“Exercise” is just an integral part of life, like eating and sleeping. Just because it can’t be reductionistically understood doesn’t mean it’s not necessary.
Totally agree. Once I started lifting weights a lot of my internal struggles became easier to deal with, and if I don't go to the gym for a week those become hard again. I would probably put it even before sleep in importance (if your not an insomniac, and probably even then) as it helps with your sleep too.
Why do I hate going to the gym / lifting weight & cardio so much? Why do I feel no obvious benefits from a month of 4-days a week of weight training (apart from some extra strength & minor visible changes)?
If exercise is so potent and so beneficial, then shouldn't I crave it the way I crave sugar? Or at least not actively dislike it?
My counterpoint is that I do crave it. Training again after being sick is such a feeling of relief, on par with when I smoked and would have a cigarette after many hours without one.
This is extremely lucky for you, but the majority of the population is the opposite: which is why gyms oversell annual memberships, knowing that the overwhelming majority of purchasers will quit after 1~3 months (because working out is hard and not pleasant).
Constant locomotion was required to stay alive until very recently. Everything required movement. Had you been rewarded by the body to keep moving, you would have to ingest many more calories than were available.
I really don't see how this is not obvious. Evolutionarily speaking our survival strategy involved high amounts of exercise (running after antilopes and gathering plants/fruits) so our bodies are optimised for high amounts of exercise. At the same time we needed to survive in unpredictable and sometimes low calories invironnements, our behavioural instincts are therefore to gather and consume as much calories as we can while expending as little calories as possible in the process (binge eating while loafing around if possible). Such optimisations and instincts can lead to unwanted outcomes in new environments such as those of modern sedentary lifestyles.
I really don't see how you subjectively not feeling a benefit to an active lifestyle conflicts with the above.
It's not just me subjectively: our bodies are optimized for high amounts of exercise and yet when we give it to them they hate it and keep signaling for us to stop it.
"No pain, no gain"
Why would there be pain for doing what we're designed to do?
Because most people weren't doing hunting or labor because they liked it[1]. They just liked dying even less. People of generations before modern times led often extremely short and miserable lifes. Not moving meant dying. Moving more than was necessary also meant dying.
We werent designed to do sports, it is just that those who didn't move were a little more likely to die. And people who are more likely to die are less likely to pass their genes on, simply because they had less time to reproduce. The result: We have bodies which are meant to be moved, but only if needed, like many other animals. Moving too much was bad too, as resources are needed to do it an resources were not readily available at all times [cue picture of rough European winter ca 1300 AD]. You probably guessed already that starvation, because you burned too many calories has luckily become a non-issue in most parts of the world.
So we are a direct result of the environments and circumstances our ancestors lived in, managed to get kids in, and who in turn managed to survive long enough to raise their kids.
[1] Many people actually like moving or grow to like it. A bit like with spicy food, which hurts at first, but pours out endorphines, being fit and using your body can give you all kinds of good emotions during and after the activity and you can grow to like it once the pain is over. Being able to rely on your body and know it and its limitations can be very fulfilling.
When I run my Sunday 16km I don't feel any pain. But I am fit. I might feel pain when I attempt a marathon and try to set a personal record. But regular running is a breeze once you are in shape.
Pain-gain thing is specific to the methods of training. People intentionally cause muscle damage to initiate hypertrophy and quick muscle mass gain. Humans naturally grow a lot of muscle tissue when they grow up without doing damage/repair hack and without pain. There are also other methods of training, say "zone 2" for endurance and power, that is virtually painless.
What about childbirth? Do you think that we weren't designed to have children?
I think you're mixing up a few things here. The reason things hurt is because you are doing physically demanding things with your body. Evolution can't just make something which takes a lot of energy not take that energy. It could get rid of the idea of pain entirely, but that's bad for a lot of other reasons.
That's like asking why our bodies were even designed to get food in the first place instead of not needing it. There are physical constraints involved.
> then shouldn't I crave it the way I crave sugar? Or at least not actively dislike it?
As someone who's been lifting weights and doing regular cardio 4 or 5 days a week for 25+ years:
No, you might just hate it forever. I do.
I've never liked doing it and have always had to guilt myself into it because I find it so unpleasant.
