A gym designer equipment review - VLUV gym ball

What is natural gym equipment? A gym designer perspective

It’s worth defining this term upfront as it can be confusing, especially as there is so little natural gym equipment on the market today, at least not products that describe themselves in that way.

Often as gym designers, we use our own creative interpretation of a product to see how it could be applied to a gym environment, borrowing from adjacent sectors and product categories or simply specifying something ourselves from a local carpenter for example.

Why do we do this? Our humble opinion is that the gym design industry still has a long way to go to align itself with circular economy principles, a more natural approach to gym interiors and a shift to more sustainable business practices generally.

Truly natural gym equipment should, in our opinion, be made of natural materials such as wood, bamboo, wool or leather. It should ideally have minimal environmental impact, be made of upcycled waste or industry bi-products, and have a manufacturer take-back scheme at its end of life to ensure responsibility is taken upfront by those manufacturers at the time of making the sale… or perhaps in the end an evolved version of leasing will be amore circular economy aligned approach anyway, as we see happening in the furniture industry for example

If we’re being generous, we might also extend the definition of natural gym equipment to include pieces of gym equipment that promote natural fitness, functional fitness training and primal exercises in the gym that are aligned with our evolutionary history as animals, even if the materials used to make that piece of gym equipment do not fit in completely with the points above.

Here clearly there is some interpretation needed but given how much work there is to be done in the gym design sector in this sense, unfortunately we are often left making this small trade-offs when selecting gym equipment for our gym design assignments.

what is the VLUV brand and is it gym equipment?

As mentioned, sometimes as gym designers and self-confessed gym equipment geeks, we go fishing for products that may not be 100% designed with the gym in mind but nonetheless represent a worthy addition to our gym equipment lists….

VLUV is a German brand that positions itself around the concept of healthy seating and falls firmly into that category thanks to their high quality ‘sitting balls’, practically identical to a ‘gym ball’ or ‘Swiss ball’ as one might find in a gym… provided one selects the right model that does not have an annoying handle on it.

The VLUV Veel as a gym equipment choice

We previously bought a VLUV BOL VEEL ball in the cognac ‘eco leather’. Let’s be clear that leather is leather, there is no eco version in the strictest sense. What bills itself as vegan leather can often be made of vinyl, that contains petrol.

On the plus side, this ball does look damn good however it is clearly NOT leather albeit it has the appearance of leather (no animals died - directly - as a result of it’s manufacturing process).

The ball is however made of polyester with a PU coating. Polyester contains petroleum byproducts so we’re not enamored with this choice, as a result the VLUV BOL VEEL is more of an aesthetic choice - how healthy a piece of seating can it be when made of polyester? We’ll let you decide that.

At the very least this is a brand to keep an eye on - if they were to introduce a truly eco-friendly version, we would be completely sold!