October 17, 2018 • 37 mins
If you wanted a deeper dive into the history of gyms and health spas after our recent episode on gym-timidation, we've got just the classic episode for you.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:05):
Hi, this is Annie, and you're listening to stuff I've
never told you. A few weeks ago, we did an
episode all around sexism at the gym, and we've heard
from so many of you sent fin about your experiences
(00:29):
and tips and I can't wait to share some of
those in future episodes. And in that episode, we mentioned
we would rerun a classic episode all about the gem's
fascinating history. This is that episode. So get out your
neon colored ankle warmer's, your Jane fond of workout tapes
and enjoy. Welcome to Stuff Mom Never told you from
(00:52):
how Stuff Works dot com. Hello, and welcome to the podcast.
I'm Kristen and I'm Caroline. And since it is January,
one better time than to talk about Jim's working out exercising.
(01:14):
Because the one thing I feel like I've mentioned this
before uh in the podcast that a I I take
yoga regularly and be the worst time to take yoga
at my studio is in January, because Heavens to Betsy,
it is flooded with people. Yeah. I noticed that when
I lived in Augusta, I was a member of the
y like the whole time I lived there, because I
(01:35):
liked it was a low key gym. It wasn't like
meatheads all the time or whatever. Um. And I noticed
that every year, like in January, I would come in
and not be able to get a freaking machine yeah
at all. And I was like, well, you know, maybe
I'll just wait until February and come back. And it's
great that people want to exercise. One of those common
New Year's resolutions, of course, is to get in shape
(01:57):
loose some weight, and so people tend to go through
these early January fitness crazes. By Valentine's Day, who knows
if we're still exercising regularly or not. But I was
wondering when I was thinking about, like the fact that
we have to that we go to other buildings outside
of our home to exercise, and we pay rent essentially
(02:21):
in spaces to exercise. I wanted to know when did
Americans in particular start doing this? When did we start
having to work out? Because wouldn't that be nice? Don't
you remember? Like when I whenever I go vintage clothing shopping,
I'm amazed by like how how tiny so many of
the women's clothes are, and how none of them were
(02:43):
going to the gym. Yeah, what was what was going on?
I guess they were walking. They were walking a lot
more in places. Yeah, Christen and I were just talking
about how when I was in England for a couple
of months over a summer one year, even though I
was eating nothing but like fish and chips and drinking beer,
I walked everywhere every day, all the time, and so
(03:04):
I actually lost weight and my legs looked fabulous. Um. Yeah,
And if we go way way back in time, I
thought this was pretty funny. We found a timeline of
exercise and fitness from a couple of exercise scientists at
the University of New Mexico, and they mark the point
where things really start going down for humans at ten thousand,
(03:27):
eight thousand BC, during the Neolithic agricultural revolution. So we
were we've been screwed from the get go, folks. Once
we started or once we stopped being hunter gatherer nomads,
we we were just totally screwed. Yeah. They said that
agricultural developments meant that we had a more sedentary lifestyle,
And to that, I say, like, are you are you
kidding me? Like people were still walking, right, they still
(03:47):
had to like run from sabertooth tigers, right, perhaps, yeah,
And then moving up on the timeline, I mean there
are a lot of um not you know, like exercise tips.
There aren't ancient Jane fond of videos but which there
are chiseled into stones, little leotard. But I mean there
are ancient attitudes and in cultures about physical activity and
(04:09):
how it benefited the body and the spirit. You know,
Confucious encouraged physical activity. Yoga was developed by Hindu priests.
And then we get up to ancient Greece, which is
really what a lot of people site when they talk
about the history of exercise, Gymnasium's bodybuilding, wrestling, all that stuff,
because the ancient Greeks and Romans really had an appreciation
(04:30):
for a beautiful body and considered fitness and health to
be just as important as mental health and uh fun
etymology tidbit here, Gymnasium comes from the Greek root gymnos,
which means naked, because as we know a lot of
male Greeks in the ancient world appreciated nude working out,
(04:53):
which seems dangerous if you're a guy. I'm just saying
things swinging around, I mean, what happened, Yeah, you know what,
We'll just leave it there. Yeah, well we will. But
there is also an ancient Greek saying of exercise for
the body, you have music for the soul. I can
get on board with that ancient Greeks. And then, uh,
(05:15):
moving way forward to the Renaissance. I know we're taking
leaps and bounds through history, but we have other things
to talk we have a lot to talk about. But
during the Renaissance, for instance, there was this resurgence of
appreciation for you know, ancient Greek culture and the high
minds of the day linked fitness, physical fitness to intelligence,
(05:39):
which is a good thing. I mean like that, that
is true. There's a major like brain body connection. Absolutely.
And then if I may take another giant leap forward
and go to the post industrial revolution era in our history.
So you know, the industrial revolution happens all of a sudden,
you have like assembly lines and things like that, and
(05:59):
people are sitting a lot. I'm just gonna make broad
strokes here. Yeah, and um, before before we keep moving forward.
Speaking of post industrial Revolution, there were a group of
nineteenth century German political refugees who sparked something in the
US called the turn Variant movement. I hope I'm saying
that correctly, and they were pro gymnastics and calisinics and
(06:23):
their goal was to get physical fitness in every American school.
So they were like a gang of gymnasts, yeah, gang
of German gymnasts. But they sparked this huge movement and
this should be something that our podcast pals stuff you
missed in history class maybe could take a closer look at.
And they were also um responsible for popularizing bowling in
(06:44):
the United States, thank you. Yeah, So that's going on
in the nineteenth century and then really crank things forward
to the twentieth century and what's going on. Well, so
I mentioned that we started sitting a lot, right, Yeah,
and that at honestly, like, without going off on a tangent,
it's probably are sitting that's going to kill us. Yeah,
(07:05):
we're sitting down as we record this podcast, and we
should really be on exercise balls. We should be or
just or you know, doing bicep curls as we talk. Yeah,
we'd be ripped. I'm doing squads right now in my mind.
Um So, in the nineteen fifties and sixties, diseases that
were spurred by basically sitting around and not having that
(07:26):
daily physical activity started to really emerge. Things like cardiovascular disease, cancer,
and type two diabetes became much more prevalent during this period,
and so that led a lot of physicians and you know,
health health minded individuals in general to think, what can
we do about all of this, all these health issues. Yeah,
(07:46):
I feel like we are living in a time when
we are constantly being inundated with pretty frightening, almost scared
tactic like messages about how uh, you know, we are
all gaining too much weight, we are not moving enough,
our health, our collective health is just going down the tubes.
But really, in the nineteen fifties, it was there was
(08:07):
a massive health panic going on as well, and it
was related to the development of the minimum muscular fitness
tests in children by doctors Hans Krauss and Ruth Hirschland,
who were measuring the muscular strength and flexibility among American kids,
and they also compared that to kids in Austria, Italy
(08:30):
and Switzerland. Yeah, it turns out that a lot more
American kids were failing at least one of the tests.
And in response, no, parents didn't get angry, children didn't
go outside and play. No. Eisenhower, the president, created the
Council on Youth Fitness and the Citizens Advisory Committee on
the Fitness of American Youth. And it's also during this
(08:51):
time that several health and fitness groups got their start,
such as the American Health Association, the American Medical Association,
and the American College of Sports Medicine. So a lot
of people were like, well, we've got to do something.
Our kids are soft well. And the fascinating thing about
this is that a lot of the that fire was fan.
