Making It Possible...Not Harder
The mistake most make in prescribing exercise for the senior, disabled and terminal, is not that the exercises are not hard enough, but that they are impossible to do at all -- and the proper way to begin, is exploring what movements they can do -- and most need, rather than all the extraneous movements and activities possible. That is usually what is referred to as the latest gimmick in getting people to exercise -- as though it is just another form of entertainment and diversion, rather than that their very lives depend on it.
Many still are conditioned to believe that exercise is optional rather than mandatory and necessary for a body to obtain and maintain its best health -- throughout life, and so it is necessary to design techniques and protocols that make that manifest -- rather than just the wishful longings for the days long ago when one could do such things. The intelligence and capability of the human mind is that it can solve a problem -- and not that it is powerless to act by its own invariable constitution.
The major reason for this proper exercise of one's faculties is not that it is for vain and ego purposes -- but to produce and optimize health, and that is reflected in one's appearance -- and not as many "intellectuals" rationalize -- can only come at the expense of one's health. That is certainly the wrong way to think about these things -- and they are encouraged by all these well-intentioned people who try to make it as difficult and impossible for those to begin.
Instead, it should be realized that the most necessary movements to do and become proficient at, are those that is most palpably useful -- which is the use of the head, hands and feet -- where human expression is articulated and maximized. Yet it is frequently noted that those are in fact the first places to decline and deteriorate -- for the increasing lack of use -- as the swollen hands, feet and faces of those not in their best condition.
Right off, one recognizes that those are the areas that could benefit the most and immediately from a strategy to reduce that swelling (inflammation) -- which is the simple and obvious value in producing contractions to effect the compression that pumps the fluids (including blood) back towards the center of the body to the purifying and recyling organs of the heart, lungs, kidney, liver, etc. -- rather than allowing those waste products to accumulate in the tissues for a lifetime.
That is the immediate and obvious value of exercise -- which doesn't need more funding for further studies to verify. We know that to be true in the standard medical treatment for most acute injuries. Pressure (compression) will stop the bleeding. Compression will simulate the beating of the heart -- as well as breathing. That is so because those are the conditions that life has evolved in.
The alternating contractions and relaxations produce a flow -- and in their absence, flow does not occur -- because it is produced by alternating pressure differences. Properly understanding that, is most of the difficulty in exercise -- and not that one is attempting to overcome and override the laws of physics at every effort in life. Far better to understand and work with the environment one already finds themselves in -- rather than attempting to change the entirety of the world to suit one's own primacy and superiority over it.
Assuredly that won't happen -- and it would be foolish to undertake. Yet that has been the premise of much undertaking in history as well as modern life -- trying to game the system, rather than simply enjoying the game and enjoying what life gives. And so the great wisdom of the ages is to appreciate that -- to be one with that Nature -- and not cut off from it, and increasingly isolating oneself from that greater Life.
That is everyone's religion -- and guiding principle throughout life -- learning to go with that flow. However, most of what people do, goes against that flow -- thinking it will make them stronger and wiser -- than the billions of years of evolution. Of course if they could overcome all that, they would be God -- and could make whatever rules they want.
But the far more productive course for most, would simply be observing, understanding, and heeding what all of reality is telling them -- of which even their own lives would be a bountiful library of experience and knowledge -- far greater than even the most well-funded studies. Not that they need even more funding to be more accurate -- but that others can duplicate those results in their own experiments -- and not that such things can only be properly conducted by self-designated "experts."
That's not what "science" is about -- maintaining the authority of certain individuals to proclaim the truth to everyone else. Rather, it is the truth that can be tested by anyone and everyone -- as verifiable truth. Then that becomes self-evident truth -- because one has done and tested it for themselves, and not just quoted some other, or countless other authorities.
That flaw is usually because they all assumed the same premises -- rather than questioning from the very beginning -- and that is the notion that the harder the exercise, the better -- rather than the better the understanding, the less effort is required to achieve even greater results. that is the breakthrough idea that makes every subsequent effort and achievement easier -- and not more difficult!
But effort and achievement will always be necessary -- because it must always be an actuality and not just a thought unexercised and untested. Naturally, the most highly motivated to find out if anything is true, are those whose very lives depend on it -- which are the people in the worst condition, and often terminal. They have nothing to lose -- and their lives to gain. Closely behind them are the disabled, and seniors -- who are frequently the victims and end-results of ways that do not work -- try as hard as they might.
And of course, they are told, there is no other way. There is just the straight and narrow path that hasn't worked for anybody before -- and none other -- and they are exhorted even harder, to get with the program! By then, they are convinced that nothing works, and there is no hope, and only the constant decline is the fate of all human beings.
However, astute observers and practitioners will note that in this "inevitable" respect, not all people are equal -- and a few defy this deterioration much longer, while others seem to age rapidly and hopelessly from their earliest years. Is there some scientific principle at work here? That has been the quest for the holy grail and the fountain of youth for as long as recorded history -- but even the 100 year old alligator does not become immortal. Accidents, catastrophes and miscalculations do occur -- and one is fortunate to avoid them for as long as one can. That is also part of health, well-being and conditioning. One does the right thing as much as one can -- but there are no guarantees of infallibility.
But as much as possible, one wishes to have as much of one's fate in one's own hands -- and not at the will of everyone, or anyone else. That does not mean going against everybody and everything else -- but in understanding how it all flows, and that is life itself.
The Problem with Most Exercise
One notices that when one goes to a gym these days, there is very little exercising actually taking place -- but what most people are doing, is resting -- or playing with their cellphones -- just as they do with much of their other time that got them into their hated sedentary shapes. Yet they are perplexed that they are not getting into the shape they think (hope) they should be in -- despite spending countless hours "at" the gym. I've even seen caregivers drop off their clients at the "aerobics" machine and then do nothing while they go off and use the swimming pool or hot tub, and return an hour later -- and presume that their clients were exercising all that time -- in a classic case of wishful-thinking making it so.
Of course they rationalize that they were free to do whatever they wanted and could not be forced to do anything they didn't want to do -- and out of sight, was out of mind, and no longer their job (responsibility) to do anything beyond that. And so it spirals into a worsening of condition -- while being totally mystified that it should be so -- because the wishful-thinking surely must have had precedent over the actual reality in the virtual reality they inhabit.
The invariably, the more involved exercises they are advised to do, are even more problematical to do -- usually producing pain in addition to the boredom of treadmill activities. So quite predictably, they get very little benefit for the "time" they put into such activities -- while they could be doing what is most beneficial to do. That would be simply moving at the critical junctures of the head, hands and feet -- if nothing else, because the entirety of productive movements, is expressed at those points.
All the other musculature supports the movements taking place at the extremities -- and if movement is not effected at the extremities, very little productivity can be achieved. That would be the actual movement of the head from left to right, and up and down. The feet moving to raise the heel, and conversely, to raise the toes. And the hands (grip) to flex and extend -- as the major movements needed to maintain one's capabilities.
Those are obviously the critical joints at which movement is designed for -- the smaller, multiple bones activated by multiple muscles, while the larger bones are best suited for support and stability -- and not vice-versa. That is important to consider because in designing meaningful exercise movements, the tendency is to focus on the movement of the larger muscles and bones, rather than as nature intended, the fine motor control -- that actually makes the critical difference.
That is true in every athletic and performance movement (metric) -- whether throwing a football, baseball, hitting a tennis ball, baseball, throwing a javelin or shot put. If the wrist is not activated and fully engaged, the movement is basically meaningless -- and that is the design of most modern movements that instead focus on moving mainly the largest muscles of the body -- with little or no regard for the fine motor movements and control that make any movement actually productive and/or expressive.
But it is well known that the obvious markers of decline in human health is the attenuation of the grip strength, foot balance, and head movement (cognition) -- that should be the focus of any movement therapies and strategies -- that is overlooked as "normal," while it can be most greatly impacted by intelligent and thoughtful exercise and movements. Those are the capacities one wishes to maintain and enhance above all the others -- and failing that, it doesn't matter how long the heart continues to beat while those critical faculties are unresponsive.
And that is the kind of people we're producing -- who have long outlived their effective usefulness. That is clearly avoidable -- but it is not enough just NOT to shake one's head in agreement -- but those very movements are indicative of the further functioning of the head apparatus. Otherwise, how do we know it is still working?
The same is true of hand and foot movement -- even while the heart will continue to beat unceasingly until it doesn't. Most people in sedentary lives are not conditioned to move at those very important joints of the wrists and ankles -- even while they may tread for miles on a treadmill shuffling their feet and immobilizing their wrists.
But that is the very source of the problem -- of the lack of effective circulation resulting in the buildup and retention of fluids at those areas notable for poorest circulation. That is what has to move -- at that axis of rotation because that contraction is also the compression that causes the flow back towards the heart, while the alternating relaxation allows for new blood to flow into those tissues. That keeps the body healthy. Not to effect that flow, allows the toxins and waste products to accumulate in the tissues as the inflammation that causes disease and deterioration. But there is a mechanism for dealing with that. That is producing the flow -- with the proper understanding of that process. The heart plays its role -- unfailingly -- but the other muscles determine where that flow goes to -- in clearing that space first.
The helpful precedent for understanding this process is how cardiopulmonary resuscitation works. The effort has to be made to empty the cavity of air and fluids by compressing the space -- and on relaxation, the atmospheric pressure will fill the void -- while simply forcing more air and fluids into an already filled spaced, will simply provide resistance for doing so. The evacuation (contraction) must occur first -- or further effort (compression) will be ineffective. One must precede the other -- in the proper order.
Then one can do whatever one wills -- because then it doesn't matter. But unequivocally, the proper order is to engage the smaller muscles that engage the larger as part of its own functioning -- but it doesn't happen vice-versa because the larger muscles, doesn't need to activate the smaller muscle -- but that is what is most important to do -- if the ultimate objective is to produce and maintain a fully functioning human being throughout the full span of their lives, and not simply prolong the heart long after its critical responsiveness has disappeared.
That is the best one can do -- but is still no guarantee of immortality. That might entail living in a test tube.
Designing a Better Treadmill
There is no rule that prohibits useful activity -- so while one is just breathing and pumping blood -- there is no requirement that one make the heart alone work harder, while all the other muscles do nothing. That is really not as Nature intended. It foresaw that living a good, productive life, would enable them to continue to do so, and even better their prospects. That is the well-known survival of the fit -- and not that one has to battle constantly with others to prove it. Most likely, one lives longer if they are not engaged in constant battle with every other -- all the time. Then like the alpha of every species, one can just pick their spots, and rise to the challenge that nobody else can.
When and how those challenges arise, is anybody's guess, and fate to determine. Thus, one tries to be prepared for anything as much as possible and practical -- while also realizing their weaknesses and vulnerabilities. Then one can answer the right challenges, and not just every challenge like the juveniles of every species think they must respond to. Of course, that's what gets them into trouble and shortens their lives, or disables them thereafter.
One hopes to avoid those early childhood traumas -- and get to the long and prosperous lives we think possible. The most crippling of those formative years, is the belief that there can only be one way -- and it doesn't work -- and so there is only despair that things can ever get better. But that is what civilization and culture is all about -- creating that baseline foundation for everyone to proceed from and discover the unknown and unrealized.
The ultimate objective of life is not just to make the heart work harder -- but to be firing on all cylinders -- and not just the one. The obvious example is when the heart continues to beat heartily when the brain is dead, or has stopped functioning for most recognizable purposes. Obviously, such people are not much fun to be around -- and will cost other lives to be sacrificed for their care and continued sustenance. You don't want to be that person.
That's why one should do everything within their power and abilities not to be -- including taking the necessary precautions whenever appropriate -- assuming that everybody else's job is not doing that for him. That fully eliminates 90% of what could go wrong -- just being aware of what is going on around them, and not thinking that is everybody else's job to ensure for them. Life doesn't happen that way.
So the essential exercise should be increasing that awareness -- while they are doing anything and everything, and that not only knowing what is going on in their own heads is all there is to know and worth knowing. Often, the difference between being mugged and not, is acknowledging and being aware of the presence of others, rather than denying their existence. It is the same in the wild kingdom, that those most alert and aware, are less likely to be victimized -- while the oblivious, are the preferred targets of the opportunists.
Not that one should necessarily be overly paranoid about everything. Simple awareness takes 90% of the surprise out of most incidents. And that is why in one's choice of conditioning activities, one should prefer to develop one's awareness of what one is doing -- over thinking one is doing anything else. It's like a person reading and planning for their next vacation -- while being oblivious to the one they are presently on. Or simply reading a magazine while they are treadmilling. Their body is dispassionately doing one thing, while they minds are engaged elsewhere -- so a great part of their conditioning, is to be fully engaged and present in what they are actually doing.
