Rave: Let's Get Physical Book

[bfit]

I'm just about finished with a book that was mentioned here a couple of weeks ago in one of the threads. It's called "Let's Get Physical" by Danielle Friedman. It's not an exercise book, but it's a history of popular women's exercise in the US, and how women's exercise has changed along with attitudes about women. It has information about Jane Fonda, Tamilee Webb, Buns of Steel, and so on and puts a lot of the video classics in sort of a historical perspective. There's a good chapter about yoga too. It's very easy to read. I highly recommend it.

[fatkat555]

It’s interesting to see how perspectives on women’s fitness have changed on film. My husband and I were watching an old show and it showed that machine we call the booty buffer that looks like an old public bathroom hand towel flipped and enlarged to encompass a derrière. My husband laughed on how people thought the booty buffer would make them fit. I bet this book would be fun to read! Thanks for posting the title!

[Joni O]

Thanks. Just found it on Amazon and ordered a hard copy. I'll have it tomorrow.

[Negin]

Thank you! I'm adding this to my list.

[hch]

Originally Posted by bfit

I'm just about finished with a book that was mentioned here a couple of weeks ago in one of the threads. It's called "Let's Get Physical" by Danielle Friedman. It's not an exercise book, but it's a history of popular women's exercise in the US, and how women's exercise has changed along with attitudes about women.

Without looking for more information about this book, I found mentions of it elsewhere. They led me to a search for more information about it. I particularly like what the book's author says in a Forward article, "How Jewish women pioneered the fitness movement (for better and worse)":

Going in, Friedman knew that her book at its core would be “a celebration of how far we’ve come and of what exercise at its best and fitness at its best can offer women and has offered women” — while also critiquing the ways in which it has fallen short of its potential.

“I hope that it will help to fuel the recent shift that we’ve started to see toward greater body diversity in fitness, a more expansive understanding of what a fit body looks like, and a move away from fitness to shape the way our bodies look to meet a very rigid ideal of beauty,” she said.

And instead, maybe we can finally, finally, she added, “really focus in on the aspects of movement that make us feel good and that truly benefit our mental health.”

This part makes me even more interested in reading the book sometime--I'm not generally interested in uncritical nostalgia, I'm glad to see this perspective in the book, and I'm even feeling a bit vindicated that people are publicly talking more about such matters. Thanks for starting this thread!

[Joni O]

Originally Posted by Joni O

Thanks. Just found it on Amazon and ordered a hard copy. I'll have it tomorrow.

Hmmm. Where is this book? I remember reading it.

[Demeris]

Originally Posted by fatkat555

It’s interesting to see how perspectives on women’s fitness have changed on film. My husband and I were watching an old show and it showed that machine we call the booty buffer that looks like an old public bathroom hand towel flipped and enlarged to encompass a derrière. My husband laughed on how people thought the booty buffer would make them fit. I bet this book would be fun to read! Thanks for posting the title!

When I was in college, late 70's, I joined Elaine Powers, and we used the booty buffer as a warmup. We spent about 10 minutes on it, putting on our lower back, bum, and thighs, then we went on to the other exercises. I vaguely remember a few machines and doing floor exercises.

[Negin]

Is this book full of illustrations, etc? The reason that I ask is that I'm not sure if I should get it on my Kindle or as a hard copy. Thank you!

[hch]

The author was interviewed for the NPR podcast On Point in April 2022:

The complicated history of women's fitness
(audio available, with text excerpts)

Sometime I want to listen to more of the podcast, but what I read already makes me even more interested in reading the book sometime.

I'd quote entire paragraphs if I were less cautious about how much I quote. I'll just quote a few sentences:

[On Jane Fonda and the benefits of exercise:] But ... from the beginning of the industry, those benefits were tainted by feelings of guilt and shame and pressure. And you know, I think when you hold up Jane Fonda as an ideal, Jane Fonda's body was sort of unrealistic even for Jane Fonda."

"But what this has meant is that historically, so many women have felt uncomfortable in fitness environments and have felt turned away and have felt that their body needs to be a constant project. That we should always be working on our bodies to kind of meet this completely unrealistic ideal. And thankfully we are, I think, at the beginning of a shift where we're starting to change that narrative a bit."

[from the book:]

" 'For women to enjoy physical strength is a collective revolution,' [Gloria] Steinem later wrote. 'I’ve gradually come to believe that society’s acceptance of muscular women may be one of the most intimate, visceral measures of change,' she also observed."

[Jane P.]

I remember in the early 80's seeing an article in a women's magazine about a women who lifted light weights at a gym. She said she was the only woman who worked out there. My how things have changed (for the better).