A Website Dedicated to the Study of Strength, Health, Fitness and Sport Across Centuries, Countries and Contests.
There are some exercises so basic, so ubiquitous and so difficult that their origins are often taken for granted. Previously when detailing the history of the squat, we encountered the difficultly of tracing a movement found in every culture and arguably every human movement. The Chin Up and the Pull Up exercises offer a similar... Continue Reading →
There are some exercises so basic, so ubiquitous and so difficult that their origins are often taken for granted. Previously when detailing the history of the squat, we encountered the difficultly of tracing a movement found in every culture and arguably every human movement. The Chin Up and the Pull Up exercises offer a similar... Continue Reading →
Though born in Vienna in 1873, Alois P. Swoboda became one of America's most popular and famous physical culturists of the early twentieth-century. Preaching a system of bodyweight only exercises, Swoboda ran a successful mail-order business for several years, which allowed the Austrian to preach his message of muscle across the United States. Given the... Continue Reading →
Although sporting historians have long noted the importance of Englishwomen in the development of sport in general, few studies have devoted themselves to the study of callisthenics. Those that do, often employ problematic timelines. Indeed, although Fletcher, McKrone and Holt famously argued that women used sport and callisthenics to gain some form of social freedoms,... Continue Reading →