Episode 1 – The Symposium Series By TRUE Learning Collective – Palladium Series Premium Strength

Hello. I’m Frank Trulaske, owner and CEO of TRUE. Welcome to the first installment of The Symposium Series, presented by the TRUE Learning Collective. In this series, we will be introducing new products from TRUE’s showroom floor, going in-depth in our explanation of the form, function, and technology of our high-quality equipment. For our inaugural episode, we will be doing a deep dive on the Palladium Series Premium Strength Line.

My philosophy, as many of you know, remains the same on new products. When our marketing and product development team begins designing a new product, our goal is to create a better design than the leading competitive product. While this is a significant challenge, we continue to achieve our goal.

Randy Leopando, TRUE’s training, and education manager is going to take it away now, and take you through the details of the Palladium Strength Line.

Overview

Thank you, Frank, I’m excited to kick off this symposium, highlighting our selectorized premium strength line called the Palladium series. We’re proud of this line because we started this project from the ground up, and we did it all in-house.

We did enlist some help, but ultimately there are about 100 years of expertise that went into the design of these machines. We enlisted experts and veterans in the industry from engineering and industrial design to give you a product that’s precise in biomechanics, ergonomics, and anatomical fit.

Common Features

First, I’ll cover some of the common features that all machines share. Just walking up to a machine, you’re going to notice the upholstery in the pad. We have contoured pads with etched surfaces and contrast double stitching. This gives you a nice, premium look. Our machines will all have large oval tubing for the frame to give you that sleek, modern appearance. All our weight stacks have accessory trays on top for your items, and they’re all low profile except two.

Our weight sacks also have a height adjustment guide on top. This is very unique to TRUE. What that enables your user to do is adjust their seat height according to their height. And why is that super convenient for your members? Well, once you have a setting determined on the machine, so let’s say someone like myself is 5’7, I’m going to have a seat adjustment of four or five.

That’s going to carry over to the rest of the machines. That’s convenient for your members because now, they don’t have to figure out what their height adjustment is because we do offer eight different levels on our seats. It’s going to cut it down to one or two choices.

Each of our strength machines has a QR code. Once you put your smartphone up to it, it will direct you to a link to give you additional instructions on setting the machine and how to perform the exercise.

The other thing you’ll notice about the weight stack is our nice smoked translucent shroud cover. This is an option. It’s a nice premium look and our standard option for this, or our standard for the shroud cover, is a black metal shroud cover.

The machines also have a phone cradle that’s visible while you exercise. You can place a phone in the upright or sideways position so that you can look at the phone and look at the instructions on the QR code if you choose to use it. Some machines also have the option of placing a rep counter where the phone cradle usually rests.

And finally, for all machines that have seat adjustments, we offer this unique TRUE linear bearing system with two guide rods for a really easy seat adjustment mechanism and a rock-solid feel. Very rock solid while you’re on the machine. It gives you that nice, steady base while you’re performing an exercise.

Machines

All right, let’s get to using the actual machine and showing you some of the features of each one. We’ll start with my favorite piece, the chest press.

Chest Press

Our Chest Press uses an overhead pivot design. This design allows the user to perform a converging motion with the arms. It also allows us to design a unilateral motion. We have 25 degrees of a converging angle. That will maximize a full shoulder articulation the shoulder. And you can also adjust the weight while seated in the machine.

We have tri-lobe handles on this machine. It’s a tri-grip with recessed thumbs. That’s for added comfort. You’ll notice the converging angle, and also the overhead pivot allows me to have an arced path of motion, kind of like with a barbell, while in the chest press motion. So I’ve got that arced bar path for simulating the barbell chest press. Let’s move on over to the lat pulldown.

Lat Pulldown

Now, I mentioned the converging angle of the chest press. The Lat Pulldown has a 17.5-degree diverging angle, again, to facilitate full shoulder articulation and to make sure we’re working all the muscles that we need to during the lat pulldown. Out here, once again, the seat adjustment, the unique linear bearing design. We have a six-way adjustable five pad.

