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.
By:
Conor Heffernan (Ulster University UK)
Imprint: Bloomsbury Academic
Country of Publication: United Kingdom
Dimensions:
Height: 234mm,
Width: 156mm,
Spine: 25mm
Weight: 454g
ISBN: 9781350401662
ISBN 10: 1350401668
Pages: 288
Publication Date: 26 June 2025
Audience:
Professional and scholarly
,
Undergraduate
Format: Paperback
Publisher's Status: Forthcoming
Abstract List of Figures Acknowledgements Introduction 1. Early Origins, Encounters and Exchanges, The 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? Indian Clubs and Global Fitness from the Mid-Nineteenth Century 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
Conor Heffernan is Lecturer in the Sociology of Sport at Ulster University, UK. His books include A History of Physical Culture in Ireland (2021) and The History of Physical Culture (2021). Conor has published fifty peer-reviewed academic journals and runs a history of fitness website.
