Social Workout

Workout

Get on ya bike!

Ha ha! I finally added the cycling feat to this monster that is the Million Minute Month.

I don't know why,but I always find a stationary bike to be a daunting thing, so I usually go for walking or jogging to get my warmup and cardio. Today's personal challenge, pedal hard and fast for 20 minutes. Next time, I'll increase resistance and really burn some calories.

Fit Tech

Pedal Power Brings Down the New Year's Ball

Remember how we told you the University of Oregon was using power generated by elliptical machines at the gym to light up bulbs all over campus?  Well, now Duracell is using power generated by a bunch of stationary bikes in Times Square to power the ball drop on New Year's Eve. If you're crazy enough to brave Times Square, you can take a turn anytime today or tomorrow...

Newslinks

Gordon Brown, Yoga Cults, Overexercising, and Inflatable Chinese Bras

• Gordon Brown has taken up jogging, and the snarko-Office-loving Brit press can't help noting how poorly dressed, tubby, and generally un-Obama-like their P.M. is on the running path.
• Everybody knows superelite female athletes may experience a loss in fertility from extreme training. But a new study of 3,000 women in Norway suggests that short term fertility loss can happen to women who work out daily to the point of exhaustion. Our take: Regular exercise very good. "Over-exercising" can be problematic, and especially not helpful if you want babies. Your body needs energy to procreate.
• Gyms are booming in China, but Chinese people still think cardio is weird. Also in China, inflatable bras are the hot new thing.
• Winter is gym season, people. Our man Keith Worts, C.O.O. of Crunch, tells Reuters that gym memberships spikes by up to 25% in cold months.
• Remember when we discovered that some lucky kids were sitting on exercise balls in classrooms. That was so last week. This week it's stationary bikes.
• The Post reports that city schools are suspending their funding of "Brain Education," a program with ties to Dahn Yoga, which is embroiled in several lawsuits and accused of being a cult.

Not Ready for Prime Time

Play Tetris While Spinning. Not.

Stephen Bergeron, adorable Quebecois entrepreneur, has invented a stationary bike. it's called the NeuroActive bike, and the idea is that, while you're peddling, you're also doing simple brain exercises on a flat screen monitor in front of you. (We aced the online demo of "Security Guard", and then felt uncomfortable about our latent tendency to profile aggressively.) "NeuroActive’s® powerful brain-training, anti-aging program helps keep your gray matter sharp and youthful," says the NeuroActive web site. They also say it's a big hit in France. Let's recall that France is not notorious for its physical fitness.