Doing All the Right Things
Most people will readily admit that they are not perfect -- and have not lived a perfect life -- but that should not stop them from trying. Those imperfect moments accumulate over a lifetime to produce what we know as aging -- the failure or inability to respond appropriately to all the challenges and opportunities life brings. Bad things don't just happen, and neither does good things. They require some effort on our part, some action, some involvement on our part -- and not just somebody else, some god, who is responsible for everything turning out the way they have -- and over a lifetime, there's nothing one could have done at any point -- to turn things around, and alter the outcome of what they feel is inevitable -- and fated.
That is the usual regard we have for "aging," rather than the much more state-of-the-art realization that is the accumulation of all our past deeds, words and thoughts -- and we could have done it better, and that was the whole point. At no point should we have given up and stopped trying -- to do one's best. However, that does not mean that one has to bench press, squat and deadlift more than they ever had before, and in fact, continuing to think that way, is a well-proven failure -- that one must find another way -- even if they have to create it themselves.
What they can do -- can be anything. It doesn't have to be what everybody else is doing -- to disastrous effect. Obviously, exercise that is impossible, difficult or painful to do, is not the answer to the age-old problems of why people fail. It flat out doesn't work no matter how much of it one does -- until finally they simply give up in despair, and then give up on everything. One certainly is entitled to find out what works -- if for nobody else but oneself, especially when following the herd, never delivers the results as promised.
It's not illegal to do what works -- and hasn't been previously sanctioned by the governing bodies who claim exclusive jurisdiction on such matters -- and in fact, that they own the turf. How that came about is anybody's guess -- but usually it is to those who presume that authority, and nobody thinks to challenge it.
However, when many of its best advocates and acolytes are dropping dead prematurely, one is right to question whether that is a fate one wants for themselves. What is the bigger picture objective? For most, that is living as long as possible in the best health possible -- and everything else is a secondary, or moot concern. That seems to imply everything else. A momentary and fleeting best is usually lost in the greater scheme of things.
Successful longterm investing is the same way -- rewarding only if it lasts -- and not simply making a fortune to lose a fortune just as quickly. That is the siren call of those promising they can make one a quick fortune -- but not necessarily so that one can walk away from the casino with that fortune. "Many are called, but few are chosen." That is the plight and quandary of modern life. Easy come, but easy go -- and where the wheel stops, may leave a lot with less than they started out with. So the quick gains, are not the point -- but a lifetime of sustained improvement is what is life-changing.
There may have been a time when life was short, nasty and brutal, when one had to grab each spoil as though it might be their last -- but in a different time, that orientation may serve them ill -- except as a self-fulfilling prophecy. Yes, they win, but don't live long enough to enjoy any of it. That was the fate of the original Marathon runner -- who announced that the Greeks had prevailed, and promptly died -- and was celebrated thereafter because he was no longer among them. We don't necessarily have to be that guy.
Nor are similar sacrifices required for the benefit of everybody else anymore. People don't have to be thrown into the volcano to appease the gods. Communities no longer have to enforce rigid conformity to ensure their continued survival -- or encourage development only in one ideal for survival, which was invariably who could tolerate the most pain, torture and suffering -- even if inflicted upon themselves. Rather, the healing of oneself became the road to personal salvation and resurrection.
If that is the case, it doesn't matter what anybody else thinks they ought to be doing; they can simply do what works -- as self-evident proof that it works. Everybody else can continue with what is obviously not working -- but they are compelled to do -- and think that is all there is. The suppression of any other alternatives is not brutal, but just as effective -- that one wouldn't even think of it. That would be that exercise can and should be easy -- in order for it to be possible to do all one's life -- with no reservations and limitations -- because it is the doing that is the magic, and not the theory and explanations that don't work.
As in the investing example, it is not necessary to understand the why -- only the what. The why is a separation and division from the reality and actuality of the matter -- and serves no purpose. If one gets the desirable results each and every time, it is not necessary to have a why -- apart from the what is. It is not like one is advising one to do something dangerous and difficult, but quite the opposite -- doing the possible as the necessary. And in that doing, is the manifestation of that possibility and reality.
One is not asking anyone to do 100 pushups or 100 pullups -- but only what they can do, for 100 repetitions. It can be a movement of their own design -- and purpose. Doing that everyday, will make them good at doing that -- and there is no other action (movement) that is more important to do. It is as simple as that -- and the longer one lives, the more they realize that. That is the integration of the mind and body -- that is the resistance.
The Survival of the Fit
The problem with making everything into a competitive activity is that there is only one winner, and everybody else has to lose -- no matter how worthy their efforts and achievements. That is true regardless if one is doing what is beneficial to themselves most of all -- which really ought to be the true measure of what everybody does in life. Is it good in and of itself, and not, whether one wins a trophy at the end. That is making everything in life into a trivial activity -- and not the valuable one each life can measure for itself.
That was the operant mentality of the 1970s that thought the only reason for doing anything, was to be first and foremost, and everything else did not matter, when in fact, the competition for that supreme distinction, was the least important concern. It doesn't matter how low one's body fat is, or target heart rate, or for that matter, how much one can bench press, squat and deadlift -- and those concerns get in the way of achieving optimal functional health -- which is not measured by those things but the qualities of life that escape narrow measurements -- and become meaningless once they are achieved.
It does not matter how much one already knows -- as it does how much one is capable of learning beyond that. That is what trips up a lot of people thinking their past accomplishments are what matter -- when the greater life lies ahead, waiting to be discovered. What that is, nobody knows yet -- but those thinking it is simply the same thing -- but a little more, or more than everybody else has, is not thinking expansively enough -- particularly to their own existence, which is really what matters. That is the meaning of life for every individual -- and not just what one individual has determined must be the criteria for everyone else.
Such thinking is not a mature mind -- but the quintessential immature mind that believes the rest of the world exists only to fulfill their own needs and ego. So what they think is important, is what everybody else in the world must also -- and compete against them for singular primacy. Those are usually to be found in the arenas competing for fame and fortune -- thinking everybody else in the world showed up just to cheer them on. Of course, those are the familiar celebrities who think that all of life is a popularity contest -- and they who get the most "likes" or toys, wins -- or some such eternal glory and place in the record books. So they are quick to enshrine themselves -- and begrudgingly others, for their self-aggrandizing behaviors -- as though they were great attainments of humankind.
Nobody cares what you can bench press, squat, deadlift, or target your heart rate and body fat -- because they are not great achievements in every life, because each is just a pebble on the journey to greater individual attainment -- and was never meant to be the universal standard by which all are judged for ultimate merit. How each achieves and actualizes their own life is a deeply personal and significant thing -- and not the gross measurements that self-aggrandizing and self-promoting bit players want everybody else to believe as the eternal attainments and standards which will stand the test of time. That is for posterity to determine properly.
So survival is not only for the "fittest" but awaits the judgment of time -- to prove that was so. It may even seen that one was doing everything wrong -- but in the end, turned out to be right, while those who thought they were doing everything right, and had all the spoils to "prove" it, end their days as mere shadows of themselves long ago. So much so, that it now seems so illusory -- and may as well never happened. Time and age is very cruel in that respect -- as it reveals who really was right and wrong -- in doing what they did.
People don't age badly because they did all the right things -- nor do they age well doing all the wrong things -- as much as the mainstream media would like us to believe there are no differences, and it is wrong to try to distinguish the good from the bad. Obviously, that is why most of them are working in that media -- getting paid to convince others of what is not true. If it were for the reason of telling the truth as the truth, there would be no reason to pay them so richly -- for selling their souls for fame and fortune. They would simply be satisfied with knowing the truth for once in their lives -- and the clouds of confusion and dysfunction would part, revealing the stairway to heaven.
But we never get there as long as there are those thinking to be the sole and exclusive winners in their battle to be the fittest -- as most worthy, and deserving of survival. The stairway is vast, and will allow many to get there -- and not just the one who can emerge from the narrow tunnel as the singular winner. However, that does not mean that any idea is as good as any other, because there are consequences, cause and effect. Things don't just happen -- no matter how hard we want them to. And there are many who cultivate that path to wisdom -- thinking wishful-thinking gets them there, so all they have to do is want it badly enough -- while taking no positive steps to increase those probabilities. That's how the possible, becomes more probable -- or less. In neither case is it the same, or doesn't matter. It all matters -- none more than others -- and wishing it were not so, won't make it so.
Every generation has its own unique challenges, and the foolish, are those rewriting the past -- rather than discovering the new, and making it so. But we try to see the whole of life through the eye of a needle -- and thinking that is all there is. Those are the obvious competitive types -- but even more devious and undermining, are those who actually believe their own lies. They are simply and abjectly lost -- because they don't know how to begin to find out for themselves, the truth of any matter. And finding out, is the name of the game, what life is all about. Even some with all the money in the world, will not be able to buy a clue. The world is run very differently than what they thought to be true. So while it seemed like they were on the top, shortly as was admonished, the first shall become the last, and the last, first. You just never know when it happens -- and the first will be the last to know. By then it is too late; all their chances have been used up.
One doesn't say this to mock the dying. They are consumed with their own problems -- but for the living and the young, the new world awaits them -- but not simply by repeating the old ways that didn't work for anybody -- so far. The new way has to be discovered and created -- and only such a life is unprecedentedly good.
This robust health lies beyond a single metric to measure -- which is the underlying flaw of all our previous understanding. It merely accumulated when what was needed, was to subsume all the others in a greater, integrated understanding of the whole of life -- and not simply the accumulation of broken, fragmented pieces -- that tell us very little of the whole. That is the new, higher understanding of what it means to be fit -- for life. It is not about wasting the heart beats -- and thinking it will be made up some way in the future. It all begins right now -- and where it ends, nobody knows.
That is the survival of the fit.
