Watch robots do chin-ups, push-ups and sit-ups for the sake of science

Do you even lift, bro-bot? A team of Japanese engineers has designed robots that can perform push-ups, do crunches, stretch and even sweat while doing so. The robots Kengoro and Kenshiro, described in the journal Science Robotics, can perform remarkably human-like movements -- and could serve as a model to help scientists design better crash dummies and prosthetic limbs and to better understand the moving human body's mysterious inner workings. Researchers have been developing humanoid robots for years, each becoming more advanced than the last -- but there are still a number of kinks to work out, the study authors wrote. "A limitation of conventional humanoids is that they have been designed on the basis of the theories of conventional engineering, mechanics, electronics and informatics," the study authors pointed out.