You do not need to be a Spotify member to use Pumped
Spotify has launched Pumped, a free service that offers basic guided high-intensity interval training workouts.
It’s currently made for people in the UK and Ireland, which is obvious when you see the current list of workout hosts.
They are Dani Dyer, of Love Island fame, Tolly T, Niall Breslin and Tazer Black.
The four launch "trainers" are hosts of Spotify podcasts
Spotify Pumped’s basic workouts won’t stop anyone subscribing to Peloton or iFit. They are basic, but there’s one crucial benefit here. It’s free and you don’t even need to be a Spotify subscriber to see and hear the workouts.
This means you get free music streaming without the constant ads you’d hear using a free Spotify account to provide tunes for a morning’s exercise. You can choose from nine music genres, and these stray from the pop and electronic gym norms. Metal and jazz are options too.
You can select up to four genres, from R&B to metal
Spotify Pumped is currently browser-based, and seems to work just fine on phones and laptops. You choose the intensity, whether you want a seven, 14 or 21 minute session, and the host.
There’s no need to login, so those who have never even tried Spotify can give it a go.
At present Spotify Pumped seems to throw the same exercises at your each time, including squats, lunges and burpees. But there are worse ways to start getting into a morning or post-work exercise routine.
Spotify Pumped is an attempt to catch some of the heat of the increase in interest in home workouts, an area dominated by YouTube and Instagram at the "free" end and paid services like Peloton. But there’s a twist.
None of the four presenters are pro trainers. They are all Spotify podcast hosts.
As such Pumped is an easy way for Spotify to give some of its “exclusive” podcasts a boost while playing around with ways to tie exercise into its streaming platform.
Spotify signed a $100 million deal with Joe Rogan in May 2020 to make his The Joe Rogan Experience podcast a Spotify exclusive. The Michele Obama Podcast was also announced as a Spotify exclusive, but will shortly be available on other platforms, suggesting it may not have attracted the expected number of listeners in the two weeks since its initial launch.
