The Importance of Neck (Head) Development

  The most important organs of the human body to deliberately maintain are the head, hands and feet — which are precisely where responsiveness begins to fail first, because as important as they are, they are properly placed at the extremities to maximize their effectiveness. But that means they are furthest from the heart as well — which is an autonomic function rather than a voluntary ones we control consciously. There is an ancient wisdom that goes, “Let me change what I can change, and accept what I cannot change, and give me the wisdom to know the difference.”

People who fail spectacularly at everything they do, lack that essential wisdom — and will put out unlimited energy, time and resources to change what they cannot change, and zero into those things that could make a huge difference — and all the difference in the world. So first we need to have this basic understanding of how exercise is essential to any part of the body — because it enhances the flow of nutrients into it, and removes the accumulated waste products of cells that break down and need to be repaired and replaced. That is the cycle of life at its most basic understanding. Life and health require this constant flow — and exercise is the program we adopt to optimize that development — to our greatest priorities.

Although many exercisers will insist that the head and brain should not be a top priority — in favor of rear deltoid development (sic), etc. — to most thoughtful individuals, that would be their top priority — even if they don’t consciously realize it. For many young athletes, it becomes a moot point beyond learning the gross motor movements — while for the child prodigies of every activity, those extra movements (gear) are the gifts few others have — and can be identified by equally gifted coaches. This is appreciating movement at its highest level, but is equally relevant to every functioning level, and particularly the dysfunctional and deteriorating.

What can we do about it? — or can nothing be done about it? When many of my cohorts were beginning to wonder why they no longer got the same results they did when younger, I was introduced to and noticed that it was even far more dire for those disabled, aging, and even terminal — and wondered what was the exercise (movement) they could do with the greatest immediate impact — beginning with that forlorn look of hopelessness and helplessness that made them sit like statues all day — seemingly completely unresponsive to life anymore. And while it was clear what they couldn’t do, the only relevant question was what could they do? — to change that whole reality.

That was head movement: the simple turning of the head all the way to the left, and then back all the way to the right — increased the flow to the brain — and that had maximum impact on every other functioning of the body. Why wouldn’t the body respond in that critical way? That is literally the integration of the mind with body. As the head moves, that is awareness of one’s surroundings — and the world we must respond to — beyond all else. That simple awareness, is what is required to be “all there” — at the most critical times. As has been said, “Some people make things happen, some people are aware of what is happening, while the vast majority wonder what is happening?”

We’ve forgotten how to use our own senses to gather information — and that is why the cave man was more fit than today’s sedentary beings — wholly dependent on their smartphones to tell them what to think. Thus they never need to move their heads anymore — and so the flow to the brain diminishes — because flow is the function of that movement — just as it is with all the movements of the human body. The same process that develops the biceps, also develops the brain — it would be stupid not to. That’s how Nature works — even for the creatures that never went to college. It would develop the blueprint for all of life.

It is not that the head cannot move, or is impossible to improve, and the atrophying of the neck muscles are inevitable signs of deterioration and decline. The movement of the head is actually the best indicator of the vibrancy of that individual — and of all the others. The 360 degree side-to side head movement requires the engagement of all the muscles of the body — in addition to the neck muscles, which many exercise authorities think cannot be effectively exercised — because they misunderstand the simplicity of movement. It does not require elaborate machinery to provide resistance; it is the understanding that every movement eventually produces its own resistance — against further movement. At this point, the muscle contraction has cleared space for the heart to pump blood into that vacuum — rather than the naive notion that a 1 pound heart will be able to force all the fluids around in addition to being the motive force for 500 lb lifts.

The genius of exercise is in realizing that all the voluntary (skeletal) muscles can be recruited to optimize the circulation in this manner — and particularly to areas deemed as a priority in attaining peak readiness and performance for its purposes.

Strength Training or Cardio: Which is Better?

 There are no exercises one can do that will not elevate the heart rate — while one can elevate the heart rate without a corresponding actual movement or productivity. That of course, is a reaction to a stressful or emotional situation which one can do little about — that takes a toll on the body resources nevertheless. Understanding that, it is meaningless to talk about doing only cardio exercise to manipulate the heart rate (and of course sell all the paraphrenalia) associated with that concept — that the heart is unrelated and unconnected to all the other muscles and functioning, and requires conscious and willful efforts to get the heart pumping.

