In the late seventies and early eighties fitness (as opposed to exercising merely to lose weight) became all the rage with women. Here's a quick chronology covering some of the highlights:
1969: Foundation of "Jazzercise"
1979: Publication of "The New Aerobics"
1980: Debut of "The Richard Simmons Show"
1981: Olivia Newton John releases "Let's Get Physical"
1982: Jane Fonda releases her "Jane Fonda's Workout" video
1983: First "Jazzercise" VHS release
Once aerobic exercise was established as a popular leisure activity the next step was to develop specialised clothes to exercise in. Luckily Sears was on the ball: the first 47 pages of its Big Book for Spring-Summer 1981 was dedicated entirely to exercise wear and equipment.
For outdoors wear "Bright Terrycloth Knits" in cotton/polyester. These could be worn for jogging or—as depicted here—for cycling. Lycra bodysuits and bike helmets were not yet in fashion.
For indoors exercise (think of all those aerobic workouts!) we have tights and leotards in nylon. Still no lycra, and all those synthetics must have made for quite unbreathable active wear!
But what about the legwarmers, you might be asking? Those ubiquitous woolly leggings so typically eighties? Well the sad news is there are none in this catalogue. No, not a single pair. Though legwarmers had been invented decades before (for dancers) it took the movie (1980) and the TV series (1982) Fame to popularise them as amateur exercise wear. 1981 must have just been on the cusp on the trend, because by 1982 no pair of leotards was complete without them.
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