I'm as guilty as any fitness freak in romanticizing the times of yore when exercise was a necessary part of getting through your day.  Pull up any random blog, or pick up any fitness book, and you're as likely as not to read something like this:

Our ancestors spent their days in robust,  virile tests of athleticism, courage, and skill.  Running swiftly on legs whose power and speed would rival that of today's best Olympians, ancient man would run down the noble elk, wrestle it to the ground with his bare hands, effortlessly applying a death-lock grip around its neck that would strike fear in the hearts of our most highly-skilled martial artists.  The elk would die peacefully, knowing it had been bested by a superior being--a faster, stronger, more skilled denizen of the wild.

He would then carry his kill over hundreds of miles of rugged, mountainous jungle, eluding predators and outwitting scavengers, stopping only to drink and bathe in crystalline springs, where he would outswim the swiftest alligators.  Presently he would arrive at the village, where the men would be practicing hand-to-hand combat and the women perfecting their erotic dancing, and present his kill to the women and elders of the village, who would gaze adoringly on his glistening musculature, which Ronnie Coleman would envy.  It was a fine, fine life indeed, and these strapping specimens were just 9 years old. 

It gets a little ridiculous, but it's effective; I do think that many of us are inspired by a primitive fantasy in which the modern infrastructure collapses and we must survive by our wits and, of course, by our muscles.  Half of today's action movies are about this very kind of apocalyptic societal collapse.

So, even if the back-to-nature thing is about as fresh as last week's toe socks, I just discovered a guy whose 'primitive' fitness model is pretty elegant:  Mark Sisson's Daily Apple.  Mark's a former high-level long-distance runner, triathlete, and biologist who has ten very simple rules to healthy living.  He calls them "The Primal Top Ten:"

1) Eat a lot of animals, insects, and plants.
2) Move around a lot at a slow pace.
3)  Lift heavy things.
4)  Run really fast once in a while.
5)  Get lots of sleep.
6)  Play.
7)  Get some sunlight every day.
8)  Avoid Trauma.
9)  Avoid poisonous things.
10)  Use your mind.

I'm not sure how many insects I'm up for eating, but other than that, this strikes me as a pretty good and attainable list.  Sisson's top ten are based on activities that the old guys did--you know, the forefathers:  they hunted, migrated, slept when it was dark, goofed off and told stories with their sloping-foreheaded brethren, avoided the drive-thru at Mickey-D's most of the time. 

To me, even if we've heard iterations of this before, the back-to-nature approach to health and fitness holds a lot of appeal:  the question always being asked by fitness pros, on some level, is "What should we do, and what should we eat, for optimal fitness?"  And time after time, it appears that extremism in virtually any form--too much long-distance running and not enough strength training, too many carbs and not enough protein, all work and no play--is detrimental. 

So maybe it makes sense to harken back to the times when marauding chimps were lurking around every corner, preparing to club us, snap our jaws and then tear our genitals off so we were no longer a threat.  Ah, it was a happier, simpler life!

The upshot is a kind of Western-Eastern approach rooted in balance, and I like it.  Lots of great, sensible advice in the blog.

Have a great weekend!

Andrew