A Week Later, I’m Enjoying Peloton’s New “personalized Plan” More Than I Expected.
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Last week, Peloton unveiled a slew of new equipment and major software updates. The updates immediately impacted the Peloton app and the interfaces of the company’s existing home exercise machines, so even if you don’t upgrade to a new bike or treadmill , you’ll still benefit. One of the most important updates is the new “Personal Plan,” which uses information about your preferred workout types, goals, and available time to create a weekly schedule. I tested it for a week and found it much easier to use than I expected.
What does Peloton’s personalized plan offer?
With the new update, you can log into the Peloton app on your mobile device, and a personalized plan option will appear at the top of the screen. Tapping it will answer a series of questions about your goals (such as building strength, losing weight, or maintaining weight), your preferred exercise types (such as cycling or walking), your exercise experience, and how many days per week you can devote to training. There’s even a question about what you’d like to do on rest and recovery days, such as stretching, meditation, or yoga. You can change your answers at any time.
After you fill out all the information, the app will generate your personalized plan, which is updated every Monday and includes exercises for every day, even if it’s a rest day. My initial plan included cardio on Monday, upper body and core training on Tuesday, recovery on Wednesday, interval training on Thursday, lower body and core on Friday, a full-body workout on Saturday, and a rest day on Sunday.
Once a plan is created based on your data, you’ll always see it at the top of the screen when you open the app. Recommended daily activities will also appear there, but you can tap ” View your weekly plan” to open the full schedule. You can tap on the recommended daily activities to start a workout or move forward or backward. The plan isn’t rigid; it’s more of a general overview of everything you should include in your week to achieve your goals, planned in the most efficient way possible. However, you can customize it as you see fit.
For example, you don’t have to attend specific classes if you don’t want to. I’m often recommended to take certain cycling classes, but I’ve found that any class I attend “counts” toward my personalized plan. The other day, I was doing yoga at a studio and using the Peloton app to track my non-Peloton strength training . To my surprise, the app counted it as one of my “planned” classes for the day, since I was supposed to be doing strength training that day. I didn’t go to the specific class recommended, but that didn’t matter.
Why I like this more than I thought
I’m a big fan of my streaks in the app, as the gamification of the tasks I have to complete each day really motivates me. (For reference, I currently have a 206-day streak on Peloton.) At first, I was worried that the customized plan would be too structured and confusing. Would I be penalized if I didn’t do cardio on the day it told me to? Would that affect my streak in any way? The answer is no. There’s no penalty for not following the plan. In fact, it’s quite flexible. As I said, any workout you do can count toward the plan, not just the workouts it suggests. Furthermore, it doesn’t matter whether you attend classes or track a workout that doesn’t count. You’re still responsible for what you use the app for and how you exercise. It’s just meant to help you plan a little better.