Analysis of Peloton’s Artist Series Classes: Which Peloton instructors taught the most classes in 2021?

Peloton introduced their official artist series classes in 2019. These classes get special promotion from Peloton, and showcase music from one specific artist in a special set of classes.

The number of classes in a single artist series can vary: some artist series only get a single class, while others might have dozens of classes. In a few instances, Peloton will even have a second round of the same artist series months apart. This has happened recently with Beyonce, The Beatles, and one would imagine Taylor Swift as well in the future. You can always find a list of all the artist series & classes here.

Whenever a new artist series is announced by Peloton, you start to see questions around why a certain instructor doesn’t get to teach one of the classes. There are a variety of factors that Peloton use to pick which instructors teach which classes (including which instructor is a fan and wants to teach it) – but that’s a topic for a different day.

Instead, this post is simply going to look at the data for the artist series. Specifically, we’re going to look at which Peloton instructor taught the most classes (artist series classes) during 2021.

Over the course of 2021, 297 Peloton artist series classes took place. This number was determined by looking at which classes, that were released in 2021, earned the official artist series badge. The entire list of classes that earn the badge can be seen here. This set of classes, in addition to the standard artist series classes, also included the “All For One” music festival (AFO) that took place over the 4th of July weekend, many official Broadway Series classes, the Verzuz head-to-head classes, and more.

In a few cases, the same class was taught by multiple instructors (usually known as “two for one classes”, which you can view a full list of here). When that happened, both instructors who taught the class were credited for teaching the class in our counts. This means that although a category of classes might have only 14 classes that took place, the total count of instructor classes might be 16 – due to two of those classes having been two for once classes.

As with any data set of this size, there are a number of ways to analyze the data. First will be a look at the entire group of Peloton instructors, across all class types. Then, the data will be broken into individual class types across 5 different categories: biking, tread, yoga/meditation, strength, and all other classes.

List of all Peloton instructors and the number of Artist Series Classes they taught in 2021

Peloton has 56 different coaches who taught classes in 2021. (One notable exception is Christian Vande Velde, who is not included in that number, or on any of these lists as he didn’t teach any classes in 2021 and it isn’t clear when or if he will have an opportunity to teach again).

If this list is overwhelming, you might want to try jumping to one of the next sections where we look at the list & count by specific class type – there are less instructors on each of those lists and they are easier to see.

Shown below is the full list of Peloton instructors and count of artist series classes taught across all class types. The first version of the list is sorted in numeric order: the coaches who taught the most classes at the top, and the ones who taught the least are at the bottom. It also shows the overall % of the artist series classes each instructor taught.

The most popular Peloton instructors, according to the number of artist series classes they taught.
The most popular Peloton instructors, according to the number of artist series classes they taught.

The Peloton instructors who taught the most artist series classes, across all class types, in 2021 were: Jess King (13), Ben Alldis (12), Chelsea Jackson Roberts (12), Emma Lovewell (12), Aditi Shah (11), Adrian Williams (11), Ally Love (10), Erik Jäger (10), Matty Maggiacomo (10), Robin Arzón (10), Cody Rigsby (9), Kendall Toole (9), and Sam Yo (9).

This list of the most popular Peloton instructors (in terms of how many artist series classes they taught) includes a mix of instructors – some newer coaches, as well as some of the coaches who have been around a while.

The list is also fairly evenly divided in some other ways. For example, not just cycling is represented – Chelsea Jackson Roberts has the second most classes, and her focus is on yoga & meditation. Peloton is also starting to expand the artist series to the German community as well – Erik Jäger, who primarily coaches in German, is seen near the top of the list.

Peloton is also starting to spread the number of classes out across their two production studios. Out of these top 13 instructors, 3 of them (Ben Alldis, Erik Jäger, and Sam Yo) all teach from the UK Peloton studio.

Below, the same exact data is shown, but rather than in numerical order, the list is shown in alphabetical order:

The most popular Peloton instructors, according to the number of artist series classes they taught, in alphabetical order.
The most popular Peloton instructors, according to the number of artist series classes they taught, in alphabetical order.

Knowing that not all Peloton members workout across all class types, we’ll now look at the data split out by specific class types. First will be a look at Peloton’s cycling artist series classes, followed by tread, yoga/meditation, strength, and finally all other classes.

