The Emancipation of Bodybuilding

Abstract

The main aim of this article is to explain why the history of bodybuilding is so strongly segregated from the histories of sport and physical education. Indeed, this is surprising since bodybuilding has been practised for as long as sport and physical education. Moreover, it shares common roots with weightlifting and gymnastics. This paper describes the development of bodybuilding as a hidden tradition in the field of physical exercise from which modern bodybuilding as a form of fitness descends. It shall also explain why this kind of exercise has been concealed for so long and how its popularity evolved during the last decades of the twentieth century.