You're listening to Roundtable, I'm Yung Lin, joined by Steve and Yu Shen.
Coming up, gyms are traditionally spaces where we push ourselves to the limit.
But what if we didn't have to?
What if you could go in, work out for just 5 -10 minutes and still feel like you've done enough?
Today, let's explore how a new ultra -convenient 24 -hour fitness chain is disturbing the gym industry in China and beyond.
But before this, here comes my favorite segment first, Roundtable's Heart to Heart.
Ah, I love this. It's cozy and it's happy and it's a safe place for you to say whatever you want.
And we are going to give our two cents in whatever question you have.
And this time we've got an email from Emily and she described her situation.
And in order, because this is an audio show, we want you to be able to hear her question like the way we do.
So we used a little bit of technology to transfer that email into a little clip.
Dear Roundtable Team, I just wanted to say how much I love your show.
Thank you for always bringing me joy and insightful perspectives.
I have a question about the tricky relationship with my parents.
I've been working in a different city far from home.
During the recent National Day holiday, I went back home hoping to enjoy some quality time with them.
However, I noticed that whenever I stay for more than three days, I start to feel uncomfortable.
Even though I'm 26, my parents often lecture me about my life choices, like my job, my relationships, and even my lifestyle.
While I know they want what's best for me, it can be a bit overwhelming sometimes.
We also have different daily habits, they wake up early and go to bed early, while I'm more of a night owl.
This difference often leads to tension, especially when they expect me to join their early morning schedule.
I really love spending time with them and cherish our moments together, but these clashes make me frustrated and confused.
I'm curious if anyone else feels the same way about going home and how to handle these complex feelings.
I'd appreciate any advice from you guys.
Thank you. Thank you, Emily.
That is a heartfelt message, and I can assure you, you're not the only one who's feeling like this, but I want to hear both of your answers and suggestions first.
Well, Yushin, I think you went to your hometown most recently.
Or maybe not. I have.
You did too, during the holiday.
I have. Maybe both of you can answer, since it's fresh in your mind.
I had that experience, and I have to say, I can completely relate to what you were saying, Emily.
For Emily, it was three days.
What is it for you?
We have exactly the same time range, three days, you know?
Because when I go home during the holidays, for the first three days as Emily, it might feel like I'm on a honeymoon.
Filled with happiness and understanding, whatever I do, my parents will say, okay, and yes.
But after a while, I slowly start turning back into the child that needs to be disciplined.
And basically, I wouldn't say everything, but a lot of things I do that will say, are you serious?
Or try not to do that?
Or just try not to do that.
Or do you do other things that they think that is good for you?
See that thing you're doing?
Stop doing that. Stop doing it, yeah.
You know, we know that our parents' generation tend to, I think, trust information from the internet more easily.
So I think the way that I do, or I think it is quite effective, is sometimes, they even believe in some quite unreliable information on basically maybe our short video platforms or just WeChat.
But we can also use this to our advantage because we're growing up in an internet era.
So whenever you come across articles like, parents, please let go.
Or give your children more space.
These kind of articles.
Been doing a little reading recently, have you?
He should have tried to change his parents.
Shared them with her parents.
I'm not trying to change them, but I did feel something that I've changed among them.
They tried to, I think, understand some of my habits even though they don't understand it.
They try to accept it.
So I think there are some changes along time.
Family power play. A little bit.
Yixuan is growing up into this young adult who knows a lot more and the parents started to realize instead of telling him what to do, we should also listen to him.
Yet, the old pattern, the habit is due there.
So after three days, they showed their true colors to Yixuan.
And you know, we even see a lot of these short videos online showcasing or doing a little play of this specific situation.
They will label first day back home.
Maybe it's long holidays, maybe it's vacations like summer vacation and winter vacation.
The little video would showcase the parents being very nice and sweet in the first two days.
And also, one is the day three or day five, you see the mom coming into the bedroom without knocking the door, start cleaning and sweeping very, very loudly and opening the curtain.
And when the kid is like all being wakened up from sleep and say, mom, what you're doing?
Mom said, oh, did I wake you?
I didn't realize something like that.
I'm just cleaning with something that you should do.
So, yeah, we see this kind of complaints online a lot.
My situation is a little bit different, though.
My parents are always currently are always very understanding and very nice.
Yet I find myself even we're in a very natural and common and ordinary and just just, you know, everyday conversation.
I would somehow lose patience all of a sudden.
So I think my side, the problem lies on my side.
And I've recently looked it up to see is there anything wrong with me?
