Believe it or not, humans have not always worked in offices. The routine of sitting in front of a computer for eight hours a day, five days per week, is a very recent invention in human history. The truth is that our ancestors had a very different existence compared with what we experience today – an existence that included plenty of running. Living a sedentary existence simply is not compatible with what our bodies were designed to do.
For over a million years, human beings got their nutrition from hunting animals or scavenging (gathering) for food. This is in stark contrast to the more modern agricultural societies, were human beings got their food from domesticated animals and carefully planned farms – and now, huge supermarkets. The life of a hunter-gatherer was not easy and oftentimes involved traveling many miles on foot to find the next meal.
However, through evolution, the bodies of human beings evolved to meet the demands of a hunter gatherer society. Humans developed remarkable energy systems that allowed people to running many miles at a time without getting injured. Additionally, the bodies of human beings could store energy in the form of fat as a safety net if a meal could not be found.
The problem in today’s world is that there is no need to run many miles everyday and the energy storage systems of humans now simply makes us fat without exercise to burn off the excess calories. Many experts have suggested that humans should try to replicate activity pattern of a hunter gatherer society in order to use our bodies the way they were designed to be used. Exercise is the most important component of a hunter gatherer society – and it is why running is so fundamentally important for modern humans.
