The Importance of Exercise

  Practice (exercise) makes one better — immediately and instantly. One doesn’t have to wait a year or six months to see results. The effect is immediate — and then if maintained over many days, weeks, months, years, .builds a reserve that allows for growth and improvement. But it always begin remedially, rehabilitatively, and restoratively. That is to say that one must go from 0 to 100 — and not start from 99 to 100. The magnitude and effect of change is much greater starting from 0 — than it is starting at 99 — and it is change that is the desired ability, and effect that transforms the body.

And that is the categorical imperative of every living being — to change as required to improve their survival chances, and beyond that, to begin at a higher base each time — and not simply repeat what they’ve always done before, and lose even that. That is how most think of exercise: retaining what little ability they have — rather than increasing those capabilities significantly and dramatically. Generally, that is what competitive athletes do — and what motivates many until they realize they can no longer improve by those metrics — and cut back, and in many cases, cut out those activities altogether — which makes them susceptible to the deteriorating forces once again — because one is no longer doing what made them healthy and proficient anymore.

While the brain may wish that it can sustain those gains without the actual exercise of it anymore, those memories and desires are insufficient to actually produce the forces and conditions that make it so. That can happen at any point in life — but is particularly the problem of the aging athlete who can no longer sustain the activities they were once proficient at — especially if they believe that what was the use and value if they weren’t recognized at Number 1 at it. At that point, many just abandon all efforts to depair and depression — even to nominally maintain their health and functioning at a rudimentary level.

For every individual, that is the base level from which they start — and not the highest level they once achieved, but is only a foregone memory anymore. It’s not that the awards and trophies are so important — but that one hasn’t replaced those motivators to align more closely to their present capabilities and challenges — which now, are much more meaningful. Most people will not be Number 1 at what they do— but go on In life anyway, because it beats the alternative — which is just sitting around doing nothing and getting worse until the end. But if they really get into what they’re doing, that is what matters, and makes a difference — and they don’t need the awards, trophies, and approbation of others to keep on doing what they know is the best they can do — and improving at that.

So it doesn’t matter if one day (or every day for that matter) they wake up and feel they cannot move at all without great pain and discomfort — if that is where they have to start. That is simply their challenge for the day — and what they have to deal with and overcome. While not Mt. Everest, it is uniquely their own mountain to climb — and all that matters. Then it doesn’t matter what the obstacle or circumstances, one simply finds or discovers a way surmount those challenges and difficulties.

A good place to begin is just taking inventory of what is working — and begin with that — and not the insistence that one must run a marathon at 4am in city streets — or some other arbitrary and preposterous criterion of maintaining for the rest of their life — no matter what. In fact, true “fitness” might even determine that’s not a good idea even if one could. Meanwhile, lying in bed wondering if one will ever get up and move again, the most important functioning is to see if the head can still move — as the singular most important organ that has to be functioning for life to be meaningful. Many misinformed people think you cannot move the head — or shouldn’t, when movement is what enhances the blood flow or circulation to any area of the body. That is the significance and importance of movement in any human being — that by the alternation of the contraction and relaxation of the muscles that provide that full range movement, it determines the blood flow out of, and into that area.

That is the function of muscle contraction — that with that action, pushes the fluids (blood) back towards the heart — and upon relaxation (expansion) draws in new nutrients to those vacated spaces — because the heart which is a one pound organ, is always and automatically pumping. That is the given we are working with — and not that we have to deliberately and consciously get the heart pumping — or it won’t. The skeletal, or voluntary muscles, are another matter entirely — and most people have it reversed in their thinking. They think the voluntary muscles are operating always and automatically — while it is the heart that must be told to operate, and hence, the measure of the effectiveness of exercise and movement.

This misunderstanding is entirely wrong — but the doctors and researchers have learned what they know about exercise from the same PE instructors we all had — and even most self-proclaimed experts and researchers on this topic, were susceptible to that same kind of conditioning of that manner of thinking. That has been the problem — and not the solution, and why it spectacularly fails in later life — when most need it most to succeed — as the critical factor of their continued existence. And as such, exercise is more important and impactful at this stage of life than when they were younger — but learn too late, that what they thought they knew, doesn’t work — and think they have run out of time to find out.

But fortunately, we do not have to recreate the wheel. We simply have to realize that we have mistaken the effect for the cause — and it is the head that directs the heart, and not the heart that directs the head, or any other movement producing blood flow (circulation), and optimizing that circulation, is what keeps the body supremely healthy and well-functioning.

