The following Mark's Daily Apple article was written by Marksissons and is narrated by Brock Armstrong.

Are elite athletes inadvertently training like Brock?

Modern elite athletes have different goals than our hunter-gatherer ancestors.

Their training loads are higher and their physical activity is contrived and somewhat artificial,

but for the most part, elite athletes are working with the same metabolic and neuromuscular machinery

as GROC.

The activities and movement patterns that benefited and shaped the evolution and performance of our hunter-gatherer ancestors should thus prove useful for contemporary humans seeking

optimal physical performance.

According to a recent paper, many top athletes have settled upon the hunter-gatherer

fitness modality as optimal for performance. Even highly specialized athletes without much room in

their routine for generalizing, like marathon runners who have been able to log insane mileage

at high intensities above all else, are incorporating aspects of Paleolithic fitness to improve their training.

These athletes and their coaches aren't combining anthropological records to devise their programs.

They're inadvertently arriving at similar conclusion because that's where the latest

exercise science points. What movement and training patterns am I talking about exactly?

Shift away from one size fits all periodization. GROC didn't follow a predetermined workout routine or fitness program. Instead,

ancient humans auto-regulated their physical activity according to energy availability and

expenditure. If yesterday was a heavy day of hunting, butchering, and carrying the food back to

camp, and food was plentiful

for the next few days, what would be the point of going out again and expending more energy?

Heck, he might take a de-load week if he could get away with it.

The only reason we train hard on consecutive days is because the program says to do it. Because we think we have to work out.

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