 21 convention and the 21 convention is about the ideal man and shaping that ideal man and I know for my own journey what I Discovered through this was so much a whole new world of diet exercise and fitness It changed my life and it actually it's the one thing that I've seen change so many attendees and even speakers lives so right now we actually have a PhD in exercise physiology and bio mechanics also 21 convention speaker alumni all the way from the UK To the US to speak for you guys. We have mr. James steel I'm gonna go ahead and take a little sip of water first Just apologize My throat's been a bit sore this week. So hopefully my voice holds out for the whole of the talk Okay, just to give you a bit of an overview of what the talk is going to be about and the purpose of the talk For those of you who have seen it already. I've given this talk before this is the second time I've given it But I've got a bit more time to go in a bit more detail and try and conceptualize some of the ideas a Bit more make them a bit more contextual for you guys here so the title of the talk is a synthesis of modern exercise physiology and evolutionary theory and To start off with I'm just going to go through and kind of explain what my thinking was and What the purpose of the talk was about what brought me to actually want to discuss this topic in a bit more detail Now I'm gonna warn you guys. This is gonna be a bit of a change of tact for What you've experienced for the most of the day. This is gonna be quite an academic talk So expect a lot of references citations gonna make sure you're all taking notes And I'm gonna pass a quiz out at the end. So you'll look at your grades back by Sunday Okay, so Let's get started if the clicker wants to work There we go, right. Okay, so The talk's gonna cover This idea of kind of evolutionary fitness or paleo fitness the whole kind of a paleo idea has become very very popular Within the lay press and the academic sphere over the last few years I mean everyone here has probably heard of the paleo diet hands up if you heard the paleo diet There we go. That's pretty much everyone. Okay, so it's got a lot more momentum It's become a lot more popular and something that's kind of rolled up in the whole idea of a paleo diet has been this idea of paleo fitness as well so the idea that we should be exercising in an evolutionary evolutionarily congruent manner and This has been Becoming more and more popular in the lay press. We've got various books move now cross fit although I'm gonna have to sort of pretend that if the clicker works Okay, pretend I didn't say Crossfit because apparently they're actually Suing the NSCA at the moment so pretend I wasn't talking about crossfit just in case this comes back to bite me in the ass So, but anyway, it's been very very popular in terms of the lay press and the academic sphere recently There's been a number of review papers covering the idea that we should be exercising like our evolutionarily evolutionary ancestors we should be exercising in a paleo evolutionary fitness type approach And there's some justification for this If the clicker wants to go There we go, right, and there's some justification for this So if you've read any of the literature or you familiarize yourselves with the works of guys like Lauren Cordain Rob Wolf You tend to see that the same few studies are trotted out over and over and over again to support the idea that hunter-gatherers evolutionary man was fit robust healthy fast strong Had good body composition low body fat good hip to waist ratio so on and so forth and You get given this very romantic picture of what hunter-gatherers look like now What I wanted to do was actually go back into the literature and look at it with a bit more of a sober perspective a bit more Skepticism and see whether or not the whole body of literature actually supported this view Because I didn't necessarily think that this was just all there was to see These are only a few studies So I wanted to go in and see whether or not the whole of the literature actually supported this viewpoint So as I said, I think this is a bit of a romantic view So let's just cover physical activity in general quickly so we all know that physical activity is Beneficial to our health and well-being our fitness and we know that physical activity It protects against all cause mortality and morbidity in a dose response type manner So the more we're physically active the more we see a reduction in our risk for all cause mortality and different morbidities but Recently studies have started to question whether or not the volume of activity I how much we're active Actually provides the benefits that we think it does and we've started to find that actually the intensity of effort involved in the activity So how hard the exercise actually is seems to provide a much more powerful benefit So if we're exercising in a more intense manner We tend to see significantly greater reductions in all cause mortality and survival statistics and This ties up actually as well with studies that show that physical fitness parameters seem to be even stronger predictors of all cause mortality Health and well-being so for example VO2 max is one of the strongest predictors of cardiac disease morbidity and mortality as well We tend to see that VO2 max is higher in the obese yet metabolically healthier healthy and lower in those who are normal weight But metabolically obese even strength and muscle mass a significant predictors of health and well-being and reduced all cause mortality So it seems to be that actually what's more important is the intensity of the activity And this is what modern exercise physiology is starting to support So what I wanted to do was actually take some of these concepts and go back and look at the literature regarding our Evolutionary past and what our physical activity patterns were in that evolutionary past So in terms of evolutionary fitness recommendations in general, we're asking the question. What should we do now? Up until now authors have based The answers that question on two other questions. So they've even looked at the evolved traits determining our physical activity Limitations and capacities are asking what can we do? What do we evolve for what adaptations do we have that permits to involve ourselves in certain activities and what are the limitations to those? activities or What did we do in terms of what were the physical activity patterns and physical activity levels of extinct and extant hunter-gatherers and This is what most of the literature is based its ideas on so what I wanted to do is go through and actually try and answer Those questions in order to provide a quest and answer to the question of what should we be doing in terms of exercise? What does the research actually support? So what this is going to do is provide a Sympathize of the modern exercise physiology research with research into evolutionary physical activity patterns in order to provide an answer Of what we should be doing now I just want to provide a bit of a kind of limitation on this because I'm coming at it from the perspective that physical fitness seems to be a very strong predictor of Health and well-being so although yes There may be other arguments for taking part in certain physical activities for other outcomes I'm going to focus the tool come What's the best way and what should we be doing to actually promote physical fitness because that seems to be one of the strongest predictors of all-cause mortality and morbidity. I also want to make the point that Obviously within our evolutionary past physical activity was directed towards survival Whereas today we have the luxury that we don't have to be physically active Instead we have to directly engage in exercise in order to achieve these outcomes that we're interested in So I want to differentiate between physical activity in terms of general and occupational physical activity as