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Depending on which survey you read, the future of fitness may be sweating at home forever, an eventual return to gyms, or, most likely, a hybrid of in- and out-of-home exercise.

Why it matters: The fortunes of companies like Peloton and Planet Fitness hang in the balance of which way habits will go as more people prepare for a return to the new normal.

Driving the news: Connected home gym startup Tempo raised $220 million in new venture capital this week a sign that investors dont buy into the at-home fitness has peaked theory, Axios Dan Primack reported.

To cover all their bases: Fitness companies and gyms are bundling their products and services to draw customers into newly created ecosystems (think of it like Apple iOS) and to keep them there.

The bottom line: Fitness businesses have to be ready regardless of which way the kettlebell swings.

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The future of fitness is at a fork in the road - Axios

HARRISBURG The Pennsylvania State Police will pay more than $2 million into a compensation fund and are changing physical fitness standards to settle a lawsuit over how the agencys trooper-hiring practices ruled out otherwise qualified women.

The U.S. Justice Department announced the proposed settlement Tuesday of litigation that was launched seven years ago, leaving a federal judge in Harrisburg to give her final approval.

The police agency also has agreed to make it a priority to hire as many as 65 women for entry-level trooper positions.

The Justice Department lawsuit claimed that nearly all male recruits met initial physical readiness tests, but about 30% of women failed. As of 2014, about 5% of the departments sworn members were women.

The lawsuit said the physical fitness tests that screened out women included standards that were not required to perform a troopers job duties.

The Justice Departments Civil Rights Division argued different pass rates for men and women showed the tests had a disparate impact on women. If women had passed at the same rate as men, about 120 more women would have advanced in the hiring process, and about 45 would have made the force over a 10-year period, the Justice Department lawsuit said.

Under 2003 standards, 55% of women and 88% of men passed. Under 2009 standards, 73% of women and 98% of men passed, the court found.

The pending settlement prohibits the agency from using physical fitness tests that have a disparate impact on women unless they are job-related and consistent with business necessity.

The state police tests had included a 300-meter run, a 1.5-mile (2.4-kilometer) run, pushups, situps and a vertical jump. In a joint filing Tuesday, the two sides noted the state police developed a new physical fitness test that it began using in November.

Along with cash payments, those who were passed over as a result of the former testing standards will be invited to become cadets. Those who meet specific criteria and graduate from the state police academy in Hershey will be granted retroactive seniority for pay and vacation accrual.

When the lawsuit was filed, the state police commissioner at the time claimed that lowering standards would endanger safety and insult those who had already met them.

We will not be bullied into changing and lowering our standards by the Department of Justice or anybody else, former Commissioner Frank Noonan said in 2014.

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State police to alter fitness standards that kept out women - Lock Haven Express

The U.S. Department of Justice reached a $2.2 million settlement agreement with Pennsylvania and the Pennsylvania State Police over a 2014 claim that the state police use of physical tests as part of the entry-level hiring process for state troopers resulted in a pattern or practice of employment discrimination against women.

In the suit, the Justice Department argued the use of the tests to screen and select applicants for the entry-level positions resulted in a much greater percentage of male applicants than female applicants passing the physical fitness tests going back to 2003.

As a result, the state police had failed to hire dozens of women for entry-level trooper positions on an equal basis with men, the Justice Department argued in the suit, saying this amounted to a pattern of employment discrimination against women, violating Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

Employers cannot impose selection criteria that unfairly screen out qualified female applicants, Principal Deputy Assistant Attorney General Pamela S. Karlan of the Justice Departments Civil Rights Division said in a press release Tuesday. When the Pennsylvania State Police use a physical fitness test as part of the process for choosing state troopers, they must ensure that the test complies with federal law. This settlement agreement reflects the Civil Rights Divisions continued commitment to removing artificial barriers that prevent women from becoming law enforcement officers.

The fitness test that had been at the center of the suit required candidates to be able to reach a standard of:

From 2003 to 2008, 94 percent of male applicants passed the fitness test, while 71 percent of female applicants passed. Under a similar test administered in 2009 through 2012, 98 percent of male applicants passed, while 72 percent of female applicants passed, according to the suit.

Under the terms of the settlement agreement, still subject to court approval, the Pennsylvania State Police will pay $2.2 million into a settlement fund that will be used to compensate those women who were harmed by the employment practices, according to Justice Department officials.

The agreement also requires the Pennsylvania State Police to offer priority hiring relief, with retroactive seniority, for up to 65 women for entry-level state trooper jobs. All priority hiring candidates must meet the employers lawful selection criteria, including the successful passing of any physical fitness test that meets the requirements of Title VII, justice department officials say.

In a joint filing Tuesday in the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Pennsylvania, the parties moved for a court order provisionally approving the terms of the settlement agreement.

The motion also asks the court to schedule a fairness hearing to provide an opportunity for individuals potentially affected by the proposed agreement to provide comments on the terms of the settlement.

The Pennsylvania State Police is committed to the recruitment, hiring, training, and retention of the most qualified applicants to become Pennsylvania State troopers, with an emphasis on women and minority recruitment, Pennsylvania State Police spokesman Ryan Tarkowski said in a statement released today. As the joint motion filed today by the PSP and Department of Justice explains, PSP has already implemented the new physical fitness test outlined in the agreement. Changes to the physical readiness test were made in consultation with the DOJ and adopted by PSP during the recruiting cycle for the 161st Cadet Class, which reported to the Academy in January 2021.

When the suit was first filed in 2014, state police officials had argued lowering the physical fitness standards for applicants would be insulting to those men and women who already strove to achieve those standards, and it would endanger current and future troopers.

This post has been updated with comment from the Pennsylvania State Police.

