Let’s Get Physical: How Women Discovered Exercise and Reshaped the World with Journalist Danielle Friedman
Show Snapshot:
Do you remember Jazzercise, the Jane Fonda Workout, the ThighMaster? How about a time when the sports bra didn’t exist?
Journalist Danielle Friedman, author of Let's Get Physical: How Women Discovered Exercise and Reshaped the World, shares a fascinating look at the evolution of the women’s exercise movement from “scandalous” into a multibillion-dollar juggernaut and cultural force.
We get into diet culture, the birth of commodified wellness, forgotten fitness trailblazers, and exercise fads best relegated to the dustbin of history. Plus, the benefits of group workouts for women as they age.
In This Episode We Cover:
How learning the secret sexual backstory behind The Barre Method inspired Danielle to write Let’s Get Physical.
The hidden histories and forgotten figures of the women’s fitness movement.
How the sports bra, Title 1X, and Jane Fonda impacted the modern fitness movement.
The tension between fitness, self-esteem, body image, and exercise.
Changing body image ideals, the evolution from thinness to wellness, and how culture shapes fitness.
The rise of social media fitness influencers.
The benefits of group workout classes, especially for older women.
Thong leotards, the ThighMaster, and workouts best forgotten to history.
Quotable:
At every point [in history], there is this cultural check where the body ideals inch further out of reach. For women, there is this idea that the body had to constantly be a project that was worked on and perfected. A woman’s work on her body was never done.
When I pull back and look at this wider history, I really see the kind of central conflict over the past many decades as exercise being used as a tool for liberation for women, or a tool for repression. And exercise being sort of, very feminist, and also very patriarchal. So, it was those tensions that presented one of the great challenges of telling this story.
More Resources:
Follow Danielle:
Danielle’s Book:
Let's Get Physical: How Women Discovered Exercise and Reshaped the World
Danielle’s Feature Writing:
Transcript:
Katie Fogarty [0:30]:
Welcome to A Certain Age, a show for women who are unafraid to age out loud. Do you remember Jazzercise, or the Jane Fonda Workout? How about step aerobics? Even if you weren’t busting out those VHS tapes or scrunched-up leggings, there is no doubt that they penetrated your consciousness. In fact, when I say, “Jane Fonda Workout,” you probably see her famous sweatband headband in your mind’s eye.
My guest today has done a deep historical dive into how the women’s exercise movement grew from being considered scandalous, even dangerous, into a multibillion-dollar industry that is so omnipresent in our cultural psyche that we have Jane Fonda’s headband and leg warmers imprinted in our brain, and no corner of America untouched by yoga studios or CrossFit.
Danielle Friedman is an award-winning print and TV journalist, whose feature writing has appeared the New York Times, The Cut, Vogue, Harper’s BAZAAR, Glamour, and Health Magazine, among others. She joins me today to talk about her book, Let’s Get Physical: How Women Discovered Exercise and Reshaped the World. Welcome, Danielle.
Danielle Friedman [1:39]:
Hi, thank you so much for having me.
Katie [1:40]:
I’m really excited. This is a topic that my guests have asked for more coverage on. They’re curious about health, they’re curious about fitness. I’m excited to explore some of the backstories behind why we all care. But I want to start with some stage setting. What inspired you to write this book?
Danielle [1:59]:
The book began in a very organic way. About five years ago, I ventured into my first boutique fitness studio. It was a Barre studio, and it was for a very clichéd reason, that I’m always a little bit sheepish to talk about [Katie laughs] but I was getting married. [both laugh] And so you know, while the feminist in me felt a little bit hesitant, I had heard great things about Barre. I’m also a runner and some of my runner friends raved about how strong it made them and I was curious.
So, I started taking Barre. I loved how it made me feel, it really did give me a full-body strength that I had never experienced. But I also became really curious about the larger Barre subculture and the origins and in particular, I noticed that many of the moves in class have this sort of... felt almost comically erotic but nobody was really acknowledging it. There was a lot of pelvic thrusting and Barre is largely based on the pelvic tilt and I started exploring. I thought maybe I would write a piece about it.
