Fitness Movin’ & Shakin’: Sacramento Exercise, Icon, Laura (Bond) Capes, Vision, Torque, Horizon, Nautilus, True, and more…

For Jan. 7 to Feb. 25, 2008

Sacramento Exercise has opened a “megastore” (11,000 square feet!) with signage fronting on the busy Highway 80 corridor from San Francisco and Sacramento to Lake Tahoe and all points west. www.sacramentoexercise.com…. Icon Health & Fitness has sued Fischer-Price for allegedly infringing on a patent that covers communication from a remote media device to an exercise bike. The company believes the baby products-specialist is infringing although its complaint does not specify any specific products….

Laura Capes, formerly Laura Bond, has left her ownership role at HEST Fitness Products in Texas. Prior to that the director of marketing at Leisure Fitness, she has opened her own marketing consulting company. The full services agency, Motive Marketing Group, based in Austin, Texas, will provide creative services and consulting for the fitness industry, including marketing, advertising, public relations, design and website development. Capes, who has been in the industry for 11 years on both the manufacturing and retail sides, can be contacted at lauracapes@mac.com or 512-658-5991….

Chris Cox will be leaving Vision Fitness as of March after more than nine years. Most recently he was director of marketing and product development. He told SNEWS® that after taking six months off to spend more time with his family and his two sons, 11 and 14, he will decide what is next on his agenda. “We’ve seen a lot of growth,” he said. “I’m looking forward to taking a year off to relax and see what’s next.” Meanwhile, Peter Sell, who has been with the company for five years, will move into the product director position, and Christa Walter, who began at Vision as a brand manager more than five years and has recently been working in marketing, will take on the marketing director’s role. In addition, the company has hired Justin Henkel as a product manager for its bike category….

Torque Fitness’ F5 folding gym was featured on The Today Show Feb. 8. According to Lance Shore, Torque sales representative, “The phones went nuts” after the segment aired. He said most of the callers were interested in the child-lock/safety feature and also how it can be folded, closed and stored in a corner. “They all wanted to know where they could see one and try it.” Click here to see the segment. President Pete Borchert said they just got a call out of the blue requesting a gym for the segment. That’s the kind of promotion any company would love!…



Horizon Fitness in mid-February terminated the positions of six employees in its Cottage Grove, Wis., office. “We made a small adjustment to better align the team with a change in our business channel focus,” Horizon President Bob Whip told SNEWS®. “We had an eye on pursuing some mass market customers, and we built some internal infrastructure in preparation to pursue that. But, due to a change in focus, we tabled those plans for the foreseeable future,” he said. According to Whip, the positions terminated were in product development and industrial design…. Ron Arp has left Nautilus Inc., as of Feb. 15. He had been the senior vice president of corporate communications since September 2004, when he was hired by then CEO Gregg Hammann, who left the company in August 2007. Arp told SNEWS® he is going back to his communications consulting firm, which he ran before joining Nautilus, and hopes to have some fitness industry clients…. In other industry departures, Patrick Sullivan parted ways with True Fitness the first week of January. At True, he had been director of marketing…. And, finally, Mark Mastrov, the founder and chairman of 24 Hour Fitness, left that company in late January….

Push Pedal Pull’s Albuquerque, N.M., store became part of the Busy Body Home Fitness family as of 2008, allowing Push Pedal Pull to focus on its Midwestern roots…. Cybex International named in January COO/CFO Art Hicks as president. Hicks had been COO since 2006 and CFO since 2002….



Wanna see something funny? Click here. Yeah, the boomers know how to exercise while singing about their now aging bods.

Got any news or tips about somebody, some product, or some company doing some moving or shaking? Let us know so we can slip it into our occasional Movin’ & Shakin’ updates. Just email snewsbox@snewsnet.com.