Every few years, a new exercise craze sweeps the country. Here’s how a few of them got up and moving.

Jazzercise

Jazz choreographer Judi Sheppard Missett came up with the dance-meets-aerobics fitness program—fun routines set to pop music—in 1969 and opened a studio in Los Angeles. By 1977 she no longer taught classes. Instead, she taught instructors who wanted to lead their own classes around the country. She also appeared on TV talk shows, leading hosts such as Merv Griffin and Mike Douglas in Jazzercise routines. By 1984, classes were available in 50 states, as were Jazzercise-branded leotards, workout videos, records—and even a syndicated newspaper column penned by Missett. Think Jazzercise ended in the ’80s? There are still 2,700 locations in the U.S., and it’s a billion-dollar corporation.

Tae Bo

As a teenager, Billy Blanks wanted to grow up to be a martial-arts champion like Bruce Lee. So he took karate and tae kwon do lessons. Based on those martial arts, in 1976, 22-year-old Blanks designed a workout for himself—high-impact aerobics set to fast music, with lots of punches and kicks. He called it “Tae Bo,” a combination of “tae kwon do” and “boxing.” He opened a studio in Boston in 1982, and it did so well, he opened one in Hollywood. In 1998, Blanks was approached to make a line of Tae Bo workout DVDs. Primarily through infomercials, more than $500 million worth of Tae Bo videos have sold worldwide.
https://youtu.be/Huy_x7Fen-k

Curves

Gary Heavin ran a chain of gyms in Texas in the 1970s, but they went bankrupt. A few years later he started over, but this time he decided to focus on an untapped market: women in their 40s and 50s. Older customers had frequently told him that they didn’t like gyms because they were intimidating, filled with ogling men, and younger women who were already fit. With his wife, Diane, Heavin opened the first Curves for Women in Harlingen, Texas, in 1992. Only women could join, and it offered only one fitness plan, created by Heavin: A customer rotates around exercise stations (treadmill, bike, stretches, weights), switching every 30 seconds. Three circuits equal a 30-minute workout. By 1998, there were 650 Curves locations; today, there are 10,000.