Well, the story that I discovered was way more interesting than what I was anticipating. I learned that Barre was invented in the late 1950s by a woman named Lotte Berk, who was a German refugee living in London. And sure enough, that erotic thread was not an accident; she was very ahead of her time in being very sexually open, she was sort of a foremother of the sexual revolution, and she encouraged women to connect with their physicality in her classes and to enjoy sex for themselves, which was really radical at the time. She began teaching one of the first-ever group fitness classes for women and became a fixture of the swinging sixties.
So, long story short, I wrote about her for New York Magazine’s: The Cut, and while I was researching that piece, I quickly saw that there was a much bigger story here and I was shocked to discover that nobody had told it. At one point I thought, for some historical context, I’d love to talk to the author of the book about the history of women’s fitness and I discovered that book didn’t exist.
Katie [4:32]:
You wrote it, Danielle. [laughs]
Danielle [4:33]:
Yeah! So, I saw a need and I really did set out to write the book that I wanted to read. I love hidden histories and just cultural histories of kind of, the everyday, of how things came to be. And I hope that I did this one justice.
Katie [4:57]:
That’s such a cool backstory. I actually have some friends who are obsessed with Lotte Berk because I think at least back in the early ‘90s, some of the studios still existed in Manhattan where I was raised. I know Barre is national and it’s all over the country, but I think Lotte Berk was still around and I had friends who took her classes. So, it’s interesting that that was your jumping-off point.
So, she’s not a household name even though Barre might be becoming a household name in terms of its exercise. Your book does have a lot of big names in it like Jane Fonda, you reminded me about Suzanne Somers and the Thigh Master, it was really fun to kind of excavate some of these memories. But you also really do focus on forgotten pioneers. You raise names and forms of exercise I had never heard of. Can you put a few of those on the radar of our listeners? And maybe share which one or two particularly spoke to you?
Danielle [5:56]:
Yeah, well the book begins with the story of Bonnie Prudden, who was a fitness evangelist of the late 1950s and 1960s among many other things. She’s been called the godmother of women’s fitness, but she has been largely forgotten by history. Bonnie hosted one of the first-ever TV fitness shows, she was also a fitness instructor on the kind of inaugural Today Show. She was incredible, she was a mountaineer, a prized skier, and traveled in these exclusively male worlds at a time when it was considered pretty subversive for a woman to use her body in that way.
And she really helped to lay the groundwork for the rise of women’s fitness over the seven decades that followed because she really worked to convince the public, it was her crusade, that everyone could benefit from exercise and women, in particular, could benefit from a regular... they didn’t call it this at the time, but a strength training workout. But she was also of her time, and she would tell women that under every curve there’s a muscle. So, no muscle, no curve. There’s a lot more I could say [Katie laughs] about the mixed messages that were being sent but it was a savvy marketing strategy at the time when society was extremely skittish about women seeking out strength.
Katie [7:45]:
It’s so fascinating and it’s so interesting that it is so radical for the time. And your book really is about this paradigm shift that you chronicle, that women have been viewed as the weaker sex and they came to appreciate the necessity or their ability to make their bodies strong.
The book is just chock-full of amazing facts. You shared with me, I didn’t know this, that up until the 1970s, common wisdom held that it was dangerous for women to run more than a few miles at a time. Women were banned from road races, there was that moment in history, I’m forgetting her name, that first woman who jumped into a marathon. You blew my mind when you shared that the sports bra was not invented until 1977. I was like, that’s insane. So, there are so many wonderful and rich and interesting details in this that I think the listeners would love to explore, that will surprise them. What if anything, surprised you?
Danielle [8:47]:
I was just continually surprised by how recent so much of this history is. I have to say, the sports bra was the example that I always came back to. Because the fact that it wasn’t invented until 1977 really does speak to the fact that women moved in a kind of intentional way, so little for so long. I think many, many young women today, and even middle-aged women don’t remember a time pre-Title IX, or a time when women weren’t encouraged to sweat, to go to the gym and it’s... you know, it’s 45 years ago. So, I was just shocked by how many of these myths and fears about women’s bodies and propriety kind of persisted throughout the ‘70s and even into the ‘80s and how recently the opportunity and access that many people have today, came about.
