Abstract

This article traces the genealogy of fitness culture in the Philippines by examining how discourses of physical training have traveled, changed, and taken root over space and time. It follows these ideas from their early articulation in ancient Greece, through their reinterpretation in Medieval and Renaissance Europe, into modern forms shaped by colonial and postcolonial conditions. Rather than moving in a linear fashion, discourses on exercise and bodily cultivation were repeatedly translated, adapted, and contested as they circulated across historical periods and geographical spaces. The case of The Fit Stop, a pseudonym for a contemporary gym in the Philippines, provides a concrete illustration of this process. Its practices and promotional language reflect the local uptake of global fitness ideals, showing how long-standing discourses of health, strength, and bodily improvement are reworked within a specific social context. Read genealogically, The Fit Stop can be understood as a localized globalism, rooted in earlier traditions of physical training while shaped by local histories and conditions.

Keywords

Fitness Culture, Genealogy, Philippines, Globalization,

References

  1. Addolorato, S., García-Fernández, J., Gallardo, L., García-Unanue, J. (2020). An Overview of the Origins and Effectiveness of Commercial Fitness Equipment and Sectoral Corporate Settings: A Critical Review of Literature. Applied Sciences, 10(4), 1534.
  2. Andreasson, J., Johansson, T. (2018a). Glocalised fitness: the franchising of a physical movement, fitness professionalism and gender. Leisure/Loisir, 42(3), 301–321.
  3. Andreasson, J., Johansson, T. (2018b). Online Fitness Culture: The Evolution of the Gym as A Virtual Community. Sport in Society, 21(9), 1293–1309.
  4. Andreasson, J., Johansson, T. (2019). Bodybuilding and Fitness Doping in Transition. Historical Transformations and Contemporary Challenges. Social Sciences, 8(3), 80.
  5. Antolihao, L. (2015). Playing With the Big Boys: Basketball, American Imperialism, and Subaltern Discourse In the Philippines. University Of Nebraska Press, 288.
  6. Antolihao, L. (2019). Sports Celebrities and the Spectacularization of Modernity at the Far Eastern Championship Games, 1913–1934. The International Journal of the History of Sport, 36(7-8), 764-778.
  7. Arcangeli, A. (2022a). Introduction: Cultures of sport in the Renaissance. In A. Arcangeli (Ed.), A cultural history of sport in the Renaissance (pp. 1-22). Bloomsbury Publishing.
  8. Arcangeli, A. (2022b). The purpose of sport. In A. Arcangeli (Ed.), A cultural history of sport in the Renaissance (pp. 23-42). Bloomsbury Publishing.
  9. Aristotle (2019). Nicomachean Ethics (T. Irwin, Trans.). Cambridge: Hackett Publishing Company. (Original Work Published Ca. 350 BCE)
  10. Atack, C., Cartledge, P. (Eds.). (2022). A cultural history of democracy in antiquity. Bloomsbury Publishing.
  11. Berryman, J.W. (2010) Exercise is medicine: a historical perspective. Current Sports Medicine Reports 9, pp.195-201.
  12. Bezzant, R. S. (2021). Muscular Christianity: Celebrating and constructing manhood at the end of the nineteenth century. Fides et Historia, 53(2), 1–16.
  13. Bigotti, F. (2019). Physiology of the soul: Mind, body and matter in the Galenic tradition of the late Renaissance (1550–1630). Turnhout: Brepols.
  14. Blok, J. (2017). Citizenship in classical Athens. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
  15. Carter, J.M. (1988) Sports and Recreations in Thirteenth-Century England: The Evidence of the Eyre and Coroners' Rolls—A Research Note. Journal of Sport History 15(2), pp.167-173.
  16. Casalini, C. (2021). Renaissance humanism and formative education: A philosophy of education deeply rooted in history. EDUCAZIONE. Giornale di pedagogia critica, 10(2), 97–125.
  17. Cleophas, F. J. (2024). Introduction: Physical education and physical culture matters. In Physical education and physical culture in South Africa, 1837–1966 (Palgrave Studies in Sport and Politics, pp. 1–26). Palgrave Macmillan.
  18. De Coubertin, P. (2000). Olympic Memoirs / By Pierre De Coubertin. International Olympic Committee. Olympic World Library.
  19. De Sousa Santos, B. (2006). Globalizations. Theory, Culture & Society, 23(2-3), 393–399.
  20. Demirel, D. H., & Yildiran, I. (2013). The philosophy of physical education and sport from ancient times to the Enlightenment. European Journal of Educational Research, 2(4), 191–202.