Voluntary muscles require that conscious and willful efforts to operate — but not the heart. The heart is an autonomic function — which means it is hardwired to function as it needs to, and not because one wants to achieve a “target” heart rate. That is the greatest misunderstanding in the fitness world — because it leads people to believe they can obtain all the benefits of healthful exercise and activities just by manipulating the heart rate to measure as certain arbitrary number — rather than in thinking that all activity has to conform to the limits of heart functioning — or that there will be that critical failure.

Thus the wise course, is to condition to that natural limitation — rather than naively thinking that anything is possible — if one simply believes in it ardently enough. That is why many bodybuilders die prematurely — as well as marathoners — including the original legendary runner who inspired that race. At some point one has to recognize one’s own limits — and not just think that the body will respond to any demand placed on it — infinitely. That’s not the real world, and the whole point of fitness activities, is to prepare oneself to function optimally in whatever challenges and conditions one has to, and not unilaterally demand that reality must bend to one’s own will — despite the realities of the situation.

Such conditioning (education) is useless and counterproductive (injurious), and likely to produce a premature ending — and the whole point in life is surviving, and optimizing the conditions for doing so. That always begins with discovering one’s own unique limitations and possibilities, and not just assuming that the universal “average” is one’s own. That is partly what one is here to find out — the actuality of the matter, and not just the academic and theoretical. In this, one is greatly aided by their own senses and sensibilities — and based on that information, one proceeds further.

The main difference between strength-training and “cardio” exercise is this testing of reality as opposed to theoretical abstracts of an arbitrary ideal determined by “correlation” rather than “causation.” That is to say that the bodybuilder knows what movements produce a verifiable and visual pump in the muscle addressed, while the cardio effects cannot be detected in the here and now — but is taken as a matter of faith that one is doing the right thing — because certain self-designated experts say so.

That is to observe that when lifting a heavy weight, the heart rate will surely elevate in doing so, but simply elevating the heart rate will not ensure the success of a monumental effort — because the focus is misplaced to the heart rate — rather than more properly, in the muscles involved and coordinated to achieve that effect. The heart function simply takes care of itself — automatically, because that is how it is designed and evolved to do — and not that conscious effort and attention to that, will guarantee a favorable outcome in the performance of anything else.

Better or Worse

 People won’t want to hear this — but walking on a spot (in place) is SUPERIOR to actual walking. The greatest advantage is that one can do it in the comfort of one’s own home (controlled environment), rather than the much more perilous random conditions one is likely to encounter walking around most cities — and particularly hazardous now that public officials don’t enforce safe and drug-free environments, in addition to treacherous sidewalks.

The key thing that makes the step in place superior as an exercise is the range allowed by tailoring the conditions to optimize safety and performance. The extreme is the knee-lift that can be achieved by marching in place. That is contrasted to the much more limited range of movement in barely lifting one’s feet — as most people do — in walking. That is the essential movement — repeated over and over again so it becomes conditioned automatically. That is the purpose of exercise — self-conditioning — rather than being conditioned by everything else — much of it extraneous.

Increasingly with years, is the realization that one can’t be doing things that aren’t working — for the dwindling remainder of their lives. At some point, they hope for a resurrection to their best selves. That manner of thinking can be programmed into all the moments of our lives — but obviously not what got us to this state. Then one is shocked into the realization that everything they do matters.

A Word to the Wise

 

A few weeks back I was experiencing severe knee pain and searched the YouTube videos on various opinions on the subject, and one of the more helpful tips on walking up and down stairs was to place the feet with the toes at a 45 degree angle to the stairs. I did that for a few weeks and it was moderately helpful in reducing the pain — but seems to require a lot of attention that never became natural and fluid. But then I added leaning my weight forward as I went up the stairs — and leaning my weight back as I descended the stairs — and it became a very natural and pleasant movement again.

Then, it seems like one is falling up the stairs, and properly resisting falling down the stairs. As one ages, I think they tend to get it backwards. Using hands is not cheating but what they are designed for.

Another popular idea for developing and maintaining leg strength for this ultimate daily test is the lunge.

