What it really takes to be a Peloton trainer

They are sculpted and beautiful, with endless charisma, unbudgeable make-up and captivating back stories. And their legion of fans, of which I count myself one, are obsessed.

Yesterday, chancellor Rishi Sunak fuelled the burgeoning cult of the Peloton trainer by declaring himself a “huge fan” of Cody Rigsby, one of the most popular of all, with a 764,000-strong Instagram following. “He has been my long-term favourite,” Sunak, 41, told the Twenty Minute VC podcast. “You do have to listen to a lot of Britney. But you know, no bad thing in trying to get you motivated, I guess”. 

For anyone unfamiliar with the £1,750 stationary bike on which users stream exercise classes through a screen attached to the front, Rigsby will not be a familiar name. For me, he’s a bigger deal than the Rolling Stones. 

And in a world where rock stars and other red carpet regulars are still struggling to create content, it is little wonder, perhaps, that increasing numbers of us now hanker after icons whose performances can be streamed direct to our living rooms, engaging our bodies as well as our minds.

Indeed, celebrities themselves are disciples of Peloton, the company founded in 2012 by American entrepreneur John Foley, which now boasts an astonishing 5.4m members worldwide. BBC newsreader Sophie Raworth recently revealed she had “discovered” the bike, and Piers Morgan regularly posts about his latest Peloton workout on Instagram. Morgan’s favourite instructor, like mine, seems to be the ruthless but ravishingly beautiful Olivia Amato, 29, whose endless encouragement leaves me breathless every week. 

For all Peloton’s benefits – its convenience, its “leader board” that allows competition with other members and its growing array of off-bike strength and flexibility classes – its 39 instructors are the greatest draw. But what does it really take to become one? 

Many, such as Rigsby, 33, started their careers as professional dancers, and have triumph-in-the-face-of-adversity backgrounds that translate well when telling a virtual class of three million why we shouldn’t stop peddling.

Rigsby “experienced homelessness for about three years” when brought up by his single mum, and struggled to find acceptance as a young gay man in a conservative part of North Carolina. 

A senior instructor and self-styled “opinionated homosexual” who has been with Peloton for seven years, he regales his classes with tales of his teenage crush on pop group the Backstreet Boys and peps them up with jazz hands and jokes that have brought joy during lockdown – so much so, he admitted last December, that “someone called me the king of quarantine.” 

Others with hard-won success stories include Ally Love, 34, a former ballerina who nearly died after being hit by a car aged nine and was told she’d never be an athlete, and head instructor Robin Arzon, 39, a lawyer before she was taken hostage in a wine bar by a man who held a gun to her head. The trauma prompted her to start running ultra-marathons and she joined Peloton in 2014.

Peloton won’t disclose its recruitment process, but it’s been reported the company has used talent agencies to scout fitness classes around the world for instructors, as well as relying on word of mouth recommendations among their network of established trainers. 

According to Sunak, his daughters favour Leanne Hainsby, 33, a former backing dancer for the likes of Taylor Swift and Katy Perry, who has been with Peloton since its 2018 UK launch. She was recruited at her London spin class by Rigsby (who also recruited former investment analyst Ben Alldis, 28, now Hainsby’s boyfriend – they do say Peloton is a family) who told her he would change her life.

“Before I knew it, I was on my way to New York to audition,” she recalled. After instructing a filmed class in its flagship US studio, she spent ten weeks training and increasing her own fitness so she could talk to her class while pedalling.

Yet the hardest part was mastering the performative aspect. “You have four cameras in the studio and being able to naturally use them and command the space is difficult,” said Hainsby. “A lot of skill goes into making that seamless.”

Indeed, Hainsby – who exercises “four to five times per week” in addition to the Peloton classes she teaches, to keep in peak physical condition – has said she prepares psychologically for a class as she would for a show and Foley once told his staff: “Let’s not think about it as a fitness facility with cameras. Let’s think about it as a television streaming facility filming fitness content.”

While Peloton won’t reveal instructors’ salaries, six-figure sums are believed to be standard, with Bloomberg reporting this January that senior instructors make over $500,000 (£359,000) in fixed salary and bonus compensation. Not bad for several classes a week, that last anywhere between five and 90 minutes. Most also have additional income streams. Ally Love, for example, hosts New York basketball team Brooklyn Nets games and is a Global Ambassador for Adidas.

Each is responsible for preparing their own weekly classes – a process that, according to instructor Kendall Toole, 28, another of my favourites on account of her motivational mantras and openness about her mental health struggles, takes “two hours minimum.”

There is often a theme involved – there are rides for everyone from mental health advocates to musical buffs and heavy metal fans. “I start with the music and once I have my playlist, I know what I want to say and I know the feeling I want the members to have,” says Hainsby.

Admiration is one emotion elicited from me: all the female instructors somehow stay looking flawless while pedalling furiously beneath stage lighting. Toole swears by high-definition sweating powder on top of foundation as her “secret weapon for keeping everything in place” and accessorises her infamous heavy metal rides with lashings of eye liner. Amato puts on lipstick as her “last step” before getting on the bike: “To get it to stay, I apply lip primer and lip liner before it and then two coats. And I always check my teeth.”

Most, unsurprisingly, advocate healthy eating – Rigsby cites sauteed kale and scrambled eggs with goat cheese as a typical breakfast – and seem to use Instagram religiously, not just to advertise upcoming classes and post positive comments and pictures, but to interact with fans. After I wrote in this newspaper, earlier this year, about my crush on Amato, I was thrilled when she sought me out online to thank me in front of her 308,000 Instagram followers.

Constantly responding must be exhausting – Hainsby has said she gets over 100 messages a day from people taking her classes – yet instructors understand that rapport is pivotal to the brand’s appeal. “There’s a level of intimacy because you’re in these people’s homes, and so if they’re taking your class every day they feel like they know you and want to connect,” Hainsby has said. 

And that connection can be life changing, with members crediting instructors for everything from helping them enjoy life after bereavement to accepting their trans children. “A mother-of-three reached out to me and explained she was a recovering alcoholic and that whenever she felt like she needed to grab a drink, she would get on the Peloton,” said Amato. “Seeing that impact is such an honour.”