The Primal Blueprint (39 page)
Read The Primal Blueprint Online
Authors: Mark Sisson
Regarding the particulars of how to balance upper- and lower-body efforts, “push and pull” workout groupings, light weight with high reps or heavy weight with low reps:
it doesn’t matter that much!
This is not rocket science. The idea is to challenge your body on a regular basis with brief, intense resistance workouts of any kind that you desire—in a fancy gym; in your garage with a few basic weights or stretch cords; using creative “Primal” implements like kettlebells, slosh tubes, and sandbags; or in a hotel room with nothing more than a chair and some floor space. (Check out
MarksDailyApple.com
for hundreds of interesting and challenging resistance workout ideas.)
Personally, I’m a devoted gym rat, but my faithful appearance at the local gym four or five days a week has a heavy social element. Some days I’ll be in there for an hour and 15 minutes, shooting the breeze, preening, and trash-talking with my pals—interspersed with some embarrassingly low-effort exercises where I barely sweat. Other days, when I’m feeling fired up, I’ll push it hard for 25 minutes of maximum effort sets with short rest. After these workouts, I have trouble slipping my sweatshirt on and sticking my key in the ignition to drive home, but I am exhilarated and recovery is quick. These hard days are few and far between, but they make a big difference. Overall, it honestly does
not require that much time to maintain excellent all-around functional muscle strength and an impressive physique. It’s simply a matter of establishing a reasonable baseline commitment of regular workouts, with the occasional super effort that stimulates a fitness breakthrough.
A high-intensity, short-duration workout will stimulate the release of adaptive hormones—particularly testosterone and human growth hormone—that get you lean, energetic, and youthful. Work hard and complete your session in less than an hour, even (or especially) if you are an experienced lifter. That’s right—go against the Conventional Wisdom of long, drawn-out workouts of the same old sets with the same weight and repetitions. A 30 to 45-minute session is actually plenty for most people.
As you improve your fitness, keep your focus on increasing intensity (more resistance, shorter rest periods, and tougher exercises) rather than extending the duration of your workouts. Repeated workouts that extend beyond an hour (I’ve seen some hard-core lifters routinely go for two hours or more!), where you lift moderate weights to failure again and again, can stimulate the excessive release of destructive (also called catabolic) hormones like cortisol that lead to fatigue, breakdown, and the metabolic problems already discussed at length. Again, think about Grok: he moved some big rocks, which gave his body a shock. But when the quick job was done, he could relax and have fun, basking in the sun.
Always align the difficulty of your sessions with your energy level, and don’t push yourself beyond what you are motivated and inspired to do. You will notice after your first couple of sets whether your performance is worse or better than normal. If you are feeling—and performing—significantly worse than normal, consider skipping or sharply curtailing the workout. On the other hand, if you feel energized and ready to ramp it up a notch, go for it!; push yourself beyond your typical routine to achieve a fitness breakthrough.
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Always align the difficulty of your sessions with your energy level, and don’t push yourself beyond what you are motivated and inspired to do. On the other hand, if you feel energized and ready to ramp it up a notch, go for it!
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I should point out that if you are new to strength training, you might get too tired to actually complete even 25 minutes of high-intensity effort. Instead, you can work up to it by either compressing your workout time further or taking longer rest intervals between your hard efforts. Even a workout as short as seven minutes can produce outstanding benefits. I know of an ex-collegiate gymnast, still in competitive shape with an amazingly cut physique, who claims only to work out for seven minutes a few times a week, with no resistance equipment, in a tiny floor space in his living room.
Impossible? Get a load of his routine: three sets of 10 handstand push-ups, followed by three sets of 20-clap push-ups and 20 one-armed push-ups (for each arm), transitioning immediately into 3 sets of 10 leg flairs, then five handstand push-ups, followed by….well, you get the picture! His many years of intense daily training have given him a fitness base to accomplish a phenomenal amount of work—and maintain exceptional fitness—with a minimal time commitment. Oh, and he walks a lot and eats right, too!