Those flames were fan the fitness flames. I'll stop with
(09:14):
these horrible fire analogy. Um. A lot of it was
undergirded though by Cold War fears, essentially saying too it
was it was more focused to on on the fitness
of the boys. And we were coming out of World
War Two and massive militarization um into the Cold War era.
(09:34):
And John F. Kennedy wrote an article for Sports Illustrated
in December of nineteen sixty called the Soft American in
which he bemoans the fact that essentially he's saying that
that the up and coming American youth are becoming far
(09:55):
too soft there mentally, morally or physically, and that it's
going to be are the downfall of the United States
that the Soviet Union at the time was becoming strong
and muscular and bench pressing and doing one armed push ups,
while the United States was just all of the kids
were just watching TV. Yeah. Well, I mean he's going
on and on and talking about you know, this is terrible.
(10:17):
Our kids are soft. You know, a huge amount of
kids are failing these muscular strength and flexibility tests, where
the European kids are, you know, bouncing off walls and stuff.
So why is it a big deal? And he finally,
he finally says it. There's that little ahamament where he says,
if we waste and neglect this resource, if we allow
it to dwindle and grow soft, then we will destroy
(10:37):
much of our ability to meet the great and vital
challenges which confront our people. So there you go. Armed
conflict has been a major part of our culture leading
up to now. And while he says it's also vital
you know, health and fitness, or vital to activities of peace.
Basically it's like, people, we've got to be ready in
case the commies come. But he's also like, I mean
(10:58):
we don't I mean, don't have to fight. You know,
we need muscular strength for the activities of peace as well.
But and then he also makes this great prediction um
by the nineteen seventies, according to many economists, the man
who works with his hands will be almost extinct. So
a lot of a lot of fear about the rising technology,
(11:19):
about the threats of the Cold War. I'm sure there
was still a lots of post World War two jitters
going on. And so this is the initial spur of
working out and organized exercise and gym's in the United States. Well,
one person who didn't wait around for JFK to call
(11:40):
everybody fat was Jack Lelane, who I mean, he's like
the most famous outside of Arnold Schwarzenegger. In my mind,
he's like the most famous fitness guy ever. He he's
basically referred to as the founder of the modern fitness movement,
and he died in eleven at the age of ninety six.
I believe as like the fittest man in existence. And
(12:02):
what inspired Lo Lane was a fitness talk he heard
at age fifteen, and he immediately goes out and starts
working out with weights, and eventually at age twenty one
in nineteen thirty six, he opens a fitness studio with
a gym, juice bar, and health food store, and I
can tell you people thought he was absolutely crazy. Yeah,
oh yeah. In nineteen thirty six, doctors thought that this
guy who was drinking all this juice and pumping all
(12:24):
this iron thought that he would be setting himself up
for heart attacks and loss of sex drive. Yeah, watch
out for those weights. But yeah, he also like he
really popularized the whole TV fitness thing. Uh. The Jack
Lolaine Showed debuted in nineteen fifty one in San Francisco
and went nationwide a couple of years later, And part
of his thing was to draw kids in and then
(12:47):
encourage them to get their parents involved in getting moving well.
And that's very significant too because the rise of TV
and and kids being drawn towards more sedentary leisure activities.
One thing into the JFK talks about in uh the
Soft American article in Sports Illustrated was about how high
school parking lots were filled with cars because kids weren't
(13:08):
walking to school anymore and on the weekends they were
just sitting in front of the boob tube instead of
running around. And so it's pretty significant that Jacque Laine
uh started to spread his message through that medium. And
it's those boomer children that were largely the targets of
that first wave of oh no, everyone's getting soft, who
(13:30):
were the one the adults in the nineteen seventies and
eighties who really started the like nationalizing the private fitness
industry as well, who made working out a thing. Yeah,
and we'll, i'll, we'll backtrack a little bit, but I
do want to speaking of baby boomers, this quote from
(13:50):
Time magazine in nineteen two says that most of the
seventies six million boomers are finished with the drug culture
and alternative therapies instead had many of them have seized
on fitness ergo older Americans jog in an attempt not
to be pushed aside by an army of fresh, unlined faces.
That sounds terrifying. Well, it sounds like today, you know,
(14:12):
in terms of I mean even back that, like we
talked today about plastic surgery and how everyone wants to
keep looking young. Well, the same was going on in
nineteen eighty two, and and that quote was coming from
uh a paper that we found called the Rise of
the Modern Fitness Industry by Mark Stern that was published
in Business and Economic History in two thousand eight, and
(14:33):
he cites a statistic that only two of Americans reported
exercising regularly in nineteen sixty, so working out not so
much of a thing in nineteen sixty, but then by
night seven, according to a Gallop Pole, that number jumped
to sixty nine percent. And h he attributes that that
(14:58):
leap to a crisis in both hell and identity. Yeah,
because you know, similarly to what we were talking about
earlier with health, heart disease, I mean, and things like that.
From you know, sitting um, it finally occurred to people
that hey, like maybe we should get our heart pumping
and our lungs expanding to prevent some of these diseases.
And a big proponent of that was Dr Kim Cooper,
(15:20):
who was the one I did not know before we
started this research. He was the one who coined the
term aerobics in his ninety eight book of the same name,
and he is a big pioneer of using exercise as
a preventive measure in health. And yeah, he focused more
on philosophy over treatment well. And it's also fascinating how
there is this corporate angle to fitness as well, um
(15:44):
that you can tie we could have a whole huge
conversation on more of the masculinity angle of this. But
it started to be reported on in our magazines like
Forbes and Fortune in the late seventies and eighties, where
the thing to do if you wanted to be a
powerful guy, especially in business, then you worked out like
(16:06):
you were going to be physically fit in order to
be to have the appearance, the correct appearance of a CEO, saying,
and I didn't realize this. I thought the whole in
house Jim thing was more of a modern thing, you know,
at like Google offices and stuff, you know, fancy fancy
corporate offices that have giant Jim's installed. But yeah, this
really started to get underway in the late seventies early
(16:29):
eighties because fitness was really thought to increase productivity, reduce absenteeism,
and enable recruitment and attention, not to mention, uh, improve morale.
H Yeah, and you've got this switch because uh, you know,
during the going back to Victorian times, dieting became a
thing which was linked more toward morality. There's always been
(16:51):
this uh kind of misguided link between um, your physical
appearance in the state of your your inward appearance and
you have this made your shift a hundred years later,
where we just embraced the vanity of it. It's all
about the body image, how you look on the outside.
Gems that start springing up become new dating hot spots.
(17:13):
Why do you think all of those leotards were so
high cut? The fashion, the fitness fashion. Olivia Newton, John Fonda, Yeah,
in New York Magazine wrote that there's a new class
that devised eliteism an entirely different manner, and that manner
is exercising and working out. Because at the time, working
(17:37):
out was a thing that was done mostly by more
highly educated, wealthier white people as a as a fancy
schmancy kind of thing to do. So let's talk about
(17:59):
the actual, uh, the gyms themselves, and the rise of
things beyond just going to like a local y m
c A, but actual private fitness clubs and gems. Yeah. There,
there definitely are still gyms that cater to specific activities
like boxing or martial arts things like that, but they're
(18:20):
greatly outnumbered by this modern, clean, sparkling fitness club idea.
