Fitness Fads That Got Us Moving Through The Years
From at-home exercise videos and group classes with cult-like followings to crazy contraptions, workout trends come and go. Below, we explore past and present fitness crazes that captivated our hearts (and wallets), offering hope for better bodies and healthier lifestyles.
If there’s one workout routine that created as much of a fashion statement as a fitness phenomenon, it’s Jane Fonda’s original “Workout” video. Rewind to 1982 when the sex-pot model, actress and activist released a VHS tape based on her chart-topping exercise book, “Jane Fonda’s Workout Book” which shot Fonda to fame as a fitness goddess and sparked an at-home exercise revolution with women during a time when gyms were frequented predominantly by men. The video featured Fonda dressed in memorable outfits like striped leotard, violet tights and eggplant-hued legwarmers, leading a group of similarly clad women through stretching, aerobics, a hard-hitting arm and leg routine and floor work set to upbeat music popular at the time.
Fonda’s VHS became one of the bestselling workout videos of all times — she released 22 titles — and some would say her original workout is still one of the most effective. If this recap sparked some nostalgia or interest to try the sweat sessions, Fonda’s old and new workouts are streaming on Amazon.
Squeeze Your Way To Fitness
Promising toned and trim thighs, the ThighMaster became another household health-hit with women in the early 90s. A barrage of TV infomercials starred “Three’s Company” actress Suzanne Somers repetitively squeezing the V-shaped product between her knees, showcasing how easy it was to use — exercisers could even watch TV at the same time. (Of course, the ads never showed the contraption suddenly springing from users’ legs and flying across the room, which often happened.)
Affordably priced at $19.95, millions of consumers snatched up the gadget with hopes of achieving knockout thighs and gams like Somers. While it became a must-have fitness accessory and a goldmine for the makers (in interviews, Somers says they stopped counting after selling 10 million) the craze eventually ran its course. You might unearth the once-famous apparatus at a garage sale, and they’re still sold online, including a more expensive version on Somers’ website.
If you were a workout junkie in the late 90s, chances are that you tried Billy Blanks kick-butt workout called Tae Bo. A mixture of taekwondo and boxing, the high-intensity exercise program consists of fancy footwork combined with repetitive martial arts moves like punches, jabs and roundhouse kicks set to dance-pop music.
While it wasn’t meant to teach self-defense, many people loved Tae Bo’s empowering moves, and of course, the ripped bodies that resulted from them. Blanks sold a series of at-home videos/DVDs (who wouldn’t be inspired to push harder with him encouraging from the TV?) and fitness instructors worldwide became certified to teach Tae Bo at gyms. The success of Tae Bo also spurred gyms to offer similar versions of the workout, such as kickboxing and cardio-boxing.
Still relevant and results-driven today, you can find Blanks workouts on his YouTube channel, “Billy Blanks Tae Bo Fitness.” FYI: he’s 66-years-old and still swinging, so there’s no room for excuses.
Gotta Love A Dance Party
Who doesn’t love a big dance party, especially when it’s exercise disguised as fun? The Zumba rage was a fortunate accident, quietly emerging in 1986 in Cali, Colombia, when fitness instructor Alberto Perez, known as “Beto,” forgot his regular music used to teach his class. Improvising with a mixtape of salsa and merengue that he happened to have with him, Beto led the gym class through an energetic mix of aerobics and Latin-inspired dance moves. By the 90s, he was teaching his hybrid dance-aerobics to exercise groups at Miami studios, and along with Alberto Perlman and Alberto Aghion, trademarked the Zumba name in 2001.
The energetic workout is loved by the masses for its diverse music ranging from world rhythms to hip hop, heart-pounding, but not-too-hard moves that include salsa steps, booty shaking and fist-pumping jumps, and the ability to torch major calories. Zumba classes are still going strong worldwide and taught at mainstream gyms in 180 countries — there’s likely a class taught near you.
Clip In For Ultimate Calorie Burn
If you know what being “clipped in” means, you’ve probably taken a spin class. Spinning, or indoor cycling, took off at gyms in the 1990s, promising a calorie-blasting workout in under an hour. People became addicted to the fast-paced classes, where they clipped special cycling shoes into the pedals of a stationary bike then followed an instructor’s cue to adjust the knob’s resistance or tension for sprints and thigh-burning hill climbs. Depending on how hard you work, you can burn anywhere from 400 to 600 calories.
Over the years, cycling franchises such as SoulCycle, FlyWheel and CycleBar popped up and gained a strong band of worshippers who clamored to book classes held in semi-dark rooms with thumping music and hard-core instructors yelling out cues and inspiration. When the pandemic’s lockdown pushed people to exercise at home, another cycling craze skyrocketed. Millions bought and obsessed over pricey, indoor bikes like Peloton and NordicTrack that bring live workouts, music and a sense of community to users’ screens. Peloton reports that bike sales had decreased by November, so only time will tell if the bikes end up collecting dust as people return to gyms.
