How Home Gyms Evolved

If you look at photos of models from the 1940s and 1950s, it's easy to get the impression that they were out of shape! How did our ideals of beauty and health change so much so quickly? A large part of the answer is the acceptance of weight training and its results

The first private health club in the U.S. was started in 1894 by Louis Attila. Our images of those scenes are of the dumbbells, pulleys, and men with big mustaches dressed in tights juggling things that look like bowling pins. This was called "physical culture" and was generally dismissed by the medical community. It was a peculiar cult that was far from the mainstream.

It wasn't until after World War II that Joe Weider started a magazine called Strength & Health. Bodybuilding was still associated in the public consciousness with narcissism and was considered quite peculiar in some unspeakable way. As the magazine popularized the images of well-built men with beautiful women, its name was changed to Muscle & Fitness. Muscle & Fitness remains one of the best-selling magazines to this day. Ads in the backs of all sorts of magazines taught us that the way to avoid the embarrassment of getting sand kicked in our faces in front of our girls was to become more of a MAN. Kids growing up in the 1950s and 1960s wanted to be Charles Atlas.

In the early 1970s, Joe Weider brought Arnold Schwarzenegger from his native Austria to America to be featured in his magazine and to compete in physique contests. Gradually, having big muscles, or at least a toned body, no longer seemed as strange. Still, lifting weights was something that took place in dark, sweaty places frequented by dangerous-looking men.

In the late 1970s, Arthur Jones invented the Nautilus machine. He called this "the thinking man's barbell." This statement in itself was somewhat startling, introducing the idea that the same man could actually both lift weights and think. It was revolutionary that resistance could be spread out evenly along the range of the muscle movement. Because the timing was right, and perhaps because something more sophisticated than a chunk of metal was required to accomplish Jones' breakthrough, the world took notice. An industry was born. Since then, innovations in strength training equipment have come very rapidly.

In the 1980s, health clubs spread like sweat on a handlebar. In the 1990s, the technology and economics of manufacturing changed so much that many people were able to afford to buy sophisticated equipment for their home for the first time. Nowadays many people would rather use a home gym for the privacy and time savingHe.