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History of Exercise
The history
of exercise dates back to the birth of humankind, though earlier humans
might not have realized that they were indeed exercising, when running
for their lives from wooly mammoths. In and around 400 BC, Hippocrates
famously mentioned about exercise, "If we could give every individual
the right amount of nourishment and exercise, not too little and not too
much, we would have found the safest way to health." Being a time of
great ideas and new thought, people seriously started to study the
importance and relevance of physical exercise, and its effects on human
health. Hippocrates's same thoughts were shared by other famous
thinkers, Cornelius Celsus and Galen, a few centuries later.
But when
exactly various systematic forms of exercise routines came into being as
an artificial means to build muscles and agility, this is a piece of
puzzle that is still shrouded in anonymity. History pages, even though
it refrains from throwing up any specific piece of info on this point,
vaguely suggests that such practices could have been popular in ancient
Rome, Greece and India in the 9-11th centuries where combats and wars
were of regular occurrence. The discovery of stone dumbbell weights in
India and similar artifacts from Europe also points to such a
possibility.
The workout
routines or exercises, as we all see it today, shaped up however since
only the early 18th century. This was when exercises became more
streamlined and better and efficient workout routines were suggested,
thanks to the rapid strides that occurred in medicine and science in
general. It was during this period that aerobics, weight lifting, weight
training, running, and other similar conventional exercise forms
evolved, and gymnasiums and fitness centers became popular. The 18th
century was also the period during when many wrong myths about exercise
and health were busted by the new found wave of scientific
justification. Wrong beliefs such as weight training slow down athletes,
endurance training not a healthy proportion to one’s heart and unhealthy
for women, and exercises in general not good for elders, were all laid
to rest during this period. But it is ironical that still many in the
world hangs onto this logic-less perceptions.
Come 19th
century and all those developments and innovations in science and
technology that was started in the previous century picked up a frantic
pace. Industry revolution and a new emerging economy forced people into
newer lifestyles, routines, work, and even diet. Soon various health
issues popped up and the need for a new fitness regime replacing the
conventional methods started to grow pressing. In response, fitness
experts churned out path breaking methods to regain and maintain
fitness, while a flurry of in-house training equipments – thanks to the
new improved manufacturing technology - like the tread mill, exercise
bikes, rovers, chest and shoulder presses, leg extension machines and
butterfly machines, to name a few, hit the markets, letting the
consumers to redefine the concept of workouts altogether and empowering
them to access it whenever they feel to do so. With so much working out
apparatus in the disposal, it became rather simple for the common man to
exercise give exercise to virtually any part of his/her body for
strength building, a choice none have had a few decades earlier. The
number of gyms also increased substantially in this period.
The rise of
media, especially television, in the latter half of 19th century, also
had done its part in spreading the importance of remaining fit amongst
the common man. Many thousands who took to exercising in the decade
following 1960, their inspiration was nothing by the TV. The internet
revolution in the last decade before 2000 had made people even more
empowered and it brought them at arms’ length with innumerable resources
pertaining to workouts, fitness, and health. And soon the wheels of
history of exercises were undergoing a redefinition once again.
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