PURPOSEFULLY PRIMITIVE FITNESS:
AN OVERVIEW
WHO WE ARE: Purposefully Primitive fitness is dedicated to the proposition that a total and complete physical transformation can be successfully accomplished by anyone with discipline and a good game plan. You provide the self-discipline and we'll provide tried-and-proven game plans that works every single time they're implemented.
Our approach to the art and science of physical renovation is deceptively simplistic. By using a few basic tools and food purchased from the grocery store, you can radically alter the way you look while simultaneously improving health, vitality and energy levels. Our Primitive approach has two irreducible goals: tone, strengthen and increase muscle mass and function, and the systematic reduction of body fat. Our methodology has been used by the athletic elite for decades and is shorn of fluff and bloat.
There are three core elements to any effective fitness regimen: progressive resistance training, cardiovascular training and nutrition . These are the three legs of the Fitness Triad. A Purposeful Primitive uses an unending rotation of simple yet effective methods within each of the three Triad component disciplines. Inter-related and inter-locking, the three disciplines compliment, stimulate and accelerate progress when linked and executed in a balanced, sane fashion.
The goal is to establish physical momentum and then keep the progress ball rolling.
Any fitness expert worth their slat will tell you is that stagnation is always just around the corner. The typical trainee finds a particular weight training routine, cardio routine or diet that they like and then proceed to stick with it for far too long. The dirty little secret of fitness is that almost any program of diet will produce results for the first 3-6 weeks. By exposing the body to a new and different mode of behavior (regular training, disciplined eating) progress will occur.
The problem is the human body is remarkably adaptive and from the time you begin using the new procedure, be it a weight training regimen, new aerobic routine or the latest diet craze, the body is seeking to neutralize the impact. If you stay with the new training or eating approach long enough the human body will find a way to 'normalize' what was once radical and effective. For this reason just about any new fitness or eating regimen will yield results for the first month or so. The inevitable problem is resistance to change: once the progress vein is exhausted, rather than recognize stagnation and rotate in a fresh new approach, trainees stick with the now ineffectual mode.
Among fitness adherents there is a disturbing and predictable phenomenon: developing an unhealthy and counterproductive allegiance to a once-effective routine or diet. Out of loyalty or a misguided sense of stick-to-it-ness, they take what was once (and no longer is) effective and turn it into a religion.
The Purposeful Primitive recognizes that all routines and diets, no matter how sophisticated or effective run their natural course and peter out. We recognize the indisputable fact of life and always have another equally effective routine or eating strategy ready to roll out. Progress is our most important product.
This web site will provide you with a series of effective training and eating strategies. We'll teach you how to recognize stagnation and develop an ability to actually predict stagnation ahead of time, before it takes root. One wonderful side benefit is by embracing and not resisting change, psychologically and physiologically we avoid burnout. Our effort is always fresh, vital and vibrant due to a continual rotation in our approach to training and eating.
ENTHUSIASM TRUMPS WILLPOWER EVERY SINGLE TIME!
A key element to success is being able to develop a genuine enthusiastic love for the physical renovation process. If you view the fitness as drudgery and dread the thought of training and hate the idea of preparing foods that enhance the performance-eating portion of the fitness equation, then you are doomed to eventually quit.
Those with fabulous willpower last longer then those with lesser mental discipline, but regardless, all acts of will come to an end sooner or later. As any competent psychiatrist will attest that while willpower is great for getting a life-changing process or procedure started, at some point in the foreseeable future, willpower and determination must morph into enjoyment.
If you are able to develop enthusiasm (and love) for the process, effort will magically regenerate itself and develop a self-sustaining, self-regenerating momentum. When workouts become enjoyable and something that you look forward to, when you look forward to eating great tasting diet meals that happen to be good for you, the battle is won. Physical transformation becomes not a matter or if but when. Variety is one critical element to developing self-sustaining enthusiasm for the process.
We will expose you to a wide range of training modes and systems and amongst them you will most certainly find one or more that you actually enjoy. Ditto for nutrition: the key to eating correctly is taste. We will show you how to prepare great tasting foods that also happen to be absolutely the perfect foods for you to consume. When all three elements are in continual rotation and when you look forward to engaging in each leg of the Fitness Tripod then inevitably the human body will undergo a positive molecular transformation.
