Squat to Pushup (Everything, All at Once)

 There is an inclination among those who should know better, to make things more difficult than they have to be -- rather than as simple and easy as possible.  Nowhere is that more true than in most exercise instruction -- to maintain the supremacy and authority of the "teacher."  That is the primary reason exercise has not evolved for hundreds of years, and  most will abandon those practices as soon as they can -- while a few others, will continue with diminishing returns -- and think that is all there is, or can ever be.  That invariably, is that the difficult just gets harder until it becomes impossible -- at which point one is "blamed" for not doing it -- as now the reason for one's difficulties.

There is no good reason for making any movement harder and more prohibitive.  In many former exercisers, that is the reason they no longer exercise, or do now with greatly restricted range of movement.  That should not be the inevitable result of practicing proper movement -- which should be to increase those capabilities.  Yet in most cases of misguided instruction, the ultimate result is to restrict and disable as much capability as possible in the notion that handicapping them in that way is the best way to improve their abilities.

Probably the most insane of such instruction is the advice for a frail, elderly person to practice getting up off the floor without using their hands and knees -- or any other aid for that matter -- when any rational and sane person would use every advantage they can to do so.  That is also what it means to be "fit" -- to use every advantage possible -- rather than tying all one's appendages behind one's back, and proclaiming any survivor the "winner" of that (con)test.  The smart ones will not put themselves in that position in the first place.

What is generally recognized as the most productive and beneficial movements to practice is the squat -- but it is made more difficult than easy and accessible for most -- by using every advantage one can, and is convenient.  That would be to use all appendages -- and extend the range of comfortable movement -- which can be easily done holding the back of any chair for that support and performance.  That removes the stress on the knees in the lowest position, while allowing for the straightening of the leg directly onto the toes -- as the universal leg function -- making that movement easy for most people.

But it naturally gets harder with subsequent repetitions because only in that forward leaning position can the leg muscles achieve full contraction -- rather than simply a bone-on-bone lockout -- which is also true of most exercises people do unproductively.  A bone-on-bone lockout is never a full contraction -- that most people think it is, but is actually the muscle resting in equilibrium.  To force it out of that resting state, one has to lean forward out of balance and then have the arms contract along with the lower legs to complete a full body squat -- which engages most of the musculature of the human body in one thoughtful, well-designed movement.

That is the minimum one can do -- to engage and exercise most of the muscles in the body, and maintain functional (useful) strength.  The problem of the squat is the speed with which one drops into the lowest position, which can be controlled by using the arms to slow that descent, and then on the other end, to move directly onto the toes and arms instead of the unproductive bone-on-bone lockout of standing straight up.  Because of that feature, one can stand in that position indefinitely -- which means it is not working the muscles.  For the muscles to be working, they have to be contracted -- beyond the bone on bone lockout position -- and most people don't ever go there.  They stop well short of the fully contracted position -- and never go further, to the hypercontracted position -- which like the fully relaxed position, can only handle a much lighter weight. 

The hypercontracted position is so intense that one feels imminent failure and loss of control.  It can be demonstrated with any exercise but the most familiar would be the bench press -- in which one can hold a weight aloft in the bone-on-bone lockout -- but if one attempts to press out beyond that, one instinctively fears he will lose control completely -- and thus will never attempt to do so -- unless using the lightest resistance possible.  That is as it should be because the range of movement determines the muscular state -- and not the maximum weight in a bone on bone lockout -- most people mistake for a full muscular contraction.

And so it was thought that the way to solve that problem, was to vary that weight from minimal to maximal -- without realizing that the true resistance curve is actually light to light again -- if the range of motion is extended far enough in both directions.  Instead, one usually stops even before reaching fullest contraction -- and many people don't contract at all.  They just flop their arms and legs around thinking that is all that is needed -- and therefore can persist for longer than 50 repetitions, because there is no fatigue produced by the muscle moving into full contraction 50 times -- which is most people's limit -- even with a light weight.  

The cause of  momentary muscular failure is not the weight used but the intensity of the muscular contraction produced by the range of movement -- particularly in going from the fullest relaxation (elongation) to the fullest contraction.  That action optimizes the blood flow to that specific area producing muscle growth and health. Without that blood flow, the nutrients don't get there, and the toxic waste products don't get out of there, and so the health and growth will be suboptimal -- and show it.

