Health Club Management
29. Juli 2000

It's an antithesis to the plush and upbeat health club, but the Kieser Training facility in north London is looking to target a more mature clientele with its medical strength training system. Julie Cramer talks to the managing director charged with the company's global expansion.

As a man who suffered from excruciatiing back pain for more than 15 years, David Fritz seems aptly qualified to be leading the global expansion of an exercise system which left him completely cured of his aches and pains.

Fritz's fortuitous meeting with ex-bodybuilder Werner Kieser in Zurich in the 1980s, led him to become a guinea pig for a medically focused strength training system which has now established a foothold in norhtern Eruope.

There are currently 55 Kieser Training facilities in countries which include Switzerland, Germany, Luxembourg, Austria and, most recently, London.

Like its counterparts in Europe, the Kieser Training centre in north London combines a type of medical laboratory with machines designed for diagnostic and rehabilitation work, with a sports hall full of equipment that puts people through a rigorous and very precise strength training regime.

The company's catchline is «a strong back knows no pain», and much of the programme is aimed at building a strong 'girdle of strength' around the spine and developing the entire musculoskeletal frame. There isn't a piece of cardiovascular equipment to be seen, because Kieser believes that if people spend too much time on the bike or treadmill, they don't have the energy of concentration needed to perform an effective strength training programme.

As a longtime convert to the MedX exercise technology, Fritz is now on a mission to establish the Kieser (pronounced key-zer) name in Britain and beyond. An ex-Reuter and tv journalist Fritz is now focused on communicating the message of Kieser.

«We see London as our gateway to the world market,» he says. «After becoming established in Europe, we needed to go English. We saw Britain as an easier market to start in than the United States. But eventually we will expand to America, Sout Africa and Australia.»

Given the required size of each facility, -6,000-8,000sq ft, Fritz says that it took over a year to find the right site for the first London facility, whic opened in Ocotber 1999.

Situated in the trendy London borough of Camden and bordering on the rich residential area of Hamstead, Kieser Training is housed impressive art deco building directly opposite Mornington Crescent tube station.

Walking into the vast warehouse-like facility could be something of a culture shock if you are used to the high energy and sometimes frenetic atmosphere of a modern health club.

Regimented rows of machines stretch the length of the high ceiling interior, while at the far end an important looking figure in a white coat tends to an area of complicated-looking equipment linked up to compute monitors.

Venture into the changing area and you are met by yet another bare white space with rows of zinc lockers and futuristic silver shower capsules.

It's the complete antithesis to the plush, upbeat health club - and designed to be so. The company itself describes the environment as deliberated «austere», with a Swiss-style emphasis on fitness rather than fun.

«We are not saying that people do this for fun or for sports - but it will prepare them for either,» says Fritz. «If you want to do some cardiovascular exercise, it is far better to go for a run in the park than to sweat it out on a treadmill.»

The company's philosophy seems to be: remove the fun element and people will get on with the real task of building a healthy body in the fastest amount of time, with a minimum amount of distraction. Creator of the concept, Werner Kieser, has said in the past: «I started to cut out things which did not produce measurable results for our physical well-being, such as sauna, solarium, juice bar, music and plants.»

This whole ideology is a far cry from Werner Kieser's roots as the owner of a more traditional body-building style fo gym in Zurich in the 1960s, which became well known in its time.

By the 1980s, his company Kieser Training AG, had acquired the rights to sell Nautilus equipment in Europe, and by the 1990s the company was ready to take receipt of a new medical-based system of machines called MedX which had been developed in America.

Together with his physiotherapist wife, Dr Gabriela Kieser, Werner Kieser devised an exercise system around the machines which would help not only people with chronic back and neck problems, but would serve as a preventative fitness regime as well.

Today the concept has evolved as a standardised franchise system. In his role as managing diector of European operations, David Fritz is charged with steering the development of the pilot scheme in London and seeking out opportunities for new franchise agreements thereafter. He says the plan is to find a site for south London and west London over the next few years.

Because there are no individual frills or personal touches, facilities look almost exactly the same wherever you go, and customers have the right to use any Kieser Training facility wherever they might be in Europe. Franchisees must suscribe to the whole package - a fitout costs in the reigion of 300,000 - right down to the sink units.

