Does the Hype Help?
There are people calling themselves “experts” who think that the false justifies the ends because people need to be fooled into behaving intelligently -- claiming they won’t behave intelligently otherwise. It’s a fairly cynical perspective of human motivation which is an unfailing revelation of the speaker -- who prides themselves as the puller of the strings rather than the puppets on the string.
One encounters such personalities in every sphere of human activity -- of which the most innocuous is the teacher-student relationship, which oftentimes, is nothing more than an exploitation and betrayal of trust -- rather than the mutually beneficial fulfillment of human understanding and fulfillment.
Understanding fully what one is doing, is an essential ingredient in any sense of fulfillment -- unlike laboratory rats and pigeons that behave as they do without that consciousness. That is the essential flaw in most studies of human behavior -- that the results are achieved without any understanding of what one is actually trying to achieve. That “blindness” or ignorance, is what such researchers will insist, is what makes their results more believable -- if such a condition were possible, or even desirable, in obtaining -- that one can be proficient at anything, while having no idea what one is doing, or hoping to accomplish.
That is the flaw and fallacy of randomized studies -- that the object is not to study randomness, but deliberation and understanding, and that is what is significant to measure, implying everything else. Instead, the insignificant part, is mistaken for the whole, if not the entirety, of what it is important to achieve -- which is the complete fulfillment and actualization of the whole individual, and not just parts that will amount to nothing meaningful.
A few one will encounter daily, will display such proclivities of disproportion and imbalance -- as though it was some kind of remarkable achievement, rather than the monstrosity violating most observers’ sensibilities of the proper balance, proportions and symmetry. In fact, one gets used to encountering such imbalances in the many gyms devoted ostensibly to such purposes.
So to see the rare individuals who do possess such balance of development and reasonable lifestyle, are not likely to be called to our attention in the journals of hype -- thinking that only gross outrageousness can capture one’s attention anymore. This is particularly true of our exposure to the mass media -- where grotesqueness is the appeal, rather than any sense of genuine and authentic refinement.
That is very unfortunate, because that too is the promise of mass media, in exposing and revealing the remarkable, as well as the commonplace, to the increasingly many who obtain their impressions of the world largely in that manner. But now it devolves into a forum for those who strive most tirelessly and unrelentingly for that attention and exposure -- which are likely to be those lest deserving, and most hungry for that attention which they do not merit otherwise.
posted by Mike Hu @ 3:33 PM
3 comments
3 Comments:
Are people really inspired to take up exercise to learn about a person who gets up at 4 am every day to run a marathon before going off to work? -- or would they be more interested, in learning the least they could do, to get the greatest return for their efforts.
In this manner, the out of shape can justify and rationalize why they don't bother to do anything at all -- because they wouldn't want to become the fitness fanatics they convince themselves such people have to become, in order to optimze their lives -- which of course, is not optimizing but distorting to the extremes.
Such people predictably, are either overexercising -- or recovering from an injury or illness, caused by exercises that set them back. So one of the requirements of a lifelong exercise program is to find out what reduces those risks of injury and overuse, to the greatest extent possible.
That's the most damaging aspect of most fitness prescriptions -- is that it treats the body as though it can withstand, and even benefits from abuse and overuse.
That's invariably why people have to quit sports, and then conditioning exercises -- rather than adopting a regimen that maximizes results with as little waste of the body's recovery abilities as possible.
Chief among that part of the body which has limited lifespan, is the heart itself, so it would behoove a person to arbitrarily overwork it. It rather, has to be conserved as one's most precious resource.
The most venerable and longstanding health practices over the centuries do exactly that -- not raise the heart rate! It's only in the '60s that there is an insistence that in order for exercise to be productive, it must sustain an elevated heartrate on a regular, if not daily basis -- which is precisely why most people instinctively and rightfully resist all conditioning programs.
That has been the single major concept that has set back the progress of a whole generation of people to lifelong good health -- the insistence that they have to prematurely wear out their bodies to maintain it.
Quantity is not quality, and in fact, are inversely related.
Yet we live in a mass consumption (media) culture which encourages to simply obtain and do more -- while better is a quantum leap in understanding that transcends that "problem."
That's how problems are solved -- seeing it in a different way that doesn't embrace the problem as the way it has to be, as an inviolable, unchallenged premise of our experience. That is the flaw in understanding that causes us to be stuck in the endless loop -- of solving the same old problems for an eternity.
