The researchers discovered the bones of prehistoric homo sapiens were more dense than ours today, suggesting early sapiens likely ran far more often—and for longer distances. Other studies suggest many early humans had the running capacity of today's competitive cross-country athletes.
Typical hunter gatherers spent about two and a quarter hours every day doing moderate to vigorous physical activity. That's not a huge amount.
Human ancestors are thought to have had more muscles connecting the skull, neck, and shoulders/back area (similar to apes) which caused their neck and skull regions to appear to sag, such as non-human primate species do.
Humans in prehistoric times would often spend a day or more tracking and hunting animals at a running or jogging pace--something the African ! Kung still do-- and then carry the animal back to camp, again at a pace faster than a walk.
What they did do is move their body the way it was meant to move. That meant pushing objects, pulling things, throwing rocks and spears, climbing or walking up hills, squatting down to pick up something, lunging over and across objects, or lifting items over their head to carry home on their shoulders.
People lifted heavy stones, rocks, rudimentary dumbbells, heavy clubs and their own body weight to build muscle, strength and agility. Taken together it is clear that weightlifting not only existed in these ancient cultures, it thrived.
However, experts believe Vikings were quite large, muscular people, capable of striking fear into the hearts of their enemies as a result of their strength and size. The physical build of the Vikings was likely to be somewhat similar to our own, but with significantly more mass and muscle.
They had well-rounded strength and endurance in order to perform a wide variety of physical tasks, making them fitter than the average modern human. That said, it's likely no hunter-gatherer could have outpaced an Olympic endurance athlete. Why? Their focus was on ample calories, not peak physical performance.
A male Neanderthal would have weighed around 80 kilogrammes and both sexes would have been immensely strong. Studies of the fingers and wrist bones show that they had a much more powerful grip than a modern human.
Male and female hunter-gatherers would typically take 16,000 and 17,000 steps (about eight miles) per day, respectively; and cardiovascular (CV) disease (CVD) was rare even among older individuals in the tribe [29].
On average people lived to the age of 35, and were more well built than today. Traces of powerful muscles can be seen on their bones. Physical activity was part of their lives from childhood, and they developed powerful muscles as a result.
Studies of Hazda hunter-gatherers in Africa show them typically spending nine hours sitting, two hours squatting and an hour kneeling each day. Still, average hunter-gatherer men and women walk about 9.5km (six miles a day), respectively, in order to hunt or collect food.
People were healthier in the Early Middle Ages than in later centuries, study finds. The Early Middle Ages, from the 5th to the 10th centuries, is often derided as the 'Dark Ages'.
Researchers say 100 years ago, people got five times more exercise every day, just in the course of daily living.
"In human evolution we see body size as one of the most important characteristics, and from examining these 'scrappier' fossils we can get a much better sense of when and where human body size diversity arose. Before 1.7 million years ago our ancestors were seldom over 5 foot tall or particularly heavy in body mass.
Fossils do not preserve signals of adiposity, but the low prevalence of obesity among hunter-gatherers today and in the recent past suggest excess body fat was rare in our evolutionary history. Nonetheless, there is some evidence from the archaeological record that obesity was not unheard of in the deep past.
However, because some hunter-gatherer societies obtained most of their dietary energy from wild animal fat and protein does not imply that this is the ideal diet for modern humans, nor does it imply that modern humans have genetic adaptations to such diets.
Obesity is rare in hunter-gatherer cultures. Nevertheless, dozens of handheld 'Venus' figurines — the oldest art sculptures of humans known and tend to be of women who have obesity or are pregnant — have been identified that date to Ice Age European hunter-gatherers from 38,000 to 14,000 years ago.
The chances are Vikings were a lot leaner than many people today, thanks to their protein-rich diet, and their commitment to hard labor. However, it's likely that the comparative 'largeness' of Vikings was down to their muscular bodies and strength, rather than simply being “fat”.
Obviously, despite what some picture when you say "Viking", most were probably not 6'4, bloodthirsty warriors with six packs and rippling with muscle. But they still respected strength a great deal and were practical, rough and hardworking.
The Viking trained their what Shaul calls their “tactical or combat chassis”—legs, hips, and core—daily. They did this by farming (lifting heavy stuff), shipbuilding (chopping trees), and rowing (strengthening legs, arms, and lungs).
For the ancient athletes running was a must. They run a lot as running gives the highest cardiovascular payoff with the littlest effort. There were no slick gym machines and Greeks relied purely on body-weight exercises using whatever they could find. Lifting stones and animals for strength.
The Spartans were famous for their rigorous training, which included lifting heavy weights to gain the strength needed for victorious battles.
In general, Roman exercises were simple and involved running, jumping, weightlifting and strength training. Galen was a great believer in working out with a medicine ball as the best all-round exercise and wrote about it in his book The Exercise with the Small Ball.