Ruth Zukerman | |
|---|---|
 Zukerman at Ozy Fest in July 2018 | |
| Nationality | American |
| Education | Mount Holyoke College |
| Occupation(s) | Entrepreneur, Author |
| Organization(s) | Co-founder of SoulCycle and Flywheel Sports |
Ruth Zukerman is co-founder of indoor cycling businesses SoulCycle and Flywheel Sports. She is also the author of Riding High: How I Kissed SoulCycle Goodbye, Co-Founded Flywheel, and Built the Life I Always Wanted, her memoir.
Zukerman grew up in Roslyn, New York to a family of Polish, Russian, and German-Jewish heritage. Her father was a physician and her mother a psychotherapist. [1] She was a cheerleader and dancer in school, and majored in dance at Mount Holyoke College. Following graduation, she moved to New York City and took on a few brief stints with modern dance companies but did not ever make enough to remain in the city as a full-time dancer. After a few years trying to find dance work in New York City, she realized she needed to shift gears.
In the early 1980s, she got a job teaching aerobics on the Upper West Side of Manhattan after teaching classes there for a few months. [2] This experience was her first introduction to group fitness that led to her career, eventually leading her to take spin classes following a divorce. She found the classes to have a strong mental component and would leave classes feeling empowered. Eventually, she was encouraged by instructors at the Reebok club to become an instructor.
Five years into teaching at Reebok, Zukerman had become a popular instructor among the members of the club. Elizabeth Cutler, who was a member, proposed opening a boutique spin studio based on her method of teaching, asking her to be the face of the business. Julie Rice, also one of her riders and a friend, became the third co-founder upon Zukerman's suggestion. SoulCycle opened its first studio in 2006 on Manhattan's Upper West Side, pioneering the studio “pay per class” structure, which is now the predominant group fitness model. [2] [3] [4]
Zukerman founded SoulCycle at the age of 48. In a 2020 interview with Forbes, she reflected:
"...If I looked at myself at 42, I never in a million years thought I would start my own business. When I was approached about this idea of opening SoulCycle, I was more than ready and the opportunity was right. I had the confidence after having built my spin class for the past five years, I knew that I was on to something. I think it was a combination of my own evolution and the right circumstances at the right time.” [5]
Zukerman left SoulCycle in 2009. While she has been private about the reasoning behind her departure, she’s said she learned a valuable lesson from it. “Whenever you’re going into a business partnership with anybody, make sure you’re legally protected,” she said. “I did not do that and it cost me a lot.” [6]
In 2009, Zukerman left SoulCycle to start Flywheel Sports with Jay Galluzzo and David Seldin. Flywheel opened in 2010. At Flywheel, rider metrics were added to the spin experience to create greater rider accountability through something called a “TorqBoard”, which measures rider resistance, cadence, and current and overall power output. [7] Zukerman credits this feature with changing the industry. Utilizing the TorqBoard, Flywheel has a leaderboard that shows riders how they compare to others during class. The company says this is for riders to measure their self-improvement and track their performance, with the company giving each rider a report of their progress after each class. [7]
Flywheel was sued by Peloton in September 2018 under the accusation that the company had copied Peloton’s at-home bike and leaderboard technology. The decision in the case rendered Flywheel’s at-home bikes unusable. In December 2018, Zukerman left Flywheel Sports. [8] In 2020, Flywheel Sports filed for bankruptcy due to economic strains caused by the coronavirus pandemic and the two-year legal battle with Peloton over patent infringement. [9]
In 2018, Zukerman published a memoir entitled Riding High: How I Kissed SoulCycle Goodbye, Co-Founded Flywheel, and Built the Life I Always Wanted, in which she recounts her story of perseverance and reinvention. [10] In more recent years, she has done public speaking engagements both through keynote addresses and interviews on podcasts. She is contracted through BrightSight Speakers, claiming “[she] is on a mission to connect people with one another and to our own inner strengths. She encourages us to embrace a positive, powerful attitude in both our lives and our careers. In her presentations, Ruth explains that we are not born with a fixed or finite amount of resilience. We can build resilience, like a muscle, every time we pick ourselves up after a setback.”. [11] Common topics in her speaking engagements include her path to co-founding SoulCycle and Flywheel Sports, advice for women in business, resilience, and reinvention. She has appeared in interviews with Forbes, Stanford Graduate School of Business, Wharton Business School, When to Jump on Spotify, Apple, and more.
Zukerman grew up in Roslyn, N.Y., in an affluent, predominately Jewish neighborhood. Zuckerman shares that she is very proud to be a Jew and it has become very important for her to raise her children Jewish. [6]
In 2018, Zukerman was the focus of a “Breaking Big” episode which chronicles her rise to success. [12]
Zukerman was a 2022 Jewish Women International "Women to Watch" honoree. [13]
Aerobics is a form of physical exercise that combines rhythmic aerobic exercise with stretching and strength training routines with the goal of improving all elements of fitness. It is usually performed to music and may be practiced in a group setting led by an instructor. With the goal of preventing illness and promoting physical fitness, practitioners perform various routines. Formal aerobics classes are divided into different levels of intensity and complexity and will have five components: warm-up, cardiovascular conditioning, muscular strength and conditioning, cool-down and stretching and flexibility. Aerobics classes may allow participants to select their level of participation according to their fitness level. Many gyms offer different types of aerobic classes. Each class is designed for a certain level of experience and taught by a certified instructor with a specialty area related to their particular class.
