The Paleo Solution Part 8

10. Have you experienced memory problems?

11. Do you have problems with depression or seasonal affective disorder?

12. Do you remember what s.e.x is?

At some point this list starts looking more like a horoscope than legitimate health information, but the reality is that elevated cortisol levels affect any system you can imagine. Body fat, cognition, fertility, exercise performance, immunity. What else is there? If you want to get more clinical in your investigations, you can ask your doctor to run an adrenal stress index (ASI). Hypercorticism (high cortisol levels) can cause problems with normal thyroid function, often contributing to hyper (elevated) thyroid.

The problem I've seen people face when dealing with this situation, myself included, is that our whole life contributes to the issue. People tend to change things enough to feel a little better, then slide back into old habits. If this is really an issue for you, it will take some trial and error to figure out how to make things work. Don't worry, you can do it. Your health, and your f.a.n.n.y, will thank you!

By the way, I noticed your sweatband and leg warmers. Must be time to work out.

*** I have presented this as a generalization when, in fact, there is intraspecies variation on this topic. If you have the genetic markers "XY," everything in fact boils down to just s.e.x. If you carry the "XX" genotype, things are significantly more complex. Food must be accompanied by a cacao derivative. Sleep requires some kind of garment, generally referred to as "PJs," and s.e.x can be readily interchanged with social phenomena nearly fatal to the XYs of our species, "Romantic Comedies."

NINE.

Ancestral Fitness Every time I feel the urge to exercise, I sit down until it goes away.

-Mark Twain If you work in sales or marketing, you are likely aware of the difference between features and benefits. A clock on your heating and air conditioning is a feature. Having a cozy, temperature-controlled house is the benefit. A steel toe with reinforced, triple-st.i.tched leather are features of a work-boot. Not losing your toes if something heavy falls on them is the benefit!

People are usually motivated by benefits, and I have been contemplating how to sell you on the benefits of exercise, but for some reason, this just does not seem right. Do I want you to understand the importance of exercise and actually do some? h.e.l.l + Yes. But that does not seem enough. I do not want to cheapen this message, and I do not want to default into scare tactics because, b.u.t.tercup, it all boils down to this: If you do not exercise, you are broken.

Broken? Like... not OK? Not Whole? Incomplete?

Yes, correct on all counts.

Is this some kind of value judgment about you as a person? Am I trying to be mean? No, this is no value judgment, and no, I'm not trying to be mean. I'm just sharing a very important fact. Exercise is integral to you being who you are meant to be. Whoa Robb! Are you getting metaphysical here?! Some kind of existentialist determinism?

No, that's not it at all... here's the deal: You are born into this world with a set of genetics, half from Mum, half from Pops. Those genes are expecting you to run, jump, throw, tumble, dance, fight, flee, stalk, carry, build, wrestle, stroll, climb, drag, hike, sprint. You are meant to be active. Really active. There are few critters on this planet that do not expend significant energy finding food, avoiding danger, or looking for a mate. Well, except us. We can literally do almost nothing physical yet have food, clothing, shelter, and safety. This is fantastic in many ways, as living wild in nature has its pitfalls, but being sedentary can kill us just as surely as beast or foe. Don't believe me? The Centers for Disease Control list inactivity as the third leading cause of preventable death in the United States. Add poor diet to that, and we have the second leading cause, behind only tobacco. Cancer, neurodegeneration, diabetes, depression, frailty, loss in general capacity-all these and many other ills await the couch-bound.

How can this be?

Why does exercise matter so much?

Our hunter-gatherer ancestors lived an active and vigorous life. They and their prehuman ancestors had to expend remarkable amounts of energy to provide food, clothing, and shelter. Over the course of millions of years our genetics were forged with a level of activity not dissimilar from that of an Olympic caliber athlete. This is what our genetics are expecting when we are born into the world. We are literally "born to be fit." An unfortunate side effect of technology and affluence is the physical activity that made our ancestors strong and healthy is all but missing from our sedentary existences.

Micro-Mini-Me On a molecular level this lack of exercise literally changes who we are. I can use a piece of technology called a microarray (a microchip with DNA attached to its surface), and I can "map" what genes are turned on or off in a person at a given time. Genetically speaking, this is "who you are," and it represents what is called your phenotype. Your genotype is the mixed bag of genetics you received from Mum and Pops. Your phenotype is how those genetics are expressed.