"Functional Fitness:

  When one has a problem, the most obvious thing to do is to solve that problem expressly and directly — and not simply solve any other problem, thinking that will be the answer. Yet that is what a lot of exercisers do — which is the thinking that any effort is as good as any other, rather than focusing on what specifically needs to be done at that critical moment — and nothing else will do. When the house is burning down, one needs to get out as quickly as possible — and not simply brush their teeth as usual, or has vowed to do everyday, no matter what.

That is simply developing the proper priorities that need to be done most urgently and specifically — and not that anything will do equally well. If one has a back pain upon arising, it would be most appropriate to direct one’s attention to that need — before all else, because that is what one’s body is telling them to do — and not simply follow a boilerplate exercise program designed for those who have no such problem. This happens more than people like to admit — when they frequently note that some area is improving greatly, while others fail to respond. The appropriate action is to address that weakness — rather than doubling up on where one is proficient, and dismiss that lagging bodypart and attribute it to “genetic” deficiency — that would continue to be unresponsive no matter what.

But that increasing imbalance between their strengths and their weaknesses will always result in the critical failure — despite the whole purpose of exercise being to deliberately and systematically strengthen those weaknesses — to become a better all-around individual that makes them truly more fit. Otherwise, they have a handicap — for which they have to compensate and compromise all their other strengths to accommodate — until all those efforts fail, and that weakness becomes their virtual “Achilles tendon.”

Many people actually experience this condition literally — and find all kinds of ways to work around it — and so it never gets better, and actually gets worse — even predisposing themselves to such injury — despite of all that they do — while doing nothing actually to strengthen it. That would be simply stretching it — by moving the knee out past the toes, as in the static lunge, or the toe lift to heel lift. This is the movement that most gym exercisers do wrong — or simply, not at all — claiming genetic defect, rather than not knowing how to do it properly and effectively. Instead, they will often be advised by those who claim to know better, that they should not move their knees past their toes in squatting or at any time — or to put a weight plate under their heel to accomplish that same effect — of not stretching out the Achilles tendon and other tendons, ligaments, and fascia of the critical ankle/foot axis. The foot was designed and evolved to be a lever against the earth — that allows one to stand, walk, run, jump, dance and any number of movements requiring the greatest articulation of the foot movement — and that along with the fullest articulation of the wrist, and neck, makes one fully functional — much more than any other movements of the body.

Those are the expressive organs of the human body and most uniquely distinctive from all the other animals. The cessation, or limited expressions of such movements, is what typically characterizes aging and deteriorating health in humans — more than the heart and core muscles. That is what makes people truly and impressively functional — as long as they live — and become a problem when they become inert, inflamed, swollen, and misshapened by what is called arthritis or neuropathy — which is the dying of the nerves (and muscles) at the furthest extremes from the center of the circulation — and thus where exercise makes the greatest difference.

It is accurate to note that the liveliness at the extremities of the head, hands and feet, is mostly what distinguishes vibrancy in people — and especially, older people who can be observed to have little movement at these sites — and that limited range, works its way back towards the center — and not vice-versa that most people think is so. That is to note that what the dancer is doing with their feet, hands, and head is far more apparent than how their heart is functioning — if that is a concern at all. Likewise for the aging pianist or artist. The measure of their proficiency is the productivity at the hands, feet, and head — as the obvious measures of functionality and productivity. That is the output, and not the inputs — which tell one nothing.

Yet that is how many contemporaries measure functionality and productivity — which is the end-result of health and fitness. We don’t determine the worth of a car by simply how much fuel it burns. We want to know how far it gets us on a certain amount of fuel — or inputs, including skill and time. All that is usually dismissed or overlooked by those who claim to know better — but make very little difference in the world. The proof is in the product — and not simply doing what is fashionable to do.

Most of what such experts call “functional fitness,” has very little to do with actual functioning — in these productive ways — but become ends in themselves. It’s easy to see with chinups or pushups that many such instructors will insist are true measures of functionality — but how so? And while walking five miles everyday may seem innocuous, what is being accomplished except to say that one does it each day — while continuing to age in the conventional manner? Then one can claim to be in good shape for a person who looks older than they actually are. That is true for a lot of aging exercisers — that despite all their efforts, maybe they’re not on the right track. They should look healthier than they do — as the direct result of what they do, and not claim the genetic deficiency as their problem for everything.