Making the same, awkward jokes every single class ranks as the second most annoying instructor behavior – narrowly ahead of spewing cheesy, motivational phrases (”You are strong. You are powerful. You can do anything!”) 100 times in a single workout.

“Our users keep telling us how much they like our instructors,” says Doug Lotz, founder of CardioCast. “They can’t believe how down-to-earth, human and non-aggravating they are, compared to many on other streaming fitness platforms.”

“When we ask them what they mean they give a list of things about streaming instructors that bug the heck out of them. We’ve included most of these in our poll.”

Instructors of streamed cycling classes, says Lotz, have a name for being among the worst offenders.

CardioCast offers nearly 2,000 on-demand fitness classes and guided workouts, for everything from cycling and rowing to running, jogging, walking, yoga and even “Walk & Jog with your Dog”.

Unlike many streaming instructors, CardioCast’s do not sing, dance or keep announcing how incredibly “pumped”, “juiced”, “psyched”, “amped” or “totally up for it” they happen to be feeling today.

Significantly more women than men, suggests the poll results, find the behavior of streaming instructors irksome.

More female respondents than male consider annoying every one of the 10 instructor behaviors in CardioCast’s poll. The same goes for older respondents (aged 55+) than younger ones (18-34).

The fourth most annoying behavior of streaming instructors, finds the poll, is calling everyone in the class the same pet names, like “King” or “Queen”.

Even more Americans consider this irritating than such instructor behavior as whipping their hair around constantly, like a helicopter about to take off – in fifth place overall but particularly annoying to women.

Poll respondents were asked to pick from a list of 10 common behaviors of digital fitness instructors but then also invited to suggest any other irritating habits not included in the list. Such additional suggestions included, “Saying ‘Two more’ but really doing 10 more” and “Being off-beat to the music”.

The strength of the original list of 10 options, however, is such that the following behaviors of fitness instructors rank as merely sixth, seventh and eighth most annoying:

6. Shares uncomfortable details about their private or personal life.
7. Urges you to sing along, even though you're already gasping for breath.
8. Continually tells you how excited/pumped they are, acting like a cheerleader on steroids.

No less than half (50%) of all respondents rate annoying the behavior that tops the poll – singing along to the music, with a voice like a banshee. But all the others bar the bottom two irk at least 40% of those polled. 

Even the two behaviors that fewest poll respondents deem  annoying, are still annoying enough to irritate well over a third of those polled and to earn a respectable ninth and tenth/last place in the rankings:

9. Acts/talks/sounds so relentlessly positive they might explode.
10. Dances instead of doing the workout.