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The Portal for Public History. Please read the rules before participating, as we remove all comments which break the rules. Answers must be in-depth and comprehensive, or they will be removed.

The Portal for Public History. Please read the rules before participating, as we remove all comments which break the rules. Answers must be in-depth and comprehensive, or they will be removed.

In When Fitness Went Global: The Rise of Physical Culture in the Nineteenth Century (Bloomsbury), Conor Heffernan shows how the 19th century was critical for the development of the modern fitness indu...

Shipping the Cloch Bán up to Boston is a slightly eccentric idea, but it captures how diaspora communities find joy in heritage

YouTube video by Iron Culture Podcast

Bodybuilding didn’t go wrong. It’s working exactly as designed. For over a century, the sport has rewarded what looks most extreme on stage. Today, social media has taken that logic global. The resu...

Most people think they know what hard training feels like. They don’t. A century ago, strength trainers were less interested in programmes and more interested in perception. They tried to teach peopl...

I recently stopped following a fitness coach I liked.

The deadlift is pushing into territory once thought impossible. But behind the 500kg pulls and Enhanced Games hype lies a quieter story — how a piece of fabric helped redefine what strength actually m...

While surfing in Ireland is a sport on the ascendancy, both in terms of recreational and competitive participants, a great deal more work needs to be done on the sport’s origin within the country. ...

The social media age puts the move in the spotlight – but it’s been a fitness flashpoint for years

Most people think the problem is finding the right training program. A century ago, Britain’s strongest men had already solved that. They trained completely differently. Same gym. Same coach. Same ...

Everyone thinks the 1992 squat-off proved something about strength. A bodybuilder versus a powerlifter. Reps versus max weight. Case closed. Except one of the men involved called it a “marketing gim...

Published in The Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History (Ahead of Print, 2026)

Okay, you pencil-neck geeks, listen up.

For centuries in Ireland lifting huge boulders was a way to test strength and bond communities, says Instagram sensation Indiana Stones

In a culture that treats bodies as projects to be improved, the idea of simply caring for them feels almost radical

Podcast Episode · Weirdly Helpful (formerly The Best Advice Show) · 01/14/2026 · 12m

Humans have been obsessed with fitness for centuries. But how did this fascination start? In the new book “When Fitness Went Global” historian Conor Heffernan examines the rise of physical culture wor...

Abstract. This article examines how American physical culture entrepreneurs between 1880 and 1918 transformed ideas of health and success by merging commer

British and Irish men in the 1890s mailed their portraits to fitness guru Eugen Sandow, who created a global business with gyms, books and training kits

British and Irish men in the 1890s mailed their portraits to fitness guru Eugen Sandow, who created a global business with gyms, books and training kits

What if historians could own up to their mistakes? Or learn to see their mistakes not as weaknesses to be hidden but as a necessary part of the process of growth and discovery? That is what a recent s...

Details of the outcomes of applications and panel membership relating to the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) panel meetings.

Documentary on David Keohan, also known as

By Sarah Elizabeth Cox | Rediscovering the wrestlers and boxers of late-Victorian London

Ever wondered why gyms look the same in Dublin, Delhi, and Detroit? My new book When Fitness Went Global (Bloomsbury, out next month) traces how nineteenth-century ideas about strength, health, and di...

ALT: a black and white photo of a person riding a bicycle with the words retro exercise written below them