I’m always working on a side quest, from getting certified in an obscure professional trade (airbrush tanning) or developing a new skill (just because I live in Manhattan doesn’t mean I can’t learn to golf or fish). Since March, I’ve been hellbent on learning to do the splits, and I’ve given myself until August to get it done. I have I never been what anyone would consider a flexible person (physically, anyway), so at the start, this mission seemed ill-advised and even far-fetched. But then I discovered that my beloved Peloton app offers stretching classes.

It’s now June, and I’m nowhere near my goal, but practicing my stretches with guidance from the pros has absolutely helped me make significant progress. Even if I weren’t randomly endeavoring to contort my body in a strange new way just for the thrill of accomplishing a goal, I know stretching is important; I start and end every spin class I teach with a stretching routine, because warmups and cooldowns contribute any workout. Whether you’re trying to become significantly more flexible or just want to enhance your own fitness, Peloton’s guided stretching classes are a good option.

Why you should follow a guided stretching routine

The Peloton app offers all kinds of classes on it, some of which I’ve highlighted before. With an All-Access membership ($44 per month),y ou can access the at-home fitness company’s famous cycling classes, go on guided walks, and even meditate. Peloton also offers multiple options for strength training.

Some of these activities—like cycling and lifting—more obviously lend themselves to guided classes, especially for newcomers, but you might think stretching is too straightforward to bother using a guided class. After all, it’s simple enough to just reach down and assess whether or not you can comfortably touch your toes. But this thinking is wrong.

As Peloton points out in its own blog on the topic, stretching can not only help you prepare for or recover from a workout, but can enhance your overall fitness, blood flow, and even your posture. But just as it can be beneficial, stretching can also injure you if you use the wrong form or overextend yourself. Listening to a certified coach walk you through not only the exact stretches you should be doing, but how they should feel, what tools you can use to help yourself ease into them (like yoga blocks), how long you should hold them, and the kinds of modifications you can make if something doesn’t feel right, can help you stay safe and get more out of the effort you’re putting in.

Peloton offers targeted stretching classes for specific goals

You can find the stretching classes in the Peloton app by searching for “stretching” on the home screen. (“Stretching” may also appear as a standalone button on the home screen, depending on what the algorithm is serving you when you open up the app.)

Like all of its offerings, from running to yoga, Peloton’s roster of stretching classes is diverse. You can filter your results by length (from five minutes to 30) and by class type. Here are the types of stretching you can filter for:

• Full body stretches

• Upper body stretches

• Lower body stretches

• Core stretches

• Mobility stretches

• Foam rolling

• Boxing stretches

• Dance cardio stretches

• Pre- and post-cycling ride stretches

• Pre-running stretches

• Post-running stretches

• Pro- and post-rowing stretches

You can also filter by music genre and instructor and add stretching classes to your Peloton Stack.the app’s version of a playlist (your Stack will play your pre-selected workouts in order). Add a stretching class to the beginning and end of your workout to makes the entire thing more well-rounded, safe, and beneficial.

How Peloton’s stretching classes have helped me

As noted, and I am not flexible. I have never been flexible. I remember dreading those days in elementary school gym class when the teacher would measure how far everyone could stretch, and I struggled to extend past my knees. At the start of my mission to do a split, I began doing a vague stretching routine on my own every night, maybe occasionally googling for some new ideas but not really feeling much of a benefit or seeing much progressive improvement. The more structured Peloton classes changed that—I can look at my phone screen and see exactly what I’m supposed to be doing, and hear succinct verbal cues that tell me how I should be feeling during a stretch.

I have absolutely noticed that since I started following along with the app’s classes on lower body stretching, I can sink lower into a stretch while experiencing less pain and friction. Physically, that’s a benefit in and of itself, but mentally, it’s both comforting and motivating—comforting because I am less terrified I will accidentally hurt myself by stretching incorrectly, and motivating because I can actually feel myself progressing toward my goal.

The instructors are encouraging and well informed, which is typical of all Peloton classes. They explain what is coming up, tell you when you should rock back and forth or stay static, and detail the function of each stretch, whether it’s intended to help you with your posture, make your daily activities easier, or help you reach a workout-specific goal. I’ve even stolen a few of the stretches I’ve learned to incorporate into the ones I lead my spin classes through.

While it’s easy enough to do a few improvised stretches before you lift, after you do cardio, or when you’re just feeling tight, it’s beneficial to open up the Peloton app and run through a more intentionally planned routine with help from an expert, and yet another way this app has become totally indispensable for me on my broader quest to improve my fitness.

A lot of Americans are enduring a crash course in an economic term that was, until very recently, pretty obscure: tariffs. Economics can get pretty complicated, and knowing the ins and outs of tariff policies and how they might—or might not!—impact consumer prices is challenging, but there’s one thing that’s clear about tariffs: They mainly impact imported goods. Products that are made domestically won’t be affected, especially if the components and ingredients used are also sourced domestically.

That should make evading tariff price hikes pretty straightforward: Just look for stuff that was made in America, right? This isn’t foolproof, but it’s a reasonable strategy. The problem with this seemingly simple strategy, though, is that it’s actually very easy for companies to be deceptive about where their products are actually made. If you’re trying to support American manufacturing and evade the economic impact of tariffs, you need to know these tricks that companies play to make you think their product was made in the USA.

