WEBVTT - Let's Get Physical 0:00:11.160 --> 0:00:15.760 Lessons from the world's top professors anytime, any place, world 0:00:15.880 --> 0:00:21.919 history examined and science explained. This is one day University. Welcome, 0:00:25.960 --> 0:00:30.080 and we're back on the untold history of sports in America. 0:00:30.440 --> 0:00:34.879 I'm your host, Mike cosca Relli. Today we're looking at 0:00:34.920 --> 0:00:37.999 the thing that you should do regularly to compete in 0:00:38.080 --> 0:00:41.760 sports exercise. No, we're not giving you tips on how 0:00:41.800 --> 0:00:44.000 to lose weight or keep that butt tight. We're talking 0:00:44.000 --> 0:00:47.560 about the fitness revolution of the nineteen seventies. So get 0:00:47.559 --> 0:00:51.559 a good stretch, dust off those barbells, and adjust your 0:00:51.640 --> 0:00:59.160 leg warmers. Here's Matt. We begin in September of night. 0:00:59.279 --> 0:01:01.520 It turns out, just a couple of weeks before Tommy 0:01:01.560 --> 0:01:05.600 Smith and John Carlos famously raised their fists in Mexico City. 0:01:05.840 --> 0:01:09.960 It's early September night, and a small group has gathered 0:01:10.000 --> 0:01:12.920 at the National Mall in Washington, d C. And they 0:01:12.920 --> 0:01:17.480 are there to publicize something brand new, National Jogging Day. 0:01:18.240 --> 0:01:21.640 There were members of a Baltimore jogging club, a former 0:01:21.720 --> 0:01:26.040 United States Surgeon General, there was some Democratic congressman, and 0:01:26.080 --> 0:01:30.400 there was the Republican Senator from South Carolina, Strom Thurmond, 0:01:31.560 --> 0:01:34.960 the then sixty six year old strom Thurmond, most known 0:01:35.000 --> 0:01:38.480 for his firm beliefs in racial segregation. He was the 0:01:38.520 --> 0:01:41.200 oldest of the group, and he was just the type 0:01:41.240 --> 0:01:44.200 of man at risk for a heart attack that doctors 0:01:44.240 --> 0:01:48.600 had in mind when they began recommending jogging in this era. Look, 0:01:48.600 --> 0:01:51.960 it's a test case of only one, but strom Thurman 0:01:52.080 --> 0:01:54.880 would live to be one hundred years old. He served 0:01:54.880 --> 0:01:58.240 in the Senate for almost a full half century, so 0:01:58.440 --> 0:02:01.160 maybe he was onto something here with this jogging thing. 0:02:02.680 --> 0:02:05.040 Strom Thurman and the rest of the pack they ran 0:02:05.120 --> 0:02:07.640 and a few laps around the reflecting pool in front 0:02:07.680 --> 0:02:10.840 of the Washington Monument, and the reflecting pool is one 0:02:10.919 --> 0:02:14.440 quarter mile around, the exact same distance as a regulation track, 0:02:15.160 --> 0:02:17.960 and then it was back to work. Though actually this 0:02:18.160 --> 0:02:22.800 was part of their job. As we have discussed, was 0:02:22.840 --> 0:02:26.240 a cantankerous political year, with the nation dividing over the 0:02:26.280 --> 0:02:29.480 war in Vietnam and things like black power. But on 0:02:29.520 --> 0:02:33.480 this day we had Democrats and Republicans coming together to 0:02:33.600 --> 0:02:38.200 make a bipartisan statement that physical fitness was a matter 0:02:38.280 --> 0:02:42.960 of national importance. So let's use this moment, the first 0:02:43.160 --> 0:02:46.960 National Jogging Day in n as our launching point to 0:02:47.080 --> 0:02:50.480 explore the growing interests in physical fitness among Americans in 0:02:50.480 --> 0:02:54.520 this era. It was not that long ago that most 0:02:54.560 --> 0:02:59.600 Americans stopped exercising almost entirely after they graduated high school. 0:02:59.640 --> 0:03:02.360 You know, they had endured pe classes and now they 0:03:02.360 --> 0:03:06.480 were done. It's hard to imagine that because everywhere you 0:03:06.560 --> 0:03:11.680 look people are running and mountain biking, lifting weights, doing yoga. 0:03:11.760 --> 0:03:13.680 I saw a guy balancing on a tight rope the 0:03:13.680 --> 0:03:17.360 other day. There are fancy gyms that cater to adult 0:03:17.400 --> 0:03:21.400 clients all around US. Gold's gym, Planet Fitness l a 0:03:21.560 --> 0:03:25.680 fitness title boxing that the list goes on. But this 0:03:25.840 --> 0:03:29.920 dedication to being physically fit as an adult, this is 