The Magic of "50"
Most people who train with weights or other resistance equipment have never done 50 repetitions of any exercise -- being told to keep their repetitions around 10, and as they handle more weight, lower that even further -- until they're down to 1. And then they spend most of their time at the gym -- resting up before their next 1 -- and then they wonder why they aren't getting "results."
They are getting results from all that "resting" their doing. The movement -- not so much, and there even seems to be a prohibition against being aware of what they are actually "doing." They show up at the gym, and do as little as possible, and wonder why they aren't getting the results they think should be automatic -- just by their showing up, and finding ways to distract themselves from the unpleasantness of the workout.
The magic of 50 repetitions of any movement, is that it requires a sustained effort -- and not "one and done," which quite predictably, will have very little lasting impact on their fitness levels. Even among the heavy lifters, very few can perform 50 repetitions with even the lightest weights -- because their bodies are not conditioned for such sustained effort, which is adapting to fatigue -- which causes short-term as well as long-term adaptations, while a one-off does not. The body is right to assume that such demands will be infrequent and when well-rested, and so no higher level of readiness is necessary -- as required when it knows that that effort must be sustained indefinitely.
People have frequently and invariably noted that those who lift heavier weights are not usually those with the largest muscles -- which is stored energy readily available for any demands and challenge of the moment. As the muscle is "fired," it releases energy, as well as waste products -- of which a large part of one's conditioning, is to train the body to deal with -- or it fails. The accumulation of junk without elimination causes toxicity and the body to shut down -- until that situation is corrected by time, rest and recovery -- because in the absence of oxygen and other nutrients, the body has to preserve itself by not locking up -- and thus becoming vulnerable to every threat and demand a highly-functioning person would want to be in -- most of the time.
So while understanding that the body's response to such failure is to improve longterm to overcome it, in the short and immediate term, it lays one vulnerable to an inability to respond momentarily -- until with time, rest and recovery, they can be restored to another maximum challenge. Thus like any other medicine or therapy, one wants to determine the proper dosage -- for that optimal effect. While pain-killers are often desirable and necessary, one doesn't want to be entirely anesthetized or incapacitated -- most of the time, as is often necessary in terminal conditions.
But sometimes, that little bit, is just what is necessary to revitalize and optimize one's greatest capacities -- over a lifetime. Again, on the other extreme, one can run into the problem of the overdose that kills -- with medicine, therapies, food, and other resources necessary in their proper doses -- but deadly in their abuse and overkill.
What those proper balances are, is what each individual is finding out for themselves -- as they live, discover, and manifest their lives. There are usually helpful guidelines and authorities to aid them in the proper ranges of tolerance and responsiveness. The prodigies of every activity and arena, are one in a billion, and simply doing what they do, is not going to make those less inclined and talented, like them. It is necessary to understand that from the very beginning -- so that one is not trying to emulate an impossible ideal, while understanding that improvement is possible for every living being -- from Day One to the last day of their lives. That is what life is.
When life no longer can improve, then that life is on its way out -- and the prognosis is not good. But when improvement is still possible, that is the beginning of the possible -- in all its infinite variations. Exercise is fundamentally this discovery -- of what is possible, and from that beginning, one can go further and beyond. But when one gives up all hope and doing, nothing but a dire outcome is assured. So we hope never to get to that point, anytime in our lives -- and it is not like it is forever. Even the prodigies, great as they are, will not live forever -- and certainly, not at their peak condition and performance -- but something is still possible no matter how low life ebbs until it is no more.
And that lengthy but not infinite span of time, is most intelligent people's concerns -- which is enough to fill and fulfill any life. It doesn't have to be forever to be worth living -- though others have come before, and others will come after. Everybody lives their own life -- in their own time. That's worthy enough. One doesn't have to be immortal -- only that they live a good life, in their own time and place -- doing the best they can, and knowing that difference. That makes it all worthwhile.
Beyond Nautilus Principles into the 21st Century
Far more important than high intensity exercise, is full range movement -- which seems to correlate with age as well as condition. As a lifelong observer and student of movement, the greatest difference has always been obviously the range of movement the most capable exhibit (flaunt), and the lack of range in those who are least capable and fit. That seems to be true for every movement and activity. Those who are most prolific, have a far greater range of expression and articulation than those who have a limited range done harder. I would even go so far as to say that the range of movement implies all else.
This is important because this is the least discussed and understood aspect of most "exercise" activities. This is the qualitative aspect of movement -- which makes it productive or not. Even among the former greats, the diminishing range of movement, is what makes those exercises unproductive -- more than all the other factors usually discussed -- about how it is impossible to do a full range movement anymore, and so one settles for a very limited range of movement -- while lamenting that they no longer get the same results as when they used to do a fuller range movement -- even with minimal resistance.
Instead, they load up the resistance to as much as they can, while doing very little with it -- and certainly not getting any desirable results, because it doesn't matter how much resistance they apply, if the movement itself is minimal. In every case, the fullest range of movement (articulation) with minimal resistance that allows it, is self-evident indication that the joint is in optimal functioning condition -- because any full range movement, will require the muscle change from fullest relaxation to fullest contraction, and that change, produces the flow that produces the greatest health in every cell, tissue, organ of the body -- and that lack of flow, is what causes it to stagnate and die.
And rather than that being automatic, is the major rationale for exercise being a healthful, productive activity. But most are focused on the wrong things -- as the most important measures for producing and sustaining health, and that is evident in their very performance (movement) of an exercise. Invariably, the lack of range is explained away by an injury (weakness) that limits that range -- particularly if the resistance is too great to allow movement in safety. But those focused on the wrong things, will maintain the weight, but further reduce the range -- to the point that it is no longer a productive activity. And that is what most people do -- and as the years go by -- note that their range of movement(s) is further circumscribed -- because that was never regarded as the priority above all other considerations.
If one can lift their leg backwards and touch their foot to their head -- more weight (resistance) is not required to make it a better movement, and in fact, adding more resistance (weight) to the leg, will NOT make that movement MORE possible. The range of that movement provides its own resistance to doing so. Conversely, there is no weight light enough that will make such a movement possible for most people. But obviously and undeniably, such a movement is possible for some people, and to a far lesser extent, everybody else.
For this, we don't need to correlate it to some other measure of predictability -- other than the actual performance of it. One can or one can't. Most of real life is like that -- self-evident truth -- and not the reliance on something else to prove it is true. In fact, it can be argued that it can't be done -- and we should not believe our own lying eyes, but rely on the "experts" -- to tell us what is true. There are many people who think this way -- that what is true, is what the experts say, and not that it can be demonstrated otherwise. They may even insist that the demonstration of such facts, are prohibited by consensus -- that it can never be done -- and that will be the new history of the world going forward.
So in that way, nothing new can ever be discovered or created, and the parameters of expression and achievement, grows narrower and more exclusive of anything but the one predetermined ideal. Instead, what we witness is the explosion of undesirable results as obesity and metabolic syndromes -- as people get into worse conditions and health -- rendering them susceptible to even more diseases, especially over a longer span of vulnerability.
However, there will always be a few -- who get better despite all the prohibitions against it. Those people test the limits to see what is truly possible -- and not what the consensus of experts (Pharisees) say it is, and the Scribes repeat it endlessly. The highest intensity of any muscular contraction begins where most think further movement is not possible. That key concept is the most overlooked of all the Nautilus principles -- that the fullest range, is not what most people think it is. And that is particularly so in the direction of fullest contraction. Most people on hearing the need for this, willingly extend the range in the relaxed position while neglecting to extend the range in the fully contracted position.
That is to say that using the bench press as an example -- the position at which most begin the lifted position on downwards -- to maximize the contraction, they would begin to push up further in the other direction -- producing such a powerful contraction, that there is a real danger of cramping and muscle failure -- so that one is fearful of doing a movement in that way because of the very possibility of losing total control and having the bar crash into the trainee. For that reason, one would design a machine that would eliminate that danger and possibility -- but most people do not extend the range of movement in the direction of fuller contraction, but may extend the range of movement in the relaxed position -- because it is easier and more convenient to do so. That misses the whole point.
The really productive part of the movement, is extending the range in the contracted position -- because that contraction, is also a compression -- which for health purposes, pushes the fluids back towards the heart -- which is the weakness of most bodies to generate that healthful flow. In many people, that results in edema and lymphedema, or the swelling of the body tissues -- which compression in its many variations is the solution -- especially in exercise or movements producing a very definitive muscle contraction-relaxation phase, which is the principle of fluid dynamics upon which the body works and maintains its viability.
Exercise, compression clothing, massage, pharmaceuticals that do this -- make the body healthier by removing the toxins that build up as the normal processes of cell functioning -- and merely getting the heart to work harder is not going to make a difference, but will certainly strain and enlarge the heart. Instead, what is needed, is to force the skeletal muscles to contract from the extremities -- which compresses the fluids back towards the heart and other purifying and recycling organs, and when those tissues are evacuated, there is room for new blood and nutrients to enter -- but not before then.
That is the flawed understanding of exercise as we know it. You cannot fill a cup that is already full. You must first empty it -- for it to have any meaning and impact. Simply making the heart work endlessly and tirelessly harder, is why most of the extreme athletes are dying prematurely of heart failures. That should be way obvious -- and the solution to that, is not to find ways of making the heart work even harder, but to understand the proper relationship and dynamics of flow. Then everything one does will become productive, healthful, and enjoyable as well because everything will make sense -- rather than forcing the body to do what it knows is better not to, on the penalty of premature injury, disability and death.
That's what inevitably happens to all the older bodybuilders. You start off with a light weight and make the exercise harder by contracting more intensely by extending the range of movement in the contractile phase (exhaustion) -- rather than starting with a heavy weight and then unloading the barbell as the muscle fails to contract even minimally. In the latter, the only ones who do most of the work are the "spotters" -- removing the weights, to make it seem like one is exercising intensely. It's far more effective to make a light weight heavy, than to make a heavy weight light. Why would one do otherwise?