If you are spent after a 10-minute workout, congratulations! You’ve pushed yourself to the max and elicited a desirable fitness response in your body. By the way, those seemingly inconsequential hikes and walks will actually contribute substantially to your ability to hit it hard in the gym, thanks to the well-established connection between the cardiorespiratory and musculoskeletal benefits of comfortable aerobic exercise and your ability to perform at peak intensity (as illustrated with the Peter Snell example of his heavy overdistance training preparing him for intense track competitions).
I suggest you shoot for an average bare minimum of one comprehensive 25-minute session and an abbreviated seven-minute session per week. Even for devoted strength trainers, I believe an optimum schedule would be to average a couple of half-hour sessions and an abbreviated intense session of under 10 minutes per week. If you are a “more is better” gym rat, I’ll argue in favor of increasing the intensity of these three sessions rather than adding additional workouts.
Feel free to experiment with the types of exercises that are most fun for you and with a routine that fits most conveniently and comfortably into your daily lifestyle. Be sure to alter your routine constantly, not only to account for your improved fitness level but to enjoy the psychological and physical benefits of evolving your fitness goals and interests. The Lift Heavy Things Workout Suggestions appendix at
MarksDailyApple.com
offers an ever-expanding list of workouts, featuring not only descriptions but photos and videos.
Realize that this concept of sporadic, intuitive exercise means you have permission to take—and will, in fact, greatly benefit from—vacation time. The more extreme your goals and training regimen are, the more effort required to balance your overall stress levels on both a micro (daily or weekly) and macro (annual) scale. As I discovered for myself (the hard way), trusting the body’s need for balance and intermittent stress can lead to results that are superior—in weight loss or peak competitive performance—compared to the die-hard trainaholics who never miss a workout and never get sufficient rest.
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Trusting your need for balance and intermittent stress can lead to superior results compared to the die-hard trainaholics who never miss a workout
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To make sure you are adhering to the Primal philosophy, I suggest paying close attention to your energy level and even your emotional state in the hours after a strength workout. After even my toughest sessions, I feel alert, energized, and positive—basically a natural buzz—for hours afterward. My muscles, while certainly not eager to repeat the workout in the immediate future, feel pleasantly relaxed, loose, and warm. In contrast, if your muscles feel stiff and sore after strength sessions, or you feel like taking a nap, raiding the fridge, or snapping at your loved ones, I recommend conducting fewer, shorter, more intense—more Primal—workouts. If you can only maintain high-intensity effort for seven minutes, then end your workout there and work up to more sets in the future.
In regard to body composition, remember your strength training efforts fall into the fine-tuning 20 percent category, while 80 percent of your success is determined by how you eat. This is a sobering stat if you are working hard at the gym, eating poorly, and praying for results. In this scenario, all that hard work in the gym will contribute mostly to a higher grocery bill (okay, and more fleeting pleasure from unrestricted caloric intake), but you’ll be wearing the same size clothing on your trips to the market.
The particulars of your strength-training routine are less important than your strategic approach (intermittent, fluctuating, intuitive, and balancing effort with energy levels). Remember that you are striving to achieve a high power-to-weight ratio and balanced, functional, total-body strength. You want to be lean, well muscled, and fit enough to perform reasonably well at any physical challenge that comes along, Consequently, your routine should be focused on exercises that engage a variety of muscles with sweeping, real-life movements (squats, pull-ups, push-ups, etc.) instead of a series of isolated body part exercises (this includes those ever-popular, narrow-range-of-motion abs machines!).
This approach is a simpler and safer alternative to popular routines designed to pack on more muscle than your body is naturally suited for or to produce disproportionate muscles (“Develop huge guns in six weeks!”) in the interest of vanity over functionality. For example, to work my calf muscles in a functional manner, I like to run on an inclined treadmill for five to seven minutes in stocking feet, without letting my heels touch the ground. This offers a real-life functional test for my calves and works the small muscles, tendons, ligaments, and connective tissue in my lower extremities that are otherwise artificially protected and unchallenged when wearing high-tech running shoes. I gradually incline the treadmill to reach from two to five degrees and then steadily increase the speed. I try to make sure my heels don’t bear any significant weight or provide propulsion.