And fitness clubs got their start way back in the day,
although membership was very low because it was seen as
kind of a fancy pants thing, right. So back in
this guy Victanny began began his first club in Santa Monica,
(18:41):
ended up opening dozens more clubs in the fifties and sixties,
and he wanted these locations to be seen as quote,
temples of luxury and respectability, which was really a departure
from the whole like, dudes are going to go in
there and grunt and sweat and pump iron and you know,
get their muscles all big and stuff. So this whole
idea that you go in there and you're pampered and
(19:02):
you have all of these fancy machines and stuff was
a was a new development. Yeah, And during the nineteen
seventies there are two major types of fitness clubs that
emerged once that were geared towards racket sports that were
essentially offshoots of country clubs UM, and then you had
the much more common types of gyms we think of
(19:22):
these days, which are those storefront gems that focused on
low cost, high volume service. And I thought it was
really interesting how Mark Stern points out that there were
major problems that arose in the gym industry, a lot
of complaints that were filed with the Federal Trade Commission
because a lot of people were opening all of these
(19:43):
gyms wanting to capitalize on this new emphasis on exercise
and working out. Um. But they would do it by
essentially like hassling people into signing contracts with sketchy membership
deals and perhaps unsanitary locker rooms. Yeah, all sorts of
(20:04):
shady dealings going on. Because gyms are not are not
an easy business to get into. It turns out, yeah,
well they would, I mean they would oversell. Basically, they
would get all of these members signed up, counting on
the fact that people would drop out either it would
be too expensive for them or they just didn't want
the hassle anymore or things like that. So but it
(20:26):
I can see why the gym business is so attractive
because as far as private fitness clubs go. UM in
n there were only about three thousand of these private clubs.
That has grown uh to twenty thousand eleven years ago
in two thousand two. That's a crazy jump. Yeah, as
of a two thousand six or an estimated forty two
(20:46):
point seven million gym members in the United States. And
one of the big reasons that gym's have become so popular.
Is women essentially exercise and working out being changed from uh,
you know, more of just a guys going in and
(21:07):
pumping iron to it being something that women do as well.
And this is something that really takes off in the
nineteen seventies and the eighties, people like Jane Fonda leading
the way. And when we talk about the rise of
women in gym's and women in fitness, uh, it starts
(21:28):
off as something that is propelled by more feminist ideology
of saying, hey, you know what, we can we need
to go in there, we need to be physically strong
as well. We can work out alongside men, no big deal.
But then it becomes this double edged sword where it's like, oh, hey,
in order to be attractive, I need to be working
out five days a week. And oh god, yeah, there's
(21:52):
definitely I mean we you know, we could go on
and on about that forever. And that kind of also
goes back to some of the things we talked about
in our dieting, feminism, shoe all that stuff. Um, but yeah,
I mean you really have this this rise in the
strong tone body aesthetic, like I'm gonna look all musli
and shiny and tan as opposed to you know, the
Flower Children, the waves of the sixties and seventies. So
(22:14):
now you had this whole new aesthetic to worry about.
Whereas maybe women had gotten interested in fitness because I
want to be healthy or you know, I wanna whatever
go to the gym. Now it's like, oh, okay, well
if I go to the gym, it means I have
to look like Jane Fonda. Shoot, that would be awesome. Yeah. Well,
I mean I'm just saying like that would be fun
to like, that's a costume thing. I don't actually want
(22:37):
to have to deal with those high cut leotard's um.
And beyond that too, there have been some interesting conversations
around gendered gym's. When I mean by that are women's
only health spas and gyms that have since opened up,
which initially like in the nineties seventies when when these
(22:58):
the Women's World Health Spot open a New England. There
are places like the Lucille Roberts Health Spot that opened
in New York and other places that were attributed to
even more feminism and saying, hey, this is part of
women's lip We're getting our own spaces to work out
into exercise. Yeah, and more recently that's actually drawn a
(23:19):
lot of controversy. Um, sort of sort of unexpectedly, I
would think, because it seems like these women only gyms
are a positive thing. You know, they provide a quote
unquote safe space where you can go and not feel intimidated,
not worry about who's staring at you and all that stuff.
But thirteen years ago, according to an article on CNN,
there were actually a couple of lawsuits claiming that these
(23:41):
clubs illegally discriminated against men, and perhaps also surprisingly UM,
members of the Massachusetts branch of NOW, which is the
National organization for Women, lobbied hard to prevent legislation that
prohibited single sex clubs over the concern that it could
actually open the door to resea aggregating golf clubs and
other venues. Yeah, because it need to remind listeners that
(24:04):
it was only in two thousand twelve at the Augusta
National Golf Club accepted its first female members, all the
way back in two thousand. Yeah, the long time ago.
So it's kind of interesting to see, how, you know,
you've got the arguments on on both sides of that,
because obviously, like women's only gyms are very popular. Just
take Curves for example, first Curves women only gym opens
(24:29):
by their franchising by two thousand to their nine thousand locations.
So obviously there is um there, there's a desire for that.
And if you google gender and gym culture, you will
get all sorts of headlines such as Mars l Vino
sad the gym, pink and blue with the gym, you know,
(24:50):
because it is a very gendered space because if you
think about you walk in the freeweights area dudes, the ellipticals,
and the aerobics room gals. And obviously I'm not saying
that there's no crossing, but by and large those are
in in papers that have looked at the gender space
(25:11):
of the gym environment, it's usually divided like that. And
I remember going to the gym in college and it
wasn't my favorite thing to do, not because I didn't
like exercising, but because there it was a charged atmosphere
because you are not wearing as many clothes as you
(25:33):
might in class. You are sweating there, you know, there's
conversation going on. I would go in the morning just
to avoid the whole thing. Uh. And it was also
funny to see how some other women would obviously dress
up a little bit. Oh my god, the makeup at
the gym. Lots of makeup at the gym. Kristen and I,
(25:55):
we should remind you went to the same college and
the same gym, and oh, my good goodness, women's stuff
with the a full I makeup at the gym, Like,
how do you. I would sweat one drop and all
that stuff would just slat off my face and I'd
break downto a hundred pimples. Yeah, but then again, I
was actually working out, and that was about well. That
was back in college when I actually I felt like
(26:16):
I had time I would go. I had this great
block of time during the day where I would go
in the middle of classes and really nobody was there
because it was around lunchtime. I dreaded going at night
after all the classes were over after dinner, around like
seven or eight. It was crazy town and I would
never I would not have dreamed of setting foot in
the in the Freeweights area because it was it was
(26:39):
swarming with what dudes. I would go in the mornings
when it was me and the professors and I could
wear my sweats and no big deal. Um and there
was a paper that we found on gender at the
gym by Thomas Johansson from University of Gotenburg and Sweden
(27:01):
feed and Swinden, and essentially he says a lot of
the same things in this paper that we have in
terms of some women feeling discomfort because there is a
typically a more male dominated atmosphere in the gym. We
have our gendered spaces. Like Christen was talking about how
I mean, even if you're a woman who uses the
(27:24):
free weights, you still kind of know what we're talking about.
Like even people men who do aerobics, women who use
the free weights, you can still tell that there's that
weird You get weird looks and and people are like,
why is that man in an aerobics class? Where what's
that woman doing in our freeweight space? Yeah, because you
it's it's crossing those gendered lines a little bit. Like
(27:46):
he talked about how, you know, the construct of masculinity
and the male physical ideal that is much more muscular
driven compared to more of the female idea. It's more
about toning and shaping. There's even so I don't have
the direct quote in front of me, but there was
a quote from Arnold Schwarzenegger talking about how women can't
(28:08):
really build get super muscular, you know, it's more about
shaping and molding. And maybe I think there was also
an attitude of maybe they shouldn't write and because I
think it was Reebok that didn't sponsor a particular women's
bodybuilding competition because they didn't like the look of some
of those women. They were way too masculine and scary
(28:31):
looking for Reebok to handle. Um. But female bodybuilding is
a relatively recent phenomenon when you take all of exercising
history into account, and it really does freak people out.
