When you go to the gym, you expect to burn some calories, get lean, and build muscle. But what if you could do so much more than just get closer to achieving your fitness goals – what if you could help save the planet while trying to get fit, too?! Human-powered gyms are popping up all over the world and aim to do their part in reducing their carbon emissions.

What is a Human-Powered Gym?

A human-powered gym relies on specially configured exercise equipment that capture energy people create while getting fit – pedaling, running, crunching, and so on. This energy is converted into electricity and channeled into power outlets and voilà!: a human-powered gym.

People exercising can now reach their fitness goals while doing something positive for the environment. Win, Win.

Where Are They?

Partially and fully human-powered gyms are popping up everywhere, but it will still take time for the concept and technology to take hold.

California Fitness in Hong Kong is perhaps the first to mainstream the human-powered gym concept. Since 2007, it has integrated “Powered by YOU” cross-trainer machines and stair steppers into its locations. These machines connect to individual light fixtures and batteries. When a person begins to exercise on these machines, electrical energy is captured and diverted to the light fixture above the machine. Any additional energy created is stored in a battery.

In Portland, Oregon, Green Microgym is a pioneer in the USA’s human-powered gym segment. The gym uses about 85% less electricity and has a carbon footprint that is only 10% of that of a traditional gym. Each member can expect to save about one-fourth of a ton of carbon by working out at Green Microgym than they would at any other regular gym.

In England, The Great Outdoor Gym Company has launched four outdoor gym pieces that offer a cardiac workout and generate electricity at the same time. You can get fit while you charge your phone, iPad, or other devices.

ReRev is a Florida-based company that retrofits cardio equipment to reroute the energy they emit as a heat by-product. Instead, this energy is delivered to a central processing unit that converts the human power to utility grade electricity. A regularly used elliptical machine can generate about one kilowatt-hour of electricity every two days. That is enough to power a laptop for 24 hours or use a vacuum cleaner for 45 minutes. ReRev has been retrofitting machines at university campus gyms across the country. Such universities include Drexel, Howard, James Madison, Texas State, and Oregon State.

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Bring some sci-fi style to your indoor garden with these colourful, tactile, flying saucer-shaped planters.

Perfect for plant lovers that want to bring some greenery inside, but don’t want unmanageable tendrils or overflowing soil, we are loving these micro-plant holders. Everything’s going mini these days and so goes these micro-plant holders in natural, vegetable-y colours – earth grey, carrot orange and artichoke green. Their sharp shape makes a bold style statement as a tabletop statement planter and mini-gardens hybrid.

The pods are made from soft recycled felt and are fully lined. A watering can would cause a biblical flood, so they come with a teeny-weeny water dropper. In any case, they’re best suited to succulents which would prefer you not to water them very much at all. Remember less is more. (Plants not included.)

Image: Flip and tumble

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This humble retreat of corrugated copper and recycled iron bark timber is off-grid, way off-grid. The site has no water, no electricity, and no roads (dwellers simply meander in on horseback). The self-sufficient solitary tower is the creative genius of Rob Brown, of Casey Brown Architecture.

The hideaway allows its owner (a Sydney-based graphic designer with the urge for an eternal campsite) to relish a 360 degree view of pure nature without a hint of humanity in sight.

“A simple cabin on a remote Australian sheep station is an eloquent answer to one man’s quest for a ‘permanent tent’ where he re-connects with nature.”

Two simple materials, oiled timber and copper cladding, encase less than 100 square feet of living space. This escape from urban chaos is designed to be warmed through glass walls, allowing solar heat to radiate under the sheltered copper awnings, which fold down to protect the delicate space from Mother Nature’s harshest elements. A powerful lone wood burning fireplace balances the nighttime chills, with heat radiating and rising to warm the insulated loft bedroom. “The copper won’t rust and will patina over the years and, like a boulder covered in lichen, recede into the bush,” Brown notes. I can hardly wait to see this quaint sanctuary after the kiss of time has lent its gorgeous, green patina.

Rainwater collection, a canvas shower among gum trees (poetic, right?), and an outhouse provide all the plumbing.

This little copper haven was erected with no machinery on the site, just old-fashioned labor (the building was prefabricated off-site). “It’s a creative person’s retreat,” says Brown. “You can stay and be at one with nature on a mountain. The ability to go to a place and be in solitude in today’s over-scheduled urban lifestyle is romantic, something perhaps we all long for.”

I don’t know about you, but my bags are packed, I’m ready to go…

(Images by Mikkel Vang. Click here to read the original Vogue Living article, written by Helen Redmond.)

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