When most individuals consider health, they don’t consider Ghostbusters, Back to the Future, Transformers, Superman, The Lost Boys, or Star Wars. One one who does? Sam Yo, a health teacher for Peloton—you realize, that extensively talked about health model. Yo makes use of music and quotes from all of these properties (and extra) to assist make his Peloton lessons nostalgic, distinctive, and motivating. But it’s not some well-thought-out technique—it’s simply who he’s. Speaking on a video name from London, Yo defined to io9 why this technique works.

“We associate with another time and we kind of switch out,” Yo stated. “[At first] it’s, ‘This is burning, this is burning,’ but then as soon as a track comes on like ‘The Power of Love’ from Back to the Future, you switch to that time when you first heard it and how it made you feel. It gives you that adrenaline to keep pushing.” Yo is Taiwanese and grew up in London, which is the place he fell in love with popular culture. He cites his household’s weekly ritual of going to the video retailer as a specific affect. “Friday night! The excitement! The new releases!” he reminisced.

Watching tons of films constructed up his ardour for all genres and mediums of leisure, which he then became a profession as an actor, showing in numerous films, exhibits, and stage productions. From there, he spent nearly a yr as a monk (which is a whole other story), then got here again to performing, all of the whereas getting increasingly into health. In late 2019, he was employed by Peloton and knew his long-lasting love of popular culture could be part of it. “It’s nice that I can bring that to my teaching style,” he informed io9. “[For example], I said it by accident for the first time, but when we pedal you’ve got to make sure that both legs are nice and even. So I said, ‘Make sure you bring balance to the Force… of your pedal strokes.’ It just came out naturally and it’s something I always say now.” He’s additionally been identified to summon the Power of Grayskull from time to time.

Even should you don’t know any of this about Yo, if you clip in for one in every of his Peloton rides, his fandom is clear in a short time. He wears it on his sleeve—his proper arm to be actual, which is sort of all the time going through the digicam. He has a outstanding Superman tattoo, which he obtained on his 18th birthday as a part of a promise he and a pal made years earlier for the opposite to get a Batman tattoo. “We grew up loving comics, Star Wars, Star Trek, Battlestar Galactica. We were nerds,” Yo stated. In the years since he feels just like the ink has develop into part of him. “It’s part of my character, it’s part of what I love, and it’s always a good conversation starter. When I first did my first Peloton ride I literally said like, ‘Hi. What’s up Peloton? You’re probably wondering who is this British guy with a shaved head who talks like the queen with a Superman tattoo? Well, these 20 minutes you’re going to find out.’”

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Talking to Yo, it’s apparent his ardour for this stuff is completely pure and real. When discussing Superman, he instantly references Red Son as one thing that deepened his appreciation and love of the character. When requested if he’s extra DC or Marvel, he says he prefers the present Marvel films however thinks the shared universe DC animation did a few years in the past is correct up there with it. (On a Peloton journey a number of months again, he even talked about his pleasure about the Snyder Cut.) In the course of our dialog, he talks about enjoying the Ghostbusters theme music at his birthday events rising up and an obsession with Lego—none of which is something you’d count on to listen to out of a person who seems like he might rip your head off. That’s as a result of one other factor most individuals carry from the Eighties and Nineties are stereotypes that muscle-bound individuals are “big dumb jocks” and solely pimple-faced nerds learn comedian books. Yo doesn’t consider that in any respect.

“Everyone has an internal geek when you get to know them,” he stated. “It’s like an alter ego, isn’t it? Those two sides but evidently they’re one person. Especially when I teach, I just try to bring who I am.” Yo does dozens of rides per thirty days and whereas not all of them are geeky, when they’re, they are surely. For instance, he did a 1980s ride that performed the themes to The Lost Boys, Beverly Hills Cop, and St Elmo’s Fire again to again to again. Another time he included “The Power of Love” from Back to the Future and “Footloose” from Footloose. Earlier this year, it was “Danger Zone” from Top Gun, “Fame” from Fame, and “Hearts on Fire” from Rocky IV. Last year, Yo went additional with “Don’t You Forget About Me” from The Breakfast Club, “You’re the Best” from The Karate Kid, and the title theme songs from each Ghostbusters and The NeverEnding Story.

