Recently a correspondent wrote to me (outside this discussion group) saying:

I was surprised to hear you say that one needs to go through extreme
physical discomfort to be fit. I never got that impression from Art.  He
seems to advocate playfulness and shuns drudgery.  He also advocates bursts
that are quite demanding, but he doesn't belong to the No Pain, No Gain
school, at least as far as I can tell.

I thought I could reply to this on the group as it may be of interest to
others.

If I try to think the way a Palaeo person might think and the experiences a
Palaeo person might have, lets consider them chasing a mammal or dragging a
log across a stream.  These are the sorts of things our ancestors would
have done hundreds of times in their lives and the people who had been most
successful in them would have been those most likely to survive.

Apart from alertness, foresight and other mental skills, these would have
involved extreme exertion.  Chasing a rabbit or grappling with a boar would
have required agility, a sharp eye, excellent balance, dynamic sprinting
ability and, in the case of the boar or other larger mammal, super
strength.  Endurance would have been measured in minutes, not hours and it
would have been endurance with maximum exertion.  Maximum exertion would be
implied as the hunter was in this for his survival and the survival of his
group, not for body sculpting.

In what exercises do we find these features?  Plyometrics, free weights,
body contact team sports, gymnastics and bodyweight exercises repeated fast
but with few reps.  Our Palaeo hunter would have paused for breath when
exhausted, when he reached the level of extreme discomfort, recuperated for
a couple of minutes then thrown himself into it again with maximum
intensity.  That is the pattern we should be looking to replicate now in
2001.

As to the log dragging, our Palaeo engineer would see the opportunity, and
get to work.  He would struggle with the log and move it himself if he
could.  If he couldn't, he'd call a friend and they would do it together,
but it would still be hard work.  This is just what you and I have done
when we have tried to push-start a car or to shift furniture.  We push,
giving it all we've got for five or six reps, then pause to recover,
thinking about the problem while we pause to come up with more effective
ways to use our limited strength, then we throw ourselves back into it
again, possibly using a better grip, trying a different angle or smarter
leverage.

How does this translate into the gym?  Low reps, maximum intensity,
variation (no drudgery or identical sets) and possibly working out with
another person to spot, to support to apply thought and a different
perspective.

So, I'm with Art.  I can't see an evolutionary basis for sustained cardio
work at a steady pace.  Nor, however, can I see much benefit in the
gentleness that gyms and personal trainers advocate.  Sorry, it's tough.
You may think I'm splitting hairs, but to me, the invalidity of No Pain, No
Gain is more to do with steady state cardio work to exhaustion over 30 plus
minutes, not to extreme free weights, body weights, plyometrics and
gymnastics.  Where No Pain, No Gain holds good is in terms of mental
toughness: the discipline to maintain, in spite of the mental pain, a
strenuous, focused, informed exercise and dietary regime.  That is what our
ancestors did; they had no option.  That is what will lead to gain.  If you
want to see the results, look at Art, Pavel Tsatsouline and Clarence Bass
and compare them with the tired people of the same age coming out of the
fast food vendors.

On a related topic, I find the ideas of evolutionary fitness applicable to
older people as well as to the young and middle-aged.,  My mother is in her
mid-eighties and in a self-catering retirement village.  Fortunately, there
are exercise classes in the village three days a week and she participates
in these.  Most of the exercises are gentle callisthenics without weights.
But among them are exercises on the floor.  I have advised her to
participate in *all* the exercises on the floor and to keep at it, *always*
getting up by herself if she can.  Once she can't get up off the floor, off
the toilet seat or out of a chair, it's all downhill - out of the
independence of a retirement village and into the dependency of a nursing
home.  Use it or lose it, I tell her.  She can see the sense in this.

Keith

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