Earn Your Leisure

Yesterday, I had a conversation with Lorenzo who relayed his frustrations with getting his family to understand CrossFit. They call it "progressive suicide". They think it's too hard and thus dangerous, and like many people, they think "fit" is looking emaciated rather than being able to actually do things. Why do we bother squatting and deadlifting if all girls care about is six pack abs and bulging biceps? Why do we lay it all out in a WOD, when the rest of the fitness world tells us that we can achieve fitness with just 20 minutes of walking 3 days a week? There seems to be this idea that as humans continue to evolve, we don't need high intensity exercise and that we will adapt to modern activity demands, or lack thereof.

I argue that following this line of thinking is the real "progressive suicide". There was a great article by Paul M. Ribisl, Ph.D. in the ACSM's Health & Fitness Journal from March/ April 2004. In this article he points out some important things to consider. First, the vast majority of our current genome was established during the Paleolithic Era (50,000-10,000 B.C.) This was a time when man had to hunt and forage for food and lived an active lifestyle of "feast and famine". This lead to the survival of our ancestors with the "Thrifty Gene", which allowed for the caveman to efficiently use energy both when it was available and when it wasn't. This same gene has been passed on to us today except we are in a period of "feast and rest" which our "thrifty gene" seems to be punishing us for. We have not adapted well to the diet of the Neolithic Era. In the days of the hunter/ gatherer, man used 1,000Calories/ day in physical activity and ate an average of 3,000Calories/ day for a 3:1 intake to expenditure rate. Today we eat 2,100Calories/ day and only expend 300Calories/ day in physical activity. This gives a 7:1 ratio and explains why obesity is on the rise.

The advancements of the Neolithic Era were an amazing achievement in their time and allowed for a greater abundance of food in less competitive environment. This created the conditions for society to grow and develop and as our farming practices got better, the human population increased. But, the development of agriculture was still physically demanding, and the roles of society still demanded physical labor for the vast majority of people.

The downside of this increased abundance is that in these quantities, we weren't meant to be eating grains, preservatives, and artificial sweeteners. Our genetic code isn't evolutionarily programmed for that. Combine that with the wonders of modern medicine in cholesterol medication, insulin, blood pressure meds, triple bypass surgery, etc. and we have gone against Darwin's law of Survival of the Fittest and allowed weaker genes to get passed along. So, rather than evolving with our technological advances, we are sealing our fate and dependency on medicine.

The only way to fight this is to choose better food, and increase our activity levels. As our lives become physically easier with service industry jobs rather than physical labor, driving rather than walking and biking, and online shopping rather than even walking through the mall; we need to supplement that physical activity just like we would supplement a malnourished diet. The easier and more leisurely our lives, the more intensity we need to bring into it to maintain a healthful high quality of life.