Victorian gyms

For some reason looking at these pictures of victorian gyms make me think of three things:

1/ Gyms are not a new thing. They have been around for ages (in slightly different forms)

2/ Gym machines are about "creating resistance". Then you use your body against that resistance. Nothing has really changed in that ?

3/ The people in the images are dressed like they would be at the office. I still manitain that the biggest resistance to "active work" is the way we dress for work. More informal work dress codes would open a lot of doors for activity at work. But many workplaces are stuck with a formal dress code ?

These were the exercise pioneers. Paving the way for the gyms as we know them today ?