0:03:29.960 --> 0:03:33.840 a relatively new phenomenon in American history. Yeah, we talked 0:03:33.880 --> 0:03:37.760 a while ago about how physical educators they promoted the 0:03:37.800 --> 0:03:41.000 idea that children needed to exercise in play games. At 0:03:41.000 --> 0:03:43.320 the turn of the twentieth century, this was known as 0:03:43.360 --> 0:03:46.600 the Gospel of play. And we talked more recently about how, 0:03:46.640 --> 0:03:48.960 in the context of the Cold War and winning the 0:03:49.000 --> 0:03:52.880 Metal Count against the Soviets, physical fitness for school children 0:03:52.960 --> 0:03:56.960 it was promoted as a patriotic necessity. But what was 0:03:57.000 --> 0:04:00.600 happening at the National Mall in night this was different. 0:04:01.320 --> 0:04:04.920 Those were adults who were dedicating themselves to the idea 0:04:05.320 --> 0:04:08.200 they needed to be fit, and they were telling other 0:04:08.280 --> 0:04:11.160 adults that they needed to get in shape as well. 0:04:12.280 --> 0:04:15.520 And in retrospect, I think this was the beginning of 0:04:15.560 --> 0:04:19.320 a fitness boom or or a fitness craze in this nation, 0:04:19.760 --> 0:04:22.640 a boom or a craze that we are still living through. 0:04:24.040 --> 0:04:27.080 So today, let's kind of trace the contours of this 0:04:27.200 --> 0:04:32.160 fitness boom, this emerging dedication to adult fitness in this era. 0:04:33.000 --> 0:04:35.400 We've reached the nineteen seventies in this course, and that's 0:04:35.440 --> 0:04:38.000 why I'm doing this lecture now, because it's in the 0:04:38.080 --> 0:04:42.320 nineteen seventies that the modern American fitness boom really began. 0:04:42.880 --> 0:04:44.400 And what I want to do today is try to 0:04:44.480 --> 0:04:47.560 figure out why why did Americans start working out in 0:04:47.600 --> 0:04:55.160 this decade. So let's intellectualize exercise. Let's think deeply about sweat. 0:04:55.760 --> 0:05:00.680 That sounds weird, I know, but let's give it a shot. Alright. 0:05:00.720 --> 0:05:02.719 The first thing to say here is that the push 0:05:02.760 --> 0:05:06.560 for physical fitness among adult Americans it has its root 0:05:06.680 --> 0:05:11.000 in a perceived physical fitness crisis. In the nineteen fifties, 0:05:14.520 --> 0:05:19.000 doctors were warning that Americans were unfit now chalk this 0:05:19.120 --> 0:05:21.680 up as a what we call now a first world problem, 0:05:21.800 --> 0:05:25.159 because the general lack of fitness among Americans was the 0:05:25.200 --> 0:05:30.160 result of growing comfort and and ease and material affluents 0:05:30.240 --> 0:05:33.440 in the United States after World War Two, especially in 0:05:33.480 --> 0:05:37.440 the suburbs. In the suburbs, men drove their cars from 0:05:37.440 --> 0:05:40.240 their garages to the train station and then rode the 0:05:40.280 --> 0:05:42.960 train to work, you know, sitting for two hours a day. 0:05:43.320 --> 0:05:46.240 Then they sat nine hours a day in their offices. 0:05:47.320 --> 0:05:50.640 Suburban women they drove their automobiles to the grocery store 0:05:50.640 --> 0:05:54.680 and then back. And modern appliances certainly made house were easier. 0:05:55.680 --> 0:05:58.279 This was all good. This was all easy, that was 0:05:58.320 --> 0:06:02.279 the point. But it was not good for one's physical fitness. 0:06:02.560 --> 0:06:06.159 There was nothing especially physical or strength with about modern 0:06:06.240 --> 0:06:09.960 suburban life. And American doctors started to realize, we have 0:06:10.040 --> 0:06:13.839 a problem on our hands. And I think that this 0:06:13.920 --> 0:06:18.600 is revealing. When doctors and cultural commentators worried about the 0:06:18.680 --> 0:06:21.720 lack of fitness among men and women in the suburbs, 0:06:22.360 --> 0:06:25.520 they focused on different parts of the body for each 0:06:27.480 --> 0:06:32.560 For men, the concern was about their hearts. American doctors 0:06:32.560 --> 0:06:34.960 in the late nineteen fifties they observed a rise in 0:06:35.000 --> 0:06:38.360 the number of heart attacks among American men. They declared 0:06:38.520 --> 0:06:42.200 that there was a cardiac crisis in the United States. 