At Home Fitness-Scottsdale manager reveals his top luxury fitness equipment pieces

Longtime At Home Fitness-Scottsdale store manager Brian Ikegami has seen just about everything in the specialty fitness industry while working for Arizona’s biggest and best chain.

Customers come into the At Home Fitness superstores to make small purchases such as power tubes for stretching, dumbbells or kettlebells, to bigger purchases like treadmills or exercise bikes, to asking to help plan an entire luxury gym.

Recently, Ikegami was asked to give a customer his “best of the best” list. If money was no object, what are the seven best items for a home gym?

Every once in a while a customer comes into an At Home Fitness superstore with that type of request, to help them build the ultimate luxury home gym. It may be for a new home build, or an existing dwelling that’s been renovated

“When I’m helping someone plan and put together the ultimate gym, cost is one of the considerations but it’s usually not the biggest factor,” Ikegami said. “For someone who’s building a huge house, the gym expense is not that much for him or her.

“The biggest factor for that type of customer is time, then space, then expense. For those people, it’s also all about time and preference. The customer knows just what he wants in there and wants to be able to come home and have the best of the best.”

Ikegami rarely has to “sell” a VIP customer on a certain brand because they’ve probably exercised on it in the past. Most often that brand is Life Fitness.

The process of planning a luxury home (workout room) centers more around going through the many options available on home gym strength training and cardio pieces and making sure all the equipment will fit precisely.

Because many of the high-end fitness pieces have almost countless customizable options, it’s made-to-order by Life Fitness or other elite companies.

“You don’t need to do a floor plan for someone who’s buying one treadmill and an exercise bike,” Ikegami said. “When you’ve got 25 different pieces going into a giant home, or addition that they’re building just for (the gym), the stakes are much higher. We make sure to ask all the right questions up front.

“It’s definitely not an everyday or weekly type of thing, but I’ve been through this enough times to know what to expect and then let the customer know that custom stuff doesn’t come out fast. In many cases it’s not sitting in our store or in a warehouse somewhere ready to go out – they make it customized to your order and it can take several months. It’s a lot of work, but also very rewarding to see it all come together just the way a customer envisioned it – or even better.”

At Home Fitness is the exclusive Life Fitness dealer in Arizona and has the following specialty fitness equipment stores:

* Ahwatukee, 14647 So. 50th St. located near Ahwatukee , Phoenix, Chandler, Tempe and it’s the chain’s closest store to Tucson.

* Gilbert, 2810 S. Market St., located near Mesa, Apache Junction, Gold Canyon, Queen Creek, Chandler and Gilbert, to name a few.

* Scottsdale, 6969 E. Shea Blvd. located near Scottsdale, Fountain Hills, Cave Creek, Anthem and many other locations in the West Valley.

At Home Fitness offers “white glove” assembly and first-class customer service. We also have a fully certified service department.

Top 7 Luxury Fitness Equipment Pieces

Now that you understand the basic “ins” and “outs” of how At Home Fitness handles the planning and installation of a luxury home gym, what should go in it?

Here are Brian Ikegami’s personal picks for the top seven items for a luxury home gym:

1. Life Fitness Signature Series Multi Jungle, aka MJ8

Features: Two customizable, 4-station units connected by a cable crossover machine. Centerpiece.

Ikegami’s comment: “This will be the centerpiece of the gym. It takes up a really good amount of space, but you can pick which exercises to put on each of those four stations on each side. If you go into a nice commercial gym, you will almost always see their free weight area built around one of these jungle gyms. There are like a hundred possible versions of it, you can pick what you want.”

2. Life Fitness ID Racks

Features: customizable top of the line squat racks.

Ikegami’s comment: “It’s kind of like the jungle gym, where you can get it in about 100 different variations. You can pick a double rack, half rack, all kinds of adjustability. It’s pretty much the epitome of a free weight rack, where you can step into it and do a squat, or set up a bench and do a bench press with a straight bar and free weights. It’s the kind of thing a good college would use. It’s ultra-heavy duty. You can pick all the different kinds of grips for your pull-ups.”

3. Life Fitness Signature Series and Insignia Series

Features: Top of the line, single-station strength pieces. Selectorized weight stack with pin.

Ikegami’s comment: “The pinnacle of strength training equipment. Single or Dual station. Each machine is designed to do one or two movements optimally. This is the optimal equipment for strength training but requires the most space and expense.”

4. Life Fitness Total Body Arc Trainer (formerly known as Cybex Arc Trainer)

Features: Top of the line elliptical with adjustable incline. Touchscreen.

Ikegami’s comment: “It’s one of the best elliptical machines out there. It’s adjustable and just super high-end, invincible in a home and very versatile.”

For cardio, it’s just a great piece! It can be easier than a normal elliptical or as hard as a Stairmaster (depending on the setting).”

5. Life Fitness Platinum Club Series Treadmill

Features: Commercial treadmill. Touchscreen. Proprietary shock absorption.

Ikegami’s comment: “This a best-of-the-best, awesome treadmill.”

6. Stairmaster 10 Series Gauntlet Stepmill

Features: commercial Stepmill (revolving staircase). Touchscreen.

Ikegami’s comment: “We have the 8 or 10 models. It’s a revolving, escalator staircase that you walk on. It provides a great cardio workout.”

7. PowerPlate Pro7 Vibration Plate

Features: commercial vibration plate. Touchscreen.

Ikegami’s comment: “We have the My7 model in the At Home Fitness stores. It’s the ultimate vibration machine.”

So there you have it, the Top 7 Luxury Fitness Equipment Pieces for your perfect home gym!

Some of the equipment listed in this article, or similar versions, are available in At Homes Fitness’ Arizona superstores. Others will need to be custom ordered. Stop in and see Brian Ikegami at At Home Fitness Scottsdale, 6969 E. Shea Blvd.,Scottsdale, AZ 85254. For more information call (480) 951-6951, email briani@athomefitness.com or check out athomefitness.com