I make no bones about enjoying the conveniences of our modern age. As much as I esteem our beloved Grok figure, I wouldn’t opt to trade places with him. (All right, it might be fun for a day.) That said, I’ve always acknowledged that modern living comes with a price: persistent stress, rampant responsibilities, less sleep, less play, less sun, and novel environmental toxins. Pollution, in particular, is one of my central considerations in designing the Primal Blueprint well beyond a basic paleo model. Although we’re wholly Grok’s kin, let’s face it: we’re hardly in Paleolithic Kansas anymore.
Unlike some drawbacks to modern living, pollution (especially air pollution) is one downside that’s hard to avoid. Sure, you can live upwind from the industrial section of town, or you can settle in the country. Regardless, factories set up shop in new areas, highways are added to accommodate increasing sprawl, jets fly overhead, […]

Original post by Mark Sisson

So I have recently been toying around with the one arm military press. I train shoulders twice per week and I now include heavy one arm military presses every other shoulder workout. This started by accident a little over a month ago. I was planning to do some seated dumbbell military presses, but all the benches were taken. I grabbed a set of dumbbells and decided to do just one arm at a time standing (an exercise I've never included as part of my routine). It felt pretty awkward the first set, but really engaged my triceps. By the 3rd set I was hooked! This creates a much different feel in the shoulders than doing seated dumbbell presses. After just 4-5 weeks of using this lift all of my weights in my pressing movements have shot up. No wonder this was such a popular exercise back in the early […]

Original post by admin

Or “Top Ten Diet Myths Debunked”. That would have fit almost as well.
Everyone who learns about nutrition through the usual channels, be it fitness magazines, mainstream diet books and forums, gets cursed with the prevailing belief system of what constitutes a good diet.
Though specific dietary recommendations vary slightly depending on who you listen to, there are many common denominators and “rules” that you are told you must adhere to. Call it broscience, incompetence or ignorance, same thing. We’ve all been there and we’ve all followed these rules. Led like sheep, not knowing better. Trusting that those we listen to knew what they were talking about. While these dietary myths run rampant in the bodybuilding and fitness community, you’ll find that many are being endlessly propagated in the maintream as well.
Upon closer scrutiny, the great majority lack scientific basis. They are born out out of half-truths, faulty conclusions drawn from poorly […]

Original post by noreply@blogger.com (Martin Berkhan)

It’s official: we’re closing up shop. They found The Bread. They still haven’t found the flying saucer from Area 51, or the second shooter on the grassy knoll, but they found The Bread.
A crack team of European archaeologists has finally uncovered the evidence that Eades, Cordain, DeVany, Nikoley, I, and a ton of other bloggers have been pooling our incomes together to suppress for years. That supplement and book stuff I sell? It’s actually a (undeclared) non-profit operation devoted to buttressing the final meager thread supporting this whole Primal/paleo thing. And it was working, too, despite our recent setbacks. See, we’ve been taking a lot of hits as of late:

The flurry surrounding the China Study. Boy, we really lost that round, huh?
The emergence of a hyper intelligent, intellectually rigorous, banana-obsessed, fruitarian hominid splinter species with a powerful online presence, before which I find myself cowering.
The piddling sales of both my […]

Original post by Mark Sisson

Here’s a concession I’m willing to make:
If you are on Anabolic Steroids there is a chance that you DO need an increased amount of protein in your diet.
After all, with one a good round of Anabolics you could possibly gain more skeletal muscle mass in 8 weeks then most men do in 80 weeks.
In fact, when you think about men in their 30’s, 40’s and beyond, a cycle of anabolic steroids may add more muscle then they would otherwise see in the rest of their lifetime.
So really, it’s reasonable to suggest that the nutritional needs may be different for people who are ‘on’. (i.e. they may need significantly  more protein)
The other issue with Anabolic Steroid use that may necessitate higher protein intakes is that it is a situation of FORCED muscle growth.
Meaning your muscles are going to grow regardless (even if you are not weight training)…which makes me wonder:
Where […]

