You could probably get electrical energy that is needed to run a gym (lights, accountant pc, vending machine) if you just install generators in all of this gym's exercise equipment

UltraHamster64

You also need a big enough battery to get through slow hours.

So you can get the Zero-emissions Off-the-grid gym!

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Hey that’s exactly what I’ve wondered for years. Just get rid of all those useless weights, and replace them with generators.

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Might be difficult.

Bicycle riders make 30-70 watts from memory. That'll run a few LED lights, but if you want the fridge you need five cyclists, and for the aircon about 30 to 50 I think.

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Here's an Olympic sprinter powering a toaster. He generates 0.021kWh going flat out: https://youtu.be/S4O5voOCqAQ

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If they generate that much just from their memories, imagine how much they must generate when they pedal the bikes!

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It does feel like all that wasted effort would be good to use for something productive. The energy used probably wouldn't even heat the water for the showers though.

Maybe just charge people's phones while the work out is better than nothing though.

Diplomjodler

I once saw a TV program where they tried something like this. They had a few dozen people on exercise bikes try to power a normal family home. They barely managed even going flat out with a lot of people. Humans aren't very good for generating electricity. I think it's basically impossible to get more out of them than you have to feed them. Our future robotic overlords won't have much use for us.

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Hehe. Good one.

Actually I think the brain uses 30 watts so you're not far off

I really should check my sources! Slacker me.

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Demonstrations like that really emphasize just how much energy a modern lifestyle requires. Switching from human power to fossil fuel power let us scale energy use so high without a second thought, just keeping food cold inside a warm room, nevermind traveling at 400 mph.

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Many of the stationary bikes power their own display. I think thats about all you can do with so little energy.

Otter

I love how the channel is dedicated to just this experiment

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Great idea. As others have pointed out, it wouldn't be enough power on its own, but maybe it could supplement the gym's power and you could award people points for how much power they generate. Then maybe you can use those points to pay for all the things you need for daily living. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fifteen_Million_Merits

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Well, exercise equipment makes for terrible generators. The amount of modifications and the added load to the user would make them much larger and more difficult to use.

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Nice demonstration of how much power this actually is

But couldn't they fix the handlebars better or are they this wonky on purpose?

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NAUGHT POINT 21 ~~JIGA~~KILOWATTS!

DankOfAmerica

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And watch all the lights turn off.

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the added load to the user

Isn't that the purpose of a gym?

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Generators have a significant amount of load to make them viable and work best at constant speeds.

Huge amounts of load at the start and then momentum usally makes it more efficient. This is great for endurance training, but you would have to mess with a fair bit of engineering for weight machines to work well.

At that point you might as well just make them preform labour like splitting wood.

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Kilowatt-hours, not kilowatts. And it was 0.021.

He was basically going full blast for just under two minutes, and generated 0.021 kWh.