Fitness(2) and Sport

What do these terms mean to the regular worker-outer? Are the seriously considered?

Dictionary.com
Fitness: Health

Sport: physical prowess in a particular, or several activites: swimming, running, football, baseball, fishing, hunting, etc.

Fitness (2): reproductive representation in subsequent generations (offspring, kin's offspring, offspring's offspring, etc). (i.e. Darwinian Fitness)

Do these terms mean anything to you with respect to (WRT) your exercise regimen? I will try to provide some ideas, examples, and such.

Clearly most people workout to be healthy, or to have fitness, right? Ummmm, I don't think so. Unfortunately, I think most people workout for reasons of vanity: I wanna have a 6 pack, big arms, sexy butt, etc. So why do we care, or do we care at all about Fitness=health. Turns out that this is directly related to the two other terms listed above: Sport and Fitness (or Darwinian Fitness). Here goes. Sport is essentially demonstrating or gaining or practicing to be the best at some activity or activities (see examples listed). There is no end for sporting abilities to stop growing; that is, you can alway improve and get better, faster, bigger, stronger (if you're doing it right). However, sport as we know is a recent evolutionary phenom. There is no good archeaological evidence that our distant ancestors (australopithicines, ardipithicus, etc) engaged in competitive sport. Much to the chagrin of many English blokes they do not stem from a long (evolutionary) history of footballers. Sorry mates! Not "playing" sport is one thing, but they were certainly engaged in a sport. The sport of survival. For our ancestors every turn of a new day (think sands through the hourglass LOL) was a new game. They had to hunt, gather, fight, mate, fend off predators, etc. That is we were sporting animals from the start: we had to be else we would not have survived. So sport begets fitness. We do not engage in fitness to be sporting types, we were made to be sporting types and that is how we get our fitness.

Furthermore, if you can accept (sort of) the rationale that we sport to get fitness (health) then check this out. Health, or being healthy is sexy. Or, put in other terms, what we find sexy is healthy. Let me provide a few examples. On average men prefer women with a 0.7 waist-to-hip ratio (WHR). This is pretty much a cross-cultural thing, with few exceptions being discovered. So, what's special about .7, or optimal WHR? A freaking lot! First off, optimal WHR predicts whether a woman is going to have complications getting pregnant, during pregnancy, and childbirth. Optimal design lessens the risk in all occasions. Optimal WHR also predicts a woman likelihood of developing physiological (coronary) and psychiatric illnesses; again optimality lessens the chances of developing both. Lastly, optimal WHR predicts the IQ potential of her offspring. So you might ask: Why do men find curvaceous female bodies sexy? No, it's not because the media say so, because what the media throws at us is a complete misrepresentation of what MEN want and like. Rather, it's because finding those shapes sexy in our evolutionary history often led to mating attempts. All other things being equal (which they aren't, I know that) mating with an optimally designed female led to better chances of passing on your genes (Darwinian Fitness). And here's the kicker, when you select a shape to mate with , you pass on the psychological and neurological characteristics that led you to select that shape. Pretty simple and neat, eh? There are several other examples: women find men with more money and resources sexy, but they also prefer masculinized sporty looking males. Specifically they pay attention to the Shoulder-to-hip ratio (SHR); or what we know as the V-shaped male. Well, you should not be surprised to learn that SHR predicts health (mental and physical) and reproductive viability in males. So women like men "see" what is sexy because it is healthy and it is healthy because of sport.

So without belaboring another point, ask your self this the next time you walk into your gym to do a workout: Why am I really here?

Designed to be fit!

I realized/remembered recently that this blog is named evolutionary training and yet I almost never talk about evolutionary theory. One might think: What the hell does evolutionary science have to do with this CrossFit wannabe blog? Well turns out the stuff that progressive non-repeating body weight, gymnastics workouts do is emulate our natural history. Not to mention that working out is science, an experiment on yourself and evolutionary science is the best of all sciences! Let me expound upon my thoughts.

