Abstract
An analysis of several works by people who contributed greatly to the development of physical education in France from the middle of the nineteenth century to the 1960s enables us to pinpoint the rules underlying the specialized language used in this field and the metaphorical and mythological systems that were set up as systems of control over the body. Among these images, it is particularly interesting to examine how 'man' came to be seen in terms of a steam engine, then as a machine, and even more generally as a humanized form of 'productivity.