Man on a drop-frame bicycle converted to an exercycle, 1918.

I noticed the gym recently installed new motion sensor activated doors which I don’t have to use my new found strength to open, a fact I felt compelled to mention to the clerk at check in. I’ve often wondered about our devotion to labor saving devices coinciding with our dependence on exercise machines and gym classes. If only we could kill two birds with one stone and make our exercise routines useful in completing necessary tasks while we work out, like riding an exercycle to work.

 In our aerobics class, we do an exercise called the “hay baler”, where you hold a weight and lift it from the ground diagonally over your head, repeatedly. Sometimes I wonder how many animals I could feed doing this, which I don’t have to do because I drive to the store to buy the machine fed, raised, slaughtered, packaged and shipped creature whose flesh is one of the reasons I’m doing “hay balers”.