opposed to exercise Our recommendations as to what we should be doing to actually achieve these outcomes This is going to slow me down Am I not pressing the button hard enough? There we go. Right. So the question is what exercise should we be doing? So the outline of the presentation is going to answer the questions of what can we do? What did we do? What should we do and then try and provide some conclusions and recommendations? So in terms of what can we do I want to look at the activity repertoire that our bodies have actually evolved for What sort of activities can we do now? It doesn't necessarily answer whether we should do them though But some answers that question will help lead us towards an answer of what should we do? I also want to look at what did we do? So I want to look back into the past at other primate species that extinct hunter-gatherers And at extant hunter-gatherer populations that are still around to see what their physical activity patterns and levels were actually like To try and provide some sort of answer And then finally what I want to do is actually synthesize that with the exercise physiology literature And what that currently suggests in terms of what's best in terms of exercise recommendations Okay, so to start off with them What activity repertoire have we actually evolved and adapted for? Now there's a few things we need to keep in mind when we're talking about evolutionary adaptations And I'm going to take some concepts from Dan Lieberman here with regards to evolutionary adaptations So what is an adaptation? So in terms of evolution an adaptation is a useful feature that's been shaped by natural selection that promotes survival and reproduction So it's important to differentiate between what we mean by physical fitness which I've been referring to up until now And reproductive fitness So an evolutionary adaptation is something that promotes reproductive fitness But that doesn't necessarily mean that it promotes our physical fitness or our health and our well-being In today's society reproductive fitness is more heavily influenced by a number of other factors So we're differentiating between adaptations in terms of evolutionary fitness or reproductive fitness And adaptations that might promote physical fitness Because not all ancestral adaptations are good for us But conversely not all modern adaptations are bad for us So it's important to keep that in mind as well So what sort of things are we actually evolved for? Well bipedalism is clearly something that we've adapted for We're all bipedal, everyone can stand up if they want to, everyone can walk out of the room Heck, most people can run if they want to So we've clearly evolved for bipedalism Now in a talk I did a few years ago I actually talked a bit about the emergence of bipedalism So what sort of stages we went through? We started off as our boreal quadrupeds We went through a stage where we evolved into more semi-terrestrial quadrupedalism When we look at great ape locomotor patterns Whereas today we're now habitual bipeds And that was accompanied by a number of different adaptations Including changes in the lumbar and pelvic structure And changes in the lumbar and hip musculature as well And there are a number of other documented adaptations relating to our ability to be bipedal They include a neutral ligament to keep the head upright when we're moving bipedally We have changes in our morphology for our Achilles tendon Providing more elastic energy to help with locomotion And there are a number and a host of other adaptations There are too many to go through in this presentation Now the reasons for us evolving bipedalism are many They involve changes in our environment Increased ability to obtain food Avoiding predation It increased or reduced our energy savings for cost of transport But not necessarily for running So there were many pressures involved in determining bipedalism as an evolutionary adaptation And as I said a number of adaptive advantages to that So being bipedal meant that we were upright It increased our visual field It reduced our cost of transport Which meant that we could walk further throughout the day It also increased our ability to thermoregulate Standing upright meant there was more wind that could help reduce our body temperatures We also experienced much less solar radiation as well And obviously standing upright frees your hands for tool use as well So there are a number of advantages for being bipedal It's clear we have evolved to be bipedal But that doesn't necessarily imply that being bipedal Should dictate what types of exercise we should be doing Now our upper body physical capacity has significantly and dramatically altered as well We've obviously lost a lot of the specialization for arboreal type of quadripetalism And arboreal locomotion Now if we look at the capacity in terms of our upper body in early humans We see that they were typically quite heavily muscled That may be down to the fact that half the levers weren't available at that time So we needed greater physical capacity But it's very difficult to determine whether or not we were more muscular because of the environment Or whether or not we adapted to be more muscular And you tend to see as well that there is a general reduction in the musculature That's coincident with greater tool specialization So as we've gone through our evolutionary history We've typically lost a lot of our physical capacity But as I said, it's difficult to determine whether that's an evolutionary adaptation Or actually just a reflection of our physical activity patterns A final thing to note in terms of what we've adapted for Our body is highly plastic It tends to respond to the demands that we place on it The capacity that we have broadly matches those demands The body doesn't want to waste anything So unless you place a specific demand on it It doesn't want to invest resources in actually producing adaptations So in fact, our bodies being a plastic system Was an evolutionary adaptation for energy savings in the first place So it's important to realize that we are an adaptive species In terms of our body's plasticity It will respond in a number of ways to the stimuli that it experiences But again, that's quite general It's very difficult to draw recommendations from that Okay, so let's move on then To what were the physical activity patterns in our evolutionary past We know kind of what we're adapted for Bipedal, we're not as muscular as we used to be We're not as specialized in terms of our upper body locomotion abilities We can use tools, we've adapted those types of specializations But it doesn't really tell us a lot in terms of drawing exercise recommendations from that Now, maybe if we look at the physical activity patterns in our evolutionary past We might be able to draw out some specific activities that we did involve ourselves in Or at least how active we were Now typically most studies have looked at the energy expenditure of physical activity And tried to draw recommendations from that So they broadly kind of said, well, extinct and extant hunter-gatherers They were pretty active, so we should be more active Well, that's great But that doesn't give you any specificity in terms of recommendations How should I be more active? Should I run? Should I lift weights? Should I bike? Should I swim? Should I row? It doesn't really provide a lot of information It just tells you you should be more physically active And you typically see tables like this filling up these papers Showing you caloric expenditure in terms of different hunter-gatherer populations Different types of activities that they might have been engaging in And it's all well and good But I don't think it's good enough in terms of providing recommendations So what I wanted to do was instead look over and synthesize Exercise program variables by looking at the physical activity patterns Of extinct and extant hunter-gatherers And