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

WOD Blog >> Strength and Power Endurance

This section of the blog will document the training completed by my gym partner "Mr. Simon Aldous" and myself so that we can measure what has worked well for us, and thus report our recommendations.


Last week's workout consisted of high intensity interval training (HIIT) and a circuit of Power Cleans, Deadlifts and Front Squats using a relatively low weight.

This workout was designed to tax the three energy systems:

• ATP-CP system (Phosphogen system) - This system is used only for very short durations of up to 10 seconds. The ATP-CP system neither uses oxygen nor produces lactic acid if oxygen is unavailable and is thus said to be alactic anaerobic. This is the primary system behind very short, powerful movements like a punch, a 100 m sprint or powerlifting.

• Anaerobic system - Predominates in supplying energy for exercises lasting less than 2 minutes. Also known as the Glycolytic System. An example of an activity of the intensity and duration that this system works under would be a 400 m sprint.

• Aerobic system - This is the long duration energy system. By 5 minutes of exercise the O₂ system is clearly the dominant system. In a 1 km run, this system is already providing approximately half the energy; in a marathon run it provides 98% or more.

We started our workout with a Tabata Protocol. This is a method of intense anaerobic conditioning which consists of 20 seconds of hard activity followed by 10 seconds of rest, repeated 8 times over. The benefit of Tabata intervals is that it can help to improve anaerobic fitness and also aerobic conditioning despite being only 4 minutes of exercise!

Following a brief dynamic stretching routine we got stuck into our main workout which is to be completed as a back-to-back tri-set of:

Power cleans @70kg x 6reps
Deadlift @70kg x 10reps
Front Squats @80kg x 10reps (Simon lifted 80kgs while I wimped out and dropped my weight to 60kg as I felt sore from training the day before)

repeated 5 times, the rest period being when the time it took for Simon or myself to complete the circuit.

This circuit taxes predominatly the ATP-CP system and the anaerobic system which is responsible for producing powerful and explosive movements for short periods of time. Considering my main sport is Muay Thai and boxing, this sort of workout is perfect for mimicking the physical demands of a boxing match which consists of 3-5 three minute rounds.