Paleo; taking over MMA

Arguably it started with Georges St Pierre - UFC training moved from 'hamster fitness' of the weight room to something that developed kinaesthetic awareness through body weight and gymnastic training.  Using movement based drills to develop finer motor patterns as well as traditional strength and fitness, has long been evident in a subset of fitness enthusiast - most notably contestants on Ninja Warrior, but now things have gone a step further.

Those who have been around the paleosphere for much of the past decade will be aware of Erwan Le Corre and his MovNat program.  Well, Carlos Condit is now training under Le Corre:

And if that wasn't enough, you'll no doubt be aware that Ido Portal - sometime paleo-ista and mainstay of Gymnastic Bodies for much of the last few years, is assisting Conor McGregor in his quest for world domination:

I'd love to see The Notorious on a climbing wall. No better way to develop his inner boa-constrictor!  But judging by the fight with Aldo, he is happy to go with striking like a cobra. Brutal skills.
 
For the record, there are a few other exceptional athletes who have adopted a similar paleo-compliant approach with superlative results - both in terms of aesthetics and performance, including Andreas Thorkildsen and TheJSap.  Also, let's not forget Michel Bruyninckx approach to football in Belgium,

• "We need to stop thinking football is only a matter of the body,...Skilfulness will only grow if we better understand the mental part of developing a player. 
  
  "Cognitive readiness, improved perception, better mastering of time and space in combination with perfect motor functioning."

Remember, paleo is a lifestyle philosophy based on the broad conditions of ancestral selection, not a brand that repackages modern life as-is.  Doing the same thing under a different brand-name is doing the same thing - and will leave you in the same place.

Road Kill

Just when you think you have this paleo-lark all stitched up, along comes someone who shows you that not only are they some way ahead of you on the paleo-road, they are picking up everything on it as they go. Foraging for berries, seeds, mushrooms and leaves or hunting fish and fowl is all well and good, Fergus goes for scavenging roadkill. This is the single coolest thing I have heard of in some time and has lead to him actually being nominated for a PETA award! I know that Hugh at River Cottage has used roadkill to bait eel traps, but as about 50% of roadkill is edible, Fergus has optimised this opportunity for gaining quality protein in the wild!

I found mention of Fergus the Forager's website in today's papers and simply had to check it out. Fergus also has his own blog. This guy really is living as a hunter gatherer (without the hunter bit), in a modern society. Amongst his site is an excellent diary in which he attempts to live for a month on wild food alone.

We can all cut the refined carbohydrate. We can all ditch the treadmill and the iron-life. We can pick up sprinting and HIT bodyweight exercises - but what Fergus does is something else and a much more genuine flavour of paleo than my attempts.

Now I would be loathe to give up my mode of exercise for his, but on a nutritional basis, this guy has it dialled.

So What Actually is 'Play'

One thing emphasised by both the paleo philosophy and simply by virtue of watching my kids entertain themselves, is the notion of play.

It can be initially difficult to reconcile the idea of play leading to a subsequent improvement in fitness. Even when we play games such as football (soccer) or racket sports, it is easy to get seduced in to the 'harder and more of it' mentality, where the fun is edged out by competitive instincts, leaving us with the notion that we will only get better if we take things 'more seriously'.
But play CAN lead to improvement. We know that power law training will elicit the desired improvements in, for example, strength, but this is only one side of the coin; play does something much more than that. It should lower mental stress and anxiety, NOT pile it on. It should induce a general sense of wellbeing. Play should lead to inner growth and 'release'.

I mention this because if you follow this link, you will see five minutes of footage that absolutely, bang on the money, nails EVERYTHING you could want to know about the benefits of play.

I am sure Danny MacAskill takes his riding seriously, but how he expresses himself on a bike shows passion, ingenuity, novelty, adventure, excitement along with strength and, acrobatic and athletic ability. This is one of the best examples of REAL play in action! The guy is having fun!

Entcho

Inspired by comments on Chris's blog, I went on the hunt for some hand balancing footage. I eventually found a video featuring Entcho - and it is a must see*.

If you have seen my training routines you will notice much in the way of ring training, handstands and hand walking. I love the playfulness of these exercises as much as I love their effectiveness in developing serious strength. What Entcho displays is both massive strength and an awesome physique. The dude could crack coconuts between his deltoids.

If you fancy a piece of this action for yourself, then you can do worse than consult The York Hand Balancing Course (which is actually a big inspiration to me). It comes from a time when training/fitness/conditioning seemed much simpler, more integrated and less Balkanized than things are in the modern-day fitness industry.

I am sure few modern-day personal trainers would support this kind of activity as part of a strength or hypertrophy training program. But the results of hand-balancing speak for themselves - as Entcho demonstrates.

*A word of warning, it is not often I can forgive crimes against music, and in the grand scheme of things Lounge Muzak (a.k.a. Trouser Jazz), is amongst the worst of audio crimes. When you watch this footage cover your ears or turn the bloody volume off!

Flow

Do you fight? Do you choose which fights you fight or do they choose you? Consider water, it flows around rock, but in time, the rock will lose the battle.

We need to develop adaptability. It is a quality of our ancesteral past and the reason why we are a successful species. Fighting is taxing. Fighting is stressful. Fighting is sometimes mental and often physical.

That is not to mean that we should give in, roll over or submit. It is possible to fight without effort. To do this you need to be able to adjust. You need to flow.

In Just Six Words

Raw, Seasonal. Play, Adventure. Rest, Flow!