London Gym Uses Human Dumbbells

Members of Gymbox in central London, can choose to lift any of five differently sized “human weights”. Wearing Lycra catsuits which label their weight, they sit on specially adapted machines and shout words of encouragement.

The “dumbbells” include two dwarfs – 32-year-old Arti Shah, who weighs 66 pounds, 64-year-old Mike Edwards, who weighs 121 pounds. At the other end of the scale for those with stronger muscles is 37-year-old Matt Barnard, at 341 pounds.

Um... nice work if you can get it?

Gymbox owner Richard Hilton:

“A lot of our members felt that lifting metal weights was boring and not especially motivating. They said that they had no idea what they were lifting. Experts in sports psychology agree that visualisation is a significant factor in improving performance and human weights are as visual as it can get. Our human weights will, at the gym-goers request, shout encouragement like ‘Come on, lift me harder and faster’ and ‘You’re doing great. Look at those muscles building’. Otherwise, they will just keep quiet and keep still as they are lifted.”

The gym already runs a Chav-fighting self-defence class, boob aerobics to help women increase their bust size and WAG workouts aimed at making female members more attractive to footballers. (WAGs is an acronym used particularly by the British tabloid press to describe the Wives And Girlfriends of high-profile footballers, originally the England national football team).

Now, everyone should be careful in the future about calling somebody a “dumbbell.” They may actually be one…