Peloton announced Monday that it is acquiring Precor, the longtime Woodinville, Wash,-based makers of commercial fitness equipment, in a deal valued at $420 million. Peloton has been riding a wave of popularity with its home-based interactive fitness program, and with the acquisition it plans to establish U.S. manufacturing capacity, boost research and development capabilities, and accelerate Peloton’s penetration of the commercial market, according to a news release. Founded in 1980, Precor has decades of experience supplying fitness equipment to clubs, hotels, fitness centers and home exercisers. The company is a unit of Finnish sports equipment maker Amer Sports, which is… Read More
I pretty much rely on Amazon’s Alexa to tell me the weather for the day, read some headlines and play a little music. This week, the digital voice assistant provided an assist to Seattle Storm star Sue Bird and together they got me moving through a new workout aimed primarily at kids. Numbers Geek: Basketball legend Sue Bird on her record season, and one of her classic games The Alexa skill, called “Storm Workout,” features the three-time WNBA champion Bird putting users through a series of exercises for several minutes. It’s the first partnership between the hometown basketball team and… Read More
After two hours of pickup basketball the previous evening, I woke up on Friday morning last week feeling pretty sore. It was the perfect segue into my next story assignment: trying out Stretch 22, a new Seattle startup that promises to make you feel better with “stretch therapy.” Indeed, after a 25-minute lower body session with Stretch 22 co-founder Ja’Warren Hooker, I felt a little looser, a little lighter, and ready to ball out again. But are these new stretch studios, part of what The New York Times described last year as the “next fitness fad,” worth the cost? At least one big… Read More
Some sneaker companies want me to “Just Do It.” But what if I don’t want to do it? I’m not into it today, it wasn’t fun yesterday, and generally it is not all that rewarding. In fact, it would be nice to eat pizza and watch TV right about now. Brooks Running, the 100-year-old shoe company headquartered near Seattle’s Gas Works Park, thinks there can be joy in it — if we’re talking exercise — and the company’s slogan even encourages customers to “Run Happy.” Can a breakthrough in technology help deliver some of that happiness? I went for a short… Read More