List of Peloton instructors who taught the most cycling & Peloton bike classes in 2021

Peloton’s cycling classes were the first class type ever taught at Peloton (and only one for a number of years) – it remains the most popular class type, and the one taught most frequently as well.

This list will look at the any class type that has a portion of it taught on the bike. This means it will include regular rides, bike bootcamps, warm-up rides, cool-down rides, and arms & weight classes.

Cycling was far and away the most popular category of artist series classes, having almost double the number of classes taught and the second most popular category (running). Over the course of 2021, there were 116 cycling or bike-based artist series classes taught at Peloton. 26 different coaches taught these classes.

While you might assume that some of the more well-known instructors, like Robin Arzon & Cody Rigsby would have the most artist series classes for Peloton, the data shows this isn’t the case – although they both are in the top 10!

The 10 most popular Peloton cycling instructors, in terms of teaching artist series classes in 2021, were: Kendall Toole (9), Sam Yo (9), Leanne Hainsby (8), Ally Love (7), Cody Rigsby (7), Mayla Wedekind (7), Robin Arzón (7), Alex Toussaint (6), Christine D’Ercole (6), and Erik Jäger (6).

You can view the complete list of most popular Peloton cycling coaches (as it relates to the artist series classes) below:

The most popular Peloton cycling instructors, according to the number of artist series classes they taught, in 2021.
The most popular Peloton cycling instructors, according to the number of artist series classes they taught, in 2021.

There’s always debate about whether the seniority of the instructor plays a factor in choosing the artist series classes. However, the two instructors who taught the most cycling classes have both “only” been with the company a little more than 2 years. Sam Yo joined in November of 2019, and Kendall Toole joined in September 2019. Meanwhile, Jenn Sherman, who is the most-tenured Peloton instructor, only taught 3 artist series cycling classes compared to the 9 taught by Sam & Kendall – showing there are many other factors besides seniority that go into the process.

If you skipped over the first section of this post, with the list of instructors across all class types, just note that this cycling-only version of the list list might appear to under represent some instructors if they teach multiple class types. For example, Matt Wilpers only has 2 artist series cycling classes – but has another 5 Tread classes. This is just one example of where one instructor might appear to have relatively few classes when viewing a certain class type only; but when viewing the overall instructor count, is actually teaching a larger percentage of the classes than it originally appears.

List of Peloton instructors who taught the most running & Peloton Tread classes in 2021

The next class type we’ll look at is the number of Peloton’s tread & running based classes. In addition to the regular “Running” classes, this data set also includes outdoor runs, walks, walks + runs, Tread bootcamps, as well as Tread warm-ups & Tread Cool-downs. Tread-based classes were the second-most popular class type for artist series (but only by a small margin), with 60 artist series classes being taught. 19 different coaches were responsible for teaching these classes.

The Top 10 most popular Peloton Tread & running instructors, as it relates to Peloton’s artist series classes in 2021 were: Becs Gentry (8), Jess King (7), Chase Tucker (5), Matt Wilpers (5), Matty Maggiacomo (5), Selena Samuela (5), Adrian Williams (4), Jermaine Johnson (3), Jess Sims (3), and Rebecca Kennedy (3).

Below you can see the complete list of most poplar Peloton Tread & running coaches (in terms of artist series classes):

The most popular Peloton tread instructors, according to the number of artist series classes they taught, in 2021.
The most popular Peloton tread instructors, according to the number of artist series classes they taught, in 2021.

One key thing to note about this data-set is that the Peloton Tread instructor team has grown dramatically in the last year, and as such, many of the instructors haven’t been with Peloton long enough to have had a chance to teach that many artist series classes. This list is likely to look much different in 2022 as the newer coaches get involved in the artist series classes as well. With that said, Jermaine Johnson, who has only been teaching classes for 3 months since joining Peloton in September 2021, was already working his way towards the top of the list for 2021.

If you’re wondering about long-time Peloton instructors Andy Speer & Olivia Amato not appearing high up on the list – both of them also have artist series classes across other modalities. Andy Speer has a number of strength artist series classes, and Olivia Amato is featured across both Tread & Strength classes as well.

List of Peloton instructors who taught the most Peloton Yoga & Meditation classes in 2021

Like many other class types, Peloton’s Yoga team had a number of new instructors join in 2021. This included Mariana Fernandez, who is Peloton’s first official Spanish language coach, Kirra Michel, Peloton’s first Australian coach, as well as Nico Sarani, who brought German language classes to the Yoga platform.

