Strength training is the future of fitness, according to Jacob Rauch, co-founder of Connected Strength—a new studio that personalizes exercise with technology.
Connected Strength opened on July 7, just off Milpas street downtown. It brings a technology called Tonal to Santa Barbara gymgoers, which creates highly personalized strength training workouts for users. The Tonal consists of a cable-column-like piece of equipment attached to the wall, which syncs with an app where users create a personal profile to track their progress.
“Everyone needs to strength train, but not everyone feels they have a home to do it,” Rauch said. “We wanted to make it more accessible.”
Connected Strength offers a variety of packages to make members’ experience as accessible and customizable as possible. A starter pack includes onboarding and one group class for $25. Drop-in classes cost $45, while an eight pack of classes costs $320. The founding member pack, which includes 12 classes per month, goes for $360.
Rauch explained that everyone can benefit from strength training. It works by applying external resistance to the body, and progressively increasing it while paying attention to how the body responds and adjusting accordingly. It builds muscle mass, endurance and longevity, Rauch said.
One member, Cody Loggins, has been to Connected Strength over 10 times since the opening. Previously, he worked with a personal trainer. Now, with the highly attentive Tonal machines, he feels that Connected Strength classes are doubling his ability to workout in a personalized manner for the same price as traditional personal training.
“It’s engaging with me like no other gym could,” Loggins said. “The weight adjusts in real time with how strong I am.”
To create their Tonal profile, users start with a four-move calibration workout with the machine. Through that process, the Tonal catalogs data points to learn how strong you are. In a class, users sign into their profile on one of the seven machines and the system creates a personal workout for them.
Though Connected Strength is very tech-forward, Rauch said there is still a strong community element present at the studio. Experts lead group classes, which bring members of a variety of different levels together since everyone’s Tonal machine is personalized to their strength. Rauch added that many of the studio’s earliest members are in their seventies.
Rauch worked for Tonal in New York City before bringing the technology to Santa Barbara. His co-founder, Sam Brown, was running a personal training studio in Santa Barbara with an open space next door. The partners captured that space, purchased the Tonals and renovated it to create the studio. They then opened Connected Strength independently.
“We’ve seen first hand how it makes personal strength training more efficient and personalized,” Rauch said.
