Content uploaded by Jesper Andreasson
Author content
All content in this area was uploaded by Jesper Andreasson on Mar 07, 2016
Content may be subject to copyright.
Sport Science Review, vol. XXIII, No. 3-4, August 2014
91
The Fitness Revolution.
Historical Transformations in the
Global Gym and Fitness Culture
Jesper ANDREASSON1 • Thomas JOHANSSON2
Today, tness gyms and private health clubs are a huge global busi-
ness. Fitness has turned into a folk movement, but not one compa-
rable to the old 20th-century movements, often connected to national senti-
ments, but instead a highly individualized preoccupation. In this article the
historical development of modern gym and tness culture is described and
an analytically developed approach to the understanding of the emergence of
this multi-billion-dollar phenomenon is developed. The analysis suggest that
the techniques, tools, and physical exercises used today in gyms all over the
world are the results of a physical culture developed and rened during the
20th century. The body ideals, exercises, techniques, and the pedagogy of t-
ness have become an increasingly international enterprise. A tentative analysis
of the globalization of gym and tness culture is developed and presented.
Three important and decisive phases in the globalization of gym and tness
culture are identied and analyzed.
Keywords: tness culture, history, body, globalization
1 Department of Sport Science, Linnaeus University, Kalmar, Sweden
2 Department of Education, Communication and Learning, University of Gothenburg, Sweden
Sport Science Review, vol. XXIII, no. 3-4, 2014, 91 - 112
DOI: 10.2478/ssr-2014-0006
ISSN: (print) 2066-8732/(online) 2069-7244
© 2014 • National Institute for Sport Research • Bucharest, Romania
The Fitness Revolution
92
Since the 1970s we have been witnessing a global transformation and mas-
sive expansion of the tness industry. According to the International Health,
Racquet & Sports Club Association (IHRSA), which is the trade association
serving the health and tness club industry, this global “movement” generated
an estimated $75.7 billion in revenue in 2012, from more than 153,000 health
clubs serving 131.7 million members (IHRSA, 2013). In Great Britain, subscrip-
tions to private tness clubs have risen steadily during recent decades, and a
public survey shows that at the beginning of 2000, 14 percent of the population
attended a gym (Crossley, 2006). These gures are well in line with studies of the
health club population in the United States as well (Sassatelli, 2010), and seem to
be increasing continuously across the globe, spurred not the least by strong com-
mercializing forces (Smith Maguire 2008). Consequently, the Bureau of Labour
Statistics describes employment in the service-producing industries which focus
on the general state of clients’ bodies as one of the fastest-growing industries in
the sector of US labour market (George, 2008).
The tness industry and the idea of muscular bodies can be traced to what
used to be called physical culture in the late-19th century and to the teachings of
the forefathers of bodybuilding such as, for example, Eugene Sandow (1867–
1925) and Charles Atlas (1892–1972) (Budd, 1997; Author, 2013).3 Originally,
this body subculture was viewed almost exclusively and understood as a male
preserve. Another landmark for bodybuilding as a phenomenon can be found in
the movie and book Pumping Iron from the late 1970s, where several popular
bodybuilders, such as Arnold Schwarzenegger and Lou Ferrigno, are portrayed,
while they work out at the famous Gold’s Gym in Venice Beach, California
(Gaines & Butler, 1974; Klein, 1993).
The movie Pumping Iron II (1985), portraying four women preparing for
the Caesars Palace World Cup Championship, can be seen as a breakthrough for
female participation within this subcultural sphere (Author, 2013). This change
could be viewed as a starting point for the development of a new, modern
tness culture, where the notion of the gym gradually came to transform and
shift from a typically masculine activity into a mass leisure activity. Obviously,
gyms reserved solely for hard-core bodybuilding still did and do exist, but they
are becoming increasingly marginalized by the large number of premises that
nd a minimum common denominator in the idea of tness (Sassatelli, 2010).
3 Although muscle building practices obviously can be found much earlier in history, the emergence of
modern tness culture usually is dated to this time. In the analysis we are mainly analyzing the historical
development of modern gym and tness culture and are therefore not aiming to line up a complete his-
tory of muscular bodies. To some extent, we will however, when relevant, point out from ‘where’ specic
cultural expressions may derive even outside this time frame.
Sport Science Review, vol. XXIII, No. 3-4, August 2014
93
The purpose of this article is to describe the historical development
of modern gym and tness culture and to present an analytically developed
approach to understanding the emergence of this global multi-billion-dollar
phenomenon in contemporary society. The article is to be regarded mainly as
a literature review, based on a rich variety of studies describing and analyzing
gym and tness culture, but there is also an ambition to analyze these historical
transformations and to develop a theoretical understanding of this phenomenon.
Mainly the article will argue that the development of contemporary gym and
tness culture can be analysed and understood through three important and
decisive phases of globalization. Different approaches to tness and to muscle-
building techniques will be explored and situated in a global, historical, and socio-
cultural framework. In order to understand certain of the trends and tendencies
in tness, the article will focus on a few - but signicant - parts of the history
of gym and tness culture. For example, contemporary tness culture is largely
founded within the basic system of ideas developed within bodybuilding. The
culture has changed, however, meaning that many of the ideals hailed in this
context also have changed. In order to understand some of the developments
in contemporary gym and tness culture, we will argue that it is necessary to
re-connect to and analyze some of the early developments in physical culture.
Our main focus is centred on the overall transformation from a male-connoted
and national muscle culture, to a commercializing industry operating on a global
scale, spreading and franchising different conceptions of exercise, diet, lifestyle,
and the idea of tness.
