Primal Blueprint Fitness

Last week saw the release of the Primal Blueprint Fitness eBook.  Seeing as I had been seriously lacking in the fitness department, I made sure to download it.  The book expands upon the three basics of primal fitness, move frequently at a slow pace, lift heavy things and sprint once in a while.

I didn't jump in straight away, even though I was dying to.  I decided I would at the very least read the whole book first.  Fortunately, that didn't take long.  Even so, I still waited a bit longer, and went back over a few sections in detail first.

This week was the chosen week to begin the fitness plan.  Wednesday is my designated day 1 for the 7 day cycle, and it began with sprints.  Now, while I'd love to actually do some running sprints, common sense told me that it wouldn't be a good idea to go and bust out a few sprints with no build up.

Instead, I put my bike onto the trainer, and did some sprints on that.  I didn't go as hard as I possibly could, due to the alarming creaking noise the trainer started making as I started pedalling as fast as I could.  Looks like I might need to find an alternative sprint exercise.

Fortunately, this week I also signed up to the Mark's Daily Apple Forum.  I put the question to the forum members, as to what sort of low impact sprint-like workout I could do instead.  I got a number of suggestions back, which included walking/jogging up a hill, to simply just jogging as the sprint, and walking to recover.  Both of these ideas sound like a good way to ease into running, and definitely sound like a lot more fun that grinding away on the bike trainer.  Of course, once it becomes light enough of an evening to go riding, I'll be able to put in some sprints on the bike, as well.

Yesterday was spent taking it easy, as tonight was the first of the lift heavy things workouts.  The eBook outlines what are called the 5 essential movements, and a lift heavy things workout utilises all five of them. Now, I'd imagined that while I wasn't exactly fit, I could at least do a few pushups, and maybe a pull-up or two.

Well, I was in for a bit of a shock, as I couldn't do anywhere near as many pushups as I used to be able to, and I couldn't even manage a single pull-up.  Still, my squats were good, which is something.  I guess all the distance on the mountain bike has paid off.

Tonight's workout was something of an eye opener.  Having done the preliminary test to determine what level of exercise I should start at, I had a fairly optimistic view of how I would perform.  Suffice to say, I was rather humbled by my performance.  Still, I have to start somewhere, and I've definitely left room to improve.