Two eight-shaped walking tracks at a GCC park on Lazarus Church Road enjoy an impressive fan following

Two 8-shape walking paths at this park in chennai have ushered in a few new years

Only two weeks on, the fresh-faced 2024 is already freckled with broken fitness resolutions. For a major section of humanity, the path to fitness is alluring only inasmuch as it is novel. Just “twist and turn” that path (to fitness) and spice it up and there is an off chance that more feet, even the dabbling ones, might keep to it.

That last statement is not entirely figurative. There is a degree of literality to it, and one may discover that to be true at Greater Chennai Corporation’s Lazarus Church Road Junction park in Mandavelipakkam. Two 8-shape walking paths at this path have ushered in a few new years and from accounts of users, these paths have not only done a good job of retaining the loyalty of feet accustomed to treading them, but also attracting new feet regularly.

Last week, Mylapore resident and civic activist C.R. Balaji chanced upon the 8-shaped walking paths and until now, continues to be impressed with it. On the other side of the spectrum, one finds R. Venkataraman, 68 years old and a resident of First Trust Main Road in Mandavelipakkam, who persists with this eight-shaped route to fitness for two years. He has evolved his own system of how to use the 8-shaped walking path.

Almost a card-carrying member of the 8-shape walking regimen, he shows the result of a Google search about its benefits he ran on his smartphone.