Bill Hayes' Sweat: A History of Exercise examines the cultural phenomenon of exercise

Bill Hayes. Photo / Supplied

One has to admire Bill Hayes. Wondering about how athletes competed naked in the original Greek Olympic Games and the "flop factor" as male genitals bounced and slapped, Hayes does comparative trials sprinting and re-sprinting a mile course along a secluded country lane. "Can you actually run a race without athletic support?" he asks.

Firstly, he does his experiment fully-clothed and fully supported as a control, and then strips off and repeats it nude, expecting a lot of "jostling" and flapping, only to find that his scrotum very quickly tightens and contracts. His penis retracts to a fraction of its former size. Now, he even resembles the marble statues of Greek athletes with their oft-mocked penile length.

This is just one of the many practical revelations of Sweat: A History of Exercise. Contrary to what we might think, exercise is just as much a changing cultural phenomenon as hair-dressing styles. Sweat explores its history and its basis in physiology and culture. The book reveals philosophies, regimens, trends and their origins.

Hayes is a breezy writer. He carries his information lightly and contextualises in a way that makes it relevant to contemporary life. Although the reader might find themselves, for instance, in an array of Renaissance writers on exercise, they are inset into Hayes' personal explorations of present-day gyms, "gym-rats", library stacks in several countries, and their sometimes very mysterious librarians. He tracks down one series of Renaissance gymnastic illustrations to a library on the tiny Isola Bella on Lake Maggiore, in Northern Italy.

There are many historic tit-bits for the curious. The late American Supreme Court Judge Ruth Bader Ginsberg, would begin her day, even in her early 80s, with 20 push-ups, and finish with an evening exercise routine. And the name of philosopher Plato was a nickname meaning "broad-chested'" based on the fact he mastered wrestling early in his life. His real name was probably Aristocles.

Sweat also guides the reader through Scandinavian exercise regimes, bicycles, yoga, the life of the bodybuilder Sandow, Arnold Schwarzenegger posing nude for Cosmopolitan, aerobics, and Hayes' own experiences of the Aids epidemic. It is a wide range.

Hayes was the partner of the late Oliver Sacks, the neurologist, popular writer, and "poet-laureate of contemporary medicine", and has an eye for the telling details and narrative connections that enlighten as well as provide narrative impetus. His books on insomnia, New York City, and his relationship with Sacks have all been best-sellers. Sweat has the same broad appeal.

In recently published non-fiction, the personal narrator has come to the fore. Just as in documentary TV or film, the individualised perspective is the voice of our times. Hayes is the perfect example - engaging, erudite, and never dull.
Reviewed by David Herkt

Sweat: A History of Exercise, by Bill Hayes (Bloomsbury, $33