Running 6.5 km 31 minutes. The run felt good, my quads were sore from Wednesday but it didn't seem to affect the run too much. A cool spell has hit the city so that made the run much more enjoyable than it otherwise would have been.
On to the promised section.
My General Fitness Philosophy
In psychology there is a concept known as the Era of Evolutionary Adaptedness EEA) which is the period between two million and sixty five thousand years ago. The theory being that we are still mostly those animals that were built through natural selection to survive in the wild. Modernity is but a drop in the bucket of our history, in essence we are still cavemen.
People would live in groups of about fifty as hunter gatherers. Our bodies and brains bear out our evolutionary legacy. When I think about being fit I try to think about it as being caveman fit. Can I outrun a predator if startled? Would I be able to doggedly wear down a large herbivore? How adept am I at evasive maneuvers (climbing trees and rocks)? How far can I make it across a choppy body of water? Most importantly, will I be able to handle myself when faced with an aggressive fellow homo sapiens?
Our muscles and nervous system are built to quickly adapt and become more efficient at repeated movements, performing many sets of barbell chest press will cause muscular hypertrophy and result in large chest muscles best suited for more chest presses. This paradigm informs my attitude on workout design.
To put it simply: I try not to do any particular exercise too many times in the same way.
I apply these same evolutionary principals to my diet. Bread is a no-no, this means no burgers (damn) but yes steaks (yay). Refined sugars are as always, evil. There are a few core ideals that stand out as being most important in guiding food choice. Is what I am about to easy recognizable as food as opposed to being the output of a machine? Is what I am about to eat mostly plants? These are by far the most significant questions to ask myself, the rest is just details. I will admit here that these questions are taken from Michael Pollan's ideas.
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