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$2.2 million agreement reached in State Police lawsuit that claimed fitness test discriminated against women - PennLive

In the pandemic weve had to shift our lives to be socially distant we work remotely, we shop online, and we workout at home. Last year, I signed up for a virtual reality workout app called Supernatural, which runs on the Oculus Quest. Now my wife and I use our Quest 2 almost every day to work out in VR. It feels like were leaving the house, the music is great, and the workouts are no joke.

My guest on Decoder this week is Chris Milk, founder and CEO of Within which makes Supernatural. Milk has been making VR experiences for a long time hes a true pioneer of the field. Supernatural feels like his biggest hit yet, and it feels like fitness might be the perfect application for VR the one that makes people go out and buy a VR headset just to use.

The basic concept of Supernatural is really simple: you put on the headset, and then use the controllers to swat at targets flying in time to music. Its kind of like dancing or sword fighting. Dance fighting. Most importantly, Supernatural is fun there isnt a single other VR app that could get my wife to wear the headset, but Supernatural is so compelling we keep our Quest 2 on a charging dock in the bedroom. And almost anyone whos ever tried Supernatural on our headset has gone out and bought a Quest 2 almost right away. Like I said, it feels like fitness is the perfect application for VR.

So, I wanted to know a lot more about Supernatural, how the business works, and what kinds of strange music licensing deals are needed to make it run. Milk and I talked about all of that, but, as youll see, hes a much bigger thinker than that. Really, this conversation has a little bit of everything.

Chris Milk, founder and CEO of Within. Here we go.

This transcript has been lightly edited for clarity.

Your company, Within, has an app on the Oculus Quest platform called Supernatural. Its a workout app. The best way that I can describe it is dance fighting. It is very fun.

You have a long journey with VR to get to this app, which I think is one of the killer apps of the platform. I want to talk to you about the whole space, but give me just a quick rundown of Within, and your background in VR, and sort of how youve gotten to this point.

I was speaking to my mom recently and she reminded me, as a kid, I was obsessed with skiing, magic, and music videos. All of them in a strange way have ended up in what Im doing today, but especially so in Supernatural.

In more recent times, Ive spent most of my career exploring how we might use new technologies to create more meaningful human experiences, ideally, more life-changing human experiences. Most of them have been centered around storytelling, entertainment, music, art, and thinking about what we can make that would be impossible to make in the legacy artistic mediums that we were born with.

My career, I started in directing music videos. I worked with Kanye, Arcade Fire, Johnny Cash, U2, many others; moved into interactive music videos on the web as sort of the broadcast medium was transferring from television to the internet, and music videos basically staying the same, just being broadcast to YouTube instead of MTV. I took that opportunity of this new toolset to explore what kind of things I could do with music videos, if I used the tools that the format now offered.

That then led to immersive digital installations in museums. And that led to early in, I think it was 2012, I started experimenting and thinking about VR. In 2013, I was working on my first movie and pitching, at the same time, a startup, neither of which I had much idea of what I was doing on either front.

Then, I think 2014, I got a greenlight feature film starring Nick Nolte, incredible actor, dream project. Still one of the best unproduced scripts out there and Ive been developing it for probably three years. Ben Horowitz said that Andreessen Horowitz would lead the seed round of the company, and I promptly stepped off the movie and founded the company.

In the early years, we were trying to crack immersive entertainment, essentially figure out what comes after film and television, empowered by the technology of VR. The longer story there is that we were trying to solve a problem that not many people had at all, but through a number of different discoveries, we realized we could use immersive entertainment to solve a different problem.

One that my co-founder and I, Aaron, both had, which was that we needed to exercise but we vigorously disliked the act of actually doing so. We sort of thought deeply about what it would take to love rather than loathe exercise. We thought we could fill a gap in the marketplace that we saw. We knew it was there because we were personally sitting right in the middle of it. We quietly pivoted the company in 2018 and we went back into stealth mode. We built Supernatural over the course of two years. We released it in April of last year.

Is this the vision for where you thought you would be with VR? Your background is making music videos and feature films and big creative projects. And Supernatural just feels like a company that will scale the way a regular company scales.

Thats a great question with a complex answer. I think we were looking at this new technology and thinking as we have most new technologies. I mean, when I say we, primarily Aaron Koblin, my co-founder, and I, who have been working together for a lot longer than weve had this company. He used to be at the Google Creative Lab, and I was an independent music video director.

Those aforementioned interactive music videos, most of them were him and I collaborating, him at Google and me sort of as an independent artist and director, and really thinking about what can these new technologies offer that we cant do with what is currently out there? And when you think about the mediums and the art forms that we love, like cinema and television, radio, these art forms, these artistic mediums came forth through technological innovation, right? It wasnt Orson Welles tinkering around in his shop trying to figure out how to make a movie, that he invented cinema.

The technology of cinema was invented by scientists and inventors and technicians. And it was artists that took those technological innovations and figured out how to make, essentially, meaningful human experiences with them. So those technologies, because were on an exponential timeline of technological innovation, those kind of innovations previously came out every few decades or so. Now our working premise is that theyre coming out every year.

Were exploring these new technologies and thinking about what could be the next great medium, what comes after cinema, what comes after television. Thats what a lot of our explorations have been around, utilizing technologies on the internet like personalization and interactivity, and then moving into more immersive technologies like motion capture and virtual reality and augmented reality, and just thinking hard: where can these technologies take us as a species? Where can they take us from an artistic standpoint?

Ultimately, what were trying to do is make something that is meaningful to another human being in the way that other things and these other artistic mediums have resonated with us. Ultimately, were trying to make something that is life-changing. That is what great art, what great media, what great things do in your life. I think what weve come to learn, though, which is really interesting and we didnt originally understand, is that you can, that changing someones life is hard to do with a movie, its hard to do in a music video.

I think we both sort of had lofty ideals of whats possible, but youre not going to change someones life with the music video that you make. You might change someones life on the album. Ive had my life change from certain albums.

Same.