A life that is progressing, is always solving new problems --and not merely the same old ones. When one makes that breakthrough, everything in life changes -- and one wonders why they hadn't thought of it sooner.
So, many wonder why didn't they know then what they know now -- as though such a thing were possible, as though they always possessed perfect understanding but chose not to exercise it.
It is less easy for them to accept that their understanding was not sufficient to act properly -- because the right understanding, produces right action, and the action one manifests, is an indication of their imperfect understanding -- which many cannot admit.
And that is one of the greatest handicaps -- particularly of those with marginal intellectual capabilities, who have to protect that self-esteem at all costs -- all their lives, in every case.
You can't convince them of what is right because what is wrong, is who they are, and feel compelled to defend all their lives. A few break through to the other side -- and for these few, everything makes sense and is no longer arbitrary dependent on those they find themselves at the mercy of.
They know the authentic -- from that which just tries so hard to seem so.
"Change" is something very different from "more of the same" which reinforces and maintains the status quo -- and that is why change cannot occur, when one's conditioning experience, is simply more of the same. What needed is something different from what is already being done -- and that is move extending the range ordinarily not achieved (effected) because of the usual conditions.
Feet cannot attain their fullest range of movement because they are required to carry a load. Once the load is removed, the fullest range of that movement is available to that joint. Pointing the feet (or pushing off on the ball of the feet) is not possible if the full weight of the body is borne by the feet, but in shifting the weight off of it, it then becomes possible to achieve the full range articulation at the ankle.
For this reason, walking and running does not allow full range articulation at the ankle, which if done, develops the muscles of the legs without having to do any oof the usual movements normally thought necessary to effect it.
The quadrceps (large muscles on the front of the thigh) are not effected by straightening out the knee so much as it is engaged in raising the toes towards the shin shortening the soleus muscles, which even in bodybuilders is underdeveloped because that movement is not done.
The knee of course, is a particularly vulnerable point of the human body, yet the performance of the squat is usually recommended for the development of the leg muscles, when it is entirely unnecessary to bend or straighten the leg at all -- since movement at the ankle throughout the full range of its articulation determines whether the entire leg musculature is contracted or relaxed.
So when these problematical areas like the knee, back, hips can be stabilized yet accessing ranges of motion not possible otherwise, a very small of amount of this stimulus, creates a tremendous effect -- because the body never gets "used to" it, and for that reason, is always a stimulus for growth and improvement.
It's the same with any other kind of conditioning: if it is done too much, one simply simply gets "used to" it, and so it no longer stimulates growth, but merely drains recovery ability -- thereby, actually speeding the deterioration process.
So the key was not providing resistance through the full range of motion, but realizing that only without resistance, was the fullest range of movement possible -- which ultimately provides its own resistance to further contraction. It is like trying to produce a vacuum -- the more that is effected, the harder it becomes to achieve absolute zero -- so that effort can be sustained in great safety because the greatest application of force produces no momentum, which is the danger in movement and effort.
Those who can bend their fist so as to achieve more than a 45 degree angle with the forearm, inevitably and invariably have extremely powerfully developed forearms -- the turkey drumstick effect. That is how they display them -- but that is also how they develop them.
Yet those are the very places most people do not pay any attention to -- in their focus on working out the larger muscles of the body, and especially a focus on the heart, which should be obvious to anybody, doesn't need more work. It is the hardest working muscle of the body.
What one wishes to do, is to condition the muscles to aid directly in enhancing the circulatory effect -- to wherever one thinks it most appropriate to. High on that list, would be directly enhancing the circulation to the brain (head), which with most exercise understandings, is thought to occur as a side-effect of doing everything else. but the fact of the matter is that the increased circulation usually comes at the expense of that circulation to the brain -- which is why the brain sends out the message to desist and cease further efforts.
Most of the so-called muscle failure is really "brain failure" because the constriction of the flow to the brain (head) during most people's efforts -- which can be clearly observed in most gyms, in most efforts. the neck muscles are immobilized and constrict ever tighter with each subsequent repetition of whatever movement one is performing -- until the brain demands that one stop, which is mistaken for muscle failure. It's not but universal nervous system failure directed by the brain.
Once that is addressed, one can exercise intelligently, productively and very briefly -- with remarkable results -- which are not possible in the conventional understanding and experience of these activities.
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