South Shore YMCA's Journey to Keiser Fitness Equipment Adoption

Overview

The state-of-the-art South Shore YMCA in Quincy, Mass., located outside of Boston provides quality programs and services to more than 20,000 members, ranging from the ages of 7 to 103. In 2019, South Shore YMCA Director of Health & Wellbeing Kim Driscoll made the decision to replace the facility’s iron-based strength equipment with a full lineup of more than 70 pieces of Keiser, including racks, single-station machines, and Functional Trainers, plus M3i Indoor Bikes, M5i Strider Ellipticals and M7i Wheelchair-Accessible Total Body Trainers. Additionally, Keiser supplied the South Shore YMCA sister location in Hanover, Mass., with 26 pieces of strength, functional and cardio machines. Kim Driscoll made the move to Keiser to provide her diverse Y membership with a safer, more effective, more efficient way of training people of all ages, ability levels and body types. Here’s why she did it.

What drove the decision to update your fitness equipment?

Kim: We have a very traditional group here [at South Shore YMCA]. We don’t just have a senior population, but also a grand-senior population, and they’ve all grown up in strength training at Quincy. Because of that, the type of equipment we had in our old facility was pretty much expected in our new one [opened in December 2013]. But we also had such a large facility to fill that I was able to go out and choose the best of the best – selectorized, plate-loaded, free-weight, air-pressure, everything. Over the last five years, I’ve sat back and watched the wear and tear on the equipment, the usage, and the service I get on it. So, when we moved to revamping our equipment, I was looking at all the possibilities.

What type of research did you do?

Kim: I spent about 15 months researching and testing equipment, going to different vendors, and facilities, and seeing where they were as far as their R&D and what would best suit our members.

How did you determine Keiser was the best fit?

Kim: I first learned about Keiser when we were just getting ready to break ground on our new building… At that time, I knew nothing at all about Keiser. But when the Keiser Demonstration Van showed up at our facility, my socks were knocked off. My senior director and I then went out to Fresno [Keiser headquarters] to visit the facility. It was at that point that I got to see the background behind everything – the engineering, how they work, and the development of some of the pieces in the factory. That was when we started talking about the athletic end of things, as well. That’s where it really came together for me. I was just like, ‘Why aren’t we using this for everybody? This is a huge opportunity for us to start to educate and change the entire culture of our fitness center. So that’s when we decided that we were definitely going to put a line in and see how it worked with our membership.

Iron has been the industry norm for decades. Trying something different must not have been an easy decision?

Kim: At the time, I had a full free weight room with traditional squat racks, Olympic benches, lifting platforms, and plate-loaded equipment. I had another section of the gym that was all selectorized equipment with Cybex and Nautilus. And then I put in a Keiser area, which we originally thought we would start using for our medical wellness-based programs and our partnership program, which is spinal cord injury, brain injury, and stroke recovery. We also started training youth on it. But once we got more and more involved in that, I was just seeing that Keiser was more open for everyone… We have a lot of free- weight members, and they are rough and tough on our equipment. When we moved into our phase of revamping our equipment, I was entertaining the idea of going very old school and letting them slam [iron] weights all day long. But when we went out to the Keiser facility, saw the building of the equipment and talked to R&D a little bit, I wrapped my head around the concept [of Keiser Dynamic Variable Resistance] and said, ‘What if we went all in?’ And we just went Keiser … It was quite a shock value. But we’re doing well.

What is the biggest advantage Keiser gives you?

Kim: At South Shore YMCA, we start training at 7 years old. My oldest client here is 103 … With Keiser, I can put your elementary school child on it, or your high school or college athlete. I can put your parents, your grandparents, and even your great-grandparents on it. And then I can put Tom Brady right there beside them. I can put them all on the same exact chest press piece, but I can train them as an individual on that piece ...It works for everybody!

With such a diverse membership, safety is a big factor. How is the Keiser pneumatic system safer than iron?