trying to draw out those variables So how often were they exercising? Or how often were they physically active? How much were they physically active? What was the sort of range that they were active over? How long were they physically active for? What duration did they engage in? How hard was the physical activity that they engaged in? What sort of intensity of effort did they put forth into it? What was the types of loading they experienced as well? It's difficult to actually pick that out But we can look at the types and modalities that they were engaged in as well To give us more of an idea of what types and modalities of exercise We potentially should be taking part in And ultimately the question I'm asking is What effect does the manipulation of these variables actually have on physical fitness? Because that's the information that we're interested in In terms of providing recommendations So let's start off with looking at other primates Our closest cousins So if you look at arboreal quadrupeds Like old world monkeys, new world monkeys Small bodied quadrupedal mammals Their frequency of exercise tends to be very very seasonal So depending upon the season They will be more or less active It depends highly on the availability of food The availability of mates so on and so forth But the types and modalities of exercise they engage in are very very consistent So they spend a lot of time clambering, climbing Sitting, walking, running, bounding, brachiating Just swinging from arm to arm But actually if you look at the volume of activity they engage in It's actually quite low It was anywhere near as high as I imagined it would be Has any of you guys been to the zoo and gone and watched the monkeys And sat there wondering why they're all asleep? Because they actually spend a lot of time sleeping They spend a lot of time sitting around, standing Not really doing a lot, just resting In fact, monkeys are pretty sedentary So they should all be obese and unhealthy and dying But funnily enough they're not They tend to spend a lot of time sitting And apparently this is killing us So today you guys are fucked You've been sitting all day So you're going to be dead by the end of today Well by the end of Sunday I mean you guys have got three days worth of this So I feel for you guys I'm going to stand at the back for the rest of the days Just in case Anyway, you see the point I'm making I'm being a bit facetious here If we look at other primates species as well Sorry, if we look at different types of species We do see there's some individual variation But actually they do spend a considerable amount of time Just resting They spend a lot of time just chilling out Feeding, sitting, socializing Not that much time actually engaged in physical activity Or certainly not vigorous physical activity That we would expect Okay, but what about the bigger apes? So the bigger bodied apes, the great apes Like orangutans, gorillas, chimpanzees, bonobos They tend to have a slightly larger range Which is reflective of their body size But again, we tend to see that they spend a lot of time Engaged in certain types of activities For the small amount of time that they are actually active They do spend a lot of time sitting around feeding But again, that might actually be related to their gut physiology But in essence, other primates tend to be pretty lazy Pretty sedentary They spend a lot of time sitting interestingly as well They actually spend little time socializing and playing Like I would have expected them to spend a lot more time playing One of the kind of tenants of paleo-fitnesses That we should be playing, not exercising It surprised me that they spend very little time Actually engaged in those types of activities Okay, but what about extinct hunter-gatherers? Because obviously other primates, you know They're evolutionarily close to us But they're not us What about early hunter-gatherers? The extinct hunter-gatherer populations What do we get if we look over their remains? So this is where I kind of expected to Spend a bit of time delving into the literature Looking at what the skeletal remains actually showed And trying to figure out what frequency of activity They engaged in How much they engaged in it What types of loadings they experienced And be able to pull out these ideas That they were super fit, super healthy And they were really physically active But, and as Robert Germain and his colleagues have said It actually turns out it's a bit of a holy grail It tends to be something that's very difficult to find In fact, when I actually looked into the literature It felt a bit like it was doing this back at me Go There was a hunter in your father's smith on Avery For those of you who love Monty Python But it felt a bit like that I started looking into the literature And it was very, very difficult to actually draw anything out So, even, oh, gone too far ahead then Even two decades ago Researchers were saying that there's no clear physical activity pattern Or level that's specific to extinct hunter-gatherer populations It varies massively by geography It varies massively by culture Massively by technological advancement We tend to find that even in different populations Sometimes there is sexual dimorphism Sometimes there isn't Sometimes there is sexual division of labour Sometimes there isn't So it's difficult to draw out gender-specific recommendations Particularly from that What's interesting as well Is when you actually look at the skeletal remains The skeletal robusticity remains Musculoskeletal markers of loading We tend to see that actually Some studies show that hunter-gatherer populations Experience just as much physical loading As agricultural populations Some seem to experience more Indicating they're potentially more active But some actually experience less And also some studies indicate that There's not much of a difference Between hunter-gatherer populations And modern populations as well So it makes it very difficult To actually say that they were more physically active Also, it's really difficult to say What types or modes of exercise they're actually engaged in If you look at these exercise programs Given out by the paleo-fitness experts They typically involved primal movement patterns We don't know what they were If we actually look at the studies The musculoskeletal stress markers that we look at Which we would hope indicate What types of loading they experience Don't always tie up with cultural remains They don't always tie up With the types of technology we find with them So it's very difficult to say That they were actually engaged In one particular set of activities Or one particular type of activity Because the two don't tie up Another interesting point as well is That when you look into some of the sports medicine literature Over the last few years We've started to look at different types of Changes in skeletal geometry In response to different types of loading patterns So they've compared like sprinters, endurance runners Hockey players to try and differentiate Between the types of skeletal geometry That we see in those engaged in endurance running Those engaged in intermittent sprinting Or activities that involve change of direction And some studies show that there are good correlations Between certain types of skeletal geometry And these activities But then others don't support that link as well So it makes it very difficult to look back At the early human populations And say well they must have been endurance running Or they must have been doing interval training Or well not training But they must have been intermittently sprinting And so on and so forth So were we engaged in the types of activities That we typically romantically associate With hunter-gatherers? Maybe, maybe not I don't know, should we be doing it? Maybe being a bit facetious We should be doing something like this Because I just love the wording in this study So I wanted to put the quote