[Martinussen]

We're talking about the set of people that actually weight lifting exercises, though, not the population.

Someone that goes for regular long walks is better off than a powerlifter, I doubt you would consider that a convincing argument against the gym.

[sk0g]

To put it in programming terms, you're likely to improve more with the slow grind of an hour or so an evening side-project, rather than competing in a hackathon every 3 months.

One observation I had was that people coming to the gym to spend majority of their time on the treadmill are mostly women. I'm not sure if it is to lose weight, or simply because with infrastructure hostile to walking, the likelihood of problematic encounters increases greatly. Though I wouldn't feel entirely safe walking around at 23:00 without my dog either.