The Most Practical Exercise

  A hundred years ago, when a person took a fitness class, the standard of achievement was whether they could walk with a book on the top of their head — exhibiting the control and grace in that movement. Fast forward a hundred years and most people approaching one hundred cannot walk at all — and by a few decades earlier, they require either a cane or walker, and those who adopt walking as their main exercise, are doing it poorly — usually by shuffling their feet so as not to fall. The axiom of conditioning activities is that no amount of doing anything improperly will substitute for doing a movement properly and perfectly. So when a person is advised to walk for 10,000 steps and all will be well, there is no telling definitively what a person is actually doing — because that movement is limited by manner of performance. That is true for every movement that is recommended as “proper” exercise. That is the major reason some people attain remarkable results, while most do not — while thinking they are doing the same thing. And in fact, many older people do not get the results they did 50 years ago — not because of age, which is convenient to blame it on, but that they’re simply not doing the same thing they were 50 years ago — but thinking they are doing the exact same thing.

Nowhere is that more true than the simple movement of walking — when many can barely walk, or even stand anymore. So what can they do? — when they can’t even walk in a straight line anymore? Using a walker won’t regain their best walking form, nor will using a cane. What may help in restoring proper walking form is the use of trekking poles — that makes the proper form possible again by using four legs (sic) instead of merely two. Often, the problem with walking for older people is that it hurts their feet, knees, hips, and back by placing all the weight on the legs, while using the arms to aid in that support and propulsion, makes proper movement possible again — by reducing the weight (resistance) supported entirely by the legs.

That is similar to weight-training machines — which most people fail to realize that the advantage is in the ability to lower the weight rather than raise it infinitely more. It is a well-known fact that the average person cannot do even one pull-up. But with a pulley and adjustable weight stack, it becomes possible to do the pull-up movement because the weight (resistance) can be lowered to their present ability — and so rather than no repetitions being possible and performed, they can now do 50 and obtaining the benefit of that movement performed sufficiently to effect a meaningful blood flow that is the value and purpose of any exercise.

That doesn’t happen if they don’t perform the movement properly (or at all) — as to effect its fullest contraction alternated by the fullest relaxation — which is the muscle acting as a pump — just like the heart works. Thoughtfully done, that is to dedicate the entire musculature of the body to perform that health enhancing effect — rather than presuming that the heart alone can perform that sufficiently and optimally for the more than hundredfold mass it is thought to service adequately without additional thought andeffort.

That is the reason some bodies actualize a lot more than most of the others. They have thought to do that very deliberately and systematically — as their bodybuilding program. That same effort and attention is required by any other faculties of the body — to achieve its highest actualization and performance. That should come as no surprise. One doesn’t become the best at what one does, unless they practice it. But practicing anything, is not the same as practicing perfectly and precisely — so there has to be a standard of performance — which trekking pole walking seems to demand — as the simplest, most practical standardized movement to master and repeat — to improve their mobility and coordination, for most practical purposes.

That is the movement working most of the muscles — and as such, that its practitioners achieve proportional muscular development and functioning.

The Simplicity of Exercise (Movement)

 The Simplicity of Exercise (Movement)

The advantage that bodybuilders have over all other exercisers is that they know how to develop any specific muscle from all others — which is the reason a lot of them end up with grossly disproportionate developments — because they fixate on one muscle over all the others — as their priority. A thoughtful person would contemplate then if that is the case, what parts of their bodies would be most important to develop above all the others? If it is simply a matter of lifting the most weights, running (or walking) the farthest distances, jumping the highest, etc., then the comes a time when they cannot proceed any further without injury or natural decline due to aging. That is just a fact no matter how much pain and disability one is willing to endure to achieve those objectives.

But for most people, their highest priority is to live their daily lives as efficiently and economically as possible — which actually begins with the brain, and the hands and feet to carry out their directives. Yet as people decline (age), those are the critical parts of the body that begin to fail first and most noticeably — as in dementias, lack of grip strength, lack of balance — which impacts the functioning of everything they do.

At that point, many people just plow on — until they absolutely can’t anymore — and eventually come to that state in which their lives are greatly reduced and immobilized. Most traditional and conventional exercises are powerless to do anything about it — because of the limitations of their thinking — that things have to be done a certain way, regardless of the fact that it is not working to solve their problem(s).

So how does one achieve a fresh mind? That would be to get fresh blood into an organ by first understanding the basics of fluid dynamics which govern fluid and gas flow — which is pressure differences — primarily caused by the changing states and volume of the skeletal muscles. That is why exercise works to optimize the health and functioning of any part (organ) of the body. That effect is immediate and powerful. That is the characteristic of muscular action — it produces instantaneous effects — and not as the shamans promise, that it will show up in six months or a year.

The world doesn’t work that way. The greatest predictor of future results, are present results. The most obvious example would be a person lying totally motionless, and seemingly incapable of moving anything, even as a response to being alive. The simplest indication of responsiveness is not that they can lift their legs or any other bodypart but whether they can move their head — all the way to the left, and all the way to the right. In that movement, every individual will manifest a muscular contraction — even if they don’t know how.

A muscular contraction is also a compression — as the volume gets smaller — and thus the residual fluid (gas) has to move out in the direction designed for that purpose — which is the venal system allowing movement in only that one direction back towards the heart and center of the body. The heart meanwhile, is not designed for voluntary movement but is an autonomic function providing ambient fluid pressure — just as on the outside of the human body, atmospheric pressure provides ambient (always) pressure that enables breathing. But we also have to understand that the voluntary input is on the breathing o consut (which is also a contraction) — but there are still many explanations that think the inhalation is the necessary. That happens by default — when the muscles relax (expand) and thus the chest volume expands —lowering the pressure below the ambient — and must be equalized by the laws of Nature and physics.

So when we consider what “exercises” are good for the brain — and other extremities as well with their well-known problems of being the first to manifest as the aging experience — we should first consider the wisdom of Nature and evolution in providing for this mechanism — not only in humans, but every other living species as well. That is the benefit of millions of years of evolution to perfect — that should not be ignored — in favor of the latest whiz-bang theory some well-funded researcher comes up with — increasingly more funding to study — but changes nothing in the real world and real time.

It is just a thought of how the world works and what would be its remedy — rather than recognizing what is — and working with it must work.maximally. That’s why those organizations claiming there is no cure, require unlimited funding to prove that is so — rather than manifesting actions (movement) that must work — even if we don’t apply them.