On December 14, 2023, my latest book, Indian Club Swinging and the Birth of Global Fitness will be published by Bloomsbury. This is a work of love that began in 2015 and has slowly progressed in the background. A link to order the book is here. And, more excitingly, you can preview the first chapter using this link.
In this short post, I’m going to detail what the book is about and, hopefully, why its important.
What is Indian Club Swinging?
This book focuses on Indian club swinging, a form of exercise that has existed for millennia in Asia, especially India and modern-day Iran (formerly Persia). During the seventeenth and eighteenth century, European travellers to Asia began to take notice of club swinging, not least because of the impressive physiques of those wielding these weighted clubs.
During the early 1800s, British doctors and military leaders began recommending the swinging of weighted clubs for exercise. Critically, they preferred lighter weight clubs. You see the kind of clubs swung by Indian and Persian wrestlers and exercisers were heavy, often weighing in excess of 20 to 30kg. I have even found stories of 40 kg clubs being swung.
In contrast, the British military’s recommendation to swing Indian clubs in 1824 focused on lightweight clubs, which weighed anywhere from 1 to 3 kilos. This was important because it made clubs easier to use, more accessible and, in time, easier to produce.
From the 1820s in Britain Indian clubs began the first global exercise phenomenon. By the 1860s, club swinging was used in British military barracks around the world, by exercisers in North and South America and by exercisers in Europe (especially in Germany). They were the dominant form of weighted exercise during the nineteenth century, being far more popular than dumbbells and barbells. It was only in the late nineteenth century, with the rise of the physical culture movement, that they fell out of fortune.
Why Does it Matter?
I have written extensively about the clubs on this website. I am a fan, and use them daily. So yes, I likely care too much about them but, the truth is, the light-weight Indian clubs preferred by Europeans signaled a new shift in the exercise world. During the early 1800s, the most popular form of exercise were gymnastics and calisthenics. While these systems did have equipment (think pommel horses, ropes, and ladders), people often used solely bodyweight exercises.
The mass production of exercise equipment did not yet exist. In the first instance, Indian clubs were important because they were the first mass-produced pieces of equipment and, as the book argues, largely set a template for the later production of dumbbells and barbells around the world. Indian clubs created, or at least facilitated, the first generation of equipment entrepreneurs.
Equally important was their global appeal. Indian clubs, alongside European gymnastic systems like the Turner and Ling method, were the first global exercise systems. This meant that for the first time in recorded history, exercisers in one part of the world used the exact same movements and exercises, and texts, when they exercised. This again, was a precursor, or a platform, for our modern fitness industry.
Finally, Indian clubs helped to break open doors for women in exercise. While the nineteenth century was not a high point for women’s exercise, Indian clubs were deemed an appropriate form of physical activity for women. This shift in perception allowed countless women to enter gymnasiums and, in time, to begin careers as gym instructors.
These are just some of the reasons why the study of Indian clubs is vital. Jan Todd and others have written some fantastic articles but this book represents their first detailed story. It is a story worthy of attention and one which pulls in stories of gender, medicine, colonialism, race, sport science and business.
Over the coming weeks I’ll be producing previews of each Chapter but, in the interim, please do read the sneak preview here!
As always… Happy Lifting!
Discover more from Physical Culture Study
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
Great stuff, Conor! I shall be eagerly awaiting the availability of your book in its entirety. One point I might question would be how “ancient” Persian methods of physical culture were. For instance, Xenophon in his mini-biography of the Spartan king Agesilaus describes how the king in the course of his invasion of Asia Minor at the beginning of the Fourth Century BCE had his Persian prisoners stripped naked and displayed their pallid, flabby physiques to his troops, who concluded that fighting them would be like waging war against women! My impression has been that the Persian “zurkaneh” methods of strength training were developed largely in reaction to the prohibitions on weaponcraft imposed by the Mongol conquerors after 1300 CE, rather analogous to the Turner movement in the German states and the Sokols in Bohemia in the 19th century. Am I mistaken in this?
I’d love to learn the particulars of your Indian club workout. I start with my 2-pounders and work my way up to my 6kg mugdars before tackling kettlebells or macebells. Although I had been aware of Indian clubs most of my long life, it was only about seven years ago that I learned that the eponymous “Indians” were not the Native American variety (the war club having been a favorite weapon of the latter).
Although I imagine your book will not top the best-seller list, I hope it does well.
Hi Jan,
Thank you for the well wishes. I really appreciate it! But yes, I don’t think I’ll be the New York Times Best Seller just yet.
You’re absolutely right about the modernity of the Persian methods, and its something mentioned in the book (which admittedly focuses almost exclusively on the Indian practices and deals with Persian practices tangentially).
I LOVE Paul Taras Wolkowinski who has kindly put so many club swinging videos online. Do you watch his materials? I need to enrol in one of his online classes at some point.
To your defense, there was a series of articles in the USA during the 1860s claiming Indian clubs came from America, as opposed to India!
