Introduction

Physical activity and physical fitness have been linked with health and longevity since ancient times. The earliest records of organized exercise used for health promotion are found in China around 2500 BC. However, it was the Greek physicians of the fifth and early fourth centuries BC who established a tradition of maintaining positive health through ‘regimen’— the combination of correct eating and exercise. Hippocrates (c. 460-370 BC), often called the Father of Modern Medicine, wrote

….all parts of the body which have a function, if used in moderation and exercised in labours in which each is accustomed, become thereby healthy, well-developed and age more slowly, but if unused and left idle they become liable to disease, defective in growth and age quickly.