According to a 2019 study by Pew Research, more than one in five Americans use smart watches or fitness trackers, rising to three in 10 for higher income households.
But much of the more high-tech gear we recognise today can be traced to 19th-century Swedish physician Dr Gustav Zander, a pioneer of mechanotherapy, which concerns the improvement of wellbeing through the use of exercise apparatus. Zander’s contraptions included the leg adduction and arm rotation machines that incorporated benches, weights, and pulleys – like steampunk versions of today’s gym apparatus – which saw him awarded the gold medal at the 1876 Centennial Exhibition in Philadelphia. By the time his book Dr G Zander’s medico-mechanise Gymnastik was published in 1892, the doctor had eponymous institutes being set up around the world. And so, the (medicine) ball of gym and fitness culture began rolling first though Europe and then the USA.
“A large portion of the population never use half their faculties,” noted Dudley Sargant in his 1906 book, Physical Education, “and if they pursue the same employment for a term of years they are apt to acquire defects of structure, if not of constitution and character, that are transmitted to the next generation.”
1910s
Exercise routines during the Edwardian age were surprisingly similar to today, incorporating plenty of stretching (which back then was viewed as a form of fitness rather than warm-ups) and weightlifting. Gyms of the day boasted early exercise bikes and resistance machines. Fun fact: there was even a gym on the Titanic.
1920s
The arrival of the roaring twenties meant looking good was never so important – even while working out. Dumbbell exercises and stretching were still a thing (for the ladies that meant often in full makeup and fashionable everyday clothing) along with wooden treadmills (sans safety rails – unlikely to pass today’s safety standards!) and vibrating belts said to destroy fat. While such higher-end fitness equipment was only found in gyms that were the preserve of the wealthy, dancing the Charleston helped keep everyone on their toes.
Things sure have come a long way since the Ancient Greeks fashioned rudimentary weightlifting equipment from semi-circular rocks in which they made holes to create handles – precursors to dumbbells and kettledrums known as halteres.
1930s
A period when cosmetics pioneers Helena Rubinstein and Elizabeth Ardern encouraged women to believe “their physical appearance was in their control” complemented by the teachings of the world’s first fitness guru, Mary Bagot Stack whose philosophy was “movement is life”. Bagot Stack founded the Women’s League of Health and Beauty whose group exercise classes included the likes of leg lifts, star jumps, and toe touching, and soon spread from the UK to around the world. In just seven years, the league had 166,000 members.
1940s
There was the ongoing misconception way back when that women couldn’t build muscle and stay slim, so fitness was still all about low-impact exercises. But now it was all slim waists and curvy figures in contrast to the svelteness of the previous jazz age, believed to be achievable via routines like rotating the arms propeller-like.
1950s
The decade where yoga entered the public consciousness along with fun-filled activities like the hula hoop (toymaker Wham-O sold its first 25 million hula hoops in four months), and the Bongo Board that incorporates a balance board positioned around a plastic ball – a craze that soon went global. Not so fun was the ‘slimming suit’, a plastic exercise outfit that caused excess perspiration and supposed weight loss.
1960s
Thin was once again in vogue during the swinging sixties, a decade that gave us not only the twist dance but the Trim Twist – a simple floor exercise machine that riffed on the iconic dance move to encourage the user to twist from side to side. Vibrating belts promised to shake excess fat from the thighs and exercise physiologist Dr Kenneth H Cooper devised a workout to prevent coronary artery sickness, a type of exercise system he called ‘aerobics’.
1970s
At the time, the most fitness-conscious decade to date, there was a body building boom thanks to Arnold Schwarzenegger and a steep rise in yoga and tai chi practitioners driven by the New Age movement. Trampolining was embraced by adults and kids alike and traditional gym equipment such as the parallel rings and balance bars could be found in many public parks. As the 1960s rolled into the ‘70s, former Broadway star Judi Shepperd Missett established Jazzercize, a fitness movement that merged music, dance, and strength training in group environments still practised around the world today.
1980s
Women finally became more open to gaining some obvious muscle in the gym and Jane Fonda went from Hollywood superstar to wellness guru with her now-iconic aerobics videos. Fonda’s first effort, Jane Fonda’s Workout, released in 1982, became the highest-selling VHS of the 20th century. She went on to release a further 22 videos, totalling more than 17 million sales. And let’s not forget the decades’ big hair, and bright fashion of leopard-skin leotards, leg warmers and fluorescent leggings.
It took just four months for toymaker Wham-O to sell its first 25 million hula hoops.
1990s
Things went up a level – literally – with the birth of step aerobics in the 90s while the must-have at-home equipment were the tummy-toning Abdomenizer and the thigh-toning Thighmaster. Fitness guru Billy Blanks created the Tae Bo craze that combined boxing and taekwondo, there were 8-minute ab workouts, the Spin class was invented in California in 1994, and Spandex was all the rage.
2000s
Fitness found its groove at the turn of the 21st century with the arrival of Zumba, a Latin dance-inspired workout class that conquered the world (available in 180 countries). CrossFit, developed by former gymnast Greg Glassman, mixed gymnastics, weightlifting, and calisthenics (exercises that rely on bodyweight), while high-intensity interval training, or HIIT classes, relied on short bursts of intensive exercises which found a new popularity when the gyms closed down due to the pandemic.
