Exercise for One Minute -- Anytime You Like

The field of exercise advice, is fragmenting in two different directions -- those making it harder, and those making it easier -- with the increasing realization, that the "best exercise," is the one, one actually does, and not the ones, one would do if one lived in a test tube.

Since nobody actually lives in a test tube, or would want to, the best exercise, is what one actually does during the course of their lives, and day -- in an integrated existence, that is not distorted by any obsessive-compulsive/addictive activities that impair/sacrifice all the others.  So it is not that all one's other healthful activities should be sacrificed for one's programmed exercise, but that one's entire life -- is the exercise, of who one really/actually is -- and there is none other, and particularly, another person one would like to be, but isn't.

That's no way to live a life -- and especially, one's own.  What one does, is what one's life is.  In a healthy human being, there is no other -- and that is what makes them a healthy human being.  The fragmented, the schizophrenic, the bipolar individual, is the person who is not whole in that way -- and is always at odds with themselves, struggling against themselves, until finally, they defeat themselves -- utterly, and give up.  So conditioning programs that accentuate such divisions and struggles, are in the long run counterproductive -- eventually leading to the day, when one does nothing, so as to no longer inflict serious damage on themselves! -- which is the ultimate wisdom of the body.

But if one is doing good for oneself,  the body wants to do it -- and doesn't feel it has to do it -- just because some expert (who knows best what is good for others), tells them that is what they should, or must be doing, despite their own senses telling them otherwise.  Those are the good senses, everybody is born with, for good reason -- to guide them throughout their lives.

However, societies (government) realize the opportunity to exploit everyone else to doing what is advantageous to themselves -- which means doing what they think is best for the them, and not themselves -- and so they have to be conditioned, to do what is best for those who know best for everyone else (experts).  So it is not surprising, that every great athlete, artist, or scientist, had to be their own best teacher -- and not simply learn and do what everybody else did, because what they did, nobody else did.

And that is the longing everybody has -- to do what hasn't been done before, by anybody else -- and not just to do what everybody else is doing, and thinks possible.  That is the conditioning, that is sustainable throughout one's entire lifetime -- and extinguishing of that flame and drive, is characteristic of the decline and deterioration in human beings.  They no longer believe that they, and life, can get better, but are convinced, and try to convince everybody else they can, that every effort in life is futile, and doesn't make a difference -- and they are living proof of it!

Very few efforts in life, actually have to be sustained for more than a minute -- and if one can do anything for a minute, that is proof enough, that one could persist at it longer if one had to.  The fastest speed, cannot be achieved and maintained for over a minute.  A maximum lift, cannot be performed (sustained) for more than a minute.  In fact, a maximum effort, is defined by the peak of that effort -- and not its duration.  A baseball, or golf swing, is much less than a minute -- and there is no rule against serving all aces (unreturnable serves), to end a tennis match.  Or to throw a no-hitter.

That is what one is trying to achieve -- the ultimate efficiency and economy of effort (motion) -- and not simply, to expend as much energy (effort) as possible.  That is what all those successful predators are doing -- and makes them the most fit of their species, and for survival.  So the imperative in life, is that one has to get better and wiser throughout life -- or one perishes, but it is not simply a matter of running faster, jumping higher, or throwing farther -- but also, and more importantly, thinking better -- so that the primary objective of one's exercise and conditioning activities, is the very problem of aging, and becoming worse -- that traditional exercises, and the traditional way of exercising, has been largely ineffective at definitively addressing.

Most people are relatively healthy up to age 50, and then what seemed to work -- no longer works, or no longer works as well, and it becomes increasingly obvious, that maybe it didn't work at all -- at least not in the way they think it does.  Thus the 25 year old inventor of another extreme exercise fad, will claim that everybody and anybody can get the same great results they did, if they walk on their hands or somersault on a running course -- without consideration of the dangers for those who can't.  They simply eliminate those who can't, and then claim those who can, do so because of the 100% success rate of their program.

The movement that matters, is increasing the circulation to the brain -- rather than the heart, that gets all the circulation no matter what -- and that happens when one moves the head, rather than getting the heart to beat faster -- without any movement at the head creating a circuit (alternating contraction-relaxation) for that flow.  That is why the markers of aging are invariably -- the head (brain, face and neck), hands and feet -- which never move at the axes of the neck, writs and ankles in most otherwise "active" people -- despite increasingly overworking the hardest, most reliable working muscle of the body -- which is the heart.

The most enduring wisdom of movement strategies (exercise), is not to increase the heart rate in the misguided thinking that the best way to achieve that rest and recovery -- is to stress it as much as possible, but to achieve that slowing down directly -- by recruiting the other voluntary muscles of the body, which are seldom used for any good purpose, to aid in directing (allowing) the flow (circulation) by producing that "pumping" effect at the extremities, which is the most valuable movement and service that can be performed by any muscle -- much more so than any amount of arbitrary but familiar running, jumping, throwing and hitting can ever do.

Each performance of that cycle of full contraction from full relaxation -- and back again, is the directly beneficial effect of any movement -- that directs the flow of neuromuscular and cardiovascular impulses that produces health and growth to that area -- that opens those possibilities by acting as a pump, in the way that the heart does -- by voluntary, thoughtful action -- anytime, anywhere, even for a minute.