How your genes experience the world (be it food, sleep, community, or exercise) influences how those genes are turned on or off and this determines your phenotype. So, I can take a microarray a.n.a.lysis of "Sedentary You" and a.n.a.lyze it for disease potential. If we then put you on a smart exercise program and look at how your genetics are expressing themselves in a few months, we will find that "Active You" is quite different from "Sedentary You." How different? It would be as if we were comparing your genetics with that of a random person off the street.

You are literally a different person when you exercise vs. when you do not.

Different how exactly?

Well, to fully understand that, and how valuable exercise is to you, we need to look at our ancestors and contemporary hunter-gatherers. Once we understand the amounts and types of exercise we are meant to do, we can do something about replicating this in our own lives. For those of you who are motivated by shiny objects, all you need to remember is, "if you exercise you will look good naked!"

Speaker for the Dead One can learn a remarkable amount from a skeleton. Although bones, especially the sun-bleached variety, appear to be hard and static, living bones are highly plastic and reflect the environment to which they are exposed. If an arm is immobilized in a cast, we can see a remarkable decrease not only in muscle ma.s.s after a few weeks of disuse, but also a substantial decrease in the thickness of the arm bones themselves. This weakened state is reversed once normal activity is resumed for a few weeks. The stress of use increases both muscle size and the density of the underlying bone, which is an example of epigenetics: how the tissues of the arm alter their genetic expression as the environment is changed. We can see this in the difference between one hand and the other when we examine the muscle thickness and bone strength of an individual. Someone who is right handed will typically show significantly more muscular development, thickness of the points of attachment of the muscles to the bone, and the thickness and morphology of the bones themselves. Why? Because right-handers typically use their right hand more, subjecting that tissue to a greater load, which necessitates the adaptation of stronger muscles and bones.

This difference in bone thickness and morphology (how the bone is shaped) is largely dependent on the amounts and types of activity one is subjected to. The changes in bone structure can be quite rapid (as evidenced with an arm immobilized in a cast), and are very descriptive of the environment to which an organism lives.

The bones of our Paleolithic ancestors look like those of high-level athletes. Both have bones that are dense (high in mineral content) and show a structurally sound morphology or shape. Bone is not only strong due to the material from which it is made, but also because of the orientation of the growing, living crystal of the bone. Imagine chicken or duck eggs, which are remarkably strong when compressed from the outside, yet fragile enough for a baby chick to emerge when pushing from the inside. Bone that is heavily loaded is not only thicker, but it also shows an increased volume, which improves its strength and stability.

H. Erectus and H. Neanderthalensis skeletons show a level of activity and muscular development seen in only the most elite athletes of today. Early H. Sapiens showed a similar degree of development until about 40,000 years ago when several technological and social innovations improved the foraging techniques of our ancestors. These improvements are evidenced by more sophisticated weapons and tools in the archeological record, as well as a concomitant decrease in the physical development of the tool users. Although these Late Paleolithic ancestors were still very fit, strong, and active, especially by today's standards, the change in technology that improved the efficiency of hunting is clearly seen in the change in their less robust skeletal development.

Cross-training: Paleo Style Although we can learn a remarkable amount about the fitness of hunter-gatherers from skeletons and archeological findings, nothing beats the real thing. When contemporary hunter-gatherers have been tested for strength, flexibility, and aerobic capacity, they have scored as well as highly trained athletes. No gyms, no physical education-simply living the active life that typifies the hunter-gatherer life-way.

From the !Kung of sub-Saharan Africa to the Ache of Peru, the foraging lifestyle necessitated the equivalent of fifteen to nineteen miles of walking-per day! This activity was devoted to a number of tasks and activities including hunting, collecting firewood and water, gathering plants and small animals, fishing, and traveling to see relatives. Some days were very intense and demanding, while other days were relaxed and might involve almost no activity beyond hanging out in camp.

This natural variability is likely woven into our genetics and explains both the benefit of cross-training (doing more than one activity to develop our fitness) and periodization (planned changes in exercise to avoid burnout and foster progress).

The foraging lifestyle left our ancestors lean, strong, and healthy. As we have talked about previously, although the life expectancy of HGs was relatively short due to illness and injury, those who lived into advanced age appear to have aged quite differently than most of us. They did not lose muscle ma.s.s or gain body fat as they aged. Decreases in flexibility were minimal, while certain inescapable elements of aging such as vision and hearing loss appear to have progressed at a much slower rate. By this point, you should recognize much of what pa.s.ses for modern aging is simply a lifestyle at odds with our Paleolithic genes. How our HG counterparts lived and ate dramatically changed how they aged.