This is the 21st Century. Only in this way can one continue to train productively all the days of their extended lives -- while attaining and retaining maximum range of movements. "Nothing else is possible."
How the World Changes
First slowly, then all of a sudden.
Some can see it coming, while most will not; they will choose to go into denial until it is no longer possible -- and they are swept away by the tsunami of events -- wondering what happened, and claiming nobody could have seen it coming. Very few choose to rely on their own senses -- and can see it happening, but will rely on a chosen few to tell them what is happening, and do their thinking for them.
So at the first sign that something is amiss, they claim that is not so because somebody else did not tell them it was so. In that manner, they will always be the last to know -- rather than the first, and would not have it any other way, even though life punishes them at every turn and juncture -- for not thinking for oneself -- as Nature intended. That's why everyone is born with the full complement of faculties and abilities to get by on at least a minimal level, and some will go on to develop great mastery in the many ways it is possible to do so.
That is the challenge and meaning of each existence. It's not all written and done in some sacred books and texts -- but for each to give it a try, and find out for themselves the truth of the matter. Otherwise, what somebody else says may be true, may not be true for that individual -- and that is the reality that matters. All anybody has to go by, is the knowledge and experience they have accumulated so far -- which is not all that can be known, or knowable. The unknown is the vast -- while the known, is what just one person knows -- and they could be wrong entirely. That wouldn't be the first time that happened.
But we each get to try our best -- for a more perfect understanding, and it never ends there -- but evolves to ever greater levels. Even with that, one takes their best shot and chance -- that what they think they know, is at least going in the right direction, and at least works satisfactorily for the present moment -- which may have to be revisited and revised at some future moment -- in all probability. That is not the certainty and authority many demand -- even if it explains nothing, and produces no predictable desired results.
Yet they'll show up the next day, and do the same thing, for time immemorial with no expectations of positive results, nor thinking that anything can make a difference. That is simply what God intends -- to make fools of us all -- to prove His superiority. Of course that would be a petty and chaotic world -- rather than the evolution to higher order that the steadfast believe is possible, and even inevitable. But someone has to break the code -- so the many can follow.
Obviously, to put weight on, one has to first put it in -- and the body doesn't just decide arbitrarily to go haywire and break all the rules of natural laws and experience -- and create mass from thin air. Glands don't misfire that badly. Still, that is what many who should know better, insist is happening. People die out of the blue, for no good reason, so it doesn't matter how immune they condition themselves to be -- because whether one is 600 lbs or 60 -- the chances are the same, so what is the use in trying to do better?
That is political correctness -- an insistence that there are no differences and distinctions, no matter what. One must be blind to all -- and only in that way, can complete randomness of results be assured. Nobody ever became good at anything training that way. Yet that would be blasphemy in most academic institutions now -- the naive notion that anything could make a difference, and that is what we should be discriminating for -- and not that all discrimination is bad and should be outlawed.
That is why people are in poor health -- thinking nothing makes a difference -- when achieving one's best health is not only possible, but the entire reason for all existence. That says it all; is the whole point -- and not just for the exceptional few.
Not to feel that essential equality of opportunity, is the worst kind of elitism and arrogance. The world works for everybody -- and not just for self-designated and self-selected bureaucrats -- because they are the "chosen." Time will always tell, and that is why nobody cheats mortality.
In every event, the unfit will perish first -- and not as many foolish have demanded, that "even one person dying, is one too many," along with many asinine statements displaying no understanding of the most fundamental truths of life -- as though wishing it were so, is enough to make it so. No matter how rich, powerful and famous, all will still die, but that does not mean that life cannot be better and has to make it so. No, that is not what everyone owes to every other, but what each owes to themselves -- primarily.
It would be nice if everybody else in the world would look after me as their primary responsibility -- but that's not the world most will live in, in which there is one Pharaoh -- and everybody else in the world just showed up to applaud and adulate me, as the many delusional "stars" have been "promoted" to believe. The truth of the matter is that most people are busy living their own lives, and only a relative few believe that everybody else just showed up to be their "followers." Some people have real friends, and real lives.
So when we drill down to that core of existence, those are the results that matter, and not simply what many believe are true -- because they haven't given it much thought, and have relied on everybody else to be right. Don't mistake the jargon for the reality of the situation. Exercise is not effective because one designates it as "aerobic" or "anaerobic," or any other term. That is simply the marketing gimmick.
The actuality is the truth of the matter. That's why some people get results and many others don't. It's not enough just to think one knows -- like the countless delusional people. Only a few make it happen -- but that is enough to change the world.
The Fallacy of "Failure"
Proponents of "High-intensity" training think it is a simple matter of training a muscle to "failure" -- and that will automatically produce gains -- and they go on further, to say it is such a productive manner of training, that one should do at least 5 sets for each exercise -- which obviously indicates they have no understanding of the concept of "failure."
Failure is the utter inability to go on further; one has done all they can momentarily -- and will require some time to recover, and not simply one or five minutes between each set. It will often take as much as a week to fully recover for the next all-out attempts to failure -- and in many cases, often longer. Otherwise, they are just conditioning themselves to quit as often as possible -- rather than conditioning themselves for the rare once-in-a-lifetime maximum attempt -- as though their lives depended on it.
So it was noted by the original proponent of such a concept, Arthur Jones, that it should be done infrequently -- as could be observed by the strongest specimens of every species. It was for the lesser members, to be always proving their place in the hierarchy -- while the king of the pack, infrequently engaged unless he absolutely had to. In the workplace, that was seen in how the foreman at a work site, was not the person doing the most work, but the individual who stepped in when all the efforts of all the others, were insufficient to get the task done.
Those get to pick their battles -- and take on only the most worthy challenges -- that make the difference between survival or extinction for that species -- while the countless more worker-bees, were consumed in the lesser day-to-day housekeeping tasks. And there is a proper place for that work as well -- or the colony wouldn't exist in the first place. So it is not a matter of which to do exclusively -- but the importance of doing both -- appropriately as required. And that is the critical judgment -- so one is not going all-out, when a lesser force would be more appropriate to the task.
Many ask which is better to do -- exclusively, as though that was the optimal choice. It is like asking whether one wants to be able to do only the hard tasks -- or only the easy tasks -- and not either when more appropriate. That is what critical thinking is -- the ability to discriminate these things skillfully, and not doing just their one thing no matter what. It may be likely that their one ability, is inappropriate for most occasions -- but still, that's all they know what to do -- and will insist on doing them no matter what -- even to the astonishment of everybody there who see the objective clearly.
But it happens all the time -- especially in the training/conditioning centers. People will persist in doing their one thing -- despite the fact that they may not be getting any positive results, and in fact, is the cause of their pain and injuries. Despite acknowledging that, they will persist in their one exercise -- as though nothing else is possible, or permissible -- because that is what some authority insists is the only thing that can be done. Obviously, there are many ways that work for different people, but the only thing that matters to each individual, is what works for them particularly -- and if not, finding that way that does -- even if they have to invent it themselves.
That is what the champions do -- what nobody else has done before -- or can imagine doing, before they think of it. And that is the great prize of any doing -- to do and discover what hasn't been done before -- even for oneself. Of course that doesn't happen every day, or all the time, but that it happens at all in any life, is a great accomplishment -- upon which to build on to subsequent developments.
In this way, one would prefer to condition themselves by success -- rather than failure -- and so rather than quitting at 10 repetitions or 15, and calling it "failure," a better arbitrary number is 50 -- to ensure that one does something at all -- as a daily habit, or conditioning to persist at least that much. The problem with doing a bench press with 300 lbs. to failure, is that although they cannot do another repetition at 300 lbs., they might be able to do a few more at 200 lbs., and subsequently 100 lbs., and then with 10 lbs., until they can no longer move their arms with even no weight (resistance). That is true failure --- and not loading the bar up to 1,000 lbs. and proclaiming they failed when they could not do one.
Using the training style of unloading the bar only wears out the spotters, and not the trainee as intended. The better approach is to take a light weight, and extend the range of movement in the direction of the muscle contraction -- which is much easier done in the direction of the relaxation -- which is mostly allowing gravity to do the work. But lifting the bar further in the direction of contraction produces such a severe contraction that most unfamiliar with such movement, are likely to experience it the first time as a severe muscle cramp -- whereupon they have no further control and are likely to drop the bar on their chest if they are lucky -- and on their neck or head if they aren't -- even using a light weight. But that is preferable to using a heavy weight.
Eventually, training in that manner results in a more controllable "pump" that many using too heavy weights so that they perform no productive work by it, claim they no longer experience -- nor wish to experience because it reduces their ability to handle heavier weights in doing so. But that is the productive part of what they are hoping to do -- to dramatically increase the circulation to that muscle to effect an immediate result. Simply lifting a lot of weights does not have the same magical effect. That is simply doing a lot of unnecessary work -- and not getting the direct positive results -- that when effectively done, can transform most people immediately, and they get better in subsequent sessions.
This phenomenon is undeniable -- and even the top bodybuilding competitors are pumping away to achieve their maximum impressiveness even for that moment. That much is unsaid -- when in fact, is the quality that distinguishes those who can effect such transformations instantaneously, from those who haven't a clue as to what is going on. Instead, such charlatans will insist that if one continues to do what they are advising, one year from now they will see some results -- but never before then! But bodybuilding exercises, when properly executed, has an immediate, often dramatic result -- simply because that is the body's response to such inputs. So when "aging"bodybuilders no longer experience such positive effects, it is usually because they have lost sight of that direct connection and response, and think that something else is more important than effecting the blood flow -- which is usually how much weight they are using, or how many repetitions -- even when they don't directly effect the blood flow in a palpable way.
