This is part 4 in the series on the history of exercise. Last week’s article was about exercise in Ancient India. You can read the article here. This week’s topic will be exercise and medicine in Ancient Rome.
When in Rome, Do as the Greeks Do
The Roman Empire stole many innovations from societies that came before them. They took these ideas and inventions and perfected them, creating a vast empire that would be unparalleled for some time.
Statues in Rome somewhat resembled those from Greece. Many figures had chiseled physiques, no doubt a sign of admiration for fitness. Romans had a militaristic culture, and there’s no doubt that men trained for sport and combat. When it comes to general exercise, however, they might’ve had a different attitude from the Greeks.
There’s some evidence that wealthy Romans saw exercise as beneath them, reserved for gladiators and soldiers. The history of exercise in the Roman empire isn’t clear enough to make sound judgements about their views on exercise, so I won’t focus on Rome as a whole. Instead, the writings of one physician provide some clues and will be the focus of this article.
Hippocrates’ Biggest Fan
Around the time when Rome was firing on all cylinders, a young man born in Greece was trying to emulate his hero. Galen (correctly spelled Galenos) was a physician of sorts in the Pergamum Kingdom.
Galen was the equivalent of an athletic trainer and physical therapist. His job was to stand on the sidelines during gladiatorial battle, and jump in to assist injured warriors to help them recover. His hero was Hippocrates, the great Greek physician. Galen studied most of his writings, and moved to Rome to pursue a career as a physician.
Over his career Galen would build upon and expand the ideas set forth by Hippocrates. He wrote extensively on human anatomy, disease and philosophy. He followed in Hippocrates’ footsteps by expanding on his theory of health as an equilibrium between systems in the body.
Motion and Rest
Galen broke health down into three parts: physiology, health and pathology. He defined health as the “six things non-natural”: air and environment, food and drink, sleep and wake, motion and rest, retention and evacuation, and passions of the mind (emotions).
Similar to the holistic theories from Ancient India and Greece, Galen saw health as a balance between these six categories. This article will focus on motion and rest, since it pertains to exercise.
Two things greatly influenced Galen’s views on exercise. The first was his job as a trainer for gladiators. He saw that those who trained intensely for sport ended up getting hurt at some point. As a physician whose goal was to make people healthy, he saw this as a negative consequence to exercise.
The second thing was his own illness. Galen writes that he was sickly until the age of 28, and part of his path to health was regular exercise. Just like Hippocrates and Susruta of India, Galen recommended that exercise be neither too easy nor too intense. Like the other aspects of health, finding balance between motion and rest is key.
Galen noted that “not all movement is exercise.” It could only be classified as exercise if it was vigorous enough to cause a change in respiration (make you breathe harder). He also noted that exercise should stop when the body begins to suffer, but it’s not clear whether he meant that in the short term or long term.
Similar to the other ancient physicians who used exercise, Galen treated diseases like obesity with movement. He noted that exercise made the muscles firm and created a stronger pulse (improved the cardiovascular system).
Exercise With the Small Ball
One of the most interesting of Galen’s writing is “exercise with the small ball.” This short essay refers to a ball of unknown size, potentially something like a tennis ball or maybe a medicine ball, that people would use to play a game. It’s assumed that readers of his time would know what he was referring to.
In this paper, he describes exercise with the small ball as the perfect answer to inactivity. Unlike running, which Galen claimed created a lack of proportion in the body, exercise with the small ball created harmony between the body, mind and soul.
This type of exercise wasn’t as dangerous as things like boxing, wrestling, discus, running and jumping. It seems that he’s attempting to describe a form of exercise that aligns with the holistic view of Hippocrates, Susruta and himself. Whatever this form of exercise is, it was neither too intense nor too easy.
Galen compares exercise with the small ball to dogs going on a hunt. He talks about the joy that dogs have as they hunt and compares it to the joy people have when they participate in exercise with the small ball. Having an objective makes the activity more fun.
This marks an important point in exercise history. Not only does Galen recognize the importance of fitness, he understands that it should be enjoyable to some degree. His observations are useful in the modern world, where many people continue to do exercises that don’t engage the mind (running, simple weight training etc.). In this way, the fitness industry in 2021 is perhaps still behind the 2nd century Roman physician.
Not only does Galen want exercise to be enjoyable and balanced, he wants it to be easily accessible. He mentions that exercise with the small ball is important because it doesn’t involve much equipment. Therefore, Roman citizens who didn’t have access to gyms could still use this form of exercise. This is perhaps the first attempt in history to create a generalized fitness program available to the average person.
Galen’s influence on modern exercise is noted in this paper from The Lancet, where they describe his influence on health and exercise as lasting into modern times. In the paper, they explain that his use of exercise to promote health instead of athleticism lasted into modern times.
Next Week
Up to this point in the series we’ve followed a path from Egypt into India, Greece and Rome. This body of knowledge lies dormant until it’s picked back up again in the Enlightenment. Next week’s blog will deviate entirely and look at the dawn of exercise in a different part of the world: Ancient China.