- Jane Fonda shared her take on debunked 1950s fitness trends at a recent dinner.
- Her host, Sara Blakely of SPANX, shared the hilarious clip of Fonda pantomiming.
- With her Workout tapes, Fonda changed the fitness world, especially for women.
Jane Fonda is a pioneer in many ways. She’s an activist, a highly decorated actor and a television producer. But in the 1980s, Fonda’s fame changed a bit—she wasn’t most famous for her nepo-baby roots or her Oscar-winning acting chops. She had become a fitness icon due to her exercise videos, the first of which is titled Jane Fonda’s Workout.
In a recent post, fellow pioneer Sara Blakely, who invented SPANX, invited Fonda over and videoed her making fun of the workouts that were recommended for women in the 1930s and 1950s.
It’s unclear why exactly these two powerful women are hanging out, but it seems like a good time was had by all, including Blakely’s own kids, who pepper Fonda with questions during the video.
Wearing a “Resist” shirt, the 87-year-old actress is shown sitting on the hardwood, scooting across the floor, like women were instructed to do in the 1950s. Blakely’s kids ask several follow-up questions like, “What does that work out?” Great question—we’re wondering the same thing.
Fonda says the exercise is “supposedly getting the fat off your butt.” “Oh,” says the kid, clearly not convinced that it was an effective method for getting fit. “It’s fake,” Fonda confirms.
Fonda explained that, in the “old days,” these odd exercises were recommended to women, who weren’t as encouraged to participate in more rigorous exercise or sports. Around mid-century, fitness was a male-dominated industry and was inaccessible to most women.
In the video, Fonda stands—and it should be noted she springs up with the gusto of a much younger person, so she’s clearly still in great shape—and demonstrates exercise machines that were popular back in the day. Some of these machines used a big belt around the waist and began to shake and people believed that would “shake off” the fat from women’s midsections and rears. The video shows a black-and-white clip of these archaic machines, which thankfully have been long forgotten and dismissed as gimmicks.
As the children watched, open-mouthed, Fonda says, “That’s what women’s fitness consisted of. I’m not kidding!” Then Blakely chimes in, “Until Jane!” “Until moi,” Fonda says. And that’s no joke—Fonda really did change the landscape of fitness in a major way.
After injuring her foot on the set of The China Syndrome, Fonda turned to aerobics as she recovered from injury. A book, as well as a famous series of exercise tapes, quickly followed. And you don’t need to have used one of the tapes to experience Fonda’s influence—if you’ve ever heard the phrase “feel the burn” or worn leg warmers to evoke 1980s style, you’ve had a little Workout in your life.
In her caption, Blakely writes, “Thanks Jane Fonda for permanently changing the game.” While exercise trends and practices have changed a lot since the ‘80s, Fonda started the ball rolling when it came to exercising effectively at home. The next time we hop on a Peloton or press play on a yoga tutorial, we’ll say a little thank you to Jane.
