Exercised

What’s the skinny on exercise? It’s not as effective as eating less if you’re trying to lose weight, but you should do it for your health regardless. Apparently, it’s also better to be skinny and unfit rather than fat and fit. Those are two things you might learn from Exercised by Daniel Lieberman. His book’s intriguing subtitle? “Why something we never evolved to do is healthy and rewarding.” Also, it has a great cover that looks like an ancient cave painting of someone running on a treadmill.

 

There’s much of the usual you will hear about exercise: the good, the bad, and the mythical. Each chapter is headed by a myth. My favorite: “Sitting is intrinsically unhealthy.” Many of my colleagues have standing desks. (I don’t.) My favorite chapter title is: “Inactivity: The importance of being lazy.” No, Lieberman is not exhorting you to be a couch potato. But as a bioanthropologist, he has conducted many interesting studies and observations comparing the few hunter-gatherer societies left on planet Earth and compared their way of life and biomechanics to present urbanites who spend lots of time sitting, starting a screen, and clicking a mouse(pad).

 

I found the first several chapters to be the most interesting, because that’s where Lieberman sets up the baseline. By observing hunter-gatherer societies, mammals in both the wild and captivity (especially chimpanzees and gibbons), fossils, and making guesses about the lifestyle of ancient humans, Lieberman catalogs a variety of interesting factoids: How we walk, how we run, how we sit, how much oxygen we breathe, bone structure, sleep patterns, muscles that get used or unused, how many calories we eat, and how these differ between different individuals, people groups, and species. I could throw a bunch of factoids at you, but the context and story-telling in Lieberman’s book is so engaging, it’s better if you just read his book.

 

The middle sections of the book look at several aspects: Speed, Strength, Power, Endurance. Lieberman compares world-class sprinters and endurance runners, two-legged runners versus four-legged runners, chimpanzees versus football players, fighting versus sporting, and more. Through it all, Lieberman weaves a narrative of how the human muscles and skeletal systems evolved, and how and why much of our energy is diverted to the brain. Did you know that we’ve evolved to walk long distances compared to apes? Not to mention, we’ve developed a potentially powerful and accurate overhand throw – now celebrated in top baseball pitchers.

 

The final section looks at different exercise routines, diets, and the diseases we succumb to in this day and age. It’s not a pretty sight. It reminded me that I lack cardio in my exercise routines, and I’ve started to add little bits into my routine. One good thing about Covid is that it made me aware of the need to be disciplined about daily exercise since I’ve been mostly working from home and simply don’t walk or stand as much. Did you know there’s something called “active sitting”? I suppose that’s like education’s catchphrase, “active learning”. Lieberman discusses different scientific studies, and you won’t be surprised to know that there’s no magic bullet. Also, we haven’t evolved to enjoy exercise, so for most of us, it will feel like a drag. That’s why building a habit is important.

 

Lieberman’s book was informative, engaging, humorous, encouraging, and yes, just a little scary. I recommend it. But if you decide there isn’t enough time to read 350 pages of Lieberman’s book, here’s his pithy conclusion encompassed in four short sentences: “Make exercise necessary and fun. Do mostly cardio, but also some weights. Some is better than none. Keep it up as you age.”