5: Debunking Common Exercise Myths + Harnessing Ancestral Movements

Michael Kummer: Exercise or physical activity in general are important for optimal health. I think most people would agree with that. But why is that? Why is exercise so important? What does it do to our body and mind? If we work out or what happens when we don't and what types of exercise or physical activity is best for longevity and optimal health.

Those are some of the topics I'd like to discuss in this episode of the Primal Shift podcast. Before we get started again, as always, make sure you subscribe, you share, you follow, and because that really helps other people find this podcast, helps us with the ranking and helps me make more episodes like this.

So thank you very much for your support. Now let's talk about physical activity in general and exercise and what types of exercise are most beneficial for optimal health. But before we do that, let's think about what physical activity meant for our ancestors and early humans, because from there we can kind of deduct what types of exercise are best for our physiology and how we can incorporate it into our modern life.

The other thing I want to talk about is the way of the human body to adapt to our environment. And, you know, let's take astronauts as an extreme example. You know, when they're out in space and they don't exercise, like in the early days of, of space travel, you know, exercise was not an important aspect, um, in the daily lives of astronauts.

And what we've realized is when, you know, astronauts would come back to earth, their bone density was significantly decreased. They suffered from muscle atrophy, meaning, you know, you have the muscle tissue disappeared. But why? Well, because the body figured, well, you know, and if we are weightless, we don't need all that, you know, the structure to support our body.

We don't need strong bones. We don't need strong muscles or ligaments and joints because we are weightless. We don't need any of that stuff. And so naturally the body starts spending fewer resources and keeping those tissues strong. And the same happens on earth to a lesser degree. If we don't work out, if we don't lift heavy, if we don't sprint, if we don't work our cardiovascular system, then It gets weaker because evidently we don't need that.

And the problem is however, that there is a threshold where if your bones get weak enough, if your muscles get weak enough, if your cardiovascular system gets weak enough, then it becomes detrimental to our health because suddenly our heart is incapable of dealing with. You know, the burden with the stressor with dealing maybe with, you know, all the environmental factors with our modern lives.

And so we become weak, sick, and ultimately die prematurely because we, you know, haven't challenged our bodies or, and our mind. And so that's really the core principle between exercise. You want to stimulate, you want to positively stress your body, your cardiovascular system, your bone tissue, your muscle tissue, your joints, and your ligaments, and send them the signal that we need to get stronger to deal with the loads we have to carry with the grocery stores we have to carry with the kids that we want to pick up and we want to do all of those things pain free.

So that's ultimately the goal of physical activity. And so, you know, in our modern lives that, you know, often means going to the gym or doing something, going out of our way, spending extra time on physical activity, on pursuing, you know, exercise. Back in the days, you know, there weren't any gyms. Nobody would, you know, pencil into the calendar, you know, going to the gym, you know, two hours a day, three times a week, because humans would naturally be physically active.

You know, our ancestors used to walk for long distances in search for food and shelter. You know, we would sprint either because we were running away from a threat, from a predator, or we were chasing one, you know, we were trying to hunt and kill. And we were lifting, you know, stones and, and rocks and, and trees and all kinds of things, you know, and to build shelter and to, you know, build caves to dig holes, you know, all of the things that were necessary for us to function, you know, all of those things included physical activity, climbing trees to get up to a beehive to extract the honey, you know, and, All of those things are just came natural to us.

We didn't have to go out of our way to be physically active. Now, fast forward to our modern life, to my life. I mean, I'm sitting here, you know, in front of a computer and recording a Uh, podcast episode. I'm not physically active doing that. I'm doing something that's not natural. I'm sitting in a position that's not consistent with our, you know, history and with human physiology.

We're doing a lot of things that are inconsistent with how our bodies were or what our bodies were designed for. And so we need to compensate for that by going to the gym, by working out, by playing a sport, by all of those things. And it's important to do that because as I said, if you don't do that, you're going to deteriorate.

So you need to keep challenging yourself every day. Ideally, you need to keep challenging yourself, you know, for until you drop dead, because this, as soon as you stop challenging your body, you will deteriorate. And the problem is the older you get, the quicker you deteriorate. I mean, if you think back when you were in your early twenties, you know, and you didn't work out for two weeks, and then you came back, you know, No big deal.

You just picked up, you know, where you left off. If now that I'm 41, I don't go to the gym in two weeks, I can feel the difference. You know, my recovery suddenly is a little bit slower. Um, my, you know, pain threshold might be lower. I get exhausted quicker. You know, there are a lot of things that unfortunately accelerate, not always in a, in a good way when you get older.