PRIMITIVE SYNERGY: When all three elements of the Purposefully Primitive fitness triad are in place and practiced in a balanced and proportional fashion, a physical synergy occurs wherein results exceed all realistic expectations . Better to do a bit of each discipline than a whole lot of any one or two elements.
Typically a fitness adherent will latch onto one (or two) of the irreducible core elements and work the hell out of it. Unfortunately this approach will only get you so far. When progressive resistance training, cardiovascular training and performance eating are all present and accounted for and executed in a systematic, balanced fashion, results occur at a phenomenal rate that has to be experienced to be believed.
The Purposeful Primitive begins the transformation process by realistically accessing how much time they have to devote on a weekly basis to the total effort. Then the available time is apportioned in a fairly equal way. The PP allots time for meal preparation and grocery shopping and plans ahead on all fronts. Ample amounts of quality food need be prepared ahead of time, ready to be consumed at a moment's notice. This notion of balance and proportionality carries over into the composition of the individual meals. Primitive tactics used in a balanced fashion create critical mass. Physical synergy is real and when achieved results occur rapidly.
HOW WE TRAIN: Athletes know that training intensity is a force-multiplier. Better to have a second-rate training executed with great physical intensity than a super-sophisticated plan executed in a lackadaisical fashion. Those of us who belong to commercial gyms have no doubt noted that the vast majority of regular members never ever change physically despite being diligent and regular in their training. These diligent gym goers stay the same for very real physiological reasons: the human body does not transform itself in response to sameness; the human body changes its molecular structure only in response to the self-inflicted trauma of intense physical effort.
This is an inconvenient fact-of-life that promoters of commercial product gloss over or purposefully obfuscate. They want you to believe that their miracle product will allow you to by-pass all the blood, sweat and tears associated with true transformation. Wish it we so but this is the number one fitness myth. Intense training effort must be coordinated with a disciplined approach to nutrition.
The Purposeful Primitive understands that intense physical effort is required trigger muscle hypertrophy and intense effort is required to mobilize and oxidize stored body fat. The tools needed need not be sophisticated but the intensity generated need be sufficient to pull the hypertrophy trigger.
We will show you how to structure an effective workout and how to inject the requisite intensity into that workout. Generating training intensity is a learned trait and need not be hurtful, harmful or injurious. The good news is that by training intensely we need not train often - in fact by training as hard as we should in our progressive resistance training, too much training done too often is down right counter-productive.
Cardiovascular training, AKA aerobics are an indispensable leg of the fitness triad. Progressive resistance training builds and strengthens the 600+ muscles on the human body; cardiovascular training improves circulatory function, builds the internal heart pump muscle, increases the size of capillaries and prevents hardening of arterial walls. In addition aerobic activity burns calories and elevates the basal metabolic rate. Cardio exercise is the perfect compliment to progressive resistance exercise - one exercise form provides what the other does not and vice versa. When both are practiced on a regular, systematic basis, the combination (in conjunction with performance eating) causes the body to respond to a degree that is not possible if one exercise form is practiced to the exclusion of the other.
PERFORMANCE EATING AND SKINNY-FAT PARADOX: Exercise need be coordinated with a specific eating strategy. Most will-driven, serious fitness adherents under-eat. You need to eat enough calories to support the intense training. The combination of intense exercise and too few calories is a recipe for disaster. Catabolism takes hold when the human body is over-worked and under-fed.
In the PP lexicon we call this 'prison camp' nutrition: work the prisoner to death through intense physical activity then starve them. Oh sure you will lose body weight by using prison camp methodology but the result is the "skinny-fat" syndrome. Skinny-fat occurs when the fitness adherent loses as much or more muscle tissue as the do body fat during the dietary process. The end result is the individual ends up a miniaturized version of their old fat self. True, they might lose 100-pounds of body weight - yet they still retain a high percentage of body fat. They have succeeded in replicating themselves in a way that is lighter but still fat, fat, fat.
The reason is rooted in simple physiology: when the body senses starvation, as it does when a person slashes too many calories too quickly, a primordial mechanism triggers that causes the body to hang onto body fat. Body fat is form of fuel and the last line of defense against starvation. If a starvation situation is sensed, the body's innate wisdom holds onto the fat at all cost.
