If only I'd gotten a patent!

You know, in the numerous hours that I've spent running and doing other exertion type 'stuff' in the gym, I've often thought of this idea:

An enormous number of people in industrialized countries with sedentary jobs, health concerns, and/or obsessions about their physique voluntarily expend quantities of energy working out on cardiovascular machines, many of which plug into the wall. This is energy that we do not have to be paid to give up, in fact we happily pay for the privilege of expending it. In addition to the ubiquitous private gyms and YMCAs, with their banks of free laborers visible through plate glass windows overlooking a cafe, most universities, corporations, and hotels have their own hidden work-out rooms, with fleets of potential power-generators. Multiply all these gyms by the numbers of machines by the number of hours of average use, and think of the effects if the machines generated (rather than consumed) energy that could be collectively pooled.

Link here.

Comments

[fv]

My thoughts at the time I used gyms were:
So, manual labour = lower class but sedentary desk job + expensive gym exertion = upper class...

These days, I just play pick up games of ultimate, hacky sack, soccer or floor hockey with whoever is around.

fv