The lat pulldown is one of the machines that have a higher weight stack to accommodate the range of motion of the machine and the entire movement, so a little bit taller.

Pec Fly/Rear Delt

A couple of features of our Pec Fly Rear Delt Machine I want to point out right away. Our bench pad back is a little bit more narrow. Some might think that that’s not enough support for your back, but actually, it helps facilitate the proper motion in your shoulder. You’ve got to remember that during a pec fly or rear delt, it’s not just your upper arm moving, it’s the entire shoulder complex. So this seat back allows you to move in a more natural fashion.

To add to that point, our access of motion here, the pivot arms of the rear fly, rear pec fly, is a little bit more narrow than some of the other competitive units I’ve seen. Again, that’s because the motion of your shoulder is a little bit closer, so our pivot points are closer. It’s going to give you a much more natural feel, a safer movement pattern to reduce any chance of impingement in your shoulder.

There are two handles. Again, ergonomically designed to facilitate proper movement. I can use the other handles as well for pec fly. On the reverse fly, take note of the upright. It’s kind of recessed in so that my face isn’t up against the bar, like some other designs I’ve seen out there so that your face is clear to that bar. You don’t have to be breathing right into a bar millimeters away.

Shoulder Press

We’ve got a Shoulder Press. Like our chest press, our shoulder press has converging arms. This angle’s about 20 degrees to facilitate, again, proper motion in the shoulder. One thing that our chest press has and our shoulder press has that’s pretty unique to TRUE is an adjustable seatback.

We’re allowed to adjust the seat forward and back to accommodate different preferences for a range of motion for your shoulder. Also in our shoulder press, we offer two different handles. We’ve got a neutral grip, or we’ve got an overhand grip.

I’ve done plenty of things in my younger years to jack up my shoulders, so this neutral grip is a lot safer for your shoulders because it opens up the joint and allows for a little freer movement. This is our shoulder press.

Leg Press

One feature unique in the industry, unique to TRUE, is our adjustable footplate. This is visible in our Leg Press Machine. Our adjustable footplate has four different adjustment points to get to a 10-degree variation of how you want to set this angle to provide a much more neutral feel for your body type.

This is a trainer’s dream because now we can manipulate the angle of this to work for certain muscle groups, emphasize certain things. It’s even good for the rehab setting if we have to adjust the angle of the footplate when someone’s performing a leg press.

In addition to that 10-degree sweep, you’ve got 20 degrees or five-way adjustable seat back as well. Note that all our adjustment points are easily identifiable. They’re painted in or marked in a yellow tab or yellow color. So, easy for your members to realize that they need to make adjustments in certain aspects of the machine.

The headrest is nice too, the way it’s angled, ergonomically correct. A lot of leg press units out there have the headrest way back and it doesn’t feel natural. It almost pitches their head up too much. That can be uncomfortable.

Seated Row

Next, we have our Seated Row. We use trailing arms so that the user can determine the path of motion that they want, their variation, along the pivoting hand grips. So now, they can choose between an overhand grip, a neutral grip, or an underhand grip, really; any variation.

Leg Extension

Let’s move on to our Leg Extension Machine. Pretty standard amongst all other leg extensions in terms of adjustments for your feet and an adjustment for your range of motion. Probably the two unique features to TRUE, besides our, again, seat adjustment guide here.

We’re using the same mechanism as we are for upper body machines, except now it’s just horizontal, but it’s the same type of mechanism for a nice, smooth, firm feel. You’ll notice that we are using relatively flat pads for our legs.

The reason why we can do this is number one, we want to do it because it provides more of a contact area for your leg for added comfort. But number two, we can do this because our biomechanics or the axis point or axis of motion is correct. The round pad will kind of allow some manufacturers to get away with not properly setting up the axis of motion. We can do that with this pad.

We have grips here with the recessed thumbs, and here’s your leg extension. With our leg extension, another thing to notice is the angles of the seat. We have it tilted up just a little bit, and what that allows the user to not do is slide back and forth in the seat while they’re performing the exercise.

