“Re-wilding” retreat teaches people to approach fitness like the wild animals we once were, rather than like hamsters on a treadmill.
Nearly 70 percent of people paying for gym memberships never go to the gym. 80 percent who join as a New Year’s Resolution quit within five months.
“Wildfitness” Founder Tara Wood says this is because our bodies and minds were not designed for gyms, and no matter how much we try to beat them into submission, they refuse to cooperate.
Wood runs a re-wilding retreat that teaches people to approach exercise like the wild animals we once were, rather than like hamsters on a treadmill.
It turns out playing in the wild like our hunter-gatherer ancestors not only keeps us in good mental health, but in good physical shape too.
“In their natural habitat, all of a wild animal’s senses are alive to anything that moves or smells around it,” Wood says in a Ted Talk. “This heightened alertness to their environment and purpose is something that’s very dulled in captive animals.”
Civilized humans suffer physically, mentally and emotionally because they are cut off from their natural food source, habitat, and ability to express their natural behavior, she says.
Wood’s typical client spends most of their days indoors “bathed in the cool glow of a screen,” with very limited movement and highly processed food. They have little motivation to get out of bed each morning, let alone exercise.
“Drop them into wilderness, get them to eat fresh, real food, get them to be physically active outdoors and tell them the rest of the time all they need to do is completely chill out – and within days an incredible awakening and blossoming occurs,” Wood says.
During the course of her one-week “wilderness therapy” program, Wood has seen chronic skin and digestive disorders clear up, diabetics stop needing insulin, and people in their 60’s, who haven’t run for 20 years, start running again. She’s seen depression — that the most potent pharmaceuticals and insightful psychologists couldn’t touch — lifted.
“There are no secrets here,” Wood said. “There’s nothing to patent. It’s simply a matter of putting the animal back in its natural environment.”
Nature knows best
Wood is a biologist, but she thinks scientists’ approach to human health is often too complicated.
She cites cushioned running shoes as a primary example:
“Science tells us we need this cushioning to absorb the forces associated with running … But we’ve had millions of years of bipedal evolution. Why should we suddenly need shoes now?
We’ve learned cushioned shoes have been a terrible mistake, millions of injuries and millions of shoes later.”
She also questions why we need so many scientific studies to wake us up to the simple truth that exposing our skin to sunlight enhances our mood, or that the sound of wind in the leaves is deeply calming to our minds.
Tips for city dwellers who want to drink from the “elixir of wildness:”
1. Food. Keep it simple, fresh, real and local.
2. Movement. Imitate movements we would have done in our evolutionary origins, like climbing, balancing, jumping, playing, fighting, dancing, barefoot running and swimming.
3. Nature. “Get outside whenever you can – eat outside, go from A to B outside, train outside, meet friends outside, spend your weekends outside, when you find a restaurant find a table where there’s nothing between your head and the stars.”
Mental motivators for movement:
1. Joy
Humans are hard-wired for enjoyment. Choose physical activities that are enjoyable and liberating.
“No wild animal would freely do something that causes it to suffer … Suffering kills our motivation and curbs our performance.”
2. Purpose
The biggest killer of motivation is doing something out of fear – “like telling someone they have to lose weight or lower their blood pressure.”
There are far more interesting reasons to move, like martial arts, dancing, cross-country running and team sports.
3. Survival
Environmental challenges make us stronger and more adaptable. Therefore, exposing ourselves to sub-optimal conditions (running in the snow, for example) might do us some good, Wood says.
RELATED: Depression is a Disease of Civilization: Hunter Gatherers Hold the Key to the Cure
RELATED: What a Gatherer-Hunter Diet Did to a Man’s Gut in Just Three Days
Comments
9 responses to ““Wild Fitness” Expert Explains Why It’s Better to “Play” Outside than Exercise in a Gym”
martial arts not Marshall
Thanks 🙂
Youre so cool! I dont suppose Ive learn anything like this before. So good to search out someone with some authentic thoughts on this subject. realy thanks for beginning this up. this web site is something that’s wanted on the web, someone with somewhat originality. helpful job for bringing something new to the internet!
[…] “Wild Fitness” Expert Explains Why Gyms Don’t Work – You don’t see cats and dogs with knee braces and sore lower backs limping around. There millions of years of bipedal evolution. Why should we suddenly need shoes now? The human … […]
This is absolutely right, we humans should understand what we are and how we need to connect with the natural world more than the artificial one (because the artificial one is sh*t, basically).
Love this article just wished you could have mentioned foraging for food. Also I agree to an extent what you say about shoes. The main reason we need shoes today is because of concrete and tarmac. It’s only really healthy to run barefoot on natural terrain.
Even here in the Last Frontier people are more “inside” than “outside” oriented. A great deal of “outside” is motorized – four wheelers and snow machines. Kids (and parents too) are on their electronics and parents are afraid to lose sight of their kids. Most nature experiences are on a screen. But most screen time is playing games.
Science has proven nature is good for us-even in cities. The majority, however, have left nature behind.
We are all reading this from a screen….. ironic
While I understand where the author is coming from – i lived that life and i did not need a gym – but with the devastation of the wild and the forceful hand of governments in bringing in poison masquerading as food, we do not have a choice to minimise the bulge and ill health by going to the gym and doing things that you can easily do out in the wild – the problem we have or face today is our diet and transportation – i drive when a distance is over 3 miles (one way) if not I walk – nowadays you see young people catching a bus or train just to avoid walking a distance less than a mile – If you were to remove all the sodas, pizzas, processed foods and other harmful foods to our health we would probably have no need to go to the gym – and if bus stops were set a mile or 2 apart – that will set up a challenge for all to be fit. In conclusion I still feel we need the gym as a substitute to the wild – its not perfect but we have designed and adopted exercises that people of old used to do in their normal day to day activities. Just like Gerry above mentioned that the only wild you will see is on the big screen.