Exercised: Why Something We Never Evolved to Do Is Healthy and Rewarding

by Daniel E. Lieberman

If exercise is healthy (so good for you!), why do many people dislike or avoid it? These engaging stories and explanations will revolutionize the way you think about exercising—not to mention sitting, sleeping, sprinting, weight lifting, playing, fighting, walking, jogging, and even dancing.

“Strikes a perfect balance of scholarship, wit, and enthusiasm.” —Bill Bryson, New York Times best-selling author of The Body

• If we are born to walk and run, why do most of us take it easy whenever possible?
• Does running ruin your knees?
• Should we do weights, cardio, or high-intensity training?
• Is sitting really the new smoking?
• Can you lose weight by walking?
• And how do we make sense of the conflicting, anxiety-inducing information about rest, physical activity, and exercise with which we are bombarded?

In this myth-busting book, Daniel Lieberman, professor of human evolutionary biology at Harvard University and a pioneering researcher on the evolution of human physical activity, tells the story of how we never evolved to exercise—to do voluntary physical activity for the sake of health. Using his own research and experiences throughout the world, Lieberman recounts without jargon how and why humans evolved to walk, run, dig, and do other necessary and rewarding physical activities while avoiding needless exertion.

Exercised is entertaining and enlightening but also constructive. As our increasingly sedentary lifestyles have contributed to skyrocketing rates of obesity and diseases such as diabetes, Lieberman audaciously argues that to become more active we need to do more than medicalize and commodify exercise.

Drawing on insights from evolutionary biology and anthropology, Lieberman suggests how we can make exercise more enjoyable, rather than shaming and blaming people for avoiding it. He also tackles the question of whether you can exercise too much, even as he explains why exercise can reduce our vulnerability to the diseases mostly likely to make us sick and kill us.

Genres: Nonfiction, Health, Science, Audiobook, Anthropology, Fitness, Biology

464 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2021

About the author

Daniel E. Lieberman is a paleoanthropologist at Harvard University, where he is the Edwin M Lerner II Professor of Biological Sciences, and chair of the Department of Human Evolutionary Biology. He is best known for his research on the evolution of the human head and the evolution of the human body.

Lieberman was educated at Harvard University, where he obtained his A.B., M.A. and Ph.D. degrees. He also received a M. Phil from Cambridge University. He was a Junior Fellow in the Harvard Society of Fellows and taught at Rutgers University and the George Washington University before becoming a professor at Harvard University in 2001. He is on the curatorial board of the Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology, a member of the Department of Organismic and Evolutionary Biology at Harvard, and the Scientific Executive Committee of the L.S.B. Leakey Foundation. He is the director of the Skeletal Biology Laboratory at Harvard University.

Lieberman studies how and why the human body is the way it is. His research combines paleontology, anatomy, physiology and experimental biomechanics in the lab and in the field. He has focused to a large extent on why and how humans have such unusual heads. He is also well known for his research on the evolution of human locomotion including whether the first hominins were bipeds, why bipedalism evolved, the biomechanical challenges of pregnancy in females, how locomotion affects skeletal function and, most especially, the evolution of running. His 2004 paper with Dennis Bramble, “Endurance Running and the Evolution of the Genus Homo” proposed that humans evolved to run long distances to scavenge and hunt. His research on running in general, especially barefoot running was popularized in Chris McDougall’s best-selling book Born to Run. Lieberman is an avid marathon runner, often barefoot, which has earned him the nickname, The Barefoot Professor.

Reviews

[Danny Bunn · Rating 3 out of 5]

I’ll save you 7 hours....

We didn’t evolve to run marathons, play tennis, go jogging etc. Nor did we evolve to sit around all day.

Move often. Eat fresh food. Cardio is good. Cardio with some strength training is better. Just pumping weights is not as good as cardio. Walk sometimes. Jog sometimes. Go hard sometimes. You don’t stop moving because you get old. You get old because you stop moving.

[Gumble's Yard - Golden Reviewer · Rating 4 out of 5]

The mantra of this book is that nothing about the biology of exercise makes sense except in the light of evolution, and nothing about exercise as a behaviour makes sense except in the light of anthropology.

This examination of history is by a paleoanthropologist Professor – something of an expert both on the evolution of the human body and the study of hunter gatherer societies, both which an emphasis on how they have led to the evolution and development of human physical activity. He is perhaps best known for his work on endurance running which was adopted by the barefoot-running movement. He himself is a reluctant exerciser (albeit a marathon runner) and this book represents his study of exercise i.e. planned, sustained, structured and (most crucially) voluntary physical activity undertaken for health and fitness. A key aim to the book is to examine why we find this activity so difficult and why in fact we are so exercised about it.

The first section looks at physical inactivity and how rather than being evolved to exercise we are actually evolved to exercise as little as possible and rest frequently. One reason is the need to conserve our energy for body maintenance – one very interesting observation that the author makes (which I think matches the surprise you probably have when you first wear a calorie counting smart watch) is how much of your calorie use is involved simply in being awake and how little incrementally is added by exercise. Hunter gatherers would also conserve energy for long hunting pursuits and reproduction. I have to say I was reminded of the professional cyclists (I think Churchill inpsired) mantra around the economy of effort – "Don’t walk when you can stand, don’t stand when you can sit, don’t sit when you can lie down, don’t lie down when you can sleep." But whereas for professional cyclists this is more about conserving their legs, for hunter gatherers it was more about conserving their meagre and uncertain supplies of calories. While not condemning rest he does point out the issues with modern sitting which is simply too comfortable and passive – and at the very least recommends fidgeting (something which encouraged me as an inveterate jiggler and fidgeter). This section finishes with a section on sleep which while interesting is I think is better passed over for a more dedicated book on the topic (such as Why We Sleep: Unlocking the Power of Sleep and Dreams by Matthew Walker).

The second section is on strength exercises such as sprinting, lifting and fighting. The section draws heavily on biomechanics (as well as evolution and anthropology) and was not always of such interest to me, and I found the lengthy discussion of the evolution of fighting both lacking interest and slightly gratuitous to the book’s main thrust (although my very use of that phrase shows how ancient hunting techniques are embedded in our language as well as our physiology. His overall conclusion on strength is that for hunter gatherers being overly strong carried too high a cost and that for modern man the key is to stay just strong enough for normal activities (but that this likely requires deliberate exercise as you age as our labour saving world means day to day living simply does not provide enough muscle stress).

The sections on Endurance (walking, running and dancing) I found more interesting. He is particularly strong on humans being almost perfectly designed for long distance walking interspersed with jogging (something I found interesting as it matches my COVID era daily dog walks – or at least my aspiration for them). For example our all body sweat glands and lack of fur make us perfectly adapted to avoid over heating when running long distances – unlike say dogs (and many other quadrapeds) whose panting mechanism fails when they break into a gallop. He also makes it clear that walking can lead to weight loss but it needs both lengthier and faster walking than most people manage and regular persistence over a long period – a key reason being that (like with most exercise) it is so much easier for us than earlier societies to simply cancel out exercise by extra unhealthy eating – his key point seems to be to diet to lose really excessive weight and use endurance exercise for longer term and more sustainable weight loss. The section on the importance of tribal dance as a mechanism for maintaining fitness initially seemed interesting but of little application – but I think this came later.

