How Fitness Machines First Came To be
Visiting a gym for the first time is a fascinating experience. Along with all the different people doing different exercises, one of the first things that a beginner will come face to face with is the variety of exercise machines. Big, small, simple, complicated; there’s a machine for just about every type of workout imaginable, and it can quickly become quite confusing, especially for someone that has never come across them before.
Believe it or not, many of the modern machines we find in gyms today actually have long and interesting histories, with some of them dating back thousands of years. Of course, they have evolved and changed over the years, but some would be surprised to learn that the computerised treadmill that allows them to play online slots real money Canada has a fair amount of history behind it, and that it was once quite a simplistic and inefficient machine.
Free Weights
These are comprised of dumbbells, various weights, bars, and much more. They’re common at most gyms, and are mostly used by those trying to build muscle. They also have extremely old origins that can date back to most of the ancient civilizations that came before our current one. The Ancient Egyptians, Greeks, Chinese, and Indians all have historic recordings of similar weight devices used to increase strength, especially for military use.
The Ancient Greeks in particular made great use of primitive free weights, where they would train for months on end to perform at the Olympics. Much of the training was far more intensive than what is common today, and it’s generally believed that the Greeks were faster, stronger, and had more stamina that even our top athletes.
Cardiovascular Equipment
This is the category that machines like the treadmill would fall under, and while it wouldn’t be a mistake to believe something like the treadmill is a newer invention, it can actually be traced back to the late 1800s. Treadmills at the time weren’t used for exercise, but rather for manufacturing, and were the precursors for the conveyor belt we find in most factories today.
It would be later on in 1952 that doctors would discover the benefits of running and the use of the treadmill that would allow people to get exercise without having to leave their homes. It didn’t take long for this to catch on, and some years later the treadmill became a staple of most gyms and many homes for cardiovascular training.
Other Training Machines
Other machines, such as resistance bands and resistance weight machines would only come into being in the later half of the 20th century as scientists and sports trainers began better understanding the body and what it requires to lose weight and build stamina and muscle. These machines would later become more popular over time, being introduced primarily in the United States before making their way to gyms across the world. Today, visiting even small gyms can give us access to just about any machine that we can think of, each one giving us a precise, powerful workout that we’d have difficulty achieving through any other means.