S-Drive Performance Trainer backs Redfern’s Lift Performance Centre

Since its opening in 2014, the Lift Performance Centre in the Sydney suburb of Redfern has set out to be different from conventional gyms by offering a range of innovations and points of differences.

Perhaps best known as being a fitness club without mirrors and televisions, owner Cato Rutherford, is an internationally renowned strength coach and manual therapist who has a passion for helping elite athletes reach their potential.

Taking eight years to construct from the gym from the ground up, Rutherford and his team of in-house trainers attract a range of users from those wanting to improve their fitness through to high-performance and  professional athletes.

A recent challenge facing Lift Performance Centre was filling the gap they had between the sled track and their treadmills; with standard treadmills able to train linear speed, whereas the sled track with loaded equipment is good for training the anaerobic energy systems.

In between, they sought a resisted machine that was able to train acceleration inside the gym.

Related challenges face by Rutherford and his team included lack of time-efficient training on certain equipment and not being able to have a 360-degree view of their athlete’s running technique. Improper running technique can drastically hamper client/athlete progress and potentially cause long-term injuries, so this was a void that Lift Performance Centre wanted to fill.

Rutherford was fortunate to have worked with professional triathlete and star of ESPNs Search4Hurt, Matt Murphy, on projects over the years and with Murphy familiar with Matrix Fitness’ S-Drive Performance Trainer he suggested the product as a remedy to the challenges faced by Lift Performance Centre.

With the S-Drive Performance Trainer, Rutherford is now able to teach his clients the proper techniques and mental cues to focus on when learning how to sprint, all in a closed setting. Moreover, the S-Drive enables Cato and his team to take a series of athletes through high-quality performance training efficiently, whereas the sled track has always been a bit of a inhibiting factor when trying to train many athletes at once. The S-Drive is simple to setup and it’s easy to adjust the resistance, allowing athletes over a wide range of body weights to train against proper resistance.

As Rutherford  notes, one of the most beneficial features of the S-Drive is being able to finally have a 360-degree view of his athletes while they’re performing drills, as opposed to the sled track where chasing the athlete up and down the field is not very pragmatic.

He explains “there is no other treadmill that allows you to incorporate all the specific phases of sprinting. It’s designed specifically for strength coaches who are trying to tick that box.

“It has a strapping system and a very quantifiable resistance system that allows me to produce the training effect that I want, which is why I’m very comfortable talking to my colleagues about it and referring it to them.

“And the feedback so far has been terrific.”

Another great feature of the S-Drive Performance Trainer is that it doesn’t have a motor, making it easy to assemble and move around the fitness facility. 

Matrix Fitness' S-Drive Performance Trainer is distributed by Johnson Health Tech Australia.

Click here to contact Johnson Health Tech Australia via their entry in the Australasian Leisure Management Supplier Directory.

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