I enjoyed the section on ageing and felt this was perhaps the real key to the book. He shows how in earlier societies the vital role of grandparents to support pregnant and nursing mothers meant that endurance and light-strength fitness persisted much longer as a basic necessity, leading to the paradox that while our bodies require lifelong physical exercise to stay fit into old age, our minds did not need to evolve to seek this exercise voluntarily (in fact quite the opposite – as above we are mentally evolved to avoid any immediately unnecessary exercise). The real aim he says for us and for society is to find ways to make exercise both necessary and fun in some way. On the necessary point he is a fan of nudge theory and likes for example an app which sends your money to your least favourite cause if you don’t exercise. On the fun side one of the issues he points out is that the much heralded dopamine/serotonin/endorphin benefits of exercise only really accrue to those already exercising sufficiently. This is where among other ideas he draws back on the idea of dance – using sport and group activities to help with exercise (as well as rewards and variety) and a number of other nudge ideas.

He concludes looking at optimal amounts of exercise – and agrees that the common prescription for adults of a minimum 150 minutes per week moderate (50-70% of maximum heart rate) or 75 minutes vigorous (70-85%) exercise makes a lot of sense – mixed up with possibly some high intensity training (although not without doctor advice) and some weights/resistance.

The last chapter would I think be better as an appendix – it goes through a series of “modern” diseases, looks at how each arose at least partly from an evolutionary mismatch between our bodies and the modern world, and then what type of exercise can most prevent them.

Overall I found this a very interesting read, which while very much not a prescriptive self-help book, does have a clear conclusion.

Make exercise necessary and fun. Do mostly cardio, but also some weights. Some if good, but more is better. Keep it up as you age.

My thanks to Penguin Press UK – Allen Lane and to Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group for ARCs via NetGalley.

[Ryan Boissonneault · Rating 3 out of 5]

Exercise is one of those topics, along with diet, that generates a lot of confusion. And while there is no shortage of advice to be found online, it is rarely based on our best science or on our understanding of the intricacies of human physiology, evolution, and anthropology.

In Exercised, Harvard professor of evolutionary biology Daniel Lieberman explains that to truly understand exercise science, you must first understand something about human evolution and anthropology and how the body evolved to handle exercise. As Lieberman wrote, “nothing about the biology of exercise makes sense except in the light of evolution, and nothing about exercise as a behavior makes sense except in the light of anthropology.”

Using this evolutionary/anthropological framework, Lieberman sets out to explain how the body works when at rest (sitting and sleeping), when active (walking, running, lifting, fighting, dancing), and what this means for establishing effective exercise habits in the modern world. Far from being a self-help book or a simple guide to developing an exercise routine, Exercised helps you to understand why exercise is good for you and the science behind when, how, and what types of exercises you should be pursuing, dispelling several myths about exercise along the way.

The first—and most fundamental—myth is that we evolved to exercise. The truth is the opposite, and there are good evolutionary reasons for why most people wish to avoid it. (Note that by “exercise” Lieberman means voluntary physical activity pursued for no other purpose than to promote health and fitness.)

The first thing to understand is that humans spent most of their 200,000-year evolutionary history as hunter-gatherers, with the invention of agriculture occurring only around 10,000 years ago and the modern industrial revolution beginning only about 200 years ago. The key to understanding our relationship to exercise, therefore, is found in the study of these hunter-gatherer groups.

As Lieberman explains, modern hunter-gatherer tribes (including the Hadza) are puzzled by any mention of exercise, or voluntary activity with no purpose other than the promotion of health. Because hunter-gatherers spend hours each day sourcing food, they tend to spend the remainder of the day conserving energy.

You find the same behavior in apes, our closest evolutionary cousins, and in all other animals. Energy is expended on obtaining food, survival, and reproduction, with periods of rest in between. Since every calorie expended in nature counts, it would make no sense to expend needless energy on any activity that does not enhance reproductive fitness.

What’s unique about modern post-industrial humans is that we’ve flipped this logic on its head. Because most of our jobs are now sedentary and we’re surrounded by labor-saving devices, we have to engage in physical activity for no other purpose. This is both unprecedented in the animal kingdom and in most of our own evolutionary past. There is little wonder, then, that most people lack the motivation to work out.

That’s the bad news. The good news is that it would take less exercise than you might think for the modern sedentary Westerner to match the energy expenditure levels of a hunter-gatherer. This is because your resting metabolic rate (RMR) (the daily energy required to sustain your body at rest) represents about two-thirds of your energy requirements. If you’re an average adult male that weighs 180 pounds, your RMR is about 1,700 calories, while your total daily energy expenditure (DEE) is approximately 2,700 calories.

The upshot is that, since both you and a hunter-gather expend most of your energy at rest—and because hunter-gatherers are also sedentary when not sourcing food—“it would take you just an hour or two of walking per day to be as physically active as a hunter-gatherer,” as Lieberman writes. This both eliminates the stigma associated with not wanting to exercise and demonstrates that it doesn’t take all that much effort to get the appropriate amount of exercise—even for those with sedentary lifestyles.

Having outlined our evolutionary aversion to exercise, Lieberman proceeds to explain the physiology and biomechanics of a host of physical activities, dedicating each chapter to one activity or function (walking, running, weight training, etc.). Each chapter provides insightful and fascinating information, but the focus on debunking myths often feels forced and tedious.

Lieberman decides to open each chapter with a myth, but the reader is left wondering just how prevalent these “myths” really are. Myth #6, for example, is the belief that we evolved to be extremely strong, but you might wonder how common this belief really is. Lieberman’s tendency to present all of his ideas as profoundly opposite of conventional wisdom gets tiresome fast.

Here’s another example: “Myth” #8, which is the belief that you can’t lose weight by walking, seems to be largely true and not a myth at all. As Leiberman himself writes:

“It bears repeating that if I power walk five miles, I’ll expend roughly 250 extra calories, as many calories as I’ll acquire from snacking on the granola bar in my backpack.”

If walking five miles equals the calorie content of a granola bar—and walking those five miles makes you hungrier and more likely to eat that granola bar—then that tells me that it is significantly easier to lose weight through diet than exercise, and that it is unlikely that walking is going to result in substantial weight loss over a reasonable amount of time. While there are several benefits associated with walking, weight loss is unlikely to be one of them (without the appropriate diet).

Yes, you can lose weight by walking, but it would be (1) very slow, (2) very time-consuming and inefficient, and (3) impossible without resisting the urge to consume more calories after expending the extra energy. So when you hear that you can’t lose weight by walking, while that statement is not entirely true, I wouldn’t call it a myth either. And this is my biggest problem with the presentation overall; it encourages black-and-white thinking even when the reader probably wasn’t thinking in those terms to begin with. To be fair, Lieberman does present the full complexity of the issues, but I felt that the focus on dispelling myths in every chapter was forced and unnecessary.