Katie [10:05]:
It’s absolutely mind-blowing. When we come back from this quick commercial break that we’re about to head into, I want to ask you about who or what took it from this sort of nascent stage and helped explode it into the larger cultural consciousness whereby no woman our age can remember a time when women weren’t encouraged to exercise. We’ll be back after this quick break.
[Ad break]
Katie [11:28]:
All right, Danielle, we were talking about how, you know, most of the women that are listening to this show, they’re 45, 55, 65. Even if we don’t exercise – and by the way, I’d put myself into that camp at different phases of my life – but even if we weren’t exercising, we knew it was a thing. We saw Jane Fonda on those VHS workout tapes, we saw women competing in the Olympics, and we were encouraged to be active as women in sports. I came of age in the college era when Title IX dramatically rewrote what college campuses looked like. So, exercise has always been a thing. I know that you track along history, is there one or two particular women or movements that really helped explode this into the larger culture?
Danielle [12:19]:
Yes. And I would say they are, Jane Fonda and aerobics. And those two are intertwined. The rise of aerobic dancing kind of preceded Jane Fonda actually. Jazzercise and another brand name called Aerobic Dancing were both invented in 1969, and throughout the ‘70s, aerobic dancing just became a massive cultural phenomenon. And for a lot of women, it marked the first time that they had ever really exercised in their adult lives. They might have been active as little girls but then because of all of the doors that were closed to women for so long when it came to athletics and using their bodies, there was really a hard stop on physical activity. Of course, some women played tennis and sports, but the mass level of physical participation that we see today didn’t really start to pick up among women until the ‘70s.
And then, it was in the very late ‘70s that Jane Fonda opened her first workout studio in Beverly Hills, and I was surprised to learn that the reason she actually got into the fitness business in the first place, having already been a very successful acclaimed actress and controversial activist, was to bring in money to fund her then-husband, Tom Hayden’s political ambitions. So, for many years, every dime that her workout studio, books, and videos made, went to her husband. But in any case, Jane’s studio was wildly popular, it wasn’t long before she was approached about writing a book and then about making a home video.
So, in 1982 when that video came out, it was Jane’s Original Workout video, the home video industry was really new and she basically helped to accelerate and launch the entire home video industry and she also brought fitness and women’s fitness to a scale, to the masses, in a way that was unprecedented. Because now you didn’t need to live near a class or a fitness center, all you needed was the equipment. So, it was really Jane who was the first celebrity fitness influencer.
Katie [15:01]:
I love it. I think this is such a great story. Jane was doing this in Beverly Hills but to your point, I’m pretty sure we got a VHS so that my mom could do those tapes in our living room.
Danielle [15:12]:
Exactly, exactly.
Katie [15:14]:
So, you know, it’s so interesting that she opened those doors and connected to so many people and then really set the path for that. It’s so fascinating.
Your book explores so many interesting topics. You really dive into the tension around health, self-esteem, body image, and exercise. I would love to have you talk a little bit about what you’ve learned, about how at one point, or at different points, the focus of women’s exercise and fitness has been around thinness. And then evolution toward health and wellness versus just an attempt to subjugate our bodies. I’m sure this tension continues today, the dynamic goes on, different people may be struggling with different things but give us a... pull back the lens, give us a wider aperture look at what you see in this evolution in why people exercise.
Danielle [16:15]:
Yeah. When I pull back and look at this wider history, I really see the kind of central conflict over the past many decades as exercise being used as a tool for liberation for women, or a tool for repression. And exercise being sort of, very feminist, and also very patriarchal. So, it was those tensions that presented one of the great challenges of telling this story.
To go back to the Bonnie Prudden era, at that time, as you said, people believed that if women pushed themselves physically, their uterus could fall out, or they would “turn into men” and there were a lot of fears and rules, written and unwritten, about what women could do with their bodies.
Katie [17:10]:
And also a lot of bad medicine and misunderstanding of biology. [laughs] It’s like... mind-blowing, it’s crazy.
Danielle [17:18]:
Yes, yes. And you know, it was a time of very strict gender norms in the post-war period, and just strong women were really threatening. So, against that backdrop, people like Bonnie Prudden recognized that the most acceptable way or a palatable way to sell fitness for women, and exercise for women, was to frame it as a beauty tool, and a way for women to become more attractive for their husbands, and to shape their figure. Dieting was extremely rampant as extreme dieting and diet pills are now. But it’s interesting actually, in mid-century America, exercise wasn’t even a popular weight-loss tool for a while until really like the ‘70s.
