If you have spent any time at all in the Paleo / Primal ecosystem you have likely come across the term Chronic Cardio along with a general dislike of everything cardio. Whether it is Robb Wolf, Mark Sisson or another one of the Paleo stalwarts it would seem the dislike of cardio is well established.

This is seemingly with good reason as too much cardio does not fit into the health and longevity bias that we all have in the ancestral health movement. But, this poses the question: what if you like running, swimming, biking or some other cardio heavy sport? Is it possible to enjoy your sport without negative health implications?

Running yourself into an early grave?

The science is pretty clear on this and pushing yourself for over an hour at a time is not doing you any favours. Sustained bouts of cardio at 60 minutes plus where your heart rate is at 80% or more will increase inflammation in the body, mess with the immune system, raise cortisol (which messes with your sleep, hence recovery), increase oxidation in the body (not good if you’re eating bad fats or even too much omega 3) and it will even prevent the body taking energy from fat!

Running yourself fit or running yourself fat?

Run, Walk and Lift

If your focus is purely health and fitness and you have no specific training goals then exercise really can be pretty simple: run, walk and do some kind of strength work.

You need to to do plenty of really low intensity stuff like walking so walk the dog, walk to work, take the stairs, walk to the shops, get of the bus a stop earlier, go for a walk at lunch time – whatever you do just walk and try to get 30 mins or so in a day.

You also need to stay strong and do some age and fitness level appropriate strength work. Whether that is a simple bodyweight workout, some weight machines at your local gym or ideally a structured lifting program like Starting Strength just do it two to three times a week and be consistent.

Beyond that, you will want some high intensity work to really get your heart pumping but the great thing is, this needs to be a short, sharp shock rather than any painful, sustained process. Think doing some sprints in a tabata protocol (4 mins total – 20 second sprint, 10 second total rest x 8).If you want to really push things take this up to around 12 minutes with three individual tabata sprints with a 60 second rest between sets – but remember the magic dose here is around the 12 minute mark so don’t overdo it!

But, what if you like to run?

This clever exercise thing is all fine and dandy but what if you like to run? I like to run. My wife likes to run. Before the spectre of Multiple Sclerosis entered our lives and we dived into the Paleo / Primal / Ancestral Health Movement we were training for the Edinburgh Marathon (which we completed). As it goes, 4 years later and being in better health than ever (no drugs) my wife is now training to do the London Marathon for an MS Charity so it’s safe to say, she really likes to run.

So, what to do? Obviously, having an autoimmune disease and the increased oxidative damage, inflammation and everything else which goes with this is not good. I originally set out with the idea of looking at using HIIT (High Intensity Interval Training) and approaches like Crossfit Endurance (CFE) to train with less total time spent running  (hence inflamed . The goal was to try and find a way to devise a training plan that utilised short bouts of high intensity exercise to cut down on the overall time spent exercising. I dug into Crossfit Endurance thinking that was the answer but it seems to require a really solid grounding in Crossfit and really, neither of us have that so as time went on, we ended up following a traditional training program.

Crossfit itself is also not without problems and whilst these brutal metcons (metabolic conditioning) have benefits, there are many voices now talking on the problems with the ‘sport of fitness’. The general gist seems to be how the focus on doing things for time, the lack correct form for many exercises and pushing yourself so hard for 30 minutes (remember that 12 minute sweet spot I mentioned earlier) is just not helping and we are back in the same problem zone as Chronic Cardio (ChronicMetCon?).

Racing without running

So, I figure, I like two things about running most

1. I like to get out to nature and my runs were always in the park – I miss that
2. I enjoy the events themselves

Well, the first one can easily be traded for walks with my family, no problem but replacing the actual events themselves is not so easy. I enjoy the community aspect of the events and whilst I am not trying to compete, I do enjoy taking part and that is somewhat lacking from my time spent in my dingy gym lifting heavy weights.

So, I figure I need to go back to the drawing board and try to produce a program that is inspired by HIIT & Crossfit Endurance yet does not have such strict requirements. A program that allows me to train for a short cardio event like a 10k but without having to spend hours pounding the street. I also have to test this on myself first as my wife is in the last six weeks of a marathon program so it needs to work kind of fast.

In simple terms we this is an attempt at designing some kind of High Intensity Interval Cardio Training (HIICT – not as catchy as HIIT but it will have to do) that can be used to train for events.

Smart Cardio

So, looking at Crossfit endurance it would seem you do the main site Crossfit WODs and the Crossfit endurance workouts that are specific to your sport.

The explanation from the CFE site is that an athlete will perform around six workouts per week with two of these being sport specific. We are only concerned with running here so we will work on say three running workouts to supplement an existing strength program (3 times weekly).

• 1 x short intervals (100m – 200m)
• 1 x medium to long intervals (200m – 800m)
• 1 x sprints / hill runs (alternate weeks)

As best as I can tell from the CFE site this template applies to everything from a 5k to a 100 km ultramarathon so there is some flexibility in the durations of the short and long intervals.