That has great power -- because the mind operating with that awareness, is very powerful, and may be the difference between succeeding and failing. That mind, can make an immediate adjustment -- as required by the actual circumstances and developments. And that is what life is all about -- making those adjustments and adaptations, and not merely continuing to do the same thing over and over again -- despite it not working, and even being the source of all one's problems.
That fragmentation in thinking about exercise began in the '60s with the thought that there could be exercise for the heart and exercise for the muscles -- as though they were antagonists rather than integral to the entire operation of a healthily functioning body. That notion was largely promoted by those selling the measuring devices -- including the heart monitors and resistance machines.
But the object is not how hard one can work the heart alone, or how much weight a muscle can move -- but the healthy benefit of optimizing the circulatory effect that ensures one's health and well-functioning. Then muscles naturally grow, bones get stronger, organs remain functional, etc. It is not just the one thing -- but everything -- working well with each other. That is the well-integrated individual -- and not each part fighting for primacy within the individual and so one is out of balance and proportion -- and looks it.
That's why many gym physiques look unproportional and unbalanced -- when the ideal even of antiquity, was for aesthetic balance -- especially the mind in a well developed body. In fact, that was what the body manifested -- as the most accurate gauge of that development. That was how the being showed its intelligence -- and still is, but not necessarily in the puerile ways many think it so.
That would be the objective in thinking that the measure of any activity is the amount of calories burned -- or even heart rate despite the atrophy of the rest of the musculature. Instead of deliberately minimizing the engagement of the rest of the musculature, it would make far more sense to make a treadmill of any more meaningful movement -- such as are designed in any other exercise machine -- with minimal resistance -- while accentuating and increasing the range of movement.
That's what most people fail to do -- even while making their hearts work ever harder. That is especially true of the older exercisers -- distinguished most notably by their lack of range at every joint, mostly because their inactive (sedentary) lives don't demand it of their normal and usual movements. Treadmills are not normal and usual movements -- as much as is made to normalize them as such -- as the standard of human movement and activity.
Far more useful and meaningful is the movement at the head, hands and feet -- and those movements give meaning to the larger, supporting muscular structures -- and not vice-versa, and why those conventional exercises fail to halt the deteriorating effect most visible at the head, hands and feet. That development produces a well-proportioned physique because that is how the body is designed to work. Anything else is reinventing the body by pasting body parts according to one's tastes -- while ignoring the millions of years of evolution to get it right.
Doing the Right Thing(s)
Many people have been advised by those who have no idea what they are talking about -- that doing anything is the same as doing the right thing(s) -- to achieve successful outcomes, because they have been sold the belief that the only thing that matters is how much energy (calories) are expended (consumed), and beyond that, there is no difference. Thus they come to the conclusion that going as fast as they can while driving a car is the only way to go, and lifting the heaviest weight is always what is required -- including building a house, garden, meal, body, anything worthwhile.
So the productive person realizes it is not enough simply to expend random energy and effort, but to achieve the greatest economy and efficiency in what they are doing -- or hope to do -- and that's what makes the difference. However, that is not what is usually taught by those who should know better -- who fail to make those distinctions. And so they are exasperated that they never achieve the results they hope for but then get lost in the efforts as the end in itself, and thus they come up with measurements that are purely arbitrary -- as though they meant something.
Then they will come up with pronouncements like everybody must do a minimum of 10,000 steps a day -- or hang from a chinning bar for 5 minutes -- or they won't see 100 -- to say nothing of the agony and injury they might endure in trying to achieve those "objectives." They'll even insist that if one can't even hang from a bar for even a second, one should keep trying until they can -- instead of merely and intelligently advising to do something they can do -- presently. It is much more productive to do something one can do, then to "try" to do something one can't do -- because it is entirely possible that even the strongest man in the world will not be able to stand on their toes -- without breaking all of them (as well as their neck) -- and suffer a crippling injury that will disable them for the rest of their lives.
Yet people are ill-advised to do such maneuvers under the blanket generalizations that "everybody can," -- and that the only ones that can't, have no chance for survival -- or fitness by those standards, and so now the only commandment, is to be able to get off the floor without using one's hands -- because not using one's hands is the new commandment -- and only those who can kip up, are indicative of a long and healthy life.
And those who can't? They should keep trying because everybody can -- if one person has proven it possible, as though everybody is on the same trajectory of possibilities and improvement. That is not to say that some things are possible for virtually everybody, while others are just possible for a few -- and one should "discriminate" those differences that matter -- from that which doesn't.
Things happen for a reason -- and merely demanding that they don't doesn't alter the reality, but intelligent design and thought should align with those realities -- to be useful, and productive. Simply doing whatever one wants to, is not going to get them the same results as that which invariably produces better outcomes -- which for every individual, is a healthier, better functioning existence. That is what we are all here for --whether we realize it or not. That is what drives all of life.
That which doesn't think so -- or behaves that way, is not around for long. That is the primary drive in life and not whether one looks good doing so. It is the health that is primary -- and not the illusion of it. One takes care of the other -- but not vice-versa. That is the difference between causation and correlation -- and why one should not mistake one for the other. Correlation doesn't care which came first -- or caused the other, and it is knowing that difference, and being able to tell that difference, is why some are successful while others just go through the motions wondering why they never achieve those successes. It is not just a matter of doing it long enough that it must work -- but learning the significant difference that makes all the difference.
Those are the "right" things -- which is very different from any amount of the wrong things that do not matter. That difficulty in understanding is the et the same results they got a barrier keeping most from achieving their own health -- in favoring of demanding everyone but themselves to produce it for them. That's not how evolution works. Individuals get better because they achieve it for themselves -- and not that the think-tanks in far away places have figured out the winning formula -- and winning lottery ticket, so that the rest of us know how to "game" the system. with life "hacks."
The hardest thing to see are the obvious -- but that plays out every day in every gym across the world. The people in worst shape choose the worst exercises in the worst way. It is no secret why it is not working. They have come to the gym to do more resting -- and cell phoning -- like they do everything else in their lives -- with never any full attention to anything they do. That is particularly true the older they get -- and that is why they don't even get the same results they got as a younger person. They're not even doing that anymore -- because the weights are too heavy to allow them full-range movement. But rather than lower the weights (resistance) to allow them full amplitude of movement, they keep the weights that now make those movements prohibitive -- and it is the full-range movement that makes them fit, rather than any amount of weight that restricts that articulation.
And so it goes until they lose even further range of movement -- until finally they virtually immobilized -- not because they cannot move, but because they have forgotten how to move -- since they no longer express it, or know how anymore. That's how they lose their movements -- but is an easy thing to maintain and improve -- as long as they do sufficient repetitions of it -- which is not five or ten before resting for ten minutes. That is what got them into their present condition.
The human body is designed to optimize movement at the head, hands and feet -- and if those movements are maintained and practiced, the prognosis for the health of the rest of the body is excellent -- but not vice-versa. You don't want to be the person whose heart is still beating for 25 years long after the head, hands and feet have stopped moving and responding. Yet that is the pattern for all those people living in those places where the prognosis for recovery of those faculties are nonexistent -- who are prescribed movements and exercises for improving every other part of their body but those specifically. It would indeed be miraculous if they worked.
Building Hand and Grip Strength
Building forearms and grip strength is a good proxy for understanding the muscular system and how it is designed to ensure one’s health and fitness — but are essentially ignored and neglected by most excercisers, and particularly denotes the end-stage of life for most people.
The contemporary buzz of medical researchers is the claim that all disease is caused by inflammation, or the accumulation of toxic fluids in the tissues of the body beginning at the extremities of the head, hands and feet — where circulation is poorest because that’s where the push from the heart dissipates, and the contractions from the skeletal muscles beginning at the extremities begin to push the blood back towards the heart — to clear space in the capillaries and tissues for new blood to come in. It is a naive understanding to think that the heart can overcome the resistance of miles of capillaries where blood is hardly moving. But a contraction beginning at the most distal (distant from the center) insertion will contract to its origin, which then will tie into the insertion of the more proximal muscle supporting it, and so on — back to the center.
That’s why people who are active and get this activation, become more muscular than others. The waste products from cell metabolism are sent back to the purifying and recycling organs of the body — creating room for new fluid (nutrients) which produces health and growth. It is that very process of circulation — effected by the alternation of the contraction and relaxation phases of the muscle. That’s why in exercises, it is important to move from the greatest relaxation to the greatest contraction — while focusing on increasing that range more than any other consideration — including how much weight one is using in the exercise. More often than not, the weight is often a hindrance to achieving those extreme ranges of articulation — and one is better off effecting those ranges without any weight or resistance.
This ideal movement can be simulated by a simple movement called the wrist roller — in which one had a rope tied to a short bar attached to a light weight and lifted the weight up in one direction and lowered it with the opposite movement. For most people, that exercise can be simulated to give a better result without the apparatus at all — but simply focusing on that movement — particularly extending the range of the contraction — which most people tend to omit, and so they believe that developing the forearms, calves and neck muscles are difficult if not impossible to do — because their range of movement is too limited.
What they need to do is not add more weight — but increase the range of their movement, and also increase their repetitions to 50 — at which most people experience noticeable muscle fatigue, burn, or pump — resulting in extreme muscle soreness for days after. The remedy for recovery from extreme muscle soreness is to do that movement the next day and the next — because those alternation of relaxation and contractions, are pumping the inflammation out of the tissues. That is the quickest way to ameliorate extreme muscle soreness — over the next few days, rather than doing nothing at all and letting that inflammation fester.
Most trainees never come close to a full contraction or full relaxation in any of their movements — which is the reason it doesn’t work. This is particularly true of the older bodybuilders whose joints have been so compromised that they can barely move — yet still insist on handling as heavy weights as they can doing half-movements. Increasing the weights assuredly won’t make them better — but increasing the range of their movements will because the range of motion dictates the range of the contraction and relaxation — and increasing that difference, increases the flow — while maintaining a steady state of muscular contraction does not. That is how most people do their exercises — unproductively.
The position most think is a contraction is not — nor is the relaxed position. Taking the bench press as an example, if one begins to press upwards from the “finished” position, one will notice how quickly the muscle will tire because one has achieved a supercontracted position. Likewise, most people do not go into a superrelaxed position but instead bounce the weight off the floor or off their chest because everybody knows how hard it is to begin a movement from a dead stop. The only way to do it safely is to use a very light weight — or no weight at all, and just learn how to achieve the greatest muscular contraction, alternated with a relaxation — for that pumping effect alone — which is not nothing, but the most healthful thing one can do — and by doing that produces the health, functioning and growth one ultimately hopes to achieve all one’s life.
Last Man Standing
Having been raised on fairy tales and hype, many come to believe that for anything significant and meaningful to be done, requires heroic effort and struggle, and sacrificing all else to achieve. That is the thinking that we can have only one thing rather than everything, and so in order to obtain the one thing, we have to sacrifice everything else -- be that war, athletic competitions, wealth or health -- and further thinking that we can have either the appearance of health, or health without the appearance -- when the greater implies the specific, and not that that is all there is. That is a vision of the world in which nothing is connected to everything else, rather than the realization that everything is connected to everything else -- even if we are not aware of it yet.
Those are the early stages in the awakening of awareness in anything we choose to learn about -- that that one thing, did not just manifest out of thin air, but has been millions of years in the making, and the accumulation of many previous actions. Every individual life is merely the continuation of that process. One thing builds on everything else -- and not that everything is always starting from scratch.
There's a reason humans stand above all else -- in the ultimate evolution of the feet, hands and brain to control it all. Those are the most critically advanced evolutions that distinguish the humans from all previous life forms -- and that which has to be maintained and optimized over individual lifespans. Meanwhile, the heart is shared by many life forms -- and as such, needs very little improvement. It is the mastery at the head, hands and feet that distinguishes accomplishments among human beings -- and not simply who has the faster or slower heart beat -- which is simply easier to measure.
What is easiest to measure, is not necessarily what is most important to measure -- but is the great equalizer if mass marketing a product -- because everyone has one. But whether that translates into any real world accomplishment remains to be seen -- as we now witness many living prolonged heartbeats with no other vital signs of responsiveness -- most notably in the dementias. We notice much less that often such lack of responsiveness may occur first at the hands and feet -- from years of immobility resulting in the accumulation of fluids that have pooled and accumulated over a lifetime we recognize in inactive older people. But is the solution to get the heart to pump harder and faster, or would it be much more productive to activate the voluntary/skeletal muscles to perform that task much more expeditiously and effectively -- since in contemporary lives, they are hardly activated at all.
And then when it is called upon in various exercises, it is made difficult, problematical, and even injurious -- rather than the normal process by which the organism maintains its health, functioning, and vitality. It's really a simple thing -- that doesn't need to be made increasingly more difficult. Yet that is the prescription of what productive exercise requires -- which seems to work when one is young, but fails spectacularly the older one gets
A famous bodybuilder was advised by his doctor after having heart problems and surgery, that he should no longer lift heavy weights, or to hold his breath when lifting a heavy weight, because they produce undue stress on the internal organs -- but in that prescription, there is no prohibition in lifting light weights -- and breathing naturally with every repetition. Obviously, that is what that person can do -- quite productively -- rather than continuing to do what they are ill-advised to do.
