I will once again revisit a topic that I am sure comes up in anyone’s house who has kids over the age of 4 (maybe younger)-
Screen time.
I am talking device (phones and iPads) screen time in particular- it is funny that TV has now taken a backseat to all of the insanity on the internet. I remember when having kids watch too much TV seemed like the worst thing in the world. Now I would welcome that with open arms; at least I would know everything they are watching all the time. Now I have to compete with stupid internet dances, people mouthing along to things other people say, various challenges (both tame and idiotic) as well as the clips from various movies and TV shows that find their way onto these platforms. The other day my daughter was watching the ‘Sweet Child of Mine’ car a cappella scene from Stepbrothers on Tik Tok (or maybe YouTube). I could hear it from the other room and had one of those moments where your brain searches to place something you know but is very out of context. I’m thinking, how do I know what I am hearing come from this child’s iPad and then it dawned on me that it was Stepbrothers. Fortunately it was just the singing scene (which my daughter found very dumb without the context of the whole story) and not the rest of the movie. It is odd to me now that my kids will pipe up and know these random pop culture references from movies and TV shows that, as an isolated incident, are completely tame but are plucked from a movie that is not. We’ve tried to be pretty firm about setting ground rules for internet usage and my kids for the most part are pretty good.
Key words there- for the most part. Unfortunately, just as adults enjoy sharing funny memes with one another, so do these kids. I’ve been less that thrilled with some of the videos sent to my son from friends. Granted, I am sure my son is not all innocent in this and even if he isn’t the originator of the video, he passes it along to others- continuing the cycle. It is funny because my son will say things from these videos out loud like he knows what’s up but has absolutely no understanding or know how to back it up. We will often ask him what something means and he has no clue. I hope this is typical tween/early teen boy stuff because I know I never felt this free to just say whatever in front of my parents. It is a weird situation when you lecture your child for over sharing the things his friends have told him or the discoveries he has made. On one hand I love that he feels comfortable enough to say whatever to us but on the other I wouldn’t mind a little bit of editing. I know in the past I have talked about my son’s Tik Tok account and how incredibly annoying I find the whole thing. Well, how is this for an update- my son is currently sitting at over 2000 followers on Tik Tok.
Yes you read that correctly- 2000 people and/or entities follow this kid!
We have a lot of rules regarding posting and reserve the right to check what he is doing at any moment (we do this often). I also have plenty of people (spies) in my circle who follow and will report back to me if they see anything that needs to be taken down. So far so good- for the most part. There were one or two posts with some colorful language that we made him delete but overall he’s a content machine. He makes short sports related videos and adds music or funny captions. Sometimes I don’t get the humor in certain things but I am assured by him that it is in fact funny (I am inclined to think that he’s wrong but it’s pretty mundane). The other day he had a sports jersey site reach out and send him his own promo code- no joke. The whole thing blows my mind; I walk the fine line of letting him crank out content or keeping his screen time limited. My sister thinks I should let him become ‘Tik Tok famous’ but I am not ready for that- and neither is he. I like that he has found something that he puts consistent time and effort into but is it a real thing? I don’t know how to navigate this new world of social media as some type of career aspiration. Why can’t we go back to the simpler times of him wanting to be an NFL player knowing full well that it would never happen???
Speaking of content creation, let’s talk about the real reason you all are here- Peloton! Below I wrap up my workouts from the last four days of 2021. This has been a crazy year and one full of Peloton classes. As much as I tried for variety in this last week, there were too many opportunities to ride with my favorites live that I absolutely could not resist. Consequently you will find two rides from the same instructor (different types of classes), two classes with the same theme and one lone bike bootcamp in my attempt to add in some much needed variety. I loved every single one of these rides and think they are all fantastic workouts. Let’s stop dancing around the topic and get to the real stuff- here are my final workouts for 2021-
Tuesday-
I was really excited to take this ride- it is Kendall’s first class back after her vacation and those classes are always a doozy. This one was everything you imagine when you think of a Kendall ride- high energy, totally unapologetic, and really tough. I missed seeing her on the schedule but she 100% made up for it with this ride! I always enjoy a classic rock playlist and this is classic rock with a Kendall flair (more hard rock than pop classics). My only beef would be that she considers Bon Jovi to be classic rock and that’s a no for me, dog- Bon Jovi is 80s hair band music, end of discussion. She starts the ride with an 8 minute, 2 track warmup with the first being one of the few true flat roads in class. If you know Kendall she ramps up the intensity pretty quickly in class and by the second warmup track she had us adding resistance for power jogs. This is one of those classes where Kendall tries to fool us by calling it a Classic Rock ride when it is really a mostly resistance effort ride. Most of the work in this class revolves around climbing or resistance efforts/power jogs. There is one much needed flat road in the middle of class followed by some quick spin ups. The last part of class is what Kendall calls a ‘big climb’ and it is really tough. In true Kendall fashion the big climb finishes leaving 2 minutes left in class but do not think for a second that things are finishing up slightly early. She’s still got a little something in the tank for that final minute!!