Oh, and Yo doesn’t simply do biking lessons, he does energy lessons too and he tries to maintain folks motivated in the identical means in these. He makes use of music from well-known montages in movies and exhibits like Top Gun, Scarface, The A-Team, and, after all, all of the Rocky films. (If you’re a subscriber seeking to discover them: Clicking these links should do the trick.) “What’s not to love?” Yo stated when requested what he loves about montages. “I find when I’m working out, my workout playlist, it’s very random, [going] from my musical stuff to pop stuff to rock stuff. Then, whenever that 1980s montage, you know, Survivor [who did the song “Eye of the Tiger” from Rocky III] comes on, it simply… I don’t know. It simply takes you to that place that elevates you. It appears like I’m like operating on the seaside with Rocky and Apollo.”

One journey particularly that Yo calls out as extremely geeky happened on December 14, 2020; he did his intro to Queen’s Flash Gordon music, performed music from Footloose, Fame, Dirty Dancing, Rocky III, after which a real wild card. “I put in the Transformers theme,” he stated. “I said, ‘This is either genius or crazy, but you’re gonna laugh and you’re going to push.’ And it was like [goes into singing the song] ‘Transformers!’” (Personal notice, after Yo informed me this journey existed, I did it myself and obtained my private greatest on a 45-minute journey so his method actually works for me.)

Yo additionally enjoys geeky Peloton leaderboard names and admits that having a catchy one makes it extra seemingly he’ll give a rider a shout-out throughout a stay class. During a journey, you’ll see him smile and snicker when he sees a intelligent one, particularly if it’s popular culture themed. “The Star Wars ones I would always catch,” Yo stated. “[For example] There was [a Star Wars one] yesterday and I said, ‘The Force is strong… 500 rides!”

It’s additionally price noting that he’s removed from the one individual with geeky pursuits who works for the corporate; teacher Emma Lovewell has achieved a number of Disney-themed rides; Kendall Toole has an entire “Movie Buff” sequence, which takes riders on a journey by a particular theme or style; Robin Arzon has achieved rides themed round Hamilton and The Greatest Showman; and others like Cody Rigsby, Leanne Hainsby, and Hannah Corbin have been identified to drop in film theme music or two in there as effectively. (Not to say seemingly each teacher having an enormous appreciation for pop music of the Eighties, Nineties, and 2000s, which is fairly nostalgic by itself.) And whereas all of the instructors have entry to an enormous library of songs that Peleton’s music division will get rights to by the file corporations, Yo actually goes deeper than most and takes his obsessions to a different stage.

On our name, he revealed a house full of autographed posters from movies like Lord of the Rings and Superman. He talked about he’s operating out of room for all his Lego and admitted to jealousy that I, not he, had labored at a video retailer rising up. There’s one thing about him that simply makes you are feeling like you would be his greatest pal, which, relying in your pursuits and personalities, can mainly be stated for nearly each teacher on the platform—it’s a part of what helps hold you coming again for extra exercises. “The great thing at Peloton is that all the instructors put in our own personality as individuals,” Yo stated. “So if you did a 1980s ride with me and did a 1980s ride with someone else, even if the playlists were exactly the same, the delivery would be slightly different. And that’s just from our experiences and what we’ve done … We bring so much of what we did before we were on this platform to the table.” And for Sam Yo, which means a child rising up watching films and hoping someday he might be Superman. Which, let’s face it, he type of is.

To journey with Yo, you’ve gotten to join Peloton, which you can do in a few ways. Yes, it’s wildly costly and an enormous funding—particularly the tools itself—however as somebody who discovered the platform and is approaching 500 biking lessons in slightly over a yr, the massive number of lessons, each stay and on-demand, numerous instructors, and completely different types of train (plus the well being monitoring, month-to-month badges, and occasional Transformers music) makes the value price it for me.

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