Muscles and Hormones It appears the default mode for our species is the physique of a decathlete. Lean, muscled, and prepared for almost anything nature can unleash. We know this to be true based on the observations of modern HGs and the anthropological evidence: Thick, strong bones and muscle insertions typical of a hard-working athlete. The bones are evidence of relatively large, strong muscles, but what significance did this muscle play in the health of our ancestors, and presumably us?

Our muscle ma.s.s is some of the most metabolically active tissue in our bodies. When people talk about their "metabolism," it is not some weird item in their socks or in their armpit-it is their muscles! You may not think about muscle as being "healthy," but your level of muscularity is inversely proportional to your likelihood of dying. Starvation and advanced stages of AIDS share the feature that they become fatal once a certain threshold is pa.s.sed in which an individual loses too much muscle. The muscles act as a protein reserve for amino acids, which provides fuel for the brain in times of scarcity. An equally important, but oftentimes overlooked, feature of muscle is its ability to remove glucose from the blood and store it as glycogen. Why is this important? If you recall, advanced glycation end-products (AGEs) are highly reactive and underlie many of the modern disease processes. Muscles act as a storage depot for carbohydrate and, in many ways, protect the rest of the body from the damaging effects of AGEs. For this system to function, however, one must: 1. Do enough physical activity to build some muscle.

2. Do enough physical activity to keep that muscle sensitive to insulin.

That second piece about insulin sensitivity is a bit of a lie-or at least a stretch. You see, when we exercise we turn on genes for a transport molecule called GLUT4 (remember that little b.u.g.g.e.r from chapter 3?). GLUT4 acts almost like a straw that spans the muscle membrane and allows glucose to be transported into the cell without the aid of insulin. Yes, even type 1 diabetics can make smart use of this alternate mechanism. What is becoming clear is that a significant portion of our blood glucose control should be handled by the GLUT4 mechanism. Normally we would be active enough to ensure that our optimal insulin sensitivity is maintained while also ramping up the GLUT4 pathway. This decreases the need for insulin, which decreases any of the collateral damage a.s.sociated with elevated insulin levels. Remember, our hormones work best to promote health and wellness when they stay within certain parameters. GLUT4 helps to maintain optimum blood glucose levels while decreasing the need for insulin. And to activate GLUT4, we must exercise.

It should not come as a surprise that exercise benefits all hormones when the amount and type of exercise is correct. Let's look at a few of the better-known and more important of these hormones.

Growth hormone. Growth hormone (HGH) is critical for maintaining lean body ma.s.s, burning fat, and even fixing DNA damage. Its secretion is dramatically improved by brief intense exercise, low carbohydrate intake, punctuated eating (intermittent fasting), and restful sleep. HGH levels tend to decrease with age, but by emulating the exercise, food, and lifestyle of our HG ancestors, we can dramatically improve our production of the youth hormone.

IGF. Insulin-like growth factor, as its name implies, has activity similar to that of insulin, but the primary activity is anabolic, or growth, activity. IGF works synergistically with growth hormone to improve muscle ma.s.s and strength. IGF is also critical for the health and functioning of our most important muscle, the heart.

BDNF. For many years it was a.s.sumed that damaged brain cells do not repair, but the discovery of brain-derived neurotrophic factor and its effects on cerebral stem cells (cells that are similar to embryonic cells-they can literally become anything and respond to chemical signals such as BDNF) showed the brain is much more plastic and capable of growth and repair than we ever thought. Exercise is one of the most potent stimulants for BDNF production, particularly when coupled with smart nutrition and lifestyle.

This is a very short list of hormones beneficially affected by exercise. The point to take away is exercise is critical to maintaining normal hormone levels throughout life. The main difference between health and disease, vibrant youth or aged frailty, is one's hormonal profile. Your Paleo Solution will allow you to bring your profile into line with that of our remarkably healthy HG ancestors.

Now that we have looked at being strong and hormonally sound, let's take a look at your pump and pipes before looking at our exercise prescriptions.

Cardio!

It's almost impossible to talk about exercise and not have the topic shift to cardiovascular fitness. In fact, this is usually where the conversation starts and stops! For years it was a.s.sumed all we needed for health was "cardiovascular fitness." Those were the "running years," and health was emulated by a heart and lungs suspended in an emaciated bag of bones and scrawny muscles. So long as your heart was healthy, you were healthy-or so we thought. Thankfully, times have changed.