That really speaks to the sort of magical power of music, but Ive never had my life changed by a movie and I was, much of my life, trying to be a filmmaker.

I think whats cool is what we learned through the process of this, that if you can utilize all that same intangible magic of art and storytelling and crafted human experience, but calibrate it for a higher purpose; that rather than just entertainment, calibrate it to health, calibrate it to making your life last longer, making your life better from a day-to-day basis, let you have more energy, let you have a clearer head, let you be stronger. Then, you can actually use the power of art for a different purpose and one that actually does hold that original potential of changing someones life.

Thats really interesting because you gave this very famous TED talk in 2015 saying, VR was an empathy machine. I think that was really influential for a lot of people. Even my first experience using VR headsets for your products was, were going to take you to a different place and youre going to feel this experience that somebody else feels.

Supernatural is very much an experience about yourself, and I hear what youre saying; it makes sense that youre an artist, youre creative, youre able to think about how people will feel emotionally and how you could guide those emotions and use them for Supernatural, but its still a very, I mean this as literally as possible, a very self-centered experience. How do you connect those two ideas?

Yeah, its a little bit deceptive when you look at most of the interactive, immersive experiences currently, Supernatural included, are experiences that youre on your own. That absolutely does not have to be the case. It will not be the case for very much longer when you think about what this technology is. Its you tapping into a digital format that is connected to the internet, which is connected to anyone else that is also connected to the internet.

There havent been a lot of things that really strongly utilized the co-presence immersive nature, immersive powers of virtual reality but the small number of experiments and projects that have, are absolutely incredible. The sense of presence that you can feel with another person and the human connectivity that you can experience with another person, especially another person that you have a relationship with, that youre already close to and familiar with, is unlike anything else that exists.

I mean, just to give you a couple of examples, theres a mini-golf game on the Oculus headset and I routinely play mini-golf on the weekend with my best friend in San Francisco,I havent seen in ages. Growing up in junior high and high school, we used to work at a mini-golf range, coincidentally, together. The experience of wandering around this magical VR mini-golf range as we just sort of casually talk about whats happening with us recently while playing mini-golf is totally the experience that we would have if we were actually together, and you get that sense of human connectivity that you wouldnt get over a Zoom, you wouldnt get over a phone call.

One thing I ask every CEO and executive who comes on the show, what is your decision-making framework? Youre building something entirely new, how do you evaluate and prioritize what to do? How do you make decisions?

Yeah, good question. I mean, of course, every decision is different and has a multitude of different factors and variables that youre considering, but I think on the highest level the way we think about it is, we are humans and we are using technology to make things for other humans. And that technology is just a tool, and not to get so caught up in the technology, but really think about what is the end experience for that member and what is going to matter to them? Whats going to resonate with them? Whats going to make their life better?

We have this metric that is sort of a unique metric, Im guessing. We call it JAW. Its J-A-W. It stands for joy, awe and wonder. And If theres a decision were trying to make about a new feature or a new direction of the product or even a different layout of the menu, weve think about will this bring joy, awe or wonder to the experience for that member experiencing it?

One of the things about Supernatural that strikes me is that its very similar to the first hit app on the Quest, Beat Saber. What is your relationship to Beat Saber and the other apps like that? Because the first time I ever put on a VR headset, someones like, Youve got to play Beat Saber. Obviously Supernatural builds on the mechanic. Youve extended it, but how do you see that relationship?

I think were utilizing a mechanic that goes all the way back to Dance Dance Revolution and Guitar Hero. Theres been many VR rhythm apps. I mean, the first one that we were looking at was actually Audioshield, which was a great workout in and of itself. I mean, moving your body to music, that you are striking things out of the air, is the rhythm game paradigm of virtual reality. Its hugely effective if youre going to try to get someone to have fun and have a cardio activity at the same time.

What we did with Supernatural was, we saw that works well. That is fun, but how do we build it from the ground up as a legitimate fitness system? Obviously, we have coaches. Our movements are designed to be healthy over repetitive use over long periods of time. We work with lots of different experts to make sure of that.

Part of the education of discovery that we had, also, as a journey with the company was, in the earlier years, we were building a lot of these interactive music experiences. We were showing them at film festivals. Most people in the world havent seen them because we didnt release them publicly on the app stores. But were building a lot of different sort of music-driven, cohabitated social experiences like weve been talking about, working with Pharrell, and OKGo, and Justice, and building these really cool, immersive, music-driven experiences where youre moving your body and youre inhabiting crazy, magical experiences. Its sort of basically the evolution of music videos, going back to the early beginning.

What we saw with these experiences, though, as we were showing them at Sundance and Tribeca and South by [Southwest] and all those places was, people were coming out of them sweating profusely which was the first problem that we had to solve because youre putting a bunch of people in them in a row and they were laughing. They were totally filled with joy. They routinely thought that they were in there for a shorter amount of time than they actually were. Theyd do something for 15 minutes and think that they were in there for five minutes.

I dont know the last time you were on a treadmill and half an hour seemed like 15 minutes. Its certainly never happened to me. We thought, in the process of thinking about how we use this technology for this other use case, that definitely went into it.

Also, a number of studies around your perception of discomfort is lowered in virtual reality, which is why theyre using it in clinical settings and in childbirth and burn centers and chemotherapy centers. Theres something about your perception being removed from your physical body in space that just makes stuff hurt less, but it also makes it easier to push yourself harder when youre doing a cardio workout. It does hurt less and yes, its part of the fact that youre basically playing a sport that is fun.

Theres a major difference between being in a gym and a coach or instructor saying like, Okay, were going to do 50 squats in a row. Here we go. Ready? One, two. That experience is totally different than surfing and going into a tube and squatting and holding for 20 seconds while the barrel forms around you, but the physical benefit and activity is the same. Youre never in the tube going, How long am I going to have to hold the squat for? Youre just enjoying the experience.