0:06:43.320 --> 0:06:46.560 There was a pretty famous ninety eight book called The 0:06:46.640 --> 0:06:50.120 Decline of the American Male, and it explained the problem 0:06:50.320 --> 0:06:55.440 succinctly like this. Take the suburban commuter lifestyle, adding some 0:06:55.480 --> 0:06:58.760 heavy cigarette smoking in the three martini lunch, and of 0:06:58.800 --> 0:07:01.960 course the long hours at the desk, and you have 0:07:02.120 --> 0:07:06.120 a heart attack in the waiting. According to this book, 0:07:06.160 --> 0:07:09.920 it was the wife's responsibility to make her husband healthier. 0:07:10.080 --> 0:07:13.400 I mean, after all, her husband was ruining himself at 0:07:13.440 --> 0:07:16.200 his job for her and the kids. Or at least 0:07:16.280 --> 0:07:20.320 that was the argument American housewives. They were instructed of 0:07:20.360 --> 0:07:24.280 the importance of the low cholesterol diet. They were told 0:07:24.320 --> 0:07:27.280 to avoid fried foods and to feed their man fruits 0:07:27.280 --> 0:07:30.560 and vegetables. And one of the things that I find 0:07:30.720 --> 0:07:34.680 really interesting here is that the remedy that doctors were 0:07:34.720 --> 0:07:40.480 proposing it was dieting. It wasn't really exercise that comes later. 0:07:41.280 --> 0:07:43.800 You know, most adult men in the nineteen fifties, they 0:07:43.840 --> 0:07:47.600 just did not give much thought to to exercise. It 0:07:47.680 --> 0:07:52.800 was grooming a well shaved face and slicked back hair. 0:07:53.560 --> 0:07:57.720 These were the important physical qualities. I think this is 0:07:57.720 --> 0:07:59.920 one of the things that the show mad Men got 0:07:59.960 --> 0:08:02.560 so right about this era. If you've seen it, the 0:08:02.640 --> 0:08:05.920 main character Don Draper, he sped is a lot of 0:08:05.960 --> 0:08:10.160 time combing his hair, but we never once saw him exercise. 0:08:12.320 --> 0:08:16.080 The concern for women in this era was not the heart. Instead, 0:08:16.160 --> 0:08:19.720 the emphasis was on her appearance, and in particular, the 0:08:19.800 --> 0:08:26.000 focus was on her waistline. In his best selling book 0:08:26.080 --> 0:08:31.760 The Overweight Society, Peter Widen warned the American housewife that 0:08:31.840 --> 0:08:35.639 she needed to get thin, and that was the buzzword 0:08:35.720 --> 0:08:39.600 of the era. Thinness. You need to get thin and 0:08:39.679 --> 0:08:44.200 regain your honeymoon figure. Your husband wants you thin. He 0:08:44.240 --> 0:08:46.720 wants you to look exactly the way you did on 0:08:46.800 --> 0:08:49.160 your honeymoon back when you were twenty one years old. 0:08:49.240 --> 0:08:53.280 I mean, talk about an impossible task. And the way 0:08:53.320 --> 0:08:57.640 to get thin, he said, was by eating less more 0:08:57.679 --> 0:09:02.720 than any suggested exercise regimen. Women's fitness was wrapped up 0:09:02.720 --> 0:09:06.000 in the idea that women just needed to eat less 0:09:06.080 --> 0:09:10.960 and get thinner. Fashion magazines they told American women that 0:09:11.000 --> 0:09:14.679 the goal was twiggy that wayfish it model of the 0:09:14.760 --> 0:09:17.600 nineteen sixties. I mean, never mind that a woman would 0:09:17.640 --> 0:09:20.760 have to almost kill herself through calorie depletion to look 0:09:20.800 --> 0:09:25.760 like Twiggy, the very thin honeymoon figure. That was the goal. 0:09:27.160 --> 0:09:29.600 All right, I did that part quickly. But with all 0:09:29.640 --> 0:09:32.160 we have talked about in our course regarding gender, it 0:09:32.200 --> 0:09:35.160 should come as no surprise that fitness for men and 0:09:35.200 --> 0:09:39.199 fitness for women meant different things. For men, it was 0:09:39.240 --> 0:09:44.040 about inner health the heart. For women, it was about appearance. 0:09:44.280 --> 0:09:47.400 It was about thinning down and looking good for her man. 0:09:48.920 --> 0:09:53.040 But there's a class component here as well. Let me 0:09:53.040 --> 0:09:56.080 point out the middle classness of these concerns that I 0:09:56.160 --> 0:10:00.600 just outlined. You know, the soft sedentary lifestyle was not 0:10:00.720 --> 0:10:04.000 the concern of the garbage man in Pittsburgh or the 0:10:04.080 --> 0:10:08.040 domestic work in Mississippi. Now, the figure around which the 0:10:08.080 --> 0:10:13.479 physical fitness crisis orbited it was the middle class, suburban American. 