Movemed: A Side Trip into Sports Medicine
In the mid-1980s, WINTERSTEIGER set out to establish a third pillar of business alongside its two divisions, Seedmech and Sports: Through the Movemed division, the company aimed to drive the development of fitness equipment for patients in rehabilitation. At that time, medical devices for therapy and training were still completely unknown in Europe.
Together with Dr. Wiesauer from the Institute for Sports Medicine at the University of Vienna and Wolfgang Billinger, now director of HTBLA Ried, WINTERSTEIGER developed the knee dynamometer and the four-limb trainer. There was great excitement; they even hired a sports therapist to serve as a liaison to the medical community, and ski stars came to Ried to try out the equipment.
"No Muscle Loss in Space"
That was the headline about the innovative fitness equipment from Ried: The “muscle builder” Motimatic was supposed to fly into space and help train the cosmonauts’ muscles. However, it didn’t get that far: After four years, the Movemed division had to be shut down; the hydraulic systems proved impractical, and the time was not yet ripe for these scientifically sophisticated machines.
Not long after, the third Division did indeed emerge: In 1990, WINTERSTEIGER shifted its focus to special machines and founded the Engineering department, which later evolved into WOODTECH.