The body actually cannibalizes muscle tissue to preserve precious body fat. Rather than expend its precious body fat in the face of starvation, the body will strip muscles of amino content to serves as fuel to power activity. The PP avoids this metabolic catastrophe by never slashing calories. If you train intensely you need to eat. The PP loves to eat and eat often. Performance eating is the art and science of eating plenty of tasty food; yet paradoxically you are able to simultaneously oxidize stored body fat. Sound impossible? Champion bodybuilders eat upwards of 10,000 calories a day while maintaining 4-8% body fat percentiles.
How do they do this? Over time they have build up the body's ability to consume calories without shuttling these calories into fat storage compartments. They have turned up the body's thermostat and burn tons of calories while at rest. This is the opposite of an obese person's sluggish metabolism. A champion athlete burns calories at a tremendous rate while an out-of-shape individual needs very few calories to exist. By engaging in intense physical activity and eating foods not easily converted in body fat the Purposeful Primitive raises their basal metabolic rate.
Does this mean we want you to eat 10,000 a day? Hardly but in the finest tradition of Prometheus we will expropriate the tactical architecture used by elite bodybuilders to aid the average individual build muscle, loss fat and stay healthy, sane and gobbling ample amounts of tasty food.
PUTTING IT ALL TOGETHER: Our Purposefully Primitive methods will work for you. Based in science and biology and drenched in decades of hardcore empirical experience, this approach to physical renovation yields significant, indisputable results in a short timeframe - provided you implement all three legs of the fitness tripod in a balanced fashion.
This web site will keep you posted on tactics that work within each of the three interrelated disciplines. We'll show you ultra-basic progressive resistance techniques and tactics, share different cardio modes that will deliver the mail and let you in on how to make great tasting food that is easy to prepare and perfectly complimentary to the degree and intensity of exercise.
We'll show you how to devise a customized training template that maximizes our most precious commodity: time. In addition we'll show you how to integrate a multiple-meal eating schedule that will keep you in positive nitrogen balance and allow you to attain the titanic twin goals: build muscle, burn off stored body fat. It all might sound terribly complex at first glance but in actuality the overall template fits together with ease, precision and logic. In the end we'll cut through the fog and purposeful obfuscation that surrounds fitness and allow you a place to come to share your fitness-related trials and tribulations.
We are old pros and our goal is to stimulate and aid you in your quest to improve physically. Please feel free to write in with questions and we'll answer as many as we can. Much can be learned by reading the questions others pose. Likely the problems while different specifically will be applicable in the general sense. We are in the embryonic stages of this blog and during our shakedown cruise we'll need to get our bearings: so bear with us and let's see if we can't trigger some transformations.
LATEST ARTICLES:
28-Day Beach Blitz Part 5 of 5: Weight Training and Cardio May 09, 200728-Day Beach Blitz Part 4: Calories and Getting Started May 07, 2007
28 Day Beach Blitz Part 3: Preliminary Preparations May 02, 2007
The 28-Day Beach Blitz Part 2: Diet Pedigree Apr 25, 2007
Virginia Tech Apr 18, 2007
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Marty's Stream of Warped Consciousness Blog
Wed May 09, 2007
28-Day Beach Blitz Part 5 of 5: Weight Training and Cardio
Complimentary Weight Training: Fast & Light
Picking a weight program to compliment a diet is like picking the perfect wine for a gourmet meal. The ideal progressive resistance training approach to compliment our 28-day, all-out diet assault could be summarized as follows: quick pace, slow rep speed, lift infrequently but lift intensely. All our efforts are directed at fat burning and in reality you are not going to build much muscle while operating in continual caloric deficit. The goal is to strip away the muscle-obscuring layer of lard. To that end we limit our weight training to two or three weekly lifting sessions with rest days in between. For beginner and intermediates, we recommend a whole body training session structured as follows:
Day 1 Monday
Squats
Leg curls
Calf raises
Bench press
Seated overhead dumbbell press
Lat pulldowns
Preacher curls
Tricep pushdowns
Day 2 Wednesday
Leg press
Incline DB press
Lateral Raises
Barbell row
Barbell curl
Lying tricep extension
Day 3 Friday Same as day 1
Sets and reps: three sets in each exercise - light, medium and an all-out final set
Set 1 – use 50% of your projected top poundage for that day and do 12 reps
Set 2 – use 75% for 6 reps (don’t blow your available energy warming up)
Set 3 – use 100% for 10 all-out reps
Rep speed: Use a slow rep speed (2/3 normal) and make sure to use a full range of motion. Strive for perfect technique on every rep of every set. The slowed rep speed will require you dramatically slash poundage – but we’re going for feel not poundage. Use less poundage and use greater concentration. Hold the lockout position of the concentric (loaded) portion for a beat and flex the target muscle hard before lowering under control to commence the next rep.