0:10:14.760 --> 0:10:19.199 And it's middle class Americans, with their abundance of leisure time, 0:10:19.640 --> 0:10:22.080 who are going to be the foot soldiers of the 0:10:22.200 --> 0:10:27.840 exercise boom in the nineteen seventies. In the nineteen seventies, 0:10:28.000 --> 0:10:32.000 more and more adult Americans start exercising, and it's in 0:10:32.040 --> 0:10:34.480 this decade that we get the rise of what one 0:10:34.600 --> 0:10:43.960 historian calls the new strenuosity adult Americans exercising strenuously. The 0:10:44.200 --> 0:10:48.199 guru of the new strenuosity was Dr Kenneth Cooper, a 0:10:48.440 --> 0:10:52.560 former Air Force surgeon General. In nineteen sixty eight, he 0:10:52.640 --> 0:10:58.240 published a simple but very influential book titled Aerobics. It 0:10:58.360 --> 0:11:01.520 was Dr Cooper who introduced Americans to the idea of 0:11:01.560 --> 0:11:05.040 aerobic exercise, which is the idea that you need us 0:11:04.800 --> 0:11:10.440 a stained, elevated heart rate for true physical fitness. Aerobic 0:11:10.480 --> 0:11:13.760 exercise will do it all. He said. It will reduce fat, 0:11:14.200 --> 0:11:17.440 tone muscles, it will strengthen the heart, It will make 0:11:17.480 --> 0:11:20.679 you healthy on the inside and look good on the outside. 0:11:21.720 --> 0:11:26.559 And the Americans ran with this idea, get it. They 0:11:26.600 --> 0:11:29.760 took his ideas to heart. All right, I'm on a roll. 0:11:31.360 --> 0:11:35.320 The new strenuosity is clearly a response to the physical 0:11:35.320 --> 0:11:39.400 fitness crisis of the preceding decades. But let's dig deeper here, 0:11:40.120 --> 0:11:43.679 because we might also think of the new strenuosity as 0:11:43.720 --> 0:11:47.440 a reaction to larger social and political issues from the 0:11:47.480 --> 0:11:51.280 nineteen sixties and the early nineteen seventies. And here's what 0:11:51.320 --> 0:11:56.559 I mean. Let me begin with a comparison. The most 0:11:56.600 --> 0:12:00.480 direct predecessor to this new interest in exercise and physical 0:12:00.520 --> 0:12:04.360 fitness was Teddy Roosevelt's call for the strenuous life. At 0:12:04.360 --> 0:12:07.040 the turn of the twenty a century. We talked about 0:12:07.080 --> 0:12:11.280 this how vigorous and robust physical activity. It was being 0:12:11.320 --> 0:12:14.280 promoted as a way to transform young men into the 0:12:14.400 --> 0:12:19.960 leaders of tomorrow. So the goal of Teddy roosevelt strenuous life, 0:12:20.160 --> 0:12:24.360 it was social because the goal was to invigorate oneself 0:12:24.679 --> 0:12:28.760 in the name of preparing oneself for national leadership. You know, 0:12:29.040 --> 0:12:32.200 young men need to engage in these strenuous activities and 0:12:32.240 --> 0:12:35.600 then the whole nation will benefit later from their leadership. 0:12:37.000 --> 0:12:41.760 But there was no such civic mindedness to the new strenuosity. 0:12:41.800 --> 0:12:46.559 With the new strenuosity, the focus was entirely on the self. 0:12:47.280 --> 0:12:52.280 The focus was on the individual and not society. And 0:12:52.360 --> 0:12:56.800 here's the argument that I find these ideas fascinating. The 0:12:56.880 --> 0:13:01.160 argument goes like this. In the nineteen sixties, young people, well, 0:13:01.200 --> 0:13:04.160 they had very serious goals to work towards your racial 0:13:04.280 --> 0:13:07.120 justice and the oftl rights movement, or ending the war 0:13:07.160 --> 0:13:12.160 in Vietnam, or pushing for feminist legislation. But now here 0:13:12.160 --> 0:13:14.960 it was the men in late nineteen seventies, and for 0:13:15.120 --> 0:13:19.480 many Americans, this was a time of disillusionment. You know, 0:13:19.600 --> 0:13:23.079 civil rights leaders like Martin Luther King and Robert Kennedy. 