I recently bought a gym membership, which means I am paying someone to access a room full of things that make me unhappy. Which isn’t to say that gyms are a bad thing, indeed they’re a necessary thing, especially for folks like myself who spend most of their time sitting in an office. I do not have to like it, however.
The trouble I have with gyms is that exercise is misery and pain. I recognize that it is valuable and that it’s for the better to get in shape. I also recognize that I hate it and dread the time that I spend there.
Modern gym equipment at least is designed for people who are only begrudgingly going there because some doctor might have mentioned that being more active could be handy for health reasons. They all have screens, for example, so you can watch television and bike instead of watching television and sitting on a couch. Sure, the couch is much better, but you need to move anyway so might as well bike for some of it.
The greatest innovation is how the gym equipment is connected to each other internationally.
I’m normally not a fan of the “internet of things,” the otherwise misguided attempt to attach every single device in the world to the internet for reasons that are rarely clear. I don’t need to activate my tea kettle from work with my phone, for example. But there is a clear advantage to the exercise equipment being connected.
What this system does is show you a wide range of people from around the world who are exercising on the same course as you. The courses are cobbled together footage from around the world. You can see if you’re going faster or slower than all these people who you’ve never met. People are encouraged to set up a profile for fitness tracking, though I didn’t because I don’t want one, so presumably if people see me it’s just a Canadian flag and nothing.
The funny thing is this all could be lies, it could be made up images to encourage you to keep going. You might not be very fit, but you’re beating this person who might be a dog or a family of four, so you’re doing something right! Or you could get a pesky guy who is biking at sort of the same speed you are and you must pass them for the sake of your pride. It didn’t make exercise fun, but it did make exercise tolerable, which is good enough.
Naturally, most things related to fitness just make me angry. If I am given a fitness tracker I will start it on fire. I don’t want to keep track of workouts, I don’t particularly want helpful advice from my phone. I don’t want all of these unnecessary training apparatuses that the fitness industry loves pushing on people, and I really don’t want this to be a ‘lifestyle’. I will begrudgingly exercise and all of the extras are just chaff.
But I like the idea that some guy in Germany who bikes all the time and actually cares was out-biked by a mysterious Canadian ghost. If nothing else, that will make my time in the misery hole that is a gym worthwhile.
