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