The question above, “Do you put kurtosis into your workout?” was asked by Art De Vany of Nassim Nicholas Taleb as described in Art’s book The New Evolution Diet. What did he mean when he asked this?
Kurtosis is a statistical term that is used to describe variance - higher kurtosis means more of the variance is the result of infrequent extreme deviations. So, what De Vany was asking Taleb was, do you include infrequent and extreme movements and activities in your workouts? At the time, Taleb admitted that he did not (he regularly cycled and “did cardio” at the gym); however, this question prompted him to change his entire approach toward movement and exercise.
Today, we are able to control almost all of the characteristics surrounding our movement or exercise. We can exercise in places that are temperature, light, and humidity controlled at any hour of the day or night. We can use machines that are designed to isolate the smallest of muscles. We can even spend hours on a treadmill or stationary bicycle without having to go anywhere. While these features might present some advantages or at least additional options for movement, they also make it easy to develop exercise habits or ruts, which represent a workout routine that is lacking in kurtosis or randomness.
From an evolutionary or ancestral perspective, movement is anything but routine. Movement occurs in all types of weather. Movement varies by the season or by the task at hand. One day’s work might require walking all day long, another might require heavy lifting to build a shelter, and yet another day might require sprinting after an animal that you hope will become your next meal. The point here is that kurtosis, randomness, or infrequent extreme deviations from “normal” were not only an important part of ancestral life, but they remain important characteristics that should be built into our modern day approaches to movement and exercise.
So, how did Taleb change his workout routine?
- He started exposing himself to different temperatures and weather conditions when he was working out. When was the last time you worked out outside…in the rain?
- He also started walking slowly, more often, and occasionally taking walks of hours in duration. He started walking on rocky and uneven surfaces to build balance and to stretch his back muscles.
- He started working out when hungry or at least on an empty stomach. The point here is that there used to be a pretty tight relationship between food and movement. Our ancestors likely engaged in movement in order to find food and not the other way around (let’s carbo-load before the hunt!). Likewise, he has learned to enjoy the occasional feast by eating a very large meal on Sunday, which he claims leaves him satisfied for days.
- He started doing sprints and avoiding purely “aerobic exercise.” In fact, he started avoiding all forms of moderate exercise altogether. In line with different occasions requiring different amounts of work, Taleb might do 10 pushups or 350 pushups in a day, but will not adhere to a routine to do 60 pushups three times a week.
We are all creatures of habit. It is easy to fall into a workout routine that lacks kurtosis. That is why I value approaches to movement such as that taken by CrossFit. From the CrossFit website: “Our program delivers a fitness that is, by design, broad, general, and inclusive. Our specialty is not specializing. Combat, survival, many sports, and life reward this kind of fitness and, on average, punish the specialist.” Check out the free Crossfit workouts of day (WODs) and see what you might be missing. Who knows, you might find yourself jumping up on boxes, doing pullups on a tree branch, or sprinting across a park before you know it.