Ego Nwodim Admits Solidcore Has Taken Over Her Life, Too

Ego Nwodim is adding a new job title to her otherwise theatrical resumé. After announcing her departure from "Saturday Night Live," the comedian officially came out as a Solidcore stan and celebrity ambassador. "There's so much I want to do, and 'SNL' is always meant to be a stepping stone," she said during the Fast Company Innovation Festival on Sept. 17.

But seven years ago when Nwodim joined the legacy show, she could have never predicted that her next venture would be with a workout franchise. "I was a ballerina for 10 years, from the age of 6 or 7 to 16 or 17, and I knew I didn't want to be a dancer," she tells Popsugar. While she enjoyed ballet's style of movement, Nwodim gave up dance before she turned 18 and wasn't regularly active for a while. "After 17, I stopped dancing. I didn't engage in any sort of physical activity except for running into restaurants to eat to my heart's content," she jokes.

Then, like most of us in the pandemic, Nwodim found that being sedentary wasn't working anymore — not for her physical or mental health. "I realized I was not moving my body at all and it was time to start moving again. Popsugar workout videos held me down," she says. "That's actually the very first thing got me moving."

"I committed to doing three Popsugar videos a week . . . and they changed everything for me," she says. And eventually, she worked up the fitness prowess to try an in-person studio near her Manhattan home (aka Solidcore). Was she a pro at first? No. But now, she's completed almost 300 classes. While the high-intensity, Pilates-inspired workout may seem intimidating to many, Nwodim says she's become hooked, doing three or four classes a week.

"It's just a part of my life at this point, and I do tend to schedule my days around my classes and not the other way around," she says. For Nwodim, the lessons she's learned from this practice have become particularly important in this next phase of life. "It's about slow, intentional movements. You know, momentum is no good in Solidcore."

Instead, in the class but also in life, Nwodim has learned to prioritize a more steady approach: "Slow down, be in tune with your body and yourself, and and make sure you're in alignment." We're just happy to have played an even tiny role in that revelation.

Alexis Jones (she/her) is the section lead of the health and fitness verticals at Popsugar, overseeing coverage across the website, social media, and newsletters. In her seven-plus years of editorial experience, Alexis has developed passions for and expertise in mental health, women's health and fitness, racial and ethnic disparities in healthcare, and chronic conditions. Prior to joining PS, she was the senior editor at Health magazine. Her other bylines can be found at Women's Health, Prevention, Marie Claire, and more.