The Art of Manliness - For a Better Work Out, Think Like a Kid

00:00:00.000 Brett McKay here, and welcome to another edition of the Art of Manliness podcast.

00:00:11.480 According to some estimates, only 5% of people in the West get the recommended amount of daily

00:00:15.960 physical activity. Is the solution getting a fitness tracker, developing more discipline,

00:00:20.620 or buying a piece of cardio equipment for your basement? My guess would say none of the above.

00:00:25.120 It would have you think about kids playing at recess instead.

00:00:27.960 Daryl Edwards is the founder of the Primal Play Method. Today on the show, we discuss the epidemic

00:00:33.120 of sedentariness, which besets both adults and children, and why technology and willpower isn't

00:00:37.720 the cure. Daryl then explains why a better solution to getting more movement and physical activity in

00:00:42.160 our lives is rediscovering the intrinsically motivating pleasure of play. He offers

00:00:46.860 suggestions on how to do that, including compiling a play history for your life, embracing primal

00:00:51.820 movements that will get you moving like an animal and a child, and getting over the fear of looking

00:00:56.060 goofy while doing so. We discuss the joys and health benefits of exploring your capabilities

00:01:00.180 and environment, and how to incorporate more movement into your busy adult life by making

00:01:04.060 even regular activities more playful. After the show's over, check out our show notes at

00:01:08.120 aom.is slash primalplay. All right, Daryl Edwards, welcome to the show.

00:01:25.120 Thanks very much, Brett.

00:01:26.240 So you are a former investment banker technologist turned movement coach. That's quite the change

00:01:32.680 there. What led you to making that transition?

00:01:36.680 Yeah, it was really a switch that was fueled by a personal health scare. You can't really

00:01:42.300 put a price on well-being. And even though I was working in a very lucrative environment,

00:01:47.740 a meritocracy, for sure, it became evident that a sedentary lifestyle led to a direct negative

00:01:54.580 impact on my health. So I was subject to an annual health check. And this health check told

00:02:01.760 me I was pre-diabetic, very close to full-blown type 2 diabetes. I had significant hypertension,

00:02:09.500 so high blood pressure, elevated blood pressure. And I was also dealing with a poor lipid profile.

00:02:16.680 So basically, elevated triglycerides, really bad cholesterol profile, which meant I had an

00:02:22.180 elevated risk of a heart attack or a stroke. So that led me to asking my doctor if I could

00:02:30.200 avoid the meds, at least temporarily, whilst I investigate a lifestyle change. And that lifestyle

00:02:38.100 change was basically starting an exercise program. I was aware that exercise could help with blood

00:02:43.120 pressure. So I was like, let me at least try and sort out my blood pressure before I'm given this

00:02:48.860 cocktail of medication. And so fortunately, my doctor was on board with that. He gave me one to two

00:02:55.560 months to start a lifestyle transition. And within that time, fortunately, my blood pressure normalized,

00:03:03.620 my lipid profile improved, my blood sugars normalized. So I was no longer in that danger zone,

00:03:10.080 and I was no longer needing to take medication. So that was the sort of the first pivotal point of me

00:03:18.960 questioning what I was doing with my life and the type of work that I was doing, which was very sedentary.

00:03:25.540 Okay. So you started a regular exercise program. What got you into this idea of primal movement? How'd

00:03:32.060 you make that shift?

00:03:34.360 Yeah. So I became very evangelical about movement and physical activity. I joined a gym,

00:03:41.560 you know, hefty membership, you know, had the fluffy towels, had the sauna and spa. And I was inspired by

00:03:49.780 watching the making of the movie 300. So this was in the early, early 2000s. And I was inspired by the

00:03:59.560 director speaking about the actors and the stunt men and women training for life. He wanted you as the

00:04:09.260 viewer to believe that these people on screen could move in this way, could fight in this way,

00:04:14.980 not just choreographed, but it actually had the functional capability. So once I realized that

00:04:20.620 movement was beneficial for my health, I had a second thought around, how can I make myself

00:04:27.700 improve functionally? How can I maintain independence as I age? How can I work on a wide repertoire of

00:04:36.560 movement? So that's when I came across primal instinctive movement, natural movement. So I pivoted away,

00:04:44.660 away from a sedentary job and wanting to get more physical activity into my day. I recognized there

00:04:53.140 was a crisis of movement. We clearly are in a crisis of movement. We're becoming more sedentary

00:04:59.420 during our days, our working days, when we're back at home on our commutes to work. And so I wanted to

00:05:05.160 find the minimal dose of movement that was going to give me maximal health benefits.

00:05:13.100 And we're going to talk about what primal movement looks like, natural movement looks like. Before

00:05:16.720 we do, let's just talk about that, pick up where you're talking about, how we're more sedentary in

00:05:21.020 the West today. What is the state of physical activity in Western countries? Like how many adults

00:05:27.200 are getting the daily recommended amount of physical activity each day?

00:05:32.060 I mean, it's pretty dismal. So if we look at statistics from the American Heart Association,

00:05:36.860 they show that sedentary jobs have increased 83% since the fifties. We know when we look at the

00:05:44.080 world around us, even within our own lifetimes, the difference between physical activity levels

00:05:49.240 when I was a kid in comparison to now, less reliance on technology, less reliance on labor-saving

00:05:55.280 devices. We can do a lot more in our chairs, right? Because of screens. So we've engineered an

00:06:03.380 environment, which means we're less likely to move. We've engineered movement out of our

00:06:09.540 environments. And so in terms of the number of adults meeting the physical activity guidelines

00:06:15.540 So that's 150 minutes of cardiovascular, cardio aerobic activity per week, plus two sessions of

00:06:25.060 resistance training per week. Those are the physical activity guidelines for adults. So when you look at

00:06:30.920 the headline stats, we're looking at about 23 to 33% in various countries in the Western world who are

00:06:39.960 meeting the guidelines, which is poor. But when you take out self-reporting, so in other words, when

00:06:48.260 individuals are tracked to see if they meet the guidelines, then that number reduces to about 5%.

