Today was a great training day. If you go over to my training page you will see the hard work I put in. Let’s just say I love days like today, it really helps with the recovery of the body. (For those of you who haven’t caught on yet, today was a rest day. I will have Thursdays session up as soon as I can.)
-Greg
Here is what my new program will look like
Day 1- ME (one of the 3 powerlifts)
Crossfit/metcon
Day 2- 5×5 (1 upper push, 1 upper pull, 1 lower body)
Day 3-rest
Day 4-Reps of 10,9,8…3,2,1 (1 upper push, 1 upper pull, 1 lower body)
Day 5- ME ( one of the 3 powerlifts)
Crossfit/metcon
Day 6-Rest
Day 7- 5×5 (same as above)
Day 8- reps of 10,9,8…3,2,1 (same as above0
Day 9-rest
repeat
I am still trying to figure out my running sch. I know I will still run on the mornings on the 5×5 and 10,9,8.., but i am trying to decide if I will run on the metcon days or do the Me in the moring and metcon in the afternoon. I will let you know when I know.
-Greg
**EDIT**
after today’s metcon workout, I don’t think there will be any need to run on these days. HOLY CRAP!!
I have no idea what mike is up to!
by Mike Robertson
You’ve got all your training goals laid out for one helluva year. This is going to be the year! You know, the one where you’re the biggest, leanest, and strongest you’ve ever been.
The wheels are set in motion and you’re making amazing progress. Then bam! You begin what figures to be the first of many trips to the disabled list.
I’ve seen sections on other websites that are dedicated to washed-up meatheads; older guys that are still hitting the gym heavy. I can appreciate that. I hope someday I’m considered a washed-up meathead. In your case, though, you’re not washed-up, you’re just jacked up!
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I get a handful of e-mails daily from injured strength athletes, and I always do my best to give them some clues as to how they can fix themselves up. Quite often, the reasons they get injured are simple and fixing them doesn’t require a degree in rocket science or quantum mechanics.
If you finally decide to heed some of my advice, this could be the year where you actually attain the goals you’ve been dreaming of, while remaining relatively injury-free in the process.
Reason 10: You Still Don’t Warm-up Properly
I’m constantly in awe at how many times people ask, “Do you warm-up?”
Seriously, is this something we still need to discuss?
If you’re still unconvinced that warming-up is necessary, here are some of the benefits associated with a warm-up, according to Michael Alter (1):
• Increased body and tissue temperature
• Increased blood flow through active muscles by reducing vascular bed resistance
• Increased heart rate, which will prepare the cardiovascular system for work
• Increased metabolic rate
• Increases in the Bohr effect, which facilitates the exchange of oxygen from hemoglobin
• Increased speed at which nerve impulses travel, and thereby facilitation of body movements
• Increased efficiency of reciprocal innervation (thus allowing opposing muscles to contract and relax faster and more efficiently)
• Increased physical working capacity
• Decreased viscosity (or resistance) of connective tissue and muscle
• Decreased muscular tension (improved muscle relaxation)
• Enhanced connective tissue and muscular extensibility
• Enhanced psychological performance
Now, I know that some people say you should be prepared to perform at any time; therefore, you don’t need to warm-up. After all, if you meet a bear in the woods, you better be able to sprint without warming-up, right?
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I get the gist of it, but there’s a difference between what you can do and what’s optimal. You can probably get by for a while without warming-up, but much like that grizzly, at some point in time it’s going to catch up to you.
Reason 9: You Continually Fail to Stretch
Stretching is one of those ridiculously easy things that everyone can do, yet very few actually get around to. You don’t need any equipment whatsoever. If nothing else, a little open space and some free time will suit you just fine.
As well, there are numerous types of stretching you should be performing, and each type has some unique benefits.
Pre-Training — Dynamic Stretching
I won’t beat a dead horse. If you want the “why’s” behind this one, re-read Reason 10.