Taking these things that we learn through the entertainment experiences that we were making, and utilizing the fun mechanic of a beat game construct. Then pulling in all the resources and expertise of people that specialize in human movement and physical training, and then really building a system from the ground up to incorporate all those things for the best, most awesome, fitness experience that you can build in virtual reality.

Lets talk about the headsets for a minute. One of my theses with computers, I hope everyone forgives me, I just have a lot of ideas about computers generally, but computers that you put on your body, it seems like a killer app for all of them, whether its headsets or smartwatches or whatever, is health and fitness, right? The Apple Watch became an exponentially successful product when Apple shifted its focus to health and fitness.

Supernatural is the thing that is getting a lot of people to buy a Quest and strap basically an Android computer on their face every day. Is there another killer app for the headset, for traditional VR headsets, like we have right now, that can drive adoption and get that installed base growing the way that everyone has always told me that it will?

Yeah. Ill say a couple things. I think what youre saying is absolutely correct in terms of virtual reality; fitness is the killer use case for VR. It will be the first driving force of mass adoption through a normal consumer audience. Just as an example of what were seeing from our membership base, were 50/50 split, women and men, where, I think over 60 percent are over 40. This is not what a typical VR demographic looks like.

The reason for that is, its using the technology for a different use case, and one that it works incredibly well for. When you think about going back to the technology of cinema, that was a linear sequence of still frames played one after another, not at first, but after not that long, sync sound went along with it. That technology, though, enabled the birth of cinema, but it also enables television, it also enables a Zoom call, it enables a how-to video that youre watching on YouTube. It even enables a spreadsheet in Excel, that youre moving numbers around. That technology of a linear sequence of still frames is what powers most of the things that we deal with on a daily basis on rectangles in our life, which there are many, as you know.

Thats sort of like a case study, and where does the technology go once its used for one thing, and the answer is it essentially goes everywhere. What youre seeing in virtual reality right now is very much what usually happens. I mean, the first thing being Chris Dixon talks about it all new disruptive technologies first appear as though they are toys. Virtual reality is a perfect example of that, but its primarily understood to be a video game system right now. But when you take the technology and you apply it to exercise or wellness as were doing, its a totally different paradigm and it is one that many people are much more open and willing to adopt the technology, because it solves a problem in their life.

Most people dont buy new technologies just because theyre new technology. I do. Most people dont. Most people buy new technology because it serves a purpose and it solves a problem in their life. You dont buy a television set because you want a black rectangle on your wall. You buy it because your favorite television show comes through it. The new technology of virtual reality needs not just your favorite television show, but it needs all the other use cases that could be enabled by applying the technology to that use case.

Lets talk about Within and Supernatural. How many employees does Within have?

It depends on if a few of them accepted an offer today, but were about 70.

How many of them are focused on Supernatural itself?

All of them.

Okay. Supernatural, the fitness platform, thats your entire focus?

Yeah.

What does it take to make a Supernatural workout experience? Who is the staff that produces that all at once?

Theres really two sides to our business, theres the technology business and theres a content business. [On the] technology side; all the multitude of complex systems that you might imagine to make something like an interactive, immersive VR and subscription platform work, from the sexy things like how the balls explode, to the less sexy things like back end account management all of that requires a large engineering team.

Then, theres the content side of it. Theres actually a few different pipelines that go into making the content. Theres the coach capture production pipeline, which is shooting the coaches and our 3D capture system that lives in Culver City. I should point out that we are, from a content standpoint, we are producing and launching new content every single day. Thats the flag we planted in the ground. When we launched, we said were going to launch a new workout a day.

Every morning, as you know, as a member, you open up the app on your iPhone or your Android phone, or you put the headset on, and theres a new workout that has a new musical theme or sometimes its just sort of an overall theme, but its new every day. Its a surprise under the Christmas tree of what the workout of the day is.

What goes into the content side of making that, the coach production pipeline, were shooting coaches five days a week to release classes, to release workouts every single day. Theres the environment pipeline, which is all the beautiful destinations that youre finding yourself in, song to song, those are not just a flat 360 photo. Thats actually a 3D model with super high-res images mapped on top of the 3D model. Thats a pipeline that builds those.

There is a mapping pipeline for the layout of the targets that are flying at you that are synced to music. Thats a team of trainers and choreographers that build the patterns of the targets and the placement of them that are synced to the music. We have a map-making tool that we built internally, that the mappers are actually in virtual reality and laying out the targets in space.

They can sort of forward the unit, they can reverse and play and stop and rewind the map over and over again as they physically place the targets in the air to go along with a picture. And they can see where the beats are up in space so they can line up the targets to the beat. Thats a very manual and creative process. Its not an easy thing to do.

Were basically, essentially puppeteering your movements through what is essentially dance, to music that you love, and that involves a really talented person that can choreograph those movements. It feels, as you said, like youre sort of, what was your terminology that you used at the beginning?

My wife and I call it dance fighting. I mean youre holding lightsabers and youre dancing, so we just got there.

Yeah. Theres an element of sort of kung fu martial artness to it, but youre also moving your body in choreographed ways to music. Theres also a hidden element of dance and moving your body to music is just naturally fun. So thats the beat mapping pipeline and then theres music curation and overall creative workout construction.

Every workout has a theme, has a playlist, has a creative thumbnail, has a creative name, has a description. Theres a creative content team that does all of that as well. Were programming and thinking about workouts that are months ahead. We really put a lot of thought and care into making each of these workouts. Its not just thrown together on the day, shoot it live, post it up. Theres a lot of curation and crafting and artistry from that team that really goes into making each one of those workouts.

Let me ask what the cost curve is of that, and Ill make the comparison to Peloton because it is such an easy comparison. Peloton, yeah, they have a bike and they have a software platform, and mostly though, theyre shooting videos of their trainers on a bike pedaling really hard and turning the resistance up and down. Theres some sensors and leaderboard stuff around it that makes that experience feel more interactive, but at the end of the day, its people on a bicycle and thats whats happening there.

