Brett McKay here and welcome to another edition of the Art of Manliness Podcast.

In an age that doesn't think too much about history, you might be forgiven for thinking that a culture of exercise only emerged in the 20th century.

But the idea of purposely exercising to change one's body, what folks used to call physical culture, likely goes back to the very

beginnings of time. Here to impact the origins, evolution, and future fitness is Dr. Connor Heffernan,

a lecture in the sociology of sport at Ulster University and the author of the history of physical culture.

Today on the show, Connor takes us on a fascinating and wide-aging tour of physical culture for the ancient Egyptians who made their pharaohs run around a pyramid

to test their fitness to rule,

to the ancient Greeks who used their genaziums

for both bodily training and intellectual philosophizing,

the modern strongmen who became

proto- Fitness influencers in many periods and societies in between.

We discuss how training practices changed over time,

where they may be going next, and the evergreen principles from past eras that we could still learn from today.

After the show's over check at our show notes at Awim.IS slash physical culture. All right, Connor Heffernan, and so you're not.

So you can.

All right, Connor Heffernan,

welcome the show.

Thanks so much for having me.

So you are a historian of physical culture and physical fitness.

What led you to researching and writing about the history of exercise.

So when I talk to students, I tell them that I study the desire to look better naked,

which is kind of what I do in a certain sense.

...