I’d like to start with a myth about exercise - muscles do not equal health. In fact, some of the biggest, most ripped guys I know are the most unhealthy people. Your muscles are only the way your body moves throughout the world, while your organs and systems (i.e., digestive system, nervous system, circulatory system, etc.) represent your true health.
Many men out there believe that they need to be huge and women try to be as skinny as possible. Don’t get me wrong, if you do it the right way, packing on muscle and losing fat to reveal a lean physique is ideal. But that’s not the real goal of exercise. It’s to be healthy!
Exercising the wrong way can actually work against your health. There’s been an avalanche of artificial drinks that promise to get you “mega extreme muscle shredding pumps” and pack on 15 pound of muscle in a week, or a bottle of pills that will cause you to lose 10 pounds in 3 days. All that crap destroys your body! Your digestive system goes to pot and your ligaments and heart can’t keep up causing an enormous strain on your health. The long term result is injury or chronic disease. Most times the “beneficial” effect of the products goes away the second you stop taking the junk. For a few months of superficial looks you sacrifice your long term health and happiness.
Even if you stay away from that temptation the wrong workout program can be just as bad. I cringe every time I see people pounding the pavement for miles on end. Unless you’re a Kenyan, without fail long distance runners will barely be able to walk in 20 years. Ask any old man with a “trick knee” if it was worth it to spend the last 50 years of his life predicting rain storms with his swollen joints and you’ll know which side of the argument to believe.
That’s just one example, and there are a million other exercise philosophies that are equally as bad. Some a just a plain waste of time too, like the texting-while-pedaling woman.
Now that we know what to avoid we can explore how to make exercise an important asset to your overall health program. To do that we need to look at two areas. First, we’ll build a sensible program based on the kinds of exercising that your body is naturally built for. Second, we’ll briefly look at the basics of nutrition when working out.
HEALTH BENEFITS OF EXERCISE
Let’s get our thoughts organized before we proceed. Exercising can provide several benefits to your health. The most important are:
Detoxification – this is often an overlooked benefit, but may be the most important. The lymph system (all the fluid surrounding the cells of your body) is filled with toxins and acids that your body needs to get out. Sweating is a main avenue for your body to push the pollutants out. Without exercise your body turns into a stagnant swamp that breeds bacteria and viruses.
Heart health – heart disease is a main killer in the U.S. and exercise strengthens the whole circulatory system, drastically cutting down your risk of heart failure.
Increased energy – the most successful, happiest people are always the ones with the most energy. Exercising naturally increases your metabolism and conditions your body to be more energetic.
Weight loss – obesity is a major cause of disease in America. The body stores toxins in fat as well. Excess weight, while unattractive, also puts a strain on the heart too. Naturally humans are designed to be lean and relatively low body fat compared to today’s acceptable standards.
Muscle strength – probably the least important of the benefits considering the absence of saber toothed tigers these days. However, it is often the type of exercising most focus on (especially men). Being tone and muscular is great, being so large you can’t wipe your own bum is a health problem.
NATURAL EXERCISE
Before I get into the practical exercise program I’d like to explain what I mean by “natural” exercise. As you may have guessed, it starts with our primal ancestors who evolved to survive in a world with scarce nutrients to hunt and gather, and predators to defend against. Until we find cave drawings of 3 million year old 24 Hour Fitness gyms we can be sure exercise to our ancestors kept them from dying and was a natural by-product of the activities they performed every day.
The following lists some of the main activities that provided this exercise:
Hunting & Fighting
Sprinting – short, high speed bursts to catch prey or avoid predators.
Moderate intensity cardio
– tracking injured or tired prey for hours.
Muscular strength – without guns and refined ninja skills, hunting and fighting could be dangerous and the stronger animal usually won.
Hand eye coordination & agility – skilled, full body movements using both large muscle groups and fine motor coordination.
Gathering
Lower intensity cardio – walking and bending over repeatedly.
Migrating
Lower intensity cardio with weight – long distance walking while carrying supplies.
Building shelter
Muscular strength – before the lever and internal combustion engine there was good ‘ol fashioned back breaking labor.
Bonfire dance parties
Moderate intensity cardio - half joke, half a serious point. Have you ever seen Africans jumping around a fire during a ritual? It’s not only impressive, but long and tiring too. There were many leisure activities, including …*ahem*…intimate encounters, that worked up a sweat.
WORKOUT BASICS
With the preceding health benefits and exercise philosophy in mind we can begin to design our routine based on the following structure.
Frequency
Our primal ancestors most likely got exercise every sunny day, but probably didn’t push themselves as hard at one time as we do at the gym today. At an absolute minimum we need 3 days of exercising per week. Ideally we’d all get 5 days per week, which allows for adequate recovery time. There may be an exception of 6 days in short durations (1-4 weeks at a time) if you need to kick things up a notch. I’ll outline 3, 4, and 5 day options below.
Duration
Each day’s workout should last in the vicinity of 45 – 90 minutes, with 60 – 75 being ideal. On days with cardio that maximum can be as long as 120 minutes if it’s followed by a rest day.