Theoretical framework
A discussion highly relevant for the article is to be found in the literature on
the McDonaldization of society (Ritzer, 2011). Ritzer has developed a concept
that can be used to analyze the development of modern and effective organiza-
tions, and uses McDonald’s, as an example of, and paradigm for, a wide-ranging
process in which the principles of the fast-food restaurant increasingly are com-
ing to dominate different sectors of society. Ritzer suggests that there are four
alluring dimensions at the heart of the success of the McDonalds model. First,
this fast food restaurant offers an efcient method for satisfying many different
needs. As such, the model follows a predesigned process which makes it work
effectively. Second, people can calculate how much time it will take to get to Mc-
Donald’s, to order, receive and eat the food. Saving time is crucial here, and Mc-
Donald’s employees are supposed to do a lot of work, quickly and most often for
a low wage. Third, McDonald’s offers no surprises. The products and services are
highly predictable. Finally, the space created for selling hamburgers, with limited
options, allows customers to eat quickly and leave. Thus, this is a highly controlled
space, where diners and workers are subsumed under a closely managed system.
The Fitness Revolution
94
In accordance with the notion of McDonaldization, we will discuss wheth-
er and how similar tendencies have permeated the gym and tness culture. The
Americanization thesis has been the topic of considerable debate and discussion.
When it comes to the gym and tness culture, it is highly relevant to discuss how
bodybuilding and tness, and the whole industry connected to them, have been
historically imbued with American values and cultural conceptions of beauty,
bodies and the individual’s responsibility for taking care of and cultivating the
body (Melnick & Jackson, 2002; Monaghan, 2007).
The modern roots of bodybuilding and tness clearly are to be found in
the United States (Klein, 1993). But in relation to this observation, one impor-
tant question is whether it is possible to talk about a global gym and tness cul-
ture. To what extent are we witness to a relatively homogenized and global form
of body and lifestyle ideals? Or should we instead analyze the global spread of
gym and tness in terms of local developments? Urry (2003, see also 2007) de-
scribes the relation between the global and local the following way:
‘The global and local are inextricably and irreversibly bound together through
a dynamic relationship with huge ows of ‘resources’ moving backwards and
forwards between the two. Neither the global nor local exists without the
other. The global-local develops in a symbiotic, unstable and irreversible set
of relationships in which each gets transformed through billions of worldwide
iterations dynamically evolving over time.’ (Urry, 2003, p. 84)
This seems to be a nuanced way of approaching and analysing different
global phenomena (Ram, 2004; Bale & Christensen, 2004). There is evidence on
the one hand pointing towards local and national approaches to and interpre-
tations of gym and tness (Steen-Johnson, 2007). But there is also some sup-
port on the other hand for the McDonaldization thesis and arguments pointing
towards a successively more homogenizing tendency in global gym and tness
culture (Ritzer, 2011). In this article we will analyze the globalization of gym and
tness culture, and identify a number of historically signicant transformations
in the global gym and tness industry.
The Pre-history of the gym
The history of gym culture is a global story of the development of an
extensive, international, and commercial business sector. As earlier stated, we are
witnessing, during a quite short historical period of time from the 1970s until
today, a rather drastic rise in the numbers of commercial tness gyms, private
tness clubs, franchised chains, international tness magazines, professional
trainers, and so forth (Stern, 2011).
Sport Science Review, vol. XXIII, No. 3-4, August 2014
95
The modern roots of this culture can be traced back to the early 19th cen-
tury European Turnhalle (gymnasium) and Friedrich Ludwig Jahn’s turnkunst
and to the methods for exercise developed by, for example, the Swedish teacher
Per Henrik Ling and Niels Bukh in Denmark (Author, 1998). Furthermore, the
interest in muscles also was attached to a fascination for the grotesque (Author,
1998). In the late 1800s and early 1900s, for example, there was a growing in-
terest in so-called strongmen who performed in circuses and elsewhere in the
United States (Kimmel, 1996). It is possible, of course, to nd earlier roots in
ancient Greece and Rome. Consequently, there are a number of inuences lead-
ing successively to contemporary gym and tness culture. Furthermore, building
muscles and devoting time to strengthening the body has been mainly a male
preoccupation closely related to warfare, violence, and later on to the building of
nation-states—thus, a practice that could be related clearly to what Mosse (1996)
refers to as the masculine stereotype.
In the late-19th century the development of physical culture and especially
of new techniques used to develop and form a strong, muscular, and masculine
body gradually was located in the United States. But this was also an international
and especially Western phenomenon, where scientists from different countries
turned their attention towards physical culture and physical education. Using
inuences from the German, Swedish, and Danish gymnastic movement, for
example, scientists developed techniques and methods for improving health and
strength. The general concern with health and bodies was connected at this time to
industrialization and the need for physically capable male bodies. At the beginning
of the 1900s, sport and physical culture thereby gradually became a preoccupation
for not only the aristocracy, but also workers. This was especially obvious in
the totalitarian states of Germany, Italy, and the Soviet Union (Grant, 2013).
One of the central and perhaps most inuential proles in physical culture
in the beginning of 20th century was Eugene Sandow. He was born in 1867 in
Königsberg, Germany. Sandow started his career as a strongman, working his
way through a number of circuses and vaudeville shows. For a long time he
toured together with Professor Attila, a physical education teacher. Together
they changed the way of looking at weight training and muscles.
‘Professor Attila’s greatest contribution to Sandow and to weight training in
general was his insistence on using heavy weights. This in itself was ying in the
face of popular wisdom. It was commonly believed that lifting weights heavier
than ve or ten pounds would eventually lead the athlete to a condition called
muscle binding, in which the unfortunate victim became so muscular that he
could not move his limbs.’ (Chapman, 1994, p. 10)
The Fitness Revolution
96
When touring in the United States, Sandow draw great attention to his
well-developed body. He gradually became famous; people ocked to watch
him ex his muscles and queued up to touch and feel his body. Sandow’s fame
coincided with the development of modern photography; he was gured on a
large number of postcards, and photos of his half-nude body were widespread
in different countries.