And so you need to keep up with challenging your body. And the best way to do that is to implement. Movements and modalities that mimic how our ancestors would have kept themselves physically active. And so the best example is, you know, as I said before, they walked long distances in search for food and shelter.

So walking is an incredibly powerful and I think often underappreciated type of exercise. The advantage of walking is that, A, it's not only consistent with human evolution, um, but it's also very low impact. So even if you have joint issues, knee issues, you know, from abuse that happened over decades, chances are, hopefully, you can still walk, you know, pain free.

Walking is incredibly powerful. And if you ever look at, not that I keep tabs on, you know, how many calories I burn during working out, but if you walk for three miles or run 3 miles, you pretty much burn the same amount of calories if that's your main concern. Walking just takes you longer, but it's still, you know, you put an effort to cover the distance of 3 miles.

And it usually doesn't matter much if you run that or if you walk that from a calorie burning perspective. So I prefer the walking for numerous reasons. One is it's low impact. I can do it even if I'm super sore or hurt, chances are, I can walk and as you get older and as you get more, you know, maybe if you have neglected your body for a little bit and you feel, you know, those aches and pains, et cetera, you probably don't want to go running, you know, you want to walk, you know, walk every day if you can for as long as you can not take it not only as physical activity, but also as a mental break.

You know, I typically use walking the dog, you know, it's a 45 minute walk typically. Okay. Time to, to think, you know, time that I usually don't have throughout the day. So it's not only physically good for me, it's also mentally good for me to kind of disconnect and, and, and just walk. That's the one, number one tip that I can give you.

If you don't do anything else, just pick up walking, you know, and chances are because walking is so, it brings so much pleasure and it's so low impact and not painful that you keep doing it, you know, jogging or running on the other hand. It's something that a lot of people do and a lot of people find joyful, but To be perfectly honest, running is not consistent with human evolution.

Humans never ran. Why would you do that? If you have to cover 50 miles, you're not gonna run. You walk it, you know, and you get there. Um, it's, running is very hard on your joints. And even if you're young and you don't feel it right now, eventually you will feel it. Running is not consistent with human evolution and is not consistent with human physiology.

Long distance running, especially if you want to take it to the extreme levels, like ultra long distance running, etc. It shakes your intestines. And it actually, there is something called running, uh, runner's diarrhea. You know, it's not conducive to your gut health. It's not conducive to your joint health.

There is, it's not conducive to your heart health, even, even if you say, okay, cardio workout is good for your health. Yes, to a degree, but that Being constantly at a certain heart rate that's not super high, but not super low either. That's very taxing on your heart. And it's again, not conducive and not consistent with evolution.

So running is typically not something that I would recommend. Do it from time to time. That's fine, but I would not recommend making that the core of your exercise routine. What is consistent with human. Uh, evolution and what is very important is resistance training. You want to lift heavy weights and that means either, you know, it could be your body weight.

If you do body weight exercises, could be, you know, barbell work. Ideally, you want to load your, your structure with. significant weight. So to teach your bones to become stronger, to force your body, put more minerals into bone tissue. So your bones, your bone density increase, your bones become stronger, your ligaments become stronger, your muscles become stronger.

The stronger you are, Usually the less pain you'll experience over time. Of course, there's, you know, you can overdo this. You don't need to be a bodybuilder. You don't need to look like, you know, like Hulk to be, to enjoy optimal health. I would actually argue that there is a threshold. And once you pass that threshold, you're no longer Um, going after optimal health, you're going after optimal performance and optimal health and performance don't always go in the same, you know, direction.

At some point they diverge and you don't want to overstep that if your goal is optimal health and longevity. But lifting heavyweight resistance training, incredibly important. And the older you get, maybe you want to switch over from lifting like from doing barbell work and from doing, you know, compound movements like power cleans, et cetera, to maybe more resistance, you know, using resistance bands or body weight, but you have to load your skeleton, your skeleton, you have to load your structure.

You have to load your frame. You have to give your body the signals to. at least maintain your strength, your bone density and your, your joints and your ligaments, et cetera. But ideally you want to get stronger and you can only do that by putting, by loading it, by loading your body. And so I would recommend you pick up some sort of resistance training.

And that's one of the reasons really why I enjoy doing CrossFit because it usually has a combination of various things that are. A in the realm of functional fitness, you know, stuff that you need every day when you, you know, pick up your kids, when you bring grocery bags from the store, when you, you know, lift furniture, all those kinds of things, you know, are supported by many of the activities that are part of a CrossFit training.

