Chinese Iron Man Flaunts His Iron Shoes
Posted on December 30, 2013
Forget the treadmills and the leg curls. This Chinese senior takes his workout session away from the gym and into the streets near his home, walking with a pair of 882-pound iron shoes as his ticket to good health.
Every morning, Mr. Fuxing Zhang takes a 15-meter walk around his neighborhood in Hebei Province, China. He claims that the exercise has cured not only his back problems, but also his hemorrhoids. The strength to carry the enormous weight, he says, comes from his internal organs — a belief adapted from the martial art known as qigong.
Surprisingly, it didn’t take long for his neighbors to get their hands on their own shoes, but of course, theirs weigh only a fraction of those worn by Zhang, who also recently planned to add 50 kilos more to his footwear by next spring.
Although these unusual workouts have not yet been tested for safety and their intended health benefits, perhaps the only upside that Mr. Zhang is sure to reap is that the shoes are definitely anti-theft, given their enormous weight.
So during lazy days, when dragging yourself to the gym is a little too much for you, you may want to sport these shoes instead.