in here The study was looking at the skeletal lesions In a group of Neanderthals And interestingly the skeletal lesions In this group of Neanderthals Were very similar to those seen in rodeo riders So they concluded that the similarity To rodeo lesion distributions Suggests frequent close encounters With large ungulates unkindly disposed To the humans involved So maybe we should be doing a bit more rodeo writing Because clearly that's what we did Maybe not Okay I'm not going to read through that quote But if any of you are interested in doing A bit more reading around The folly of looking at this type of literature And trying to draw these types of conclusions Mayor and colleagues have a great review paper Talking about these limitations So it's well worth looking at One thing I will pull out though Of a big point Is that it's really difficult To look at skeletal remains And actually draw out What adult physical activity patterns were Because a lot of the time The skeletal remains we get And the types of geometry That we see in those skeletal remains Actually reflect childhood activity patterns During the formative years When the bones are far more susceptible To adapting to those types of stresses So it makes it even more difficult To actually draw out these patterns Okay what about our Extent hunter-gatherers So again I wanted to look at Extent hunter-gatherers Those that are still available to study Look at these variables And try and figure out What produces this This wonderful romantic notion Of the super fit, super healthy Hunter-gatherer, caveman, cavewoman Okay so let's start off Going through each of these variables So in terms of frequency Hunter-gatherer populations Do tend to be physically active On most days But when we talk about physical activity Like I said at the start I want to differentiate Between general or occupational physical activity And what we typically consider to be exercise And most of the physical activity That they engage in We wouldn't really look at And consider to be exercise Or at least of sufficient vigorousness Or intensity of effort To actually be considered exercise More like chores Imagine a day of housework Bit of hoovering Bit of ironing Maybe a bit of yard work Yard That sounds weird I should have said garden Sorry I'm British But that's typically What you tend to see in those studies I mean even if you subscribe To the idea that The males of hunter-gatherer populations Typically engage in endurance running Or persistence hunting type activities They typically I didn't even press that then They typically only involve themselves In exercise Or certainly endurance type exercise Maybe every three to five days When they were successful on their hunts It's more difficult to determine When they were unsuccessful But typically They were engaged in physical activity On most days Maybe more vigorous intensity activity Every few days or so Okay But what about the volume of that activity Okay so they were doing physical activity But how much of it were they actually doing Well as I've said We're bipedal And the types of walking patterns That you see in hunter-gatherer populations Typically allow them to expand their range They don't typically go for A walk and follow one route They tend to follow Random power law distributions When they're foraging To try and increase their range And maximize their yield In terms of foraging You typically find that Although if you look back At kind of the review articles By Lauren Corden and James O'Keefe And those guys They'll pull the magic number Or magic range of six kilometers To 16 kilometers a day It was the typical range for hunter-gatherers That tends to be based on Like one study in the Hadza When you look at other studies You typically see that actually They don't tend to move around Anywhere near as much as that Every few weeks or so They might move camp Or they might move on From the position they're in But typically Whatever location they're in They maybe only move Well certainly some populations Up to around two and a half miles Around that in terms of range They're not walking 16 kilometers a day As we typically were told By the academics Who are writing these articles If you look at the body of literature It tends to be highly variable In fact some studies show That they spend maybe 70 to 80 hours Of their waking day Just resting Sitting around Being sensory All the stuff that's killing us Apparently but somehow doesn't kill them It's a bit like the French paradox You know the French eat lots of saturated fat But they have low heart disease So obviously the saturated fat That we're eating is killing us But it's not killing them somehow It's probably the red wine For these guys it's probably the berries And other stuff that they eat Don't know Anyway So I decided and Greg was talking to me earlier about this He said I'm a cautious type I like to have data So what I did was I went to all the studies And I pulled out the data And I ran some stats on it myself So I went through And pulled out all of the articles That I could find That had actually recorded Physical activity levels i.e. the ratio of total energy expenditure To resting metabolic rate To look and actually compare Hunter-gatherer populations Agricultural populations And modern populations And also looked at comparing it To this paleolithic standard That Boyd Eaton and colleagues Actually kind of defined As a physical activity level Back in 2003 And hopefully this will be coming out In a paper that I've been invited to publish In Journal of Evolution and Health But when I ran the stats on it Although there were slight differences Between hunter-gatherer Agricultural populations And modern populations They're a little bit more active In terms of the physical activity levels Data that we can look at It's not significantly different You know Whether it's big enough To actually have a meaningful effect On their health and fitness I don't know But at least When we look at the data It's certainly not statistically significant What I think is more interesting Is actually the intensity Of activity that they're engaged in So one of the things That does seem to differ Between their populations And our populations Is the fact that actually They do spend some of their day Involved in very high intensity activity So when you look at the distribution Of the vigorousness Or the difficulty Or how hard the activity They're actually engaged in Across the course of a day You see that they spend Quite a lot of time Engaged in very sedentary Or light activities Certainly in the populations Looked at in these papers You see that the light grey At the bottom of the graphs Indicates that they spend A considerable portion of the day Sedentary or engaged in light activities Now this was really interesting As well though Is that when you differentiate Between day and night And men and women You might not be able To see it on the graph so much But at night The men are engaged in Maybe a few minutes Of very, very vigorous activity But not the women So I leave that to you guys To speculate as to what They might be doing I know what I think they might be doing They've gone out for an interval session In the middle of the night Of course But anyway We typically find that They spend a lot of time In some low intensity activity Or being very sedentary If you look at the average speeds At which they move around at Dr. Kim Hill's observations In the arty Men typically show that They were walking around At an average of about One and a half to three kilometers an hour Occasionally they would involve themselves In short bursts of sprinting Particularly when hunting or foraging But I mean 1.5 to 3 kilometers an hour That's a really slow stroll That's not even kind of average Walking speed for most populations nowadays That's taken it pretty easy I mean even when you look At the studies on persistence hunting The average speed at which they move at