did people exercise in the middle ages? 5th-15th centuries?

Screech wrote:

Well there was Yoga.

And Henry the VIII did Crossfit and banged a lot of chicks.

That guy either divorced or cut off the head of four of his six wives.

People in 5th-15th centuries already had to be so healthy to survive diseases and starvation, that they didn't need to exercise additionally.

Exercise physiologist wrote:

I am pretty sure they did Bowflex.

+1.

Doubt it. For most of history being fat was a status symbol. Poor people would have already been fit from their physically intensive jobs and rich people wouldn't have wanted to look like poor people.

Bill Dellinger worked in a lumber mill while training for Tokyo. He looked at it as training.

Peter Elliott is the "bluest"-collar worker I've ever heard of.

As he looks back in his days in athletics now, Elliott clearly draws satisfaction from the way he managed to achieve top level success while holding down a physically demanding full-time job. "I trained twice a day, which meant getting up at 5.30 in the morning and then training in the dark after work. It was a hard manual job too. But while I was at British Steel I reached the 1984 Olympic semi-final and won Commonwealth bronze in 1986 and a world silver in 1987."

Is this handle a Name of the Wind reference?

St. Ignatius of Antioch wrote:

Your name, broken arrow, reminds me that some in the Middle Ages suffered from fallen arches. Oh... I mean were felled by archers.

Awful.

Not everyone who lived way back then lived in Europe. There were many people all around the world who lived what we call very primitive existence. It wasn't all manors and castles and straw huts.

Wtfunny wrote:

Not everyone who lived way back then lived in Europe. There were many people all around the world who lived what we call very primitive existence. It wasn't all manors and castles and straw huts.

You are very "worldly."

Reddit actually has a thread on this subject, and it's very interesting:

https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/2h2kwv/did_medieval_exercise_include_pushups_or_situps/

The relevant point is, Yes, the subset of people training to be warriors most certainly did exercise, but all the exercises were designed to help them become better warriors. Serfs, people who worked in the fields, got their exercise at work.

Knowing this history, knowing the way in which exercise is historically connected with becoming a better warrior, might help us think more clearly about the way that WE train in the contemporary world. The idea of the training camp, for example: I suspect that it derives from the idea of gathering warriors-in-training together in one place, away from the town's distractions, away from women, in a somewhat monastic environment wholly focused on the matter at hand.

Kipchoge seems to have trained in this sort of environment.

Screech wrote:

Blah Blah. wrote:

I have worked at a working class factory job and we would consider doing "exercise" while off work as being laughable.

"Exercise" was an invention of the leisure class. People in the middle ages worked for a living.

You are correct, Sir. I had a factory job one summer in college and the thought of a six miler after work was, indeed laughable after being on my feet on con rete for nine hours.

Also people died by age 35 or so so no need to plan for retirement.

Henry the 8 the also did burpees after dinner.

I have a running buddy who does physical work outside in the hot sun where it routinely gets up to about a 100 degrees. Sometimes he might work a jackhammer all day long. I am amazed he has the energy to get off work and the come out for a run, often doing track workouts.

Something else to think about: calories. We Americans now live in a world in which cheap calories--corn and sugars, wheat, etc.--are easily available. We don't have to go hungry. But in the middle ages, starvation was a real possibility. "Exercise" burns lots of calories, and the activities you're engaged in aren't productive. So in a sense, it most certainly DID take a man of leisure, a man who not only didn't have to work in the fields but had enough gold to amasss needed calories, to "indulge" in exercise for the sake of exercise--or, in this case, for the sake of training.

Remember, armies were fed in one of two ways: either a rich nobleman or King provided them with calories, or else they sacked towns and lived off the land--stealing and roasting farm animals, for example.

Calories were an issue for everybody back then.

Occasionally, of course, starving armies could exhibit unusual valor--the Confederate Army, towards the end, being the best example.

We're so used to having our caloric needs effortlessly met that we don't think about all this stuff.

The distinction between warriors and serfs wasn't always as clear cut as you might think.

There were several centuries where the British "serfs" trained with the bow every day from the time they were about 6 years old. A Lord who had a bunch of good archers as opposed to just knights and cannon fodder serfs, had a much more powerful army. Most any serf could pull a bow for hunting but in order to pull the huge war bows that could send metal tipped arrows far enough to get off a dozen shots while horses rode at them at full speed took strength that had to be built over years. Not sure that is exactly exercise though.

Food for thought.

Exercise was something forced upon people rather than by choice. Things like running away from dinosaurs and hunting mammoths were physically taxing

HRE wrote:

malmo wrote:

Bill Dellinger worked in a lumber mill while training for Tokyo. He looked at it as training.

Fred Norris worked in a coal mine. Arjan Gelling worked in a lumber mill prior to the Canadian OT 10,000 in 1968. Derek Turnbull was a farmer. Jim Hogan was a gardener. Jim Alder installed dry wall. Bill Adcocks was a pipe fitter. Paul Ballinger was a chicken farmer.

Nick Rose was an inspector at a Cadbury factory (see I Love Lucy, episode 147), before Western zKentucky, Alf Tupper worked at a munitions factory, Seb Coe was a Welsh collier, Andy Capp, once a promising cross country man, retired to his couch, Tcchhh, Pet.

KudzuRunner wrote:

The idea of the training camp, for example: I suspect that it derives from the idea of gathering warriors-in-training together in one place, away from the town's distractions, away from women, in a somewhat monastic environment wholly focused on the matter at hand.

.

Now you're getting silly. No one ever thought back to the days of feudal warriors as inspiration. The idea of a training camp is straightforward. Those with like-minded goals and passions gravitate towards each other. This is a natural process.

Some nice tongue-in-cheek in this thread. Thomas Jefferson did run 2-3 miles daily while in college and recommend it for health. Ben Franklin, before he got really fat, swam laps around the ship while crossing the Atlantic.