INDUSTRY

Nordic Gym, one of the largest manufacturers of exercise equipment in the Nordic region, has used SolidWorks 3D mechanical design software to invent the first mass-market weight training equipment designed specifically for use by both physically disabled and non-disabled athletes. The equipment, called Artic, debuted this summer and was used by Tim Johansson of Sweden, who won a silver medal in track Saturday at the Paralympic Games in Athens. The equipment features vertically adjustable seats and a newly designed, patent-pending weight stack selector pin that helps wheelchair users load the machine with correct weights. And because of a new patent-pending lever/release mechanism, users can now experience the full range of muscle motion while maintaining support and stability. This is a dramatic improvement over older machines that were retrofitted for wheelchair users and adjusted to the chair, not the athlete. SolidWorks 3D software made Nordic Gym's design and engineering work easier and faster than the 2D software the company abandoned three years ago. "Three-dimensional design is the standard, of course, and by far the best way to simulate movement, which for us is a very important step in the design process," said Christer Eriksson, concept developer and founder of Nordic Gym. "It also provides a fast and dynamic way to show what a piece of strength training equipment looks like without having to haul it to the client every time. We believe the automation of 2D design will be a brief chapter in the history of product development. But what designers have always wanted is to design the way they think - in 3D, which is precisely what SolidWorks software allows." A key difference in Nordic Gym's new equipment is that it was conceived with disabled athletes in mind. Weight training equipment is typically developed for people with full mobility, and later retrofitted for people with disabilities. This process rarely puts the athlete in the correct lifting position, seldom supports trunk stability, and usually keeps the disabled person in his or her wheelchair during the exercise, limiting their motion and position. Nordic Gym, on the other hand, made sure the weight machine's chair could be easily adjusted to the correct training height and that users can do the same exercise as athletes without physical disabilities. "During the development process it became clear that with SolidWorks software we could solve problems from the disabled athlete's perspective without having to compromise the machine's functionality for fully abled athletes," Eriksson said. "This led to our patent-pending solution, which we will apply to other machines." The new exercise machines were developed in collaboration with the 200-meter wheelchair world champion Tim Johansson, who trained on the Artic(tm) machines in his successful bid to attend the Paralympic Games in Athens. "One of the problems with the weight training equipment available today is that it fails to provide effective strength training," said Johansson, whose Paralympics silver medal performance was less than half a second off the world record pace. "It is difficult to find positions where you can load the machine with the heavy weights that you need as a world-class athlete, and that allow for the entire range of muscle motion while maintaining sufficient support and stability. I think that Nordic Gym has taken a big step toward excellent exercise equipment for my needs." Johansson also noted that the new equipment will help gyms by no longer requiring them to purchase two sets of equipment, one for fully abled athletes and one for disabled athletes. Moreover, the new equipment renders an important social benefit: enabling disabled people to work out together with their friends, without having to be directed to a "special," isolated part of the gym. In fact, this social benefit will have a very decisive influence on whether disabled athletes work out or not. The initiative to develop the dual-purpose strength training equipment for the disabled came from a group at SUH - the Swedish Development Centre for Disability Sports - led by SUH Manager Kennet Fröjd. "No one had ever realized that disabled persons need weight training equipment that is not just modified 'ordinary' equipment but that really is made for their needs," Fröjd said. "Yet at the same time, the target market of people in wheelchairs is not that large. So to be affordable, this specially designed weight training equipment must be designed so that it can be used by everyone. This is what Nordic Gym has been so successful at: simply turning the concept around and designing with disabled athletes in mind first." Nordic Gym is the market leader in Sweden and exports a significant amount of equipment to Norway, Denmark, and Russia. "But the world market is vast," said Eriksson. "If we are to compete with the world's leading manufacturers, we need modern and effective development tools, such as SolidWorks software, that will give us short product development cycles that allow us to get our concept right from the start. It is extremely important for us to keep the development work at a high pace so that we can keep developing and updating new products." Nordic Gym works with authorized SolidWorks reseller MP Engineering for ongoing software training, implementation, and support.