Is 6.1 kilometers an hour Now that's a bit of a root march But that's not a jog That's still walking Just at a pretty quick pace But what it indicates Is that they were probably involved In some high intensity activity And then a lot of low intensity Or sedentary type activity And even in children as well We see that in the child populations They spend a lot of time Engaged in very low intensity activity And then occasionally Very high intensity activity And this is what I think Might be missing from what Most modern populations are engaged in So what about the types and modalities Of exercise that they're engaged in So we know they were doing High intensity activity But what types of activity Were they engaged in To produce that high intensity So most of us think about The idea of a hunter-gatherer And again coming back to this idea That most in the kind of paleo-fitness sphere Recommend play, primal play All these kinds of things Very kind of unstructured Social type physical activity Studies that have looked At hunter-gatherer populations Do indicate that they do Engage in a lot of play But not play as we would Think about it Or certainly not play As in is recommended From these paleo-fitness guys So when you look at play You tend to see that the children Engage in a lot of physical Activity type play Running around the playground The types of things you see Kids doing in the school yard Playground school yard Doing it again, Americanisms But when you look at the adults The play they engage in Is more sat around, chatting Cracking jokes Playing pranks Being creative It's not physical activity play It's play in spirit So do we necessarily need To be structuring exercise Around this concept of play When even hunter-gatherers Own adult physical activity Patterns aren't structured Around this idea of Well unstructured play activity Now as I said They did engage in a lot Of random walking patterns But what we typically see Is most of that occurs Around the camp, the hut Some of it occurs When they go out foraging Or hunting But most of it occurs Around the home For use of a bare word Now out of interest I've actually been using A pedometer myself recently And it's interesting The number of steps I actually take Just walking around The house each day Sometimes before I leave For work Sometimes a crew 2,000 steps Just from walking Room to room Picking things up Into the kitchen Make a coffee Into the bathroom Brush my teeth Whatever We do spend a lot of time Walking around the house And that's typically where We accrue most of our Walking type physical activity It's surprising How much we actually accrue And the same applies For hunter-gatherers as well Most of their walking Is just around the camp Around the campsite Around the huts So on and so forth Running Did they run? Well we've got some evidence Of persistence hunting But then we've got Other populations Where the researchers Have never seen A single person In the tribe running So it's difficult to say We should be running Maybe we should I don't know if we can But should we be doing it? I mean if hunter-gatherers Don't do it if they don't Need to Should we be going out And racking up miles And miles around the block Each day? I don't know Obviously we do typically Get some kind of sexual Division of labour In terms of the types Of activities that men And women are engaged in But again that doesn't Mean we should take Those ideas and say Right the men For your exercise You should be chopping Wood The women You should be Making nets And baskets And those kinds of things In terms of exercise We don't necessarily Need to be making That type of distinction Okay so to kind of wrap up Some of the things that might Be affecting these physical Activity patterns though Typically one of the issues When we're looking at Extant hunter-gatherer populations Is that modernisation May have affected These types of things But actually interestingly When you look at the studies That have actually Assessed the degree Of modernisation's effect On physical activity patterns I.e. by looking at Education status Employment status in Hunter-gatherer populations That have been influenced By western populations You see that it doesn't seem To actually affect Their physical activity levels That much at all And I wonder whether That's maybe because Actually they're not that much Different from ours In the first place Now obviously the physical Activity levels and patterns That we see in hunter-gatherers Are going to be affected By occupation duration Habitat quality Hunting That type of thing as well Logistical mobility You know their actual Geography And we saw the same thing When we were looking at The extinct hunter-gatherer Remains as well But what I think Is really important Is the fact that Although we see these Divergent physical activity Patterns between different Populations I think the focus on Energy expenditure Or physical activity levels As they're calculated Is inappropriate Because although we see Similar physical activity patterns We get drastic differences In terms of the actual Physical activity patterns The modes of exercise And the types of activities That they're actually engaged in So again, I just think It's inappropriate to use them To actually draw Exercise recommendations Okay, so what can we conclude From this short review Of this evidence? In essence, there is no one Ancestral physical activity pattern So how can we draw A generalized recommendation For exercise from it? We can't It's very, very difficult To differentiate between What is an adaptation I.e. an evolutionary adaptation To enhance reproductive success Something that affects Our physical capacity And whether that has determined Whether we engage in A physical activity Or whether engaging In a physical activity That has produced Said physical adaptation It's very, very difficult To draw out those relationships And look at the direction Of them as well I.e. even studies have found That there's very low to moderate And certainly inconsistent Relationships between The actual physical activity levels That populations engage in And their actual physical fitness And that's looking At physical activity levels In terms of total energy Expenditure relative to Wrestling metabolic rate So looking at it From this energy Expenditure perspective, As I said Whether or not Our physical activity levels Changed because we got smarter Or we got smarter And thus changed Our physical activity levels Certainly in terms of endurance exercise There's the argument that The two kind of went hand in hand Our ability to endurance run Our ability to engage In these types of activities Like persistence hunting That's been argued Now, I thought Skyler Was going to give the same talk He was giving at AHS as well Where he talked about Resistance training And its effect on the brain So he's not, I've learned So I would urge you to go And look at his talk on YouTube as well Because he discusses the effects That even strength type exercise And resistance type exercise Can have on the brain as well And it's difficult to determine The relationship between the two When we look at extinct hunter-gatherers It's impossible to determine What their physical activity pound was And even when we look At extant hunter-gatherers There's drastic differences But I do think there are some Interpopulation similarities That we can draw from And then try and sympathise With what modern exercise physiology Suggests Okay, there we go So these are the current Evolutionary fitness recommendations From the most recent Academic articles on the topic From James O'Keeffe and colleagues Including Lauren Cordain So they generally tend to focus more On a low, high volume of low intensity Low to moderate intensity activity And you see this 6 to 16 kilometres a day Range that typically comes up That's been plugged out From one or two studies or so They undulate high intensity activity With that low intensity