位于倫敦南部的Peckham Rye 公園最近成為了流行的戶外健身場所。公園中的健身設備與眾不同：他們是綠色的而且“體型”巨大。比起之前公園中常見的木質雙杠，這些設備已經是很大的進步了。

這些免費的戶外健身場所是從去年秋天開始在英國流行起來的，據說還是受到了中國的啟發。見著中國人如火如荼的大搞“全民健身”，英國人喬治和馬特再也坐不住了，他們倆一拍即合，準備在本國也大干一場。

一般來說，戶外健身設備都是靠健身者對抗自身重量來達到鍛煉的效果。對于某些人，這樣顯然超負荷了。于是，喬治公司的產品將負荷降低到身體重量的30%-40%，適當地降低了鍛煉的強度,使之適合盡可能多的人。

或許在不久的將來，戶外健身也會在英國遍地開花。有陽光和草坪相伴，還不夠愜意嗎？

Peckham Rye in south London has just become home to the country's latest outdoor gym. The equipment in the park is green and shiny and huge. So they're a vast improvement on the wooden parallel bars that have been a feature of the park since for ever and made you look like you're exercising in a Carry On film.

Free outdoor gyms began appearing in Britain's parks and public spaces last autumn and are steadily spreading across the country. They were inspired by gyms installed throughout China, to ready the nation for the Beijing Olympics, and have been developed over here by the Great Outdoor Gym Company, whose Georgie Tarrant and Matt Delaney were formerly of Sport England.

Most of the outdoor equipment requires you to push against gravity or your own bodyweight, so there are no weights to select. Charlotte Tarrant, sister to Georgie and communications manager for the Great Outdoor Gym Company, explains: "The load is gauged to be 30-40% of your bodyweight, so it would never be too strenuous for anyone."

On a visit yesterday, the gym was full, sunny - idyllic, really. One of the gym-goers, Tara, was a 22-year-old from Battersea.

"I think the community will really appreciate it," she said. But isn't it weird that the equipment has been up a month and nobody has tried to break anything yet?

"I wouldn't know, I'm not the vandalising type," she said. "But it looks like it would be quite hard to break."

Different councils throw the gyms up for different reasons - London's five Olympic boroughs all have one to prove that they are taking 2012 seriously, I guess. Strathclyde police organised one in an area rife with gang membership, hoping to combat antisocial behaviour, and have seen an 8% drop in crime.

Eric Firth, the councillor who was the driving-force behind the outdoor gym in Dewsbury in West Yorkshire, wanted something specifically for older users, and indeed, there's a picture of an old person, heartily enjoying the facilities in the gym company's promotional literature. In Peckham, I would say that the mean age was nearer 13. Smith and Reese, both 13, said that they use the stuff on their way to football. They both really liked it; they would both like free gym membership, too. They are profoundly sociable young men, but that must, surely, predate their resistance workout.

Give it a year and maybe the cross-trainers won't work. At the moment, I'm afraid, I haven't got a bad word to say about it.

（Source:Guardian，英國使館文化教育處提供）