Thoughts on being part of a fitness and nutrition counterculture.

Posted on | April 9, 2009 | 12 Comments

I’d like all of you reading this to take a moment and take part in little geeky thought exercise with me.

Imagine that tomorrow everything our community says it wants happened. You get up, stretch and drink some black coffee (can’t break the fast after all, as a dedicated IFer!) and fire up a computer. There, on the front page of CNN is the headline that the AHA has completely reversed it’s position and is now suggesting that people adapt a Paleo/Primal based lifestyle.

The President’s Council on Fitness and the ACSM have changed their guidelines to suggest that people drop “foo foo cardio” and adopt a program focusing on high intensity lifting, heavy compound barbell training, and functional movements. Now let’s continue this little fantasy and suppose that American’s actually listen, obesity rates drop; the average person is actually capable of performing simple tasks like briskly walking a few miles and not being sore the next day.

Does this make you happy? Or disappointed because you’re not part of a counterculture you perceive as elite anymore?

I’ve been guilty of this myself, but a great deal of the people in our community seem to reveal in the attitude of “looking down at the rest of the world, who don’t get it”. I won’t even attempt to claim not to have been part of this myself at times as well. It’s counter productive though and not just because it makes us look like arrogant meatheads.

I think a lot of the members this community are so emotionally invested in going against the mainstream that they’ve thrown the baby out with the bathwater. I’ll start with the Paleo movement. I’m a big fan of the thinking behind the diet and I do think that looking at our evolutionary roots is a great place to begin investigating. This doesn’t mean that everything that we’ve developed since then is worthless though. I, for one am a fan of the post workout whey protein. I have a little trouble with the idea that it wasn’t around in prehistoric times meaning it’s not effective.

You know what else wasn’t around in prehistoric times? Olympic bumper plates, lifting shoes, periodized training programs and Olympic caliber athletes. I’ll take another sacred cow of the community, high intensity interval training. Now I’m a fan of this. A lot of emerging research is showing that for general health and fitness the intensity is far more important than the duration. Some of the mainstream authorities are even getting on board and recommending the general population do 20 minutes of real work instead of 60 minutes of boring slow plodding.

That doesn’t mean long slow cardio is useless though. HIIT isn’t anything new. Olympic middle distance runners used to train with it in the 60s. Then one runner (I forget his name, but can look it up) was dissatisfied with his performance and started experimenting with the idea of aerobic base building, doing much more work at a lower level of intensity, then “topping off” with a lower volume of higher intensity work. He crushed his competition.

The last 30 years of scientific research have largely validated this approach. If you want to go long, you have to train long. Now, I’ll fully agree that the pendulum has swung too far in the wrong direction. I don’t think there’s any real benefit to people who aren’t distance athletes putting in tons of mileage – you can get most of the health benefits with much shorter, more intense workouts. These will also do less to reduce your peak strength (which distance work will). But it’s a big leap from saying that “high intensity work offers the best bang for your buck” to saying that “steady state moderate intensity work is worthless”.

These are just a few examples. I really do think that the Paleo/Functional Training/Crossfit guys have it mostly right. I refer people looking for advice on getting started working out to both Crossfit and the Paleo diet. But I don’t want to be so enamored with the idea of being part of the counterculture that I discount approaches that aren’t in vogue with these communities solely because of the desire to make waves.

Do you?

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Comments

12 Responses to “Thoughts on being part of a fitness and nutrition counterculture.”

Son of Grok
April 9th, 2009 @ 11:50 am

If it were truly a prehistoric world I would be waling around blind (no contacts), dead (infanty surgery or croop episode when I was 11) or any number of problems. I certainly don’t think everything non-primal is bad. I think we need to focus on whats good for us in all aspects of life. If its training or eating like a caveman… then awesome. The best business or surgery or finanacial or technology approach though probably wasn’t invented in the stone ages.

The SoG
K8
April 9th, 2009 @ 2:12 pm

Good read! It’s always important to keep things in perspective. I know I’m guilty of having a tunnel vision attitude about fitness. It’s better to pick the good from various programs than to be so focused on one that you miss out on beneficial aspects of others.

