Undoubtedly, the pandemic has revealed shortcomings in our society. One area where that remains truer today than ever before is in meeting evolving consumer needs in product design and function.
No one understands that more than LIT’s Co-Founder and Co-CEO, Taylor Norris. With an extensive background in product design and branding from Parsons School of Design, Taylor uses her passion for helping people through design to explore traditional blindspots in equipment and ensure the safe use of our products.
In fact, with our LIT team, she has worked to put safety at the center of our mission to fundamentally change the way people approach fitness.
Before the onset of COVID-19 and gym closures around the world, having a separate fitness venue outside the household often provided a default safety net for parents. With age requirements at many facilities, or parents attending classes while kids were at school, the concern over a child touching a machine in that setting just wasn’t a frequent factor. 
Credit: Helena Lopes/Unsplash
But as many of us have seen and experienced by now, children and adults unable to work or learn in person lead to the home often doubling and tripling as an office, a school, and even a gym. And unfortunately, in some cases, this hybrid homefront has resulted in safety hazards.
With a renewed focus on ensuring exercise equipment doesn’t pose a threat to users or other household residents, we want to remind people that at the core of our method and our LIT Strength Machine is an unwavering commitment to safety.
When we say we want to change the way people approach fitness, we aren’t talking about an abstract ideal. Change is about the overall experience — and it’s about the confidence we have earned from a growing LIT community who believes in our brand’s ability to deliver results, not injuries.
Our Co-Founder and Co-CEO, Justin Norris, often says, “Weight training doesn’t have to mean strength training,” because with rowing and resistance bands, we have crafted an alternative training philosophy that includes personal training, physical therapy, and injury prevention.
Behind his mantra is a realization that safety anxiety can dramatically impact a person’s experience. While designing the LIT Strength Machine, he and Taylor considered their own previous concerns and fears of reinjury, and how those apprehensions changed the pace and progress of their recovery times.
After noticing this same set of worries in people they were helping, they were determined to create a method and products that allow people to find strength without setbacks — whether they be psychological or physical in nature.
Today, the machine is LIT’s signature offering because of its unique ability to address those concerns and to provide a safe space for fitness, without compromising a person’s chance to tackle personal challenges and goals. In fact, in order to guarantee the safe execution and support of 500+ low impact exercises including rowing, barre, strength training, physical therapy, and Pilates, the development and iteration period for the product lasted nearly two years.
With exhaustive prototyping, Taylor, Justin, and the LIT team created an all-in-one rower, Pilates reformer, and strength trainer empowering anyone from recreational rowers, to aspiring or professional athletes, to those struggling with an injury, to do it all — and most importantly, to do it all with peace of mind.
What sets the LIT Strength Machine apart from other at home fitness setups are the design and function features implemented as a result of the meticulous process:
- The machine does not require electricity, so it never has to be started or stopped.
- The machine sits close to the ground during all exercise programs, so there is little to no risk of falling off. The footplate also has a wider design than a standard rower to support better posture and ensure stability in any movement.
- Resistance bands are a safe and effective alternative to weights. A fixture in medical settings and physical therapy clinics, bands reduce tension in your joints and increase resistance on the muscle you are looking to train. Additionally, because you can’t rely on momentum to help you through a move with bands, you are able to decrease your risk of injury, strengthen muscle imbalances, correct posture, and increase your mobility and flexibility.
- All attachments can be removed and stored as needed. Also, the machine itself can be stored vertically and in a small separate setting if so desired.
LIT’s belief that sustainability is synonymous with safety is inherent in everything we do. From the iterative design exploration discussed here, to the instructors beginning each class with why you are using the equipment and how to do it in the safest way possible, to our prehab programming — we want you to be able to do what you love for as long as possible.
Our precautions are in place to help you do just that. By joining our community, you’ll be able to power your passions, access personal training, physical therapy, and injury prevention at an affordable price without compromising safety, and create a sustainable lifestyle that ‘builds you, not breaks you.’
And we mean that in every sense of the term.
Check out the LIT Strength Machine virtual demo where we walk you through the safety features or explore our website to get a closer look of our products!
