I’m turning cavewoman - lock up your cattle

The beach boot camp I reluctantly signed up to last month is based on the primal exercise patterns of our Palaeolithic ancestors and after last Saturday’s brutal workout, my ability to grunt only a caveman-like “ugggh!” made it all the more real.

These skilful hunter-gatherers had it pretty tough out on the dusty plains and after four weeks of training, only now are we starting to get a sense of the paces that survival had put them through.

Up until Saturday, we had been improving our core stability, balance and mobility with some circuit training and short bouts of running. While it’s not been easy, not by a far stretch, neither has it been
gruelling. But with Saturday as the halfway mark of our eight-week regime, our instructor Colin Ayliffe (see opposite page) stepped up the intensity level focusing on muscular strength with sharp intervals of cardio.

Thrown into the circuit training were more intense and prolonged sessions of squatting, push-ups, dips, crawling, dead-lifting, weight lifting and swinging interspersed with running and sprinting.

These total body functional movements aim to keep the heart rate elevated and burn calories while targeting every muscle group in the body. I can safely say that every muscle group in my body was still aching by Monday night!

One month into the course, I am definitely feeling the benefits — my muscles are starting to tone up, my slightly protruding, post-30 tummy is flattening out and I’m starting to feel healthier on the whole.

Horsemeat

Palaeolithic cave men weren’t too fussy about what grub they put on their plate — they often included larger herbivores in their diet such as ox, deer or even horse. The only difference is — their horsemeat didn’t come in handy, ready-made meals like the ones recently found circuiting Europe’s supermarkets. They had to hunt their prey down using great speed, agility and accuracy. If that wasn’t enough, they also had to use brute force to haul the bloody carcass over tough terrain to the comfort of a dank cave.

You might ask how we can emulate this harsh lifestyle on Bermuda’s pretty little Elbow Beach.

Well, there are seven primal patterns that mimic the movements of an early hominid — squatting, bending, lunging, pushing, pulling, twisting, jogging and running. And what do they have to do with a cave man’s lifestyle?

Before the luxury of modern comforts, if we couldn’t perform these seven primal patterns, we were unlikely to survive in the wild. For instance, early man had to squat, bend and push to move heavy objects and build shelter, he had to twist to help him to throw — an essential skill for hunting, he had to run to out pace his prey, lunge to traverse rough, long distance terrain and to pull to drag his kill his home.

When I started this boot camp I was pretty certain I could have been out run by a spooked pig but now I am at least starting to catch up with the super hunter that was our Palaeolithic predecessor. My body is stronger, my stamina is growing and each week the challenges are getting harder so I am constantly improving myself. Most importantly, the work out is fun because of the variety — you are never doing the same thing for longer than a minute.

At this point there is no room to rest on my laurels. I now need to do more exercise during the week. It is easy to pat yourself on the back for getting out of bed on a Saturday morning after a hard week at work but keeping it up throughout the week is the real challenge for me.

After all, dinner’s not going to catch itself...!

For more information about primal pattern training and to sign up for the next eight-week session ($320), contact Colin Ayliffe directly at cayliffe@
courthouse.bm