Ask Alex Toussaint what he’s like off the bike and he’ll tell you this: exactly the same. Just quieter.

Most people who follow him have only ever seen him at full volume. Which makes it a little funny that he describes himself as laid back. But there’s a method behind the madness that occurs on your screens and in-studio. “There’s no difference between Alex on the bike and Alex off the bike,” he says. “All the energy people experience in my classes comes from the way that I decompress and recover when I’m at home.”

For the uninitiated, Toussaint is a Peloton senior instructor, founder of the ‘Feel Good Look Good Do Better movement’, and one of those instructors who makes you feel like he’s talking directly to you, even through a screen. Millions of people ride with him regularly, and probably signed up for Peloton in general because they saw one of his classes go viral on social media. But none of it, he says, would exist without a random compliment from a client he’d just met.

Two weeks in, a client said to him after class, “AT, you look great, man, keep it up.” Toussaint hadn’t changed physically. But the compliment wasn’t wrong either. “It was my energy that shifted,” he says. “Movement creates space for the mind and the body, and I started to internally feel good, allowing me to put out a new energy, which meant that I looked good. And those two components allowed me to do better, so that’s how it came about.”

And just like that, ‘Feel Good Look Good Do Better’ was born. 

The third part is the one people tend to skip. The ‘doing better.’ But for Toussaint, that’s the point of the other two. “Doing better is the final mission, to extend a hand to others out there who may need it.” You feel good so you can give that to somebody else. 

But none of it works if people can’t access the first step. Toussaint knows that and he’s not interested in making wellness feel out of reach. “I’m a firm believer of less excuses and more adjustments,” he says. “Body weight strength, yoga, mobility, running, walking, and jogging, are all great exercises that you could do within the comfort of your environment at a low cost, so it is accessible.”

Oral care is part of that routine too, and for him, it’s never been optional. He grew up wearing braces and his mother was not the type to let dental hygiene slide, so it never became an afterthought for him. Now that he’s on camera every single day, it’s one of the first things he thinks about. “Your smile introduces you before you even speak,” he says. As a partner of Philips Sonicare, that thinking has only gotten more intentional. “Being part of initiatives like World Oral Health Night reinforced just how much manual brushing can miss and how upgrading your routine can genuinely impact your long-term health.” For him it all falls under the same category. Taking care of yourself means taking care of all of it.

For someone whose entire brand is motivation, Toussaint is surprisingly unbothered when the topic turns to his own confidence. He never struggled with it, he says. He just didn’t always know how it would be perceived. “Knowing that I did the work internally and my heart is pure and my mind is clear, I don’t struggle on showing my confidence at all. In fact, I try to instill confidence in every individual I come across.”

“I want people to wake up knowing that what they believe in they can achieve, and they’re not crazy for having those thoughts. And if you put the work in every single day and you do it with integrity and you keep your mind clear and your heart pure, anything is possible.”

And knowing him, he woke up this morning thinking the exact same thing.

The post Peloton’s Alex Toussaint On Confidence, Consistency, And Why Feeling Good Comes First appeared first on Essence.