And that is the conventional wisdom -- which quite frequently, is just totally misguided -- because one has already decided what they will do, before considering whether it is the appropriate or intelligent thing to do. And that is to lift heavy weights -- as though such defiance will convey immunity from those disastrous effects.
Not that the movements are bad in themselves. The whole objective of such movements, can be reduced to the simplicity of changing the state of the muscle to produce a flow -- which actually relieves the amount of work the heart muscle has to do -- while increasing the greater circulatory effect -- that produces health, functioning, and growth -- because of the environmental and atmospheric conditions life has evolved in.
The best and obvious example of this is cardiopulmonary resuscitation in which it is noted that the important part is not blowing air into the lungs of a person not breathing -- but compressing the air out of the lungs -- and by that same action (movement), effecting the blood flow. Ancient exercisers believed that it was the breathing in that was important to cultivate -- rather than the exhalation, and upon relaxation, the atmospheric pressure would cause air to enter a volume that was vacant.
That is the reason one doesn't want to lift a heavy weight holding one's breath -- but rather let a light weight rise on the contraction of the breath, and lower quite naturally as those torso muscles relax. That is also the argument for not lowering a heavy weight unduly long -- because it requires the body to fail from the lack of air movement in preventing the muscles from elongating as the weight is being lowered. That is unnecessary as well as counterproductive to doing anything in the real world. Such a manner of performance is entirely contrived -- with no practical applications in the real world but to increase the stress the body is experiencing -- as though that was a good in itself.
Yet that is the convoluted thinking that produces failure 100% of the time -- because that is not the best way to do anything -- especially if one doesn't absolutely have to. The peculiarity of older competitive bodybuilders is their disproportionate development produced by the atrophying of the forearms, calves, and neck muscles -- as the heart weakens with age -- and they divert all their remaining resources to the misguided development of the biceps and abdominals -- almost exclusively. All sense of proportion is simply abandoned -- when the proper maintenance of the extremities at the head, hands, and feet axes would ensure that proportionality -- because that is how the musculature is designed to work productively.
That is acutely true as the heart grows weaker. At that point, the far wiser course is not to make the heart work even harder, but to make it work less hard while increasing the effectiveness of the circulation by making all the muscles of the body work as the heart does. That would be killing two birds with one stone -- and all the other accolades. They can continue to be well-functioning every day of their lives -- rather than succumbing to the pattern of decreasing capabilities -- beginning at their most critical faculties.
The primary function of all the muscles in the body, is to recruit as many muscles as possible to make any task as easy as possible -- and not to make every effort and movement, as difficult as possible. That should be the simple, obvious truth by now.
Exercise is Like CPR for the Rest of the Body
Just about everybody knows by now that when the heart stops pumping (contracting), one can manually get it working by compressing the chest that houses the heart and lungs -- because the alternation of contraction (of the chest volume) with relaxation (expansion of the chest volume) effects a flow by the laws of fluid (gas) dynamics. That is to note that as a volume contracts (gets smaller), the pressure within that volume increases -- and moves to an area in which there is a lesser pressure. And then when a volume increases, the pressure decreases, and pressure from a higher area moves into that lower pressure -- as is the case when the normal atmospheric pressure of 14.7 lbs per square inch is higher than the pressure of the lungs that have been previously compressed.
Simply put, volume is inversely related to pressure -- and that is what is affecting movement in the human body and not gravity. That is to say that gravity is not the prime mover in the body but pressure is -- and that is particularly important in the movement of blood and other fluids (gas) within the body -- because that is what is keeping us functioning, and beyond that, healthy and growing. Under normal conditions, the heart works unfailingly, and will be the last thing that does -- until finally, it ultimately fails to work automatically (autonomously).
That is the greatest part of the cardiovascular system -- that half that operates automatically and pushes the blood out of the heart into the rest of the body. But once it gets into the capillaries and tissues, the heart has done its job -- and can have little effect on the blood returning back to the heart and recycling/purifying organs of the body -- like the lungs, liver, kidneys, etc. If that doesn't happen, then the toxicity of the body builds up -- which is the problem of inflammation (swelling) where those waste products simply accumulate in the tissues, and is not eliminated and recycled by the organs designed for that purpose. That process keeps the body healthy, well-functioning, and growing -- because in that evacuation of that space, new nutrients have room to move into -- but not if the old remains and becomes the resistance to that healthy process.
While the heart will work tirelessly and unceasingly in its role and function, the voluntary muscles provide that driving force in the clearing process -- and that is the reason that those in the habit of performing such voluntary (skeletal) muscle contractions, develop much more prodigiously and prolifically. That's just the physics (reality) of the life processes -- that those who perform that work, are rewarded in that way. To a certain extent, those life processes can be maintained at a minimally subsistence level -- but knowing that, it can also be conducted to higher levels of effectiveness and efficiency. That has been well-noted for ages -- that those who do more, have more to show for it. It is not a random world in which all outcomes are the same no matter how much or how little one does.
But it is far more than how much or how little -- but more importantly, whether one is doing the right things -- and not simply anything -- as though all that matters is how many calories are being consumed and expended. Some actions produce greater desirable results -- for the same, or in fact, less energy -- but doing all the right things, and not merely as much as possible of anything -- as though it doesn't matter.
That is a very flawed but common understanding of what exercise is -- and why many things it doesn't matter, or might even be counterproductive to a good life -- rather than the reason and basis of a good, rewarding, and richer life. Because it matters and makes a difference in subsequently everything one does.
What is important to understand is the significance of the alternating contraction and relaxation cycle -- which is produced by the position in which the muscle must be contracted, and the position in which it is relaxed -- and just alternating those positions produces that flow within the body -- more importantly than any external work produced -- like the lifting of weights, running, jumping, etc. Then once that simplicity is reduced to that essential understanding, productive exercise can be conducted under any conditions and age because one is simply optimizing the functioning of the human body and its processes -- which is obviously meant to be.
Those are the basics -- optimized. Recognizing that, one would be a fool not to take advantage of that to improve their functioning at everything they do -- especially in prioritizing that flow and development to the most important aspects and organs of the body at the head, hands and feet -- rather than trying to change the heart beat. That takes care of itself -- as the fundamental of life in everyone. What makes the biggest difference, is working the muscles of the body similar to the heart in effecting the optimal circulation possible -- and not simply making the heart work harder and faster, which is the characteristic enlarging and weakening of the heart noted in heavy exercisers. Instead, one wants all the other muscles of the body to work harder in assisting the heart in optimizing the circulation -- which invariably causes those muscles to be developed and grow to their highest possibilities because they are also the greatest beneficiaries of doing so.
That requires one to know in what position the muscle must be contracted, and what position they are relaxed, and simply alternating those positions. It is not the resistance to doing so that is productive -- but the understanding and recognition of what those positions are -- and alternating them for at least 50 times to produce fatigue -- which is the resistance within the body, and not external to it as many people think, or those exercises would continue to be productive after they reach a certain age when it famously does not, but only increases the wear and tear on the body unnecessarily, until they abandon such activities entirely.
But then, one doesn't want to know what may have worked 50 years ago -- but doesn't now when they need it to work the most. They need to know what works now -- and for the remainder of their lives -- because it has to. Those are the laws of nature -- and not merely wishful-thinking that it can overcome those realities.
Why We Are All Here
Most people argue over whether they should use more weight for fewer repetitions, or use a light weight for higher repetitions — when the far more productive way to train, is to increase the range of motion in that movement. The most important part of every movement is the start and ending positions — while most work only the midrange, and then shorten that even further to accommodate more weight or more repetitions.
All movement is cardiovascular AND neuromuscular — and those divisions are simply manmade — because the body cannot operate that way, one exclusive of the other. However, while all movement will raise the heart rate, it is possible to raise the heart rate without engaging any other particular muscular structures — as most cardio machines do. In the most popular version of the treadmill, the upper body is largely immobilized, while the range of foot movement is minimal, emphasizing a limited range of movement at the hips and knees. So limited in fact that one could continue the exercise indefinitely — because there is no muscle fatigue/demand otherwise. That is true for most movements: if you shorten or limit the range of movement, the muscle can go on indefinitely — even jogging a marathon.
However, if one performs a movement to increase the range in both the contraction phase as well as the relaxation phase, that muscle will fatigue — because an extraordinary demand is placed on it — to which it must adapt and accommodate — both in the short term and in the longer term once one has recovered from that challenge. As one gets older, there is a tendency to decrease the range of movement until eventually one is all but immobilized — and then others have to do for them what they previously could easily do for themselves, but over the years, lost that range of movement — more than that they couldn’t lift their own weight or do endless repetitions of a limited movement.
Everybody who has ever lifted weights, knows there is a beginning position in which they rest, as well as an ending position in which they can also rest. However if they try to extend that range of movement beyond those resting points (bone on bone lockouts), any attempt to do so is extremely fatiguing and even perilous because that is uncharted territory that the muscle will fail. In order to avoid injury, one would not attempt to do so with heavy weights, but even light weights will be challenging enough — and even no weights at all would allow that manner of performance with maximum safety.
The key movement would be expressed at the joint furthest from the center of the body — which are the axis of movements at the wrists, ankles, and neck — as the body is naturally designed to move most critically. For millions of years, humans evolved in conditions that required them to have to use those faculties beyond all else — to survive, and then thrive and prosper. Then, it was quite obvious that if one did not turn their head, they had limited information of what was going on around them — because they had to turn their heads to see and hear better — to know what dangers lurked, or where their next meal was coming from. Throwing a stone or spear required that wrist movement, and the feet were a lever against the earth — to run, jump, reach tall branches.
But modern life made a lot of that unnecessary, and so people just stare ahead into their screens now, and may go to a gym to increase their heart rates while moving very little else. And then they wonder why their brains fail, their grip weakens, and their feet cannot hold them up reliably. But they think the answer to all those ailments is just to force the heart to work harder and faster while immobilizing all the other muscles that are doing very little — as the preferred modality of “exercise.”
And so we have the great fear now that people will lose those critical faculties for full responsiveness beyond just having their hearts beating for years and even decades in that condition. Who will be there to take care of them? It would seem that the far better model for life in the future, is for everybody to take better care of themselves in the manner that makes such extension of capabilities more likely as the conditioning paradigm — over the expenditure of calories and heart beats as though there are no limits and no difference.
Once one is clear in understanding how life works and what one is doing, it is easy to design exercise without the need for equipment, supplements, instruction, measuring devices, etc. Everything will make perfectly good sense — and that is the greater question of why we are all here.
Exercise is not the Enemy
Exercise doesn’t require one to be standing, walking, running or jumping — but can be done sitting, lying, or floating. When one considers what they cannot do — because of illness or injury, they can realize all the other exercises they can do instead — and even create a few new ones for themselves. That is ultimately what fitness is all about — adapting to the present circumstances and challenges — to do what is advantageous to do — even if one hasn’t done them before. It is a good time to start, and if not now, when will they ever get around to it?
There’s nothing in the book that says that one has to be doing the same things they’ve always done before. In fact, that is a prescription and advice to become less fit and adaptable — so if one cannot do a particular thing — as one has always done before, it is an opportunity to do what they haven’t done before — and strengthen their repetoire of responses.
As long as one is still alive, some movements (change) are possible, but when it stops completely, then life has ended for that animate being. With over 600 voluntary (skeletal) muscles, some movement is possible — even if they are not the one’s one is used to doing regularly, if not unfailingly, but if they are not possible, then one merely need consider what else is possible — under those circumstances, and do the best they can with it, if nothing else better is possible. In that doing, they may find out what they haven’t known before. Making those discoveries, are even more important than doing the same things all the time — and might even work better. One won’t know, until one finds out — and that is the exercise.
Only a few exercises require one to stand, walk or run. Many exercises can be done seated; in fact when one goes to a gym, more often than not, one is doing them seated — or lying if there are mats around. It is quite possible to design an exercise routine around only lying exercises — because that doesn’t preclude any other strictures than the one. The problem is that many are conditioned only to do one thing — and not the many things possible even for that one person. That is the joy and expression of life — and movement — to do what they’ve never done before — as well as what they’ve always done before — even if it is just more of the same.
In fact, the whole conditioning process is to prepare oneself for the next level — whatever that is, and wherever it takes them: that is the adventure of their lives. It doesn’t have to be world records — or even personal bests — but each thing done to its best, creates the precedent for subsequent achievements. That’s how practice makes perfect — or more often enough, better. But it actually has to be doing something — and not just thinking about the many things one can do but never actualize. That is the integration of body with mind — which one hopes to achieve in every exercise.
