Why the hunky Greeks of old make us look ancient

[Liffrea]

By Victoria Fletcher
Health Editor, Daily Express

THE Ancient Greeks were a race apart in the pursuit of health and fitness, say scientists.

Research has found that their energetic lifestyles and nutritious diets would leave 21st century humans lagging behind.

Even top athletes, who have access to high tech equipment, body scans and specialised diets, would struggle to keep pace with the Greeks.

Experts compared the fitness levels required to row an Athenian warship – called a trireme – with those of active Britons. They found that the human power needed would challenge even the most enthusiastic gym member.

Researchers believe that the vast crews needed to man a large fleet show that average fitness levels in 500BC were far higher than today.

In modern Britain, they argue, captains would be hard-pressed to find enough ultra-fit people to get such ships under way.

Dr Harry Rossiter, an exercise physiologist at the University of Leeds, who carried out the study, said the work sheds new light on just how fit and healthy the ancient civilisation was.

"Our data raises the notion that these athletes were genetically better adapted to endurance exercise than we are today," he said.

The classic Greek warship was powered by 170 rowers. A 200-strong fleet would have needed 34,000 superfit sailors on hand at any one time.

Dr Rossiter re-enacted a voyage with athletes and measured the amount of energy their bodies burned up as they rowed the ship at different speeds.

The scientists used historical texts to plot the incredible speeds and distances covered by the warships.

The Greeks, like Achilles played here by Brad Pitt, would have travelled at seven or eight knots – but when modern athletes tried to reach that speed, they were working out at 100 per cent of their capability.

Most professional marathon runners race at 80 per cent of their maximum for their race while the Tour de France cyclists are at 75 per cent of their maximum for six hours at a time.

But the Greeks were working at the equivalent of 100 per cent for hours – a fitness level most modern athletes can keep up for only minutes at a time.

"We would struggle to find enough people at that level of fitness today to power ships at those speeds," said Dr Rossiter.

http://www.express.co.uk/news_detail.html?sku=1189

[Teufelhunden]

I would also think that some of that may have to do with a higher oxygen content in the atmosphere then.. cool article though with good info :)

[MidgardSilver]

I remember reading somewhere about the diet of the Roman gladiators, that it consisted largely of barley and lentils. The ancient Greeks, being Mediterraneans, also would have had a healthy diet like that. Natural selection would have also had a hand in creating strong, healthy people like that. I think we're weaker today as a people because our weak are allowed to live through modern medicine and technology.

[aud_friggsdottir]

I think too most of the strongest of our Folk died in wars or were deliberately killed so natural selection kept the weakest or rather not as strong. That is why true heroes are few and far between.

FFF
Kathy

[Archer]

I used to be very fit but some cheesburgers jumped onto my *** and now I can't row for **** :( .

I have my doubts about natural selection favoring anything like strength... more like luck and decent mutations.

Good bye, saber-tooth... hello, cockroach.

[Arinbjorn]

Plus you have to look at the daily lives of these men, the majority would have been farmers, craftsmen and the like. Men who didn't have the luxury of a combine tracter, or a belt sander, or machine press... not to mention the motivation of never knowing who might want to take your life tomorrow.

There is a story of a greek farmer and the first olympic (ye olde ones) wrestling champ...One of his cows gave birth to a calf, it was healthy, but had problems with its legs. Every day the farmer would hoist the calf across his sholders and carry him out to the pasture to graze, then would carry him back at night. He did this ever day, and as the calf grew, so did the farmers strength (duh, right), untill he was hauling a full-grown cow across his shoulders everyday. When the first olymiad came around the farmer entered and was unmatched. He took the lorrel with ease.

Another? OK :D

After the battle of Thermopylae, Xerxes, king of the Persans, asked why so few greeks had shown up to fight. He was told that the olympics were going on. He then asked what prize could keep the greeks from defending their own land? Apon hearing the answer, an olive wreath, Tritantaechmes, a Persian general, responded with grief by saying to Mardonius, a fellow general, "Good heavens! Mardonius, what kind of men are these against whom you have brought us to fight? Men who do not compete for money, but for honour".