activity And there are other things That focus on the types And modes of exercise as well So lots of walking, running Using uneven surfaces Barefoot exercise This type of thing Including interval training sessions Resistance training sessions And so on and so forth But when you read through The specifics of these recommendations They tend to be very romanticised And focus on a caveman type Workout So in terms of resistance training Maybe we should be out flipping tyres Or picking up rocks Or banging a hammer on tyres And these types of things That you see in a lot of Crossfit workouts And that sort of thing Okay, so what I want to do then Is actually take some of the Recent research from Modern exercise physiology And see what elements Of the Evolutionary fitness recommendations Can be supported and what can't And what we can finally conclude In terms of some sort of Rational, sober set of recommendations Regarding all of this evidence So the question we're asking is Do the recommendations that have been made Actually agree with what Modern exercise physiology suggests Do the recommendations that have been pulled From this review of the literature Actually tie up with what we know From modern exercise physiology Is best for improving cardiovascular fitness Strength and hypertrophy These physical fitness outcomes That we know are very well correlated With all cause mortality Health and wellbeing Now the current public health guidelines Are obviously very focused on Volume of exercise And they come under heavy criticism As I said at the start Because what we're starting to see Is actually the intensity of effort Involved in the exercise Seems to be a more important component So if we recall All of those physical fitness measures Seem to be more associated with Reductions in all cause mortality And that higher intensity of effort Physical activity seems to be More associated with it also So what I think is We've been at fault focusing on This end of the spectrum In terms of exercise intensity of effort And what we should have been focusing on Is this end The brief high intensity type activity That seems to be far more supportive In terms of reducing All cause mortality and morbidity So we should have been focusing On the fact that actually Hunter gatherers typically engage In this Whereas previously we've been focusing More on the fact that they're more active Not the fact that actually They engage in some high quality Intent and high intensity of effort activity So what does the modern exercise Physiology say about this So in terms of cardiovascular fitness There is growing evidence that Intensity of exercise seems to be Very important for it We've all heard of high intensity Interval training The research seems to continually support That high intensity interval type training Can actually improve Cardiovascular fitness as much If not more than typical Endurance type activity It may not even be necessary To actually engage in interval type training Or over complicate the program Because one study has shown that actually Single sprint type exercise maximally Produces the same type of benefits As the interval training sessions do So do we even need to over complicate it For cardiovascular fitness The same seems to apply In terms of strength and hypertrophy as well Consistently the one variable that seems to be shown To be very important Is the intensity of effort So how hard you're actually training All the other variables might matter To some degree Volume frequency The exercises you choose And so on and so forth But they pale in comparison To the effect that high intensity of effort Exercise actually has on outcomes For strength and hypertrophy Now in terms of the recommendations For varying intensity And the frequency of exercise There does seem to be some support For this idea of auto-regulating The way in which you program Your exercise Periodization and Varying exercise activity And that sort of thing Will work better When it's actually individualized To the person and their context So there's some support for that And shock horror as well The mode of exercise Doesn't even seem to be important And I'll touch on that briefly now So do we really need to be performing The same types of activities That hunter-gatherers typically engage in Should we actually be emulating hunter-gatherers In terms of producing physical fitness outcomes Now skill versus fitness Is something that's been discussed In the exercise physiology And strength and conditioning literature For a long time And it's even debated Within the studies Looking at hunter-gatherer populations Particularly pertaining to hunting ability And that sort of thing So there are some studies That show that fitness Actually improves hunting ability Or at least is correlated with it So upper body strength Seems to predict hunting ability In certain populations Strength significantly predicts Artury accuracy In hunter-gatherer populations That use bow and arrow But we also see that practice Seems to be more important for them So although, yeah, those strength And seems to be associated With hunting ability We don't know what the direction Of causality is there as well But we also actually see that It's more likely that practice Makes perfect in these populations And for them They need to engage in those activities For their survival So do we really need to be emulating Those activities When we don't need to be performing them For our daily survival? So what I want to question is Whether or not statements like Machines are bad Because they don't emulate Natural movements Is a valid statement or argument to make As a counter, I would say My colleague James Fisher has shown that Training your lumber extensors in isolation Using a very sophisticated modern machine Actually improves deadlift performance Deadlift, picking up Something heavy from the floor Couldn't be a more, you know Couldn't possibly be a more Primal natural movement pattern But doing a very modern type of exercise Seems to improve that just as much So the argument that we should be Actually emulating hunter-gatherer Physical activity patterns I think is a moot point I don't think there's very Strong evidence for it There's certainly very little evidence That engaging in those activities Will actually transfer to other Skills and motor abilities as well As we've shown in recent review papers as well So unless you actually Somehow for some reason need to Go out and pick up a bison Butcher it, hunt, whatever All these sorts of things for your daily Activities and physical survival I mean, does any of you guys live Within a hunter-gatherer tribe? No So do you fit up, Ben? Of course, you know There's always got to be one See me after class So this is my point Unless you actually need to engage In those skills You don't need to practice those skills And this ties up with What modern exercise physiology is starting to show As well That when we're looking at these physical fitness outcomes The ones that seem to be very important in terms of Reducing all cause mortality and morbidity Modality doesn't even matter I mean, recent work from us And something I gave a talk on at the 2012 21 convention in London Shows that the resistance aerobic training Diacotomy as it's typically presented The idea that aerobic endurance type activity Improves your cardiovascular fitness But resistance training improves strength and hypertrophy And the two don't provide You know, crossover benefits We've started to show that actually That's a false dichotomy Because as long as resistance training Intensity of effort is high enough You see improvements in factors like VO2 max, running economy and so on And so forth Typical cardiovascular fitness parameters But interestingly as well If endurance type exercise Or typical endurance type modalities Like cycling If that's performed to a high intensity of effort Then recent studies actually show that Strength and hypertrophy improves