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----- Original Message -----
From: "Tim Rowell" <[log in to unmask]>

> I'm interested in the logic behind the assumption that the plate pullover
> is 'paleo'.  I'm not really disagreeing, I just don't understand.  If I
> think about it literally, I can't ever imagine a paleo ancestor lying on
> their back on an elevated platform, and moving a heavy weight in that
> manner.  But, I also can't match up most of the other movements we do as a
> direct analog to a paleo-movement.
>
> Of course, I know we have to look at it from the standpoint of mimicking
> paleo movements in a modern environment.

You are right, Tim.  It is more a combination of:

#  the fairly heavy weight, and

#  the muscles used.

For the lats it resembles grappling with an opponent, climbing a tree,
heaving a rock two-handed (at a prey) or scrambling up a rock face.  You are
quite right that our ancestors certainly didn't do this exercise as I depict
it.  Wrestling, of course, would be far better than the plate pullover.  But
I don't want to get injured - or to injure anyone else - so I stick to
weights.  It lacks completely sprightliness and agility (important features
of Paleo), but I get those elsewhere.

Note one other thing I say: I do this most Friday mornings for only one set
where it is one of about twenty brief, intense exercises I do, every second
one of which focuses on the abs.

Don't drop either the deadlifts (Art De Vany wrote about the Indian tribe in
which the men could lift three times their body weight) or the clean and
jerk (agility, power, coordination).  You are right - we have to come up
with analogues, substitutes etc; we can't ever replicate the exercise,
stress and life of our ancestors; the point is to come as close as we can to
replicating the effect on our physiology.

Keith

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