Astone Fitness is on the rise

CYNTHIA RAMSAY

On May 10, Astone Fitness took its Human Trainer Suspension Gym to CBC’s Dragons’ Den. While the result of that visit won’t be publicly known until the episode airs next season, it is safe to say that Richmond-based Astone Fitness is a success, no matter what the dragons think.

The company’s first notable venture was an infomercial in 2004. According to a press release from earlier this year, Astone grossed more than one million dollars in 2011 and now has distributors and customers around the world. And business partners Ben Silverman, Darren Shane and Joel Grenz have more growth in mind.

Shane took time over the Victoria Day long weekend to talk with the Independent about Astone Fitness and how he became involved in the company. He also shared a bit about himself.

“I’ve always been very involved in sports, from playing competitive baseball, hockey and soccer, running a marathon, half marathon and completing a triathalon,” he said.

“As a child,” he added later, “I went to Camp Solomon Schechter and loved sports and exercise, as well as going on one of the earliest Israel and Poland USY Pilgrimage [trips]. I’m still very good friends with several of my classmates from my graduating Hebrew school class.”

Born and raised in Richmond, Shane, now 35, had his bar mitzvah at Congregation Beth Tikvah.

“After graduating high school, I initially began studying pre-law and criminology and then soon changed my focus to marketing, small business and computer courses,” he said.

“After graduating, I traveled overseas, through Australia and Asia seeing the world. When I returned to Canada, my older brother was managing a fitness facility and suggested I enrol in several personal trainer courses that were being offered. Since I had been involved with sport and exercise from a very young age and I’d been strength training for 10-plus years, I was excited and decided to take the courses. After completing [them], I continued studying and then tested for the American Council on Exercise exam, which would allow me to be to be a fitness trainer overseas. I passed the exam and began working with clients in a private training facility in Richmond.”

Shane was then drawn – by his love of baseball – to Japan, which he described as “a country rich in baseball and sport. I began personal training at Gold’s Gym in Tokyo ... and playing high-level baseball around Tokyo for the next year. I returned to Vancouver in 2003 and, soon after, Astone Fitness was started.”

After returning home from Japan, explained Shane, “Ben Silverman and I – Ben was in the same Hebrew school class with my younger brother and I’d known him for 15-plus years – had our first meeting in Richmond at the old Bread Garden at Ironwood Mall. With Ben’s film and entrepreneurial background along with my fitness background, our interests were aligned, as we wanted to provide premium portable fitness equipment to the global market. I realized during my travels that it was a challenge to find a fitness facility, and Ben realized, with people’s busy schedules, having options such as portable fitness equipment could make a difference for people’s health and fitness.

“This is where we started brainstorming and coming out with ideas that led us to the Astone Fitness. Our first product was Ripcords resistance cords, which, 10 years later, has one of the strongest brands, and reputation and quality, in the resistance band/cord market.

“At the beginning of 2004,” Shane continued, “Astone Fitness released the Ripcords infomercial on TV, which immediately followed with an e-commerce focus via our first website (ripcords.com). We worked with world kickboxing champion Michael “Black Sniper” McDonald as our celebrity endorsement, who was featured in our Circuit 7 Ripcords DVD.”

From its early stages of development, Astone has known the importance of e-commerce.

“We’ve built a very strong infrastructure of website, education sites, online affiliates, branding and social media,” explained Shane. “We’ve been recognized as a top seller on Amazon and presently sell in all eight Amazon online sales platforms (U.K., France, Italy, Spain, Germany, Canada, U.S.A., Japan).”

Grenz was brought into Astone Fitness to manage and run the marketing and online department. However, Astone products are not only available over the Internet. Its flagship store and head office are located in Richmond, beside Ikea, on Bathgate Way. Added Shane, “We now sell our products in over 200 retail chains in North America, as well as [via] overseas distributors; some of our retail stores include the Forazi Group, Fitness Town Fitness Depot and many others.

“The company and products have continued to grow every year, however, our mission has always stayed consistent with making fitness fun and providing premium portable fitness solutions,” said Shane. “We’ve increased our products lines by adding more portable products, such as stretching straps, resistance leg cords, additional

Circuit 7 training DVDs, and our newest product line, the Human Trainer Suspension Gym. Astone Fitness is continually innovating and in the R&D phase with new products.”

Astone develops all its products and creates the branding in its head office in Richmond, said Shane, who tests all the products in his private training studio with clients to ensure they’re functional and safe.

“Astone Fitness released the Human Trainer at the beginning of 2011 after several years of R&D and thorough testing,” Shane offered by way of example. “The Human Trainer Suspension Gym is patent approved and is the most versatile piece of fitness equipment Astone Fitness has developed. We came to develop the product after using Olympic rings in my training facility. We wanted to develop a dual-anchor suspension gym system that was fully portable and easy to set up on any standard door, tree and stable structure. We designed the Human Trainer to allow users to perform full-body movements with effortless exercise transitions and have multiple accessory options, compared to only rings.

“Traditional Olympic rings take time to change between exercises and the rings are permanently attached to the straps,” he explained. “The Human Trainer uses commercial-grade inelastic straps and industrial-grade materials to provide the greatest safety and strength. Our modular D-ring design allows users to instantly change from exercise to exercise and to have multiple attachments, such as the Human Trainer ab straps, rotational pulley, foot cradles, handles and Olympic rings.”

As Astone continues to grow – it now has distributors in the United Kingdom, Ireland, France, Spain, Portugal, Mexico, Australia, New Zealand, Brazil and Israel – it also is starting to give back. In January of this year, the company donated fitness equipment to all seven fire halls in Richmond.

“All three of the owners of Astone Fitness live in Richmond and [we] wanted to give back to the community and to help ensure our firefighters are healthy and fit,” said Shane, adding that Astone also donated some Ripcords resistance bands to Margaret Maxim, a fellow trainer, who recently completed the Vancouver Sun Run training with a run group comprised of people experiencing homelessness in Vancouver.

On the Jewish community front, Shane said, “We’re now working with Shari Feuz [acting fitness director] and Eldad Goldfarb [assistant executive director] of the Vancouver JCC to bring fun and exciting full-body exercise classes to Vancouver and hopefully across all the 200-plus JCCs in North America.”

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