We have a lot of these dotted around the place in the US. It actually started a good decade or so ago with guys doing 'ghetto fitness' or 'ghetto workouts' in places like Houston because they needed to get fit but didn't have the cash to build or join a gym (coincidentally a lot of guys that were doing this were football players and look like lightbulbs).
It never really caught on until now. Probably because the obesity problem was the last thing on people's minds in around 2001, and because it's not exactly profitable.
Also, I'm one of the people who thought this was a sex thread. Almost double the disappointment of going into the "tits!" thread and realizing there were no boobies.