Keep in mind that I just made this workout up one day, and you may or may not like it. However, I think it offers an important counter to the time spent working out and walking around in overly cushioned and arch-supported running shoes. Contrast the broad benefits of this exercise with something like donkey calf-raises. This narrow-range-of-motion exercise (sit with a weighted bar across your knees and lift your toes off the ground repeatedly) has minimal functional benefit; besides, I’ll stack my calves up against any bodybuilder’s!
Grok probably never warmed up for his “workouts,” and I’m just not a big fan of using cardio to warm up extensively. (Sorry about that, Conventional Wisdom. I know I keep pissing you off!) That said, because you will usually be starting your workout “cold” (maybe you just left an office where you were sitting all day or you just got out of bed), it does make sense to get a little blood flowing into your muscles before hitting the intense stuff. Therefore, your strength sessions should generally start with a brief three- to five-minute warm-up using light weights or calisthenics specific to the muscle groups you’ll be working that day. A few sets of easy push-ups and some jumping jacks might be sufficient.
Because Primal Fitness training is intended to recruit as many muscle fibers as possible and to build functional strength rather than sheer bulk, I wouldn’t worry about following some predetermined and deliberate effort-recovery cycle. Instead, try to be slightly explosive with most of your movements. By that I mean you should apply a controlled dynamic force to each repetition such that you complete it at a speed that allows you to maintain form and a reasonable pace for the number of reps you intend to complete. Do that and, believe me, you’ll slow down naturally on that final rep or two! This method will fully load the muscle and trigger the biochemical signal to grow stronger by recruiting new fibers.
While there are disparate schools of thought on the best strength-training techniques, I make this general suggestion here to align with the concept of optimal gene expression and prevention of the all-too-common “Chronic Strength Training” burnout syndrome. If you have specialized fitness goals or an expert personal trainer suggesting a different technique, I wouldn’t be overly concerned. I’ll default here to the big picture and assert that short, intense workouts are the key to Primal Fitness success.
Much has been written about breathing while lifting weights, some of it relevant (to protect your back from damage) and some of it conjecture. When you apply force, you should generally be either exhaling or holding your breath. This will form a sealed air space behind in the transverse abdominal muscles of your lower core that protect your lumbar spine. While some caution against holding your breath, there is no scientific support to affirm this is harmful. In fact, I find I can bang out two or three reps in a row more effectively when holding my breath and then can catch my breath during a recovery phase.
There are many excellent resources—from certified personal trainers, magazine articles, books, video Web sites like
CrossFit.com
, articles on
MarksDailyApple.com
, and even your imagination (observing certain obvious safety rules, such as spine stability)—to help you create an ideal total-body routine for your needs. The possibilities are nearly limitless if you observe the strategic rules of
Primal Blueprint
–style training. The Lift Heavy Things Workout Suggestions appendix at
MarksDailyApple.com
details a comprehensive session in the gym, a quick workout using only your body weight for resistance, and also a challenging “Grok” session you can do anywhere—all you need is a chair or a bench.
Stretching: If You Don’t Know Squat, Try Hangin’ with Grok
“What would Grok do?” It’s hard to imagine Grok stretching much beyond a yawning feline-style spine elongation upon awakening, hanging lazily off a branch, or engaging in the timeless, all-purpose stretch of squatting down to the ground. Furthermore, recent research (visit the
Primal Blueprint
Resources appendix at
MarksDailyApple.com
to find relevant materials) seems to refute the benefits of conducting a traditional static stretching routine before exercising. It’s now believed the central nervous system may be disturbed by such activity, resulting in what scientists call a neuromuscular inhibitory response. In plain-speak, your muscles might actually get weaker (by up to 30 percent) for up to 30 minutes after an inappropriate stretching session (poor technique and/or bad timing—like stretching “cold” muscles before exercise), and stretching might contribute to more injuries than it prevents.