Each centre has a medical department staffed by fully trained doctors and physiotherapists who have also undergone specialist Kieser training in the US. The company has links to the sports science unit at the University of Florida in Gainesville, where staff go for preliminary and ongoing training sessions.

The company also has a team of doctors, therapists, psychologists and sports experts based at two Kieser Documentation Centres in Cologne and Zurich.

The purpose of the so-called Medical Strengthening Therapy Department is to diagnos and treat chronic back, neck and knee problems and prescribe a period of treatment based on specific training. Each department has four different computer-aided MedX therapy machines - lumbar extension, cervical extension, rotary torso and rotary neck - which isolate specific muscles to measure their strengths and weaknesses.

During my visit I was tightly strapped into the rather frightening lumbar extension to assess the strength of my lower back. The physiotherapist was able to isolate a very precise area of my spine and take me through a series of resistance movements. The results were recorded on a computer screen in fornt of me.

From the graphic data, the physio is able to detect muscle weakness or imabalance, assess the range of movement in the spine, the time of recovery and how much training is needed to get muscles working to their full and natural strength potential.

The «patient» normally then embarks on a 12 session course over an eight to 12 week period. If the problem isn't fixed or significantly improved in that time, says Fritz, then the Kieser system is probably not for them.

The company says that its own extensive research in the US and Europe, involving thousands of Kieser patients, 80 per cent of cases found the prescribed therapy «significantly improved or even eliminated chronic, long term back and neck pain».

The adjoining training hall comprises at least 26 different types of strength training machines, each designed to exercise a specific muscle group through its full range motion. It can serve as a regular training facility for those seeking this type of regime, or as an extension of the rehabilitation process. Working on a CAM system of pulleys, each machine automatically adjusts the resistance to each angle of movement to match the requirement of individual muscles and joints.

Once a strong foundation has been built, Kieser Training says that it only requires 30 minutes, twice a week to maintain results.

Not surprisingly, Fritz says the facility attracts a core clientele which is older than the average gym member - generally aged between 30 and 60. While the medical department has a regional demographic (one chronic back sufferer even travelled from Scotland for treatment), the sports hall is strictly local to the north and north west London area.

Many are chronic back pain sufferers who have tried everything to relieve the problem. Ohters are simply not attracted to the more sociable atmosphere of a regualr gym and prefer a more focused and solitary style of exercise.

«They're mainly busy professional people who don't have lots of time to devote to a fitness regime. They want to achieve the maximum results in a minimum amount of time,» says Fritz. He says that across Europe, around 75 per cent of Kieser customers (currently around 80,000) are acutally new to strength training and do not frequent other health and fitness clubs.

But Kieser Training's introduction to the UK has not been without its teething problems, says Fritz. Despite a capacity of 2,000 members, it only currently has around 350 regualr visitors. But Fritz remains confident that they will reach a «comfortable» target of 1,000 by the end of the year.

Customers pay either a six, 12 or 24 month subscription upfront, which is in addition to the more lucrative revenue from the medical department customers, some of whom are covered by their private medical insurance. Fritz says that because Kieser crosses the boundaries of fitness and medicine, it is often greeted with scepticism from traditional medial circles. He also feels that the British market has been particularly difficult to crack with this product.

«I think the British are extremely conservative. The market is conditioned to the overriding importance of cardiovascular trainining. Heart disease is often seen as a result of not running around enough.» he says.

And many back sufferers don't like to admit they have a problem, preferring to suffer in silence rather than seeking help. For this same reason, he says, the National Back Pain Association was rebranded this spring, changing its name to Back Care.

«In the rest of Europe it is the opposite. If people have a problem and you present them with a solution they will try it,» says Fritz.

As the health and fitness market in the UK begins to segment and target specific user groups, it may be that Kieser Trianing finds its own niche. Certainly its target demographic, the 30 to 60 age group, is one that will grow rapidly in the years to come. The dangers of osteoporosis and other age-related illnesses are now well documented in the press. And with an annual subscription of around 400 with no joining fee, it is very competitively priced.

Even the starkness of the facility grows on you after a while. The complete silence, pools of natural light and lack of sweaty bodies add a zen-like quality which is medidative and conducive to serious exercise. But that's not to say I wouldn't have liked some sweet-smelling toiletries in the changing rooms and a bottle of Lucozade on my way out.