Equipment, technology inspires movement
by Cindy AbolePublic Relations
It’s Monday morning and 67-year-old Grace Johnson runs through the same motions of chopping wood, lifting buckets of water or stooping down to pick something up.
Grace
Johnson demonstrates the FreeMotion Lift.
Instead of performing these functional actions, she simulates them using natural movements as a form of innovative strength training.
For seven years, she’s adopted a fitness routine that’s helped her feel good and stay in shape. What's new to her program is the equipment.
With her body erect and eyes focused she begins a series of lifts that will strengthen her back, shoulders, arms and legs. Moments later, she halts to catch her breath and shifts her stance as tiny beads of sweat begin to glisten around her temples and upper lip. Looking up, her lips curve into a smile. She knows she's working hard to keep and maintain her strength training while furthering her fitness goals.
The equipment is called FreeMotion and it is just that. Its full dimensional training design simulates the way the body moves—pushing, pulling, twisting, lunging and squatting. Its results provide strength building, balance, flexibility and stability for the user. It replaces some of the older Nautilus equipment housed in the two free-weight rooms and is part of an fitness overhaul and renovation plan for fall 2002. MUSC’s Wellness Center hosts the largest collection of FreeMo-tion circuit pieces housed under one roof within the Palmetto state.
Fitness program coordinator Jim Tomsic and Cardiovascular Room supervisor Howie Schomer were introduced to FreeMotion while attending a fitness equipment trade show in Orlando. Schomer identified and spoke to his counterparts at various fitness facilities at UNC-Wilmington, Appalachian State University and Wake Forrest University in North Carolina. Each had recently purchased the FreeMotion equipment. By early July, the first of 11 pieces arrived and had been installed. Each piece focuses on various muscle groups including abdominal, biceps, cable cross, calf, chest, laterals, lift, shoulder, squat and leg exercises.
The
new FreeMotion fitness equipment dominates the free-weight area at the
MUSC Wellness Center.
“Many people just love it,” Tomsic said. “They enjoy the ease of use and versatility of working out more muscles beyond the targeted muscle group. It’s not easy and offers more of a challenging workout.”
The versatility focuses on functional everyday movement, especially the body’s horizontal plane of motion when swinging an axe, lifting an object or simulating sports movements like a batter or golfer’s swing. This method of target training combined with natural adjustments for balance and stabilization offers the user a chance of an ideal workout, Tomsic said.
Each of the FreeMotion circuit pieces are sleek and modular in design. Its weight plates are concealed in brushed steel and aluminum posts and sturdy tubing complete with adjustable levers, pulleys and strong nylon handle straps.
The Wellness Center’s STAE Fit Class offers seniors, age 50 and older, a chance to enhance their cardiovascular, strength and flexibility training throughout the week. Although new changes to a routine can sometimes be disrupting, the end results often yield more positive results, according to Tomsic.
Johnson never felt comfortable using the Nautilus equipment and switched to free weights in an attempt to achieve her fitness goals. “I was getting bored,” she said, until she was introduced last month to the FreeMotion equipment. “I can feel myself working harder and getting better results.”
Tomsic hopes that most of the center’s 7,000 members will eventually find their way to try and test out the new equipment. As new students and members return, he plans to coordinate formal orientation on the FreeMotion equipment or have his dozen trainers on-hand to demonstrate and assist members.
“Nobody likes change,” Tomsic said. “But we’ve managed to convert a lot of members to the FreeMotion concept in a short amount of time. If using any of this equipment is all that they use in this room, then I guarantee they’ll get a good workout.”
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