Name: Meet SoulCycle’s New Off-the-Bike Brand
Uploaded: 2018-03-30
Duration: 4 min 19 s
Description: It’s called Soul Annex.

[ MUSIC ] So, everybody knows SoulCycle for being this total disruptor when it came out 12 years ago. It was new for a time in the fitness industry. It was these classes on the bike, crazy loud music, lighting. It was the whole experience. And it quickly became a huge sensation. And now, for the first time in its history, it's expanding into new product categories, specifically classes off the bike. This is stretching, cardio, dancing, movement, having nothing to do with the bike. It's SoulCycle without the cycle. It's called SoulAnnex, and we're here in the studio to check it out [ MUSIC ] So what is SoulAnnex? This insight that we saw was that our writers wanted to spend more time with us crosstraining. And so we developed three modalities, dance, strength, and alignment, or active recovery, to give them that opportunity to crosstrain with us and spend more time with our instructors. The market for fitness classes is very competive. I mean, this is a Category where there's just so much innovation. Every few months it feels like there's some new hot thing. Is that more challenging? There is no doubt that the marketplace has become crowded and really quite fragmented in the last couple of years, in particular. What we're really competing for is our writer's time. They have a lot of choices of how they spend their time. And when they come to Souls We recognized they're giving us an hour, an hour and a half. By the time they're coming into the studio, it's a 45 minute experience. And I think what we've seen the most in the last couple of years is just the speed and pace of life has picked up so much. That we try to just keep holding ourselves accountable to making sure this is the best use of someone's time, when they're coming in the door. That the experience is physical, it's musical, it's emotional. I'm gonna go to the place that knows me, the cheers on my block, so that that's how we've continued to maintain and grow our relationships with our riders. So do you think that most of the customers for SoulAnnex will come from the existing SoulCycle community? Or are you also hoping to bring new people into the tent? So our number one goal was to bring our SoulCycle riders into SoulAnnex, to extend their relationship with us and to mostly extend their relationship with our instructors. I think what we've been really surprised to see is the number of people that have come to SoulAnnex that have never come to SoulCycle, that perhaps felt that the bike was intimidating in some way, that the brand, the lobby was intimidating in some way. And they felt like this was an interesting entry point into the brand, and now have subsequently started riding at SoulCycle, so We're hearing people are coming from all over. What can I expect? I'm taking this new SoulAnnex class tonight, tell me what I can expect. I'm so excited that you're taking Laurie Cole's [ UNKNOWN ] class tonight. It's a lot of foam rolling, a lot of band work, and really what it does is you think you're coming in for something restorative, but it's really challening your body in ways that you don't really know are possible. You will likely feel obnoxious in the room but then again, tomorrow. A lot of these clauses are designed so that you are more powerful on the bike or you're more powerful in your life and train muscle groups that you don't normally get a chance to train. Okay, I think I'm ready for it. Good luck. Can I get some of these Kombucha afterwards? Absolutely, abs [ UNKNOWN ] [ MUSIC ] Okay, you're gonna actually come on to your glutes again. We're gonna do a beautiful glute stretch. [ INAUDIBLE ] You've gone down, in, up. [ INAUDIBLE ] And out. One more, bring your hips down to point your toes. Let's go, down, in, up, relax. The class was great. It was definitely challenging. There were a few times where it was, we would be working on one side, there would be another set, and I would just think, I cannot do another set. A lot of kind of small movements that really burn. I would say the glutes were probably the hardest part and the triceps were not that easy either. My favorite part was at the end where we just laid on our backs on the foam roller and you just sort of opened up. It's almost like if you do yoga like a bridge or a wheel. It really really felt great. And I also really like the atmosphere. I mean the low lights and the candles. That's very much Much of what the branding of SoulCycle is about. I'm gonna feel it. I'm gonna feel it tomorrow and apparently I'm gonna really feel it in 48 hours, simply. [ LAUGH ] [ MUSIC ]