Original post by Brad Pilon

There’s been a lot of news from the Pharma realm these last few weeks. As you all know, I make a point of passing this kind of thing along…. Given the massive role pharmaceutical drugs play in our society’s conventional health care, I like to keep on top of the developments. Speaking of “massive,” first there’s news from the National Center for Health Statistics, which released a report measuring trends in prescription drug use and cost in the last decade. Between 1999 and 2008, prescription drug use rose in all age categories, as did the number of people taking multiple prescriptions. Approximately 88% of people over the age of 60 take one or more prescription medications on a regular basis. A whopping 66% use five or more prescriptions. Not surprisingly, cholesterol-lowering medications topped the list for this age group. In those 20-59, the most popular prescription was antidepressants. In children, […]

Original post by Mark Sisson

Potatoes are controversial in the Primal and paleo world. They represent a bolus of dietary starch, which can wreak havoc on the insulin resistant, but they are undeniably whole, real foods that don’t require much processing beyond simple heating. Grains and legumes, on the other hand, are tiny, disparate sources of calories that need soaking, fermenting, and extensive heating to be palatable (and they’ll still mess you up), but potatoes are big, dense, and obviously food. Chimps have been known to use sticks to dig up and eat wild tubers, and they’ve got even less salivary amylase to break down starch than we do. Evidence exists for human consumption of roots and tubers from multiple sites spanning multiple time periods: Northern Europe (specifically Poland), in the terminal Paleolithic and early Mesolithic. Clearly, we have the physiology (amylase production, glucose metabolism), the tools (fire, hearths, digging implements), and the motivation (attraction […]

Original post by Mark Sisson

[New research shows that bread might very well have been a staple source of food in the paleolithic man’s diet. All I’m going to say is that the firestorm that’s going to erupt in the paleo community the coming days is going to be VERY interesting. I will explain why in this post. For those of you don’t know what I’m referring to, bear with me to the end of the post and it will make sense.]
Something tells me there be a storm a comin’ in the form of a lot of really upset paleo diet followers. Because new research has just shown that bread was around for 30,000 years. Here’s a quote from the article:
“Starch grains found on 30,000-year-old grinding stones suggest that prehistoric man may have dined on an early form of flat bread, contrary to his popular image as primarily a meat-eater.

The findings, published in the […]

Original post by rafael@thefitnessadviser.com (Rafi Bar-Lev)

1 Mile Carry (1/4 of your bodyweight)
Variations on this WOW are encouraged. See the “How-to” and “Variations” sections below.

How-to:
Warmup: A couple rotations of the Grok Squat and Grok Hang.
Time to complete: Approx. 20 minutes
Grok regularly carried heavy objects over long distances. Whether moving camp, carrying baby Grok to and fro all day long or bringing home the kill, carrying was a part of Grok’s life. And it should be part of yours, too.
Grab a heavy object (kettlebell, heavy rock, water jug, barbell, dumbbell, sandbag, loaded backpack, weight vest, etc.) that amounts to a quarter of your bodyweight and carry it 1 mile. That’s 40 lbs for an individual that weighs 160.
I recommend changing your carrying method over the course of your trek. Put the weight on one shoulder, then the other. Carry it in one hand, then the other. Place it across your arms or bear hug […]

Original post by Mark Sisson

[“Hey, if I miss a workout for something little like mountain climbing in -30F weather, then I’ll never workout…”]
 
The idea of combining strength with flexibility to create an incredibly functional and strong level of fitness has been around for a very long time. Gymnastics is probably the best “pure” example of this – where the gymnast needs to be both flexible and strong to be successful. But there are plenty of examples of martial artists who were flexible and fit who started incorporating weight training to increase their strength. Bruce Lee is probably the most known example of this.
But despite it being well known that there are huge benefits to combining strength and flexibility, the idea of doing so is taboo to many men and women. Many men would not be caught in a yoga class for fear of seeming feminine and many women will not touch a weight over […]

Original post by rafael@thefitnessadviser.com (Rafi Bar-Lev)