Rethinking Exercise
The major difference between high-intensity training (HIT) and low-intensity training (LIT) is that HIT cannot be sustained for very long, which requires a rest (Interval) making it HIIT. Low-intensity exercise does not require one to have to take a rest break at frequent intervals — but is exercise that can be sustained and prolonged indefinitely — like a cross-country bike ride. That person would not require a rest break every ten minutes — or they’d never get anywhere. But the high-intensity effort can usually not be sustained for very long because it usually means holding one’s breath for a maximal effort — which makes it anaerobic — or done without breathing.
The internal pressures involved with such maximal efforts are what causes a lot of damage and premature deaths among such highly-motivated athletes — like the proverbial “John Henry” who thought he could outrace a steam engine. Many of the “World’s Strongest Men,” also succumb to such stresses and retire quite young from such competitions, as well as many bodybuilders — including the Arnolds and the Ronnies. It is not that the spirit is not willing, but the body accumulates all these past traumas — and rather than becoming infinitely stronger, it inevitably takes a toll. That is not likely to be the case with low-intensity training — in which one can go on indefinitely — and so the body is telling you something in that.
However, just because one can sustain an activity indefinitely, is no guarantee that it will be productive enough to produce muscle growth and enhanced functioning. So one is aiming for that sweet spot at which one can sustain muscle growth and improved functioning for the rest of their lives — rather than the brief moment of glory followed by a lifetime in decline — which is the case in many former champions.
It may be that they suffer a few injuries along the way that makes no longer all-out efforts possible, and they’d be happy just to rehabilitate those injuries so they could resume a life without pain and disabilities — and that is the far superior role of lower-intensity but also productive exercise — which almost every highly-competitive athlete comes around to — but unfortunately, know no other way to train and exercise but the all-out to the next injury style.
At this point, many just give up and abandon exercise completely — or come back for high-intensity training that forces a prolonged rest, burnout and/or injury — before becoming completely discouraged. Their conditioning has been that they either have to force themselves beyond their limits each and every workout, or it is a waste of time to do anything less. But the less can be more — if it can be sustained over an entire lifetime, and I thing that is the paradigm people want — but are usually not offered that possibility.
It does require rethinking productive movements — beginning with the notion of the measurement of exercise at the heart — which defines high and low intensity. High intensity exercise is measured by achieving maximal heart rate — which is a danger zone and why that theoretical maximum was formulated — to protect those with heart problems from approaching those thresholds. Thus the concepts or “aerobic” and “cardio” also derive from that focus on heart function alone as the measure of effectiveness. But in the hands of the highly competitive, what was originally designed as maximums that should not be broached, was interpreted by the jocks as minimums that must be exceeded each and every time to be productive.
That is not true. The central focus in exercise is not how hard the heart works, but how effectively the muscle one wishes to develop is working — to increase the blood flow through that area — which is the circulatory effect — that more sensibly, has to be measured at the extremities rather than at the heart — because that is the objective — to pump the blood to the farthest reaches of the body, and not just to the heart itself. The heart always gets all the blood — by design. But the muscles don’t — unless they are activated in the same manner as the heart — in alternately contracting fully and relaxing fully, which makes its an auxillary pump.
That muscle mass is about 30% of the body weight — as opposed to the one pound heart — which people think is erroneously pushing the blood singlehandedly throughout the body as well as lifting hundreds of pounds externally. What the body does, is use favorable leverage to perform such tasks — rather than the naive notion that one simply has to make the heart alone work harder and faster — until it fails completely, and that is not a desirable outcome. Instead, one wants to produce as much results as possible, at a slow and steady pace — which usually makes the difference over time.
Meanwhile, the high-intensity guys are usually resting — which is a hell of a way to get anything done — but that’s what they think they are doing. But as people get older and wiser, they recognize that if they can still move through a great range, they are way ahead of the game, and that more than increasing resistance over a decreasing range, is the quality of life and movement they want.
High and low intensity is inherently the wrong way to think about it — because the focus is on working the heart harder and faster — rather than whether the muscles of the body are working as the heart does — making the entire musculature dedicated to the circulatory effect — which produces the optimal health and all its benefits.
Intensity and Resistance
Usually when we speak of resistance, that is referring to a mass outside the body, which can be moved measurably — including the body mass itself. In fact, many people’s idea of exercise is to move the body itself — before adding further resistance. However, the really important part of movement, is the movement happening within the body itself — which is the circulation, or circulatory effect that enables one to perform a movement, and more importantly, sustain such effort to accomplish some task.
It’s rarely the case that one accomplishes anything with one burst of power — and then no further effort. Those incidents are largely involved in the destruction of something — rather than the making of it. Building something requires time and effort — while great things can be destroyed in a millisecond. But then all one has is a lot of broken pieces, while the objective of most work and effort, is to build something out of nothing — over time. That is the work of man — whether building a structure, or their own bodies, health, and well-being.