In this paper that Thomas Johansen did, most of the
men that he interviewed expressed one of two things either
discussed or respect mixed with disgust. And it comes to
(28:55):
female bodybuilders. Yeah, because again I think it's it's because
of being a transgressive in a way of crossing those
those gendered lines. Now. One thing that Johansson also brings
up about Jim culture is homophobia. He talked about how
the male sphere is characterized by a more distant relationship
(29:15):
between the instructures and the population of the gym. How
you know, it's more likely to you're more likely to
see a personal trainer with a female client rather than
a male client. But I'm I'm gonna go ahead and
say from a personal experience, I don't I think that's
becoming less and less of a case of the case,
especially when you think about gay jim culture. There's even
(29:37):
a book that I found by Eric Alvarez, who is
a personal trainer in San Francisco, who essentially did like
a giant ethnographical study of gay jim culture, and he
wrote a book about it called Muscle Boys Gym Culture
UM which he breaks down the different types of guys
at gay gim's or gay men at gym's UM and
(30:01):
talks about how, uh, there is a strong intersection between
gyms and gay culture because of the pursuit of the
ideal body image and also social interaction. It has been
like a major place for gay men to meet each other.
And I'm not just talking about things like you know,
stereotypes like cruising in the locker rooms, UM, but actually
like meeting, interacting, you're working out together, UM. And he
(30:24):
claims Alvaris does that gay men and the gym culture
have been largely responsible for creating the overall both the gay, straight,
whatever male physical ideal, and it challenges that bigoted stereotype
of gay men as being weak and limp rested. So
working out is important too to a lot of gay men.
(30:48):
Whereas I hate talking to people at the gym, I
do too. Please please please please leave me a lot.
That's why I just run by myself. Well, when when
I was at the to jim, um, I was left
alone for the most part. I mean, it was definitely
taboo to like try to talk to other people, really
because you didn't want to come off as a creep
(31:08):
whatever gender. Um. But I just remember this like elderly man.
You know, he was wearing the headphones that have the
radio built in and he's wearing his red, white and
blue sweatband, like I want to be Jack Lolaine. But
he like he wouldn't stop talking to me. And I
did the thing where I, you know, frustrated, Lee took
out my headphones, was like what what? I can't what
(31:29):
and he was just trying to ask me, like what's
your name? How often do you come to the gym?
And when I told him how much I came to
the jim, He's like, you should really think about coming more.
I was like, I'm going to knock you off of
the elliptical, but I actually have Okay, so that's like,
ha ha, funny whatever, old man talking to you. I
do have a really horrific Jim experienced story about talking
to someone and trainers. I actually I was the last
(31:52):
gym that I belonged to. Was friends with a trainer.
He was a great guy. He helped me a lot,
you know, really nice guy. But I went with an
other trainer one time and he was really creepy, crossed,
acrossed a lot of boundaries, called me at home, um
email started emailing me, and I had to finally say like,
(32:12):
you've got to stop. You know, I you like, gym
culture can be scary. Yeah. I had an experience with
a personal trainer where it was it was too close
for comfort and I had to say, see you me
coming to the gym is not me saying I would
like to hang out. Yeah. It was also like just
(32:35):
on a final side note to it's incredible, like when
when the personal trader was being too forward with me
mid workout, Like when I when I exercise, I flush,
I excessively sweat. You know, that's half the reason why
I don't want to talk to you is because I
(32:56):
kind of look like, you know, a monster. I look
like I have the flu and a sauna. So it
is uh, I mean, and we could go we could
go on and on and on about gym culture because
because it is there, there are so many fascinating dynamics
going on in there in terms of just personal body
(33:17):
issues and the beauty myth starts to come in there,
and these physical ideals, and you have sexuality that is
inherently tied into the mix and gender and and and
and and we pay for it. We our money with
our monies to go to these places. Yeah, so I
guess we should ask people about their gym experiences, Like
(33:38):
what I'd like to hear about people's experiences with the
gender spheres gems and do you cross them or do
you feel like you need to stick to one side
or the other right? And what are what are your
interactions there? I mean, are there people listening who really
prefer to work out just around guys, just around women?
Does it feel our gym safe spaces? I feel like
(34:00):
in a lot of ways, for a lot of people,
they are kind of unsafe spaces because it brings out
all of these insecurities that we have, is we try
to shape our bodies. Yeah, I just didn't make eye
contact when I went to the gym. I have what
kind of want to see you in a gym? Now
you sound like a tough cookie. Well, I really I
really enjoyed that, Jim, Thank you. I guess or why
(34:20):
I really appreciated it. It was a good place. Um.
So I think that's that's all we have to talk about.
Like I said, we could go We could go on
and on, um and there are many other topics we
could branch off into. But in the United States at
least we have Cold war fears to initially thank for
(34:42):
for fueling this. Thanks Russia. Come on, so send us
your thoughts on gym's and working out. Mom's stuff at
Discovery dot com is where you can send your letters.
Oh and if you are working out while you're listening
to this episode, good for you. You You know a lot
of people exercise and listen. Here is a letter from
(35:07):
Robert about our Pinterest episode. Christy has a little shout
out for you. He says, I would like to nominate
one of Kristen's line from the show as the funniest
line I have ever heard on your podcast quote I
went to man testing to see what men are nailing. Oh,
I did say that. I know that was my junior
(35:28):
high self coming out and not my mature forty eight
year old self, but it was funny. I checked out
manterest ing. I would just like to say that as
a manly man, if a dude has to go to
a quote manly pinning site, then he is overcompensating. I
am secure enough in my manhood to not only need
a Pinterest account, and I will pin anything there that
I like, So thank you, Robert. Keep pinning, keep on pinning,
(35:49):
or visit just a small little plug. You can visit
our little our little pinboard pinboard over Pinterest search stuff.
Mom never told you. I've got an email here of
from Julie about our episode on food expiration dates, and
she says I get made fun of constantly to work
for eating expired products. Nothing too crazy, although I will
(36:12):
drink my milk up to ten days after the cell
by date. My manager thinks I'm nuts. She is more
extreme though. I offered her and expired altoid and she
refused it. But to me, Kenny never expires. Chocolate is
good for years, even if it starts to get a
little white. I might try it if I'm desperate. In
the case of the altoyd though, my boss was right.
I found them at my desk over a year old,
(36:34):
and I didn't taste like anything like sugar, but no
meant I didn't get sick. But it was just the
flavor thing that you mentioned, so I thought I would
share altoids or no good after a while. Also, one
time I misread the date on my milk IM poured
it into my cereal. It came out normal looking. The
cat wasn't interested, and that should have been a tip off,
but I got a spoonful in my mouth and then
(36:55):
ran to the Saint. I doubled check my carton expirestion dates. Now, oh,
expired milk. Hey, let'sen this podcast on a saluried milk. Note.
Thanks to everyone for writing in Too Mom Stuff at
Discovery dot com. It's where you can send your letters.