The Cooper Inst.i.tute, which is the place that popularized the term aerobics, no longer recommends "aerobics" as it has been cla.s.sically practiced. They now recommend strength training and interval training to provide not only cardiovascular fitness, but also an all-encompa.s.sing fitness, which includes strength, flexibility, muscle ma.s.s, and hormonal optimization. But I'm getting ahead of myself-let's look at the adaptations to the heart and vascular system that are of benefit, and then we will look at the best ways to get those adaptations.

Big Heart Medicine can be a funny enterprise in what it regards as "normal." If you look at cardiac research, the "normal" heart is relatively small, particularly in the left ventricle (the main chamber of the heart to pump blood out to the body). This is the heart of a sedentary individual and for very odd reasons, this is considered the norm. If that same individual begins exercising consistently, the heart will change in response to those demands. The heart will enlarge, particularly the left ventricle. The wall of the heart will thicken, and blood vessels will grow in the heart muscle to allow better oxygen and nutrient transport to the heart muscle itself. This adaptation is called an "athletic" heart, and although it is recognized as healthy, it is not recognized as being the normal human heart. This is yet another example of genotype vs. phenotype. Our phenotype can be one of health (the athletic heart) or disease (the sedentary heart).

Nice Pipes The heart is a pump that is attached to living, dynamic pipes. The arteries (carry blood away from the heart) and veins (return blood to the heart) respond to the activity of the heart, the nervous system, and hormones such as adrenaline. If you imagine the amount of blood in your body as being static, you can get a sense of how your heart and vasculature control blood pressure. If your arteries relax, the same amount of blood is now contained in a larger s.p.a.ce, and this makes the blood pressure go down. If we constrict the arteries, it forces blood pressure up.

The net effect of exercise on the vascular system is it improves the ability to increase or decrease the volume of the vascular bed in response to activity. Most of you are familiar with a very popular drug, v.i.a.g.r.a, which acts on the production of nitric oxide (NO). NO relaxes blood vessels. Exercise improves the cellular signaling which increases NO production, and this is part of the reason why exercise has benefits to s.e.xual function similar to v.i.a.g.r.a and related pharmaceuticals.

The net effect of exercise on the cardiovascular system is improved efficiency and "head room." An athletically enlarged heart is a more efficient heart. Each beat costs the heart and organism less energy, and requires less oxygen, as compared to a "normal" sedentary heart. This efficiency is further enhanced by improved vascular responsiveness. If you need to run to catch a bus, your heart, lungs, and vascular system work better and cost you less if you are fit than if you are sedentary. The "headroom" might also save your life. If you never exercise and you have an inefficient heart, you may not survive an unexpected bout of exercise or stress. If you are called upon to run for an airplane while hauling a suitcase and twenty pounds of extra you (that extra couple inches around the belly you have been ignoring), it's entirely possible to stress the heart to the point of failure.

Imagine two different cars towing a large trailer over a mountain pa.s.s. One is a four-cylinder, and the other is an eight-cylinder. Which engine typically has more horsepower to drag the trailer over the pa.s.s? Which car is more likely to fail due to lack of capacity? The human genetic norm is to have an "eight-cylinder heart." Lots of power, lots of capacity.

BeneFIT So, from a big-picture perspective, exercise is literally woven into our DNA. We are born to be fit, strong, and healthy. We are supposed to look, feel, and perform like accomplished athletes. A significant proportion of our disease and early death is attributable to the discordance between our genetics and our sedentary existence.

As we dig into the details of our ancestral fitness, we find a balanced physique capable of most anything. Powerful muscles mixed with cardiovascular fitness was the norm for most of humanities existence. By emulating the amounts and types of activities of our Paleolithic ancestors, we can affect remarkable changes in our physique, mental outlook, hormonal state, and overall health.

Now that I have you whipped into an exercise frenzy, let's look at the different components of our Paleolithic Fitness. When you get to the exercise prescriptions, you will notice there are no machines recommended. You can certainly use machines if you like, but they offer inferior results with regard to balance, hormone response and, oddly enough, safety. Is your body the exact dimensions the machine is made for? If not, it is your joints and connective tissue that must accommodate the mismatch. Similarly, you will notice the movements I recommend are what exercise scientists call "compound" movements. We use these because they tend to mimic movements we see in sports and life, and they provide much greater return on our investment. If you are familiar with isolation movements and want to work them into your program, that is fine. Just focus on the full-body movements first, and then use your isolation movements as finishers.

