The Peloton instructor talks strength, recovery, walking, horror movies, and why fitness should still feel good, even when it gets hard.
Adrian Williams knows the point in a workout when things start to get tough.
It is the moment when the body wants to back off, the movement feels less comfortable, and the mind starts looking for a way out. For Williams, one of Peloton’s most recognizable instructors, that moment is not a reason to quit — it’s part of the process.
“Sometimes when you are working out, you get to this point in the workout where you are not good at something or something is too tough,” he says. “And a lot of times people like to walk away from that. Instead, I want people to walk towards that.”
Williams is known for tough classes, including Thunder 45, his high-intensity bootcamp-style workout. But even when the class gets rough, he keeps the energy loose. “I make jokes all the time,” Williams says. “Even in a class like Thunder 45, which is rough, I like to keep the energy light.”
For Williams, that lightness matters.“We’re not winning medals,” he says. “We’re just here for a good time to move our bodies, to feel good about ourselves, and to empower community.” That balance is what makes him compelling as a coach. Williams wants people to challenge themselves, but he also wants them to leave class feeling better than when they arrived: stronger, lighter, and more willing to come back. “There are a few things that I’d like to have people walk away from when they take my class,” Williams says. “The first is that they feel empowered.”
For him, empowerment is about helping people build enough trust in themselves to keep going even when the movement feels challenging or unfamiliar. “I think learning a skill set and becoming good at something comes from repetition,” he says.
That same practical mindset shapes the way Williams talks about strength. For him, training is not just about getting through the workout in front of you; it is about building the kind of body that can keep up over time, with healthier joints, more muscle, and better movement. “Strength training is the base for everything I do,” Williams says. “I do think it keeps your joints healthy. We need muscle as we age.”
He points to the everyday consequences of not building that strength. “The slip and fall that everyone talks about where they break a hip or bone is usually because there’s maybe some deficiency in nutrients but also deficiency in muscle and joint health,” he says. “Even if you’re young, you should still be thinking about joint health and muscle.”
That is also why Williams does not dismiss the simpler ways of moving. Walking, for him, is not some watered-down version of exercise. Growing up in New York, movement was part of daily life, and one of his earliest examples was his grandmother, who would put on one of those old-school sweatsuits that felt “like plastic,” take the grandkids to the park, and power walk so fast they could barely keep up.
“There’s a lot of muscle recruitment when we’re talking about adding incline or just something on a straight path,” Williams says. “But walking is also so joint friendly and good for the body.”
It’s a very Adrian way of looking at fitness: useful does not have to mean extreme. Some days, the thing that serves the body best is not another hard push, but a way to move without adding more stress. “Sometimes you just need to do something that’s not stressful on your body,” he says.
Recovery gets the same respect. Williams foam rolls before stretching, loves massages, loves the sauna, and believes in taking days where nothing happens. “No workout, no walking, no cycling, no rolling,” Williams says of his rest days. It is the kind of answer that can surprise people coming from a Peloton instructor, but he stands by it. “People look at me like I’m crazy,” Williams says. “We’re not super humans yet. You have to give yourself the ability to take time and for that recovery.”
Away from the studio, Williams finds quiet in ways that feel very him. Sundays are for driving. Sometimes that means getting up at five in the morning with friends and driving to Pennsylvania for breakfast. Recently, he drove to Miami and back in one shot — a full nineteen hours. “The car gives me this sense of control, but there’s also a quietness and calm to it,” Williams says.
Photography gives him another kind of focus. His brother, who works in television production, introduced him to what Williams calls a “very expensive hobby,” and he became hooked on the way it made him pay attention. “When you take photos, you have to pay attention to things that stand out or have contrast,” he says. “It shuts off my brain from thinking about anything else and lets me just focus on the moment.”
For now, Williams shares the images on social media, but he has been thinking about giving the work a more permanent home. “We’ll say that’s 2027,” Williams says of a possible photography book. “It’s been something I’ve been wanting to do for a long time.”
There is also a fun side of Williams that Peloton members may not expect: he loves horror movies. He talks about The Sixth Sense, The Exorcism of Emily Rose, Scream, and Weapons with real enthusiasm, drawn to the psychology of horror and the way a good story can pull people in. When we talk about Scream, Williams smiles before admitting, “I can recite lines from it.”
And that is part of his charm. Williams can be intense, but he is also funny, curious, and easygoing in a way that makes the work feel less intimidating. So what does he tell someone who is just beginning their fitness journey?
“Start with the thing that you feel the most confident in or that feels the best,” Williams says. “Start with subtle movement because naturally what happens is your body starts to crave it over time.”
That is the long game Williams keeps pointing back to: find the thing that gets you moving, build strength, take recovery seriously, and keep coming back.
Take Williams’ classes on Peloton and follow him on social media at @adrianwilliamsnyc.