00:06:55.020 So only 5% of adults in the UK, in the US, in other Western countries are meeting the physical

00:07:02.280 activity guidelines. And most of that 5% is actually just meeting the aerobic component.

00:07:08.280 So not necessarily the resistance training, the strength training activities. So the numbers are

00:07:15.080 likely to be even less. And unfortunately, this isn't just an adult problem. For children, it's even worse.

00:07:23.360 Only 20% of children globally meet the physical activity guidelines. And when we look at industrialized

00:07:31.360 countries, like in the West, you're down to single digits. So anywhere between 5% and 8% of children

00:07:38.900 meet the activity guidelines. So there you're talking about 60 minutes per day of moderate to vigorous

00:07:45.920 intensity physical activity and, you know, bone building activities such as climbing, you know,

00:07:51.960 doing piggyback rides and the like. So we really are in a epidemic of physical inactivity.

00:07:59.120 And the numbers are getting worse. So post-COVID, we're moving even less in a post-COVID world.

00:08:07.220 So to give an example of that, I read some research recently talking about the amount of free

00:08:14.480 unsupervised play, outdoor play, that kids are exposed to nowadays post-COVID.

00:08:21.060 And it's about seven minutes per week, seven minutes per week of you go outside and do whatever

00:08:34.040 you want type of play. So supervised play, supervised sports has taken over meeting, trying to meet the

00:08:43.220 requirements of physical activity for our kids. But unfortunately, our kids are not doing enough.

00:08:49.120 And what have been the consequences of this increasing sedentary lifestyle?

00:08:54.880 So we have a significant impact to our health. So it increases the risk of premature death.

00:09:01.880 So all cause mortality, basically any cause of death you can think of, you increase the onset,

00:09:10.080 you increase the likelihood, you increase the severity, being physically inactive or sedentary

00:09:15.380 versus those who meet the physical activity guidelines. And there's an increase in obesity,

00:09:20.140 there's increase in heart disease, there's increase in type 2 diabetes, there's increase in various

00:09:24.460 cancers. And there's a significant health cost globally to our healthcare systems. So it's

00:09:31.300 the kind of poor relation when it comes to lifestyle discussions. You know, there's lots of discussions

00:09:38.140 about diet. People are talking about improving sleep quality, you know, improving your gut microbiome,

00:09:44.400 improving your breathing. There are all these kind of interventions, which are openly discussed,

00:09:49.240 and people maintain that there's a benefit in trying to achieve goals in relation to those areas. But when it

00:09:58.820 comes to physical activity, it's often overlooked. It's certainly very difficult for us to integrate

00:10:05.120 into our very busy lives. And so there's a health consequence, which can only be reversed by moving

00:10:13.840 more, moving the right types of activities that will reduce the risk of chronic lifestyle disease.

00:10:23.340 Well, in your work, you've talked about some of our responses to this increase in being sedentary.

00:10:28.920 So to help people get moving more. And one thing humans typically do when they have a problem,

00:10:34.120 they first, we typically turn to technology. Maybe there's some app or device that can help.

00:10:39.640 How have we looked to technology to get us moving more? And has that worked out for us?

00:10:45.580 Yeah. So technology, I mean, humans are driven by convenience. So we're constantly thinking of ways

00:10:53.040 to make our lives easier, right? Everything from fire to the wheel to, you know, the horse and cart. I mean,

00:11:01.580 you think of all the advances where it comes to making it easier for locomotion. So making it easier for

00:11:08.980 us to move, making it easier for labor intensive work. So let's reduce the burden of work that we need

00:11:16.800 to do by making it easier for ourselves. And now in the kind of technological revolution,

00:11:22.620 we now have recognizing the issues around physical inactivity and more screen time, sedentary screen

00:11:32.440 time, we have technology options available to us. So as well as being more sedentary than ever before

00:11:38.700 in human history, we also have more technology available to us than ever before to attempt to

00:11:45.100 solve this problem of physical inactivity, which sounds fantastic until you look at the evidence.

00:11:51.720 So we have wearables that can track the amount of physical activity we're doing. They can prompt us

00:11:59.480 to move more so they can tell us, Hey, Daryl, you know, you're sitting down for far too long.

00:12:05.920 Why don't you get up and move a bit? Why don't you get up and go for a walk? Why don't you exercise as

00:12:10.480 much as you did last week? Why don't you do your 30 minutes of, you know, outdoor run today? So we have

00:12:17.180 these monitors, these trackables, these wearables that nudge us to hopefully inspire us to more

00:12:25.000 activity. Unfortunately, even though they track movement, they don't inspire movement. They don't

00:12:34.320 encourage us to do more. They attempt to do so, but there are two issues with wearable technology.

00:12:40.860 So one is technology tends to stop us in our tracks. So technology, we find useful when we're

00:12:50.980 having these devices that are prompting us to move more. We tend to be more interested in the,

00:12:55.120 in the notifications than we are in taking action. So that's the first issue. Secondly,

00:13:01.040 we have a honeymoon period with technology. So interestingly, 50% of all wearable tech purchased

00:13:09.040 is never worn. We buy it. We're enthusiastic about it. We pop it in a drawer somewhere.

00:13:15.160 We never look at it again. Then it becomes outdated. For those who do decide to use those devices

00:13:21.580 immediately, there tends to be about a three month honeymoon period where we might be getting excited

00:13:27.880 about what this device can do for us in terms of encouraging more movement. So activity monitors

00:13:33.280 sound like a great idea, but then 50% of those who decide to use those devices for three months

00:13:40.500 don't tend to continue using those devices. So there's a pull to buy newer devices, you know,

00:13:47.940 better technology, less likelihood to actually make better use of those technologies. I'm sure you

00:13:53.680 remember the Nintendo Wii, you know, sort of 15 years ago or so. Yeah.

00:13:59.240 This games console had, you know, the Wii fit, it had this board that you could, you know,

00:14:04.820 could track your body composition and, you know, track your weight. And you could play all these

00:14:09.500 incredible virtual games, virtual tennis and virtual football. And I remember having fun with my

00:14:16.020 children on this device, but there came a time when we just stopped playing it. We didn't maintain

00:14:21.860 enthusiasm for this device. And then it's locked away, it's popped into the loft and it just gathers dust.

00:14:28.520 Okay. So technology, it could be a tool, maybe, you know, help slightly, but it's not going to

00:14:34.860 help you completely to get moving again. So what we typically turn to next is willpower.

00:14:40.400 And we start talking to ourselves like a bootcamp instructor or a bootcamp sergeant. You know,

00:14:45.360 we got to, you got to grit it out, man. It's, you know, pain is weakness, leaving the body,

00:14:50.520 all that sort of stuff. And you argue it might work for a little bit, but eventually that doesn't

00:14:55.920 work either. What's going on there? Yeah. Willpower. So if we go back to our biology,

00:15:01.740 if we go back, what makes our cells thrive, what does our DNA respond to? So we know our cells thrive

00:15:10.940 with regular movements. We know our DNA responds well to movement. We know our mental health responds

00:15:16.720 to physical activity. Our mental health benefits from, from physical activity. We know, we know this,

00:15:21.780 but what does our body, what do our minds tell us? So our mind is constantly telling us it feels good

00:15:30.340 to be sedentary. It feels great in this couch. It feels great resting, relaxing, doing leisurely

00:15:40.180 activities at our desk, at our phone. You know, that's what feels good because there's something

00:15:48.280 about conserving energy, which had an evolutionary role. So back when we were, our ancestors were

00:15:55.160 hunter-gatherers, we had to be really careful about our energy expenditure. It was vital for survival. 0.68

00:16:01.800 So we had to make decisions, you know, right, we need to go and hunt. We need to go and gather food.

00:16:06.680 We need to go and build shelter. We need to make sure we have enough energy reserves to perform those

00:16:11.200 tasks, to be able to recover from those tasks, to be able to sustain ourselves until we can next

00:16:16.440 to perform those activities. And so movement was part and parcel of day-to-day life. In the 21st century,

00:16:25.400 movement is optional. I don't have to go out and hunt or gather my food. I don't have to build my

00:16:31.800 shelter. I don't have to live in a nomadic way where I've got to, you know, walk 15, 20 miles to go

00:16:38.960 from one habitat to the next to maintain my survivorship. So this is the difference between our ancestors,

00:16:46.120 and the environment that they were in and the 21st century human who is in a sedentary environment

00:16:53.760 with lots of comfort, with lots of convenience, but our bodies are still telling us, doesn't it feel

00:16:59.900 good not to do anything? Doesn't it feel good to be pampered, right? Doesn't it feel good not to have

00:17:07.880 to do this hard physical labor? So this is what our biology and our minds are constantly having to

00:17:16.900 deal with. So when we rely on willpower, right? Imagine again, going back to our ancestors, our

00:17:23.760 stone age ancestors, imagine if they had to wake up every day and go, do you know what? I have to try 0.99

00:17:31.320 really hard to think about the fact that I need to go hunting today. You know, I need willpower to do

00:17:38.420 this. It wasn't about willpower. It was about necessity, right? It was a necessity. It was essential

00:17:47.480 to maintain survival. It wasn't optional. And so if you rely on willpower, it very easily becomes won't

00:17:55.600 power because there were so many obstacles and barriers in the way of you achieving more movement

00:18:03.560 minutes, right? It could be the time. I don't have enough time. It could be, I don't have the resources.

00:18:09.560 I don't have the money. I don't know what I should be doing. I feel overwhelmed. There's thousands of

00:18:15.400 apps on my phone, you know, give me examples of what I should be doing, but I still don't know what I'm

00:18:19.960 doing. You know, we have more magazines, more literature available than ever before, right?

00:18:25.920 But it doesn't help. So there's too much information. We feel overwhelmed, but most

00:18:31.900 importantly, we are hardwired for convenience. And so we have to break ourselves out of this cycle

00:18:39.480 and willpower is not the way to break out. Unless you're one of the very few where you can click your

00:18:45.800 fingers and you're like, yeah, I'm going to do this and you get it done. But that doesn't work

00:18:49.720 for the majority of individuals. Okay. So instead of using willpower or technology to help us move

00:18:55.600 more, you recommend injecting more play into our lives. So how can play help us move more?

00:19:02.560 Yeah. So just as we're hardwired for convenience, we're also hardwired to play. So instinctively,

00:19:09.460 we have these ludic, playful genes that now we are very much deprived of. So most of us can reminisce

00:19:19.160 to our childhoods. So for mine, mine, for example, was very much about active play. So the majority of

00:19:25.880 my day as a kid was being outside playing, especially during the summer, it was get outside of your

00:19:31.300 home, you know, commune with your friends, have fun until you had to eat something. I mean,

00:19:39.540 all your parents said it's time to be indoors. So you are constantly driven to be as playful as

00:19:45.160 possible. And society tells us at a certain age, you've got to stop playing. You know,

00:19:51.700 you've got to spend your time focusing on conforming to what society says you should be doing.

00:19:57.660 And you're now at a age where play is no longer acceptable. And if you do play as an adult,

00:20:03.540 either it's professionally, you know, you become a comic or a creative or some description.

00:20:07.700 But apart from that, life is serious. But if you do focus on this playful spirit,

00:20:16.300 what we realize is that there's an intrinsic motivation through play that inspires us to

00:20:22.640 move more. So there are lots of studies on this. For example, there's a study with two cohorts

00:20:27.740 who are performing an afternoon walk over to adults. And the first group are told,

00:20:34.200 we're going to exercise for 30 minutes. We're going to go for a walk, a brisk walk for 30 minutes.

00:20:40.740 And then group two are told, we're just going to go and have some fun this afternoon. We're

00:20:47.480 going to have a walk around, you know, and we're going to explore the environment 30 minutes,

00:20:53.120 same duration. And what the researchers found was that the second group, the ones who were

00:20:59.940 inspired by and motivated by fun, where fun was part and parcel of the activity,

00:21:06.320 even though it was the same activity, they walked at a higher intensity, you know,

00:21:12.760 they burnt more calories. There was a brisker walk. There was more conversation,

00:21:18.620 a greater community spirit, but most importantly, their feel good markers. So endorphins and serotonin

00:21:26.360 and dopamine, oxytocin, all of those were elevated above the control group who were just

00:21:33.700 doing exercise for 30 minutes. So just having a playful state enhances creativity, inspires you to

00:21:43.320 want to do more. It reduces stress. It improves social interactions. And it also, through this

00:21:50.880 creativity, inspires you to want to find ways to move more. So again, just to conceptualize this,

00:21:59.040 think about people when they're, they're at a wedding, right? They're at a wedding, the music

00:22:04.840 comes on, they've had a drink and a song they hear that they may have heard in their youth,

00:22:11.140 right? Or they may have heard when they had a crush or something like that. They're on a dance

00:22:16.040 floor and they're, they're moving. Like they probably haven't moved for years. They're not

00:22:20.300 thinking about, Oh my goodness, I'm just doing five minutes of cardio. They want to continue,

00:22:25.900 you know, what's the next song? Who else can I get to join me? Right? It's a completely different

00:22:31.480 state of, of, of our physiology. So that's one of the reasons why play is really beneficial

00:22:37.740 and why I believe playing out is a better substitute than working out.

00:22:44.600 We're going to take a quick break for your words from our sponsors.

00:22:50.600 And now back to the show. Yeah. So play can help you move more, but also there's these added

00:22:55.680 benefits. You're just going to feel good and boost your creativity and that can carry over to other

00:23:00.260 parts of your life. So how can we incorporate more playful movement in our daily lives as a

00:23:07.720 adult? Yeah. So this is a really difficult question because we almost have to reverse engineer

00:23:17.120 our mindsets as adults. You know, there are a few strategies that I use with my clients.

00:23:24.180 And one of them is to compile a play history to get my client to roll back along their kind of life

00:23:32.740 timeline back to when they were a kid and moments in between where, where were you the most playful?

00:23:40.080 What brought you the most joy when it came to physical activity? And once you kind of look back

00:23:46.440 with nostalgia at those activities, what were the most fun? What did you want to continue to play?

00:23:52.780 What did you least complain about when it came to muscle soreness? Right? Or how, how awful that felt?

00:23:58.840 What were those activities? And so most individuals have an idea of what that is. And even though we

00:24:06.000 start with childhood, we can still find some of those activities, even when we get into adulthood

00:24:11.540 and it's enhancing those and making sure they become more prominent in our lives. So from, for me,

00:24:18.840 when I went back in time thinking about why do I hate exercise? You know, like, why am I struggling

00:24:25.360 to go back to gym on Monday, even though I've had a really good week of exercise? You know,

00:24:29.600 why am I really struggling? Why am I procrastinating? I had to ask myself, when did you last really enjoy

00:24:36.100 movement? So as an adult, you know, it was a decade before where I used to go out clubbing and I could

00:24:44.340 dance for hours, you know, pretty much, you know, energy just came from somewhere. I could just keep

00:24:52.120 dancing as long as the music was good. I had a great time with my friends. I could dance all night.

00:24:57.900 Right. I was like, okay, that was fun. I wanted to keep doing it. What else has been fun in my adult

00:25:03.560 life in terms of movement, playing sports, but not in a competitive way, you know, having a kickabout

00:25:09.660 with my friends. That's lots of fun. But when I, as soon as I joined a league or it became competitive

00:25:15.680 or running like, you know, endurance events at work, it wasn't fun. And I literally just ticked

00:25:21.340 off the things that were fun going right back to my childhood. And one of the things I found as a

00:25:26.380 child was chasing games were great. So playing tag, climbing trees. And I was like, I need to try and

00:25:33.300 do those things as an adult. It's as simple as that. I need to climb trees. I need to find people who

00:25:38.460 are happy to play and willing to play tag with me, which I did. And then my movement diet

00:25:45.200 my repertoire of playful movement increased, you know? So that's what I would suggest as a starting

00:25:53.800 point. Find out what within your play history is something that you would like to repeat now,

00:26:00.520 something which isn't going to give you too much anxiety, right? Too much concern about what are

00:26:05.600 people going to think if I do this? Kids, you know, are a great proxy. So if you've got children,

00:26:10.680 they're a great way for you to access your inner child and kind of, they can get the blame, right?

00:26:16.720 Oh, I'm only doing this as an adult because my kids want me to do this, right? So you can ask your

00:26:21.940 kids what they would like to do. And hopefully they provide suggestions that you want to take part in.

00:26:28.160 So yeah, those are probably a couple of starting points of how you can start looking back retrospectively,

00:26:34.780 right back to your inner child, and think about how you can model some of those behaviors,

00:26:39.680 not in a childish way, but in a childlike way. So, you know, I don't know if you've ever seen,

00:26:44.800 there's an episode of Friends with Phoebe and Rachel who are running in Central Park. And Rachel is

00:26:53.460 really serious. You know, she's running like an athlete. She's got a grimace on her face. She looks 0.96

00:26:59.440 very robotic in her movement patterns. And then Phoebe is running like a five-year-old. 0.66

00:27:05.800 Rachel's looking down her nose, you know, going, what the heck are you doing? People are looking

00:27:12.140 at you. You know, you don't, you look silly, you know? And Phoebe's like, actually, you're the one 0.99

00:27:18.960 who looks silly. You're not enjoying yourself. You're not having any fun. And many of us are 0.99

00:27:25.160 never going to access our inner Phoebe, right? But we can certainly think about activities in the

00:27:31.700 physical activity space that's going to bring us joy. Yeah, I love thinking about what gave you joy

00:27:37.400 as a child, because it'll probably still give you joy as an adult. And I also like the idea of

00:27:42.040 bringing kids in. So if you're a dad, start playing with your kids, because this is not only going to

00:27:46.560 help you start moving more, but it's going to help your kids move more. Because as we talked about

00:27:51.040 earlier, kids aren't moving. Yeah, kids aren't moving. And as guardians, as parents, as teachers,

00:27:57.860 we model for them, you know, they look to us, they decide what adult life is like based on what we

00:28:05.360 do, right? So if we're very sedentary, that's what they're going to be trying to emulate. You know,

00:28:11.540 they mimic the world around them. So the more we model physical activity as part of our day,

00:28:18.160 the less we complain about movement, you know, like, oh my goodness, I had such a hard workout. I now

00:28:24.120 can't take the stairs. I can't move. I'm in pain. You know, the less we model movement in that way

00:28:32.060 and focus much more on the fun. Wasn't that fun? Wasn't that great? I want to do this again.

00:28:38.800 And I think as kids, they won't do the same things again if it doesn't bring any joy, right? So they're

00:28:47.220 constantly on this mission of let's explore the world around us. Let me try doing something I

00:28:53.300 haven't done before, right? So it's as simple as that being more playful, right? It doesn't have

00:28:58.660 to be obvious playful activities. It can be changing your mindset and your attitude to make

00:29:04.700 the activities you perform more playful, if that makes sense. So I have a quote, a mantra that I use

00:29:11.160 all the time, which is that play is not the activity. It's the attitude. So I can go for a walk

00:29:19.760 or go for a run and make those activities much more playful than my former adult, very serious

00:29:26.580 self. I can pay more attention to my surroundings. I can pay more attention to looking at the world

00:29:33.220 around me, like my playground, like my gym. So initially I was thinking, oh, I need to find

00:29:39.360 playful activities, right? I need to be playing tag all the time. That's the only thing that's going to

00:29:44.420 work for me. That's the only thing that's playful. Whereas actual fact, you can just modify those

00:29:50.420 activities, even the ones that you're like, oh, I don't really want to do this. But if you can convert

00:29:54.620 those, if you can gamify those in an analog way, not using tech, but you can find ways of gamifying

00:30:01.220 your environment. Another example is once my partner and I were walking down the high street

00:30:06.500 and I suggest, hey, you know what? Let's race the other people in the street, right? Walking. 1.00

00:30:13.340 And then it was like, you know, let's, let's, let's gamify this. Let's give ourselves some points.

00:30:17.600 Every time we overtake, we'll give ourselves a couple of points. You know, every time somebody

00:30:22.280 overtakes us, we'll take away five points. If somebody's standing still, we'll only get at

00:30:26.720 ourselves a point if we overtake them, you know, and we literally walked about three or four miles

00:30:32.340 at quite a brisk pace, not realizing we'd walk that distance until the end, you know, because we

00:30:38.820 were so in the moment and so concerned about stacking up the points and being really competitive.

00:30:45.260 And so this, this afternoon walk of like, oh, let's just do this because we need to go for a walk

00:30:51.440 became, isn't this a lot of fun? Right. And every now and again, we'll play the same game.

00:30:57.200 You know, it's not prescriptive, but changing that activity from something that is not that

00:31:02.740 exciting inherently into one that's more playful. And then you get all of these feel good benefits.

00:31:08.820 You get these dopamine hits, which are natural, you know, you get that natural endorphin rush,

00:31:13.460 which makes you feel good. It helps to relieve pain, which that's one of the benefits of endorphins.

00:31:17.760 They're a pain reliever, not just physically, but also mentally. So once you realize you can

00:31:23.760 achieve the benefits of movement immediately, do you know what I mean? Like a, like a, um,

00:31:29.680 instant gratification. It isn't just the reward that you get after, you know, weeks, months,

00:31:36.060 years of physical activity, you can actually get some of this joy now. Right. So, you know,

00:31:40.420 again, think about kids, you say to your kids, oh yeah, do this. And you know, you'll get the

00:31:47.600 benefits at some point in the future. Isn't always that compelling to them. Right. They're kind of like,

00:31:53.420 now, now, now, you know what I mean? Now, now, now, I want to feel good now. I want it now.

00:31:59.580 And we need to feel the same way I feel about physical activity. Let me do something now that's

00:32:05.020 going to make me feel great now, but I'm still going to be building these benefits and stacking

00:32:09.780 these benefits for the future. So it's a complete win-win. Yeah. I love the idea that play can start

00:32:15.020 helping you and your kids move more, but I like the idea too, of helping your kids see that

00:32:20.520 the environment can be interacted with in ways that aren't typical. Right. Because I think we

00:32:27.120 see the environment and say, well, here's a wall. We have to walk around the wall or walk through the

00:32:32.580 door of a wall, but maybe you can go over the wall. Why not go over the wall? Yeah. Or like,

00:32:38.680 yeah. Or if there's stairs, you can say, well, you're supposed to just take one stair at a time.

00:32:43.220 We can be like, well, let's see who can do two stairs at a time.

00:32:46.560 Yeah. Exactly. And I think we've all done that. I know I've done that as a kid and I still do it

00:32:50.560 every now and then as an adult, when you're walking in a big building, like an airport and

00:32:55.000 there's tile on the floor. And then sometimes you just, you turn that tile into a game where you're

00:33:00.080 like, well, can I step without stepping on a crack? Or then it turns into, well, can I not step on a

00:33:06.660 crack, but get three big tiles in one big bound? Can I do that? And like, you can do that with your

00:33:13.080 kids. You're going to look silly maybe, but you're going to get your kids moving and get yourself

00:33:17.840 moving and it's fun. Yeah. And do you know what? I think this looking silly is, is mostly envy 0.85

00:33:25.000 actually from others of others thinking, I wish I could be as free spirited as that. I wish I could

00:33:33.400 have just as much fun with my kids as he's doing. So I noticed this when I started going outside,

00:33:41.440 I left my gym, I started going to my local park and playing in my park. You know, I was balancing

00:33:48.560 on ratings. I was climbing trees. I was bear crawling. I was performing all these kinds of

00:33:53.420 primal movements in my park. And what was interesting was the amount of people who would

00:33:58.520 stop and stare, but not in the, you know, Oh, maybe we need to call, uh, you know, mental health

00:34:04.780 services or, or, or we're really concerned about him. It was, it was an interest and the

00:34:11.260 amount of children who would stop when they were the parents and say, kind of like, look

00:34:15.600 at the parents go, Hey parents, why aren't you doing, why are you doing what he's doing?

00:34:20.320 He's like a big kid. Why are you not behaving in this way? You know, why aren't you inspiring

00:34:25.940 me in the same way? And interestingly, that's where I started getting more and more clients.

00:34:32.200 So, you know, I was struggling initially to get clients doing regular personal training.

00:34:37.760 And as soon as people started seeing me playing in the park, people would say, well, why are you

00:34:41.400 doing this? I'd say, Hey, because it's fun. Okay. Is do you, do you teach others this? Yes. Okay. Oh my

00:34:47.080 gosh, I want to, I want to do this. I need permission. And so I gave people permission in my local

00:34:53.860 park to join me and have fun. And then you realize there's kind of wisdom. There's wisdom in the

00:34:59.500 crowd, right? There's wisdom socially, and there's more than one of you doing this together. And so

00:35:04.880 it's really interesting observing, observing other people. And, and I think they realize they're

00:35:10.440 missing, they're missing out. Um, so I, I now kind of push the thoughts of others to one side,

00:35:17.120 um, not in a kind of egotistical way. I just feel as if I'm so in the moment and enjoying myself,

00:35:23.240 I don't really have time to be wondering what other people think. And a kind of a metaphor

00:35:29.600 analogy that I use is imagine you take, you know, your dog could speak to you, right?

00:35:35.440 You take your dog for a walk, you go to your local park and your dog goes, Hey, can I just

00:35:40.360 sit here for a moment? Oh, why is that dog? Because I can see some dogs over there playing.

00:35:45.300 They're chasing after each other. You know, they're chasing balls, you know, running after

00:35:48.560 sticks. And, um, I just want to spectate, right? I just want to sit here and watch.

00:35:55.180 Of course that wouldn't happen. If the dog could speak to you, the dog would be saying,

00:35:59.060 can you let me off my leash? Can you let me go and join in and play with those other dogs?

00:36:06.080 You know, there may be a bit of play fighting, you know, hopefully nothing worse than that,

00:36:09.300 but they want to participate. They want to join in and children have that spirit for a while

00:36:14.440 until we dampen that down, you know, and then they become less enthusiastic.

00:36:20.060 They feel as if they're not talented enough, right? If they're not sporty, oh, I don't want

00:36:23.980 to do that anymore because I'm not sporty enough. I'm not going to be picked for the team.

00:36:27.220 I'm not naturally talented or gifted. And we kind of engineer that desire out of many of our children,

00:36:33.820 I feel, but it's easy for us to stoke and encourage that back, that enthusiasm, natural

00:36:41.300 enthusiasm and instinct back. And that's what I do now. That's what I try to impart now with my work.

00:36:47.980 Okay. So play is primal. Animals play. We don't think the animals play, but they do. They roughhouse

00:36:54.880 and whatever. It serves a purpose. It bonds the animals together. And also it's a way for

00:36:59.600 the small animals to learn important skills, right? Like how to protect themselves and whatnot.

00:37:05.940 So besides play, you're a big advocate of what you call primal movement. And you mentioned some of

00:37:10.960 them like a bear crawl. What are some other examples of primal movements and what are the

00:37:16.160 benefits of moving primally? So, I mean, primal movements are really any universal movement pattern

00:37:22.920 that we evolved to do. So when you think about our basic movement patterns, pushing, pulling,

00:37:30.320 crawling, climbing, walking, running, sprinting, jumping, all of these movement patterns,

00:37:35.900 things like humans evolved to do. And so because of that, if we refrain from taking part in those

00:37:43.400 activities, we start to atrophy. We lose the ability to perform those activities. And in doing so,

00:37:50.940 we're physically less capable, less functional, less healthy as a result. So for me, primal movement

00:37:58.300 is human movement is moving like the animals we are, is moving in all types of directions. So not just

00:38:10.580 forward, but forwards and back, left to right with rotation in three dimensions is navigating obstacles.

00:38:17.800 So I like to climb. I like to jump. I like to lift. I like to carry. So all of these very functional

00:38:24.620 movements, and it's really modeling what we would have to have done in terms of our evolution,

00:38:31.940 our ancestry, right? What our ancestors had to do just to survive. How can I model that today

00:38:37.420 in the 21st century, right? What can I do that can mimic me lifting something and carrying it,

00:38:44.120 right? So fortunately there, there's a sub section of the exercise community who are gravitating to these

00:38:51.700 primal movements, who are gravitating to these functional movements. So we have exercises like

00:38:56.200 the farmers carry, right? So we're mimicking somebody carrying a couple of bales of hay,

00:39:01.480 but we were carrying kettlebells, you know, or heavy sandbags. And we're repeating these movement

00:39:07.080 patterns because we want to build this functional strength. So these compound movements, much research

00:39:13.900 tells us it's more effective than doing isolated movements for overall strength, for overall

00:39:21.240 conditioning and changing intensities. So being very slow up to the most powerful and explosive

00:39:27.740 movements gives us this movement repertoire, improves our mobility and our flexibility,

00:39:33.000 and just gives us the ability to be more functionally capable. So we can age independently.

00:39:39.380 We can maintain our balance. We can maintain our bone health and strength. We can minimize

00:39:45.400 bone mineral density loss. We can minimize the amount of muscle loss as we age

00:39:49.660 by continuing to perform these movement patterns.

00:39:53.340 Okay. So, so things like crawling could be one to do a bear crawl. Crab crawl is another one. You

00:39:59.420 probably did that when you were a kid, but you can still do that when you're 40 years old. Nothing

00:40:02.620 stopping you from doing that.

00:40:03.920 Yeah, exactly. Nothing stopping you from doing those. And the fantastic thing about exercise science

00:40:08.400 or exercise physiology is we now have, you know, like 20 years ago, if you spoke about doing bear

00:40:15.160 crawls, people would just say, it's just a quite a difficult exercise, you know, difficult coordination.

00:40:20.920 You know, it can take quite a bit out of your heart and lungs. It's all muscle group exercise.

00:40:25.480 That would be it. Now the science tells us it's a quadrupedal movement, which means we're walking

00:40:31.720 using all four limbs. There's a significant coordination challenge, which means our brains

00:40:36.840 are cognitively challenged. So this coordination actually improves our brain health significantly.

00:40:43.420 It reduces the risk of cognitive decline, which means it reduces the risk of Alzheimer's and

00:40:48.300 dementia. So we have these brain factors, these growth factors like BDNF, brain derived neurotropic

00:40:56.160 factor, which means we're actually growing new brain cells when we take part in these activities

00:41:01.040 that we haven't done for either ever or for a good while. So since childhood. So the first

00:41:06.460 time I tried a bear crawl, it was like the most awkward thing ever. Not having done it for

00:41:12.420 like probably 30 years or so. But as soon as you start beginning kind of fluent in that movement

00:41:18.760 ability and your brain adapts and this kind of plasticity of the brain changes the brain to be able

00:41:25.480 to adapt the body and the mind to this movement pattern, you, you, you try other things, right?

00:41:32.780 So you don't just stay doing the one thing and get better and better and better. You expand your

00:41:37.980 repertoire to maintain this challenge, which isn't just a physical challenge, but also a cognitive one.

00:41:44.320 And most importantly, it means by increasing the amount of activities you can participate in,

00:41:49.820 that also adds to the sustainability of moving more because there's always something else to do.

00:41:56.760 And if you can bear crawl on the ground, then you're going to start thinking, okay,

00:42:00.120 can I do this up the stairs? Which again, kids would do. Can I do this up the stairs? Can I do

00:42:05.080 this backwards? Can I do this carrying my kids? You know what I mean? So there's ways to kind of

00:42:11.460 stack layers upon layers of more playful activity onto these primal movement patterns.

00:42:18.160 Right. So like another primal movement is balance. So you can find things you could

00:42:21.580 walk across like a balancing beam. But then as you said, you can layer that. It's like,

00:42:25.780 well, can I bear crawl across this balance beam-like thing in my environment? Or can I bear crawl

00:42:31.700 backwards? And again, what you're doing is you're adding that play element. It's going to make it

00:42:36.380 fun. And you can turn just movement into a fun activity. And people might be listening to this

00:42:42.300 and thinking, well, you know, just is bear crawling a little bit every day? Is that going to do

00:42:47.380 anything for your physical health? And the research says, yeah, it is going to do. I think there's

00:42:52.340 this idea that exercise or movement has to be hard and super strenuous all the time. And you

00:42:58.120 got to get really hot and sweaty all the time. There's a benefit to getting into that level of

00:43:02.520 intensity. But on a day-to-day basis, just this little simple movement, you're going to get some

00:43:08.240 benefits. It's going to help increase insulin sensitivity, which can help with prediabetes or

00:43:12.600 diabetes. It's going to help with strength and coordination. So don't discount this stuff,

00:43:18.800 even though it doesn't seem very hard. Yeah. One of the most interesting things about

00:43:24.080 an activity like a bear crawl, the amount of people who will say, they will look, they will

00:43:29.420 spectate and they'll go, oh, that's really easy. It's easy until you try it. And I would say for

00:43:37.080 anyone listening, if you think bear crawls are easy, you just go for a bear crawl for 50 meters.

00:43:43.220 You know, you do a hundred yard bear crawl and then you tell me how easy that activity is.

00:43:47.540 You tell me if your entire, every nerve fiber of your being is telling you, oh my goodness,

00:43:56.420 what a challenge this is. So we have this rate of perceived exertion. So you, you have the ability

00:44:04.300 to decide what is difficult at any point in time. So you can do a nice, slow, one, two meter bear

00:44:12.580 crawl, right? I want to focus on my mobility. I want to feel as if all of my body's moving and I'm

00:44:18.400 nice and relaxed. I can focus on my breath, but you can also speed it up, right? You can do a really

00:44:24.460 fast bear crawl for 10 seconds, for 15 seconds. You can go up the stairs and go down the stairs. So

00:44:29.480 you have the dial that you control. And even that in itself is quite playful because kids, when they

00:44:36.180 play, they're not always playing tag at full speed. There's going to be some kids who are taking a

00:44:42.480 breath. There are going to be some kids who are happy that they're not the person chasing, right?

00:44:47.240 There are going to be some people who are going to stay out of the action because they,

00:44:50.080 they have this inbuilt interval kind of training mentality, right? They know they can operate at

00:44:57.340 nine, 10 out of 10 for a little while. Then they'll dial it down. Then they'll say, Hey,

00:45:01.860 let's have a little rest. Then they go back at it again. And this is the rhythm and cycle of life

00:45:07.220 when it comes to movement. And as you mentioned, people get very preoccupied with, I just got to do

00:45:12.700 all, you know, max intensity or I've got to do everything chilled and, and meditative and flow

00:45:19.740 based. But actually we want to do everything. We want to do a bit of everything and adapt it to your

00:45:25.300 capability at that time. So even when I age, right, I'm not thinking, Oh, when I was

00:45:31.720 20, when I was 30, I could do it better. What I'm thinking is I can do this now, you know,

00:45:38.400 and I can push to a hundred percent efforts, whatever stage I am in my health and fitness

00:45:44.560 journey. So my a hundred percent is my a hundred percent and my a hundred percent today may be

00:45:49.300 different in 10 years time, but it will still be a hundred percent. You know what I mean? So,

00:45:55.160 so I think that there was a lesson to be learned from finding this more playful, creative way,

00:46:01.840 because you'll realize then that everything is going to be good about your movement practice.

00:46:07.460 If you explore, if you're creative, if you involve others, if you're constantly chasing,

00:46:13.820 what's going to make me want to maintain this and sustain this, there you go. That's the answer.

00:46:20.160 That's the secret, right? If you notice that you just want to prefer to stay in your armchair,

00:46:27.100 right? I don't really want to do this. I feel as if I have to do this. Then, you know,

00:46:32.440 that's not the solution. That's not the answer. So if you feel good doing it and feeling good,

00:46:37.580 doesn't mean it's always easy, right? Again, even with kids, child's play, they're doing activities

00:46:43.780 sometimes that are outside of their comfort zone. They're not always picking the easiest option.

00:46:49.240 They want to climb a bit higher. They want to balance on that railing for a little bit longer.

00:46:54.780 They want to run a bit faster. You know, they want to be chased. They want to play hide and seek,

00:46:59.320 and they want to risk assess. They want to conquer their fears. There were all these different aspects

00:47:05.280 of their emotional maturity and development that is embraced through play. And we have a lot to learn

00:47:13.440 from our childhood experiences and ensuring that our kids today have some of that because many of our

00:47:18.340 kids today, unfortunately, are suffering because of play deprivation.

00:47:23.060 Well, Daryl, this has been a great conversation. Where can people go to learn more about your work?

00:47:27.640 Yeah, best place is primalplay.com. That's my website. You can find out more about what I do.

00:47:34.980 You can find out about all the research in relation to play psychology. You can find out about the

00:47:39.260 primal play method, which is my program for primal, playful, and practical movement. I also host

00:47:48.080 workshops, and you can follow me on social media for the latest evidence-based insights on movement

00:47:54.760 and health. I suppose, finally, if you'd like to read, I have two of my latest books. One is called

00:48:00.940 Animal Moves, which is for adults. It's a 28-day movement program, which takes you through this

00:48:08.020 kind of repertoire of movement, this kind of movement diet, taking you through all of the

00:48:13.600 things that we should do by modeling the animal kingdom and like the animals we are. And I also

00:48:19.300 have a children's picture book, which encourages young children to focus less on screen time and being

00:48:26.940 sedentary and focusing more on exploring the joys of movement.

00:48:32.580 Fantastic. Well, Daryl Edwards, thank you for your time. It's been a pleasure.

00:48:35.340 Thanks very much, Brett. It's been wonderful. Thank you.

00:48:38.380 My guest name is Daryl Edwards. He's the founder of Primal Play. You can find more information about

00:48:41.720 his work at his website, primalplay.com. Also, check out our show notes at aom.is slash primalplay,

00:48:46.840 where you can find links to resources and we delve deeper into this topic.

00:48:49.260 Well, that wraps up another edition of the AOM podcast. Make sure to check out our website at

00:49:00.540 artofmanliness.com, where you find our podcast archives, as well as thousands of articles that

00:49:04.280 we've written over the years about pretty much anything you can think of. And if you haven't

00:49:07.320 done so already, I'd appreciate if you take one minute to get your viewing off the podcast or

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00:49:14.260 show with a friend or family member who you think we get something out of it. As always,

00:49:17.480 thank you for the continued support. Until next time, this is Brett McKay,

00:49:19.920 reminding you to not listen to AOM podcast, but put what you've heard into action.

The Art of Manliness - September 20, 2023

For a Better Work Out, Think Like a Kid

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