Strength Most people a.s.sociate strength and "big muscles" with bodybuilders, football players, and chemists. OK, maybe chemists are not at the top of your list when you think about strength. But if you ask someone what "strength" is, they will usually relate strength (in the physical realm) to picking something up. From a physics or exercise science perspective, strength is the ability to exert force. Now, you may not have thought about it like this, but simply moving your f.a.n.n.y through the world necessitates a certain amount of strength. Have you ever seen someone who was quite frail who could not stand under his or her own strength? Someone who is that weak is very likely to have small muscles, poor blood sugar control, weak immunity, and, frankly, the person is at a high risk of sudden death. It is very likely the individual has little to no cardiovascular fitness because they simply cannot do anything.

People can debate what features of fitness are most important, but I'm going to put strength and mobility at the top of the list. If you have those two components, you can do just about anything. The nice thing about strength is it improves very quickly, even in the aged. Although there are different features of strength, which include adaptations by the nervous system, as well as changes in the muscle, we are going to focus mainly on strength improvements from a perspective of increasing muscle ma.s.s.

But, I'm a Girl!

If you are female and afraid of gaining muscle... oh, how to say this tactfully. Muscle, literally, is your friend. In the ten years I have been coaching men and women, none of the women grew into muscle-bound behemoths. Not one. If you recall the before and after photos and testimonials from the beginning of the book, women who work out and have muscle get lean and strong. They lose dress sizes and look great. As I've said before, some of this is nutrition, some is lifestyle, and some is working out-and that means gaining muscle.

I could cite endocrinology, epidemiology, sports science, and a number of other yawn-worthy topics in an attempt to convince you, but that is appealing to your rational intellect, and your fear of muscle is purely emotional. I'm stumped how to appeal to that other than this: if you have exactly the physique you want, do things your way. If not, strap in, quit worrying, and do it my way. My intention is for you to succeed, and part of that success is looking and feeling great. Oddly enough, it is not my intention to make you a contestant for a sideshow attraction. I have a feeling that would kill book sales! So please, like the food, just do what I recommend and then reevaluate. It will work if you give things a chance.

The development of strength is highly dependent upon how advanced a trainee is. Someone who is deconditioned will find they get stronger leg muscles simply from walking. Someone who has hiked, biked, and swam their whole life will need a stimulus like body-weight calisthenics or lifting weights to notice a strength increase. Someone who has lifted weights due to playing rugby or a similar strength sport for years may need very sophisticated programming to see improvements in their strength, as they may be reaching their genetic potential. So, strength is a relative thing. Everyone can improve it; almost no one has enough of it.

Power From a training and athletics perspective, power is not just the ability to use strength, but rather the ability to use strength quickly. Picking up a 500-pound barbell in four seconds is a demonstration of fairly impressive strength. Picking up the barbell in less than a second is a stunning display of strength performed quickly: Power.

Sprinting, jumping, throwing, and changing direction while running are all demonstrations of power. It is worth noting, power is the physical attribute that deteriorates fastest with age. But it is also the fitness component that gives us the greatest rewards if we diligently train it throughout life.

All of us know people who are fast runners or exceptional jumpers. These folks tend to play basketball, football, or compete in track events under 400 meters. These people tend to have a high percentage of particularly explosive muscle fibers. We are all born with a variety of muscle fiber types, ranging from the slow but very fatigue-resistant type 1B fibers, to the very explosive type 2A fibers. Aging converts powerful 2A fibers to weak 1B fibers. You do not want this conversion from explosive to slow to happen. This change is synonymous with aging, which is why we will devote a significant amount of our time to developing not only strength, but also the ability to recruit strength blindingly fast. We want power.

It should not be surprising that many of the hormonal and cellular changes that occur with power training are also those of a youthful individual. We will see power development take a prominent role in intermediate and advanced trainees. Beginners tend to improve power by simply becoming stronger.