So, throughout the decades, it’s very interesting because women did gain more opportunities to move and exercise, and athletics became more socially acceptable for women. At every point, there is this cultural check where the body ideals inch further out of reach. So, whereas in the ‘50s and ‘60s everybody wanted to be really thin – and to be sure, that could be very toxic – now it wasn’t enough to just be thin. By the end of the ‘70s, the ideal was also to be toned, which of course for most women, requires work. And then heading into the ‘80s, Jane Fonda’s physique was ideal and she’s written how even for her, her physique was almost impossible to maintain. By the ‘90s, the body of steel, abs of steel, buns of steel, was this wildly popular franchise. So, what that represented for women, again, was this idea that the body had to constantly be a project that was worked on and perfected. A woman’s work on her body was never done.
So, this tension exists throughout and it’s part of why exercise has been so fraught for so many women throughout history. I do think that we are at the very beginning of a shift where our understanding of what a fit body looks like is expanding and we are seeing a little bit more size inclusivity in fitness. But my hope and one of my goals with the book was that by pulling back the curtain and opening our eyes to the forces that have been at play in the industry, we could better harness the truly beneficial, healthy aspects of movement to become stronger.
Katie [20:07]:
Yeah, absolutely. It’s sort of painful when you sort of outlined how exercise and fitness were meant to shape women’s bodies in different ways through different decades. Everything you listed was thin, or toned, or its abs of steel, and buns of steel. There is just no way women can be all of those things. You have to change every decade how you should be, and it feels painful. I do think there’s more of a focus now on wellness.
And you talk a little bit about this in your own personal story, saying that you went to the Lotte Berk method, or actually, you went to Barre based on Lotte Berk, and that is all built around the idea of the ballerina body. You say, "I didn’t look like a ballerina, but I felt like one.” Which is so beautiful, I think that’s what the goal is. You exercise to feel a certain way; to feel good, and strong, and calm, or stress-free, or healthy, or well, or like you’re taking care of yourself. So, do you see those sorts of qualities being threaded into the modern exercise methods that are popular? What’s your take on that?
Danielle [21:28]:
I do, I really do. My biggest takeaway from my research is just that we can't go wrong with moving in ways that feel good to us. That might be training really hard for a marathon or doing a bootcamp or it might mean taking a walk around the block. But when you separate some of the external pressures, metrics, and ideals and focus on how you actually feel, there are tremendous benefits to be gained.
So, I think that what has changed... Many of the fitness professionals I interviewed told me about how the language of fitness and the language they have used with their clients has really evolved over the past 10 years. It was really not that uncommon, not that long ago for fitness instructors to explicitly talk about “getting a bikini body” or changing your physical appearance and that being the primary motivation. And even if that is still, even if that’s still present, it’s not like that incentive has gone away, but at the very least, many, many fitness instructors wouldn’t dare talk about weight loss or love handles in class today. They focus more on strength and empowerment. It gets a little murky because it’s hard when you’re selling empowerment.
Katie [22:58]:
Sure, commodified wellness.
Danielle [22:59]:
Commodified wellness. However, I think it’s progress. And also, there are so many more... The representation that we see in fitness today and the size inclusivity, because of social media, kind of ironically because social media can be so toxic in the body images that it presents, but also social media has allowed these fitness influencers who don’t look like the typical fitness model to rise in a way that they really couldn’t have just 10 years ago. So, there are these communities, there are pockets of fitness communities that really advertise being inclusive and focusing on fitness, really for mental health and overall wellness.
Katie [23:53]:
What’s an example of that? I’m delighted to hear this, by the way, because I had a question you know around race and class around fitness because a lot of the fitness influencers that we talked about even in the beginning part of this show are sort of white superstars; Jane Fonda, Suzanne Sommers, these are famous TV personalities. I want to explore this a little bit more. Tell me how social media has impacted diversity and inclusivity. And do you have one, or two, or three specific people or examples you can point us to?
