Superior locomotive ability was once essential for human survival and a fundamental reason that Homo sapiens evolved and prospered. Physical activity was obligatory for evading predators and food procurement. Yet exercise, particularly when undertaken to an individual’s maximum, is a complex process involving the synchronized and integrated activation of multiple tissues and organs at the cellular and systemic level.
Exercise represents a major challenge to whole-body homeostasis, and in an attempt to meet this challenge, myriad acute and adaptive responses take place at the cellular and systemic levels that function to minimize these widespread disruptions.
Why study exercise?
The first reason to study exercise is to provide insight into the pathogenic processes
underpinning the numerous contemporary physical inactivity-mediated disorders.
The recent emergence of noncommunicable diseases as major killers in industrialized nations (Bauer et al., 2014) and the role of physical activity in preventing and/or treating these conditions is a second reason to study exercise.