Ever heard of this? Born a few decades ago, Tae Bo is a style of training that combines martial arts and Thai kickboxing. That means high cardio all around! It was developed by Billy Blanks and was all the rage during the 90s. To get a monster workout, this was the one to do!
To be honest, this is one of the less crazy exercise regimes we’ve heard of. Sounds like a great way to get some aggression out of your system while toning your body. Plus, if you were any good, you could be sure that nobody would mess with you cause you definitely could kick some ass.
Inspiration Posters
It's no secret that keeping fit is hard, even at the gym. Maybe that's why this gym decided to put up these posters to inspire its members. These remind us of those motivational posters that hung in our third-grade classroom, the ones that shamed us for not doing our homework and playing video games all day.
The principle is the same here when we all see these posters of super ripped guys. We don't immediately just look at a poster and say to ourselves, "Someday, we're going to look like that!" And then we go ahead and work out like crazy. Not to be cynical, but the not-so-shocking truth is that committing to something just because we saw a poster is a totally different story than actually following through.
Diagonal Suspension Apparatus
Apparently, back in the day, working out meant laying horizontally and stretching while wearing a suit. Usually lying horizontally means our bodies are getting some rest. Well, it doesn't seem to be the case with this exceptionally strange piece of equipment. We wonder what the point of this was.
It would be a real...stretch...to say we are more than interested in trying it out. Maybe it was meant to keep your bones from shrinking or something just as strange? Whatever it was, we love a good stretch and we also love the rather formal gym attire from back in the day!
Belly Belt
This inflatable belly belt is a piece of plastic that, when you blow air into it, will tighten. Almost looks like us at the local pool when we were kids in our float equipment! We’re guessing it’s supposed to make the abs work by... squishing them? We’ll let you and your abs decide.
It might seem pointless, but whatever it did do, people still bought it. And just with any trendy product that didn't really do anything while also over-committing, sales began to slow down and the product eventually died out. Unfortunately, we still find useless products that make false promises while under-delivering like this out there.
Treadwheel
Sir William Cubitt developed the exercise equipment which later evolved into the treadmill. Terming it the “treadwheel”, this was actually, initially, a torture device! Basically, it resembles a water wheel, but instead of water powering it, humans would tread on it and cause it to turn.
Rather than just being for physical exertion to improve physical condition, this treadwheel was designed to also power certain machines and devices. It was an intense workout but at least it also had another purpose. Sounds pretty cruel to us. And we joke that treadmills are torture devices these days…