Such edifices can last a lifetime — while “one and done” is dependent on how much one started out with — to last very long. If one hasn’t first build up that reserve, then there is no well to go to — and one is constantly in search of a new source, and exhausting oneself each day in that way. Thus the practicality of building up one’s reserves — so that they are readily available at the right opportunities — or the need for survival. But rather than exist only in perpetual survival mode, one wishes to have a little extra, and if possible, a lot extra — to better take advantage of the opportunities presented to them. That begins with one’s health and fitness — or readiness to respond to the challenges of their own existence — as the basic equipment they always have with them.
Naturally, it would make a lot of sense if that did not require a lot of equipment, nutrients and other resources to carry around with them — to access those inner reserves — by the body’s own design. That is the function of the circulatory system and effect. It gets those resources to where they need to be — to be most useful and productive. In primitive times and conditions, the daily movements required for survival ensured people stayed in the best health for what they had to do. But in contemporary life and times, there is little one actually needs to do to ensure that survival, and so a lot of people become unfit — simply because they can.
In earlier and less prosperous times, societies could not support such unproductive individuals, and so it just didn’t happen — not if any individual could help it. But with the growth of societies and civilizations, it became possible to support most people in abundance, and prosperity if they managed that abundance well, and wisely. Life became a little more complex — because it afforded most with that luxury. However, such wealth can be frittered away if not valued and managed properly for optimal results.
One might simply waste as much time, energy and resources as the thing to do — thinking that is all to do in life. And so their exercises and activities will reflect that wasting of capacity rather than the building of those reserves toward a greater life. Predictably, their measure is only how many calories they “burn” — as though that is all — and not the possibility that it is to build the body for greater capacities than it started out with. Most are aware of such possibilities, but think that it is only possible with great sacrifice of time, energy and resources — rather than how the body would prefer to be — and was designed for.
All animals are similarly designed in that way — unless their movements and activities are distorted and constrained. In humans, certain movements naturally produce muscle contractions — which are the triggers for blood flow to increase in that way. That is the effect of use, or exercise — specifically to produce a maximal contraction that expels fluids out, and upon relaxation, reload because of the space (vacuum) created by that expansion. — allowing the heart to easily fill those areas with its reliable pumping. All the muscles of the body work in this simple way: There is a position in which it must be fully contracted, and another position in which it must be fully relaxed, and those are the important positions — and NOT the resistance in going from one position to the other.
The body doesn’t care about the resistance in going from one extreme to the other. In that way, it is similar to the operation of a computer. The computer only recognizes if a switch is open or closed — and how it gets from one extreme to the other is irrelevant. But that is what most people concern themselves with — the resistance in getting to the extremes, and so never get there. Getting to those extremes, is what is required in increasing the range of motion (movement). Instead, the tendency is to shorten the range of movement — while adding more resistance — whether that is bodyweight, free weights, machines, angle, difficulty, etc.
The problem is that one selects a resistance that is determined by the most weight one can handle in the pre-contracted position — rather than the proper weight determined by the pre-stretched position — and thus never gets into the super-contracted or super-relaxed positions indicative of the greatest range of that possibility. That can be achieved not by resistance — but in knowing what the extreme ranges of that muscle expression are. That was what I observed when I studied the Nautilus machines that featured “variable resistance throughout the full range of movement.” The range of movement itself, was the greatest resistance — moving in either direction.
This is particularly helpful to note in people with limited range of movement — which is virtually everybody — but obscured with the preoccupation of “resistance” used — while the range of the movement varies greatly from one person to another — so as to be virtually meaningless. That is true of all the exercises usually performed and seen in a gym — further exacerbated by overly long rest intervals, so as to render most workouts predictably unproductive. Some are more obvious than others — such as talking or scrolling on their smart phones for 90% of their gym time. Very rarely does one witness a person actually working out the entirety of their gym session — but if one does, that is usually the best conditioned person in the gym.
But it is not enough just to do a limited range movement like the treadmill or stationary bike — in which there is no articulation of the neck, wrists and ankles — indicative of people only working their heart harder and faster, with the resulting atrophied and emaciated look of “cardio” exercisers throughout the rest of their musculature. Sensibly, they should be doing light resistance weight training without rest as all the cardio they need — while achieving total muscular failure/exhaustion in an hour. I’ve never seen that program fail to produce impressive outcomes with each and every workout — no matter what the level of previous training and experience.
That quality of workout can be done only once a week — while simulating those movements without weights the rest of the week — to obviate the muscle soreness that might linger the rest of the week. What is generally called a “high-intensity” workout uses heavy weights for a small number of repetitions — that produces cardiovascular failure rather than true muscle failure, because the weight restricts the breathing by compressing the chest — while the heart rate exceeds the safe levels under that duress. So everything about that manner of performance and exercise is telling the trainee to stop or they will suffer extreme adverse effects — and not that whatever doesn’t kill them, will make them invulnerable. Life doesn’t work that way.
