An Exclusive
Interview with Ray Wilson
By Mike Bundrant
It is not every day that one gets to meet an individual who has changed the world. Yet, in early November I found myself in Carlsbad, CA sitting in the home of Ray Wilson. Ray’s contribution to the fitness industry - and thus the health of countless people over the years - cannot be underestimated. Ray was a true pioneer in making the first health spas and fitness centers available to the masses. He also brought the Lifecycle exercise bike to the fitness industry, revolutionizing how we experience cardiovascular exercise.
At 77, Ray is healthy and strong, and keeps himself busy with his current project, “1-2-3 Fit”, the latest in circuit training fitness centers. This is part one of a two-part interview. Enjoy and piece of history and an uncommon story from an uncommon man….
HT: So you’re one of the pioneers in the fitness industry.
You’re one of the ones who started it all, really.
RAY WILSON: I’d say Jack LaLanne and Vic Tanny and myself.
HT: You and Jack LaLanne, were you friends way back when?
RAY WILSON: We’re good friends. My second company was called European Health Spas and that was the first company that went national that sold to a big, New York Stock Exchange company. We sold it for $46 million, which was about a quarter of billion now in today’s market. We sold to U.S. Industry, which was the 25th largest company in the United States at that time, and in Southern California, because Jack was so well known and had his TV program and all, I call our clubs “Jack LaLanne European Health Spas”. And Jack helped out with our fitness programs and my people and got a percentage of the gross.
HT: What would you say was the thing that put you on the map the most, was it one of those ventures, or was it….I know you introduced the Lifecycle into the industry.
RAY WILSON: I say what really put the industry, well, Jack LaLanne’s TV program originally, certainly made everybody aware in Southern California of fitness and exercise, and then Vic Tanny had opened a chain of health clubs in Southern California and so I competed with him and we had a gym war, more or less, and we both went national and we both went kind of bananas and spent so much on advertising, and we tripled our advertising budget and just really had a war. It was great for the industry because it enthused everybody and we just spent huge amounts of money on advertising and paid our people more, we’d steal each other’s people and pay them more, and so it put the industry really blasted the industry but it hurt both companies. I opened nationally 270 places, and he opened about 150. And then I realized that I’d over expanded and so I sold off to my regionals and then I went to Mexico to develop my spa idea and I came back with European Health Spas. The European Health Spas concept was a very important thing to the industry. The whole industry stayed with that for about 20 to 30 years. Then when I came out with the Lifecycle and Family Fitness Centers.
HT: And that was in the late 60’s?
RAY WILSON: No, it was in the 70’s, I’d say the 70’s. And the reason I did Lifecycle was that Bob Delmonteque and I had a club called the Presidents Club in Houston and we trained the first two waves of astronauts for the fitness; they didn’t have a fitness facility. NASA had moved from Florida to Houston and before they developed their own training facility they used our club as their training facility. And so we got to know a lot of the astronauts…
HT: Jim Lovell was one of them?
RAY WILSON: Yeah, Capt. Lovell, and so later Capt. Lovell, Jim Lovell, became Chairman of the Presidents Fitness Council under President Kennedy. In fact he stayed there for forty years so nobody - even though it was a post that you resigned each new president - nobody wants to kick out an astronaut, so he stayed as long as he wanted and we became really good friends. When I had sold European Health Spas, Capt. Lovell and his son and I went on a little fishing trip outside of Long Beach. Out there on a fishing boat he had a lot of time to work on me. At that time we didn’t have cardiovascular exercise. We had progressive resistance and he said that’s good, but nothing compared to cardiovascular and the country needs cardiovascular.
In fact, he said, if he had the power - knowing that my company was named European Health Spas - he said no company would be able to use the word health or fitness in their title unless they had cardiovascular. He said progressive resistance is ok, but nothing compares to cardiovascular. And he said that the President’s Physical Fitness Council did not have a big enough budget to train the whole country, but every student in school needs cardiovascular exercise and so each time they graduate, each year, your business is going to get better and better. He said now I’m sure you’ll be going back in the business because my contract renewal was over in ’74 and he said I want you to promise me that if you go back in the business that you’ll have a machine that everybody uses that’s cardiovascular.