You are describing a much more costly creative project, right? You had to build a software pipeline to do the choreography and the mapping, you have to build a software pipeline for volumetric 3D models of locations, you presumably have to acquire the photography and the imagery from all those far-flung locations youre in. Its just a lot of new things that are either at the top of the cost curve, or you have to invent them, which means youre going up the cost curve. Do you see that coming down or is that the moat?

Its a little bit of both. The cost does come down as we get better at doing this and building more scalable systems, but it is what it takes to make something like this. By our estimates, the business model does pencil out.

Thats good to hear.

Always good to hear, but we also, honestly, we think the market is a lot larger. There is a person that enjoys cardio exercise at home and takes joy from running on a treadmill or pedaling on a stationary bike. I, unfortunately, am not one of those people. By the way, God bless those people, I wish I was one of those people, but I think theres a lot more people like me out there.

I mean, 50 percent of gym memberships go completely unused year to year. Thats people that have actually gotten up and gone to a gym and signed up, and just not used their membership. They just havent found the solution that works for them. We dont actually look at our competition as a stationary bike. We look at our competition as the couch.

How many members do you have right now?

Thats a great question. We, of course, dont broadcast our current membership-based numbers, but what I can say is that our goal for the first year was to have as many members as is reported that a large, well-known, connected fitness service had after their first year. Were not at our first year yet, but its looking like we will have 10 times that number.

A large, well-known, connected fitness service. Is it the one I keep talking about?

You can jump to your own conclusions.

Whats your churn like? Its $19 a month. Are people signing up, paying the money and staying there? Are they trying it out and leaving? What does that life cycle look like?

Yeah, our churn is low and comparable to other hardware-based connected fitness services. The thing thats special about Supernatural honestly, is the cost of the hardware is like one-seventh of the cost of a spin cycle. Were half the cost of a monthly subscription fee. I havent measured the volume of a spin cycle versus a VR headset, but probably like one-30th, one-50th the size of the thing.

We take up zero floor space. You put it in a drawer when youre done, disappears, and you throw it in your suitcase and take it wherever you want to go. Thats really a different paradigm. Going back to the last question, I think its one that makes it a lot more accessible to a lot more people.

I want to ask one more question about the famous connected fitness company. Then, I actually do want to talk about headsets and platforms. Peloton, very famously in a big fight with the music industry, right? They dont pay the fees the industry wants. They have a point of view about it. The music comes and goes. Peloton users are notoriously kind of angsty about it.

Supernatural has the music. This year you made a deal with Universal Music Publishing Group, and you have similar agreements with other labels, so there is a trove of popular music in the app to workout to.

Is that, Chris Milk has directed videos with Kanye West, hes getting a deal? Is that youve structured a new kind of deal? Is that a cost thats going to accelerate as you become more successful? How is that working, because it seems like one of the hardest challenges for all of these services right now?

Yeah, its definitely, its not an easy thing to do as a small startup. I will say that when we started building this, we knew that we needed the best music, that this just was not going to work using needle drop or stock music; that if youre going to move your body to music, it needs to be music that you love. it needs to be music that youre familiar with and that youre passionate about, and it cant be music that youve never heard before.

To do that requires relationships with a huge amount of large entities in the music business. The first thing that I did was call the people that I know, my old friends in the music industry from being a music video director, and said, Listen, I know others have done this incorrectly. I want to do this right. I want to be a partner to your industry. I think theres something thats really special that we could build that is going to require some different type of creative thinking around deal structures and how we think about this platform in comparison to other platforms.

That was on day one, I made those calls. It was a collaboration from the get-go. It was never feign ignorance and beg forgiveness later. It was definitely Were going to do this together and were going to do it the right way. When you start working with the amount of music that were working with, theres really not an off-the-shelf tool that allows you to do what you need to do, which involves ingesting the hundreds of thousands of songs from many different sources and keeping track of them and keeping track of the rights.

Wait, are you paying royalty rates based on plays? If I play one playlist versus another, you pay different royalty rates?

Its really more complex than that.

Really?

Yeah. We could do a whole show on how music deals work. Its incredibly complicated and requires an entirely custom backend system to service it, but again, its what you have to do if youre going to create the kind of system that Supernatural is.

Well, I would compare that to the Spotify business model, where you pay Spotify some amount of money a month, theyve just allocated some chunk of your subscription fee towards royalty payments, and then they have their own backend to allocate those further. Is that how you think about the $19 a month, that just some percentage of it is allocated towards music royalty payments?

Yeah, I mean, in the most general terms, when you see a piece of music in a movie, thats a sync license and when you see music in Spotify or Apple Music, thats a licensing deal. Every song that you might potentially play, its not just a deal with one entity. There might be a multitude of rights holders because youve got the record label, but then you also have the publisher, and you have to have both. The publisher, if you have a song that had 12 songwriters on it, you might have 12 different publishers.

Youve got to make sure that every single thing that youre playing is cleared and theres nothing that just tells you like, heres your list of songs that youre good. Its really, its complex to say the least, and its something that its taken really years to get to the point where it works as effectively as it does right now.

Is your license primarily a sync license to make a derivative work on the music or are you just licensing the track?

What I can say is that we have the rights to hundreds of thousands of songs and that catalogue grows on a regular basis.

Do you have some sort of like custom deal that youve worked out to enable this product?

I mean, theres no off-the-shelf deal when it comes to music licensing. Everything is a custom negotiation across the board.

Thats totally fair.

It is a testament to the sort of openness and creative thinking of the music industry and how it thinks of service like Supernatural. Because it required a lot of creative thinking and constructive deal-making to make this whole thing work for everyone involved.

Have you had artists use it? Are they freaking out over it?

