History of Exercising for Health & Fitness

[Fotheringay-Phipps]

When did people pick up on the notion that you could increase your health and all purpose fitness and begin engaging in it for this reason?

Note: this is distinguished from the idea that an athlete practicing for a specific type of event or sport could benefit from practicing. I’m talking about ordinary people looking to improve their health and fitness, such as we see now.

Of course, people were a lot more active in general in prior generations, so it wasn’t as big of an issue as it is today. Nonetheless, there were people who led sedentary lives even then (e.g. nobles, clergy, scholars etc.), and I’m wondering how much awareness there was that some amount of exercise was necessary or at least beneficial, in different eras.

[Fuzzy_wuzzy]

@Fotheringay-Phipps

When did people pick up on the notion that you could increase your health and all purpose fitness and begin engaging in it for this reason?

Note: this is distinguished from the idea that an athlete practicing for a specific type of event or sport could benefit from practicing. I’m talking about ordinary people looking to improve their health and fitness, such as we see now.

Of course, people were a lot more active in general in prior generations, so it wasn’t as big of an issue as it is today. Nonetheless, there were people who led sedentary lives even then (e.g. nobles, clergy, scholars etc.), and I’m wondering how much awareness there was that some amount of exercise was necessary or at least beneficial, in different eras.

Im sure such fitness regimes have gone on forever, albeit practiced by perhaps more eccentric characters. I remember reading a biography of Montaigne a while ago. Montaigne’s father(of 16th century minor nobility) was what we would today call a “fitness freak”. I cant remember his father fitness regime but his fitness outlook and dedication did not sound too disimilar to modern keep-fit obsessives.

[PatrickLondon]

Back to the ancient Greeks, at least. It wasn’t just a matter of being fit enough to be able to fight, I think - the Romans didn’t think of mens sana in corpore sano all by themselves.

[Fotheringay-Phipps]

I think the association of that phrase with exercise is fairly recent.

[Kimstu]

The Kamasutra of Vatsyayana describes the daily life of a nagarika or wealthy householder in India around the start of the Common Era, in some detail:

Now the householder, having got up in the morning and performed his necessary duties, should wash his teeth, apply a limited quantity of ointments and perfumes to his body, put some ornaments on his person and collyrium on his eyelids and below his eyes, colour his lips with alacktaka, and look at himself in the glass. Having then eaten betel leaves, with other things that give fragrance to the mouth, he should perform his usual business. He should bathe daily, anoint his body with oil every other day, apply a lathering substance to his body every three days, get his head (including face) shaved every four days and the other parts of his body every five or ten days. All these things should be done without fail, and the sweat of the armpits should also be removed. Meals should be taken in the forenoon, in the afternoon, and again at night, according to Charayana. After breakfast, parrots and other birds should be taught to speak, and the fighting of cocks, quails, and rams should follow. A limited time should be devoted to diversions with [entertainers, pimps, jesters, etc.], and then should be taken the midday sleep. After this the householder, having put on his clothes and ornaments, should, during the afternoon, converse with his friends. In the evening there should be singing, and after that the householder, along with his friend, should await in his room, previously decorated and perfumed, the arrival of the woman that may be attached to him, or he may send a female messenger for her, or go for her himself. After her arrival at his house, he and his friend should welcome her, and entertain her with a loving and agreeable conversation. Thus end the duties of the day.

The following are the things to be done occasionally as diversions or amusements: […]

On some particular auspicious day, an assembly of citizens should be convened in the temple of Saraswati. There the skill of singers, and of others who may have come recently to the town, should be tested, and on the following day they should always be given some rewards. […]

When men of the same age, disposition and talents, fond of the same diversions and with the same degree of education, sit together in company with public women, or in an assembly of citizens, or at the abode of one among themselves, and engage in agreeable discourse with each other, such is called a Sitting in company or a social gathering. The subjects of discourse are to be the completion of verses half composed by others, and the testing the knowledge of one another in the various arts. […]

Men and women should drink in one another’s houses. And here the men should cause the public women to drink, and should then drink themselves, liquors […]

In the forenoon, men having dressed themselves should go to gardens on horseback, accompanied by public women and followed by servants. And having done there all the duties of the day, and passed the time in various agreeable diversions, such as the fighting of quails, cocks and rams, and other spectacles, they should return home in the afternoon in the same manner, bringing with them bunches of flowers, etc.

The same also applies to bathing in summer in water from which wicked or dangerous animals have previously been taken out, and which has been built in on all sides.

Other Social Diversions

Spending nights playing with dice. Going out on moonlight nights. Keeping the festive day in honour of spring. Plucking the sprouts and fruits of the mango trees. Eating the fibres of lotuses. Eating the tender ears of corn. Picnicing in the forests when the trees get their new foliage. The Udakakashvedika or sporting in the water. Decorating each other with the flowers of some trees. Pelting each other with the flowers of the Kadamba tree, and many other sports which may either be known to the whole country, or may be peculiar to particular parts of it. These and similar other amusements should always be carried on by citizens.

The above amusements should be followed by a person who diverts himself alone in company with a courtesan, as well as by a courtesan who can do the same in company with her maid servants or with citizens.

So for people who were wealthy enough not to have to work, recreation might well include some physical activity such as horseback riding, swimming and playing sports (as well as quite a bit of sex, natch), but there seems to be no social consensus that you should be deliberately striving for physical activity in order to keep yourself healthy.
Where voluntary vigorous physical effort for self-improvement purposes does appear in the ancient Indian context is, of course, in the yoga tradition. But AFAIK the earliest texts describing and prescribing the practice of strenuous asanas or postures are from about the middle of the first millennium CE. And of course, the type of health and fitness that their authors are mostly concerned with is spiritual rather than solely physical: asanas and their strengthening effects are supposed to help you focus your mind and advance in enlightenment.