Post-Training — Eccentric Quasi-Isometrics
Eccentric quasi-isometrics, or EQI’s, are an excellent choice for post-workout stretching. Tony Schwartz covers these in-depth in Christian Thibaudeau’s book, Theory and Application of Modern Strength and Power Methods. I won’t steal Tony’s thunder, but I like dumbbell EQI flies post-workout on upper body days, and a Bulgarian split-squat or lunge variation on lower body days.
Before Bed — Static Stretching
The more research I read about static stretching, the more confused I get. Does it really improve flexibility? Is it just a modality to make you feel better? Will excessive static stretching reduce your strength and power to levels on par with your 90-year-old grandmother? Okay, the last one was a little sarcastic, but you get my point.
To be honest, I’m not totally sure. What I do know is this: When I consistently stretch four to five times per week, my body feels better. When I don’t, I can tell a huge difference in regard to my overall levels of tension and a reduction in my body awareness. The same can be said of almost every client I’ve worked with. Once they begin a consistent and dedicated static stretching program, a lot of those little aches and pains that used to plague them seem to vanish.
Those factors, in and of themselves, are enough for me to continue stretching until I find something better.
Throughout the Day — Low-Load, Long Duration Stretching
We all know that sitting for extended periods throughout the day isn’t good. Not only does our body effectively become more efficient at sitting, but from a physiological perspective we can actually drop sarcomeres and have adaptive shortening of our musculature. Quite simply, we lose the length of our muscles.
One way to combat this is low-load, long duration stretching — or creep-based stretching. When I’m sitting in front of my computer for extended periods of time, I’ll actually take ten, fifteen, or twenty minutes, throw an Airex pad down, and perform some variation of a lunge stretch to get my hips back into extension. It’s not sexy, but it’s remarkably effective. If you haven’t tried this before, start out with two to three minutes and work your way up. Going for twenty minutes right off the bat may kill you!
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Oh, but it can be sexy.
Reason 8: You’re Oblivious to Stressors
I feel that stressors are vastly overlooked. When people talk about training, they’re generally referring to “training stress.”
However, your body doesn’t look at individual stressors any differently; the only thing that changes is the magnitude of the stress, and how your body responds to it.
With that being said, stress can hit you from a number of different angles:
• Spouse/significant other
• Family
• Financial
• Job
• School
• General life stress (the guy who cut you off and the subsequent swearing)
• Training
So why do I put training last? Because it’s the one you have the most control over!
I’ve met people who are on the verge of divorce, bankruptcy, and losing their job, and they’re stilltrying to kill themselves in the gym. Now, I’m all for using the gym as a source of “purging” if you will, but you have to understand that in the situation above, your body is under an inordinate amount of stress.
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Feel like your world is about to come crashing down?
In all honesty, expecting to see some appreciable improvements in strength, size, or body composition at this time is pretty ridiculous. I’ve seen many high-level executives see their biggest improvements in strength or body composition when they train less frequently and simply get more rest.
Reason 7: You Refuse to Take Time Off
Jumping off from the previous point, I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: Planned recovery weeks are one of the best things you can do to ensure long-term progress in the iron game. The guy who hits the gym with the same intensity week-after-week is most likely going to repeat the same performance and boast the same physique, week-after-week.
With relatively young lifters, or those with a young training age, performance improvements are seen from session to session. They may only need one de-load week every six to twelve weeks. However, you have to remember that most beginners can see strength gains using as little as 40% of their one-rep max! They just can’t incur all that much fatigue.
Contrast that with someone on the level of Dave Tate or Jim Wendler. These guys incur a massive amount of fatigue each and every workout. Someone at this level may need to take a planned de-load week as often as every three to four weeks to make sure they’re consistently driving their numbers up.
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Dave Tate’s massive back undergoing some massive fatigue.
Reason 6: You Fail to Recognize the 23:1 Rule
First things first, if you’re unfamiliar with the 23:1 rule, here goes:
Even in an ideal training world, you probably only have one hour per day to train yourself or a client. In contrast, there are twenty-three hours out of that same day to reinforce bad postural habits and hold back progress. Sweet!
