拿破仑部分解释了Z世代为何痴迷举重——一部健身潮流史

从健身房数据说起

英国超过四分之一的年轻人表示，健身房会员比度假或外出就餐更重要。Sport England的数据显示，Z世代正从跑步、游泳和健身课转向健身房和力量训练，他们把举重视为最佳锻炼方式，因为它能增强力量、改善外形并提升整体健康。

拿破仑与体操的诞生

文章把现代健身业的起点追溯到1806年拿破仑入侵普鲁士。普鲁士人Friedrich Ludwig Jahn认为本国男性体能弱于法国人，国家出路不在火枪而在肌肉，于是1811年开设露天体操场Turnplatz，年轻人跑步、跳跃、爬绳、摔跤和跳跃支撑，还使用据信由Jahn发明的双杠和单杠。这套“强健国家需要强健士兵”的逻辑成为此后一个世纪体操与健美操风潮的口号，英格兰1825年开设了首个户外体操学校。

从大力士到健美

维多利亚时代流行大力士表演，Charles “Samson” Sampson以胸断铁链著称。1889年，留着小胡子的Eugen Sandow在伦敦剧院的表演中脱到只剩裤子回应挑战，他精瘦有型的体格使他区别于同代大力士，并在此后直至1925年去世期间成为理想身材的代名词。哈佛大学体育教育者Dudley Sargent称他为“最佳男性标本”。Sandow于1901年在伦敦举办首届重要健美比赛，并经营横跨大英帝国、美洲和澳大拉西亚的健康生意，数千人跟随他的邮购课程、读他的杂志、喝他的可可粉。

久坐焦虑与有氧热潮

战后对运动的看法因新的健康担忧而转变：人们坐得太久。1953年流行病学家Jerry Morris的研究发现，伦敦公交司机心脏病发生率高于整天爬楼梯的售票员，原因被归于缺乏活动。美国医生开始呼吁对抗上升的心脏病，建议人们定时慢跑。慢跑在新西兰开创、1960年代传入美国，带动有氧运动热潮，新健身房连锁里挤满了此前不常锻炼的人。有氧课尤其受女性欢迎，1969年健身教练Jacki Sorenson把爵士、民间舞、恰恰和方块舞的步伐配上流行音乐，开创有氧舞蹈。1982年Jane Fonda的畅销健身录像把有氧运动带进客厅。

施瓦辛格与举重的普及

1977年纪录片《Pumping Iron》让奥地利健美运动员Arnold Schwarzenegger进入大众视野，他与推动他的企业家Joe Weider一起普及了今天所理解的健美。影片上映时有氧运动已把更多人带进健身房，新器械也让举重更易上手。Schwarzenegger的体格成为流行文化中英雄形象的模板，动作明星、儿童玩具和运动员都受影响。女性同样在举重：Lisa Lyon于1979年赢得首届女子世界健美锦标赛，二十年后女子举重进入奥运会。到2000年代，举重不再是边缘活动，平价和24小时健身房变得普遍。

More than one quarter of young adults in Britain now say their gym memberships matter more to them than holidays or eating out.

Sport England data shows that Gen Z has begun to turn away from running, swimming and fitness classes towards gym and strength training. For them, weight training is seen as the best form of exercise because it can help build strength, improve appearance and boost overall health.

People have argued about the best forms of exercise for over two centuries. While today’s fitness trends tend to be more about improving the body and overall fitness, health has rarely been the sole reason why certain exercise trends gained popularity through the eras.

Napoleon and gymnastics

In 1806, Napoleon Bonaparte invaded Prussia and, inadvertently, created the modern fitness industry.

As Napoleon’s troops stormed their way eastward, one Prussian man, Friedrich Ludwig Jahn, began to seethe with anger. For Jahn, Prussian men had lost because they were physically weaker than the French.

The nation’s solution, according to Jahn, lay not in muskets – but muscles. So in 1811 Jahn opened a Turnplatz – an open-air gymnasium. Young men ran, jumped, climbed ropes, wrestled and vaulted. They also swung on two pieces of equipment that Jahn is believed to have invented: the parallel bars and the horizontal bar. Soon the trend spread to other nations, with England’s first outdoor gymnastics school opening in 1825.