If you follow a Chronic Cardio or Chronic Strength Training program that causes recurring muscle fatigue and tightness, you will probably feel an inclination to stretch frequently before and after workouts, even while sitting at your desk. I have a better idea:
back off!
If you are exercising according to the
Primal Blueprint
, your muscles should feel supple and strong nearly all of the time. Sure, occasionally you will place extreme challenges on your body (yep, that’s a good thing) and become sore and stiff. This is nature’s way of telling you you’re overdoing it. By the way, the old runner’s adage that stretching and light exercise the day after a race or tough workout will “flush the blood” and speed the healing of stiff, sore muscles is questionable. There is strong support for the idea that muscle tissue repair is best accomplished through inactivity, extra rest and sleep, good nutrition, and brief, repeated exposure to cold water (particularly immediately after strenuous exercise; read more details about cold water therapy in the
Chapter 2
Endnotes).
As mentioned previously, the best way to prepare your body for any workout is with some brief, low-intensity exercise to help shift blood into your extremities from the organs in your working muscles. Even for something like all-out sprints, a brief low-intensity cardio warm-up of a few minutes, followed by some long, easy strides at 75 percent effort will prime you for your maximum efforts (as detailed in the Sprint Workout
Suggestions appendix at
MarksDailyApple.com
). It’s clear that Grok didn’t have time to warm up when he had to run for his life, and yet I don’t think he sat out too many primal battles with muscle pulls.
On the other hand, some benefit may be obtained with a few very brief basic stretches after workouts or to otherwise help transition between active and inactive states. My two favorite stretches are (poise your notepad): the
Grok Hang
and the
Grok Squat
. The Grok Hang offers a safe, full-body stretch that leaves you feeling exhilarated every time. It’s also an effective strengthening exercise—as Primal as they come. It’s as simple as grabbing hold of a bar or tree branch (with overhand grip) and hanging for as long as you can support yourself.
The Grok Squat involves placing your feet approximately shoulder-width apart, bending your knees with a straight or slightly arched back and lowering your torso all the way down until your butt is nearly touching the ground. Your torso is between your knees, and arms are extended in front of you. This natural movement provides a safe, gentle, efficient stretch for your feet, calves, Achilles, hamstrings, quadriceps, buttocks, lower and upper back, and shoulders. For thousands of years people have squatted as a natural “sitting” position in the absence of chairs (to say nothing of Barcaloungers!). For Grok—and millions of people today in the undeveloped world—squatting is the default position for resting, socializing, eating meals, and even eliminating.
Try a Grok Squat for 20 seconds and notice what a comprehensive effect you get from such a basic movement. If it’s first thing in the morning or when you’re a little stiff from some intense activity or other stressor (e.g., jet or car travel), simply lowering into the position provides a good stretch. When I’m feeling warm and loose, I’ll gently rock back and forth and/or extend my arms out farther to obtain a deeper stretch. One caution: if you haven’t done this for a while, are overweight, or have joint issues, you can begin to ease into this stretch (and keep yourself from going too low or falling over) by holding on to a post or another stationary object.
Note:
I know there are many passionate enthusiasts of yoga, Pilates, and other well-designed workouts that emphasize a balance of strengthening and stretching, and I don’t wish to critique these here. I’m simply saying that extensive stretching before—or even after—workouts may not provide much benefit and could even be counterproductive. If you have injuries, joint issues, or a rehab protocol designed by a medical professional, you will certainly want to override these general suggestions to address your particular needs in conjunction with your workouts. Even with stretches as simple as Grok’s, be wary of any discomfort, skip or adapt the movements accordingly, and ease into and out of stretching positions.
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My own prescription for health is less paperwork and more running barefoot through the grass. —
Leslie Grimutter”