Dr. Gustav Zander's Victorian Era Exercise Machines

[SeaBreeze]

More pictures in link.

Dr. Gustav Zander's institute in Stockholm, founded in 1865, could be called the world’s first gym. It was equipped with twenty-seven custom built machines that Zander’s patients exercised on. Zander claimed that his therapeutic machines could correct a range of physical deficiencies, impairments and ailments brought about by accidents of birth or by hard labor. A follower of the movement cure promoted by an earlier pioneer of exercise Per Henrik Ling, Zander argued that the key to health was not strenuous acrobatics but “progressive exertion”—the controlled, systematic engagement of the body’s muscles in order to build strength.

https://www.amusingplanet.com/2022/07/dr-gustav-zanders-victorian-era.html

 

[MarkinPhx]

I wonder what pictures of our current life will be laughed at 160 years from now.

 

[Fyrefox]

If memory serves, it was also thought in the later 1800’s that electricity was the new miracle cure, and lots of quack devices were marketed claiming to cure almost every disorder by administering varying degrees of electric shock to the patient. This was a variation of my mother’s belief that if medication tasted bad, it meant that it was good for you… shocking!

 

[Della]

Who would have thought that it was ever possible to exercise without expensive lycra clothing and special shoes?

 

[Fyrefox]

Even in more modern times, “vibrating belt exercise machines” were all the rage In gyms and exercise salons. They probably felt good, because the belts stimulated circulation and may have loosened sore muscles…but the notion that you could vibrate fat off using them just doesn’t fly!



Then this poor girl looks like she is either riding a mechanical horse simulator, or undergoing torture!



Here we have a Victorian abdominal muscle toner, a precursor of the “ab blaster!” The posture makes it look like she’s about to lose her lunch…



And I just gotta get me one of these revolving hammock devices, ‘cause I wanna enjoy life more!

 

[Tommy]

Dr. Zander was one of the pioneers of physical therapy. It amazes me that, until the last several decades, the underlying science was largely ignored by the medical profession.