You Don't Need To Struggle And Suffer To Be Fit

Today, fitness is more popular than ever: record participation in endurance events like marathons, ultras, and obstacle races; strong sub-cultures like CrossFit; the exploding popularity of organized challenges like Hyrox; and the gym scene flourishing with both budget centers and luxury clubs. While a more active society is a huge positive, there are some concerns that we must address relating to the long-standing, deeply flawed “struggle and suffer” ethos of the majority of mainstream fitness programming. That’s right, we’re largely focused on the wrong stuff: steady state cardio training and/or popular workout modalities that are too strenuous for the vast majority of participants. 

As I’ve been saying for over 20 years now, there is extensive scientific and anecdotal evidence that steady state cardiovascular endurance workouts can be counterproductive to your health and fitness progress. The problem arises when you extend beyond your comfortable “fat max” heart rate and drift into workouts and workout patterns that are exhausting and depleting. While the wide-ranging physiological benefits of high intensity interval training (HIIT) are scientifically validated, many fitness enthusiasts are getting exhausted, depleted, injured and hormonally dysregulated by doing HIIT too often and too hard. The most upsetting side effect of pushing too hard with your workouts is chronic overproduction of the pre-eminent stress hormone cortisol. This leads to the suppression of immune and hormonal function and appetite dysregulation. In essence, extreme fitness pursuits cause you to crave sugar, store fat, and carry around fatigue as a consequence. 

Unfortunately, the deeper we get into fitness, the more we become convinced that we need to struggle and suffer for a workout to “count” as effective. Witness a phrase like “crushing a workout” entering the fitness lexicon. Heck, even the term “workout” might be second-guessed. I prefer the characterization of “training session,” where each outing has specific and carefully considered objectives in pursuit of your big-picture goals. 

Note: the problem is not all to be blamed on profit seeking fitness industry brainwashing, as the type-A mindset among devoted fitness enthusiasts plays a major role. It feels great to burn energy and blow off steam during workouts, especially as a necessary counterbalance to the many sedentary forces in modern life. But we have to realize there is potential to abuse this mechanism by chasing the endorphin high to excess. 

As I’ve been saying for decades about the Primal Blueprint approach to fitness, the most effective fitness programming is that which sends the appropriate genetic signals for health, vitality and longevity, modeled after evolutionary biology. Many followers are familiar with my Primal Blueprint Fitness laws of: 

• Move frequently at a slow pace: The centerpiece of course is walking (in Peluvas!), along with increasing all forms of general everyday movement

• Lift heavy things: Regular resistance exercise, workouts lasting 10-30 minutes, emphasizing full-body functional movements

• Sprint once in a while: near all-out efforts of 10-20 seconds, with plenty of recovery, and not too many. Real sprinting, not HIIT torture sessions

• Play - as in unstructured, active, outdoor fun!

If you want to get fit, lean, and energetic with the least amount of pain, suffering and sacrifice, I invite you to expand your perspective and modify your approach to reject the struggle and suffer ethos and instead train in a way that’s aligned with human genetic expectations for your health.

First, leisurely or medium walking can become a central element of your fitness experience and overall lifestyle. In fact, many movement and medical experts are not asserting that simply moving more in everyday life is the most important method of getting healthier and minimizing disease risk. Yes, even more important than becoming a fitness freak who crushes workouts. 

From a foundation of frequent everyday movement, you make a sincere commitment to brief strength training sessions for the rest of your life, for maintaining muscle strength and power is a clear path to a long, mobile and satisfying life. Finally, you bring sprinting into the mix, as it delivers by far the greatest return on investment of any workout. These high intensity sessions are invigorating and require far less time than slogging through exhaustive chronic cardio workouts.