In the early 1800s as the Napoleonic Wars were reshaping the European map. Sweden had Finland and its’ eastern provinces ceded to Russia, and to the west the Swedish-Norwegian union occurred. It was shock to the previously dominant nation. The Swedish government was in chaos and there was a growing interest in building a stronger military defence and broader civic education. State-funded education in physical exercise was proposed as a means to improve the population’s physical condition.

Pehr Henrik Ling

At around the same time Pehr Henrik Ling (1776–1839) had returned to Sweden and was hired as a fencing master at Lund University in Southern Sweden in 1804. He also taught gymnastics and sport. Ling reportedly had had a troubled upbringing and undirected education, moving across theology, languages and mythology. He had spent the immediate prior five years learning gymnastics and fencing in Denmark. Strengthened by this experience, he went to Stockholm in 1813 with two assignments. First as a teacher at the Military Academy Karlberg. Second, and more importantly, as director of the new educational institution for gymnastics, the Royal Central Institute for Gymnastics (RCIG), which he himself had proposed and for which had outlined the basic plans.

From the beginning, RCIG and Ling came to form a strong and unavoidable combination. It is related to two factors: on the one hand Ling’s distinct personality and vast areas of interest, on the other, the original gymnastics to which he gave birth.

On a personal level, Ling was driven by an interest in ancient Nordic culture and the Viking age’s northern manhood which he wanted to recreate. In poetry and prose, he developed this theme as a model for the ‘effeminate’ generation of his time. This literary interest led to a place in the Swedish Academy. At the same time, he became increasingly interested in medical science, which brought him into the Swedish Society of Medicine. Ling’s interest in medical science was prompted by the personal benefits he received by improving his elbow ‘gout’ through the exercise of fencing whilst in Denmark.

Swedish Gymnastics

The original form of gymnastics, known as “Swedish gymnastics” (or “Ling gymnastics”) is characterised by it comprehensiveness. It includes all four of the main areas that were already represented in ancient Greece: aesthetic, military, pedagogical and medical gymnastics. Aesthetic gymnastics was similar to dance, ballet and pantomime; military gymnastics was mainly based on fencing; pedagogical gymnastics consisted of what we now understand as physical education; and medical gymnastics was like today’s physiotherapy,

For the first century medical gymnastics played a prominent role at the RCIG that accentuated the character of Swedish gymnastics and the institution itself. This helps to explain the development of the strong foundation of Swedish gymnastics in medical science, as well as the exercise’s form of simple, constructed movements, systematically executed one after the other.

Primarily through medical gymnastics, and to a lesser extent pedagogical gymnastics, Swedish gymnastics began being exported in the 1830s and grew across the world up to the early 1900s. This global spread took different forms, such as frequent visits by foreign medical practitioners (including course participation), Swedish graduates of the RCIG exam emigrating to other countries, and people reading professional literature and correspondence. The scientific reputation of Swedish gymnastics and the legendary name Ling facilitated export. Until the mid-1900s, Swedish gymnastics appeared alongside German gymnastics (Turnen) and English competitive sports as the leading international form of body exercise. RCIG was the obvious modern institution, a gymnastics Mecca, with a global reputation.

RCIG’s Organisation

The activities of RCIG were divided into equal departments of medical, military and educational gymnastics. The aim was to prevent any of the three from getting the upper hand. Aesthetic gymnastics, which was never very comprehensive, faded away but later reappeared as an important element in female educational gymnastics.

According to new statutes in 1887, teaching was expanded to a maximum of three years (from the previous two years). Those who completed all courses were awarded the title of Gymnastikdirektör (gymnastics director), which allowed them to practise as physical educators and/or physiotherapists. Medical practitioners could attend a one year course at the RCIG to achieve the same qualification.

Physiotherapy gave RCIG economic benefits and scientific legitimacy, but was the cause of major problems at the same time. RCIG’s original mission was to provide the country with civilian and military gymnastics teachers. Physiotherapy had gradually ‘slipped in’ but its global success exceeded the others. After 1900 the expanding medical profession seeking complete dominance in the health sector began to point to weaknesses in RCIG’s physiotherapy activities, including the lack of research and clinical resources.

After a long period of agonising struggles, physiotherapy was mostly withdrawn from RCIG and entrusted to the medical sector (Karolinska Institute and the Seraphim Hospital), who then proceeded to demasculinise and downgrade the profession. The separation, which was deeply disliked by Ling’s followers and RCIG-trained gymnastics directors, was established in a new statute which was valid from 1934 until 1959. In the same watershed year of 1934, the military gymnastics were transferred to the Swedish Army Physical Training School.

