Every day, everywhere, humans shuffle into gymnasiums, shaking
their butts to the rhythm of the night in time with other people for
the purpose of getting fit. But it wasn’t always so. There were no
congregations in Ancient Rome or Mesopotamia doing thrusts,
rumbas and grapevines (as far as we know). The phenomenon of
‘aerobics’ – aka exercise designed to get the heart pumping while
you listen to chart-topping hits – is a recent one, and if you want to
blame it on anything (or offer your congratulations, depending how
much you appreciate the human form in lycra), then point a big, fat
finger at World War I – because that’s when this shit started.
As you no doubt learnt in high school history class, many people
were killed during this war. Mostly they were dudes, which allegedly
left Britain with “two million superfluous women”. So, if you were
a dame wanting to lock down a Y-chromosome-holder – as was
the tradition and economic necessity at the time – you had to up
your babe game. Fast. But how? People didn’t ‘work out’. (At least,
working-class people didn’t – ironically.) Their days were spent at
the factory, which didn’t leave them with a dewy, man-getting glow.
One-on-one exercise lessons were on offer, sure, but with a price
tag only the super-rich could afford. What was a lady pleb to do?
One person held the answer – a woman by the name of Mary
Bagot Stack. The British phys ed teacher, who’d paid a visit to the
Himalayas and gone ape-shit over yoga, returned to 1920s London
with a vision: to run fitness classes for the everyday lady set to
music, incorporating dance, calisthenics and rhythmic exercises.
It was the first public exercise class, ever. And since it was so
cheap (half a crown to join, and a sixpence per session), it went off,
to quote Mary’s daughter Prunella, “like a bomb”. The first public
classes in Hyde Park attracted 160,000 people, plus the paparazzi
of the era (newsreel crews), desperate to cover this new thing:
structured exercise for everyone.
Operating under the name of ‘Women’s League of Fitness and
Beauty’, Mary’s mass-market invention went from strength to
strength – especially as Europe braced itself for another war,
and Britain’s government launched a health campaign describing
physical fitness as “a matter of national importance”. But grooving
to the beat with all your friends didn’t remain society’s preferred
form of exercise. Other sports took over in ’50s and ’60s schools.
Netball. Hockey. Sports where you throw things and work as a team
to destroy another team that also wants to throw the thing you’re
holding. Rhythmic exercise would become relevant again, though.
Just not in Britain. Not even on Earth. No, the next time aerobic
fitness would become necessary for humans would be in space.
It started as a way to help NASA’s astronauts deal with the Earth’s
gravity, after spending extended periods of time floating around in
rockets and shuttles and beating the Soviet Union to put a flag on
the moon. But Dr Kenneth Cooper – who came up with the fitness
regime with Colonel Pauline Potts while punching the clock at
the US Air Force in the ’60s – saw scope for non-astronauts to get
something out of it, too. You see, Kenny had observed that folks
with Popeye-grade muscles couldn’t necessarily run, swim or cycle
for very long, so he started measuring sustained performance in
terms of a person’s ability to use oxygen. Then he published a book
detailing the workout, and used the word ‘aerobic’ to describe it
(literally meaning ‘with air’). Finally, he did something no one else
had done before him: he added an ‘s’ to the end, making his finished
book titleAerobics. And thus, the word (and theory) were born.Aerobics was not without its detractors. Barbara Walters called
Kenneth a “fraud”, and cardiologist Henry Solomon wrote a book
of his own,The Exercise Myth, which attempted to debunk Ken’s
central thesis: that healthy people should regularly put their bodies
under pressure. The whole notion of exercise as medicine andstretching, leotards, astronauts and
hollywood royalty: mia timpano
explores the origins of the cheesy
fitness trend.
the history
of aerobics
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