I agree with everything you say. Unless it is particularily beneficial to do special exercises to counteract deficiencies of our modern life style, it should be sufficient to roughly simulate the movements our ancestors did.
I'm wondering whether our ancestors did stretching exercises. I could imagine that the occasional yawn/stretch and a variety of different movements is sufficient to avoid contracture.
I do think ancestors did stretch: nobody ever learnt me to stretch yet I've been doing it when waking up before getting out of bed since I can remember and I'm definitely not the only one, on the contrary. Some other animals do so as well. I know these are mere observations and no hard evidence, but I would be surprised to learn I'm wrong on this point. Whether they did actual stretching exercises is another thing though. I would guess they did if they were able to figure out by experience stretching had positive effects. Also sort of depends what you mean with ancestors, i.e. how many centuries ago.
I mean paleolithic hunters and gatherers. Which animals do streching apart from the occasional, visceral stretching I mentioned?
None that I know of, I also meant visceral stretching..
Not everybody accepts this though. Especially about point 2 and 3 I've had discussions, almost religious fights sometimes. People sometimes get offended when I question if just going to the gym and train a couple of standard groups or just jogging are sufficient exercises. They might be, just from the point of 'getting enough exercise', but I somehow believe it is better for your body in general to have way more types of movement trained, like the third point says. Not sure if this is backed up by research but it just seems logical to me? Another impression I have: the body of a person doing all kinds of sports always looks way more natural and healthy to me than persons doing only one or two sports where not all muscle groups are trained.