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Title details for Let's Get Physical by Danielle Friedman - Available

Let's Get Physical

How Women Discovered Exercise and Reshaped the World

by Danielle Friedman
Danielle Friedman
Audiobook
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A captivating blend of reportage and personal narrative that explores the untold history of women’s exercise culture—from jogging and Jazzercise to Jane Fonda—and how women have parlayed physical strength into other forms of power.
For American women today, working out is as accepted as it is expected, fueling a multibillion-dollar fitness industrial complex. But it wasn’t always this way. For much of the twentieth century, sweating was considered unladylike and girls grew up believing physical exertion would cause their uterus to literally fall out. It was only in the sixties that, thanks to a few forward-thinking fitness pioneers, women began to move en masse.
 
In Let's Get Physical, journalist Danielle Friedman reveals the fascinating hidden history of contemporary women’s fitness culture, chronicling in vivid, cinematic prose how exercise evolved from a beauty tool pitched almost exclusively as a way to “reduce” into one millions have harnessed as a path to mental, emotional, and physical well-being. 
 
Let’s Get Physical reclaims these forgotten origin stories—and shines a spotlight on the trailblazers who led the way. Each chapter uncovers the birth of a fitness movement that laid the foundation for working out today: the radical post-war pitch for women to break a sweat in their living rooms, the invention of barre in the “Swinging Sixties,” the promise of jogging as liberation in the seventies, the meteoric rise of aerobics and weight-training in the eighties, the explosion of yoga in the nineties, and the ongoing push for a more socially inclusive fitness culture—one that celebrates every body. 
 
Ultimately, it tells the story of how women discovered the joy of physical strength and competence—and how, by moving together to transform fitness from a privilege into a right, we can create a more powerful sisterhood. 

  • Creators

  • Publisher

  • Release date

    January 4, 2022

  • Formats

    • OverDrive Listen audiobook

      • ISBN: 9780593453520
      • File size: 261509 KB
      • Duration: 09:04:48

  • Languages

    • English

  • Reviews

    • AudioFile Magazine
      It used to be frowned upon for women to exercise, sweat, or build muscle--it was thought unbecoming and even dangerous. Danielle Friedman introduces us to a parade of fascinating trailblazers who championed women's running and bodybuilding, created Jazzercise and Barre, and invented the sports bra and leotards. Her writing is exuberant and humorous. Her narration is joyful and engaging, too. With a lovely voice and sparkling wit, Friedman is vastly entertaining but also empathetic and relatable. We meet Kathrine Switzer, the first woman to run the Boston Marathon; Lottie Berk, whose Barre classes were a manifestation of her sexual-freedom activism; and Lilias Folan, the original yoga lady on PBS. Our freedom to move rests on their shoulders. A.B. Winner of AudioFile Earphones Award © AudioFile 2022, Portland, Maine
    • Publisher's Weekly

      October 25, 2021
      Journalist Friedman takes a jaunt through the history of women’s fitness in her astute and entertaining debut. Beginning in the late 1950s, Friedman introduces Bonnie Prudden, an exercise enthusiast and author of How to Keep Slender and Fit After Thirty, an “instant bestseller” that hit the market in 1961 as America was beginning to “come around to exercise.” Then come the fascinating stories of Lotte Berk, a German Jewish dancer who, after WWII, conceived of a workout called barre for women who “wanted to look like dancers,” and Kathrine Switzer, the first woman to compete in the Boston Marathon in 1967. Meanwhile, at-home fitness evolved: in the 1980s aerobics workouts dominated, largely due to Jane Fonda; the early 2000s saw a boom in yoga thanks to Russian actress Indra Devi; and now, women turn to Instagram for guidance, exemplified by Jessamyn Stanley, who embodies the “twenty-first-century fitness revolution” by focusing on diversity and inclusion. With an emphasis on barrier breakers, business dynamos, and exceptional athletes, Friedman explores how physical training can be a means of personal liberation—Berk, for instance, saw barre as an expression of women’s sexual freedom. This zippy history is bursting with energy.

Formats

  • OverDrive Listen audiobook

subjects

Languages

  • English

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