Working Out: The Invention of Exercise

About this episode

I worked out after work: Few sentences would have been more baffling to people in the 19th century, especially if spoken by a woman. Join Virginia and Charles as they explore a little-noticed revolution in daily life: the transformation of hard physical labor from a daily burden to an emblem of personal virtue—and a globe-spanning, multibillion-dollar industry whose omnipresence is as much a sign of our time as social media beefs or flying drones. Podcast website: http://abundance.institute/EverydayAbundance They are everywhere: women carrying gym bags filled with sneakers, sports bras, and high-waisted leggings; men hauling duffels stuffed with performance joggers and training gear. So ubiquitous today is exercise culture—and so large the industries that support it—that it is hard to realize that they are thoroughly new phenomena, enabled by recent breakthroughs in textiles and materials.  A century ago, people expended so much effort in their daily lives that the idea of seeking out more was literally unheard-of. A few isolated souls promoted “physical culture,” but exercise was not a common ideal, especially for women, until the arrival of one of the more important