I said OK I promise. And he said no, I want you to say Jim, I absolutely promise you I will not go back in the fitness business and open any clubs unless I have a machine that’s cardiovascular that everybody uses. And so I repeated it. And I respect Jim Lovell. He is a great man. You know he was the one that said “Houston we’ve got a problem”.
HT: Yeah, Apollo 13.
RAY WILSON: And so I had so much respect for him that when I decided to go back into the business and then I said but I’ve got to fulfill my promise to Jim. So I was over in Italy, my sister married Ed Cheavers, who was Mr. Arizona, who had been my workout buddy. And then we went over to Italy and opened some clubs in Italy. I visited them quite a bit and so I was over there and he had this great big green machine called a Lifecycle.
And so everyday I used it and I just loved it. And so when my cab came when I was leaving, I said oh Ed, by the way, send me one of those Lifecycles and just bill me. And he said it’s made in the U.S. It’s not made over here, I got it from the United States. And so I ran back and looked on the machine and got the address of the factory. It was in Concord, California….
Well, it’s a long story… but by the time I acquired the rights to the Lifecycle, several million dollars had been invested and lost on this project. And so it went along for a couple years and nothing really occurred and then finally I met a young guy named Augie Neito…Oh, in the meantime, I sold the rights to Europe to a group and they went broke, and I sold the rights to Canada and they went broke. So now we have even more millions down the tube.
HT: A string of failures.
RAY WILSON: So I was still going to do it so I opened a Family Fitness Center in La Mesa and the reason I opened it was to have a place to test my new Lifecycle. I went into solid state electronics and more or less started over designing a new Lifecycle machine. I had met these two engineers from Rockwell that had started their own little company and I told them what I wanted was solid state and to start over. The only thing I’d keep was the 12 minute program and the Lifecycle name and the rest I would abandon and start over with a brand new machine. And so I told them what I needed and they said well for $50,000 and in six months we’ll have you exactly what you want. Well, three years and a million dollars later I had what I wanted.
Then I finally met a young guy named Augie Neito. Augie had a gym and he was attending college, just 19 years old and a very ambitious kid. He just fell in love with it, just like I did, and he liked cardiovascular too, he believed in cardiovascular and so we go along testing it and everything goes ok, but nothing’s happening really and I try to put my group of investors together again. No one was interested in Lifecycle, so finally I met with Augie and I said Augie you and I and Don Wildman are the only ones interested in Lifecycle. Don Wildman had done Health and Tennis, which merged into Bally’s, and we had given Don a machine for his home. I had given a lot of the leaders in the industry a machine for their homes about a year before that, so Don was well sold. Don was buying some Lifecycles and putting them in his clubs a little bit. I said to Augie that it was only you, me, and Don Wildman in the whole world that even believes in Lifecycle.
So I told Augie I’m going to make you a full partner, but you gotta be prepared that this make take a long time, and he says that’s easy for you to say Ray, you’re pretty wealthy, from having sold European Health Spas and all, he says, but I’m going to make it now. With your spa idea it was way ahead of itself too, but you pushed the world ahead and got it going and didn’t worry about if the world was ready for it. You just made them ready for it. So I’m going to do the same thing with Lifecycles. I’m going to rent a U-Haul trailer and I’m going to get some Lifecycles and I’m going to go coast to coast. I said well, it’s not that easy, we were having to charge $3995 for it. We’ve got to get it down to $1995 or else it’s not going to be successful.
And the only way we could do that was to get into mass production and my factory tells me that I’ve got to have an order for a thousand machines before I can get into mass production. So that’s the problem. He says well I won’t come back until I have orders for a thousand machines. That was for sure easier said than done. So he calls me every week and so forth and about a couple months later he’s a little discouraged but not giving up, so he’s still at it and finally he calls me after about three months and says I got orders for 500 machines. And I’d have another 500 if it wasn’t for you.