So does that require optimal conditions and equipment for that? — or accomplishing that despite the adversity and lack, the joy and purpose of it all? That joy and repurposing, is what recreation is all about — re-creating the self, to live a better life. As long as one is doing that, they’re doing their best — with what they have, and that is all one can ask of themselves. But just to lie there and give up and do nothing, is not going to be sustainable and productive. Yet many these days, seem to have reached that point — and demand that everyone else must do for them what they refuse to do for themselves. That enables disabilities and handicaps — rather than overcoming them in every possible way — and hoping that capability for everyone else as well.
What else better does one have to do? They need to figure out a way out of their predicament. Surely they have all the time in the world until they do — and there is nothing more important for them to do. If they can’t use their legs, then they can still exercise (use) their arms — or head. Often, the most productive movement one can do is to move their heads — which many haven’t moved since the advent of television eliminating that necessity. That’s why the common trait of atrophy in most people is the deterioration at the neck, forearms (hands), and lower legs (feet) — and their functionality as they age. In fact, that deterioration is the cause of that aging — as well as its chief manifestation. Most just accept that as the normal facts of aging — rather than the keys to not. That is where the breakdown is critical — to the survival of the whole.
Those are the axes most important to move around — because that control, determines the extent and effectiveness of the circulation (blood flow). When one does that, they have optimized the conditions for functioning up to the challenge of the moment. Movement focused at the extremities, affects all the supporting muscles back to the center of the body — because they are connected to do so. Those are the key movements for the sick and disabled to focus all their attention and energies on — to make them well again, and to get better. They don’t have to move their entire mass from one place to another — as an actual requirement of productive and meaningful exercise. They need to note what is the least expenditure that produces the maximum benefits — and not just the maximum expenditure even when it might be injurious, counterproductive, or unnecessary.
Exercise is not the enemy. It is what one actually does.
Exercising Full Range of Motion (Movement)
The great advance of Nautilus machines in the early 70s was the claim that it provided "variable (proper) resistance through the full-range of movement" -- thinking it was resistance that was of paramount importance, rather than the much more simpler observation, that increasing the range of motion in every movement -- is the resistance, and that ultimately, is what one is trying to increase, while simply increasing the resistance, tended to foreshorten the range of movement.
One observes that to be particularly true of aging and deteriorating people -- yet what is invariably advised, is to add more weight (resistance) to the exercises -- thinking that is the missing ingredient -- rather than the lack of range in that, and every movement. The classic example is the person advised to walk a mile or 20 minutes each day while merely shuffling their feet with virtually no articulation at the ankle joint. A far more productive movement for such an individual, would be to sit in a tripod chair (readily available at Walmart and recreational stores for camping), and do the movement known as the alternating calf raise -- because with no weight to support, the full range of articulation can be expressed at the ankle joint -- because there is no resistance against it.
This is a very important concept in productive exercise for health considerations above all else -- which becomes far more important as one ages or is rehabilitating an injury. The last thing one would want to do is add further injury -- at which point safety becomes a paramount concern. Otherwise, one is simply worsening the condition -- rather than improving it, as one hopes to be doing in one's exercises. Many people quit or forswear exercise for the remainder of their lives precisely for that reason -- that those exercises recommended merely increase the possibility of further injury, discomfort and pain -- even by the "experts" on such matters.
Fortunately, in exercise, there is such a thing as self-evident truth -- that is available to everyone, and not just the self-proclaimed experts of such jurisdictions. Plainly something works -- or it doesn't -- in the real life scheme of things. One then is the picture of health and not just what one would want everyone to believe. So it is often said, "You're in pretty good shape for an old guy" -- implying that person looks like they are declining rather than improving in health. How much they lift or how fast they run is belied by their obvious appearance --even as much as they try to distract from those obvious signs of decline.
Those are very obviously exhibited at the extremities of the head, hands and feet -- as indicators of the effectiveness of the circulation to those areas. That must be measured at the extremities and not at the heart -- but of course, it is much easier to measure the heart than it is to measure the circulation at the extremities. For that, one would more likely rely on the visual condition at those extremities to see off hand if those organs look in tip-top condition, or are inflamed and swollen -- indicative of stagnation of fluids at those sites rather than the presumed circulation.
That circulation is effected and enhanced by voluntary muscular movements (contraction/relaxations) producing that physical flow -- at the axis (joint) at which that articulation is triggered. The design of skeletal (voluntary) muscles is that a muscle contracts from the insertion (distant) towards the origin (proximal) of that muscle -- but then when it has gone as far as it can go in that contraction, triggers the contraction of the supporting muscle at its insertion to cause the chain-reaction we see as the coordinated movement we are most familiar with.
That is by Nature's design -- proven over millions of years in millions of life forms -- to result in its own state of the art in humans, which is as far as we've come up to now. That has been the evolution of life forms -- from the most primitive and basic one cell organism, to the most highly evolved, complex, and intricate. Most notably, are the features in humans of a large brain, complex hand and foot development that allows for the possibility of doing many things -- like reading, writing and arithmetic, as well as music, art, athletics, dance, etc.
Those are invariably expressed at the head, hands and feet, and why the appearance of health at those areas, are the first clue to the overall health of that individual -- whether we want to admit it or not. Many people are in denial that those are the obvious indicators of the health and qualities of such individuals -- but would be well-advised to trust those first impressions because they are so visible and obvious. Swollen hands and feet indicate poor circulation even to the most undiscriminating. Bloated faces and atrophied necks are that same condition to the area of the body that should be top priority in optimizing those critical conditions -- rather than taking for granted that nothing can be done for it.
That would not be how Nature in its right mind would work. It would not allow a person doing biceps curls all day to develop 18" arms while having no provision for developing the brain in a similar fashion. Improving the flow of vital nutrients to any area of the body is enhanced by first producing the space (vacuum) in which the new has room to enter. That is done by contracting (compressing) the residual fluid out so that the new can enter -- just as is the underlying basis of Cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR).
It doesn't matter how forcefully one blows into an already filled lung; more air cannot enter, and even that which can, has no way of entering the lowest branches of the lungs where there is an exchange of gases between the lungs and blood vessels. Lungs are not simply a simple air sac but means branched tissue. The one becomes two, the two four, four eight, etc., which is how the simple becomes complex. It is not that it sought out to be as difficult and complex so that nobody could ever crack the code, or mystery underlying it -- but we fail to get to the simplicity iterated as much as necessary.
There is not one set of rules governing the functioning of the head, and another for the hands, and yet another for the feet -- to all the specialists' delight and profit, but singular basic rules that apply to all. And that would be that if one increases (optimizes) the flow of inputs to any area, that organ has access to all the nutrients that produce its well being -- but it must follow the rules governing the movement of fluids, which requires physical (actual) movement, and not merely imagined mental exercise.
Such exercise will have predictably no effect on improving human development and capabilities.
Training to Failure
You can’t train to failure with heavy weights; you can only train to failure with light weights. Failure is just that — the momentary inability to lift even the most minimal weight. Drop sets were the beginning of this evolution. It’s not the weight one begins with — but the weight one ends with that denotes failure. And so when one begins with 100 lbs, and can do no more, they drop the weight down so that one can continue, and then drop the weight again, etc. But that is a very labor-intensive way of training — particularly for the spotters who are removing the weight, and ensuring that the trainee is not killed when the muscle fails — with a heavy load. That’s how many people get killed, crushed or disabled.
But one knows that every repetition will decrease one’s subsequent momentary ability — unless they are resting overly long for a complete recovery — as in the case of the many trainees who are actually lifting only 1% of their time while resting 99% of the time — which are obvious in their results. Arthur Jones’ original thesis was that a person moving from one exercise to the next with as little rest as possible produced sufficient failure throughout the musculature that the body would be forced to adapt and grow. But the mistake all the subsequent high intensity people made was increasing the resistance rather than moving continuously from repetition to repetition that is only possible using lighter weights — as Sandow did a hundred years earlier.
That’s also how the concept of “pre-exhaustion” came into play. Each repetition done in this nonstop manner, made the muscles exhausted for the subsequent exercise — until the point of total muscular failure — at which point one could not go on, and frequently required up to a week to recover from. And thus the claim that high intensity exercise of this quality, must be brief and infrequent, while producing superior gains because they triggered the need for actual improvements in the recovery.
Where most people get it wrong is in thinking that cardiovascular failure is muscular failure — because in the use of too heavy weights, breathing is constricted and prevents them from continuing after the first three or four reps — because they are not breathing in a manner that will allow them to sustain their effort. But rather than weight-training and cardio (aerobics) being diametrically opposed, weight training with light weights is the superior cardio workout because the contractions of the voluntary muscles at the extremities complement the autonomic function of the heart to optimize the circulation rather than working against each other in the manner many are “conditioned” to think is desirable.
One wants all cylinders firing in the same direction — and not each canceling out the effectiveness of all the others in a zero sum game.
The Meaning and Purpose of Exercise
The reason for exercise as a vital activity is to enhance and optimize the circulation and therefore the functioning of the human body — so whatever achieves that, has served its purpose — whether realized or not. Child’s play will accomplish that — but on the other end of the spectrum, when one is greatly limited or constrained, a superior understanding of that process does much better in achieving the maximum benefits at the least cost. That is a major concern among the aging Baby Boomers who belatedly realize that simply doing what the 20 year olds are doing, is not enough to remain youthful. If it was, then as many naive “certified” instructors recommend, one should lift as heavy as possible because “what doesn’t kill you will make you stronger.” Instead, such misguided advice may lead to death or permanent disabilities — long before the miraculous promised results manifest.
So the first requirement in designing a proper fitness regime, is to eliminate the risk of injury and damage as much as possible — including speed of movement, or explosive movement — like sprinting, one rep maximum lifts etc. — all of which I’ve seen highly recommended as the keys to the Fountain of Youth and well-being — while ignoring or denying their dangers. In fact, many well-intentioned people who finally decide to embark on a fitness program, actually experience some kind of trauma in their initial experience that they don’t return, and resign themselves to the consequences of doing so.
That is very unfortunate because most of what these physical educators think is necessary, is simply not so — but that was what they were taught, and have never questioned, although adopting more contemporary jargon that makes it seem more scientific and well-researched. However, the ultimate test of any truth, is one’s own experience (experiment) with it — no matter how much the “promoters” claim otherwise. That includes the doctors who thoughtlessly recommend to a legally blind 104 year old that she should walk for half an hour each day — in an urban environment. Thus each day, while I was living in a 55+ complex, I would have to pick this person up after falling just getting outside her door, and recommend that she’d be better off just remaining in her apartment and simulating the full range foot movement while holding on to the back of a chair — in the safety of her own residence.
I don’t know if the doctor ever realized that encouraging a blind person to walk for 30 minutes outside her apartment every day was virtually a death sentence — considering the uneven sidewalks, and vulnerability to anybody looking for an easy prey. That is a well-known problem of urban environments today — that must be taken into consideration, but that does not preclude all the other possibilities for achieving those positive health effects — when one looks beyond the unnecessary and arbitrary — to the essential understanding of its requirements.
Movement effects circulation not because of gravity — but because of the pressure differences produced in the alternation of the muscle volume from contraction to relaxation — which pushes the blood and fluids back towards the heart, while the heart unfailingly pumps blood out towards the extremities of the body. Thus the lack is not the failure of the heart to pump, but the problem of inadequate pumping that occurs in inactive movements and lifestyles — which don’t have to be violent or extraordinary — but determined by the difference in one state of the muscle from the other determining the rate of flow. Conversely, a muscle contracted that never relaxes, impedes that flow, as much as a muscle that never contracts — which is usually discernible as movement.
The genius of the Nautilus machines by my friend and mentor Arthur Jones was that in designing his machines, he figured out in which position the muscle in isolation and rotating (moving) around a single axis, had to be contracted and where it had to be fully elongated (relaxed) — and more than lifting weights, that movement from one extreme to the other, effected the flow. But he determined that the maximum demand was produced by the focus on the shoulder and hip girdle involving the most and largest muscles — placing an extraordinary demand on the heart to accommodate, which is why it was experienced as the most demanding and stressful exercise one could possibly do — and for that reason, could not be sustained for more than a short cycle of around six weeks — which was the length of most studies.
Then they extrapolated that if such training could be sustained indefinitely, one would have remarkable gains — well into older ages, but almost everybody would have abandoned such training style from injury and the lack of inability to recover, or died of a heart condition. So I thought, how can such effective principles be applied for lifelong sustainability — even beyond 100. You make the muscles at the extremities work harder rather than the heart — beginning from the axes at the wrist, ankles, neck — which are the well-known sites of atrophy and functioning exhibited by most older people in an inflamed state by which they report as arthritis in the hands and feet, and more contemporarily, deteriorating brain function I noticed was associated with the lack of head movement as well.