Overall this is a really challenging workout; not Metal Ride Kendall but pretty darn close. I don’t know how much this class could be modified and even with modifications, it will not make the workout easy. I think reducing the metrics would only bring the workout into a challenging/high intensity zone that aligns with your own fitness level. Even for a 30 minute workout, I was gassed, busted, and breathless. This is a great workout if you want a high intensity burn but don’t have a ton of time. It is no secret that I love Kendall’s classes and find her energy and enthusiasm unmatched. She always gets me to push just that little bit harder in each and every workout. If you are looking to take your workout into that semi-uncomfortable zone, this is the class for you. You will swear at her during class but ultimately finish feeling great.
Wednesday-
Yes, your eyes did not deceive you; here we have two Classic Rock rides in two days. It is no secret that I am a HUGE fan of Denis’ Classic Rock playlists. When I saw that Denis was on the live schedule to teach a 45 minute Classic Rock ride I knew that I needed to make taking this class a priority. As usual, it did not disappoint! Denis curates a 45 minute playlist of classic rock hits including one of my all time favorite cycling tracks- Proud Mary. It might sound crazy but Proud Mary is no lie the most perfect song for indoor cycling; the song starts out slow and then quickly switches to super fast mid track. An old cycling instructor friend of mine used to play this track in her classes sometimes and it always amped me way up. So hearing that programmed toward the end of this class had me totally fired up. Like all of Denis’ rides, he starts with a longer (10 minute), 2 track warmup. The first track gets the legs moving and in the second he programs some spin ups to get the body ready to start class. Denis designs a fairly balanced roadmap for the rest of class. He programs speed, resistance, power pushes, choreography plus throws in a five minute weights track. There is a little something for everyone and he balances the intensity with short recovery moments throughout. I love Denis’ classes because he rarely programs a block using only one metric; you don’t have those 10 minute resistance blocks like you do in other classes (cough cough, Emma Lovewell). He balances speed with resistance and injects choreography tracks to break up some of the monotony. As I mentioned, there is a five minute arms track in this class; this could be used as a modified recovery or, if you aren’t feeling weights, as a heavy climb. I think there is a lot of room for modification in this class, especially since the roadmap is so varied. The resistance could be pulled back, more efforts taken in the saddle and slow down or stop the legs during the arm track. I am also a huge fan of Denis’ instruction; he has a deep understanding of body mechanics and how to get your body to work efficiently and safely on the bike (I assume this stems from yoga). He does an excellent job reminding the rider to watch their form and visualize how their body moves when pedaling. Focusing on form and function in a cycling class can, at times, be lost in some of these rides and I appreciate him bringing it back to basics. Long story short, if you are looking for a solid workout with a fantastic playlist, this Classic Rock Ride is exactly what you need.
Thursday-
Warning if you haven’t taken this ride yet- spoilers ahead! I will discuss the top ten songs so skip this one if you want to keep the playlist a surprise. We need to at least touch on the playlist as it is a big part of the class PLUS I was a little surprised at what songs made the top ten.
The theme of this week between Christmas and New Years has been poor time management. Between looking after the puppy, having visiting family and kids with no schedules, it has made my time management skills go straight down the toilet. Thursday was another day where I ended up finally getting around to my workout much later than I would have liked, although the silver lining was getting to take this final class of the countdown live. Kendall taught the final class of the countdown for 2020 and I was happy to see they gave her the same assignment for this year. She does an excellent job hyping up her team (she was a cheerleader after all) and giving the background stats for each of the tracks on the countdown. I like hearing who programmed which song the most or how many times a certain song was played over the course of the year. The top ten this year was a little surprising; I did not expect a lot of these songs (maybe with the exception of Dua Lipa since she was everywhere in 2021) to be in the top ten. Was anyone else waiting for her to tell us who played ‘Eye of the Tiger’ the most!? I have to assume it was Ben but he also played ‘Gonna Make You Sweat’ the most so maybe she didn’t want to call him out twice in one class. The biggest surprise to me was that Dua Lipa or Megan Thee Stallion didn’t have the number one song of the year. I was surprised ‘The Business’ by Tiesto song was the number one track- nothing against that song but I didn’t see it as one of those everywhere songs in 2021. Clearly I was wrong!
