Content
24. November 2021 2023-03-01 15:18Content
Knowledge and Wisdom
Here you will find our combined knowledge on topics such as Breathing, Meditation, Natural Movement, Natural Running, Stress and much more! You can use the buttons below to navigate to your desired field of interest. You can also visit our Blog Page to find much more topics that we dive into.
If you have suggestions or topics you would like to be included, let us know! We are open for feedback!
Our holistic approach to health, fitness and performance
We believe that health can only be achieved through a holsitic approach, including fundamental aspects of our lives. This is absolutely essential to living a healthy life.
What are these fundamentals?
- Breathing (How to breathe in everyday life.)
- Nutrition (The basics of a healthy and diverse diet)
- Movement (Moving naturally, adapted to how we evolved as humans)
- Sleep (Sleep is the essential component for recovery)
- Stress Management (To learn to actively control your stress and thinking – we use Meditation as a powerful tool)
The Mismatch Theory
The Mismatch theory is described as “the idea that traits that evolved in an organism in one environment can be disadvantageous in a different environment”.
To quote Daniel Liberman in his excellent book the story of the human body:
“The idea behind the mismatch hypothesis is extremely simple. Over time, natural selection adapts (matches) organisms to particular environmental conditions. A zebra for example is adapted to walk and run on the African savanna, to eat grass to run from lions, to resist certain diseases, and to cope with a hot, arid climate. If you were to transport a zebra to where I live, New England, it would no longer have to worry about lions, but it would suffer from a variety of other problems as it struggled to find enough grass to eat, to stay warm in the winter, and to resist a new set of diseases. Without help, the transplanted zebra would almost certainly get sick and persih because it is so poorly adapted (mismatched) to the New Englad environment.”
Now lets apply that to humans. Instead of being transplanted, we have changed the environment around us over the last 10.000 years through agriculture. Especially in the last 200 years. The change of our environment was much faster than we could adapt through evolution.
This confronts us with diseases, challenges that our body is not adapted for. The ilnesses that emerge through the mismatch of environment to our evolutionary adaptation is what is known as Mismatch diseases. It is about the interaction between our genes and our environment.
“There are many mismatch disease, but all of them are caused by enviornmental changes that alter how the body functions… Broadley speaking, most mismatch diseases occur when a comon stimulus either increases or decreases beyond levels for which the body is adapted, or when the stimulus is entirely novel and the body is not adapted for it at all.” – Daniel Liberman
Mismatch Diseases and the problems they create for us
One of the characteristics of mismatch diseases is according to Lieberman, that the cause and effect are often not immidiately obvious and it can tke years for the effect to take place. This makes it hard to prevent and indentify the crucial factors and often leads to the delay of required counter measures.
The problems of musmatch diseases affect most population groups of the world, especially in the west, where technological changes have made the biggest progress.
What are these changes in our environment that our body is not
adapted for?
Here are just some of the environmental changes that drive us to different behaviour and influence our bodies in ways that we are not
adapted for:
- Low Levels of physical activity
- High caloric food intake (Especially sugars, transfats .. )
- Processed foods
- High level of sedentary behaviour on chairs
- Exposure to high levels of pollution (light, sound, water, air pollution)
- High levels of stress
- Expsure to many diseases through farming and globalization and high population density
- Missing exposure to sunlight, fresh air
- Lacking diversity of diet
- Modern shoes
What mismatch diseases are there?
Here are just some of the suspected mismatch diseases that are either caused or through our modern lifestyle:
Diabetes type 2
Chronis fatigue syndrom
Athletes foot
Flat feet
Apnea
Asthma
Acne
Ulcers
Lower Back pain
Headaches
Irratible dowel syndrom
High blood preassure
Cavities
fatty liver syndrom
Eating disorders
cancers (Only certain ones)
Anxiety
Alzheimers disease
Heart diseases
And that is not all of them. Kind of scary right?
Lieberman mentions that “given that, heart disease and cancer are responsible for more deaths in developed nations than any other disease, you are most likely to die from a mismatch disease. Furthermore the disabilities that are most likely to lower your quality of life as you age are also likely to be caused by evolutionary mismatches.”
This means that all of us are affected by mismatch diseases in one form or the other. So what can we do about it?
What can we do about it?
We know that this sounds and is really scary. And it is one of the biggest challenges that we need to adress as a society and in our individual lives. But there are measures we can take to mitigate the damsge and to start living a healthy life and to regain control over our bodies.
First we need to attempt to reduce the negative influences in our lives.
Second we need to actively work to create stimuli that our body is adapted for and in turn helps our body to become healthier.