As late as 1866 it was possible to be prosecuted for indecency for showing
a naked leg in Britain, but at the end of the 19th century, pictures of half-nude
male bodies were often on display (Budd, 1997). According to Budd (1997),
physical culture and proles such as Sandow’s played an important role in this
process of change and also in the emergence of homosexual cultures of desire
and homosexual communities (cf. Dutton, 2012). Budd writes:
‘The question was then not so much one of how same-sex relations between
men became criminalized in the period but rather how other male pleasures like
those encouraged in physical culture were at the same time asserted as legitimate.’
(Budd, 1997, p. 71)
The rapid growth of physical culture and the interest in shaping and sculpting
the body must be understood in relation to drastic changes in capitalist societies
and the millennium shift. Class roles were changing, and there was a promise
of subsuming class differences and transgressing traditional positions. In the
midst of this changing social and cultural landscape, urban turmoil, and vibrant
commercial culture, the promise of changing one’s body and becoming a different
and maybe ‘better’ person attracted both men and women. Physical culture welded
together elements of commercial culture and nationalist and imperial ideologies.
Social Darwinism and racism melted unproblematic together with promises of
individual happiness and possibilities of looking young and t. At this time
physical culture was strongly connected to religion. Training and exercising the
body was seen as a way of taking care of God’s gift. Within the movement
called Muscular Christianity, physical culture was seen as a way to develop a
healthy, religious, and morally righteous lifestyle (Green, 1986; Putney, 2001).
Sandow was perhaps one of the rst tness entrepreneurs. He published
a magazine and opened an institute for physical culture. He personally met and
diagnosed everyone who entered his institute (Chapman, 1994). He diagnosed
the problem, gave out a prescription, and wrote down a series of exercises to
be performed. He can be seen as an early version of the personal trainer and
coach. Sandow was part of a larger development in physical culture. In 1901 he
introduced the rst bodybuilding contest, in Royal Albert Hall in London, called
the Great Competition. Thereafter, the initiative was passed on to people like
Sport Science Review, vol. XXIII, No. 3-4, August 2014
97
Bernarr Macfadden in the United States and other inuential characters such as
Charles Atlas (Reich, 2010). They were all part of developing an international
and global physical culture. Sandow travelled around the world trying to spread
his message and to sell his methods and lifestyle concept. In one sense he was a
cultural colonizer, but in another sense he tried to rise above race and ethnicity
and saw the universal possibility of improvement of the human body. He saw
no hindrances or problems in devotion to physical culture in countries such as
India or South Africa. Instead, he saw great possibilities in the similarities of
bodies over the whole globe.
Another important icon for the early development of bodybuilding was
Charles Atlas (1883–1972). Following the legacy of Sandow, he became famous
when he developed and marketed a special exercise programme for bodybuilding.
He saw it as his mission to build a perfect race and to contribute to a country
of perfect human masterpieces (Kimmel, 1996). Atlas regarded physical culture
and muscle building as a part of national salvation. According to Kimmel, the
transformations of US society, the world wars, and the changing role of the
American father and man led to more or less chronic crises in masculinity (cf.
Todd, 1998). American men tried in different ways to defend their gender and
to keep up a strong and condent masculinity. Through proles such as Atlas,
the heritage from Muscular Christianity, and the search for a national hero led
to the rapid development of physical culture, to the national and international
organization of an early tness industry, and to the development of a modern
form of bodybuilding in the 1960s and especially the 1970s. Furthermore,
Angelo Siciliano’s transformation from an Italian immigrant to the all-American
citizen Charles Atlas was also a part of a story of how American men tried to
reground and secure manhood. The movement of Muscular Christianity played
an important role in this process, not least through the YMCA and the 4,500
gymnasiums connected to this organization in the beginning of the twentieth
century (Reich, 2010; Stern, 2011). Reich (2010) argues that the connection
between Atlas and mainstream American religious movements distances him
from his immigrant roots and de-racializes him. Thus, he is safely positioned
in a white, Protestant, American mainstream. These early developments within
physical culture and role models such as Sandow and Atlas were forerunners to
the bodybuilding culture developed at Gold’s Gym and other locations in the
1970s (Hunt, 1989).
Sandow and Atlas laid the ground for a global bodybuilder culture and
where probably the rst real entrepreneurs in the international tness business.
They traveled, and tried to spread their message on a global scale and can
thus be said to represent the rst phase towards a globalization of gym and
tness culture. Even though it is possible to identify all the ingredients of a
The Fitness Revolution
98
globalization of gym and tness culture – such as magazines, promotional
tours, mass production of training tools etc. – this development is still on a very
rudimentary level however, and we are quite far from the massive development
possible to identify during the 1970s.
Sandow retired after the war and lived with his wife in a cottage in the
countryside outside London. After attempting to lift his car from a muddy ditch,
he suffered a stroke and died in 1925. An exemplary plaster cast of Sandow
remains in the possession of the Natural History Museum in London. It is kept
deep down in the basement, in a bomb shelter (Budd, 1997).
The subculture of bodybuilding
Today there are a great number of international magazines—such as
Ironman, Muscles, Bodypower, Bodybuilding, and Musclemag—devoted entirely
to the art of bodybuilding. There are also a manifold of books and manuals
available with training programmes. Through different organizations, such as
The International Federation of Bodybuilding and Fitness (IFBB), bodybuilding
has become a global enterprise and sport. Joseph ‘Joe’ Weider, who founded
the IFBB in 1946,4 published one of the rst tness magazines, Your Physique,
when he was 18 years old, and at the peak of his career, he owned an empire of
tness magazines and gyms (Luciano, 2001). For example, his Muscle & Fitness
magazine sold more than 400,000 copies in the mid-1970s. At the same time,
the famous Gold’s Gym had blossomed and developed from a small, shabby,
marginal gym into a four-hundred-strong global franchise (Liokaftos, 2012).