Danielle [24:30]:
Yeah. So, in the book, I write about Jessamyn Stanley, who I was fortunate to interview as well. Jessamyn is a self-described fat, queer, yoga instructor, she’s also Black. When she first started gaining followers, she talked about how no one in the yoga business looked like her. She began because she actually couldn’t afford yoga classes at a certain point, so she looked for a community on Instagram, in the early days of Instagram. Began posting photos of herself asking for guidance on her poses and she talks about how the response was like, “Wow I didn’t know a fat person can do yoga.” And she was like, “Yeah we can do all kinds of things.”
Katie [25:24]:
[laughs] Imagine that.
Danielle [25:26]:
She’s just, she is amazing. She does a lot of her yoga... she likes to do it in her underwear because that’s how she feels comfortable and she’s completely putting herself out there. She’s gained, I think it’s like around half a million now, Instagram followers. She has been on magazine covers, she has done a variety of TV commercials and she started a platform called The Underbelly which offers digital yoga classes. So, she’s been really inspiring for a lot of people. I’ve spoken about other women who were just incredibly... they learned from her, they were inspired by her, and now they’ve started their own offshoots of what she’s offering.
There are also, and I don’t actually cover this in the book, but there are a number of small gyms and online communities that are specifically geared toward the LGBTQ+ community and gender-nonconforming individuals, trans individuals who have historically not always felt safe in their bodies or lived in marginalized bodies. These gyms have recognized that moving together in a safe space and in community can be really powerful and can create physical strength, but also emotional strength. It’s been really encouraging to see these gyms and online communities pop up across the country.
Katie [27:03]:
That’s so beautiful. I love that. You do address a little bit in the book, this notion of the benefits of group workout classes, especially for older women. So, it’s fantastic that small gyms and communities have recognized the need for services and a space where people feel safe.
Walk us through a little bit about what are some of the social benefits to working out together. And maybe specifically share a little bit about what you observe with older women.
Danielle [27:36]:
So, I can't talk about this without thinking of my own mom who is 74 and who has been active most of her adult life. She became active first via aerobics in the ‘80s and then just a few years ago discovered this cardio dance studio in her community, the area I grew up in suburban Atlanta and has made really good friends through this studio at an age when making new friendships is not so easy. And I don’t just mention my mom’s story because I’m happy for my mom [laughs] but her story is one that I heard repeated again and again while researching this book.
On the flip side, I also spoke with women who had been moving, whether it was running or dancing, with the same group of women for, you know, 40 years. They talked about how they experienced life together. So, I think right now, especially... this is a time of such social isolation, and these in-person opportunities to be with other people and experience things together can feel like they’re dwindling. So, it can be very powerful in that way.
It’s also worth mentioning that research has shown that when we move with other people, particularly when we move in sync with other people, our bodies actually produce biochemicals that deepen feelings of social connection and trust and even create a feeling of having a purpose in life. There are many, many reasons, if you find your people, to move with others.
Katie [29:32]:
That’s fascinating. I can second what you experienced and share with your mother and the other interviewees. Regular listeners to this podcast have heard me talk about how I play both traditional tennis, and I have a group of women in my life who I call tennis friends but they’re actually just friend friends. They’ve become people that are involved with every aspect of my life, not just tennis. And over the pandemic when every single thing was closed, including my Bikram yoga studio, I picked up platform tennis because it was outside, and I met a new group of people. The women range in age from women in their thirties who have kids in nursery school, my youngest is 15, and my eldest is 21. The older women on the courts are probably in their early seventies. It’s such an intergenerational way of being and it’s so phenomenal to be connected with new people and expand your social connections. I love that. I love that your mom is experiencing that.
Danielle, we’re going to be moving near the end of our show. We have a speed round, but I don’t want to move to that without asking you about how your own fitness journey changed in writing this book. Did it change at all, was there something that you thought, I’m doing that? Tell us about... [both laugh] Or not doing that? [laughs]
Danielle [30:56]:
It made me want to do all of it. I think most of all, the research process deepened my appreciation for the forms of movement that I have access to, for my running, for Barre classes, and for all of it. Part of why I love hidden histories is because I do think for me, they give me a deeper level of appreciation for things I might have otherwise taken for granted. I like knowing that I’m standing, sort of, on the shoulders of these often very, really powerful women who came before and had to fight for some of the opportunities that we have today.
