A Letter to Nathan Hale (June 6, 1755 – September 22, 1776)
Dear Nate,
In 1776, nobody really “worked out.”
At least not in the modern sense.
No one in colonial America woke before dawn, drank a suspiciously fluorescent pre-workout beverage named something like RageFuel Inferno, and marched proudly into a warehouse gym to deadlift iron while motivational speeches thundered through wireless earbuds.
Exercise was not a scheduled activity.
It was survival.
Colonial life itself was brutally physical.
Farmers chopped wood,
hauled water,
planted crops,
repaired structures,
lifted tools,
rode horses,
hunted game,
and walked long distances simply to maintain existence.
Bodies were constantly engaged because daily life demanded movement.
Calories were precious.
Labor was unavoidable.
Sedentary living was largely reserved for the wealthy, the elderly, or the deeply ill.
Human beings did not “fit exercise into their day.”
The day was the exercise.
For soldiers like you, Nate, physical activity bordered on relentless punishment.
Military drills involved endless repetitions of loading muskets,
carrying equipment,
marching for miles,
digging fortifications,
erecting camps,
and enduring conditions modern fitness influencers would dramatically caption as “absolute insanity” beside filtered photos.
The Continental Army’s “Manual Exercise” was particularly grueling.
Repetitive musket drills demanded synchronization, discipline, endurance, and muscle memory under pressure. A soldier’s body needed to function as machinery: efficient, coordinated, responsive.
War, as always, doubles as involuntary cardio.
Even recreation often involved movement. Boxing, jumping, horse racing, wrestling, fencing, and running all appeared as forms of entertainment and social activity.
George Washington himself encouraged “games of exercise” among troops because leaders understood instinctively what modern science now confirms: physical movement stabilizes morale, sharpens focus, and strengthens resilience.
Though frankly, We suspect Washington mostly just wanted restless young men to stop gambling long enough to remain battle-ready.
Now leap forward into the 19th century, and something fascinating begins to happen.
As industrialization slowly reduced some forms of manual labor, Americans started inventing exercise as a deliberate activity rather than an unavoidable consequence of existence.
This marked a profound psychological shift. For perhaps the first time, portions of society realized bodies could weaken not from overwork…but from underuse.
And thus emerged “physical culture.”
The 1800s introduced calisthenics,
gymnastics,
strength training,
structured breathing exercises,
posture systems,
and early fitness philosophies heavily influenced by European traditions.
Gymnasiums appeared.
Dumbbells evolved from crude tools into exercise equipment.
Women practiced choreographed routines with rings, clubs, and wands to cultivate “grace” and health within restrictive social expectations.
Victorian America essentially invented Pilates while still wearing enough fabric to upholster a loveseat.
Men pursued strength and discipline through barbells, Indian clubs, and endurance exercises.
Schools began incorporating physical education to shape healthier, more disciplined citizens.
A cultural ideal emerged around the “controlled” body: lean, efficient, productive.
The Industrial Revolution mechanized labor.
Exercise became compensation for mechanization itself.
Then came the 20th century, and fitness exploded into full-blown American identity theater.
Early in the century, “physical culture” blended bodybuilding, calisthenics, military conditioning, and holistic wellness into a curious stew of discipline and optimism.
By the 1950s, television brought exercise directly into suburban living rooms through energetic figures like Jack LaLanne, who looked perpetually capable of arm-wrestling hurricanes.
Gyms multiplied. Universal exercise machines emerged. Strength training entered the mainstream.
And then the 1970s happened.
Suddenly America was jogging.
…Everywhere.
Suburbs filled with bouncing knees, sweatbands, tube socks, and citizens determined to outrun cholesterol through sheer aerobic enthusiasm.
New medical research connected exercise with cardiovascular health, and fitness transformed from niche hobby into lifestyle aspiration.
By the 1980s and 90s, aerobics, bodybuilding, boutique classes, workout tapes, and commercial gym culture had fully fused exercise with entertainment, fashion, and personal identity.
The body became project.
Fitness became industry.
And now we arrive in 2026, Nate, where America possesses more fitness knowledge, technology, equipment, supplements, tracking devices, and exercise options than any civilization in human history…
…while simultaneously remaining astonishingly sedentary.
This is one of modern America’s great contradictions.
People wear watches that monitor heart rates, sleep cycles, oxygen saturation, recovery metrics, and daily movement with the vigilance of tiny robotic hall monitors.
Entire rooms of homes contain treadmills used primarily as expensive laundry sculpture.
Millions subscribe to fitness apps they open twice before spiritually abandoning somewhere around February 11th.
And despite all this awareness, only a fraction of Americans consistently meet recommended exercise guidelines.
Why?
Because modern life has engineered movement out of existence.
Cars replaced walking.
Screens replaced outdoor play.
Office work replaced physical labor.
Food delivery replaced errands.
Algorithms replaced boredom, which once accidentally pushed humans outside occasionally.
Even entertainment itself became increasingly motionless.
The average modern American expends less daily physical energy than many 19th-century humans burned before lunch.
Remarkable species.
Of course, fitness culture still thrives, especially among wealthier Americans.
Boutique gyms, yoga studios, CrossFit warehouses, Peloton bikes, wearable trackers, recovery clinics, cold plunges, infrared saunas, hyper-personalized supplements, and fitness influencers transformed exercise into a sprawling lifestyle economy worth billions.
Exercise today exists somewhere between medicine, spirituality, fashion, therapy, competition, and performance art.
Sometimes all before breakfast.
But there is another layer to this story, one more complicated than gym memberships and step counts.
Modern exercise culture often treats movement as punishment for existing in a body rather than celebration of being alive inside one.
Calories must be “burned.” Bodies must be “fixed.”
Workouts become transactional negotiations against aging, weight gain, guilt, anxiety, or comparison.
Social media floods people with sculpted physiques filtered through impossible standards until movement itself becomes tangled with shame.
And yet beneath the commercialization and insecurity lives something profoundly ancient.
Humans are built to move.
Not because of aesthetics.
Because movement regulates emotion, strengthens cognition, improves resilience, deepens sleep, sharpens focus, and reconnects people to their physical existence.
Walking clears thought.
Running metabolizes stress.
Lifting teaches patience.
Dancing dissolves inhibition.
Stretching softens accumulated tension.
Even simple movement reminds humans they are creatures, not merely brains trapped inside productivity software.
The body keeps score.
But it also keeps rhythm.
Nate, if you could witness America in 2026, you would likely laugh watching citizens voluntarily pay money to simulate labor your generation desperately tried to avoid.
Entire gyms now contain machines designed to recreate rowing, climbing, carrying, and pushing activities once performed naturally through daily survival.
Modern humans drive cars to buildings where they walk on moving belts while staring at screens.
Civilization is deeply weird.
Still, perhaps this obsession reveals something hopeful too.
Even in a hyper-digital world, people instinctively understand they need movement.
They crave vitality.
They seek strength, endurance, energy, and connection to their own physicality because somewhere beneath the technology, the body still remembers older truths.
A human being was never designed to remain motionless all day beneath fluorescent lighting while answering emails until spinal collapse.
With admiration, sore knees, and one deeply unnecessary burpee challenge,
—The Radical Left 🚴🖤
And dear reader, maybe this is the deeper question exercise asks us after 250 years: what does a healthy human life actually look like?
Is fitness something purchased through memberships and devices, or something woven naturally into community, transportation, labor, recreation, and daily living itself?
Have we confused “working out” with truly living inside our bodies well?
And what happens to humanity when movement becomes optional?
Because long before fitness trackers, protein shakes, and boutique gyms, the body already knew what it needed:
Motion.