Running, Moving & Eating As Nature Intended - Fitness Trend Analysis
This is one of the trends included in our Opening A Gym Business e-course.
We dive into natural running, primal movement and nature-inspired diets such as paleo and other ancestral eating protocols.
In this video we discuss the ‘as nature intended’ trend currently prevalent, in fact prevalent for the last few years, in the health and fitness industry specifically as it relates to three things: moving, eating and running.
This is one of the example fitness trends that we include in our Opening a Gym or Fitness Studio E-course - Four Steps to Success.
so this trend is really fundamental not just to Biofit and where this business has come from but for me on a personal level of evolving my own fitness philosophy in recent years.
It is essentially a nature first philosophy that promotes a simpler, more elemental way of seeing things. It's not about going back to the past or clinging on to traditions
a nature knows best way of approaching anything from your diet, to the type of training you do and the shoes you wear
So it's less of a critical eye, more a note of questioning, occasionally skepticism but more than anything just questioning what is sometimes fed to us by the media as a golden rule,
Take food for example, agriculture has been with us for 5000-10,000 years depending on where you come from in the world, food products on the other hand, that are pre-packaged and prepared are incredibly modern in terms of our evolutionary history on this earth.
So all these products have given us convenience and unparalleled access o unlimited numbers of calories and genetically we are just not programed for that.
The eating as nature intended approach would take a different approach, even to moving around the supermarket - rather than sticking to the central aisles where things are in cans and packs, we stick to the outer aisles where (hopefully) things are displayed loose, in crates and boxes, lots of fruit and vegetables basically.
Our DNA has not changed much from pre-agricultural revolution times which means we are still better adapted to eating moderate amounts of fruit and grains, not that much dairy if any, and occasional pieces of meat or fish depending on where you are.
If you were living by the sea or a river, chances are you'd have a fish based diet, If you lived near a forest with wild boar, you were probably eating a lot more meat.
What's a modern-day equivalent? Think of the cold pressed juice trend and most vegetable juice concepts as a whole. It is a more modern, convenience version of that, bottled up.
Other examples of this ‘as nature intended’ food trend would be paleo and ketogenic dietsIt's a pretty good alternative to eating a salad or a bowl of vegetables that you might otherwise eat.
Other examples of this trend would be paleo and ketogenic diets both inspired by how things used to be, or how we ate for many years
avoiding grains here though, focusing more on vegetables, with some fruit and meat too.
While the paleo diet got a massive boost from top CrossFit athletes adopting it, we have seen a counter-balance to that with a lot of high-level endurance athletes saying ' i'm doing things differently - completely vegan’
Dispelling the myth that animal proteins, right down to casein and whey powder are essential is in fact misleading, there is plenty enough protein in vegetable sources
either way, the basic message is that to eat as nature intended just stick to your local farmer's market, avoid the central aisles of the supermarket
The corollary to this has been a similar approach to footwear - minimalist shoes with 'zero drop' soles meaning it is flat and with wider toes to let the feet breath and return to a more natural shape
It is a back to basics approach, with Vivobarefoot making everyday shoes not just shoes for running on trails. encouraging us to challenge ideas about the type of shoes we put on our feet but also how our kids think of footwear
Two key references for this shoe trend would be the launch of a NIKE Free range - once they are on board with a trend, you know it has gone global, and we’d also point out the work of Daniel Lieberman in Harvard.
Then there was the Born To Run book, that connected with Scott Jurek - one of the top US ultra runners - to compete against the Tarahumara tribe who were going long distances without modern running shoes, just a piece of animal skin wrapped around the sole of their foot.
All those pieces came together and we found ourselves with a running as nature intended phenomenon.
Running is but one form of movement though, the moving as nature intended trend is perhaps a wider one, more nebulous but let’s look into it.
Check out Paul Chek’s work - he has his primal movement patterns of push, pull, hinge, squat, twist. If you can integrate these basic movements into your regular strength and resistance workouts you'll have all the bases covered.
, crawling, jumping, climbing, throwingWe then have natural movement proponents such as MovNat focused on running, swimming, striking, grappling, catching, they have a very wide ranging approach particularly inspired by evolutionary history. for them it is less about fitness per se and more about practical attributes, skills, usefulness of the body rather than what it looks like in the mirror. what can you do, how can you be useful with your body?
The ancestral health movement is big in the US, Mark Sisson and his primal blueprint work is a good starting point. He has a primal fitness approach, now also primal food products all based on the ketogenic and paleo diets.
So this 'moving as nature intended' approach has been fundamental in how we created our own blend of fitness. we offer an online course, generally this is more of a fitness-based concept looking at how to create a 30 or 45-minute workout or group class, we hope to have added our own unique twist with our method making natural fitness just that little bit more mainstream, and accessible, we'll let you be the judge of that though!
In the end, all of the different businesses related to this trend, we're all singing from the same hymn sheet - it is one song, with all these variations on offer, as long as you stick with that core concept you're on the right track to long-term health, wellbeing and positivity whilst also not doing any harm to the planet around us.