And I realize that when you are back into the old environment, you would easily fall into the old pattern.
When I was a kid, this kind of conflicts happened relatively more than I anticipated, which leads to this pattern of lack of lack of patience with this a little bit loose of temper.
And that would affect the way I talk to them and out with them currently.
I have been, you know, making efforts to change that.
But I just want those of you who do not know this phenomenon actually exists to know so that you can make you can be aware of the situation and maybe make some changes.
Yeah, it'll make sense to you if you're aware of what's happening.
Yeah, that's good information to know that it's kind of a natural thing for people to feel.
It seems like it's 72 hours from the time you arrive at the front door.
So maybe start your stopwatch so you know exactly when your patience is going to run out for me.
I guess it's a little bit different.
I don't get to go to Canada that often.
So when I do get to my home province of Nova Scotia on the far east side of Canada, it's a very unique opportunity.
So I don't give my parents a hard time about anything.
I don't get frustrated with them.
I know that they don't get to see me very often, and I don't get to see them very often.
They give me my space, I give them their space because I realize I'm invading their space too, right?
They're used to living alone and having their own.
Don't forget, young people.
Your parents are also people, right?
So you're going into their space, eating their food, interrupting their routine.
So I try not to do too much of that.
We don't discuss it.
It's not like an open conversation like, okay, I don't want to bother you, so I'm going to come here at 11 a .m.
instead of 10 .30. No, it's not like that.
It's just a mutual understanding and we always enjoy the time together.
You treat that as invasion, but I think maybe that's the cultural difference.
Most of the Chinese parents would say there will always be space for you at home.
Of course, all parents would say that and my parents would say that as well.
Maybe invasion is the wrong choice of word, but what I'm saying is they are not used to having you there on a daily basis and all of a sudden you're there and they're super happy that you're there, but they're also making adjustments when you come home.
Definitely. They're acting like that maybe because in their eyes, you're always the kid and they will always treat you like a kid.
So Emily, I'm not really sure if we've answered your question and perhaps if the situation is like what we said, that's definitely amazing.
But it's also going to, well, I have to say for some families, there is the situation of a relatively toxic family environment.
Some kids would need to spend a long time to find who they are, find their way of living in this world without the original effect from their bring ups.
And that's also something that's been intensely discussed in today's social media in China and around the world.
And for those who feel like whenever they go home, they feel unhappy, they feel like they're falling into the old pattern of their parents or their other family members continue to say you're not doing a good enough job and they would have to defend themselves all the time and feeling unhappy and feeling
not good enough all the time.
Then my suggestion would be don't go back that often.
Stay away. If it's toxic.
If it's toxic. So if you can change the relationship, if you can change or your parents can change, definitely that's perfect.
But if it cannot be changed, you should love yourself first.
There's a Chinese saying, or distance creates beauty.
And I think it applies to many relationships.
This doesn't mean that you need to cut every tie that you have.
But maintaining a certain distance which allows you to decide when to be closer or further away, that depending on different situations.
So my advice would be maybe, for example, opting to video call more often rather than just going home too frequently.
I think that could create a more comfortable distance.
So family dynamics can be tough, but your peace of mind matters.
Bundries aren't walls.
They are bridges to healthier, more respectful relationships.
So you can choose your well -being first.
You're listening to Roundtable coming up next.
Some gyms feel like walking into a gladiator arena.
Sweat flying, muscle spudging and trainers practically screaming at you to give me them more.
But in this new trendy gym, it's more like, hey, you want to sit down to five minutes, 10 minutes on this machine and maybe grab a beauty treatment on your way out?
This gym has it all.
Or does it? How did they manage to revolutionize an entire industry?
Don't go away so that you can find out more.
Looking for passion?
How about fiery debate?
Want to hear about current events in China from different perspectives?
Then tune in to Roundtable, where East meets West and understanding is the goal.
It's Roundtable with myself, Nihong Lin, Steve Hatherly and Yu Xun.
A significant shift has occurred in the fitness landscape in recent years, moving away from traditional gym models towards more accessible and flexible solutions.
This trend has been witnessed by some new types of gyms.
And we are talking about many specific cases, including one from Japan, something called ChocoZap, a low cost to 24 hour fitness chain.
Today, join us and explore what new choices you might have when you feel like working out.
So let's start with this specific example.
How how did it make onto the list of this new 20 gyms?
Yeah, it's interesting.
I wonder how many people would be disappointed when they wander into this place called ChocoZap, expecting some sort of chocolate snack and realizing, wait, this is a gym.
Ah, anyway, ChocoZap.