Sitting at a desk all day is the perfect example. Watch most people sit at a desk and you’ll see an exact reproduction of their standing posture on a smaller scale. If they sit with a head forward posture, they’ll demonstrate that standing. If they sit for extended periods of time, they’ll probably sustain some shortening of the hip flexors, and therefore the inability to achieve full hip extension when standing.
This is something you must address if you want to achieve optimal results from your programming. Here are a few options:
• Get your hips in extension from time to time. Try the low-load, long duration stretches I outlined in Reason 9.
• Lie length-wise on a foam roller with your arms out to the sides to allow your anterior shoulder musculature to stretch out.
• If you’re forced to work on a computer all day, consider purchasing a stand-up desk to combat the need to sit all day long.
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Aim to do the opposite of what you do all day, every day, and you’ll be much better off.
Reason 5: Your Workouts Lack Progression
Here’s a little nugget: Glute bridges are great for getting your glutes firing, but they’re only the start. If they’re all you do for glute development over the course of your lifting career, well, your glutes sure aren’t going to be a strong point!
Progression is an integral part of your training that must be accounted for. So while glute bridges are great in the beginning, eventually you need to move on to more demanding variations that still work the same muscles (single-leg glute bridges, hip airplanes, bowler’s squats, etc). As body awareness, posture, and alignment improve, you’ll be able to do less and less activation work and focus more of your training time on big bang exercises.
Here’s another example: People love the prone Y that Chad Waterbury and Alwyn Cosgrove discussed in their previous article, 8 Weeks to Monster Shoulders. Sure, it’s a great exercise because it develops the often weak lower trapezius, but what do you do after that? Is it just as simple as loading up on prone Y’s till the end of time?
Not quite. Although, I’d be impressed seeing them performed with big wheels in each hand!
Prone Y’s are great, but they’re a long lever exercise, which makes it difficult to make progress on them. In contrast, you could start performing lat pull-downs with a clearly defined scapular depression, which would work the lower trapezius. After that, move into chin-up and pull-up progressions. Soon you’ll have the lower trap development to make all the ladies swoon!
Turn ons: Impressive traps. Turn offs: Rudeness, insensitivity, and being jacked up.
Reason 4: Your Mobility Sucks
For the last three years I’ve been labeled as one of the “mobility guys.” And you know what? I’ve totally come to grips with it.
When Eric and I first released Magnificent Mobility, I don’t think we realized how powerful a tool it’d become. It’s not going to cure hunger or promote world peace, but there are tons of people out there with terrible mobility that needed this. In fact, it’s consistently our best seller through the Biotest store on a month-to-month basis.
Look, I don’t care which mobility program you follow. Obviously, I’m biased and like Magnificent Mobility for the lower body and Inside-Out for the upper body (although both cover much more than mobility training). However, I think Z-Health is a great resource as well, and I’m looking to attend more seminars by Dr. Cobb in the future.
Here’s the bottom line: Improved mobility from the correct areas is going to enhance your performance inside and outside of the gym, while keeping you healthier to boot. If your mobility sucks, I’ll bet cash money on the fact that it’s only a matter of time until you get injured.
Reason 3: You Think Posture is Best Left to Science Geeks
I could get into an all-out biomechanical assault on how posture affects performance. We could even talk about length-tension relationships, sub-optimal alignment of actin and myosin, or how neural output decreases when the body is imbalanced.
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Here we see actin and myosin… ah, screw it.
I’m not stupid though — I know you don’t care. You just want to lift big iron, and I can appreciate that.
However, please understand that the whole reason I got interested in improving people’s posture was to improve their performance. More succinctly, if improving posture didn’timprove performance or the weight lifted, I wouldn’t care about it either!
For a host of reasons that Eric Cressey and I outlined in our Neanderthal No More series (Part I, II, III, IV, V), sub-optimal posture is going to lead to sub-optimal performances. Period. A muscle that’s chronically over-stretched or too short won’t be able to produce the best possible levels of force.
