“Mag-exercise tayo tuwing umaga/Tuwing umaga, tuwing umaga/Mag-exercise tayo tuwing umaga/Upang ang katawan natin ay sumigla.” – Lyrics by Yoyoy Villame.
Good life equals good health, or good health equals good life. Whatever the equation, the good is the exercise. It produces energy, prolongs life and keeps the doctor away. Yet there is always an excuse not to do it. Not that there is no time; it is more the absence of strong will and right attitude. Why this is so? Is this normal? According to Daniel E. Lieberman, a professor of human evolutionary biology at Harvard University, in his book Exercised: Why Something We Never Evolved to Do Is Healthy and Rewarding (2020), our evolutionary DNA has not properly evolved when it comes to a healthy physical exertion. This is an interesting argument worth looking into. Let’s find out.
Lieberman claims that exercise is a modern concept because in ancient times people were so busy hunting and gathering for their foods. Work was, therefore, their form of exercise. The shift towards modernization leads us to a sedentary life-style that requires us to exercise in order to improve and maintain a healthy well-being. But this is not automatic. We have to be enticed with proper equipment and clothes; thus the burgeoning of exercise clubs and sports goods industries. We also seek exercises that are excruciatingly painful – the “no pain, no gain” mantra. For example, running the marathon or competing in the triathlon. He writes: “My experiences and research slowly led me to conclude that because industrialized societies such as the United States fail to recognize that exercise is paradoxically modern but healthy behavior, many of our beliefs and attitudes about exercise are myths (by ‘myth’ I mean a claim that is widely believed but inaccurate and exaggerated). To be clear, I do not contend that exercise is incorrect. That would be silly. I will, however, make the case that by ignoring or misinterpreting evolutionary and anthropological perspectives on physical activity, the contemporary, industrial approach to exercise is marred by misconceptions, overstatements, faulty logic, occasional mistruths, and inexcusable finger-pointing.”
Our bodies, according to Lieberman, are often doing a lot of trade-offs, one of them is how to spend our precious calories by being physically inactive or active. He says our energy is spent in just five ways: growing your body, maintaining your body (resting metabolism), storing energy (as fat), being active, and reproduction. Depending in the amount of calories, our bodies will choose, based on natural selection, to divert energy to a less strenuous activity. “Stated simply,” Lieberman says, “we evolved to be as inactive as possible. Or to be more precise, our bodies were selected to spend enough but not too much energy on nonreproductive functions including physical activity.”
Throughout the book, Lieberman tackles a lot of misconceptions about exercise, which he calls “myths”. I will list them here and try to give you with a little bit of context. But if you want a clearer picture, I suggest you get a copy of the book.
- Myth #1: We evolved to exercise. In order to slay this myth, Lieberman tells us about his research on the question if we are born to rest or run. He travelled to several places to observe and make a finding. In October 2012, he went to Hawaii to see the Ironman World Championship as well as to attend the sports medicine conference that preceded the race. “The elite athletes, who finish about eight hours after they started,” Lieberman writes, “cross the line stony-faced, looking more like cyborgs than humans. Later as the amateurs arrive to complete their ordeal, we glimpse what their achievement means to them. Many weep for joy; others kneel to kiss the ground; some pound their chests and bellow thunderously; a few look dangerously ill and are rushed to the medical tent.”
- Myth #2: It is Unnatural to Be Indolent. Based on our religious upbringing, we have to work hard for six days and rest on the Sabbath Day. But for hunter-gatherers, this sacred law does not make sense and is unnecessary. For them, they have to find food every day in half a day and the rest of the time is spent on doing light work or resting.
- Myth #3: Sitting is intrinsically Unhealthy. In the workplace, there’s a growing trend that it is better to stand up doing your work than sitting down. Sitting has become unhealthy just like smoking. But here’s the rub: sitting is less tiring and more stable than standing. I remember when I applied to be a volunteer for a professional tennis tournament at York University, I was asked if I could stand up for a long time. I answered in the negative and was put in the waiting list.
- Myth #4: You Need Eight Hours of Sleep Every Night. Margaret Thatcher mockingly said, “Sleep is for wimps.” Virginia Woolf thinks that time asleep is a wasted time, “a deplorable curtailment of the joy of life.” Lieberman argues: “In truth, most biological phenomena are highly variable, and sleep is no exception. Thanks to differences in circadian rhythms and the way our bodies regulate wakefulness and drowsiness, sleeping schedules are variable in humans as they are in other species. The lack of any single pattern of sleep, moreover, applies to populations surrounded by lights in New York and Tokyo, or without electricity in the African savanna or the Amazonian rain forest.”
- Myth #5: Normal Humans Trade Off Speed for Endurance. Not all of us can run like Usain Bolt; to come to his level takes a lot of time and money and the right gene. The fastest we can run, perhaps, is when we are being chased by a mad dog. Being bipedalism in nature, we are really meant more to walk than run.
- Myth #6: We evolved to Be Extremely Strong. Charles Atlas, Arnold Scwarzenegger, Jack LaLanne, to name a few, have the strength of a Hercules. To have a well-developed muscle tone, we use weights, ropes, elastic grips, and Nautilus machines or training programs such as dynamic tension, isometric training, Paleo Diet, and so on. But as we age, we may run into a major disease called muscular atrophy, a genetic disorder characterized by weakness and wasting in muscles used for movement.
- Myth #7: Sports = Exercise. Are humans naturally aggressive? I would say that in early times when we waged wars left and right, the answer was yes. But the costs of war led us to seek for peace and cooperation. Sports are another form of aggression we come up in a non-lethal way (but some can be lethal like boxing and martial arts). They are not meant as a substitute for exercise, although they can serve the role of providing one.
- Myth #8: You Can’t Lose Weight by Walking. “If there is one physical activity,” Lieberman writes, “that most fundamentally illustrates the central point of this book – that we didn’t evolve to exercise but instead to be physically active when necessary – it is walking.”
- Myth #9: Running is Bad for Your Knees. Running is an endurance game. It is a healthy sport but you can develop many injuries such as plantar fasciitis, shin splints, tibial stress fractures, Achilles tendonitis, pulled calf muscles, toe stress fractures, and lower back pain. There are preventive measures which Lieberman enumerates as: (1) not overstriding, which means landing with your feet too far in front of your body; (2) taking about 170 – 180 steps a minute; (3) not leaning too much, especially at the waist; (4) landing with a nearly horizontal foot, thus avoiding a large, rapid impact force with the ground.
- Myth #10: It’s Normal to Be Less Active as We Age. There are millions of us who are less active even at an early age. So it’s never a good reason to use aging as an excuse to be physically less active. For sure, though, there are healthy benefits of living an active lifestyle, especially if we want to live longer.
- Myth #11: “Just Do It” Works. Human beings need a little bit of nudging to do something. A pithy slogan like “Just Do It” may not do it. We need exercise to be fun and not a must-do thing. Lieberman recommends several nudges and shoves; a few of them are mentioned here: (1) Schedule exercise so it becomes a default; (2) Exercise in a group such as a CrossFit class; (3) Sign up (and pay) for a race or some other event that requires you to train.
- Myth #12: There Is an Optimal Dose and Type of Exercise. Don’t fall for exercise programs that promise you optimal health in “just seven minutes of a day of high-intensity interval training”, for example. What is the best type of exercise depends in your physical attributes and health conditions. You can ask your doctors or exercise gurus for recommendations that are well-suited to your circumstances.
There you go, folks. Exercise is good for your health but any active physical activity can do the trick as well. For this New Year, let’s resolve to spend more time exercising than waiting at the doctor’s clinic.
20 December 2023