Gym powered by treadmill running humans

Posted on 07. Mar, 2007 by Jonathan Cherry in Design

A gym in Hong Kong has hooked up their treadmills to the electricity generator of the building to save on their power bills.

Which makes a whole lot of sense really.

You’re running a business which allow clients to generate large amounts of sweat and energy on dynamos.
It just seems like the obvious thing to harness that energy and save running costs.

‘Powered by YOU’ is a great way to brand a gym. If Richard Branson follows through on his ‘green drive’ – you’ll probably be introduced to something similar at your local Virgin Active soon.

All the treehuggers and Al Gore will be tripping over their Nike’s to sign up.

Read: Human power takes off in Hong Kong health club – Green Options

7 Responses to “Gym powered by treadmill running humans”

neilperkin

07. Mar, 2007

Frankly can’t believe no-one has thought of this before. The ‘Green Gym’ is definitely an idea that has legs (forgive the pun)
Cherryflava

07. Mar, 2007

Yip – and in Cape Town there could be added benefit to not being connected to the national power grid.
Jeez – if we all joined the gym and trained like mad things we could just do away with Koeberg.
Don

07. Mar, 2007

I hope uncle Richard adopts this soon, cos our Virgin Active needs it’s aircon hyperspeeded pronto!
Chriske

11. Mar, 2007

Lopen, of geen licht!

Dit idee is zo simpel, dat ik niet begrijp dat er nog niemand eerder is opgekomen.
Je hebt een fitness centrum. Je wil energie besparen. Dan kan je ofwel geld steken in zonnepannelen of windmolens op je dak installeren. Of je kan simpelweg dynamo’…
David

13. Mar, 2007

Such a good idea, but I cant think of any gym that has put this into operation in the UK.
I thought about such a thing last time I was at my local gym, the treadmill tells me how much electricity I would be producing, but I didn’t know if it would work as simply as that!
Nice one
Diane

08. Apr, 2007

Wow! What an excellent idea!
I hope more work is done on this kind of local energy generation to make it more common. I suppose its similar in principal to those torches we had as kids that you had to keep squeezing the handle of to keep the light working.
Jon Fox

28. Oct, 2007

“All the treehuggers and Al Gore will be tripping over their Nike’s to sign up.”
Great story, silly comment. Most folks who know enough to care about the planet, wouldn’t buy Nike. Let alone any other known, overpriced, consumerist sucker brand of slave labour shoe.
OK off my recycled soap box.
To reiterate. Clever use of energy.
Still driving to the gym to work-out, instead of walking to the shops, and leaving the car at home. Or ditch the car all together. Our house has. Even better.