Wasted effort

I went to my apartment's gym yesterday. I biked for miles but went nowhere. My fellow gym-goer repeatedly picked up heavy objects, only to put them down again. At all hours of the day, all across the country, millions of people are doing this. I got to thinking about what a ridiculous waste this useless expense of energy is. We need to do something about it.

Instead of running on a treadmill for an hour, why not run to work? Or run errands for people who don't have cars? If you want to pick up heavy stuff, why not pick up some boxes or rocks or something that someone needs moved?

Even if this would be too difficult to organize, it seems like we should at least hook up the nation's treadmills and elliptical machines to some sort of generator. Am I wrong?