  21. Enverga, M. (2018). Mapping leisure in the Philippines. In I. Modi & T. Kamphorst (Eds.), Mapping leisure (pp. 173–189). Singapore: Springer.
  22. Enverga, Manuel. (2016). Group Fitness as A Form of Serious Leisure among Part-Time Les Mills Instructors in the Philippines. Journal of Tourism and Leisure Studies, 1(4).
  23. Enverga, Manuel. (2025). Looking Good and Moving Well: Aesthetic Labor Imperatives in Les Mills Instructors’ Coaching Experiences. International Journal of Sports Science and Coaching.
  24. Evrard, A. Y. (2017). An analysis of Arjun Appadurai’s Modernity at large: Cultural dimensions of globalisation. Taylor & Francis.
  25. Fabian, T. (2017). Playing with the big boys: Basketball, American imperialism, and subaltern discourse in the Philippines. Sociology of Sport Journal, 34(4), 367–368.
  26. Fabian, T. (2023). Invention of Modern Sport (V. Girginov, & M. Phillips, Eds.). Routledge.
  27. Fallows, N. (2022). A cultural history of sport in the medieval age. London: Bloomsbury.
  28. Flowerdew, J. (2017). “Critical Discourse Studies and Context.” In The Routledge Handbook of Critical Discourse Studies, edited by J. Flowerdew and J. E. Richardson, 165–178. London: Routledge.
  29. Foucault, M. (1972). The Archaeology of Knowledge and the Discourse on Language. Translated From The French By A. M. Sheridan Smith. Pantheon Books, New York.
  30. Foucault, M. (1977). Discipline And Punish: The Birth Of The Prison (A. M. Sheridan Smith, Trans.). Pantheon Books, New York:
  31. Foucault, M. (1983). The Subject and Power. In H. Dreyfus, & P. Rabinow (Eds.), Michel Foucault: Beyond Structuralism and Hermeneutics (2nd Ed., Pp. 208-226). University Of Chicago, Chicago.
  32. Francisco, L. (2010). Faith and Fitness: Religion and the Shaping Of Modern Health Practices In The Philippines. Ateneo De Manila University Press, Manila.
  33. Funes-Pérez, J.A., Rodríguez-López, J., Manas, A. (2016) Medieval Córdoba: From Umayyad Recreations to Competitive Christian Sport. The International Journal of the History of Sport 33(1): 1009-1027.
  34. Galen. (2002). On the Natural Faculties (A. J. Brock, Trans.). Harvard University Press. (Original Work Published Ca. 200 CE), Cambridge.
  35. Gazzola, P., Pavione, E., & Ferrazzano, F. (2024). Evolution of the global fitness industry: Strategy, sustainability and innovation (1st ed.). Routledge.
  36. Gems, G.R. (2016). Sport and the American Occupation of the Philippines: Bats, Balls, and Bayonets. Rowman & Littlefield, 203.
  37. Giglioni, G. (2018). Medical approaches to the mind in the late Middle Ages and the Renaissance. In S. Schmid (Ed.), Philosophy of mind in the late Middle Ages and Renaissance (1st ed., pp. 41–62). Routledge.
  38. Gleason, A. (2017). Medieval Sport. In Edelman, R. and Wilson, W. (eds.) The Oxford Handbook of Sports History. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
  39. Guttmann, A. (2004). From Ritual to Record: The Nature of Modern Sports. Columbia University Press, New York.
  40. Habig, E., Calimpon, J.M., Ramos, D.P. (2025). Exploring Exercise Dependence: A Qualitative Study of Filipino Fitness Enthusiasts’ Motivations for Excessive Workouts. Journal of Interdisciplinary Perspectives, 3(9), 59–70.
  41. Hardman, K., & Naul, R. (2002). Physical Education: Deconstruction and Reconstruction—Issues and Directions. Aachen: Meyer & Meyer Sport.
  42. Heffernan, C. (2024). Vim, vigour and vitality: Physical culture marketing and the promise of a better life. In L. A. O’Hagan & G. Eriksson (Eds.), Food marketing and selling healthy lifestyles with science: Transhistorical perspectives (1st ed., pp. 41–58). Routledge.