In the final part of the book, Lieberman again reminds us that we did not evolve to exercise. Our ancestors engaged in physical activity out of necessity (survival and reproduction) or pleasure (games, dancing, etc.), but never for the purpose of promoting health and fitness. We are therefore evolutionarily programmed to avoid wasting energy on unnecessary activities.

At the same time, Lieberman also reminds us that because most of our lives are now relatively sedentary, we do require exercise to stay healthy, as study after study demonstrates the various mental, physical, anti-aging, and disease-prevention benefits of exercise. As recommended by several health agencies, a good rule of thumb for adults is a minimum of 150 minutes per week (30 minutes a day for five days) of moderate aerobic exercise with two supplemental sessions involving weights.

So how can we get ourselves to exercise more? According to Lieberman, because exercise is optional, and, for most people, unpleasant, we should adopt strategies that make exercise either mandatory or more fun. Lieberman recommends things like listening to music or podcasts while working out, working out with friends, exercising outdoors, instituting variety into our routines, rewarding ourselves, and various suggestions for making exercise mandatory through commitments to friends or organizations (physical activity has always had a strong social component for humans).

His most profound recommendation—one that has the potential for the largest impact on society—is expanded mandatory physical education in K-12 and college education. As Liberman wrote:

“In one study, 85 percent of students who exercised regularly in college continued to exercise later in life, but 81 percent of those who were physically inactive in college remained sedentary as older adults.”

Compare this with the fact that most universities have dropped their physical education/activity requirements altogether. In fact, it is estimated that only a quarter of college students get baseline levels of regular exercise despite high levels of depression and anxiety, and despite the fact that studies suggest that exercise can treat depression and anxiety as well as or better than medication or therapy.

Additionally, only 11 percent of elementary school districts have physical activity breaks during the school day, and that number drops to 2 percent for high schools. By encouraging inactivity, we are training our kids to establish habits of inactivity that last the rest of their lives—all to prioritize standardized testing and academics (even when exercise has been shown to improve cognition and memory).

According to the CDC, only 23 percent of all US adults get the recommended 150 minutes per week of exercise. For children ages 6 to 17, less than 24 percent get the recommended 60 minutes of physical activity every day. Not only is this unhealthy in the short term, it sets up lifelong habits of inactivity that increase the risk of developing various diseases including heart disease, diabetes, stroke, and more (some of the leading causes of death in the US). I’d say it’s about time we start reassessing our priorities.

[Mehrsa · Rating 5 out of 5]

I love a good debunking book that also cuts through the BS and tells you what is and isn't true and what we can and can't know. This book is a nice corrective to wild claims about sitting is the new smoking or myths about our running ancestors and their paleo diets. It just didn't happen like that. Yes, we were more active, but just walking to find food and stuff and also we've always had back pain basically. The tension of our species is that we like to sit and rest because we need to conserve energy but we are too sedentary and that is creating all sorts of effects. So we have to exercise but we don't have the internal drive. I am sort of an addict where it comes to exercise and I do it every single day except when I can't or am not feeling well. Still, I have to get over that initial resistance of my body wanting to just sit and do nothing.

[CoachJim · Rating 5 out of 5]

Everyone knows they should exercise, but few things are more irritating than being told to exercise, how much, and in what way. Exhorting us to “Just Do It” is about as helpful as telling a drug addict to “Just Say No.”
Daniel Lieberman

Unless you are someone like Donald Trump most people know that exercise is good for you. In this book Daniel Lieberman tries to explain why that is so difficult for so many people. As an Anthropologist he explains that our early forebears had two main goals — to find enough to eat and to reproduce. Think Teenagers. They were not going to waste energy going for a run or doing some strength training. Just providing enough food each day for their families was enough work for them to accrue all the benefits of exercise. This serves as an illustration that the benefits of physical exercise are only apparent when compared to the consequences of the lack of physical exercise. Think Hygiene.

Along the way he explains many of the myths associated with exercise and health. The word “myth” probably explains his take on these. Among some of the exaggerations are: is sitting as bad as smoking, do we need 8 hours of sleep each night, is the wear and tear of running bad for the knees, is a glass of red wine really as good as spending an hour at the Gym, is exercise useless for losing weight, and others.

One of the bigger myths is that we want to exercise. This is the position of some people the author calls “exercists”. These are people who like to brag about their exercising exploits. They see people who don’t exercise as lazy, and failing to believe the “no pain, no gain” philosophy. They are also the ones who preach that exercise is a cure for all ills and will prevent or at least slow the aging process. However, as the author asks, why are people living longer despite being more physically inactive than ever.

I also read the author’s previous book The Story of the Human Body. The writing is easy to read and entertaining. The author does dip into some science on occasion, and unless you enjoy or even understand terms like Creatine Phosphate, Glycolysis, Pyruvate, and Mitochondrion you might find yourself scanning a page or two. It no doubt adds legitimacy to his writing.

As he did in his previous book he discusses many of the chronic, disabling diseases that kill us slowly like heart disease and diabetes. These diseases may be caused by our bodies not being adequately adapted to modern conditions like smoking, obesity, and physical inactivity. He points out that these diseases are often classified as diseases of aging, but they are not caused by old age. Even though we are living longer this is a result of medical advances and frequently results in a long period of morbidity — our life span is longer, but our health span is shorter.

The fact that exercise has shown to be effective in alleviating many health problems may be from our bodies not being accustomed to a sedentary lifestyle. From an evolutionary standpoint exercise is a strange behavior. Where hard work was a requirement for our early forebears, exercise is an option. Whether from hard work or exercise the vigor, both physical and mental, that comes from being fit will add “life” to your years.

Exercise is not some "magic pill” that guarantees a long and healthy life, but it dramatically increases your chances. If Exercise is the Fountain of Youth, it runs on sweat.

[8stitches 9lives · Rating 4 out of 5]

If exercise is healthy (so good for you!), why do many people dislike or avoid it? If we are born to walk and run, why do most of us take it easy whenever possible? And how do we make sense of the conflicting, anxiety-inducing information about rest, physical activity, and exercise with which we are bombarded? Is sitting really the new smoking? Can you lose weight by walking? Does running ruin your knees? Should we do weights, cardio, or high-intensity training?  In this myth-busting book, Daniel Lieberman, professor of human evolutionary biology at Harvard University and a pioneering researcher on the evolution of human physical activity, tells the story of how we never evolved to exercise—to do voluntary physical activity for the sake of health. Using his own research and experiences throughout the world, Lieberman recounts without jargon how and why humans evolved to walk, run, dig, and do other necessary and rewarding physical activities while avoiding needless exertion. His engaging stories and ex­planations will revolutionize the way you think about exercising—not to mention sitting, sleep­ing, sprinting, weight lifting, playing, fighting, walking, jogging, and even dancing.
 
