Hello readers,

When I started going to the gym it was 2019 and I had just turned 20 and moved out of my parents’ house to another city for my studies. Since then I’ve been training regularly and now – about ten years later- I still love it. Especially after a long day of work it’s just the best day to stop thinking about work stuff, clear my head and it helps me sleep at night.

The only thing that’s even better is being in the nature. That also was how I first discovered my current gym. I had heard about the outdoor activities they were offering like hiking, mountain biking, slack-lining and – most importantly – rock climbing and got curious. It threw me a little off that the gym fees were higher than usual, but then I learned that this was a sustainable gym where all the energy needed was being produced by the members through the machines and the rest through solar collectors. I had never heard anything like it before and really liked the concept, so I tried it out. I found it really fascinating to see how much energy I could produce in a single hour and honestly, I still am today. A couple of weeks ago, my gym launched this new offer where you can collect the Watt you produce. All you have to do is insert your membership card in the machine before you start working out, then it automatically transfers the amount of Watt produced by you. When you reach a certain amount, you can trade it for something to eat or drink. I’ve always roughly calculated about how much energy I’ve produced every time I worked out, but with this it is far easier to keep count.

What I also really like is how diverse the people are who go this gym. Every Tuesday and Thursday for example, there is a group of five older ladies who go to the Yoga class at 6. At the beginning I had been a little confused why there was an e-bike charging station in front of the gym – I even thought it was a little funny to take an e-bike to the gym – but then I realised that it would be a lot more complicated for these lovely ladies to get to the gym without their e-bikes and that it is very useful for them to be able to charge them there. Otherwise they would have to depend on public transportation or drive a car (though the non-bike parking situation is a disaster just like everywhere in the city). They also would have to deal with the evening rush hour traffic.

Last week I talked to Mark, the owner of the gym. He comes by every now and then and since I’ve been there for quite a while now, we know each other a little. It was really interesting to hear about his future plans, but almost even more so was to hear about how it all started. It’s become so normal to me, it was kind of weird to think about how different it used to be and I was impressed by how much had to be figured out until it all worked. If you’re interested, I have linked some information in the other tabs, so you can go check that out.