“The male or female of 12,000 to 15,000 years ago will be considerably stronger and in better shape,” he said. Still, there is a “sharp contrast” between the strength and fitness of our distant ancestors and us, said Clark Larsen, a physical anthropologist at Ohio State University. “Some of the gyms have hardcore paleo folks, and if you’re a member of that gym then you’re paleo, while other gyms are hardcore Zone,” said Anthony Budding, who manages the content on .Įxperts in early humans dispute some of the tenets of latter-day paleos, including the belief that fasting is beneficial and that the body is unequipped to handle an agriculture-based diet. CrossFit trainers, who teach at more than 1,200 gyms and other affiliates across the country, generally encourage clients to follow either a caveman diet or the Zone diet, which requires tracking calories. Loren Cordain, a professor at Colorado State University and the author of “The Paleo Diet,” links the movement to a 1985 New England Journal of Medicine article, which proclaimed that the “diet of our remote ancestors may be a reference standard for modern human nutrition.”Īnother source of paleo converts is CrossFit, a fitness program known for grueling workouts combining weightlifting and gymnastics. These are the “primal, essential skills that I believe everyone should have,” he said in an interview. His workouts include scooting around the underbrush on all fours, leaping between boulders, playing catch with stones, and other activities at which he believes early man excelled. Le Corre, 38, who once made soap for a living, promotes what he calls “mouvement naturel” at exercise retreats in West Virginia and elsewhere. Le Corre’s case, barefoot - run across the Manhattan and Brooklyn Bridges on a frigid night. The men sealed their friendship with what both described as a bare-chested - and in Mr. Durant’s while visiting the city in December. One such figure, Erwan Le Corre, a Frenchman whom the magazine Men’s Health said “may rank as one of the most all-around physically fit men on the planet,” stopped by Mr. Béatrice de Géa for The New York TimesĪlready, the New York cavemen are getting attention from the patriarchs of the paleo movement. NEW ICE AGE Meat storage for John Durant's paleo diet. Like his disciples in New York, he believes that ancient humans could perform physical feats that would awe the gym rats of today. De Vany’s blog promotes what he calls Evolutionary Fitness. She started reading the blog of a 72-year-old retired economics professor who lives in Utah, Arthur De Vany.

The group’s lone woman, Melissa McEwen, 23, was searching for a treatment for stomach troubles. Several followers of the lifestyle took up the practice after researching health concerns online and discovering descriptions of so-called paleolithic diets and exercise programs followed by people around the country and in Europe. He has cooked communal dinners in his apartment on East 90th Street and taught others to make jerky from his meat locker. Durant, who looks like a cheerful Jim Morrison, with shoulder-length curly hair, has emerged over the last year as a chieftain of sorts among 10 or so other cavemen. The caveman lifestyle in New York was once a solitary pursuit. “I didn’t want to do some faddish diet that my sister would do,” Mr.

There is an indisputable macho component to the lifestyle. In a city crowded with vegetarian restaurants and yoga studios, the cavemen defy other people’s ideas of healthy living. These urban cavemen also choose exercise routines focused on sprinting and jumping, to replicate how a prehistoric person might have fled from a mastodon.

Durant believes the human body evolved for a hunter-gatherer lifestyle, and his goal is to wean himself off what he sees as many millenniums of bad habits. Vegetables and fruit are fine, but he avoids foods like bread that were unavailable before the invention of agriculture. Durant’s interpretation, involves eating large quantities of meat and then fasting between meals to approximate the lean times that his distant ancestors faced between hunts.

Or as he and some of his friends describe themselves, they are cavemen. Durant, 26, who works in online advertising, is part of a small New York subculture whose members seek good health through a selective return to the habits of their Paleolithic ancestors. That is where he keeps his organ meat and deer ribs. Durant worries might spook a female guest is his most recent purchase: a three-foot-tall refrigerated meat locker that sits in a corner of his living room. He shares the fifth-floor walk-up with three of his buddies, but the place is tidy and he never forgets to water the plants. LIKE many New York bachelors, John Durant tries to keep his apartment presentable - just in case he should ever bring home a future Mrs.

Arthur the law of the jungle gym