Correcting posture is an on-going battle, as everything you do in life affects it, either positively or negatively. However, by constantly working to improve it both via training and behavior modification, you give yourself a fighting chance to stay healthy.
Reason 1B: You’re Clueless About Program Design
The next two points go hand-in-hand, so instead of having one ranked higher, we’ll have 1A and 1B.
I’m still shocked at how few people know and understand how to develop solid programming. A few weeks ago, I was reviewing the site of the self-proclaimed “best trainer in Indianapolis,” where she described her ideal training split as:
Monday: Chest, shoulders, and triceps
Wednesday: Back and biceps
Friday: Legs
I mean, didn’t she get the memo that you have to bench every day to really make gains?
In all seriousness, when you get down to it, programming is equal parts art and science. You can understand all the biomechanics in the world, but if you don’t listen to your body, you simply won’t stay healthy for all that long. On the flip side, you can be totally in tune with your body, but if you don’t know where to place certain exercises, or why you’re doing five reps versus ten, then you’ll probably be jacked up before the year’s end as well.
If you’re unfamiliar with writing programs, there are numerous articles here on Testosteroneto help you out. Alwyn Cosgrove’s Program Design manual wouldn’t be a bad investment, either. A key word I like to use in my seminars is rationale. In other words, can you rationalize the following in your programs?
• Why’d you choose that specific exercise?
• Why’d you choose that specific set/rep scheme?
• Why’d you choose that specific rest period?
• Why’d you choose that specific tempo?
And the list could go on and on. In essence, though, you’d better be able to rationalize every section of your training. If you can’t, why’s it in there?
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Reason 1A: Your Technique Still Sucks
After a grueling search, you’ve finally found the perfect program for yourself. On top of that, you’re doing everything else correctly — stretching, warming-up, de-loading — the works. There’s just one small problem.
Your technique still sucks!
Let’s be honest here. You could have the best program in the world and be dialed in everywhere else, but if your form sucks, you’re not going to get the most out of it. And worse yet, you’re probably going to wreck yourself (so check yourself).
I’m the first to admit that technique can slip in the blink of an eye. Since moving down from Ft. Wayne two and a half years ago, I’ve trained largely by myself. When I first began videotaping some of my lifts a few months ago, I was more than little shocked at their execution! Ever since, I’ve been videotaping almost every workout and things are getting back to normal.
So, if your technique sucks, you have a few options:
• Hire a competent trainer. The key word in that sentence is competent. This option is ideal if you’re a beginner.
• If you’re in a commercial gym, find someone in your gym with the smarts to help you out. Please note this doesn’t always equate to the biggest or leanest person there. Find the one whose technique is the best and ask them for assistance.
• Get the hell out of the commercial gym and find a real gym or key club where everyone knows what they’re doing. When I trained at Westside several years ago, it was as though I had ten coaches all helping me out at once. In that situation, you’ve got no choice but to get better.
Now Go Ice Your Ego
Well, there you have it, the ten reasons why you’re still jacked up.
Whether it’s a bum knee, aching shoulders, or a stiff lower back, nothing can bring your progress to a screeching halt quicker than an injury. However, don’t make staying healthy any harder than it needs to be. Following the tips above is a sure-fire way to get, and stay, healthy for now and years to come.
Good luck, get healthy, and make this your best year ever!
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About the Author
Mike Robertson, MS, CSCS, USAW, is the President of Robertson Training Systems and the Director of Custom Athletics in Indianapolis, Indiana. Mike received his master’s degree in sports biomechanics from the Human Performance Lab at Ball State University.
To learn more about Mike, visit his website and be sure to check out his books at the online store.
I will update more later.
-Greg
Today is my last day of lifting for at least 4-5 days. It s time to give the muscle and CNS a little break. They can get a little beat up lift 4-5 days a week.
