Jane Fonda's 1982 workout became the best-selling home video ever, spawning 22 follow-ups, creating a fitness empire, and selling more than 17 million copies. The workout transformed Fonda into a leg-warmer-clad exercise icon. Four decades after release, the workout resurged during the COVID-19 pandemic, with people practicing alone, on Zoom, and sharing about it on social media. The decades-long relationship between Jane Fonda and Leni Cazden produced the original VHS workout and involved a fraught friendship marked by creation, fame, forgiveness, trauma, betrayal, survival, politics, and exercise. Sources and contributors include Leni Cazden and historian Shelly McKenzie.
In 1982, the Jane Fonda Workout became the best-selling home video of all time. Over decades, it and its 22 follow ups would spawn a fitness empire, sell more than 17 million copies, and transform Fonda into a leg-warmer-clad exercise guru. And 40 years after its initial release, when the COVID pandemic hit, the workout had a moment yet again. People began doing it alone and on Zoom, tweeting about it, writing about it.
On Part 1 of a special two-part Decoder Ring, originally released in 2020, we explore the decades-long relationship of Jane Fonda and Leni Cazden, a fraught friendship that birthed the VHS workout that changed the world. It's a story of creation, fame, forgiveness, trauma, betrayal, survival, politics, and exercise. You'll hear from Jane Fonda and Leni Cazden, the brain behind the workout, and Shelly McKenzie, author of Getting Physical: The Rise of Fitness Culture in America.
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