"Jonathan Black gives us a backstage look at an industry and the people that have left an indelible mark on the American body and the consciousness it houses. ... With insights drawn from more than fifty interviews and attention to key developments in bodybuilding, aerobics, equipment, health clubs, running, sports medicine, group exercise, Pilates, and yoga, Making the American Body reveals how a focus on fitness has shaped not only our physiques but also, and more profoundly, American ideas of what 'fitness' is."--From publisher description.

The research for this extensive, two volume project... represents a comprehensive effort to establish a complete context from which the sport of bodybuilding arose. "Muscle, Smoke & Mirrors" is the rise and fall of what was truly once an extraordinary discipline associated with a term known as "Physical Culture". Experience what bodybuilding was originally and learn just exactly what "Physical Culture" really is. See what growing philanthropic power flexed its financial and political muscles to foster its corporate agenda, compromising human health internationally. Read how the merger of technology and politics culminated in the industrialization, commercialization, federalization, internationalization and finally the STERILIZATION of a nation's food supply, rendering it suspect not only to the general public; but also to the most elite of athletes. Whether you are a novice, an elite bodybuilder or simply sports-nutrition minded, learn how the emerging forces of the Iron Game evolved. Ultimately, the factions of this industry would grow powerful and manipulative while fighting for control over the Game. It took the running of several parallel histories on bodybuilding, nutrition, supplements and the role of drugs to offer a complete, first-time unraveling of the web of confusion and politics that still permeates the sport into the 21st century! Volume I of "Muscle, Smoke & Mirrors" is truly the untold stories surrounding "Bodybuilding's Amazing Nutritional Origins."

Shortlisted for the North American Society for Sports History 2020 Monograph Prize It’s hard to imagine, but as late as the 1950s, athletes could get kicked off a team if they were caught lifting weights. Coaches had long believed that strength training would slow down a player. Muscle was perceived as a bulky burden; training emphasized speed and strategy, not “brute” strength. Fast forward to today: the highest-paid strength and conditioning coaches can now earn $700,000 a year. Strength Coaching in America delivers the fascinating history behind this revolutionary shift. College football represents a key turning point in this story, and the authors provide vivid details of strength training’s impact on the gridiron, most significantly when University of Nebraska football coach Bob Devaney hired Boyd Epley as a strength coach in 1969. National championships for the Huskers soon followed, leading Epley to launch the game-changing National Strength Coaches Association. Dozens of other influences are explored with equal verve, from the iconic Milo Barbell Company to the wildly popular fitness magazines that challenged physicians’ warnings against strenuous exercise. Charting the rise of a new athletic profession, Strength Coaching in America captures an important transformation in the culture of American sport.

For most of the twentieth century, the “Mr. America” image epitomized muscular manhood. From humble beginnings in 1939 at a small gym in Schenectady, New York, the Mr. America Contest became the world’s premier bodybuilding event over the next thirty years. Rooted in ancient Greek virtues of health, fitness, beauty, and athleticism, it showcased some of the finest specimens of American masculinity. Interviewing nearly one hundred major figures in the physical culture movement (including twenty-five Mr. Americas) and incorporating copious printed and manuscript sources, John D. Fair has created the definitive study of this iconic phenomenon. Revealing the ways in which the contest provided a model of functional and fit manhood, Mr. America captures the event’s path to idealism and its slow descent into obscurity. As the 1960s marked a turbulent transition in American society—from the civil rights movement to the rise of feminism and increasing acceptance of homosexuality—Mr. America changed as well. Exploring the influence of other bodily displays, such as the Mr. Universe and Mr. Olympia contests and the Miss America Pageant, Fair focuses on commercialism, size obsession, and drugs that corrupted the competition’s original intent. Accessible and engaging, Mr. America is a compelling portrayal of the glory days of American muscle.

A unique new reference work, this encyclopedia presents a social, cultural, and economic history of American sports from hunting, bowling, and skating in the sixteenth century to televised professional sports and the X Games today. Nearly 400 articles examine historical and cultural aspects of leagues, teams, institutions, major competitions, the media and other related industries, as well as legal and social issues, economic factors, ethnic and racial participation, and the growth of institutions and venues. Also included are biographical entries on notable individuals—not just outstanding athletes, but owners and promoters, journalists and broadcasters, and innovators of other kinds—along with in-depth entries on the history of major and minor sports from air racing and archery to wrestling and yachting. A detailed chronology, master bibliography, and directory of institutions, organizations, and governing bodies—plus more than 100 vintage and contemporary photographs—round out the coverage.

What are the components of youth cultures today? This encyclopedia examines the facets of youth cultures and brings them to the forefront. Although issues of youth culture are frequently cited in classrooms and public forums, most encyclopedias of childhood and youth are devoted to history, human development, and society. A limitation on the reference bookshelf is the restriction of youth to pre-adolescence, although issues of youth continue into young adulthood. This encyclopedia addresses an academic audience of professors and students in childhood studies, American studies, and culture studies. The authors span disciplines of psychology, sociology, anthropology, history, and folklore. The Encyclopedia of Youth Cultures in America addresses a need for historical, social, and cultural information on a wide array of youth groups. Such a reference work serves as a corrective to the narrow public view that young people are part of an amalgamated youth group or occupy malicious gangs and satanic cults. Widespread reports of bullying, school violence, dominance of athletics over academics, and changing demographics in the United States has drawn renewed attention to the changing cultural landscape of youth in and out of school to explain social and psychological problems.