-Greg
New article in the nutrtion section
This was on a message board I go to. I think it plays to alot of America’s problems, not just health
1. Commitment
2. Hard work
3. Effort
4. Consistency
5. Lack of excuse making
That is what Americans need
Day1 – ME/DE
Day2- RE
Day3- Off
Day4- ME/DE
Day5-Crossfit
Day6-Off
On ME Days I will alternate between the 3 powerlifting events (deadlift, squat, bench press) With DE being assist lifts (chinups, Dips/Standing Press, Front Squats)
-Greg
very interesting article, even if I don’t beleive in “cavemen”
Meet the Mystery Man
Five foot five inches tall…
One hundred eighty pounds…
Eight percent body fat…
Prehistoric guys want to be him and chicks want to be with him…
Who is he? Why, he’s Neandrethal man. The biggest, baddest, bipedal evolutionary ancestor on the block.
Wo — you thought Neanderthals were more Quazimodo than Quadzilla, didn’t you?
Well, don’t tell that to any of your archeologist friends. Nothing makes them
cringe more than using “neanderthal” as an adjective to describe the dumb and the lazy. After all, every piece of evidence unearthed tells us just the
opposite: Neanderthals were intelligent beings perfectly adapted to harsh
Pleistocene conditions. And with a formidable physique that would make any bodybuilder jealous, they were hardly the hunched creatures depicted below.
So next time someone calls you a Neanderthal, thank them for the compliment, and then correct them on their pronunciation: ‘Neanderthal’ is pronounced with a hard t, the same as ‘Beethoven’.
So how did we get this false image of the hunchback, oafish Neanderthal?
This misperception stems from an infamous archaeological boo-boo. The earliest found Neanderthal bones (in Europe in the 19th and early 20th centuries; La Chappelle-aux-Saints, France to be exact) were those of an elderly Neanderthal man suffering from grossly deforming osteoarthritis and several injuries, including a damaged patella.
This was just after Darwin’s Origins of Species hit the bookstores, and
scientists were on a hunt for an ape-like ancestor in our human lineage.
Legitimate ape-like ancestors would later be found in east Africa dating back millions of years ago, but everyone in the early 20th century wanted to find that “missing link” in Europe.
Blinded by this paradigm, a French paleontologist chose a beaten down, crippled old man to herald as the norm for Neanderthals, despite having specimens of perfectly healthy adults. Thus began the image of a hunchback, club-wielding brute that still persists today.
So just how buff were these Neanderthals?
The Neanderthal was the apex of musculo-skeletal hypertrophy in our evolutionary past. In fact, every piece of evidence suggests that Neanderthals were evolved to put on more muscle naturally than modern, 21st century man (that means you, Flintstone!).
Try these physical characteristics on for size:
• For starters, massive, broad shoulders are indicated by a scapular breadth that is about 8% larger than their modern human contemporaries. (Neanderthals and anatomically modern humans did live side by side for several millennia.)
• Muscle attachments for the pecs were enormous, up to twice the size of today’s average.
• Neanderthals had shorter, wider humeri (upper arms), which combined with the shoulders, suggests substantial rotator cuff muscularity. And, get this; the bones in their forearms were actually bowed from muscles that must have powered a grip that could crush stone.
• All of this upper body musculature was anchored on a solid foundation of
massive quads that specialized in explosive power and side-to-side movement.
Now, before you start thinking that Neanderthals were all show and no go — it appears that their physiques and lifestyles were partly tailored towards being effective hunters of large game. Wild nuts, vegetables, and fruit were also a significant part of their diet. But judging from their injuries, they engaged in hunting activities that involved close proximity to large angry Pleistocene mammals.
How do we know this? Well, almost every Neanderthal skeleton shows
signs of serious injury and trauma, very similar, in fact, to what is seen in
modern rodeo riders.
So it appears that our fearless ancestors were purposely pissing off some of the biggest, meanest, Pleistocene megafauna like woolly rhinos until they charged, and then allowing them to impale themselves on massive tree-trunk sized spears lifted at the last moment (think Braveheart). Make no mistake folks, these impressive physiques weren’t for the sake of vanity.
