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Hi Wally,

Thanks for such an interesting and informative reply.

>I think a good strategy is to imagine what they might have done
activity-wise. For instance, assuming you are correct in that women were
primarily gatherers, I would think:

I'm quite happy to be designated as a gatherer. I've been foraging for wild
foods (mostly leafy veg, herbs, berries, nuts, fungi and shellfish) ever
since I was a kid, so it feels natural. I want to translate as much of your
advice to outside activities as possible, so here goes:

>Carrying: Any heavy or awkward object for distance would be good. If using
weights, the farmers walk is great for this. Just carry a couple of
dumbells for any time or distance you choose. Vary it by carrying up and
down hills, or doing one side at a time. Variations include carrying a
barbell, either overhead or supported at shoulder height. (I do farmers
walks at almost every workout). You can also carry sandbags, or a backpack,
or even rocks (carefully).

I often carry a backpack, so I'll continue with that. As I live on a small
island, there's plenty of sand and rocks to be had for free ;-) The island
rises to 300 ft at the Southern end, so no shortage of hills either.

>Gatherers would do lots of bending, stooping, and squatting: So I would
think any variations of those would would good, whether with weights
(dumbells maybe) or without. Deadlifts are, in my opinion, a must.

I have my small garden mulched totally to clear the wilderness without using
any chemicals and prepare it for providing me with some organic veg next
year. I guess gardening covers most of the movements you mention. I'm also
an avid beachcomber which uses similar movements.

As for deadlifts, I'm currently trying to get a barbell handle  so that I
can start on these.

>Reaching up to pick fruit: Calf raises and presses. Stretching overhead

It's still the blackberry and crab apple season, and many islanders are to
be seen out hooking down the best fruits with walking sticks ;-)

The sloes are soon to ripen, and I might allow myself some home-made sloe
gin this Christmas <g>

I also do quite a bit of stretching overhead as we have some temptingly
climbable granite rocks around the shoreline. I don't attempt anything I
need ropes for, but it's another childhood activity that I still enjoy.

>Lots of h-g women are known to carry loads on their heads. Might look kinda
funny, but it would duplicate the activity precisely. Maybe a basket or
container filled with rocks?

Hmm, now that's where I might just stop short. I'm afraid that my island is
a little too over-populated to get away with that one <g>

>Would a group of gatheres perhaps post a lookout up in a tree to look for
predators? Chins (or pulldowns if you can't manage chins), dips and
one-legged squats would approximate this (or - you could just climb a
tree!)

I adore climbing trees, so that's no problem. However, the reason I took up
weights last year is because my lower body was so strong from all the
cycling, walking, etc, and my upper body embarrassingly weak!  Well, that's
barring some very nice muscles in my lower right arm from years of playing
the bodhran, but my left arm didn't match <g>

Also, I caused an injury to my shoulder (supraspinatus) several years ago
when I decided to convalesce from a life-threatening bout of pneumonia by
setting out to sea as a crew member on a tall ship for three days in a force
seven! Pulling on all those ropes did the damage. I never really understood
the concept of moderation <g>  The injury still plagues me and I'm still
experimenting to find arm exercises which don't aggravate the pain.

>And sprinting (to get away from that leopard).

Ah yes. I'll have to use my imagination to motivate my sprinting. We don't
have a single noxious or dangerous animal on the whole island. I guess I
could encourage a swarm of bees to act as personal trainers <g>

-------------------------------------------------------

>Just remember to keep it variable and somewhat chaotic. Recovery from
exercise is important, but I think it is somewhat overrated. So, if you
work the same muscle group a couple days in a row, in the long run, I think
it matters little.

Chaos is something I had never considered until I read some of the
interviews with Art de Vany. It's wonderful to be released from all the
rigidity of timetables, and makes so much sense in the light of the paleo
way of life. I wonder how we got into this unnatural, punitive idea of fixed
exercise regimes to begin with?  Paleo people had no clocks to bind them. I
once lived on a very small feudal island for three years, using no timepiece
at all. Sunrises, sunsets and rough estimates from the position of the sun
were quite sufficient.

>If you are ultimately wishing to increase your strength, I believe
micro-loading (add very small increments of weight) is the best approach.
Even on a daily basis. I once read about an experiment with a bird, a
seagull I believe. The bird was captured, tagged, and a small weight was
attached to one of it's wings. Some time later the bird was recaptured. The
muscles within the wing with the weight attached were almost twice the
size of the wing without the weight - even though the bird, in theory,
should not have recovered it's muscle sufficiently to have that kind of
growth.

That was fascinating. It would be interesting to see how the amount of extra
loading relates to muscle growth over time in humans.

>Another example would be elite cyclists. Even though they work their leg
muscles pretty much daily, some of them have quads that are as large as
bodybuilders.

I can agree with you there. My quads are about as large as a woman's can be
(without steroids) and I cycle daily. Yet I cycle relatively slowly for many
hours, enjoying the view and stopping for anything interesting. I push the
bike up any large hills. I don't believe that I really *do* work any harder
each day, and yet my quads are rock hard and look just perfect.

>The key, I believe, is microloading. Working a "little bit"
harder each day.

I've probably reached stasis until I decide to tackle more hills, but I
think I'd be heading for trouble if I worked on my quads before doing some
of the exercises Tim recommended to develop my hamstrings, lower back etc
;-)

>Some sandbag lifters add a handfull of sand to their bags before each
workout. Seems like a pretty simple approach to me.

And a very sensible one for me as I really need to learn the gradual
approach in all areas of life <g>

Many thanks,

Persephone

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