The underlying logic behind Jahn’s Turnplatz system – that strong nations demanded physically strong troops – became a rallying cry for a wave of gymnastic and calisthenic systems for men and women across the century.

The birth of bodybuilding

A popular form of entertainment in the Victorian era were strongmen shows, where muscular men would perform theatrical acts of strength. One of the most popular performers of the time was Charles “Samson” Sampson, whose act involved snapping chains with his chest.

But in 1889, a new kind of strongman arrived on the scene. During one of Sampson’s performances, a moustachioed strongman named Eugen Sandow stripped down to his pants in a London theatre, responding to a challenge from Sampson. But what made Sandow different from Sampson and other strongmen of the era was his physique. He was lean and sculpted.

From 1889 until his death in 1925, Sandow became synonymous with the ideal body. He was deemed the “best specimen of manhood” by Harvard University physical educationalist Dudley Sargent. Sandow hosted the first major bodybuilding contest in London in 1901 and ran a health enterprise which spread across the British Empire, the Americas and Australasia. Thousands followed his mail-order courses, read his magazine and drank his cocoa.

Those lifting dumbbells and barbells to build their bodies like Sandow classed themselves as “physical culturists” in the same way that modern trainees may define themselves by Pilates, Hyrox or weight training.

Following Sandow and others, people trained for health but they also trained to become better workers, better spouses, to be more attractive or dynamic.

Read more: Fitness gurus and ‘muscular Christianity’: how Victorian Britain anticipated today’s keep fit craze

Although the state still mattered – Sandow even trained British troops for the second South African war – the emphasis slowly shifted to building the body for its own sake.

The post-war aerobics boom

The approach to exercise in the post-war era shifted due to an emerging new health concern: people were sitting down too much. This fear was fuelled by a 1953 work published by epidemiologist Jerry Morris which found that London bus drivers experienced higher instances of heart disease than conductors, who spent their day climbing stairs. The cause? Inactivity.

In the US, physicians began rallying against rising heart disease. Their radical solution was to advise people to run slowly for set periods of time – an activity we today call jogging. Pioneered in New Zealand and brought to the US in the 1960s, jogging soon kickstarted an “aerobics” boom.

New gym chains filled up with previously untrained enthusiasts running and doing aerobics classes. Aerobics classes were particularly popular with women. And in 1969, fitness instructor Jacki Sorenson originated the aerobics dance movement after she began setting routines to pop music, stitching together steps from jazz, folk, cha-cha and square dancing.

The popularity of aerobics only continued to grow throughout the 80s, thanks to actor Jane Fonda’s best-selling 1982 workout video which brought aerobics into the living room.

The muscle builders

In 1977 the world was introduced to Austrian bodybuilder Arnold Schwarzenegger in the hit documentary Pumping Iron. Brash but charming, muscular but beautiful, Schwarzenegger and the entrepreneur pushing him, Joe Weider, popularised bodybuilding as we now understand it.

Pumping Iron hit cinemas at a time when aerobics had driven more people into gyms and new gym equipment made lifting weights far more accessible.

Schwarzenegger’s physique soon became a template for heroic figures in pop culture. Action stars, children’s toys and athletes all succumbed to the bodybuilding effect. Leading 80s megastar Sylvester Stallone even transformed his body with Schwarzenegger’s training partner Franco Columbu in preparation for Rambo and the Rocky movies.

Women were lifting, too. Lisa Lyon won the first women’s world bodybuilding championship in 1979. Two decades later women’s weightlifting reached the Olympics.

By the 2000s, lifting weights was no longer a fringe activity. Budget and 24-hour gyms were commonplace while sports such as CrossFit and powerlifting swelled with men and women. In recent years the hashtag #strongnotskinny has spread across Instagram and TikTok.

Exercise scientist Andrew Scott says that influencers have been a big part of this shift. None of this is new. Sandow sold his body on postcards and cocoa tins, Fonda sold hers on VHS and Schwarzenegger sold his at the cinema.

Once again, the world around us is changing how people move their bodies. Two hundred years ago, fitness served the country. Now it serves the algorithm.

Conor Heffernan does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

Claire Warden does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.