Exercised is entertaining and enlightening but also constructive. As our increasingly sedentary lifestyles have contributed to skyrocketing rates of obesity and diseases such as diabetes, Lieberman audaciously argues that to become more active we need to do more than medicalize and commodify exercise. Drawing on insights from evolutionary biology and anthropology, Lieberman suggests how we can make exercise more enjoyable, rather than shaming and blaming people for avoiding it. He also tackles the ques­tion of whether you can exercise too much, even as he explains why exercise can reduce our vul­nerability to the diseases mostly likely to make us sick and kill us. Lieberman pens a comprehensive guide to exercise and provides answers to questions many of us have long ruminated on, as well as the extensive myth-busting spree he embarks on. It may not look it from the fairly bland cover, but this is a fascinating read filled with solid and intriguing information and I felt I had truly been schooled by a professional who had imparted lots of accurate tidbits that I am not likely to forget anytime soon. Many thanks to Allen Lane for an ARC.

[James · Rating 2 out of 5]

Exercise it’s good for you. There you go now you can go for a nice run rather than read this repetitiousness.

[Lauren]

"The mantra of this book is that nothing about the biology of exercise makes sense except in the light of evolution, and nothing about exercise as a behavior makes sense except in the light of anthropology."

▪️EXERCISED: Why Something We Never Evolved to Do is Healthy and Rewarding by Daniel E. Lieberman, 2020.

In a world and and social media sphere that thrives and propogates "bro science", expensive fads, equipment, MLMs, and "earning your food/drinks" with x amounts of exercise, it really is a wonderful thing to know that books like this - REAL SCIENCE! - are out there.
Evidence based on the evolution of our human species. What our bones say, how our muscles develop, and how this can inform what we do and where we go.

This book dispels many common myths surrounding exercise, digs deep into the research of evolutionary development, how bodies change throughout our life cycle, and leaves the reader with many takeaways.

This book was meaningful to me because it was the antidote to the feral "fitness" world where I pitch my tent, trying to preach the gospel of accessibility and loving the place you're at, while finding ways to move and groove creatively, calling it whatever you like, and respecting each person's journey and the space they inhabit without shame and judgement.

So, yeah, I recommend this one. 😉

[Camelia Rose (on hiatus) · Rating 5 out of 5]

In Exercised, Daniel E. Lieberman, a paleoanthropologist and evolution biologist, sets out to explain the 12 myths about physical exercises. The main question is, if exercise is so good for our health, why do so many people find it very hard, and why haven't we evolved to enjoy it? The short answer is, our body expects to be physically active while saving as much energy as possible. In other words, yes, we are born to run, and yes, we are born to be couch potatoes. Evolution hasn’t prepared us for modern sedentary life. This is an evolutionary mismatch.

I am not a fitness fanatic and I don’t watch sports, but I totally enjoyed the book. It is fascinating to read the Tarahumara tribe in Mexico and their long distance running, and the daily physical activities of Hadza people in Tanzania, a modern hunter-gatherer tribe.

My favorite chapter is Chapter 7: Fighting and Sports: From Fangs to Football. According to the author, sports were invented not because of fitness requirements, but for social purposes: to encourage cooperation, to control impulses (reactive violence, within the same team), and to promote proactive violence (against enemy teams).

What I find interesting:
– Our body is so adapted to walking and walking is so energy efficient that it is hard to lose weight just by walking.
– Our body has many adaptations for running, but as bi-pandal animals, humans are poor sprinters compared to four legged animals such as deers and horses, but it is possible to outrun these animals over a very long distance, hence the endurance hunting.
– Man vs Horses Marathon
– The barefoot runners (landing on the ground as light as a feather with the whole foot)
– Dancing is a physical exercise and sports too

Chapter 10 and 11 are about different exercises, fitness programs and health. If you haven’t gotten as much physical activity in your daily life as our hunter-gatherer ancestors once did, you should exercise. There is no one recipe for all fitness program, but a mixture of aerobic exercises (most also cardio exercises) and weight training is good. Or, you could try HIIT.

[Lisa · Rating 5 out of 5]

I picked up this book by Harvard professor of human evolutionary biology Daniel Lieberman looking for an answer to my conundrum (and that of many people I know) of why though I understand how important movement is for my body and mood, I still prefer to lay on my couch or lounge on my deck chair (usually with a book).

The key lies in the difference between physical activity and exercise. Lieberman's epigraph for this book includes the definitions of physical activity, "any bodily movement produced by skeletal muscles that expends energy," and exercise, "voluntary physical activity that is planned, structured, repetitive, and undertaken to sustain and improve health and fitness."

We evolved to be physically active. In order to survive, our ancestors walked miles everyday, usually carrying things, which consumed a lot of energy. We also evolved to rest whenever possible, to conserve energy. So it takes effort and resolve to get started with exercise which is the way most of us currently get physical activity.

A few other points that really landed for me:

Some of our society's current problem of the number of overweight and obese persons can be explained with the idea that ". . . natural selection ultimately favors those who can allocate as much energy as possible to reproduction; our physiology has been tuned over millions of generations to hoard energy, especially fat. Further, because almost no one until recently was able to become overweight or obese, our bodies primarily sense if we are gaining or losing weight rather than how much excess fat we have. Whether you are skinny or stout, negative energy balance--including dieting--causes a starvation response that helps us restore energetic equilibrium or, better yet, gain weight so we can shunt more energy toward reproduction."

Long post-reproductive lifespans are rare in the animal world. Humans are an exception. Because our children are dependent for a long period of time, an ancestor mother needed help to gather enough calories to feed herself and her offspring. She relied on the grandparents for this assistance. For them to be helpful, they had to be physically fit--able to walk miles, dig, and carry.

Lieberman also gives us a quick look at how exercise can impact modern diseases such as obesity, diabetes, cardiovascular conditions, Alzheimer's, and cancer.

He gives a brief nod to the impact of diet, and that is NOT the focus of this work.

Lieberman concludes: "Make exercise necessary and fun. Do mostly cardio, but also some weights. Some is better than none. Keep it up as you age."

I have written a brief summary of what were the highlights for me. His work contains a lot more information about our beliefs and attitudes about exercise, and clears up accepted misconceptions. Lieberman's writing is engaging. It's liberally sprinkled with anecdotes that relate to his topics. And I have to love a scientist who quotes Winnie the Pooh for an epigraph and illustrates a point with a Jane Austen novel.

If the topic interests you, you'll enjoy this book.

[Giulio Ciacchini · Rating 3 out of 5]

Of course We did not evolve to exercise. The point is that we didn’t evolve to sit all day either.
I have mixed feelings about this one.
If you don't know the basics about how and why we evolved in this way, then this could be a good essay.
But if you have a general knowledge of evolution, this could be a waste of time. I persanlly skimmed most of the chapters.
The book’s “breakthroughs” are often not new scientific discoversies, but rather new interpretations or better-contextualized understandings of existing ones. Lieberman’s strength lies in translating dry science into an accessible, myth-busting narrative that bridges evolutionary theory with everyday experience.
STILL exercising it is better than not.
He dismantles common ideas such as:
- Sitting is the new smoking: Not quite. Sitting is normal; sitting all the time is not.
- Running ruins your knees: No solid evidence for this if running is done properly.
- Everyone needs 10,000 steps/day: That number is arbitrary, not evidence-based.
- You must enjoy exercise to benefit from it: Enjoyment helps, but the health benefits don’t require it.
Lieberman, a Harvard paleoanthropologist best known for his work on human evolution and biomechanics, approaches the topic with a central paradox: humans did not evolve to exercise for the sake of health or fitness, yet modern science shows that exercise is essential to our well-being. This contradiction forms the backbone of the book.
He argues that in our ancestral environment, physical exertion was a by-product of survival. Our ancestors moved to find food, escape predators, or build shelter—not to burn calories or maintain six-pack abs. Thus, it's not laziness that makes many people averse to modern workouts; it's a perfectly normal human response to avoid unnecessary effort unless there’s an immediate purpose.
Then you may ask: we already know it, didn't we?
I’m surprised that an Harvard professor didn’t know that ancient tribes mostly rested, they made an effort just to get food.