But the most amazing thing was that the full extension and flexion of those areas, required the similar state of the supporting muscles proximal to the center of the body, where the heart is located — providing the perfect complement to the circulation problem. That is the fallacy in the thinking that all that is necessary to optimize the circulation for optimal health is to make the heart work harder and faster — instead of realizing that the proper focus should be of the movements at the extremities, which most exercises and exercise equipment ignore the importance of — and so the circulation is only optimized to the heart, while the critical organs at the extremities — including the brain, grip and balance and left to fend for themselves — and in many cases, die unattended deaths — while he heart alone goes on for another 20–30 years!
Now some are claiming that the “soleus pushup” is the second heart of the body — because in articulating the full range foot movement while sitting (and thus bearing no weight), it has that specific function — but that is also true for the extremities at the hands and most importantly, the brain — where even the brain specialists and dementia experts maintain that circulation makes absolutely no difference to that continued optimal functioning — as long as the heart is merrily beating away — as though that was all there was to it.
Thus the emphasis of exercise and movement is entirely misplaced — and simply doing more of what is not the solution is not going to make the problem go away. But when one identifies the proper vectors for study, then it becomes clear on why the human body fails in its characteristic way — despite whatever effort(s) are placed in that way. The obvious signs are the atrophy and deterioration at the neck, hands and feet — that when addressed, maintain the health of the rest of the body — because nothing else is possible.
A New Paradigm for Exercise
No amount of the wrong thing, will give the results of a proper amount of the right thing. Many think that just doing anything, will give them the results they desire, when in fact, only the right things will produce the desired results, and if that is not the case, they're doing the wrong things -- and usually, don't realize that. That explains why some people get results -- while many others make all the effort, but fail to achieve the results that should be forthcoming. Yet in contemporary life, we blur those distinctions as an end in itself -- with predictably disastrous results -- while thinking we are doing all the right things. The results speak for themselves. That would be unfortunate in any sphere of activities and endeavors.
So first, one should devote some time to understand what they are doing -- that is not working, and in that process, arrive at a better understanding of what must work. That's the way reality is. It's very predictable as long as one observes certain rules, and not merely as one likes. What makes things scientific is that predictability of results, and not just in thinking, that any result is as good as any other -- and that is the best we can hope for.
Those widely-divergent experiences and results, are unfortunately representative of the "average" experience -- and one hopes that in doing anything, one does not merely have an average result, but a decidedly exceptional one. That is true for healthy outcomes as much as it is hoped for in financial ones. To obtain that average result assumes that one should do nothing -- or continue doing what they have been doing -- even to no good effect. But those who are not content with the present status quo, are looking to change that, because change makes the impossible possible.
That is inherent in change: the possibility of improvement, as well as getting worse -- but then one realizes that, and seeks to improve their chances for a favorable outcome. Those who don't care, or who cannot tell the difference, will devolve to worse -- until they do care, or can tell the difference. That is the process of "bottoming out" -- which is the ultimatum for turning things around -- for those who still can. Those who continue to plunge further, are on their way out. Those are the "facts of life" for all forms. There is no wishing it will be otherwise.
So despite no guarantees of a successful outcome each and every time, we take our chances and do our best -- based upon what everything is telling us -- and not just wishing it were otherwise. Those are the basic lessons we hope to learn in school -- and those who are the most successful at learning them, go on to improve their lot in life. These are not closely-guarded secrets but obvious and visible to all. However, there will always be those who would want to sell you their vision of what is happening over what one's own common senses are telling them -- and that has been a problem for ages, of the ages.
Usually, that is only a temporary lapse, and one eventually recovers to get back on the right track, and that is learning from life -- and not just the schools anymore. The schools are not infallible -- but teach what is currently popular -- and are required to propagate as the truth. That changes from year to year, time to time, and many note, that the experts change their minds frequently -- or more accurately, a different set of experts rise, and the old guard falls into disrepute.
Thus depending on the time and circumstances, they may advise abstaining from water, and also drinking as much of it as possible -- as the ultimate truth of the matter, and so one has to determine what is true for themselves -- and any divergence from that strict obedience, is usually well within our ability to handle. Thus we won't starve to death if we're not force-feeding ourselves every hour, or become too muscular by exercising too much.
The greatest difference is between zero and one -- and not one with any other number. So the greatest advice one can receive, is just to do a little -- while avoiding the extremes, or as the ancients advised, "Everything in moderation." Then one proceeds from there -- to better or worse. That is the process of learning from everything -- and not only what the self-designated and self-proclaimed experts tell us is the truth -- and get everybody to (mindlessly) repeat. That's how the masses often go astray -- wondering who led them off the cliff.
The problem with exercise is making it hard and difficult so that it eventually eliminates everybody from further participation -- rather than making it so easy and simple, one can continue until their last breath -- as their last exercise. Before then, one is well-advised to maintain the movement and functioning at the head (neck), hands (wrist), and feet (ankles) -- over the heart, biceps and abdominals as a better gauge for their own health and well-being -- as lifelong measures we largely take for granted -- although everybody notes the obvious and visible deterioration that we accept as normal aging we can do nothing about. Those are the sites and organs that actually make the most difference. The hardest thing to see is the obvious.
That is a better indicator of the overall health and well-being of that individual -- more than the biceps, abdominals, and even heart. That is the easiest exercise one can do -- moving only at the head, hands and feet -- implying that the rest is working. But not necessarily vice-versa -- obviously.
Doing the Most Good -- Where it Most Matters
Optimizing the circulatory effect is how the body keeps itself healthy and functioning — by getting rid of the metabolic waste products first — to produce space for the new nutrients. That’s why those who exercise produce better health and beyond that, enables prodigious growth. That should be the rudimentary understanding of life processes.
We recognize that in the ABCs of First Aid and CPR (cardiopulmonary resuscitation). If there is no circulation of the vital fluids, then that person will imminently die — and the first to go will be the brain — because it is critically dependent on the flow of oxygen to the brain — which is effected by pressure differences caused by the contraction (compression) of the chest and lungs. Then when that pressure is released the space (vacuum) created will allow the higher atmospheric pressure to enter — and those are the conditions all life forms have evolved in. That is the greater environment and context of life — that no theory, gimmick, nutritional supplement, exercise apparatus can overrule.
In speaking of “exercise” as being the fabled elixir of health and life, what is frequently overlooked is this importance of the circulation (flow) to the brain (head), hands and feet — resulting in those organs and areas being the first to go — in most aging and deteriorating people. Those are the obvious and most visible “markers” of the underlying health and vitality of any individual — whether there is range of movement at the axis of the joints at those furthest extremities — because they really imply the rest.
Whether throwing or hitting a baseball, tennis ball, basketball, etc., most people fail to note that the turning of the wrist determines the success of the outcome. Likewise, the success at running, jumping, climbing, etc., is determined by the range of movement at the ankle — and not the knee, hips, or heart. Those are more obvious, but much less noticed and apparent to most is that the head movement is critical to the functioning of all the head senses — requiring one to turn their head to place their eyes, ears and nose in the proper position to optimize their functioning and usefulness. That is how a person knows what is going on around them — and not from the information they get from screens and books — not requiring them to turn their heads for that information.
Thus the neck muscles famously atrophy for lack of that engagement and functioning — which affects its circulatory effectiveness — because that specific contraction of the neck muscles as seen in the most prolific performers, can no longer be taken for granted — but must be given the highest priority when it is understood how movement at that joint, directly determines the flow. Thus, no matter how much attention is given to maintaining and developing the biceps and the abdominal muscles, or even the heart (which is an autonomic function), the most critical organs of the human body will be the first to atrophy and deteriorate from this misplaced attention and effort — even diverting those resources away from where they would do the most good.
And thus we have the familiar pattern of aging and atrophying and the neck, hands and feet in most older people — even as they work their larger muscles more — at the hip and shoulder girdle, and sometimes not even that in the case of most cardio machines that require nothing from an upper body movement. It is then pure heart action — which is automatic and appropriate to whatever the voluntary muscles require — and doesn’t need this exclusive attention. The failure to move is occurring at the furthest extremities — which is the problem, and no amount of doing the wrong thing, will rectify or improve. It will in fact, make the imbalance and disproportion worse.
That is precisely the problem of older bodybuilders in competition. Most invariably have atrophied lower legs, lower arms, and pencil (dental floss) necks — which would not happen if they only developed their lower legs (calf), lower arms (forearms), and neck muscles because that development requires the development of all the muscles proximal to the center of the body — but doesn’t happen if the range of movement doesn’t extend beyond the movement at the shoulders or hips. Why a person would want to do that is the reason exercise becomes less effective as one ages — when properly conceived, it should be doing them the most good — where it most matters.
Manifesting Results
Back in the innocent days of weightraining in the 1950s and 1960s, the publishers of the leading magazines on these activities, Bob Hoffman (Strength & Health), and Perry Rader (Iron Man), both advocated 20 repetitions of the breathing squat alternated with 20 repetitions of the breathing pullover as the foundation for any bodybuilding program. The weight suggested was largely irrelevant, as the primary importance was on the proper and deep breathing rhythm — and so bodybuilders (weight trainers), were largely distinguished by this prodigious development of their ribcage — upon which they added everything else. Even the most prolific bench presser of that time, Pat Casey had a very pronounced barrel chest from doing pullovers — rather than the bench press — presumably because the pullovers were done with the primary attention to full range breathing in high repetition sets, while the bench press were usually done for much fewer repetitions — without the attention to breathing but actually holding their breath for the duration of their one rep maximum.
Thus weighlifting and weight training came to be regarded as an anaerobic activity — because it was not empowered by breathing — which makes any activity aerobic (with breathing). Many people who think they are training to muscular failure in this fashion are instead failing because of cardiovascular failure because the weight constricts their breathing — as they not only shorten the range of movement for each subsequent lift, but also shorten the range of their breathing — and the effectiveness of breathing, is dependent on the last half of it, rather than the first half of it — when the air is moving only in and out of the windpipe and upper half of the lungs. The air that remains in the lungs, is called residual air, and blocks the freshest air from reaching the bottom portion of the lungs where the critical exchange of gases occurs.
The important part of breathing, is thus the fullest exhalation of air from the lungs, and not as most people think, that they need to breathe in most deeply or forcefully. You cannot force more air into an already filled lung. The proper understanding and strategy, is to breathe out as thoroughly as possible — so that any air entering into the lungs, has a chance to reach that critical interface where fine lung tissue meets fine blood vessels for that valuable exchange. Faster, harder breathing does not overcome the problem because it merely moves the air in and out of the windpipe and upper lung, while the residual air in the lungs blocks the most efficient exchange.
That is why modern First Aid and Cardiopulmonary Resuscitation came to realize that mouth to mouth breathing is redundant if one is doing chest compressions — because the chest compressions expel the residual air in the lungs — while blowing more air into an already half-filled lung, doesn’t do much additional good — because when the compression vacates the lungs, when the pressure is released alternatively, the atmospheric pressure of 15 lbs per square inch automatically fills the vacuum created by those compressions.
Unfortunately, that understanding and its resulting benefit, has been largely lost in today’s exercise/bodybuilding hype/jargon of the blind leading the blind — for $500 weekend certificates of expertise as exercise gurus — when all that it was originally intended to “certify,” was that one obtained the First Aid and CPR as a prerequisite to signing up for their exercise certification.
In most of the exercises that are taught, producing this breathlessness is taught as a desirable thing, rather than synchronizing the movement and activity to the breathing, to produce an even greater deficit — rather than increasing the aerobic capacity and ability to persist (endure). And so this kind of premature “failure” is produced, rather than the more productive emphasis on endurance and persistence which produce long term benefits over the short term performance. That former is likely to be much more productive over a lifetime than the one time thrill of going over the cliff — no matter how spectacular.
Unfortunately, that is the kind of orientation most young people have today — of being too eager to jump on the treadmill, and wind themselves as quickly as possible, or simply burning as many calories as possible — as though that was all there is to it. The more valuable questioned unanswered, is what can one be doing productively with that expenditure of time, energy and resources. We all note that the critically important vital activity of life is breathing and circulation — but not in the direction we think of it. It is the exhalation that determines the effectiveness — and not as it is thought, the inhalation, or taking a deep breath in — an already filled lung.
In the same way, we also mistake the overworking of the heart and lungs as the measure of the effectiveness of the other muscles we wish to develop — and their failure as indicators of actual muscle failure. That is the problem with most videos of people purportedly training to muscular failure — when because of excessive weights used, actually cause a constriction of their breathing — or no breathing at all. The proper course and proven remedy, is to do as those old tine bodybuilders did — in taking a light weight and placing primary importance on their breathing and muscle relaxation and contraction only possible with nominal weights over a sustained time. Instead, what we most often see in gyms and other venues, is low rep maximums, with liberal rest times that account for 90% of their gym time — while claiming they are training to muscular failure, while predictably reporting that they experience no muscle soreness in subsequent days.
