Vigor

Modern people get much too fixated on particular forms of fitness - people become runners, or lifters, or whatever, rather than attempting to become or remain good overall athletes. This is a major mistake, as it does not attain the ideals of either form or function. Take a look at these photos:

The first men are modern Australian aboriginals. The statue is Doryphoros, an ancient Greek attempt at depicting the ideal human proportions. And the third photo is of decathlon world record holder Kevin Mayer. As you can see, all are solidly built - sturdy enough to fight or carry heavy objects, but not so heavy or muscled that they can't run, jump, or climb well.

Functionally, they could probably meet many of the following standards (chosen for relevance to modern life):

• Sleep on a hard bed without pain or discomfort
• Sit upright, with elegance and power, in any chair for up to an hour at a time without discomfort
• Stand in one place with good posture and no pain for up to an hour at a time
• Walk smoothly with no pain for two hours at a time
• Move through a tight space to escape or retrieve someone or something
• Descend a 30-foot rope (height of a 3-story house)
• Run from danger for 50m to 5 miles over rough terrain
• Hop on 1 leg for 1 mile
• Hike out of major urban area (25 miles) with light backpack in a day
• Carry a person of their bodyweight 1 mile
• Swim 1 mile into shore after being caught in a riptide
• Extract themselves from a pile of rubble
• Hang from a ledge for 2 minutes
• Tread water for 1 hour
• Fall on ice without injury
• Fall from a height of 10 feet (roof of a 1 story house) with no broken bones or sprained ligaments
• Take a punch to the head without receiving a concussion
• Take a kick to the stomach without bending over
• Survive a 15 mph bike crash without broken bones
• Punch and kick hard enough to stun someone of their size

To look like and perform like them, you certainly need to do some strength and conditioning, and methods for those are well documented. But to stay injury-free and well balanced, I think the average person needs much more variety of movement than you'll see in a typical strength and conditioning routine. Think of all the ways you'd move in a dance, yoga, or martial arts class that you don't otherwise do. If you're not in a class like that, you can deliberately add in some variety. Some examples:

• Shoulders: front raise to overhead, straight arm lat pulldowns, side raise to overhead, straight arm side pulldowns, flyes, rear delt raises, overhead shrugs, dead hang scapular retractions, regular shrugs, shoulder dips
• Spine: L-sit, plank, side plank (both supporting yourself with an arm below you and suspending yourself by holding onto something above you), back plank, woodchops, Jefferson curls, back bridges
• Hips: super deep lunges, front splits, middle splits

Also, you need to evade the common injuries that occur when falling or changing direction at high speed. You can avoid these by slacklining, doing single-leg jumps in all directions, and doing agility drills with cones or ladders.

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