from that as well To just as much as traditional resistance training So the idea that modality is even important Is just a moot point as well Your muscles don't know what they're actually Contracting against As long as they're contracting intensely enough Then the benefits seem to come So modality and thus the external resistance type The actual type of physical activity you're engaging Doesn't seem to matter for physical fitness Now, a final point In terms of actually engaging in types And modalities of exercise So we've highlighted that It doesn't seem to matter for physical fitness We've highlighted that Unless you're actually a hunter-gatherer You don't need to be engaging In hunter-gatherer type activities But that shouldn't mean that Can't blanch, you just pick whatever exercise you want What you need to do is Consider other factors as well And injury risk is a very important factor to consider Because certain types of exercise Have higher injury risks than others I'm sure Bill will be providing a great presentation On whatever day it is he's presenting Regarding some of the risks associated With certain resistance training practices Now, what I want to highlight is that There are certain exercise modes And types of activities That inherently have higher risks than others So for example, endurance running Now it doesn't matter whether you Forefoot strike or rear foot strike Or whether you're barefoot or whatever There seems to be a high risk of injury From engaging in endurance running Okay, yeah, we'll improve your physical fitness If you enjoy it, great, do it But when you're making these types of decisions You need to weigh up the risk to reward ratio Crossfit, pretend I didn't say that again But recent studies that have looked at crossfit Have shown that the injury rates in them are extremely high And what's even worse is not only are the risks high But the actual severity of the potential injuries Are very high as well Because when we're looking at injury risk in exercise Which you can be considering Not only the prevalence of the injuries But also the types of injuries that are sustained as well In the studies that have looked at crossfit 7% required surgical intervention I don't know about you But exercise is supposed to make you fit and healthy Not put you in the hospital When you look at resistance training injuries as well Because resistance training doesn't get a free ride Just because endurance running produces a lot of injuries Typically, endurance resistance training type injuries Tend to stem from free weights And typically from people dropping free weights on them So yeah, okay So using a machine or using a barbell Doesn't seem to provide any differences In terms of strength or hypertrophy But if you drop one on you It's probably going to hurt you a lot more So you need to consider what the risks and rewards Associated with those types of things are Engaging in certain types of resistance training activity As well as important to consider Olympic weightlifters in the 2012 and 2008 Olympic Games They had a one in six chance of getting an injury Whilst performing Olympic type lifts And you've got to consider These guys are the best in the world at this And they still get injured one in six times It's important to consider these things guys Okay, so let's wrap it up And let's draw some conclusions and make some recommendations So as I said, evolutionary fitness Or paleo fitness is massively popular at the moment And one of the purposes of this talk Was to try and get you guys to think a bit critically about it In case you've been influenced by it And are thinking about maybe trying it And that sort of thing Up until now the recommendations have typically relied On suggestions that physical activity adaptations Should dictate what types of exercise we're engaged in And I think that's a bit premature based on the research That we've reviewed here Also the fact that physical activity patterns In hunter-gatherer populations are so divergent And the fact that we can't actually draw out What the physical activity patterns Of extinct hunter-gatherer populations were So we can't even make recommendations Based on that information because it doesn't exist So historically this focus has been on volume Of physical activity But as I've said, I think the intensity Or the quality of the exercise that you're performing Is far more important It seems to be the most significant controllable Variable to determine those physical fitness outcomes That we were talking about at the start So to draw some recommendations in I'm going to provide some very general recommendations here What can you do? So one, you should select a mode of exercise Based on your personal preference If we're just considering the physical fitness outcomes Because as long as it's intense enough It doesn't seem to matter what mode of exercise You're engaging in So choose it based on your personal preference Or choose it based on your sporting requirement If you're an athlete But you need to consider on an individual basis The risk-reward ratio associated with those types of activities It doesn't matter what you do in terms of getting fit But if you're more likely to get injured Doing that activity Only you can make the decision as to whether or not It's worth engaging in it Two, focus on utilizing a high intensity of effort During your exercise That seems to be the most important factor Don't worry too much about volume or frequency Auto-regulate what you're doing Train hard and you will get the benefits And then kick back, relax Don't worry too much about being sedentary the rest of the time Because funnily enough We've got groups of healthy, fit, low disease rates In hunter-gatherer populations Other primate species Just a lot of time sitting around Not really doing a lot So I wouldn't worry too much about overblown claims Regarding the effects of being sedentary Thank you very much for listening, guys If anyone's got any questions, I'd be glad to take them Alright, let's give it up for James Steele Hey, James Hey Is there any actual evidence that compound exercises Are produced muscles that are more adapted to competitive sports? Sorry, let me just repeat that Is there any evidence that compound exercises Produce greater sporting performance improvements Than other exercises? In a word, no, not particularly If you, as I said, when we actually look at The idea of training particular motor skills That transfer over to other motor skills Okay, what you've got to consider is that The adaptations that will occur in the muscular chair In response to the exercises that you're performing That's what's going to actually transfer over The ability to squat more is only going to be useful If you're actually a power lifter So the skill associated with those types of movements Are useful in sports that involve those types of movements But squatting a barbell Is not exactly the same as sprinting Or engaging in any other kind of skill That although it may involve that kind of triple extension That the NSCA is so far off Doesn't necessarily mean that there will be Performance improvements resulting from that as well It's also very hard to actually define Sporting performance and actually research it And study it, we can only really look at Kind of surrogate markers of performance Like sprint speed, vertical jump height Those types of things as well And there doesn't seem to be that much evidence That there's a transfer of skill From performing a certain type of exercise to another There seems to just be a general benefit Of strengthening and producing hypertrophy And the muscle that you're involved in those Types of movements The only ways to produce more Better muscles for sport Are just to play the sport And otherwise you can do just any exercise to What I'm saying is you need to differentiate The skill conditioning associated with the sport So getting better at the sport As opposed to the physical