Episodes

So, on the podcast all month, we've been talking about the State of Fitness and this week is no different, but we're delving into the mental health of it all. One thing we're been touching on all month is how venture capital flowed into fitness - which in its purest form is community. And while cash gives things like groeth, cash taketh away when it demands insane metrics. We saw that with connected fitness and talked about it on last week's podcast. This week, I said aloud, "I hope there's n...

We recorded this podcast while I sat next to my Peloton, a machine that got me through the pandemic - Jess Simms, Tunde, Cody, Alex, Robin, all came at me live into my home while I - like everyone else in the world, looked for some normalcy. But cut to a more normal fitness world and there my Peloton sits, unused by me since July of 2022. And don’t get me wrong - I loved that thing while I loved it, but I am a person who uses fitness as a form of social connection. I use in-person fitness for ...

This month on the podcast, we're breaking down the intricacies of the State of Fitness Report we published in February. There is a lot to unpack in all of the historical data we're comparing and in all of the incredible insights you share with us. Last week, we talked a lot about your fitness spending habits and this week we’re digging into what you’re doing with your precious time dedicated to movement. Because we want to evaluate how far we’ve swung back on the pendulum, we’ll be doing a lot...

We've been collecting consumer data on fitness habits and spending since 2017, so we have numbers that show just how quickly things really did change over the Pandemic. We’re breaking down our State of Fitness survey and its results on our podcast all month, This week, we're starting with spending. We talk about how much we - the hosts - are spending, what you told us you're spending and what percent of you are getting your fitness for free. We also dig into a metric that is purely post pandemi...

If you’ve ever watched Shark Tank or pitched your own business, you’re familiar with the concept of addressable market, or total addressable market (TAM). It’s an ever important metric to determine whether the thing you’re talking about has room for growth or - to put it simply - a way to quantify how many people care or could care about the thing you’re selling. I told you that to tell you this: Pickleball is booming. A couple of facts point us in that direction, but most importantly, market ...

Content warning: we talk about sex on this episode. So recently, we started to notice Ashley Martens - a health and wellness writer who lends her pen to aSweatLife as well as Women’s Health, Red Book and Delish - covering more of what we'd call "saucy content." It started after some jerk ghosted her. By the way, human adults, don't ghost each other. Have a tough convo and move on. K? And as she pitched article after article that touched on sexual health, we were loving the angles she was explo...

You know that person who reminds you that Mercury is in retrograde and they ask new friends to share their astrological signs? It’s me. And we love leaning into the woo-woo in a fun and approachable way around aSweatLife. Each week, aSweatLife ambassadors get an email with everything fun that’s happening AND one of the Ambassadors, Mary Kessinger, writes a horoscope. So when Twyla Adkins raised her hand to write a piece for aSweatLife about the right workout for your sun, moon and rising sign,...

On the pages of aSweatLife in 2020, Kensli Diggs penned a piece that called on readers to use friendship to see the perspectives of others from different walks of life. It was titled Why it’s so Important to Diversify Your Friend Group. She said, “It’s important to diversify your friend group because it’s important to develop a familiarization and understanding of other people’s backgrounds.” Since, we’ve seen that piece get more traffic than any other on aSweatLife, which means that people ar...

Chances are that if you're reading this, social media was introduced in your lifetime. Whether or not that means you have vivid memories of retrieving the AOL CD ROM from the mailbox and begging your parents to set it up on your Gateway PC (which came in a cowprint box) is another thing. If all of that resonated with you, email me at Jeana@asweatlife.com to commiserate about the series finale of Full House or your lower back pain. A considerable amount of time has passed since connection to th...

Trigger warning: on this episode, we discuss pregnancy and loss. If you're not in a place to hear that, skip it and come back next week. Take care of yourself. Amanda Lauren, a contributor at aSweatLife and a lot of other publications, has covered a tried and true beat for about five years around here: Wellness and lifestyle. We love reading her take on the way movement bumps up against fashion, self care, and trends. But over the last year, she's been sharing a look inside something really pe...

Welcome to Season 8 of #WeGotGoals, the podcast by aSweatLife.com. We’re doing things a little differently this season, featuring topics from our crew of expert writers, responding to moments in pop culture, or whatever the hell we feel like talking about. This week, we’re talking about body image … and since our team is practically all female and a lot of our readers and ambassadors are female, we’re going to be referencing body image for women - although we know men deal with their own compli...

My mantra going into 2023 in general is "this should be fun." It's meant to be a not-so-gentle reminder that I started aSweatLife for joy - I wanted to fill my own life with joy and hopefully help others do the same too. For me there are too sides to this idea: the first is actively seeking out ways to add fun to my life and the other is eliminating the stuff that is depleting my joy. Don't deplete my joy, you guys. When it comes to aSweatLife's podcast - #WeGotGoals - I've been interviewing p...

