With his clear blue eyes and air of surprised delight, Steve Sarns, VP of sales and marketing for NuStep, is a highly successful salesman, a very persuasive speaker, and an apostle of wellness.
“In ten years, we want to be a household name,” says Sarns. “We want a NuStep in every home. We want to be a part of every life. We want to help people to be the best they can be, no matter who they are.”
That’s a mighty big ambition for a family-owned business that makes all of its products in a former warehouse in Pittsfield Township, but it could happen. NuStep’s handicapped-accessible, fixed-position exercise bikes are already in hospitals, physical therapy facilities, and heart rehabilitation clinics, as well as senior centers, senior living communities, and health clubs in every state, plus Canada, Japan, China, Italy, France, Germany, Belgium, Finland, Norway, and Israel. Locally, they’re in the YMCA and the Liberty Athletic Club, and all over the U-M. Since introducing NuStep nineteen years ago, the company has sold 60,000 machines; it currently has three models, priced from $3,595 to $5,995.
Sarns was born in Ann Arbor in 1955, the son of legendary local entrepreneur Dick Sarns. “My dad developed the heart-lung machine in his basement in [1960],” says the younger Sarns with understated but obvious pride. “He didn’t invent it, but he did develop it, and it became the world’s leading heart-lung machine. He sold the business in 1981 to 3M, and it’s grown since then.” Now owned by Terumo, Sarns heart-lung machines are still made in a factory on Jackson Road.
After graduating from Pioneer, Steve Sarns went to U-M, where he earned a master’s in exercise physiology, aka kinesiology, in 1988. But that’s not what he wound up doing for a living.
After his father sold Sarns, he “had the idea of a recumbent bike, and he started a company called LifePlus Inc. in 1987. I came in to help with sales, and shortly afterwards we saw that a recumbent bike was not going to be feasible. We were saying, ‘Here’s a bike seat’ to people with chronic conditions and neurological conditions, with strokes and Parkinson’s disease, with neuropathy and general weakness, to people who are sedentary, and to the wheelchair population. And it was very frustrating for them, because they wanted to exercise but they couldn’t do it on a bicycle seat.”
It was the younger Sarns who came up with a simple but elegant solution: a comfortable seat that swiveled. “I had the concept, and I got it from seeing people not being able to do it. The prototype was very basic, but when we had a woman not able to walk get on it, it was an ‘Oh, my goodness’ moment, and I knew it would work.”
They introduced the NuStep in 1993 at the American College of Sports Medicine show in Seattle and the American Physical Therapy show in Chicago. “People loved it, and they needed very little education,” Sarns recalls. “They got it immediately. Since then we’ve been able to sell it over the phone, and to this day, almost all sales are inside sales.”
From Sarns’ perspective, they’re selling more than a fixed-position exercise bike for cardiac rehabilitation. “We aim for universal design, something totally inclusive. The seat is great, but on each pedal is a footplate with a heel cup so you can fix your foot there. And we have arm rests with grips and leg stabilizers to keep the legs in position.” These features allow people with strokes, spinal cord injuries, and other neurological problems to use the machine.
“Most fitness equipment was designed for the young and the fit, not for people with injuries or the aging,” says Sarns. “But inclusive fitness means any individual, no matter who, can utilize the product. After all, 85 percent of the population needs more exercise.”
Sarns is on a roll. “We want to change the health club industry. Now the emphasis is on the young and fit, but the population as a whole is not young and fit. So many people want to exercise, but health clubs are not welcoming to the overweight, not accepting and understanding of people with disabilities.”
Why stop with the injured, the aging, and the overweight? “There’ll be NuStepping for kids,” Sarns continues happily. “Kids are sitting all day on computers, and a thirty-minute workout a couple times a week just doesn’t compensate. With a NuStep in the home, they could exercise every half-hour or so.”
Dave Morris, health and wellness director at the Ann Arbor YMCA, says they started with two machines and are up to eight now. “They get a lot of use,” says Morris. “It used to be people with limited mobility and people with injuries. Then a lot of older adults started using them because they can sit comfortably and can’t fall off. Now all sorts of folks use them.”
From a local perspective, perhaps the coolest thing about NuStep is that every step of the manufacturing process is done right here. They used to subcontract some work, Sarns says, but “when they delivered parts that were not the quality we needed, we decided to do it ourselves from raw material.”
Their 57,000-square-foot factory–a former Borders book warehouse–employs forty-five people, who build each machine from scratch, starting with sheet steel and bar stock. At a nearby administration building, another forty people market and sell them. Though unwilling to reveal much about the company’s finances, Sarns says revenue increased 12 percent from 2010 to 2011 and that 2011 was the best year yet in profitability.
“Prevention is the future; being still active is the magic,” Sarns says with a beatific smile. “My dad is eighty-four, and he’s the CEO and still comes in every day at nine. Mom has MS but she comes in every day at one, and they leave together at six. We’re in the business of aging successfully, and they’re our models.”
There is no way every home will ever be able to afford a NuStep at $3600 and up. I am disabled and use them in physical therapy and at the YMCA, and would love one for home use. But most elderly and/or disabled people are on limited incomes and will never be able to purchase such an expensive item. Also the ones being sold to hospital, physical therapy centers and gyms are made to be used around the clock and need all the various settings to accommodate people of all sizes and disabilities. There is no reason for a home machine for one or even a few people to be built of steel and have all the bells and whistles. My neighbor paid $3000 for a used one, and even that is preposterous for most people for an exercise machine. I have bad knees as well as fibromyalgia. The stepping, as opposed to circular pedaling motion of the NuStep makes it possible for me to exercise without doing further damage to my arthritic knees. It is more accurately called a recumbent stepper than a recumbent bicycle. Also, aerobic exercise is one of the most beneficial things for people with fibromyalgia, but between the pain from that plus my knees, it is nearly impossible to work up to an aerobic level of exercise except on a NuStep or in a warm pool, neither of which are — or are likely to ever be — accessible for home use. Even at one third of the current prices of the NuStep, it would be beyond the means of most people who need it. I get about $715 a month from Social Security Disability Insurance, and it doesn’t even cover all my basic expenses, much less pricey items like a NuStep. If they can ever make one affordable for home use, I’ll be first in line, but I don’t see that coming.
Yesterday, on Mothers Day, my 2 grown sons(one a pharmacist the other a DME mgr. at a pharmacy) surprised me with a used Nordic Track R400 recumbent bike! Unfortunately, I cannot use as it hurts my arthritic hip and knees. I am currently using the NUStep at my fitness class and it is my favorite! I,too,would be right there to purchase one if you made one exclusively for home use. Please do what you can to develope one that is more reasonably priced for us on fixed incomes but desire to improve our health with excersize.
By the way…Thank you for the NuStep recumbent stepper! It has less impact on joints that are already hurting from arthritis and is just a delight to use. Bless you!
I really need one but I too can not afford one. It is very sad that there is nothing else like it on the market. My Doctor loves this machine and encourages me get one, but I don’t have her income. I am 67 with back issues, neuropathy, and obesity. Things just seem hopeless.