--- description: Exercise tips straight from 1964 title: How to Get Fit Without Moving a Muscle, the Navy Way image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt52f3c725e81d8431/69877db4cd1bba6b836f50ee/work-out.jpg?branch=production&width=1440&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  * [History](/section/history/) ## History Update your preferences in [Account Settings](/account/preferences/) Close * [health](/tag/health/) ## health Update your preferences in [Account Settings](/account/preferences/) Close # How to Get in Shape 'Without Moving a Muscle'  by [Lily Rothman](/author/lily-rothman/)  ## Lily Rothman Update your preferences in [Account Settings](/account/preferences/) Close Rothman is managing editor at TIME. Feb 11, 2015 12:00 PM CUT  From the Jan. 31, 1964, issue of TIME From the Jan. 31, 1964, issue of TIMEFrom the Jan. 31, 1964, issue of TIME  by [Lily Rothman](/author/lily-rothman/)  ## Lily Rothman Update your preferences in [Account Settings](/account/preferences/) Close Rothman is managing editor at TIME. Feb 11, 2015 12:00 PM CUT Looking for a way to get fit without getting up from your chair? Yeah, so’s everyone else — even folks in the armed forces, and even five decades ago. “The symptoms are turning up everywhere,” TIME wrote, in the Jan. 31, 1964, issue. “A commuter puts down his paper and his eyes glaze as if with some interior rapture; a stenographer stops typing and stiffens in her chair; waiting for the children’s hamburgers to brown, a housewife suddenly presses her hands on the kitchen table until the knuckles show white. These are not the victims of some new virus, nor has the strain of modern living sent them around the bend. Instead, they are practicing the very latest wrinkle in body culture: isometrics.” ### See the 10 Healthiest Cities to Live in America  Honolulu, Hawaii Best Place for Lifelong Health The heavenly climate helps, but the key to well-being here also includes enviable health care and a rich cultural tradition of looking out for one another. Colin Anderson—Blend Images/Corbis  San Francisco Bay Area, Calif. Best Place for Eating Right. The "farm to table" movement began here. The region's bounty of produce and year-round growing season make eating healthy—and local—a natural. Getty Images  Burlington, Vt. Best Place for Raising Healthy Kids This New England city offers great schools, excellent pediatric care, loads of culture and limitless options for healthy outdoor fun all year long. Matt Hogan/www.mphoganphoto.com  Silicon Valley, Calif. Best Place for Workplace Wellness With treadmill desks, meetings on bikes, time off for creativity, and gobs of organic food, tech titans are reinventing how to stay healthy on the job. Jim Wilson—The New York Times/Redux  Minneapolis-St. Paul, Minn. Best Place for Aging Well Yes, it can be cold. But with a plethora of stimulating activities and a robust web of support, the Twin Cities prove that growing old doesn't mean slowing down. Getty Images  Denver and Boulder, Colo. Best Place for Keeping Fit The urge to get outside and get moving is contagious in these Rocky Mountain cities, where physical challenge is built into the landscape. Celin Serbo—Aurora Photos/Corbis  Plano, Texas Best Place for Staying Safe Once a rural outpost, this booming, diverse city has kept its small-town vibe, thanks in part to a police force and community that knows how to work together. Misty Keasler—Redux for TIME  Portland, Ore. Best Place for a Healthy Environment Small, walkable neighborhoods, 300 miles of bike paths, and urban policies that foster active living and sustainability make for one clean, green city. Getty Images  Boston, Mass. Best Place for Health Care This history-rich city is home to some of the nation's most advanced medical institutions and policies that help ensure that quality care is available to all. K.C. Cohen—Courtesy of Boston Children's Hospital  Provo and Orem, Utah Best Place for Spiritual Well-Being A stunning Rocky Mountain backdrop and a tight-knit population that lives its faith contribute not only to this region's serenity but also to lower rates of disease. Getty Images Isometric exercise, the article explained, involved creating an immobile muscle contraction using the resistance from an unmoving object. The height of fad exercise at the time, it was credited by the Green Bay Packers with their winning seasons in the early ’60s and was endorsed by the Navy, which originally published the diagram seen here. “Executives can build up their biceps when their secretaries aren’t looking simply by sitting up straight, sliding their open palms against the underside of their desks, and pushing up for six seconds,” TIME raved. So go ahead and try it — nobody will notice. **_Read the full story, here in the TIME Vault:_** [Without Moving a Muscle](http://time.com/vault/issue/1964-01-31/page/40/ "undefined") _Read next:_ [_When Exercise Does More Harm than Good_](http://time.com/3692668/when-exercise-does-more-harm-than-good/?xid=time%5Freadnext "undefined") [_Listen to the most important stories of the day._](http://time.com/newsletter/the-brief/?sl%5Fautoplay=true&xid=spl-fullbrief-article "undefined") ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/3696451/navy-sitting-workout/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/3696451/navy-sitting-workout/"},"headline":"How to Get in Shape 'Without Moving a Muscle'","datePublished":"2015-02-11T12:00:19.000Z","dateModified":"2026-05-11T05:05:50.566Z","description":"Exercise tips straight from 1964","url":"https://time.com/3696451/navy-sitting-workout/","keywords":["health","fitness"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt52f3c725e81d8431/69877db4cd1bba6b836f50ee/work-out.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Lily Rothman","jobTitle":"Rothman is managing editor at TIME.","url":"https://time.com/author/lily-rothman/"}],"articleSection":"History","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt52f3c725e81d8431/69877db4cd1bba6b836f50ee/work-out.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"work out","caption":"From the Jan. 31, 1964, issue of TIME","creditText":"From the Jan. 31, 1964, issue of TIME","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/history/","name":"History"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"/tag/health/","name":"health"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/3696451/navy-sitting-workout/","name":"How to Get in Shape 'Without Moving a Muscle'"}}]}] ```