Sweat: A History of Exercise
by Bill Hayes
Bloomsbury Publishing
One of Bill Hayes’ biggest fears about getting old is that he won’t be able to exercise and he’ll be bedridden, stuck in front of a television. Hayes lets us into his life as he explores over two thousand years of exercising across three continents, weaving his explorations with his readings and with his memories.
The first Olympics are recorded as being in 776BC in Greece, but physical exercises were aimed at athletic prowess for war rather than for health and beauty. Sparta was the only place where women and girls could train alongside men and boys, but women weren’t allowed into the Olympics as spectators or competitors until 1900.
There were gymnasiums in Ancient Greek and Roman towns and they were as much part of the culture as the theatre and the marketplace … although only for the men and boys of the upper classes. These places were devoted to wrestling, with spaces for exercising, viewing and bathing. There were rooms where men could take hot baths, be anointed with scented oils, have a sauna and have philosophical discussions.
Hayes has trained in many physical disciplines and he did a course to become a personal trainer so he could gain knowledge of exercise, anatomy and kinesiology. As a teenager, he fell in love with Arnold Schwarzenegger and made his parents get him weights, and admiring a circa 1500 BC Minoan vase depicting naked boxers entwined sent him to boxing boot camp.
When Hayes moved to San Francisco as the AIDS pandemic was just beginning, the ‘men-only’ gym was the place to meet people, even though fit young men would disappear and notes posted to the front counter would announce their memorial services. He met boyfriend Steve at the gym when cocktails of drugs gave more time to people with HIV, and they were at the gym together the day before Steve died sixteen years later.
When Hayes most recent partner, neurologist and author Oliver Sacks died Hayes admits that his level of physical activity plummeted. Copious amounts of weed and alcohol meant that he found out the hard way how much your health can suffer when physical activity is limited. Although Covid has closed most of the gyms, he has managed to get back on track with incorporating exercise into his life.
With ‘A History of Exercise’ as the subtitle, this book could be a rather dry treatise, but it is far from being that. Full of exciting discoveries, fascinating illustrations and warm personal connections, Jane Fonda was right to be riveted by Sweat, as I was.
Lezly Herbert
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