Wait a minute, let's be fair
Wait a minute, let's be fair folks.
The 100-Ups date from the 1870s, from a guy named W.S. George, as McDougall reports in the article. So, he didn't steal from anyone. Rather, he give a quite proper citation. The question is whether W.S. George really invented them, as he seems to claim. If he did not, then where did he get it?
What we have here is the history of running ideas. We now know that leg-raises date from at least this time. All the others are copying from George, not the other way around.
A lot of sports came into being in the second half of the 19th century, since (primarily) Europe and America started to have enough wealth to afford the leisure time to actually do sports. For example, Soccer/Football rules were first codified in 1848. The Olympics, which re-invented many track and field events, were of course first held in 1896. I am sure that people were running (in a sport/leisure sense) even much earlier--if not continually all the way back to the Greeks.
But, it fits the history of modern sports that people like George were starting to experiment with "training" ideas around this time. George himself is likely an aristocrat or a "gentleman", since the working classes spent 12-16 hours a day in the factory or the fields. Only this kind of person could afford to spend his hours thinking up ways to improve his running.
I have only done the 100-Ups a couple of times, so it is too soon to tell. But, tonight's run was fast and seemed quite effortless.
A Contest: I will give a BRS T-Shirt to anyone who comes up with documentary evidence (book or article) of Leg-Lifts being performed earlier than 1874 for the purpose of improving running form, technique or time. *
Cheers,
Paleo
* Why do I make this challenge? Because I am myself an historian of ideas by training, but I don't have the time to research the question. I am nevertheless curious about the answer.