Exercising for Fun (and Health) is a Luxury

We Should Be Grateful, Not Disdainful

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For most of human history, exercise was a necessity, not a choice. Humans had to travel by foot through dense forests, across grasslands and rivers, over mountains, through deserts, and throughout cities. Human beings had to hunt and gather their food, or grow and harvest it themselves, or tend their flocks and herds. They had to build their own shelter, defend themselves against rivals and wild animals, and survive the harsh elements. Yes, they sometimes traveled by horse or camel or mule. And yes, some emperors and oligarchs could afford to have slaves carry them from place to place on cushioned palanquin. But life for the vast majority of human beings, for the vast majority of human history, required physical movement and physical labor. Even until very recently, most people worked physically demanding jobs. In agriculture and in other industries.

                But today, most people no longer work jobs that require them to move at all. We can work from our computers, drive cars anywhere we need to go, order our groceries and our meals and even our toilet to be delivered right to our door. Today, we have to go out of our way to exercise. And when we do, we exercise in ways our ancient ancestors would not understand. Why would any primal human run for fun? Why would they move or carry anything unless it was necessary for survival?

                If you take a step back and look at exercise, it seems very pointless. You run down a path for a certain period of time, and then you turn around and run back. Or you go into a gym, pick up heavy objects, move them in a variety of strange directions, and put them down. Or you swim back and forth in a straight line in an artificial pool for an hour. Ancient humans would only swim to save their own lives (or those of close kin).

                Most human beings that have ever lived had to use their bodies in physically demanding ways in order to survive, make a living, or support their families. And until very recently, food was scarce. Movement costs energy. It burns calories and when calories are precious, you try to burn as few as necessary. Most calories were burned in the pursuit of other calories to eat. Humans are naturally hardwired to want to preserve energy and not move any more than necessary. (Which is why exercise is hard and sitting on the couch is easy.)

                Some people will take all of this and use it as reason to scoff at anyone who would exercise. Working out is foolish. Biking is a waste of time. Any type of non-sport physical activity is just vanity. It is a historical anachronism, and has very little point.

                Most people who do not hate exercise outright will concede that it has benefits. But many believe in doing the minimum amount necessary to get those benefits, and nothing more. We have cars and fast food and computers and air conditioning and we should use them. Life is easy, so why waste time making it harder? Why do the same motion over and over again for hours on end? Why run for hours and go nowhere? Why walk any further than you have to? Why would anyone go into the woods and just walk? What do you do? It is so boring.

Exercise as a Luxury:

                The truth is, we do not have to exercise. Most people living in first world countries today do not have to do any physical activity if they do not want to. Exercise is a choice. It wastes time that could otherwise be spent making money. But while some people do still struggle to get by in America, many people do not live paycheck to paycheck. They do not need to worry about spending all their time making money. They can choose to do other activities because they want to do them.

                In America today, starvation is no longer a concern (except in a few extreme circumstances). We now have more food than we can consume – we throw away food every year. While food waste is unfortunate, it also demonstrates material abundance. For most of human history, having enough food to eat was the primary concern. Today, more people die of obesity worldwide than starvation. This is an incredible anomaly. And despite the Malthusian predictions of overpopulation leading to worldwide starvation, we now produce far more than enough food to feed the entire human race. And we do it with fewer labor hours, while using less land, than ever before in human history. This has freed up billions of people to pursue other tasks.

                (At one point, 100% of people worked in food production. At the beginning of the Industrial Revolution, the vast majority of Americans worked in agriculture. Today, most Americans do not even know anyone who works in agriculture.)

                All of this material abundance means that today we have the luxury of wasting calories. We can expend energy performing repetitive motions that do not create more wealth or more food or more capital. We do not have to worry about conserving our energy in order to avoid starvation.

                We also do not have to worry as much about injuries. We do still need to worry about injuries. But a broken leg is no longer a death sentence, and a torn ACL no longer cripples people for life. Less than a century ago, Calvin Coolidge’s son died from an infected blister after playing tennis on the White House lawn. Today, this seems hard to believe. Modern medicine has given us a miracle. Fear of infection and injury no longer dominates our waking lives. Even once-feared running injuries like plantar fasciitis and Achilles Tendonitis are eminently treatable and do not even require time off (for those who catch them early and treat them aggressively and properly).

                Modern medicine has given us many luxuries. But surely one of them is a reduced risk of injury from exercise. And a reduced potential downside in the event of an injury. What used to be a catastrophe is now an inconvenience.

