Exercise 101

What is Exercise and What is the Point of it?

Exercise is typically thought of as the process of putting our bodies under controlled physical stress, for the purpose of improving our overall health, sculpting our bodies to become more appealing to ourselves or a potential love interest, and to increase our physical strength. Some of us love it, some of us hate it, and some of us desperately “need” to exercise in order to feel ourselves.

What makes this essential component of our lives more appealing, is the near endless list of physical activities/hobbies that one may utilize in order to receive many of the benefits that regular exercise can provide.       

The Common Health Benefits of Regular Exercise

• Lowered risk of premature death
• Lowered risk of coronary heart disease
• Lowered risk of stroke
• Lowered risk of hypertension
• Lowered risk of type 2 diabetes
• Lowered risk of metabolic syndrome
• Lowered risk of colon cancer
• Lowered risk of breast cancer
• Prevention of weight gain
• General benefit in weight loss combined with reduced energy intake
• Improved condition of the cardiovascular and circulatory system as well as muscular fitness
• Improved bone density
• Prevention of falling
• Prevention of depression
• Improved cognitive functions

Cognitive Benefits of Exercise

Exercise increases the volume of gray matter in the brain, particularly in areas crucial for memory functions such as the orbitofrontal cortex and the hippocampus. Regular exercise was found to be more effective at treating depression than sertraline. More importantly, exercise reduces stress, which is a predisposing factor for various illnesses that currently plague the modernized world.

Aerobic exercise in particular has been found to boost the production of endogenous cannabinoids (anandamide), opioids (beta-endorphin), and phenylethlamine (the “runner’s high”). Giving us the incentive to go for a run, row, cycle ride, or swim.

Exercise has also been found to improve the ability to learn, by increasing long term potentiation (LTP) of nerve cells and brain derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF). The most significant increase of BDNF was also found after aerobic exercise and particularly after high-intensity activity. 

In elderly people, strength training at least twice per week increased the functional plasticity of their brains. Exercise has also been shown to reduce the risk of developing of neurodegenerative diseases, such as Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s, as well as assisting in the treatment of them. The development of a child’s brain, nervous system, and cognitive function requires regular and varied physical activity in order for them to reach the full potential of their cognitive abilities. 

Exercise Preference and Mental Resilience

Exercise preference is generally dependent on a person’s body type and their rate of recovery. Women typically take longer to recover from exercise. Age also slows recovery down. However, a person’s fitness level, training background, and the development of various physical characteristics will have a greater effect on your ability to recover than gender or age alone. If you’re struggling to decide what type of exercise you should participate in, it is often best to start with something that your body is better suited for and that you actually enjoy doing. I know we fetishize the pain aspect of exercise and correlate that with progress, but the benefits of such are totally exaggerated. The ability to handle pain is excellent for building mental resilience and may push us past our previously held beliefs about our physical limitations. In saying that, unless you are attempting to compete at the extreme end of some sort of sport or event, it is better to be spend more time developing bodily awareness and improving your abilities instead of risking an injury by training like a professional.     

Emotional and Social Benefits of Exercise

Regular exercise affects the social behavior of the individual and they generally have healthier emotional lives and more confidence than those who lead a more sedentary life. Exercise has also been shown to improve the social skills of children too. Exercising in a group invokes team spirit and may improve communication skills depending on the type of activity and the quality of the group morale. Even spectator sports have health benefits. Experiencing an intense sporting achievement with others, who are also supporting the same team/player, may strengthen social relationships between spectators. It has been shown that those who are on the side of the winning team have both increased testosterone and oxytocin levels. This effect is greater for men than women though. As a side note, the increased levels of oxytocin that help men to bond has also been known to make them more antagonistic to those who support the other team. 

Rethinking Exercise

I’m sure there are no arguments from the other side of the computer screen so far, right? We’ve heard it all before. The problem that most of us tend to have with committing to a continuous exercise plan is the motivation to start and keep moving. We’ll often use excuses like “I don’t know what I’m doing,” or “I can’t afford a gym membership,” and even “I don’t have the time.” Occasionally we’ll even lie to ourselves about our activity levels and overall wellbeing, so that we may protect our egos and avoid the pressure of change (common in those who are under considerable mental stress). Resulting in procrastination and the inevitable physical health decline of the individual.   