I said what are you saying if it wasn’t for me? He says well Don Wildman says that he would order 500 Lifecylces, but he doesn’t want to help competition and your Family Fitness Centers, even though you are just starting, you’re potentially his biggest competitor because you’re the one who’s been most successful in the industry. Also, Wildman and I had been in my spa war with Vic Tanny. Wildman was one of Vic Tanny’s ex-employees, one of Vic Tanny’s key people. Later on he opened in Chicago with a couple of partners. In fact, we made a deal when I opened in Ohio, my European Health Spas, that I wouldn’t open in Illinois and he wouldn’t open in Ohio, and we lived up to that deal. He says Wildeman likes you, but he says why should he support somebody that could have a financial gain and make him stronger and be his biggest potential competitor. He says so if you can sell him we’ll have the order for a thousand. So Augie says, you gotta do it. He said, I’m coming back and I expect you to have that order.
So I call Don and I say Don, what is this that you are afraid of…and he says it’s just the fact that your Family Fitness Centers could become my biggest competitor. I told Don, didn’t we shake hands that I would never come into Illinois and you wouldn’t come into Ohio about four or five years ago? And he says yes. I said did I live up to it? And he says yes, I said well you got my word that I will stay out of your areas and you try to stay out of mine and let’s get this Lifecycle cardiovascular movement going…you know that our industry needs cardiovascular, you know that we can get an audience and double our business and you know the world needs it, so let’s make this bi-partisan and not worry about competition and just make this successful and really elevate our industry. And he says, I’ll think about it. And so he called in a week and said OK tell Augie he’s got the order for 500, cause Augie’s been bugging him too. So we went into mass production and I made Augie….he’s only 21 years old….when I made him a full partner and about 2 years later we’re selling all the Lifecycles we could manufacture.
So I kind of advised the type of equipment we needed for our industry but Augie ran with the ball. The rest is Augie’s show and he went on to build the biggest and most successful Life Fitness exercise equipment company (as Lifecycle became Life Fitness) which is the largest manufacturer of fitness equipment in the world.
So anyway, then I did my Family Fitness Centers (which later became 24 Hour Fitness) at the same time that I did Lifecycle, and before that I had the spas and pools and all that. By the way, way back when we had rollers and vibrating belts and all, and I replaced that with the spa idea, the old Roman spa idea, the idea of the swirl pool, which I invented and which everybody loved with all the bubbles and the turbulence and the hot water and then pools and saunas and all that. Well, I cut all that out with Family Fitness Centers and went with pure exercise, mass use of equipment instead of one line of equipment, seven lines of equipment and 50-60-70-80 pieces of cardiovascular and the whole industry went that route and that’s the route they’re still going.
Now I have opened “1-2-3 Fit”. This is a new concept primarily for people age 35-80. Many people are too intimidated to go to these huge “hard body” clubs. 1-2-3 Fit combines strength and cardiovascular training into a fun, 30-minute circuit workout. You get a full work out in just half and hour. More gain, less pain.
An Exclusive Interview with Ray Wilson, Part 2
By Mike Bundrant
Please enjoy part 2 of our interview with Ray Wilson, who shares more of his unequaled insight into the fitness movement. After all, he created it……
HT: So what are you up to these days?
Ray Wilson: I’m working on this 123 Fit project. There are the “de-conditioned masses” out there, approximately 50 million people have quit health clubs that will never go back for one reason or another…. mainly because it’s either the high pressure of the sales pitch or even more so the experience of the “meat market”. They’re the baby boomers and there’s 200 million people out there, besides the 50 million who have quit health clubs, there’s another 200 million that would never go near a health club because they are too intimidating.
HT: Intimidating?
RAY WILSON: Yeah, they get lost in it. See, even I would not want to go work out there with young people. You don’t look good, you follow? I mean they look so good, all these beautiful bodies, and ego-wise it just doesn’t attract you. It’s better to do higher reps, and I would actually be embarrassed to go into health clubs if the people could see what I’m using because I don’t use heavy weights. I use high reps and light weights and ego-wise it just doesn’t feel that good.