Um, and it's, you know, you, you have different things. It's, it's doesn't get boring. It's not like going for a run every day and doing the exact same thing every day. No, there are different things. Um, speaking of, you know, one of the aspects that is very Integral part of CrossFit training is intensity, high intensity workouts.

Um, and that includes, you know, sprinting and that couldn't have been sprinting on a bike. It could mean literally sprinting by running fast. Um, it could be, you know, um, rowing. It, there are many types of high intensity type of workouts. It could be quick barbell cycling, you know, jumping, you know, all of those things, but you need to, to.

to engage your fast twitch muscle fibers. You want to do high intensity stuff for numerous reasons. A, because it's, again, consistent with human evolution. You know, we used to run away, you know, at a moment's notice or run after, you know, those high intensity short type of workouts are very much what we are built for.

And the more we can mimic that, the better, the fitter we become and the healthier we become. So that's why I'm a huge fan of sprinting. But again, the older you get, maybe. The running type of sprinting might not be conducive to, you know, your physiology, your state of health that you're in. Maybe you already have bad knees and bad this and that.

So sprinting might not be in the cards and, but you can do, you can do sprint workouts on a bike, be it an air bike, or the one I prefer is, is a bike, uh, called Carol. It's a, um, Reduced exertion, high intensity interval training bike. I end a separate review. I'm going to link that in the show notes. That's one of the best and shortest ways that you can leverage to get a good workout in, in the shortest amount of time that, you know, that taxes your cardiovascular system, engages your fast twitch, you know, muscles.

Uh, it doesn't do the resistance part, so you still want to lift heavy, but at least from a cardiovascular perspective, that's an excellent tool. But there are others. You can use air bikes, you can use, you know, a rowing ergometer, you can use, you know, a ski ergo, you can do a lot of things where you can Do high intensity type of workouts and, and that's one of the things I, I highly recommend it in terms of, you know, how often should you work out, you know, there are different opinions out there.

I mean, you want to move to a degree every single day. I strongly believe that sitting even a single day per week is not consistent with human evolution and is not good for you. So if. At least you want to take a walk every day. I think that's the bare minimum. Just go out and walk. Walk as much as you can.

Stand as much as you can. Sit as little as possible. Be sedentary as little as possible. You know, that's really one of the core things. From there, next step is to walk. You know, walk as much as you can. You cannot overwalk. You cannot walk too much. You know, you're not gonna Cause significant, unless, you know, of course, you know, you walk 50 miles a day, that's a whole, you know, different ball game.

You might actually then feel your, you know, your, um, your ankles sore or your feet, you know, might take a toll on stuff. But, you know, walking 45 minutes every day, walking an hour every day, walking two hours every day, you know that's not a problem. And you should do that as much as you can every day in terms of high intensity and resistance training.

I've come to the conclusion at my age at 41 that more is not always better. I used to workout, do CrossFit, um, five, sometimes six times a week. I don't do that every day or I don't do that anymore, period, because I need more time to recover. And recovery is really another important aspect. It's the, the other side of the coin of, of physical activity.

You need to give your ti your body time to recover. If you don't do that, then it's gonna counterproductive. You're gonna increase your risk of injury. You're not gonna get as strong or as fit as quickly as you would like. You might even run into a recovery deficit where your performance goes down and your fitness goes down over time.

So that's why it's so important to work hard. workout hard, you know, lift heavy weights, be sore, all of that is good, but then give your body time to recover. For me personally, that means, and it's different for everyone, I try to have one to two days in between intense workouts. You know, on those days where I don't work out, I might Do in a ride the bike, I might, you know, I go for a walk for sure.

I might go swimming. I do something low impact that is conducive to recovery that increases blood flow. I might use the sauna, which is another, you know, way of giving your body a mild cardiovascular workout, because my heart rate goes up in the sauna. If I stayed for 30 minutes and I have a, you know, a heart rate of 110 for 30 minutes, it's a mild cardio workout.

You know, that's similar type of to, you know, walking, for example. And so those things I do, but you really have to listen to your body. And one of the things that I pay close attention to is my heart rate variability or HRV. And you can use this using various tools, you know, I use, you know, I have, I have a WHOOP, I have deodorant, I have different tools that can measure my HRV so I can keep tabs on my trends.

And if I see that my trend is going down, That could be an indication that I'm in overtraining, so I have to back up a little bit. If I'm constantly in a very high HRV and I never dip down below my baseline or close to my baseline, that's an indication that I probably can do more to challenge my body a little bit more.

