This California Gym Runs on Energy Generated by Your Workout

At Sacramento Eco Fitness in California, the energy clients expend is put to good use. As Inhabitat reports, the gym is outfitted with special ECO-POWR equipment from SportsArt that collects kinetic energy from users' workouts and feeds it into a battery used to power a portion of the gym's operations.

The fitness center features much of the same equipment you'd find in any gym, but its stationary bikes are more sophisticated than most. SportsArt's ECO-POWR cycles have built-in micro inverters—the same technology that solar panels and wind turbines use to convert natural energy into electricity—that harvest the watts generated when you pedal. The gym also recently debuted an ECO-POWR treadmill that can harvest energy generated during a run.

A single bike can generate as much as 200 watts per hour, and one spin class produces enough energy to power two fridges for 24 hours. The gym's battery can also be used to power lights and charge cellphones and laptops. The results are apparent in the gym's energy bill—after debuting the new equipment, its electricity costs dropped from $680 to $30 a month.

Eco Fitness isn't the only business tweaking the conventional gym model. The app POPiN, which rolled out in several health clubs in New York City in 2017, lets guests pay for gym time by the minute. People in New York can also check out FaceGym, the aptly named gym for working out your face.