Fitness book history by decadefrom @jeffnippard

Transcript

Are the most influential fitness books over the last one hundred years. From 1897, this might be the most influential fitness book ever written. It kick started the modern fascination with muscle. In 1924, Superstrength became one of the first books to promote basic barbell training. It came out a hundred years ago, and we're still doing these exact lifts today. In the nineteen thirties, physical training simplified introduced progressive overload, the idea of adding a small amount of weight over time still a core principle for science based lifters today. The most influential fitness book of the nineteen forties was The Male Hormone. This is the first time that testosterone was introduced to the general public. I don't think Paul Dufroof had any idea what he was setting in motion for bodybuilding or for steroids. For the nineteen fifties, I've got advanced methods of weight training. US Olympic coach Bob Hoffman was the first guy to do a deep dive into different training splits and recovery. In the nineteen sixties, John McCollum wrote a series of short stories about gym culture. They usually centered around some kid who'd come into the gym and tell an old guy about some new training gimmick, and the old guy would have to tier him it's bunk. It was pretty cool. It was like a mix of folklore, gym psychology, and a lot of dry humor. Pumping Iron was published in 1974 rank later became the film that brought bodybuilding to the mainstream and cemented Arnold as a legend. In 1985, this became the lifting better. Training, nutrition, posing, all in one place. Every serious lifter had a copy. For the nineteen nineties, I've got Heavy Duty by Mike Mentzer. This is where low volume, high intensity training really took off, and a lot of people still follow it today. In 2005, Mark Rippetoe published Starting Strength. I remember reading this book when I first got into powerlifting, and it ushered in a whole new era of barbell training. For the twenty tens, I'm going with better, leaner, stronger. No nonsense evidence based fitness advice for beginners. And the twenty twenties go to the muscle and strength pyramid, one of the best truly science based training books out tier, and actually inspired my own book, The Muscle Ladder.