  43. Hippocrates. (1923). Hippocratic Writings (W. H. S. Jones, Trans.). Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. (Original Work Published Ca. 400 BCE)
  44. Hubner, S. (2016a) Donors and the Global Sportive “Civilizing Mission”: Asian Athletics, American Philanthropy, and YMCA Media (1910s–1920s). Cambridge University Press. 40(1), 29 – 54.
  45. Hubner, S. (2016b) Images Of the Sporting "Civilizing Mission: The Far Eastern Championship Games (1913-1934) and Visions of Modernization in English-Language Philippine Newspapers. Journal of World History, 27(3), 497-533.
  46. Kavvadia, M. (2021). Sources and resources of court medicine in mid-sixteenth Rome: Erudition as an epistemological and ethical claim. In F. Baldassarri & F. Zampieri (Eds.), Scientiae in the history of medicine (pp. 171–187). L’Erma di Bretschneider.
  47. Kaye, J. (2024). Introduction to the medieval and Renaissance period. In J. J. Tinguely (Ed.), The Palgrave handbook of philosophy and money (pp. 523–531). Palgrave Macmillan.
  48. Khondker, H. H., & Robertson, R. (2018). Glocalization, consumption, and cricket: The Indian Premier League. Journal of Consumer Culture, 18(2), 279-297.
  49. König, J. (2016). Regimen and athletic training. In G. L. Irby (Ed.), A companion to science, technology, and medicine in ancient Greece and Rome (pp. 450-464). John Wiley & Sons.
  50. Lacouture, F. (2019) Mens sana in corpore sano. Italies 23, pp.19-34.
  51. Luger, J. (2024). God's Viral Warriors: Christian Nationalism, Masculinity, and the Representation of Self. Journal of Bodies, Sexualities, and Masculinities, 5(1), 35-58.
  52. Lygouri-Tolia, E. (2020). The Gymnasium of the Academy and the School of Plato. In P. Kalligas, C. Balla, E. Baziotopoulou-Valavani, & V. Karasmanis (Eds.), Plato’s Academy: Its Workings and its History (pp. 46–64). chapter, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
  53. Martschukat, J. (2021). The age of fitness: How the body came to symbolize success and achievement. Polity Press.
  54. McGlynn, S. (2016) Pueri Sunt Pueri: Machismo, Chivalry, and the Aggressive Pastimes of the Medieval Male Youth. Historical Reflections/Réflexions Historiques 42(1), pp.88-100.
  55. Meyer, A. R., Wynveen, C. J., & Watson, N. (2020). Measurement of muscular Christian ideals in sport: Validation of the Contemporary Muscular Christian Instrument. International Review for the Sociology of Sport, 55(2), 169-185.
  56. Miller, P. J. (2018). The Imaginary Antiquity of Physical Culture. The Classical Outlook, 93(1), 21–31. https://www.jstor.org/stable/26506530
  57. Moran, J. (2018). Aristotle on eudaimonia (“happiness”). Think, 17(48), 91–99.
  58. Oggins, R. S. (2019). Falconry and medieval views of nature. In J. E. Salisbury (Ed.), The medieval world of nature: A book of essays (pp. 47-60). London: Routledge.
  59. Ong, A.K.S., Prasetyo, Y.T., Picazo, K.L., Salvador, K.A., Miraja, B.A., Kurata, Y.B., Chuenyindee, T., Nadlifatin, R., Redi, A.A.N.P., Young, M.N. (2021). Gym-Goers Preference Analysis of Fitness Centers during the COVID-19 Pandemic: A Conjoint Analysis Approach for Business Sustainability. Sustainability, 13(18), 10481.
  60. Panarelli, M. (2024). On pestilence: A Renaissance treatise on plague, written by Girolamo Mercuriale. Early Science and Medicine, 29(2), 193–197.
  61. Panegyres, K. (2024). The Greco-Roman contribution to lifestyle medicine. Lifestyle Medicine, 5(3).
  62. Paul, K. B. (2022). Eudaimonia, Virtue Ethics and Moral Community. Environmental Values, 31(5), 505-513.
  63. Pedraz, M. (1997). La Educación Física En El Renacimiento Español. Consejo Superior De Investigaciones Científicas.
  64. Phillips, L. and Jørgensen, M. (2002). Discourse analysis as theory and method. London: Sage Publications.
  65. Pisk, J. (2017). Wisdom of the body in sport and exercise practices. Physical Culture and Sport. Studies and Research, 75, 15-22.
  66. Putz, P. E. (2022). Tracing the Historical Contours of Black Muscular Christianity and American Sport. The International Journal of the History of Sport, 39(4), 404–424.
