Gaining mass and building strength while CrossFitting should be a breeze. You’re lifting heavy things using compound full-body movements like squats, deadlifts, and presses, providing a potent growth stimulus to your muscles. Yet, many people fall short of their goals, perhaps losing weight and improving performance but failing to really gain any real muscle or strength.
Today, I’m going to explain how going Primal can help you achieve both goals.
First, you must understand the very Primal reality of your body’s hormonal systems and their relation to the environment: Acknowledge that you are an organism whose endocrine system is acutely attuned to the inputs it receives. It’s actively engaged in the world around you, making predictions and taking actions based on your perceptions. If your body thinks it’s living through a famine, it will conserve energy and eliminate wasteful extravagances like big muscles and 2x body weight back squat. If your body thinks it’s living through plentiful times, it will be more liberal with energy and allow the growth of extracurricular tissues, like big muscles. Create an environment of abundance—or even the impression of one—and you will be more likely to gain muscle and strength.
Read MoreBack when they were infants, CrossFit and paleo were the best of friends. Robb Wolf was giving CrossFit nutrition seminars. CF boxes were running paleo challenges and offering meal plans to clients. Tens of thousands of people were introduced to paleo through CrossFit and CrossFit through paleo.
Over time, however, they drifted apart. CrossFit met and fell in with the Zone Diet—a calm, well-mannered lad with impeccable balance, and paleo’s dad got a job in another city. They ended up going to different schools. These things happen. It’s fine. Both CrossFit and paleo are better versions of themselves for having met each other.
Read MoreToday’s guest post is offered up by some long-time friends of MDA, Al Kavadlo and Danny Kavadlo. I’m excited to share their expertise with the Primal community here. This year I wrote the foreword for their new book, Get Strong, which was just released.
If you’re into Primal living, chances are you’re a minimalist when it comes to exercise. In our busy world, we all want to make good use of the time we allot to our training. Additionally, we Primal devotees know that many of the fancy machines we may encounter at the local globo-gym are not needed for building real-world strength.
Read MoreThe older you get, the more important strength, agility, power, and lean mass become. This isn’t how most people approach old age. They expect strength and all the other trappings of physical capacity to degenerate, and so they do. It’s what happens all around us, every day. Seniors are feeble, right?
The weight room is scary for a lot of people. Hell, even able-bodied youngsters in the prime of their lives shy away from lifting heavy things. So, first things first: Seniors should definitely strength train. If you’re unsure of your form and capabilities, find a trainer who works with older folks and ensure your safety. Just get out there.
Read MoreToday’s post is from Jennifer Dene at Paleohacks.
Ready to develop your upper body? Skip the isolation exercises and build functional arm strength with these 20 easy bodyweight exercises — no gym membership required!
Functional training exercises mimic moves that we do in real life. These exercises often include compound movements that integrate multiple muscle groups at once. The benefit of functional training is increased strength, agility, mobility, and reduced risk of injury.
Read MoreFor today’s edition of Dear Mark, I’m answering two questions. First, what’s the deal with salt room therapy? Are there actual benefits, particularly for dermatological and respiratory conditions, to sitting inside a room as aerosolized salt wafts over you? Second, what can a reader do who absolutely can’t get to sleep after training at night? Postworkout insomnia is a real drag, and it will impede your gains, so this is an important topic. Luckily, there are a few things to try.
Let’s go:
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