The lm Pumping Iron (1977) put Gold’s Gym, Arnold Schwarzenegger, and
his friends on the global bodybuilding map.
‘Aside from a ashy red, white and blue sign over the door, Gold’s Gym is not
a very interesting-looking place from the outside. It’s a chunky one-story buff-
colored building, hunkering close to Pacic Avenue that three steps out the door
puts you into the middle of trafc. But inside it’s exactly right. In the back there
is a small ofce and a protein bar. Above them are showers and a locker room.
All the rest is gym.’ (Gaines & Butler, 1974, p. 34)
When bodybuilding became ‘hot’ again, everything developed quite rapidly.
For quite a long time, bodybuilding was seen as a purposeless and meaningless
masculine preoccupation, especially so during the 1960s. The golden period of
strongmen in the beginning of the twentieth century was gradually replaced by a
long period of a slow development of the tness business. This does not mean,
however, that nothing happened until 1977 and the ‘rebirth’ of bodybuilding
4 At this time called ‘the International Federation of BodyBuilders’.
Sport Science Review, vol. XXIII, No. 3-4, August 2014
99
through Pumping Iron. In Sweden, for example, Arne Tammer became famous
when trying to convince the entire Swedish population to spend 15 minutes
each day doing strength training and other kinds of exercises (Author, 1998). In
the footsteps of Muscular Christianity and similar movements, people like Arne
Tammer tried to mobilize the nation. These efforts to engage people in different
forms of exercises, especially the ones emphasizing weight training, often
regarded modern society as a cause of stress, illnesses, and physical weakness.
Through weight training and exercise, modern man could become a part of
building a strong nation.
Arnold Schwarzenegger was born in Thal, Austria, in 1947. His father was
a police master and his mother a housewife. In the partly autobiographical book
Arnold: The Education of a Bodybuilder (Schwarzenegger & Hall, 1977), his
father was described as a rational and self-disciplined man. Schwarzenegger
started bodybuilding as a teenager, and at that time, and in Austria, this was not
a highly valued physical activity. When Joe Weider called the twenty-one-year-old
Arnold in 1968 and asked him to participate in the Mr. Universe competition, he
packed his bag and went to the United States. He lost the competition but soon
made a comeback and won several competitions in a row. After the success of
Pumping Iron, Arnold was drawn into Hollywood and the lm industry, and the
rest is history.
The interest in bodybuilding, workout techniques, aerobics, and tness in
general exploded in the 1980s. This is a complex history, and there are manifold
explanations of why this cultural and body-centered transformation occurred.
Susan Jeffords situates this in a historical time of Reagan and Thatcher, war and
nationalist movements.
‘The Reagan era was an era of bodies. From the anxieties about Reagan’s age
and the appearance of cancerous spots on his nose; to the protable craze in
aerobics and exercise; to the moulding of a former Mr. Universe into the biggest
box-ofce draw of the decade; to the conservative agenda to outlaw abortion;
to the identication of ‘value’ through an emphasis on drug use, sexuality, and
child-bearing; to the thematized aggression against persons with AIDS – these
articulations of bodies constituted the imaginary of the Reagan agenda and the
site of its materialization.’ (Jeffords, 1994, p. 24)
Pumping Iron can be seen as a symbol for the 1980s and as a part of a
zeitgeist. However, the reputation and popularity of bodybuilding was negatively
affected by the increasing use of performance/image-enhancing drugs during
the 1970s and 80s. One reason for the separation between bodybuilding and
tness is also to be found in frequent reports on drug use, anabolic steroids,
The Fitness Revolution
100
and the obsessional traits of bodybuilders. Through self-confessions, such as
Sam Fussell’s famous Muscle: Confession of an Unlikely Bodybuilder (1991),
the public’s images of bodybuilding were coloured and the ‘sport’ got a bad
reputation (Hoberman, 2005).
Sam Fussell, the son of two university professors of English, started body-
building at the age of twenty-six. The starting point was a period of ill health
and a slowly deteriorating condition. Fussell (1991) was also anxious and had
problems adjusting to living in New York. He was lled with fear—then he
found bodybuilding. In September 1984 Fussell read Arnold: The Education
of a Bodybuilder, and he decided to start pushing weights at a local gym. He
described his rst experience as follows:
‘There was a beautiful simplicity about it. I pushed the iron, and my body grew.
The harder I worked, the better I felt. My routine brought order amid chaos. I
knew just where to shufe and when: Deltoids followed pecs, hamstring fol-
lowed squads. Always twelve reps, always three circuits. I barely paused between
exercises, moving from station to station, cable to bar.’ (Fussell, 1991, p. 43)
Vividly and in great detail, Fussell brings us into his world. He describes
step by step how he became a bodybuilder. He also shows how bodybuilding
and the daily exercise turned into a necessity and maybe even a vital condition
for survival. He compares his routines and lifestyle to a workaholic devoting
himself every hour of the day to work. The gym becomes his second home,
and the more he trains, the more he wants to train. He described how his body
ached for the pump, that is, the strong sensation achieved when pumping up the
muscles to a maximum. Gradually Fussell transforms his body and becomes a
bodybuilder. He shaves his whole body, and does anything necessary to step into
the role as a full-edged bodybuilder. But this transformation does not come for
free. When arriving in California and at Gold’s Gym, he is also entering into the
world of steroids.
‘From my rst moment on the juice, nothing else mattered. Nothing but my
workouts, my growth, my meals, my injections, and my friends, who were con-
cerned with their workouts, their growth, their meals, their injections. Everything
else was not just secondary – it was positively inconsequential.’ (p. 131)
When his personality gradually changes, and he becomes unpleasant and ag-
gressive, he also starts a process of reconsolidation and gradually succeeds in
freeing himself from bodybuilding, drugs, and the dependency on four hours
of daily exercise.
