All progressive advancements takes several forms. It most commonly consists of small increments attributable to continuous improvement, or something the Japanese call “Kaizen”. Then, boom, an occasional event occurs that truly causes progress to surge forward, the discontinuous change. We call this an inflection point. The world of fitness has experienced its fair share of these.
Inflection points are points in time, where due to an invention, cultural shift, or a “tipping point”, a phenomenon occurred for the rapid adoption of a product, practice, or idea that causes a leap in progress.
Cases in point would have to be the invention of the personal computer, iPhone, iPad, and social media. Give credit to whomever you want, Steve Jobs, Bill Gates, Mark Zuckerberg, or IBM, but the introduction of those products caused inflection points and the human race will never be the same again.
We contend the world of fitness has and continues to go through inflection points.
Inflection Points in Fitness
We’ve pondered about the inflection points in the fitness industry and here are some observations:
- Joseph Pilates develops his Pilates method focusing on the core (circa 1924)
- The Jack LaLanne brings exercise to the masses via the new medium of television (1951)
- President’s Council on Physical Fitness & Sports emphasizes exercise to the entire population (1960)
- Surgeon General’s Report on Dangers of Sedentary Living (1966)
- Kenneth Cooper coins “Aerobics” (1968)
- Arthur Jones invents the Nautilus circuit time efficient strength training (1970)
- Dance Aerobics becomes popular (1970)
- Lydia Bach develops The Lotte Berk Method for feminine strength and flexibility (1970)
- Ray Wilson and Augie Neito develop the Life Cycle (1975)
- “Pumping Iron” movie about Arnold Schwarzenegger popularizes muscle building (1977)
- Development of Feedback Systems on exercise machines captures metrics and motivates users (1980’s to today)
- Elliptical Trainers and Cross Trainers take stress off of aging joints (1995)
- Express Gyms – low cost gyms for the masses develops simultaneous strength and aerobics (2000)
- Mind/Body Exercise offers body weight strength training with focus on flexibility and calming of the mind (2000)
- CrossFit takes extreme fitness to a cult level (2000)
Jack LaLanne Breaks Stereotype and Brings Exercise to the Masses
It takes a lot of courage to stick to your convictions and fight the naysayers. You have to understand what the world was like before Jack LaLanne. Nobody exercised. Even many of the sports heroes of the time smoked and drank. Jack was labeled as a weirdo for espousing the benefits of exercise and sound nutrition.
In the 1950’s, coaches told athletes not to lift weights because it was bad for them. It wasn’t until the late ’70s when the Dallas Cowboys hired the first strength coach that people paid real attention to strength training, something Jack was preaching all along.
Even doctors were against it at the time. And culturally, if you exercised you were considered odd. But it took a guy like Jack who got the nutrition and exercise bug early in life to bring it to many people.
From 1951 to 1984 he sat in front of millions of TV viewers and urged them to exercise with him. “The Jack LaLanne” show brought fitness right into the home and simplified it. While the kids were taking physical education at school, mom was doing scissor legs in the living room.
What’s more is that LaLanne opened, what is believed to be, one of the U.S.’s first health club in 1936 in Oakland. He invented equipment that is standard-issue in gyms today, such as the leg extension machine. He encouraged people — including women and seniors — to lift weights at a time when many doctors believed it was unhealthy.
President’s Council on Physical Fitness & Sports
This was a national council formed in the U.S. in 1956 in the post war era by the Eisenhower administration. There was deep concern about the physical fitness of American children when compared to their European counterparts and the Soviet adversary during the cold war.
The council gained steam under the Kennedy administration. A full blown advertising campaign was launched with the aid of the Advertising Council. Boomers were inundated with TV commercials by Bud Wilkenson holding a football helmet and promoting the benefits of exercise and sports.
The Council is active to this very day and has had such prestigious chairpeople as Arnold Schwarzenegger, Jim Lovell of Apollo 13 fame, and Lynn Swann the famous NFL football player noted for leaping catches.
As bad as the youth obesity problem is today, we can only imagine how worse it could be without this awareness prod by the Council.
Surgeon General’s Report on Physical Activity and Health
Maybe LaLanne’s evidence of the benefits of exercise were too anecdotal for most American’s but fitness got the respect it deserved in the summer of 1996 by the most credible source, the U.S. Surgeon General.