Most people will find lunges very hard on the knees — done in the manner usually prescribed by exercise instructors — to produce maximum pain. The way to make them easy is to hold on to the back of a chair in a comfortable fore and aft leg position and gently rock back and forth with the knee moving over the toes and then back in alignment with the ankle to the extent there is no pain in the knee joint. But that gentle movement will cause the cartilage to secret synovial fluid into that joint — which is a form of mucus that is the lubricant for movement in the body, and why it also lines the mucus membranes that lubricates the digestive, respiratory, lymphatic systems, etc. The other major fluid of the body is of course the blood — which is more obvious in how it moves more forcefully and visibly.

However, the joints are not lubricated by the blood as much as they are by the synovial fluid effected by changes in the compression of the cartilage — preferably repeated many times rather than few repetitions with a heavy load. In this case, it doesn’t matter how hard or heavy a load the joint is bearing, as the simple movement throughout its full range — as in cross-country bicycling at a slow pace — enabling one to persist all day. That is the kind of fitness most seniors require to maintain an active life throughout their years. Nothing violent or heroic — unless they absolutely have to, otherwise, the difference is not how fast they can walk or run, but that they can still walk or run at all. Likewise, they don’t need to bench press their bodyweight, but just have the upper body strength to push open the doors, etc.

That is the difference that makes a difference — that they can do all the daily activities independently — for as long as they live — and not that they’re still competing in their age-class and risking debilitating injuries.  Easy does it.

Will We Need to Change?

  To be successful throughout life, a person has to be changing and evolving with the times and circumstances — and not thinking if they keep doing the same thing for time immemorial, it will be right for any time and all circumstances. That is the essence of life — and not having a fixed idea of perfection and never deviating and evolving a better response to the present challenges — then wondering what went wrong, and how one got so detached from reality and proper functioning. Then every day after that, their situation seems to get more dire and hopeless. Change is the way of life.

As people grow older, they can also grow wiser — but many will stay the same all their lives, and fare poorly because of that mindset and approach. Those who remain viable all their days are quicker to recognize what they thought worked, no longer does — if it ever did, and make the proper adjustments. It is the same with all aspects and activities in life.

In the case of the bodybuilders and weightlifters, they eventually come to realize that simply doing what they did when young, may be impossible when they are old — which doesn’t preclude everything else one has not tried before — including and especially, that exercise can be made easier and more productive, rather than continuing to beat themselves up the hard way, with less results, and more possibilities of injury — and reduced recovery ability until finally, they just give up entirely. Of course that is the worst case outcome leading to total disability.

One gets better at doing what one actually does — but when one is resistant to trying, nothing will be done. So rather than increasing the resistance, the proper course is to lower the resistance — or maintain the same level as one ages so that movement looks and becomes easier, and not more labored. That is obviously the reversal of what one has been taught to believe that one should be constantly adding as much resistance as possible at every opportunity to do so — infinitely. It doesn’t work in older people, and neither does it work in younger people. Because it was never that the resistance was so important but that the full-range movement itself produced the fullest contraction and the fullest relaxation of the muscle — which optimizes the circulatory flow that is health.

All the mumbo-jumbo, hocus-pocus, jargon, pharmaceuticals aside, that is the simple process ensuring health. Most bodybuilders and weightlifters condition themselves to the wrong things — and that becomes unsustainable in time and age, and is the primary reason they die prematurely at younger ages than their cohorts — usually from heart problems because they are overworking their hearts — thinking the harder the better. The primary value of exercise is not for the heart — but for all the other skeletal muscles that are not working unless one deliberately programs them to. The heart is always the hardest, most dedicated muscle of the body — and doesn’t need to be stressed harder or exclusively while the rest of the skeletal muscles continue to do little or nothing at all. And worse, some think it desirable to work the muscles against the heart to make it work even harder — endlessly until it fails. Of course, that is the ultimate failure.

Instead, one desires to learn to use the body and muscles so that it can sustain its functioning and activity as long as necessary — all of one’s life if possible. That requires a very different approach and mindset. That probably is the great challenge of conditioning activities of these times — not just for bodybuilders and weightlifters, but for everybody aspiring to achieve their best lives, for the rest of their lives.