(I’m still focused on mainly CrossFit, though !)
Son of Grok
April 9th, 2009 @ 4:20 pm

Oh I forgot to add that I think I am better than everyone else lol

The SoG
SmoketheBlowfish
April 10th, 2009 @ 3:46 pm

Great read! I know that I get the snob thing going sometimes at the gym. I do everything I can to keep my mouth shut (which can get extremely difficult). The one thing I am sure of is that there is no perfect system for everyone, but there is a good system for each one of us…we just have to figure out what works best. For me, HIIT works great. It’s the only system that has allowed me to drop bodyfat..along with proper nutrition, ever changing workouts, and a bit of common sense.
Jedidja
April 10th, 2009 @ 4:43 pm

I totally agree – we should keep things in perspective at all times. It’s far too easy to become religious/fanatic/ about something and forget that there are good ideas outside your own small area of interest.
Crabby McSlacker
April 11th, 2009 @ 6:35 am

What a thoughtful post!

I’m too skeptical (and lazy) to embrace any one theory of fitness wholeheartedly; I think everyone is different and we all need to find out what works for us. Pendulums swing back and forth, and I rarely swing all the way no matter which way they go.

And it’s interesting to think, whatever our fitness perspective, of what it would be like if everyone suddenly agreed with us and actually followed through and got fit and healthy.

I think I’d miss having something to complain about!
Jessica
April 13th, 2009 @ 1:18 pm

Great post! As an endurance athlete, I feel pulled in 2 different directions and I agree that we must always remember that what is good for general fitness is not what is optimal for sports performance!
I wish more people would look towards the primal lifestyle when they are ready to develop better fitness and/or lose weight. THEN, after general fitness is achieved, they can pursue sport specific training if it appeals to them. Instead, I see lots of overweight people with very poor eating habits taking on Ironman training. Yes, they can do an Ironman in under 17 hours and get the medal, but they aren’t any better off for it. Its very frustrating to watch.
I’m rambling. We all need to remember that the ultimate goal should be to teach others when we are asked to share. The goal is NOT to be “better” than anyone else and to hoard wisdom, it is to SHARE!
Jay
April 14th, 2009 @ 4:07 am

Chris/Rayna;

Bummer you can’t make the Fest, we’ll definitely be thinking of you guys.
You get to Vegas, I hope you’re going to climb Red Rock.

Post pic’s

Jay
Gubernatrix
April 14th, 2009 @ 9:29 am

Moot article, great stuff! I am both guilty of the smug thing and frustrated by it.

Jessica also makes a good point that what is good for general fitness is not what is optimal for sports performance – especially extreme events like Ironman. I am reminded of Alwyn Cosgrove’s pithy comment: “fat people finish marathons all the time”.
James CFAddiction
April 15th, 2009 @ 11:27 am

Anything that goes mainstream gets watered down. Paleo and CrossFit for the masses would just be another fad diet and exercise program for people who like to try everything while new (P90-X, MMA, Billy Banks Tae-Bo, step class, spin class, hot yoga, pilates, kettlebells, soloflex, bowflex, need I go on?).

Then after a few weeks of half-assed effort, they’d write it off and go on to the next thing. I’m a purist and it should be only for the most dedicated. Snob it up you elitist crossfit/paleo athletes! And come train with us!!

“Forging Elitist Fitness”
Patrick
April 21st, 2009 @ 1:48 pm

Great post. It’s all too easy to get dogmatic about the truths that work for you and extend their applicability to the wider world. It’s especially tempting to do so when you are part of the minority and fighting for respect (essentially responding in kind to the close-mindedness of the keepers of the current dominant worldview).

Most things are more complicated than we can readily understand as laypeople. Developing helpful rubrics like “Is it primal?” is a good way of simplifying complex issues into manageable decisions based on solid general principles. However, that doesn’t translate well into absolutism, because simplifying rubrics by their very nature ignore the details of specific situations.

Sometimes it helps to take a step back and look with open eyes at what other people have pulled out of the black box and see where it fits in with your own perspective (whether we’re talking fitness or diet or economics, for that matter). The CF approach of adopting what works only functions as long as you keep an open mind with respect to other methods, differing goals, and individual experience.
TrailGrrl
April 22nd, 2009 @ 7:56 pm

We are having a “Wellness Day” at work next week. I don’t engage in any of the so-called “healthy eating.” No muffins, fruit, or mocktails. I’ve been Primalized and eat a ton of meat and fat. My friends are like what are you doing? A lot of cardio? No. Working out a lot? No. I eat a LOT of MEAT. And FULL FAT food. I don’t eat cereal or much bread. That’s about it. And now I have to buy smaller clothes again! I just bought 8′s in jeans (first time back in single digits!) in December. And today I was shopping and can fit into 6′s. I’m afraid to overbuy (which is a good thing!). I do sort of need a new suit for my work trip in May, so I may start looking next week. And I still eat pizza, beer, and nachos on the weekend.

TrailGrrl