With Technology from Firstbeat, VITAGO is More Than Just a Fitness Center

The VITAGO health center in Moosburg, Bavaria, creates a link between rehabilitation, fitness and athletic training.

“A large proportion of our visitors come to us for rehabilitation” explains Rainer Zistl managing director and therapist at VITAGO. “Including a lot of ambitious athletes, who often stay with us after they have recovered. We also look after some soccer players from the region, various individual athletes, and a professional slackliner,” he continues.

The range of services offered by VITAGO are suitably broad to match the needs of their clients, ranging from functional training to active physiotherapy, running courses, club work, and company projects. For three years now, they have also been using Firstbeat Sports technology and the Firstbeat Lifestyle Assessment.

Individual and data-oriented

“We strongly focus on individuality and correspondingly suitable concepts,” says Zistl. “For example, we control and monitor cardio training with the Firstbeat Sports Monitoring Solution so that course participants can always have their own performance data available to them so they can use it as a guide during training. The data is displayed on a television in real-time.” This is included in the membership or the ticket and is, therefore, available to every VITAGO visitor.

This makes the first impression a special experience for many: “For many, we are not just a fitness studio. It is important to us that we collect data and can work very reliably and specifically with our members as a result. That is our professional claim and that is appreciated by the people who come to us.”

Some members also have a Firstbeat Sports Sensor. “We can give these members feedback about their training remotely, which is particularly helpful in the current situation in the corona pandemic,” explains Zistl. “Controlling training is super easy, as the clients upload their data independently via the Firstbeat Sports: Athlete app to the Sport Cloud and we can provide new input on the training status based on the data.”

Support positive changes in people’s lives

The Firstbeat Lifestyle Assessment is often used when members have problems with recovery, for example. “Here we can take a very close look at the stress and recovery balance during the day. We also generally offer the Lifestyle Assessment if people feel stressed overall in everyday life,” says Zistl. The Lifestyle Assessment will also become an increasingly important factor when working with companies.   

“We have already experienced some members who have completely changed their daily routines based on the results of the Lifestyle Assessment results. The data is a strong, impressive tool to really bring about a change in people’s lives and with us they also have the support to pursue and realize set goals. An important topic in our society in the future will not only be physical but also mental health, especially in times of lockdown and general insecurity.”

“Since the first lockdown, we have also greatly expanded our digital offering. We have established many specially produced digital and online courses, such as yoga or Pilates, which actually work very well,” recalls Zistl.

The digital concepts will continue to be expanded. “But, of course, we also want to go back to regular training and so concepts are already available for the time when things can really start again,” said Zistl, hopefully. “We want it to be a return to a functioning and high-performing body not only for us but also for our existing and new members. To this end, we have already used the time in lockdown to develop new, intelligent concepts that are intended to motivate people to be active and quite literally get moving again. ”

Images: VITAGO