VMAN Fitness

Your body is a temple. These sculpted machines are the workoutbuddy to match.

Stepping into Technogym’s Soho boutique is like visiting a fitness center from the future. Mounted on the wall like a crown jewel, the mirrored $20,000 Kinesis machine reflects back nearby models on display, like the high-performance, low impact Cross Personal, fetching north of $14k and equipped with noise cancellation and Dolby surround-sound. Nerio Alessandri, trained as an industrial designer, founded the brand in Cesena, Italy in 1983, and his impressive fleet can currently be found in 80,000 gyms and over 200,000 homes worldwide.

Thanks to their sleek collapsable design, courtesy of Italian architect Antonio Citterio, the brand’s fitness products are tailor-made for elite home gyms and luxury yachts alike. “It’s really an interior design concept,” says Alessandri. As visitors to the Soho showroom can attest, the mirrorlike pieces are hybrids between state of-the-art equipment and home design accents, whether in workout mode or hung on the wall. In Cesana, Italy, an entire village is a monument to the brand’s futuristic legacy. “We need to have our team and our customers immersed in a wellness village,” explains Alessandri. Also important to the wellness center is sustainability. The heating and cooling systems are designed to reduce emissions and the restaurant serves zero waste food.

Further differentiating the brand is the technology embedded in each of its machines, in the cloud and beyond: Technogym’s Mywellness app tracks every physical activity, transforming miles cleared and calories burned into currency units called “MOVEs,” which can be compared with friends and fellow users’ data. Many of the machines also allow one to train in real time with other users or on VR-like tracks and hills perfectly mimicking famous trails around the world.

For 2019, Technogym will be launching an all-new line of machines called Skill Athletic. “It’s designed with different sports in mind,” explains Alessandri. But the brand is just as active on the design front, working to debut a new, top-secret product at Milan Design Week in April. “Innovation has always been key to the Technogym brand,” says Alessandri. “We don’t want to be just a machine or equipment company. We want to be able to offer experiences to people.”

By Kristen Batemen