Clearing Space
Reconfigure your home into an exercise studio: All you need is space, and then a few props like a padded floor mat, a sturdy folding chair, and a light pair of dumbbells. The major thing is that it is always set up and ready to go — at any time one thinks of it. You don’t want to be putting your exercise machine and equipment away — so it is a hassle to get it out and set it up each time, and by then, lose the inspiration of the moment. No, you have to be ready to go whenever you feel like it, or can think of it — and not that you have to get your gym clothes together, drive to the gym, pool, or some other specialized place, and all the other things that make exercise a hassle — before one even starts.
No, you already want to be exercising before you realize it — and have to make a monumental effort to get started. And so many don’t start, but just wait for those moments of inspiration to pass — and so never get around to it — as much as they think they should, or ought to. But if you’re standing by the dryer waiting for that five minutes to end, you can do five minutes of calf (heel) raises — which is better than running/walking a mile. And then if the clothes are still not dry, you can set the timer for another five minutes and do five minutes of bent over rows — or overhead arm raises.
The key to making any movement an effective exercise, is the movement (flexion or extension) at the extremities of the head, hands, and feet — which is exactly where most contemporary people never move anymore. That is the price of a modern convenient life — not requiring those movements anymore because the information comes to us on the screen — so we don’t have to turn our heads to see and hear what is behind us. And so the neck and neck muscles atrophy — but more importantly, the brain does as well because as any part of the body, it benefits from increased (optimal) circulation, and is only sustained at a subsistence level — like most parts of the body.
Where one specifically moves, increases the flow to those parts actually moved, because the movement itself enhances the flow. That’s how one can tell what a person actually does: they show prodigious development in those areas actually moved — and lesser development to those areas hardly activated. The typical example is the grossly disproportionate development between the upper body and the lower body development in most gym goers. Realizing this, most people’s remedy is just to hide their legs from view — while wearing tank tops to expose their most prodigious development. But doing so, makes the disproportion grow even greater — until it becomes a hopeless disproportion bordering on a disability.
The easiest exercise to actually do — is the simple calf (heel) raise — anytime one can think of it. That essential movement, is what is required in running, jumping, walking, cycling, and Olympic weightlifting. It doesn’t need to be made any harder or more difficult. It just has to be done — and sustained for a good amount of time — because you don’t want to run for just ten reps — but as long as one has to. Doing it on a block doesn’t make it a better exercise — but actually makes it worse. One can get all the stretch one desires by moving one foot as far back from the other to obtain a maximal stretch — while also producing a maximal contraction as well by eliminating the resistance that prevents that amplitude.
That is to note that the amount of weight that can be safely handled in the stretched (relaxed) position, is a fraction of the amount that can be safely handled in its most contracted position — as was noted by Arthur Jones in the design of his Nautilus machines. In the case of the calf (heel) raise off of a block, that principle is reversed to make the beginning position the hardest part of the movement — while causing the top position of that movement to be eliminated entirely. It is the top portion of that movement that is the most productive part of it — as is true for all the movements of the body.
It is the contraction that needs to be achieved, and not more relaxation. That is the exercise effect. You want to extend the range of contraction — as the effort — rather than the relaxation — as the effort. That is why the concept of accentuating the negative, doesn’t work in the real world applications — while it might cause a muscle to fail sooner — because it is not given this interval to properly rest and prepare for the next contraction. Any muscle used in this manner would fail sooner (prematurely) — but what would be the point? — other than to make it fail as quickly as possible, as an end in itself. I can think of no application in which such an outcome would be desirable — other than to prove that it is possible. In every case, it would be better just to allow gravity to do its work. The reason for lowering a weight under a controlled speed, would be to protect the tendons, ligaments and muscles from the accelerating forces of a deadweight drop in its most vulnerable position.
Under normal conditions, there is no such danger — and one can proceed to move with the confidence of safety — from any position of complete rest and inactivity. That requires space to move freely, a mat for doing lying exercises, and a chair to aid one in doing seated or standing exercises. As easy as it may seem, it has to always be readily available — and not apparatus that only takes five or ten minutes to set up. That won’t do.
Eventually one hopes to be conditioned into the thinking that they exercise any time, any place, under any circumstances because the body and its proper understanding is all one needs to maintain its optimal health — and not the thinking that one is dependent on all these other extraneous factors, promoters of their products and expertise, want you to believe is necessary.
You don’t need to be standing up to exercise — or even to be seated. you can be lying on a mat — or in bed — as long as you move the head, hands and feet through their full ranges. That is what most exercisers don’t do — and that is the areas that need to be moved — as the known weaknesses of the human constitution. This is particularly critical in older people with their lifelong accumulation of problems that threaten their very survival. Conventional/traditional exercise does not work because of the focus on the wrong parts of the body, and no amount of doing all the wrong things, will equal a little bit of the right thing.
No comments:
Post a Comment