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Zusammenfassung von Exercised

Name: Exercised
Rating: 4.3 (240 reviews)
Author: Daniel E. Lieberman

Daniel E. Lieberman

Why Something We Never Evolved to Do Is Healthy and Rewarding

4.3 (240 Bewertungen)

25 Min.

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Sport Gesundes Leben Älterwerden Wandel & Evolution

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What’s in it for me? Rediscover exercise in the light of modern anthropology.

“Exercise more” is probably on the to-do list of every person you know. And it’s no wonder – getting active is touted as a remedy for obesity, mental illness, lethargy, and a long list of physical ailments.

All of this advice is well-meaning, but sometimes it can be confusing. We know running is healthy – but doesn’t it also damage your knees? We know we should sleep for eight hours – so why do many of us wake after seven?

These blinks cut through the noise by approaching things from two directions: the history of humans’ evolutionary past, and present-day groundbreaking research. The results combine the ancient and the modern in a fresh and invigorating vision of human health.

In these blinks, you’ll learn

why we don’t all need eight hours’ sleep;
why humans aren’t naturally brawny; and
whether walking can help you lose weight.

We didn’t evolve to exercise.

When you imagine our early human ancestors, you probably envision them in motion. Whether they’re hunting animals, navigating harsh landscapes, or even fighting, it’s likely you imagine them as active rather than sedentary – and on the whole, that’s fairly accurate.

For our predecessors, physical activity was an unavoidable part of life. Whereas we can just stop at a supermarket to buy more food, early humans didn’t have that option; if they wanted to eat, they had to get moving.

So what does that tell us about exercise, then? That it’s something evolution compels us to do? That it’s entirely natural? The short answer is no.

The key message here is: We didn’t evolve to exercise.

On the face of it, this is a shocking idea – if we evolved to be physically active, then surely we evolved to exercise. What’s the difference?

The crux of the issue is that exercise is voluntary physical activity, usually undertaken in order to improve our health and fitness. Humans evolved to be active when circumstances demand it – like when food is running low and our bellies start to rumble. With a few exceptions like dancing and childhood games, we didn’t evolve to engage in unnecessary activity.

In short, evolution hasn’t actually given us any impulse to exercise; on the contrary, forcing ourselves to get moving involves overcoming some of our most basic instincts. So if it seems hard to make yourself go on that jog, rest assured – that’s just as nature intended.

Our aversion to unnecessary activity actually makes a lot of sense. Moving around requires energy, and for energy we require food. For us, that doesn’t seem like a big deal; one soda contains all the energy you’re likely to burn on a 90-minute walk. Replenishment is no big deal.

But until very recently – evolutionarily speaking – circumstances were different. Food was hard to come by, which meant that wasting energy was dangerous. Any unnecessary activity you engaged in would deplete your reserves – leaving you with less energy to devote to the vital tasks of surviving and reproducing.

So does all this mean we should give up on exercising? No – quite the opposite! By explaining why keeping fit can feel like such a slog, this insight can help us to adopt a more understanding attitude toward ourselves and others.

In a nutshell, we shouldn’t shame people for their reluctance to exercise; we should realize that overcoming our instincts takes work and dedication.

We don’t all need eight hours’ sleep.

It seems we have a crisis. Experts are ringing alarm bells: All over the industrialized world, there is a shortage of sleep.

In days gone by, the experts say, people used to sleep for up to ten hours a night. Today, the average Westerner gets just seven – a whole hour less than the recommended eight. And what’s worse, five percent of us get less than five hours’ sleep each night!

We didn’t evolve to be naturally brawny.

So our caveman and cavewoman ancestors probably didn’t sleep for eight hours a night. They also didn’t go on spontaneous and unnecessary jogs. But if there’s one thing we do know about our hunter-gatherer ancestors, it’s that they must have been extremely strong.

That’s according to primal fitness enthusiasts, anyway. Proponents of this theory believe that our ancestors’ everyday activities would have kept them fit, muscular, and lean; hunting animals would have tested their stamina, for example, and moving boulders would have required mammoth strength.

Walking does have a role to play in weight loss.

Exercise scientists are generally a peaceful bunch. But one question can have even the most placid researchers clawing at each other's throats: Can you lose weight by walking?

Until recently, it seemed clear-cut. Moderate exercise, like walking, requires energy – and when your energy output exceeds your energy intake, you burn fat. Right?

Running doesn’t have to lead to injuries.

So, we’ve learned that walking can be useful. It can help you to lose weight and stay slim – and it doesn’t require very high levels of fitness. But what if you're interested in something a little more challenging – something to get your heart racing and your legs pumping? What, in other words, about running?

For novices, running can be daunting. Many would-be runners are put off for life by the horror stories of veterans – people complaining of wear and tear to muscles and joints, and all kinds of exotic injuries.

We need to stay active as we age.

How do you picture your retirement? Whatever you envision, it’s probably unlike the lives lived by older members of hunter-gatherer societies.

Take the Hadza, the Tanzanian hunter-gatherer people we encountered in an earlier blink. While Americans walk half as much in their seventies as they do in their forties, the Hadza’s activity levels go through a much more moderate decline as they age. One result of that is that they stay fit and strong much longer than people living in the industrialized world.

If we want to exercise more, we need to make it as fun and necessary as possible.

We know exercise is good for us. We know we should exercise more. But now we also know why we so often find it difficult and unpleasant – because we didn’t evolve to engage in voluntary physical activity. From the standpoint of our ancestors and our evolutionary history, exercising is weird.

That’s a fact we have to reckon with; it means that when physical activity is unnecessary or boring, we’ll probably try to avoid it. But rather than being paralyzed by that insight, can we harness it for our own benefit?

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Worum geht es in Exercised?

Exercised (2020) is a cutting-edge account of physical activity, rest, and human health. Drawing on groundbreaking research in the fields of exercise science, evolutionary theory, and anthropology, it presents a unique account of the human body’s needs and abilities.

Wer Exercised lesen sollte

Fitness fanatics interested in a broader view of health and exercise
Exercise-avoiders seeking to change their ways for good
Amateur anthropologists and armchair doctors

Über den Autor

Daniel Lieberman is Professor of Human Evolutionary Biology at Harvard University. A globally recognized expert on evolution and human health, and the author of over 150 peer-reviewed articles, his other titles include The Story of the Human Body and The Evolution of the Human Head.

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