So, I also do a Starting Strength style linear progression weightlifting program that is getting kind of challenging now three times a week so this has to fit around that. This also replaces the standard Crossfit workouts for me in the template with something a little more measured and goal orientated (which is not kicking my ass so much).

10k Training Plan

To test this out I have signed up for a local cross country. It is a fairly tough race, 10k, hilly as hell and populated with lots of the cardio crowd. It is a run I have never managed to break 50 minutes on even when I trained a fair bit of cardio (albeit, never for speed). Recently I have done little to no running, maybe once a week for 3 miles max and many weeks I have not got out at all. I do get the odd tabata in although it is mainly on the punchbag so I have no kind of great base that will skew the results. That said, I do eat and sleep a whole lot better so… swings and roundabouts but certainly, I have not been doing any running.

Most people, myself included have no easy way to gauge distance so rather than doing based on time rather than distance. You can pick up a simple interval timer piece of software for your smartphone and I really like one called Impetus which you can get for Apple and Android. Alternatively, you can pick up a cheap interval timer online.

I have three weeks as of writing this so my plan is as follows:

Week 1

Week 2

Week 3

The road ahead

So, I have a plan, that is somewhat inspired by the running part of Crossfit endurance. I have tweaked it a little to be time rather than distance specified for now to make it more accessible for people.

I have not done this run for two years and have done little actual running in that time period so if I can come close to, or even beat my previous record of just over 50 minutes I will be pretty damn pleased with myself.

I also have  a very short amount of time to train so the four workouts + a tabata (4 mins) each week may be a bit much, but time will tell if we can further simplify this without adding further Crossfit style metcons as simplicity is our goal here.

Going further

I will follow up this post in three weeks with my experience here and to see if this is worthy of further experimentation. This is very much a beginner template for shorter distance but should things go to plan I have a 16km run in a few months and a 21km one before the end of the year so I will test this approach out with a 4 week plan for the 16km and a four week plan for the 21km.

Also, back in my crazy, pre paleo, running days I made apromise to wife, father and partner in crime on this site that we would run the New York Marathon in 2015 – if this goes to plan, I would certainly like to develop a plan and leading-up-to -the-plan plan that we could use to train for that event without beating ourselves up to much. I will be pushing 40 as will my wife and my father will be 65 so we could certainly all do without the chronic cardio so… watch this space.

Questions & Feedback?

I am no expert on Crossfit programming so would appreciate any feedback and if you have any questions, fire way. I will update this with my training log as well as I get stuck in.

Copyright PriMod.

With the ‘never a spare minute’ way we all seem to live nowadays it can be hard to find time for parents to go and do their own regular exercise several times a week. Equally, getting kids out and exercising is not always easy during summer holidays or breaks when you still have to work and keep paying the bills so we have recently taken to exercising together on a Sunday in the local park and making it as fun as possible (that is, we never use the E word).

Fun Family Exercise

Our family consists of my wife and myself (mid 30’s), my daughter (8), son (6) and the newest arrival at 7 months (I am using my Jedi-parent mind trick to get him to exercise… yet) so we needed something that we can all do and all enjoy and the following are a few of the things that have been working out.

1. Frisbee

Who does not love tossing a frisbee and when you do it with your kids there will be a whole lot of chasing after the frisbee as it rolls in the wrong direction. Still, they picked this up pretty quick and now it makes for a fun and surprisingly taxing little workout that can be done in the middle of a walk in the park or some such to throw a sprint style workout into the mix.

2. Olympics (tabata sprints, jumps etc)

I am trying to work more sprinting into my week and a fun way we are doing this at the moment is for the five of us to go into the park and find a nice little spot to do a tabata sprint along. For those that don’t know, this is a 4 minute exercise where you run for 20 seconds and then rest for 10 seconds and repeat the whole thing 8 times. Sounds easy but is absolutely brutal.

So, to make this fun, we find a strip of about 100 metres and park the kids in the middle of this with a stop watch. They then time us and shout out “STOP” and “GO” and we run back and forth covering less and less distance. Then… we do the timing and get the kids to do the running.

We switch this up and do all sorts of bounding, skipping and jumping exercises (google plyometrics) and get the kids to time the lot – and then we time them and look like Nazi parents when normal people walk on by.

3. Stuck in the mud

This is a great game that works for the family or is even better with friends or a bigger group. You basically have one (or more) person on and they have to touch the other players. Once they have made contact that person is stuck in the mud and must stand with their arms out and legs open. The remaining players can then attempt to free them by either tagging them (easy) or going through their legs (difficult).

This works well with just one of the adults on or even with both of our kids against us. Likewise, if we have any other uncles, aunts and friends this can be a really fun and surprisingly challenging game – especially if you attempt it after two or three tabata sessions!

