ancestral fitness

29Jul08

AncestralFitnessCover I thought I should point you in the direction of a new anthology of blog posts, written by some of the leading online proponents of ancestral fitness. It’ll soon be available at www.ancestralfitness.com and will make the ideal gift for the Neanderthal in your life in need of a little self-improvement.

For those unfamiliar with the concept of ancestral fitness, it describes a lifestyle philosophy which attempts to incorporate diet and exercise regimes consistent with our evolutionary biology. That translates as a diet avoiding “easy” carbs, and exercise revolving around high-intensity workouts. There’s more to it than that, naturally.

Of course, top of the list of contributors is Professor Art De Vany. But why they roped in the last guy is anybody’s guess. I bet he’s pleased to be in such illustrious company.

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4385 Responsesancestral+fitness2008-07-29+18%3A45%3A02knackered+hackette to “ancestral fitness”

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1 Iwan on Jul 30th, 2008 said:

Tim

Many congratulations on the recognition.

Perhaps you don’t publish the same volumes of materials on ancestral fitness as the others, but I find your thoughts to be incisive, clear and well written. I really like the way to bring together a number of perspectives and by so doing, generate some additional insight

Iwan
2 knackeredhack on Jul 30th, 2008 said:

Iwan

How generous you are!

As per your earlier advice, you’ll also be pleased to know that only the other day I abandoned my barbells and dumbbells and stood in the garden using logs from a felled bay tree, and a plastic sun-lounger in reverse served as a bench. You could feel the net curtains of the neighbourhood twitching.

Apart from the dust in the eyes, it felt even better than using manufactured weights. And I’m guessing that the random scaling of the different sized logs was much more in tune with said evolutionary biology. One day I might even record these feats of human ingenuity photographically.

Tim
3 Iwan on Jul 30th, 2008 said:

Tim

What a great work-out. I don’t think you can beat working out in the worlds largest gym.

Love the idea of the logs. I used to do trail runs in a local forest where they had smaller logs that I used throw as if they were shot-puts. Great explosive work-out to supplement the run but not to be done in the back garden if you value your lawn.

I travel extensively with my job and have given up formal gym membership. For the most part, the hotels in which I stay have little or no gym equipment so I seek playground equipment (very early in the day), trees, anything that provide opportunities for resistance and explosion. A football pitch is a great basic gym. Two press-ups, two-pull ups on one goal post, sprint to the other end, four press-ups, four pull-ups, sprint to the other end, all the way to a set of twenty. Great workout, very functional, and doing it outside stimulates all senses.

I’m hitting 50 soon and starting to really feel the lack of flexibility. However, unlike Super Mike on Art’s blog, I don’t think I can do the yoga thing, so I’ve been trying a set of exercises that build both flexibility and strength. These were recommended by a marathon runner who had been suffering from a bad lower back and poor flexibility. Not affecting you I’m sure, but you might be interested in the approach which is summarised here (http://youtube.com/watch?v=OxL0E_sZqJk&feature=related)

Finally (sorry about the length the post) if you’re interested in a blgo where complexity theory and narrative intersect you might want to take a peak at Cognitive Edge, specifically Dave Snowden (http://www.cognitive-edge.com/blogs/dave/). He occasionally does have some interesting perspectives the topic but none of these ever, ever, ever touch upon fitness!
4 knackeredhack on Aug 1st, 2008 said:

Iwan,

Thanks for the tips. The Jiu Jitsu manoeuvres are quite extraordinary!

Tim
5 Ken Smith on Mar 13th, 2009 said:

Tim-

Thanks for the 1&2 punch on sugar and fitness. Much to my own sadness I cannot drink coffee or tea without sugar. I feel almost like someone trapped by thinking I can work off the extra calories, but alas the older I get the harder it is. Sugar is winning my personal war with the bad for me but good to me….. question of life’s quality. This is behavior where broke feels fixed, and fixed feels broke.