The Right Metaphor

The difficulty one has with many things, is envisioning the proper process before one can effect that which makes the biggest difference. With exercise, what is frequently advised, is to exercise to get one's heart pumping -- rather than the realization that the heart is ALWAYS pumping, and what one really hopes to effect for a greatly enhanced functioning and performance, is to get everything else in the body working up to the level of its unfailingly most reliable feature.

And so upon awakening and feeling no capacity to immediately jump up to run around the block, one should go about slowly and systematically regaining the competencies that have lay dormant for the last several hours -- first in realizing what are the conditions they now wish to enhance, at the most rudimentary level of improvement.

The first thing to realize is that the heart is the most unfailing organ of the human body -- but for the same work the heart of already doing, there is much we can do to enhance the circulatory effectiveness before we even consider making the heart work harder. The heart is always the hardest working organ of the human body, by deliberate design and evolution -- that is hardwired and failsafe in every individual and is not likely to be its weakest link -- unless as in a few individuals, we make it do all the work, with no assistance from other organs, which ensures its premature failure.

But the greater question often overlooked and often not asked or considered at all, is what is the role of all the other organs, and especially the muscles, in effecting the optimal circulation to all parts of the body? If one thinks that the heart is the only organ responsible for that function, then one is powerless to do anything but to increase the work of the heart.

But obviously, that is not the case -- by those who have trained themselves to increase the functionality, flow and effectiveness of those parts that become well-developed in various individuals because they direct their attention, energy and focus to the development of those faculties and exhibit that development to striking degrees.

The obvious case are the bodybuilders who often achieve their development to disturbing disproportions of balance and symmetry -- by learning how to "pump" blood to a particular muscle they wish to engorge in such a way. However, that pumping is achieved by concurrently stopping the flow back to the heart, thus producing that pumped effect for a short while before the muscles relax and restore normality. But that is a conditioned reflex of circulatory control that is also referred to as muscle control -- that is effecting the circulation obviously. That accounts for that pumped, or bloated look -- which in most people not training for that effect, to seem simply bloated, fat and undefined.

For most of these latter types, the simple awareness of that process of circulation -- that it is not static and fixed but controllable by muscle manipulation itself in greatly restoring, improving and enhancing that flow, goes a long way in immediately and visually validating that effect -- just as it does in advanced bodybuilders, who train themselves to do so -- as the skill for which they are judged.

Even the most out of shape and out of condition person, is not without some muscular development -- more than they suspect, but often don't know about or are unaware of because they've never tried to exhibit or access it. Young children often become aware of this ability as "making a muscle," which most do not develop to a high degree, but should -- because just changing the condition (shape) of a muscle from flaccid and relaxed, to fully contracted, mimics the heart which is the only muscle to function unfailingly in that manner 24/7.

That should be one's instructional metaphor as to what is possible throughout one's body because there is no area of the human body that is absent of that musculature. The body is designed for that movement, control and function. The circulatory system as well as the musculature, is designed to provide movement, health, and functioning particularly at the extremities of the head, hands and feet -- as that which distinguishes humans above all the other animals.

Yet the unfortunate emphasis of conventional conditioning programs is to place great emphasis and value on movement of the larger core muscles whose primary designed feature is to provide stability and support -- rather than movement, just because they can. However, such movement at the core, is in every case meaningless without a particular controlled mastery and expression at the extremity.

The large muscles merely provide the stability and support for the movement that takes place meaningfully at the extremities of the body -- out to the toes, fingers and facial expressions -- where it is most meaningful and productive to move, at all times, and throughout one's entire life. Maintaining and optimizing those expressions, implies the general well being much more than the core supporting structures -- and is the difference between those who can and do, and those who would like to.