Daniel Lieberman

This book, by Daniel Lieberman, is excellent. The book starts by tracing human evolution; I applaud him for this. He systematically explains how small quirks in our evolutionary journey helped us become who we are.
Our journey is fascinating because it contains the seeds of our success and the factors that can make us unwell.
The concept of mismatch diseases is fascinating. This concept illustrates the cause of many of our problems. Our switch from a hunter-gatherer to an agrarian lifestyle will cause us problems and give us opportunities to become strong.
With the industrial revolution, what does the future hold?
An excellent book, well-written, it is essential reading. I hope he updates the book.… (mehr)

It would be true to say that exercise has exercised Mr Lieberman. His book sets out to bust myths around exercise from an evolutionary and anthropological point of view.

The book is full of information and tips that will help people to exercise. The majority of us do not want to exercise and would rather sit around. That is because this is how we evolved. Can you imagine asking a group of Hadza people to exercise at the end of their day? It turns out they do slightly more moderate to vigorous exercise than us but they keep doing it until they are much older than us. The older men still go out to hunt and the older women do more of the digging for tubers and cooking than the younger, child-rearing women. So, the real lesson here is do some exercise and keep doing it. Don't stop.

There are other bits of information such as the muscle strengthens more when extending not contracting, that we should be doing some weights to keep muscles powerful. Walking is fine to help lose weight it is just that most of us don't do enough of it - about an hour a day is needed. Exercise helps with a lot of modern day illnesses, depression, obesity, cancer and the list goes on.

The end of the book sums it up really.

Make exercise necessary and fun. Do mostly cardio, but also some weights. Some is better than none. Keep it up as you age.
p339

Four sentences to live by!… (mehr)

Excellent book looking at why we need exercise and why we naturally try to avoid it, using genetics, anthropology, anatomy, and biology to explain. Not terrifically complex, but I never felt I was being talked down to. Nicely structured with plenty of humor and asides to lighten things up. Not a self-help book, his recommendations are fairly vague and he doesn’t present some complex exercise regime - he ends the book with “Make exercise necessary and fun. Do mostly cardio, but also some weights. Some is better than none. Keep it up as you age.”
… (mehr)