Let’s clarify something about exercise
August 23, 2010 17 Comments
Nothing is all black or white.
The paleo community has been extremely good at pushing forward new ideas. The evolutionary sauce has been added to about every part of our lifestyle and for the most part, the recipe has turned out pretty good. There is however a problem when this ”sauce” become an ”everything or nothing” type of scenario. Let’s be honest here, evolutionary eating is just plain awesome. But it does require us to take into account the lifestyle (including past and current health problems) of the person we are helping. It’s also important to understand that you can’t give the same recipe to everyone and expect it to come out well every time. You really need to personalize the diet, so that the person can stick to it all his life. This was covered here and here. The same can be said of exercise.
In the past few months, paleolithic fitness has become quite popular. Preached as the ultimate way to workout by some, paleolithic fitness is supposed to be based on moves that we have evolved to do. For instance, a pull up is a paleolithic fitness move. Paleolithic fitness is intuitive because you should not follow a template. Our ancestors did not go to the gym and their life was random – so should be your exercising period. Erwan Lecorre, who brought us movnat, is one of the leaders of this movement. I highly recommend that you check out his website if you have not done it yet. There is also Art Devany who is famous in the paleo community for his evolutionary fitness ideas.
The problem I have with this whole thing is that, while evolutionary fitness and movnat are very cool and useful in their own respects, they are not necessarily the answer to every fitness problem. They are not the ultimate ways to train everyone, just like modern fitness is not the ultimate way to train. I have absolutely nothing against both methods and, in fact, I highly recommend that you check them out. The problem I have, however, is that some people in the community have decided that they are the optimal ways to train : ”train this way, or you are losing your time, pal!”. Those people claim that ”modern exercise” is regimented, will probably hurt you (you were not evolved to workout out like that), and that it’s completely useless.
Anyone who is into martial arts will probably remember the good old days where guys would argue about their martial art being the best. It has been said over and over again, there are no best martial arts because they all depend on the student of the art. All of them have drawbacks and all of them have benefits. The same should be said of the fitness debate. There is more than a single way to exercise and your results will pretty much depend on how much effort you are willing to put into bettering yourself. There is, however, some limitation to this statement. You still have to respect the rules of your own body (no over-training, no moves that hurt you, etc.).
So, why do I care about this anyway? As you all know, I’m currently studying to be a kinesiologist. My goal in life is to help people better themselves. What I really want is to make sure everyone exercises safely and reaches their own goals. There is nothing to be more proud of then knowing that you have helped make a change in someone’s life. When you know you have helped someone be happy, you can’t help but feel good. This is what it is all about : passion, compassion, generosity, being supportive and pride. So, my problem is that the whole dogmatism that is being preached around paleolithic fitness is preventing some people from bettering themselves.
How so, you may ask? Let’s just say that if a person is doing something he enjoys -say powerlifting or olympic lifting- and he reads up the dogmatism around paleolithic fitness, he might become unmotivated and feel like a complete failure. Now, I would understand if the approach that person is using is not optimal (e.g. too much volume), but for the most part this is not the case. The problem I have is that it is not bad to train for something you like -like powerlifting or olympic lifting- and we should not try to change the goals of someone. We should help them achieve their goals. Paleolithic fitness is great but, again, it is not the only efficient way to train.
Would you like another example? Ok, let’s just check out how endurance training is regarded in the paleolithic community : ”completely useless, has no evolutionary bases, counter productive, unhealthy, a waste of your time, not fun and more”. So what happens if you like, for instance, to run once in a while a few miles (once or twice a week) ? How can it be completely useless if it is making that person happy? Really, how can it not have evolutionary bases (the fastest long distance runners are tribesmen by the way)? How can it be counter productive if it fits your goal? How can it be unhealthy if you don’t do it until you over train? Who are you to judge what is fun or not?
See, the point is that we have to understand, as a community, that we all have different goals. This means that you should train in a way that is optimal to reach your goals. You don’t have to go to the gym to exercise. Playing a sport you like or even chasing your kids around the house are great ways to train, as long as they fit your goals. When it comes to fitness, it is just like diet : You need to personalize your plan so that you enjoy it and achieve your goals. As a community, it is important to really help people instead of discouraging them. By being dogmatic, we are not being helpful and I wanted to point out that we really need to stop it before this whole thing becomes more about beliefs than anything else. At least, this is my philosophy and I’m more than willing to help anyone who is looking for help.
Your goals should tell you which strategy you should use. The strategy should not tell you which goals you should have.
Great write up! I couldn’t agree more.
“You are singing to the choir” JP, on this one. I couldn’t agree more also. I think its human nature for people to be what I term “Literalists” and think if everyone doesn’t follow this way, then they are wrong. I read long ago in the early 1970′s in Black
Belt magazine a story about two monks watching a fight between two different styles. When one man clearly won, one monk cheered. But the other monk was dissapointed and said “He may have won, but he lifted his heel up, when he punched!” The implication was that Form is more important than Function while in a fight!