This can be as simple as:
Sitting less in chairs
Taking movement breaks
Going outside
Exposing our body to natural elements: The sun, the cold and more
Doing Natural Movements (MovNat – this is where our Training comes in)
Returning to nose breathing
Walking barefoot
Reducing stress through meditation
Eating a more diverse diet
As you see there are many measures we can take to live a healthier life. But it is not easy in an environment that is very unhealthy and constant temptations that are the more comfotable option.
We need to redesign our lifestyle in order to become and stay healthy.
We hope to be part of that journey for you to regain control of your health and to PREVENT the impact of mismatch diseases.
Sources:
Daniel Lieberman the story of the human body
Civilized to death by Christopher Ryan
Born to run by Christopher McDougall
Fit und Gesund mit natural Movement by Bernd Reicheneder
Deskbound by Dr. Kelly Starrett
Natural Movement
What is MovNat?
MovNat is a fitness method that emphasizes practical evolutionary and innate human performance. Humans are designed to survive in a complex physical environment. To survive in nature, to grow with nature and to be strong and confident through nature is the legacy of an evolution that since the origin of life, has taken a natural development, but through the agricultural revolution and all the revolutions that followed, has not left much of the naturalness of man. Mismatch – Evolutionary Trap – Zoo Human. A problem with incalculable complex consequences on the human organism.
MovNat teaches first of all, the efficient execution of natural movement skills, the training of techniques that are innate to us, movements to which we and instinctively connected: Ground positions, ground movements such as crawling, standing up, walking, balancing, running, lifting/carrying, throwing/catching, jumping, climbing, swimming and fighting. These are unmistakably the germs of all types of movement that man has developed in his unwritten and written history, but which we now use and think we know as abstract terms such as sports and fitness. But these terms are completely alienated from the actual germ. It is about isolated parts like muscles and endurance, heart and brain, methods of competitive sports, aids from physiotherapy and consumer goods are used to make people believe that only through this health and happiness can be achieved. But does it make people feel better?
MovNat is the staple of the human musculoskeletal system, of which people who sit too much get just as little as high-performance athletes. Everyone is affected by the deprivation of natural movement abilities and improvement through conventional methods of sport, fitness and physiotherapy is usually the proven wrong approach, because it is only patchwork of a high-performance organism, which has not only been deprived of the possibilities of development, but has even lost all reference to it. Technical progress is exactly what MovNat does not want, it wants the return to harmony between body and mind and a happy soul of a thoroughly natural organism that has been created for millions of years to take care of itself.
MovNat can not only rebuild the basic physical needs of every human being and even integrate them into everyday life, it can even provide a whole new meaning to the term fitness: familiar, surprising, courageous, careful, playful, combative, demanding, relaxing, social and individual. Finally, MovNat opens up further insights into what we have lost and how we can take back control of our health. The only thing needed is knowledge.
MovNat Workouts:
Below you can check out some of our Natural Movement workouts to see for yourself how you like the MovNat training system
MovNat Advanced:
Check out this video for some advanced MovNat training.
Ground Movements:
Here are some videos that can help you to get a grasp of some of our most fundamental movements.
Breathing
Breathing is one of the fundamental functions of our Body
There is nothing more essential to our health and well-being than breathing. Just as the intestines absorb food, the nutrient air enters our bodies through our lungs. Just as the digestion of food begins in the mouth and not the nose, the digestion of air begins in the nose and not the mouth. Only in case of emergency, these inputs into our organism can help each other out
Breathing is responsible that everything else that keeps our organism alive, working and developing, fulfills the basic condition, because oxygen is the most important fuel for the 2 most vital organs is, the brain and our heart.
Breathing in and out air occurs between 12,000 and 25,000 times a day. This is also done by the diaphragm, one of the most consequential muscles in our body, which not only pumps air, but separates the chest cavity and keeps organs moving all the way to the brain by its movement.
Finally, air must enter our bodies through a specially designed organ, the nose, which performs over 30 known functions for this task alone. These include quality checking, i.e. smelling, tasting, humidifying, warming, purifying, braking, enriching with NOx, stimulating the vagus nerve and activating the parasympathetic nervous system.
Just as proper breathing has incalculable positive biochemical, biomechanical, psychological effects, there are many corresponding negative consequences when the mouth is used for breathing: Deformation of teeth and jaw, damage to teeth and gums, development of allergies, stress-increasing effect on the nervous system, increasing the probability of depression and anxiety.
However, as a species, humans have not only lost the ability to breathe properly, but grossly underestimate the urgency to breathe properly and this has serious consequences.