OK I'm done...( I just finished reading up on the greeks)

[Archer]

I dunno, I tried to picked up a foal my sister's horse birthed when I was a half-grown boy (inspired by the same story). Things went pretty well at first...

Conclusion, in about two months that thing got way bigger than me.

That old Greek cow-tipping tale is story is "amazing" ;) .

I have a feeling the Greek bumpkin farmer-turned wrestling hero really got a kick out of shining on the Greek city-slickers who asked him about the origin of his famous strength! They most likely went bug-eyed when he told them about that cow. :D

As a life-long rural-type, I can tell you that this is loads of fun.

[Loki's Advocate]

THE Ancient Greeks were a race apart in the pursuit of health and fitness, say scientists.

And there's ancient Achaean (that's what the ancient Greeks called themselves) sources* which state that their precedessor peoples were far more fit, strong, and aggressive than they themselves were- but that those people were only good at being aggressive and war-like.

(I can't remember exactly where I read it, but) it seems like the text came to some sort of conclusion regarding physical prowess versus 'comparative level of civilisation'- you either have one, or the other.

I guess they would have cited the Trojans as being a good example of this.

It's not surprising at all, this report. The more 'civilised' people become, the less their life is a struggle for continued existence- and the less they need to be strong and fit to survive. When all you do is hard physical labour, of course you're going to be fitter than someone who doesn't. No s###, Sherlock. Only an team of academics could come to this conclusion and find it surprising. :D

*: I think it was in Xenophon somewhere; when I find the reference I'll post it here.

[Loki's Advocate]

Good bye, saber-tooth... hello, cockroach.

You don't think a roach is comparatively as strong as a sabre-toothed tiger? A roach the size of a sabre-toothed tiger would be almost impossible to kill without modern fire-arms.

When you step on a roach, unless you make sure to completely crush it, it'll regenerate and be back to 'good as new' in a very short time. They're the ultimate survivors, roaches- they're older even than cycads, and that's really bloody old.

Take this (only slightly-)modified quote from the movie version of Starship Troopers. Not a great work of art, I know, but it's a good quote:


Just a bug, eh? We humans like to think we are Nature's finest achievement. I'm afraid it isn't true. This {cockroach} is superior in many ways. It has fewer moving parts, can reproduce itself in vast numbers, and unbound by concerns of ego and mortality, makes the perfect selfless member of society.

[MidgardSilver]

I thought Starship Troopers was a great film!

[Archer]

You don't think a roach is comparatively as strong as a sabre-toothed tiger?

If 99% of the Dinosaurs were killed off by an asteroid, which I assume hit the Earth by no fault of the Dinosaurs... than evolution is not exclusively a matter "survival of the fittess", but survival... period. Even accidents count.

I say if by "strong" you mean "successful" than I agree.

[Loki's Advocate]

I say if by "strong" you mean "successful" than I agree.

Well, they're simply better suited to survive, which may be a bit of a pointless statement given that sabre-toothed tigers are extinct.

Roaches vs. Mammals:[U]

Roaches are incredibly physically resilient; they can regenerate pretty much any physical injury short of death.

Roaches (hell, all insects) don't respire much, so they need less oxygen and are harder to gas.

Roaches don't need sunlight; they produce their own vitamin D.

Roaches can eat and thrive off practically any organic matter.

And even when you DO kill a roach, more eggs hatch from their bodies.

... all in all, they're right bastards.

... weren't we talking about how fit the Ancient Greeks were?

[Liffrea]

Originally Posted by Loki's Advocate
It's not surprising at all, this report. The more 'civilised' people become, the less their life is a struggle for continued existence- and the less they need to be strong and fit to survive.

Well yes, I doubt I am far from typical. My job involves packing engine kits for RR, some heavy lifting, but not much. I spend about four, or five, hours a week in the gym. I keep meaning to re-start jujitsu, but never seem to get around to it, and the last fight I had was….I can’t remember, five years at least. Generally speaking apart from my choice to work my muscles, I don’t need them to survive, and I am not likely to be involved in a violent situation, or go off to war.


