The ads once promised to turn 90-pound weaklings into Charles Atlases.
Charles Atlas, for you younger readers, was a muscleman with a “dymnamic tension” system that promised to make boys into tough, brawny men of steel who could protect themselves and their women friends from bullies on windy Beaches.
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Over the years, the ads haven’t changed much, although the fitness products promising the stellar results certainly have. Almost as fleeting as fashion, fitness gadgets have taken on myriad faces over the decades, with fad after fad giving way to another.
“There are a few trends that have stuck since I’ve been in the fitness industry,” said Richard Cotton, a fitness instructor since 1980 and spokesman for the American Council on Exercise in San Diego.
Step aerobics. Stair climbers. Rowing machines. Stationary bicycles. Though perhaps not as popular as they once were, they’ve all survived in the very competitive fitness-equipment market for a phenomenal length of time, Cotton said.
“But with those, there’s been a lot that have come and gone.”
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“They’re all good quality, all the products that have reached peak popularity and then have fizzled,” said Laurie Cingle, a Maryland athletic club director and member of the board of advisers for IDEA, the Health and Fitness Source in San Diego.
Frequently the main reason behind a product’s demise, Cingle said, is that consumers simply get bored with it. (See related story on left.)
“People are always looking for that magic item or pill or whatever that’s going to keep them active and give them results,” she said. “Each of those products, what they really are is a tool to get people to perform the exercise. And, like anything, people get tired of any program.”
Which helps explain why fitness equipment became a $2.4 billion business in 1996, a 4.4 percent gain over 1995, according to the American Council on Exercise.
Consumers are willing to give fitness equipment a second chance. If one item ceases to motivate them, they think that perhaps a second, third, fourth or fifth item might.
“Another motivation is to find something that’s more effective than anything else in changing our body shape,” Cotton said. “Probably in desperation to lose weight, people try what they think will be different this time.”
Different fitness products are created each year to help meet a consistent demand, a demand driven by the fact that there is a wide variety of fitness customers–teens, Generation X-ers, boomers and seniors–all with very different tastes in exercise equipment.
Consumers wouldn’t have it any other way, said Christina Gandolfo, a senior editor with Fitness Management magazine in Solano Beach, Calif.
“People are bombarded with health information from numerous magazines, newspapers, television. They know what they want,” Gandolfo said, “and they’re creating a demand for more quality products.”
The public wants machines that offer feedback such as information on calories burned, miles completed, heart-rate level attained. People also are looking for equipment that exercises specific body parts, meaning abdominal muscles one year and arm muscles the next. But more important, the exercise equipment-buying public is always on the lookout for machines that will allow them to get the most physical benefit in the least amount of time, Gandolfo said.
“That’s what’s driving all these products being put out on the market. When people see there’s a market out there and money to be made, certainly there’s going to be an onslaught of products.”
That doesn’t mean every fitness gizmo created is a good one.
Just last summer, the Federal Trade Commission alleged that four makers of exercise equipment didn’t have adequate substantiation for claims they made for their products. The commission also alleged that some of the companies falsely purported that scientific studies supported their product claims and that testimonials used in their ads reflected the typical experiences of consumers.
As part of a settlement with the FTC, the makers are prohibited from promising consumers spectacular results unless they have reliable evidence to prove it.
While other equipment manufacturers haven’t drawn ire from the FTC, it doesn’t mean their products are necessarily any better than other items on the market, asserted the American Council of Exercise.
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Studies conducted by the council this year indicated that air gliders, aerobic riders and abdominal trainers don’t provide any more benefits than treadmills, stair climbers or old-fashioned stomach crunches.