Our method of madness

The Primal Challenge is all about living on a primal diet and doing activities that minic our hunter gatherer ancestors. Of course it sounds like a novelty, and I guess it is, but the simple principles of living that we can observe from our primal ancestors can help to build a stronger, fitter, faster and leaner body.

Our core principle consist of:
eating lean meat
lifting heavy arse weights
moving fast like hunter

Practically this means lots of functional exercises, focusing on compound weight lifting exercises and human movement (rather than individual body parts). We would not advocate a standard run of the mill split-routine you see most wanna be bodybuilders performing at a local "globo gym". And we are primarily concern with ticking all the boxes when it comes to working out, that means - increased strength, speed, power, endurance, fitness and improved body composition.

Our core exercises consist of:
Squats
Deadlifts
Bench Press
Weighted pull-ups and bodyweight pull-ups
Olympic weightlifting:
Cleans
C&J
Snatch
Jerk and Pressing
Track running:
Various distances

Lifting heavy weights:
We tend to use these as our 'benchmark' exercises and will keep a record of how much weight we can lift/ times we hit with these exercises. We will always try to progress in these exercises by adding more weight or reps each time we lift. We may from time to time include 'isolated' movements such as bicep curls, but this is more to help improve strength in other areas, or to acheive a certain goal, e.g. a hypertrophy stage of training.

Moving fast:
This refers to focusing a lot around high intensity interval training (HIIT), this could be in the form of a metabolic conditioning circuit (a circuit that could consist of weightlifting, bodyweight calathetics and cardiovascular exercises designed to tax all the human energy systems). I am also big on running, biking and swimming but prefer to complete shorter distances quickly with a short rest period between efforts.

Eating lean meat:
Of course this refers to the diet we recommend that is largely a low carb - high protein diet. Although we do support a Paleo or Primal diet, we also understand that different training goals will require a different approach to the diet. For example, someone looking to lose weight will want to reduce their carb intake and maintain a higher protein and fat (healthy fats) intake, whereas a marathon runner would be better off consuming a higher number of carbohydrates.

If you choose to get involved in the Primal Challenge I first want to state that we do not preach that our method is the best or the most complete, but it is a method that has worked well for us to achieve our own training goals.


Train hard and have fun!


Blog posted by - JimC