This is a pretty nice little detail we have. I’ve seen that plenty of times with people doing hamstring curls and doing heavy, heavyweight. They tend to shift forward their bottoms and slide forward. This helps prevent that from happening.

Just like all hamstring curl machines, there are various adjustments from the pads of your foot to the thigh pad, to the range of motion here. All pretty standard there. But just like our leg extension, we have a flat pad to provide comfort because this machine is biomechanically designed correctly.

Tricep Press

One thing you’ll notice right away is our Tricep Press back pad has a pretty steep angle. But the reason for that is, it allows us to not have to use a belt to secure the user while they’re doing the exercise. So, while this looks pretty steep, it’s a comfortable position.

It allows me to stay secure while I’m doing the tricep press pattern. Another thing to point out is our handles do adjust to accommodate different sizes, and of course, our nifty seat adjustment guides and robust seat system.

Bicep Curl

Okay. Last but not least, we have our Bicep Curl, my very close second place favorite machine. Very popular machine for spring breakers, just like the chest press.

We chose the upright design and we’re using trailing arms here as well. So, we can minimize that adjustment for anyone because they’ll adjust to accommodate different sizes. We have a nice arm pad here to secure your upper arm. And it’s also angled. I like this angle, and we decided to go with the angles to keep your posture correct, to keep your shoulders from rolling forward as you do the bicep curl.

Also on this machine, as well as the leg extension and hamstring curl, there is an indicator where the axis of motion, where you should line up your knee or your elbow, indicated here by a red decal. And here’s the unilateral motion of bicep curl. And mechanically, when you’re comparing this bicep curl to a dumbbell curl, when you’re using a dumbbell, resistance on a load, your muscle pretty much tapers off the top here. It stays consistent.

Questions From Customers

“Which Machines Have Unilateral Arms?”

Pretty much all of our machines will have unilateral capabilities, except for one, our tricep press, But our bicep curl does have unilateral arms as well.

“What Is The Footprint Of The Leg Press Machine?”

It’s 86 by 46 and then the height is 66 inches.

“Does The Chest Press Have A Neutral Grip Option?”

The chest press does not have a neutral grip option at this time. However, one thing to add regarding the neutral grip for the chest press, that’s a common question we get for people who have issues with the shoulder.

But I can tell you that we design our resistance curve to accommodate a user’s capacity, meaning for the chest press, for example, because of the way we set our cams, there’s a little bit less resistance from the start because you’re at the most biomechanically disadvantaged position back here, and then you can press out and then the resistance comes back on.

For the lat pulldown and the row machines, the resistance curve is the opposite. We lose capacity as we bring the arms closer to our body because our arms are involved less and the back kicks in, or our back muscles. But at that angle, the back muscles aren’t that strong, so we take off the weight at that moment too. So, that’s how we kind of can get away with the chest press not having a neutral grip right now.

“What Are Some Of The Unique Features Of The Palladium Line?”

Well, we talked about the weight stack, all of them being pretty low profile, 58 inches high. Two of them, the leg press and lat have a little bit taller weight stacks. So, that’s one of the features.

Number two, all the framework uses a large oval frame, and all the seat adjustments, especially, are the same. So it’s really easy for your members and users to remember how to adjust all the machines because they’re all virtually the same, as well as the seat adjustment guide. A super unique feature that we have with TRUE.

“How Is The Range Of Motion On The Back Pad Of The Leg Press?”

We have 20 degrees of adjustability or five different settings. There’s the upright, middle setting, and here’s the setting at number one. So, if you adjust this as well as the footpad or the footplate, you’re going to get some good, almost upright, think of it as almost a squat motion.

“What Are The Upholstery Options? Does TRUE Do Custom?”

We have 18 standard colors to choose from, and there are also options available pretty much at customer request. We’ve done some custom upholstery already for different facilities, so that’s available.

Next Up

That’s all we have today on the Palladium Series Premium Strength Line. Stay tuned for our next series where we go over our Step Mill, the Palisade, our Alpine Incline Trainer Treadmill, and our Spectrum Adjustable Elliptical. I’m looking forward to seeing you guys again, and stay safe out there.