We Didn't Evolve to Exercise | Hacker News Reader

We Didn't Evolve to Exercise

simplavida.com

30 pointsXzetaU816 comments

I just don't believe the core claim here. If it were the case that we had evolved a deep aversion to exertion, why would there be sports at all? How would such a thing have ever developed?

>It’s to rediscover the joy of movement and feel the urge go wheeeeee more often.

You're telling me to "rediscover" something you just told me I have a fundamental natural aversion to?

The natural world wants to be in the lowest energy state possible.

Biological systems are especially good at energy minimization.

It’s not surprising that the natural inclination for humans is to be at rest.

Maybe, but it feels good to move the body. Too much rest and I guarantee anyone will feel like garbage. The body also starts to tell you, with chronic pain and tightness and lower energy that your total lack of fitness makes you feel terrible.

Some people exist in this state for so long they don't even know there's an alternative.

We have a body. It feels great to push it and use it to lift heavy stuff. Try it out, but don't go overboard at first. That's where most people go wrong, especially when they've energy-minimized themselves to a state approaching a dried prune.

The natural world doesn't want anything.

The natural inclination for humans isn't to be at rest. All evidence suggests people have played games like chase/wrestling/throwing things since there were people, and animals we most likely came from play games too.

The piece is garbage. Pure and simple.

There's also the endorphins that start firing when exercising or the general sense of euphoria that lssts for hours afterwards. These are evolutionary mechanisms that directly motivate strenuous exercise.

This is definitely one of the most absurd articles I've read, but only because I think the author convinced himself that it was a reasonable take, rather than the more typical trolling for clicks. 100% cognitive dissonance.

Play and movement are nearly universal in the animal kingdom.

I wouldn't expect humans to be any different.

I feel the article is too low quality to be here, so I flagged it.

Where is the evidence? They are essentially putting forward an unsupported theory that you can or should replace exercise with things like "shuffling around your house" and "dancing like no one's watching."

This is stupid. We all have better things to do than read or talk about this empty content. Like go to the gym.

"Over time, this shaped a deep biological aversion to unnecessary exertion." This is both ahistorical - dancing and athletic competition are effectively human universals - and abiological - wild animals play.

Conversely, look at the multitude of labor-saving devices mankind has invented throughout history. We have minimized physical exertion whenever possible, including exercise. The explosive rise in popularity of taking a very expensive shot or pill rather than simply moving our behinds more often (and doing it for free) illustrates our opposition to exercise rather convincingly.

Labour-saving devices also have a tendency to save time.

We automate boring stuff. It's the boring stuff we built devices for, and it's not just physical stuff. All manner of boring stuff has been automated that is just pencil pushing.

No one is playing a game of soccer and thinking "i could just build a robot to do this and avoid soccer". People spend hours training for marathons, ironman events etc, just because they want to.

The motivation there is money and time, not an aversion to labor.

Imagine any job paid as much as software. What would you do? For many of us the answer would be far more labor intensive - I prefer construction a million iin times over software, but software pays a million times better.

So our economic system coerces us into these sort of broadly sedentary behaviors, because that's where the money is.

Wild animals have also independently deeply specialized in minimizing energy. Many reptiles and insects eat once every few days or weeks or longer. Some hibernate. All exotherms minimize bodily activity at least some parts of the day.

That said, this argument when applied to humans is nonsense. We are highly energetic endotherms. Our bodies require exercise for a huge list of well supported reasons

Article misses an obvious solution: get a hobby, that sorta just happens to be exercise. For me this is mountain biking, and now gravel biking… since scarring roadies is also a fun hobby.

I think this article misses the point. The issue with exercise isn't that exertion feels bad. The issue is opportunity cost. All the more interesting things you could have done with that time.

Viewing exercise as interesting time spent is probably where the outliers of "people whose instincts defy millennia of evolution" come from. My wife and I truly love trail running and usually running more than 99% of users in Garmin (according to the charts). During race training season we're frequently in the 50 miles per week or more range which, as older and slower runners, means we might be running 10 to 15 hours per week. But, we love it, so no more interesting things for us to do than that.

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