Indoor cycling, often called spinning, is a form of exercise with classes focusing on endurance, strength, intervals, high intensity and recovery, and involves using a special stationary exercise bicycle with a weighted flywheel in a classroom setting. When people took cycling indoors in the late 19th century, whether for reasons of weather or convenience, technology created faster, more compact and efficient machines over time. The first iterations of the stationary bike ranged from the vertical Gymnasticon to regular bicycles on rollers.
Step aerobics, also known as bench aerobics and step training, is a form of aerobic exercise that involves stepping on and off a small platform.
Road bicycle racing is the cycle sport discipline of road cycling, held primarily on paved roads. Road racing is the most popular professional form of bicycle racing, in terms of numbers of competitors, events and spectators. The two most common competition formats are mass start events, where riders start simultaneously and race to a set finish point; and time trials, where individual riders or teams race a course alone against the clock. Stage races or "tours" take multiple days, and consist of several mass-start or time-trial stages ridden consecutively.
Reebok International Limited is an American footwear and clothing brand that is a part of Authentic Brands Group. It was established in England in 1958 as a companion company to J.W. Foster and Sons, a sporting goods company which had been founded in 1895 in Bolton, Lancashire. From 1958 until 1986, the brand featured the flag of the United Kingdom in its logo to signify the origins of the company. It was bought by German sporting goods company Adidas in 2005, then sold to the United States–based Authentic Brands Group in 2021. The company's global headquarters are located in Boston, Massachusetts, in the Seaport District.
Tara Leann Stiles is an American model turned yoga instructor, and founder of Strala Yoga in New York City (NYC). Stiles grew Strala from a studio based in SoHo, New York City to a studio and training business with currently over 1,000 instructors leading classes in 15 countries to thousands of people weekly. Harvard did a case study on Stiles' business titled The Branding of Yoga, which uses Stiles as a case study in branding.
SoulCycle Inc. is a fitness company owned by Equinox Group which offers indoor cycling and spinning workout classes. It was founded in 2006, and has operations in the United States and the United Kingdom. In early 2020, before the COVID-19 pandemic, it operated 99 studios. The company is headquartered in the West Village in Manhattan, New York City.
Julie Rice in an entrepreneur, investor and co-founder of SoulCycle, a New York City-based fitness company that offers indoor cycling workout classes.
Peloton Interactive, Inc. is an American exercise equipment and media company based in New York City. The company's products are stationary bicycles, treadmills, and indoor rowers equipped with Internet-connected touch screens that stream live and on-demand fitness classes through a subscription service. The equipment includes built-in sensors that track metrics such as power output, providing users with real-time feedback on their performance and leaderboard rankings to compete with other users.
Jessica King, better known as Jess King, is an American dancer and fitness instructor, best known for her classes at the exercise equipment company Peloton.
Ally Love is an American fitness instructor for Peloton and the in-arena host of the Brooklyn Nets. She began her career as a dancer for the New York Knicks and a model for brands like Adidas. She began working for the Nets as a host in 2012, which led to her hiring by Peloton in 2017. She has since founded the fitness website Love Squad and hosted the Netflix competition reality show Dance 100.
Jacki Sorensen is the American originator of aerobic dancing, popularly known as aerobics. Inspired by Dr. Kenneth H. Cooper's 1968 book on aerobic exercise, she created for women an aerobic dance routine to music in 1969 in Puerto Rico, teaching U.S. Air Force wives. She expanded this concept into a teaching method and studio franchise, Aerobic Dancing Inc., that rose to 1,500 locations and 4,000 instructors teaching 170,000 students in 1981 at its peak.
Tunde Oyeneyin is an American makeup artist and Peloton cycling instructor.
Selena Samuela is an Italian-American Peloton instructor based in New York. She was born and raised in Italy until she was eleven years old when her family relocated to Elmira, New York.
The 2022 Tour de France Femmes was the first edition of the Tour de France Femmes, a professional women's cycling race which took place from 24 to 31 July. It was the 16th event in the 2022 UCI Women's World Tour. The Tour consisted of 8 stages, covering a distance of 1,033 kilometres (642 mi).
Chelsea Jackson Roberts is a fitness coach and Peloton instructor who specializes in yoga and meditation. She was Lululemon's first African-American global ambassador.
Christine D’Ercole is a Masters World Champion track cyclist, Peloton fitness instructor, and public speaker.
Jenn Sherman is an American fitness instructor who was the very first cycling instructor hired at Peloton Interactive.
Jessica "Jess" Sims is a fitness instructor and sports reporter from Peabody, Massachusetts, USA.
Emma Lovewell is an American fitness instructor and book author. She is best known for being an instructor for Peloton, where she began teaching classes in 2017.