Now… I don’t blame those that are “too busy” or “too tired” for refusing to take advantage of what I consider to be one of the greatest panaceas available. What I do believe to be one of the major causes for our current sedentary pandemic is the public perception of what the purpose of exercise actually is. One of the many consequences of living in a society that rewards individualism, is the packaging of exercise for financial gain and the distorted motivational drivers that have been associated with exercise, in order to increase that financial gain. In other words, we’ve forgotten that movement is a fundamental process that is tied into the very fabric of our identity, and have begun to treat it as a pathway to climbing the social hierarchy.

What Does Exercise Have to Do with the Social Hierarchy?

Alright, bear with me for this one. Seeing as we have so recently dissolved our societal model of tribal living, which took millions of years to evolve for, suddenly we have all these unfulfilled emotional attachment needs as a result of being convinced that the individual’s pursuit of happiness was superior to the collective needs of said “tribes.” By taking advantage of one of our most basic measures of sexual selection, physical fitness, we’ve been conditioned to believe that we need to spend excessive amounts of time and money to artificially develop sexual appealing bodies (using photoshopped, rich, and famous individuals as unrealistic targets), to attract a mate. While it is true that one of the first measures of sexual selection is physical fitness, we’ve taken this desperate desire for love a little bit too far. 

Now, I’ll be the first to admit that obsessive physical activity is certainly one of the better addictions to have. Motivating ourselves to achieve greatness by using high performers as an example results in producing some of the most inspiring sports stars of our time. However, the belief that we need a purpose for activity, or that there is no point in performing exercise unless we can be the best, appears to have detached us from the necessity of movement. When we view exercise as a route to obtaining the fitness or bodies of those of us at the extreme ends of human physical spectrum, we are less likely to appreciate movement as an opportunity to understand our bodies on a personal level. Which brings us to the real issue with using weight loss stories, athletes, and models as inspiration: when our results don’t match our overinflated expectations, our motivation plumets dramatically. Either that, or we push ourselves to work out and diet at an unsustainable and longevity declining rate. If we can’t post our “inspiring” weight loss results on social media to improve our peers’ opinions of us, what’s the point of going through all that pain? 

What’s the Solution?

I suggest that we undergo a momentary perspective reframe of exercise. A rebranding of sorts. The benefits of exercise are due to an evolutionarily adaptive response to our expected physical requirements. A consequence of living and exploring the wild, not purely as the result of fighting to become the best caveman bodybuilder or athlete in the tribe. Seeing as we no longer live the same lifestyle or inhabit the same type of environment that we once evolved for, we need to keep in mind that our bodies still expect movement stimuli and will decline in functionality if it is deprived of it. Use it or lose it!

Exercise should once again return to being a form of exploration and play. I view the way we move as the ultimate demonstration of self-expression. Your body and its subsequent movements subtly communicate to those around you who you are, your lifetime of experience, and the purity of your intentions. This doesn’t mean that we need to demonize the pursuit of vanity and performance-based training. It just means that we should reassess our motivations and goals for pursuing these endeavors when they begin to feel like they are no longer serving us. As a consequence, I hope this would lead to less bodily shame and obsession of both the high performers and in those that feel defeated before they even start. Resulting in movement becoming as essential as eating, drinking, or breathing, which would lead to our global health outcomes improving dramatically. 

How Do We Start Moving?

As explained in the Biohacker’s handbook, “Exercise should be thought of as natural, playful movement that takes place during the day, without forced performances, grimacing, and exhaustion.” Beginning your exercise journey can be as simple as going for a walk at the park with friends or joining a sports/martial arts club. If you prefer to exercise by yourself, that’s totally fine, but you will be more likely to keep participating in that form of exercise if good company is present. 

The first thing that I would advise is to start walking 20-30 minutes per day with friends. This serves the purpose of improving lymphatic flow, muscular and vascular tone, mental health and cognitive function, strengthening the heart and lungs, filling your social quota, and also providing you with adequate sun exposure. The next step would be to try a new hobby, such as yoga, martial arts, surfing, swimming, calisthenics, rock climbing, etc. It doesn’t need to be as intense as these options, but choosing an activity that meets as many needs as possible will have a greater effect on your overall health and wellbeing. If you find an activity that you absolutely love and want to take further, go for it. Just don’t lose sight of why you started doing it in the first place. Otherwise, the obsession with that exercise may result in a greater stress load and then end up creating a deficit in your wellbeing status. 

The Biohacker Manifesto for Exercise

• Life is movement, movement is medicine
• Exercise in a regular and varied manner
• Train equally in strength, speed, agility, balance, and endurance
• Increase everyday incidental exercise
• Utilize your body weight
• Exercise outdoors whenever possible
• Quality over quantity
• Exercise in good company
• Maintain the balance between exercise and rest
• Never stop playing