Discounted gym membership if you empower the community
When someone goes to ‘work’ they get paid, but when you go to the gym to ‘exercise’ you have to pay them, why? Why do we have to pay to exercise? Why don’t they pay us? Fortunately, health insurance companies now give discounts to people with gym memberships, and that’s good, but we’re still expending energy, which in physics means work. When we expend energy in the gym, it is wasted, why?
Why waste energy? Think of all the calories we are burning. My friends, that is energy. Shouldn’t we charge for it? Perhaps use that energy to charge tech devices, turn on the lights in the gym, or play a video monitor in front of us? Why not sell that power back to the power grid and get a discount from the gym for “our work”? Think about that for a moment, because this idea is not far-fetched at all. let’s talk yes?
In December 2016 there was an interesting article in the Sacramento Bee titled; “New Sacramento Gym Harnesses People Power” which read:
“Sacramento Eco Fitness, which opened on December 18, is equipped with 16 specially designed SportsArt stationary bikes that use a standard three-outlet plug to return power to the electrical grid. The gym owner was looking for an entry into the fitness business. Once he decided that eco-friendly was the way to go, he said, he was drawn to SportsArt’s Eco-power equipment because it is so capable of AC electricity.”
This is a brilliant business model, as it makes people think they’re doing something good, even if it’s hard to get them to switch to all the LED lights in the home or set their air conditioners 3 degrees higher in the summer. However, everything helps and wasting energy is stupid, especially when we have the technology and knowledge to efficiently convert it and reuse it. Someone in a spin class might put out around 200 watts, someone on a treadmill about the same. That’s enough to run 10 LED multi-head lights in the gym (20 watts each). It is also enough to run your smartphone.
All together in the gym, well, it all adds up, to give you an idea. Perhaps this small business in suburban Sacramento should be franchised across the country, as other green entrepreneurs might take notice. Think about it.