Editing Exercise (section)

== History ==
{{missing|times and places when exercise was viewed negatively|date=August 2021}}
{{See also|Aerobic exercise#History|Fitness culture|History of physical training and fitness}}
[[File:Roper's gymnasium, Philadelphia, circa 1831.jpg|thumb|250px|Roper's gymnasium, Philadelphia, US, {{Circa|1831}}]]
The benefits of exercise have been known since antiquity. Dating back to 65 BCE, it was [[Cicero|Marcus Cicero]], Roman politician and lawyer, who stated: "It is exercise alone that supports the spirits, and keeps the mind in vigor."<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.inspirational-quotes-and-quotations.com/quotes-about-exercise.html |title=Quotes About Exercise Top 10 List }}</ref> Exercise was also seen to be valued later in history during the [[Early Middle Ages]] as a means of survival by the [[Germanic peoples]] of Northern Europe.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.unm.edu/~lkravitz/Article%20folder/history.html|title=History of Fitness|website=unm.edu|access-date=20 September 2017}}</ref>

More recently, exercise was regarded as a beneficial force in the 19th century. In 1858, [[Archibald MacLaren]] opened a gymnasium at the [[University of Oxford]] and instituted a training regimen for Major [[Frederick Hammersley (born 1824)|Frederick Hammersley]] and 12 non-commissioned officers.<ref>{{Cite encyclopedia |url= https://www.britannica.com/topic/physical-culture#toc249304| title=Physical culture |encyclopedia=Encyclopedia Britannica |access-date=20 September 2017 }}</ref> This regimen was assimilated into the training of the [[British Army]], which formed the [[Royal Army Physical Training Corps|Army Gymnastic Staff]] in 1860 and made sport an important part of military life.<ref>{{Cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=wUJHMQAACAAJ|title=Fit to Fight: A History of the Royal Army Physical Training Corps 1860–2015| vauthors = Bogdanovic N |year=2017|publisher=Bloomsbury|isbn=978-1-4728-2421-9|language=en}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=N-m_CwAAQBAJ|title='The Army Isn't All Work': Physical Culture and the Evolution of the British Army, 1860–1920| vauthors = Campbell JD |year=2016|publisher=Routledge|isbn=978-1-317-04453-6|language=en}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=UuRw08WgowQC|title=Sport and the Military: The British Armed Forces 1880–1960| vauthors = Mason T, Riedi E |year=2010|publisher=Cambridge University Press|isbn=978-1-139-78897-7|language=en}}</ref> Several mass exercise movements were started in the early twentieth century as well. The first and most significant of these in the UK was the Women's League of Health and Beauty, founded in 1930 by [[Mary Bagot Stack]], that had 166,000 members in 1937.<ref name=FitnessLeague>{{cite web|title=The Fitness League History |url=http://www.thefitnessleague.com/about-us/the-fitness-league-history |website=The Fitness League |access-date=8 April 2015 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090729135514/http://www.thefitnessleague.com/about-us/the-fitness-league-history |archive-date=29 July 2009 }}</ref>

The link between physical health and exercise (or lack of it) was further established in 1949 and reported in 1953 by a team led by [[Jerry Morris]].<ref>{{cite news| vauthors = Kuper S |title=The man who invented exercise|newspaper=Financial Times|date=11 September 2009|url=http://www.ft.com/cms/s/2/e6ff90ea-9da2-11de-9f4a-00144feabdc0.html |archive-url=https://ghostarchive.org/archive/20221210/http://www.ft.com/cms/s/2/e6ff90ea-9da2-11de-9f4a-00144feabdc0.html |archive-date=10 December 2022 |url-access=subscription|access-date=12 September 2009}}</ref><ref name="Morris1953">{{cite journal | vauthors = Morris JN, Heady JA, Raffle PA, Roberts CG, Parks JW | title = Coronary heart-disease and physical activity of work | journal = Lancet | volume = 262 | issue = 6795 | pages = 1053–1057 | date = November 1953 | pmid = 13110049 | pmc = <!--none--> | doi = 10.1016/S0140-6736(53)90665-5 }}</ref> Morris noted that men of similar social class and occupation (bus conductors versus bus drivers) had markedly different rates of heart attacks, depending on the level of exercise they got: bus drivers had a sedentary occupation and a higher incidence of heart disease, while bus conductors were forced to move continually and had a lower incidence of heart disease.<ref name="Morris1953" />