Why Hasn't This Piece Of Cardio Equipment Gone Mainstream Yet?

It literally has everything, but that comes with an obnoxious price tag.

The industry has been boring af recently.

So this “weekly” email has been not living up to it’s name recently.

And as much as I’d love to blame myself for being too busy - the truth is I’m not.

Unfortunately, there just hasn’t been anything interesting enough to pique my interest or cause me to evaluate something from a different perspective.

Sure, Equinox is now accepting bitcoin.

And Planet Fitness is now offering all high school students free summer memberships.

But even the news that Peloton is exploring FaaS (Fitness As A Service) pricing models, just didn’t do it for me.

Can we please get more Glassman-grade corporate shenanigans or the unveiling of a new fitness product that isn’t a wearable? It would just make this whole thing way more interesting.

In the meantime, I’ll be hitting you with some shower thoughts that hopefully(undoubtedly) you’ll find valuable.

And if you’ve got a lead on some hot, juicy fitness industry drama - holler atcha’ boy. Because I’m fiending for something interesting to come out of our scene right about now.

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Sled Popularity Is Higher Than Ever, So Where’s The Market Opportunity?

Why aren’t more product creators tapping into this niche?

There’s been a huge resurgence of sled work in fitness lately.

While the benefits of sled training have been advocated for years by godfathers of strength training Louie Simmons (RIP), Dave Tate, Charles Poliquin (also RIP), and others - their recent return to popularity, nobody saw coming.

But then enter Ben Patrick (@kneesovertoesguy), his ability to create captivating content on social media and his recent interview on the Joe Rogan Experience, and sled training is back in fashion.

And as someone who has always loved the sled due to its low risk, and high return - I agree with the hype.

However, the sled is a very difficult tool to use in the microgym scene due to its poor operational capacity (OpCap).

For clarification, this is the definition I provide inside of Microgym University for OpCap:

The maximum number of clients your microgym can safely + reasonably service, the attached financial truths, and facility layout logistics are all working in parallel when discussing OpCap.

As you can imagine, having a class of 20 individuals, in which at least 5 of them are pushing sleds (think of a station-based program), would chew up a lot of square feet.

Trust me, I tried it.

We spent months trying to work the sled into our group Tempo Training program at Urban MVMNT. I even invested in the most compact, stackable, space-saving sleds on the market and I still couldn’t make the OpCap work for our model.

My personal bias towards the sled wasn’t enough to overcome its lack of OpCap and impact on our revenue model.

Now, as I further develop my individual Tempo Training, I’m constantly searching for opportunities to incorporate low OpCap movements into high OpCap business models.

And wouldn’t you know, this past weekend as I was working out at the local YMCA, I get a chance to test out a piece of equipment that if evolved, could have massive potential for microgym owners who want to bring sled work into their program.

Simple Concept. Hefty Price Tag.

This was the first time I had ever used a sled/treadmill hybrid machine.

And this particular model was the Matrix S-Drive - one hell of a piece of equipment.

I was hitting all-out sprints, switching into “sled mode” to focus on strength, and then toggling back to access a slow and steady recovery run - all on this one machine.

If microgym owners wanted to have sled work as a staple in their program, I’m thinking that equipment in this niche genre could be the solution.

So I went home and started researching other products similar to the one I had just used- and my research confirmed my main two suspicions:

1. This shit was going to be expensive af for the average microgym owner.

2. There were very few options available, hence the higher price tag.

This particular brand will run you around $5-6k per unit depending on who you’re ordering from. Honestly, not a horrible price point, but I know it would be a tough investment for the average microgym to acquire ~5 units to run a ~20-person group class model.

Then I found the Technogym Skillrun.

From the multiple review videos I watched on YouTube, this thing looks like the tech-infused, beefier version of the Matrix.

And don’t worry, each unit will only run you a cool $17k.

Dayum.

So this brand is definitely out of reach for smaller operations that don’t have an extensive equipment budget, but I’m sure there are plenty of you who could work this into the line items of your annual expenses.

But if you truly were looking to create a UBF (Unique Belief in Fitness) and you saw an opportunity with the sled push - this could be a very interesting equipment addition.

If your Unique Belief In Fitness warranted it, I could see this model doing well.

We Need Demand To Outweigh Supply.

Like anything else, the cost of this product is going to stay relatively high until an obvious increase in demand deploys additional vendors to the marketplace.

Those new players in the space will drive up supply, which in turn will lower the average cost of these units.

But more so than the lowering of the cost, the more inventors and product designers thinking about a sled/treadmill hybrid will undoubtedly create a far better product than what is currently available.

It’ll be interesting to see if this resurgence of sled work enthusiasm carries on long enough for the current front runners of the motorless treadmill scene (Assualt, Woodway, TruForm, etc) to recognize the opportunity to evolve their product line.

Have You Bought Into Sled Work Yet?

Curious to see how many microgym owners out there are diving back into this primitive, basic, and yet so goddamn effective, tool.

From a fitness perspective, I can’t think of a better lower body strengthening option for any population - but especially those who have movement restrictions that make squats and lunges more problematic.

And from a raw strength training and time under tension application - there is nothing that taps into your CNS and creates insane TUT like the sled.

So you down with the sled or nah? Let me know.

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