Since I had just witnessed the intensity of Ironman triathletes, whose arduous training habits are legendary, I found that Ernesto's question made me both laugh and think. He put the exercise habits of many Westerners, myself included, into stark perspective. If you were a subsistence farmer like Ernesto who grows all his own food without the help of machines, why would you ever spend precious time and calories exercising just for the sake of keeping fit or to prove that anything is possible? Ernesto reinforced my conviction that what I observed at Ironman was bizarre, and he even caused me to question the sanity of my own efforts to train for a marathon. Ernesto also intensified my curiosity about Tarahumara running, which seemed more mythical than actual. Even though Ernesto never trained, and I hadn't seen any Tarahumara running on their own, I had heard and read numerous accounts about how Tarahumara men and women have their own Ironman-like competitions. In the women's race, known as ariwete, teams of teenage girls and young women run about twentyfive miles while chasing a cloth hoop. In the men's race, the rarájipari, teams of men run up to eighty miles while kicking an orange-sized wooden ball. If the Tarahumara think needless exercise is foolish, why do some of them sometimes run insanely long distances like Ironmen? Just as important, how do they accomplish these feats without training?

Lieberman also challenges common fitness myths. For instance, he argues that sitting is not inherently deadly, that running doesn’t necessarily destroy your knees, and that there is no perfect age to stop being physically active. His conclusions are often nuanced: it's not that sitting is bad, but that sitting all the time without any physical balance is what causes problems.

In the final analysis, humans are physically weaker than our ancestors not because we evolved to fight less but because we evolved to fight differently: more proactively, with weapons, and often in the context of sports. Along the same lines, we didn't evolve to do sports to get exercise. As a form of organized, regulated play, sports were developed by each culture to teach skills useful to kill and avoid being killed as well as to teach each other to be cooperative and nonreactive. Sports took on the role of providing exercise only when aristocrats and then white-collar workers stopped being physically active on the job. Now in the modern, industrial world we market sports as a means of exercising to stay healthy

One more nuanced insight is about how physical activity in older age helps not just with cardiovascular health but with maintaining immune function, reducing inflammation, and even lowering cancer risk. These are framed through the lens of “evolutionary mismatch”: we now live far longer than our ancestors, so exercise helps mitigate the effects of aging in ways our bodies weren't designed for.

Either way, the upshot is that exercise is not just for the young. We evolved to be physically active as we age, and in turn being active helps us age well. Further, the longer we stay active, the greater the benefit, and it is almost never too late to benefit from getting fit. People who decide to turn over a new leaf and get fit after the age of sixty significantly reduce their mortality rate compared with others who remain sedentary.
For most of us, however, the problem is not recognizing the benefits of physical activity but overcoming natural disinclinations to exercise at any age and figuring out how much and what kind of exercise to do.
In my opinion, if we want to promote exercise effectively, we need to grapple with the problem that engaging in voluntary physical activity for the sake of health and fitness is a bizarre, modern, and optional behavior. Like it or not, little voices in our brains help us avoid physical activity when it is neither necessary nor fun. So let's reconsider both of these qualities from an evolutionary anthropological perspective.

[Andy · Rating 1 out of 5]

This book has some interesting trivia about the history of exercise and physical activity, but it becomes tiresome pretty quickly because the core message (physical activity is good for you) is not surprising and repeating it a zillion times in different ways doesn't make it more captivating. Also, I'm generally concerned about jumping from (evolutionary) theory to medical recommendations.

Nerd addendum:
-Some of the factoids are questionable. For example, on p. 245 he talks about how we "live much longer than our farmer ancestors..." and cites statistics on doubling of life expectancy. The doubling of life expectancy is mainly from a huge decrease in infant/child mortality, not because of an increase in lifespan. This is a doozie for a book on historical trends in morbidity and mortality.
-Otherwise, throughout the book, the cheerleading for exercise seems overdone. I admit I did not double-check all his references and am not very familiar with this literature. But towards the end of the book (p.308), he highlights a study as being "clever," and it's a randomized trial in a major journal, and it's available for free online (https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama...) so I'll talk about that one. This study is presented in the context of a section saying that exercise helps with, and can even "reverse" Type 2 diabetes. The question this study supposedly answers is what type of exercise is best, with the book's author saying it shows that a combination of cardio and weights is the best. The problem is that if you look up the study, it concludes "Among patients with type 2 diabetes mellitus, a combination of aerobic and resistance training compared with the nonexercise control group improved HbA1c levels. This was not achieved by aerobic or resistance training alone." So, in other words, it's not that cardio and weights and the combo all worked, with the combo being best. What the study found was that neither cardio alone nor weights alone made a statistically significant difference. If one reads further, one finds that the combo group went from average Hemoglobin A1C of 7.59 to 7.36; so overall they were still above the cut-off goal of 7.0. The paper doesn't make it clear what percent of patients in the trial went from above 7 to below, but presumably not many, and that would be a clinically significant outcome.
-Maybe I stumbled here on the only misleading citation in the whole book, but I'm not getting paid to fact-check and I'm not reading hundreds more to find out.
-None of this means that exercise is worthless, but it does suggest that the benefits are less spectacular than the book implies. Especially post-COVID, as we've all become aware of the importance of establishing trust and combating misinformation in public health advice, I think it's crucial to be fastidious with facts even when well-intentioned.

[TS Chan · Rating 3 out of 5]

ARC received from the publisher, Allen Lane, in exchange for an honest review.

3.5 stars.

Exercised is a well-balanced and comprehensive book that does not preach but instead presents a wealth of evidence from various researches into the benefits of physical activity, which in our modern lives mean exercise.

The subject of exercise is something close to my heart, and that is why I was interested in reading this book. While I found it to be quite well-written, I might not be its targeted audience as I'm already an avid believer of the benefits of exercising. What I've never thought of was the idea that we've never evolved to exercise form a biological perspective, as our ancestors spent more than enough energy on a daily basis just to survive. Without the conveniences of modern lives and the abundance of easily accessed calories, hunter-gatherers remain sedentary while they were not out hunting or gathering. However, for most of us who are not employed in jobs which require a lot of physical activity or manual labour, we spend most of lives sitting in front of our desks. Not only are we not expending a lot less calories, we're also consuming a whole lot more. However, it does not take a lot of vigorous exercise for the modern humans to be as active as the hunter-gatherers; moderate levels of aerobic exercise interspersed with some high-intensity workouts seem to be the order of the day.