And that is particularly true of the blood flow to the critical faculties of the body at the head, hands and feet -- and thinking that the only bodypart of relevance is the biceps -- which is the major criteria of senior bodybuilding competitions. They're fixated on only one thing -- rather than the total picture of health and vibrancy. One can tell that even without stripping down to posing trunks and "selfies." It is a person who looks and moves competently and robustly at age 70, 80, 90, and 100. And if not -- at 60, 50, 40, etc., they have to do something about it -- and not just listen to the self-appointed experts who are usually in that same sorry shape -- because most of the people in the media cannot distinguish any meaningful differences, or anything of substance.
Just Do the Warmup
Some people think that the only way to do things is by leaps and bounds (extraordinary effort) -- rather than slowly and tentatively -- without going all out until one can't. In life, it is relatively rare and infrequent that one has to do every little thing as though their life depended on it -- which may be the dominant paradigm for animals in the wild, whose very existence may depend upon it -- because there is no excess capacity or abundance that civilization and culture enables. Thus it is possible for many now to eat to excess, while doing very little to obtain their needs -- and so that balance is off, and becomes the undoing of many, if not all in contemporary life.
One sees that imbalance in every human activity -- from eating, to resting, and exercise. I wish I had a dollar for every person I've seen in the gym who spend 90-100% of their efforts building their upper bodies, and virtually zero on the lower half of their bodies -- thinking it is enough just to go through life wearing a tank top and jeans -- thinking they are fooling everybody. Then as they hobble onto the bodybuilding stage, even the judges are conditioned only to use the biceps as the pinnacle of development and achievement -- rather than the complete development in symmetry and proportion. It is even worse for runners -- who think that running is all there is -- and let their upper bodies atrophy, even while thinking they are the paragons of complete and balanced development.
One is not better than the other. Both are grotesque forms of disproportion -- alien to the notion of complete and balanced development -- that has been the true ideal of every major civilization and culture. That is why such prodigious and prolific development can be appreciated across all cultures -- as the embodiment and hallmark of health and vitality -- impressive in itself.
What is surprising to many -- conditioned as they are to believing that nothing less than overdoing everything or not at all, is the realization of how little goes a long way -- but not absolute zero -- which is to note that the greatest difference on every scale, is not one from many, but zero from one. When even that one is absent, the deficiency is glaring.
With even the simplest movement, one step is very different from not being able to stand at all -- or even considering such a movement anymore. Thus it has been noted that a journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step -- and even before then, to enable one to take that single step -- which are the many milestones to that achievement, and once having come that far, all else is merely repetition. It's just that simple -- and eventually, easy and effortless.
But one doesn't get there having to climb a mountain first -- as many instructors (gurus) demand first. Thus, they make even the simplest and most natural movements, as difficult as possible -- rather than as easy -- to make it possible. A good example is the difficulty many have in getting into what is often considered to be a universal position of a squat -- that most who don't know any better, can get into until the day they die -- because the instruction to do so, makes it nearly impossible to accomplish -- and most don't even realize it.
There's no requirement that one's hands have to be held forward and the back upright to lower oneself into the finished squat position. The easiest way to get into it, is to begin with one's hands resting on one's thighs, as is frequently seen among athletes as the resting posture. From there, if they allow their hands to move down along their legs until they reach close to their ankles, they will be in a proper squat position -- without thinking about it, or trying too hard. But that will never happen if they think that the hardest way to achieve that position, is the only proper way to do it -- and the reason many have difficulty achieving that position. They are taught (instructed) to do it in the most difficult and unnatural manner possible -- so as to make it prohibitive for most. This method of instruction is often seen in yoga -- in which the many beginning instructors think to make their practice seem as difficult as possible -- as though that was a sign of advanced "enlightenment."
I know the rationale for not using one's hands in this manner is to make the movement more difficult -- if not impossible for most, whereas learning to do so in the easiest manner, makes it accessible to nearly everyone. If that were not the case, then many would have stopped having bowel movements because that is the position required to get into for them to do so. But they are not so "brilliant" as to figure out a manner of doing so that makes it difficult if not impossible to them to get into. As a practical matter, they will choose the easiest manner to get into the proper position -- and have to do so until the day they die, even if it means using every appendage and advantage they have -- in the most efficacious way.
That is what most people do -- throughout the world -- rather than ceding to an expert class on how to do the simplest, most basic tasks. It doesn't get any more basic than that. But nine out of ten healthy Americans will insist that they cannot do a proper squat as directed by these experts. It is because these "experts" have no idea what they are talking about -- or understanding of the simplest realities of life. Otherwise, life would not be possible -- following their "expertise."
And of course, the people in the media know even less -- because they are asking such "experts" what to do -- having long ago lost their capacity to take a proper dump, and so are full of it. Bursting at the gills -- eager to share all they know -- to make it all that can be known. That's how these things come into being -- The Pharisees and the Scribes. They will gladly crucify all those aren't with the program -- as though it was their sacred duty, and what they were put on earth for. They were trained to be the gatekeepers for all that can be known -- and knowable.
In this way, they are like people of every epoch who thought it was up to them to decide these things for everybody else -- rather than let each person determine the truth for themselves -- using scientific principles rather than authorities to tell them what to think. Many people have no problem with that -- and that is why there are so many difficulties and problems in the world -- and such hardship. They refuse to make it easy, and thus, it becomes impossible for many -- when it should be the easiest and most natural thing for everybody.
There is no virtue in standing in the most difficult manner conceivable; far more valuable, is learning the easiest and most efficient manner to do so -- even if it means using everything one has got, and even inventing a few unthought of ways. That is the genius of human being. It should be allowed to flourish -- even without the profit to the experts and other narrow self-interest groups who think that everybody else exists for their exclusive exploitation and profit. It doesn't have to be that way. That is the problem.
One doesn't need to set a new world record at everything one does -- but if one is paying attention, they will notice that even the world champion, goes through a humble warmup before attempting the world record. Be like them; just do the warmup -- same as the world champ.
Taking Inventory
Many people ask what is the purpose of a warmup? -- thinking they should go straight to a personal best, each and every time. But before one can do that, one should know what their present momentary capabilities are -- or they risk overestimating those capabilities, and less often, underestimating them. In either case, one is out of touch with the present realities -- thinking that their present capabilities are as they were 20 years ago, or as they hope they might be 20 years into the future. And the whole point of any exercise, is to find out precisely where one is, and is capable of doing -- not just yesterday, or tomorrow -- but in the present moment, which is the only reality.
The truth of any matter, is not what one thinks -- but the actuality of each moment -- good, bad or indifferent. The worst is fearing to find out what that actually is -- preferring to live in one's fantasies and delusions of what they would like to be. It gets worse with age and time. Many mistake what they did 50 years ago as what they are still capable of doing presently, and don't want to learn otherwise. But when one knows their present capabilities, they can improve -- from that reference point, rather than further deluding themselves by not putting themselves to the test anymore.
In this way, people lose contact with their present capabilities -- and prefer to think they are something other than they actually are. That is the importance of actually finding out -- by doing -- tentatively at first, and then going a little bit farther. That progression of course, is the familiar warmup -- starting at one's lowest level, and gradually moving up -- and in that systematic way, achieving personal bests and even world records -- for those who are genetically and environmentally gifted for that development. Nobody just starts at the top -- and moves up from there. In fact, those who go the farthest, usually start with the rudimentary basics done extremely well -- upon which they have a firm foundation to go far -- unlike those who find themselves at the top, without knowing how they got there, and have no way to go but down.
In many cases, it was their youth alone, that put them at the top, and after that, they have no idea how to grow further -- and that is where most of the gains come, and especially when many have given up that further growth is possible. Unfortunately for many, that is as soon as they graduate from high school or college, and they are certain all of life is downhill from there. Those are the ones that are obvious, but less obvious are the ones who give up at any age -- thinking that is all there is, so why bother trying anymore?
If one never tries anymore, one will never find out and learn anything new -- and particularly, how much they have changed -- and not that they and the world, has stayed exactly as they wish to remember it -- forevermore. Invariably, that is themselves at their peak of capabilities -- and not that there could be any improvement -- from what they would like to think. The obvious best way to find out, is to start tentatively and gradually, and work one's way up -- from the lowest bottom to the highest top -- and so they are familiar with every inch of the territory -- and where to go from there, and how to make the appropriate adjustments.
The novice, on the other hand, thinks whatever they do is good enough -- so the need and possibility of improvement seems unnecessary and meaningless. They cannot tell the difference between good and bad, better or worse, and so meaningful improvement is not possible -- just the repetition of one thing -- good, bad or ugly. The perfectionist, starts with the simplest movement perfectly -- before they go on to higher -- as it is obvious to them, that if they cannot do the simplest movement perfectly, making it harder will make things worse -- and that is precisely what happens in many people's workouts. They begin and end arbitrarily and thoughtlessly -- and wonder why they don't get the results the "experts" promise, and think there is some mysterious, great secret to getting anywhere.
First, they have to be pointing in the right direction to get where they want to get -- and not simply heeding the advice of experts to just go anywhere, and somehow, they will end up in the right place. It never happens that way. People hit what they aim for -- more often than just hitting out in any direction -- thinking that is the same. One starts slow and easy, and lets the hard take care of itself. But starting hard, makes it impossible -- or even distinguishing the difference, because from the get-go, one is already taxed beyond their sensibilities -- and they know nothing else, particularly how to make the proper adjustments when things do not go according to plans.
More often than not, things will not go according to how one wishes they would -- but the most accomplished, know how to make those adjustments so well, they seem like they are all part of the plan -- and it is, because that is what they have prepared themselves for -- the challenges at any level, and not just the one they hope it will be. That would be easy -- but it seldom works out that way. The most proficient and prolific, are capable of making those fine adjustments -- while those only wishing it were so, merely delude themselves further.
