Exercising Turkish Style

When I left the UK outdoor gyms were starting to pop up around the local area.  Not something I ever would think of using, especially in the UK with the weather being so unpredictable.

Ankara has similar gyms and parks, and there are a lot of them!  A lot of the parks have a 'carpet' running track, which is used by a lot of the locals, and I can understand why.  Ankara is such a hilly city, and all the roads and pavements are badly damaged with lots of potholes, it can be like an obstacle course and there is a high risk of injury.  The tracks are mainly flat and soft underfoot, so there is little chance of injury.

The tracks have distance markers around them, and lots of people walking and running around them.  Quite often you may be stuck in a 'traffic jam' behind a group of ladies who are busy chatting while strolling around the track.  Within a few minutes walk of my home there are at least three of these tracks, so there are plenty of them.

Most of the tracks then have outdoor gym equipment.  I'm not really convinced that they do any good, but again they seem to be very popular.  But exercising on this equipment is definitely not something I want to do!

On some of the equipment there are a few written instructions as how to use it, but obviously I am not able to understand this.  I am intrigued as to what this piece of equipment is for!?