Recovery Ability

 The best way to recover from the muscle soreness produced by a high-intensity exercise, is to do alternating muscle contractions and relaxations on the rest days rather than doing nothing — or complete abstinence from any exercise or further exertion. That is the main reason for increasing soreness in the subsequent days after a single high-intensity workout — until the recovery process runs its natural course in about a week.

The reason for the pain and soreness is inflammation — also known as swelling, that instigates the healing process. To speed up that process, the alternation of muscle contractions alternated with relaxations produces the flow of those waste products out of the muscle tissues back towards the heart and other purifying and recycling organs of the body. That is the primary function of all the muscles of the body that ensures its health — to produce that flow, or movement within the body. Without that movement, the body naturally dies, deteriorates, and malfunctions — because the optimal conditions for its operation are absent or lacking.

Every living thing is designed produce its own best health — or its life cannot be sustained. Even in medical interventions, the expectation is that the body will heal itself, and recover in the modified way intended. If it can’t recover from that procedure, then there is no point in proceeding further down that particular path.

But what has been noted for thousands of years, is that producing a flow of the body’s vital energy and resources, is what heals and makes the body stronger. The Chinese called it chi, and the Indians called it prana, and then modern medicine called it neuromuscular and cardiovascular — which are different names for the same thing. If they want to break it down further, it can be called acupressure, acupuncture, reflexology, meditation, etc.

The body is not static but a constant movement within — unless it is blocked or disengaged, frequently by one’s own actions and intentions. The obvious case are the top athletes who die prematurely from some heart condition — while thinking they can achieve immortality by pushing their bodies to extreme limits. Such individuals are usually born with strong hearts and prematurely wear them out by thinking it is the only organ in the body responsible for flow (circulation). However, all muscles operating as the heart does — alternatively contracting and relaxing — produces a flow, and when all the muscles of the body are in that synchronicity and synergy, then extraordinary feats are possible — and that body is even one with the universe, rather than struggling against it.

That was the ancient paradigm of life — that each individual was in a struggle against everything and all of life — rather than observing all of life, and finding a way to be in that flow of the greater reality. Surely, that would be the secret to living a long life in prosperity. A few are more gifted than others in every realm and activity so it is important to understand that everyone will not achieve the same results as all the others, but certain principles apply to all.

All living things have to respire — or exchange vital nutrients with their environment to maintain and optimize their health. With inflammation, the question is how to effectively get those accumulated waste products out of the body (tissues) to create the space for new life-giving nutrients to enter. But the equation has to be seen rightly — as first pumping out the old, and Nature takes care of the rest — for everybody.

Contrary to what many believe, you can’t force the heart to pump stagnant fluid out of the tissues. The skeletal muscles of the body are much more numerous — not simply for the purpose of lifting more weight but because operating as the heart does pumping blood back towards the heart, it creates a tremendous vacuum for which the heart has no resistance for its own work — and that is the whole purpose, and not simply to make the work the heart harder until it is the first organ to fail typically and fatally.

That is the lesson to be learned in the question of how to get rid of the pain caused by inflammation (the accumulation of waste products caused by regular metabolism as well as accelerated efforts such as high-intensity exercise. As was noted by Arthur Jones in formulating his Nautilus Principles of exercise, that was the missing link, and what made such manner of exercise unsustainable — but effective while it could be. That exercise had to be brief and infrequent — but even then, there was the inescapable pain and soreness of training that way. But that was negative conditioning — which the body will avoid as much as possible.

However, he didn’t realize he found the solution all along — in first identifying the position in which a muscle had to be fully contracted and what position it had to be fully relaxed. And that was what was important — and not providing resistance in going from one position to the other. The body doesn’t care about that. It is like the modern day computer or any modern appliance that only cares whether it is “On” or “Off” — and not the difficulty in moving from one position to the other.

Initially it might have mattered to prevent the switch from slipping too easily into the wrong position but now it doesn’t matter, and the same switch is used alternately to produce the “On” or “Off” condition. Muscles are that same way: it can be on or off — contracted or relaxed — and that is its power. It’s not the resistance in moving from one state to the other that has magic. Life is discrete and binary in that way — as is all of reality, night and day, up and down, left and right, high and low pressures making the world go round.

Or one can remain mystified by it all — as one more thing unrelated to all the others. Shit just happens — and there’s nothing one can do about it — and that is my excuse for everything.

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.