                Modern scientific knowledge (especially knowledge of biomechanics) has also taught us a great deal about how to exercise in ways that not only reduce chance of injury but actually prevent it.

                (Weightlifting and running with poor form – or doing too much too quickly – can lead to injury. But contrary to popular belief, weightlifting and running with proper form actually reduce your chances of injury. Running is not bad for your knees. Runners have lower rates of osteoarthritis in their knees than do sedentary people. Weightlifting is not bad for your back. Sedentary people are more susceptible to back injury than well-trained lifters.)

                We can now not only exercise without fear of burning calories we cannot afford to burn, we can exercise more safely than ever before in human history.

                We even have better knowledge of exercise recovery than ever before, which allows us to train harder with lower risk. While many of the most fundamental concepts in exercise, nutrition, and recovery are very old, we have also made advances that give us greater freedom and flexibility to exercise intensely with less worry.

                While many people overuse modern comforts like central heating, air conditioning, GPS technology, and cars, these comforts actually allow us to take greater risks in exercising. Overuse of air conditioning actually causes heat illness (because a body unused to the heat will process heat much less efficiently and will collapse faster at lower temperatures). But air conditioning also gives athletes the freedom to push their boundaries in extreme heat, safe in the knowledge that they have shelter to return to and recover.

One Reason Today is the Best Time to Be Alive:

                Some naysayers will still decry exercise as irrational and unnecessary. While they may admit that it has some health benefits, they will argue in favor of doing the minimum dose necessary, and no more. What is the point, they might ask, of spending hours moving and lifting, burning unnecessary calories? And then following that by eating more calories? Why not burn fewer, and eat fewer? Why waste time and energy and money? Given that food is more abundant than ever in human history, cheaper than ever, higher quality than ever, with more variety than ever, and often wasted, I think this argument does not hold water.

                (But some will argue that buying more food increases your carbon footprint. Especially if you eat meat. In rejoinder, I would point out that due to efficiencies in technology, transportation, distribution, and sustainable food production, the carbon footprint associated with food consumption decreases with every passing day. Furthermore, people who want to decrease their carbon footprint can find ways to buy more sustainable food without buying less food - and without spending large sums of money. And the carbon footprint difference between 3000 daily calories and 2500 daily calories is likely negligible. Buying local, organic food, unless you live in highly fertile lands, likely increases your carbon footprint more than buying cheap non-organic produce from your supermarket. Thus, exercise is not bad for the environment.)

                All of this goes to say that as much as exercise is less necessary for daily life than ever before, there are also fewer and fewer good reasons not to exercise. People who want to exercise can do so. More safely, more inexpensively, more sustainably, more efficiently, more intelligently, and with less worry than ever before.

                The true beauty of modern life is that it gives us the opportunity to do tasks that have no intrinsic value except for the value we place on them. We can choose to do something that wastes time that we could spend making money. We can choose to waste energy and calories running in a straight line for an hour and returning to the same place. Unlike our ancestors, we have no need to engage in physical activity every day. But we can, because we find it rewarding. We can do irrational things that give us joy, pleasure, satisfaction, and meaning. We do not have to apply a utilitarian calculus to every aspect of modern life.

Exercising for Health:

                At this point we come to the elephant in the room. Health. Most people by now will have said to themselves, “exercise is necessary! For health.” And they would be right. Due in part to our abundance and to the incredible ease of modern life, we now have greater need to go out of our way to exercise than ever before, in order to avoid the health consequences of lifetime sedentariness. Obesity, diabetes, heart disease, and many other ailments have skyrocketed in recent years. Our bodies, which adapted for physical exertion, break down in the absence of movement and strenuous activity.

                Many people do not exercise for fun. They exercise to lose weight, or to improve their cholesterol numbers, or their blood pressure numbers, or to reduce their risk of heart disease, cancer, Alzheimer’s, and a whole host of modern ailments. Which means that many people do not see exercise as a luxury, but as a burden.

                (I would argue that flipping your mindset from viewing exercise as a burden to viewing it as a luxury is one of the most important steps towards achieving the very health outcomes that you desire.)

                I do not dispute the importance of exercise. In fact, I come down heavily on the side of claiming that it is vital for health. Some have called exercise, “the best drug we have.” In some cases, exercise is the single best intervention there is for improving health outcomes. Full stop.

                (It depends on the situation. Some would make a good case for sleep and proper nutrition. Each of these three becomes most important in situations where it is most lacking. For someone who sleeps 4 hours a night, sleeping 8 hours a night is the most important intervention. For someone who is malnourished and overfed, nutrition is key. For someone who does zero physical activity, more exercise is the most important intervention.)

