It started with music instructors couldn't teach to
In 2003, we started reworking commercial music so that group fitness instructors could actually teach to it.
Group fitness choreography is built on the 32-count phrase. Instructors cue in 32 counts. Participants move in 32 counts. When a movement changes, when the intensity lifts, when everybody turns, it all hangs on that phrase staying intact from the first beat to the last.
Commercial music isn't made that way. Intros run odd lengths. Bridges break the count. Tempos drift. And the gap between one track and the next drops the room out of rhythm right when an instructor is cueing a transition.
So instructors did what instructors do: they compensated. They counted over the music, cut blocks short to fit a track, and re-cued in the middle of a move, hoping nobody noticed.
We thought the music should do that work instead.
Music instructors could teach to
13,000+instructors and gyms on InstructorMusic.com
Since 2016, more than 13,000 fitness instructors and gyms have used InstructorMusic.com.
Gapless was the hardest part
Gapless means one track ends and the next begins right on the beat, without a crossfade, so the 32-count phrase carries straight through the seam as if it were one continuous piece of music.
Most listeners never notice a half-second gap between songs. Instructors do. A half-second gap at a track change is a class that loses the count.
Fitness Radio: you build the class
For years, we picked the music. Instructors told us what they needed, we produced it, and they taught to what we made.
Fitness Radio flips that. Instructors build their own playlists, with their songs at the tempos their class needs, and the phrasing does the rest. Phrased tracks hold the 32-count, and gapless playback carries it through every track change.
What Fitness Radio offers
- Build your own playlistsIn the order you teach them.Premium Pulse and Studio Suite
- Choose your BPMSet the tempo your class needs instead of working around the track.Premium Pulse and Studio Suite
- True 32-count phrasingThe count holds from the first beat to the last.Every plan
- Gapless playbackAcross the whole class, not just within a song.Every plan
- Stream anywhereThe app for Android and iOS, or the web player.
- Radio stationsFor when you'd rather not build anything and just need music that works.Premium Pulse and Studio Suite
We're also developing something we think changes group fitness again: an instructor-controlled adaptive tempo system, where the music follows the instructor's own live movement instead of the other way around. It's patent pending.