conditioning And producing a more robust physiology To then take part in that sport So the idea of trying to create sport specific Type activities in your training Is a bit folly because all you're doing is Training a motor skill pattern that is Actually irrelevant for your sport Because although it's superficially similar It's not similar enough or it's not the same Such that the motor skills will actually Transfer over to that sport You're better off producing an improved Physiological fitness to then go and practice The skills involved in that sport And that may involve compound exercises That's fine but there's no real evidence In my opinion that actually supports Them being better than doing any other Kind of strengthening I hope that answers the question Yeah I have a question about It's really popular now the sitting Is killing us and stuff like that Could you cover that because they're Making tables now that stand up Disclaimer I do actually stand at work I don't typically sit but that's mainly Because also I tend to walk around a lot Of work anyway I'm actually in the process of Considering what my presentation For a conference next year is going to be And one of the things I want to do is Perform a more rigorous review of The claims regarding sitting time And it killing you From what I can tell from the literature It seems to be that there's been Very poor efforts to kind of Control other confounding factors That might be associated with sitting So people who typically spend a lot of time Sitting typically engage in Other unhealthy activities as well So their diet's probably bad They probably don't do any exercise They probably they might smoke Or they might have other psychosocial Factors that might be influencing it as well So one of the things I'd like to do Is spend a bit more time going into the literature To try and draw out what the real Between sitting and all cause mortality is So looking at those hard kind of end points Rather than looking at surrogate markers as well But I'm certainly not convinced At the moment that sitting is killing you There seems to be a lot of evidence Counter to it as well when we consider things Like the populations we've looked at here They do spend a fair amount of time sitting And that doesn't seem to have Much of a negative effect on them There may be some you know Other effects in terms of There may be some bad effects of it That counter some of the beneficial effects Of my more higher intensity effort exercise But I'm not 100% convinced of that as of yet I have another question So if you do if you go to gym What's better isolation exercise Because you covered that or full body exercises And also after those high intensity Trainings you've had That's the best Okay well In terms of compound versus isolation exercises That's a very broad topic and it's a very broad question Because it's specific to the musculature That you're actually looking to train So the studies that have looked at comparing Compound and isolation exercises for For example changes in upper limb strength And hypertrophy so bicep tricep hypertrophy Haven't really found much of a difference In terms of compound and isolation exercises So in terms of upper body exercise It seems that you can get the same benefits From doing compound pressing movements And compound pulling movements Without the inclusion of isolation movements as well Now obviously you've got to consider that the studies Are always only 10 to 12 weeks in length So whether or not it will make a difference Over the long term it's more difficult to say But certainly there doesn't seem to be Any specific benefit there But contrastingly in my kind of specific area Of research actually relates to the lower back And lumbar extension type training Has to be an area that does benefit From isolation type work And it's very difficult to train using compound work So for example deadlift type training Doesn't seem to have much of an effect On the lumbar extensor musculature specifically Whereas isolating them using specific equipment Tends to have a more beneficial effect So it's a question that has different answers Depending upon what muscles you're talking about And supplements My advice is always I always send people to the same place And I don't know whether I can say this up here or not But typically I always Stick to looking at examine.com for that I'm not an expert at nutrition or supplementation So I wouldn't want to step outside of my bounds But typically if you want to know what I take I take creatine, whey protein and vitamin D And that's about it There seem to be the only things that are Consistently supported by the research One more question because we're just about out of time Hey, thanks James If James was trying to increase his VO2 max What would his weekly training look like? James is in me Yeah Right, okay That's an interesting question Because I could increase my VO2 max By considering the specific protocol of the test That I was using And like I say actually improving my skill in that test So if I was doing a treadmill test I could spend some time practicing the treadmill test Now if I was interested in just looking at Physiological changes I could make to produce that I would be engaging in Specific training for the musculature involved In that type of test So I would be engaging in Say I was doing a treadmill VO2 max I would be doing high intensity type resistance training Training my lower body musculature to failure And doing some running alongside it as well Because obviously there is skill involvement Involved in that as well The idea of improving VO2 max is It's funny I've just been teaching sessions on this Over the last few weeks for my second year Physiology students It's a concept that Although it's very difficult to define And actually test properly VO2 max You can test Max more oxygen consumption under certain conditions And it's making sure that The test that you're performing is obviously replicable So it depends on the test you're performing If you just want to improve it and demonstrate You can improve it Then there's a way of doing that But if you look at the literature There seems to be sufficient evidence To suggest that actually Just training the musculature involved In that intensely enough Seems to produce the physiological adaptations That catalyze improvements In that physiological fitness outcome So as we showed in the paper That I gave the presentation on a couple of years ago The few studies that have compared For example resistance training And aerobic type training On VO2 max Seem to show that there's very little difference In terms of the outcomes Assuming they're both performed The intensity of effort is controlled in them So for example resistance training is performed to failure Whereas the studies that haven't done that Don't show that And in terms of the physiological adaptations That catalyze that You see that obviously Both modes of exercise Assuming the intensity of effort is high enough Produce improvements in mitochondrial biogenesis So increased mitochondrial volume Increased mitochondrial enzyme activity Increases in capillarization So more blood flow to the local musculature And so on and so forth So my training would be Essentially resistance training to failure Because that's the training mode that I prefer But I would imagine I would get the same benefits From doing for example high intensity interval training As I would from doing that It's just that I prefer the strength training Because like I said in the presentation I consider the injury risk to reward ratio Of engaging that as well And I feel I'm far less likely to injure myself Training doing resistance training Than I am doing running Let's give it up for James Steele We've got a ton more questions for him But we're going to have to answer those outside Because we still got two more speakers today And some good stuff Awesome, awesome Thanks Dave, thanks guys