Our philosophy on well-being is simple:

“Move more” doesn’t simply refer to working out more; it’s taking a more holistic view of an active lifestyle. Not just working out with more volume, but also moving with more regularity and variety in our day-to-day life.

We recently came across an article that posed a number of intriguing questions about our conventional understanding of health and fitness. The article is based on an interview with Daniel Lieberman, a professor in the department of human evolutionary biology at Harvard.

We agree with much of his findings, but that’s to be expected since he’s the expert after all! Here are the key takeaways from the piece along with some of our thoughts.

Is exercise even necessary?

Many of us have come to accept the idea that we should be exercising regularly for good health.

“Exercising”, as in spending an hour a day, most days a week, pushing weights in the gym or sweating it out at a yoga class. But the question is, how did people get fit and healthy before the fitness industry was invented?

We pondered this question when we first came across the concept of Blue Zones, regions in the world where people live longer than typical (often into the 100’s).

People in these parts of the world tend to lead slower-paced lives that have yet to be pervaded by many of our modernities. While they’re constantly active(think tending to farms or out fishing at sea), most of them have never exercised for the sake of exercising because it wasn’t necessary.

For most of us, the modern lifestyle has become undeniably sedentary, so “exercise” was the solution we came up with. Essentially, it’s medicine designed to combat the superficial symptoms of said sedentariness. Workouts tend to be prescribed like medicine too: Three sets of ten reps, two times a week! Twenty minutes on the treadmill, three times a week!

We’re not saying there’s no need for people to exercise, or that we should completely ditch structured workout routines. But, we believe there’s much to learn from the indigenous hunter-gatherers Prof. Lieberman spent so much time studying, or the healthy folks from the world’s Blue Zones.

Move with more regularity. Move with more variety. It’s simpler than we think!

Also…

Sitting is a Problem. The Solution Isn’t to Not Sit.

Prof. Lieberman also touched on the problem of sitting all day.

Very familiar! These ideas are basically the foundations behind our decision to set up floor desks in our office.

If you’re interested in reading the full article or listening to the entire interview with Prof. Lieberman, check out this link.