That is the value of being able to ease into any activity -- and not just operate on an all-out or none basis -- as though one can turn on any capabilities at will, and realize one day, that they won't -- and don't know how to get into that mode from humble or impossible beginnings. One day they wake up and realize that the precipice is too far from the other side. It's not that people grow too old too fast, but they forget how to take baby steps that made anything seem possible -- with practice and persistence. Instead, they grow impatient, and think that the simplest, easiest, most basic movements are unnecessary to practice -- and desire only the world records, or at least personal bests, each and every day -- even if only in their wishful-thinking.
Then one day they wake up and realize they no longer have those capabilities they took for granted would always remain with them. It all seemed too easy -- and thought it would always remain so -- but now was nonexistent and impossible even to consider. They had lost the faculties they thought would always remain so -- just because they wished that it were so. It's not that one has to lift a great resistance to make it worthwhile and meaningful. Just retaining and perfecting the movement in itself, is 90% of the gain. Among the older crowd, the difference is not who can perform a movement with record poundages, but those who can do the movement at all -- and those who cannot.
It's not that they cannot do a movement with 500 lbs in their later years -- but that they cannot even do the full-range movement without any resistance at all. Through all that excessive wear and tear, they cannot even do the simplest of movements involving those joints any longer -- that just being able to do so without great pain and discomfort as well as drastically limited range, would now be a monumental accomplishment. An older person who has retained all their faculties -- rather than the increasing norm of disability in all its variations -- is the distinguishing difference between those who are thriving, and those on their way out.
For these people, even doing the warmup is out of the question -- when that is all they have to do to retain that mobility -- every day of their lives. It just becomes easier to tell the winners from the losers - without establishing a course to see who can crawl over the finish line last. Range of motion tells one everything they need to know about present capabilities. That is generally regarded as "liveliness," or vitality -- that produces robustness -- just in their being, and doing ordinary things.
It is not the amount of weight one loads onto the apparatus that is productive, but the movement itself -- and quality (range) of it. That is what the muscularity is designed to express and articulate -- especially and particularly, as one grows older. That's all there is to it.
The Test of Time
Aging is nothing more than the test of time; how well any truth holds up, is revealed in time. If we live a good and virtuous life, time will tell. That's even more so if we haven't. The good and bad accumulates over time -- either as aging badly or aging well. Many will try to convince us that it all doesn't matter, and the slates are washed clean every night -- or every year -- rather than invariably being what kills us, or keeps us alive.
Bad lives tend to be short, nasty, brutish. Good lives bring joy to many others -- even without trying. They are just a joy to witness -- and marvel at the human possibilities. One doesn't have to be that person achieving it; it is enough that any of the species can attain it to feel connected to and appreciate it.
That is why we appreciate the prodigies of every discipline -- even if we could never imagine doing what they do ourselves. We know that the world is rich in talent -- as well as wisdom. Few need to possess it all, although a rare few, think that any other's gain, is stolen from them. Those are the psychopathic criminals of the world -- who think that everybody in the world exists for their exclusive benefit, and showed up just to applaud them. There are the countless many others, who wish to hog all the spotlight -- with no discernible talent and significance to justify it.
For a while, they may be very successful at achieving those ends -- but in the end, realize it was not sustainable -- especially when they needed it to be the most. What used to explain everything, had in time, proved to be false and only a delusion. And nowhere is that more true than athletic or any other kind of competition -- even with oneself. That is not the driving force in meaningful sustainable activities. The prizes and distinctions were mainly the diversions from any true purpose -- and once they were not forthcoming, many just give up and abandon all betterment, and go into a steep decline -- with no intention of turning around again. Those lives are over.
So the challenge of that stage of life is renewing and reviewing life daily -- as though it matters -- even if it means beginning now. Many lose that sense of urgency -- because nothing seems to work anymore, or make any difference -- and it has been that way as long as they can remember. That is all learned behavior and accepting the conventional wisdom -- or truth of the day. Tomorrow it will be different.
Truths that work, don't just work when one is young and don't know any better. It's more important to know what truths work timelessly -- because one knows better. Yet it is precisely at that stage that most people's knowledge abandons and betrays them -- rather than assures and produces for them. That's when it really counts -- and people learn whether they have passed those tests. It's difficult to accept that all one "knew," was only wishful-thinking, and had no connection to reality, and the realities they are now facing -- mostly because of the errors of their ways.
It did not seem that excessive drinking and eating would have negative impacts -- later on in life, but that is the truth, as much as many are in denial. In fact, the current advertising is to encourage it as much as possible. At some point, the damage is irreversible and irrecoverable -- but one never knows when that point is. Too much of a good thing can be a bad thing, and just little bit of a good thing, may be the proper dosage -- that doesn't make a poison, or produce irrecoverable and irreversible injury.
More is not always better -- unequivocally. Nor is zero. More than likely, the truth lies somewhere in between -- and finding that proper balance has always been the challenge. Does one need to lift a personal best or run a marathon each day to optimize their health and well-being? Most have tried this maximum overload principle only to find that it injures or impairs them prematurely -- resulting in permanent cessation of any further efforts and exercise. The body in its infinite wisdom, tells them to stop. That is true zero -- while those who leave a little in the tank, are ready to go again, and that is the preferable condition of readiness -- to do whatever one has to do in the daily activities of their lives -- and that is infinitely more important than simply setting a personal best in something not necessary to do.
Meanwhile, one never has the time and energy for doing what really matters in their lives because one has diverted those energies towards the unnecessary -- as though they really mattered. Of course one could do both -- and that would already indicate a better balance than the one to the exclusion of every other -- particularly if that one thing to the exclusion of everything else, isn't working. Yet most will not admit that what they are doing is not working -- to achieve the greater health objective because they are so narrowly focused on the one metric that tells them all they want to know.
But that one measure, may not be all there is to know -- or anything relevant to know -- especially if everything else in their lives is not working, and getting better. Yet many accept that that is how it is supposed to be -- and not that it would be nice to solve the real problems in their lives. Eventually it just adds up to a monumental fail -- and one surmises that that is the inevitable "aging" process -- which only a rare few do not succumb to as the unchallenged truth. But is that a function of time or faulty lifestyle choices and practices?
What would be the outcome if one did everything right -- and not just presume so -- when everything turns out wrong, particularly aging badly?
The Challenge of the Ages
“Aging” IS natural selection. Those who age, have a much greater chance of dying. The recent “pandemic” bore that out. The old (and diseased) were several times more likely to die than the young and healthy.
That is the critical mistake non-critical thinkers make — thinking that simply living as long as possible is sufficient — rather than the quality of life (health) that makes a longer life more probable (survival).
They have it backwards — and if they program that into the cells and organisms, that will not guarantee immortality — but as we are already witnessing, simply longer lives in deterioration, dysfunction and agony.
As Darwin observed, better selection is what ultimately survives.
Abundance requires better selection — rather than simply more frequent selection.
When food (resources) are plentiful, the winning strategy is to be more selective — and not less — which is obviously the mistake of the morbidly obese, drug abusers, and lottery winners — who all of a sudden think they have to have multiple houses and cars, which increases their liabilities and shortens their lifespans by making them more vulnerable to the viruses, bacteria, fungi, injuries and accidents.
That should have been the primary lesson of the “pandemic,” but instead was misplaced for the necessity of vaccinating the least vulnerable — in the misguided notion that that would increase the immunity of the least capable by averaging it out — as the undiscriminating wokesters like to believe.
Aging is a function of time — but we recognize that some age well while most age badly, or poorly — largely because of their lack of knowledge and bad lifestyle choices they make — doing whatever "turns them on" at the moment. These invariably have longterm and lifetime implications. That is the crux of the problem — and not finding miracle vaccines to prolong one’s life in longterm care centers indefinitely — just because they have all the money in the world, and the "fundraisers" know how to work them out of it.
That's been the challenge throughout the ages -- not the quest for immortality -- but just to live another day. That is the survival of the fit -- and beyond that, the greater life chips in. In every case, life ceases when the heart stops -- in every case, and not just those who die of heart disease -- because the circulation it provides prevents it from nourishment with the supporting environment.
Air from the environment no longer comes into the body -- sustaining life. But once it is drawn into the body, such resources can be optimized by the better understanding of those processes by which some individuals can do things others have not even thought possible. The obvious are the physical and athletic proclivities one can become proficient at -- with practice and understanding, while a rare few begin with a natural predisposition and body intelligence.
Everyone doesn't start at the same starting line -- or end up at the same finish line. Life happens in between. And so the proper measure of one's progress in their unique journeys is not between individuals, but each individual's results trying the many different ways. For most, they do not just try one thing, and remain on that course all their lives. The healthier and more robust, have tried the many different things and ways, and from that knowledge and experience, refine a better path -- as long as they are capable.
So to remain capable of doing so, is what differentiates those at the end. Most will have long ago fallen by the wayside and resigned themselves to their fates, while the few, will still be trying everything possible that might work until the end -- and never reach that resignation before they die. Only for the latter, does hope spring eternal -- and die still trying. The others have long given up trying -- and even thinking anything else possible.
That seems to be a better measure of life than simply how long one lives -- even if the heart is the only organ still working. What amazes most people is that differences and change does not have to be monumental -- but can be the slightest of differences and change -- over a long time. It is not that "fast and furious" does better than "slow and steady" -- over a much longer time. At that point, most have already given up entirely -- saying they are no longer young anymore -- which is irrelevant to what they could be doing now.
And that is the only relevant question, "What can I be doing now?" You cannot rewrite the past, or reimagine the future, but you can do something now, and that is the only thing that matters, and makes a difference. So rather than an older person asking how they can keep up with the young, a better question is what they can do better than a younger person can -- and almost dares not to?
