The stations would contain specific instructions to perform the exercise. The stations were also planned to keep the heart rate up and to provide an overall workout by the end of the course. By the 1970s, there were more than 200 parcourses in Switzerland. The first parcourse to be built in the United States was erected in San Francisco's Mountain Lake Park. By the 1980s there were more than 4500 of these parcourses were in existance in the United States.