The whole fitness business is built around the 18 to 35 crowd. Beyond that, people in their 40s, 50s, 60s, 70s…the people who really need it….they can be unresponsive. They think about it and they know they need it and I should do it and I will do it tomorrow…they’ll procrastinate. Everybody did with cardiovascular too, but eventually it hit them so much in the face so many times and so many medical articles and so forth and so on…..everybody’s been hit that exercise is necessary and the older you are the more you need exercise to be mobile, to do all kinds of things. The older people need it.
For instance, with my back, if I didn’t exercise I would be in a wheelchair, there’s no maybe. Many doctors have told me that. I’ve got the worst back that they’ve seen that’s not in a wheelchair. I’ve got five discs bone to bone. And I just got through seeing Dr. Wong, who is the head of the team at UCLA, and they said that my back would require an operation up to 15 hours….that I might not even survive under anesthetic for that period of time. Plus they have to go through the back and through the stomach and remove all the organs and go in with so many things that they could hit like the big artery and it’s dangerous. So in spite of that fact I told them that no matter what it cost I wanted it done, they advised me not to….to keep on doing my exercises and it was remarkable that I’m doing as well as I am. It’s just too dangerous an operation.
HT: It’s almost counter intuitive, I mean you have an injury and you think I better rest it, but really what you need is to work it harder…
RAY WILSON: You don’t have to exercise if you don’t want to, Mike. I have to exercise or my back will go into tremendous pain. So the good thing is, I do have to exercise. So I do stay in great shape regardless. And as long as I’m exercising, I’m exercising my whole body. So I’m lucky that way, but it’s not so lucky with the pain I get. But nevertheless, I’m doing fine….but only because of exercise. If it weren’t for my exercise I would be in a wheelchair.
Now I made a deal with the executives of Quiznos and so we’re franchising 1-2-3 Fit. And they’re a great franchise. And so Life Fitness has come up with this tremendous equipment for us that is unique that is only going to be made exclusively for 1-2-3 Fit. It’s revolutionary. The method of putting the resistance is so great. In fact, I’m building a home in Point Dominca and I want to replace all the equipment with just that in my home. I want to have nothing but 1-2-3 Fit for my home because…
HT: Is it hydraulic equipment?
RAY WILSON: It’s actually the resistance is from pre-stretched rubber bands, thousands of little rubber bands, it’s a complete new thing, a complete revolutionary breakthrough on the way you apply the resistance. I worked on it with the Life Fitness group two years on it on getting them to make it user friendly and beautiful looking and so comfortable to use and so forth for the de-conditioned masses. Equipment designed for the de-conditioned masses. All this other machines you’re buying for the 18-35 year-olds. These machines are designed for the de-conditioned masses like myself and for people like myself. So it will catch on, it’ll take time.
Now Curves proved that there’s a big market out there. They’ve been at it for 12 years now….they had to get momentum but they gradually got momentum and got the women believing in it and got a real movement going. That’s what we did in cardiovascular. That’s what we did in European Health Spas. That’s what we did in Family Fitness Center. That’s what the whole industry has done and now we gotta get a movement going for the de-conditioned masses. And no pioneering is easy. If it were easy, everybody would do it. But pioneering is tough. And pioneering takes time. It took me seven years for Lifecycle.
HT: And I had no idea, I mean the string of failures…Just maintaining the commitment through all that.
RAY WILSON: Now once I make up my mind…so this I will stay with this as long as necessary and it will be successful. There’s 200 million people out there, plus 50 million that have quit health clubs, that are prospects for this…
I think the industry will remain the 18-35 year-olds will stay as it is and keep on growing, but the big thing will be the 40, 50, 60, 70 year-old people, the de-conditioned masses. That’s where the big growth is going to be.
HT: They’re coming into the circuit training facility…it’s a half-hour workout…..you get a mix of resistance training and cardiovascular.
RAY WILSON: Boom, boom, boom, it’s over.
HT: Is a half-hour enough?
