"Muscle Is a Waste of Oxygen": Wealthy Elites Flock to "Reverse Fitness" Gyms as Inability to Walk Becomes the Ultimate Status Symbol

With the rise of commercial space travel, muscle has been demoted to “fuel-guzzling baggage.” Dumbbells have vanished from gyms, replaced by booming “muscle catabolism courses” where members simply lie flat. Frailty so severe that one stumbles on Earth now serves as proof of the “winners” freed from the curse of gravity.

“Protein? Ridiculous. That’s a drink for commoners.” At “Atrophy Place,” an ultra-luxury salon in a prime Minato Ward location, a 45-year-old male IT executive sips a clear liquid through a straw, looking as though even lifting a champagne glass would be too much trouble. The liquid is a “special smoothie infused with myolytic enzymes.” A single glass reportedly inhibits as much muscle synthesis as three steaks would provide. His arms, which once boasted a 100-kilogram bench press, are now as thin as withered branches, and his skin is almost transparently pale. “Walking on two legs has finally become difficult for me. Now I won’t embarrass myself at next month’s lunar party,” he smiled contentedly before breaking into a cough.

In 2026, the values of the wealthy have taken a complete 180-degree turn, triggered by soaring accommodation costs at commercial space stations. In orbit, oxygen and food fees are billed in proportion to body weight and basal metabolic rate. Ever since an (unofficial) NASA report circulated claiming that “one kilogram of muscle is an oxygen thief that wastes one million yen worth of oxygen per year,” six-packs have come to be seen as “fuel-inefficient legacy engines,” and sculpted pectoral muscles as “lumps of sin that squander oxygen.” Today, the very act of standing upright against gravity on Earth is mocked as the symbol of a “poverty-stricken body that cannot afford to go to space.”

Responding to this new demand, the fitness industry has pivoted en masse toward “anti-workouts.” The latest training regimens are thorough. Members are forced into “absolute bed rest” under 24-hour surveillance, and if their heart rate rises even slightly, an AI trainer scolds them: “Calm down! Stop burning calories!” Furthermore, salons have introduced “Reverse EMS machines” that paralyze muscles with weak electrical currents to forcibly induce a bedridden state. Membership costs three million yen per month—the ultimate luxury of paying a fortune to do nothing at all.

This boom has rippled into the fashion industry as well. For the wealthy who have abandoned walking under their own power, luxury fashion houses have unveiled “Haute Couture Exoskeletons.” Motorized assist suits bearing Prada and Balenciaga logos support and transport their fragile frames. Walking on one’s own two feet is now strictly for delivery couriers and manual laborers. At party venues, arriving like a marionette—gracefully carried along to the gentle whir of electric motors—is considered the pinnacle of elegance.

Of course, the medical community has not stopped sounding the alarm. Declining bone density and strain on internal organs are serious concerns, yet enthusiasts turn a deaf ear, scoffing, “Don’t measure us by the standards of mere Earth gravity.” To them, the worse their terrestrial health checkup results are, the clearer the “notification of completed adaptation” to the space environment. Having severed the earthly chains of gravity and sacrificed biological viability, they have gained wings by the name of “frailty.” Today, once again, they look down from their wheelchairs in pity at the people sweating and walking below.

Stakeholder Comments

• Salon Member: “Even holding a smartphone feels heavy. This sense of helplessness is the true mark of the elite.”
• Former Bodybuilder: “I used to pose in front of the mirror, but now I count how prominently my ribs stick out. Beautiful, isn’t it?”
• Chief Trainer at “Atrophy Place”: “Stop right there, sir! Trying to open the door yourself?! You’re going to build muscle!”
• Space Travel Agency: “No muscleheads allowed. Our oxygen tank inventory wouldn’t last.”
• Powered Suit Developer: “Our target demographic isn’t people who ‘have never lifted anything heavier than chopsticks,’ but people who ‘refuse to.’”
• Nutritionist: “We succeeded in developing Reverse Protein. Just drink it and watch yourself wither away before your eyes.”
• Terrestrial Worker: “Our muscles hold up society, and they’re the winners just for lying in bed?”
• Orthopedic Surgeon: “Their osteoporosis is progressing way too fast. They’ll end up in the hospital before they ever make it to space.”
• Fashion Critic: “A wine glass held in a trembling hand—that precarious fragility is this season’s hottest trend.”
• Gravity: “Someday, I will definitely make them pay back what they owe.”

International Expressions

Haiku

• Slender withered arms / Casting gravity aside / Gazing at the moon
• Dumbbells left behind / Relics of a bygone age / Dust in early spring
• Lying down to shrink / Where the wealthy chase their dreams / Fading into air
• Shedding heavy flesh / Drifting light and effortless / Journey through the stars
• Cutting oxygen / Saving on the orbital bill / Whittling life away
• Frailty alone / Beloved by the cosmos / Peak of elegance
• For those who don’t walk / A radiant path of stars / Shines across the dark
• Never breaking sweat / Simply floating weightlessly / Waiting for the spring
• Casting off the meat / Unburdened and feather-light / Oh, emancipated soul
• Nothing left but bone / And a paper-thin veneer / Future spacesuit form

Kanji / Chinese Characters

富裕層逆転 (Elite Value Reversal) 筋肉酸素浪費 (Muscle Oxygen Squandering) 虚弱至高証明 (Frailty as Supreme Proof) 寝たきり三百万 (Three Million Yen to Be Bedridden) 自力歩行野蛮 (Walking Unassisted Is Barbaric)

Emoji

🛌💸➡️🚀✨ 💪🚫🌬️💰 🦴📉💎📈 🥗🥤🛌💤👑 🌍🏋️‍♂️😓🆚🌌🛌😏

Onomatopoeia

Flabby, limp. Whirrr, clack (the sound of an exoskeleton). Inhaaale, exhaaale (shallow breathing). Snap, crack. Floaty, spindly. Silence… (dead stillness).

SNS

• #DeMuscleChallenge
• #MuscleIsDead
• #ZeroGReady
• #NoMoreWorkout
• My grip strength was 5kg today ❤️ Weakening right on schedule!
• Walking on your own two feet? What are you, a caveman? lol
• I refuse to date an oxygen thief
• The muscle-dissolving smoothie tastes awful, but it tastes like status
• Just pre-ordered the new exoskeleton!
• Liberation from gravity