That would be to lift a light weight better. One does that by taking the lightest weight possible, and perfecting that movement -- while all the young people in the gym, take the heaviest weight possible, and perform that movement with the most awful form. What do you think is more striking? -- and more productive? Try it. Even the simplest of movements, done precisely -- indicates the highest degree of mastery, and not the overload -- done without manifesting any skill. Which do you think is more valuable -- and more productive?
A good example is the performer who lifts their leg straight overhead -- in contrast to barely dragging all one can carry across a line with all one can muster? Which is a higher degree of proficiency? Which skill would one prefer to maintain all one's life -- if possible? Obviously the finer skill indicates much more ability -- because one might do the latter also -- but not vice-versa. One implies the other -- and that is preferable to the much more limited ability.
Eventually we all get to that mountain -- greater range of movement, or greater resistance in a limited range of movement. The latter does not imply the former. Form dictates function, and not vice-versa. And that is the primary reason most do not sustain muscular gains the longer they persist with the notion that resistance (weight) is more important than the fullest articulation of each movement. As a practical matter, it is possible to maintain peak operating condition by simply executing the movement perfectly with the least amount of weight that enables them to do so.
The converse is all these people who tell me they can no longer perform any range of movement -- because they always use too much weight, and so it hurts, and they recognize the twinge of impending injury. Meanwhile, the fullest articulation of the range of that movement with a weight sufficient to insure that focus and form, will enable them to retain those movements for the rest of their lives -- and the shape and condition that goes with it. They require knowing only in what position produces fullest muscle contraction, and what position is the fully relaxed position for that muscle -- and designing a movement that moves from one extreme to the other -- as the maximum, range of movement possible. In achieving that alternation, they mimick the action of the heart to propel blood and fluids around in a very direct, palpable and life-enabling way. It's not just physical education jargon and magical/wishful-thinking.
Anything less is likely to produce the opposite effects and results of what one is hoping to achieve -- which is lifelong health and full-range movements. You don't get there by doing the opposite of what you wish to achieve.
Functional Fitness
I don't know how many times I've encountered a title on "functional fitness," only to find them teaching impractical skills -- thinking that some day they will be useful, when the very nature of that teaching, is to make everything as impractical and difficult to do as possible -- so as to make them useless and worse, dangerous and injurious.
A good case in point is the manner in which an initiate is taught to perform a squat -- with their arms held up straight in front of them. Under no circumstances would a person actually lift a weight in that manner -- and in most cases, would never think to do so -- unless they were taught that performance as being unequivocally the "correct" thing to do -- with no deviation or even questioning allowed.
It does nothing but flatter the instructors of such performance that they are "right," and the rest of humanity is less intelligent and knowledgeable because they know something that everybody else does not. Whether that knowledge is useful or not, is besides the point. They simply "know" something most others don't -- whether it is useful or not.
The whole point of that performance, is to maximize every advantage one can conceive -- beginning with the realization that the center of balance and gravity must be aligned -- which absolutely requires the hands to be in a downward position close to one's ankles -- just as the Olympic weightlifters and other strongmen invariably know to do. Nobody in their right mind, would think to lift even the lightest weight with their hands held out straight in front of them. What purpose would that serve --- except to learn something totally useless and dysfunctional?
But a lot of people now go through their entire lives with that kind of modus operandus -- thinking the more they know the better they are -- rather than in realizing that the fountain of all wisdom, is the realization that they know nothing. From there, one can discover wondrous things -- while those who begin thinking they know everything, will never attempt to find out anything.
That's mainly the difference between those who succeed and those who have no idea what they are talking about -- but are merely repeating what they were rewarded to repeat unquestioningly. Of course, that is the failing of our education system -- that people are not instructed to find out the truth of any matter for themselves, but rely on their instructors to reward them for their faithfulness in unquestioning obedience to such a program.
So of course, many arrive at the twilight of their lives totally misguided -- without a clue as to how they can set themselves right, and feel like they are simply cash cows for all those who profit handsomely on their misfortunes and (dis)ease. Whenever there are problems, there are two basic impulses -- the first is to eliminate those problems, and the second is, to exploit those problems and make a handsome living from them.
Thus, it becomes the driving force behind why small problems at first, grow larger until they consume all one's resources -- and there is no more quality of life for any of its inhabitants -- while other societies, don't understand why there should be a problem. In most cases, the problems are of their own making -- and are not inherent to life, but instead, antithetical to life -- because they cannot tell any better. The problems become their lives and way of living.
Such societies go into decline -- while others rise and flourish. That is the eternal story of civilization -- and why nobody stays at the top forever -- even with all the spoils. The most robust at solving (eliminating) problems rise, while those consumed with problems fall -- usually at their own hands.
The casual visitor to such societies will note those obvious differences -- of greater civility in one, and increasing lawlessness, disrespect, and disregard in the other. The public relations will tell us that things were never better -- even while misery and despair are all we see -- even camped out on the doorsteps of civic government.
The people one would think whose job it was to see and report on these things, tell us there is nothing to see, and there is no problem -- except that we need infinitely more funding to solve these non-problems. In Hawaii, they've even built a transportation system that will not go anywhere. They claim it is nearly perfect, because nobody can get on, and nobody can get off -- anywhere they'd want to go. It is "perfect" because it will require infinite funding. So many Islanders are getting their wish that the Islands return to where they were before civilization invaded their harmony -- and nobody needed to go anywhere.
But that is not the whole story of what is going on in the world. One is not likely to hear about it, but there are some cities rising into the 21st century with gleaming new skyscrapers and pristine public areas. Yet we are told that they are third-world countries -- and not the leaders into the 21st century with all that implies. That is the new world order -- and not just the old, maintaining itself at the top -- and selling this "old world charm," for tourist dollars.
Obviously, they are not the living places of business and industry, but a trip of nostalgia, and the good old times. But that is the past, and not the future. The future is a whole new way of life -- built on the past surely, but leaping into the unknown -- and favoring those who know they do not know. And so they find out, and in doing so, create the way of the future -- and not simply repeat the past, for one more iteration.
What people have regarded as "fitness," hasn't served them very well -- when even their staunchest advocates die prematurely even while at the top of their game, or disabling themselves for life by abusing themselves in ways not meant to be -- which causes them to cease all healthful activities from early on in life. Many take up drugs to escape their pain and fill the void in their lives. So obviously, a whole new, better paradigm of activities and purpose is needed based on integrating exercise into contemporary lifestyles -- instead of the failed model of stopping life so that one can exercise, and do anything productive and significant.
That is easier done than said -- because the body is built for movement -- but not arbitrary movements the devious mind can conceive -- so that it has to fail. The proper exercise of the body, is actually how it is designed to work -- without the mind taking precedence of the most profitable model to conduct and sell that instruction. It is like the infant learning how to become proficient with its own body -- before they encounter those who insist on telling them what to do and how to be -- as unqualified and incompetent to tell anybody else what to do.
The kinesthetically gifted are never that way. They learn through the actuality of their experiences (exercise) -- which requires constant attention and attentiveness -- of which there is no limit, unlike the treadmill of activities that discover nothing new, and frankly, produces no favorable results beyond reinforcing the belief that that is the only way things can ever be done.
Getting back to the manner of squat performance, another accompanying instruction is to never allow the knees to move forward of the toes -- which then displaces the center of gravity to the unnatural position that cannot be sustained comfortably over a prolonged period -- as is seen in indigenous cultures. That exercise is the proper alignment of the major hinges of the human body -- that simply happens because it must. Human babies are quite proficient at it -- with no instruction usually given. They know how to use natural advantage -- and thus we marvel at the wisdom of the young -- in discovering what is in them, and not in all the books pretending to know something -- but in reality, is responsible for setting faith and confidence in human knowledge back to the Dark Ages.
The fact of the matter is that it just doesn't work -- and increasingly in their twilight years when they desperately need it the most. That is true for even the most ardent exercisers. They accept their increasing deteriorating condition as the general rule, and point out only one metric, if any, that defies that general trend. That's not convincing proof of the validity of all they are promulgating.
In most cases, lifting a heavier weight does not increase the productivity -- as many think is automatic. What matters, is the precision and mastery of performance -- regardless of resistance or load. That's where many go astray. It is the quality of the movement rather than the quantity of the load that results in the optimal stimulus of movement. While most are impressed with the amount that can be lifted with excellent form, the magic is the excellence of form, and not the weight. Correlation is not causation.
The mastery of performance is what allows for maximum poundage, and not simply upping the poundage at every opportunity -- until one invariably injures themselves because of the improper form. In observing world champion lifters, what is striking is the attention paid to their form using only the bar -- and if that is not precisely where it should be, they do not go higher. What would be the point? Like the practice of medicine, the first rule should be, do no harm -- and once one has ensured those parameters, the rest takes care of itself -- but not before then. That would be putting the cart before the horse -- with similarly disappointing results.
Particularly for the oldsters out there, if you can still do the snatch and clean and jerk in perfect form with the bar alone at age 100, you don't need to lift anything more. That alone says it all. It's like the ballet dancer; if they can still lift their leg up over their head at 100, they don't need to add any more weight to make it a better exercise. It will invariably make it a worse exercise -- and a travesty, but somebody will come along recommending it as the "next big thing."
Exercise is Finding Out
Why is exercise so hard to do? It depends on what one means by "exercise." A lot of people think they own the category -- rather than it being the unique way each individual finds out who they are, and what their ultimate capabilities are. So why would some people not want to know that? It is because they have been conditioned to think that only other people are fully worthy of such challenges and calling -- but not themselves. Such people have long consigned themselves to being spectators for the lives of others -- so what they do, is not important -- when it is the most important thing to do and find out in every life. That is what matters.
