Try working out to get bigger

Seventeen: How to Exercise to Improve Your Physical Self Toward Post-Puberty Muscle and How to Lose Your Arms

In elementary school, I was hung from the pull-up bars in gym class, struggling with all my might to lift myself up. While other kids were athletic, I thought my arms were better used to answer a question in class.

I have tasted physical strength in the past. I took a weight lifting course in college and loved how the boost in muscle made me feel. I discovered the satisfaction of being able to carry groceries for more than two minutes without resting when I did barre workouts before my wedding.

When I was a teenager in the mid-90s, I didn’t think much about exercising to become strong. I ran track and cross-country in high school, but I was in the back of the pack. (OK, behind the pack.) I didn’t aspire to become athletic. I aspired to mold, refine, perfect my post-puberty body — which was decidedly less lean than my childhood body — into a conventionally beautiful one. Which meant a small one. A lot of resources were offered to help me achieve this goal.

But working out for strength? That was a fringe benefit. The pursuit of visible muscle has become a secondary goal for many women. It would be years before that would change for me, and for many American women.

My middle school gym handbook was a slim 1992 manual that featured inspiration from stars such as Elizabeth Berkley and Tiffani-Amber Thiessen. Working out can be fun. The book is promised. All three of them work out regularly, and they love it. I devoured issues of Seventeen and YM for tips on how to improve each region of my body, awkwardly attempting to follow along with the photo guides of sweatless, perfectly made-up teen girls exercising on neon-hued mats.

Gym Exercise Free Weights: How Popular Has It Beeen During the Early 1900s? A Report from the Los Alamos Gym

Do you plan to go to the gym during rush hour? You’ll have much better luck finding an open elliptical machine than a bench press, squat rack or 30-pound dumbbells.

Post-pandemic, the surge in the popularity of weight training has helped the gym industry recover. According to the latest data from IHRSA the number of gym memberships in the US increased by 3.6% in 2021.

Strength training has been the most popular exercise class over the past two years, according to ClassPass. The strength training classes went up by almost 100 percent in the year after.

“There’s [fewer] minutes spent on cardio [compared] to pre-Covid,” Planet Fitness CEO Chris Rondeau said on an earnings call Thursday. Planet Fitness members are doing more weight training and functional exercises like push-ups and squats, he said.

Daniel Allen, an architect who has designed residential and commercial gyms throughout the country, said that in the past it was necessary to cram as much equipment into the rooms as possible. “Now it’s ‘how much free space can we add?’”

“There’s always people doing kettlebells,” he said. We base our initial layout on making sure we have an open zone for those exercises.

Gyms in the early 20th century were considered sweaty dungeons and the men who went to lift weights there were seen as not smart.

Jack LaLanne, who first opened a club in Oakland, California in 1938, said that people thought he was a nut. “The doctors were against me — they said that working out with weights would give people everything from heart attacks to hemorrhoids.”

An advertisement for one mid-century slenderizing machine told women they could do minimal physical activity to lose weight: “Relax in luxurious comfort…No moving from one machine to another.”

Dr. Kenneth Cooper had a best-seller called “Aerobics” that encouraged jogging, swimming and running to improve health and reduce risk of cardiovascular disease. The Jane Fonda workout videos became popular because of Cooper’s book.

Source: https://www.cnn.com/2023/02/28/business/gym-exercise-free-weights-cardio/index.html

The Transformation of CrossFit for Functional Fitness: a Memorino of the First Seventeen Years and a New Look at a Demasquered Fitness Formula

The arrival of Nautilus and Universal strength training equipment in the 1970s and 1980s made weightlifting more attractive to a broader range of people. These machines were approachable and had adjustable weight plates that were easy to use.

The form of strength training that is more popular today is free weights. And weight lifting has grown in recent years in part due to new research on the benefits.

The latest federal health guidelines recommend at least two sessions a week of muscle-strengthening activities that are moderate- or high-intensity and involve all major muscle groups.

“Prior to CrossFit, that kind of equipment was associated with body building,” Petrzela said. Seeing so many people doing that for functional fitness has made it demystified.

The CEO of the Chicago club said he has removed 10% to 15% of the cardio equipment to room for more free weights and benches. Fitness Formula has also added turf areas where people can do functional training.