The State of the Art Today

People familiar with my videos from around 15 years ago, wonder if I’ve done anything “new” lately, and though I’ve thought about an update from time to time, it would not be a significant upgrade from those insights -- that the critical focal points of movement, are at the furthest extremities, which are the notable markers of vitality in people, that is readily apparent both in the functioning, as well as the appearance of responsiveness.

I’ve even gone so far as to propose that if one does nothing else, a minute of full range head movement, probably makes the largest difference in what one can do to immediately and instantaneously effect a dramatic change in one’s functioning (fitness) -- and particularly for those who have difficulty either getting out of bed, and thinking/functioning well immediately upon awakening. It is even suggested that the head-turning movement can be done before even getting out of bed.

Once one is up, and is inspired to further ensure, their functioning at all the other extremities, I suggested 5 exercises would be necessary to further ensure that the three extremities of the head, hands and feet, would be addressed in their fullest range of direction approximating 90 degrees in each movement.

The one-minute workout ensures one optimizes their present functioning capacity, while the five-minute additional will be enough to improve continually at 1%. However, there are those to whom, 1% of steady, lifetime improvement is not enough, and they demand more -- even sometimes, vowing to do whatever is necessary to obtain the fastest results -- which cannot be sustained at those drastic levels of improvement for very long, or indefinitely.

That is well recognized by those at the highest levels of those achievements because any organism doesn’t have unlimited capacity for improvement, and change, and in fact, will then run into every organism’s innate desire to maintain and consolidate itself at whatever level it presently is. Real change requires a tremendous adaptation and drain of resources to meet even once -- let alone try to attain permanently.

But that little bit of change is absolutely necessary to retaining and maintaining one’s vitality and vibrancy -- the management of which, is called “recovery ability,” or the frequency and intensity at which one can tolerate very significant shocks to the present system before actually breaking down beyond recovery. Obviously, this is not a factor for those who seldom if ever, pose this kind of stimulus to their being and becoming -- but those at the extremes of experience, are very aware of this relationship and balance.

This constant challenge and exhaustion, often requires those who train at such levels to take frequent breaks from their training -- and many unfortunately never come back, and avoid all exercise and conditioning activities because they are so conditioned to thinking that it has to be so draining in order to be effective.

Thus, the question is, what level of improvement can be sustained maximally, pretty nearly indefinitely. That improvement rate is somewhere between 1-10% -- which can be achieved by simply adding two further movements, to the six I’ve described previously, as improving at a sustainable lifelong rate of 1% -- and upping it to a tolerable 10%, providing more rapid gains, while still being able to be done daily.

Anything of higher intensity, cannot be sustained at a daily frequency -- or there will be the familiar burnout, which makes cessation inevitable.

Those two additional movements are simply to raise ones one’s arms from the sides directly overhead, while flexing the wrists at the top, to effect the contraction that provides the resistance all the way down the arms and particularly to the deltoids and developing those muscle structures of the shoulders that are generally not effected by contemporary urban living, which causes the familiar lack of development in most.

The other movement that would bring one up to the maximum sustainable level of daily improvement, would be the opposite of the “back exercise” in which one begins looking at one’s toes and ends looking at the ceiling, while moving one’s bent elbows backward and towards one another, while rotating the writs palmward. That is to say, the focus of the movement would be beginning looking at the ceiling, and then rotating the head downward so the one ends looking at one’s toes -- while straightening the arms and rotating at the wrist towards the knuckles, and pressing the shoulders down, and noting the air evacuating the lungs steadily through the nostrils.

Those two additional movements, are largely responsible for giving one the bodybuilder’s look of overly developed shoulders and hardened, chiseled adominals. For most people, except those interested in actually competing in bodybuilding (physique) contests, will be all they have to do to look like bodybuilders who spend their entire waking moments obsessing about such things -- with the least amount of time and effort.