Sport Science Review, vol. XXIII, No. 3-4, August 2014
101
Sam Fussell’s story is not unique. In the 1990s bodybuilding got a bad
reputation and became associated with a fragile, weak masculinity and steroids
(Klein, 1993; Denham, 2008; Monaghan, 2001). Academics used bodybuilders
as examples of postmodern pastiche and as the example par excellence of a
postmodern self (Glasner, 1990; Lindsay, 1996). The status of the huge mas-
culine body has changed over the years (cf. Yang, et al., 2005). In the 1990s and
especially in the beginning of 2000s, the negative effects of steroids and drug
use were thoroughly investigated, and today there are controls at many gyms. A
Danish study shows how tness franchises, such as SATS and Fitness World, use
drug tests to keep up a good reputation, but also to remove bodybuilders from
their clientele (Mogensen, 2011).
Today bodybuilding is often described and studied as a subculture (Bridges,
2009). The bodybuilder and the huge muscular male body have an ambivalent
position in contemporary culture. Classic lm stars and action heroes such as
Arnold Schwarzenegger, Sylvester Stallone, and others are still highly valued. At
the same time, representations of these kinds of bodies are not unproblematic
in everyday life situations, and the bodybuilder is often viewed as something of a
freak (cf. McGrath & Chananie-Hill, 2009). Today it also seems that bodybuild-
ers are quite conscious about the negative effects of this sport. A survey study
of the New Zealand bodybuilders conveyed consciousness of the problematic
aspects of bodybuilding, such as eating disorders, dependency, and relationship
problems (Probert, Leberman & Palmer, 2007). However, a study of an online
bodybuilder community also shows that irrespective of these negative and prob-
lematic consequences of bodybuilding, the fans and the dedicated practitioners
of this subculture are prepared to take the risks (Smith & Stewart, 2012).
Bodybuilding and the status of this sport have changed and transformed.
From the beginning, it was an almost exclusively male preoccupation. At the
beginning of the 20th century and again in the 1970s, bodybuilding attained a
high status. In certain countries, and denitely in the United States, bodybuild-
ing certainly was not a subculture, but instead something of a masculine mass
movement. Also it seemed that in the beginning of the 20th century and all the
way into the 1980s, bodybuilding was mainly a blue-collar and working-class
preoccupation (Liokaftos, 2012). Today, bodybuilding has been separated from
the concept of tness and thereby become more or less a subculture populated
by men and women and a mix of people, but a larger number of the individuals
involved are middle class (Monaghan, 2001).
The development within bodybuilding from the 1970s and onwards – the
building of the Weider brother’s empire in gym and tness culture, the stardom
of Arnold Schwarzenegger and others, and the mediatization of bodybuilding
The Fitness Revolution
102
and tness – can be interpreted as parts of a second phase of the globaliza-
tion of gym and tness culture. In contrast to the rst phase, the development
towards a global culture is accentuated by mediatization of society, and the de-
velopment of a global business enterprise. The rudimentary development of
a global gym and tness culture during the twentieth century has now been
rened, developed and turned into a widespread global business.
During the second phase of the globalization of gym and tness culture
both men and women are involved, and the heavy connotations to working
class bodies are replaced by a more diffuse and broad inclusion of both work-
ing and middle class participants. This does not mean that all class and gender
distinctions are erased from the gym and tness culture, but merely that from
being a more exclusive sport, there is a movement towards a mass participation
in tness.
The fitness revolution
1968 Kenneth Cooper’s groundbreaking book Aerobics was published.
This book resulted in a rapid development of different forms of tness exercises.
Later the concept of aerobics also became well-known as a specic form of
exercise. The rise of health clubs in the USA was related to a growing urban
population of singles, and working out became a part of an urban, middle-class
and single lifestyle (Luciano, 2001). Parallel with the development in bodybuilding
women like Jane Fonda and others developed a specic form of gymnastics and
choreographed movements, labeled as workout.
In the 1980s tness and workout was still connected to emphasized
femininity (Connell, 1995), and to a dutiful housewife. Fonda advocated a life
where tness is compatible with child-care and domestic work. Her videos also
targeted an audience of house-wives, making it possible to exercise in front of
the television at home (Manseld, 2011). In the autobiography Fonda (2005)
described her lifetime work with tness and workout. Her rst book sold 17
million copies, and she became an important part of the international tness
industry. Fonda released altogether twenty-three workout videos and ve
workout books during the 1980s and 90s (Manseld, 2011).
In the 1980s USA workout was rst and foremost a preoccupation for
the white middle-class. In the late 1980s black women were largely absent from
tness classes (Lau, 2011). This picture changed, however, and in the 1990s
workout and tness became a business for larger parts of the population.
The workout techniques and the whole concept of tness/aerobics were also
exported to different countries on a global market. In Sweden, for example,
Sport Science Review, vol. XXIII, No. 3-4, August 2014
103
Susanne Lanefelt, inspired by Jane Fonda, developed a form of Swedish version
of workout. She was successful, and had a television program, and wrote books
etc. In one of her books she writes:
‘I want to be in control of my body, and I want to feel that my muscles behave
the way I want them to. I want to decide where my ass should be, to have well-
trimmed legs and a at stomach.’ (Author, 1998, p. 61)
In the 1990s and especially when moving forward to the rst two decades
of the twenty-rst century, there is an explosion of tness franchises and
increasingly more people are drawn into tness. Whereas workout is the term
used in the 1980s, Aerobics is frequently used in the 1990s, but today most
people just use the term tness when talking about tness gyms, characterized
by a mixture of training styles and methods.