0:13:23.200 --> 0:13:27.640 They had been assassinated in ninety The Vietnam War had 0:13:27.640 --> 0:13:33.440 been a long, draining tenure, bloody mess. Watergates had exposed 0:13:33.440 --> 0:13:37.360 the corruptness of the political system. The Equal Rights for 0:13:37.440 --> 0:13:41.560 Women Amendment it had gone down to defeat. And so 0:13:41.679 --> 0:13:48.720 in response, frustrated and disillusioned Americans they turned away from 0:13:48.880 --> 0:13:53.680 civic engagement and the public and instead they turned inward 0:13:53.800 --> 0:13:57.720 toward the self. They had learned a lesson. All Right, 0:13:57.840 --> 0:14:02.160 maybe I can't make society perfect or even make it better, 0:14:02.920 --> 0:14:06.439 but I know I can perfect or better the self. 0:14:06.560 --> 0:14:10.000 I can perfect or better my body because I have 0:14:10.200 --> 0:14:16.079 control over that. That's the theory. One historian of the 0:14:16.160 --> 0:14:19.760 nineteen seventies get named Christopher lash He called this turn 0:14:19.880 --> 0:14:23.640 inward the culture of narcissism, though I've always thought that 0:14:23.760 --> 0:14:27.080 was too harsh of a designation. I prefer how Tom 0:14:27.120 --> 0:14:32.800 Wolfe described it. He called the nineteen seventies the me decade. 0:14:33.560 --> 0:14:36.520 It was a decade when a generation of Americans, he said, 0:14:36.560 --> 0:14:40.280 they tried to distance themselves from the larger troubles of 0:14:40.320 --> 0:14:45.080 the era, and they turned inward. They sought personal satisfaction 0:14:45.240 --> 0:14:50.080 and well being in their own lives. This turn inward 0:14:50.200 --> 0:14:54.480 and searching it took many forms. This is one Americans 0:14:54.520 --> 0:14:59.040 began reading self help books. They began attending motivational seminars. 0:15:00.000 --> 0:15:03.160 This is when Americans turned to Eastern religions and began 0:15:03.200 --> 0:15:07.760 practicing forms of bodily arts like yoga. It was in 0:15:07.800 --> 0:15:11.160 the nineteen seventies that Americans began through hiking on the 0:15:11.200 --> 0:15:14.840 Appalachian Trail. You know, the first person to ever hike 0:15:14.920 --> 0:15:18.480 the entire two thousand and eight one mile trail, he 0:15:18.520 --> 0:15:22.280 had done it way back in His name was Earl Schaffer, 0:15:22.360 --> 0:15:24.600 and he was a World War Two veteran, and he 0:15:24.600 --> 0:15:27.760 said he hiked it to quote, walk the army out 0:15:27.760 --> 0:15:32.360 of my system. Well, in the nineteen seventies, thousands of 0:15:32.360 --> 0:15:35.520 Americans did it for the same general reason. It was 0:15:35.600 --> 0:15:39.240 an escape. It was a disconnection from the troubles of 0:15:39.280 --> 0:15:43.360 the world. It was a strenuous form of physical therapy 0:15:47.480 --> 0:16:07.760 after the break jogging, just do it. But the most 0:16:07.840 --> 0:16:12.000 popular manifestation of this turning inward and and improving the 0:16:12.120 --> 0:16:18.280 self through exercise in this era was jogging. The running craze, 0:16:18.360 --> 0:16:21.000 or the jogging boom, whenever we want to call it. 0:16:21.000 --> 0:16:23.840 It began in the nineteen seventies, and it was spurred 0:16:23.880 --> 0:16:27.200 by a few things. It was partly the result of 0:16:27.240 --> 0:16:31.200 a book talking a lot about books today, in nineteen 0:16:31.280 --> 0:16:35.080 sixty seven, Bill Bowerman. He published a slim book titled 0:16:35.200 --> 0:16:40.400 Very Simply Jogging. Bowerman was a cardiologist and the track 0:16:40.480 --> 0:16:44.120 coach at the University of Oregon, and he urged Americans 0:16:44.120 --> 0:16:48.320 to take up jogging, non competitive running. Said take it 0:16:48.400 --> 0:16:50.680 up as a way to combat the cardiac crisis of 0:16:50.720 --> 0:16:53.480 the era. Bouerman is going to go on to also 0:16:53.520 --> 0:16:55.800 be one of the founders of Nike at that story 0:16:55.840 --> 0:16:59.480 as a few lectures from now. The jogging boom was 0:16:59.520 --> 0:17:02.680 fueled by the successes of a few American distance runners. 0:17:03.640 --> 0:17:07.519 At the nineteen seventy two Unich Olympics, Americans were treated 0:17:07.520 --> 0:17:11.119 to an amazing performance by the Yale graduate Frank Shorter, 0:17:11.439 --> 0:17:13.679 who came from far behind in the pack to win 0:17:13.719 --> 0:17:18.240 the gold. Frank Shorter would be exceeded in popularity by 0:17:18.239 --> 0:17:23.879 a long haired, mustachio University of Oregon runner named Steve Prefontaine. 