At 17, Joel Primus looked like one of Canada’s next great middle-distance runners in the 1500m and 3000m. He had represented his country at the World Youth Championships, earned a full university scholarship, and qualified for the World Cross Country Championships. But behind the accolades, his health was unraveling. The obsessive chase for peak performance left him frail, just 117 pounds, anorexic, and frequently injured. “I was winning races but losing my health,” Primus reflects. “It looked like success on paper, but inside I was falling apart.”

Years later, the same story repeated itself in a different arena. This time, it was as a startup founder, pouring everything into building Naked, the brand that eventually went public on the NASDAQ. The relentless grind caught up with him, landing him in the hospital twice. That chapter became the basis of his memoir, Getting Naked: The Bare Necessities of Entrepreneurship and Start-ups.

Now nearly 40, Primus stands in a different place, stronger, healthier, and more balanced than he has ever been. Living on a farm with his wife and three daughters, he’s created a life rooted in discipline, wellness, and purpose. His new venture, Naked Revival, reflects that journey: a brand dedicated not only to premium essentials but also to helping men reclaim vitality through intentional living.

Primus’s approach to training is simple but uncompromising: always be prepared to climb a mountain with weight on one’s back, physically and mentally. The workouts are not about chasing an aesthetic ideal or even preparing for a specific competition. Instead, they are about building durability, strength, and resilience. “My training is not about being ready for a specific event,” he explains. “It’s about being ready for anything.”

His routine combines functional strength, conditioning, and mental toughness, often blending natural elements into the mix. He runs in the heat of the day, pushes through battle rope sessions in the rain, and tackles hill sprints in freezing weather. “Nature has a way of training you better than a gym ever could,” he says. This philosophy extends beyond the workouts themselves. He often trains barefoot, avoids distractions like music or podcasts, and values consistency over constant novelty. The point is not to entertain himself; it’s to build resilience.

His weekly structure is straightforward but demanding. Mondays focus on pull work and sled pushes, building strength and explosive conditioning. Tuesdays combine Norwegian-style VO₂ max intervals with high-rep deadlifts, blending endurance and stamina. Wednesdays are about agility and arms through heavy rope skipping and circuits.

Thursdays shift to sprinting and plyometrics, while Fridays emphasize rowing, push-ups, and lunges at high volume. Saturdays bring what he calls “Farm Strongman” days, hauling, carrying, and dragging anything heavy, from sandbags to logs, before closing the week with a steady Sunday long run.

The benefits go beyond muscle and endurance. Each workout strengthens his mental framework, reinforcing discipline and persistence. “It keeps me consistent,” he says. “While I vary weight, intensity, and duration, I don’t need to reinvent my training every season. The point is to show up, do the work, and progress happens from there.”

Just as important as training is recovery. Supplementation and nutrition, cold plunges, sauna sessions, breathwork, and mobility keep him resilient while reducing stress. It’s a methodology designed to sustain, not break the body. “Maximizing my ability to perform on any given day, especially as I get older, is the real goal,” Primus says. “The body is a vessel. Having seen what happens when the body is not given what it needs, I know that whether as an entrepreneur, a parent, or an athlete, you have got to take care of it holistically.”

That philosophy of nourishment extends to how Primus and his family live off the land. He eats a diet rich in wild game, much of it harvested with his cousin Ryan, with whom he also co-hosts a rewilding show. “He’s a much better hunter than I am,” Primus admits. Seasonal eating is central to their household, with fresh vegetables from the family garden and farm eggs from their flock of chickens, both managed by his wife. “She’s a way better farmer than me,” he adds. The result is a lifestyle where training, recovery, and nutrition all flow naturally from the rhythms of the land and the seasons.

This mindset carries into Naked Revival. The brand is built on the same principles that guide his routine: simplicity, integrity, and sustainability. It rejects gimmicks in favor of substance, much like his workouts avoid flash in favor of consistency. The farm life, the mountains, and the discipline all inform the culture behind the company.

Primus has lived through extremes: from pushing his body to collapse as an athlete, to slowly rebuilding through intentional living. His training routine is not just exercise; it’s a philosophy forged from those experiences. For him, discipline is not punishment; it’s freedom.

For those who want to experience his philosophy firsthand, Primus now offers his complete training program online. Designed with the same balance of functional strength, endurance, and resilience that guides his own life, the program makes his disciplined approach accessible to anyone, anywhere. Whether one’s an athlete, entrepreneur, or simply seeking vitality, his online training provides a practical framework to build strength and balance from the ground up.

That lesson now forms the heart of Naked Revival, where the mission extends far beyond products. It’s about creating a blueprint for men to build strength, vitality, and balance in every area of life.

M&F and editorial staff were not involved in the creation of this content.