thumb|Two men do rajio taisō in a park

are warm-up calisthenics performed to music and guidance from radio broadcasts. Originating from the United States, they are popular in Japan and parts of China, North Korea and Taiwan.

United States

The idea for radio broadcast calisthenics came from "setting-up exercises" broadcast in US radio stations as early as 1923 in Boston (in WGI). The longest-lasting of these setting-up exercise broadcasts was sponsored by the Metropolitan Life Insurance Company (now MetLife), which sponsored the setting-up exercise broadcasts in WEAF in New York which premiered in April 1925. after the tower where the exercises were broadcast from—was also broadcast in WCAP in Washington, D.C., and WEEI in Boston, an employee of the Japanese postal insurance division (predecessor to the Japan Post Insurance Co.)—originally dispatched to MetLife to study the insurance system in the US—found out about the Tower Health Exercises and immediately brought samples of the exercises from MetLife back to Japan. After several rewrites to the exercise routine, it was reintroduced by NHK radio in 1951 with the support of the education ministry, health ministry, the Japan Gymnastic Association and the Japan Recreation Association.

China

China also has such calisthenics. They have been mandatory in some regions since 2010. Originally they were introduced by Mao Zedong in 1951 but the broadcasts are now run by the General Administration of Sport of China.

Great Britain

In December 1939, the BBC introduced 10 minute radio calisthenic programmes. They were titled 'Up in the Morning Early' and were broadcast on the Home Service at 7:35 Monday to Saturday. Monday, Wednesday and Friday's programmes were aimed at men and Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday's for women.

See also

  • Pre-work assembly

References

  • Machine translation of the official instructions
  • Radio-taiso exercise images