And so, obviously, an important aspect of physical activity is not only the recovery part, but the nutrition. aspect which plays into recovery and physical performance. So depending on, you know, if your main goal with physical activity is, uh, longevity and health, then, you know, you need to pay less attention to certain things than if you want to improve your performance, if you're competitive, but regardless, nutrition plays an important aspect.

If you don't fuel your body right, and we're gonna have a whole lot of episodes just on nutrition, so I'm not gonna go into too much detail here, but it's important that you fuel your body properly to reap the most benefits from the physical activity you perform. And that is particularly true for, um, two things.

One is your micronutrients, meaning your vitamins and your minerals, and that your demand for those might go up as you increase your exercise regimen. If you work out more often, more intensively, you have probably higher demand on those micronutrients. And that's why it's so important to eat nutrient dense foods in particular organ meats.

And it's one of the reasons why, you know, we started MK supplements to help those. who need more micronutrients without necessarily having to worry about cooking fresh organs to get all of those nutrients and the most bioavailable and readily absorbable form into the body. So check out MK supplements.

I'm going to link it down below in the, in the show notes with a discount code. Um, it's no, my brand by purchasing you've support the show and, and, and the work I do. So I appreciate that, but that's one of the best ways to improve your, not only your energy levels, but also your physical recovery and exercise performance.

at the same time. And the other thing is protein. You know, protein is incredibly important. It's the structure of everything. You know, protein is that one macronutrient that I think you never have to count. Even if you are into counting your calories or, you know, macronutrients, proteins don't count. Eat as many, as much protein as you can.

Um, and you, there is, Virtually no way to overdo it with protein. I mean, there is, but you know, practically speaking, you know, eat as much protein as you like, and then worry about the two sources of energy being fat and carbohydrates and, you know, work with those depending on what you want to achieve, but eat a lot of protein and in particular.

After working out, if you want to have optimal muscle protein synthesis, meaning your body's ability to build new muscle tissue, to repair muscle tissue after intense workout, the best thing you can consume after a workout is a combination of protein and fat in a roughly one to one ratio. That's much more beneficial than carbohydrates, which is, you know, the traditional way of fueling after an intense workout, or I need my carbs to replenish energy, replenishing energy with carbs, obviously works.

There is something set up to it, especially if you have multiple competitions, let's say in a day in between, you want to refuel with carbs. That's perfectly fine. But if it's just an average show, like you. You know, or like, like I am, and you just want to improve your, you know, muscle composition, your body composition, and you're not necessarily competing multiple times a day.

Protein and fat leads to optimal muscle growth, you know, and that's really what I would recommend after a workout to feel with that, and then to delay your carbohydrate intake to later. The second side effect of doing that is that you improve your insulin sensitivity. And that's again from a longevity, from a metabolic health perspective, incredibly important.

So don't worry about the carbs right away. Worry about your micronutrients, your vitamins, your minerals, and your protein intake after a workout. And, uh, with that, we're going to wrap it up again. There are many ways of exercise you can do. Do what is fun for you. Do what you enjoy. Do what you want to do consistently.

You know, it doesn't make sense to do something that you do for 30 days and then you're done and you don't want to do it anymore. Start with something you can sustain. And if you're not working out at all yet, start with walking. Take a walk every single day. You'll find it enjoyable. Walk somewhere in the woods, you know, walk barefoot if you can.

Take your dog or your kids or do it by yourself. I usually enjoy walking by myself with the dog because he doesn't talk to me. And so I can be in my head. I can think, I can, you know, sort my thoughts. I can kind of decompress. And then do something high intensity, you know, and if it's only a seven minute workout, high intensity, a HIIT workout, very short, doesn't take a lot of time or a re hit workout, like the carer bike takes nine minutes, you know, do that consistently.

Um, and, and you'll reap the benefits, you know, then throw in some resistance training, be it bodyweight exercises, you know, jumping, uh, weightlifting, resistance bands, anything you can to. add load to your structure. That'll really help. Um, don't go running every day. I don't think that's a great idea for your joints or your longevity overall.

Do something that's either high intensity, that short, um, that you enjoy, that's very low impact, but maybe take a little longer, like walking. Uh, swimming is a great way, you know, a whole body workout. Sign up for a CrossFit class, you know, and don't. Get wrapped up in the competitive aspect and get hurt, but just do it to your abilities, learn the techniques, learn how to properly squat, learn how to properly, uh, you know, press, learn how to properly, you know, do some of those compound movements.

They're incredibly beneficial, very good for your health. And, um, and with that, we're going to wrap it up. Uh, thanks for listening in and I'll see you in, I'll talk to you in the next episode where I think we're going to talk about nutrition, one of my favorite topics. So stay tuned and I'll see you next time.