Exercise Machine Idea

I was watching tv the other day and there was a commercial where someone was looking for something they lost, which turned out to be a big glob of fat. I am sure I didn't do the commercial justice by that description, but that was essentially the point. It was supposed to depict how easy it is to "lose" weight by just doing little things - like taking the stairs, parking farther from the office, etc. While the commercial severely disturbed me (you try to go to sleep after seeing a huge glob of jello-y fat sitting down by the river), the idea is a good one and it got me thinking.

Most people who don't exercise claim it is because of lack of time. Yet so much of our lives is spent waiting. What if that waiting time could be turned into exercise time? I am not talking full sweaty workouts, I just mean something to keep the body moving instead of sitting in a chair.

Picture you are at the airport. Your flight just got delayed another 20 minutes - not long enough to justify lugging all of your baggage away from the gate to find something to do, so you plop down for another wait. What if there was exercise equipment - a treadmill, a stationary bike, etc - right there at the gate. You could just move a few feet from your chair and get moving while still reading your magazine and leaving your bags where they are. Or if you're settling in for a long night at the local laundromat. Or stuck in a hospital waiting room for days on end - not wanting to leave in case the doctors need you but needing to do something to get feeling back in your extremities. Or anywhere else we waste our time waiting.

Equipment requires upkeep and investment costs - true. That is where the "invention" part of this idea comes in. What if you took the piece of exercise equipment and married it with the business plan of a vending machine. The equipment was rigged with a coin/bill/credit card collector and the user paid, say, $1 per half hour to use it. The venues wouldn't really own the equipment, just lease the space to the owner of the equipment. The owner would be the one collecting money, maintaining machines, negotiating new venues, etc.

These could even get built into their own "gyms" - just some rented space where people paid by the half hour to work out instead of blowing $50/month to only end up going a few times.

I guess to me, I am tired of hearing how fat and lazy Americans are. So let's make it as convenient as possible for people to shape up and maybe they will.