The Natural History of a Workout Program

Our ancestors, at least our recent ancestors (circa 10,000 - 250,000 years ago) were likely some sort of hunter gatherer or farmer or combo of both practices (although recent human evolution in the last 10,000 years has exploded us into vastly different evolutionary landscapes). In both cases they had to work their asses off. Imagine the skills, strength, musculature, and endurance necessary to be a hunter, gatherer, or first generation farmer with out power tools.... Or, simply look to nature for examples of what we once were. You rarely see overweight, obese, out of shape animals. You know why? They get eaten. They fail to acquire enough resources to sustain bodily functions. They die in hibernation because they did not have the fitness to properly fatten up. They don't get selected as mating partners. The list goes on, but you'd be hard-pressed to find an out of shape (defined by species specific traits) wild-type (i.e. wild living) animal. They tend to get selected against, or as we might say weeded out!

The Hunter:

In order to be an efficient hunter you need a number of skills, not the least of which are navigation, shooting skills, tracking abilities, etc., but these are not the topics I wish to discuss here. Here I wish to discuss the fitness aspects of a hunter. In order to hunt, in an ancestral way you would have had to track animals for miles. If you found a pack of some ungulate you might want to eat, you would most likely have to construct a blind by carrying logs, and branches from far away. You'd have to have control over your body so that you could lay still in wait for hours. You might even have to climb a tree for an angle. If you get close enough to make the kill shot you'd likely have to heave a spear at the animal(s). So what fitness skills might be involved in these needed abilities?  Tracking prey for hours, or even days, over long distances would require a high level of metabolic conditioning. A hunter has to be able to move past the pain of lactate build-up in his muscles in order to keep on going. Bodily control while sitting and waiting. Not making a move or sound might require a strong core. Think plank! Climbing = pull-ups. Enough said. Spearing again would require core strength to toss the spear with accuracy and power enough to pierce the flesh of the prey animal.

The Gatherer:

You might think gathering would require less fitness abilities than hunting because inherently gathering is a proximal behavior; i.e. you do it close to where you live. However, gathering requires a number of behaviors that would tap your fitness. Gathering itself requires a bit of local movement. You need to move around in order to discover the ripest of items to gather. Digging and pulling would be required to get up tubors and other ground based veggies and you might also have to reach and pull a fruit or nut from a tree. Think axe movement: up and down and up and down with resistance at both ends. Finally, carrying the collected items (which would likely have some weight, imagine a bail of potatoes) back to your home. This could be several meters. Think carrying or running with a sandbag; this could occur via carrying in front of your body, on your head, on a backpack-ish device, etc. All good means of carrying stuff and adding weight to your transit. Like wearing a weight vest.

The Farmer:

OK, I am not going to belabor this point, but farmers too have a lot of fitness advantages. They have to man-handle livestock. They have to move bails of hay, feed, etc. A farmer has to perform many of the same behaviors discussed for gatherers as well, but only the distance of gathering would be localized to the, well the farm.

So, our ancestors who were able to conduct these behaviors, our ancestors who possessed the random genetic mutations that lent them to success at these behaviors, were those ancestors that left descendants (us!). We have been designed to be fit and the number one reason we have an obesity epidemic is because of this one single true fact. We are NOT designed to eat loads of sugar, sit in front of TV, sit around and order pizzas, eat drive-thru and take out, and so forth. Our bodies are revolting! I am not the first to say this, in fact this is a pretty well-known idea. In evolutionary psychology would generally refer to this as a mismatch between current industrialized conditions (modern day) and the type of environment we were "designed" to live in. Now that's not to say that everything we have, all our industry is not part of our evolutionary history. In fact it is. Those of us who are better equipped to deal with industrialized "stuff" are going to leave more descendants that have the "deal with technology better" genes. It's just plain simple science. The main issue is that the speed of technological change is extremely rapid, exponentially faster than biological change. And one final thought: the direction of technological change is random. That is, technology emerges from memetic evolution that has no basis in genetics and the phenotypes those genes create. So get your ass to the gym! The only thing you can do is maintain your fitness so you can deal with the rapid directionless change that awaits us all...

Flattery goes a long, long, way, so be nice for goodness sake!

Compliments are a wonderful thing. If they are delivered in earnest then they convey such a nice message and if received without doubt they can lift a mood as high as high can go. Furthermore, giving a compliment, that is being nice, can also make the giver feel better. Producing a smile in another person feels good. It's, well, contagious if you will...

