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“New Delhi: Open gyms make fitness a mass exercise – Times of India
NEW DELHI: Savita Devi, a 52-year-old resident of an urban village in Chirag Dilli, firmly holds the two wheels of the tai chi spinner and turns them in opposite directions. “I also like the one where you feel as if you are treading on water,” she says, referring quaintly to the air walker.
Devi regularly visited the Millennium Park near the dismantled BRT corridor in Chirag Dilli earlier too, but it was just for a walk with friends. Today, she is among the substantial number of women who use the open gym created in the park. The women stroll and share gossip as usual, but now they stretch their muscles too. They laugh when asked if they have ever been to a professional gym. “Who has the time or money to go to a gym? And wouldn’t it seem a bit odd to be neglecting household chores to join a gym?” asks Devi.
In 2016, the three municipal corporations first installed open gyms in the city’s parks, and the response has been great, with even sections earlier unable to afford exercise equipment or gym memberships now gleefully gathering in numbers for the daily physical exertions.
The way these gyms have been conceptualised, with basic equipment and signboards at each giving instructions on their use, it has been easy and safe for newcomers, like Radha, a domestic help in Mayur Vihar Phase I, to take to them. Every morning, before going to work, Radha spends 20 minutes flexing her body in the company of people from all economic groups, young and old.
Experts, of course, advise caution. Dr Dharam Pandey, head of the department of physiotherapy at BLK Hospital, agrees that open gyms are a positive addition to public parks, but a modicum of assistance/supervision is a must….
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