Yes You Can

Theme Classes, Real Talk

• Hannah Pratt

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Hot take: There’s no real argument about using themes as a fitness instructor.

Themes aren’t a personality trait or a crutch. They’re a tool. In this episode, I break down why they work from a psychological perspective for both you, as the coach, and the people in your room.

We unpack the fake conflict around themes in fitness and get practical: when they work, why they fill rooms, and how they help build a coach’s brand over time.

I also share psychology-backed marketing insights and real alternatives for when themes don’t fit.

We cover:
 • expanding our work beyond fitness while still serving studios and instructors
 • rejecting absolutist coaching advice and honoring context
 • using scarcity and social proof to drive attendance
 • building a distinct coaching brand through consistent themes
 • reducing instructor self-doubt and pre-aligning your energy
 • treating themes as low-stakes experiments (music, mood, audience fit)
 • proof points from long-running theme series and community favourites
 • when to skip themes and use co-leads or other levers instead

If you’re ready to build classes that feel intentional, confident, and yours, Instructor Magic doors are currently open. It’s where I teach the psychology, strategy, and systems behind coaching that fill rooms and sustain you.



Want to level up your coaching abilities? The New Year Sale is HERE for all Instructor Magic courses, including 1:1 coaching! Get up to 40% off online education with lifetime access in the Instructor Magic Academy and suite of courses for instructors who want to level up, fill classes, and change lives.


SPEAKER_00:

Welcome to the Yes You Can Podcast, a soft place to land for fit pros and aspiring entrepreneurs looking for a motivational cheerleader who's been through it all and believes your best life is about being brave and tapping into your magic. Hi, I'm Hannah Pratt, an online coach and vulnerability queen. I'm here ready to share my experiences through grief, life, and finding my place on the podium to help you level up. So grab a latte and a notebook and get ready to be inspired through the Yes You Can Podcast. Welcome to 2026 on the Yes You Can Podcast. I am actually really excited about this year. I know that's probably not a hot take for anybody who has seen the barrage and plethora of like how 2025 went and what I'm looking forward to in 2026 posts. And I'm a week late on that. But I, you know, 2025 was a really up and down year for me. And I'm not going to get into it because you're here. You want to listen to actionable advice. And uh, if you want to know more, keep following along for the journey because I will be sharing more about how I'm changing things up in 2026 to be more aligned with the life that I want and how I want to spend every day, but also who I want to help and where I feel most lit up in my life. So, more to come on all of those plans and how my business is going to be evolving to support creatives and other industries outside of fitness, along with still supporting studio owners, fitness instructors, how instructor magic might be changing and evolving to be include a certification, finally, and also um support studios who want to give access to the program to all of their instructors because that's been coming up sort of organically. Anyway, I'm like, I'll talk about it later, and then continue to live. But today I'm excited about this topic because I feel like there's this like fake fake conflict in the fitness industry where people come up with these like unpopular opinions, and then it creates like this feeling that you're doing something wrong because you take a different approach. I want it to be known that, and I've said this on my stories, if you follow a consultant, a coach, somebody who says that you're doing something completely wrong, like with no room for discussion or understanding of context or whatever, you're like it it's probably not somebody who is actually going to help you. There's very few things that I have like a finite opinion on outside of making sure that I mean, in the business I'm in, spaces that are inclusive, accessible, and as safe as possible for everybody of all walks of life is is of course like paramount. But beyond that, styles, teaching approaches, you know, there's things that work better and that I will advocate for wholeheartedly. But I will rarely, if ever, say you are wrong for doing it your own way. I teach and coach a lot of people who who don't teach in the same spaces that I'm in, like boutique fitness studios, where there we have control of lights and sound and it's dark and there's candles and all those sorts of things. I have people inside Instructor Magic who literally teach inside of gymnasiums with bright lights, who don't have the option for coaching the way that I do. And so for me to say you should do things a certain way without acknowledging that others don't have the same flexibility or control or space that I'm in, would just be honestly ignorant. And so I've saw I saw this weird argument about themes versus no themes at the end in Q4. And I don't know if it's just like the age that I'm at, but I'm like, this is not this is not an argument. Like, this is not an argument. People can do whatever the hell they want. And if they don't like to do themes, great. If somebody loves to do themes every single class, great. Like just be unbothered by the way somebody else goes about their lives. What I'm gonna share today is some reasons why I enjoy themes and why I think they work for certain people at certain times. And I don't feel like there's an overabundance of them or that that is a problem. Usually, I think any, you know, too much of anything can be not great. Too much, too many spin classes in a day as an instructor or as a writer, not great. So take this with that perspective in mind. Themes work really well when you are wanting to fill rooms and when attendance is lackluster. Why? Well, there's some marketing principles that go behind this. There's seven principles of persuasion according to uh Cialdini. There's others, other schools of thought, but just for some education here, marketing education, uh scarcity is one of the principles of persuasion that works really well. So that's why we Black Friday always works well, like disappearing sales, one-time only events. And that's really what a theme is. It's a one-time event. Sometimes there's re recurring themes, but still that's like a one-time event compared to the rest of the schedule, right? So scarcity works really well along with social proof. That's another principle of persuasion where we see other people doing things. And so it persuades us to do the same thing when people post reviews, five-star ratings, full classes, even is social proof. And so when you have a theme, it's different. It's a one-time only event on the schedule, whether it's a one-time thing total or it recurs every week, but it's different than the rest. And so, just like from a psychological perspective, we see that theme as something that like our eyes are drawn to on the schedule because it's different. They're making emojis in the theme title when somebody's booking a class. It's a unique thing that's different. So, number one, riders are going to be attracted or clients are going to be attracted to that just from a psychological perspective. Number two, what I teach inside instructor magic is using them strategically, is it helps to create and and like underscore and build and strengthen your brand as an instructor or a coach. So when you want to be building a following, it's helpful for people to know what kind of coach you are, what kind of music you like and genre overall. You don't necessarily have to be attached to one artist in your theme, but having a genre that helps like strengthen who you are and the things you like, the music and the style and all of that is really, really helpful for bringing the people who love you in closer and letting the ones who won't be the right fit for you to find another class. When you are trying to appeal to everyone, you're going to appeal to nobody. It's the old marketing adage where it's like, if you're speaking to everybody, you're speaking to nobody. So having a really specific brand will help those passionate followers find you faster and really feel connected to you more deeply, more quickly, as I said. So themes work for fill-in classes because it's it's psychologically different. It's a it's a principle of persuasion. And then secondly, it helps to strengthen your brand as a coach, especially if you're newer, coming back to teaching, or or just in a season where you're wanting to really sort of like step into a more specific, stronger version of the coach you've been. And a lot of people who join Instructor Magic are really find the marketing module, which is basically a whole mini course on brand building and promoting yourself with authenticity and in a magnetic way to be the most helpful module because they're in that like six-month teaching or even sometimes decades in and feel plateaued or like things are stagnant. And then number three, and this is honestly my favorite reason, and I have not seen a single coach or instructor talking about this on social media, is from our perspective, as the pe person teaching the class, we can get in our own heads so like