Dubai is home to a stunning new flagship from one of the biggest brands in fitness.
Technogym is no stranger to Dubai, having had a huge presence in the UAE for more than 20 years, earning huge fans such as HH Sheikh Hamdan, the Crown Prince of Dubai, himself.
But did you know Dubai is home to the largest Technogym Experience Centre outside of the brand’s home of Italy, built for both consumers and industry operators, located in Jumeirah Beach Road near Burj Al Arab?
the opening originally marked the debut of the Technogym Ride, the first bike designed by cycling champions for indoor cycling training, at home and in the gym. It’s got a 22″ screen for an immersive indoor experience, easy installation and configuration with a single log-in, and allows you to access your favorite apps and training content all on the bike.
The space was designed by the acclaimed Antonio Citterio to match the brand’s fitness and wellness technologies with an elevated look and feel, moving things beyond just the standard home gym fare.
Inside the more than 1000 sq/m space are also Technogym’s smart treadmill the Myrun, the Technogym Bench training station, and the Skill Line range of equipment built to help athletes reach top sport performance. There’ also a center that has room to train 40 clients and operators, as well as spaces to run seminars and workshops. It’s also available for meetings, consultancies and guidance for all solutions for different businesses, from fitness clubs, to sports centers, to hospitality, health, rehabilitation and real estate.
To find out more, Esquire Middle East sat down with Technogym’s Founder, Nerio Alessandri about the space, as well as the brand’s focus on innovation.
Read our conversation below:
ESQ: Why prioritize Dubai?
Nerio Alessandri: Dubai is not just a city—it’s the hub. It’s the crossroads for all cultures across the world. Dubai offers so many opportunities across many spaces. For that reason, the vision for our new space was clear, an opportunity to show our vision of interior design, as well as having different areas for technology, business-to-business, as well as consumer areas for home gyms.
How does it differ from spaces other places in the world? What makes this one unique?
Nerio Alessandri: This is the top location for us—our flagship. We have four flagships: One in New York in the US, our headquarters in Italy, as well as one we are currently designing in Singapore.
Technogym always seemed ahead of the curve. How have you seen things change in the market?
Nerio Alessandri: All people have a totally different awareness of health right now—it’s among the first three priorities for people across the world, including in Dubai. That’s about prevention, building immunity, as well as people understanding that life is very short, so better to put yourself in the best position to enjoy it. In 2020, people got worried and both family and the environment became more important.
Lockdown made people more conscious of all of that, and wellness puts all of those ingredients, health, family, and the environment, together. Quite simply, health is wealth.
The wellness lifestyle is real sustainability because it puts the person in the center. I believe it is possible to transform the green economy into the wellness economy. If you have respect for yourself and your own wellness, you have respect for the environment. If you have no respect for yourself, you won’t have respect for the environment, typically speaking.
There is a strong correlation between the environment and the person, and if we take care of people’s education on health and wellbeing they will be more careful on both fronts.
How are you working toward continuing to stay on the cutting edge?
Nerio Alessandri: Innovation, innovation, innovation. That is the real engine of growth in the company. Innovation in content, in design, in people, in human capital, in relations with customer, in marketing. We have had four important brekathroughs in terms of our technology. We started in a small garage many years ago with biomechanical and industrial design equipment. After 10 years, we were able to add electronics and software inside of the product. 10 years after that, we included software outside the product that helped build an ecosystem. 10 years after we created the my wellness cloud, the first B2B CRM platform in the world, that connected 20 million people.
The fourth important breakthrough is the plus content—training experiences on demand live. It’s about hardware plus software plus service plus content, which translates into lifestyle management.
Because of the Technogym system, we have the possibility to spread the Technogym programme any time anywhere—and link people such as patients with doctors, or people to their corporate HR programmes, for example.
Through the technological system, you have your programmes, you are tracking your content, you have educational support. This is the evolution of technology, from machine to ecosystem. We have an obsession with making the customer experience seamless, integrated innovation.
Find more here.