Modern research in pneumology, psychology, biochemistry, and human physiology shows us that even minor adjustments to the way we breathe in and out can help boost athletic performance, rejuvenate internal organs, stop snoring, allergies, asthma, and some autoimmune diseases.
What Breathing Styles do you do?
Functional Breathing
How to breathe in everyday life. Restoring functional Breathing to live healthy.
Overbreathing – Breathwork
This is a powerful method to activate the nervous system through overbreathing and holding your Breath. Often known as the WimHof Method.
Oxygen Advantage Breathing
This is a method to improve our Co2 tolerance and helps us both to restore functional Breathing patterns as mentioned above and to improve performance.
NeuroMeditation
What is NeuroMeditation?
In NeuroMeditation,
millennia-old traditions merge
with modern neuroscience.
In the last 20 years, scientific interest in meditation has increased massively. The number of annual publications is increasing exponentially. There are now over 2000 new studies published each year showing the benefits for mind and body.
A “one-size-fits-all” meditation is a myth. Which style of meditation will help you the most?
Systematic examination of the available studies on the effects of various meditation techniques on brain functioning has revealed that there are basically only 4 distinguishable styles. All known meditation techniques can be classified into these 4 styles.
NeuroMeditation combines neuroscience and mental health. The meditation is specifically tailored to target your needs. You can actually influence how you think and feel. You can rewire your brain through neuroplasticity.
The 4 styles explained
Natural Running
What is Natural Running?
In NeuroMeditation,
millennia-old traditions merge
with modern neuroscience.Natural Running is our “signature move”
We are born to run. No other species on this planet can outrun humans when is comes to long distances.
Our bodies are designed to move and designed to run with utmost efficiency.
How come running often feels exhausting or yields to pain in our joints or spine?
Lifestyle mismatch
Unfortunately, our lifestyle is mismatching our genetic heritage. The way we sit and move, our unnatural environments and also our shoes and the commercials we see change the way run!
Lack of elasticity
This lifestyle can impact our efficiency in running tremendously. If we don’t use our elastic system to our advantage we are wasting energy!
Lack of efficient running pattern
Our running pattern is key to ourefficiency when we run.
Natural Running, it brings you
back to your human capability of
running with ease, efficiency and
reduce the risk of pain or injury.
We look at both your necessary flexibility and range of motion as well as different aspects of your running pattern. The right cadence, the right posture and the right foot placement are all aspects that yield to more elasticity in your running and thus gives you free energy to make use of.
Cold Exposure
Cold Exposure
Cold exposure is one of our tools we use in our Retreats, it is used by many people across the world to improve Health, Mindset and to be present in the moment.
Why cold exposure? This starts once again with the Mismatch theory (if you have been reading through our page you will start to see a pattern). As a species we have been exposed to the natural elements for 95% of our existence. Only recently have we managed to close ourselves off from being exposed to the natural elements. We are now protected by houses, sleeping in warm beds, driving heated cars to work, showering with warm water.
We often forget that there are tremendous benefits from being exposed to Natural Elements by provoking our bodies to react, and to adapt and through that to promote our health and our resilience.
One of the persons that has championed ice baths in the recent years is Wim Hof. He has lead hundreds of thousands people to challenge themselves. Our Trainer Andres is a certified WimHof Instructor. But getting into the cold has been an ancient practice for humans, long before we adapted to our modern lifestyle.
Before you jump head first into your ice bath… It is important to understand what the potential benefits are and how to do it properly. So keep reading
Benefits of Cold Exposure
There are many benefits of being eposed to the cold, here are some of the benefits:
Improved immunsystem
Improved Sleep Quality
Can help to burn fat
May help to regulate inflammation, support recovery process and strengthen sympathetic nervous system
Helps to promote presence in the moment and mindfulness (Watch video below)
Can help you to develop willpower and resilience.
How to do it properly:
Be Safe! If you have no experience, its best to do it first with a professional at one of our retreats
Start Small. You can start by taking regular cold showers at home for 1 minute.
Prepare yourself mentally before you go in the cold. Choose how you want to react.
Calm your breathing consciously once in the cold.
Do it with others – it is easier to hold yourself accountable and much safer if you do it with others!
Use WimHof Breathing Method regularly.
If you want to start in a save envionment with trainers at your side, you can join one of our retreats.
Cold Exposure and Mindfuloness:
Watch this small video of one of our Online Retreats on how cold exposure leads to presence in the moment and mindfuness.
