The Untold Truth Of Peloton Instructor Jess King

Long before Jess King began pedaling for Peloton, she was a dancer who performed on the TV dance competition series So You Think You Can Dance. As a profile in the New York Post reminded fans, she made it into the top 10 during the 2008 season. "Before I made the transition into the fitness industry for myself, I had an abundant career in dance that started on Fox's So You Think You Can Dance," she said in an interview with The Path. 

However, her time with SYTYCD was cut short. As Entertainment Weekly reported at the time, when King ultimately left the show, it wasn't because she'd been eliminated, but because she was forced to withdraw due to an injury. "The pain in my side that I've been having is a little bit more than just a cramp. I broke two ribs and fractured one," said King at the beginning of her final episode, as reported by Reality TV World. "The doctors told me that I could not dance anymore, for about four more weeks. So I've got to heal and get better so I can go on tour."

While she began her career in the world of dance, Peloton instructor Jess King eventually gravitated toward the fitness industry. As she explained in an interview with The Path, fitness is in her blood. "My mother was a competitive bodybuilder, the owner of personal training boutique fitness studios, and she educated and exposed me to all the things fitness and wellness," said King. "Making the transition into fitness was natural."

King's mother, Ximena Bernales, is actually still involved in the fitness industry. Judging by the photos she posts on Instagram, she remains in amazing shape. 

In fact, one way Bernales maintains her fit physique is by taking her daughter's Peloton workouts. "Sweat/Steady Ride!!!" Bernales wrote about participating in one of her daughter's classes, writing in an Instagram post she shared on Mother's Day 2019. "Feeling inspired by this young woman on Mother's Day," she added, describing her daughter as "my inspiration and my light."

During Jess King's first meeting with Peloton founder and CEO John Foley, he made her an offer that sealed the deal right there on the spot. "He looked right at me and said, 'We're going to make you a celebrity,'" King revealed in an interview with The New York Times. "And I said, 'Yeah, sign me up.' That was the sole motivating reason to do it."

While Foley's promise of fame did, indeed, come to fruition, King told Fashion that what she wound up experiencing was something that actually transcended her original concept of celebrity, placing her and her fellow instructors in a whole new category of fame that she felt hadn't really existed before. "We're not just some exciting thing they see in some movie or TV show, we are speaking directly to them in the form of shout outs, in the form of motivation that is specific to their needs or current experience," she explained. "This has never been done before so there's this moment of newness, realness and excitement — but also I would say a little caution."

Jess King is about as knowledgeable about fitness as it gets, and she shared some of her top workout moves with E! News. One of her favorites is an old standby: the pushup, with back straight and body in full plank position. From there, however, she likes to mix it up by adding alternating shoulder taps, using one arm at a time to support the full weight of the body on its own, then switching to the other.

She also detailed one of her top routines to strengthen legs and glutes, which she shared in a video that appeared on the website of Men's Health. "You have ski season, snowboarding season right around the corner," King told viewers. "Your knees are vulnerable, just from your lifestyle, and that's OK."

To strengthen knees and glutes, she recommended standing with "hips and feet same distance apart," with a resistance band around the ankles. Then, she took side-to-side steps, "away from the midline." According to King, this move allows whoever does it to "organically feel the burn, and you'll know exactly where it's working."

For Peloton's Jess King, physical fitness is just one aspect of her overall health. She also places a lot of focus on her mental fitness, and a big part of that has been undergoing therapy. "I have worked my a** off in therapy and mental health and healing so I don't spiral out," King said in an interview with Insider. "I feel a duty and a responsibility to do that for myself."

Other ways she maintains mental well-being are by sticking to a strict routine and journaling. "If I'm not doing that," she admitted, "everything kind of goes off the rails."

And while King has been known to gush positivity and enthusiasm in her Peloton classes, she was candid in confessing that some days are better than others. "It's not 100 percent of the time that I feel joyful," she said. When that happens, she feels that honesty is the best policy in her classes, admitting to her students that "I did not want to be here today, but let's make the most of it," King said. That, she feels, is something that resonates with everyone, because "no one is rainbows and butterflies all the time."

Jess King was a dancer before she transformed into a celebrity Peloton instructor, but there's another hat she wears: life coach. On King's Mindfull3 website, she promotes a life-coaching technique she calls Process. Described as "a collaborative life coaching conversation that explores the themes of your conscious life," she encourages those who engage with her to "confront the fear causing your suffering and learn to call in love instead."

King promises a "no-bulls**t conversation" designed to "bring you out of your myopic state" in order to refresh one's viewpoint, all with the goal of allowing a client to "rewrite your story." She asks participants to "check your judgement at the door."

The way King sees it, there's a direct connection between her role keeping people fit via Peloton and the impact she can have on other aspects of their lives. "Our purpose is to impact the lives within our community by transforming them, elevating them, empowering them," she told Fashion, an experience she described as "overwhelming, beautiful and wonderful." According to King, she and her fellow Peloton instructors aren't "driven by celebrity status," but "by the idea that we're making a difference in people's lives."

As Peloton instructor Jess King pointed out, she and her fellow trainers inhabit a fairly unique space within the spectrum of fame. King and the other instructors are superstars within their realm, yet they're also regular people with somewhat typical lives, not movie stars insulated in their Malibu mansions. 

They also plug into social media to receive feedback about their classes, which isn't necessarily always a good thing. "What really blows my mind is when people make comments on Facebook and think that I can't see them," King explained in an interview with Men's Journal. "A woman once commented, 'No wonder my husband rides Jessica's rides. He can get lost in her cleavage.' And then a whole thread, 60 or 70 comments, goes on about my boobs. It's like, 'Hello?! I can read this!'"

With that in mind, King has a key message she'd like to impart to people about Peloton instructors, particularly when it comes to social media. "Try not to forget that we're people. It's a really vulnerable thing for us to be on the stage, sweating, half naked, baring our soul," she said. "Sometimes feedback is welcome, but whatever you do, don't talk s**t."