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The human race over time has become, as a whole, less and less active. It’s human nature, we are as a whole naturally lazy, our minds and bodies want any activity we have to do on a regular basis as easy as possible. We evolve and progress over time. It’s the main reason we are the top of the food chain. We figure out new and inventive ways to make our life easier, less physically, mentally and emotionally demanding. Accordingly as we have made these advancements and our daily lives easier our general physiques and physical readiness of our bodies has naturally followed suit. Our bodies have regressed in physicality to match the lower demands we place on them. Today we in general are obese slobs who get the majority of their activity on a couch or at a desk pushing buttons. Even the so called blue collar working class is largely now mechanized so even those who do work “manual labor” are a shadow of those in days past. Follow this lineage back in time to the industrial era, the agricultural boom, the advent of gun powder, the iron age, and early history of cave men throwing rocks and building houses with their bare hands. For each step back the general physique, athleticism, and physical condition of the population as a whole goes UP. Interestingly independent of the poor nutrition, lack of medical advancements, and housing of the time. Just think what could be created if the two were some how merged. One can take this same evolutionary lineage to identify the hierarchy of training disciplines. The more advanced, condensed, and mechanized the training, The less effective the results. The Training Devolution Hierarchy
Staring at the bottom rung you have the average couch potato. You then progress to the infomercial sheeple looking for the next magic contraption or pill that allows the least amount of non daunting work to keep them in “shape.” Next you have the aerobics junkies who spend mindless hours on a treadmill, jogging, or whom consider walking a great form of overall training. Then come the exercisers who go to the gym and bounce from machine to machine, pounding out rep after rep in search of the “burn.” Plugging away on machines that allow work, but work in a uniquely comfortable and less way effective way. The devolution continues to a precious few who venture into free weight training. More effective, but largely still blinded by the latest fad, gimmick or personal trainer. They are made to grind out slow reps, standing atop a bosu ball, with their eyes closed making a some what effective exercise unsafe, less effective and more painful. Of these a few then escape and transition to actual training. Athletes and the like who adopt multi-joint compound exercises with the most simple and effective equipment. Squatting, pressing, deadlifting, cleaning, snatching, and throwing big weights in a fashion that has them defeating the task at hand, not the task defeating them. Lastly in the devolution process I would add those who get really primal, and move on to training with things that arent designed at all for a person to “exercise” or lift. Training with things like rocks, trucks, logs, big tires etc…Strongman types events that command the body to be used as a whole as the great machine is it. With each recession the training and equipment become more and more simplistic, yet they demand more form our bodies. Simple activity demanding that our bodily response become more complex. We have to recruit more and more of our body in a powerful and explosive fashion just to complete the simple task at hand. In return the payback from each simple repetition creates the stimulus for greater bodily adaptation and potential progress. You need more proof simply take a look at each group as a “WHOLE” who take part in the various training methods. I guarantee you as you move down the line from couch potato, to exerciser, to competitive lifters and those who work hard manual labor or lift odd, heavy, and/or demanding things on a regular basis the physiques, as well as their general physical condition and athleticism, rise dramatically.
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