HISTORY OF THE GYM (PART 2)—The Fall of Rome to 1900
By Shane Robert
The Medieval Shift: Spirit Over Body
With the collapse of the Western Roman Empire in the 5th century CE and the rise of Christianity, attitudes toward the body shifted dramatically. Medieval Christian doctrine emphasized spiritual purity, humility, and asceticism. The flesh was seen as a source of sin and temptation. Monastic life, for example, promoted fasting, self-denial, and prayer over physical cultivation.
Physical training persisted in some forms during this period, notably in knightly training, which focused on improving horsemanship, swordsmanship, and strength for armor use. But these were tools of warfare, chivalric tournaments, and status, not public health or virtue. For nearly a millennium, the gymnasium as a holistic civic institution all but disappeared from European culture.
The Renaissance & Enlightenment: A Scientific Revival
By the time of the Renaissance, those same cultures were starting to find a new appreciation for the human form. Art and sculpture of the era copied the style of the ancient Greeks and Romans, which showed idealized versions of fit and muscled human bodies. This would start a slow but significant shift to a rekindled interest in the human body, science, and education.
The intellectual climate of the Enlightenment in the 18th century laid the foundation for a revival of structured physical training. Anatomy, physiology, and hygiene became important topics of study for the advancement of medicine, which soon saw the importance of exercise on health. Tools designed to strengthen the body for work, such as silent, clapper-less church bells used in swinging exercises, also known as dumb-bells (dumb meaning silent), start to be recommended for fitness. Benjamin Franklin credited his longevity to a daily dumbbell routine.
The German Foundation: Gymnastics for Youth
In Germany, Johann Christoph Friedrich GutsMuths (1759–1839) published "Gymnastics for Youth" in 1793. His work laid out a curriculum for physical education that included strength training, balance, flexibility, and endurance exercises. GutsMuths wrote, “Gymnastics is the remedy for the ills of modern life.” He saw physical activity as integral to developing moral character and intellectual capacity. He established one of the first physical education programs for schoolboys (sadly, once again, girls and women were not included) in Schnepfenthal, blending gymnastics with Enlightenment ideals.
The "Father of Gymnastics" and the Turnen Movement
Building on this foundation, Friedrich Ludwig Jahn (1778–1852), known as the "Father of Gymnastics," developed the Turnen (from the German for “to practice gymnastics”) movement in early 19th-century Prussia. Jahn believed that a strong Germany required strong citizens. He established the first outdoor gym, or Turnplatz, in Berlin in 1811, outfitted with wooden apparatuses like parallel bars, rings, and balance beams. His exercises emphasized coordination, discipline, and, unfortunately for later generations, nationalism. Jahn once declared, “It is not enough to arm our youth with weapons. We must first arm them with strength.” Though his views would later be co-opted for National Socialist purposes, Jahn’s nationalistic beliefs were a response to the Napoleonic wars of that era.
The Turners: Political Fitness and the Move to America
Jahn’s followers, the Turners, formed gymnastic clubs (Turnvereine) that doubled as political organizations. They promoted liberal democratic ideals and were active in the 1848 revolutions, a series of loosely coordinated protests and rebellions that stressed liberalism and parliamentarianism, and demonstrated popular discontent with the traditional, largely autocratic political structure. When those uprisings failed, many Turners fled to avoid persecution and came to the U.S., settling in cities like Cincinnati, Milwaukee, and St. Louis.
In the U.S., Turner Halls, which were not only gyms but also centers of German-American culture, carried on the traditions of liberalism that were started in Germany. They hosted lectures, musical events, and political meetings, supported abolition, women's education, and labor rights. Their belief that physical strength supported civic virtue resonated with America's democratic experiment.
The Industrial Revolution & The First Commercial Gyms
As the Industrial Revolution transformed work and urban life, physical activity became decoupled from labor. Sedentary lifestyles created a need for intentional exercise. The gym shifted again, from reformist space to commercial enterprise. In France, Hippolyte Triat opened what is regarded as the first commercial gym wholly open to the public in Paris in 1847, which would be largely recognizable to a modern observer. It featured group fitness classes using dumbbells, resembling something akin to a bodypump class, early resistance machines, gymnastics, and bodyweight training. It even had separate facilities for women, one of the first times that women’s fitness was taken into consideration.
Triat, a former performing strongman who was abducted at the age of six and sold to a troupe of Italian acrobats, promoted physical culture as part of national strength and social hygiene. He envisioned himself as a “gymnasiarch,” whose duty was to educate aristocrats and the bourgeoisie in hygienic sports, and believed that structured fitness could address the negative health effects of industrial living. “The physical education of the people,” he wrote, “is the first of all hygienic measures.”
Strength as Health: Early Pioneers and Influencers
Lifting weight gained short-lived popularity in the US around the same time, thanks to the work of Dr. George Barker Windship. A weak and sickly child, Barker built himself up through vigorous physical exercise, a regimen that would become de rigor for future fitness influencers, eventually becoming “the strongest student at Harvard.” He opened a medical practice where he utilized resistance training as part of his treatments, inventing a number of apparatuses along the way, including the first patented adjustable dumbbell, and a kind of proto-Smith Machine that allowed users to do what we would recognize as a heavy rack pull. Windship preached that “strength is health,” but sadly died from a stroke in 1876 at the age of 42, making many people question the legitimacy of his belief.
The Strongman Era and the Birth of Bodybuilding
Not long after this, the strongman era was blossoming in Britain. Eugen Sandow (1867–1925), born in Prussia, became the archetype of the modern bodybuilder. Sandow toured as a performing strongman, showcasing feats of strength and posing to display his symmetrical, muscular physique. His performances were modeled on classical Greek statues, linking his body to ancient ideals. Sandow capitalized on his fame, launching a magazine, nutrition products, exercise equipment, and a chain of gyms, earning what amounted to millions of dollars today. He authored exercise guides and even worked as a fitness adviser to King George V. In 1901, Sandow hosted the first major bodybuilding competition at London’s Royal Albert Hall, judged by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. “Life is movement,” Sandow said. “Without movement, there is no life.” Sadly, Sandow died in relative obscurity and poverty in 1925, though his legacy lives on as a statue of him is the winner's trophy at the Mr. Olympia contest.
In the U.S., Bernarr Macfadden, epitomic eccentric, created the Physical Culture movement, publishing a magazine of the same name in 1899. He promoted, among other ideas, vegetarianism, abstinence, strength training, and “clean living.” He was a showman and a fitness evangelist, hosting physique contests and opening institutes. “Weakness is a crime—don’t be a criminal,” Macfadden famously proclaimed. (For more, see our post on Mr. Macfadden).
Standardization and the Olympic Debut
This era also saw the development of new equipment: Indian clubs, medicine balls, pulley machines, shot-loaded barbells, and early dumbbells became staples of the gym. These tools made fitness more accessible and standardized. With standardized equipment came a somewhat standardization of lifting movements and some of the first contests. Weightlifting debuted at the 1896 Athens Olympics as an outdoor event with no weight classes. Two events were held—a one-handed lift that was somewhat akin to a dumbbell snatch, and a two-handed lift that was somewhat close to a modern-day clean and jerk. The event featured seven competitors from five nations. Denmark's Viggo Jensen won the two-hand competition, while Britain's Launceston Elliot won the one-hand event. Unfortunately for lifters, it would be another 24 years before weightlifting returned to the Olympics.
In part 3, we will look at the explosive growth of the gym and weight training culture during the 20th century.
