Adrian Williams Wants Peloton Members To Smile While They Sweat

Peloton’s latest instructor is here, and this native New Yorker has all the toughness, humor, and heart that his hometown demands. A high school track runner in the Bronx, Adrian originally aspired to be a pediatric nurse, and calls his mom, his grandmother, his brother, and his sister the pillars of his life. He fell into fitness as a way to help support his family after the economic downturn following 9/11, inheriting a trainer friend’s client book and then moving into studio fitness, where he was known for his high-performance approach and high-octane classes and built a reputation as one of the hardest-working trainers in town. “I'm the kind of person who always says yes, will work holidays, I'm a bad “yes” man. And last year, just before she passed away, my grandma said to me at Sunday dinner, ‘Maurice (that's my middle name) you know, everyone's not here forever.’ She had an aneurysm the next day. It just changed everything in my life: I need quality of life, I need time, I need to see my family, I also need to be stimulated at work, and then, seven months later, I’m here.”

Adrian first got excited about Peloton after visiting the office one day. “I went to like a bunch of different floors, and everyone seems so happy here, like what's going on. I started doing my research on John and his whole vision, and I was like, Okay, this has got to be a great place to work.” And now, as Adrian’s been preparing to meet the larger Peloton community, he’s even more excited and focused on creating classes that play to his understanding of human nature and his unique personality, and offer something valuable to Peloton Members. “I’ve been asking myself, how do you cater to every single person in the room? How do you make every single person feel motivated, how do you give the person who's been doing athletics their whole life, the best workout and how do you give that to the person who's never done push up the best workout in their life? You have to be able to change that on the fly. You start from the beginning and then you give options the whole way.”

He’s particularly excited to be teaching a wide variety of strength and Tread classes, and his teaching style is a mix of more technical training mixed with a love of joking around--he says he’s “a cross between Andy Speer and Alex Toussaint,” and makes even his most strenuous workouts fun. Just watch out for him when he’s wearing his track shorts, he warns, because that’s when you’re in for a challenge! His low-key intensity has been his signature for as long as he’s been teaching, and it’s deeply rooted in his personality. “My dad always says you should be quiet and show us your performance as a way of speaking. And that's something I’ve always carried with me. For me, my way of teaching starts first with being nurturing. And then I'm someone who is literally smiling at you and telling you to do something that is as hard as can be. I think you can see that nurturing in my eyes, and I think it allows me to push the envelope with people, because it's coming from a place of trust.”

And for all the music lovers out there, get excited--Adrian loves house, hip hop and Latin music, like old school salsa and reggaeton, and he’s been known to throw in some metal and rougher rock music in his strength training as well. But along with a great playlist, he’ll make sure you leave feeling challenged, motivated, and wanting to create even better habits and make fitness an even bigger part of your life. “At the end of the day, I try to let people know that I'm human. There's things that I need in life, but you have to give yourself wiggle room, you have to be happy, so drink that beer and have that donut sometimes. I want people to feel happy about what I give to them, which is truth and honesty, otherwise I'm not doing my job.”