(Speaking of Spanish language classes, since Mariana joined, Peloton has since added Camila Ramon, who teaches cycling classes in both English & Spanish.)

For purposes of this list, we’ve grouped both Peloton’s meditation classes as well as Peloton’s yoga classes together. It’s mostly the same group of instructors who teach both. One notable exception to this is Cody Rigsby, who only teaches meditation classes (on top of his cycling classes) – but he did not have a meditation artist series class.

All 9 of Peloton’s yoga coaches taught at least one artist series class over the course of 2021! In total, there were 56 Peloton yoga or Peloton meditation artist series classes that took place in 2021.

The top 5 most popular Peloton Yoga & Meditation instructors (in terms of the number of artist series classes taught) in 2021 were: Chelsea Jackson Roberts (12), Aditi Shah (11) , Mariana Fernández (8), Kristin McGee (7), and Ross Rayburn (7).

The most popular Peloton yoga instructors, according to the number of artist series classes they taught, in 2021.
The most popular Peloton yoga instructors, according to the number of artist series classes they taught, in 2021.

In terms of the coaches towards the bottom of the list – Denis Morton can be found teaching a number of cycling classes as well. As mentioned above, both Kirra Michel & Nico Sarani are newer additions to the team. Anna Greenberg is one of the original Peloton Yoga instructors – but for whatever reason, just didn’t lead that many artist series classes during the course of 2021.

List of Peloton instructors who taught the most Peloton Strength classes in 2021

Peloton has stated many times that strength is a new focus for them in 2021 & 2022. They feel like they have “won” cardio through the Bike & Tread, so are now starting to focus on strength. In fact, Peloton has their first hardware device for strength coming out later in 2022 – the Peloton Guide.

However, Peloton still didn’t have quite as many strength classes during 2021 as some of the other modalities. Only 51 strength-based artist series classes were taught – with 16 different instructors teaching them. However, with the Guide coming out, it’s possible Peloton will start increasing the number of strength artist series classes throughout 2022.

For purposes of this list, strength included things like HIIT cardio, core, bodyweight strength, and regular strength classes. Note that Barre was not included here – instead it’s included in the next miscellaneous category.

Peloton’s top 5 most popular strength instructors (based on the number of artist series classes taught) were: Ben Alldis (8), Adrian Williams (7), Emma Lovewell (5), Matty Maggiacomo (5), and Andy Speer (4).

The most popular Peloton strength instructors, according to the number of artist series classes they taught, in 2021.
The most popular Peloton strength instructors, according to the number of artist series classes they taught, in 2021.

Many of these coaches are featured in a number of the other modalities – so that’s why you might see a lot of the coaches with only 1 or 2 strength artist series classes.

Also, in 2021 Peloton introduced a number of “strength-first coaches”, whose primary focus is on the strength platform – compared to most of the other coaches who are focused on bike, tread, or yoga but also teach a few strength classes. This included both Callie Gullickson & Rad Lopez, so one might expect them to be higher up on the strength list next year.

List of Peloton instructors who taught the most other classes

So after looking at cycling, tread, yoga/meditation, and strength, you’re left with – everything else. Specifically, this list included some artist series that were dance cardio, barre, pilates, stretching, and one or two others. There were only 14 classes of this type in the artist series in 2021.

In this category, there were only 4 instructors who taught more than one class each. They were: Hannah Corbin (4), Ally Love (3), Ben Alldis (2), and Emma Lovewell (2).

The most popular Peloton instructors in various other classes, according to the number of artist series classes they taught, in 2021.
The most popular Peloton instructors in various other classes, according to the number of artist series classes they taught, in 2021.

Most of these categories Peloton doesn’t have a regular release pattern for – so it’s not clear if the number of artist series classes for these might go up in 2022 or not.

Wrapup

At time of publishing, all the classes except for one are still available to be taken. However, it has been around 6 months since the last class purge (which took place in August 2021) so that might not be the case for too much longer.

Are there any instructors on the list you assumed might have been higher, or lower in terms of how many classes they taught?


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Chris Lewis
Chris Lewis is the creator & founder of Pelo Buddy. He purchased his Peloton in 2018, and uses all the different devices: Peloton Bike, Tread, Row, and Guide. He has been involved in the fitness industry for more than a decade - previously co-founding the websites Mud Run Guide & Ninja Guide. You can find him on the leaderboard at #PeloBuddy.

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