In the 1990s in Sweden there was a strong development from the classic
weight-training and bodybuilder gyms to multidimensional tness gyms where
different techniques were gathered under one roof. A typical 1990s tness gym
in Sweden consisted of a large room with different types of training machines
and gears, a room with classic weights, and one or two rooms for group tness
activities. This development was brought about in different ways and started at
different points in various countries. In Sweden the tness gym in the 1990s
was a highly gendered room, where the young men often spent their time in
the strength-training parts of the gym and the young women exercised and did
workout in other rooms. But a main and crucial development was that the young
women gradually found their way into the strength training parts of the gym. In
order to develop the 1990s hard body, it became necessary to use barbells and
weights or machines. The tness gym’s appearance gradually changed and turned
into a more differentiated and individualized space, where gender eventually
played a different role.
Aerobics was also exported to Japan. During the 1980s and 1990s, there
were great concerns in Japan about the population’s general health condition.
Statistics showed that Japanese seldom exercised or devoted themselves to
physical culture (Spielvogel, 2003). Cooper’s book, Aerobics, played a central
role in promoting tness in Japan, and in the beginning of the 1990s there
was a rapid growth of tness centres, particularly in the larger cities. Although
this development was inuenced by American tness culture, it was adopted in
quite a different way in Japan. The tness centres took the shape of recreational
places, where especially an afuent part of the middle-class population spent
their leisure time. At these locations it was possible to exercise, but also to be
entertained, eat ice cream, get a massage, and relax. These often exclusive clubs
became places where the middle class could relax and develop a consumer
The Fitness Revolution
104
lifestyle. Rather than spaces of discipline, tness centres became spaces of
luxury (Spielvogel, 2003).
During the 1980s and 90s there is a massive development in gym and t-
ness culture. This can be described as a third phase of the globalization of
this culture. In 1991 there were, for example, 300 tness gyms in Sweden, and
approximately 250,000 individuals exercised in these gyms, whereas the gyms
in the beginning of 1980s were few and visited by mostly a small group of en-
thusiasts and bodybuilder fans. During this period of time, the subculture of
bodybuilding was gradually disconnected from a more general trend of tness
gyms and from a conception of the gym as a place for everyone and a mass
leisure activity. Sassatelli (2010) captures this development in the following way:
‘However since the 1970s there has been a marked increase in the number of
exercise premises presenting themselves in a new guise. They have addressed an
increasingly large, mixed public. They have shifted the notion of the gym from
a sub-cultural passion to a mass leisure activity, intertwined with pop culture.’
(Sassatelli, 2010, p. 17)
The cultural and gradual separation between bodybuilding and tness does
not mean that these phenomena become two different activities and lifestyles.
These conceptions of exercise and lifestyle partly are disconnected from each
other and partly increasingly dependent on each other.
To a certain extent the third phase of the globalization of gym and tness
culture is parallel with the second phase. These developments are organically
interwoven and independent. However, the tness revolution – evolving as a mass
enterprise, washing of the stamp of the more grotesque parts of bodybuilding
culture, the drugs and the extreme cult of the huge muscular body – also leads to
the development of in one sense a more uniform and homogenous global gym
and tness culture, and in another sense to glocal variations in the adaptation of
this global ‘culture’.
Discussion: Fitness as a global business and lifestyle
The development of the contemporary tness culture and industry is the
aftermath of complex historical processes. In this article we have pointed towards
some of the most central aspects of the transformation of this phenomenon.
The main argument put forward in the article is that the transformation and
globalization of gym and tness culture is structured in three different but partly
overlapping phases of development. This global enterprise transforms mainly
Sport Science Review, vol. XXIII, No. 3-4, August 2014
105
through the structural transformations of society and the cultural and social
processes of mediatization, and individualization.
It started primarily in the beginning of the twentieth century with entre-
preneurs such as Eugene Sandow and Charles Atlas, and later with businessmen
such as Bob Hoffman and Joe Weider. Although Bob Hoffman, who built a
successful business around barbells and weight training (Fair, 1999), put up a
good ght, everything changed when Joe Weider and his brother Ben formed
The International Federation of Bodybuilders (IFBB). The membership grew
steadily in the 1950s and 1960s, and by the late 1970s there were more than 100
member associations worldwide. In the late 1960s the title Mr. Olympia had
been created to bring together the world’s top bodybuilders, and bodybuilding
thereby became a global business (Dutton, 1995). In 1995 the IFBB boasted 134
afliated national bodybuilding associations, and it is a member of the General
Association of International Sports Federations (GAISF).
In many countries there has been a struggle among certain practitioners to
prevent a heavy commercialization of these forms of exercise and the develop-
ment of whole commercialized lifestyle concepts. In the United States, for ex-
ample, the YMCA tried for a long time to keep outside the commercial aspects
of the business and to make it possible for young people to exercise for free
(Miller & Fielding, 1995). But eventually many organizations have been forced
to become regular businesses. Today, tness gyms and private health clubs are
a huge global business. Fitness has become the overall concept used when re-
ferring to health clubs, tness franchises, and tness gyms. Fitness thereby has
turned into a folk movement, but not one comparable to the old 20th-century
movements, often connected to national sentiments, but instead a highly indi-
vidualized and personal task. The blurring of the relation between health and
beauty, although manifested in slightly different ways nationally, is a central part
of this transformation.
The face of tness gyms has changed, and it is possible to talk about
a tness revolution. One of the most fascinating parts of this history is the
strained but also independent relation developed between bodybuilding and t-
ness. Whereas bodybuilding often is connoted by things such as drugs, steroids,
hyper-masculinity, vanity, hustling, the postmodern self, pastiche, and violence,
tness has come to be connected to health, beauty and youth. This distinction
between healthy and unhealthy lifestyles is only a part of the truth about the
tness business. Instead, these two phenomena are interconnected and highly
dependent on each other.
