Bill Orban developed the "Five Basic Exercises" or 5BX program for the Royal Canadian Air force in the late 50s. Apart from the primary aim of getting people into shape it was designed to be simple to perform, to work on all the body, to require nothing in terms of special equipment or large spaces, to accommodate enough progression to cater for reformed couch potato and budding athlete alike and to fit into a time slot of 11 minutes including warm up. [Women, for whatever reason, were prescribed 10 exercises in 12 minutes with XBX]. The book of the exercises was translated into 13 languages and sold 23 million copies around the world before falling into obscurity in the 80s. [more inside]
posted by rongorongo on Mar 25, 2009 - 34 comments