Different systems
We need to work both the cardiovascular system (heart, breathing and circulation) and muscles for a well rounded program.
Cardio– Most people think fat loss when they think cardio. That’s fine, but detoxifying and strengthening your heart are equally important benefits.
I am 100% against long distance, boring cardio! It’s the biggest waste of time at the gym. That includes nearly all of the cardio room equipment like the elliptical and treadmill. Not only was it non-existent in the entire span of our 3 million year evolution, it would have been stupid for our ancestors to burn extra calories that they worked so hard to hunt and gather. You body is not designed for cardio, regardless of the benefits people claim. Please listen to the podcast if you’d like a detailed explanation.
I am a huge fan of cardio that lasts 10-20 minutes and spikes your heart rate, such as sprints or hill runs. You’ll know if you exercising correctly if you find yourself gasping for air and sweating profusely, then recovering for a minute and doing it again.
Muscles – Unless you want to be the guy with chicken legs that everyone laughs at behind their back, or the “skinny-fat” girl who manages to be petite but still have a muffin top hanging over her designer jeans, you need a well rounded muscle development program. There are lots of considerations when designing a workout programs that trains the full gamut of muscles in your body, but the science behind it is too long to detail in this article. For now, you’ll just have to trust me that I’ve thought long and hard to design the most comprehensive program you’ll find anywhere.
IMPORTANCE OF REST
There are hunter-gatherer cultures still in existence today, often in remote areas of the rainforest or mountains. They share many things in common. First, every member of society could physically outperform 99% of all people in America. Second, they all spend significantly more leisure time than Americans do on average (not including kids obsessed with World of Warcraft). They rest when tired and keep regular sleeping schedules based on the rhythm of the sun. Days off are a common necessity in order to allow their body to heal from the work of the previous days.
We need to take these lessons to heart! Sleep my dear, sleeeeep. I often need 9 hours of deep rest between 10pm and 7am to feel recovered after a strenuous workout. Sometimes that isn’t enough and I need an entire day or two off.
The workout is when your muscles are stressed and ripped, sleep is when your muscles are rebuilt and true gains are made. Without proper sleep you keep breaking your body down and all the work you put in at the gym is pointless. You’ll never build muscle or improve your overall health without enough sleep, and you’ll set yourself up for injury.
You’ll also need to supply your body with the proper nutrients. It would make no sense to hire a construction crew to build a brick wall, but not give them the bricks and mortar to build it with.
EXERCISE NUTRITION
As a young buck I worked out with zest but neglected my workout nutrition. I figured that eating a healthy diet would take care of all my needs. Wow, was I wrong! After every intense workout I was exhausted the next day. My ligaments and tendons deteriorated and I started getting injured. I constantly felt foggy headed and slept about 10 hours every night without relief from fatigue. At one point I wondered if something was medically wrong with me. It turned out I only needed a few simple supplements. Now I’m constantly energized and I see excellent results from every ounce of sweat I pour out at the gym.
If you’re going to put in the time and effort you should maximize your results by supplying your body with the nutrients it needs to improve. Exercising uses up many nutritional resources that are critical to replace. Something close to the 80/20 rule applies with exercise and nutrition. About 80% of the look of your body is determined by your general diet, while only 20% is from your exercise routine. Of that 80% a good portion is related to your exercise nutrition plan, or lack thereof.
In previous steps of Phase 1 I referred to the adaptive/predictive ability of the body. As a brief refresher, your body learns from your activities and prepares for the future by assuming that you’ll continue to do the same types of things as you have been doing. If you lift heavy objects your body predicts you will need to lift heavy objects again in the future and stimulates your muscles to grow.
The adaptive/predictive ability holds true with exercise nutrition as well. The way that we supply our body with nutrients will determine how we our body reacts to our workouts. If it is constantly undernourished it will predict that you’re stuck in a famine and down-regulate your metabolism. It will maintain the bare minimum amount of muscle possible and store as much fat as it can in case the famine lasts for a while. This is the essence of “starvation mode”.
By supplementing with the proper nutrients at the correct time your body will be less conservative. It will predict that nutrients will continue to come, build stronger muscles and store less fat. It will be in “feast mode” and your energy levels will rise exponentially.
Basics of Exercise Nutrition
The basic areas of focus are proteins for building muscle and tissues (amino acids) and sugars for energy (carbohydrates). Many vitamins and minerals are also required, but you should be getting enough if you’re following the diet and essential nutrition plan in previous steps. I discuss this in more detail in the podcast.
The idea is to give your body nutrients before the workout so there will be resources circulating around in your blood as you work out, then after the workout resupply your body with nutrients it will use to rebuild and recover.
As I proclaimed in the beginning of the article, you need to be extremely careful with the pre-and post-workout products on the market. I’ve found two extraordinary supplements that don’t cross the line between supplying natural nutrients and destroying your health with artificial ingredients.
**Click Here for Tim’s Exercise Nutrition Routine.** |
