Icon Fitness Equipment

Elliptical Trainers of Icon fitness equipment are at the low end of the elliptical trainer spectrum. Most of these Icon Fitness equipments do come with a lot of features, some commonly found on higher-end elliptical trainers, such as heart rate control, adjustable incline, several training programs, and built-in fan. The all features come with iFit.com technology. The downside of the equipment is that for all these features, these machines are built with lower quality components. The end result of Icon Fitness equipment is elliptical trainers that may not last as long as people would like, especially under heavy use.

Icon Fitness is the company that makes several fitness exercise machines along with cross country ski machine. Their production went out of business several years ago and Icon Health and Fitness bought their name. The cross country ski machines were the inspiration and precursor for the elliptical trainer. The original Icon fitness skiers were great machines that were very well-made. Icon fitness elliptical trainers do not quite live up to the same level of quality. People recommend that they stay away from the NordicTrack CXT 910 since there have been way too many reports of failures with the drive mechanism. People may do better to have a look at the NordicTrack CX 925, but in general, be cautious when considering NordicTrack elliptical trainers.

This line of elliptical trainers from Icon fitness seems to be slightly sturdier than the ProForm and NordicTrack ellipticals. The drive mechanism however is very similar between product lines and this gives people pause when considering any Icon fitness elliptical trainer, including Reebok elliptical trainers. Icon fitness exercise equipment comes equipped with an iFit.com interface. This technology of the machines allows Icon fitness equipment, such as elliptical trainers and treadmills, to be controlled by iFit.com media such as CDs, MP3 files, and video tapes. It can also work over the Internet directly from iFit.com.

Physical training programs designed by certified professional physical trainers are used to motivate people while at the same time controlling the resistance and/or incline of their fitness equipment. There are also Web cams available where people can interact live with a personal trainer. If some of the people are a fan of instructor-lead spinning classes, then this technology may appeal to them. This is not only a brilliant fitness equipment technology innovation, but also a great business model - the iFit.com Website is built around an on-line store selling iFit.com products and subscriptions.

In fact Icon fitness is made up of some pretty slick technology. It encodes the audio signal from the disk, tape, or streaming media output to control iFit.com fitness equipment. People can even control their elliptical trainer just using their VCR, CD player, or even MP3 player. They just need to attach an audio cable with an adapter to the audio-out jack on the player to the iFit.com jack on the elliptical trainer. There is no current support for Macs. It is also unfortunate that a fitness equipment company that can make such cool technology can't also build better quality fitness equipment.

• Janny Raines
• 17/01/2009, 6:59 AM
• 0 Comments