What makes Activelab different?

In his book, “Inside the Box: How Constraints Make Us Better,” David Epstein argues that people are more creative when they work under constraints. Constraints block the easy path forward, and force us to come up with original solutions to problems. The famous example of this is the story of “Green Eggs and Ham”, which Epstein’s tells in his book.

Activelab was created under a number of contraints. First, a space constraint. We have a small space. As a result, every apparatus in our space had to earn its piece of real estate by offering something great. A second constraint was budget. We couldn’t afford the fancy equipment you seen at a Planet Fitness, so we had to design and fabricate our own equipment.

These constraints forced us to think hard about what Activelab offers that you don’t find at conventional gyms. Here are some of things that make Activelab different.

• The Activelab exercises stimulate the mind as well as your body. For example, the cable step ups. In this exercise, we switch our arms and legs each time we step up. You will find this switch is a real brain teaser. You need to stay tuned into where your arms and legs are at all times, or you will lose the rhythm. You will find out what I’m talking about when you try it.

• At Activelab, we teach movement literacy by practicing a wide range of very different movements. If you browse through the exercise section you will see this range. In conventional gyms, people will often do five or six sets of one exercise such as biceps curls. At Activelab, we do one set and then move on to the next movement.

• If you have been to a conventional gym, you know that people spend most of their time sitting, either on the seat of a weight machine or on one of the various benches. Our equipment is used standing or lying down, but never sitting.

The constraints on Activelab have forced us to make decisions about which aspects of strength training are most important.

• We put an emphasis lower body strength, specifically the glutes. Many people associate strength training with the arms, but we believe strength training for your lower body is more important. The reason for this is that as you age, you actually lose muscle and strength in your legs faster than your arms. This fact surprises a lot of people, so check out the data for yourself, see here or here. Lower body strength (or more specifically, power) also helps prevent falls, as found in this study.

• Our core work focuses on the deep abdominal, called the Transversus Abominis. Of all the abdominal muscles, the Transversus Abdomen is the most difficult to reach, and so if we can help people activate this muscle, we are bringing something important to the table.

• We believe in the benefits of good posture. So we have including strengthening exercises for postural muscles, specifically the lower trapezius. We designed and fabricated our strap pull rack in order to focus on the lower trapezius.