The sections in this book which evinced the benefits of exercise contained advice that I've read before. What made this book a bit different is that it also talks about how there may be some outliers of people who still seemed fine without ever exercising. Personally, I've benefited from running regularly and I even practice the running form that was advocated in this book. I used to have recurrent sinus problems when I get up in the morning; this completely stopped a few months into my running habit. Going for morning runs also energizes me for the rest of the day, and keeps me sane during stressful periods in my life.

From speed, strength, endurance to ageing, the book comprehensively covers the effects of exercise on all these aspects of health and fitness. The final chapter was even a sort of compendium that informs on the effects of physical activity on certain conditions, such as Alzheimer's disease, respiratory tract infections, cancer, mental health issues and obesity.

A good and informative read as a whole, albeit a bit repetitive at time. Recommended for those who either already wanted to embark on an exercise regime (there's some valuable advice in here), or needed a kick in the butt to do so.

[Andrés Astudillo · Rating 5 out of 5]

By far, the most important book of the year. I just want to keep moving, and let evolutionary mechanisms that reside in the human body do the rest.

Human beings evolved to be active, they did not evolve to precisely "work out".
The title of the book is "Exercised", the meaning of that word is "The feeling of being upset or agitated because of something". So, the whole book is a study of evolutionary biology and anthropology, in relation to physical activities... no way in hell that ideologies like "fatphobia" are going to triumph in the world. Obesity is not a reason to make someone feel ashamed, BUT no way in hell being fat is a synonym of good health. Fat people really need to do something about their way of life, which is a whole different approach.

Jordan Peterson, in 2022 made a comment about a fat woman that made the cover for sports illustrated. Peterson sucked. He had to say "Sorry, not sporty" instead of saying "Sorry, not beautiful". That's the mistake. However, despite of that, the bottom line, or the message he failed to transmit, was that the girl, is not worthy of appearing of that cover, because she does not look like a person who works out, in other words, fit (the magazine is about SPORTS). Being fat, obese, morbid is not something to be proud but, and also is it not something to make fun or shame of. He sucked, he did that big time, poor choice of words for someone really clever.
However, he was not wrong after all. The first edition of the magazine dates back to 1954. The words "sports" and "illustrated" are important here. What about this girl? (https://www.google.com/search?q=yumi+...) or just Google "Yumi Nu". If I met her, I wouldn't have thought that she worked out, or practiced any sports at all. But, nowadays, where everything is a phobia, or racism, saying that she must get off some pounds is gonna trigger A LOT of people. The most fascinating thing is that you can't defy facts, or science.
I mention this because of the trends of progressive ideology, denying everything related to science.

Being fat is just another way to say that you have a "positive energetic balance". You just have fat becaused you have reserves of energy. The evolutionary approach really clears things out: we crave energy, but we also do not want to waste any of it. In a million years of evolutionary history, no homo sapiens has ever worked out like we now do: 3 sets of push ups, then 2 sets of chin ups, then some burpees and let's call it the WOD. Human beings HAD to move to survive, and we have evolutionary mechanisms that actually are unique, when it comes to walking and endurance.

We gotta move, that's the solution. We did not evolve to watch 8 hours straight of Netflix while eating Dorito's. Everything surrounding our new world are novelties to evolution.

[Roslyna · Rating 4 out of 5]

якщо ти багато сидиш, лінишся піти на тренування та постійно відкладаєш будь-яку фізичну активність - вітаю, ти нормальна людина. еволюцією в нас закладено заощаджувати калорії і уникати зайвих фізичних навантажень.

«…тренажерний зал був безрадісним підвалом, де тхнуло застарілим потом і не було природного світла. ніхто, здавалося, не тішився, переходячи від одного тренажера до іншого під лампами денного світла і з похмурою рішучістю виконуючи свої повтори.…»

фізичні вправи - це витрачання енергії заради витрачання енергії. наші предки нас би не зрозуміли. вони не робили вправ і не ходили на йогу, не бігли просто заради того, щоб бігти і не піднімали вагу безцільно (у чому сенс штанги чи бігової доріжки їм було би важко пояснити).

«…ми витрачаємо гроші на непотрібне підняття речей, єдиним призначенням яких є підняття…»

центральний меседж цієї книги: ми еволюціонували не до фізичних вправ, а до фізичної активності, коли вона необхідна. тож гуляйте на свіжому повітрі, рухайтеся протягом усього дня та тренуйтесь у задоволення декілька разів на тиждень - цього цілком достатньо, щоб збільшити ваші шанси прожити здорове життя.

[Ira (SF Words of Wonder) · Rating 4 out of 5]

Lieberman breaks down being exercised in an easy to understand, scientific way. Lots of things to think about, mostly about how we evolved and how a modern lifestyle might be at odds with that evolution. He doesn’t get preachy and goes out of his way to explain the issues associated with getting started on a healthy lifestyle. Highly recommended.

[Mehtap exotiquetv · Rating 5 out of 5]

Sport. Eine Aktivität, die in der Form wie wir es heute tun, kein Teil unserer Evolution ist aber dafür wichtig für unsere Gesundheit.
Inwiefern sporteln Tiere und wo siedelt sich der Mensch an? Tiere legen kurzfristige Sprints hin, die durch das „nicht-sterben-wollen“ initiiert sind.
Liebermann schaut nicht nur in die Anatomie der Menschen und vergleicht diese mit Tieren, er wertet auch wichtige Daten aus und wie diese mit der Gesundheit korrelieren oder eben nicht korrelieren. Machen sich Ultra-Marathon Läufer gesundheitlich kaputt? Ist ein nicht-sportelnder Trump ein Beweis dafür, dass kein Sport die Lebensqualität nicht verändert? Allen diesen Mythen geht er auf den Grund und am Ende ist es doch sehr komplex und es gibt kein schwarz-weiß Bild über die Vor- und Nachteile von Sport. Sie sind alle in Abhängigkeit von der Dosis, Vorerkrankungen, dem Lebensstil den man vor dem aktiven Lifestyle geführt hat.
Mich hat das Buch motiviert, weiterhin mit meiner Aktivität fortzufahren.

[Alicia Bayer · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is one of my favorite reads in quite a while, which is saying a lot (I think I read over 300 books last year). It's fascinating, helpful, informative and really well researched. I found myself telling family members about it again and again, which is the biggest sign that a book is a hit with me.

Lieberman is an anthropologist who has thoroughly researched what sorts of natural exercise humans have evolved to do over time, along with how our closest primate relatives exercise and what makes the difference between us. He has spent time with hunter-gatherer tribes and gives a fascinating contrast to how they age compared to how most modern humans do, and he's packed the book with good science, good history, good stories and great advice. Highly, highly recommended.

I read a temporary digital ARC of this book for review.