Flexibility (Range of Motion) One of the most striking features of children at play is their flexibility. They seem capable of nearly super-human feats with no training or practice. Then we put them in chairs, and as time pa.s.ses, their hamstrings and hip flexors shorten, eventually making a full squat challenging, if not impossible. Those children turn into us adults, but instead of realizing the error of our ways and getting out to run and play, we spend most of our time typing, reading, and writing from the seated position. Unfortunately these activities stoop us forward and tighten the postural muscles of the stomach, back, and shoulder girdle. The net result is a loss of the ability to move as children. This loss of flexibility, or range of movement (ROM) in medical terms, is made worse by poor diet and lifestyle (AGEs really stiffen up our otherwise pliable muscles and tendons) and undermines our strength.

Consider again the person who cannot easily stand from a seated position. Such people are not only weak, but also brittle. They look as if they might shatter if they fall, and oftentimes they do. Did you know that this degree of frailty and infirmity is virtually unknown in cultures where people sit on the ground for significant durations, such as in j.a.pan? This is certainly a case of "use it or lose it," and yet another example of our modern world conspiring to age us prematurely.

We will improve your ROM in a holistic way, such that your joints and muscles are made stronger and safer because of your efforts. Flexibility work such as that practiced in many yoga forms not only can improve ROM, but also can dramatically decrease stress by entraining one's movement and breathing.

Endurance and Stamina Endurance and stamina are used interchangeably, but we will make the same distinction exercise physiologists such as Dr. Jim Cawley make in this instance: Stamina relates to local muscular work, while endurance is the ability of the heart and lungs to carry oxygen throughout the body. Obviously these two concepts are kissing cousins, as you cannot stress the heart without doing work with the peripheral muscles, but when we look at our training, we will seek a balance in stimulus that minimally impacts strength, flexibility, and power. You see, cellular and neurological adaptations for endurance are antagonistic to those of strength and power-unless you structure your programming intelligently. We make smart use of interval training and circuit weight training to cause significant stress on the local muscular level. Using this technology we can maintain strength and power, while at the same time achieve remarkable levels of cardiovascular fitness.

Intervals Let's do another thought experiment. Let's a.s.sume you have a large sum of money to invest, and you could invest it in one of two emerging technologies. Both technologies look pretty cool, but one of the companies can be proven to provide eight times the return on investment of the other company. Which one do you invest in? The decision seems obvious in this case, yet we have a similar scenario in the case of steady-state cardio vs. interval training, and people just do not seem to get it!

Hundreds of experiments have been performed comparing interval training (doing a certain amount of work such as running, biking, swimming, rowing, or jump-roping) vs. steady state training (doing the activity for a specific period of time). What is consistently found is intervals provide as good or better cardiovascular fitness as steady-state training, but with a fraction the time.

One study compared a protocol of twenty seconds of work, with ten seconds of rest, repeated eight times. Only four minutes of work total compared with thirty minutes of steady-state training. The interval group trained at levels that were harder than could be sustained (we call this type of training anaerobic), while the steady state group trained at 70 percent of the VO2 max (the VO2 max is how much oxygen one can use relative to his or her body ma.s.s). Any guesses on what happened? The interval group showed greater improvements in body composition (lost more fat) and greater improvements in both VO2 max and power production, and all with literally a fraction the training time.

Are intervals the only things you need to do to win a world championship in marathon or triathlon? No. You can use them to improve your training, and most smart coaches and athletes do just that, but if you want to be "elite," you need to do a significant amount of work at a steady state to become highly efficient at your chosen activity. If that is your shtick, fine, but do not fool yourself into thinking that tons of endurance training is going to optimize your health or longevity.

Do you remember my point that we tend to lose our fast-twitch muscles as we age? Endurance training accelerates this process. High-volume endurance work also depletes our body's store of antioxidants and subjects us to increased levels of oxidative stress.

Now, I'm just laying out facts here. Do not take this as a value judgment on your sport if you are into endurance athletics. I have a heavy bias toward the health and longevity side of things, so I bring that to my coaching and writing. Can a Paleo diet and smart training improve the performance of a high-level endurance athlete? Yes, absolutely. If you are interested in taking your endurance game to another level, I highly recommend The Paleo Diet for Athletes by Joe Friel and Prof. Loren Cordain. It is geared specifically for the endurance athlete, as are the numerous "Coaching Bible" books by Joe Friel. Joe is one of the most sought-after endurance coaches in the world, and he bases his nutritional approach on the Paleo diet.

Intervals sound pretty hard! Do I just jump in and go hard? Yes, if you want to kill yourself. Seriously though, intervals just mean doing some work and then resting. In the beginning, this may mean walking for one minute and resting for one minute. Over time, you may build up to running or biking, but as we will see in the Beginner Programming, the appropriate dose of exercise is very subjective. Take a small helping when you belly up to the "pain buffet."

