By Lindsay Jones – The Weekly News
You’ll have one less excuse not to get in that workout.
Dartmouth is getting an outdoor gym that will be free to anyone who wants to use it.
“Not everybody can afford to belong to gyms,” Dartmouth Centre Coun. Gloria McCluskey said. “This makes it accessible to everyone.”
Outdoor gyms look more like playgrounds for adults than gym equipment, but the machines do give you a similar workout. Unlike indoor gym machines where you add weights to get a workout, the outdoor equipment uses the participant’s body weight for resistance.
Five activities coming to the old Park School site at Windmill and Wyse Roads include an elliptical trainer, leg press, lateral pull-down, rowing machine and an air walker.
The equipment is made of weather-resistant, high carbon steel and fibreglass, and requires virtually no maintenance.
“It’s in a great location because parents with kids playing in the playground can use it, people walking can stop to work out, and kids that attend summer camp at the (Dartmouth) Sportsplex can come over and use it,” McCluskey said.
“It’s wide open. There will be no signing up. There will be nobody there to say, ‘Go there and go there.’”
The longtime District 5 councillor decided to shell out $18,000 for the project from her capital discretionary fund after she was approached by Green Gyms, a Dartmouth-based distributor of the equipment.
“I was very impressed,” McCluskey said. “I think it’s a great idea for that neighbourhood and for any other neighbourhood.”
The project has gone to tender, but hasn’t been awarded yet.
Dartmouth isn’t the first community in HRM to get outdoor gym equipment. The Gordon R. Snow Community Centre in Fall River also has a system made by a different manufacturer.
Outdoor gyms are also becoming increasingly popular, particularly in the United States and Israel, Green Gyms owner Guy Chaham said. 
The former founder of the now-defunct Next magazine started the company just a year-and-a-half ago and has since started working on installing outdoor gyms in more than a dozen locations across the country, including Guysborough, which is also getting one this spring. 
Chaham said he expects the company to grow even more because of a recent partnership with ParticipACTION, a national not-for-profit organization dedicated to inspiring healthy living. The organization has encouraged all schools, businesses and municipalities to install Green Gyms’ outdoor fitness equipment and will provide a grant for 10 per cent of the purchase price.
lindsayleejones@gmail.com