lifestyle

A healthy fit

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By Gavin Blair for EURObiZ Japan

Picture yourself carving down the expansive ski slopes of Hokkaido, sprinting along the sidewalks of Tokyo, working up a sweat at the local fitness centre, or recharging mind and body at a spa. When it comes to health and fitness in Japan, European companies are helping enhance your routine with a range of imported products and services.

Sportswear giant adidas of Germany has been expanding and upgrading its offerings of customised shoes and uniforms. Its mi adidas service makes it easier for sporty types to stand out from the crowd. Since it began in 2002 with just football and tennis shoes, mi adidas has been steadily growing in popularity. The range of available wear that can be customised to suit each customer’s preferences has widened. Since 2012, adidas also has gradually been shifting mi adidas from its retail brick-and-mortar shops to its online sites, with a more recent focus on mobile devices, says Takashi Yamashita, senior manager of the Concept to Consumer division at adidas Japan.

Customers can design their running shoes, football boots or casual trainers with their own combination of available colours, components, designs, laces and Velcro. They can even put their own text across the soles. Since January 2015, a smartphone app known as mi ZX Flux has allowed people to take a picture with their smartphone and have that image become part of the design on their shoes.

“We’ve had customers take a picture at a wedding, and then get that printed onto shoes to give to the couple as a present. Our staff also like to customise their shoes so they don’t look like everyone else’s,” says Yamashita.

Customised uniforms are also proving popular, especially among sports teams, such as varsity athletes looking for a different spin on their university colours.

Last year’s Rugby World Cup helped stir interest in related apparel, thanks in particular to the Japan team’s performance that exceeded expectations, as well as to the adidas-sponsored champions, the All Blacks. Although the Japan national team uniform isn’t from adidas, the company does provide the boots for ace kicker Ayumu Goromaru.

Another type of boot that can be customised is the Vacuum Fit range from Austrian ski-maker Fischer. The technology has been hailed as a game-changer that takes the pain out of what, for many people, can be the worst shortcoming of skiing: uncomfortable boots.

“In the past, the inner boots could be heated up and moulded to the shape of your feet, but now it can be done for the outer shell boots, too,” explains Fischer Japan merchandise manager Ken Odashima.

The boots are heated in a special box to 80°C. The skier then steps into them, and they are cooled down to fit perfectly around the feet. Another winning factor is that the polyurethane plastic makes the boots approximately 30% lighter than the current standard.

“A lot of people in Japan still don’t know about Vacuum Fit boots, but people who try them on really like them and become repeat customers,” says Odashima.

At ¥80,000 to ¥115,000, including up to five re-mouldings, they don’t come cheap. But still, most skiers who try on the Vacuum Fit boot never go back to a standard boot, according to Odashima.

Those who like to exercise all year round may well end up relying on the equipment of Italian company Technogym, the world’s leading manufacturer of technology-driven fitness equipment. In Japan, Technogym can be found at gym chains such as Tipness, Renaissance and Konami, as well as hotels including The Peninsula Tokyo, Andaz Tokyo and the Prince Park Tower Tokyo. Technogym’s fitness and strength machines are cutting-edge, combining the latest in sports science, ergonomic design and technology. Technogym aims to offer an optimal exercise experience for users to enhance their performance.

“Innovation, on both the hardware and software side, is the principle on which our equipment is developed,” says Norihisa Miyake, marketing manager for Technogym’s Japan operations.

“Attention is paid to precise details that are often overlooked by other manufacturers, such as the exact angle of a treadmill monitor that best reduces strain on the neck when looking at it while running,” Miyake adds.

ARTIS is Technogym’s flagship range of machines that it designed in cooperation with Loughborough University Sport Technology Institute, a leading UK centre for sports science. The institute, for example, created equipment that takes into account biomechanical factors such as the exact differences in the positioning of a user’s fingers when being pushed or pulled during an exercise, explains Miyake.

ARTIS equipment also aims to be environmentally friendly. The energy generated by physical activity on its machines can power the monitor displays.

Technogym’s users can access their own personal database through mywellness, a cloud-based, open and free platform. Their training history, performance and other statistics, as well as data from third-party apps, can be accessed when users log in from any computer or handheld device.

Founded in 1983 by Nerio Alessandri, who remains president of the company, Technogym promotes an overall wellness lifestyle. The systems can monitor users’ movements throughout their daily life, a cloud-connected app can personalise music for running, and its exercise ball-type office chairs can aid wellbeing in the work place.

In keeping with the Italian emphasis on design, Technogym’s range of home-use equipment — including a treadmill, recumbent bicycle and cross trainer — were created in partnership with Italian industrial designer Antonio Citterio.

“The real appeal of our equipment is difficult to express in words; they really need to be experienced first-hand,” says Miyake.

Technogym equipment is also available at the Palace Hotel in Marunouchi, where guests can recharge and relax at the hotel’s evian Spa Tokyo. Modelled after evian’s luxury resort on the French shores of Lake Geneva, it was the first evian-branded spa in Asia.

“The spa is designed around the concept of the mineral water on its journey through the Alps,” explains Palace Hotel spokesperson Saori Shiobara.

A range of treatment courses is available, with each room named after a peak in the Swiss Alps. They use a number of luxury brand French cosmetics and skincare products. The latest addition is Carita, introduced in January, according to Shiobara.

“The treatments we offer are based on those at the evian resort, but we have also added Japanese elements to make it our own original spa,” she adds.

In whatever way you choose to exercise or unwind in Japan, there’s an increasingly greater chance that European companies are helping you do it in style.

© Japan Today

©2024 GPlusMedia Inc.


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