Kinesis is pulling fitness in a new direction

It looks so easy at first. Three clients stand in line inside Interbay's Denali Fitness. While clutching resistance cables, they push and pull and twist. They joke and laugh as the club's group fitness director Tricia Murphy instructs.

Fifteen minutes pass. The giggling gives way to grunting and occasional groaning. Focus replaces chatter. Murphy incorporates breaks into the interval training class, but the respites are short, like gulps. It's about building muscle endurance, after all.

They work on a device called Kinesis, which looks like a 25-foot-long by 8-foot-high flat piece of furniture that houses four workout stations called "modules." Each module is geared to exercise specific regions, but the movements it encourages incor-

porate the full body and demand balance.

Most striking about the device, made by Technogym, is how wide a range of motion it allows. Instead of the usual restraints of weighted cable equipment, there is no clunk at the end of a full movement or specific path you must take. Kinesis, which means "movement" in Greek, provides a far freer movement, which can be more challenging.

"Instead of the body following the machine, Kinesis follows the body, allowing for free range of movement with no compromise to the resistance load," says Dorothy Sager, education manager for Technogym's U.S. headquarters in Seattle. "Kinesis will adapt to the human body, rather than the other way around."

So far, Denali is the only gym in Seattle that has the device, which was launched in 2005. The Bellevue Club has had it for about two years. Gold's Gym in Mukilteo and Gateway Fitness in Gig Harbor each have one.

Murphy uses it for one-on-one personal training, but also to conduct group classes. People of all fitness levels can coexist in a class, she says, by selecting their own weight-bearing levels, postures and pace.

"It's a great way to do small group personal training, which is more affordable and not as intimidating as one-on-one training can sometimes be," says Murphy. "And unlike some classes, someone at a lower level of fitness can blend in and do his or her own thing."

Her clients rotate from one module to the next. One does a military press, another does a reverse wood chop, another performs punching motions. Murphy fine-tunes, urging a newcomer, praising a fit veteran and helping a man with a sore knee make adjustments to a side-kicking motion.

She helps them scale back or work harder and implores each to use his or her lower body to stay on balance. She occasionally corrects form, but prefers to let people move naturally so their minds and bodies sync.

In effect, she uses the Kinesis to fuse aerobic and anaerobic exercise. It's not pumping iron, running miles or doing yoga. But it does engage muscle and movement at the same time.

These sorts of devices figure to find a bigger market as folks over 40 look for ways to get efficient, low-impact exercise. As they age, people tend to look for ways to simply prepare their bodies for daily life.

"Functional fitness" has become a marketing buzzword, but it basically means preparing — integrating — your neuromuscular and skeletal systems to handle the rigors of whatever activity you choose.

Sager says the device is versatile enough to aid in rehab, sport-specific training or even Pilates-style exercises. The International Council on Active Aging recently chose it as "North America's innovative new equipment for active older adults." The company is also developing programs for people who use wheelchairs.

Richard Seven: 206-464-2241

or rseven@seattletimes.com