Yeah, it doesn't seem to make sense in English, but the Choco part comes from the Japanese word chokoto, if I'm saying that correctly, which means a little bit.
And Zap comes from ReZap, which is a weight loss program.
So a little bit weight loss.
That's what you get when you combine these two words, hence the name of the gym.
Yeah, this is kind of a bigger trend, but we'll use this company just as an example to introduce the subject.
They've been around since 2022 and they've been really popular so far.
One point two seven million members of the gym as of August of twenty twenty four.
One thousand five hundred ninety seven stores again as of August twenty twenty four.
That's really quick expansion, isn't it?
That's a lot a lot of different locations.
They've made a lot of money about two point eight billion yuan or about nineteen million dollars in quarter one of twenty twenty four.
And the core concept of their business is this.
It's to make fitness accessible and enjoyable by providing a twenty four hour gym experience that emphasizes minimal commitment, encouraging even short workouts.
It creates a relaxed, user friendly environment where members can exercise in their everyday clothing.
One image on the Internet had a man sitting at a machine where you would exercise your chest wearing a suit like you would at the office.
So yeah, so there's that kind of idea with a mini workout, a micro workout where you do it for five minutes or 10 minutes and you can still wear your everyday clothes.
What I saw is that they want to make a gym so accessible as a convenience store so you can just get into that convenient.
No, sorry, Jim. To like even wear a suit and tie to take a little bit of exercise and just as the name says, choco, or a little bit, you can just move a little this kind of approach to maybe four or five minutes of light exercise.
Maybe their idea is also combining with the psychological comfort style fitness to make you feel, OK, I exercise today.
Yeah, I think it's a different angle than most gyms take when they're promoting themselves.
I was on their website.
They have businesses here in China, but the one that I was on was in America.
They're opening up now a new location in Los Angeles and on their website, they're promoting a first month free.
You get a smart scale and a smart watch for free just for signing up.
Their membership is really cheap per month.
Or you can also pay on a per use basis, which comes out to about 50 yuan per time that you use it, that's six ninety nine American, which is unique, right?
You don't usually see that.
Yes, when you think of gyms.
Definitely. Traditionally when it comes to gyms, you think about some wear quite professional.
You have the personal trainers, you have the intimate intimidating machines, at least for me, you do not know how to use them and you feel like it just one pole would pull your muscle instead of helping you exercise.
And also a commitment is definitely a very important element in traditional gyms.
You would have to commit to one year, three years, five years of plan.
But this is definitely something different.
Yeah. About the machine thing, I think you're right.
That's one of the things that people find intimidating.
And I think that their business plan is also targeting people who don't go to the gym for the reasons that you just mentioned.
It's time consuming.
It's a big commitment and it's intimidating to the point where they think, I don't know what to do with this particular business.
They have an app and on the app, they have instructional videos on how to use the machines, which I think is a really, really interesting idea as well.
Micro workout. It's not something we typically think of when we think of going to the gym.
And I do enjoy going to the gym.
I like exercising. When we go, we stay for about an hour and a half each time that we go.
when I heard this concept of five minute workout, I thought, what, this can't this must be a marketing ploy.
This can't be real.
But I found out that it does have health benefits.
As a matter of fact, healthline .com is the website that I visited.
And from that, I learned that the Office of Disease Prevention and Health Promotion, they say that aerobic activity lasting longer than 10 minutes in duration counts towards the 150 minutes of moderate or 75 minutes of vigorous aerobic exercise that you should be aiming to get each week.
So it falls within that window, if you will.
It does not mean that shorter high intensity exercise can't help.
There was a study from the University of Utah that shows that all those little bits and pieces of exercise you do throughout the day can add up to something even bigger and even a brisk minute of moving, a minute of moving, as long as it's a little bit intense.
If you do that regularly, it can have a noticeable impact on your body and on how you feel.
Actually, one study found that participants who complete 10 minutes of moderate or vigorous exercise showed immediate improvements to their concentration compared to a group that set and read instead.
And also a study found that short interval group who biked for 10 minutes with one minute of high intensity increased their oxygen uptake, the same as a group who exercised at a moderate rate for 50 minutes.
So you see that these short workouts actually helped.
But my question is, I can have 10 minutes short workout in the office.
Why would I go to the gym for it?
If I am going to the gym, I am definitely looking at at least and half an hour or longer than that kind of exercise.
Actually, I'm not a gym goer, enthusiastic gym goer like Steve here.
But whenever I go, it's still also about one hour and a half.
