New and Cool @ HFB 2013: Incline Strider

In addition to our continuing coverage of product and retail trends from this year’s Health and Fitness Business, SNEWS is shining the spotlight on new and cool brands and products that caught our eye on the show floor at the Mandalay Bay in Las Vegas. 

Global Fitness Products LLC / d.b.a. Incline Strider
Chip Kennedy
Moon Township, Pa.
Founded 2013 / Product Launching 2013
www.inclinestrider.com

Human-powered resistance training has been a big trend of late in the strength category, with everything from suspension training to Cross-Fit.

The cardio category has its non-powered bikes and rowers, too, but it’s been awhile since we’ve seen an effective human-powered treadmill.

Enter Chip Kennedy’s new Incline Strider, which uses an 11.88 percent incline combined with a flywheel to create resistance training while you run.

“With technology, we’re going the other way,” Kennedy told us at the show. “If you look at the popularity of Cross Fit, there’s no technology or even electricity involved — it’s all old-school working out,” he said.

The Incline Strider certainly stood out as a polar opposite to all the tablet and apps on the show floor. But this is no inexpensive rope or ball exercise product — it’s a real piece of equipment that fitness retailers could leverage with an MSRP of $3,700. A former steel worker from Pittsburgh, Kennedy prides the fact that the Incline Strider is constructed with heavy gauged carbon steel and entirely made in the United States. It weighs 325 pounds with an 86-inch length, 33-inch width and 58-inch height.

Kennedy built the Incline Strider to simulate hiking and running uphill, but with refinements and attachments discovered users can use it to engage in sprints, lunges, side straddles and sled and low-shoulder drives. The resistance provides greater muscle stimulation of the legs, glutes and core than a regular treadmill.

Check out the video below to see it in action: