Life Fitness enters race against Peloton for virtual exercise classes

A new entrant has joined the interactive stationary bike race with Peloton.

Life Fitness, the Rosemont, Ill.-based health club equipment manufacturer, announced this week it is rolling out on-demand exercise classes on the touch screens of its bikes, treadmills, ellipticals and other cardio fitness products.

But unlike Peloton, which brought the gym spin class home with its expensive, digitally connected bikes, Life Fitness is looking to replicate the virtual training experience in health clubs and hotels, where most of its equipment is located.

“As we’ve seen the market landscape change dramatically over the last few years on the consumer side, the desire and the appetite for this type of coaching activity in the health clubs has grown,” said Dan Wille, 49, vice-president of product development for Life Fitness.

Life Fitness On Demand has an inaugural library of 80 fitness classes across a range of equipment. The virtual classes feature real fitness instructors from Chicago and New York, who work up a sweat and exhort the machine user to “get after it” and other coach-isms designed to help you complete a 15- to 30-minute workout. The classes are filmed at a studio in New York.

While it may seem counterintuitive to bring the faux club workout into an actual health club, Wille said Life Fitness is both defending its turf and responding to growing consumer demand for the heavily advertised Peloton experience – even in health clubs, where real live exercise classes are ostensibly held.