we are our biggest critics, right? And so sometimes when we have a room that's unthemed and it's a 530 class, let's say, and we have people showing up and they're sort of like their energy is lower, or we might even be subbing for somebody, and we're playing music that we're putting together in a playlist, and we feel like we feel like people are there just because they want to work out, and they're not necessarily there for us. And every song might feel like a risk when we're in this mindset of I'm not good enough, or they're not liking me, or you're reading too much into their expressions, and you feel like, oh my God, like are they hating this music? Like we get into our own minds. I am right there with you if you're listening to this, nodding long. And so, what a theme class does is everybody who has opted in, usually, I've had the odd person who's like, Who's Lizzo? And I'm like, girl, what? Like, you're here in a Lizzo class. Anyway, that's like these one offs where people sign up for a theme ride and then like don't like the music. It's very, very like, it's it's not the usual, it's not the norm. But when people sign up for a theme ride, they're showing up as if they are buying a ticket to a concert to hear a specific artist or a genre. They like the energy is so open and happy, and like we are like there's they're consenting to a specific type of experience. So, from the instructor's perspective, you know that those people in the room want to be there, love this type of music, love this artist, love this like decade of of tracts, whatever it is that your theme is. And there's just like this feeling of relief that you don't have to work as hard to, in your own mind, earn their support. And that's one of the reasons I love themes the most is this like open, happy energy where people are singing along to the music or rapping the lyrics or dancing or whatever it is for the Taylor Swifties like in the room who are like singing with their full chest the the 10-minute Taylor's version or whatever it is, or for me, Chapel Roan, and everybody screaming Pink Pony Club and dressed up like I did like Pink Pony prop princesses ride, and everybody was in pink and like had like cowgirl theme stuff, and it's just so fucking fun, like right? Like it's just so fun. And so themes help us create this like consented energy that is so lovely to walk into where the vibes are already so high. And if it's a theme that's like not necessarily a party theme, like ride and rejuvenate is one that I love from uh that was created by Alex Barbie in Regina at uh Wheelhouse Regina. And it's like this more subtle, like vibey meditative, melodic sort of like house music, but also just like slower, like not as like wild. I and everybody shows up needing that, right? Like they want that different experience. And so it doesn't feel like a big risk when you are or that you're performing and trying to get people into that mindset because they are already there. They want it, they signed up, they bought the credit, they are using their hard-earned dollars and their time to have this experience with you. And so themes to me are a confidence booster and they're also number four, a bit of a data tester. As a marketer, as a as a professor of communications, I love testing and figuring out like what resonates. Not every theme is going to slap and like hit in the way that you hope. But sometimes they surprise you and taking a more of like a researcher's perspective and be like, hmm, let's just see if this works. Let's see what my rider's like, let's see what this community loves is really fun too. And so I've done like Coldplay versus Mungford and Sons, you know, versus like just artists who I know have a big discography and that I can find a lot of tracks that will actually be within the VPMs that I need. I've done those types of rides, and it's really fun to see who shows up to those types of rides because I make note of this. I'm like, oh, okay, Brian loves this particular artist. Who knew? Because I don't play them that often, or I do a lot of rock rides, and those are really fun to see like the headbanging people in the room who show up with like, you know, their eyes rimmed black and like they wear their cool outfits or musical rides or whatever it is that you love that's kind of niche. Themes are a really good way of testing that and seeing what works. Ryan Jones of SoulCycle, who has, or sorry, previously of SoulCycle, who has been a masterclass coach inside Instructor Magic, he did musical Mondays and said that it was like a slow build at first, but then one of the most waitlisted classes at SoulCycle. And like, I mean, this was he was me and all of that sort of stuff. I mean, he was also in New York, so like makes sense. But musical Mondays has I've seen other coaches since adopt the same sort of theme and it just be amazing. Rise and Rap is is one of the longest running themes at Vault, formerly wheelhouse. And it's my theme on Sundays, and it's been since 2018 that we've had this theme running. So they work, you know, it's always waitlisted every single Sunday. And I'm not gonna change that because that's like now it's a part of our schedule, it's a part of like the the community. It's up, it's just like well known, right? There's a lot of brand equity in rise and rap. And so when you build something, it's it's like it's and I stepping into that class is one of the most fun times because everybody's absolutely feral, wild, having the most fun. And it's just like it's just amazing. So I am an advocate for themes. If they feel right to you, if you feel constrained by them, if you feel like bored by them, if you feel like it's inauthentic to you, then don't do them. Like, this is not a podcast to say try them, but I've from especially from the confidence perspective and the the energy that's often created from a really well-attended theme ride where people are super excited. That is one of my most favorite times. If you are like, they're not for me, or have been overusing them, and I feel like I've gotten that feedback from riders that they just want like a regular ride, then another way of creating excitement and urgency and some of that scarcity is doing co-leads or co-teaches with others that are not themed and instead doing other sort of exciting things around a ride to build your following in different ways. And I teach those strategies as well inside Instructor Magic. On that note, if you were interested in getting support this year from a coach, from somebody who has been where you are, who is currently teaching on the podium, and also teaches adults every single week. And so I know education back and forth. And I love seeing the moment where somebody's eyes light up and like they get success. Like honestly, being a mentor is my absolutely favorite thing. Then instructor magic might be for you. The links are always in the show notes. There's doors are open right now so you can join. If 2026 is your year where you're creating a lot of goals for yourself to level up, fill classes, and change lives, then I would love to help you with that. With that, thanks so much for listening to the SQ Can Podcast. I hope this resonated today. If it did, share it with a fellow coach, instructor, studio owner. And I will see you on the next episode. Bye, friends. Thanks for listening all the way to the end of the YesQuCan podcast. If you loved this one, I would so appreciate a rating and a review on Apple Podcasts. That lets others know that hey, this is a good podcast and it's worthwhile to listen to. If you really loved it, make sure to share with somebody you love who could benefit from the magic and the podcast. Thanks so much, friends, and have a great day.