There are certain fundamental inputs every person needs to be healthy: nutritious food, plenty of sleep, social connection, and the one we’re talking about today, movement. Movement is an essential part of the Primal Blueprint master plan for crafting your strongest, fittest, most dynamic, most enjoyable life. That’s what I want for all my readers—a long life well lived until the end. To reach that goal, you need a strong foundation of physical health and mobility, starting as young as possible to stave off the inevitable physical decline that comes with age. Everyone knows how to move. We’ve all heard that exercise is important, that we should be aiming for 10,000 steps a day, building core strength, and actually using our gym memberships. Yet many, nay most, people don’t do the right amount, either moving too little or too much (the former being far more common). Nor do they move in diverse enough ways to achieve their optimal fitness and longevity potential. In short, they don’t move in accordance with the Primal Blueprint. What Does It Mean to Move Primally? Humans are designed to move through the world. To be active. To physically manipulate our environments. Our ancestors, of course, had no choice in the matter. They didn’t worry about becoming strong or physically competent. Their fitness was a natural result of living in an unforgiving environment that required them to work for everything—food, shelter, water, transportation, socializing, defense, and every other aspect of survival. But life is easy now, at least when it comes to physical demands. We modern folks do need to work at being fit. When I was devising the Primal Blueprint, I considered how our ancestors moved, what qualities they embodied, and what, therefore, our genes need and expect for optimum health. Here’s what I came up with: Humans are designed to move a lot—mostly slowly, sometimes very fast. The human body is meant to move through all planes of motion: to push, pull, lift, jump, spring, sprint, throw, and balance. Our ancestors had to be physically strong, powerful, and quick on their feet, with a good strength-to-body weight ratio and plenty of endurance. With this in mind, I came up with the following Primal Blueprint movement laws. The Primal Blueprint Movement Laws Four of the ten Primal Blueprint Laws speak to how you should be moving. It’s that important. Primal Law #3: Move frequently. We know that our ancestors spent, on average, several hours each day moving about at what today’s exercise physiologists might describe as a “low-level aerobic pace.” They hunted, gathered, foraged, wandered, scouted, migrated, climbed, and crawled. This low level of activity prompted their genes to build strong muscles, bones, and joints; to build a robust cardiovascular system; and to burn fat for fuel. Today’s sedentary-dominant lifestyle is about as far from this as we could possibly get. Yet, our genes still expect us to move frequently, mostly at a slow pace. From a chronic health perspective, this is arguably one of … Continue reading “How to Move and Get Fit the Primal Way”
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