In this section: Home Gym Fitness Secrets
Strength Training Secrets From The Past: Fitness, Home Gyms, & Sandow | Gym Exercise, Equipment, & Showmanship | Weightlifting Equipment Optional: The Checkley System

Fitness, Home Gyms & Sandow

"Sandow on Physical Training"

Long before stair climbers, long before elliptical fitness equipment, and certainly long before the first heart rate monitor, there were men and women who pursued fitness, home gyms that gave them a place to do it, and home workouts that brought them there.  Did they do strength training and cardio exercise the way we do today?  Yes and no.  Exercise science is only a recent development , so most of the advances we've grown accustomed to - scientifically-based fat loss programs , sports nutrition, ergonomically designed home fitness equipment, cardio exercise programs - were not something that existed even fifty years ago.

But exercise and physical fitness- the way we've come to think of it (that is, not so much for physical survival as for health and beauty)  has been around a long time, beginning probably with the  ancient Greeks, who revered physical beauty and sports. The Greeks may not have ever encountered anything like a leg press machine or a stability ball,   but gymnastics was considered an important classroom topic and stamina exercise was widely practiced.

But much of the way we've come to think about weight training exercise,  cardio fitness and sports nutrition comes from the late 19th century when political leaders began to actively promote physical fitness, and  physical culture pioneers such as Eugen Sandow began to practice an approach to physical fitness known as bodybuilding.

Eugen Sandow, who is referred to as "The Father of Modern Bodybuilding," developed an impressive  physique in the early 1900's through a regimen of static contraction, calisthenics, cold baths, free weight training and nutrition - a clean eating, everyday food plan that emphasized protein and calorie intake.

Sandow traveled the U.S. giving "muscle display performances," and then developed several businesses, one of which was inventing and selling his own commercial and home gym fitness equipment (dumbbell equiptment, exercise pulleys, and a resistance band that's the precursor for the exercise bands used today )at a time when gym exercise equipment  was a novelty.

We hope you'll enjoy this free download of Sandow on Physical Training, and hope that it contributes to your fitness, home gym's usefulness, and your quality of life.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 United States License. Scanning attribution thanks to Google.

---