An Evolutionary View of Elite Fitness

How to build a body that can produce force, resist fatigue, move well, and keep doing all three for decades.

A couple of summers ago, I was in South Carolina, sitting on a dock on Lake Murray. I was with Bert Sorin, owner of SORINEX fitness equipment.

Then I heard a giant voice down the dock. “MICHAEL EASTER.”

It was Luke Day. Luke has the presence and level-11 intensity of an SEC strength coach—because he is one.

He’s the Head Football Strength and Conditioning Coach for the University of South Carolina Football team—part strength savant, part firebrand preacher, part motivational guru.

Luke had read The Comfort Crisis, and he spends his days thinking about many of the same questions I do.

What physical skills did humans evolve to have, and what happens when we stop using those skills?

The difference is who we’re answering those questions for.

• For me, it’s people from many different backgrounds and demographics who all have one thing in common: we want to live healthier, happier, longer lives.

• For Luke, it’s giant, 20-something football players in the most competitive conference in college football, the SEC.

Luke and I became fast friends.

I talk to him and Chip Morton, who coached in the NFL for 27 years and now helps Luke direct the Gamecock football strength and conditioning program.

These two are doing something heretical. How they train the team is fundamentally different from what most college football strength and conditioning programs have done for the last 30 years.

And it’s built the Gamecocks into arguably the fittest team in the game heading into this season.

The upshot: Their heretical exercise ideas aren’t limited to the football field. They’ve boiled human movement down to the fundamentals. And those work whether you’re playing football or just want to live and age well, avoid injuries, and more.

Today you’ll learn:

• Why chasing pure lifting numbers increases injury risk and can increase some disease risk.

• How SEC strength coaches subverted 30 years of D1 training ideology to build the nation’s fittest team.

• The “Four Horsemen of Hardship”—four human movement patterns that evolved over millions of years. We should still do them today.

• Practical tips to integrate the movements into your routines.

• The exact Gamecock conditioning drill you can perform with dumbbells or kettlebells today.

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🎙️ Two Percent podcast: Dr. Lucy McBride on Getting Better Healthcare

Only 5% of healthcare spending goes to conversations between the doctor and patient. The average checkup is 12 minutes. And the modern system is built to manage disease after it appears, not necessarily to unpeel the underlying factors behind why you’re sick in the first place. I spoke to Dr. Lucy McBride, author of the new and necessary book, Beyond The Prescription.

We covered five rules to follow for better healthcare, where the wellness industry helps and hurts, the future of AI in medicine, rapid-fire verdicts on Prenuvo full-body cancer scans, direct-to-consumer blood tests and CGMs, and questions you must ask your doctor to get better care.

• Listen Here

• Watch Here

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