And thus they have the time, energy and recovery ability to go to the gym five times a week — yet get no results, and wonder why? Obviously, one hasn’t done anything that would alter that fact — because even the grade school pupil will show how one “makes a muscle” — immediately and instantly — and not wait around for a year for the results to manifest.
If You Have a Problem, Don't Do Something Else
It seems simple and obvious -- that if there is a problem, one should prioritize the solving of that -- rather than going on to do something else, because if not addressed as the priority, it will negatively impact everything else one does -- even rendering them incapable of doing anything else.
That fundamental response to life should form the core of all one's learning and knowledge -- and not that everything is equally worth knowing and doing -- because in the end, everything will come out the same. Of primary importance is the proper sequence of what and how things are done. That is what we have formalized as the protocols of what must be done -- even if they are reformulized from time to time. But until then, that was the best we knew then -- until we knew better. That is how human progress and evolution happens.
That is the basis of knowledge -- and not that we began with perfect knowledge that has eroded with time and experience. In this regard, the understanding of circulation is still in its infancy -- but it underlies life as its essential necessity. When circulation ceases, all life processes it supports ceases -- and so does life for that individual because circulation is the means with which that individual interacts and is fed by its environment -- from air, water, atmospheric pressure, toxicity, enhancements, and of course, all those around them -- as the transactions and exchanges of daily living.
Most of us take all that for granted -- unless we are suddenly deprived of that constant supply -- but far more likely is the many ways we voluntarily isolate and cut oneself off from that supply -- in our life choices and daily habits. Far and away the most common in contemporary lives, is how we immobilize ourselves in our daily (constant) activities -- which we frequently describe as the sedentary life -- but if we dive more deeply into the fundamental problem, it is not so much the sitting that is bad, but the lack of movement and articulation at the neck, wrists and ankles that are critical to the understanding of circulation problems -- particularly at the head, hands and feet, and their subsequent functioning.
Thus when I had occasion to interact with lifeless people to see if I could help restore movement and thus liveliness in them -- unlike the physical therapists who had much more demanding requirements of them -- I simply wanted to know if they could move anything at all, or were responsive in the least (and not the most demanding) ways. That is the juncture at which one determines whether further efforts can be meaningful and productive, or whether nothing makes a difference anymore -- despite how loudly one can turn up the volume on these demands.
A favorite activity of the inactive, is to stare at a television all day -- requiring not even eye movement -- much less head movement, and naturally, without that movement, the muscles and other tissues atrophy -- because it is dependent upon that circulation, which is minimal because there is no change of state in the muscles of that area. They always remain flaccid, and because of that, there is no flow -- which is greatly effected by muscular contractions as the underlying recommendation for exercise. But it is not enough just to make the heart work harder and faster that enhances the circulation, as it is that specific voluntary muscles and their contraction determine the effectiveness of the work of the heart.
That is self-evidently why people who only work the heart muscle harder and faster to the exclusion of all else, don't develop the muscular propensity of those who realize that the most important function and work of every muscle is to mimic the heart in this pumping action -- rather than the lifting of weights, running, jumping, throwing and hitting, so that in the design of the ultimate exercise program, that would be far and away of primary importance and consideration. This is particularly important in developing fitness maintenance for space programs, or other extraordinary conditions in which the conventional and traditional thinking on such matters are ineffective and fail utterly.
The important "work" performed is not the lifting of weights, or the running of miles, but the effectiveness of optimally circulating the blood and other fluids to sustain optimal health within the body. Every other consideration becomes moot. That is where conventional and traditional thinking on exercise fails entirely -- in this absence of resistance -- in the conventional way we are used to thinking about it. But obviously, life can continue and be maintained inside of the body -- where there is still "resistance," but that inertia is caused by the lack of flow, and what produces it, is the contraction of the voluntary muscles of the body.
But with 600-800 muscles in the body, where would one begin (prioritize)? Logically, it would be to prioritize the most important organs of the body -- which is the hands, feet and head -- which most take for granted as being adequately and automatically provided for. However, they generally have to ignore or deny the deterioration in the functioning of those quintessentially human organs as the first signs that something is less than optimal in the functioning of that body. It is just assumed that that is where the deterioration might begin -- as the well-established pattern of what we call "aging." But rather than nothing can be done about it, the primary improvement of such areas should be the first we think of to optimize the circulation, development and even growth (improvement) throughout life -- rather than being an afterthought, and inessential.
In more primitive times, it was more obvious as the most essential -- and not simply the ornamental and cosmetic. But the interesting thing is that if functioning and development precedes from that primary importance, the rest of the bodily structures are supportive of that development -- as the well-proportioned physiques of the past -- rather than the arbitrary development one sees today as the fashionable ideal -- that with time and age, becomes increasingly irrelevant, and even preposterous.
The small organ of the heart cannot force blood through the capillaries (fine blood vessels) -- if it is already full. But muscular contractions at the extremities, will forcefully propel blood and fluids out of tissues in the direction it has to go -- back towards the center of the body. That is the vascular part of the cardio(vascular) part of the equation that is just as essential to give meaning to the circulation. To measure only the heart as the effectiveness of the circulation, is tantamount to placing the thermostat in the furnace -- and not at the farthest reaches one hopes to provide heat to. But rather than devising a measuring device to observe that, one can simply observe the range of motion that is expressed at the axes of movement at the wrist, ankles, and neck -- and the resulting contraction and relaxation of those muscles immediately manifested.
That is, one doesn't have to wait a year or even six months to witness -- but is apparent in every individual no matter what shape they think they are in -- and also apparent, to those otherwise considered "fit," but deficient in those specific developments -- and functioning. Just making the heart work harder and faster is not going to solve the problem. They have to specifically optimize the flow to where it is deficient and deteriorating, otherwise, the surgeon could just operate on ANY organ, and wonder why it does not solve the problem -- even though the operation was a success. Life does not "average out" that way -- so that anything is as good as any other thing. One should be sure they are measuring the right things -- and not just what is easiest and most convenient to measure -- or most profitable.
Understanding Flow
There’s nothing magical about weights and equipment; the magic is in understanding how the body works — and not unceasingly more effort with the wrong understanding — in the thinking that brute force is what works. That is why things break — rather than work better.
So the critical understanding in why exercise works is that optimizing the circulation optimizes the health and functioning in every living being. In mammals that revolves around the constant pumping of the heart to effect the blow flow out to the extremities — but the problem then is that when the capillaries are already full (occupied), the heart cannot simply force the flow through. At that point, it requires the assistance of the muscles at the extremities to contract as the heart does — to effect the flow back towards the heart and central purifying/recycling organs of the body — and when it does that and then alternates a relaxation of those muscles, it has created space (vacuum) for the blood from the heart to enter with new nutrients for new growth. That is the reason muscles and their supporting systems grow, maintain, become healthier, and more proficient.
In the early days of evolution, life required movements to sustain life itself — but now with modern conveniences, it is quite possible for many people not to have to move at all — and so the blood and fluids don’t have these contractions that push the fluids out of the tissues — and so we see the common occurrence of inflammation (retained toxic waste products) that remain in the tissues and that buildup, destroys the nerves — in the peculiar neuropathies notable particularly at the extremities of the hands, feet, and head.
That commonly used to be called arthritis of the hands and feet, but also is noticeable in the atrophying of the neck muscles indicative of a reduced flow to the most critical part of the human body (the brain) — which most people think nothing can be done about it but to succumb to the inevitable aging process. In fact, when I pointed out this lack of head movement in those with dementias, I was told that the head can’t move — which of course is a huge part of the problem, because the head, hands and feet are made for moving — with its fine bones and intricate muscularity. That is what we don’t move in contemporary life — and why people come down with inflammatory diseases.
But the human is designed also with the capability to maintain and improve its health — by design. Muscles contract when the insertion (distal) of a muscle moves towards the origin (proximal) of that muscle — and never vice-versa, so that any contraction by its very design, will push the fluids in that muscle towards the heart and not away from it. But if one is only effecting that contraction at the shoulder girdle or the hip girdle, no contraction (movement) will take place beyond that axis of rotation (movement). That is why “cardio” will only make the heart work harder and faster — while doing nothing for any other muscle, and it shows in those who only do that, in the pipestem arms and legs, and pencil necks — no matter how much they cardio. The problem is not (never) that the heart is not working sufficiently hard — but the rest of the skeletal (voluntary) muscles are doing nothing — most, if not all the time.
The circulation is automatic at least to a minimal (life-sustaining) extent, but intentional and deliberate exercise (movement) at the furthest axes of the wrists, ankles, and neck — will optimize the flow to the most important and critical organs of the human body — and naturally have to develop the rest of the body in its natural predispositions and proportions — because nothing else is possible. That is not true of exercise and movements that immobilize those movements — and focus only on the heart, biceps, and abdominals.
While that is not so problematical with people in good health, it is nonproductive and even aggravates the problems of poor health — particularly in the senior, disabled and terminal populations. Having taught exercise from world class athletes to terminal, one notes that what works for the terminal, will also work for the world class athlete, but not vice-versa — because those are the general principles of physics and physiology that must work for everybody — and not just the exceptional one. That is the mistake all my friends made in designing exercise programs for the exceptional — rather than for everyone — beginning with what is most important to develop in every human being. And then beginning with this universal basics, the exceptional will rise above the crowd and display exceptional aptitude. That’s how it happens.
One will note that the furthest range of movement at the wrists, ankles, and neck — will engage and activate all the supporting muscle structures back towards the center of the body — along those meridians ending at what the ancient Chinese health practitioners called the “dantian.” Increasing the range of movement at the ankles, wrists, and neck triggers the supporting muscles back towards this center next to the heart where all the muscles are anchored. Understanding this interrelationship of all the muscles and how it is possible to effect a contraction in all or most of the muscles at once, is essential to obtaining the maximum benefits of circulation (movement), and how it can be practiced in outer space and other extraordinary conditions — because the conditions that keep one alive internally, are still intact.
The resistance is the fluid in the body — and that is what has to be moved, or life will cease. If it is optimized, then life and health will flourish — beyond the metrics by which it is often discussed, because beyond the weight, reps, distance, that is the bigger picture — over an entire lifetime, and not just the one moment of glory. So that is all one needs to understand to formulate their own effective and productive health regimen — effecting maximum contraction alternating with maximum relaxation so that the entirety of the muscular system works like the heart — rather than against it.
Are Bodyweight Exercises as Good as Weights?
The presumption most people make is to think that bodyweight is zero — when in fact, many beginning exercisers are obese or overweight, and so at a great disadvantage doing only bodyweight exercises. The simplest example is doing a pullup; nine out of ten untrained people cannot do even one pullup — and so that exercise becomes prohibitive to them. But also, nine out of ten of the world’s strongest men competitors also cannot do even one pullup.
So in that simple case, a bodyweight exercise of this type, would be useless to them. The great advantage of weight-training equipment is not that one can add more weight, but can adjust the weight DOWN in that movement to whatever their present weakness is — and build up their strength from there by doing the movement properly, rather than doing it improperly and dangerously from the get-go, and not only not getting any benefit from their exercise, but dramatically increasing their risk for serious injury, or even death.
A few people can do bodyweight exercises productively — because they are genetically gifted in that way. Those are the gymnasts who have exceptional builds for it — but they are not the average person. Those people have a greater than normal power to weight ratio — just like the dancers who can stand on their toes — but everybody else would break their toes or necks attempting to do so.
Those are the prodigies in every human activity, and why it is important for every individual to find out what they are designed and built for — to have this competitive advantage in their undertakings and life. Finding that out accurately and honestly, requires one to lower the bar to where they can perform such movements expertly — as many times as they have to, because it is the precision of form that is the mastery no matter what the resistance and circumstances.
That’s why the world champion lifters will start off with just the bar — and if they do that precisely, will go up in weight — but it is counterproductive just to slap on more weight doing who knows what, and wonder why an injury puts an end to that manner of training/activity. In weight-training, the most productive parts are the beginning and the ending positions — which are avoided by most trainees because that is the truly hard part to get right. That is the full relaxation changing into the full contraction — instead of maintaining a midrange contraction and leveraging the weight up and then letting gravity lower the weight down. We know gravity works very well.
But what we really wish to know — is the state of greatest muscular relaxation, and the state of greatest muscular contraction — that only the heart muscle must act in that way, and because of it, performs the critically important work of pumping blood out to the extremities. When the skeletal muscles act in that way, they pump the blood and fluids back towards the heart — and that rate of flow (effectiveness) is determined by the difference between the relaxed state and contracted state.
When lifting overly heavy weights (including one’s own bodyweight), the muscle has to maintain at least that level of contraction — and if there is no relaxation phase, the muscle will fail rather than persist indefinitely sufficient to complete a task. That is the value and manner of work — and not just one and done, in as sloppy a style as one can get away with. And though many will think it doesn’t matter precisely what one is doing, in everything, that is all that matters — and distinguishes success from failure.
