Let's Get Physical: How Women Discovered Exercise and Reshaped the World

I do a combo of walking, Pilates, barre, Zumba, and yoga. I hadn’t thought much about the short history of women’s fitness at all until I saw this book.The author takes an explicitly feminist approach explaining the fascinating and inspiring pioneers who convinced Americans that deliberate movement was fun, empowering, and beneficial to their appearances, bodies, relationships, and mental health. She devotes a chapter each to calisthenics, barre, jogging, jazzercise, Jane Fonda, weightlifting, and yoga.I also loved how she showed global political events (WWII and the Cold War), new technology

I grew up with Lilias, Yoga, and You; Jane Fonda's Workout; and Jazzercise. I loved reading their stories in here. Well written and well researched, this book also explores body positivity and race in fitness. It's worth reading, and you'll enjoy the photos at the end.

The author brings to life an untold story: an examination into the fantastic history of incredible, proud, strong, ground-breaking women, who overcame long-held gender inequality beliefs to create the exercise trends we take for granted today: barre, pilates, yoga, strength training, yoga and even running. The behind-the scenes stories are touching, humorous, fascinating and inspirational. The writer's style is at once extremely informative while also being totally entertaining to read. I have recommended this book to many of my friends, women in their 60's and 70's who understand the power an

This chronicles the modern fitness movement and its impact on and influence by women. It covers from mid-20th century through today, with the bulk in the 1980s and 1990s period - this is when women's exercise had explosive growth in America. Although not an exhaustive history, it does cover a lot of territory, hitting key milestones in the evolution of this revolutionary period. It is a most definitive accounting of commercial exercise in America and should be required reading for fitness professionals. For exercise enthusiasts, it's an engaging read of the back-stories of some of the biggest

I thoroughly enjoyed this journey through the evolution of women’s fitness. It was so interesting to read and kept my attention. A must read for anyone, especially women. Well researched and easy to follow timeline

The Olivia Newton John-ish title led me astray. I expected this book would be more of a lighthearted pop-culture study of the aerobics craze that I LIVED in the 1980s and 90s. Bring on the leotards, legwarmers, and disco music!Instead, it's a serious, extremely thorough history of women's fitness and the difficulties faced (and stomped on!) but the women who began it all in different forms (running, aerobics, yoga, workout gear, and more.) That history was surprising, enlightening, and valuable. Those women were impressive.For me, the feminist aspects seemed just a bit repetitive after a while

I think I’m about the same age as the writer and we were both fortunate to have gone to school after Title IX. I’ve always taken it for granted that females can exercise and play sports. The author goes back and looks at the history of movement for women’s bodies. A fun read on the origins of all sorts of exercise trends.

An interesting look at the fitness trends over the last century and the role of women in creating, sustaining and building them. While there's a heavy focus on exercise classes and aerobics, there are also looks at the icons on women's running. Didn't love it, but glad I listened to it.