That's the thing about innovation though, it's gauche, isn't it? Necessarily inexperienced. Don't let those Apple launches fool you. Take the very first specialised gymnastic equipment from Gustaf Zander's Mechanico-Therapeutic Institute in Stockholm, or rather, more entertainingly, take its models.
The kit itself looks gorgeous. And it worked. Initially funded by
Sweden's nineteenth-century welfare state, with the aim of maintaining
the health of its sedentary office workers, these "mechanotherapy"
machines worked so well they eventually becoming the sole prerserve of private white-collar health spas either side of the Atlantic, as well as the subject of the 1892 catalogue from which these photographs are taken. More images and information to be found in the brilliant Public Domain Review here.
I don't think I'd mind being a nineteenth-century catalogue model, specifically this guy with the beard.
That's quite a work out.
Of course this all very much reminds me of Bleak Expectations, the motions of which I still go through daily as my own Victorian workout – lines bellowed, fingers itched, silhouettes thrown – so here's a prop from that beautiful show (I don't know who of our impeccably behaved stage management team was responsible, but Natalia Kheldouni, Alastair Day and Alice Reddick are each in their own way almost as cool as actors, and to be celebrated):
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