Why Do Humans Exercise? A Neuro-Evolutionary Framework for Discretionary Physical Effort
Abstract
Hominin evolution made physical activity obligatory for survival. Modern environments decoupled effort from ecological returns, generating an evolutionary mismatch that favors energy conservation over voluntary movement. This review distinguishes between subsistence-based physical activity, the ancestral condition directly coupled to survival, and discretionary exercise, a voluntary behavior performed in the absence of immediate metabolic necessity. It delineates a neuro-evolutionary framework characterizing discretionary exercise as the functional repurposing of neural systems originally shaped for subsistence, operating through evolutionarily conserved effort-reward valuation circuitry that computes context-dependent cost-benefit trade-offs. Three complementary evolutionary pathways mediate this process: homeostatic compensation, where exercise reinstates ancestral physiological maintenance signals; costly signaling, where exercise functions as an honest phenotypic display of quality; and reward recoding, where human mesocorticolimbic circuitry attributes abstract significance and reward to physical exertion. These mechanisms explain how neurobiological exaptation and cultural mediation enable sustained voluntary effort in contemporary populations despite the absence of ecological necessity.
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BibTeX
@article{rodriguez2026humans,
title = {{Why Do Humans Exercise? A Neuro-Evolutionary Framework for Discretionary Physical Effort}},
author = {Miguel Angel Rodriguez and Boris Cheval and Markus Gerber and Irene Crespo and Hugo Olmedillas},
journal = {Evolutionary Anthropology},
year = {2026},
month = jun,
doi = {10.1002/evan.70038},
url = {https://hal.science/hal-05768856v1},
note = {CC BY 4.0},
}
RIS
TY - JOUR
TI - Why Do Humans Exercise? A Neuro-Evolutionary Framework for Discretionary Physical Effort
AU - Miguel Angel Rodriguez
AU - Boris Cheval
AU - Markus Gerber
AU - Irene Crespo
AU - Hugo Olmedillas
PY - 2026
DA - 2026/06/25
JO - Evolutionary Anthropology
DO - 10.1002/evan.70038
UR - https://hal.science/hal-05768856v1
AB - Hominin evolution made physical activity obligatory for survival. Modern environments decoupled effort from ecological returns, generating an evolutionary mismatch that favors energy conservation over voluntary movement. This review distinguishes between subsistence-based physical activity, the ancestral condition directly coupled to survival, and discretionary exercise, a voluntary behavior performed in the absence of immediate metabolic necessity. It delineates a neuro-evolutionary framework characterizing discretionary exercise as the functional repurposing of neural systems originally shaped for subsistence, operating through evolutionarily conserved effort-reward valuation circuitry that computes context-dependent cost-benefit trade-offs. Three complementary evolutionary pathways mediate this process: homeostatic compensation, where exercise reinstates ancestral physiological maintenance signals; costly signaling, where exercise functions as an honest phenotypic display of quality; and reward recoding, where human mesocorticolimbic circuitry attributes abstract significance and reward to physical exertion. These mechanisms explain how neurobiological exaptation and cultural mediation enable sustained voluntary effort in contemporary populations despite the absence of ecological necessity.
SN - 1060-1538
SN - 1520-6505
ER -