Because it is not the weight used that matters, but whether a full contraction is achieved -- that is the work of the muscle.  Most people do not lift a weight by a muscle contraction around one axis (joint), but lift it by levering their entire bodyweight while immobilizing the movement around any particular joint (axis) -- even if a machine is designed to prevent that.  They will simply operate the machine in a manner that defeats (overrides) the greatest contraction possible -- which is the fullest contraction, most will experience in later life as a cramp they cannot control.  It is precisely this control, that regular exercise seeks to establish -- or that lack of control gets progressively worse (with age).

That neuromuscular degeneration is the need for exercise in one's later years -- more than remaining competitively active.  If they don't do anything, they don't get better -- but surprisingly, many people expect to -- even if that has not happened all their life previously.  Yet that seems to be the expectation in most people -- rather than that they have to deliberately and systematically produce that outcome.  It doesn't just happen -- but rather, the opposite is more likely.  That's what we're all up against.

Like the variable resistance curve, it does not just move from light to heavy -- but beyond to light again -- if the range of movement is extended in virtually every exercise, while what is witnessed in most, is the foreshortening of every movement until it fails to be productive anymore.  It's not that one is simply getting old and unresponsive, but one is not doing what used to get them results anymore -- while thinking that they are.  

There is ample video evidence that that is so, and no further academic studies need to be funded to observe that is so.  It was not the weight that mattered but whether the muscle moved into the state of full contraction -- with or without resistance.  That has been proven by competitive bodybuilders posing -- from contracted pose to contracted pose.  What they don't do is alternately relax -- which is the reason that a lot of these participants cramp up and pass out, by interfering with the circulatory and respiratory functions that can result in damage or even death in disturbing numbers -- when taken to extremes.

But not taken to those extremes, we recognize the Charles Atlas course of "dynamic tension," or Eugen Sandow's "high repetition with minimal weight" programs as all one needed for the fit appearance indicative of underlying health and robustness.  That's all it has to be.  How do I make a movement more doable -- and not less so?  You utilize every advantage you have -- rather than handicapping oneself arbitrarily. That is the proper understanding of millions of years of evolution -- and how things were meant to work.

The Prohibition Against What Needs to be Done

  In most lives, the reason for not getting things done, is the internal prohibition against doing what hasn't been done -- which is invariably, to solve a problem as soon as it is recognized.  Instead, the directive is to do everything and anything else -- rather than change the status quo -- even if it is not working, and that is the reason many people think everything they do, does not matter, or is futile -- rather than the reason for their productivity and success in everything they do.  Usually, it is because they have been conditioned to think otherwise -- that the arbitrary and even counterproductive is the value -- and the rectifying of those problems and issues, are forbidden -- and thus they live their whole lives in these mistaken notions -- rather than engaging the straightforwardness of reality.

That is the greatest handicap of all -- that actually prevents them from engaging reality at all -- in favor of a tortured existence they will struggle against all their lives.  Fortunately, there are many chances throughout their lives to break free from such thinking -- of which the most accessible is the exercise and testing of reality in our everyday lives, and everything we do.

There is no greater or more important challenge than what we have to do -- which is the simplicity of life for every life form less than human, as well.  Only in humans are we overwhelmed by the complexity of thoughts competing with our actual realities -- and so people are confused by which is important and urgent, and which are the fantasies of galaxies far, far away.  So we set off to slay the countless dragons -- rather than get more in touch with ourselves and our present capabilities -- which are the aches and pains of the body telling us what needs urgent attention first.

Instead, we ignore these signals and attempt to go about our normal activities and routine with these nagging injuries  and dysfunctions hoping to get through them first -- and all will be forgotten and forgiven.  So naturally, things just get worse -- rather than are nipped in the bud before it becomes a persistent, lingering problem that eventually dominates our consciousness and everything we do.  That's how these dysfunctions always begin -- so why not turn our attention to resolving them as the most important thing we have to do at that moment?  

We create an interval of time -- that removes us from that urgency of being in the moment -- as the diversion away from it.  That becomes the problem-solving paradigm -- always to do something else instead -- it may not matter what.  It is just an escape from solving the problems  of one's life -- in entertainment, food, drink, drugs, goals, etc, and so these things become more important in our lives than dealing with any problem immediately and effectively.  The escape is always the solution -- and when one returns to it, the hope is that it is gone and has resolved itself -- because that is what time has always done before.

Until one day it doesn't, and things just get worse with time, which we now call "aging,"  That is when all those things that worked before, no longer do -- and fall into that category now as the aging process.  That is simply the message that one is running out of time -- and time can no longer be one's excuse for not getting down to it.  The only question remaining is whether one has reached the end of the road -- or is another path possible?  That is true for any time and stage in life -- and why some are revitalized, while many others go into an irreversible downward spiral.

