This Modest Machine Can Replace Your Gym’s Weights—and Your Trainer
Tonal, a touchscreen that aims to pump you up without the iron, is the latest innovation in the Netflix-ification of fitness.
Tonal’s touchscreen for weightlifting is an industry first.
Source: Tonal
Almost two decades into a Silicon Valley career, Aly Orady quit his job at age 35 after developing health problems that included Type 2 diabetes and sleep apnea. “I was the guy who had the gym membership but went sporadically,” he says.
Orady started working out religiously and over the next couple of years lost 70 pounds. But he worried about keeping the weight off when he returned to work. “I remember sitting at the gym at 6 a.m. thinking, How the heck am I going to balance a full-time job, family, another startup, and still come here every day?” In 2015, he began prototyping a way to digitize those racks of free weights and turn metal into pixels: same pain, same gain, from the comfort of your living room.