THE THERAPEUTIC EXERCISE IN THE ANTIQUITY

SPORTS MEDICINE REHABILITATION SECTION

THE THERAPEUTIC EXERCISE IN THE ANTIQUITY

Porfiriadou Anthi¹, Tsourlinis Gregory², Iakovidis Paris¹, Aftosmidis Demetrios_¹, Aggelidou Aggeliki¹, Papadopoulos Fotios^1
1Alexander Technological Institute of Thessaloniki, ²Interbalkan Medical Centre, Greece

The aim of the present work is the value of exercise as well as its beneficial attributes as they are presented on main texts of many known writers of Antiquity. Concretely the work deals with four writers: Plato, Aristotle, Hippocrates and Galino. Two basic and distinguishable significances are met, the [paidotribiki] that in greek means – massage on young people and the gymnastics. Two type of professionals existed: on one hand those who dealt with children as schoolteachers of gymnastics in the sector of education and on the other hand those which undertook the exercise of professional athletes.
As a conclusion of this present work results the existence of a juxtaposition of ideas of all four personalities - authors that are analyzed regarding their thoughts on movement and exercise.
Basic element in all four writers is the importance of measure and balance, in Greek “metro”, regarding the body and the soul. Also gravity is given in the preventive and therapeutic character of exercise. All four agree also that every movement is not exercise.
Finally one meets often in texts the need of division of movements in categories depending on the movement and who makes it (energetic - passive etc). Also the obligatory supervision by a professional during the exercise is advised. Naturally the opinion that the exercise is suggested for all ages is common.  Finally the usefulness of full recovery (massage etc) is also mentioned as important part of the exercise.