4. Tig

Surely everyone knows how to play tig? One person is on and they have to tig another player, and then they are on. Surprisingly fun, surprisingly tough.

5. Dodgeball

Similar to tig but with soft balls – lots of running, lots of laughs and a challenge for old and young alike.

Making fitness fun

It’s all too easy to get drawn into the whole ‘kids don’t do as much exercise’ as they used to way of thinking but in my mind that is horse crap. I have watched my two elder children jump on the trampoline for hours on end and that is some ass kicking exercise and they never stop running, jumping and ultimately, playing so in a way, this is not for them, this is for us! Sure, some kids don’t walk to school any longer and if they are allowed to eat too much junk, play too many video games and get overweight then they may slow down but it is your, our responsibility as parents to keep them active and to make it fun!

Give this a go and I am sure you will soon realise just how much fun it is to play, exercise as a family and how much you have missed it!

Copyright PriMod.

a typically brutal crossfit workout

I find myself ever more interested in Crossfit from an ‘elite fitness’ and maximum results from a minimum time investment but the daily workouts posted on www.crossfit.com are just so damn tough. The general idea is that Crossfit provides all round fitness, unlike say jogging, that gets you good at, well, jogging, Crossfit gets you fit, strong, flexible and fast in a way that can transfer to other disciplines.

The workouts themselves are varied, almost different every time and we will follow a similar plan so I will post new variations regularly (follow @PaleoQnA on Twitter, subscribe by email or RSS or follow our page on Google+ with the red button to the right)

10 Minute Workouts

The idea is that workouts are short and hard so I have been designing myself some simple crossfit style workouts that require no gym equipment as such. The goal is that they could be completed in ten minutes when you get good at them but allow for 15 or 20 minutes to begin with or a little extra time to get to your local park or some such where you can do the workout.

Frequency

As with any training system, it all depends on your fitness levels but aim for three times a week – it is only 10 minutes after all! If you are getting cocky add a fourth or even fifth workout to really start pushing your fitness levels up but don’t rush, baby steps, brutal, Crossfit style baby steps but baby steps no less.

Intensity

The idea is that you give this your all and really go for it BUT if you are just starting out take it easy and scale up the intensity. Give yourself time to adjust to the workout before you really go to pain town!

The Exercises

We will stick with standard body weight style exercises, the kind of stuff you used to do in P.E. (gym class for our american brethren) so we are talking sprints, jumping exercises, push ups, squats, sit ups, crunches and variations of. All simple enough and things you can Google each exercise. As time goes on we will add examples for each exercise with videos and the like but for now, Google it if you don’t know the exercise.

Example Workouts

Crossfit also names their workouts, which I find kind of cute, so I am going to do the same, but with more either wacky, relevant to me, or British names. The exercises are usually done in circuits so where we are doing 15, then 10, then 5 push ups that would be denoted as 15/10/5 and where we are doing say a 60 second plank followed by a 45 and 30 second plank it would be shown as 60/45/30.

Monday – Boris

• 3 x 100 – Meter sprints
• 15/12/10 – push ups
• 20/15/10 – bodyweight squats
• 20/15/10 – squat thrusts

Wednesday – George

• 60/45/30 – star jumps (jumping jacks)
• 10/9/8 – burpees
• 60/45/30 – plank
• 15,10,5 – park bench jumps (or just jump as high as you can with both feet)

Friday – Steve

Copyright PriMod.

I have done some digging and seemingly, there is no good resource out there for Paleo marathon training. If you stumbled across this hoping it would be it, well, sorry, this is day 1, of what is going to be a 12 month study into the best way to train for a Marathon, to do well, and do it whilst following Paleo principles as best as possible.

I myself am not running the marathon, my wife is, so, she is my better looking Rocky and I am her Micky  and she will eat lightnin’ and crap thunder by the time this 12 months is out!

General Goals

My general goals are as follows:

1. Only safe Paleo carbs (sweet potatoes, yams, plantains + fruit & veg)
2. Baseline 100 grams of carbs a day + 100 grams for every hour trained
3. Carbs primarily after training
4. Get a sub 3 hours 30 minutes time
5. Keep inflammation as low as possible due to an autoimmune disorder
6. Stay strong and avoid injury

How & What?

Well, that’s exactly the question, how do I do this and with what? I am at the very beginning of this journey but my general, rough draft ideas are something like this:

• Become a fat adjusted runner
• Some fasted training to push the wall back as far as possible
• Some cross fit type endurance training
• Plyometrics
• Various sprint workouts
• Some basic strength and body weight work
• and obviously, some running, but hopefully, not too much

Day 1

Well, this is it, day 1 and I am giving myself a few weeks to get a plan together but I would love to hear from any Paleo or Primal folks that have ran a marathon whilst avoiding the usual grain heavy carb loading or anyone who has any Paleo endurance work under their belt.

Copyright PriMod.