Monday, May 25, 2020

Best Classes from the Peloton App

May 25, 2020 Pratik Bandagale

Sharing the best Peloton app classes, especially since I’ve been using the app for just under three years! There’s a lot of variety in the platform and it can be confusing to sift through all of the options. Here are my very faves!

Hi friends! How’s the morning going? I hope you’re enjoying the long weekend even though let’s be real, every day feels pretty much the same right now. We’ll probably grill some black bean burgers and head out for a swim.

For this post, I’m sharing some of my favorite classes from the Peloton app! They have so may great classes and I feel like I’m constantly discovering new workouts and instructors that I love. Here are some of my top picks that you can use to get started, especially if you’re trying out their trial membership. Check out my tips here on how to create a workout plan following Peloton workouts and my favorite instructors!

Best Peloton App Classes

The app is divided into categories: strength, yoga, cardio, meditation, running, outdoor (audio), cycling, stretching, bootcamp, and walking.

From here, you can pick your class depending on your goals and mood:

Strength, yoga or bootcamp if you’re looking for strength work

Yoga, stretching, or meditation if you want to zen out

Cycling, running, walking, cardio, or bootcamp if you’re looking for cardio benefits

For the class you choose, you can filter the workout depending on the instructor, how long you want to work out, type of class, etc.

Here are my top choices for each workout mode:

Strength: I like the 20 or 30-minute classes the most, and you can choose whether you want an upper body, lower body, core, total body, or bodyweight workout. To be totally honest, I’m not crazy about the Peloton strength workouts. I often feel underwhelmed and that’s from someone who loves Peloton! I’ve only found one strength instructor that I genuinely enjoy: Jess Sims. I highly recommend her workouts!

Yoga: For these classes, I prefer the 30-minute flows. Aditi is a great instructor and I also like Denis. Their yoga offerings have dramatically improved over the past year and keep getting better and better.

Cardio: I haven’t tried many of these classes, mostly because I usually use the bike for cardio when I’m on the Peloton app. The 20-minute HIIT cardio looks like a solid choice, and Jess Sims leads some of these, so you know her classes will be good. I’ve tried the dance cardio but couldn’t get into it.

Running: For the running classes, I prefer the themed runs (like an 80s run) or HIIT runs. Olivia is my favorite running instructor. She makes it fun and challenging and somehow is never out of breath? If I had to teach a running class WHILE RUNNING, I would be huffing and puffing all over the place.

Cycling: This is the #1 reason why I have and love the Peloton app. I started my Peloton journey using the app propped up on a spin bike and finally bought a bike a couple of years ago. My favorite rides: Live DJ rides (my #1!), themed rides (like Latin Ride or Greatest Showman ride), Sundays with Love with Ally, and Club Bangers with Alex.

Stretching: I feel like the stretching classes are a bit underwhelming, too, but will often do them when I need someone to force me to stretch. They’re pretty basic and they don’t often go into the “why” behind stretching certain muscle groups.

Peloton Classes Review

With all of the Peloton classes I’ve taken – 234 and climbing – there are only a handful of ones that I didn’t love. I skipped out on some of the bootcamp/strength workouts (they just felt blah to me) and wasn’t crazy about dance cardio. I feel like sometimes they offer too many things instead of focusing on the modes that they do extremely well, like cycling and running. (I understand why more = better, but also think it’s worthwhile to focus on your strengths, ya know?)

If you’re going to take a class for the first time and you don’t have a spin bike, I recommend starting off with the running or walking workouts. Try out some of Jess Sim’s strength classes and cap it off with a nice yoga stretch from Denis.