This is the final episode of the seventh season of #WeGotGoals and we’re excited to kick off our annual State of Fitness survey with this episode. We’ve been keeping our fingers on the pulse of what you do to stay fit, recover and how you spend your money on wellness. And this year, we’re adding some questions about mental health. On this week’s episode, you’ll hear references to data from our state of fitness survey. A key number we’ve kept our eyes on over the years is the trend of our mostl...

This week on the podcast, you’re going to hear a lot about “the universe” and listening to intuition from Robin Samples, the Founder of Bare Feet Power Yoga. Robin Samples and I both got into business around the same time - about 10 years ago. And over these 10 years it got easier and easier for me to scootch into the territory of woo-woo. I get the feeling that Robin’s journey to the spiritual was quicker than mine - she just brought her community along with her when she felt it was ready. An...

I’ve gotten to chat with Brrrn co-founders Johnny Adamic and Jimmy Martin a few times since meeting them in 2018. I’d like to remind you that 2018 was a time before the proliferation of zoom, so our first interview was conducted via freeconferencecall.com. I remember vividly chatting with the pair in 2018. They were equal parts entertaining and excited about a super-specific niche in fitness (cold temperature training). I have a memory of the thought, “it’s a shame that I’m the only one listeni...

This week on #WeGotGoals, I’m speaking with the woman behind [solidcore], Anne Mahlum. And before that, she started the not-for-profit Back on My Feet, and soon to come, she’s heading up her new venture in the fitness space: Ambition. One thing I noticed the first time I met Anne Mahlum on a lobby bench at the opening of Chicago's first [solidcore] is this: She fills up a room with her presence - and the name of that presence is the same name of her coming in 2023 concept: ambition. Ambition. ...

On this week's episode of the podcast, you'll hear a lot of references to the University of Wisconsin-Madison. I'm an alumna and our guest - Sam Karl, co-founder and president of Kamps Fitness - is an alumnus. You'll hear a lot about the campus and its hot spots. And I have never really cared that much about sports, which is sort of the thing that ties alums to their universities for years and years. I experience no pang of guilt if I don't know the Badgers' standing in the Big 10 or wherever e...

Content warning: In this episode of the podcast, we mention the concept of suicide in the context of prevention and raising awareness. If you’re listening with young ears or if you’re just not in a place to hear that today, skip this episode and come back I’ve never met Kacee Must, founder of Citizen Yoga in real life. We met during the pandemic and have zoomed through our relationship. We talked in February of 2021 when she’d been teaching yoga online for almost a year. We talked in April, whe...

Free MVMT Shop is a concept Ashley Rockwood conceived after retiring from dancing professionally - she wanted to create a space for herself in fitness that she didn’t see. She got a really good deal in a former dry cleaning location and viola, her first pop-up featuring dance, cardio, yoga, and sculpt had popped. You’ll hear her speak to it, but since 2018, Free Mvmt Shop has lived in 6 different homes across Chicago. And through all of that Ashley achieved most of her goals that she shared on ...

Free MVMT Shop is a concept Ashley Rockwood conceived after retiring from dancing professionally - she wanted to create a space for herself in fitness that she didn’t see. She got a really good deal in a former dry cleaning location and viola, her first pop-up featuring dance, cardio, yoga, and sculpt had popped. You’ll hear her speak to it, but since 2018, Free Mvmt Shop has lived in 6 different homes across Chicago. And through all of that Ashley achieved most of her goals that she shared on ...

Free MVMT Shop is a concept Ashley Rockwood conceived after retiring from dancing professionally - she wanted to create a space for herself in fitness that she didn’t see. She got a really good deal in a former dry cleaning location and viola, her first pop-up featuring dance, cardio, yoga, and sculpt had popped. You’ll hear her speak to it, but since 2018, Free Mvmt Shop has lived in 6 different homes across Chicago. And through all of that Ashley achieved most of her goals that she shared on ...

The indoor rowing machine - or erg - has been in use since the fourth century when an Athenian Admiral created a rudimentary version to train his army. And since, innovators from Concept2 helped to commercialize the indoor rowing machine and CrossFit got millions of people across the world onto the erg in their intense workouts. And this week on the podcast, I spoke with two innovators who helped take rowing from the corner of the gym floor to the center of a workout. Debra Strougo and Eric Vo...

The indoor rowing machine - or erg - has been in use since the fourth century when an Athenian Admiral created a rudimentary version to train his army. And since, innovators from Concept2 helped to commercialize the indoor rowing machine and CrossFit got millions of people across the world onto the erg in their intense workouts. And this week on the podcast, I spoke with two innovators who helped take rowing from the corner of the gym floor to the center of a workout. Debra Strougo and Eric Vo...

The indoor rowing machine - or erg - has been in use since the fourth century when an Athenian Admiral created a rudimentary version to train his army. And since, innovators from Concept2 helped to commercialize the indoor rowing machine and CrossFit got millions of people across the world onto the erg in their intense workouts. And this week on the podcast, I spoke with two innovators who helped take rowing from the corner of the gym floor to the center of a workout. Debra Strougo and Eric Vo...