\
RAY WILSON: Yes, it is.
HT: Three times a week, really? A half-hour three times a week?
RAY WILSON: You know they actually did a survey at health clubs and people worked out for approximately 18 minutes in an hour and a half.
HT: Yes, actual time working; the rest is socializing.
RAY WILSON: So it’s actually a bigger workout. When I go there to my clubs and I have to do that I actually get a bigger workout then when I do it by myself.
HT: Because you’re on the circuit the music’s playing and they tell you when to switch stations….
RAY WILSON: And you enjoy it too because you don’t cool off and have to start over again. You know you cool off and shoot the breeze with somebody and then it’s hard to start again. I’ve heard people say boy, I want to thank you for this…this is what I’ve always wanted. A half hour and it’s over. I can do this the rest of my life. I’ve never had people thank me for my American Health Studios, or my Family Fitness Centers, or my European Health Spas, but when I’m in there and they know who I am they come and thank me. Well, thank you, this is what I’ve always wanted, I was too intimidated to go to those other clubs.
HT: So it fits the life style. It’s efficient and it’s convenient.
RAY WILSON: They’re not even showering down there. They go in, they dress, they spend their half hour. It’s better for you not to shower for about a half hour or an hour until after you exercise because you actually screw up your circulation. The blood actually stays in the muscle that you’ve worked but if you take a shower it normalizes it and goes all over the body. I checked that out physiologically that you’re better off not showering for a half hour or an hour after you’ve worked out.
HT: Just let the body do what it wants to do naturally.
RAY WILSON: Let the blood stay in the areas where you’ve worked, where the shower normalizes the whole flow of the blood. It’s the wave of the future and it’s just that younger people are more vain and they care more about how their bodies look, see. Vanity is the biggest motivator of health clubs. It should be health and fitness, see.
There will be twice as many of these types of clubs as there will be of the meat market clubs and it’s just a matter of probably five years maybe ten years, but it’s reacting. We’re getting the reaction. We’re pulling the audience that I was after. We’re just not pulling them in the biggest masses and they’re not responding as fast as the younger people.
They know they need it, they know they’ve been brain washed, every medical article tells them…they’ve just procrastinated. They procrastinate because it’s fitness and not ego. But eventually it will get through to them, it’s getting through to enough of them that we’re doing business and growing, but it’s not an avalanche yet. It’s like when the snow starts falling down the mountain a little bit, a little bit, a little bit…
HT: There’s a certain amount of pain and suffering on their part, too, when they realize…
RAY WILSON: Well, they don’t realize how easy and pleasant it will be.
HT: I mean their motivation though. It comes from being out of shape….
RAY WILSON: They gotta make a choice and change their life. They really have to change their life. It’s a life changing choice that it’s such a great thing that it’s stupid not to do it. Without exercise you cannot have as good a life as you can with exercise. It’s that simple. And proper nutrition is important too, just as important.
HT: Do you see retirement one day for you?
RAY WILSON: I’m 77 now and Jack LaLanne’s still working and he’s 91.
HT: Yeah, he’s still going strong, it seems like.
RAY WILSON: I’m going to finish the game, just like I finished cardiovascular. I told my friends that wouldn’t invest, the four of them, I says I am staying with this no matter what it costs, no matter how long it takes I’m going to make cardiovascular part of fitness in America and the world and we did. The deconditioned masses are going to be just as engaged in fitness as the young people. It’s just a matter of making it attractive.
This new equipment and everything, we’ve got everything. Life Fitness went along with everything and we’re making this equipment exclusively for us and it is so fantastic, it’s so efficient, it gets three times the results in one-third of the time. And it’s so pleasant to use and so attractive to use and so easy to use. Once they take a workout, they have a certain fear for it because it’s the unknown, but once they take that workout, they’ll all be sold. All we gotta do is get them in there. Once they get in there they’re completely sold. And we give a free week to them, you know.
HT: So come and try it for a week.
RAY WILSON: It only takes one workout and they know it’s easy, they know it’s pleasant and they know it’s for them.