Mario Kart: The Squarespace In-House Gym

CEO, Dane Atkinson (front), Engineering Director Davin Chew (center), and Director of Technical Operations Rolando Berrios

For those of you that think playing video games is for lazy couch potatoes, you've obviously never played Mario Kart at the Squarespace offices.

Mario Kart requires skill. Mario Kart requires determination. And most amusingly, Mario Kart also requires pushups--at least it does here.

It's true: the price of entry into any Squarespace team Mario Kart game, is the understanding that win or lose, you're going to be doing some pushups.

Here's how it usually goes down:

• Post lunch, a group of 4 Squarespacers will gather on the couch, and go to battle
• 4 or 5 games will be played
• Screaming and cursing will ensue
• Based on the final scores, the winner will do as many pushups as the loser's final score and the loser will do as many pushups as the winner's final score. The second placer does pushups corresponding to the 3rd placer's score and the 3rd placer does pushups corresponding to the second placer's score.

Ok, just writing about this is exhausting enough, but trust me: I have seen these guys do many, MANY pushups in the couple months since I joined the Squarespace crew. The loser could end up doing up to 75!

So let this be a lesson to us all: video games can actually be good for your health!

Comments

[Dylan barber]

Great idea now if I could get my kids to follow this they might see some benifits to exercise and not be bumps on a log anymore

Mario Kart is also a lot funner than the Wii Fit games I have !!!

[Evan Schulte]

Have you guys heard of Wii Fit... you know it even has a push up function... hehehehehe. There is no need to trick yourself into exersizing.

[Apostolos Karakoussis]

hehehe... I am doing something quite similar to this but minus the gaming. I am doing 10 pushups and 30 full crunches (with hands stretched to knees though) ( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bjet7LwKjyA )

and I am repeating this as a set on every moment I want to clear up my head from coding or want to do some refactoring :)

[Dennis]

Awesome - I'll have to implement this. I'd have some buff employees since I kick a** at Mario Kart Wii...

And Evan: sometimes exercise is easier when there's a little competition and fun in the mix.

[Steve Bastyr]

haha - bring it

[Teddy]

ahahahah!!!
oh god... :P

[sean]

a fine idea. does this mean that the company can now claim an employee health programme?

[sean]

and also, looking at the pic more closely, is that not a keg in the top of the image?!!!

[Ivan]

reply/ sean............

" is that not a keg in the top of the image?!!! "

:D CHAN!

[cheryl]

Mario Kart sounds like fun before lunch, but since I'm not skilled with racing kart games, 75 push ups is way too much for me!

And I thought my office mate and I had it down, we do "Crunch (abs) Breaks" everyday before lunch!

Thanks for sharing...

[Taylorius]

Haha, that's awesome! My friends and I will sometimes play poker and bet push-ups. There can be some steep bets. We'll have to try that with Mario Kart to add some new flavor to the game.

[Failmtaifeles]

Wow Article , I thought it was special

I look ahead to more innovative postings like this one. Does This Site have a RSS I can subscribe to for fresh posts?