When all you do is hard physical labour, of course you're going to be fitter than someone who doesn't. No s###, Sherlock. Only an team of academics could come to this conclusion and find it surprising.

They may well have been referring to the degree of fitness compared to modern athletes, rather than the average bloke. If there was a pint, or a bird, or preferably both, in fact sod it the pint will do, on the other side of the Derwent I could probably row over no problem, just don’t ask me to row to America, or Nottingham.

[Loki's Advocate]

They may well have been referring to the degree of fitness compared to modern athletes, rather than the average bloke.

Even at that! The 'average bloke' back then (the guys who'd have been rowing those boats) was pretty much guaranteed to be doing very hard physical labour all the time... all the time.

These guys, by pretty much every reasonable standard, WERE professional athletes, even though most of them never saw an Olympic Games or whatever- and the few who did are still held up as examples of the human body becoming as perfect as it can.

Even modern athletes can't hope to compete with that kind of ruthless, continuous physical conditioning. I can only think of a handful (super-marathon runners and 'iron-man' competitors, for example) who'd come close.

Also, conditions were much more likely to promote physical health back then, as Teuf said. Less pollution in the air, less carbon monoxide bonded to the red blood cells, and so on.

[Loki's Advocate]

And there's ancient Achaean (that's what the ancient Greeks called themselves) sources* which state that their precedessor peoples were far more fit, strong, and aggressive than they themselves were

It wasn't Xenophon, it was from the Iliad; a couple of times, Homer makes reference on a couple of occasions to men (Diomedes and Hektor) picking up stones which no two men could now lift:

'But Tydeus' son in his hand caught up a stone, a huge thing which no two men could carry such as men are now, but by himself he lightly hefted it.' (5: 302-304)

'Meanwhile, Hektor snatched up a stone that stood before the gates and carried it along; it was blunt-massed at the base, but the upper end was sharp; two men, the best in all a community, could not easily hoist it up from the ground to a wagon, of men such as men are now, but he alone lifted and shook it...' (12: 445-449)

Technically, the second example doesn't count (because Zeus 'made the stone light for him'), but these either show that there was a qualitative difference in strength between the people of Homer's time and the time of the sack of Ilium, or that it was thought that the people of the time of the sack of Ilium had a closer and more personal relationship with their gods, and that those gods could make them much stronger (among many other things).

(I was wrong about the Achaians thing; it turns out that the Achaians were merely men and women from a certain part of what now is 'Greece'.)

[Birka]

Plus you have to look at the daily lives of these men, the majority would have been farmers, craftsmen and the like. Men who didn't have the luxury of a combine tracter, or a belt sander, or machine press... not to mention the motivation of never knowing who might want to take your life tomorrow.

There is a story of a greek farmer and the first olympic (ye olde ones) wrestling champ...One of his cows gave birth to a calf, it was healthy, but had problems with its legs. Every day the farmer would hoist the calf across his sholders and carry him out to the pasture to graze, then would carry him back at night. He did this ever day, and as the calf grew, so did the farmers strength (duh, right), untill he was hauling a full-grown cow across his shoulders everyday. When the first olymiad came around the farmer entered and was unmatched. He took the lorrel with ease.

Another? OK :D

After the battle of Thermopylae, Xerxes, king of the Persans, asked why so few greeks had shown up to fight. He was told that the olympics were going on. He then asked what prize could keep the greeks from defending their own land? Apon hearing the answer, an olive wreath, Tritantaechmes, a Persian general, responded with grief by saying to Mardonius, a fellow general, "Good heavens! Mardonius, what kind of men are these against whom you have brought us to fight? Men who do not compete for money, but for honour".

OK I'm done...( I just finished reading up on the greeks)

A GREAT book about the battle of Thermopylae is called "The Gates of Hell", one of the best books about warriors and battle ever.

[Liffrea]

Apparently there is a film out soon part acting, part ccg called 300.