It was dimly lit, spider webs everywhere, there was a musty smell, and the floor was unbelievably slippery! I had to duck and weave my way through different chambers with only a lamp and the voices of others to guide me.
After a good hour of this we had arrived. “Nous sommes ici” (We are here), the Frenchman utters and with the flick of a switch we are standing in front of illuminated cave paintings 30 thousand years old - some of which are in such pristine condition that they look like they were painted yesterday…
As the light reflects off the surface of the rock, we can see exactly what the paintings would have looked like under the light of the fire torches that our hunter-gatherer ancestors would have used. The animals on the wall come to life! They look 3D and move under the flickering light – an effect created by using the contours of the rock to shape their features. My description doesn’t even come close to the experience, and the daily concerns in my life now feel insignificant in comparison to how these people lived.
They lived such a simple life, that revolved around meeting the most basic of human needs. These days we tend to over-complicate things, especially when it comes to health, fitness, and our psychological wellbeing. But think about this for a moment. For millions of years we lived very simple lives and even though we’ve changed our lifestyle dramatically we still operate on the same “wiring” as we did then.
So what does this have to do with fitness I hear you say?! Well, everything!
Imagine, for a moment, what your life would have been like if you lived at that time. How did you sit, how did you move, what tasks did you perform. How did you live day to day?!
Let’s start with some of the basic movements that our hunter-gatherer ancestors would have performed. Two of the most often used movements were 1. Picking things up and 2. Carrying them. It’s how we would have collected and brought back food and water to our campsites. It’s how we would have picked up rocks and logs and built the tents that we lived in. In fact, one of the most supported theories for how we became bipedal was so that we could carry things more easily over long distances.
And while this lifestyle is very different from how we live today, we’re still anatomically the same. We’re still basically built that way. To lift, and to carry.
It amazes me how many times I hear “what are farmers walks?” or I see a “dead-lift” that looks nothing like one, yet these are 2 main resistance movements that should be the cornerstone of just about every training program.
There are so many “health” and “fitness” benefits when lifts and carry’s (dead-lifts and farmers walks) are incorporated strategically and correctly into our training programs that we could literally fill the rest of this page.
While we are built like our hunter-gatherer ancestors, we need to consider the fact that we have changed our environment and lifestyle dramatically since then. We need to allow for the effect that this dramatic lifestyle change has had on us, the sedentary people.
There are many considerations when incorporating these exercises – and really when prescribing any exercise or movement pattern. But instead of giving you what I think are the key considerations for dead-lifts and farmers walks, I’d like to mention 2 key mindsets that have been of great benefit to me as a personal trainer and coach, and I hope will help you in being able to decipher what is right for you and your client when incorporating these, and other movements.
1. Put on the “common sense hat”! For example, it doesn’t make much sense to me to get my client doing a 1 leg dead-lift on a bosu when they can’t even do one on solid ground. We could go into how counter-compensations occur etc, to explain why one wouldn’t do this, but is it really that necessary?! My “common sense hat” says get back to basics first, and do the basics well.
2. Assess and test everything! The only way we can really determine with any level of objectivity whether our client is ready for something, and then how they respond to it, is to assess and to test. Adding resistance or weight to any movement or exercise will always enhance whatever is present in that movement. If the client has faulty movement with a squat or lunge for example, adding weight to the movement will tend to just enhance the fault – ie make it worse. Assess the movement pattern first, and then have some sort of testing method to see if what we’re doing actually has a positive effect.
There’s obviously a lot more to it than that operationally, but having these mindsets will go a very long way with the overall results, and in establishing a successful career in the health and fitness industry (which is for another post).
Getting back to basics is also something that I think we all need reminding of every now and again. So if you’re ever in the South of France and fancy going to see 30 thousand year old paintings for a reminder of how we lived, I can recommend a few good caves 
Next week I’ll be releasing a video series on the 3 biggest mistakes that personal trainers make with kettlebells that can injure clients and exactly what you can do about it.
- The first video starts off with gaining an understanding of why most kettlebell swings are performed incorrectly and how that can cause back injuries. This has a lot to do with not building the necessary foundation first – which is the dead-lift. From there we’ll go into some magic bullet corrective-exercise techniques and much more. If you want access to this video series, just click the “free kettlebell video” on this page and pop your first name and email in and I’ll send you the first video.
Until then, farmers walks and dead-lifts and don’t forget your “common sense hat” and assess and test everything!
I’d love to hear what you think – please leave a comment below.
- Ramon David
Ps. If you have a client that can’t dead-lift properly, the video next week also includes a step by step breakdown of a very easy and effective way to teach it.