0:17:24.239 --> 0:17:27.719 They called him pre and pre like to say that 0:17:27.840 --> 0:17:33.119 running was not about talent, it was about guts. Prefontaine 0:17:33.159 --> 0:17:36.480 died at the height of his career in an automobile accident. 0:17:36.879 --> 0:17:39.600 He was just twenty five years old, and like the 0:17:39.679 --> 0:17:44.199 young musicians Jimmy Hendrix and Jim Morrison and Janice Joplin, 0:17:44.760 --> 0:17:51.080 pre gained semi mythical status after his death. But more 0:17:51.080 --> 0:17:53.679 than the call coming from Bill Bowerman or or the 0:17:53.719 --> 0:17:58.080 success of elite American runners, I think the jogging boom 0:17:58.159 --> 0:18:02.879 was spurred by the simple fact that jogging offered salvation 0:18:03.040 --> 0:18:08.040 to many Americans. Jogging was a different kind of physical 0:18:08.080 --> 0:18:13.119 activity on many levels. It was non competitive. In order 0:18:13.159 --> 0:18:16.399 to win at jogging, one only has to get off 0:18:16.439 --> 0:18:19.759 the couch and just do it. And hey, that's a 0:18:19.760 --> 0:18:22.439 good phrase. Just do it some some sports market or 0:18:22.439 --> 0:18:26.279 how to use that one. So the jogger is in 0:18:26.399 --> 0:18:29.959 total control of their craft. And to go back to 0:18:30.000 --> 0:18:34.279 my point about exercise as a retreat from society, I 0:18:34.359 --> 0:18:38.399 think this idea of control is really important. Yeah, the 0:18:38.439 --> 0:18:42.399 seventies were tough. There there's a sharp economic downturn in 0:18:42.439 --> 0:18:46.199 the nineties seventies. People were losing their jobs as factories 0:18:46.199 --> 0:18:50.280 were shipping them overseas, the jobs, not the people. There 0:18:50.320 --> 0:18:55.760 was rising unemployment. Americans were stuck in lengthy lines for gasoline. 0:18:56.600 --> 0:19:01.959 The American hostages were stuck in Iran. But jogging gave 0:19:02.040 --> 0:19:05.600 many Americans a sense of control over their own lives, 0:19:05.639 --> 0:19:09.040 a feeling of control that they lacked in the nineteen seventies. 0:19:10.439 --> 0:19:14.359 So that's the argument. Americans felt as if they lacked 0:19:14.399 --> 0:19:17.560 control over their own lives. They felt like they lacked 0:19:17.560 --> 0:19:23.200 the ability to transform American society. But these new strenuous 0:19:23.239 --> 0:19:27.439 activities like jogging, it gave them the feeling of control. 0:19:27.520 --> 0:19:32.319 It gave them transformative power over their bodies. And so 0:19:32.439 --> 0:19:38.920 Americans engaged in strenuous activities, you know, the the the 0:19:39.000 --> 0:19:44.760 emphasis on strenuous exercise and reshaping the body. It would 0:19:44.760 --> 0:19:48.439 of course continue in the nineteen eighties, but the desire 0:19:48.520 --> 0:19:51.759 to reshape and perfect the body would take different forms 0:19:51.760 --> 0:19:55.399 in that decade. It's in the nineteen eighties that we 0:19:55.439 --> 0:19:59.040 see a shift in the exercise regimens of many American men, 0:19:59.199 --> 0:20:04.159 for example, a shift away from aerobic exercising like jogging, 0:20:04.639 --> 0:20:09.999 in a move towards anaerobic pastimes like weightlifting, anaerobic, meaning 0:20:10.080 --> 0:20:14.759 basically muscle building. It's in the nineteen eighties that the 0:20:15.040 --> 0:20:19.879 very muscular physique starts to be viewed as the ideal 0:20:19.919 --> 0:20:25.639 American body, and I mean very muscular. Dolph Lungren, Carl Weathers, 0:20:25.959 --> 0:20:30.480 still Vester Stallone. The new fad was pumping iron and 0:20:30.560 --> 0:20:35.720 getting buffed. One of the inspirations for this shift may 0:20:35.760 --> 0:20:38.240 have been the president of the United States for most 0:20:38.280 --> 0:20:42.519 of the nineteen eighties, Ronald Reagan. When he took office 0:20:42.560 --> 0:20:46.959 in Ronald Reagan was well at the time the oldest 0:20:47.000 --> 0:20:50.879 man to become president. But despite his age, it was 0:20:51.040 --> 0:20:55.600 Ronald Reagan who masterfully used interest in physical fitness for 0:20:55.679 --> 0:21:01.919 political gain. Photos of Reagan lifting barbells, working out on 0:21:02.000 --> 0:21:06.719 nautilus machines, throwing footballs in the Oval Office, Ronald Reagan 0:21:06.840 --> 0:21:10.719 riding a horse, Ronald Reagan getting all badass with a chainsaw. 