But whenever I'm unable to do it (injury, surgery/accident recovery, etc.) I feel substantially worse both physically and psychologically (I know not doing it is reducing the number of "good" years I get to have in life). So I just tough it out and get to work.
worth bearing in mind that the thing we call exercise now used to be more like: building shelters, finding food with our tribe, constant movement/walking... a lot of stuff that was highly socially situated and meaningful. also playful often, I bet. very different than from today
Simple: evolutionary humanity had to move and endure if it wanted to survive. But you did it because you had to, not because wasting energy was something you liked. But guess what people liked even less? Dying, suffering or seeing their loved ones die and suffer. So hard work had to be done so the future was survivable. Fat or sweet food now was always superior to no food later.
This has probably been the case for the majority of the human population throughout history. Now we have a modern society with division of labor, good wealth (in comparison to previous generations) and safety. If you got a desk job and a car you literally stopped moving. This was not possible ever before in human society, except for the lucky few.
I totally recommend doing sports. The brain functions better if your body does what it was made for.
From what I've read our body responds well to exercise. We exercise to hunt and forage, and our body responds by strengthening our bones and putting on muscle mass to support this. In summer we lose fat and in winter put on a little fat. more testosterone in the fall, maybe to mate and have a birth the following summer.
If we stop exercising, are body figures out we have no available food and makes us listless so we conserve energy until food appears. We are in peril, so we put on fat and metabolize muscle to survive.
Except in modern life our body thinks no excercise so more fat, less muscle, and less energy.
So it is exercise that drives our body, not our body prompting exercise (excepting maybe fight or flight in brief bursts)
I have an hypothesis that exercise is beneficial up to exactly the point where you start getting “fitter”
That is, there is an optimal point at which your metabolism is exactly exhausted daily, without needing to increase, but neither needing to find alternate process to pour energy into
The theory being that if you do not exercise your body spends the excess energy on causing trouble for the body
However by increasing metabolism you raise the floor for what is the necessary exercise you need, while at the same time increase “wear and tear” simply burning more energy
To be clear, there is absolutely no science behind this, just idle curiosity
>>Why do I hate going to the gym / lifting weight & cardio so much?
Seems pretty much the same case with thinking too. Thinking hard doesn't come naturally to people either. Though doing it often can not only save your life(speaking evolutionarily), it can also improve your quality of life.
Its the same thing with fasting. There are big benefits to fasting long intervals of time, but we like to eat despite it giving us diseases.
Perhaps one needs to do some of it for a while to start liking it. Then it kind of becomes likeable. I do see people enjoying playing sports, or playing chess.
>> Why do I feel no obvious benefits from a month of 4-days a week of weight training (apart from some extra strength & minor visible changes)?
Combined with some diet thing, that builds good momentum.
>>If exercise is so potent and so beneficial, then shouldn't I crave it the way I crave sugar? Or at least not actively dislike it?
Children hate to eat, and like to play a lot. Does feel like it comes with our nature. We just run the opposite direction.
From evolutionary point, you adapt for what gets you survive and reproduce.
Survival has two main components: physical survival (not being killed/maimed too much) and energy (not starving to death).
On energy part, you have positive (food) and negative (base metabolism that keeps you alive and physical activity). You can't do much about base metabolism but you can develop love for food (primarily sugar and fat as main source of energy) and hate to physical activity.
However, here comes physical survival. For it you have to have activity to avoid predators, to find/catch food and to build shelter.
So, in conclusion, from evolutionary standpoint, you hate activity so you don't do it needlessly but your body is adapted to be good at it for when you really have to.
Exercise research might be the area of medical research with the most fraud ever known. The amount of papers in this field showing effects that never materialise is astounding.
> On the one hand, physical activity is clearly one of the best interventions for preventing physical disease and mental suffering
As far as I've read, it's decidedly unclear that general physical activity as an intervention is proven for much of anything; as Dr. Ashley mentions, most of the data we have is from observational studies. I think it's fair to say that for the vast majority of people, a moderate amount of physical activity is almost certainly better overall than being a total couch potato. But it's also not as simple as "active good, sedentary bad". In particular, I've seen a few studies suggesting that physical activity at one's job might not have the same disease-prevention benefits as physical activity for leisure (e.g. [1]), which casts some doubt on the idea that the benefits are primarily coming from physical activity per se.