Hey JP how long have you been following the paleo lifestyle? Do you ever eat anything like ice cream or pasta???
Hi Joy,
I have been eating that way for about two years and a half. I never eat pasta and I may eat once or twice ice cream during a hot summer (I much prefer berries!)
Great post JP. I totally agree. The experts that say “it’s my way or the highway” usually have something to sell. They won’t make any money unless they can convince people that their way is the best.
I usually just exercise based on what I feel like at the time. Sometimes I do more cardio, sometimes more weights, sometimes more indoor than outdoor, sometimes walking and sometimes running, etc.
I think it’s important for people to know that almost ANY kind of exercise is good exercise. Most people don’t exercise at all, so that’s more of a problem I think.
Carla, as always, you speak the truth.
Nice article buddy!! Totally agree with you (no surprises there, however). Me I like to swim and I do feel a bit non-paleo when I do it, because of all the paleo talk you mention. Also, I posted about those tribesman that would run for hours after their prey in Africa. I show it on a video. This is considered as one of, in not the, oldest ways of humans hunting. So long distance running certainly IS in our evolutionary past.
Erwan has always said that other methods of exercise can be awesome too, but most can’t claim to be “natural” the way his can. Not that natural is always best, but for those of us trying to reclaim more human bodies it’s incredibly useful. I (and most others) actually view Movnat as a crosstraining exercise. My main exercise is dance, which I love and would not give up even though I’m not really that good at it.
I like that Movnat has allowed me to recognize certain movements (particularly stretches) that might possibly be damaging because they are so far away from what our bodies are meant to do. I combine that with Esther Gokhale’s wisdom, which is more specific about that: such movements violate the body’s natural “corset”. There are yoga movements I know now not to do because I can see how damaging they are! That doesn’t mean yoga is bad, it just needs to be moved by to the baseline of human movement.
Erwan is also a big defender of endurance and inspired me to try running again. I don’t think it’s necessary for health and some people do it to excess, but being able to run a couple of miles is very useful.
Melissa,
I agree with you. Although I have never had the chance to meet Erwan, I always felt like he is not dogmatic about his approach. I certainly love his ideas (parkour training led me movnat, actually).
I’m glad to see that you are starting to run again. You made a great point : it’s not necessary but it’s very useful. Most people forget about the later part.
Spot on man! I think it is hilarious when people try to say that there is only one effective way to get stronger of fitter. There are so many different ways to achieve a goal that its mind boggling. Sure one way might get you to a certain goal a little faster, but that doesn’t mean that program has the strengths of another. But that doesn’t mean all programs are great either, cause there are some horrible ones out there!
Oh yeah, we do get to read a few horrible ones at MF, don’t we?
Yes we do!
Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.
Albert Einstein
Most people don’t understand this. YOUR exercise regimen needs to fit YOUR goals. I agree each individual needs to train in a way that fits each person. My brother can’t figure out why he is not losing weight from running the same amount each week. Then again, he loads up on carbs so he can run 10 miles…..or does he run 10 miles so he can load on carbs.
Great article JP. You are definitely right when you say that everyone is unique. Everyone has different goals and should engage in exercises that meet there goals. There are countless programs out there and a lot of them are great. One needs to find a program that they personally like OR one needs to just workout when they wish to workout and engage in whatever physical activity they feel like doing at the time!
I am working on building muscle but I now lift twice a week instead of 3 times as recommended by Mark. I enjoy the 5 “essential movements” because it does work your entire body quite well. The WOW is great because its a different exercise every week and it challenges you in a different way each time.
Outside of those 2 days, I sprint once a week, sometimes twice and then run if I want, take a hike (geesh I need to do this!), walk a lot, play, golf, etc. It depends on what I want to do in that moment.
I don’t want to say Mark’s program is for everyone but it is for many as it does have lots of freedom. Lift just twice a week, sprint once and then do what you want the other 4 days! Just simply move a lot but not too fast. Perfect.
That is a really great perspective, one that I have been becoming increasingly aware of. This article very much reminds me of the work of Robb Wolf. He speaks first and foremost in the interest of any individuals’ fitness goals, whatever them may be. What is so wonderful is that I feel the paleo/primal diet and lifestyle is so capable of benefiting health in general; it truly is conducive to helping anyone and everyone see progress and improvement, no matter what their approach to fitness and health may be.
Hi Daniel, thanks for stopping by.
I agree with you that the paleo diet is conducive to progress no matter the approach used. I think the testimonials of hundreds of people definitely prove it!
Well, Crossfit contains gymnastics (moving your body weight through space), olympic lifts for weight training and metabolic conditioning via running, or by grouping weight lifting and gymnastics (and possibly running as well) in a way that uses the oxidative metabolic pathways.
The idea is for you to be able to do anything required by your life, and that may be to run a 10K or play a sport.
I feel like CF is the elephant in the middle of the room in the post and in the comments here.