That is finally the only hope -- when that person turns their life around.  Some are more skilled and experienced at it than others -- because they've practiced it as their resilience in life.  People are what they actually do -- especially when nobody else is watching, or telling them what to do.  That's virtually everybody in "retirement."  What they make of life, is their own creation -- and the summation of their existence.  So it should be good -- because there is nobody else to blame but oneself.

A few will still be blaming everybody else for all their problems -- and at that point, it will never change.  That is the point of no return.  One has gone down that rabbit hole never to be seen again.  An increasingly rare few, will redefine what the effective human lifespan is -- for every subsequent generation as the evolution of human possibilities conspicuously into their 80s, 90s, 100s -- as we are witnessing already.  Not everybody gets there: it depends on individual choices they make -- in addition to a supportive, healthy cultural context.

That is the individual responsibility to make one as healthy as they can be.  That is the survival of the fittest -- and the fitness.  That is what is important to do -- before all diversions.

The Rest is Unnecessary

  The Rest is Unnecessary

For most practical purposes and tasks, it is generally not productive to do anything for a single attempt and then rest for five minutes — with the rare exception of athletic competition and records, which is not how humans normally work and are productive. They are more likely to work one hour, and rest for 5–15 minutes. One would not get very far riding a bicycle for one minute and resting for five — even for lifting weights. If one were to achieve the highest productivity to exhaustion, that would result in a workout of 15 minutes — at best. A sustained effort for as long as possible usually results in “failure” around 15 minutes at the highest level of intensity — and beginning at a minute for most.

Increasing the intensity, results in even a shorter duration of effort — and a longer rest interval, and pretty soon, we observe more resting than actually working out — which was the whole purpose, resulting in the predictable lack of change and results. One actually has to do something (besides resting) in order to achieve favorable results — and no amount of resting will substitute for this lack of effort. Naturally, training in this manner prevents failure and exhaustion — which is the demand for the body to increase its capacity.

If it is hardly tapped, than the message to the body is that no additional reserves are required — and one is fine with even less capabilities. Therein lies the importance of the concepts of “failure” and “exhaustion,” which indicates that a person is doing as much as momentarily possible — as long as possible, and not doing less, or nothing at all, for as long as possible. Even rank beginners will recognize that such workouts (effort) will be nonproductive — and that is what most people want, whether they admit it to themselves or not — to stay the same. When they actually produce change, such people will find it disturbing, and therefore do everything possible to sabotage further productive efforts — including and especially, doing nothing, or as little as possible, while calling it “working out,” or simply, “work.” That unfortunately, is some people’s idea of “work,” and so are greatly disappointed that nothing ever seems to “work out,” and so they fall into hopelessness and despair of making any and all efforts that might be productive in the rest of their lives and activities.

So proper training strategy, is reconditioning such people into more productive ways of doing things — which includes sustaining any efforts for a sufficient duration of time as to actually show results — and not simply one and done, and claiming they have gone to failure and exhaustion. Instead, they have simply quit and given up prematurely because they’ve never been conditioned to persist and persevere long enough at anything to actually make a difference. They just get distracted from one entertainment or channel to the next — and think that is all there is. Certainly no miracles.

The great coaches seem to beat the dead horse to endless repetition — knowing that the exceptional few will get better at it, while those less inclined, will give up and find some other distraction — until hopefully they find a more suitable calling. That is the process of natural-selection — to determine the few who will persist and persevere to become eventual champions. Repetition and practice is what they love to do — and in that process, quantity of effort, is transformed into quality of effort. They can do it in their sleep — or in any condition of fatigue or necessity, and not only when they are well-rested, well-fed, well-hydrated, well-supported, etc. They are ready tore go, ready for prime time. The other guy won’t be ready until next week.

So knowing what one is capable of momentarily — and doing that, is more important than saving it only for one’s singular best — that may come next week, next year, or never. It is the doing that makes the difference — even at half the weight, or in the case of true failure and exhaustion, no weight at all. Yet many people talk about doing each set to failure — as though they understood what that meant. One never reaches failure with liberal rest periods — and stopping short of actual exhaustion each time — no matter how little the weight. Failure is NOT not being able to lift 500 lbs; it is not being able to lift one’s arms — even with no weight at all added.

