Designing the VMS — how we rebuilt the wall bar from the rung up

The brief

The Series 7 line had been selling for three years. It was working. Studios were specifying it, physical therapists were buying it, and the commercial side had matured. But we kept hearing the same thing from committed home-gym customers: 'I love the ladder, but I want more.'

What they meant was: they wanted a single installation that did everything. Pull-ups, dips, bench press, suspension, barre, mobility — one wall, and no compromises.

The constraints

A BenchK is, above all, furniture. It lives in someone's home. It has to look like it was designed by someone who cared. That's the hardest constraint on any piece of fitness equipment — because the instinct is to add features, and every feature makes the object uglier.

We started the VMS project with a single rule: nothing could be added that wasn't geometrically inevitable. If a bracket didn't feel like it belonged there, we moved it until it did.

The rebuild

The first decision was the frame. Series 7 uses a single-column architecture — one tall ladder. The VMS is two columns, side by side, to give the pull-up bar the wingspan a serious user needs. That one decision cascaded: the dip station widened, the bench got a longer travel, the RECOIL strap mount moved up a rung.

The second decision was the pull-up bar. We converted it from a fixed-position bar to a removable, multi-grip bar that doubles as a 441 lb barbell rest. One object, two completely different training modes.

The third decision was the finish. We spent four months specifying the polyurethane density for the back pad — it needed to feel soft enough for daily use and firm enough for pistol-squat support. Thirty samples later, we picked a density no one else in the fitness-equipment world uses.