Gentle exercise

'Gentle exercise' is mentioned almost daily in the press and its advocates are everywhere, especially where there is money to be had promoting food, clothing, heart rate monitors, gizmos and services to people who have never exercised since their childhood, who have not yet learned that money can't buy them health and fitness if they don't also work at it and work darned hard.

Why do people advocate gentle exercise?
Gentle exercise may be preferable to no exercise - sedentism - and may have a useful role in early rehabilitation from illness and injury, especially for restoring balance, motor skills and dexterity.  Beyond that, those who advocate it should be viewed with suspicion; ask what the motives of the 'gentle exercise' brigade might be.  This is not to say there is any need to distrust the gentle exercise advocate; their motivations are often good.  What concerns me is that their motivations are not always stated honestly and up front.  Here are some possible motivations:

Gentle exercise is not likely to injure you, so anyone can take it up with little health risk.  That is, people without skills, knowledge, training or expertise can promote their own relatively useless idea with little chance of their ignorance being found out

Gentle exercise can be advocated as a benign 'thin end of the wedge' to encourage the sedentary subject to start moving, with the hope that the subject will, somehow, progress in some unconscious, non-deliberate way to greater health and fitness

Gentle exercise unimaginable in the Paleolithic
Gentle exercise is almost impossible to imagine in all but modern societies or in the wealthy leisured elite in historical societies.  People have always sought to fulfil their basic needs with the minimum of effort: tools, labour saving devices, compelling others to do the work for you have been the hallmark of 'civilization'. 

Here is a thought experiment:  If your car has a flat battery and you need to push-start it, do you push it gently?  If you need to move a heavy piece of furniture, do you try to do so gently?  If you have purchased a little more shopping than usual and decide you will try to carry it without assistance, do you exert yourself gently, or do you brace yourself and give it your best shot?  In all cases, 'gentle' won't cut it.  strenuous work requires non-gentle effort or a device to magnify your power or strength.  You call on others to help push the car or you tow it; you call on others to help with the furniture, devise a sled or use a trolley; shoppers borrow a trolley or resort to the delivery service. 

The same applies to physical work in prehistoric or hunter-gatherer times: if work was demanding, you threw your all into it.  If it was not demanding, you added to it until it became demanding by doing two things at once (minded children while foraging, talked or sang while you prepared a meal, wove a grass bag while you walked to gather fruit, carried twice the load if carrying one was 'gentle' work) or you passed the task on to someone else who had only a 'gentle' load, leaving you free for complete leisure or to take on more demanding, un-gentle work close to your physical or mental limit.

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