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NEWSWIRE
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Indiana students brainstorm for Matrix |
By John Craig, Editor - 04.10.2008
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BLOOMINGTON, Ind. - Twenty-eight undergraduates in Carol Kennedy-Armbruster's fitness management class at Indiana University are on a rescue mission this spring.
Their assignment: Study up on old-school exercise machines and find a way to make them more popular.
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There's more than a grade at stake. Matrix Fitness Systems pays $500 to the group that comes up with the most innovative concept.
"We want blue sky ideas, unconstrained by cost," said Ryann Paszko, a design researcher at Johnson Health Tech Co., the research arm of Matrix.
PowerPoint presentations will be made in class on April 24, and Paszko will select a winner.
Students are organized into six groups, with each exploring a specific product category or type of machine: rowers, upper-body ergometers, steppers, stepmills, dumbbells and the lat pullover.
Among some of the early the ideas were color-coding dumbbells to make them more appealing to women, creating a stepmill that could convert into a Treadclimber-like unit, and adding some ab work to the lat pull.
"Students are looking for ways to cross-train," said Kennedy-Armbruster. "Thirty minutes on a single machine is considered drudgery these days."
This is the second year that Matrix has called on the problem-solving skills of Kennedy-Armbruster's students. Last spring graduate students were asked to come up with ways to provide entertainment on cardio pieces.
The winning proposal was for an entertainment dashboard that could be plugged into a treadmill or elliptical for television viewing, then unplugged at the end of a workout.
The idea behind the dashboard was to reduce manufacturing costs by not having to install a television monitor on every machine, and to provide an option to users who don't want a TV screen on their machine.
There was a financial angle, too. Club members would have to pay $5 a month for dashboard access.
Durability would have been in doubt, however, with the dashboard repeatedly being plugged into and removed from machines.
"It was an interesting idea," said Matrix marketing manager Tiffany Hoeye. "But there would be a customer service issue."
The wildest suggestion came from a team of students who wanted to install a massive keyboard on a treadmill that could be used for text messaging. Tapping out the letters would require the force of a punch, thus adding an upper-body workout to a normal cardio routine.
"We told them it wouldn't work," Hoeye said diplomatically.
The collaboration between Matrix and the Indiana students benefits both sides, Kennedy-Armbruster noted. "This helps the industry know what young people want from their equipment, and it let's our students know what companies are looking for," she said.
The experience, she added, also demonstrates that fitness careers can take a business track, and aren't necessarily limited to becoming a trainer or strength coach.
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