As more Americans try to control their expanding waistlines, health club members undoubtedly are desperately sweating it out on cardio pieces like treadmills, ellipticals and spin bikes. Unfortunately, although many of them spend as much as 45 minutes on a machine each exercise session, they aren’t necessarily achieving the results they are after-perhaps because the modality is relatively inefficient, their intensity too low or simply, the proper equipment is just not available to them at their club.
Exercisers who routinely use the treadmill or lower-body only ellipticals work their lower bodies exclusively, which means that they won’t burn as many calories or engage more muscle groups as they would on a total-body machine, assuming equal durations and intensity levels. Even with some ellipticals that include moving handlebars, many users end up with their arms simply going along for the ride while their legs are powered by momentum- again, essentially amounting to reduced effectiveness, lower caloric expenditure and a false sense of obtaining a beneficial personal goal-achieving workout.
At the same time, club owners and operators are challenged to better manage traffic-particularly at peak times-when members are monopolizing one machine for long durations and hindering cardio equipment turnover, which creates congestion and frustrates those with time constraints. And with floor space at a premium in most facilities, trying to cram in more treadmills or ellipticals typically is not a realistic solution both in terms of space efficiency and, more importantly, members getting the results they expect from their efforts.
The vertical trainer solution.
While treadmills, ellipticals and bikes are mainstays on any fitness center’s floor, club owners would be smart to enhance their cardio line-up and equip members with total body vertical climbers. With numerous new improvements and design enhancements, today’s vertical trainers meet the needs of every level exerciser. Some models feature a shorter step height and extended upper body range of motion (27 inches of vertical movement) making it ideal for overall club users, or other models which provide their users a greater range of training versatility and intensity levels for aggressive workouts.
Vertical trainers benefit both club members and managers by offering valuable variety and highly effective, results-producing workouts-all in much less space than other machines, like treadmills and ellipticals.
Consider these numerous benefits of an extremely versatile vertical climber:
• Provides true total-body workouts, where users can actively engage more muscle groups overall for better conditioning and caloric expenditure.
• Facilitates vertical training against gravity – essentially where users must push and pull their body weight-no opportunity to “cheat” and extraordinarily effective exercise.
• Offers a wide range of step heights- from one inch to 20 inches-for variety and virtually unlimited intensity levels to meet the needs of beginning exercisers to high performance elite athletes.
• Optional seat for non weight-bearing total-body exercise, padded side hand rails for pure stepping workouts and arm extenders for users of up to 6’9″ in height.
• Interactive voice module that simplifies getting started, includes various motivating program options and virtually operates and functions as a personal trainer by giving instruction and feedback on performance.
• Requires minimal space-only 3.5 by 4 feet-(half that of a tread or elliptical). Furthermore, scientific research has demonstrated that vertical training has several advantages over other cardiovascular machines:
• Lifting the arms above the heart and head (as opposed to horizontally in front of user) enhances circulation and maximizes cardiovascular conditioning.
• Vertical climbing for just 20 minutes or less uses all major muscle groups and is more effective and time efficient than other cardio equipment like treadmills, ellipticals, steppers and bikes.
The bottom line.
Vertical trainers are unmatched in giving your members effective, efficient, total-body, non-impact, cardiovascular exercise-resulting in shorter workouts, more equipment availability, less congestion and, ultimately, motivating results that encourage members to renew memberships and encourage others to join. Plus, the space-saving design makes them an easy addition to your fitness floor.
Brett Collins is the Sales and Marketing Manager of VersaClimber. He can be contacted at 800.237.2271, or by email atbcollins@heartrateinc.com.