0:21:11.199 --> 0:21:14.919 These photos were everywhere during the early years of his presidency, 0:21:16.040 --> 0:21:21.959 and Ronald Reagan promoted the idea of a strong, rejuvenated, 0:21:22.399 --> 0:21:27.199 hyper competitive America. He was much more militaristic than his 0:21:27.239 --> 0:21:33.639 immediate predecessors. He dramatically built up America's nuclear weaponry and 0:21:33.719 --> 0:21:37.040 so the argument that cultural historians make is that there's 0:21:37.040 --> 0:21:42.119 a link. Just as Reagan was flexing America's muscle and 0:21:42.239 --> 0:21:47.399 building up its arms, it's arsenal, many American men were 0:21:47.439 --> 0:21:51.359 inspired to build up and flex their arms and muscles 0:21:51.399 --> 0:21:56.239 as well. I just think it's a fascinating thought. Um 0:21:56.280 --> 0:21:58.439 maybe it's true, or maybe we all just wanted to 0:21:58.439 --> 0:22:01.560 look like Arnold Schwarzenegger, you know who, by the way, 0:22:01.760 --> 0:22:05.919 translated that hulking physique of his into political power and 0:22:05.959 --> 0:22:11.600 the governorship of California. For women in the nineteen eighties, 0:22:11.919 --> 0:22:17.280 the number one exercise fad was aerobics aerobicizing. There were 0:22:17.359 --> 0:22:21.239 exercise videos coming from TV and movie stars like Victoria 0:22:21.359 --> 0:22:25.839 Principle of Dallas and Jane Fonda. Jane Fonda's workout videos 0:22:25.879 --> 0:22:31.399 were immensely popular, and there was a very interesting argument 0:22:31.439 --> 0:22:37.559 out there about aerobics. Now, some American women celebrated aerobics 0:22:37.639 --> 0:22:41.519 as liberating. They emphasized the idea that women sweating and 0:22:41.639 --> 0:22:45.159 engaging in this strenuous form of exercise it's a very 0:22:45.159 --> 0:22:51.039 important means towards physical health and greater self confidence. But 0:22:51.080 --> 0:22:53.840 at the same time, there were some feminists who were 0:22:53.879 --> 0:22:57.639 troubled by the aerobics fad. They had worked to get 0:22:57.639 --> 0:23:01.040 title nine passed and have it applied to competitive sports 0:23:01.040 --> 0:23:04.399 in the United States, and now, all of a sudden 0:23:04.439 --> 0:23:07.039 in the nineteen eighties there seemed to be a shift 0:23:07.080 --> 0:23:10.720 away from competitive sports and are exercising in the name 0:23:10.800 --> 0:23:15.479 of building character, and a shift toward exercising to look 0:23:15.520 --> 0:23:19.879 good and more than that as they feared exercising in 0:23:19.919 --> 0:23:25.359 the name of being more sexually alluring. Yeah, there's all 0:23:25.359 --> 0:23:27.479 these pieces of evidence we could point to here. You 0:23:27.479 --> 0:23:31.280 actually saw this shift in Barbie dolls. In the mid 0:23:31.359 --> 0:23:36.600 nineteen seventies. The most popular Barbie doll was gold Medal Barbie, 0:23:37.040 --> 0:23:40.159 a female Olympic athlete who had won a gold medal 0:23:40.239 --> 0:23:44.320 in competitive scheme. But the most popular Barbie in the 0:23:44.359 --> 0:23:49.799 mid nineteen eighties it was Great Shape Barbie, an aerobics instructor, 0:23:50.119 --> 0:23:54.999 decked out in a spandex leotard and leg warmers. The 0:23:55.119 --> 0:24:01.919 critics said that aerobics emphasized passive femininity. They said, but 0:24:02.119 --> 0:24:04.359 first of all, like with the Honeymoon figure of the 0:24:04.439 --> 0:24:10.639 nineteen fifes, aerobics emphasizes a body ideal that is just unattainable. 0:24:10.840 --> 0:24:14.640 Although at least this was attempted through exercise and not starvation. 