When fitness instructor and influencer Kendall Toole reflects on 2016 (as so many of us did in our social media feeds at the start of this year), she realizes that it was the moment when she began planting the seeds that would blossom into her current life. She had left a job at Snapchat to teach boxing—a sport that had once helped her get through an unimaginably difficult time and regain her power. And though it may not have seemed like much to her at the time, a year later she was helping a handful of regular folks punch out their frustrations every Wednesday night at a Rumble Boxing studio she had opened in Los Angeles.
“Nobody wanted to go to Sunset Boulevard on a Wednesday night and work out,” she recalls. “But the people who came on Wednesday night were there to get something out of their systems. So, I kind of threw out the rule book with that class. I don’t know if what I was doing was motivational speaking, but people would stay after until 10 p.m. and we’d talk about life and what’s going on with them, and what’s going on with me, and how we’re getting through it. That was a big moment when I remember telling myself, ‘I wish I could do this at a bigger scale.’”
After all, Toole, now 33, knew what it was to be knocked down in life. That story, shared with people who took her classes at Rumble and then Peloton, has since become the foundation for her new holistic wellness and fitness app, NKO Club, which launched late last year. NKO stands for “never knocked out”—a phrase that has guided Toole’s decade-long journey from fresh-faced University of Southern California (USC) graduate to beloved Peloton instructor, to founder and chief executive officer of a growing fitness empire that’s grounded in her experience and beliefs.
“I guess there’s a level of celebrity that came from where I was [at Peloton]. To say that, ‘Yeah, I’m good, I’d rather go do the thing I want to do, the way I like to do it,’ is different from the norm,” she admits. “But I think I was meant to help people, to be of service to them.”
Toole grew up in Southern California as a self-described high-achiever who poured her energy into competitive gymnastics, cheerleading, and acting. At age 11, she was diagnosed with obsessive compulsive disorder, a mental condition in which unwanted thoughts cause anxiety that leads to repetitive behaviors that offer temporary relief. By the time Toole enrolled at USC to study film in 2012, she says that on the outside, others thought she was “crushing it” at school. The inside was a different story, however: she was deeply depressed, anxious, and seriously considering suicide.
By Thanksgiving of her senior year, Toole’s mother was not buying her daughter’s “crushing it” act, and called at a moment when Toole was ready to be vulnerable instead of invincible. Toole moved back home for a three-month-long respite, during which she admits to not remembering much, not even Christmas or New Year’s Eve.
What does remain crystal clear in her mind from that period of time was the day her father came into her room for a heart-to-heart that gave her the will to fight her way out of her darkness. “He said, ‘This may have knocked you down, but you have to decide whether you’re going to let this knock you out,’” she recalls, the emotion rising in her voice. “And that was it. Those words … boom. I get emotional when I talk about it, but it planted the seeds for everything today.”
That was 11 years ago. As Toole tentatively returned for her final semester of college at USC, she began taking boxing classes at a mentor’s urging. Three times a week, she trained at a professional boxing gym in Santa Monica (“To this day I’ve never seen a bill,” she says) and fell in love with the sport. “I loved that you had to be present when you’re boxing, because if you’re not, you’re going to get hit,” she says.
Toole started teaching boxing, which led to her opening the Rumble studio, which led to Peloton messaging her on Instagram about becoming a cycling instructor. She had never taught a cycling class, but she had been to a Soul Cycle class twice. “‘How hard could it be?’” she thought. Eight months before the COVID-19 pandemic hit, she moved to New York City to work for Peloton. For the next five years, she grew a following in the millions—people who loved her for her high-energy classes, viral playlists, and empowering coaching style. During her time at Peloton, Toole famously banned a remote user for joining a class with what she confirmed to be a racist username. “Get ‘em banned,” she said in the now-viral clip. “Get ‘em banned. We don’t do that here. Oh, now I’m pissed. Find out who that is and get ‘em banned. We don’t do that.”
Toole also opened up about her struggles with mental health on Instagram live—which endeared her to her Peloton following even more. “We can help our mental health by moving ourselves physically,” she says. “That’s the number one thing that you hear the second that you say you’re dealing with depression. And I wanted to create something where [taking care of] the mental health was just as important as the physical health.”
That’s why Toole set out to create NKO after leaving Peloton in mid-2024. As someone who once felt unworthy and unseen, Toole says she wanted to create a space where people taking her classes would feel like their needs were being heard and addressed with intention. A yearlong noncompete with Peloton gave her the opportunity to shed her old identity—which was tied up in online likes, follows, and views—and create something that felt new and authentic to her. Over the course of nine months, Toole worked with a developer on an app that offers boxing, cycling, strength, Pilates, and mobility classes as well as recipes, meditation, breathwork, and a gratitude journal.
She has further developed NKO with her partner, Alexander Brzozowski, a branding guru she met on Raya—an exclusive dating and networking app. Once Toole decided she liked Brzozowski, she gave him her cell phone number. He texted Toole, who missed his message; she says she prefers that people “call me like it’s 1982.” When they finally connected in person, well, she says, “the rest is history.” Though she was living in New York at the time, she was having a home built in Palm Beach Gardens, where she now resides. As things heated up with Brzozowski, the couple decided to make South Florida the center of their business—and their life together. “He’s great at tennis, so I’m just happy that he’s in a location where he’s able to play a lot,” she says. “That definitely sweetened the deal, I think.”
When Toole isn’t uploading new classes to NKO Club, or traveling to promote it, she is exploring the area she now calls home. She and Brzozowski are huge foodies, and she loves to cook the fresh seafood that’s readily available. The couple also spends a lot of time at the beach and hiking some of the trails in the area. Of course, NKO is Toole’s baby, so she is always nurturing it, and plans to bring in new instructors and expand its offerings as it continues to grow.
“It’s wild, but I realized I manifested this,” she says about NKO. “All of this began 10 years ago when I started saying, ‘They can knock you down, but they can never knock you out’ at the end of my classes.” Here’s to never giving up the fight.
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