Still Hot After All These Years
Roller skating was a huge social sport in the 70s and 80s, with kids, teenagers and even young adults invading roller rinks to show off their disco moves, discothèque fashions, impressive back-skating abilities, and (hopefully) pairing up for the coveted couple’s skate. But it was the 90s when roller blades, also known as inline skates, became a hot way to get into shape. People of all ages, clad in elbow pads, knee pads and Walkmans (the old-school version of an iPod), could be seen zipping down streets, gliding side to side and barreling down hills.
While the fad fizzled by the turn of the new millennium, rollerblading and roller skating saw a revival during the pandemic, with people dusting off their blades or ordering a pair online to get some fresh air and socially distanced exercise. Social media platform TikTok (always a barometer of what’s hot) played a role in the resurgence, with millions of users posting videos of themselves blissfully rollerblading to inspiring music.
Standing The Test Of Time
Don’t let this seemingly low-impact workout fool you. There’s a reason Pilates devotees look so svelte and stand tall with perfect posture and why it’s been able to stand the test of time. Although created by Joseph Pilates in Germany more than a century ago, Pilates has garnered renewed interest in recent years thanks to the influence of hot-bodied celebrities and social media influencers who swear by the controlled movements that will, indeed, cause you to tremble and sweat.
Focusing on the mind and body connection, classical mat Pilates consists of 34 moves, which are done in repetitions before shifting to the next move. While you can find mat classes at many traditional gyms, people also flock to studios with reformer machines, which is a bed-like frame that sits on springs and moves back and forth. During reformer classes, you’ll hold straps in your hands or place your feet in them, pushing and pulling against the resistance of the springs to further lengthen muscles and create a lithe body. Even Pilates continues to transform, with contemporary studios now fusing barre, yoga and fast-paced cardio movements into the workout.
Dig Deep For Perfect Physique
Enduring a drill sergeant style fitness instructor yelling at you to keep going, possibly, until you throw up, is a trend that’s taken many forms for decades. The boot camp boom emerged in the late-90s, with workouts loosely fashioned after military basic training that crafts rock-hard bodies in weeks. By the early-2000s, the market was saturated with boot camp classes held in gyms, backyards and even on the beach, with groups large and small gathered to dig deep for a grueling number of pushups, running drills, and flipping over tires and even pushing trucks. There were also home workout video sensations like fitness guru Shaun T’s 2009 “Insanity” workout, meant to transform your body in 60 days — that is, if you didn’t give up on the extreme workouts after a few days. Boot camps of late are hyper-focused on high intensity training known as HIIT (high intensity interval training) classes, found at of-the-minute branded studios like celebrity-loved Barry’s Bootcamp and F45.
From gyms to homes, this stationary machine never takes a break in popularity, even if it often doubles as a clothes’ hanger. If you consider workout equipment to be tortuous, you’re not far from the mark when it comes to the treadmill’s beginnings. Quick history: the machine, then called a treadwheel, was created in the 1800s by an English civil engineer to reform and even punish defiant prisoners. A medical treadmill appeared in the 1950s as a way for doctors to test and detect heart problems, which evolved into the diagnostic cardiac tests used today. But the popularity of having a treadmill for aerobic exercise in the comfort of home became commonplace starting in the 60s and 70s. Over the years, treadmills have progressed with bigger TV screens, music capabilities, inclines that mimic steep hills and brands offering running coaches. One of the most popular is the iFit-equipped NordicTrack fitted with a large screen which allows users to join live studio classes and compete on the leaderboard with other treadmill owners, or follow instructors as they walk, jog and sprint through scenic, far-flung places. And as we know, exercising outside in hot, stormy South Florida isn’t always feasible, so a treadmill can be a steadfast friend.
There’s a reason you constantly see people glancing down at their watches or wristbands as they repeatedly lap the cul-de-sac and climb the office building’s steps in lieu of taking the elevator. Counting steps is a thing. Fitness trackers have stepped up their game since the invention of the humble pedometer, but what hasn’t changed is hitting the benchmark of 10,000 steps a day. If you’ve ever wondered how we settled on that number: in the 1960s, Japanese professor Dr. Yoshiro Hatano invented the Manpo-kei pedometer to help combat growing obesity in the Japanese population. Yoshiro and his team determined that most walked between 3,000 and 5,000 steps a day, and if they increased it to 10,000 steps, the extra calories burned could result in significant yearly weight loss. While recent studies have questioned the scientific validity of reaching that coveted number of steps (some say it was a marketing ploy to sell pedometers) most health officials now agree it’s a healthy goal. From the Fitbit tracker, which launched in 2007, to the (more expensive) Apple Watch wearable devices are hot commodities for those who want to keep tabs on their daily activity. Fitness wearables can track your steps and calories burned, monitor your sleep and even remind you to stand up if you’re sitting too long.
To that point, we hope this list inspires you to get moving. It’s not about what’s trending — but what works for your body. O
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