Humans can do things other animals can’t. Lot’s of animals can use tools, but humans can make them, and do more things with them. We can build structures with materials that we manufacture. We can pick objects off of the ground, and carry them long distances. We construct dwellings, and make fires to heat them, and to cook.

All animals hunt for food, but most predators chase down their prey, kill them with their jaws, or squeeze them to death. Humans can’t do those things, so we invented weapons and tools to kill or capture prey. Some humans decided that they didn’t like hunting and gathering, so they domesticated certain animals, and invented agriculture, eliminating chasing their food, and foraging for side dishes. Ranching and farming require physical skills, strength, and stamina. While some animals, those in captivity, are given their food, humans are the only ones who purchase it. We’re the only animals who pay other animals to prepare and deliver our food. We are the apex animal.

The human body is built to work. It’s made to bend, stretch, and rotate. Lift, and carry things. Swing clubs, axes, and hammers. Dig holes, and move earth. Build tiny houses, and skyscrapers. It takes strong people to build strong structures.

Lot’s of animals fight. Humans are born able to punch, kick, club, pin, and choke. We’re also able to invent weapons, and so we have, from war clubs to nuclear bombs. The human body is built to fight.

It’s also built to play. We can run, jump, throw and catch, push and pull. The human body is built to move.

All animals play, but humans organize play. We form leagues to play games all over the world. Basic human conflict, hitting each other with fists and feet, knocking someone down, and immobilizing them, have been organized play for centuries. We’ve invented balls, bats, glove, goals, and uniform playing fields, and made using those skills and fields highly lucrative forms of employment. Knocking people to the ground pays well, too.

All of the physical skills that separate humans from other animals have brought us to this point in the twenty-first century. Modern life has rendered many physical skills unnecessary. We don’t have to fell trees, and build our home ourselves. We don’t need to cut firewood, or fetch water. We don’t have to hunt and forage for food. No longer do we need to grow our own food, and in many places, large cities for example, it’s really difficult, if not impossible to do so.

Some of the skills that make humans the apex animal are lacking in many twenty-first century citizens. Indeed, many moderns consider many of those skills uncivilized, although we still beat people up for profit, and farming is making a comeback, albeit in a boutique style. Some people still hike to a camping spot, cut wood, and build a fire, and hunt game animals. Some people don’t like that. Still, humans have a body that can perform all of those skills, and it would be wrong to lose them. That body should be developed, and fully, whether or not every human practices every human skill.

Throughout history, humans have developed their bodies, and honed their skills. Until the twentieth century, physical conditioning through exercise was considered good citizenship. Socrates believed the body was useful in every human endeavor. Tired of being bullied by the French, Fredrick Ludwig Jahn developed a physical training system to build better Germans. The first attempts at codified physical education in America were designed to create capable, well-rounded citizens. Today, we view training related to sports, or shaping a pretty body. We’re never told it will make us better people. How could it?

What is a better human, and why should anyone so aspire? How could developing the strength to pick up heavy objects make someone a better person? We educate ourselves to become better people, indeed, to gain an advantage over people less educated. We adopt religious philosophies to become better people, in order to aid society, and, perhaps, get a leg up on admission to heaven. Mind, spirit. Why not body?

If your body could talk, collectively, and individual parts, it and they would tell you that it and they love to move. To run, jump, and play, to pick up heavy objects, even if the only purpose is to pick up heavy objects. Your individual muscles would tell you that they love to work together to perform a task. Your body would tell it benefits from working. Every system gets restored from use, and functions better when used regularly. If your body functions better, you’re a better person.

The goal is not to dominate other people. The goal is to be the best person you can be, one that is healthy, highly functional, able to use the gifts it was born with, and be helpful to the community. Strong people are useful.

In the United States, eighty-seven percent of the population lives in urban areas. It’s unlikely that all the physical skills that make humans the apex being are necessary for survival. Limiting our movements to walking, sitting, standing, pulling and pushing doors, and raising our arms to take an object off of the top shelf, however, is deadly.

No exercise movement is exactly like any athletic movement. At best, they mimic a sporting action. Hundreds of exercises, though, train the muscles that perform athletic feats. Stronger, more mobile, better conditioned athletes always win.

No exercise movement, except for walking, is exactly like any real life movement. Every exercise, though, trains the muscles that make every movement that humans can perform, even thinking. Stronger, more mobile, better conditioned humans always win.

There is no reason to insist that every human being be as physically fit as possible, but certainly one could ask why, given the superlative skills every human is given, every person doesn’t seek to, at least, maintain those skills. Why would anyone not want to be the best they could be?

In everything a person does, the body is useful. Strong people are useful. Stronger, more mobile, better conditioned humans always win.