You can also hit us up on Facebook, follow us
(37:17):
on Twitter at moms Stuff podcast, and follow us on
Tumbler as well. Well. We are at stuff Mom Never
Told You dot tumbler dot com and if you want
to learn more about how to stay fit and healthy
and very very happy, you should head over to our website,
it's how stuff works dot com for more on this
(37:38):
and thousands of other topics. Is it how stuff works
dot com
Hi, this is Annie, and you're listening to stuff I've
never told you. A few weeks ago, we did an
episode all around sexism at the gym, and we've heard
from so many of you sent fin about your experiences
(00:29):
and tips and I can't wait to share some of
those in future episodes. And in that episode, we mentioned
we would rerun a classic episode all about the gem's
fascinating history. This is that episode. So get out your
neon colored ankle warmer's, your Jane fond of workout tapes
and enjoy. Welcome to Stuff Mom Never told you from
(00:52):
how Stuff Works dot com. Hello, and welcome to the podcast.
I'm Kristen and I'm Caroline. And since it is January,
one better time than to talk about Jim's working out exercising.
(01:14):
Because the one thing I feel like I've mentioned this
before uh in the podcast that a I I take
yoga regularly and be the worst time to take yoga
at my studio is in January, because Heavens to Betsy,
it is flooded with people. Yeah. I noticed that when
I lived in Augusta, I was a member of the
y like the whole time I lived there, because I
(01:35):
liked it was a low key gym. It wasn't like
meatheads all the time or whatever. Um. And I noticed
that every year, like in January, I would come in
and not be able to get a freaking machine yeah
at all. And I was like, well, you know, maybe
I'll just wait until February and come back. And it's
great that people want to exercise. One of those common
New Year's resolutions, of course, is to get in shape
(01:57):
loose some weight, and so people tend to go through
these early January fitness crazes. By Valentine's Day, who knows
if we're still exercising regularly or not. But I was
wondering when I was thinking about, like the fact that
we have to that we go to other buildings outside
of our home to exercise, and we pay rent essentially
(02:21):
in spaces to exercise. I wanted to know when did
Americans in particular start doing this? When did we start
having to work out? Because wouldn't that be nice? Don't
you remember? Like when I whenever I go vintage clothing shopping,
I'm amazed by like how how tiny so many of
the women's clothes are, and how none of them were
(02:43):
going to the gym. Yeah, what was what was going on?
I guess they were walking. They were walking a lot
more in places. Yeah, Christen and I were just talking
about how when I was in England for a couple
of months over a summer one year, even though I
was eating nothing but like fish and chips and drinking beer,
I walked everywhere every day, all the time, and so
(03:04):
I actually lost weight and my legs looked fabulous. Um. Yeah,
And if we go way way back in time, I
thought this was pretty funny. We found a timeline of
exercise and fitness from a couple of exercise scientists at
the University of New Mexico, and they mark the point
where things really start going down for humans at ten thousand,
(03:27):
eight thousand BC, during the Neolithic agricultural revolution. So we
were we've been screwed from the get go, folks. Once
we started or once we stopped being hunter gatherer nomads,
we we were just totally screwed. Yeah. They said that
agricultural developments meant that we had a more sedentary lifestyle,
And to that, I say, like, are you are you
kidding me? Like people were still walking, right, they still
(03:47):
had to like run from sabertooth tigers, right, perhaps, yeah,
And then moving up on the timeline, I mean there
are a lot of um not you know, like exercise tips.
There aren't ancient Jane fond of videos but which there
are chiseled into stones, little leotard. But I mean there
are ancient attitudes and in cultures about physical activity and
(04:09):
how it benefited the body and the spirit. You know,
Confucious encouraged physical activity. Yoga was developed by Hindu priests.
And then we get up to ancient Greece, which is
really what a lot of people site when they talk
about the history of exercise, Gymnasium's bodybuilding, wrestling, all that stuff,
because the ancient Greeks and Romans really had an appreciation
(04:30):
for a beautiful body and considered fitness and health to
be just as important as mental health and uh fun
etymology tidbit here, Gymnasium comes from the Greek root gymnos,
which means naked, because as we know a lot of
male Greeks in the ancient world appreciated nude working out,
(04:53):
which seems dangerous if you're a guy. I'm just saying
things swinging around, I mean, what happened, Yeah, you know what,
We'll just leave it there. Yeah, well we will. But
there is also an ancient Greek saying of exercise for
the body, you have music for the soul. I can
get on board with that ancient Greeks. And then, uh,
(05:15):
moving way forward to the Renaissance. I know we're taking
leaps and bounds through history, but we have other things
to talk we have a lot to talk about. But
during the Renaissance, for instance, there was this resurgence of
appreciation for you know, ancient Greek culture and the high
minds of the day linked fitness, physical fitness to intelligence,
(05:39):
which is a good thing. I mean like that, that
is true. There's a major like brain body connection. Absolutely.
And then if I may take another giant leap forward
and go to the post industrial revolution era in our history.
So you know, the industrial revolution happens all of a sudden,
you have like assembly lines and things like that, and
(05:59):
people are sitting a lot. I'm just gonna make broad
strokes here. Yeah, and um, before before we keep moving forward.
Speaking of post industrial Revolution, there were a group of
nineteenth century German political refugees who sparked something in the
US called the turn Variant movement. I hope I'm saying
that correctly, and they were pro gymnastics and calisinics and
(06:23):
their goal was to get physical fitness in every American school.
So they were like a gang of gymnasts, yeah, gang
of German gymnasts. But they sparked this huge movement and
this should be something that our podcast pals stuff you
missed in history class maybe could take a closer look at.
And they were also um responsible for popularizing bowling in
(06:44):
the United States, thank you. Yeah, So that's going on
in the nineteenth century and then really crank things forward
to the twentieth century and what's going on. Well, so
I mentioned that we started sitting a lot, right, Yeah,
and that at honestly, like, without going off on a tangent,
it's probably are sitting that's going to kill us. Yeah,
(07:05):
we're sitting down as we record this podcast, and we
should really be on exercise balls. We should be or
just or you know, doing bicep curls as we talk. Yeah,
we'd be ripped. I'm doing squads right now in my mind.
Um So, in the nineteen fifties and sixties, diseases that
were spurred by basically sitting around and not having that
(07:26):
daily physical activity started to really emerge. Things like cardiovascular disease, cancer,
and type two diabetes became much more prevalent during this period,
and so that led a lot of physicians and you know,
health health minded individuals in general to think, what can
we do about all of this, all these health issues. Yeah,
(07:46):
I feel like we are living in a time when
we are constantly being inundated with pretty frightening, almost scared
tactic like messages about how uh, you know, we are
all gaining too much weight, we are not moving enough,
our health, our collective health is just going down the tubes.
But really, in the nineteen fifties, it was there was
(08:07):
a massive health panic going on as well, and it
was related to the development of the minimum muscular fitness
tests in children by doctors Hans Krauss and Ruth Hirschland,
who were measuring the muscular strength and flexibility among American kids,
and they also compared that to kids in Austria, Italy
(08:30):
and Switzerland. Yeah, it turns out that a lot more
American kids were failing at least one of the tests.
And in response, no, parents didn't get angry, children didn't
go outside and play. No. Eisenhower, the president, created the
Council on Youth Fitness and the Citizens Advisory Committee on
the Fitness of American Youth. And it's also during this
(08:51):
time that several health and fitness groups got their start,
such as the American Health Association, the American Medical Association,
and the American College of Sports Medicine. So a lot
of people were like, well, we've got to do something.
Our kids are soft well. And the fascinating thing about
this is that a lot of the that fire was fan.
Those flames were fan the fitness flames. I'll stop with
(09:14):
these horrible fire analogy. Um. A lot of it was
undergirded though by Cold War fears, essentially saying too it
was it was more focused to on on the fitness
of the boys. And we were coming out of World
War Two and massive militarization um into the Cold War era.