If you want to take a Kendall class but fear the intensity, this is a great option. She definitely dials back the grit and keeps it more in the moderate to difficult zone. I assume a lot of this has to do with the amount of talking done during these classes- it is hard to crank it out while trying to do a countdown with background information. The roadmap in this workout is fairly well balanced between speed, resistance and power jogs. The peaks and valleys in the workout are managed well until you get to the end of class (classic Kendall) when she throws some more intense climbs and rolling hills into the mix. I think there is a ton of room to modify in this class as it is designed to be a more all level workout. She programs one arms track at about the midpoint in class that could be used as a modified recovery (there are not many other recovery moments in class, again, classic Kendall). The big snafu in class (well maybe it was or maybe it wasn’t) that seems to have the Pelo-verse buzzing is how the metrics stopped during the arms track in this class. The leaderboard didn’t update and there was no output added during that track. Honestly I thought there was something wrong with my bike but confused because the video was fine and the time continued to count down. Maybe Peloton is finally listening to my requests to make classes with arm tracks it’s own separate PR category (ha yea right!). I’m not going to lie, not seeing people cheat and try to climb the leaderboard during the arms track was a refreshing change. I still don’t understand why you would want to take a class with arms only to cycle like a maniac through the arms sections. Plus, is it really an accurate representation of your overall fitness if you are powering through a block where the majority of the riders are not? It’s like racing kindergarteners as an adult- yes you will be faster than them but does that really make you the best?? Ok ok I will step down from my soapbox! Back to this workout- overall, this class is a fun way to close out the top 50 of 2021. You may not understand how a lot of the tracks made it to the top ten but like everything else in 2021, you can rest assured that nothing is what we expect anymore.
Friday-
I needed a change and have had my eye on this 45 min Full Body Bike Bootcamp from Jess Sims for a while. I know I now have a tread but I am waiting for live classes to start back up to take my first tread class. It sounds silly but I had no idea what I was doing in terms of live versus prerecorded when I first got my bike- if I can get myself a shoutout, why not!? Jess Sims is probably my favorite Bike Bootcamp instructor; her classes are always seriously challenging while never feeling stale or recycled. I enjoy how she takes seemingly the same thing and reinvents or repurposes it to be something different (even if it is just a slight alteration). As with all Jess Sims 45 min Bootcamps, the format is bike/floor/bike/floor, with short breaks at the shoe store between blocks. In this particular bootcamp she recommends having light, medium and heavy weights available; I stayed closer to light and medium but moved between 5, 10, 12.5 and 15 pound weights in class (I only used the 15 pound ones for sumo deadlifts). She starts with a 4 minute, fast flat road warmup on the bike and jumps right into the first block of cycling work- 8 moderate climb intervals. These are divided into 4 in the saddle and 4 out, with the seated pushes clocking in at 30 seconds on (30 seconds rest) and out of saddle pushes at 45 seconds on (15 seconds rest). These are tough and she progressively pushes resistance throughout the block. Jess programs the second block of cycling work to be 11 speed intervals (it is 10 intervals and a bonus, typical Jess Sims). The first 10 intervals (5 at 30 seconds, 5 at 20 seconds) are at a 1:1 work to rest ratio with the bonus being slightly longer. She programs a 1 minute recovery between intervals 5 and 6 that goes by too quickly so take it! Down on the floor she starts the weight work with a short warmup and moves right into a 5x3 circuit. There is a programmed recovery between rounds 1 and 2 but none between 2 and 3 (since round 3 is a speed round). The second weights segment consists of a six A/B minute EMOM. Each minute is made up of 2 moves, starting at 8 reps for the first two minutes then moving to 9/10 reps in the second two and finishing with 10 reps in the final two minutes. I found this workout to be challenging but definitely not impossible; there are way harder Jess Sims bootcamps on the platform. I think there is room here to modify both on the bike and the floor. Lowering the resistance, using low or body weight taking more efforts in the saddle and additional recovery time could make this workout very manageable. The weight blocks are an opportunity to let the heart rate fall and none of the circuits are crazy intense. I think a lot of different fitness levels could have success in this class- but don’t take my word for it, try it for yourself! Jess Sims is always a treat; she is the upbeat, enthusiastic yet realistic cheerleader we all need. She wants us to be better but not Kool Aid man ourselves through a wall to get there.
That wraps up my final classes for 2021 (posted in early 2022)! I hope you have all had a wonderful new year and aren’t too hard yourself to drastically up the ante in 2022. I look forward to sharing more workouts with you all and hopefully some amusing non-workout related antics. Oh and some tread content! Lots of exciting things to come in this new year and I appreciate you all letting me be a small part of your fitness journey. Have a great first week of 2022 everyone!