Archive for the
‘Bodybuilding’ Category

The History of the Plank Exercise
0

The chances are: every single one of us has spent a seemingly endless amount of time stuck in the ‘plank’ position shown above. When I first began weight training for rugby as a starry eyed teen we did every kind of plank variation imaginable. We did it for time, we moved in circles, we added […]

read more →

A Brief History of the Treadmill
0

When it comes to physical activity, the treadmill often feels like a form of cruel and unusual punishment. Well, that’s because it is — or was. In the early 1800s, an English Civil Engineer named Sir William Cubitt devised the World’s first treadmill as a means of punishing and reforming England’s prisoners. Disgusted by the […]

read more →

Sandow the Lion Tamer
0

Though more synonymous with bodybuilding than wrestling, the late 1890s saw Eugen Sandow, the man many credited with possessing the perfect physique, wrestle a caged lion in front of a US audience. The bout was undertaken during Sandow’s extensive tour of the United States under the tutelage of promoter Florenz Ziegfeld. Perhaps unsurprisingly, many viewed […]

read more →

Misused or Misunderstood? The History of the Body Mass Index
0

The chances are you’ve encountered the body mass index (‘BMI’) metric at some point in your life. This measurement has become increasingly common as a health indicator, and as we’re increasingly warned about the obesity epidemic sweeping parts of the world, it’s nigh on impossible to ignore the statistics centring on BMI. So what is […]

read more →

The History of Calorie Counting
0

Ah yes the much-maligned calorie. Whether you’ve ever tried to lose weight, put on mass or even just feel okay about eating junk food, chances are you’ve come across those pesky calorie numbers on food labels. You may be surprised to learn that despite the ubiquity of calorie counting in today’s society, this unit of […]

read more →