(09:34):
And John F. Kennedy wrote an article for Sports Illustrated
in December of nineteen sixty called the Soft American in
which he bemoans the fact that essentially he's saying that
that the up and coming American youth are becoming far
(09:55):
too soft there mentally, morally or physically, and that it's
going to be are the downfall of the United States
that the Soviet Union at the time was becoming strong
and muscular and bench pressing and doing one armed push ups,
while the United States was just all of the kids
were just watching TV. Yeah. Well, I mean he's going
on and on and talking about you know, this is terrible.
(10:17):
Our kids are soft. You know, a huge amount of
kids are failing these muscular strength and flexibility tests, where
the European kids are, you know, bouncing off walls and stuff.
So why is it a big deal? And he finally,
he finally says it. There's that little ahamament where he says,
if we waste and neglect this resource, if we allow
it to dwindle and grow soft, then we will destroy
(10:37):
much of our ability to meet the great and vital
challenges which confront our people. So there you go. Armed
conflict has been a major part of our culture leading
up to now. And while he says it's also vital
you know, health and fitness, or vital to activities of peace.
Basically it's like, people, we've got to be ready in
case the commies come. But he's also like, I mean
(10:58):
we don't I mean, don't have to fight. You know,
we need muscular strength for the activities of peace as well.
But and then he also makes this great prediction um
by the nineteen seventies, according to many economists, the man
who works with his hands will be almost extinct. So
a lot of a lot of fear about the rising technology,
(11:19):
about the threats of the Cold War. I'm sure there
was still a lots of post World War two jitters
going on. And so this is the initial spur of
working out and organized exercise and gym's in the United States. Well,
one person who didn't wait around for JFK to call
(11:40):
everybody fat was Jack Lelane, who I mean, he's like
the most famous outside of Arnold Schwarzenegger. In my mind,
he's like the most famous fitness guy ever. He he's
basically referred to as the founder of the modern fitness movement,
and he died in eleven at the age of ninety six.
I believe as like the fittest man in existence. And
(12:02):
what inspired Lo Lane was a fitness talk he heard
at age fifteen, and he immediately goes out and starts
working out with weights, and eventually at age twenty one
in nineteen thirty six, he opens a fitness studio with
a gym, juice bar, and health food store, and I
can tell you people thought he was absolutely crazy. Yeah,
oh yeah. In nineteen thirty six, doctors thought that this
guy who was drinking all this juice and pumping all
(12:24):
this iron thought that he would be setting himself up
for heart attacks and loss of sex drive. Yeah, watch
out for those weights. But yeah, he also like he
really popularized the whole TV fitness thing. Uh. The Jack
Lolaine Showed debuted in nineteen fifty one in San Francisco
and went nationwide a couple of years later, And part
of his thing was to draw kids in and then
(12:47):
encourage them to get their parents involved in getting moving well.
And that's very significant too because the rise of TV
and and kids being drawn towards more sedentary leisure activities.
One thing into the JFK talks about in uh the
Soft American article in Sports Illustrated was about how high
school parking lots were filled with cars because kids weren't
(13:08):
walking to school anymore and on the weekends they were
just sitting in front of the boob tube instead of
running around. And so it's pretty significant that Jacque Laine
uh started to spread his message through that medium. And
it's those boomer children that were largely the targets of
that first wave of oh no, everyone's getting soft, who
(13:30):
were the one the adults in the nineteen seventies and
eighties who really started the like nationalizing the private fitness
industry as well, who made working out a thing. Yeah,
and we'll, i'll, we'll backtrack a little bit, but I
do want to speaking of baby boomers, this quote from
(13:50):
Time magazine in nineteen two says that most of the
seventies six million boomers are finished with the drug culture
and alternative therapies instead had many of them have seized
on fitness ergo older Americans jog in an attempt not
to be pushed aside by an army of fresh, unlined faces.
That sounds terrifying. Well, it sounds like today, you know,
(14:12):
in terms of I mean even back that, like we
talked today about plastic surgery and how everyone wants to
keep looking young. Well, the same was going on in
nineteen eighty two, and and that quote was coming from
uh a paper that we found called the Rise of
the Modern Fitness Industry by Mark Stern that was published
in Business and Economic History in two thousand eight, and
(14:33):
he cites a statistic that only two of Americans reported
exercising regularly in nineteen sixty, so working out not so
much of a thing in nineteen sixty, but then by
night seven, according to a Gallop Pole, that number jumped
to sixty nine percent. And h he attributes that that
(14:58):
leap to a crisis in both hell and identity. Yeah,
because you know, similarly to what we were talking about
earlier with health, heart disease, I mean, and things like that.
From you know, sitting um, it finally occurred to people
that hey, like maybe we should get our heart pumping
and our lungs expanding to prevent some of these diseases.
And a big proponent of that was Dr Kim Cooper,
(15:20):
who was the one I did not know before we
started this research. He was the one who coined the
term aerobics in his ninety eight book of the same name,
and he is a big pioneer of using exercise as
a preventive measure in health. And yeah, he focused more
on philosophy over treatment well. And it's also fascinating how
there is this corporate angle to fitness as well, um
(15:44):
that you can tie we could have a whole huge
conversation on more of the masculinity angle of this. But
it started to be reported on in our magazines like
Forbes and Fortune in the late seventies and eighties, where
the thing to do if you wanted to be a
powerful guy, especially in business, then you worked out like
(16:06):
you were going to be physically fit in order to
be to have the appearance, the correct appearance of a CEO, saying,
and I didn't realize this. I thought the whole in
house Jim thing was more of a modern thing, you know,
at like Google offices and stuff, you know, fancy fancy
corporate offices that have giant Jim's installed. But yeah, this
really started to get underway in the late seventies early
(16:29):
eighties because fitness was really thought to increase productivity, reduce absenteeism,
and enable recruitment and attention, not to mention, uh, improve morale.
H Yeah, and you've got this switch because uh, you know,
during the going back to Victorian times, dieting became a
thing which was linked more toward morality. There's always been
(16:51):
this uh kind of misguided link between um, your physical
appearance in the state of your your inward appearance and
you have this made your shift a hundred years later,
where we just embraced the vanity of it. It's all
about the body image, how you look on the outside.
Gems that start springing up become new dating hot spots.
(17:13):
Why do you think all of those leotards were so
high cut? The fashion, the fitness fashion. Olivia Newton, John Fonda, Yeah,
in New York Magazine wrote that there's a new class
that devised eliteism an entirely different manner, and that manner
is exercising and working out. Because at the time, working
(17:37):
out was a thing that was done mostly by more
highly educated, wealthier white people as a as a fancy
schmancy kind of thing to do. So let's talk about
(17:59):
the actual, uh, the gyms themselves, and the rise of
things beyond just going to like a local y m
c A, but actual private fitness clubs and gems. Yeah. There,
there definitely are still gyms that cater to specific activities
like boxing or martial arts things like that, but they're
(18:20):
greatly outnumbered by this modern, clean, sparkling fitness club idea.