A report was issued that unequivocally equated sedentary lifestyle and lack of exercise to decreased quality of life, increase in disease, and increases in health care costs and decrease in life expectancy.
The report was timed to capitalize on attention focused on the Centennial Olympic Games in Atlanta, Georgia, also revealed 60% of Americans did not exercise enough to enjoy any health benefits, and 24% were completely sedentary.
The consequences of an inactive lifestyle resulted in a higher risk of coronary heart disease, more symptoms of depression, higher incidences of type 2 diabetes…and the list went on.
Also at that time the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) issued a supporting report that the cost to the U.S. health care system of treating millions of cases of preventable diseases runs into billions of dollars each year.
Dr. Kenneth Cooper Educates the World to Aerobics
Dr. Kenneth Cooper introduced a major inflection point, that of proactive disease prevention as opposed to after-the-fact disease treatment. How much better is the quality of life and how much lower would health care costs be if we could markedly decrease disease from occurring in the first place.
With the writing of his first book Aerobics in 1968, Dr. Cooper has advocated revolutionizing the field of medicine away from disease treatment to disease prevention through the magic bullet of aerobic exercise.
Research for the book was based on his groundbreaking work as a U.S. Air Force flight surgeon and director of the Aerospace Medical Laboratory in San Antonio. Aerobics introduced Cooper’s 12-minute test and Aerobics Point System.
Although it’s a household word today, the concept of aerobics was ground breaking at that time. Cooper introduced a new word and a new concept to the world. Millions of people started exercising, motivated by his preventive medicine research.
Arthur Jones Brings Out Advance Strength Machines
In the early days of strength training, before hydraulics, pneumatics, and stretch bands, exercisers used mostly free weights (with the notably exception of Charles Atlas’ Dynamic Tension, or isometric contraction).
Yes, there were rudimentary weight machines using pulley to create resistance for various parts of the body where dumbbells and barbells don’t work, like quads, hamstrings and lats. Inventors like Joe Gold and Jack LaLanne come up with various home-made contraptions that did the job reasonably well.
But around 1970 a rather acerbic inventor by the name of Arthur Jones brought out the Nautilus machine. Although it promoted the nautilus cam as the “secret sauce” to delivering the proper resistance as muscles contract and are in different positions. It was really the multiple stations, the isolation of muscles to be exercised and the advancement of the circuit that was groundbreaking.
Nautilus centers sprang up all over the U.S. Nautilus ruled the roost until around 1982, when other competing forms of machinery made it on the scene, but it definitely offered us a new model.
Cardio Machines
O.K., with Kenneth Cooper evangelizing on the benefits of aerobics and with strength training machines becoming a new model for fitness centers, Ray Wilson and Augie Neito brought the first popular cardio machine to health clubs. It’s legendary how Augie drove around the country (excuse the pun) peddling this new device to club operators. Only by banging on a lot of doors did the product finally gain traction.
That single invention gave people indoor stationary workouts. It was a consistent workout in good weather and in bad.
Pumping Iron
Oftentimes it’s not an invention or a book, but a movie that creates the popularity of an idea or accelerates its awareness. The 1977 movie, Pumping Iron, spread more knowledge about bodybuilding and dispelled myths about the aficionados in this space.
The movie’s star, Arnold Schwarzenegger, was a young protégé of Joe Gold and of Joe Weider and it was the sheer power of his charm and screen presence that motivated many viewers, both men and women, to sculpt their bodies. It certainly fueled the Gold’s Gym franchise growth to say the least.
Dance Aerobics
There was an event that was the equalizer, that started to make fitness less of a male pursuit, and more co-ed. Dance aerobics brought fitness to women and changed the format to one of group classes that were fun. It paved the way for women of all fitness levels and backgrounds to venture into clubs. It all seems so obvious now, but it really was groundbreaking at the time.
Dance Aerobics was popularized by Judy Sheppard Misset with Jazzercise which she started in 1970. Prior to that time, women were rare at studios and rarer still at health clubs. But since women love to dance, it was the single best way to introduce them to fitness.
A couple of decades later Zumba, another dance exercise fitness program was created by Colombian dancer and choreographer Beto Pérez during the 1990s. It started off in Columbia but took the U.S. by storm. People were attracted to upbeat Latin music and intense dance moves.
Lotte Berk Method
Lydia Bach was traveling the world when she stopped off in London and discovered an obscure exercise routine developed by Ms. Lotte Berk. Lotte believed in exercises that were tough and built up core and leg muscles but were also “sexy”. Lydia was so impressed she bought the rights to the unique protocols and brought them to New York City in 1970.