Pace: allow 1-minute between set one and two and allow up to two minutes before tackling the final all-out set. Monday and Friday’s workout should be completed in less then one hour and Wednesday should be wrapped up in 30-40 minutes.
Complimentary Cardio: The Critical Component
Aerobic training is a key component in our quest to oxidize excess body fat. Conscientious cardio improves food assimilation and raises the basal metabolic rate for hours after the end of the session. Cardio burns calories. Go longer (duration) and more often (frequency.)
Week Number of Sessions Session Length 1 4 sessions/week 30 minutes 2 5 sessions/week 35 minutes 3 6 sessions/week 40 minutes 4 7 sessions/week 45 minutes
Timing: The optimal time to perform cardio is first thing in the morning prior to breakfast when glucose, the emulsified form of carbohydrate, is at it’s lowest level within the body. Coming off the sleep cycle, glycogen stores are low and deprived of this preferential fuel source the body will utilizes the second favored source of energy, stored body fat. For maxim cardio fat oxidation, hit the aerobics before breakfast.
Intensity: Go as hard as possible for the designated time period. Start off easy for the first five minutes until blood viscosity and core muscle temperature increases, then turn up the intensity volume. Increase the pace until by the session’s end you are breathing like a locomotive. We want to turn over a huge volume of oxygen. This approach will ensure the metabolism stays elevated long after the cessation of the cardio session.
Beach carb load with an anabolic burst: When you arrive at the beach after successfully completing the four-week beach blitz, you can improve your look 10% by carb loading. Your muscles are glycogen and fat depleted to the max. By ingesting carbohydrates and fat – a lot of them – your muscles will swell like dry balsa wood submerged in a tub of vinegar. And the prescription is fabulous: every three hours, starting on the first day of week 5, eat 3-600 calorie worth of carbs taken from any source. Hit the boardwalk and eat pizza, ice cream, funnel cakes, pastry – any and all the things you’ve denied yourself. Limit these carb bursts to 3-500 calorie doses. By dousing with carbs, fat and sugar, you will trigger an anabolic burst, causing every muscle you possess to swell and miraculously become rock hard. Be cool: taper off and clean up after 36-hours of carb loading or you’ll start to ‘spillover’ and get fat fast. Don’t worry, by this time you’ll undoubtedly be sick (figuratively and perhaps literally) of all the junk food and beer and look forward to reverting back to eating ‘normal’ diet food.
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Mon May 07, 2007
28-Day Beach Blitz Part 4: Calories and Getting Started
Establish a caloric starting point by multiplying your current body weight times 15. By way of example, a 200-pound individual would be allotted 3,000 calories to commence the process. Take into account the caloric expenditure associated with exercise and eat another small supplement meal to replace and replenish calories burned through lifting and cardio. Rush restorative nutrients to traumatized muscle tissue immediately after the workout. Dousing muscles with high quality protein and a slow-release carbohydrate mixture right after a workout takes advantage of a physiological window of opportunity during which nutrients are absorbed at three times the normal rate. Each successive week for four straight weeks the plan calls for lowering the overall caloric intake and subtly tinkering with the percentage ratios of protein, carbohydrate and fat. By reducing calories and manipulating nutrients we cause body fat to oxidize while simultaneously retaining muscle mass.
GETTING STARTED: After you’ve purchased your food, a certain amount of calculation is required to determine the appropriate portion size for each meal. Purchase an inexpensive food scale (available at most grocery stores) that weighs in grams and when in doubt weigh out individual portions prior to cooking. You can eyeball a protein portion with an amazing degree of accuracy: a three-ounce serving of lean protein is approximately the size of a deck of cards and contains twenty grams of protein. For a greater degree of accuracy, feel free to weigh out protein portions. Protein powder makes it easy to calculate individual protein portions. A serving of high-quality whey protein will deliver between 30-40 grams of protein per serving. Carbohydrates, possessing radically different densities, have no easy rule-of-thumb. Most carbs can be calculated without too much fuss by using the label or the scale to determine portion size. Grill or bake or broil protein foods, steam your vegetables or eat them raw. Store pre-sized packets in sandwich baggies in the refrigerator and take the appropriate number of individually packaged portions to work or school.