  67. Reisigl, M. (2017). The Discourse-Historical Approach. In J. Flowerdew, & J. E. Richardson (Eds.), The Routledge Handbook of Critical Discourse Studies (pp. 44-59). Article 3 Routledge.
  68. Reisigl, M., Wodak, R. (2016). The Discourse-Historical Approach. In R. Wodak & M. Meyer (Eds.), Methods of Critical Discourse Analysis (3rd Ed). Sage. London.
  69. Riesebrodt, M. (2016). Dimensions of the Protestant ethic. In W. H. Swatos Jr. & L. Kaelber (Eds.), The Protestant ethic turns 100: Essays on the centenary of the Weber thesis (1st ed., pp. 23–52). Routledge.
  70. Sakwit, K. (2022). Fitness at a distance: towards marginal differences in global fitness. Leisure Studies, 41(6), 802–815.
  71. Sandow, E. (2022). Strength and How to Obtain It. Good Press, Glasgow.
  72. Sassatelli, R. (2010). Fitness Culture: Gyms and the Commercialisation of Discipline and Fun. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.
  73. Scheerder, J., Vehmas, H., & Helsen, K. (2020). The global health and fitness industry at a glance: Fast, fit, flexible, functional, funny, fashionable and fanatic. In J. Scheerder, H. Vehmas, & K. Helsen (Eds.), The rise and size of the fitness industry in Europe (pp. 1–32). London: Palgrave Macmillan.
  74. Singer, P. N. (2021). Beyond and behind the commentary: Galen on Hippocrates on elements. In P. Pormann (Ed.), Hippocratic commentaries in the Greek, Latin, Syriac and Arabic traditions (pp. 114–146). Leiden: Brill.
  75. Stazio, M. (2021). Verace Glocal Pizza. Localized globalism and globalized localism in the Neapolitan artisan pizza. Food, Culture & Society, 24(3), 406–430.
  76. Stengel, F.A., Nabers, D. (2019). Discourse and Contestation: Theoretical Reflections. Critical Review of International Social and Political Philosophy, 22(2), 131–146.
  77. Terrin, A., Mainardi, F., Zanchin, G., & Mercuriale, G. (2019). Sports, physical activity, and headache in the classical age: Historical descriptions from the first sports textbook, De arte gymnastica, by Girolamo Mercuriale. Neurological Sciences, 40(8), 1507–1517.
  78. Tieleman, T. (2025). Galen’s use of Hippocrates as an anchor for medical innovation. In M. Flohr, S. Mols, & T. Tieleman (Eds.), Anchoring science and technology in Greco-Roman antiquity (pp. 303–326). Brill.
  79. Toscano, W. N. (2018). Relationship between physical activity, health and quality of life from the perspective of the Hippocratic theory. In L. Rodríguez de la Vega & W. Toscano (Eds.), Handbook of leisure, physical activity, sports, recreation and quality of life (International handbooks of quality-of-life, pp. 1–14). Cham: Springer.
  80. Trinkaus, C. (2024). Renaissance Transformations of Late Medieval Thought (1st ed.). London: Routledge.
  81. Twietmeyer, G., & Johnson, T. G. (2022). Aristotle’s conception of arete and the meaning of records in sport. Kinesiology Review, 11(3), 229–239.
  82. Vamplew, W. (2022). Bread and Circuses, Olive Oil and Money: Commercialised Sport in Ancient Greece and Rome. The International Journal of the History of Sport, 39(6), 589–608.
  83. Van Hilvoorde, I. (2008). The Globalization of the Olympic Games: A Study in Glocalization. Sport in Society, 11(5), 569–582.
  84. Virág, I. (2019). The pedagogical work of Vieth and GutsMuths. Acta Educationis Generalis, 9(1), 63–69.
  85. Wodak, R., & Reisigl, M. (2016). Discourse and Racism. In K. Tracy, C. Ilie, & T. Sandel (Eds.), The International Encyclopedia of Language and Social Interaction (Pp. 1–14). Hoboken, NJ: Wiley.
  86. Xenophon (1994). Memorabilia. Cornell University Press, Ithaca.
  87. Yadav, S. K. (Ed.). (2023). Research and publication ethics. Cham: Springer.
  88. Zovko, M. É., & Dillon, J. (2018). Humanism vs. competency: Traditional and contemporary models of education. Educational Philosophy and Theory, 50(6–7), 554–564.