In "Born to Run", author Christopher McDougal spends a chapter describing the hunting strategies of early hominids. Early man is commonly thought to be Neanderthal, a species that was similar to Homo sapiens in that it walked upright. Neanderthal man was beastly in size. It had stronger bones, a hulking structure, a larger brain, and bigger muscles. However, it competed in parallel with (and eventually lost to) Homo sapiens, which was much smaller and nimbler. McDougal poses the question, if Neanderthal was so much bigger and stronger, how did its smaller, weaker fellow hominid actually win out long-term?
The answer apparently lies in their hunting techniques. Neanderthal was stronger, so it could certainly stand up to some of the beastly mammoths and cats that were hunting them. They also had bigger brains, meaning they were likely better at eluding the bigger beasts. Homo sapiens, on the other hand, had the advantage of speed and a light frames. By now, you should be making the connection between Homo sapiens and runners, Neanderthal and linebackers.
Although Homo sapiens couldn't take down the bigger beasts, they could in fact chase down smaller prey because of their lighter, nimble frames. Think about the deer that you saw in your yard as a kid growing up (assuming you lived in the northern top half of the United States). There's no WAY you could catch it even if you were Usain Bolt! However, when a deer sprints, it simply dashes through the brush out of earshot, then stops to catch its breath. If it's spooked again, it would sprint for another 50-100 yards then stop to catch its breath again. If you continued to chase it for several miles at a jog, however, you might actually be able to outrun the damn thing. Applying this concept to stone-age Homo sapiens, you could imagine a group of nimble, little hunters jogging patiently behind a pack of antelope until one is sequestered from the pack. The hunters continue to jog after it, forcing the antelope try to keep up its pace. But the antelope wasn't designed to run long distances, just short sprints. Eventually, the hunters, who were designed for distance running, come across an antelope that has literally fallen over with exhaustion, and they kill it. This is what Dr. Dan Lieberman, an evolutionary biologist, proposes in McDougal's book.
This seems like very rational logic to defend our tendency to go out and run for hours for the sake of fitness. But there's a problem with this, and it didn't occur to me until I listened to a recent EconTalk podcast. Russ Roberts interviewed Art De Vany, an economist and a generally thoughtful guy about evolutionary fitness, about his opposition to the current running trend.
Now, before I go any further, I want to point out the obvious elephant in the room. Yes, I'm about to try to bring into question the hypothesis of a very reputable SCIENTIST, and defend the theory of a guy that works out independently and has (at least from what I get from his website) zero credentials as any form of scientist. However, De Vaney looks like a million bucks and he's 72. Plus, his argument is extremely logical, as are most arguments made by economists.
De Vaney's theory stems from Lieberman's hunting hypothesis, only he describes the runners as sprinters rather than joggers. They were more fit than bigger, bulkier Neanderthal because they were constantly challenging their hearts and muscles to move faster multi-dimensionally. When you think back to the hunting picture created by Lieberman, it seems unlikely that a bunch of paleolithic hunters are running after a pack of antelope, casually strolling along at a constant eight-minute-mile pace, keeping their prey within eye-sight for miles at a time until finally stumbling upon the exhausted animal, killing it, maybe sitting down to squeeze in a deep groin stretch, then carrying their booty back to the village.
My vision is very different. Instead, I picture a group of nimble, little hunters taking off into a pack of antelope until one is sequestered and running in a different direction from its brethren. The hunters then sprint in various directions to keep the antelope running in a generally straight direction. They would be strategically ducking, crawling, sprinting, strafing, side-shuffling in addition to jogging in order to prevent the animal's escape around their advance. An aerial shot would look much like it does when you try to catch your puppy who is running around the yard like a maniac. Each member of your family takes a post in a semi-circle, and you shift your positions accordingly as you close in on the frisky pup so that the dog can't escape.
This seems like a more accurate description of how a paleolithic Homo sapiens hunter could chase down an antelope. Rather than maintaining a generally slow pace for miles, such a hunter would be doing very dynamic movements, both linearly and laterally, at varying speeds throughout the hunt. Logically, De Vaney's hypothesis makes better sense than Lieberman's.
So, looking at the running industry, it is silly to continue to beat ourselves up for hours per week jogging gracefully through the park. The fittest hunters were those that could move dynamically, not constantly in a straight line until a desired mileage was obtained five days per week. Evolutionary fitness - the specialty of both Lieberman and De Vaney - can tell us a lot about how we got to where we are as a species, so why not respect what has worked to help us knock species like Neanderthal?
Not only has it helped us in life's survival of the fittest, it's also clear that faster, more intense, but shorter workouts are better for our bodies than slow, boring, knee-agitating long runs if you have ever worn a heart rate monitor during one of your long runs. I use the Garmin 310XT, because it's superb to all others on the market! Actually...it's the only one I've ever used, so I don't care if you think it's great or not. It cost me one and a half fingers to buy it, so I'm shamelessly plugging away! I digress. Looking at my data output, I notice that my heart rate climbs steadily for the first few miles of a 20-miler, then it slowly falls to maybe around 150bpm, and it stays there for the remainder of my run. I could run at this heart rate for hours on end without fatiguing. On the other hand, I could run one-mile repeats, and it would leave me feeling like I was hit by a semi traveling 80mph down I-279. Some of my Crossfit workouts, which can take as little as 5 minutes, make me feel like vomiting, while 2-hour runs have become annoyingly easy and simply leave my knees hurting. Crossfit, track workouts, and hill runs are shorter, yet they make me work much harder. Forcing your body to work harder than it's accustomed to leads to fitness gains. We didn't win in the evolutionary race because we were joggers, we won because we were better able to deliver three-dimensional motion and fast- and slow-twitch muscle response.
I'm not trying to bash the running industry, necessarily. I work at Fleet Feet Sports Pittsburgh, the city's best running specialty store and part of one of the United States' most-renowned running specialty chains. Some exercise is better than no exercise, but the weight-loss potential, joint-saving, energy-boosting, and time-saving benefits of short, yet intense exercise shouldn't go unheeded.
Don't believe me? Head down to your local Crossfit gym for a WOD or over to your local track and bust out five 800m sprints and you'll see what I'm talking about. Save the slow stuff for recovery.
Come, come children! Antelope soup for dinner!
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