Making Exercise Easier

  Making Exercise Easier

Your living area should reflect the priorities of what you think is most important to do. For many people, their living spaces are configured to accommodate that ease and convenience — of plopping down into a Lazy Boy and turning on their television by remote control — and spend the rest of their hours in that position until it is time to go to sleep, and many just give up entirely and go to sleep in that position. So of course, they don’t get a lot of exercise in their daily lives — except to get up for bathroom breaks and getting something to eat. That reflects who they are and the shape they are in.

People who make exercise the central activity of their lives con’t have to buy a lot of exercise equipment just to use for a minute each day — but are inclined to have a nearly empty room for which they can move around quite easily — because it is the movement itself which is important, and not the amount of equipment they have — and use so briefly. The best example of this is the dance studio — with little or no furniture — only bars installed into the walls to practice their balance and flexibility. Close seconds are the martial arts studios with their cleared space to practice their movements. And then there are the yoga practitioners — who don’t move around a lot, and just require a mat — if that.

Clearly the lesson to be learned from these examples of people highly likely to break into exercise at any opportunity and inspiration, is that they are not dependent on any particular apparatus and circumstances, but can improvise with nothing or very little — rather than being constricted and constrained by the furnishings and predisposition to comfort with no further effort. Monasteries are often set up in this way — to make prayers, postures and practices the only thing possible, as well as to indulge in as much as possible.

That would be the template for anybody desiring to design more exercise into their lives — or anything else for that matter. Their living room should be their exercise studio — and everything else secondary to that primary purpose — if at all necessary. Instead, the usual contemporary life accumulates as much clutter as is possible — to make productive movements and exercises nearly impossible and prohibitive. Rather than clutter as much as possible into their living space, the ascetic values that space as the room that makes movement possible, productive and expressive — instead of limiting those possibilities, and even putting away their exercise equipment to limit their access and spontaneity to it.

But rather than cluttering up one’s space with as much specialized equipment as one can afford, a far better idea is to realize that the floor, walls, movable chair and mat (not rolled up and put away), is the perfect time and conditions for practicing and mastering whatever movements one can think of. One could even do 10,000 steps marching in one place more productively than walking outside — in less ideal conditions. It doesn’t matter how far one goes, but how fully they lift their knees and articulate the leg movement — which is likely to be more constrained if they have to transport the rest of their body over uncertain terrain.

That’s what the exercise adepts realize — that it is not the external trappings that make exercise more conducive, but this anywhere, anytime access possible — even if one just thought of it in the spur of the moment. That really is what the true spirit of exercise was meant to be — and not all this planning, expense, and thinking people insist is required. Many will even insist that you consult with one’s Primary Care Provider or Certified Personal Trainer before attempting to do anything new and unfamiliar.

People are invariably successful because they discovered a way that works for themselves — despite what all the experts say and prescribe for everyone else. That is the whole poi.nt of living, purpose and meaning in the fully actualized life — not reserved just for the experts, media and influencers. That ultimately is the permission to live one’s own life — and achieve the greatest success at it. No one can do it for any other. That success is entirely personal. It either works, or it doesn’t — and what one should go by.

Lots of things work for a while — and then it stops working once the novelty wears off. That merely indicates that one has to improve the understanding — and not that all understanding is futile. Exercise doesn’t have to be hard and difficult. Only the experts insist that it is so — but then it doesn’t work for them either. So one has to break all the rules to find the way that does work — and not simply settle for more elaborate explanations of why things don’t work. Anything that works is self-evident truth. Life is very simple in that way.

Upright Rows

  Upright Rows

The human body is perfectly hinged to do an upright row — so to believe it is a movement that should never be done is preposterous — just as believing that a squat should never be done — ever. Those are the movements the human body was designed to do — but as always, many take a foolproof construct and turn it into their own self-destruction by using it for purposes it was not designed to do. If one should never do the upright rowing motion, then no parent should ever lift a baby — because that is precisely the movement involved. However, one would never attempt to lift a grownup in that manner — for what should be obvious reasons. That should be a moot point.

