Many people credit Jane Fonda with the start of the modern fitness craze. Yet it was an Air Force Sergeant who coined the term "aerobics" back in 1968. Today, it's central to an entire industry - and state of well being.

If you are like me, you credit Jane Fonda with the creation of what has become a fitness revolution that started 25 years ago.  Fonda was a ballet enthusiast, but after fracturing her foot while filming The China Syndrome, she was no longer able to dance. To compensate, she began actively participating in aerobics and strengthening exercises under the direction of Leni Cazden. Jane Fonda’s Workout was actually Leni’s Workout.  Jane went from being known for her movie roles to pioneering the aerobic world.
 
In 1982, Fonda released her first exercise video, titled Jane Fonda's Workout, inspired by her best-selling book, Jane Fonda's Workout Book. The Jane Fonda's Workout video eventually sold 17 million copies, the most of any home video ever. Jane went on to sell 23 workout videos, five workout books, and thirteen audio programs. Her most recent original workout video was released in 1995.

Jane, however, is not the one who coined the term “aerobics” which literally means with oxygen. Dr. Kenneth H. Cooper, an Air Force surgeon, coined the term aerobics in a book of that title published in 1968. Cooper viewed aerobic activity as the cornerstone of physical fitness, and devised a cardiovascular fitness test based on one's ability to run a mile and a half in twelve minutes, a task that was used in military training. Cooper's work was endorsed by the medical community by the early 1970s, and contributed to the popularity of running during that period.

By the end of the decade, aerobics had become synonymous with a particular form of cardiovascular exercise that combined traditional calisthenics with popular dance styles in a class-based format geared toward non-athletic people, primarily women. Jackie Sorenson, a former dancer turned fitness expert, takes credit for inventing aerobic dance in 1968 for Armed Forces Television after reading Cooper's book.  Jackie’s story is an amazing testament to what one person who believes in what they are doing can achieve. Jackie started with a handful of women on the military base and got them dancing a few times a week. After seeing their body’s as well as their fitness abilities improve, Jackie took her program to the Y and rest is history.  By 1972, aerobic dance had its own professional association for instructors, the International Dance Exercise Association (IDEA). 

By 1980, aerobics was rapidly becoming a national trend as it moved out of the dance studios and into fast-growing chains of health clubs and gyms. The inclusion of aerobics classes into the regular mixture of workout machines and weights opened up the traditionally male preserve of the gym to female customers and employees alike. In the process, it created a newly heterosexual atmosphere in health clubs, which would make them popular social spots for singles.

Simultaneously, aerobics marketing was moving beyond real-time classes and into media outlets. Aerobic workouts had appeared on records and in instructional books since the late 1970s, but it was the introduction of videotaped aerobic sessions in the early 1980s that brought the fitness craze to a broader market. Actress Jane Fonda pioneered the fitness video market with the release of her first exercise video in 1982, which appeared on the heels of her best-selling Jane Fonda's Workout Book. Fitness instructors and celebrities would follow Fonda's lead into tape sales, which continued to be a strong component of the fitness market in the 1990s.

Aerobics can be any type of class that increases the heart rate to aerobic levels and sustains it for a minimum of 20 minutes.  This means classes such as kickboxing, step, Spinning, boot camp and many others are all aerobic classes. What started almost 30 years ago is going strong and reinvented on a regular basis.  It is a great way to get that necessary but often overlooked cardio workout.

By Christina Leon, Staff Writer