But with all this brawn, were the Neanderthals big, dumb brutes? Apparently not. Neanderthals also had a lot of brains behind all that brawn. In fact, their
brains were little larger on average than modern man’s. Now, all those brains probably did not mean that they sat around the campfire discussing the 2nd law of thermodynamics. Brain size does not directly correlate directly with intelligence. Nevertheless, they had large brains and large, lean bodies — a far cry from the popular image of the Neanderthal.
Now before you start thinking that every Neanderthal was a superhuman with a little red cape, there is some variability in Neanderthal hypertrophy. Those who stayed put for extended periods of time tended to be bigger than those who had to move around more often. For example, Neanderthal skeletons at Shanidar Cave in Iraq show great musculo-skeletal hypertrophy. It’s probably no coincidence that this huge cave was a basecamp where they had plenty of food and stayed for at least a few months out of the year. In other areas with less food, however,
you find smaller Neanderthals who were constantly on the go.
There are too many factors to isolate a single cause for variable levels of
hypertrophy, but food abundance and the type of activity certainly played a
role. All Paleolithic folks were active — they had to be to survive. But if you
take a group of people who walk hundreds of kilometers in a yearly cycle versus those who stay in one place longer and engage in short bouts of intensive activity, then what we might be witnessing is something along the lines of endurance versus strength-trained physiques.
What Happened to the Neanderthal?
Ironically, the rough and tumble lifestyle and brawny physique that ensured
their survival for hundreds of thousands of years also sealed their fate, making room for Homo sapiens. While Neanderthals were occupying most of Europe and the Middle East, anatomically modern humans evolved in Africa and subsequently spread into areas occupied by Neanderthals, in some cases co-existing with their evolutionary cousins. (If you’ve ever read Jane Auel’s Earth’s Children series you’ll recognize that Auel offered a fictional account of the interrelations between Neanderthals and Homo sapiens.)
So what did our direct ancestors look like compared to our evolutionary cousins? Well, sadly for our gym performance, the earliest moderns were characterized by more atrophied bodies with equally large brains. Compared to Neanderthals, the brains to brawn ratio of moderns was significantly increased. In fact, compared to other animals, humans are primarily walking brains. (Granted, they may not all function at the same level, but they are presumably there nonetheless.)
But the Neanderthals had big brains too. So why did their kind die off while
ours remained?
1. Big muscles and big brains are expensive.
Evolutionary fitness relies upon developing many contingency plans and for times when food was not plentiful and modern bodies evolved to ensure the brain remains well fed. The muscularity of humans pales in comparison to all other existing primates such as gorillas and chimps. But what we lack in muscle we make up for in fat.
Body fat is particularly important during infancy, when the brain is growing
like a weed. Greater levels of body fatness (and reduced muscle mass) supports the growth of an infant brain by having a ready supply of stored energy, and by reducing the metabolic costs of the body. Muscle is just too metabolically taxing, and when it boils down to competition between brain and brawn, our genetic makeup allows the brain to win.
2. When food is scarce, we need to think good, not look good.
Our unimpressive physiques and overgrown brains have won the evolutionary challenge and the world is populated by Homo sapiens today and not Neanderthals because we can conserve more calories in our fat cells, saving energy for brain function. Therefore, during times of famine, while those big Neanderthal muscles and brains were demanding lots of energy, competing for energy resources and leaving the Neanderthal weak and intellectually sluggish, our more plentiful fat stores afforded us more energy for ingenuity. And ingenuity gets food when you’re physically weak.
3. When you’re weak, you don’t rely on muscular strength.
Since moderns did not have the powerful physiques of the Neanderthals and could not wrestle with Woolly Mammoths, they learned to rely on their mental prowess.
Rather than chasing down prey and physically interacting with them, modern humans invested their mental energy into developing new and better technology that could take down animals from a distance (a spear throwing device, and eventually the bow and arrow).While the Neanderthal tried to physically overcome every challenge, modern man tried to outwit every challenge. A Neanderthal would take the stairs while our own ancestors would use the elevator. In other words, modern man is basically the thinking, lazy man.