Interval Weight Training Aka Circuit Training Let's imagine yet another scenario: You are working in your backyard, loading thirty-five-pound bags of concrete into a wheelbarrow. Ten bags of cement go into your very burly wheelbarrow. Just as you finish the last bag, your dog sprints around the side of the house, obviously looking for a game of "Chase me, ya big dummy!" Being a big dummy, you chase your dog, corner him, and then turn and run, making your pooch chase you. Eventually, you get back to the wheelbarrow, grab the handles, and lift! You wheel the load around the side of the house to your front yard where you are working on a hideous bird-bath contraption the neighbors will hate even more than your life-size Battlestar Galactica statues you set up last year.

This whole process of loading the bags, chasing the dog, and toting the wheelbarrow took you perhaps ten minutes. If we had a heart-rate monitor on you to see what your ticker was doing during all this, what do you think it would show? Your heart rate and breathing would likely be very high at various points during these shenanigans.

Here is the funny disconnect, however: Although your heart and lungs are working very hard, most people do not consider this "cardio" and see little if any benefit in activities like this. This is an unfortunate loss, as exercise science has known since the 1940s that interval weight training (also called circuit training) is a remarkably effective means of building not only cardiovascular health, but also a significant degree of strength, muscle, and power.

We will make smart use of calisthenics, such as push-ups and sit-ups, combined with conventional movements found in the weight room, to build your Paleo fitness. We will also use some unconventional methods to keep you excited and challenged. Exercise might be hard, but it doesn't need to be boring!

Intervals Are Life When we watch kids play, they naturally fall into intervals. Tag, hide and seek, and even most organized sports work in interval fashion. It is wholly unnatural for kids to just jump up and run 400 meters in one shot. Instead, they may end up running 4,000 meters while playing in the front yard over the course of an afternoon.

Animals tend to work the same way. A dog off-leash in a large park will run, scamper, sniff, and pee. Then scamper, run, pee, and sniff. Perhaps I need to start a fitness trend that involves frequent urination? Whatever the case, intervals, be they part of hiking or weight lifting, are literally part of nature. Can long, drudgerous hours build impressive levels of fitness? Yes, and it can make you so bored you quit or want to crash your bike into onrushing traffic. Fitness, like food, family, and friends, should be fun and support your life, not take from it.

OK, enough theory. Let's Work Out!

The Lifeline Program: A Little Goes a Long Way, and it Will Save Your Life.

It is impossible to write a general book that meets each person's exact needs according to where he or she might be. Some of you may be accomplished athletes, others have not broken a sweat in years. This book is largely geared toward the beginner-folks who might be sick, deconditioned, and not well acquainted with exercise or nutrition. The same principles do apply for the more advanced trainers and athletes. Restful sleep, a grain-free Paleo diet, and smart training are the keys to not only top level performance, but also optimizing health and longevity. For the sake of brevity, however, I will only provide recommendations on where to go next.

For the Lifeline program I am a.s.suming that you have been sitting on your f.a.n.n.y a long time. I'm also a.s.suming you are generally free of orthopedic issues, have a release from your doctor to begin a mild exercise program, and you have a little common sense. That means ramping up your activity slowly. If you are just lost, it might behoove you to get a knowledgeable trainer or strength coach to work with until you literally have your feet under you. The Lifeline program seems idiotproof, but people have "impressed" me at times in this regard, so use your good judgment!

I'm going to lay out several activities that you can do either singularly or in a circuit fashion, as well as many ways to alter the basic template for variety.

"Cardio"-Walking, Rowing, Biking, Swimming.

Hopefully these activities are familiar to you. Rowing might be new, but it is a highly effective training modality you might consider adding to the mix. Later, I'll give you some ideas on setting up a home gym, but do not get bogged down in the details here. If walking is the easiest and most accessible thing to do from this list, just stick with that. Folks get squirrelly and make squawking sounds about "boredom" in an attempt to avoid exercising, so I'll try to inject as much variety into this as I can. If you ride a bicycle, look both ways, wear a very flamboyant helmet, and try not to talk to strangers. Strangers scare me.

