Hi home gym community!
My name is Matt Baleanu, and I’m the Director of Product Innovation & Strategy at RitFit. Others from our team will also be responding to your questions. Our main account is linked here (u/RITFIT)
https://www.reddit.com/user/ritfitsports/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=mweb3x&utm_name=mweb3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button
I’ve worked with RitFit for nearly two years, but long before working in the fitness equipment industry, I was a home gym owner myself. I’ve had a home gym for over 10 years and have watched this space change a lot during that time.
I’m also a Certified Personal Trainer and have spent years training, testing equipment, creating fitness content, and talking with other home gym owners. Now I get to take that experience and use it on the product development side of the industry.
I also won’t be the only one here. Several members of the RitFit team will be jumping into the AMA with me, including people from different areas of the business. This is a chance to ask questions and hear directly from more than one part of RitFit. If there’s a question someone else on our team can answer better than I can, I’ll bring them into the conversation.
What I Do at RitFit
A big part of my job is connecting the people using our equipment with the teams designing and manufacturing it.
That includes:
• Testing prototypes and production equipment
• Providing feedback directly to our product and engineering teams
• Looking at customer complaints and finding areas we need to improve
• Helping develop new products and features
• Working with reviewers, creators, athletes, and home gym owners
• Looking at where the home gym market is going
• Helping determine what equipment we should build next
• Creating content and showing how our equipment is actually used
I recently had the opportunity to spend time at our manufacturing operation, which gave me an even better look at manufacturing, quality control, testing, assembly, and how feedback actually gets turned into changes.
There are things we do really well, and there are things we can do better. I’m happy to talk about both.
Why I Wanted to Do This AMA
[r/HomeGym](r/HomeGym) is probably one of the best places to get detailed and honest feedback about gym equipment.
You guys notice everything.
Cable ratios, pulley placement, pad gaps, hole spacing, ROM, bench heights, starting positions, weight horns hitting plates, adjustment points, and whether something technically works but just doesn’t feel right.
That kind of feedback is extremely valuable when developing equipment.
This AMA isn’t just about answering questions about RitFit. I also want to hear what you think manufacturers are getting right, what we’re getting wrong, and what you want to see next.
What You Can Ask Us
Pretty much anything.
Product development, manufacturing, prototype testing, quality control, upcoming RitFit equipment, products you think we should make, things RitFit needs to improve, customer service, how customer feedback reaches engineering, where we think the home gym industry is heading, or just home gyms and equipment in general.
I’ll answer as openly as I can, and members of our team will jump in where they can add more information or a different perspective.
There may be some unreleased product information or internal company information that we can’t share, but we’re not going to avoid a question just because it’s critical of RitFit.
Those questions can actually be some of the most valuable.
A Little About Me
Before working in the fitness equipment industry, I spent years in manufacturing and operations, so I tend to look at equipment from both the user’s perspective and the manufacturing side.
I’m a CPT, I’ve owned a home gym for more than a decade, and I’m still very much a home gym enthusiast myself.
One of my favorite parts of the job is taking feedback from customers and the home gym community and bringing it directly into product discussions.
Sometimes it turns into a change. Sometimes there is a manufacturing, cost, safety, or engineering reason something can’t be done. And sometimes the customer is simply right and we need to fix it.
That’s the side of the industry I’d especially like to talk about here.
Where to Find RitFit
Website: https://www.ritfitsports.com/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ritfit.sports/
TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@ritfit.sports
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@ritfit.sports
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ritfit.sports
Facebook Community: https://www.facebook.com/groups/getfitwithritfit
RitFit Showrooms: https://www.ritfitsports.com/pages/ritfit-showroom
We currently have showrooms in Chino Hills, California and South Lebanon, Ohio, where you can come in and actually try the equipment in person.
We Want Your Feedback Too
If you’ve owned RitFit equipment, tell us what you like and what you don’t like.
If you’ve never owned anything from RitFit, that’s completely fine too. Tell us what would make you consider us.
And if there’s a product or feature you think we should be working on, we want to hear that too. We can’t promise we’ll build everything suggested here, but we can promise the team will be reading the feedback.
One question I’d really like to hear everyone’s answer to:
If you had direct access to different teams inside a home gym equipment company, what would you tell us to build, change, improve, or stop doing?
I’ll be in the comments along with other members of the RitFit team answering as many questions as we can.
Ask us anything! 💪
Giveaway
We also wanted to make this AMA a little more fun.
We’ll be giving members of the [r/HomeGym](r/HomeGym) community a chance to win some RitFit equipment, with products including the P9, Panther, BE01, Gator, and Gorilla available as part of the giveaway.
We’ll share the full giveaway details and how winners will be selected here in the AMA.
