author
William Blaikie
1843–1904
Best known for early books on exercise and strength, this 19th-century writer helped make physical fitness feel practical and everyday. He brought together the worlds of law, athletics, and self-improvement in a way that feels surprisingly modern.
1 Audiobook
How to Get Strong and How to Stay So
by William Blaikie
About the author
Born in York, New York, in 1843, he was educated in Boston and later graduated from Harvard Law School in 1868. He worked as a lawyer in New York City, but he was also widely known as an athlete and an energetic supporter of physical culture.
He became especially noted for writing about strength training at a time when organized fitness advice was still unusual. His best-known book, How to Get Strong and How to Stay So (1879), was followed by Sound Bodies for Our Boys and Girls (1884), both aimed at making exercise sensible and useful for ordinary readers.
Contemporary accounts remembered him as one of the early American advocates of fitness. His own athletic life matched his writing: he was known as a weightlifter and long-distance walker, and was said to have walked from Boston to New York in four and a half days. He died in 1904.