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It seems like every time I log into Facebook, I see another friend selling their Peloton Bike on Marketplace. At the height of the pandemic, those same friends were posting their 5 a.m. workouts on the stationary bike and beaming at the fact that the at-home exercise equipment sustained them through gym closures. Peloton seemed to be at the forefront of the future of fitness in a work from home world. But life came fast. Gyms reopened and people flocked back to them, many of them realizing that it is so much easier to workout together. On top of that, strength training started gaining traction.
This left Peloton bikes alone to gather dust and the company suffered. But in the past couple of years, Peloton has made a slow but steady comeback. At the end of last year, it debuted its Strength+ app in beta as a way to place itself into the increasingly popular strength training space and reintroduce itself as a fitness company that isn’t just focused on cardio. Today, the company announced a series of major updates, emphasizing the fact that it wants to go all in on cross-training.
Peloton has reworked its entire lineup of fitness devices—its stationary Bike, Row machine, and Treadmill—to be Cross Training devices, each now having a swivel screen to easily toggle between cardio and floor exercises. The company has also debuted a new AI-powered program, Peloton IQ, which includes a movement tracker that follows the user as they perform various strength exercises, and counts exercises as well as offers advice on bad form. The new equipment also comes with better audio (first-ever Sonos speakers), Wi-Fi, and Bluetooth. It also includes smaller upgrades, including a phone tray for the bike, an integrated three-speed fan that sits atop the screen, and a new seat that provides extra cushioning (highly requested add-ons from devoted users).
All-in, this Peloton 2.0 represents a new era for the company: One that provides an all-encompassing, personally tailored, full body workout. You are also able to incorporate third-party data from other fitness-focused wearables like Apple Health, Garmin, and Fitbit. Smaller add-ons that represent the company’s push for overall health include the meditation and breathing app, Breathwrk, which Peloton recently acquired, as well as a partnership with Hospital for Special Surgery in New York City to generate tailored exercises for those with specific orthopedic injuries.
While I’ve never owned a Peloton device, countless friends, virtual and otherwise, have told me that at-home exercise equipment is a key part of maintaining a fitness routine amidst an absurdly hectic life. And part of the allure of the Peloton Bike when it first came out was that it connected you to a community of fitness users all from your own home. While the pandemic is over, our hectic lives are not. And whether the strength training boom is here to stay is still unclear (there’s so much science to back it up!), Peloton’s new updates seem to check all the boxes of what people want right now: flexibility in where you workout and a mix of cardio and strength.
How well Peloton’s new AI-driven movement tracker will work will be interesting to watch. I got a live demo of the new device before the launch and watched as it easily tracked a person’s curls and counted, on screen, as he completed each one. It looked fun, honestly, and might be the only way I might be able to find joy in strength training, which has always felt like a chore to me. Strength training can also be intimidating to jump into for many people (me included) and personal trainers can be out of many American’s budgets. So it will be interesting to see if an app that critiques your every squat and curl in real time will be worth the extra dollars.
The Cross Training Bike is now available starting at $1,695, the Tread at $3,295, and the Row (+only) at $3,495. Peloton also increased its membership pricing, with all-access membership now at $50 (from $44), App+ at $29 (from $24), and App One at $16 (from $13).
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Source: Gizmodo