"Maybe we should rotate exercise like we rotate crop planting." This was a comment by Phillip on a recent post. As it turns out, I just finished reading a very interesting article that says the same thing.
One of the article's authors is Frank Booth, who has written a number of articles about viewing exercise from an evolutionary perspective. Now in this new article, he comments on the "triple association" of survival, athletic performance, and prevention of most chronic diseases. As I've written about recently, it's tough to know whether good health and high levels of activity are an association or a cause-and-effect relationship. Booth believes it is cause-and-effect with physical activity (or lack thereof) preceding health changes.
In the article, Booth talks about the importance of both physical strength and aerobic capacity. He also hypothesizes that endurance and strength activities would alternate in a Paleolithic environment. Here is a quote:
"For example, endurance-type physical activity requires more mitochondrial and enzymatic proteins while strength-type physical activity requires more contractile proteins. The ability to modify aerobic capacity and muscle mass was therefore a genetic characteristic selected to oscillate during alternating periods of activities requiring endurance (such as hunting for food) versus periods requiring strength (such as constructing shelters and defence)."
An obvious next question is, how long were the alternating periods of strength and endurance? Regardless, this is a very neat hypothesis about the need to rotate exercise.
"Maybe we should rotate exercise like we rotate crop planting." This was a comment by Phillip on a recent post. As it turns out, I just finished reading a very interesting article that says the same thing.
One of the article's authors is Frank Booth, who has written a number of articles about viewing exercise from an evolutionary perspective. Now in this new article, he comments on the "triple association" of survival, athletic performance, and prevention of most chronic diseases. As I've written about recently, it's tough to know whether good health and high levels of activity are an association or a cause-and-effect relationship. Booth believes it is cause-and-effect with physical activity (or lack thereof) preceding health changes.
In the article, Booth talks about the importance of both physical strength and aerobic capacity. He also hypothesizes that endurance and strength activities would alternate in a Paleolithic environment. Here is a quote:
"For example, endurance-type physical activity requires more mitochondrial and enzymatic proteins while strength-type physical activity requires more contractile proteins. The ability to modify aerobic capacity and muscle mass was therefore a genetic characteristic selected to oscillate during alternating periods of activities requiring endurance (such as hunting for food) versus periods requiring strength (such as constructing shelters and defence)."
An obvious next question is, how long were the alternating periods of strength and endurance? Regardless, this is a very neat hypothesis about the need to rotate exercise.