Olympic gymnast Alexei Nemov squats for his ride. | YURI KADOBNOV/AFP/GETTY IMAGES
Free subway rides for 30 squats? We’re fit New Yorkers, sign us up! Apparently it’s one of those things, only in Moscow? It’s true, a vending machine at the Vystavochnaya station will give you a single-ride ticket if you stand in front of it and perform 30 squats. It’s part of a promotion by Russia’s Olympic Committee to ‘add elements of sport into daily life’ leading up to the Winter Olympic Games in Sochi.
Neato idea. How to make it better? Switch it to a 2-minute warrior pose. Or utkatasana. That is so much harder! But that’s just silly, everyone knows yoga is a summer Olympic sport. Zing. Or better yet, how about you just stand still for one freaking minute. It won’t up your fitness so much as it would contribute to the city’s overall peace and sanity.
By the way, this would never fly in NY. Two whole minutes is equivalent to 2 hours in NYC time and 20 angry New Yorkers waiting in line behind you for the ONE machine doling out free tickets. Then again, NY’s subways are a lot pricer than the $0.92/30 rubles single ride in Moscow and if there’s one thing NY will slow down for it’s the word FREE.
The machine will be up only through November, which is a shame because that doesn’t give us time to do enough squats/yoga poses to earn us a free flight to Russia. Now there’s an idea. We love the yoga in airports, but if it got us free miles?
[via NY Daily News]
haha this is great! love it. promoting exercise, public transportation and the olympics! win!
Squats for train fare.. how about utkatasana for fare.
Simply fantastic!