ONE DAY AT A TIME: Is this the ultimate diet or the greatest diet ever designed? Hard-ly. This diet could more accurately be tagged as ‘Bodybuilding 101.’ The top professionals use all manner and type of dietetic methodology (some white magic, some black magic) to achieve 2-5% body fat percentiles necessary to be competitive. Our approach is a diluted, de-tuned version of championship eating techniques. A basic, meat-and-potato entry-level bodybuilding diet for the individual ready to try their first serious diet. Grounded in science and refined by athletes who melded science with real-world empirical gym knowledge, this approach works – whether or not you’re made of the stern stuff necessary to turn theory into reality is a separate issue. The key to radically renovating your body is more about planning and discipline then magic bullet pills, miracle powders or stupendous super-gadgets. The renovation process is hard, not easy, and the price of admission is teeth grinding determination coupled with a damn good game plan. We’ve just provided you the plan – now you need to pony-up the girt and gumption.
NEXT: Weight Training and Cardio
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Wed May 02, 2007
28 Day Beach Blitz Part 3: Preliminary Preparations
The first order of business is to establish a daily meal schedule. We don’t have time for baby talk or seductive murmurs so just read and then implement these seven bedrock principles:
1. Eat five meals daily. Consume a meal every three hours.
2. Think calories: keep the caloric content of each meal roughly equal.
3. Eliminate outrageous foods high in fat and sugar immediately.
4. Cut out all alcohol.
5. Weight train 2-3 times a week fast and light.
6. Cardio: 4-6 times a week with ever-increasing frequency and duration.
7. On days you train, add a 6th meal.
THE DEVIL IS IN THE DETAILS: With only four weeks to leverage results every day counts so make the obvious diet deletions right away. Buy your food for the week and prepare it on Sunday. Commit to eating five/six times a day with each ‘feeding’ spaced three hours apart. Proper meal timing is essential for maintaining positive nitrogen balance, the optimal metabolic status. Small, balanced meals optimize digestion and take advantage of the thermogenic effect of food, particularly protein. Prepare enough food to construct four daily 'food' meals for seven days, a total of twenty-eight meals. Purchase a canister of protein powder and a box of high-protein/low fructose sports nutrition bars. Consume a shake and a bar in tandem daily. Each of our meals will contain a protein portion and carbohydrate portion. Fat intake is reduced to a bare minimum for three important reasons: at nine calories per gram fats more then twice as dense as protein or carb foods at only 4 calories per gram. Secondly, research indicates that fat is far more likely to end up ‘compartmentalized’ as body fat than protein. Finally, with time a factor, slashing fat is the fastest way to realize a significant, immediate caloric deficit. Consume a 6th meal after training, equal in caloric value to the other meals or containing slightly fewer calories (200-300), comprised of a protein shake and a sport nutrition bar.
NEXT: The Definitive Equation For Caloric Intake!
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Wed Apr 25, 2007
The 28-Day Beach Blitz Part 2: Diet Pedigree
You need to be methodical and precise as every single day counts. Time is the enemy and with only four weeks to work our magic we don’t have time for fumbles, second thoughts or confusion. The dietary approach we’ll use is tried and proven by competitive bodybuilders, the acknowledged experts on shedding body fat while retaining muscle mass. We expropriate the fat-burning, muscle-retaining methodology of the athletic elite, stripping it down to bare bones for civilian use. By keeping the principles but cranking back on the degree of fanaticism the elite use, this dietetic approach is made palatable and doable for normal people. This is not another fad crash diet; this is an age-old approach designed and utilized by athletes whose competitive placing depends on how successfully they diet. Have you ever noticed that folks who slash calories using crash diet methods always end up looking just as fat at the end of the process as before? The reason is that they have lost equal (or greater) amounts of muscle along with body fat and despite dropping scale pounds their body composition remains still the same (or worsens) as pre-diet. They have succeeded in becoming a lighter version of their old fat self. Our goal is to retain muscle while oxidizing body fat. The key to hanging onto muscle in the face of declining calories during the diet process lies in keeping protein intake elevated throughout the process, modulating carbohydrate consumption and keeping fat intake to a bare minimum.
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Wed Apr 18, 2007
Virginia Tech
Let us all pause and remember the Virginia Tech family, who have been forever affected by the events of April 16, 2007.
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