It's been two years and counting since my gym membership lapsed, and I'm so tired of living room workouts.
But when a fitness coach from pandemic-born fitness-tech company Vitruvian physically came into my living room toting the Virtuvian Trainer+, my overused space was transformed. Coach Nikka Saadat had brought the gym to my house with a simple step platform, a few cables and handles, and a smartphone app.
The Vitruvian Trainer+ seemingly magically functions as an adaptive weight machine that changes to your body movements in real time. There's no rack, no hanging contraptions, nor overhead bars. Instead it's a slim, flat platform that weighs just 70 pounds. Along the bottom are two wheels and a strap to move it around.
The carbon fiber platform lays flat on the ground with two small motors inside. You plug it into a nearby outlet like any electronic device, and it's on. By attaching cables, ropes, and other accessories (all of which are available through Vitruvian) to two clips on the ends of the platform, you can "lift" up to 440 pounds of resistance. The amount of weight is constantly adjusting based on how you move — that's the adaptive part. If you're struggling to do a tricep pull, it'll adjust accordingly. If you're flying through your reps, it'll add resistance to maximize your workout.
Coach Saadat was there to guide me IRL, but normally coaches and videos help you from the app. You can choose which body part to target along with type of workout, coach, difficulty level, workout time, and much more. You can select a curated training program with a daily exercise schedule, or pick and choose as you like.
I somewhat haphazardly chose random workouts with different coaches on the app to do some shoulder presses, rows, and even a leg workout. The app, which is connected to the machine, kept count, noticing if I wasn't completing the full range of motion. It wouldn't count as a rep until I had completed the full movement.
And it was hard — in a good way. You couldn't fudge your set of rows, and depending on which training mode you selected, it would get progressively heavier (I chose progressive, which did exactly that). Some of the other modes were isokinetic, eccentric, concentric, fixed weight, or adaptive, all of which changed the way the resistance felt.
It was a head trip to see just a simple platform in front of you but still struggle to pull on the straps. It wasn't like at the gym, where you see the stack of weight plates rising and falling as you pump. And after so much time using small dumbbells at home, I quickly realized my home workouts weren't challenging enough.
One of the best parts of the experience was putting the machine away — not just because I was tired, but because it's easy to do. While the 70-pound device wasn't mine to keep, after my demo workout I unplugged it and saw how easily I could roll it under the couch or tuck it away in a closet on its side. My living room gym quickly went back to a living space.
I'm not the only one intrigued by this piece of machinery. The Trainer+ came out in January and was already sold out by mid-February when I tested it out. As of April 5, it's back in stock and available to order online. Vitruvian's first product, the V-Form Trainer, is still available, but doesn't offer as much weight resistance, as quiet a motor, or as simple a connection for adding straps and accessories.
Convenient fitness doesn't come cheap: The device is $2,490, and there's a $39 monthly membership for access to the app for an unlimited number of users. For transforming my drab living room into a functional workout space, it might just be worth it.
Topics Fitness Tech