The Fitness Revolution
106
The development of the gym and tness industry is to a great extent an
international and global history. The techniques, tools, and physical exercises
used today in gyms all over the world are the results of a physical culture devel-
oped and rened during the 20th century. This culture also has roots stretch-
ing back to ancient Greece and Rome. In the same way as the development of
fashion, for example, was tied to specic times, spaces, and places—Paris, New
York, Milan—gym culture travelled in time and space from the Nordic countries
and Europe to the United States, and in the 1970s, Gold’s Gym and California
became the melting pot of bodybuilding and tness. Another center appeared
simultaneously in Montreal, Canada, where Joe and Ben Weider built their glob-
al empire of bodybuilding. Through magazines, arrangements of bodybuilding
contests, and not least the foundation of the IFBB, the Weider brothers contrib-
uted to the globalization of tness and gym culture.
Although certain places and even specic gyms have played a central role
in the history of gym culture, the body ideals, exercises, techniques, and the
pedagogy of tness have become an increasingly international enterprise. Thus,
it is not possible to refer to bodybuilding and tness as a specic American or
Canadian phenomenon. But this does not mean that it is impossible to trace
tendencies to standardize techniques and exercises used in the global arena of
gym culture, which, in a certain sense, can take the form of a McDonaldization
of gym culture (Ritzer, 2011). With respect to calculability, for example, tness
activities have resemblances to McDonald’s model for success, where it is easy
to calculate the time it takes to perform certain activities. Furthermore, the prod-
ucts and services of tness are more or less identical everywhere, and to some
extent predictability rules, when for example looking the franchising systems of
group tness activities developed by Les Mills. During the third phase of the
globalization of gym and tness culture global chains such as Les Mills Inter-
national points heavily towards a standardization and homogenization of this
global culture. The tendency towards homogenization and predictability is also,
to some extent apparent when looking at the body ideals that effectively is pro-
duced within contemporary gym and tness culture. It is possible to talk about
the construction of a global body ideal, since the ‘hard’ body, the well-trained,
fat-free, clearly-dened, and slimmed body seems to be more or less hegemonic
in advertising and consumer culture (Dworkin & Wachs, 2009).
However, at the same time it is possible to nd case studies from differ-
ent countries throughout the literature, pointing towards both similarities and
differences in the way the tness industry gained its specic national or local
form and expression. Spielvogel’s (2003) study of tness in Japan stands out as
an example of how the training philosophy and the whole tness concept are
adapted to a specic national culture and specic values. Consequently there are
Sport Science Review, vol. XXIII, No. 3-4, August 2014
107
important differences between gyms in different places and nations. The aura of
exclusivity varies between different gyms. They also promulgate different phi-
losophies, from the working-class gym attending mostly by men, too expensive
and luxurious facilities for upper-class men and women (Sassatelli, 2010; Smith
Maguire, 2008).
References
Bale, J. & Christensen, M. K. (2004). Post-Olympics. Questioning Sport in the Twenty-
rst Century. Oxford: Berg.
Bridges, T. S. (2009). Gender Capital and Male Bodybuilders. Body & Society,
15(1), 83-107.
Budd, M. A. (1997). The Sculpture Machine. Physical Culture and Body Politics in the
Age of Empire. London: MacMillan Press.
Bureau of Labor Statistics, U.S. Department of Labor. (2012). Occupational
Outlook Handbook, 2012-13 Edition, Projections Overview. Accessed April 18,
2013 at: http://www.bls.gov/ooh/about/projections-overview.htm.
Chapman, D. L. (1994). Sandow the Magnicent. Eugen Sandow and the beginning of
Bodybuilding. Chicago: University of Illinois Press.
Connell, R. W. (1995). Masculinities. Cambridge: Polity Press.
Crossley, N. (2006). In the gym: Motives, meaning and moral careers. Body &
Society, 12(3), 23-50.
Denham, B. E. (2008). Masculinities in Hardcore Bodybuilding. Men and
Masculinities, 11(2), 234-42.
Dutton, K. R. (1995). The Perfectible Body. The western Ideal of Physical development.
London: Cassell.
Dutton, K.R. (2012). The Self Contained Body. The Heroic and Aesthetic/
Erotic Modes of Representing the Muscular Body. In Locks, A & Richardson,
N (ed.). Critical Readings in Bodybuilding. New York/London: Routledge.
The Fitness Revolution
108
Dworkin, S.L. & Wachs, L. (2009). Body Panic.Gender, health, and the Selling of Fitness.
New York: New York University Press.
Fair, J. D. (1999). Muscletown USA. Bob Hoffman and the Manly Culture of York
Barbell. Pennsylvania University Park: The Pennsylvania State University Press.
Fonda, J. (2005). My Life So Far. New York: Random House.
Fussell, S. (1991). Muscles. The Confession of an Unlikely Bodybuilder. New York:
Scribner’s.
Gaines, C., & Butler, G. (1974). Pumping Iron.The Art and Sport of Bodybuilding.
London: Sphere Books Ltd.
George, M. (2008). Interactions in Expert Service Work. Demonstrating
Professionalism in Personal Training. Journal of Contemporary Ethnography, 37,
108-31.
Glasner, B. (1990). Fit for Postmodern Selfhood. In Becker, H. S., and McCall,
M. M. (editors) Symbolic Interaction and Cultural Studies, pp. 215-243. Chicago:
The University of Chicago Press.
Grant, S. (2013). Physical Culture and Sport in Soviet Society. Propaganda, Acculturation,
and Transformation in the 1920s and 1930s. London: Routledge.
Green, H. (1986). Fit for America. Health, Fitness, Sport and the American Society.
Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press.
Hoberman, J. (2005). Testosterone Dreams.Rejuvenation, Aphrodisiac, Doping. Berkeley:
University of California Press.
Hunt, W.R. (1989). Body Love. The amazing career of Bernarr Macfadden. Bowling
Green: Bowling Green State University Press.
IHRSA. (2013). The 2013 IHRSA Global Report. The state of the Health Club Industry.
Boston: IHRSA.
Jeffords, S. (1994). Hard Bodies. Hollywood Masculinity in the Reagan Era. New
Brunswick: Rutgers University Press.
