Pilates

Pilates might seem like something that just appeared on the exercise scene recently, but it goes back 100 years.

After the outbreak of World War I, Joseph Hubertus Pilates, a German physical trainer and inventor, was interned as an enemy alien on the Isle of Man. During his three-plus years at the internment camp, Pilates developed a regimen of muscle strengthening through slow and precise stretching and physical movements, using minimal equipment. To allow those who were confined to their beds to exercise.

He used springs and straps from the beds as resistance training, greatly aiding their rehabilitation. He later opened a fitness studio in New York City in 1925, offering the exercise system he developed during the war to the general public. 

He went on to patent 26 exercise apparatuses, and his eponymous Pilates regime gained worldwide popularity.