... [+]It’s tough to imagine now—in a time when fitness and health are not only cornerstones of life but also multi-trillion-dollar industries with seemingly innumerable brands, gear, and machines to go with—however, a mere 40 years ago, physical wellness as we know it today didn’t yet exist.
The then-22-year-old made it his mission to craft a machine that combined his passion for technology and design with his love of fitness, one that would appeal to professional and amateur users alike, and in 1983, he did just that with the debut of the Hack Squat. But Alessandri knew this was only the beginning, and shortly after launching the Technogym brand, he began working on a series of other fitness equipment, including the first-ever complete gym designed for home use.
It was during the 1990s, however, that Technogym became a true wellness pioneer, going beyond traditional fitness machinery to create a range of personalized, holistic health tools. The decade saw the launches of the CPR system, which determined the intensity of a workout based on the user’s heart rate, a rehabilitative equipment range designed for the recovery process, and the Wellness System, the first-ever personal workout device to keep track of exercise programs and training data.
“Wellness is a lifestyle, and lifestyle means seamless integration,” Alessandri explains. “It’s continuous, covering every touchpoint consistently. It’s both the big picture, long-term investment and the day-to-day details, and it’s the balance between mind, body, and spirit.” But 30 years ago, when Technogym first coined the term, it wasn’t very widely understood. “Now, everybody knows about wellness; it’s the new dream,” the founder says. “But in 1993, no one knew what it meant.
So, Technogym invested heavily in exactly that. The company partnered with the World Economic Forum to promote wellness as an opportunity for economic and sustainable development, and it introduced several health and lifestyle initiatives around its Italian headquarters, including the creation of the Wellness Foundation, to share the concept of wellness on the ground level. Technogym also gave a lot of thought to what its role as a brand would be in its customers’ wellness.