Adaptive Training: Building a Body That's Fit for Function

by Adam Sinicki

Evolutionary Lifestyle Fitness Strategies“Definitely one of the most holistic fitness and training personalities of the modern era.” ─Amazon review

#1 New Release in Physical Education and Stretching Exercise & Fitness

Adaptive Training explores an alternate perspective on health and fitness focusing on how we are a product of the environment. So change your surroundings to maximize your health and fitness beyond the gym.

Explore your amazingly adaptable body. Tight hip flexors, rounded shoulders and a hunched back are all products of our daily lifestyles. We are adaptoids; our bodies are designed to adapt to our surroundings, and understanding this is the key to unlocking perfect performance. Adaptive Training takes you through the fundamentals of understanding adaptive training while providing a detailed physical fitness program to help you build an environment that facilitates a healthy and empowering new lifestyle fitness journey with new lifestyle fitness equipment.

Unlock your true potential. The best way to learn a language is through immersion, and the same is true for developing and maintaining a new lifestyle fitness. A few hours a week training at the gym or elsewhere is great, but what if your environment outside of the gym is also challenging your body? You will see results that are only possible through the innovative fitness method called “Adam” which stands for Adaptive Immersion Training. Change your environment with intent, and your body will adapt with amazing results.

Inside, you’ll

How the environment shapes your body to be adaptiveHow and why you should divide training throughout the dayThe missing fundamentals of human movement and lifestyle fitness equipment

If you are a fan of Adam Sinicki's Functional Training and Beyond or liked Tactical Barbell, Built from Broken, The Comfort Crisis, or What Doesn’t Kill You, you’ll love Adaptive Training.

Genres: Fitness, Nonfiction, Health

184 pages, Paperback

Published December 13, 2022

Reviews

[Aaron O'Shannessy · Rating 5 out of 5]

alternative method for body building

I have been body building for 5 years and bored out of my brain. I have tried everything to to add variety and enjoyment from listening to loud music, watching body building documentaries while I lift, all the whole recording every single rep in a custom made excel spreadsheet. I always felt hollow in my gym. Now I am heeding Adam’s advice and not just enjoying my new injury free body, but loving the new outdoor lifestyle and the communities I have become part of. It would be an understatement to say that that the Bioneer has changed my life.

[xenol · Rating 5 out of 5]

I have been following Adam’s content on YouTube for few years and it’s one of the best ways how to get intoduced into various fitness concepts. The same style is used throughout the book and it’s an easy, yet very interesting read.

This book talks about evolution of his training principles, where he tries to focus on building a type of fitness which allows one to excel in everyday life and works on body parts that are usually neglected by regular training plans/philosophies.

[Britt · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great book for anyone who has been beat up by the "squat, bench, deadlift" approach to training, as I have. Adam Sinicki explains why this reductive approach doesn't make sense in the context of the human body or our fitness/life goals. He also gives some great practical advice. Combine it with his obvious zest for learning, and you get a very pleasant, optimistic, and practical book on fitness.

[Kenneth · Rating 1 out of 5]

I'm not sure who this book is for? Who it might help. I can't come up with anyone, in my head. It is a book full of vague aphorisms that have not been thought through, or explained in a way that makes sense.
From the intro stuff "Your potential is unlimited."
First, no, it is not. No one's potential is unlimited. Also, don't footnote "well done, you" as if it is a source.
You learn a language better if "constantly exposed to people speaking the local dialect."
Dialects and languages are not the same thing. Also, you could drop me in the middle of China and unless someone stops to teach me the language, I'm not gonna learn shit.
"When I was sixteen..."
Everything works when you're fucking sixteen.
"Should someone need to lift furniture or grapple a constantly moving opponent, the log press will provide better preparation." (than gym lifts)
Really? prove it. Is it enough to matter? Is it significant. Because we just added, go outside and find logs to my list of things to do. Thanks.
"What's more is that the log press, trail running and tree climbing will all make you more resilient to injury."
Does it? Does it offset the inherently more risky things you're doing?
"Meanwhile my three year old daughter leaps off the sofa that's twice her height and lands on her knees without blinking."
Weight matters. Squirrels never reach a terminal velocity that is deadly. Human beings, weighing so much more, do. What is the point??
This book is full of nonsense. If there was even a real program to look at and judge, it might offset the nonsense. But it just nonsense all the way down. Though I did finally give up at 87%. So maybe that last 13% is super helpful. But I doubt it.

[Erin · Rating 1 out of 5]

The printed edition of this book is very hard to read. The print is small and not very sharp, the text on the reverse of the paper shows through a little as well. The overall content seems good but maybe it is better as an audiobook because it is very poorly presented here. There is no index, no diagrams, are no photos. There are great ideas in this book but without the proper presentation the reader get frustrated quickly. Being shaped by your environment and the benefits of Natural Movement are ideas that I have read about before. I would recommend reading any of the following books instead of this one:

- The Align Method by Aaron Alexander,
- Move your DNA by Katy Bowman
- The Practice of Natural Movement by Erwan le Corre.

[Doug · Rating 4 out of 5]

I'll preface this review by saying that I'm a big fan of Adam's Bioneer content. You can tell he's enthusiastic throughout, and the book is generally well-written and easy to consume.
That said, as a fitness reference this is quite basic. It'd be a great starting point for a beginner perhaps looking to move away from the 'three sets of eight' mindset, but beyond that the information is rather surface-level. If you're looking for a change in training goals or a way to make exercise - and life - more interesting, this is great. If you're wanting more depth or perhaps a slightly more scientific-based method, then maybe look elsewhere.

[James · Rating 3 out of 5]

Get a written copy.
I got this as an audiobook, however it lacks a companion PDF for the routines in chapter 10.
While Adam is against trying to "teach" the exercises, I think that a PDF for Chapter 10 combined with a picture how to, or video playlist, for all the exercises would really make it stand out.

As it is, as an audiobook version I would have to slow down the spoken pace to below normal (instead of at 1.5x, a hack recommended by Adam/TheBioneer) to write down the "routines" listed in chapter 10. Which I have no inclination to do.
So the one feature that makes this different than his previous book, is basically "missing" from the audiobook version.

[Mukund]

keeping it dynamic and interesting

[Pcox · Rating 3 out of 5]

Starts slow but has a number of interesting easy to incorporate activities at the last 1/4 of the book for any activity level.

[Devin Stevenson · Rating 4 out of 5]

Brief but useful conceptualizations of working out beyond rote and repetition. Most useful is the sample routines at the end