The gym where it’s weird to NOT eat doughnuts

The founders of SoulCycle, the fitness company whose customer base is often described as “part-cult,” are back with a new venture aimed at tackling the problem of loneliness in America, per a new report from Inc.

The new company, called Peoplehood, is centered around a newly coined concept known as “relational fitness.” Which can maybe be best explained as working out relationship skills instead of your body – and its execution looks a little bit more like AA, and a little bit less like sweating through a set of deadlifts while your gym crush looks on.

Starting this month, Peoplehood will begin to offer subscriptions to weekly 60-minute group sessions, led by instructors, where attendees will learn to practice active listening and sharpen their other social skills.

Each participant will be given a period of several minutes to tell the group how they’re feeling. And like chess, there are rules of engagement: when one person is speaking, nobody else is allowed to talk – instead, members are encouraged to respond with physical gestures like a hand over the heart or finger snaps.

• Peoplehood’s meetings will initially be held online, but the startup plans to open in-person classes in NYC by next month, and expand to other US cities by 2025.

🇺🇸 Zoom out: Nearly 6 in 10 American adults (58%) consider themselves to be lonely, per a 2022 study from Morning Consult commissioned by Cigna. And like reverse-Covid, young people appear to be the most affected. Americans between the ages of 18 and 24 are twice as likely to be lonely as seniors (79% vs. 41%, respectively), while men and women share roughly the same likelihood of loneliness.