Yeah. Theres a few. Theres a number of artists that have used it. I wont name anyone specifically, but theres been artists that Im friends with that are using this service that I have to notify tomorrow that theyre actually there in the service so theyre not surprised.

Thats amazing. Are you going to do larger programming with artists, having them be coaches, having them talk to people? That seems like a real natural opportunity.

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Is VR the next frontier in fitness? - The Verge

Peloton removed the ability for users to connect the Apple Watch to the Bike+ Bootcamp Classes, leaving only the cycling class.

One of the advertised features of the Peloton Bike+ was its ability to use Apple GymKit and connect the Apple Watch for fitness tracking. A recent update cut out yet another workout from pairing with the Apple Watch, leaving only the cycling class.

The Peloton Bike+ had already disabled Apple Watch paring for strength and yoga classes, and may not enable the pairing feature for future classes. Connect the Watts speculates this has been done to push users to possible future devices created by Peloton.

Peloton had acquired a company dedicated to developing fitness bands earlier in 2021. The Apple Watch would be in direct competition to their device, so removing features early may push customers to adopt the proprietary fitness band later.

Apple doesn't make its own gym hardware, but it does offer a competitive service called Apple Fitness+. The service is available as a monthly subscription for $9.99 or as a part of the Apple One Premier plan.

Peloton's CEO called Fitness+ a "legitimization of fitness content," though now the companies are direct competitors. Peloton's move into fitness bands may be enough reason to remove Apple Watch support but at the risk of alienating users.

Stay on top of all Apple news right from your HomePod. Say, "Hey, Siri, play AppleInsider," and you'll get latest AppleInsider Podcast. Or ask your HomePod mini for "AppleInsider Daily" instead and you'll hear a fast update direct from our news team. And, if you're interested in Apple-centric home automation, say "Hey, Siri, play HomeKit Insider," and you'll be listening to our newest specialized podcast in moments.

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Peloton cuts Apple Watch Fitness support back to just the cycling class - AppleInsider

As economies shut down in 2020, gyms and fitness centers were forced to adapt by providing at-home fitness options. Melina Cordero, Managing Director of Institutional Properties and Retail of CBRE Group, states that "the same thing happened to fitness that has happened in virtually every other category of retail, which is omni-channel." The shift to a blend of digital and in-person options was certainly escalated in 2020, but many of the larger fitness chains already had online offerings in the works. Now, as states continue COVID-19 vaccination efforts, experts are debating whether fitness centers will return to pre-pandemic ways or if they will need to innovate.

Some media outlets found strong evidence that at-home fitness routines may be here to stay due to the investments individuals made during 2020 to exercise at home (e.g purchasing expensive equipment), but others found that 75 percent of consumers said they would return to pre-pandemic routines, including physically going to a gym. Additionally, Cordero found that the markets that have started reopening more aggressively have seen a strong propensity from consumers to return to the gym in-person. Even with optimism for reopening, online training was projected by the American College of Sports Medicine as the No. 1 trend in fitness for 2021.

Post-pandemic, Cordero predicts different markets will see variable responses. Boutique gyms may become a less attractive option for consumers as they are often at a higher price point than large-scale gyms. As many retail establishments closed down, Cordero points out that large-scale gyms have an opportunity to take some of that space. For example, some populations are transitioning to the suburbs, which creates more prospects for new fitness centers.

Additionally, Cordero expects that safety and hygiene adaptations for COVID-19 are likely to continue for the long term, but gyms will return to pre-pandemic occupancy on a gradual basis. Due to the health benefits of such adaptations, Cordero predicts that the configurations and demand of size will stay largely the same for large-scale gyms. However, one fitness center stated that its gyms will reduce their storefronts. Others believe that fitness centers will need to innovate by providing more amenities and other community value to maintain memberships.

Another impact on the future of fitness centers will be trends with office workers. In more urban areas, it is a growing trend for an office building to provide a gym as an amenity to its office tenants. Cordero explained that "sometimes people have gym memberships next to their office or sometimes people have memberships next to their home ... So now if were shifting to a model that is more flexible, where the majority of people are working from home a couple days a week and working in the office a couple days a week, that will also change the habits or frequency at gyms." Like Cordero, several experts agree that the likely result is a mixture of in-person and virtual offerings, which can be adapted to fit individual needs.

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The Post-COVID-19 Future of Fitness Centers | Holland & Knight LLP - JDSupra - JD Supra

CAMBRIDGE, Mass.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--VirZOOM, the company that's transforming exercise through the power of VR, today announced its latest fitness app, VZfit for Oculus Quest 1 & 2, extending workouts to anyone who wants to experience the world and get fit from the comfort of their own home. VZfit is the first fitness app on the Oculus Store that expands users' reality by transporting them to anywhere they want to go, traveling through the world's mountains, countryside or cities with the option of either standalone headset full-body workouts or by connecting to most smart bike devices and trainer sensors. The options and places to go are endless, turning exercise into a new adventure each time.

Since the start of the pandemic, the US has seen a 32% reduction in physical activity. Many people want to be healthy but often can't find the motivation or time to do it. Gym memberships frequently go unused and right now are largely inaccessible, coupled with the growing frustration for people isolating at home to book that next travel adventure. Studies show that users exercise 3-4 times more frequently in VR and a recent Brunel study (with the help of VirZOOM technology) revealed that VR raised exercise enjoyment levels by over 25%.

VZfit was born out of the desire to make the most versatile experience that transports you away from your same four walls and out into the world around you. VirZOOM is the only VR fitness company to tap into Google Maps Street View, alerting you to points of interest along its 10 million miles of Street View data. It lets you take a snapshot along the way that you can instantly post to social, you can workout with a friend, create your own routes or follow suggested rides. It also connects to Strava and Fitbit and comes with professional coaches who give personalized feedback and workout routines that work all muscle groups.