Many millennia ago, it was thought that only one person mattered -- the person at the top, and it was the duty of everyone else to serve and sacrifice for that one person, and the lives of everyone else did not matter and could be sacrificed for The One. So if such a personage died, all those who knew or served them, could be dispatched to keep them company along the way.
But as time played out, it was increasingly realized the one needn't compete to be exclusively that one person with all the spoils, and there could be societies in which there was enough to go around for everybody. In such a society, many could be winners -- and not just the one. Then many more had a vested interest in the success of that society rather than everyone only battling to be the one on the top -- and once there, they expended all their resources and energies to keep everyone else down. Invariably, such societies would disintegrate and disappear, and generations later would run across their artifacts and wonder, "What were these people thinking?"
That was old world thinking, and the new world thinking is the exploration of vastly more than that. It is not merely a new generation of oppressors and people who want to be the boss of all the others -- but the much more expansive question of what one would do if each were their own boss? How would each manage their own lives? What was important to do, and what did one not want to do -- but thought they had to?
In that old paradigm, "exercise" often was that compulsion to do what they really didn't feel like doing -- and would do anything to avoid. But lost in that resistance, was the realization that they themselves could define the rules and parameters of the games they played -- and make them as fair and rewarding as possible -- rather than just setting themselves up for failure and humiliation. It doesn't have to be that way -- though countless minds think that is the only way possible. We recognize such minds as undeveloped and unfulfilled -- because given the freedom and liberty to do all things, they seek only to destroy the freedom and liberties of everyone else -- and not to become as great as they can be themselves.
Such people are invariably the products of poor conditioning and traumatic experiences that limit their ultimate growth -- that those without those limits imposed upon them were not crippled by and set back. But a few overcome them, and the exceptional even rise from those formidable handicaps that make them extraordinary persons. While nice to read about and learn about in other lives, it is much more important to do one's best in their own lives -- as what is most important.
Those expressions and activities are the exercise of each life -- from potential to fullest articulation (actualization). That is what is worth knowing -- and not what everybody knows -- because only one knows that. That is the secret of successful and fulfilling lives -- and not simply wondering all one's life, what could have been. The only way to learn that, is to find out -- to the fullest extent possible, physically, mentally, emotionally, socially, etc. That is the exercise of life -- finding out. It is not enough just to "know better," but making no attempt on their own, to find out the truth of that matter for oneself. That art and skill are lost in an age in which all the answers are provided to them -- without having to make any effort of their own. And so one thinks they know all the answers -- when they have not even begun to ask the right questions -- so that kind of knowledge is invariably irrelevant and just a mind full of useless information -- signifying nothing of any consequence and difference. It wouldn't even begin to tell the difference.
It is a mind disconnected from any reality -- and thinks that what they see on television, videos, and print, have more reality than what they are actually experiencing in their daily lives -- and the "results" they are getting. Invariably, what they think they are doing, differs greatly from what they are actually doing -- and that is why they get the results they are getting. Their thoughts are not aligned with reality -- which is the whole purpose of the exercise of their faculties. They don't really know what they have -- until they express it in the actuality -- and actually make that connection manifest -- which is to say, "Make it happen."
It doesn't just happen because one wants it to more than anybody else. More often than not, it takes hours of practice, to manifest the results one wants -- even with the greatest of talent, and optimal conditions. But usually, it is not like one is the only one trying to accomplish that -- as probably a few other prodigies, see the value of doing so as well. How each goes about it, is frequently the story of competitions -- but that is not the only thing going on. Probably as much, or even more, is going on unwitnessed -- and in that way, it is important for each to be their own judge and jury of how well they are doing for the countless hours that are the majority of their lives.
If only they care, that is not nothing, but the most important of the audience -- especially when their moment is out of the spotlight. At that point, even the best and most famous, find themselves in a vacuum many are hardpressed to fill for the remainder of their lives. It is easy to understand their motivations and judge their success while they are still vying for the top of the podium -- but whether they can sustain themselves beyond those glory years is everyone's greatest challenge yet. That's why so few, if any yet, make it to 100 -- in peak condition. Most have lost a step or two, while many have given up entirely, and are ready to go at the earliest moment of expedience -- when they could be reinventing the rules for their survival advantage.
It's not about cheating death or cheating age, but fulfilling it to its ultimate purpose. What they should have going for them is the wisdom of experience. That doesn't necessarily mean remaining young and foolish forever -- but taking that wisdom and experience to another level that hasn't been achieved before. There is no greater challenge or calling -- because it is not just one's own, but the legacy of all human knowledge and being up to the present moment. It's not just longer lives in a deteriorating condition -- but health beyond what has been achieved up to now. Implied in this is longer lives, but more than that, it is a vastly greater health that makes length a moot point. One would presume that it would mean a longer life, but it is more than just hanging on for dear life -- but attaining and actualizing a more robust, vibrant existence never witnessed or even imagined before.
That's really the story of humanity. At some point, greater quantity produces the conditions for the critical mass that makes a qualitative quantum leap inevitable. That's how life evolves -- and has not simply repeated over the millions of years. That's how change happens: slowly at first, and then explosively -- past all our expectations -- into the unknown, that then becomes the knowable. And the only way to get there is not for a few, but for as many as possible, to embark on that exploration -- and task.
Desperation is a Great Motivator
Many people won't do anything until all their chances have run out -- and then they are desperate for anything that might work. But until they get to that point, they expect a miracle to save them. Miracles are even a greater long shot -- than the most modest thing one can do for themselves. God is usually too busy to intercede -- especially when one has done absolutely nothing for oneself but pray to God to do everything for them. Even the most beneficent of beings, will run out of patience. So it is largely up to each individual, to do as much as they can for themselves -- before asking for divine interventions, because the plan already works -- but everyone must learn how it works.
That's not automatic; one is not born with that perfect knowledge, but has many years to learn as they live -- and get better by it. Presumably, that is what life is all about -- and not the many diversions and entertainments that occupy them otherwise. Chief among them now is just consuming all one can -- just because they can. That seems to be the undoing of many people now
That's what "opportunity" means to many -- unlimited chances to waste them all, and not that each must be properly valued and appreciated (made greater). It still is a world of finite resources, and not all you can eat (consume) -- at every opportunity. Even in ancient times, the wastage of resources, made for hard times to follow. And so a few wise ones advised on the need to live judiciously and shepherd the resources for ever better days ahead. Usually, those voices were unheard, and in many cases, persecuted and suppressed by the ever growing madding crowd -- who thought that unlimited more was their entitlement and birthright.
But alas, the world is what we make of it -- individually, and then collectively -- and not just everybody waiting for everybody else to do it first -- for them. Obviously, those are the societies and civilizations in decline, while more robust and rising ones emerge each day -- in new ways.
Even for the most undiscriminating, some things work better than others -- but more than a few, never figure that out, merely choosing to accept every outcome as equal to any other. Not surprisingly, they are even seen to go backward in their lives to a time of less accountability and responsibility for their own actions and lives -- instead of moving ahead at every opportunity and challenge. Instead, there is no progress but only repetition -- of the same behaviors that got them to their present quandaries.
Before we go too far down that path, hopefully we find a few who see things clearly, and guide us to the light. They are not everyone, or even most people -- but the path of a few who see their own lives with that significance. They are the self-chosen few, and it doesn't matter how many are on the other side -- lost in the wilderness of their own self-deceptions. Chief among them are those working in the various media -- catering to whatever popular delusions and madness is the order of the day. It might be the present investment scheme, magical potions, rituals of contemporary fads -- each outdoing every other for the limited attention bandwidths.
They think that whatever they want to think, makes it so -- if they can't get enough people to get with their program. In that respect, they are lot like every generation before them -- with their shamans, gurus, and experts -- proclaiming to know better, for each and every other -- which is much more convenient than each learning for themselves, the truth of every matter. So what they believe to be true, is largely what someone else has told them is the truth, and there are experts in every matter -- and not that anyone should ever experiment and find out for themselves.
Usually one lives that way -- until one comes to that moment of desperation in which they are forced to find another way -- or perish. For the best, that often comes early in life -- when they realize that they are very different from the others, and so simply going along with all the others, only ensures their doom and abnegation. That is most obvious with the child prodigies of every age -- realizing that what most think is impossible, is way too easy for them, and they have to be very circumspect at "showing off," lest they be brutally suppressed and censored by the self-appointed gatekeepers of the truth.
But in more humble lives, those days of reckoning can come to most -- if they choose to embrace it. More often than not, it is the path opened to them by desperation -- as the person given no hope otherwise. Legends are built on such transformations -- with no idea of a definitive result. They just do because they don't know what else to do -- as all the options provided to them, have no future but the hapless known. That's almost invariably how the weak became strong. They refused to accept their doom, and so they worked tirelessly at changing that prognosis.
That's not a hard thing to do. It takes dedication born out of desperation -- that that is the only thing they can do, and what makes perfectly good sense to do. So they are "all-in," no matter what. That's the easy part. Finding out the right things to do may take the entirety of their lives -- but what better and more important things have they got to do with their lives? In that way, is their greatest service to the rest of humanity -- to find that better way -- rather than the dismal familiar.
That's true of every pioneer in every field -- and particularly, the ones that have yet to be created. And nothing less is possible. If it is not one, it will be someone else. That is the ongoing evolution of the species. Supreme health is the evolution of the species -- and not simply more of sickness providing more cures. That is the old paradigm of somebody else making everyone else well. People have to do it for their own sake, as well as their own good -- and nobody else can do it for them. They have to live their own lives with that sense of urgency and desperation. It's not the power over everybody else -- but to manage their own lives as though it matters, and makes a difference. That is the only action that ever has.
It doesn't mean that everyone has to run marathons or become a "mass" monster. Everyone has to become their own person -- and not just the latest mass media fabrication that has gone way beyond parody. The only silver lining in that is the realization that such instant transformations are entirely possible. But far beyond the manifestations are the sustainable lifestyles of truly healthy people -- and what they will do because of that underlying health. Health is not even about the absence of sickness and problems. It is going where humankind has not gone before.
