Peloton’s much-anticipated Strength+ app officially launched this week, but it didn’t take long for a competitor to chime in with a cheeky response.
In case you missed it, yesterday Peloton unveiled their new Strength+ app after a three month beta phase. The app is entirely separate from the existing Peloton digital app and is free for All-Access and App+ members. You can find a comprehensive overview of the new offering from Peloton via our overview article.
Ladder, a strength training app launched in 2020 featuring custom programs designed by coaches, was quick to call out Peloton’s new app as “inspired” by them. A new webpage titled “Flattered” shows both apps side by side and reads: “We’re flattered, Peloton.”
The new videos are posted on the site above as well as Ladder’s Instagram page, and there are six in total, each poking fun at various aspects of Peloton. This includes “celebrity” instructors, dance cardio, artist series, and more.
You can see one of those videos below, this one being called “Copycat”:
Through the videos, Ladder positions itself as the expert in the space, focused solely on strength training without any frill.
The various pieces of content ultimately position Peloton’s new Strength+ offering as being heavily “inspired” by Ladder’s established product. Ladder goes on to show data they claim to show how often Peloton employees were using the Ladder app as the Peloton Strength+ app was being developed. The state:
We are, however, quite flattered that the Peloton team was really, really (really) inspired by all we’re doing for our Ladder members. In fact, we found at least 15 Peloton product, engineering, and design folks in the Ladder app, and a whole lot of activity over the past year—more than 1,500 Ladder app sessions since January!
They go on to state that Peloton “literally copied our UI/UX screen-for-screen”, and shared an image showing the apps side by side.
Interestingly, Peloton and Ladder share some history. Former Peloton instructor Jennifer Jacobs, who left the company in 2019, worked with Ladder as part of her post-Peloton career before joining Beachbody.
While Ladder’s “Flattered” campaign takes a humorous approach, it underscores the high stakes in the evolving fitness tech landscape. Ladder closes their post by saying “Welcome to the arena, Peloton.”
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The app technically did not launch when it’s only available on one platform.