The original four elements of Swedish gymnastics at RCIG had now been reduced to one. RCIG became an establishment of what was originally called educational gymnastics, but now sooner perceived as a branch of sport, which was greatly expanding at the time. Subsequently the name of the institute was changed in 1966 to the Gymnastic and Sports Academy.

Buildings

Originally housed in an old cannon factory at Humgatan 19, Normaln, in the northern suburbs of Stockholm, the RCIG’s building found itself at the centre of the rapidly growing capital. Despite proposals in 1912 and 1927 for a new building on the site, the school was ultimately relocated after the Second World War.  It was moved further North of the city, on a rocky hill overlooking the Olympic Stadium that was built for the 1912 Games.

Teachers and Students

In the beginning the headmasters of the RCIG were civilians, in the form of Pehr Henrik Ling and physiotherapy-focused Lars Gabriel Branting (1839–1862). Thereafter for a period of over 80 years military officers were at the helm, until leadership returned to civilians. The military and educational gymnastic teaching were led mainly by male officers, but they were counterbalanced by the female teachers, and the teachers who were responsible for physiotherapy and its statutory who were licensed doctors.

In terms of students the military was also dominant. The standard student on RCIG’s one-year instructor courses was a young officer on deputation. Several of these then prolonged their training and became qualified physical education teachers in grammar schools and physiotherapists. However from the 1860s female students began being accepted, a category that was increasingly gaining importance and demanded reformed educational content. Female students completed a two year course, as they were excluded from military gymnastics. From 1934 there was a ‘civilisation’ of the male student population.

Educational Content

The educational content also shifted considerably from RCIGs beginnings in 1813. At first artists came to RCIG, fencing was a weighty element and educational gymnastics was also practiced alone or with equipment. Physiotherapy also became more important, something that would probably not have an equivalent in any other gymnastic university.

Throughout the 1800s and well into the 1900s, teaching consisted of educational gymnastics, fencing and physiotherapy. Educational gymnastics was systematised in the 1860s by Pehr Henrik Ling’s son Hjalmar, who was a RCIG teacher and the author of Swedish school gymnastics. His highly regulated lessons, ‘the Swedish gymnastics system’, was taught in many parts of the civilised world well into the post-war period.

As we have already seen, fencing and physiotherapy disappeared from GIH from the middle of the 1930s. During the second half of the 1900s sport got the upper hand, though gymnastics continued to hold a strong position. The shift in emphasis should be seen in the context of the sports movement’s triumphal march through the 1900s. However the development from gymnastics to sports does not reflect the whole story. For example, dance and other artistic elements of gymnastics from the interwar period have supplemented the military oriented gymnastics system. Here, women have been at the forefront.

The RCIG was renamed the GIH – Swedish School of Sport and Health Sciences in 1966. Nevertheless its coat of arms continues to tell the story of its past.

The three crowns atop, symbolise GIH’s status as a state university college directly under the government. The torch demonstrates enlightenment and knowledge, and appears in the coats of arms of other Swedish universities and authorities associated with education and research. The Asclepian Staff is the classic medical symbol and has historical relevance for the development of physiotherapy and for the physiotherapy education that was conducted. And the sword is a symbol of power, especially military power reflected in the Institute’s original purpose.

Authors Note

The author visited the GIH – Swedish School of Sport and Health Sciences in September 2025, where a large statue of Ling dominates the front entrance. Little else remains to connect the school with its past physiotherapy history, however the secured archive section of the library contains many metres of book shelves containing almost all of the known literature related to ‘physiotherapy’ from the 15th to the 19th centuries.

References

Bolling H and Yttergren L. (2015). Swedish gymnastics for export: A study of the professional careers and lives of Swedish female gymnastic directors, 1893–1933. The International Journal of the History of Sport, 32(11-13), 1437-1455.

GIH. (2013). GIH 200 år: Svensk Kunskap, Hälsa och kraft. [GIH 200 years: Swedish knowledge, health and strength]. GIH. Translated by ChatGPT.

Lindroth J. (2006). Essay on the history of GIH. GIH – The Swedish School of Exercise and Sports Science website. Accessed online at https://www.gih.se/english/about-gih/history/essay-on-the-history-of-gih

Lundvall S. (2015). From Ling gymnastics to sport science: The Swedish School of Sport and Health Sciences, GIH, from 1813 to 2013. The International Journal of the History of Sport, 32(6), 789-799.

McKenzie RT. (1913). The Royal Central Institute at Stockholm. Physical Education Review, 18(3), 139-140.

Ottosson A. (2025). The lost origins of Osteopathy and Chiropractic in European mechanical medicine and physical educaiton c. 1800-1950. Routledge.

Ottosson A. (2015). One history or many herstories? Gender politics and the history of physiotherapy’s origins in the nineteenth and early twentieth century. Women’s History Review, 25(2), 296-319.