The problem always lies in the manner and circumstances in which such movements are prescribed — usually by the self-proclaimed experts on this — and every other matter they think they know what they are talking about, even if they’ve never thought it through, and tested it first on themselves, and then others — until they could reasonably be sure they knew what they were talking about. But that absolute certainty that they can know and do no wrong, should give us a clue as to how far they are to be believed.

While both the upright rowing motion and the squat are movements the human body is uniquely evolved and designed for, that manner which it is prescribed, makes them injurious — on the advice that the joint (axis) in which it is optimally designed to move, is instead advised to remain immobile — placing undue and unnatural movement and stress on joints that should be secondarily involved in supportive roles — rather than as the primary movers.

In the case of the squat, it is commonly advised that one should not allow the lower leg to move at all — usually indicated by the angle of the lower leg to the foot — which they advise should be maintained at a right angle, thus immobilizing the ankle — which actually should be the joint at greatest expression, or range of movement. This is particularly notable in dancers, gymnasts, divers, and performers of most athletic events. The reason a person jumps high, is because they can use their foot as a lever against the earth — but if some arbitrary rule demands that the foot must remain at a 90 degree angle to the lower leg, the result will be much less than allowing for the fullest articulation of the range of movement in all the joints. That would not make for interesting viewing, as all participants would be handicapped in that way — and we would not witness the full potential and possibilities of such movements.

However, that lack of movement might be advantageous in being able to support a heavier weight — by not allowing for the vulnerability that movement entails. Except in rare cases, movement is required in most human activities and expression — or we’d simply get a mechanical jack to hold up that weight indefinitely — if that is required. That is obvious in the case of a “squat” in which there is no movement from a bone on bone lockout. As soon as there is movement out of that position, the weight that can be supported is less — and finally, at the furthest range of movement, the range is the resistance. Everyone has those ultimate natural limits — although they may vary greatly from one person to another. But each individual only has to work with what they are given — and that is what matters. That is the importance of “knowing oneself,” and not presuming to know everyone else — and what they “all must be doing.”

The upright row is like the squat in that respect — that the ultimate expression and articulation of the arm movements — is indicated by the range of movement at the wrist joint. The manner in which it is usually performed with injurious effect — is to immobilize the wrist movement throughout the movement — to enable the handling of a heavier weight — rather than in recognizing, that the range of movement at the wrist, determines the state of muscular contraction of all the muscles of the arm land torso. That is a movement that most modern contemporary people do not do except for the aforementioned dancers, gymnasts, performers, etc. — in favor of the misplaced and prodigious development of the “showy” muscles for visual impact — and how much weight they are using.

In the case of the most productive exercises most people can do, it is far more important to perform the movement correctly than to increase the weight used. In most cases, such exercises are so productive that no additional weight is required to achieve the exercise effect and benefits. This is especially true when people become older and wiser, and realize just to be able to retain such movements is a rare feat in itself — even among the former world champions and people hoping to retain as much of their faculties and abilities throughout their lives — as their outstanding accomplishment.

There are a lot of people who have damaged their shoulder and arm mobilities by using too much weight in the upright row to whom just performing a full-range articulation of all the joints (axes) involved in that movement with no weight for 50 repetitions, would be a feat they no longer thought possible ever again. That is enough to put them in the top 5% of all people over 75, and if younger, a light enough weight to maintain their focus — that particularly, the essential range of movement is the axis at the wrist, and not any amount of weight done with the wrists immobilized — to damage the rotator cuff and arm muscles.

That and the ability to do a squat (get off the ground) with just one’s own bodyweight, are the benchmarks and milestones that everyone should aim for. 10,000 steps — or even 1,000 steps — are much less indicative and beneficial than those 100 reps a day — as measured by the articulation at the wrist, ankles, and neck. Those are the critical faculties of the human body anybody in their right mind wishes to retain, maintain, and improve throughout life — as their priorities. You don’t need to add more weight to exercise those parts of the body. The full range articulation produces the maximum contraction and relaxation without the need for added resistance. That is what all the exercise machine manufacturers realize — and so they don’t build those machines for those movements. Doing so, would make those exercises worse, less productive and injurious.