When Fitness Went Global
The Rise of Physical Culture in the Nineteenth Century
Author: Conor Heffernan
This book provides the first detailed account of how and why fitness and physical culture underwent rapid globalization in the 19th century.
10th December 2025
Paperback
PRODUCT INFORMATION
Summary
This book provides the first detailed account of how and why fitness and physical culture underwent rapid globalization in the 19th century.
Description
Fitness, exercise and physical culture is a key part of our modern lives, but has this always been the case? In this book, Conor Heffernan shows how the 19th century was critical for the development of the modern fitness industry, and how the globalization of physical culture was entangled in, and spread by, concepts of nationalism, gender, race, empire and medicine.
From yoga and gymnastics to Indian club swinging and Jiujitsu, When Fitness Went Global follows some of the most popular fitness practices from around the world as they were exported on a global scale during the long 19th century. Showing how this came about through imperial networks, military education, new print culture, faster trade networks and changing ideas about the body, it shows how beautiful bodies were linked to notions of national strength and imperial might. Exploring how both local and international understandings of exercise were negotiated, it asks why some practices became global while others did not, and shows how fitness was revolutionised during the 19th century.
Critic Reviews
A must-read book for anyone interested in how the modern fitness industry first spread globally during the nineteenth century. Well written, drawing on a prodigious amount of research, Conor Heffernan impressively analyses just how physical culture practices first critically clustered around a clear set of ideas, movements, products and body ideals. Dr Mike Huggins Emeritus Professor of Cultural History University of Cumbria, UK
About the Author
Conor Heffernan is Lecturer in the Sociology of Sport at Ulster University, UK, and Chair of the British Society of Sports History. The author of A History of Physical Culture in Ireland, The History of Physical Culture and Indian Club Swinging and the Birth of Global Fitness, Conor has published over fifty peer-reviewed articles and runs a history of fitness website, ‘Physical Culture Study’.
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10th December 2025
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