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Exercise wasn’t the point when a British engineer first invented the treadmill (or treadwheel as it was then called) in the early 19th century. But punishment was. The English were working to reform their prison systems to make sure that the poor weren’t committing petty crimes to get free food and shelter in jail. “Such luxuries needed to be offset by labor,” Diane Peters wrote in JSTOR in 2018. “Ideally, labor that was painful and possibly even pointless.”

At first, these machines were used to keep prisoners busy; they might be configured in such a way that they would grind corn or pump water, with as many as 20 prisoners working them simultaneously. The trend even made its way to the US. But policymakers began to question the efficacy: They weren’t teaching prisoners any kind of useful skill for when they were released, and their grueling work schedule (10 hours a day, but only seven in the winter!) meant that a lot of them ended up dying. By the early 20th century, prison treadmills were largely abandoned.

But then upper-middle class work became sedentary in the mid-20th century. In the 1960s, exercising for fun became a luxury. With the advent of aerobics and jogging, treadmills made a comeback, bringing the novelty of running—typically an outdoor activity—to the climate-controlled convenience of your gym or home. What was once considered pure torture has become a pricey pastime. What a time to be alive.

“I can’t get my head around the fact that we now pay to run on machines that were the harshest form of punishment, short of the death penalty, for about 100 years.”

—Vybarr Cregan-Reid, a senior lecturer at the University of Kent in England, to the Washington Post"

Treadmills also broke the internet at one point!