Kim: Back in the day, kids used to learn how to work out from a friend or somebody at the gym, but now they’re all learning things from YouTube. Some of that stuff is kind of scary with what they’re trying to do in a free weight room. And then you’ve got them on a bench egging each other on to lift the same weight. Not everybody can lift that same weight, and where it’s a bar, it’s dangerous if you drop it. But now we bring them in [with Keiser machines] and say, “OK, well, I can change your weight, but now I want you to give me a power output.’ Now, you have a totally different type of competition that’s not going to hurt them. I brought in members of the Eastern Nazarene College women’s basketball team to show them what they could do on a Functional Trainer and a Power Squat. The night that we had them on the Power Squat, it was almost like a night club atmosphere in here because they were all just cheering each other on to see how much they could put out, and how long they could keep that up. The best thing is that you can’t hurt yourself.

How have your longtime members reacted to Keiser?

Kim: I said to one member, ‘We’re bringing in the Keiser line. It’s all air-compressed, constant-resistance power output. And he replied, ‘Yeah, I don’t know what any of that means, but I’m behind you.’ I said, ‘OK, thanks a lot, let me know what you think.’ And then he came back the other day and said, ‘The stuff is amazing!’ … A lot of times, people don’t care about the science behind it, but once you start talking about the functionality of it, then all of a sudden they start to get it … And that’s the big thing for me, being able to teach this to our exercise community. Many are so stuck in their ways of doing things. They’ve been doing the same workouts forever, and they might be seeing results, but they’re not seeing change. Now [with the Keiser machines], the comments I get back are that they’re seeing change again. Guys who have been here for 30, 40 years are starting to see definition again. That’s amazing. And the other part is they’re telling me that they don’t hurt. There’s a difference between the workout hurt and the after- workout hurt. They’re telling me their shoulders aren’t bothering them anymore, no back problems, everything is feeling better. They can go back and do a dumbbell set and are using heavier dumbbells than they’ve been using for a long time. This is an opportunity to change the thought process, and be able to educate all of them – and do it in a safer way, a faster way, and a more effective way that gives them longevity.

Is Keiser effective with your older members?

Kim: With some of my older members, they’re saying, ‘I’m getting a little bit older now,” and I’m like, ‘Right, so you still want to do the same thing that you did before, but we want you to do it safer, and we want you to keep doing it for a long time.’ I’ve got 80-year-olds that have trained on Nautilus stuff forever. But now we’re trying to train differently with Keiser. You want that reaction time. So if we want to be able to react quickly, and save ourselves from falling, then why wouldn’t we want to train that way too? I had a conversation with a young staff person. I told him, if you’re an athlete, if you’re a football player, you want to be able to jump off that line really quickly. If you’re a basketball player, you want to be able to jump up high really quickly and be able to change. And he said, ‘Why would you train a senior that way?’ And I said, ‘OK, we teach you when you’re on a selectorized piece, or when you’re using free weights, it’s basically a three-three count, right?’ He said, ‘Yes.’ And I said, ‘OK, let’s put it in a very simple scenario. If I take a senior and they go into the bathroom, when they get up are they getting up in a three-three count? They’re not. And if they start to fall over, it’s got to be even quicker than that, right? So, why wouldn’t I put them on a Keiser leg press and say push. Give me a quick push.’ It doesn’t have to be a lot of quickness, but it just needs to be enough that if I trip, I’m going to be able to react, put my hand out, and put it against the wall. And he said, ‘Oh, yes. I get it.’ That’s the answer we’re getting a lot about Keiser. It’s been, ‘Now, I get it!’

How easy is it dealing with Keiser as a partner?

Kim: I reached out to Keiser and gave them some feedback on the M7i [Wheelchair-Accessible Total Body Trainer], which we have in our partnership program. We said, ‘It’s a nice piece, but we kind of see there’s a little issue here, and if you could maybe change that a little bit.’ And the next thing I knew we were getting prototype pieces sent out to us to try out and let Keiser know what we think … I was like, ‘Wow. This is the first company that actually listens to you, and wants to work with you, and partner with you. This really is an opportunity to change everybody’s way of thinking – the culture of the way that they exercise – and we have Keiser that will stand behind us the whole way, and give us what we need.

How integral has your YMCA Association been during the switch to Keiser?

Kim: Thankfully, I’m lucky enough to be in an Association such as the SSYMCA that supported these decisions. A lot of gyms just stick to traditional, basic or cheap equipment. We took a giant leap out of the box and it’s paying off.