Should We Blame Ancient Greece for Today’s Search for Six-Pack Abs?

Hunters and their dogs depicted connected an ancient Greek vase c. 510-500 BC. Credit: Public Domain

The taste obsession with six-pack abdominal muscles shows nary signs of abating. And if probe into antheral assemblage representation is to beryllium believed, it volition apt lone grow, acknowledgment to social media.

By Conor Heffernan

Today, there’s an full manufacture centered connected obtaining – and maintaining – chiseled abs. They’re the taxable of books and societal media posts, portion each enactment movie prima seems to athletics them. Pressure is besides mounting connected women to athletics six-pack abs arsenic assemblage ideals for diversion women person evolved.

All of this raises the question, erstwhile did the six-pack craze start?

It whitethorn look similar a comparatively caller phenomenon, a byproduct of the fittingness civilization roar successful the 1970s and 1980s, erstwhile Arnold Schwarzenegger and Rambo reigned, and men’s musculus mags and aerobics took off.

History proves otherwise, however. In fact, Western culture’s fascination with chiseled abdominal muscles tin beryllium traced backmost to the precocious 18th and aboriginal 19th centuries, erstwhile the perfect antheral assemblage representation successful the West started to shift.

Greeks inspired envy with their six-pack abs

Nineteenth-century coating by Philipp Foltz depicting Ancient Greek Athenians looking peculiarly acceptable arsenic they perceive to Pericles’ Oration. Credit: Public domain

While I was researching Irish wellness and assemblage cultures, I became fascinated with changing antheral assemblage ideals.

French historiographer George Vigarello has written astir however the perfect antheral fig and antheral silhouette shifted successful Western society. British and American cultures successful the 17th, 18th and, to a definite degree, the 19th centuries valued ample oregon rotund antheral bodies. The reasons for this were comparatively straightforward: Rich men could spend to devour more, and a larger framework was indicative of success.

It was lone during the aboriginal 19th period that thin and muscular physiques began to beryllium highly coveted. In the abstraction of a fewer decades, plump bodies came to beryllium seen arsenic slovenly, portion lean, diversion oregon muscular builds were associated with success, self-discipline and adjacent piety.

Part of this translation stemmed from a renewed European involvement in past Greece. Kinesiologist Jan Todd and others person written astir the interaction that past Greek imagery and statuary had connected assemblage images. In overmuch the aforesaid mode that societal media has distorted assemblage image, artifacts similar the Parthenon Marbles – a radical of sculptures brought to England successful the aboriginal 1800s whose antheral figures athletics thin and muscular physiques – helped spur involvement successful antheral muscularity.

This involvement successful obtaining an diversion silhouette deepened arsenic the period progressed. In 1851, a expansive commercialized and taste solemnisation known arsenic the “Great Exhibition” was hosted successful London. Outside the grounds halls were Greek statues. Writing successful 1858 connected the interaction those statues had, British carnal educationalist George Forrest complained that the British “are seemingly devoid of that beauteous bid of muscles that tally circular the full waist, and amusement to specified vantage successful the past Greek statues.”

Projections of subject might

Credit: Greek Reporter

Statues and paintings influenced the nationalist agelong earlier photography came to carnivore connected fittingness standards successful the precocious 1800s and aboriginal 1900s. Equally important, however, was the maturation of subject gymnastics astatine the opening of the century. At the aforesaid clip that the perfect assemblage types for men were changing, so, too, was European nine arsenic a whole.

As a effect of the Napoleonic Wars astatine the opening of the 19th century, respective gymnastic programs were created to bolster and fortify young men’s bodies astir Europe. French soldiers were renowned for their carnal fitness, some successful presumption of their quality to march for days connected extremity and to determination rapidly successful battle. After galore European states suffered humiliating defeats astatine the hands of Napoleon’s forces, they started to instrumentality the wellness of their troops overmuch much seriously.

Gymnast Friedrich Ludwig Jahn, done his Turner strategy of calisthenic exercises, was tasked with fortifying Prussia’s subject strength.

In France, a Spanish gymnastics teacher named Don Francisco Amorós y Ondeano was charged with rebuilding the physique and stamina of French troops, portion successful England a Swiss fittingness teacher named P.H. Clias trained the military, peculiarly the men of the Navy, during the 1830s. To accommodate the increasing European involvement successful fitness, ever-larger gymnasiums were built crossed the continent.

Soldiers weren’t the lone ones participating successful these programs, however. For example, Jahn’s Turner strategy – which promoted the usage of parallel bars, rings and the precocious barroom – became 1 of the astir fashionable workout programs of the period among members of the European nationalist and went connected to summation a pursuing among Americans.

Clias, meanwhile, opened classes for middle- and upper-class men, and Amorós y Ondeano – on with different European gymnastics instructors – was regularly quoted successful gymnastics texts published from the 1830s onward.

The antheral six-pack manufacture is born

Heracles strangling snakes (detail from an Attic red-figured stamnos, c. 480–470 BC. Public domain.

So the seeds for modern six-pack mania were planted successful 2 ways: First, men started eyeing Greek statues with envy. Then they developed the means to sculpt their bodies successful those statues’ images. Meanwhile, writers from the 1830s and 1840s prodded men to aspire to having svelte bodies, beardown torsos and nary excess assemblage fat.

But the obsession with six-packs genuinely blossomed successful the aboriginal 1900s. By then, strongmen similar Eugen Sandow were capable to physique disconnected the existing involvement successful Greek imagery and gymnastics by utilizing photography, inexpensive message postage and the caller subject of nutritional supplements to currency successful connected the quest for the cleanable body.

Sandow himself sold books, workout equipment, nutritional supplements, children’s toys, corsets, cigars and cocoa. Sandow, who was erstwhile hailed arsenic the “world’s astir perfectly developed specimen,” inspired countless men to shed excess “flesh” – the word fixed for assemblage abdominous – to amusement disconnected their abdominals. Abdominals, incidentally, was ever the word utilized astatine this time.

It wasn’t until the precocious 1980s and aboriginal 1990s that getting a “six pack” referred not conscionable to cans of brew and started serving arsenic a stand-in word for disposable abdominal muscles. Searching done Google Ngram shows that from the mid-to-late 1990s the term’s popularity grew exponentially.

“Six-pack abs” rapidly became portion of our parlance acknowledgment to ingenious marketers determined to merchantability a scope “get acceptable fast” devices, from Abs of Steel to 6-Minute Abs.

Few of these person stood the trial of time. Yet the longing for the coveted six-pack – arsenic the much than 12 cardinal Instagram posts with the #sixpack hashtag tin attest – endures.

Conor Heffernan is an Assistant Professor of Physical Culture and Sport Studies astatine the University of Texas astatine Austin. This nonfiction is republished from The Conversation nether a Creative Commons license.