Getting a fix of fitness at city's open gyms

When I first moved to Beijing almost a year ago, I was greeted with several new experiences and sights that I was unaccustomed to living in Vancouver, Canada - jam-packed streets with motorized tricycles and rickshaws, street vendors selling sweet potatoes and the omnipresent squat toilet.

Throughout my strolls in the capital, one thing that particularly caught my eye were the open areas featuring blue, yellow, and orange iron contraptions of every shape and size. Not until I saw local residents sitting and stretching over these colorful bars did I realize that what I had stumbled upon was a mass outdoor gym.

But there were no hard bodies parading around in skimpy exercise outfits or beefy men showing off their biceps like you'd see in Western gyms. Instead, the majority of exercisers were mom-and-pop-types and elderly Beijingers working up a sweat. The chilly February weather did nothing to slow them down - I was startled to see one man who could've been my father's age roll his back over one machine and push his legs straight up in the air.