Kimmel, M. (1996). Manhood in America. A Cultural History. New York: The Free
Press.
Sport Science Review, vol. XXIII, No. 3-4, August 2014
109
Klein, A. M. (1993). Little big men. Bodybuilding subculture and gender construction. New
York: State University of New York Press.
Lau, K. J. (2011). Body Language. Sisters in Shape, Black Women’s Fitness, and Feminist
Identity Politics. Philadelphia: Temple University Press.
Lindsay, C. (1996). Bodybuilding: A Postmodern Freak Show. In Thomson, R.G.
(ed.). Freakery. Cultural Spectacles of the Extraordinary Body. New York: New
York University Press.
Liokaftos, D. (2012). From ‘Classical’ to ‘Freaky’. An exploration of the development of
dominant, organised male bodybuilding culture. London: Goldsmith’s College, PhD.
Luciano, L. (2001). Looking Good: Male Body Image in Modern America. New York:
Hill and Wang.
McGrath, S., & Chananie-Hill, R. (2009). ‘Big Freaky-Looking Women’. Nor-
malizing Gender Transgression through Bodybuilding. Sociology of Sport Jour-
nal, 26, 235-254.
Manseld, L. (2011). ‘Sexercise’: Working out Heterosexuality in Jane Fonda’s
Fitness Books, Leisure Studies, 30(2), 237-55.
Melnick, J. M. & Jackson, S. J. (2002) ‘Globalization American-Style and Reference
Selection: The Importance of Athlete Celebrity Others among New Zealand
Youth’. International Review for the Sociology of Sport, 37(3-4), 429-448.
Miller, L. K., & Fielding, L. W. (1995). The battle between the For-Prot Health
Club and the “Commercial” YMCA. Journal of Sport and Social Issues, 19,
February.
Mogensen, K. (2011). Body Punk. En afhandling om mandlige kropsbyggere og
kroppens betydninger i lyset av antidoping kampagner [Body Punk. A Thesis on
male bodybuilders and the meanings of the body in the light of anti-doping
campaigns]. Roskilde: Roskilde Universitetscenter.
Monaghan, L. (2001). Bodybuilders drugs and risk. Health, risk and society. New York:
Routledge.
Monaghan, L. F. (2007). McDonaldizing men’s bodies? Associated (ir)rationalities
and resistances. Body & Society, 13(2), 67-93.
The Fitness Revolution
110
Mosse, G. (1996). The image of man. The Creation of Modern Masculinity. New York/
Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Probert, A., Leberman, S., & Palmer, F. (2007). New Zealand Bodybuilder
Identities. International Review for the Sociology of Sport, 42(1), 5-26.
Putney, C. (2001). Muscular Christianity. Manhood and Sports in Protestant America,
1880-1920. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press.
Ram, U. (2004). Glocommodication: How the Global Consumes the Local –
McDonald’s in Israel. Current Sociology, 52(1), 11-31.
Reich, J. (2010). The World’s most Perfectly Developed Man. Charles Atlas,
Physical Culture, and the Inscription of American Masculinity. Men and
Masculinities, 12(4), 444-461.
Ritzer, G. (2011). The McDonaldization of Society 6. London: SAGE.
Sassatelli, R. (2010). Fitness Culture.Gyms and the Commercialisation of Discipline and
Fun. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.
Schwarzenegger, A., & Hall, D. K. (1977). Arnold: The Education of a Bodybuilder.
New York: Simon & Schuster.
Smith, A. C. T., & Stewart, B. (2012). Body Perception and health Behaviours in
an Online Bodybuilding Community. Qualitative Health Research, 22(7), 971-85.
Smith Maguire, J. (2008). Fit for Consumption. Sociology and the business of tness.
London/New York: Routledge.
Spielvogel, L. (2003). Working out in Japan. Shaping the female body in Tokyo tness
clubs. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.
Steen-Johnsen, K. (2007). Globalized Fitness in the Norwegian Context.
International Review for the Sociology of Sport, 42(3), 343-62.
Stern, M. (2011). Real or Rogue Charity? Private Health Clubs vs. the YMCA, 1970-
2010. Business and Economic History, On-Line, 9.
Todd, J. (1998). Physical Culture and the Body Beautiful. Purposive Exercise in the Lives
of American Women 1800-1870. Macon, Georgia: Mercer University Press.
Sport Science Review, vol. XXIII, No. 3-4, August 2014
111
Urry, J. (2003). Global Complexity. Cambridge: Polity Press.
Urry, J. (2007) Mobilities. Cambridge: Polity Press.
Yang, C. F. J., Gray, P., & Pope, H. (2005). Male body image in Taiwan versus
the West: Yanggang Zhiqi meets the Adonis complex. American Journal of
Psychiatry, 162(2), 263-269.
Jesper ANDREASSON is currently a docent in sport science at Linnaeus University,
Sweden. He earned his PhD in sociology at Lund University in 2007. He has written
mainly in the eld of gender studies, the sociology of sport and gym/tness culture.
Andreasson has published articles in journals such as Journal of Ethnography and
Education, Journal of Men's studies, Journal of Sport, Education and Society, and SAGE
Open. Among his books are: "The Global Gym. Gender Health, and Pedagogies" (2014,
with Thomas Johansson).
Corresponding address:
Jesper Andreasson,
Linnaeus University, Department of Sport Science,
391 82 Kalmar,
Sweden
E-mail: Jesper.andreasson@lnu.se
Phone: +46 480 446091
Thomas JOHANSSON is professor of education at the department of Education,
Communication and Learning, University of Gothenburg, Sweden. He has written
extensively on youth culture, the sociology of the family and masculinity. Among his
books are: Social psychology & Modernity (2000), The Transformation of Sexuality
(2007), and Young Migrants (2012, with Katrine Fangen and Nils Hammarén). He can
be contacted at: thomas.johansson@ped.gu.se
