By Tara Narayan

The idea of a useful public outdoors fitness gym has come to Goa and at Miramar beach, capital city Panaji! It is located just where the Manohar Parrikar memorial is coming up behind green curtains. Ideas of public beautification can be wonky but in this respect one must ask whoever came up the idea of an open outdoor gym for the public may take a bow. It’s an idea which comes from Mumbai really where the idea first caught fire in 2015-2016 or so when a fitness conscious film actor Dino Morea got together with like-minded Aaditya Thackeray of Yuva Sena and Jacqueline Fenandes and they came up with a model fitness station in five of the public gardens of Mumbai.
These model fitness stations or open air outdoor gyms became very popular with the people who across all sections of society made time to visit their nearest park or garden to work out on the various units installed…schoolchildren, housewives, bus conductors, everyone with a fitness visited at different times of convenience to spend spend half an hour to an hour doing the gentle workout offered by the gym units. Many were happy and expressed their gratification as they sense of being fit and in the pink of health grew!
We don’t know what the status of these open air public gyms is today in Mumbai but it warmed the heart to see this one at Miramar beach at 7 am in the morning when several walkers stopped by to use the exercise units installed here. There were seniors, middle-aged, youngsters as also women perched here and there with a yen to do something about their aches and pains…perhaps they could be wished away with some exercising!
There are of course many, many kinds of multiple fitness units designed in a variety of material and some may be on the heavy, bulky side instead of the lightweight tensile strength models – but no matter, most seem to be designed on scientific principles and I find the Buddha’s wheel a delight to work out my arms and stop them from going flabby!
There’re about half-a-dozen workout units ranging from the sitting/standing twister to cross trainer, stationary cycle, shoulder press and the more popularly nicknamed Buddha’s wheel which may be worked on both sides depending on your stature.
Wish this movement of open air multiple fitness stations in public gardens of Panaji and in all gardens of Goa will move forward and multiply! It would be a real boon for members of the public and a garden setting is the most fitting place to install such a beneficiary work out place…the search for fitness should really cost nothing and be available to all across all economic limitations! Be careful if you’re a first timer though, ask someone more experienced here to show you the ropes…a wrong move and one can end up with a nasty bruise on head or hand or leg.