0:24:15.679 --> 0:24:18.439 But mainly they bemoaned the fact that women seem to 0:24:18.520 --> 0:24:23.119 be aerobicizing in hopes of making their body more appealing 0:24:23.239 --> 0:24:27.879 to men. So they said, it's not exercise for the self, 0:24:28.239 --> 0:24:32.919 it's exercise for the male gaze. The athletic female was 0:24:33.000 --> 0:24:38.520 becoming a sexual and sexualized object. Look whatever you think 0:24:38.520 --> 0:24:41.359 of the argument, no doubt about it. There were a 0:24:41.479 --> 0:24:44.799 bunch of videos and movies from the nineteen eighties that 0:24:44.840 --> 0:24:49.840 equated women exercising with sex. Oh chief, there was Olivia 0:24:49.919 --> 0:24:54.080 Newton John's song and music video Let's Get Physical, a 0:24:54.199 --> 0:24:58.559 song that explicitly links the gym with for play. She 0:24:58.719 --> 0:25:01.719 is exercising now, she says in this song, in the 0:25:01.840 --> 0:25:05.240 name of getting horizontal later. I mean that's her lie. 0:25:06.479 --> 0:25:10.999 There was movie Perfect, starring Jamie Lee Curtis as a 0:25:11.040 --> 0:25:15.040 hotshot aerobics instructor. John Travolta was one of her students, 0:25:15.719 --> 0:25:20.879 and the title Perfect is revealing, like with the smash 0:25:20.959 --> 0:25:23.479 hit from the era, the movie ten, in which Bo 0:25:23.639 --> 0:25:26.760 Derek jogs, whether it's jogging she jogs down the beach 0:25:26.760 --> 0:25:30.359 in her swimsuit. The idea here is that the goal 0:25:30.560 --> 0:25:36.999 of exercise is female physical perfection. Critics said, sports and 0:25:37.080 --> 0:25:40.119 exercise are not supposed to be about achieving some level 0:25:40.199 --> 0:25:44.040 of physical perfection. They're supposed to be about building character, 0:25:44.719 --> 0:25:49.320 just getting healthy and doing your best. But American culture 0:25:49.520 --> 0:25:56.040 made it about beauty and sex. Once again, agree, disagree. 0:25:56.320 --> 0:26:01.160 I find these ideas fascinating. But the eighties were still 0:26:01.199 --> 0:26:03.960 to come. So let's end like this. Let's go back 0:26:04.000 --> 0:26:05.959 to the end of the nineteen of these and wrap 0:26:06.040 --> 0:26:11.879 up with the story of one more jogging politician. Back 0:26:11.919 --> 0:26:15.919 in the sixties, joggers were seen as odd balls at worst, 0:26:16.239 --> 0:26:19.439 kind of health freaks at best, kind of like vegetarians 0:26:19.560 --> 0:26:22.800 used to be seen. But by the late nineteen seventies, 0:26:22.879 --> 0:26:26.639 jogging had gone totally mainstream. It was an American craze, 0:26:27.280 --> 0:26:30.960 you know. In nineteen seventy seven, the TV celebrities Lee Majors, 0:26:31.199 --> 0:26:34.479 the six Million Dollar Man, my personal hero of that era, 0:26:34.919 --> 0:26:37.879 and Farah Fawcett, one of Charlie's angels. I may have 0:26:37.919 --> 0:26:40.959 had her poster on my wall. They appeared together on 0:26:41.000 --> 0:26:45.479 the cover of People magazine jogging with the headline Farah 0:26:45.520 --> 0:26:50.119 and Lee and Everybody's Doing It. Stars joined the jogging craze, 0:26:51.399 --> 0:26:54.439 but the nation's most famous jogger in this era was 0:26:54.479 --> 0:26:58.439 the President of the United States, Jimmy Carter. And Jimmy 0:26:58.479 --> 0:27:02.760 Carter had a complicated relationship to the pastime of jogging. 0:27:04.399 --> 0:27:07.440 Carter's public syst like the boast of his jogging skills. 0:27:07.800 --> 0:27:10.560 They told the press every week the number of miles 0:27:10.600 --> 0:27:13.679 that Carter had jogged, and we learned that the president 0:27:13.719 --> 0:27:16.799 he could run a sub six thirty mile. We learned 0:27:16.800 --> 0:27:19.519 that through jogging, Carter had reduced his weight from a 0:27:19.600 --> 0:27:23.279 hundred and fifty seven to one forty nine pounds, his 0:27:23.439 --> 0:27:26.759 resting pulse rate had been lowered from sixty to forty 0:27:26.800 --> 0:27:30.799 beats per minute. All this was announced to the press 0:27:30.840 --> 0:27:34.759 because Jimmy Carter's publicists were making the argument that because 0:27:34.879 --> 0:27:38.800 Jimmy Carter was physically fit, he was fit to rule 0:27:38.919 --> 0:27:43.159 the nation. Presidents make this argument using sports all the time, 0:27:44.560 --> 0:27:48.359 but this jogging propaganda it came back to haunt Jimmy Carter. 0:27:49.719 --> 0:27:53.399 In v nine, while at the presidential retreat at Camp David, 0:27:53.800 --> 0:27:57.119 Jimmy Carter participated in in a local ten k run 0:27:57.239 --> 0:28:00.040 right six point two miles, and the press was invited 0:28:00.040 --> 0:28:02.639 to tag along and see their physically fit president to 0:28:02.840 --> 0:28:07.160 his thing. It was a he steep and hilly course, 0:28:07.280 --> 0:28:09.959