15 December 2020 🍎
I had the chance to try four different workouts (only 10 minutes each) with Apple’s Fitness+ today, and overall I was pretty impressed. I’ve had a Peloton bike for about two years now, and the non-bike workouts from Fitness+ felt up-to-par with anything on Peloton. Apple is at a bit of a disadvantage when it comes to cycling just because of the end-to-end integration Peloton has with with their bike and classes. However, for the last couple of months, I’ve had the Peloton membership paused, and throwing an Apple cycling class on my iPad next to the bike was a really enjoyable experience and much better than just riding to music or podcasts with no class, which is what I’ve been doing for awhile now.
I consider myself a pretty in-shape and athletic person, but I feel like these classes, similar to Peloton, are applicable to most people. The exercises, sets, and reps are designed in a way that someone who has never worked out, should be able to come in and get the hang of things pretty quickly, but also someone who maybe has a gym membership and goes everyday (pre-COVID) can go through the motions and still break a sweat and get something out of it. Peloton assigns a difficulty level, which is hugely beneficial, and it’s something I’d like to see come to Fitness+ as the service grows and expands. For yoga workouts, I am whatever comes before beginner and awful with balance and flexibility, but for other types of workouts I’m much more comfortable and like to push myself a lot more. You don’t have those options with Fitness+, but like I said earlier, you can adapt most of these types of classes to your own level of comfort.
These are the first four classes I started with today:
The core workout was pretty straightforward and it was nice to add some new motions and mix things up. The cycling was tons of fun, if I had a regular non-Peloton exercise bike, there is not question this would be a go-to for me. And both the strength and yoga workouts were fun and engaging. I was never really looking at the countdown to see how much longer the class was, but it was super nice to have your heartbeat and calories right there on the screen (along with your rings, which in-class doesn’t really mean much to me.)
Overall, I think they’ve knocked it out of the park and I’m really interested to see what other people think and where they end up taking the service, if it’s successful and has a chance to really grow. Given that I have a Peloton bike, I struggle with the question of what I would choose to use. $39 vs $10 is a huge difference and even the Apple bike class was enjoyable. I think the Peloton membership is still worth it and look forward to what they do in order to differentiate themselves as more competitors continue to enter the space.