What is Physical Culture?

The term "Physical Culture" is a difficult concept to relate to in this day and age when technology has removed much of our need to rely upon our physical bodies to accomplish everyday tasks.
Physical Culture is the promotion of muscular  strength,growth and health combined with longivity,vitality and vigor through various physical exercise programs like resistance training with and without weights,stretching,posture correction techniques,and sports.Eugen Sandow,George Hackenschmdit,Artur Saxon,Benarr MacFadden,Bob Hoffman,George F.Jowett,Apollon,Otto Arco,Edward Aston,Joe Bonomo,Ottley R.Coulter,Hermann Goerner,Thomas Inch,Maxick,Monte Saldo,and Lionel Strongfort where among its earliest popularisers.Unlike today where drugs are seen as the way to gain in muscle and strength Classic Physical Culture stands in opposition to the win at all costs attitude ,drug,prohormone and suppliment use and seek to replace that with the old wisdom of health first.
A century ago,there was a remarkable group of men and women who knew how to build muscle,burn fat and live a healthy,balanced life without popping pills ,peppering their butts with needlemarks,or obssessing over their micro and macro nurtient ratios.It is true that sometimes their advice did seem contradictory,when in fact no contradictions existed.A very lively and healthy debate was carried on by these devotees of Physical Culture in the late 19th and early 20th centuries---from the debate over vegetarianism versus meat eating to which was better training with or without apparatus(weights).
Unlike modern tarining systems Classic Physical Culture systems did not advocate training to failure or "training on the nerve" as they used to call it,which explains why alot of the classic systems advocated the seven days in two weeks training system(meaning you trained every other day),or that you train six days a week.

The single most important concept for you to understand is that strength is a skill and you need to treat it as such.You are training your nervous system to be more efficent.And that is why the great old time strongmen like Eugen Sandow,George Hackenschmidt,Arthur Saxon,etc called their workouts "practice" ,inshort lifting to them was their sport so they understood unlike modern bodybuilders that you cannot continue practicing in a fatigued state or you engrain bad habits into your nerve/motor systems.