ABSTRACT
To understand the new fitness boom that is the core subject of this book first requires understanding what came before it. This first chapter aims to accomplish this by assessing three key historical ‘moments’ – ancient Greece, the physical culture movement of the late 1800s and early 1900s, and the (first) fitness boom of the 1970s and 1980s – and the role of health and fitness technologies therein. These historical moments are of course different in many ways. But what they share is an important role for technology. Ancient Greeks, for example, pioneered the use of dumbbells in exercise. Physical culturalists such as Eugen Sandow sold the public on the merits of weight pulley devices for use in the home. The first fitness boom featured technologies like workout videos and exercise bikes equipped with heart-rate monitors. Indeed, looking historically shows a progression from basic tools to mechanical machines to electronic technologies – and, ultimately, to the portable, digital technologies that are the focus of subsequent chapters. Something else that transcends different eras is the idea that achieving a fit body is a moral responsibility.