Just the other day, I was complimented (rare as that is) twice in one day. Yes, I said twice as in two times in one day! The thing I noticed about a compliment is that they are highly valued when they come from no where. Wholly unexpected wondrous love (loosely defined) from another individual. Your dog does it everyday, I am sure. Right? When you sit down to pet, orient toward, or yell "Fido, let's go for a walk" - s/he wags the tail. Hell, that's a great compliment. That's like the dog saying - YOU FUCKING RULE DAD! YOUR PETTING IS THE BEST THING IN MY DAY!!! OH WAIT, THERE'S A SQUIRREL! Humans do not have such ostensible fixed action patterns (FAPs) for telling you how they feel about you (well, maybe, but more on that in another post). Rather humans have to use language to persuade you that 1) they are being an honest conveyor of a message and 2) that the message they are conveying means something to the receiver. Sometimes, these conditions are not met, like when a graduate students says to their major professor: "You are the smartest scientist I have ever met!" With exception of my case, for which my PhD supervisor, Prof. Gordon Gallup Jr., is the smartest person I've ever met, most PhD students are full of shit! They are being dishonest to the person, and more importantly to themselves. It takes a lot of work to deceive, try to deceive, etc. They don't call it the simple truth for nothing! The other way that a compliment can go awry is when the message, even if being delivered honestly, means little or nothing to the receiver. For example, is someone says to you "Whoa you got mad typing skillz" and you don't give a rat's ass about how fast people type, let alone your own lightning fast phalange flexing ... then the compliment falls short of having any effect.

OK, so I was complimented the other day by two people, one of whom I have known for about a year or so and the other I have never met.  In the first instance a student of mine said that he really likes reading my blog. That's twice in a 10 day period someone asked me about my blog. I hadn't thought anyone actually read the damn thing, it started as a means to communicate with my pals in England about our workout regimen, but special thanks to my two readers! The student went on to say that he really liked reading it. It was a great compliment, it made me feel like whoa - I entertained a person. Ha! So cool, someone commented about my fitness-based blog. Actually another person did, as well. About 10 days ago another student said she tried my Bear Attack Defense workout and it was really hard, but a great workout. Glad to help. So This got me thinking, if (2) people read it, why not get back to it! Not to mention it's really quite fun to get your thoughts down...

The second compliment, not unrelated to the fitness and blogging, came from someone I never met, talked to, or had ever even seen. I was riding the elevator with a student. We were discussing the workings of Al Einstein's brain and a paper that we are writing on the topic. This other person rushes to get into the elevator (don't fret, I typically never take the elevator for all the expected reasons, but the student had a suitcase with her). So this person comes in, interrupts our conversation about ol' "relativity Al" boy's cortex and says to me: "Hey, you look like the 300 guy". OK, at first I was like, I look like 300 guys, so much for the adorable unique sleek look I was going for, just teasing. In all seriousness I was thinking to myself, ok... self. 300 guy. Does she mean the 300 guy that appeared in the movie (see Image 1) or the aftermath of his fame in which he turned into a toad (see Image 2)? She clarified very quickly by saying, but have you seen how he's let himself go to shit? This is the second time I received this compliment, probably because of the goattee, but whatever, I will take it and believe it's because of the muscles!

Image 1

Image 2

Compliments are wonderful. This tiny little series of statements had made my week! Energized me. Excited me (in the non explicit way, of course!) It's amazing what a nice gesture can do. I am far from the first person to write about this. And further from the person to be expected writing about this as my typical catch phrase is "I got enough friends!" I only have about 2.

So my charge to anyone out there reading this (all 2 of you) is to be nice. And be nice to someone about their fitness. If you see someone in the gym working really hard, let them know. If you see someone push a weight that is amazing, let them know. The other day a young man in my gym hang power cleaned 225 pounds with perfect form and I let know it was fucking impressive! He smiled. If you see someone who's toned up, tightened up, bulked up, or simply shaped up, let them know! Don't be perverted about it. Just let them know that since the last time you saw them, they look really good and that the workouts are obviously helping. This happens to my wife quite frequently.  Encouragement can go a long way and for someone trying to lose weight, tighten up, or get big, a few words of encouragement from a complete, or relative, stranger could be just the trick to keep them going. See we all go home and expect wife, husband, mate, partner, girlfriend, boyfriend, rover, felix, mom, or dad to say good things about us. Those compliments are great too, dont get me wrong, but a compliment from a stranger or acquaintance holds more weight. See they dont have to say a damn thing. They could just keep their mouth shut (and most of the time we hope they do that, right?) BUt for someone to purposefully go out of their way to say "Way to go kiddo!" - now that's just good humanity!

So go out there and be good to your fellow workerouters for goodness sake!