incredibly strong, AND they now have strong financial support after having been purchased by Equinox.
Something else: they’re building one hell of a culture. Friends of mine who have never taken my class come up and say with wide-eyed enthusiasm, “Do you know that SoulCycle is coming to San Francisco?” I ask, “Why would you take a class there when you haven’t yet come to mine?” No response.
I believe that non-authentic indoor cycling will become a significant trend in the Fitness Industry. ICG® is an authentic indoor cycling company. We believe in proper training principles and we all ride bikes, yet we’re not blind.
If non-authentic IC is going to make a mark, why not embrace it for what it is — a way to train on the bike that makes (some) people fit and happy? Assuming it’s validated as safe and effective (ICG has already contacted the American Council on Exercise and proposed a study), then shouldn't every indoor cycling education body offer a program on how to teach non-authentic indoor cycling? Why shouldn’t any and every indoor cycling program be taught by those who are truly qualified to teach indoor cycling? That would be the likes of us. We know indoor cycling best. We could create a program — inauthentic fluff, if you will — that’s still authentic in its safety, structure and cardiovascular benefit. Why not?
It need not (and would not) diminish our authentic style of teaching, and it just might make all of us some money.
Originally posted 2014-10-23 04:51:49.
by John | Dec 24, 2020 | Engage Your Students, Heart Zones USA, KEEPING IT FUN
My friend Sally Edwards makes an excellent point here that applies equally to any endurance athlete and affirms our discussion from Podcast 368 — Does Intensity Trump Duration?.
It turns out that very fast runs are good for you–and that moderately fast runs (those just above threshold, in the Black Hole) are not. That’s because Black Hole runs are too slow to cause enough stress to make your body want to strengthen itself, and too fast to allow you to go long enough to improve your endurance. Studies of top runners find that they (by design or not) minimize their time in the Black Hole.
How fast is the Black Hole? In terms of pace, heart rate, and the Heart Zones chart, the Black Hole is actually a very narrow band. It starts at threshold, right as you enter Zone 5, and goes about 5 percent higher. So, if your threshold heart rate is 150 bpm, your Black Hole would extend from 150 to 157 bpm. That means if you really want to improve, your fast runs should roughly start at a second threshold: 158 bpm.
**This post is one of several in an excerpt series from the book, Be a Better Runner by Sally Edwards & Carl Foster**
But don't discount fun exercise = running/cycling that you enjoy just for how it makes you feel. Many people have no interest in structured “training”, they exercise because they find it fun.
Why There’s No Such Thing as Junk Miles
Whether you’re in training or not, every ride has a purpose–and just about every one is legit
Fun, however, is a legitimate purpose. Stress relief is a legitimate purpose. The fact that you can finally ride outside after being trapped inside by a wall of snow and ice for six weeks, structure be damned, is a legitimate purpose. The only non-legitimate purpose I can think of is if you’re out there joylessly slogging through some self imposed workout because you feel like you need more miles when those miles are not a) making you happy b) making you faster or c) building your reserves, but rather a) making you miserable, b) making you slower and c) breaking you down.
As an A type male, it was difficult to understand the whole “fun exercise” concept. What's the point of taking this class, if you're going to talk through it?
Once I understood that for some folks, Keeping It Fun is the objective, it became a lot easier to accept the appeal of SoulCycle type classes… and their wild success 🙂
Originally posted 2017-03-12 08:40:23.
