Both Sides Now

  A muscle can do one of two things: it can contract (shorten), or relax (lengthen) — and in concert and coordination with all the other muscles of the body, can produce the myriad of movements possible to the (human) body. Many ancient understandings and disciplines thought that muscles could only relax — or only contract — as their singular function, most exemplified by yoga on the one hand and competitive bodybuilders on the other extreme.

It is the alternation of one extreme to the other, that is the most efficient and beneficial — just as the heart functions for its critical role in circulation. It is not enough for the heart to just contract — and never relax (again). Or for the heart to relax and never contract (again). It is the alternation of one state to the other, that is the life-giving property of the heart — and the heart either contracts 100% and relaxes 100%, and if it only does 50% each way, one has major problems — if not imminent death. Hence, that is the significance of the heart rate, because one knows exactly what the quantity is as a constant — and not a variable.

Realizing this, the limit of any muscle is in its weakest position — rather than its strongest, and that was the rationale for varying resistance along that curve — if at all possible. While a weight (resistance) may remain constant, one uses all the muscles to orchestrate the minimal amount of load to any one muscle exclusively. That is to say that a major function of all the muscles, is to protect any one muscle from exclusively bearing the load — rendering it vulnerable to injury when contracting forcefully in its weakest, most vulnerable position.

The classic example is doing a standing barbell curl with too heavy a weight — causing a rupture at the biceps (tendon) insertion. In that variation of the exercise, the adjoining muscles are not in position and activation to protect the biceps — as they would be if the “finished” position was rotated so that rather than the elbow hanging down, the elbow is rotated to point towards the ceiling — resulting in a maximal contraction of the biceps because its supporting muscle is contracted as well.

All the muscles of the body are connected in that same way — that the contractile state of any one muscle, is dependent on the state of the muscles adjoining it. In knowing that, one can then conceive of the most efficient and effective to effect that state in all the muscles simultaneously, rather than have to do one specific exercise for each muscle — to say nothing of multiple exercises as well as sets for each muscle. The impracticality of that is that there is not enough time in the day to get to all one’s muscles to ensure full muscular development and a well-functioning body.

Fortunately, in understanding that the muscular state of any one muscle is dependent on the state of all the others, it then becomes a simple task to produce that one state or the other — rather than 600–800 different states of contraction/relaxation coordination throughout the body. Not surprisingly, the position of the head determines the muscular state for the rest of the body — which is the easiest to overlook, and with modern conveniences, unnecessary to move at all. The obvious downside of that is that movement dictates the flow to and from the heart. Those are the gates governing fluid flow through the body — particularly problematical in the well-known deterioration of the body beginning at the hands, feet and head — due to the inflammation caused by venous insufficiency in the return to the heart and central purifying organs of the body.

That is what muscular contractions from the extremities do — quite naturally, from most forms of traditional, productive, necessary movements — and why people who do them a lot, tend of be better developed, and more robust than those who seldom perform such movements. That essential “fitness” is hardwired into the evolution of every species — but modern conveniences have obviating their necessity over the last 50 years especially. That is the downside of labor-saving machinery — coinciding with the devolution of human health over that time period — when obesity and metabolic disorders have become the prime threat to human health in longevity.

The other side of the coin is just as bad — in those who remain hypertense all the time. The most extreme example of that are bodybuilders who remain contracted all the time — and never allow themselves to ever be seen “relaxed.” Relaxation is just as important as being able to maximize effort — and switching from one to the other as appropriate, is the healthy response to life — rather than the psychopaths constantly at war with everybody else — for no good reason. Predictably, they too live short, nasty, brutal lives — exacerbated by their behaviors and conditioning. The switch can be instantaneous.

Most conditioning is not done that way — instead thinking there is only one way to be — either all force, or all relaxation, and it is the ability to switch appropriately from one to the other, and all variations in between, that has the most survival value (fitness) — and how one wishes to condition themselves to be.