Jan knew that the push-up likely wouldn’t have been called a push-up before a certain time in history, and she was right. After some time in the archives, she unearthed the English-language copy of Clias’s 1819 book, An Elementary Course of Gymnastic Exercises, first published in French, in which she found the exercise, back when Clias called it “Kissing the Ground in Equilibrium on the Arms and the Points of the Feet.” It still makes her smile when she says it.