[Serhii Zubov · Rating 5 out of 5]

Хочеться охарактеризувати цю книгу, як найкориснішу з прочитаних. Певен, що буду застосовувати отримані з неї знання. Дуже інформативна, ґрунтовна, але при цьому й цікава подача. Дізнався купу нового та важливого. Скорегував безліч хибних «знань». Стовідсотковий мастрід.

[Megan S · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book is quite long and covers a lot of topics surrounding exercise. For me it seemed the first half was more anthropologically inspired, and the second more influenced by modern studies.
The book needs a good edit. It’s too long, it’s a work out in itself just getting though it. He also repeats himself word for word multiple times. I will now never forget what hyraxes are! The thought processes weren’t always clear and the points the author was trying to make did not stand out, and were often muddled later by conflicting research.
When you end a chapter you can’t quite remember if the myth the chapter focused on was proven to be false or not. The author presents a lot of clashing evidence but never acknowledges that segments clash at all. For example in one section the author states that hunter gatherers burn the same number of calories as a sedentary person of the same weight and height, pointing to the idea that the metabolism adjusts for activity level. The author emphasizes that this fact contradicts the modern notion that exercise helps you lose weight. And yet in the author never unpacks how this fact can coexist with the point he is making, in the last half of he book, of all the ways exercise can be a major tool in the fight against obesity. There were other examples like this, where really interesting anthropological points made early on clearly (to me) contradicted modern studies cited as gospel in the second half of the book, and yet the two were never compared directly to ascertain what this all means.
Another point along the same vein, the author ends the last two chapters with identical advice “Exercise for about 150m/week, use some weights, find something you can keep up and stay active as you age.” In fact this is the last sentence of the Epilogue as well. What really irked me about this advice was that it was too simplistic and flew in the face of the anthropological groundwork he laid earlier in the book. He says that hunter gatherers will not do more than they need to, our brains are completely wired against it, but then the summary of the book is just “here’s the guideline, just do it because it’s good for you”? I don’t know, maybe I had hopes too high, but it started out so strong. I thought he was really going to give a nuanced approach influenced more by his anthropology than his personal habits, but instead he just gave the same ineffectual spiel that health agencies have been spouting.

[Conor Dooney · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is an important book on a conversation that can be quite polarised. It is an analysis on how while our modern day lifestyles are drastically different to our hunter-gatherer friends, our bodies are still the same.

I really liked this book. Lieberman keeps his discussion pretty tight and does a good job of being empathetic on a divisive topic . As someone who probably lacks empathy for those who do not prioritise exercise, I think it was important for me to see the other side of the coin. Humans are hardwired to be lazy when the environment allows it.


That said we are adaptable, and for all the fad diets and exercise regimes out there this book is a brilliant reminder of keeping things simple. Prioritise being active first and make it necessary, it doesn't really matter how. You will be healthier and happier for it.

[Nashelito · Rating 5 out of 5]

Відчуваючи останнім часом брак мотивації до бігу я пішов на крайні заходи і прочитав книгу Деніела Лібермана "Фізична (не)активність. Що насправді робить нас здоровими?".

Деніел Ліберман працює професором кафедри біології людини в Гарвардському університеті і багато років досліджує вплив еволюції на фізичну активність, зокрема ходьбу та біг.

Читати цю книгу (як і будь-яку іншу), зовсім не обов'язково, адже ми всі самі прекрасно усвідомлюємо, наскільки фізична активність важлива для нашого здоров'я, профілактики різноманітних хвороб та тривалості життя.

Прекрасно усвідомлюємо і так само успішно забиваємо на це. Бо попри те, що ми еволюціонували таким чином, щоб бути фізично активними (полювати, копати коренеплоди, лазити на дерева за медом, долати великі відстані пішки і бігом) з точки зору еволюції навмисне заняття фізичними вправами є чимось дивним і зовсім не обов'язковим.

Навпаки, якщо поспостерігати за життям декількох останніх племен, котрі у віддалених і важкодоступних шпаринках світу доживають останні роки мисливства і збиральництва, виявляється, що більшість членів та членкинь цих груп людей, маючи вільний час, ніколи не займаються бігом або фізичними вправами для здоров'я. Відпочиваючи вдома вони зазвичай просто сидять. Але вже після того, як чоловіки багато годин проводять в погоні за тваринами або пошуках меду, а жінки гострими палками викопують коренеплоди та збирають ягоди.

Зовсім інша мова про нас, хто часто сидить в авто дорогою на роботу, потім сидить перед монітором на роботі, сидить після роботи у барі, а ввечері вдома знову всідається на диван дивитися якусь "Холостячку" або шпілити в танчики (чи що там зараз на часі, я не в курсах, бо зав'язав ще на першому Dragon Age).

Фізична активність не рятує від смерті, вона хіба впливає на ймовірності. Завжди краще мати менше шансів загнутися молодим, ніж мати їх більше.

Чому рухатися так важливо? Навіщо це нам? Як себе мотивувати почати щось робити і продовжувати це постійно, впродовж всього життя, аж до смерті? Які механізми та реакції запускають у тілі регулярні заняття спортом? Що буде, якщо цього не робити? Як саме ц�� відбувається? А на клітинному рівні? А як із цим у еаших родичів людиноподібних мавп? Які вправи впливають на нас найкращим чином? Яка фізична активність корисна і доцільна для профілактики і пом'якшення загрози та перебігу серцево-судинних захворювань, діабету 2-го типу, ожирінні, інфекційних хворобах дихальних шляхів, хронічних захворюваннях опорно-рухового апарату людини, ракові, хворобі Альцгеймера, депресії та тривожному розладі?

Деніел Ліберман не винаходить ні чарівних пігулок, ані універсальної схеми тренувань, які вилікують кожного і всіх зроблять здоровими, але допомагає поставити собі самому запитання: чому я нічого не роблю, якщо знаю, що робити мушу?

Підсумок книжки простий і короткий: треба бігати, треба відтискатися, треба тягати залізо. Звісно, є мінімальні рекомендації, вони всім відомі — щонайменше по 30 хв 5 днів на тиждень кардіотренувань і двічі тягати шось важке. Крім того, з фізичною активністю майже завжди діють правила: трохи краще, ніж нічого; більше, ніж трохи — це ще краще. Є й ті, хто займається спортом понад міру, але їх так мало, що навіть досліджень нормальних по них немає. А от нам із вами — треба займатися.

Задачку про те, як себе на це звабити, переконати, змусити, кожному доведеться розв'язувати самостійно. Як і добирати підходящий собі перелік вправ та режим. Почавши читати цю книгу я знову бігаю. Небагато, але майже щодня.

Легко не буде ніколи, але на цьому шляху поруч з нами перебуватимуть наші друзі дофамін та серотонін, ендорфіни та ендоканабіноїди: навчимося їх майнити і вже не захочеться спинятися.

[Alanay Türkmen · Rating 5 out of 5]

I finally managed to finish this book after many months of on and off readings. It became one of the books that I will keep coming back to read the chapters and also the referenced articles.