And fitness clubs got their start way back in the day,
although membership was very low because it was seen as
kind of a fancy pants thing, right. So back in
this guy Victanny began began his first club in Santa Monica,
(18:41):
ended up opening dozens more clubs in the fifties and sixties,
and he wanted these locations to be seen as quote,
temples of luxury and respectability, which was really a departure
from the whole like, dudes are going to go in
there and grunt and sweat and pump iron and you know,
get their muscles all big and stuff. So this whole
idea that you go in there and you're pampered and
(19:02):
you have all of these fancy machines and stuff was
a was a new development. Yeah, And during the nineteen
seventies there are two major types of fitness clubs that
emerged once that were geared towards racket sports that were
essentially offshoots of country clubs UM, and then you had
the much more common types of gyms we think of
(19:22):
these days, which are those storefront gems that focused on
low cost, high volume service. And I thought it was
really interesting how Mark Stern points out that there were
major problems that arose in the gym industry, a lot
of complaints that were filed with the Federal Trade Commission
because a lot of people were opening all of these
(19:43):
gyms wanting to capitalize on this new emphasis on exercise
and working out. Um. But they would do it by
essentially like hassling people into signing contracts with sketchy membership
deals and perhaps unsanitary locker rooms. Yeah, all sorts of
(20:04):
shady dealings going on. Because gyms are not are not
an easy business to get into. It turns out, yeah,
well they would, I mean they would oversell. Basically, they
would get all of these members signed up, counting on
the fact that people would drop out either it would
be too expensive for them or they just didn't want
the hassle anymore or things like that. So but it
(20:26):
I can see why the gym business is so attractive
because as far as private fitness clubs go. UM in
n there were only about three thousand of these private clubs.
That has grown uh to twenty thousand eleven years ago
in two thousand two. That's a crazy jump. Yeah, as
of a two thousand six or an estimated forty two
(20:46):
point seven million gym members in the United States. And
one of the big reasons that gym's have become so popular.
Is women essentially exercise and working out being changed from uh,
you know, more of just a guys going in and
(21:07):
pumping iron to it being something that women do as well.
And this is something that really takes off in the
nineteen seventies and the eighties, people like Jane Fonda leading
the way. And when we talk about the rise of
women in gym's and women in fitness, uh, it starts
(21:28):
off as something that is propelled by more feminist ideology
of saying, hey, you know what, we can we need
to go in there, we need to be physically strong
as well. We can work out alongside men, no big deal.
But then it becomes this double edged sword where it's like, oh, hey,
in order to be attractive, I need to be working
out five days a week. And oh god, yeah, there's
(21:52):
definitely I mean we you know, we could go on
and on about that forever. And that kind of also
goes back to some of the things we talked about
in our dieting, feminism, shoe all that stuff. Um, but yeah,
I mean you really have this this rise in the
strong tone body aesthetic, like I'm gonna look all musli
and shiny and tan as opposed to you know, the
Flower Children, the waves of the sixties and seventies. So
(22:14):
now you had this whole new aesthetic to worry about.
Whereas maybe women had gotten interested in fitness because I
want to be healthy or you know, I wanna whatever
go to the gym. Now it's like, oh, okay, well
if I go to the gym, it means I have
to look like Jane Fonda. Shoot, that would be awesome. Yeah. Well,
I mean I'm just saying like that would be fun
to like, that's a costume thing. I don't actually want
(22:37):
to have to deal with those high cut leotard's um.
And beyond that too, there have been some interesting conversations
around gendered gym's. When I mean by that are women's
only health spas and gyms that have since opened up,
which initially like in the nineties seventies when when these
(22:58):
the Women's World Health Spot open a New England. There
are places like the Lucille Roberts Health Spot that opened
in New York and other places that were attributed to
even more feminism and saying, hey, this is part of
women's lip We're getting our own spaces to work out
into exercise. Yeah, and more recently that's actually drawn a
(23:19):
lot of controversy. Um, sort of sort of unexpectedly, I
would think, because it seems like these women only gyms
are a positive thing. You know, they provide a quote
unquote safe space where you can go and not feel intimidated,
not worry about who's staring at you and all that stuff.
But thirteen years ago, according to an article on CNN,
there were actually a couple of lawsuits claiming that these
(23:41):
clubs illegally discriminated against men, and perhaps also surprisingly UM,
members of the Massachusetts branch of NOW, which is the
National organization for Women, lobbied hard to prevent legislation that
prohibited single sex clubs over the concern that it could
actually open the door to resea aggregating golf clubs and
other venues. Yeah, because it need to remind listeners that
(24:04):
it was only in two thousand twelve at the Augusta
National Golf Club accepted its first female members, all the
way back in two thousand. Yeah, the long time ago.
So it's kind of interesting to see, how, you know,
you've got the arguments on on both sides of that,
because obviously, like women's only gyms are very popular. Just
take Curves for example, first Curves women only gym opens
(24:29):
by their franchising by two thousand to their nine thousand locations.
So obviously there is um there, there's a desire for that.
And if you google gender and gym culture, you will
get all sorts of headlines such as Mars l Vino
sad the gym, pink and blue with the gym, you know,
(24:50):
because it is a very gendered space because if you
think about you walk in the freeweights area dudes, the ellipticals,
and the aerobics room gals. And obviously I'm not saying
that there's no crossing, but by and large those are
in in papers that have looked at the gender space
(25:11):
of the gym environment, it's usually divided like that. And
I remember going to the gym in college and it
wasn't my favorite thing to do, not because I didn't
like exercising, but because there it was a charged atmosphere
because you are not wearing as many clothes as you
(25:33):
might in class. You are sweating there, you know, there's
conversation going on. I would go in the morning just
to avoid the whole thing. Uh. And it was also
funny to see how some other women would obviously dress
up a little bit. Oh my god, the makeup at
the gym. Lots of makeup at the gym. Kristen and I,
(25:55):
we should remind you went to the same college and
the same gym, and oh, my good goodness, women's stuff
with the a full I makeup at the gym, Like,
how do you. I would sweat one drop and all
that stuff would just slat off my face and I'd
break downto a hundred pimples. Yeah, but then again, I
was actually working out, and that was about well. That
was back in college when I actually I felt like
(26:16):
I had time I would go. I had this great
block of time during the day where I would go
in the middle of classes and really nobody was there
because it was around lunchtime. I dreaded going at night
after all the classes were over after dinner, around like
seven or eight. It was crazy town and I would
never I would not have dreamed of setting foot in
the in the Freeweights area because it was it was
(26:39):
swarming with what dudes. I would go in the mornings
when it was me and the professors and I could
wear my sweats and no big deal. Um and there
was a paper that we found on gender at the
gym by Thomas Johansson from University of Gotenburg and Sweden
(27:01):
feed and Swinden, and essentially he says a lot of
the same things in this paper that we have in
terms of some women feeling discomfort because there is a
typically a more male dominated atmosphere in the gym. We
have our gendered spaces. Like Christen was talking about how
I mean, even if you're a woman who uses the
(27:24):
free weights, you still kind of know what we're talking about.
Like even people men who do aerobics, women who use
the free weights, you can still tell that there's that
weird You get weird looks and and people are like,
why is that man in an aerobics class? Where what's
that woman doing in our freeweight space? Yeah, because you
it's it's crossing those gendered lines a little bit. Like
(27:46):
he talked about how, you know, the construct of masculinity
and the male physical ideal that is much more muscular
driven compared to more of the female idea. It's more
about toning and shaping. There's even so I don't have
the direct quote in front of me, but there was
a quote from Arnold Schwarzenegger talking about how women can't
(28:08):
really build get super muscular, you know, it's more about
shaping and molding. And maybe I think there was also
an attitude of maybe they shouldn't write and because I
think it was Reebok that didn't sponsor a particular women's
bodybuilding competition because they didn't like the look of some
of those women. They were way too masculine and scary
(28:31):
looking for Reebok to handle. Um. But female bodybuilding is
a relatively recent phenomenon when you take all of exercising
history into account, and it really does freak people out.