The Method in New York was discovered by dancers and actors as a quick sure way to tone up their bodies and it exploded on the scene. Today there are many copycat derivatives to the original all using some form of the name “barre”.
In parallel, and much earlier, in the 1920’s, Joseph Pilates developed his methods which also focus on muscle strengthening and lengthening and of focus on the core which he referred to as the “powerhouse”. To this day it is a highly sought after exercise protocol
Read post about the Lotte Berk Method
The Elliptical Trainer
The development of truly new innovations in biometrics had started to top off until in 1995, Precor hit a home run with the elliptical trainer. With aging boomers and many people suffering from aching knees and ankles from street running welcomed it with open arms and now it is rapidly displacing stair climbers and cutting into treadmills as the cardio equipment of choice. This is a prime example of hitting a behavioral shift in a population segment.
Yoga Fitness Stems From Age Old Practices
Yoga has been around for 6,000 years and Pilates since World War I. But in the early 2000’s they really took off. What gives?
Well, a lot of it is attributable to those aging boomers that popularized the elliptical trainer. It’s all part of a newer, kinder and gentler world of physical fitness which emphasizes stretching, flexibility, balance and relaxation. Today’s Mind-body practices such as tai chi, Pilates and yoga fit are enjoying spreading popularity.
Like Pumping Iron, yoga went Hollywood in 1998, Madonna released the CD “Ray of Light” with a Sanskrit chant. Then supermodel Christy Turlington appeared in Vogue to introduce her sexy line of yoga clothing and was featured in a landmark Time Magazine article.
By 2003 over 15 million Americans were practicing yoga, 28.5% more than the year before. Although its growth has leveled off yoga classes can still be found in every town and hamlet.
Express Gyms
Express gyms are a concept that wasn’t supposed to work. All the brightest and the best the health club industry totally missed it. It took an upstart outsider like Gary Heavin of Curves for Women who developed affordable resistant machines using automobile shock absorbers to come up with a 20 – 30 minute workout that was both cardio and strength building.
Heavin popularized the concept of women-only health clubs. He offered overweight women dignity. “No mirrors, no men, no lies”. The concept caught on like a prairie fire on a hot Texas night. From one prototype club it grew to a franchise of thousands.
Because his machines were compact and were total-body, clubs with the tiniest footprints sprung up everywhere. Soon there were a multitude of copycats.
What’s interesting about this phenomenon is that it was not driven by new technology. Circuit training was developed by R.E. Morgan and G.T. Anderson in 1953 at the University of Leeds in England.
ile as well, having been developed by a high school football coach who eventually formed HydraFitness around 1970 to sell it as a commercial product.
Silver Sneakers
In 1992, Silver Sneakers was founded by Mary Swanson, whose heart attack surviving father served as the inspiration for the nationally acclaimed fitness program specifically for seniors.
Today, more than 14 million people are eligible for the Silver Sneakers benefit at no additional cost through more than 60 health plans, including the nation’s leading Medicare Advantage health plans, Medicare Supplement carriers and group retiree plans.
With the aging population, Silver Sneakers is ubiquitous and can be found in gym, YMCA’s, senior centers and community centers. It’s low intensity and often uses chairs to reduce the risk of falls and overextending.
The Cross Fit Phenomenon
At the extreme opposite pole of Silver Sneakers for the elderly, is CrossFit for the buff youth.
CrossFit was created by Greg Glassman and Lauren Jenai in 2000 and it has blossomed into 13,000 locations worldwide.
The regimen consists of functional movements that aim to increase individual work capacity and is applicable to other sports activities. CrossFit also encourages its members to follow a Paleo diet.
CrossFit is promoted as both a physical exercise philosophy and a competitive fitness sport, incorporating elements from high-intensity interval training, Olympic weightlifting, plyometrics, powerlifting, gymnastics, girevoy sport, calisthenics, strongman, and other exercises.
What portends the future?
The most interesting point is that the homo sapien body has not evolved appreciably in 100,000 years. Muscle will respond to the same stimuli today is it then at the dawn of mankind. But we keep coming up with newer ways exercise. Some of it is time efficient, some respond to new information such as Dr. Cooper’s evangelizing cardio exercising. Some are merely more affordable. Whatever. We can’t wait to see the next hot trend.