It is not one thing -- but everything. It's foolish to talk of living longer lives if those lives are not achieved by vastly superior health that makes living longer feasible and enjoyable -- or what would be the point of simply deteriorating longer? That doesn't make sense to anyone. That is truly putting the cart before the horse. What matters is the health of the horse -- and that will take us to where we want to go.
Time Under Tension
Is lifting weights enough to build muscle?
Many people believe that simply loading up the resistance is enough to guarantee that muscle will grow -- no matter what they do with it thereafter. It's as though they believe that muscle growth occurs because they load plates onto a bar, and it doesn't matter what they do with it -- rather than the more accurate picture that what they do, is far more important than how much they've loaded onto the bar.
This is particularly true when trainees are older -- and don't get the fabulous results of younger trainees. But is the difference because they are older -- and not as it is more likely to be, that they perform their movements in a perfunctory manner -- because they are old, and so is excusable in that way? That they can still move at all, is considered perfectly acceptable and admirable, and not that they need to pay even more attention to rigor in the performance of everything -- and that is the reason people grow old prematurely -- when they adamantly stop caring, and think there is no difference. At that stage of life, they are entirely accountable to themselves -- and nobody is going to grade and correct them on their performance, and so they give up caring -- and if nobody else is going to care, why should they themselves -- because they are only in it for the praise and rewards.
If nobody else is going to reward them for being in peak performance, why should they care? That is also true of many of the talented performers who are past their peak popularity, or when they simply cannot delude themselves that they are up and coming prospects any longer. That great motivation to fulfill their "unlimited" potential has passed, and they are faced with the lifelong grind into obsolescence and obscurity.
Of course the great champions of every sport and activity face this fall off even more agonizingly than the many who never were. Many get lost in life once they are no longer at the top -- and then even act in ways to speed their own self-destruction and immolation. Life for them is unbearable and insufferable without the constant attention and adulation -- and without it, they implode in a vacuum of meaninglessness and lack of purpose. If they don't reinvent those motives for themselves, they face a life of torment and addiction -- to obtain that same high, but that doesn't lead to some higher meaning and purpose -- but only a path to a certain end -- with no escape or turnaround. It is a one way street to oblivion -- and they no longer care.
We are all like that -- to a certain extent -- and becomes more obvious as the years go by. Maybe the philosophers and psychologists talk a good game -- until in the end, they too give up. So how to be an ever renewing fountain of hope and aspiration is the quest even the best have to confront eventually. Some people just hope to be so busy and distracted they have no time for such thoughts -- and so when such moments of truth confront them full on, they have no answer for themselves. Life is just one more distraction and entertainment -- they hope never ends.
But surely and certainly, it does end -- and never on their terms. The best they can hope for, is to be blindsided -- and go as they lived, clueless and uncaring to the end. Such lives are the opposite of what we hope ours might be -- intentional and deliberate -- and so there is a reason why things happen, and not just a blur of one thing from every other. That is the clarity we hope to see in life -- to see things clearly, for once in our lives. And once we have a glimpse of that, and know what it is, we can move towards the light, and not plunge further into the darkness and abyss.
So all we know is that the light and clarity is good -- and strive to move into it as completely as possible. In the other possibilities, nothing ever makes sense -- even when the words may sound plausible for a while. But then one wants something more than just nice-sounding words that mean nothing -- like Plato's shadows on the wall. They are not reality -- although they sound a lot like it.
The productive part of exercise is not how much weight one places on the bar prior to performing a movement with it -- but the movement itself -- regardless of the weight, or apparatus employed. The key concept is "time under tension" -- which again sounds nice, but few have thought to consider what it actually means. Time under tension only begins where most people are already quitting -- or think no further movement is possible. It is in extending the range of movement at that point that causes the most severe muscular contraction possible -- which is exactly where most people never go, and actually condition themselves not to. That would be in straightening the arms and continuing to push beyond that resting point (bone on bone lockout) -- that most regard as the furthest extent of that movement, at which point they immediately lower their arms rather continuing to push further in the direction of the fullest contraction.
That contraction, is also compression -- contraction meaning to make a volume smaller, and by that, forcing as much as the residual fluids to move back towards the renewing organs of the heart, liver, kidneys etc. Otherwise, the fluids remain in the tissues at the extremities, where the deterioration of the head, hands and feet are noticed by most as the aging phenomena. The fluids have to carry the waste products back to the purification organs, or the toxicity builds up, destroying the nerves and capillaries in the characteristic manner in which modern, and particularly sedentary people age -- because they produce very few contractions that a hard-working person would normally -- since the particular work of humans, is done with movements at the head, hands and feet.
That is where human evolution is designed and optimized for movement (work). Lacking that need for actual physical work, the next best thing is exercise designed with such movement (activation) uppermost in mind -- specifically and deliberately to produce contractions from the furthest muscular insertions at the extremities of the most articulate organs. Otherwise, the result is the familiar edema, lymphedema, lipedema of a rapidly failing (aging) body -- which is the retention of fluids and waste products in the tissues, with no way of being deliberately, intentionally and systematically eliminated -- as Nature intended.
In light of this reality, no amount of drugs and medical appliances are going to be able to substitute for this deficit -- that Nature has provided so well for. Nor the wrong kinds of exercise -- that do not address this critical part of the circulatory effect, but instead, is misguidedly focused on making the heart work exclusively harder -- until it ultimately has to prematurely fail -- as many top exercisers (proponents) have manifested.
The heart works perfectly -- with no need for intervention; it is all the other muscles of the body that are doing nothing to contribute to the health-maintaining critical function of optimizing the circulation. That is the need for exercise -- and how to go about it productively.
"Making a Muscle"
Usually before one is out of grade school, every boy learns "how to make a muscle," and delights in showing off that ability by raising and bending their arm to reveal one of the great observations and lessons of mastering their body. Unfortunately, few take it beyond that revelation -- in realizing that the same effect could be demonstrated with every other muscle in their body.
When a joint is articulated, the resulting movement produces an undeniable transformation of its appearance -- that remains throughout life, except that many never perform such movements (articulations) anymore -- and even lose the memory (connection) that such a thing is even possible anymore. Yet when one gets them to perform such articulations, that contraction is obvious once more -- as long as they are still capable of such movement. But that requires manifesting memory into action -- which many have long forgotten -- and is the underlying reason for their diminishing mobility.
It's not that they can't move in that manner anymore, but they'v long forgotten how to activate such action. They just don't think to do it anymore -- and that thinking of its possibility -- makes the activation of the neuromuscular structures their response capabilities. That is the reason for practice -- to maintain and even enhance those capabilities, and obviously, not to, will make such actions increasingly difficult and eventually impossible.
That's obvious to mostly everyone -- but not so obvious, is the realization that such movement can be performed without a load usually employed to increase the level of difficulty -- characteristic of most "competitive" events. However, that competitive component is not actually a requirement of maintenance and improvement -- but actually becomes a detriment and deterrent to lifelong health, long past the age in which one can compete without the risk of injuries producing a lifelong impairment.
That's usually at the point at which one's ability to recover fully from such injuries diminish greatly to the point that further participation on those terms, is no longer feasible nor attractive -- and one's better judgment says, "No more." The risks far outweigh the rewards henceforth, and one is wise to give up on such activities (as every mature person has), rather than risk a fatal or lifelong debilitating injury -- unless of course, they absolutely have to. Then a person does what they have to do -- and there is no quibbling over that. Their very lives may depend upon it.
Most are not aware of the fact that healthful movement (exercise) can be conducted in the absolute absence of any competitive (stressful) motives -- and in fact, is the preferable and more productive way to conduct such activities. That's particularly true for people hoping to maintain those faculties for the entirety of their years -- and especially true for those wishing to improve the ease, grace and effortless of their movements throughout life. For that, no competition is required -- but the trained eye can detect that difference as the underlying functioning of that individual.
It doesn't have to be rocket science. That should be self-evident truth -- and that may be the hardest thing to see and understand in a world of technocracy -- in which most things that are "known," are the knowledge claimed by those who claim to know about these things -- whether they in fact, know anything worth knowing. Not all knowledge is equal; some are more useful than others. Some have no validity in fact or practice -- but are propagated nevertheless. Quite a number of things are that way. Well-known and adhered to, but may be the root of the problem rather than its solution -- and it is only the solutions that matter, and not the multiplication and proliferation of endlessly more problems.
Real solutions eliminate those problems -- rather than simply making it bigger and more costly, so as to create endlessly more jobs (work). Dependent care-giving is probably the greatest example of this at the present time -- when the paradigm is that it takes increasingly more caring by others, while that attention and caring by the individuals themselves, is greatly discouraged and even forbidden -- thus ensuring that evermore jobs will be created to solve that problem. Besides the aging populations, that is also true of younger populations that have decided early on, to remain totally dependent on others for everything, rather than develop their own independence -- as the achievement of distinction of what every thriving and viable culture (society) seeks to do better than any other.
That is the survival of the fit -- and not merely the competition to be the fittest under much more arbitrary and constrained circumstances. The former stands the test of time -- while the latter is sound and fury signifying nothing of lasting significance -- or great importance. It is merely a simulation of life, rather than the actual living of it -- a game rather than life itself. Some even go as far as to claim that all of life is nothing more than endless games -- so that in the end, nothing really matters -- rather than that reality always matters.
One's life should matter -- and should be the best one can make it, but those things just don't happen. The quest of life is to make it happen. Many get distracted from that truth -- by all the games, diversions and distractions. The smartphone is not reality; the world around one is reality -- and where one can make every difference. The image is not the real -- no matter who approved that message.
