Sanford Bennett

Biography

Bennett invented an exercise regime involving muscular contraction and relaxation, intended to rejuvenate the body. His ideas gained attention through the San Francisco Chronicle in 1906 and two books, which included medical diagrams of muscles and organs. He claimed his exercises gave him youthful vigour and better health, and they could be performed in bed for fifteen to thirty minutes. Bennett endorsed periodic fasting and a vegetarian diet of well-cooked vegetables, and promoted sunlight, pure air, water, nourishing food, cleanliness, and exercise as nature's principal health methods.

His book Old Age, Its Cause and Prevention was published at least four times between 1912 and 1927. He was a close friend of Bernarr Macfadden and his wife Mary, and helped edit Physical Culture magazine. Bennett had unusual eating habits, including regurgitating his food after meals by vomiting into a brass bowl, leading Mary to call him the 'Old Roman Regurgitator.' He died from choking on a chicken bone.

Reception

A review of Bennett's Exercising in Bed in the journal Nature concluded that the exercises would likely be of considerable benefit, though it did not endorse claims of rejuvenation or restored good looks. Historian James F. Stark described Bennett as one of the most high-profile advocates of rejuvenating methods before the First World War, noting that his exercises were hugely popular, especially in the United States, as he embodied the cultural cache of the physical culture movement at its height.