As an almost graduate doctor, I know that the best treatment for diseases is to prevent them. Lately we hear more of preventive & functional medicine and I hope to see more of my colleagues focusing on these topics. We all always hear the importance of exercise but we became habituated to the advice. Neither during our education nor the public campaigns, the reasons behind the advice or the positive outcomes are pointed out enough. In Turkey most of the children don't grow up thinking that exercise is normal, necessary and fun (as Daniel Lieberman points out for himself), therefore we have to find ways to incorporate exercise later in our lives. I myself have been struggling with this for many years, going two step forwards and one step back.

Lieberman explains many different aspects of movement in a striking and fun ways with solid evidence. I always tried to move regularly, in any way that I can but now it has a bigger meaning to me. I found it incredibly efficient and inspirational to understand the evolutionary and the biological aspects of exercise. I will be influencing everyone around me to move more. I would recommend the book to everyone who enjoys human evolutionary biology and struggles to find a motivation to move. Thank you Daniel Lieberman!

[Elena · Rating 3 out of 5]

i read this book bc an excerpt online was interesting and it WAS interesting but being a harvard anthropologist def makes you a sociopath because i was just like *frysquint* the whole time waiting for his self assured smuggery to tilt into full on bigoted essentialism. going to harvard makes you a sociopath.

[Cav · Rating 5 out of 5]

"The U.S. government recommends I engage in at least 150 minutes of moderate or 75 minutes of vigorous exercise a week and weight train at least twice a week. Epidemiologists have calculated that this level of activity will reduce my risk of dying prematurely by 50 percent and lower my chances of getting heart disease, Alzheimer’s, and certain cancers by roughly 30 to 50 percent..."

You can't buy the kind of benefits that regular exercise can provide for your healthspan, your lifespan, your mental health, and your health in general. As the quote above notes; these include an up to 50% reduction in the risk of dying early and/or contracting life-altering diseases; such as many cancers, protein folding disorders like Alzheimer's and Parkinson's, and more. While exercise is not a panacea, it is the next best thing.

As a life-long proponent of regular vigorous exercise, I put this one on my list as soon as I came across it. The above quote should be a wake-up call to all the couch potatoes out there.
The importance of regular vigorous exercise cannot possibly be overstated, which is why I'm including this blurb right at the top of my review.

Author Daniel E. Lieberman is a paleoanthropologist at Harvard University, where he is the Edwin M Lerner II Professor of Biological Sciences, and Professor in the Department of Human Evolutionary Biology.

Daniel E. Lieberman:


Exercised is a science-driven look into the subject. More specifically, and related to the author's field - it is also an evolutionary look into the subject. Lieberman examines many exercise-related topics and themes here; including sports, fighting, walking, running, dancing, and metabolism.

Lieberman writes with a natural easy style here that effectively holds the reader's attention; making the book very readable. This is always hit-or-miss in a science book, in my experience. The book also has very good formatting; the writing broken into well-defined chapters. Each chapter into segmented writing with a relevant header at the top. I always appreciate effective formatting like this.

Much of Lieberman's writing here details the lives of the Hazda people, a band of hunter-gatherers in north-central Tanzania . Lieberman makes many comparisons of the Hazda with both people in "WEIRD" (Western, Educated, Industrialized, Rich, and Democratic) societies, and other large non-human primates, like chimpanzees. Lieberman examines average daily energy outputs among the different groups, as well as types of activity, steps walked, distance run, and other relevant metrics.


12 exercise-related "myths" are covered here by Lieberman, listed at the beginning of each chapter. Not really what they appear on the surface, much of the debunking of these myths include many "ifs", "buts" and other assorted caveats. The "myths" are:
MYTH #1 We Evolved to Exercise
MYTH #2 It Is Unnatural to Be Indolent
MYTH #3 Sitting Is Intrinsically Unhealthy
MYTH #4 You Need Eight Hours of Sleep Every Night
MYTH #5 Normal Humans Trade Off Speed for Endurance
MYTH #6 We Evolved to Be Extremely Strong
MYTH #7 Sports = Exercise
MYTH #8 You Can’t Lose Weight by Walking
MYTH #9 Running Is Bad for Your Knees
MYTH #10 It’s Normal to Be Less Active as We Age
MYTH #11 “Just Do It” Works
MYTH #12 There Is an Optimal Dose and Type of Exercise



Exercised covers some basic molecular biology, as well as some physiology related to exercise. ATP, nuerotransmitters, slow and fast-twitch muscle fibers, cardio, resistance training, and much more are all covered here by Lieberman.
The book features many illustrations and photos throughout; always a nice touch.



There is also a large chunk of writing around the mid-point of the book that deals with fighting. Lieberman examines hand-to-hand combat using an evolutionary lens; comparing modern homo sapiens with chimpanzees, bonobos, and other large non-human primates.

I enjoyed the writing and content in Exercised. The topic of exercise was dealt with very well here by the author in a straightforward, yet thorough manner. Lieberman did a great job with the research, editing, formatting, and delivery of this book.
I would definitely recommend this book to anyone interested.
5 stars.

[Keegan · Rating 5 out of 5]

“We won’t succeed solely by medicalizing and commodifying exercise; instead, we should treat exercise the way we treat education by making it fun, social, emotionally worthier, and something that we are willing to commit ourselves to do.”

[Nicole Simovski · Rating 5 out of 5]

Did we evolve to exercise, as in voluntarily do goal-less physical activity? No. Did we evolve to be a physically active primate? Yes.

Although these appear to be contradictory statements, they’re not. As Daniel Lieberman elegantly, and humorously, explains in his new book, Exercised, to understand the role of exercise in our modern world, we need to carefully examine our evolutionary history to see why exercise is a necessity in the WEIRD world, despite it being a modern phenomenon.

His thesis rests on the concept of evolutionary mismatch, or that our evolved adaptations are producing (usually) negative consequences in our modern environments – our adaptations are mismatched to our environment. Humans are primates who evolved to be physically active far more than westerners are today (as I type this in a chair in the evening after sitting in a chair all day for work; guess what I’ll be doing after this?) Prior to civilization, it was necessary for humans to be active, often walking 5-10 miles a day in search of food.

But we also didn’t evolve in a world of food abundance. It was advantageous for us to conserve energy. Put differently we did the amount of activity necessary to survive. Today that can amount to very limited activity, but in pre-civilization times, it was many miles of walking, for instance. Our desire to sit is a normal reaction, but because our bodies evolved to operate and expect a certain level of activity, today’s modern sedentary lifestyles wreak havoc on our physical health.

We didn’t evolve to exercise, but we should absolutely be doing it.

[Jeanine · Rating 4 out of 5]

read this while (mostly) lying down on my couch ... the modern condition

[Gabriela Colobanea · Rating 5 out of 5]

Mi-a placut foarte mult, mai ales accentul personal al profesorului Lieberman: "Faceti astfel incat exercitiile fizice sa fie necesare si amuzante. Faceti in principal exercitii cardio, dar si unele cu greutati. Putina miscare e mai buna decat deloc. Ramaneti activi odata cu inaintare in varsta."

[Vanya Hrynkiv · Rating 3 out of 5]

Те що викладено на 400+ сторінках можна було викласти на 25, в принципі це основна проблема книг такого жанру