DAniel Lieberman, an evolutionary biologist at Harvard University, proposes that preconceptions that frailty and physical decline are inevitable as we age are largely misplaced. Our early ancestors needed to be fit and healthy enough to help raise grandchildren and, she says, we evolved the same way. “Humans live well beyond their reproductive years for a reason,” says Lieberman. “And staying physically active throughout life is how and why we achieve this.” In other words, the urge to keep moving may be encoded in our genes, giving us even more of an incentive to stay pumped no matter our age.
It’s a theory that Lieberman and a team of Harvard colleagues, including Dr. I-Min Lee and Dr. Aaron Baggish, experts in exercise physiology, outlined in