Hello Conor,
I can’t imagine that there is anyone interested in the clubs who has not watched Paul’s videos. At one point he was going to give a daylong seminar on clubs and maces at a gym on Signal Hill, which is little more than an hour’s walk from my house. However, this was cancelled because of his bout with cancer, from which he has seemingly made a good recovery. His prices for these events struck me as a bit steep: $800, as I recall, but you did get a mace and a pair of clubs as part of the deal. Perhaps if I had brought my own clubs & mace I could have negotiated a lower price. On that score, have you done any training with macebells? I began macebell training a couple of years after I took up the clubs. My wife, after some initial skepticism, also has enthusiastically taken up macebell training–“those wonderful things,” as she calls them.
I had an exact same experience. I had actually booked a workshop before his unfortunate cancer diagnosis – which thank goodness he is through the other side of.
I haven’t actually but macebells and gadas are on my ‘to use’ list. Do you have any good resources for exercises? As I am firmly set in my club swinging ways
As to macebell/gada instruction, Set for Set has quite a bit on their website/blog. At one time this was centered on “alternative fitness,” but it has devolved into a more general health, strength and bodybuilding site. There are lots of macebell tutorials online. Paul often deals with maces. The chap who calls himself “The Flowing Dutchman” often features gada/mace information. Other internet mace mavens would include Scott “The Viking” Viala, Leo Savage/Urquides and Ian Vaughn. A cursory web search disclosed that there are at least three purveyors of steel macebells in the UK. I would suggest you commence macebell training with nothing heavier than 6kg mace. Hope this is of some assistance. If I don’t post again in the next fortnight, I’d like to take the occasion to wish you and your family all the best for Christmas and the coming year.
You’ve convinced me! And yes, I just looked around and there are several (including a beautiful wooden one) that I have my eye on. I needed something to shake up my training and think this is the trick. And I’ve just checked them out so all the better.
Jan – I don’t say this enough but I so love our conversations through this website. It is a privilege to get to chat shop with likeminded people (who swing objects as well!). Wishing you and yours a great festive period
Thanks so much for the kind words, Conor. We do have so much in common: You took up resistance training after being inspired by the movie “300.” I took up serious training shortly after visiting Thermopylae. You studied at Cambridge, I at Oxford. We both had sojourns at the University of Texas at Austin (many years apart). I am glad to see you are maintaining your academic career, whereas I was unceremoniously exiled from the groves of academe at the ripe old age of 31! All best wishes for the season.
Love it Jan and those similarities have not been lost on me. This is truly the joys of both academia and physical culture in bringing like minded people together. You’ll be happy to hear that the Gada I ordered is one its way and I am giddy to use it!
I am so happy I found your site. Very excited to dig into the content. I immediately went and looked up the book on Amazon. 87 dollar kindle. Not for the casual reader. Or the reader who is married and has to defend his expenditures. You know, as a random example.
Mark Wildman has a ton of videos going over mace and club stuff. He’s been my go to since I picked up clubs and really started digging into their use at the beginning of COVID. I have to say, I don’t pick up the light clubs much anymore.
Hey Kenneth,
I am with you. This is the trouble with academic publishing in that it can be very… very expensive. For what its worth, the proceeds do not go to me! Quite the random example…
But more seriously I’ll be posting snippets from the book over the next wee while and if you have any club Qs, or the book, please do reach out at heffercp@tcd.ie as I love talking shop!
Frankly, I would feel better about it if the actual author got a good chunk of that money. That would be fair given the time and effort that goes into a book like this.
Just ordered the book via Amazon and shall be eagerly awaiting it. In the course of my long life, I have purchased probably several tons of books (literally!). This is the second most expensive book I’ve ever bought (although a dollar went a lot further when I bought many of them), but I am fully confident that both you and the subject matter make it well worth the expense!
I am really honored to hear that (and also sorry about the price which I do not have any input on!). I am eager to get your thoughts! The book was nearly a decade in the making
The book arrived yesterday, and I devoured it! What a fascinating read! I thought I was somewhat knowledgeable about these topics, but the amount of history and lore included in your new book was so impressive that I felt quite humbled, nay, almost humiliated. Oh well, I console myself that I am the amateur, you’re the professional!
One thing I did find questionable was the story of the Indian wrestler who supposedly could utilize 600-pound mugdars. I don’t believe the human being ever existed who could perform honest casts with 600-pound mugdars. I have seen videos of men utilizing gigantic gadas and mugdars, but they invariably involve the exerciser squatting down and dragging the weight over his shoulder.
Anyway, thanks again for such a great piece of work. You must be very proud of it. It certainly puts my doctoral dissertation to shame!
Thanks Jan and I’m so honored to hear that as I really value your opinion and input on these things. That is such a beautiful thing to share!
There is a great Tommy Kono quote about not knowing the limit of human strength which, he believed, could only be found when a lifter ripped their arms off trying to raise a weight. I suspect 600 pound mugdars would likely cause such an affliction!
Waiting to read this new book. How does it cost? I fell curious.
Hi there. I am happy to say you can soon buy a paperback version for $20 from Bloomsbury 🙂