Jan 29, 2015
Power Up! Peak Performance Training on an Incline

By Cassie Piercey

Athletic trainers for Super Bowl XL & XLIII champs the Pittsburgh Steelers swear by it. Around the country, athletic trainers and rehabilitation specialists in training facilities and universities emphasize the benefits of adaptable body weight training on an incline plane for improved athletic performance, functional conditioning and sports-specific training.


When one of the Pittsburgh Steelers players gets injured, the team’s certified athletic trainers utilize incline training on Total Gym® PowerTower® to get their players game ready, even after injury.

“This [PowerTower] is a valuable tool for helping athletes overcome injuries safely and quickly. Athletes can really isolate the injured area of muscle involved,” said Ryan Grove, certified athletic trainer for the Pittsburgh Steelers. “Plus, once properly instructed, they require minimal supervision to safely use the machine.”

Total Gym® PowerTower®, from efi Sports Medicine®, the leader in functional exercise equipment for athletic training and physical therapy markets, was designed, manufactured and engineered to meet the needs of the most demanding clinical environments. PowerTower is a motorized version of efi’s flagship Total Gym incline trainer, offering infinitely adjustable and calibrated levels of incline resistance at the touch of a button.

Training in an unstable, gravity-loaded environment requires users to recruit their core muscles to maintain stability while performing a variety of over 200 multi-planar, functional exercises on an incline plane. The Steelers’ athletic training team utilizes PowerTower to challenge healthy athletes by monitoring increases in resistance from three percent to 72 percent of the user’s body weight at 12 pre-calibrated levels.

“With an infinite range of resistance levels, we can easily track and positively reinforce to an athlete that he is making progress,” said Grove. “This often motivates the athlete to push himself while maintaining a safe rehab environment.”

Strength and conditioning coach Todd Durkin, owner of Fitness Quest 10 and Todd Durkin Enterprises in San Diego, Calif., trains NFL athletes Drew Brees, Kellen Winslow and LaDainian Tomlinson as well as Major League Baseball and Olympic athletes. Durkin utilizes Total Gym PowerTower to get his clients in peak condition for their individual sport and offers his tips for performance training on an incline.

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