I have seen a number of infomercials for fitness gizmos and gadgets that claim to train your core while burning more calories than any other exercise or piece of exercise equipment ever. HA! One such infomercial was posted on facebook and it was for a product called the i-JoyRide Exerciser http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZPn_V3PP-8Q&feature=player_embedded (watch the video and have a laugh) and the comments that followed by fellow trainers were full of sarcasm and humour. I mean how could you not poke fun at a mechanical bull like chair that “if you had someone over for dinner you would ask to hop on and go for a ride.” Finally strength coach Paul Hemsworth made a comment that hit the nail right on the head “We as a society have to pull our collective heads out of our asses. As funny as this is, it is everything that is wrong with our outlook on fitness.” Most fitness gizmos and gadgets make claims and guarantees that if you follow their simple and easy to use fitness program you will lose weight and tone muscles. Unfortunately it isn’t that easy, you actually have to put in the work… no machine will do it for you.
I would like to share with you two simple ideas in order to change your outlook on fitness and health. These ideas are simple but they do however require work and effort. I often tell my clients to “eat like a caveman” meaning you should eat food that could either be gathered or hunted. I don’t expect every person to actually go out and hunt and gather food for themselves and their family but when going grocery shopping take a look at the food that goes in your cart. Could a caveman gather a box of Oreo cookies, a frozen lasagna, or case of Coke? NO! What you should be putting in your cart is meat, fruits, vegetables, nuts, seeds, beans, and whole grains. Ideally you will choose these products in their least processed and preserved form after all that is how a caveman would consume them. It will take some time to adjust to this but eventually it will get easier and your body will thank you in the long run.
Remember a caveman couldn’t just hop into his car and drive over to the local CaveMart and grab his groceries. A caveman had to move to get his food, his survival depended on it! The second idea is “move like a caveman” meaning performing the movements cavemen had to do to hunt and gather their food. Paul Chek calls these movements “Primal Movement Patterns” and there are seven of them: Squat, Lunge, Bend, Twist, Push, Pull, and Gait. Every single one of these movements was necessary for a caveman to hunt and gather, they had to walk/run (Gait) to chase their prey, they had to lunge to push their spear into their prey, they had to twist to reach up and pull fruit off of tall branches, and they had to squat and bend to pick up food from the ground. All of these movements are still necessary in everyday life today but not nearly to the extent they were in the time of the caveman. This is exactly why we have to find time daily to train/perform these movements. If you watched the above infomercial you would see that only one of the seven primal movement patterns were performed. If you don’t know how to perform these movements effectively find a qualified personal trainer to teach you and start putting them to work every day!
We may not live in caves anymore, or hunt and gather our own food daily but we could all learn a few lessons from those that dwelled in caves,
Josh Neumann, BHK, PTS, TSCC-1
Monday and Thursday #FitTips at www.twitter.com/stayfitanywhere