Indian Club Swinging and the Birth of Global Fitness: Mugdars, Masculinity and Marketing

Emerging in colonial India, the fitness fad that was Indian Club Swinging became a global exercise practice in the early 19th century. Used by physicians, soldiers, gymnasts, children and athletes alike, clubs were used to solve numerous social concerns and ills, and often prescribed to treat everything from depression to spinal abnormalities. This book provides a definitive account of the rise and spread of club swinging as it spread from India to Europe and America, asking why and how it became so popular. Discussing the global, commercial fitness culture of the 19th century, Indian Club Swinging and the Birth of Global Fitness explores how the popularity of this exercise reflected much deeper global and domestic concerns about body image, military preparation and education. Addressing broader questions about nationalism, gender, race and popular commerce across the British Empire, it highlights the origins of our modern transnational fitness culture and shows how it intersected with global and colonial understandings of health, medicine and education. Cover Contents List of figures Abstract Acknowledgements Introduction 1 Early origins, encounters and exchanges: Indian clubs in India 2 Medicine and muscles: Discovering Indian clubs in Victorian Britain 3 Indian clubs and transnational fitness in the mid-nineteenth century 4 Swinging back round? 5 Physical culture and the end of club swinging? Indian clubs at the turn of the century 6 The last hurrah for recreational club swinging Conclusion Bibliography Index