Lower Body-Squatting, Walking Lunges There are quite a number of orthopedists, physical therapists, and other health professionals who will tell you squatting is "dangerous to the knee." If you ask these fine folks if it is dangerous to sit down, they will look at you like you are the idiot. Unless you are going on strike and never intend to stand up again, if you sit down, you will eventually stand back up. That friends, is called "a squat." Apparently, the medical profession would prefer you never practice how to squat and, instead, just pretend humans can navigate a life without squatting. It's madness and at the heart of the disconnect with our very nature. If your medical professional is very concerned that you are squatting, tell them you have switched to a much safer movement called a "sit-to-stand." In the mean time, let's look at how to squat, er . . . sit-to-stand.

SQUAT.

Stand upright with your heels under your shoulders, toes pointing slightly out. If you are new to all this stuff, place a chair, solid box, or similar object behind you. The object should be slightly higher than knee height in the beginning, just to be careful. We are simply going to sit onto that object, but with perfect form.

Tighten your stomach, f.a.n.n.y, and leg muscles. Get solid! Now, keep your weight in your heels, push your bottom back such that your knees track over your toes. Reach your hands forward for counterbalance. As your bottom reaches back, your knees track over your toes, and your upper body leans forward however much is necessary to stay balanced. Keep going down until your f.a.n.n.y contacts the chair, box, or whatever object you are using. Stop!

Now reverse the process, keeping weight in your heels, knees over your toes, and stand all the way tall with your hips back under your shoulders. You are now a graduate of the "Junior Squatter Club." Don't get too c.o.c.ky, though; we have a little more work to do. Ideally, you are squatting with your hips just a little above parallel with perfect form. If that is the case, we will lower your box or chair progressively until you are performing a perfect, full-depth squat. Will this be hard for some of you? Yes. Flexibility and strength issues may make this a long process, but there is literally nothing you can do that is better for making you strong and healthy. Some people may need to use a very tall chair or box due to orthopedic or strength limitations. Use your best judgment and/or find a coach that knows what he or she is doing.

Walking Lunges The walking lunge is most appropriate for someone who can squat full-depth for ten to twenty repet.i.tions. If you are not at that level, save the walking lunge for later.

1) To begin the movement, a.s.sume the same starting position as your squat. If you painted a clock on the ground in a circle around you, your nose would be pointing at "12."

2) Now step a leg forward. If you step your left leg forward, your left foot should land on the "11," and if you step your right leg forward, your right foot should land on the "1." The point here is to step wide enough that you are stable and balanced. This is not a sobriety test-unless, of course, you started this session with a few NorCal margaritas! You should step far enough forward that you can keep the shin of your front leg vertical (same as the squat, but avoid letting the knee go over the toe), but not so far that you have problems stepping the back leg forward.

3) Step your rear leg forward. You should alternate legs with each step. It is important to note that one leg may be much more stable than the other. Not to worry, that is why we are doing this! If this is a new movement, your "lunge" can be just an exaggerated step. Safety and progression are what count here. If you never knew quite where your gluteal muscles were, you will be able to draw a detailed anatomical diagram the day after you try these!

Upper Body-Push-ups, Body Rows You may not think you can do a push-up, but I'm willing to bet I can find a way to modify this cla.s.sic callisthenic movement so that you can do it safely and effectively. If you are deconditioned or significantly overweight, we will start you from a standing position using a st.u.r.dy bench, counter, or even a handy wall. Let's start against a wall, which is the easiest way to do this, then progress to a more difficult version so you will understand how to scale this movement as you progress.

Wall Push-Up 1) Stand facing a wall just a few inches away. Place your hands flat against the wall slightly below your shoulders, approximately at chest level. Now, step your feet back a few inches. Make your body tight from earlobe to toe-nails! Tighten your legs, bottom, and stomach.

2) Push yourself off the wall, fully extending your arms.

3) To return, allow your arms to bend, controlling your descent back to your start position. If you do this without paying attention, you will break your nose on the wall. I recommend against that. Now, try moving your feet back a few more inches and do a few more repet.i.tions. Do you feel the slight increase in difficulty when you move your feet further back? This is how we can modify movements to make them safe and accessible to almost anyone. If this variation is easy, try using a counter or low bench or table, as demonstrated in the next sequence.

Chair Push-Up 1) First make sure the chair is secure! Remember, you will lean your full weight against this object. If it moves, you might have a very short workout and a considerably longer rehab! Approach the chair the same way you did the wall. Feet are under your hips, your body should be tall and straight. Place your hands securely on the seat of the chair about shoulder width apart. Now, walk your feet back until the lower portion of your ribs is touching the seat.