In this paper that Thomas Johansen did, most of the
men that he interviewed expressed one of two things either
discussed or respect mixed with disgust. And it comes to
(28:55):
female bodybuilders. Yeah, because again I think it's it's because
of being a transgressive in a way of crossing those
those gendered lines. Now. One thing that Johansson also brings
up about Jim culture is homophobia. He talked about how
the male sphere is characterized by a more distant relationship
(29:15):
between the instructures and the population of the gym. How
you know, it's more likely to you're more likely to
see a personal trainer with a female client rather than
a male client. But I'm I'm gonna go ahead and
say from a personal experience, I don't I think that's
becoming less and less of a case of the case,
especially when you think about gay jim culture. There's even
(29:37):
a book that I found by Eric Alvarez, who is
a personal trainer in San Francisco, who essentially did like
a giant ethnographical study of gay jim culture, and he
wrote a book about it called Muscle Boys Gym Culture
UM which he breaks down the different types of guys
at gay gim's or gay men at gym's UM and
(30:01):
talks about how, uh, there is a strong intersection between
gyms and gay culture because of the pursuit of the
ideal body image and also social interaction. It has been
like a major place for gay men to meet each other.
And I'm not just talking about things like you know,
stereotypes like cruising in the locker rooms, UM, but actually
like meeting, interacting, you're working out together, UM. And he
(30:24):
claims Alvaris does that gay men and the gym culture
have been largely responsible for creating the overall both the gay, straight,
whatever male physical ideal, and it challenges that bigoted stereotype
of gay men as being weak and limp rested. So
working out is important too to a lot of gay men.
(30:48):
Whereas I hate talking to people at the gym, I
do too. Please please please please leave me a lot.
That's why I just run by myself. Well, when when
I was at the to jim, um, I was left
alone for the most part. I mean, it was definitely
taboo to like try to talk to other people, really
because you didn't want to come off as a creep
(31:08):
whatever gender. Um. But I just remember this like elderly man.
You know, he was wearing the headphones that have the
radio built in and he's wearing his red, white and
blue sweatband, like I want to be Jack Lolaine. But
he like he wouldn't stop talking to me. And I
did the thing where I, you know, frustrated, Lee took
out my headphones, was like what what? I can't what
(31:29):
and he was just trying to ask me, like what's
your name? How often do you come to the gym?
And when I told him how much I came to
the jim, He's like, you should really think about coming more.
I was like, I'm going to knock you off of
the elliptical, but I actually have Okay, so that's like,
ha ha, funny whatever, old man talking to you. I
do have a really horrific Jim experienced story about talking
to someone and trainers. I actually I was the last
(31:52):
gym that I belonged to. Was friends with a trainer.
He was a great guy. He helped me a lot,
you know, really nice guy. But I went with an
other trainer one time and he was really creepy, crossed,
acrossed a lot of boundaries, called me at home, um
email started emailing me, and I had to finally say like,
(32:12):
you've got to stop. You know, I you like, gym
culture can be scary. Yeah. I had an experience with
a personal trainer where it was it was too close
for comfort and I had to say, see you me
coming to the gym is not me saying I would
like to hang out. Yeah. It was also like just
(32:35):
on a final side note to it's incredible, like when
when the personal trader was being too forward with me
mid workout, Like when I when I exercise, I flush,
I excessively sweat. You know, that's half the reason why
I don't want to talk to you is because I
(32:56):
kind of look like, you know, a monster. I look
like I have the flu and a sauna. So it
is uh, I mean, and we could go we could
go on and on and on about gym culture because
because it is there, there are so many fascinating dynamics
going on in there in terms of just personal body
(33:17):
issues and the beauty myth starts to come in there,
and these physical ideals, and you have sexuality that is
inherently tied into the mix and gender and and and
and and we pay for it. We our money with
our monies to go to these places. Yeah, so I
guess we should ask people about their gym experiences, Like
(33:38):
what I'd like to hear about people's experiences with the
gender spheres gems and do you cross them or do
you feel like you need to stick to one side
or the other right? And what are what are your
interactions there? I mean, are there people listening who really
prefer to work out just around guys, just around women?
Does it feel our gym safe spaces? I feel like
(34:00):
in a lot of ways, for a lot of people,
they are kind of unsafe spaces because it brings out
all of these insecurities that we have, is we try
to shape our bodies. Yeah, I just didn't make eye
contact when I went to the gym. I have what
kind of want to see you in a gym? Now
you sound like a tough cookie. Well, I really I
really enjoyed that, Jim, Thank you. I guess or why
(34:20):
I really appreciated it. It was a good place. Um.
So I think that's that's all we have to talk about.
Like I said, we could go We could go on
and on, um and there are many other topics we
could branch off into. But in the United States at
least we have Cold war fears to initially thank for
(34:42):
for fueling this. Thanks Russia. Come on, so send us
your thoughts on gym's and working out. Mom's stuff at
Discovery dot com is where you can send your letters.
Oh and if you are working out while you're listening
to this episode, good for you. You You know a lot
of people exercise and listen. Here is a letter from
(35:07):
Robert about our Pinterest episode. Christy has a little shout
out for you. He says, I would like to nominate
one of Kristen's line from the show as the funniest
line I have ever heard on your podcast quote I
went to man testing to see what men are nailing. Oh,
I did say that. I know that was my junior
(35:28):
high self coming out and not my mature forty eight
year old self, but it was funny. I checked out
manterest ing. I would just like to say that as
a manly man, if a dude has to go to
a quote manly pinning site, then he is overcompensating. I
am secure enough in my manhood to not only need
a Pinterest account, and I will pin anything there that
I like, So thank you, Robert. Keep pinning, keep on pinning,
(35:49):
or visit just a small little plug. You can visit
our little our little pinboard pinboard over Pinterest search stuff.
Mom never told you. I've got an email here of
from Julie about our episode on food expiration dates, and
she says I get made fun of constantly to work
for eating expired products. Nothing too crazy, although I will
(36:12):
drink my milk up to ten days after the cell
by date. My manager thinks I'm nuts. She is more
extreme though. I offered her and expired altoid and she
refused it. But to me, Kenny never expires. Chocolate is
good for years, even if it starts to get a
little white. I might try it if I'm desperate. In
the case of the altoyd though, my boss was right.
I found them at my desk over a year old,
(36:34):
and I didn't taste like anything like sugar, but no
meant I didn't get sick. But it was just the
flavor thing that you mentioned, so I thought I would
share altoids or no good after a while. Also, one
time I misread the date on my milk IM poured
it into my cereal. It came out normal looking. The
cat wasn't interested, and that should have been a tip off,
but I got a spoonful in my mouth and then
(36:55):
ran to the Saint. I doubled check my carton expirestion dates. Now, oh,
expired milk. Hey, let'sen this podcast on a saluried milk. Note.
Thanks to everyone for writing in Too Mom Stuff at
Discovery dot com. It's where you can send your letters.
You can also hit us up on Facebook, follow us
(37:17):
on Twitter at moms Stuff podcast, and follow us on
Tumbler as well. Well. We are at stuff Mom Never
Told You dot tumbler dot com and if you want
to learn more about how to stay fit and healthy
and very very happy, you should head over to our website,
it's how stuff works dot com for more on this
(37:38):
and thousands of other topics. Is it how stuff works
dot com
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