4. Big brains don’t always mean high intelligence.
Neanderthals and moderns had brain sizes that were roughly equivalent. Yet moderns seem to have been more intelligent. This might be a result of what those brains were made up of.
It might be no coincidence that most early Homo sapiens sites are found in
coastal areas. Seafood seems to have been crucial for brain health and
intelligence. A type of omega-3 fatty-acid found in fish and seafood known as docosahexaenoic acid (DHA) is the equivalent of rocket fuel for the brain. Our mammalian nervous system is composed partly of polyunsaturated fatty acids, most of which are DHA and arachidonic acid (AA). In other words, we have the same fatty acids found in marine food right between our ears. Fueled by DHA and AA, our brains evolved into their modern form with a large forebrain associated with superior intellect (outliers removed, such as Jessica Simpson).
As a result of these important differences, the fate of Neanderthals was sealed about 30,000 years ago, when global populations grew and people began competing for resources. Under demographic and environmental stress, folks with a varied diet and mental flexibility win the evolutionary coin toss. You don’t need to be a fearsome hunter to catch fish and set traps for rabbits, and it was in this world that modern man flourished. Also, with fewer calories to be had, modern humans had a distinct advantage over the Neanderthals, simply by virtue of storing more fat, having fewer muscles, and burning fewer calories.
What’s Left Today?
The survival of our species has depended on bigger brains, more fat, and less muscle. So yea, our evolutionary past certainly hasn’t made it easy for us to have a cover model body. In fact, an overly protective Mother Nature has selected for just the opposite, a propensity to store less muscle and more fat. While this has been supremely effective in our survival, it’s not done us any favors when heading to the beach.
Given that our early survival depended upon it, should we embrace corpulence and shun muscularity? Not so fast there, doughboy.
Some folks still develop Neanderthal bodies. By making food selections that build brains and muscles and by moving around lots while lifting heavy stuff, we can defy our genetics, too. After all, the current research shows that while 50-60% of our physique development can be attributed to genetics, 40-50% can be attributed to our environment (what we eat, how much we move, etc). So it’s true that we can enjoy all the benefits of our big, ingenious brains while still running around like our Neanderthal cousins, lifting weights heavy enough to bow our forearms and gnawing the meat off wooly mammoth bones.
But sadly, most people aren’t doing this. In our world of unprecedented food
surplus and cheap, empty calories, we have come full circle in our evolution. We are literally eating ourselves to death. What was once our asset (ingenuity in getting food) has become our liability. We have become too effective at procuring calories, and all of our technological innovations that extract calories from whole foods have resulted in hyper processed pre-packaged heart attacks littering the aisles of convenience stores.
Evolution follows a conservative pace, and genetically we are all still late
Stone Agers. Paleolithic folks ate everything that they could get their hands on with minimal effort, and this is exactly the same mantra many folks follow
today. Our technology has sped way past our genetic evolution. And if we could transplant a Paleolithic hunter-gatherer into today’s world, he would quickly balloon into a morbidly obese heart disease patient.
So what are we, the evolutionary victors, to do now?
Perhaps we should take a few lessons from the Neanderthals. They did endurance exercise. They did anaerobic burst activity. They performed feats of muscular strength. They ate free range mammals. They ate fruits, nuts and vegetables. They were muscular and lean. And you can be too — although bone-bowing strength may be beyond your reach.
However, with the sudden popularity of paleo-type, evolutionary nutrition
theories and meal plans, a word of caution is necessary. Invoking ghosts from Paleolithic times to offer nutrition suggestions may be more fallacy than fact. After all, our Neanderthal cousins and our own ancient parents ate they way they did out of necessity, not for a great set of abs. Also, our ancient parents were a diverse group — some lean, some fat; some eating higher protein and fat diets, some eating higher carb diets; some living in more established settlements, and some always on the go.
Therefore in part II of this article series, we’ll take a closer look at some of
the diverse backgrounds from whence we directly came (early Homo sapiens) and see if these glimpses offer any insight into the what we should be eating and why.
