I get periodic posts from the website of the guy who wrote UltraMetabolism (one of my many diet books - but one I actually like...). Generally I don't bother reading the emails - but this one I did and thought I would pass on. He neglected to mention that the cavemen rarely lived past 30... but his theory would explain WHY the 10 minute exercise videos were doing the trick. They are pretty high intensity - albeit short.
What did our caveman ancestors know about exercise that we didn't? After all, they didn't spend hours in the gym doing painfully long aerobic sessions. But they did have incredible strength, speed and stamina. If they saw a threatening animal like a saber- toothed tiger or even a hungry dinosaur coming at them...you guessed it, it was time to run, and fast. So what did our cavemen ancestors know that we don't? It's something I've talked about repeatedly in my books and blogs and it's the same principle that underlies my dietary recommendations. What they did was do what their genes had evolved to do -- exert tremendous amounts of energy in a short period of time. They didn't run for hours on end, starve themselves with ridiculous diets or lift boulders over their heads to build bigger muscles. Cavemen followed natural cycles of work and rest, or what I call periods of exertion and recovery. This helped them to build their reserve capacity -- their ability to exert tremendous amounts of energy in a short period of time. Reserve capacity means your heart has the ability to pump more blood, faster in times of stress. Reserve capacity for your lungs allows them to deal with high exertion like lifting, carrying, running or going up stairs. And not only did this help caveman build incredibly strong hearts and lungs, but it also made them lean, fat burning machines, which I'll explain why in a second.
The big takeaway here is that if eating like our ancestors did leads to health and vitality, then it makes sense that we should exercise like our ancestors as well...just as our bodies were designed to do. And thankfully, by exercising the way our ancestors did, we can not only spend less time exercising -- as little as 12 - 20 minutes per day -- but we can strengthen our hearts and lungs and reduce the risk of heart attacks or developing breathing problems. You've actually heard of this type of exercise before -- it's called interval training and can have powerful effects in a very short period of time.
A few years ago, Harvard researchers published the Harvard Health Professionals Study. After studying over 7,000 people they found that the key to preventing heart disease is intensity - NOT long-duration exercise. What's more interesting is that in another study, researchers found that by doing the right type of interval training, people continued to burn fat for up to 24 hours after the interval training session.
Now, while I do know a lot about interval training and exercise, up until now I haven't had an opportunity to provide you with a detailed program. But fortunately, I recently came across a special program developed by a doctor down in Florida that, through a few simple yet powerful modifications, takes interval training to the next level. He has developed a step-by-step program that shows you exactly how to exercise smarter, not harder, by using the principles of interval training. If you are like me and hate to go the gym, then you'll find the link below very interesting: ==> http://www.ultrawellness.com/interval1 Please ignore the marketing hype at the top and read the entire page to understand the science behind this program and why it works. This unique program is something I highly recommend for those of you who are physically ready to exercise. However, if are extremely overweight or are in very poor health and are physically immobile, I highly suggest that you pursue a healthy eating plan first and then give exercise a try only when you are ready.
To your good health, Mark Hyman, MD
PS - One thing that I found fascinating was the "Jim Fixx Phenomenon", which showed that the new science from the 1960s about exercising for long durations was a big mistake. You can read more by going to the website below: ==> http://www.ultrawellness.com/interval1 UltraWellness LLC 45 Walker Street Lenox, MA 01240 http://www.ultrawellness.com
3 comments:
How is he an authority on cavemen? An equally valid argument could be made that they actually exercised in precisely the opposite way that he described--long periods of low level endurance. Walking all day hunting or foraging. Gathering wood, cooking over open fires, leading a nomadic lifestyle walking all day for many days going from one hunting area to another. And then all of this was punctuated with exerting tremendous amounts of energy in a short period of time but probably only very rarely. I don't think saber tooth tiger visits were a daily thing. So he's right about the interval training thing since that's what interval training tries to reproduce, but you can't just do the 12 to 20 minutes of intense work--you have to also have longer periods of maintained lower level activity. Probably the perfect routine would be one of the ten minute videos followed by a three mile walk with the dog. I also do it on the treadmill by running ten minutes at 5.5 to 6 mph followed by two minutes at 7 to 7.5 mph, repeat two more times. Once I started to do that instead of just staying at the same pace the whole workout, I increased my speed and stamina really quickly--I was comfortable at a higher pace within two weeks. So it works, yeah, but I don't think we're recreating what our cavemen ancestors did!
Adding--I was just googling interval training after reading the links he gave, just because it seemed so silly to pay to see a method of exercise that lots of people have been doing for a long time, and I came up with this more flexible version of interval training. It's not as regimented as regular intervals so it's more interesting and can be adapted to whatever your activity is. Best of all is the name: fartlek. It's like The Onion version of an Ikea name. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fartlek
From what I've read, his analysis only applies to men anyway -- men's bodies are designed for short bursts of intensity, and women's bodies are designed for long -term endurance. Women have an easier time preparing for marathons than men do, and at the ultra-marathon level women outperform men in absolute terms. Men needed to club things to death, but women needed to keep going from dawn till dusk and needed (need) to survive forty-hour labors.
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