A Chinese company has replaced its year-end employee bonus program with another scheme designed to promote exercise – enticing financial rewards for employees who exercise on a daily basis.

Guangdong Dongpo Paper, a paper company in Guangdong Province, China, recently made international headlines for replacing its traditional performance-based employee bonus scheme with one based on athletic performance. To promote a healthy lifestyle among its 100 employees, management decided to reward them based on how much they exercise. For example, an employee will be eligible for a full monthly bonus if they run 50 km a month. They will get 60 percent of the bonus for running 40km, and 30 percent for 30km. Running enthusiasts stand to get a 30% bonus if they can prove they ran over 100 km in a single month.

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A 60-year-old man who used to work out for 8 hours a day, walking, jogging, and doing hundreds of situps, developed severe degenerative arthritis and is barely able to move because of the pain.

They say too much of a good thing is usually bad for you, and apparently, exercise is no exception. Chinese newspaper Shanxy Daily recently featured the tragic story of a 60-year-old man from Henan who only discovered exercising in his early 40s, only to start overdoing it to such an extent that he pretty much ruined his joints. The Zhengzhou-based man reportedly exercised about two and a half hours every morning, walking, running, and doing pull-ups, then swam for about two hours and then did 800 sit-ups a day, plus hundreds of push-ups, and some badminton to top it all off. Unfortunately, his body eventually gave in and he started experiencing severe pain in his joints.

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Researchers at Tokyo Medical and Dental University claim to have identified a drug that replicates the benefits of exercise on muscles and bones.

Many of us may not want to admit it, but modern life in developed countries is easier and more comfortable than it’s ever been. Gone are the days when humans had to rely on heavy labor to sustain themselves and their families, but this particular part of our evolution has had some unwanted health-related consequences – the vast majority of people aren’t getting enough exercise and that is taking a toll on their bones, muscles and overall health. The problem is that many of us don’t want to put in the physical work to keep our bodies in good shape, even though we know we should, but the good news is that we may not have to…

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Thousands of people in China are taking up “crocodile crawling” classes, a weird type of back relief exercise inspired by the movement of a crocodile.

Multiple news outlets in China have been reporting on a new health trend with dozens of people joining large groups and moving around on all fours. Viral videos shot in large cities like Xiangshan and Changsha show long lines of people all dressed the same and wearing industrial gloves to protect their hands as they slowly move around on their hands and feet. The movement is supposed to strengthen back muscles and relieve back pain if practiced regularly, for a long enough period of time.

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A man known as Tarzan of Barcelona has been drawing a lot of attention with his monkey-inspired tree-climbing classes taught in the Spanish city’s Parque de la Ciudadela.

Ever wish you could climb trees and leap from branch to branch like Tarzan, the protagonist of Edgar Rice Burroughs’ famous novel and the many big-screen adaptations it inspired? Well, you’re in luck, because all you need to do is travel to the beautiful city of Barcelona and pay 10 euros (~$10) for a “Tarzan Movement” class with the city’s very own Tarzan. You’ll likely need more than one class to master all of Tarzan’s skills, but you’ll become part of a community of like-minded people who love monkeying around just as much.

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In an attempt to get the coveted six-pack abs in time for the summer holidays, a man who hates going to the beach got himself a hyper-realistic six-pack tattoo.

It’s the same old story every spring. You try flexing your abs in the mirror only to find them covered by a thick layer of fat that you’ve been trying your hardest to ignore for months. You jump on the scale and are shocked to see you’ve put on a few pounds since last summer and with only a few weeks left until the beach season, you start to panic. It’s time to hit the gym, hard, but that’s just such a chore. If only there was a way to permanently turn that flabby belly into the chiseled physique of a bodybuilder. Well, as long as you’re not afraid of needles, there’s one goofy trick you may want to try.

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McDonald’s restaurants in China are replacing regular table seats with stationary bikes in an apparent effort to promote exercise.

Viral TikTok videos that have been doing the rounds online over the past week show stationary bikes being used as seats at McDonald’s eateries in Gunagdong . Made out of recycled plastic, the bikes not only encourage patrons to start burning calories as they eat, but they also allow people to recharge their smartphones with the generated energy. According to McDonald’s China, there are currently 10 such “Green Charging Bikes” at two restaurants in Guangdong and Shanghai.

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Hanging by the neck is considered dangerous, some would even call it deadly, but pensioners in China are increasingly turning to it as a form of exercise to treat back pain.

A bizarre exercising trend has become very popular among elderly fitness enthusiasts in China’s Liaoning Province over the last couple of years. Photos and videos show pensioners hanging by the neck on a special harness and either dangling in the air or swinging their bodies back and forth, and in a circular pattern. They attach these special neck hanging harnesses to trees in parks, or to metal bars at outdoor exercising venues, and they swear that the unusual exercises do wonders for their back problems.

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A Chinese man has been getting a lot of attention on Asian social media, because of his unique training regimen – walking with 150 kg of steel plates attached to his feet.

Zhang Enshun, a 42-year-old man from Yulin City, in China’s Guangxi province, has been training in the art of “iron shoes” for the last five months, and has already made significant progress. After seeing news reports of people working out by walking with heavy weights attached to their feet, and hearing them talk about the benefits of this training, Zhang decided to try it for himself. He began by attaching one steel plate, weighing around 18.75 kilograms, to each of his feet and trying to take a few steps with it. Today, he can walk around with four of these heavy plates attached to each foot, for a total weight of 150 kilograms.

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A 50-year-old man from China has been exercising by moving around on all fours and climbing trees like a monkey every day for the past three decades.

Chen Haigang, a fitness enthusiast from China’s Shanxi province, attracts attention whenever he exercises in public, due to the bizarre routine he has been practicing for about 30 years. Instead of the popular tai-chi practiced by many of his countrymen, jogging or simple stretching, Chen acts like a monkey, walking on all fours, crouching his back and dangling his arms, and even imitating the primates’ tree-climbing techniques. He has been doing it for three decades now, ever since he was inspired by a monkey at the zoo, and claims that it’s been keeping him in perfect health ever since.

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We’re always told that exercise is good for our health, but as two Chinese girls recently learned the hard way, overdoing it can have life-threatening consequences.

On July 10, Tang, a 19-year-old girl from Chongqing, China, decided to challenge her best friend to a squatting competition to see which one of them had more stamina. They set up a video call and started doing one squat at a time to see which would give up first. The problem was that both of them took it very seriously and refuse to stop despite pushing their leg muscles to the limit. Tang told doctors that they both must have done around 1,000 squats before they decided to call it quits, but by that time their leg muscles had begun to break down.

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In China, health insurance companies apparently offer discounts to people who can prove they get enough exercise every day by using their mobile phones to monitor their movement. Only instead of actually going for walks, some people use ingenious perpetuum mobile devices to cheat the system.

I first learned about China’s “mobile phone cradles” a few days ago, after seeing a picture of a strange perpetuum mobile device with a smartphone attached to it, tweeted by Chinese comedian Dashan (@akaDashan). He had spotted it in a restaurant in Harbin, where patrons were invited to use it to trick their phones’ pedometer apps into recording thousands of steps artificially, while they relaxed, and had a bite to eat or a drink. Why would anyone want to do that, you ask? Well, that’s where it gets interesting.

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