Eliminating the Pain for the Gain

 As people get older, they usually report experiencing daily bodily aches and pains — which is an indication that they need to do more contractions alternated by complete relaxations to increase the flow of the fluids (blood, inflammation, swelling, edema, lymphedema, lipedema) from the tissues back towards the heart and other purifying/recycling organs at the center of the body. That was what a normal, healthy lifestyle used to be before all the modern inventions made any unnecessary movements necessary — which is the problem of sedentary lives in which major parts of the body are no longer exercised, and so becomes merely redundant bodyweight.

Otherwise, the waste products from normal cell functioning accumulate with no enhanced push back towards the center — and the nerves are destroyed by those prevailing toxic conditions — which the body has minimal provisions to deal with them. However, exercise greatly enhances that effect by providing the muscular contractions that propel fluid more forcefully and vigorously back towards the heart — which the heart cannot do alone no matter how vigorously it pumps because it runs into the resistance of the miles of capillaries that slow the flow down as much as possible so there can be the efficient exchange of oxygen and other nutrients to the tissues, while exchanging it for the waste products.

That happens naturally with an active lifestyle requiring those contractions and relaxations that produce a flow. That is also why the heart works. But that same circulation, is also the primary responsibility and function of all the voluntary (skeletal) muscles of the body, and why those who exercise those parts, develop higher degrees of functionality and health. That is particularly important to optimize that development at the head (brain), hands (grip), and feet (balance) — and not just stop at the biceps and abdominals.

When muscles “fire,” they release energy along with resulting waste products — which under normal healthy conditions is removed effectively, however, not all individuals have that same degree of efficiency and activity. In fact, there is the rather common phenomenon of “venous insufficiency” which is most prominent of people suffering from “varicose veins,” but everybody has this tendency for insufficiency — particularly if they misunderstand this vital role of all the skeletal (voluntary) muscles in this greater scheme of defining the ultimate limits of the circulatory effect.

This is particularly important in light of the most common afflictions of modern life — which is this notable deterioration at the head, hands and feet — even as the heart and lungs continue to function for another 20 years beyond the responsiveness at the most distinctive and critical parts of the human body — in the head, hands and feet (neuropathies). That’s where any intelligent life form would prioritize as the most significant markers of fitness and health — over biceps and abdominals — but in doing so, also derive those benefits as well because they have to be engaged in a supportive (anchoring) role by evolutionary design.

That must be how it works — and it is not optional dependent on what one wishes and theorizes it is. That is simply the fact of the matter — despite what the self-proclaimed experts develop more jargon and buzzwords to explain away their lack of any scientific underpinnings. For them, the truth is anything they want it to be — and they are the “science.” Even if it doesn’t work, and only needs infinite more funding for further studies.

It is indeed true that one can provide extreme muscle soreness requiring a week to fully recover from — producing sustainable growth indefinitely if that is the only consideration — but that is seldom the only consideration in life — for most people who live more balanced lives — and that balance is paramount in what defines fitness and health. Lots of people will go out in a blaze of glory — if they think that one thing is the “only” thing. Sometimes a person has no choice but to go “all in” this way, but for most situations, something less is “optimal.” How much less then becomes the significant question.

Ideally, one does not want to awaken each day to unbearable pain (extreme muscle soreness) but if they do, want to be able to rectify that situation so by the end of day, they have fully recovered and restored their abilities — even if they awake the next morning with a similar or even worsening soreness — but they know there is something they can do to improve. That is simply alternating the contractions and relaxations from the extremities back towards the center of the body to flush the body of that inflammation which is the source of pain and dis-ease, and that is the trigger for increasing health and responsiveness (fitness). That is the recovery ability so few understand — but is key to sustaining health and fitness for as long as one lives.

Then once a week workouts to exhaustion (failure) should be enough for most people — along with daily “freehand” movements for 50 repetitions articulating the full-range movements at the neck, wrists, and ankles to produce those alternating full contractions and full relaxations that optimizes the flow to the circuit activated in such manner. What won’t work is merely increasing the flow to the heart itself — in what is called cardio exercise — because that is what we were all blessed with starting out by virtue of being born.

The difference is how effectively one includes that circulation to even the remotest areas of the body by activating those contractions back towards the heart — creating the space (vacuum) for the new nutrients to enter, and in that contraction (compression) removing the fluids tending to accumulate otherwise as the inflammation and swelling of the tissues until they are no longer functional and responsive.

That is the greater meaning of health and fitness — if we hope to live longer lives in as good a condition as Nature intended and allows for. We don’t have to reinvent the wheel — or even the pulley.