biophilia

I interviewed Frank here

Old style MovNat

Just a bit of fun in the MovNat Methode Nauturelle vein.

Methode Naturelle Disciple

I came across an interesting blog today: Methode Naturelle Disciple

I've referred to Methode Naturelle before, an approach to fitness and physical cutlure that fits in well with the primal / evolutionary fitness approach. Erwan Le Corre - who I interviewed a year ago here - has been updating the approach recently to creat MovNat.

(Incidentally Keith has some interesting thoughts on Erwan here -

Probably an ideal body shape for an adult male in his 30s is shown in this YouTube video. We know it's ideal because of what the body is being used for - with power, poise, athleticism and novelty. Only a perfect body could perform the way Erwan Le Corre demonstrates in this video. In doing so he also sets up the criteria for judging what a perfect male body should be able to do (not only what it looks like). Form will follow function. Some will run marathons and therefore have a correspondingly different body shape; others will be more heavily muscled through heavy weight training. But humans in the Palaeolithic would not have run marathons or engaged in heavy weight training.)

Anyway, the new blog is by Kevin Coffin who is using it to gather information about Methode Naturelle and to record his own training and thoughts.

He has a really good post on Workout Structure which explains a little what an MN workout looks like. Erwan is a great thinker and inspirational guy, but he never really explains, in the material I've seen at least, how a workout is constructed.

Kevin identifies 7 series of exercises then explains what he does:

There is no set number of reps for any of the workouts. Just move on to the next exercise whenever you are starting to get fatigued. Don’t ever overdo it. This isn’t about being macho and competitive, its about practicing skills. Concentrate on correct form. Try to think of ways to use your body smarter, to accomplish the exercises with less and less effort. For instance, when climbing, practice the different ways of using your body momentum to aid you in your quest for height so that you are less tired when you get to the top. In everything, avoid injury; remember that avoiding injury becomes increasingly difficult if you are too over-fatigued.

I use this method every workday at lunch, for 30 to 60 minutes. There’s a dry riverbed near my office complex that I run down to, it has boulders and trees and sand for crawling. Saturdays are my “fun” day where I either get up in the morning and go for a free exploration run, without structure, or I do some sort of sport or hiking with my family.

It is a helpful post. Check it out.

Methode Naturelle - translated.

We've mentioned Methode Naturelle before in connection with Erwan Le Corre. Wikipedia describes this Natural Methode as

A (Natural Method) session is composed of exercises belonging to the ten fundamental groups: walking, running, jumping, quadrupedal movement, climbing, equilibrium (balancing), throwing, lifting, defending and swimming.

A training session consists, then, of exercises in an outdoor environment - a course of greater or lesser distance (a few hundred meters to several kilometers), during which, one walks, one runs, one jumps, one progresses quadrupedally, one climbs, one walks in unstable balance, one raises and one carries, one throws, one fights and one swims.

Erwan, in his MovNat philosophy, has taken this basic approach and developed it, adding some of his own ideas.


The American Parkour site has just posted a fascinating document.

Pilou, a Primal Fitness and DC local who grew up in France has found, translated, then made available for us, Georges Herbert's "Methode Naturelle." He writes:

"For the past few months, I have been reading and experimenting with Georges Hébert's physical education guide from 1912 that I found digitized on Google Books. I think most traceurs have heard something about Georges Hébert, the "Natural Method" and how it somehow relates to Parkour. Thanks to that book, I was able to see for myself what it was all about, and I have to admit that I have been very impressed."

The PDF is here

Donwload it - it is interesting, even just as an historical document.

Real Evolutionary Fitness

A comment from Asclepius at Natural Messiah got me thinking about this.



He pointed me to MovNat which is an updating of Methode Naturelle. I'd come across MN a few years ago - in connection to Parkour or Free Running - but had forgotten about it. Wikipedia explains:

A (Natural Method) session is composed of exercises belonging to the ten fundamental groups: walking, running, jumping, quadrupedal movement, climbing, equilibrism (balancing), throwing, lifting, defending and swimming.

The more I think about it, the more that I like this approach.

There is a blog here by a guy working on this template.