We wanted to combine the limitless possibilities of the world around us with the limitless possibilities of VR, said Eric Janszen, Co-founder and CEO, VirZOOM. Take a selfie at the Coliseum or in front of the Sydney Opera House, or simply take a trip down memory lane - whatever location you choose, with VZfit a world of adventure is literally at your fingertips. Our experiences have always been an exhilarating mix of the real world and the fantastical, but this is the most accessible VR fitness app that uses global exploration as a key motivator, making it so fresh and engaging that exercise almost becomes the side product. Especially in a time when none of us can travel in reality, it already has our community completely hooked.

VZfit is targeted at mid-level fitness groups who are looking for regular, 30-minute exercise sessions. Based on the 3000 Quest beta users to date, average users are almost evenly split male and female with a majority in the 30s to 40s age groups.

After the success of VZplay and Explorer, we wanted to reduce the friction of needing special cardio hardware so we could expand our reach to anyone wanting to stay fit and healthy, said Eric Malafeew, Co-founder and CTO, VirZOOM. We also wanted to expand beyond pure game play to tap into those travel aspirations and the endless options available to us in the real world. Our users are challenging themselves to travel through Japan or cycle across Ireland. Taking that trip youve always wanted builds strong staying power. All you need is a $299 Oculus Quest 2 and a sense of adventure. Were thrilled to be part of the Oculus Quest community - the most mainstream standalone headset on the market today. We cant wait to see where our new Oculus users will explore first.

In VZfit you can

VZfit is a subscription app and available today on the Oculus Quest Store. Enjoy a free 7-day trail then either pay $9.99 per month or a discounted annual membership. For full subscription details visit the Oculus blog.

Additional Resources:

About VirZOOM:

VirZOOM Inc. is a Cambridge, Massachusetts company co-founded in 2015 by Eric Janszen, ex-venture capitalist and Eric Malafeew, former chief architect of multimillion selling game titles "Guitar Hero" and "Rock Band". First generation product was a software and hardware VR fitness experience compatible with early VR technology. In 2019 VirZOOM shifted to focus on software alone, launching VZplay and Explorer, designed to increase availability through a focus on the Oculus all-in-one headsets. VirZOOM's customers have collectively traveled over 1 million virtual kilometers and burned nearly 40 million total calories. The company has raised $11 million through Wefunder and investors to date. Follow us at: Website, Facebook, Twitter.

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VZfit for Oculus Quest Launches As The Most Inclusive VR Fitness Platform On The Market - Business Wire

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Table of Contents: Virtual Fitness Services Market Overview Impact on Virtual Fitness Services Market Industry Virtual Fitness Services Market Competition Virtual Fitness Services Market Production, Revenue by Region Virtual Fitness Services Market Supply, Consumption, Export and Import by Region Virtual Fitness Services Market Production, Revenue, Price Trend by Type Virtual Fitness Services Market Analysis by Application Virtual Fitness Services Market Manufacturing Cost Analysis Internal Chain, Sourcing Strategy and Downstream Buyers Marketing Strategy Analysis, Distributors/Traders Market Effect Factors Analysis Virtual Fitness Services Market Forecast (2021-2026) Appendix

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Excerpt from:
Virtual Fitness Services Market Projected to Show Strong Growth | Fitbit, Inc., ClassPass Inc., FitnessOnDemand, Peloton, Wellbeats, Inc. KSU | The...

First: Things are going to be OK

If you ask leadership from 24Seven, NYCDA, Showstopper or Radix Dance Convention, the trajectory of the dance convention/competition world is on the upswing. "As numbers improve and restrictions are eased, we're ready to kick it into high gear," says Radix director Eddie Strachan.

Programs have returned to their regional tours, tackling unique pandemic hurdles as they strive to create as "normal" an event as possible. "Things are definitely looking up," says 24Seven director Danny Lawn. "For us, an event this past weekend felt as close to normal as it has in a long time."

According to Nikki Cole, director of marketing and media relations for Showstopper, the competition world is an inspirational place to be right now. "The dance community has come together in remarkable ways to bring positivity, hope and light to dance studios by getting kids back onstage," she says.

Good news! Every competition/convention we've spoken with is committed to hosting Nationals this year, one way or another.

COVID willing, Showstopper, Radix and The Dance Awards all hope to hold a normal Nationals (you know, in-person), but it's important to remember that things are always subject to change. "We are ready to hold Nationals as normally as possible, but if we still need to have safety protocols in place during that time, then so be it," Strachan says. "We are just trying to push through each month to see what the next one brings."

Capacity for both the Florida and Las Vegas Dance Awards is still to be determined by the tide of the pandemic, but as of right now, registration is open to those who are interested. Regardless, Lawn says dancers can anticipate something magical. "The directors are so good at shifting plans and making everything special," he says.

For NYCDA, things will look a little different. Rather than hosting one event in NYC, director Joe Lanteri has decided to hold two separate summer events: one in Phoenix, AZ, and one in Orlando, FL. "We are committed to making it feel like a true NYCDA Nationals," Lanteri says. That means it will still include award-winning choreographers, artistic directors and college-scholarship auditions. Safety precautions that have been a staple throughout the year will continue, but the details of how many dancers can attend are still to be determined by the ever-changing state of the pandemic.

Regular temperature checks are required to participate at the majority of events (Evolve Photo & Video, courtesy NYCDA)

Schedule Shakeup

In order to host as many dancers as possible, and avoid cross-contamination between studios, scheduling at conventions and competitions is a bit different this year.

"If you're only allowed 200 dancers in the venue at a time, that's really limiting for four different age groups," Lanteri says. NYCDA's workaround? In some venues, a split schedule. Morning classes are reserved for mini and junior dancers to take class, and the rest of the day is reserved for teen and senior dancers. "That alone doubles our capacity."

In order to avoid eating and congregating en masse, 24Seven is staggering lunch times, as well as class start and end times.

The takeaway? First, pay close attention to the schedule the competition gives you: It's going to be different from years past.

