Cardio Equipment

Why Choose VersaClimber?

Heart Rate Inc. is dedicated to creating, developing and providing superior innovative products and services that benefit and improve health, fitness, conditioning and rehabilitation. We emphasize product quality, customer satisfaction and employee teamwork to guarantee the well being of our customers. 

VersaClimber History

Heart Rate Inc. has been transforming the way people exercise for more than 27 years. Few other companies can claim as many fitness equipment firsts, including inventing total-body training. Heart Rate Inc. offers much more than even its highly regarded vertical trainers. Our products also include a full line of heart rate monitors, the unprecedented VersaPulley resistance using patented MV2 technology, and the new ExerVibe vertical climbers and steppers with whole body vibration. 

The Birth of Total-Body Exercise 

Heart Rate Monitor Pioneers incorporated in October 1978. Heart Rate Inc. had the foresight to know that heart rate could be a valuable tool to gauge the intensity of exercise for beginners and elite athletes alike. In 1980, the company completed the design and a functional prototype of a heart rate wristwatch. The company then was awarded an exclusive patent to further develop the capacitive electrode used in the NASA space program. This sensor was designed to acquire high-quality ECG signals during space flights. At that time, wristwatch, medical and sports equipment companies were not convinced that heart rate monitoring promised to be a viable business, so they declined to provide funding. Faced with a lack of financial backing, Dick Charnitski, the president of Heart Rate Inc. and a mechanical engineer, turned his attention to developing a total-body exercise machine. 

The Birth of the VersaClimber

Recognizing that no equipment had brought climbing indoors or had completely understood the tremendous value of total-body exercise, Charnitski created the first VersaClimber in his own garage in 1981. The result was the VersaClimber. Later, heart rate monitoring was incorporated into the VersaClimber, making it the first commercial exercise machine to use heart rate as a speedometer of exercise. Nothing like it existed anywhere, and since its debut, VersaClimber has been the No. 1 total-body vertical trainer.