- physically active jobs paying less, and we simply measure poorer people being less healthy
- physically active jobs being less of a cardio activity, and more of a "lift these 20 kg packages in unergonomic posture till you need a back surgery"
I don't know many jobs which actually keep people fit in a healthy sense without coming with significant risks (think fire fighters, soldiers). Except maybe working in sports as a personal trainer or a sports teacher or something.
But I know people below 40 who suffer from all kind of health issues which they would not have if they weren't couch potatoes as you phrased it. And this gets much worse the older you go. If you really doubt that excersise helps talk to a veteran retirement home nurse and ask them if they think excercise helps their clients.
What you are describing is the difference between acute and chronic stress placed on the body. There is a term for this: "the hormetic effect" https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hormesis
People who undergo acute bouts of physical exercise with adequate recovery improve the well known blood markers and vital signs associated with the chronic diseases currently plaguing the modern world (cardiovascular disease, diabetes, stroke, etc). Long bouts, like ultra marathons or doing intense exercise for days on end without a rest day, is probably going to be deleterious to health because you never give your body a chance to recover and adapt.
„One minute of exercise buys you five minutes of extra life.“
It is not that easy:
“While it may be unsurprising to hear a boxer is more likely to live a shorter time than the average man, it is more shocking to learn how tennis players continue to live longer as the years pass, and that, despite advances in medicine and technology, footballers are less likely now than in the 1930s to live longer. This research also confirms that social factors – such as socio-economic background and level of education – have a key influence on longevity.”
„The association between lifespan and popular team sports in males was positive for cricket, rowing, baseball, water polo, Australian rules, hurling, lacrosse, field hockey, minimal for rugby, canoeing and kayaking, basketball, gridiron football, and football (soccer), and negative for handball and volleyball. Racquet sports (i.e., tennis and badminton) exhibited a consistent and positive association in both male and female athletes, as shown by an extended lifespan of up to 5.7 years in males (95% CI [5, 6.5]) and 2.8 years in females (95% CI [1.8, 3.9]). Although lacking conclusive evidence, we theorize that the observed results may be attributed to the aerobic and anaerobic characteristics of each sport, with mixed sports yielding the maximum benefits for the lifespan.“
43 comments
[ 3.3 ms ] story [ 87.4 ms ] threadWho would have thought!
Why do I hate going to the gym / lifting weight & cardio so much? Why do I feel no obvious benefits from a month of 4-days a week of weight training (apart from some extra strength & minor visible changes)?
If exercise is so potent and so beneficial, then shouldn't I crave it the way I crave sugar? Or at least not actively dislike it?
I really don't see how you subjectively not feeling a benefit to an active lifestyle conflicts with the above.
"No pain, no gain"
Why would there be pain for doing what we're designed to do?
We werent designed to do sports, it is just that those who didn't move were a little more likely to die. And people who are more likely to die are less likely to pass their genes on, simply because they had less time to reproduce. The result: We have bodies which are meant to be moved, but only if needed, like many other animals. Moving too much was bad too, as resources are needed to do it an resources were not readily available at all times [cue picture of rough European winter ca 1300 AD]. You probably guessed already that starvation, because you burned too many calories has luckily become a non-issue in most parts of the world.
So we are a direct result of the environments and circumstances our ancestors lived in, managed to get kids in, and who in turn managed to survive long enough to raise their kids.
[1] Many people actually like moving or grow to like it. A bit like with spicy food, which hurts at first, but pours out endorphines, being fit and using your body can give you all kinds of good emotions during and after the activity and you can grow to like it once the pain is over. Being able to rely on your body and know it and its limitations can be very fulfilling. When I run my Sunday 16km I don't feel any pain. But I am fit. I might feel pain when I attempt a marathon and try to set a personal record. But regular running is a breeze once you are in shape.
I think you're mixing up a few things here. The reason things hurt is because you are doing physically demanding things with your body. Evolution can't just make something which takes a lot of energy not take that energy. It could get rid of the idea of pain entirely, but that's bad for a lot of other reasons.
That's like asking why our bodies were even designed to get food in the first place instead of not needing it. There are physical constraints involved.
As someone who's been lifting weights and doing regular cardio 4 or 5 days a week for 25+ years:
No, you might just hate it forever. I do.
I've never liked doing it and have always had to guilt myself into it because I find it so unpleasant.
But whenever I'm unable to do it (injury, surgery/accident recovery, etc.) I feel substantially worse both physically and psychologically (I know not doing it is reducing the number of "good" years I get to have in life). So I just tough it out and get to work.
