What the Primal Blueprint means to me. Law#5 Sprint once in a while

We're half way there. Law#5 Sprinting once in a while. We've covered what to eat, what to not eat, moving a lot slowly, and lifting heavy things sometimes, now lets get sprinting.

Time to Bolt...

Here's the basic premise. Way back when, we had brief intense events where we might have been running down a hunt, running away from a predator, fighting a rival, etc - but nowadays we simply don't, at least in the same way. These extremely brief, yet extremely explosive and hormonal events triggered increases in strength, speed, twitch muscle responses and greatly increased longevity by becoming simply put, faster. Oh, and improve insulin sensitivity you type 1 diabetics will be glad to know. See, exercise is great for us - when done correctly. Now, this does not advocate a spin class at 85% max heart rate for an hour to exhaust yourself and in reality do little functional good. What it does mean is conducting super-short, super intense bursts of activity. These should be all-out, max effort sessions lasting less than 10 minutes (otherwise it becomes chronic cardio territory and you actually gain less).

So what does a sprint session look like. Well, as long as you follow the rules above almost anything goes. Actual sprints are good, or they could be done on a bike, or in a swimming pool (minus the bike). Here's a basic example using tabata timing. Now, I love tabata timing and TACFIT Commando uses it exclusively, as well as some other TACFIT programs. Take an exercise, in this case lets say a straight sprint on a track. Perform the exercise for 20 seconds, followed by a 10 second break where you catch your breath (by exhaling heavily - I'll cover this in a later post) - repeat this for eight rounds. So in four minutes you have beasted a single exercise and if you have been going at max capacity you really are smoked. One exercise I am working on at the moment is the leaping lunge - basically a jumping lunge trying to reach your legs as high as possible mid air. At the moment, its not in sprint territory because the reps are too low, but when I get up to 20 or so in that 20 second round - its gonna be a push. That reminds me, always maintain good form and if you feel pain, stop the exercise. Its better to be fully recovered performing less than max reps, than perform max reps and spend days aching. I rarely have the two-day aches I used to have, because I exercise smart - again, see Scott Sonnon's pages to go into this point in more depth.

Hill sprints are great, though they are killers

I must confess, I do not set aside specific sprint sessions. However, as some exercises do push me into that sprint - adrenalin response territory, I class these as sprinting elements of my exercise regime. Find what works for you is the main thing, but do include some amount of sprinting every week or two in your regime to fulfill your maximum health potential. For type 1 diabetics, compare a 10 minute sprint session to a prolonged hour in the gym and test your blood glucose before and after to conduct a bit of a self experiment. I've found the more I eat primal - see law#1 and law#2, the less exercise effects by blood sugars, but we must always be wary.

Now, lets all get out there for a sprint :-) To end the movement laws I like the pyramid below as a handy reference. Print it, and pin it up.

Respectfully,
Sam