Summary
Brett McKay interviews Dr. Conor Heffernan, a lecturer in the sociology of sport at Ulster University and author of The History of Physical Culture. They trace exercise culture across 5,000 years, from ancient Egyptian pharaohs proving fitness to rule by running laps around pyramids, through Greek gymnasiums that doubled as universities, to the Victorian-era strongmen who became the first fitness influencers. A major thread is the role of Indian clubs, the gada (steel mace), and other swinging implements in ancient Indian and Persian physical culture. Heffernan, who literally wrote the book on Indian clubs, explains how wrestlers in ancient India trained with heavy joris and mug dars weighing up to 30 kilos, and how club swinging and gada training transitioned from battlefield weapons to gym tools for building shoulder strength and vitality. Both host and guest are personal practitioners who swing clubs and gadas before bench pressing, praising the full-rotation shoulder movement that conventional gym exercises miss. The conversation also covers the splintering of "physical culture" into specialized disciplines like bodybuilding, powerlifting, and CrossFit, and argues for a return to more holistic, old-school training methods including stone lifting, outdoor fitness, and club swinging as a way to reconnect with the body's natural movement patterns.
Key Points
- Indian clubs and the gada (steel mace) trace back thousands of years in Indian and Persian wrestling culture, where implements weighing up to 30 kg were swung for strength and vitality
- Ancient Egyptian physical culture included swinging heavy sand bags (an early form of club training) and calisthenics, with pharaohs required to demonstrate fitness to rule
- The term "physical culture" once encompassed all purposive exercise but splintered in the 20th century into bodybuilding, weightlifting, powerlifting, and CrossFit
- Club swinging and gada training provide full shoulder rotation under load, something conventional pressing and pulling exercises can't replicate
- Both host and guest use Indian clubs and gadas as a warm-up before pressing movements, crediting them with improving their bench press
- The gada originated as a battlefield weapon before transitioning into a training implement for wrestlers in ancient India
- Stone lifting, club swinging, and outdoor training represent a return to more natural movement patterns that modern fitness culture has largely abandoned
- The ancient Greek gymnasium was a multifunctional center combining physical training, education, mentorship, and civic life
Key Moments
Ancient Indian club training and the 30-kilo joris
Dr. Heffernan describes the ancient Indian physical culture of heavy club swinging, where traditional joris and mug dars weighed up to 30 kilos each, and wrestlers trained with clubs studded with nails to enforce proper swinging form.
"in terms of what that exercise looked like, and this is a really fascinating thing, we had club swinging, heavy club swinging, and heavy Indian clubs or joris or mug dars or muggas, whatever term you want to apply to it, is intense. I have some traditional Indian clubs in my home gym and they weigh 30 kilos each. And there are even photos and videos you can see online of people swinging heavy Indian clubs that have nails dotted all around them to make sure that you're swinging a proper form."
The gada as a weapon turned training tool
Brett McKay explains how the gada (steel mace) originated as an actual battlefield weapon used by Hindu warriors before transitioning into a training implement for building strength and shoulder mobility.
"the Gada. So that's like the Indian clubs, that was a very kind of British version of sort of the clubs that Hindus use, ancient Hindus use. And the Gada, it's like, basically it looks like a weapon. It's a steel mace."
Using gadas and clubs before bench pressing
Both Heffernan and McKay share how they personally swing Indian clubs and gadas before chest exercises. Heffernan credits clubs with saving his bench press, noting that conventional gym training rarely moves the shoulder through full rotations.
"it saved my relationship with the bench press i like you i I swing clubs and gadas before I do chest or any sort of chest movements. And, you know, if you think about it, we're quite boring in terms of a lot of our fitness patterns. You don't really swing a lot of weights and you don't really move your shoulder in full rotations the entire time when you're working out in a gym setting. So I think sometimes you have to let the body move the way the body was meant to move. And that's where things like gadas and Indian clubs still still have a value"
Stone lifting and club swinging as the future of fitness
Heffernan argues that stone lifting, club swinging, and outdoor training represent the future direction of the fitness industry, bringing people back to more natural and historical ways of building strength.
"And he says that he survived for weeks consuming nothing but Plasmon. And not only did he maintain his weight, he got stronger. So spurious supplement claims, you know, date from the 1890s, early 1900s. The more substantive, the thing that I think, yeah, that's actually pretty good, is a lot of the fitness, and you'll see a general theme when I pick out the core values from a lot of these different eras but a lot of physical culturists would write about the body as a bedrock and what I mean by that is you know get your fitness right build your body the best that you can and then this will give you more energy to be a better businessman a better wife a better mother a better husband better athlete better student whatever the case may be. So of course, they had the aesthetic components, especially when you wanted to look like Sandow. But even Sandow himself said, you know, if you build your body in this way, it will improve other elements of your life. And I think that's pretty cool. And again, you know, we tend to have the blinkers on and be very narrowly zoomed in in the modern age where it is about the six-pack or getting to a certain dress size and it's like well you know there can be other benefits that aren't entirely vain when it comes to your own fitness journey so this moves us into the 20th century and you mentioned at the beginning of this podcast that the term physical culture went out of favor because physical culture started splintering."