This has probably been the case for the majority of the human population throughout history. Now we have a modern society with division of labor, good wealth (in comparison to previous generations) and safety. If you got a desk job and a car you literally stopped moving. This was not possible ever before in human society, except for the lucky few.
I totally recommend doing sports. The brain functions better if your body does what it was made for.
If we stop exercising, are body figures out we have no available food and makes us listless so we conserve energy until food appears. We are in peril, so we put on fat and metabolize muscle to survive.
Except in modern life our body thinks no excercise so more fat, less muscle, and less energy.
So it is exercise that drives our body, not our body prompting exercise (excepting maybe fight or flight in brief bursts)
That is, there is an optimal point at which your metabolism is exactly exhausted daily, without needing to increase, but neither needing to find alternate process to pour energy into
The theory being that if you do not exercise your body spends the excess energy on causing trouble for the body
However by increasing metabolism you raise the floor for what is the necessary exercise you need, while at the same time increase “wear and tear” simply burning more energy
To be clear, there is absolutely no science behind this, just idle curiosity
* Generally, the opposite sex is physically attracted to fit individuals.
* Finding food prior to agriculture or paying others.
* As for sugar, I'm not so sure, but maybe the plant's benefits also have to be considered (e.g. propagating seeds through fruits).
Seems pretty much the same case with thinking too. Thinking hard doesn't come naturally to people either. Though doing it often can not only save your life(speaking evolutionarily), it can also improve your quality of life.
Its the same thing with fasting. There are big benefits to fasting long intervals of time, but we like to eat despite it giving us diseases.
Perhaps one needs to do some of it for a while to start liking it. Then it kind of becomes likeable. I do see people enjoying playing sports, or playing chess.
>> Why do I feel no obvious benefits from a month of 4-days a week of weight training (apart from some extra strength & minor visible changes)?
Combined with some diet thing, that builds good momentum.
>>If exercise is so potent and so beneficial, then shouldn't I crave it the way I crave sugar? Or at least not actively dislike it?
Children hate to eat, and like to play a lot. Does feel like it comes with our nature. We just run the opposite direction.
I've been trying to run myself out of long-covid for four years now, doesn't work
Anyway that's an odd website to link to when there are endless studies and papers on this
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S009286741...
As far as I've read, it's decidedly unclear that general physical activity as an intervention is proven for much of anything; as Dr. Ashley mentions, most of the data we have is from observational studies. I think it's fair to say that for the vast majority of people, a moderate amount of physical activity is almost certainly better overall than being a total couch potato. But it's also not as simple as "active good, sedentary bad". In particular, I've seen a few studies suggesting that physical activity at one's job might not have the same disease-prevention benefits as physical activity for leisure (e.g. [1]), which casts some doubt on the idea that the benefits are primarily coming from physical activity per se.
[1] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10621902/
- physically active jobs paying less, and we simply measure poorer people being less healthy
- physically active jobs being less of a cardio activity, and more of a "lift these 20 kg packages in unergonomic posture till you need a back surgery"
I don't know many jobs which actually keep people fit in a healthy sense without coming with significant risks (think fire fighters, soldiers). Except maybe working in sports as a personal trainer or a sports teacher or something.
But I know people below 40 who suffer from all kind of health issues which they would not have if they weren't couch potatoes as you phrased it. And this gets much worse the older you go. If you really doubt that excersise helps talk to a veteran retirement home nurse and ask them if they think excercise helps their clients.
People who undergo acute bouts of physical exercise with adequate recovery improve the well known blood markers and vital signs associated with the chronic diseases currently plaguing the modern world (cardiovascular disease, diabetes, stroke, etc). Long bouts, like ultra marathons or doing intense exercise for days on end without a rest day, is probably going to be deleterious to health because you never give your body a chance to recover and adapt.
edit wording
It is not that easy:
“While it may be unsurprising to hear a boxer is more likely to live a shorter time than the average man, it is more shocking to learn how tennis players continue to live longer as the years pass, and that, despite advances in medicine and technology, footballers are less likely now than in the 1930s to live longer. This research also confirms that social factors – such as socio-economic background and level of education – have a key influence on longevity.”
https://ilcuk.org.uk/top-level-sportsmen-may-live-13-per-cen...
See also https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11357-024-01307-9