To get to that state of utter exhaustion, every exercise is a pre-exhaustion for the subsequent one — by allowing no rest to recover completely. Then rather than deloading the resistance for each exercise to achieve failure, one can merely start at a much lighter weight — which is already close to failure. Even then, most people will experience exhaustion and distress in 15 minutes or less — because that is the equivalent of sprinting for 15 minutes, which nobody has ever been able to do yet. So once those parameters have been established, one can back off a bit, and find at what level a person can sustain a workout for approximately an hour and avoid the extreme distress that becomes negative conditioning not to continue in that manner.

Most will not train hard enough, but a few, will actually train too hard, and the art and science of productive bodybuilding — like in most other things — is to find the sweet spot where they can sustain that activity productively all one’s life. The rest is the easiest factor to eliminate.

Getting Started

  Getting Started

As one gets older, just getting out of bed in the morning, becomes a monumental achievement — as the whole body seems to fall into a state of total flaccidity (incapacity) — that can be activated and energized once again systematically, in the easiest way possible. That is the challenge of changing from the resting (inert) state to a fully contracted one — as a sustained and progressive exercise — without the weights or gym equipment. All one is hoping for at this state (stage), is to make it out of bed — which is a challenge for a lot of people — especially the old, disabled and terminal.

Even champion athletes may have so exhausted themselves in an effort or game, that their body will feel so spent that they feel they cannot move a muscle they next day upon awakening, and feel like only a week of complete rest and sleep will enable them to fully recover — and that is the importance of exercising to failure from time to time — to condition the body to recover rather than avoid such supreme efforts when appropriate and commensurate to the risks.

Under the right circumstances, one wants to be able to go all-out and find out what that is — whether they are the world champion or given no hope for survival and told nothing further is possible. We want to find out what is the actuality of the possible — by manifesting it, and not what others say it is. That is the most important concept in exercise — to find out what the truth of the matter is by manifesting it — and not merely as a mental exercise — by which all things can be possible, or impossible. That is testing reality — and finding out what that really is.

When we are clear on that, it doesn’t matter at what point we start from — from the weakest to the strongest, because we know we can change that. That’s what muscles enable us to do — change. They either contract, or relax, and by that alternation of muscular states, producing the pumping action that is the flow of blood and other nutrients to those volumes — by first compressing the old out of those spaces, and then as those muscles relax, the heart has space to pump blood and fluids into it. That is the proper understanding of blood flow — and how it is effected by the voluntary (skeletal) muscles — and not the popular notion that the heart simply works harder and faster and forces the fluids out throughout the body — equally, nevertheless. Physics and physiology doesn’t work that way — no matter how many certifications they have.

To activate the greatest circulatory effect, one would produce such contractions at the furthest extremities of the body — which are the known weaknesses of the feet, hands and head — where if an engineer were designing the body, would place hearts at those extremities for optimal effectiveness. However, one doesn’t need dedicated hearts at those extremities, as long as they recognize that the feet, hands and neck/face operating in the manner of a heart which is to ostensibly contract and relax, achieves that same effect — which is the value of exercise for any part of the body. Fortunately, to get to these extremities, one has to go through the rest of the body — which is not true if the axis (focus) of the movement, stops at the hip or shoulder girdle — as most “exercise” does.

The axis (focus) of movement (contraction/relaxation) must move to the wrist, ankle, and neck to effect the most productive flow — which again, is where most contemporary sedentary lives virtually never move — with these well-known disastrous consequences of most of the afflictions of modern life.

Walking as the Ultimate Exercise

  Walking as the Ultimate Exercise

The problem with most people’s walking is that they are doing it very poorly — reinforcing bad posture and movement — whether they’re taking 10 steps or 10,000 steps. You are what you practice, and if that is shuffling one’s feet because of the lack of balance, it doesn’t matter how many times you do it because you are only reinforcing bad movement. The same with walking stooped over. And so what a person has to do, is practice walking perfectly and efficiently — which is what walking with trekking poles comes closest to simulating — as the “Nordic” walking style, which seems very contrived to most people because the use of the arms and poles, lifts their torso into an exaggerated upright and erect posture as they use their arms to propel themselves.

Many older and disabled people have difficulties standing — let alone walking, but hardly notice it because they walk so minimally. They walk a little more with the aid of walkers and canes, but walking that way doesn’t usually restore them to the proper walking gait — until and unless they actually practice it. That would mean graduating to walking with trekking poles — which is the proper gait — with or without poles. In either case, what matters is that they perform the movement correctly — and not that it is harder, and therefore, better.

