First Primal Workout

Since I signed up for the Primal Blueprint Meal Plan the other day, I figured why not stick with Mark Sisson’s advice and also use his fitness program.  It is all laid out in his books, The Primal Blueprint and 21 Day Total Body Transformation, both excellent reads (and apparently in need of reviews on here!).

You can also get a summary PDF for free by signing up for his website, Mark’s Daily Apple.

This morning, I got ready and started with a 5 minute warm up.  I can’t jog for 5 minutes and walking isn’t enough for me so I just set the timer on my phone and got moving.  I did a combination of jogging in place, jumping jacks, high knees, and butt kicks.

Today’s workout was to figure out my baseline on the 4 essential moves: Pushup, Pull-up, Squat, Plank.  Details are in his books but you basically need to figure out which level you are and how many of each move you can do.  For example for pushups there are 3 variations: knee, incline, and basic.  He also gives you goals numbers which you should master before moving to the more difficult level.  Here are my results (which are written as number of reps for set 1/set 2).

Pushup

Since I abhor knee pushups, I went straight for the incline pushup.  Typically this is performed on a bench and is rather difficult due to the low angle but I am lucky in that I have a power rack with adjustable safeties which can also be used for incline push ups!  It was set to 15 when I went outside so that is where I left it to start.  As I get better, I will lower the bar by 2-3 slots at a time.

Results:  25/20

Squat

I thought I would be okay with this one but I ended up needing to assist myself by holding onto the squat rack a few times.  The goal number was 50, which is a heck of a lot of squats!  My lower back was getting sore after the 30 mark hence the need to assist.

Results: 50/40

Pull-up

I knew this would be my hardest move.  I had to have both feet standing on my weight bench in order to complete these.  At the top of the pull up, I am on my tippy toes on the bench so the arms really do work a lot in this.  The whole thing just felt awkward but I have to start somewhere.

 
Results: 11/10

Plank

I started with the forearm and knee plank.  It is funny, I stopped the clock at exactly 57.56 second both times!  The goal is 2 minutes so I have a ways to go.

Results: 0:57.56/0:57.56

I was too tired to attempt a third set.  Since this was my first time, I wanted to just test the waters (and be able to move tomorrow!).  I plan on doing this workout at least twice per week to build my strength.  I really, really want to do a real pull-up and pushup one day!

A big part of the Primal Blueprint is also getting slow daily movement in.  That is one of the reasons why I’ve been going for so many walks lately.  Today, I am going to the county park again with Callista and her kids to play and walk around.  I am sure I will get lots of steps in there!

Is there an exercise that you have always wanted to master?

In addition to pull-ups and pushups, I also have a weird attraction to the pistol squat.  First, I need to work on my two-legged squats though!