The Great Contribution of Nautilus Principles (Arthur Jones)

Every time I meet someone familiar with the Nautilus machines and storied life of Arthur Jones, it gets me thinking about my contacts with that individual and how he impacted the thinking of a whole generation of students and teachers in this field of physical culture, which up to that point, was largely a fringe subculture of people who liked to walk around in tight T-shirts -- constantly "flexed."

Since then, I feel fortunate to have gone on to develop the next great insight into these activities -- but the Nautilus principles was a key to reaching that next level of awareness and effectiveness. The key concept was the definitive proclamation by Jones, that "Nautilus machines allow one to provide variable resistance through the full range of movement of each muscle working in isolation," for it was thought that variable resistance was the key to permitting the full range of movement -- to which I questioned whether resistance was actually the hindrance to achieving the fullest range of movement -- and then realizing, it was the full range of movement, that actually and eventually produced its own resistance to further movement -- and nothing else is possible!

Getting to that realization would have been impossible without realizing that the ultimate objective, was not merely to obtain full range of movement, but actually, to achieve the fullest contraction, alternated with the fullest relaxation of a muscle -- mimicking the powerful and useful action of the heart, which is the muscle of the body that must perform unfailingly, in that singular action. Beyond everything else that muscles can do, and can be trained to do, that most basic function, of being able to achieve its greatest contraction, alternated by its greatest relaxation, produces the health effect of moving the body fluids, very powerfully, from the extremities, back towards the heart -- which is the weakness of the human body, and not pumping fluids out to the extremities, which is performed unfailingly by the heart.

That effect, we don't have to improve because it is a function perfected in millions of years of life -- in other animals as well as humans. But if we do not consciously or unconsciously (which is what we hope to achieve through conditioning), enhance the movement back towards the heart, the fluids don't push through the resistance of fluid already present in the extremities, but take a short circuit back towards the heart again -- because the resistance is much less.

Like the development of the lungs, tissue gets branched into smaller and smaller vessels, until at its most extreme, they allow only for the passage of single cells, which optimizes the exchange of passing cells with resident ones, but also provides greater resistance than the larger blood vessel circuits closer to the heart. Even the heart pumps blood to itself -- and if nothing else is happening, that is largely the extent of its circulation -- because the extremities are already full.

So when one produces these muscular contractions beginning at the extremities, it increases the internal pressure that moves fluid in the only direction it can flow -- back towards the heart, and upon relaxation again, there is space, and even a vacuum that draws in fluid from the heart to nourish growth. All this can be achieved without any apparatus, and movement other than beginning a contraction at the furthest extremities of the body -- rather than merely speeding the flow through the core muscles -- at the expense of the flow to the much more important extremities and organs (including muscles) of the head, hands and feet.

There some health experts whose understanding of these functions are so ignorant, that they do believe that exercising the muscles in one's face, neck, hands and feet, can actually make any difference -- let alone be the key understanding to health, as fewer others have recognized in such esoteric disciplines as reflexology, acupuncture and acupressure. Understanding pressure differences is the key to understanding fluid and air movement in a body -- and that is what is being produced and modified in the action of the muscles -- and not that there is a magical quality to lifting weights, or spinning wheels.

Nautilus came the closest, to actually isolating this phenomenon -- which many other exercise and conditioning activities, still have no idea what is being talked about at the most elemental level of voluntary and willful movement to enhance the functioning, health and appearance of the human body.

They'll run on endlessly about machines, exercises, diets, calorie expenditures, pain and gain, while having no idea of movement at its most elemental level -- and its implications for the health and life of that individual. But in examining the claim that his machines could produce the maximal contraction in isolation, it became clear to me that such a possibility was not possible in isolation, because a primary function in the work of any muscle, is to recruit a stronger, larger muscle to aid it -- in doing the work. That is as much hardwired into the muscular system, as the beating of the heart.

Therefore, the primary function of the largest muscles, is not to produce movement, but to provide great stability and support (anchorage) for the muscles that will be contracting towards it. A muscle contracts from the insertion to the origin, which is the insertion of the adjoining (supporting) larger muscle, which in turn, contracts toward the larger supporting muscle, etc. -- to the point of origin of the entire musculature, coincidentally at a point next to the heart.

Such efficiency does not automatically happen, when one only works a large muscle in isolation -- although one can design all kinds of exercises and machines to perform such movements, which if done, will strengthen muscles in ways that largely predispose them to injury. A good example is the leg curl machine -- which although can develop a muscle unused to such development, in a manner that will simply produce a disproportion to how nature intended. In no event, would one actually perform a leg curl to lift a weight meaningfully. One would choose every other alternative to perform such a task. Most "fitness" exercises, are similarly designed that way -- as to have no value but to disrupt the balance of natural movement and use/work the body in its most disadvantageous way, in the perverse thinking that such a challenge will produce a favorable evolution (miracle).

As far as I know, the only use of the leg bicep (hamstring), is to bend the leg -- so that it can be straightened out again in performing meaningful work, but it is not the ideal configuration for doing so arbitrarily -- just because it can be done, to lift a weight. It makes much more sense to identify the most natural and probable movements of the body, and strengthen them in that way -- to achieve maximal and optimal fitness.

And as the Man liked to say, "Nothing else is possible."