And then, as I said about moving in ways that feel good, I think while I’m not immune from occasionally wanting to exercise to change something about my appearance, having that awareness of maybe why I want to change and what’s influencing me and those hidden forces, has been really helpful for just kind of ensuring that my relationship with movement is as healthy as it can be, even if that means being really gentle with the kinds of movement that I do.
Katie [32:23]:
I love that. You’re smarter about the forces that guide and shape you. It just allows you to be more educated. I think that’s so smart. and I second that from this book too. I know that anyone who is listening to this who has ever taken a Barre class, ever taken a Jazzercise tape, ever had Jane Fonda on the radio would so enjoy this book. It’s sort of beyond exercise, honestly, and beyond fitness. It’s about women who were trailblazers. It’s completely and utterly fascinating, I can't recommend it highly enough.
Danielle [32:57]:
Thank you.
Katie [32:58]:
All right let’s move into the speed round. This is really simple, it’s one- two-word answers to a series of questions so we can end with some high energy. It’s like some step aerobics end to a podcast, are you ready?
Danielle [33:10]:
[laughs] I love it, let’s do it.
Katie [33:11]:
Let’s go! Writing, Let’s Get Physical, was _____.
Danielle [33:15]:
Amazing.
Katie [33:16]:
If I could time travel, I would go back and take one of these now obsolete or out-of-fashion classes _____.
Danielle [33:23]:
An early Jazzercise class, circa 1975.
Katie [33:27]:
Perfect. Which woman featured in this book would you choose as a workout buddy?
Danielle [33:33]:
Ooo... Many of them, but I have to go with Judi Sheppard Missett, the inventor of Jazzercise who is just joy incarnate.
Katie [33:40]:
Very cool. I would love to grab a glass of wine with this woman in the book.
Danielle [33:45]:
I gotta go with Jane Fonda.
Katie [33:47]:
Yeah, me too. Invite me, we’ll do it together.
Danielle [33:49]:
[laughs] Sounds good.
Katie [33:50]:
Strangest historical workout outfit ______.
Danielle [33:54]:
Thong leotards, I mean...
Katie [33:56]:
[laughs] Yes!
Danielle [33:58]:
Need I say more?
Katie [33:59]:
Exactly. A piece of exercise equipment that you are happy to see relegated to the dustbin of history _____.
Danielle [34:07]:
Many of them but... you know, unfortunately, I’ve got to say the Thigh Master for everything that it implies.
Katie [34:17]:
Exactly, okay that’s cool. An exercise or form of exercise that has stood the test of time _____.
Danielle [34:24]:
Dancing. You know, dancing is one of the earliest forms of exercise and it was kind of codified with aerobic dancing and cardio dancing is still really popular today.
Katie [34:36]:
It’s not going anywhere. Okay, I want to add this exercise to my routine someday _____.
Danielle [34:43]:
Weightlifting. I confess. Yeah.
Katie [34:46]:
Hard pass, this exercise is not for me _____.
Danielle [34:51]:
Bootcamps.
Katie [34:52]:
Finally, your one-word answer to complete this sentence: As I age, I feel _____.
Danielle [34:59]:
Grateful.
Katie [35:00]:
Very nice. Thank you, Danielle. This was utterly fascinating, I so enjoyed exploring this with you. Before we say goodbye, how can our listeners find you, your writing, and Let’s Get Physical?
Danielle [35:11]:
Thank you so much for having me on, this has been so much fun. You can find me on Instagram @DanielleFriedmanWrites. I share a lot of fun, archival, vintage fitness stuff. I’m on Twitter @DFriedmanWrites. You can visit my website at danielle-friedman.com and my book, Let’s Get Physical, is available wherever books are sold, as they say. Amazon, indies, Barnes & Noble, it’s out there.
Katie [35:41]:
Fabulous, I’m putting all of that into the show notes. Thank you, Danielle.
This wraps A Certain Age, a show for women who are aging without apology. Join me next Monday when Omisade Burney-Scott, creator of The Black Girl’s Guide to Surviving Menopause joins me to talk about aging, intimacy, body, change, pleasure, love, spirituality, and of course, menopause.
Special thanks to Michael Mancini who composed and produced our theme music. See you next time and until then: age boldly, beauties.