Wording

The first thing to look at is the words used to describe the product. The precise phrase “made in USA” is a standard defined by the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) as a product that is made “all or virtually all” in the United States, including Washington D.C. and territories. It’s a pretty stringent standard, so products that use imported materials or that are manufactured globally can’t use the “made in USA” label.

They can, however, use similar language, like:

• Assembled in America

• Manufactured in the USA

• Designed in the USA

• Inspired by American Craftsmanship

None of those phrases mean anything, legally, but if you’re not researching every product you encounter, you might reasonably assume they mean the product is made here.

Another way companies can trick you with “made in USA” is to include the phrase in its product description or marketing in a different context. For example, there might be a sentence stating that the product performs better than other products made in USA. They’re not actually stating that their product is made in America, but the inclusion of the phrase gives the impression that it is.

Imagery

A subtle way companies try to imply products are made in the USA when they really aren’t is through simple imagery: American flags, bald eagles, and red-white-and-blue color schemes all look patriotic and domestic without actually meaning anything. Similarly, maps of the continental United States are iconic and instantly recognizable and imply that the product is made right here in America, but don’t actually say anything at all.

Sometimes flags and other American iconography are used in conjunction with a specific landmark that’s instantly recognizable as American, like the Statue of Liberty or the Washington Monument. This emphasizes the “American-ness” of the product without making any specific (or actionable) claims about its origins or place of manufacture.

Disclaimers

The legal disclaimer is an old-school tactic to evade responsibility for deceptive practices, and it’s alive and well. Companies sometimes sell items that heavily imply they’re made in the USA, but include a disclaimer somewhere advising consumers otherwise.

A prime example of this is on Walmart’s website, where a disclaimer reading, in part, “For certain items sold by Walmart on Walmart.com, the displayed country of origin information may not be accurate or consistent with manufacturer information” appears on dozens of items sold through the website. Essentially, the disclaimer admits that some of the products are deceptive about their origins, and it’s up to you to deep dive into the product info to find out the truth.

Headquarter focus

One easy trick a company can use to fool you into thinking their products are made right here in the U.S. is to over-emphasize their corporate headquarters. By repeatedly stating that the company is “based in” an American city or state, they forge a psychological connection between their products and the U.S. But just because a company’s corporate presence is in the U.S. doesn’t mean its manufacturing is, too. If you make the assumption that this means the product is made here, well, that’s on you.

Broad definition

Another tricky way companies pretend their stuff is made right here in the U.S. is to use a broad definition of “America”—in the sense of “the Americas,” including North, South, and Central America. Semantically accurate, this phrase allows you to assume “America” means the USA while the items are actually made in Mexico or Canada. For example, boot company Lucchese uses the phrase a lot in their marketing, but many of their boots are made in Mexico, China, and Brazil.

After years of rumor, speculation, and hype, the Nintendo Switch 2 is about to launch. On June 5, stores will sell you the new console (while supplies exist), and preorders will start arriving on doorsteps. It’s a fun time to be a Nintendo fan, but also a gamer in general, since this is the first major console release in nearly five years.

If you do pick up a new Switch 2, there are plenty of things you should do with it: You should try out the new mouse mode on games that support it; you should replay classics like Tears of the Kingdom in higher-definition with faster frame rates; and you should set charging limits to extend battery longevity. What you shouldn’t do, however, is take off the plastic film on the display. That would be a mistake.

That film is meant to stick on the Switch 2 for good

Nintendo published the Switch 2’s instruction manual on Sunday, in anticipation of the console’s release. You can give it a scan if you want to learn important Switch 2 strategies, like don’t use the console if the battery is leaking, or take a 10- to 15-minute break every hour, “even if you don’t think you need it.” But there’s actually some less obvious advice hidden away in this manual. As spotted by Gizmodo, Nintendo offers a word of warning under the “Careful Usage” section: “The screen is covered with a film layer designed to prevent fragments scattering in the event of damage. Do not peel it off.”

Nintendo doesn’t elaborate, but the explanation does give you a good idea about the company’s thinking here. In the event you drop your Switch 2 unit and the screen shatters, this film stops the display’s shards from flying all over the place. If you remove the film, a shattered Switch 2 screen could hurt someone if you don’t manage to pick up each and every little piece of the display you used to play Mario Kart World on. Lose-lose.

Whether the display itself looks much different with or without the film remains to be seen, but I recommend waiting for a tear-down video to learn the difference. Even if you don’t plan on dropping your Switch 2, it doesn’t really seem worth the risk to remove this film.

What else is in the instruction manual?

The guide is full of advice for using your Switch 2 to its fullest potential, but most of it is common sense. That said, there are some interesting tips you should be aware of here.

Nintendo says you need to charge the batteries at least once every six months. If you’re a frequent gamer, you’ll do that without thinking. But for any gamers that like to play once or twice a year (or less), the company warns it may be impossible to charge the batteries if you don’t use them for an extended period of time.

You might know the Switch 2 Joy-Cons attach via magnets. Nintendo warns not to “swing or dangle the console” from an attach Joy-Con, or “apply force to the connecting parts.” You shouldn’t put stickers on the Joy-Cons where the SL/SR buttons are, since you could weaken the connection and cause the Joy-Cons to detach (and risk shattering said screen).

Apparently, the magnets are strong enough to attach other magnetic objects, like screws or tacks. Nintendo advises if these items attach to the Switch 2 or Joy-Cons, use a cotton swab to remove them. In general, you should be cleaning the Joy-Cons anytime there is dust or debris before using them.