1890's Muscle Power

We all know that our human body cult isn't only a concomitant effect of the modern age but infact it's the Swedish physician Gustav Zander in the late nineteenth century who laid the foundation stone for our today known gym equipment and machines. Treating primarily children and male workers in Stockholm Zander's machines found a very different clientele with the import to the U.S.A: the rising American business class! With the growing importance of understanding the body as a system of potential energy and the belief that this energy can only be released by regular and perfectly controlled force, such sunken vital energy could be raised e.g by being hit by a set of rhythmic oscillating leather disks  of  Zander's abdominal machine. Enjoy the following images from the 1890s and remember Mr. Zander the next time you hit your cross trainer in the gym ☺

via Cabinet Magazine