What Doesn't Kill Us: How Freezing Water, Extreme Altitude, and Environmental Conditioning Will Renew Our Lost Evolutionary Strength

by Scott Carney

embrace, sunlight sets the glacier ablaze like a beacon.

You couldn’t survive without them. But that’s not all. In addition to mitochondria, scientists estimate you have more than 10 trillion other microbes in your body, comprising more than 10,000 different species, and accounting for 1 to 3 percent of your body weight. Billions more live on your

mouths we have now are in much worse repair than those of early humans. Dietary changes, most menacingly sugars, make us good candidates for tooth decay. No Neanderthal or Homo erectus ever had cause to visit a dentist.

“The only two animals in the world that suffer chronic obesity are humans and the pets we keep at home,” he says. “There’s a connection.”

he prescribed himself daily hour-long walks in sub-60 degree temperatures along with moderate exercise and calorie restriction.

While they are by far the most toned part of my body, Pickels tells me they’re also a clear predictor that I just don’t have what it takes to be an endurance athlete.

breathing exercises, followed by breath-hold pushups and a headstand. It’s a truncated version of the method that Hof recommends for a full hour a day.

However, most people see a dramatic improvement in how long they can hold their breath when they repeat the cycle of hyperventilation and breath-holding for three or four cycles—or for a total of about 10 to 12 minutes. And now comes the really cool part. POWER PUSHUPS

Start while lying with your back on the floor, then do one more cycle of about 40 breaths. Make the last 10 even a little faster. Then take a giant breath in, turn over, and immediately start doing pushups while holding your breath.

My daily routine mixes elements of all these practices, plus a few more I borrowed from a local yoga class. I always start before breakfast, when my circulatory system is the most active and hasn’t yet been weighed down by the process of digestion. I begin with three rounds of power breathing followed by a breath-hold with no air in my lungs. I time myself and try to add a minute to each breath-hold until I hit 3 minutes. Then I do another round of breathing followed by 50 breath-out pushups. I follow this with a headstand for 30 seconds to let blood move to my head. I usually start my shower warm, but finish with at least a minute of cold water. I get out feeling refreshed and pumped full of endorphins. On top of that I do some kind of cardio exercise outside about three times a week. All together it really isn’t very time consuming. It’s also pretty much all I will do to prepare myself for the coming challenges.

Rick Rubin—the cofounder of Def Jam Records and the producer behind hit albums by the Red Hot Chili Peppers, Beastie Boys, and Lady Gaga—lost 130 pounds with a combination of ice baths and outdoor recreation. It’s where some founders of CrossFit explore new routines, and, most important, it’s where Hamilton spends his off-season before chasing big waves throughout the winter.

We spend fortunes on crash diets, and, when they don’t work, billions more on kidney transplants and dialysis.

brown adipose tissue (BAT)

BAT works.

“They don’t look for medicine, they heal themselves or die. Humans aren’t so simple; they’ve let technology get in the way of who they really are.”

the morning

Napoleon’s Grande Armée numbered close to 700,000 men as they departed France, ostensibly on a mission to free Poland from the reign of the Russian tsar.