Second, if you have a younger sibling, your parent or guardian will likely be running back and forth like crazy all weekend, so be sure to tell them how much you appreciate them.

Mask Up, Temperature Check and Complete That Health Survey!

These days, your mask is your golden ticket to any convention or competition. Other than the moments immediately before you walk onstage to compete, and immediately after you finish, your mask will be on your face for the entire weekend. (Some cities even require them onstage.)

"We completely understand that none of us like to wear masks," Strachan says. "But we all like to dance in person, so if that is what it takes, that is what we have to do."

Beyond masks, regular temperature checks are required to participate at the majority of events, as well. And NYCDA teachers and staff are going the extra mile to keep you safe. "We have a partnership with a testing lab, so every week, everyone on the NYCDA team is PCR tested before they get on an airplane," Lanteri says. "The lab sends someone out to the cities with us, and most of us test again while we're there. I personally also test every Monday when I get back to my home base."

NYCDA also requires each of their dancers and attendees to fill out a wellness survey every day along with getting a temperature check. This gives them access to a wristband that shows they're clear to participate.

The takeaway? These competitions and conventions aren't messing around. Nothing is more important to them than your safety.

We can practically promise that celebrating a win will feel just as good in a face mask (courtesy Showstopper)

Class Staging

The current industry standard for conventions is to require six feet of space between each dancer. Events maintain this by taping 6-foot-by-6-foot squares on the ground that the students are asked to dance in. "I love looking out into a sea of clean lines with everyone in their spot," says Lawn. "In that sense, it's kinda fierce."

Most conventions begin the weekend by dividing the participants into combo groups that will be used throughout the weekend. This keeps the dancers from crossing paths as they move on and off the floor, and limits potential exposure between groups as they observe.

In a major shift from years past, dancers may no longer be asked to go onstage next to the teacher to demonstrate, depending on the size of the ballroom. "We keep the stage as clear as possible," Lawn says of 24Seven.

The takeaway? You've practiced perfect spacing your entire lifeyou were born for this.

Studio Blocks

In order to avoid contact between studios and keep numbers in the venue low, most competitions currently have schools compete all their numbers, one right after the other during a single block of time.

"Studios A, B and C may compete during a three-hour chunk of time," Strachan says. "Then we clear them out of the ballroom and sanitize the stage and dressing rooms before the next set of studios come in to dance their block." At Radix, security has a list of people in each given block, and checks who they are before they're allowed to enter the ballroom.

At 24Seven, solos follow the same studio-block pattern as group numbers. All mini and junior solos from studio A will go back-to-back, followed by studios B and C, before the room is cleaned for the next block. "We call everyone beforehand to make sure they are comfortable sharing a block with other studios," Lawn says.

The takeaway? You're gonna be pretty tired after running your dances consecutively. Bring a good energy booster to snack on!

Many competitions are spreading out chairs for audience members to encourage social distancing (Evolve Photo & Video, courtesy NYCDA)

Exclusive In-Person Performances, Online Entourages

Just as there is less space for performers at competition these days, there's also less space for audience members. For those who can attend, competitions are spreading chairs out for social-distancing purposes. Showstopper audiences sit at round tables spread out across the room in watch groups.

For those who can't attend in person due to capacity or proximity, the majority of competitions livestream the event.

The takeaway? The fewer people there are, the safer you'll be. But you'll still get virtual hype from loved ones.

Socially Distanced Awards

Most competitions aren't hosting in-person awards, but you can stream them online. At competitions like Radix and NYCDA, all the awards for each studio are placed in a box or a souvenir bag that your studio owner or teacher can pick up later.

For Showstopper, in-person awards are possible, they just have to be done more frequently. "In years past we would have had 3-4 award ceremonies, now we do 10," Cole says. "This means when we finish each category (like Teen Small Groups), we do an award ceremony before moving on to the next one." According to Cole, parents really appreciate this new structure. "They don't have to sit and wait around all day if they don't want to," she says.

The takeaway? You can officially watch the awards ceremony from your bed with zero shame.

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Beat the Cheat: Combat Flailing Arms with These Targeted Fitness Exercises - Dance Spirit

Tottenham face an anxious wait to discover whether Harry Kane will be fit for the Carabao Cup final after the striker limped out of the 2-2 draw at Everton with a foot injury.

Kane scored his 20th and 21st goals of the Premier League season at Goodison Park, where Gylfi Sigurdsson also struck twice for the hosts, but was forced off in stoppage time after Richarlison landed on his foot at a corner. The Spurs striker will be assessed on Saturday, with Jos Mourinho desperate for positive news before next Sundays Wembley final against Manchester City.

For him to leave the pitch with a few minutes to go is obviously because he felt something, the Spurs manager said. It is too early to say something. I dont want to feed any speculation or be stupidly optimistic and say that he will play in the next game [against Southampton in midweek] or the final. I dont know. He doesnt know. Tomorrow we will see how it reacts and take a look in more detail.

Kane capitalised on two dreadful defensive mistakes by Everton to put Spurs ahead and then equalise in the second half. It was great finishing, said Mourinho. Its the kind of player that when you see the first touch and the control, we are used to seeing it in training and we know it is fantastic finishing. Two beautiful goals but not a surprise for the ones who see him do it every day in training.

The Spurs manager, however, was unhappy with Michael Olivers decision to award Everton a first-half penalty when James Rodrguez went down under minimal contact from Sergio Reguiln. The penalty was not a penalty, he insisted. I think the players should be praised [for not haranguing Oliver over the decision] but we all have the feeling that it is very difficult for VAR to go against a referees decision. They dont like to expose each other.

The maximum they like to tell the referee is: Come on, have a look, but when Mr Oliver is in such high speed to the penalty spot I dont think there is any point complaining.

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Tottenham face anxious wait on Harry Kanes fitness for Carabao Cup final - The Guardian

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