It is like performing any movement — perfectly, precisely and efficiently, and not made better because it is more difficult or impossible to do — and so one does it badly, or not at all. That was precisely the reason for the development of exercise machines — not primarily to make exercises harder, but more usefully, to make such movements possible and easier to many more. The best example is the pull-up — which most people cannot do even one. The solution is not to force them to do ten, but to reduce the weight (resistance) so even one is possible, and then even further so that an adequate number of them can be done — which is at least 50 to activate and sustain that blood flow that builds that muscle.

One is not going to be sufficient for activating and perfecting that movement — but 50 done regularly will establish that nerve stimulation and blood flow, and the objective is to nourish those structures to make them grow and function well. For that purpose, the body doesn’t care whether it is a new record accomplishment in a single lift, but is building the capacity and reserve for any subsequent efforts it may have to make in the future along that lines. That is what muscle and that infrastructure is. Unfortunately, that is what is lost to most beginning exercisers who are focused on the wrong things — instead of the singular importance of the movement itself. They are usually advised to make it as difficult and impossible from the beginning — and to increase the workload to make the movement unrecognizable — which is obviously the wrong form.

But in walking, two legs are good, but four are indeed better — and more stable. Walking with trekking poles changes that equation. One is using four appendages for locomotion — and in monkeys and apes, the reason their arms are more impressively muscled than their legs. The only improvement I would suggest for making walking with trekking poles an even better exercise, is to forgo the use of the straps in favor of gripping the poles without them to make it that same better use of the grip and upper body development — which then becomes like the monkey swinging from branch to branch. The straps eliminate the need to develop this grip (strength) and the upper body development emanating from that contraction from the most distal axis of those structures — rather than limiting this movement at the shoulders as most exercise machines also do. Or the hips.

In this manner, the fullest articulation of the joints at the extremities can be exercised — ensuring the optimal circulation through the most essential organs at the head, hands and feet — rather than stopping at the shoulders and hips because there is no further articulation beyond those joints (axes).

How Muscle Action Keeps Us Healthy

How Muscle Action Keeps Us Healthy.

Most people are familiar with the action of the heart — as the quintessential muscle of the body — that works by the action of alternating full contractions with full relaxations, and can work no other way because it is solely dedicated to that task. It doesn’t directly cause one to jump higher, run faster, or lift more weights — as many naively think. It’s primary function is to provide for that constancy of pressure that will cause blood to flow outward towards the rest of the body — depending on the action of the voluntary (skeletal) muscles to produce varying pressure differences through their own contractions and relaxations. That is why muscles that are “exercised” in that way, grow larger and healthier that are not exercised in that manner — rather than being equally developed because the heart is pumping blood equally everywhere.

The design of the musculature is that when it contacts, the insertion (distal/distant) moves towards the origin (proximal/center), while the venous blood flow also allows movement in this same direction back towards the center — with its many valves that prevent backflow. So the important concept that most people get wrong, is that the primary function of exercise is not to pull ump more blood into an already full muscle, but by contracting reduce the volume of the muscle to accelerate this flow out of those tissues, and upon relaxation, there is now a vacuum or void to draw fresh nutrients into that space with the constant activity of the heart and arterial blood vessels.

That is the health-giving process that was noted centuries earlier as the “vital life-force” — which the Chinese called “chi” and the Indians called “prana.” The important aspect was the recognition of “flow” — that could be enhanced by deliberate “practices” — long before they “discovered “ oxygen and circulation.

Flow is the principle by which things move and is interconnected, rather than the old concept of static categories in which nothing is related to anything else, and can never be changed or effected. As understanding increased, effort could be decreased — and one could achieve greater productivity and effectiveness by eliminating the extraneous (noise) and focus only on the significant — to greater effect. Rather than jumping higher, running faster, lifting more weight, etc., the essential could be reduced to the muscle state itself — as the difference between full contractions and full relaxation optimizing the flow by contracting (compressing) the waste products and inducing new nutrients by creating the void (space) for the new due to the constant (autonomous) action of the heart.

That change is entirely within the realm of the voluntary muscles to direct — especially when it is properly understood as the default action in the body rather than increasing the resistance to it. In fact, one wishes to decrease the resistance in going from one state to the other — because it is the difference in states, that makes the difference. People get no visible results from their efforts because they do not intentionally, deliberately, and dramatically change those muscular states — that optimize the flow. Their exercises consist of little to no movement at the furthest extremities at the axes of the neck, wrists, and ankles — where the retention is the problem. It doesn’t matter how much harder and faster the heart is working. The is virtually no movement and change of muscular states at the axes of extremities leading them to conclude that those are the most difficult body parts to develop — when the fact of the matter, is that they are not moving there specifically — and that changes the body.

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.