Thus the importance of using as light a weight as one feels comfortable to enable relaxation — is that they can go into complete relaxation, and then extend the range of that movement beyond the normal limits of the bone on bone lockout — that also cannot be accessed unless the weight (resistance) is light enough to allow that extended range of movement. That is largely what differentiates the prodigy from everyone else — their range is unparalleled, rather than their effort. In fact, they make every movement seem easy and effortless — rather than looking as hard as possible. That is the way one is conditioning to be — all one’s life.
For that reason, bodyweight exercises are usually prohibitive — while extremely light weights allow the fullest range from contraction to relaxation — and why the eccentric contraction (lowering the weight slowly) will result in increasing muscle soreness — because thee muscle is not allowed to relax — but maintains its contraction while necessarily holding one’s breath. This does not allow work to be performed aerobically (with breathing), but causes premature failing of the cardiovascular system rather than a neuromuscular failure. That is, one stops because one no longer has sufficient air to continue — because one has disrupted the breathing pattern that allows air to move in and out as required/needed.
Competitive bodybuilders frequently pass out by maintaining constant contraction — which constricts breathing, and looks tense. Most physique photos are taken in this hyper-contracted state — whereas in earlier times, muscularity was expressed in the relaxed muscular state — as idealized in the sculpture of the ancient Romans and Greeks. Muscles convey this natural flow and development.
Manifesting Reality
People are shocked to learn that with proper weight-training, they can see results immediately — but with improper weight-training, they might not see results ever — and so the key difference, is this “proper” weight-training — rather than time, or any other factor. In this case, “proper” is what causes this instant and immediate transformation. This is particularly true among the top bodybuilders/physique competitors — who all come in looking pretty athletic looking, but in pumping up, differentiate themselves. That is the unique gift of bodybuilders — but can be observed in the most untrained and out of condition people as well — once they know how to contract their muscles — to put themselves in the shape they want to be in.
The easiest illustration of this, is asking a person to turn their heads to the left as far as possible, and then back to the right as far as possible. With each extreme range of movement, the sternomastoid muscle on the side of the neck will pop out into prominence — usually best seen on the ballet dancers who invariably have their photos taken in that position — so they always look good. However, I’ve never seen it fail to manifest even in people in the worst condition — and is even more important for people who never move at all, and are perceived as ‘unresponsive.” Among such people, even the slightest movement would be encouraging — as a sign that they still are interacting with the world and those around them. Otherwise they sit like motionless statues all day, or lie in bed motionless and so have to even be turned over not to develop bed sores. And they can even live on for years in that manner.
That is the opposite end of the spectrum of movement and activities. But if you can get that person to turn their head all the way to the left, and all the way to the right, those resulting contractions are causing a flow into the head, and beyond seeing results from a workout, one is actually bringing one back to life — or in Biblical times, raising the dead. That is much more spectacular then losing weight and making a muscle.
Eventually, that is important for every one of us — but on the normal part of the life curve, muscles are the organs that produce change — from one state to another, and that alternation, is what produces blood and fluid flow — with the heart at the center, and the rest of the voluntary musculature at the extremities. While the heart is always likely to be working, it frequently is the case in contemporary life that one does not activate the muscles of the rest of the body — which is how the system was evolved to work, and provide for the health of that individual.
But the lack of movement, particularly at the axes (joints) of the neck, wrists, and ankles are the sites where the human body familarly breaks down first — as arthritis of the hands, feet, and brain (dementias) because of that poorest circulation there. That’s the simplest and most basic understanding of the body and movement. Movement enhances that flow — and so there is no movement at those critical axes, the body breaks down, or fails to develop properly and optimally. People who manifest “results,” are those who know how to effect those changes the best — including immediately in some action or transformation in appearance. This ability actually is observable in all animal species and forms.
More often than people suspect, just looking big and formidable might spare them the need to have to prove it in an actual fight — which saves a lot of wear and tear to fight only the battles that absolutely must be fought — and not as the juveniles do, by engaging in every push to establish their rank in the pecking order. That’s the connection we all still have to primal life. That is the survival of the fitness.
So that capacity to manifest instant results are part of the standard capabilities; unfortunately, most have never learned how to manifest these capabilities — rather than actually having lost it. That is one’s basic survival kit — and the importance of distinguishing proper (productive) exercise and improper (nonproductive — and even counterproductive) exercises and conditioning, That distinction makes a huge difference — manifesting instantly and immediately — as needed.
Being in shape is mainly a function of how well one can produce those changes — from as relaxed as possible, to as contracted as possible — to access the power to change. Many experts don’t manifest this ability — and so they claim it will require a few months to see any changes — when that is the whole nature of muscle — that it produces instant and immediate change. If it takes a year to see any change, probably nothing is happening — and is likely to remain that way for years to come. That is the plight of those who will never change — no matter what the results, or lack of them. Still, they will persist in believing they are doing everything “right” — despite not manifesting any difference, or change, and so predictably, they get discouraged — thinking exercise can’t work, although some have shown “results.” It should be obvious that they are not doing the same thing as that other person — although they may think they are.
Thus Arthur Jones created the Nautilus machines to ensure that all trainees were on the same page, “Foolproof,” he claimed. Those machines provided “variable resistance through the full range of movement around a single axis” — starting with his Pullover and then Hip and Back machine to focus movement at the hip and shoulder girdles. However, those movements only optimize the muscles up to those axes of rotation — but as age plays out, the atrophy and deterioration begins beyond those axes to the hands, feet, and head. You want to design movements for the axes of the extremities to benefit those vulnerabilities of the human body for a long, productive and healthy life.
Those changes are not a function of time — but a measure of doing the proper thing — like turning the head as far as one can. That immediately contracts the neck muscle — and the resistance at that point, is in increasing that range of possibility. The movement itself produces resistance — especially at the most important extremes — the beginning and the ending. That is what most people don’t do — preferring instead, a narrow midrange movement — even holding their breath to achieve it.
Some people have the ability to pump up to impressive size and appearance. That is a “result.” If there is a qualifier that it must be “permanent,” then no condition is. Life is always changing, and all we know is the present moment (now). Doing is manifesting reality.
Creating the Ultimate Stationary Bike
Whether designing an exercise program for a world-class athlete -- or the senior, disabled, even terminal -- the most important consideration is the design of what it was meant to do, and how best to optimize that functioning, and with this understanding of what it was meant for, achieve its best performance and maintenance (health).
Without this proper understanding, any amount of effort is likely to be unproductive and discouraging -- rather than the key to health and vitality -- for as long as they live, and not that they suffer a catastrophic event or injury, and swear off exercise for the rest of their lives -- with predictably disastrous results.
Exercise is the process by which one keeps their body in its optimal health and functioning -- and with seniors particularly, we see the lifelong impacts of what they've done -- good, bad, and indifferent. It doesn't take a rocket scientist or brain surgeon to see this. Most people do in the ordinary course of their day. It's obvious even to the untrained and unindoctrinated -- which people are healthy and which people are not -- and if they are predatory and exploitative, they select the least able as their targets -- rather than the most formidable. One does not need to be a human to understand those differences. Every form of life makes those distinctions -- because it is immensely advantageous to do so, and their very life may depend on it.
That is the importance of looking around and making those discriminations -- rather than thinking that nothing makes a difference -- or should, and the results are all the same no matter what one does. That's not a prescription for success in anything one does. The successful make it their practice to observe the relationship of one thing to every other -- and determine the critical path of cause and effects -- from all the other co-incidences, that may or may not be related, or significant.
Chief among these is the thinking that expenditure of energy accounts for the results -- when clearly, the master practitioners of every activity, are those who are the most economical and efficient -- rather than those who are the most profligate in their expenditures -- as though they will always have unlimited time, energy and resources to burn. Understandably, it matters more, the older they get -- rather than thinking as the novice does -- that those considerations will always be unlimited, and even multiplied, the more one wastes of it.
The world doesn't work that way. It wants to achieve maximum efficiency and economy of resources -- and the whole design of living organisms is to achieve that effect. There is a reason muscles contract from the insertion at the distal (furthest) end towards the proximal (closest to the center) or origin of that muscle, which then is inserted into the insertion of the supporting (proximal) muscle -- all the way back to the origin of all the muscles at the center next to the heart -- so in that way and manner, the blood and fluids can return to the central organs that purify and recycle those waste products for the next cycle of circulation.
If that movement doesn't occur, then the body is overcome with accumulated waste products (inflammation) and one see the typical bloating at the extremities of the hands, feet and head -- experienced as the neuropathies, arthritis, dementias in those tissues before the others. That's why exercise can be so effective at (re)moving them -- because that is what the muscle contractions do. The contractions at the extremities push the blood (fluids) forcefully back towards the heart -- which the heart cannot do no matter how hard or fast it is forced to work. That is not its job: its job is just to pump the blood out to the extremities -- but if the extremities do not contract to force the residual blood and fluids out beforehand, it cannot go into those tissues -- because that is not how the system is designed to work.
Recently, some exercise researchers have proclaimed that the calf muscles are the second "heart" of the body because it does that. But that is a misnomer because the heart is a very specialized and dedicated muscle that can do only one thing -- contract fully and relax fully -- which is the action of a pump. While the skeletal muscles allow one to run, jump, throw, bat, look around, etc., if it contracts fully alternated with a full relaxation for a sustained period of time, it too acts as a pump.
Most people have been conditioned to think that it is resistance that produces the contraction and the relaxation -- instead of more properly, the range of muscle contraction and relaxation achieved in moving any muscle around its axis of rotation -- regardless if there is any resistance. The resistance then, is provided by attempting to increase the range of movement in the contracted position -- and the relaxed position -- otherwise one could move infinitely in any direction they desired, which only a rare few seem to be able to do.
Such full range movements are particularly important at the axes of the joints at the furthest extremity, because it means that that entire area is being cleared and creating space for new nutrients that provide all the necessary requirements for health and growth -- but first getting rid of the accumulated toxins that arise from metabolic processes in addition to an accelerated load produced in exercise that requires the break down of cells to release energy and waste products. Thus one experiences muscle fatigue and resulting soreness at an accelerated pace in recovery.
The peculiarity of modern exercise design is to eliminate the movements at the extremities in favor of movement at the more central joints (axes) of the shoulder and hip girdle -- and so the accumulation of these waste products are likely to continue throughout one's life -- despite all the exercise they are apparently doing -- that merely works their heart harder and faster, and moderately more at the shoulder and hip axes where there is considerably less than full range of articulation at those joints -- which is the reason they can persist in such movements virtually indefinitely.
A full, and even extreme contraction, alternated by a full, and even extreme relaxation, will cause the muscle to fatigue and fail in about 50 repetitions -- in virtually everyone. That is true muscular failure as opposed to a premature cardiovascular failure which causes the trainee to stop because they are not breathing but actually holding their breath, or breathing so shallowly as to effectively not be breathing -- which like the heart, requires the fullest contraction, alternated with a full relaxation -- because that is the requirement of the branch-like structures of the lungs -- as well as the circulatory system (blood vessels). Because of that specific structure, the old has to be expelled first, for the new to come in -- because that is the environment that life on this planet evolved in. Nature will not allow a vacuum to persist in this ecosystem.
In ancient times, it was thought that the important part in breathing was to draw the air in -- rather than as we realized, the compression (contraction) creates a vacuum which Nature in the atmospheric pressure will fill. But in the old understanding of breathing, one was instructed to blow more air into a lung that was already mostly full -- but since the air must follow a fixed and systematic pathway, the old air never gets out. And so one was better off just eliminating the mouth to mouth breathing disrupting the chest compressions in Cardiopulmonary Resuscitation (CPR) because chest compressions is the movement of air in and out he of the body (breathing) -- rather than trapping the air within the lungs -- which is counterproductive to what one hopes to be achieving.
So once we have a clear understanding of what is healthful and productive to the body, it is a simple matter of designing exercise to achieve those desirable effects. It is the full range articulation at the joints furthermost from the heart -- rather than closest to it that is the most healthful and productive -- which includes the critically important organs of the head, hands and feet which people famously fail at as the notable signs of aging specifically. I suspect, for most, it does not matter that they can still finish a marathon -- if it looks like they should be dead -- or are in pretty good shape for a person who looks so old.
The reason they look so old is because of inadequate (suboptimal) blood flow to their most telling organs of the head, hands and feet -- in not addressing those problems directly -- and easily. But it doesn't matter if one still has washboard abs or peaked biceps -- if the circulation from and to the most telling organs of the body, are not accounted for as the priority of where the circulation matters the most. As for the heart, it doesn't need to be consciously programmed; it has evolved to work perfectly -- automatically.
