What is the Meaningful Interval of Effort?

A lot of people who have never thought about it, think that the minimal meaningful amount of effort to obtain beneficial results, is twenty minutes of sustained activity -- without considering for a moment, that any significant activity, takes place in a second or less -- including the heartbeat. The average heartbeat ranges from 50-100 a minute, and each individual heartbeat therefore takes less than a second.

Most athletic effort, also takes place in less than a second. A punch that takes longer than that, is not very effective as a punch. A weightlifter, has to move a weight from his shoulder to an overhead lockout, in less than a second, or he can't move much weight. The shotput takes place in less than a minute, as well as the longjump, pole vault, javelin, etc. It is the movement of all the muscles in synchronicity from fullest relaxation to fullest contraction in the shortest time interval that produces maximum power -- which is what their event hopes to measure. It's also the same with throwing a football or baseball; the moment of release is a microsecond.

That is the significant interval of effort -- moving from fullest relaxation to fullest contraction, in the shortest time, which will be significantly less than a second. This is true for every event and activity -- while a steady sustained effort for 20 minutes, is unknown in the world of reality. If one will take 20 minutes to effect a movement, such a movement would be of little value, to effect a real world difference. The meaningful interval of time, will be around one second. But a lot can happen in that one second -- and that is really the objective of every effort a person makes -- to pack as much energy into as brief amount of time as possible, to produce a maximal effect.

Thus, one second, is all that is necessary to demonstrate, manifest, and imply everything that individual is capable of -- while 20 minutes of low level effort, will hardly be a blip, because it is releasing the maximum amount of energy in as brief a time as possible, is what every athletic event and effort is about. That is the basic building block of all effort. If one does not achieve that, then nothing else matters because the energy never develops the critical mass to be transformative and produce change. Change requires intense energy to overcome the inertia of continuation -- to produce a movement in a different direction.

When one can release that energy in the briefest time interval, one becomes capable of making great changes in the world, and not just sustaining the status quo of inertia.

This unawareness of this concept, is why many think that conditioning exercises are ineffective -- because they don't understand the true nature of change, and what it takes. It is not how much energy one expends over 20 minutes that is productive and meaningful, but how much energy one can release in the shortest interval of time, that will permit them to make the changes they desire in the world. That is power -- for any purpose.