Tom Riley gets on the stairstepper at his athletic club in Redwood City, Calif.
He has that day’s sports and business sections. He has his plug-in headphones.
With a few taps of the touch-screen terminal located where the stairstepper’s control panel usually sits, he has CNN up on his personal television. Another tap, and footage from the Oscars flashes by; another, and Perry Mason gazes pensively into the middle distance.
All the while, Riley is smartly stepping his way toward cardiovascular perfection.
“He’s reading the paper, he’s listening to a CD, he’s watching television and he’s working out,” says Jeffrey Cahn, one of three founders of Netpulse, the San Francisco-based maker of terminals that provide health club members with not only a personal television and CD player but free access to the Internet through a T-1 line. “Now that,” says an admiring Cahn, “is taking control of your time.”
It is the antithesis of the current craze for meditative exercise: working out while simultaneously engaging in so many other activities that you almost forget you’ve got a body. Fitness purists who preach awareness in exercise and joy in movement may blanch, but multitasking is taking over the cardio room.
“There are a couple of mega-trends happening in the health club world right now,” says Jill Kinney, chairwoman of the American Council on Exercise and president of Club One health clubs, which feature Netpulse-equipped machines in two San Francisco locations. “And one huge driver,” she says, “is convenience.”
If exercise can be fun and palatable, Kinney says, and if exercisers feel as if they’re accomplishing something in addition to improving their health, a certain segment may be seduced into sticking with what might otherwise become just another dalliance with their target heart-rate zones.
Or, as Streeta Farrell, fitness director of the Netpulse-equipped Decathlon Club in Santa Clara, Calif., says, “If they can kill two birds with one stone, they probably will.”
The Netpulse stations, which come attached to stairsteppers and recumbent and upright stationary bikes, are the latest gizmos that aim to keep people pedaling and climbing long after the novelty has worn off. Health clubs have long featured sound systems and big-screen televisions. Racks that hold reading material are a requirement. Electronic systems set elaborate training programs and monitor every heart beat. Virtual-reality exercise machines provide a cross between working out and playing a video game.
And now, fitness buffs can surf the Net — as long as they keep moving. Stop stepping or pedaling and the default screen politely prods, “Please resume exercising.”
“All of us had been working out for years, and all of us had joined and quit health clubs,” says Cahn, explaining how he and his partners, Michael Alvarez Cohen and Kevin Martin, came up with the Netpulse idea. The three — two engineers and an MBA, all previously employed at the usual constellation of Silicon Valley firms — debated several multimedia ideas before deciding to focus on “a way of making exercise more interesting, productive and exciting,” Cahn says.
After a few years of after-hours R&D in Martin’s Menlo Park, Calif., garage, the partners quit their day jobs and formed Netpulse in 1993. Tom Proulx, co-founder of Intuit and developer of Quicken personal-finance software, became a board member. In May, Proulx became president and chief executive officer.
Proulx was intrigued by the idea of combining Internet access and exercise machines, in part because he had the same thought a decade earlier.
“I was already on several boards,” says Proulx, remembering when friends told him about Netpulse. “But I went to see them, and I walked off the elevator and there in front of my eyes are these Netpulse stations, which are my idea. Somebody’s done it! It just blew me away.”
Proulx uses a Netpulse-equipped stationary bike in the exercise room of his Atherton, Calif., home about every other day.
“I do it all, actually,” he says, outlining his use of bike and screen. “Sometimes I’ll watch television and catch the morning news. Sometimes I’ll surf the Web. It’s really cool to put in a music CD and do some browsing.” Most recently, Proulx researched new printers while pedaling.
But it’s not only the techie aristocracy who are drawn to surf while you sweat.
“People who don’t have access to the Internet at home or work — they love it,” says Kim Perez, fitness director at ClubSport of Fremont, Calif., which has eight machines equipped with Netpulse’s touch screens.
Granted, says Perez, she has come across some members who recoil at the idea of the Internet following them into the health club. “We do get a few people who say, `Oh my gosh, that’s what I’m trying to get away from,’ ” she says. But for the most part, members seem intrigued. “Especially where we are; technology is everything,” she says. “We have to keep up with our folks. They want bells and whistles.”
In a world of perfect fitness, finding ecstasy in a good sweat might be admirable. But out in the real world, most people want a little distraction.
“With exercise, there is a sense of accomplishment, and it certainly feels better after you’ve done it,” sighs Kinney. “But most people look at it as drudgery.”
Netpulse users check stock quotes and sports scores. They read on-line newspapers and magazines, order items from Bloomingdale’s and Eddie Bauer, and plow through their e-mail. And while Cahn likes to talk about business applications, the personal television option is a winner for many.
“Mid-afternoon it’s really popular,” says Maria Delvizis, director of fitness operations at the Pacific Athletic Club. “People love to watch `Oprah’ and flip back and forth.”