The Mismatch Theory
The Mismatch Theory
The Mismatch theory is described as “the idea that traits that evolved in an organism in one environment can be disadvantageous in a different environment”.
To quote Daniel Liberman in his excellent book the story of the human body:
“The idea behind the mismatch hypothesis is extremely simple. Over time, natural selection adapts (matches) organisms to particular environmental conditions. A zebra for example is adapted to walk and run on the African savanna, to eat grass to run from lions, to resist certain diseases, and to cope with a hot, arid climate. If you were to transport a zebra to where I live, New England, it would no longer have to worry about lions, but it would suffer from a variety of other problems as it struggled to find enough grass to eat, to stay warm in the winter, and to resist a new set of diseases. Without help, the transplanted zebra would almost certainly get sick and persih because it is so poorly adapted (mismatched) to the New Englad environment.”
Now lets apply that to humans. Instead of being transplanted, we have changed the environment around us over the last 10.000 years through agriculture. Especially in the last 200 years. The change of our environment was much faster than we could adapt through evolution.
This confronts us with diseases, challenges that our body is not adapted for. The ilnesses that emerge through the mismatch of environment to our evolutionary adaptation is what is known as Mismatch diseases. It is about the interaction between our genes and our environment.
“There are many mismatch disease, but all of them are caused by enviornmental changes that alter how the body functions… Broadley speaking, most mismatch diseases occur when a comon stimulus either increases or decreases beyond levels for which the body is adapted, or when the stimulus is entirely novel and the body is not adapted for it at all.” – Daniel Liberman
Mismatch Diseases and the problems they create for us
One of the characteristics of mismatch diseases is according to Lieberman, that the cause and effect are often not immidiately obvious and it can tke years for the effect to take place. This makes it hard to prevent and indentify the crucial factors and often leads to the delay of required counter measures.
The problems of musmatch diseases affect most population groups of the world, especially in the west, where technological changes have made the biggest progress.
What are these changes in our environment that our
body is not adapted for?
Here are just some of the environmental changes that drive us to different behaviour and influence our bodies in ways that we are not adapted for:
- Low Levels of physical activity
- High caloric food intake (Especially sugars, transfats .. )
- Processed foods
- High level of sedentary behaviour on chairs
- Exposure to high levels of pollution (light, sound, water, air pollution)
- High levels of stress
- Expsure to many diseases through farming and globalization and high population density
- Missing exposure to sunlight, fresh air
- Lacking diversity of diet
- Modern shoes
What mismatch diseases are there?
Here are just some of the suspected mismatch diseases that are either caused or through our modern lifestyle:
• Diabetes type 2
• Chronis fatigue syndrom
• Athletes foot
• Flat feet
• Apnea
• Asthma
• Acne
• Ulcers
• Lower Back pain
• Headaches
• Irratible dowel syndrom
• High blood preassure
• Cavities
• Fatty liver syndrom
• Eating disorders
• Cancers (Only certain ones)
• Anxiety
• Alzheimers disease
• Heart diseases
And that is not all of them. Kind of scary right?
Lieberman mentions that “given that, heart disease and cancer are responsible for more deaths in developed nations than any other disease, you are most likely to die from a mismatch disease. Furthermore the disabilities that are most likely to lower your quality of life as you age are also likely to be caused by evolutionary mismatches.”
This means that all of us are affected by mismatch diseases in one form or the other. So what can we do about it?
What can we do about it?
We know that this sounds and is really scary. And it is one of the biggest challenges that we need to adress as a society and in our individual lives. But there are measures we can take to mitigate the damsge and to start living a healthy life and to regain control over our bodies.
1. First we need to attempt to reduce the negative influences in our lives.
2. Second we need to actively work to create stimuli that our body is adapted for and in turn helps our body to become healthier.
This can be as simple as:
• Sitting less in chairs
• Taking movement breaks
• Going outside
• Exposing our body to natural elements: The sun, the cold and more
• Doing Natural Movements (MovNat – this is where our Training comes in)
• Returning to nose breathing
• Walking barefoot
• Reducing stress through meditation
• Eating a more diverse diet
As you see there are many measures we can take to live a healthier life. But it is not easy in an environment that is very unhealthy and constant temptations that are the more comfotable option.
We need to redesign our lifestyle in order to become and stay healthy.
We hope to be part of that journey for you to regain control of your health and to PREVENT the impact of mismatch diseases.
Sources:
Daniel Lieberman the story of the human body
Civilized to death by Christopher Ryan
Born to run by Christopher McDougall
Fit und Gesund mit natural Movement by Bernd Reicheneder
Deskbound by Dr. Kelly Starrett
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