So I feel like the idea of minimal short workout is against the whole concept of gyms.
That's why I think it is the trend, you know, why people are going to these kind of gyms when we're talking about intimidating.
Another thing that is intimidating is muscular people actually in the gym.
Oh, yeah. Because when you're getting to the gym, you may feel that am I not strong enough to be in here?
And that is why this is becoming a trend that these gyms are making it so accessible to anybody who would like to do some exercises, not only in Japan or this Japanese company in China, this 24 hour gym called Lu Ke or Hi Lu Fit, it is a self -service 24 hour gym.
And it is similarly using this kind of concept to lower the barrier or threshold of doing exercises, using all of these machines, allowing people to work out any time.
And the monthly membership is also not very expensive.
It's about 240 yuan.
That's about 34 US dollars, just like this Choco's app.
They are trying to make it as easy as possible for you to get into that gym, to even like getting to a convenience store, even though it's not doing exercises because in some of these fitness centers, you can not only do exercise, you can go dancing, you can even do the beauty machine or something like
that. So a lot of like a health hub, I think is what they call it more than just exercise.
It's just a place of health and convenience.
Yes. And here in China, since we are utilizing artificial intelligence in different ways, actually gyms are taking advantage of it as well.
You see a lot of 24 hour gyms do not even have a staff working inside, which on one hand would exempt you the trouble of someone pushing you to start a card, to get into a one year, three year, five year plan.
And on the other hand, gives you a little bit of futuristic feeling.
Because when you're signing up, you're using facial recognition.
When you are looking into a mirror in this huge exercising room, guess what?
You can actually look at the figure in the mirror of yourself dancing or doing any kind of movements and the mirror with the help of AI would tell you whether or not you're doing the right job, you're doing a good job and you're doing the right moves.
No. So not only is my boss now telling me my job is not being done properly, now my mirror is telling me I'm failing as well.
Adding more stress.
It's making me more exhausted throughout the day.
Back to story number one.
Didn't see that coming.
But I think for a lot of people nowadays, we we talk to our co -workers, talk to our friends a lot.
We do not really want to talk to the personal trainers who approaches you.
We want to persuade you of doing things.
It's not for everyone.
That's for sure. Not for everyone.
So for these kind of gyms that do not really have staff doing that, it's actually a good choice for the actual introverts.
Yeah. And a little bit more before we finish up on these micro workouts.
I wasn't convinced by the first website that I visited.
I wanted to learn if this was really something that could be beneficial.
I found another story from Marie Claire from their health and fitness section, and it's asked that actual question.
How effective actually is a micro workout?
And this is what they said.
You can achieve similar results with five to six micro workouts a week of short fifteen to twenty minute bursts as three hour long sessions.
Research has shown that the total volume of exercise matters more than the length of each section session, interesting, which to me was surprising information.
And that's really, really good news.
If you're not one of those people who enjoys going to the gym for 40 minutes, 45 minutes, an hour, an hour and a half at a time, if it's too intimidating or too much of a commitment, then you can feel confident that exercising for just 15 minutes at a time, if you do that multiple times per week, you're
still going to see those great health benefits for you.
Or maybe they're just using the idea of you can just get into the gym for even five minutes or 15 minutes to lure you into working out for 30 minutes.
Yes, because the hard thing of working out is to keep it, you know, or just start it when you're starting it and then maybe you are getting into the status of I cannot give up working out or you're getting to the idea of, OK, I'll just get into there for five minutes.
But actually, you've been working out for an hour.
So I think at least this is an idea that making people start to do the workout.
And and if it is affordable enough for people to get into or get a membership, why not to try it?
You want to come to the gym with me after work today?
Five minutes. Oh, four, four, three, two, one.
30 seconds. You try so hard.
Yes, so I agree. Fitness becomes as simple as stopping by on your way to the grocery.
Somehow it still has this transformative power.
So embrace that. So is this the future of fitness?
It certainly makes working out more accessible and less intimidating.
But as we move toward convenience, we have to ask, are we sacrificing something in the progress?
Maybe we haven't. But is that exactly what we need in a world that's always short on time?
Well, think about that.
And that brings us to the end of today's Roundtable.
We'd love to hear your thoughts on today's topics.
Leave us a comment or send us an email to RoundtablePodcast at QQ .com.
And also, if you would like to send a question in the form of a voice memo, we would always be more appreciated.
We'd love to answer your questions.
Until next time, keep the conversations going and the ideas flowing.
I'm Yuho Lin with Steve and Yu Shun.
Thanks for listening.
Bye bye.