As a scientist, one tests the variables -- and not the constant -- and in that manner, knows how to make the biggest difference directly and expressly -- and not just hoping doing any ol' thing, will get them the desired results.
The Future of Exercise
In order of descending importance, the organs which one would most want to improve, are the head, hands and feet — which conventional exercises pay very little attention to and frequently regard as nothing more than stumps, but which will always make the greatest difference in one’s health, development and functioning. This is also the reason that conventional exercises don’t seem to work as one gets older and really needs them to work — because it increasingly becomes a matter of life and death. When one is young, it seems that everything can work — even if they are uncertain what does work from all their frenetic activity. Thus we .typically see the legendary bodybuilder or athlete, who is dumbstruck in their later years, that what they thought worked, doesn’t now, when it matters the most.
One doesn’t have to be a rocket scientist, brain surgeon, or god forbid, a PE teacher to notice that the familiar pattern of deterioration and aging at the neck, hands and feet where circulation is poorest, and the simple value of exercise, is that it enhances the circulation specifically to those areas actually moved at those joints, or axis of rotation. There is movement around those joints because the muscles providing that movement either shorten (contract) or lengthen (relax), and that alternation of the contraction with a relaxation, produces the pumping effect — just as the heart does in pumping the blood out towards the extremities.
However, once they get out to the capillaries, the heart which weighs less than a pound, cannot push the blood through the miles of capillaries, but are reliant on the skeletal muscles to contract and push the blood back towards the heart as its motive force, and upon relaxation, has cleared space for the new blood and nutrients to easily enter. That understanding greatly reduces the work of the heart while enhancing the circulatory effect.
Many scientists, researchers and exercisers have come to realize that the source of all disease and deterioration in the human body is due to inflammation —or the lack of this efficient and effective circulation. And so the fluids merely pool in the tissues — in the familiar forms of fluid retention (edema, lymphedema, lipedema, obesity, neuropathy, arthritis, etc). Properly thought out muscle contractions alternated with relaxations, optimizes the flow that keeps the body healthy, growing, and functioning (moving). The moving is also the lubrication for such movements.
None of this has to be traumatic or dramatic — but can be achieved just with the proper understanding of these cause and effects. It has very little to do with the common markers for such achievement — such as calories expended, sweat generated, weight lifted, miles moved, etc. The relevant and productive movement, is what occurs at the neck, wrist and ankles — and everything else is a lot less important — particularly for productive exercise as one ages, is disabled, or even hopeless. If one increases the flow to the brain, one has already made a quantum leap in improvement, and then next in importance, improved the flow to the hands, and then the feet — which is the usual progression of deterioration of the human body.
In the long evolution of the human being, these movements were necessary to insure one’s survival. If one was incapable of turning their head, they had no idea what dangers lurked behind them. And then when they recognized the dangers, the ability to throw a rock, or a spear, required the proper flick of the wrist to perfect that accuracy — just as one shoots a basketball, throws a ball, and hits with a racquet oor bat. It is the wrist movement that gives that effort meaning. Similarly, the full articulation of the foot movement acts as a lever against the earth (ground) — allowing them to maneuver into the most advantageous place or position. So merely shuffling one’s feet with no such leveraging effect, does very little to maintain that mobility and circulation. The hands and feet are not just stumps — but actually the marvel of human evolution — along with a large brain.
That advantageous equipment does not come without a high cost — and justifying the highest expenditure of resources to optimize. So once one has that critical understanding of the body, and how it was designed and evolved to work, then one can hone those faculties into finely tuned instruments — rather than the brute force one thinks works miracles. It’s like the cell phone. It works much better the more one understands how it is designed to work, rather than using it as a hammer on every occasion and opportunity.
On days when r I feel particularly lazy and lethargic, I know the best thing I can do to wake up is to increase the flow to my head — which means turning it as far to the left and then right — at least for a count of 50, or at least a minute of sustained movement. Any sustained effort, will raise the heart rate above the resting heart — which is automatically “cardio.” And the 50 repetitions ensures that it is also an aerobic exercise — done “with breathing” — as opposed to only one or two repetitions without breathing — which is very stressful and demanding on the heart. One will frequently note that exercisers of that sort, frequently have enlarged, weakened hearts because of the unfairly disproportionate demands placed on the heart with minimal contractions at the extremities — inn the condition known as congestive heart failure — which is so named in the belief that it is the fault of the heart for not working hard enough — while the organs at the extremities remain immobilized. And so the fluids continue to accumulate to what seems the bursting point of what the skin can contain. It’s not a pleasant sight — and in its extreme forms, those appendages are heavily wrapped and further immobilized.
All the more need to produce muscular contractions at those tissues — while reducing the work the heart has to do. That is a large part of the aging process — that the heart gets weaker, necessitating the need for the skeletal (voluntary) muscles should contribute more to that healthful circulation — as the most important work it can do. Far beyond any competitive activity or sport. The problem is that many people make a game of it, rather than realize it is seriously the best thing one can do — with their muscles — to ensure their health and fitness.
That is the future of exercise.
Easy Does It
The worst advice on exercise is to make it harder all the time -- aiming for a point beyond one's present capacities, and never being satisfied with one has actually done. That kind of "negative" conditioning will cause one to abandon all efforts -- when just a persistent modest effort, would make a huge difference. That becomes a huge factor in later life -- when one is often defeated and discouraged before one does anything at all -- and falls further into despair and hopelessness as their fate from here on out. Why does it have to be that way?
Few have asked that right question because they;ve ben conditioned from the start to accept that Commandment -- as though it embodied some truth, or great wisdom -- rather than headinng in the right direction in seeking the path of least resistance -- which is the better way, Why would one voluntarily take the most perilous and laborious path -- when it would make more sense take the easy and safest route -- in just about everything?
So we have been conditioned in the wrong direction and least rewarding and productive path -- as though it was some kind of wisdom and great virtue. Why shouldn't we pick the low hanging fruit first -- and then only if necessary, and driven to it, would be to climb the most precarious branches -- even as impressive as that may be. In this manner, we have been conditioned wrongly -- by people who don't know any better, to take the difficult and impossible path, rather than the easiest to ensure their success and rewards.
Such a strategy is particularly important the older one becomes -- and how difficult every becomes. They want to know the easiest and most productive way to do anything -- and particularly, the momentarily impossible. It is by making the impossible possible, that one becomes more skilled, and not the impossible, even harder - at every turn. That would be sheer madness -- and the problems of aging.
Hopefully, one learns all those lessons throughout life, which is their meaning in life -- and not to forget everything they once knew, and learned 50 years ago. They want to live their best now -- and not 50 years ago, or in 50 years to come -- when they are no longer. Things have to make sense right now -- and in every present moment. Otherwise, one may never know, or can tell the difference.
The classic case is instructing a person who has fallen on the ground, how to get up. On hearing this, a lot of exercise instructors tell one how not to fall or be in that condition in the first place -- as though that were helpful. Classes that instuct one how to get up off the floor are actually readily available as beginner Yoga classes. But if one is too weak for doing even that, how would one begin?
I do that most mornings by just moving my head as far to the left and then as far to the right -- while wondering how I'm going to eventually get up. But shortly, I don't worry about it anymore, and move on to activating and articulating my hands to enhhance that circulation and feeling. Finally, I articulate the full range foot movement from the pointed toe to the retracted -- which some exercise researchers have named the Soleus Pushup -- thinking that function is peculiar and unique to those muscles, rather than the characteristic of all muscle function in its role to keep the body healthy.
It's not optional, and good if one has the time and leisure -- but is the "categorical imperative" for every living being. It's not just for when they are young, or can win accolades for it, but essential to their very being -- all one's life. That is the future generation beyond just making it to that age -- in poor and deteriorating condition. Even to get to that age in any condition used to be a milestone -- but now we know better -- that an unprecedented quality of life can still be actualized. Just good enoiugh is no longer good enough -- or enjoyable for that matter, and we now think we are entitled to enjoy life -- and not just endure it for as long as we can hold out.
That was yesterday's story. The future is making the best out of life in every moment one can -- including waiting for the microwave or washer to stop. Or waiting at the bus stop. Those are opportunities -- and not just wasted time -- unless making it so. That is the easy way to do it -- rather than deciding what priority it should have over everything one hopes to do in that day -- and how to manage our time, energy and resources to achieve it. Some even believe there is no other way but the strict adherence to schedule -- with no exceptions and deviations from the one true path -- for everyone.
But the beauty of life is that we all get to find out -- for ourselves, what is true -- and then share that knowledge to as many as are open to it. That is particularly true if what one is doing, is not working -- and no amount of additional effort seems to be the answer. One encounters that frequently in life -- that the answer is not the right answer that actually works. And rather than arguing over who has the right answer, we need to find out what actually works -- and discard everything else. Knowledge that doesn't work, is useless -- unless all one wants to do is claim to know the most -- whether it is true and actually works or not. Many people are satisfied in that way, having all the answers -- but nothing works as they should. They think it is because they don't have enough "likes," as though it is just one big popularity contest, or who is in power to tell everybody else what to do or think.
Some leaders are even thinking that those who "wrong-think" must be locked away from the public for the rest of their lives. We thought that those were just the Dark Ages -- but it could be at any time and circumstances. It's that kind of world -- playing out daily.
So the key observation I come away with is that mental functioning seems to come about because of of the poor neck development produced by the lack of circulation that comes with not turning one's head to use optimize one's awareness. That distinguishes those who know what is going on around them -- from those trapped in their own thoughts and show no such proclivity to be aware of their surroundings. Then that world further shrinks and implodes. That is increasingly the fear of old age -- and everything it entails. But how not to be like that equally obvious -- with the perspective of evolutionary time. We are the way we are for a reason.
Understanding that is human nature and the way we work. That is the key to living and aging well. Without that simplicity of understanding, no amount of effort will produce the desired results.
Risks and Rewards
The most significant contribution of Arthur Jones in developing the Nautilus principles and machines was not variable resistance through the full range of movement around one axis — but actually determining in what position that muscle had to be in to be fully contracted and fully relaxed — because it is the alternation between those muscular states — that determines the blood flow (circulation), and that is what produces health, growth, and optimal functioning. To him, that was incidental to developing machines that would be “foolproof” in ensuring that a person did precisely the right movement — and ensuring the results he “guaranteed.”
However, he did not account for trainees to actually subvert the intended functioning of his equipment — usually by lifting more weight than could be maintained by the proper performance. The machines were not designed to enable one to lift the most weights, but actually to exhaust the muscles using the least amount of resistance. All that got lost in training and selling machines to those who believed that using the most weight (resistance) was what produced optimal results — rather than by achieving the greatest difference in the state of muscular contraction and relaxation — just as the heart is effective in pumping blood out towards the extremities by that same action.
However, contrary to popular belief, the heart cannot force blood through the miles of capillaries, in which the purpose of that evolutionary design is to slow the blood down to where it can efficiently exchange gases with the resident tissue — at which point, contractions of the muscles at those extremities that contain the capillaries (at the head, hands, and feet), are effective at contracting (pumping) that blood back to towards the heart aided by the veins that allow blood to flow in only that direction back towards the heart (center of the body). It is two different set of blood vessels, and not just the heart providing the motive power for all the blood flow. That is the greatest misunderstanding of cardiovascular functioning and exercise effectiveness.
That is why exercise — or more specifically, contractions at those extremities, cause blood flow that ensures the elimination and removal of those accumulating and stagnant metabolic waste products (inflammation), and then allowing the new nutrients that ensure health, development and optimal functioning — as Nature intended. That process ensures the health and well-being of that individual — and not simply wanting it more than everybody else — as the jocks fancy it is.
So, far and away the most important thing, is to understand the science of this process — and not simply lifting the most weight possible. Thus the squat, deadlift, bench press are not the most effective exercises as often touted — but are simply those movements that allow one to use the most weight — regardless of whether they produce the desired results. As many have known and proven time and again, lifting the most weights possible, is a precursor for a career-ending injury, while a better objective for most, is to obtain the maximum benefits with the least amount of risk and injury. That is the wise strategy no matter what one is doing.
And hopefully by now, many more are entertaining how well they are functioning, or can function at all, when they are 75, rather than thinking that any price at 25, ensures their glory for the rest of their years. That has been the predictable failing in the traditional sports model as the template for lifelong fitness and health. It won’t matter how good one was at 25, when one is absolutely no good at 75 — and god forbid, even live another 25 years in that persistently declining condition.
After all, this is the 21st Century and the Space Age — and not just the continuation of the Cave man era — when life was assuredly, short, nasty and brutal. Then the future did not matter — and how one hoped to improve for it. It was just “one and done” — at every opportunity. And so life has persisted with that kind of attitude and outlook — rather than in thinking it is for a better tomorrow, and day after that… So yeah, excessive drinking, smoking, eating, driving recklessly and fast, has consequences and long term effects, and not taking the maximum risks just because one can.
