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NordicTrack inventor Ed Pauls dies |
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Tuesday, November 08, 2011 13:50 |
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By T. Rees Shapiro, The Washington Post
Ed Pauls, an engineer who turned lumpy couch loungers into winter-sport athletes with NordicTrack, an exercise machine that brought cross-country skiing indoors, died Oct. 9 at his home in Montrose, Colo. He was 80.
His daughter, Terri Pauls, said he had complications from Alzheimer’s disease.
Composed of wood slats, pulleys and wires, the NordicTrack at first glance seemed to resemble a castle-dungeon torturing mechanism rather than an exercise machine that helped stoke the nation’s fitness craze.
According to the 1997 book “Why Didn’t I Think of That?: Bizarre Origins of Ingenious Inventions We Couldn’t Live Without” by Allyn Freeman and Bob Golden, the NordicTrack was featured at medical conventions and praised by cardiologists for its health benefits.
The device was the brainchild of Mr. Pauls, a cross-country skier who worked as a mechanical engineer, designing ski boots and bindings for the Rosemount company.
Mr. Pauls’s breakthrough moment in exercise equipment came one winter day in the early 1970s when he was skiing in the Minneapolis suburbs. Mr. Pauls recalled it had been a particularly dreary outing — the conditions were wetter and colder than usual.
In the middle of his trek, he began to imagine a cross-country skiing simulator that could be used inside his well-heated home.
The machine’s first iterations required the exerciser to strap on ski boots and use real wooden skis. One prototype had a sofa pillow for extra padding.
(Mr. Pauls originally had called his machine the “Nordic Jock” but changed the name after women’s rights groups complained, according to the book by Freeman and Golden.)
Read more about Ed Pauls and NordicTrack - including the name of the Olympian who endorsed the machine and helped boost its popularity - in the Washington Post.
BUY a paper copy of the ad (above) here.
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