Why Dumbbells?

14% of the UK population, around 10 million of us, are currently members of a gym, according to a recent survey, although whether all are active is a moot point. Pumping iron, lifting dumbbells, has a long and ancient tradition, with Greek soldiers and athletes spending time with a haltere. Semicircular with a hole in it through which the user would place their fingers to grip it, it was made of either stone or metal. Alternatively, halteres were made from wood and wax, allowing the athlete to add lead to increase their weight. They would either be lifted or swung around like Indian clubs.

In early 18th century London, the essayist Joseph Addison was an enthusiastic adopter of physical exercise. Writing in his magazine, The Spectator, in 1711 he described an exercise which he called “the fighting with a man’s own shadow”. It consisted of “the brandishing of two short sticks, grasped in each hand, and loaded with plugs of lead at either end. This opens the chest, exercises the limbs and gives a man all the pleasure of boxing without the blows”. What he seems to be describing is a form of shadowboxing using a form of handheld weights which we might recognize today as dumbbells.

However, he confuses the matter later by describing another exercise in which he uses a piece of apparatus consisting of four arms with lead balls on their ends. The apparatus was installed above the user who would pull a rope up and down, turning the weighted arms like a flywheel. This he describes as using a dumb bell, presumably because the movement was not unlike that deployed by a campanologist but no sound resulted, no doubt to the relief of his landlady and daughters who were “so well acquainted with my hours of exercise, that they never come into my room to disturb me whilst I am ringing”.

The mystery is why the term dumbbells, which Addison clearly associated with his Heath Robinsonish bell ringing contraption, later came associated with the handheld weights of his other exercise. Perhaps it was Addison who caused the confusion, the two apparati conflated into one reference, or the bell frame might have fallen into disuse or it might be that both involve moving the arms up and down like a bell ringer without the attendant sound.

Whatever the reason a dumbbell is now associated with a hand held weight. It was to be another century before the term “barbell” gained currency.