Summary of Daniel Lieberman's Exercised

By IRB Media

Please note: This is a companion version & not the original book. Book Preview:

#1 The Ironman World Championship is a legendary test of endurance that takes place in the paradisiacal setting of Kona, Hawaii. It is the equivalent of swimming 77 lengths of an Olympic-sized pool. Many of the triathletes look apprehensive as they wait for the starting gun, but their spirits are buoyed by a band of Hawaiian drummers and thousands of cheering spectators.

#2 I watch the elite triathletes jump off their bikes, lace on running shoes, and then head off on foot to begin their 26. 2-mile run along the coast. The most dramatic finishes occur at midnight as the seventeen-hour deadline approaches.

#3 I flew to Mexico to meet with Tarahumara Native Americans, famous for their long-distance running. I had heard that they were a secret tribe of ultra-healthy superathletes, but when I met them, I didn’t see any running. Many of them were overweight or had paunches.

#4 What I observed at Ironman was bizarre, and I began to question the sanity of my own efforts to train for a marathon. I had heard and read numerous accounts about how Tarahumara men and women have their own Ironman-like competitions, but I had never seen any Tarahumara running on their own.

• Language: English
• Publisher: IRB Media
• Release date: Apr 22, 2022
• ISBN: 9781669392231

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Insights on Daniel Lieberman's Exercised

Contents

Insights from Chapter 1

Insights from Chapter 2

Insights from Chapter 3

Insights from Chapter 4

Insights from Chapter 5

Insights from Chapter 1

#1

The Ironman World Championship is a legendary test of endurance that takes place in the paradisiacal setting of Kona, Hawaii. It is the equivalent of swimming 77 lengths of an Olympic-sized pool. Many of the triathletes look apprehensive as they wait for the starting gun, but their spirits are buoyed by a band of Hawaiian drummers and thousands of cheering spectators.

#2

I watch the elite triathletes jump off their bikes, lace on running shoes, and then head off on foot to begin their 26. 2-mile run along the coast. The most dramatic finishes occur at midnight as the seventeen-hour deadline approaches.

#3

I flew to Mexico to meet with Tarahumara Native Americans, famous for their long-distance running. I had heard that they were a secret tribe of ultra-healthy superathletes, but when I met them, I didn’t see any running. Many of them were overweight or had paunches.

#4

What I observed at Ironman was bizarre, and I began to question the sanity of my own efforts to train for a marathon. I had heard and read numerous accounts about how Tarahumara men and women have their own Ironman-like competitions, but I had never seen any Tarahumara running on their own.

#5

I met Ernesto, and witnessed a traditional Tarahumara rarájipari footrace. The race involved two teams of men, eight on each side. The first team to complete fifteen circuits or to lap the other won.

#6

The Tarahumara race is similar to the Ironman competition in that it is a simple community event that is part of an ancient tradition. While there are no trophies or prizes for the winners, the race is a serious competition.

#7

The theory of the natural human states that humans who live in a savage state of nature are uncorrupted by civilization. This theory has been warped into many forms, including the myth of the noble savage, which states that nonwesternized people are naturally good and decent.

#8

The myth of the athletic savage states that humans can easily run ultramarathons, scale enormous mountains, and perform other seemingly superhuman feats without training. However, nearly every day of their lives, hunter-gatherers and subsistence farmers engage in hours of hard physical work.

#9

The myth of the athletic savage implies that running an ultramarathon or performing other feats of extraordinary athleticism is somehow effortless for the Tarahumara and other indigenous peoples compared with Westerners.

#10

To truly understand what normal humans do and think about exercise, we must study people from a variety of cultures, not just Americans and Europeans who are, comparatively speaking, WEIRD.

#11

The Hadza are a group of hunter-gatherers living in Tanzania. They have been studied extensively, and many things have been learned about their way of life. However, many of these studies have ignored the degree to which the Hadza’s way of life is changing as a result of contact with the outside world.

#12

The Hadza are a group of hunter-gatherers who are very active. They spend only three hours and forty minutes a day doing light activities, and two hours and fourteen minutes a day doing moderate or vigorous activities.

#13

The typical human workday used to be about seven hours, with