Primal Primer 15 (Fitness)
ncient sapiens used their environments as gym to naturally maintain physical conditioning and movement patterns necessary for survival. Their daily activities naturally provided wide ranges of physical conditioning and skill practice, keeping them in peak condition and prepared for the unpredictable. Early humans became aware that those who practiced movements and skills simulating combat or hunting were the most successful. Armed with nature, other humans, and the competitive spirit, our ancestors sharpened their bodies, minds, and skills through making the world a key training tool.
The World Was Once Our Gym
Persistence Hunting – Persistence hunting is a uniquely sapien tactic, involving chasing prey over long distances until animals overheat and exhaust. This style of hunting requires a combination of cardiovascular endurance and sprinting ability when necessary.
Lifting & Carrying – After successful hunts, cutting wood, or sourcing fresh water, sapiens regularly carried large and heavy resources to base; building total strength and endurance.
Navigating Terrain – Walking through varied terrains such as forests, hills, mountains, and plains helps develop balance, agility, and adaptability. Navigating hills and uneven ground strengthens muscles and joints while making them more resilient.
Climbing & Scrambling – Gathering fruit and nuts in trees, seeking vantage points, or stalking mountain prey requires strength, coordination, and flexibility through the act of climbing.
Throwing – Hunting often involves throwing spears, rocks, or other projectiles to take down prey. Regular practice of these activities builds upper body, power, and core strength while improving hand-eye coordination (nervous system conditioning).
Tool Use – The use of axe, club, stone, and digging stick requires repetitive motions strengthening the entire kinetic chain. Crafting of tools also involves physical labor such as chipping stone and shaping wood.
Swimming – Crossing rivers, lakes, navigating ocean, or catching fish requires full body activation while building cardiovascular endurance.
Anywhere and everywhere is your gym. Conditioning the body and mind need not occur in pleasant plushness of contemporary rubber mat floors, with ergonomic handled weights, or under controlled climate…and perhaps it shouldn’t always.
Seek Sky & Grass Over Gym
Consider daily training not under the auspices of establishment gym, instead trading for open sky space, driveway, yard, or park. If the gym is inconvenient, or duties keep you office bound, step outside and make the world your gym. Remember how our ancestors trained strength and endurance; resurrect movement patterns and protocols resembling lost activities keeping humans strong and supple throughout the ages.
~Cave Implementation~
Making the world your gym is practical and accessible through body weight movements, and modicum of equipment. Choosing the right outdoor venue, activity, and packing tools is the first step in being prepared to keep fit under any circumstance. Equip with any standard issue assault pack (heavy Cordura fabric pack), and load with water, jump rope, fitness bands, 20lb kettle bell, or TRX (strap system). Anywhere and everywhere can be your gym. Even without equipment, utilize children’s play grounds, park benches, trees, or earth.
Anywhere & Everywhere Is Your Gym.
