During the Victorian era, women’s exercise was a bit different then it is now. All that heavy  movement was thought to endanger fertility or maybe even provoke hysteria. As a result, exercise for women was not so much about strength or health, but rather softer refinement of the body. Walking was strongly encouraged, light exercises, stretching, and “graceful” movements derived from dance. Clothing also was a part of this more restrictive form of exercise, for example with corsets breathing and movement weren’t too easy either.

Anyway, were I’m going with this was that my Mistress had me take a look at exercise in Victorian times. It was a bit hard to find useful things to write about, although one article started of strong with “On the Effects of the Attempts to produce a good Carriage” sadly a good carriage did not turn out the be about a nice ass but rather just overall posture.

In the end I was able to find a book that gave practical exercise examples as well. Complete with sketches on the exercises themselves. Of course I ended up having to perform one of those exercises as well, it looked like a squat although instead of getting a nicer butt, it supposedly was an exercise to “train the spinal muscles to perfect equilibrium”.

To be honest, as for the Victorian things explored so far I can get on board with this. I do like walking, and I enjoy my body to be managed, protected, and restrained. I’m definitely not a gym rat so I would not shed tears about not being able to sweat pressing benches. I might have to train side-saddle horse riding though but that could be fun.