New technology from startup ventures is transforming the sports industry. The mission of this series is to introduce startup companies in the sports technology space to a broader audience and allow Founders of promising new ventures to tell their story. Feel free to submit your startup’s answers to the below questions or contact us if you know of a startup that should be considered for this series.
Company name: Tension Toner
Founder(s): Joe Sanseverino (aka Joe Sans)
Headquarters: New Jersey
1. What is your elevator pitch?
Tension Toner is a portable workout equipment that utilizes two directions of resistance. Lateral resistance created by an elastic band in the bar itself, and vertical resistance created by external resistance bands.
The objective is to pull the bars apart and keep the webbing flat. This ACTIVATES more muscles and INCREASES muscle exertion so you get MORE from your workout.
2. Problem & Solution
Problem:
My time was occupied by so many things: work, family life, going out with friends.
What I found was that on most days, I had pockets of free time that were long enough to do a quick workout, but not long enough to drive to the gym, nor worth the hassle.
After several workout sessions at home doing mediocre workouts with resistance bands, I came to the realization that I needed a gym quality product without going to the gym.
Solution:
I always had a passion for inventing and designing, so I took out a notepad one day and started scribbling some ideas of what my ideal fitness product would look like.
For some reason, a conversation that I had with my grandpa when I was a kid resonated with me and kept replaying in my head.
Here’s just a little back story on my grandpa. He’s one of the toughest guys I’ve ever known and someone I respected and looked up to, especially when it came to fitness.
He was able to rip phone-books like I was able to rip a piece of paper. He really had such unbelievable strength.
One day I was sitting at his kitchen table and he had introduced me to the idea of exercising with a towel. He explained how I could get a great workout by just pulling a towel.
I was skeptical at first, but he showed me some exercises and I started mixing them into my workouts. The downside, however, is that there’s no way to increase the difficulty of the workout, and there was no immediate feedback to see if I was pulling it hard enough.
But as I thought to that conversation, I had the eureka moment. “Well, what if there was a device that had two directions of resistance” I thought. “One from pulling an exercise bar apart, and the other direction of resistance coming from resistance bands.”
And from that point, the drawings, homemade prototypes, and endless testing led me to Tension Toner. 
3. What is your target market and the overall market?
Currently, I see Tension Toner being a great addition to physical therapy and rehabilitation centers. The muscle stabilization from pulling the bars apart and keeping them in a fixed position can be a helpful part of the rehabilitation process.
As a bonus, you can adjust the resistance level on the bar itself.
To increase the difficulty, you can also add resistance on the bar. Unlike most conventional exercises that work your muscles in one direction, Tension Toner adds a second direction of resistance.
The broader market, however, is for anyone that wants to get a gym quality workout anywhere. Since you can fold and pack the bar away in seconds, it’s ideal for travelers and those who are too busy to go to the gym.
4. How do you make money?
We are currently taking pre-orders on Kickstarter so that we could fund the first purchase order. After Kickstarter, we are going to focus on our core market and build up our distribution channels to fuel growth.
5. Who is on the management team?
Joe Sanseverino also known as Joe Sans (inventor of Tension Toner).
6. What else do you want the audience to know about your venture?
There’s a lot of “me too” products out there in fitness. What I mean by that is there are a bunch of copycats, and nothing truly unique about them. Tension Toner however has been shown to stand out from the rest.
To test Tension Toner’s effectiveness, I used electromyography (EMG) technology to measure muscle activity. EMG is the gold standard when it comes to measuring muscle activity.
We compared the muscle activation and calories burned with Tension Toner, versus: 1) resistance bands and 2) dumbbells [15 pounds of resistance was used for each test].
Here’s the results:
In a nutshell, Tension Toner activated 143% more muscles and burned 160% more calories than weight training.
Tension Toner also activated 136% more muscles and burned 151% more calories than resistance training.
7. If people are interested, where can they check you out?
To check out more information on the product, or to pre-order one today, head over to our Kickstarter campaign.