                But let us take a step back for a moment and realize what an incredible luxury it is that one of the most important things we can do for our health is to exercise more. We have eradicated most of the diseases that were the scourges of human history. We have eliminated starvation throughout the developed world (and within my lifetime, we will eliminate it in the developing world – or, at least, we will have the ability to do so – unless we screw it up). We have reduced infant mortality and deaths from infection, while improving the safety and quality of our food and water, to the point where we now have to worry more about getting enough physical activity than about dying of scurvy. (Today, scurvy is a choice. If you are worried about it, eat vegetables and chicken liver in the winter.) What an incredible advance. I repeat, exercise is a luxury. Worrying more about obesity than starvation is a luxury. Needing to exercise for health, instead of to catch the next meal, is a luxury.

Exercise and Health in the Ancient World:

                I also need to mention the fact that exercising for health is not actually new. Despite what I said earlier about most human beings performing physical labor, but not exercising in the ways we think of it today, exercise did exist in the ancient world. Most famously, the ancient Greeks invented gymnasiums and weight lifting. Gymnasiums were primarily used by upper-class Greeks, who did not have to do manual labor because their slaves did the manual labor. While Greek statues exaggerate appearances, Greeks did exercise for aesthetics. Gyms were also used to prepare soldiers for war.

                On the other side of the world, various cultures in Asia and the Pacific Islands developed martial arts. There was, perhaps, less of an emphasis on aesthetics and more of an emphasis on combat readiness. In fact, for most of human history, most exercise not directly related to hunting, manual labor, travel, gathering food, farming, or actual combat, had the purpose of preparing people for combat. Exercise had a martial focus (and in some cases, it still does). Any exercise not explicitly for the purpose of training in empty-hand or armed combat, was conditioning for the rigors of war, or it served the purpose of keeping recruits fit (and it also helped establish discipline and unit cohesion).

                Of course, this neglects sports. Sports also have incredibly ancient roots, both in Eurasia and in Mesoamerica. However, I would note that most sports have a martial link. They were simulations of combat, or preparations for combat, or they were instituted to keep people fit during peacetime (in case war broke out). In some cases, sports were a way to settle differences, or diffuse tensions, short of actual combat. (In some ways, sports still serve this purpose. They teach young men to channel aggression in healthy ways, which is why athletes and martial artists are often some of the most peaceful people you will ever meet, and why high-school linebackers more often break up fights than start them.) Some sports actually were combat: Roman gladiator shows.

                All of this goes to say that exercise, including exercising for health, does have ancient roots. However, for most of human history it had specific purposes (typically, preparing for combat). It was not the widespread fitness culture that we have today. It was not a luxury, the way it is today.

The Greeks Again:

                Finally, I could not end this essay without acknowledging one final debt to the ancient Greeks. (In addition to exercise, they also gave us philosophy, democracy, literature, oratory/rhetoric, and many other blessings.) The Greeks understood a great deal about the good life and the human potential. Most importantly for our purposes, they understood the beauty of the human body and the spectacle of human performance. They gave us the Olympics, but more than that, they gave us the idea that the Olympics represent. The idea that there is something inherently noble in pushing the limitations of human performance, and something beautiful about competition and physical achievement. Setting aside the actual Olympics, there is something ennobling about the idea of transcending previous records of speed, strength, endurance, agility, and skill. And something ennobling about attempting to transcend them and falling short.

                One of the truly incredible things about modern life is that thousands of elite athletes can dedicate their lives to exploring the boundaries of human physical performance. And the spectacle of their competition can make billions of viewers happy. And that while most people will never perform at an elite level, millions of people can enrich their lives by pushing their own physical limits and transcending their own previous performances.

                While vanity and excessive body-worship are problems, there is also something beautiful about the human body. The human body is a good thing. While we sometimes place an unhealthy emphasis on it in modern culture, we can avoid vanity without shunning fitness. Everything in moderation. Vanity is a sin. But so too is denying the gift that is physical activity. We should have a healthy appreciation for what is good about the human body.

                Exercise is a luxury. It is a good thing. It enriches human health, and it can give meaning. It can make life richer and more meaningful. The human body is a good thing, and so is human performance. Never before in human history have we had the blessings we have today. We no longer need to exercise our bodies to obtain food, or make a living, or escape danger, or really for any purpose outside of health. Our lives do not force us to be active. Instead, we can choose to be active, because we value physical activity and because it makes our lives better. And that is a good thing. We no longer have any need to use our bodies. But we can. Because we want to. Because it makes us happy.