The Squat-Pushup

 I call them squat-pushups:

You can begin from the bottom position or the top. Since I sleep on a firm 2″ close-cell foam mattress on the floor, I begin each day moving from a lying position into a squat position and sit there for as long as I want to — pushing my knees as far forward and down as possible to stretch the ligaments and tendons of the ankle, knee, hip and feet — and turn my head left to right to get the blood flowing to the brain, and am fully awake. Then I push my knees down with my hands to rise up to the Half-lift position. Then I place my hands on the top of my thighs in the classic athlete’s resting position (think football huddle), and lower myself into the full squat position again while maintaining that hand position throughout the exercise.

In that manner, I eliminate the least productive part of the squat movement — which is the half squat to fully erect position — while only doing the productive part, which is the full squat up to resting with the hands on top of the thighs close to the knees. That maintains constant tension on the leg muscles and back — and eliminating the fully erect position which is a bone-on-bone lockout and wonder why they get very little muscular development while experiencing a lot of back, hip and knee pain.

So you eliminate all the non-productive but problematical parts of the exercise and what remains is all gain and no pain — which is most people’s wish list. And although this exercise done in this fashion seems too easy, it is just the right amount of taxing and fatiguing for 50 repetitions yet light enough to be a perfect cardio workout as well. “Cardio” doesn’t only need to work the heart but any sustainable exercise for 50 repetitions (5 minutes) will raise the heart rate to the desired targets (60–85% of maximum), which is the more efficient way to do cardio — while also producing the muscle pump for muscular gains which conventional cardio doesn’t do.

This is particularly desirable for the aging person (athlete) to maintain productive exercise all their lives — rather than lifting too heavy that one fatal last time that brings an abrupt and unexpected end to their continued exercise and progress. That is as often as not the sad end to a lot of athletic careers — while those beginning even late in life and proceeding cautiously and thoughtfully — often pull ahead and remain that way for the rest of life.

That has been the leap that few have made — from vibrant youth to mature years — that have to continue to evolve as needed over time. It is not enough just to continue to do what young people do — thinking that will keep them young forever. Instead, that refusal to adapt over time will knock them out — for good, because they have learned no other way but doing things by brute force. But with age, one hopes to grow wiser as well — which means adapting and changing to stay vital and vibrant — and not demanding that the old days of their glory return. That’s not going to happen — no matter how many plates they slap onto the bar. Most athletes have to learn that lesson the hard way — but the fit always do. The unfit are those who insist that the world change to suit them.

So you make the squat as easy as possible — using all four appendages for the lift — instead of imposing artificial performance requirements that make it harder, and eventually impossible — particularly when they need it the most. That is what the survival of the fit is all about — doing what you have to do — by making it entirely possible, and not inevitably impossible so one can’t go on. Fitness is the total response to a challenge — and not tying all one’s appendages behind one’s back to prove how fit they are.

Exercising for Life

 The greatest reason for exercising is to attain and maintain one's optimal functioning and health -- and not to lift more, or to get big -- both in the long run, might be disastrous to one's lifelong well-being.  Lifting the most weight possible always comes with the risk of incurring a major injury that will haunt one for the rest of their lives.  Once injured, that remains a lifelong vulnerability -- but one takes that into account and works with and around it as best they can.

Only rarely can one claim to be 100% fully restored and better than new -- but one does their best to aim for it.  One learns to make behavioral adjustments.  In that manner, many formidable strong men overcame their disabilities and weaknesses they might not feel the need to if born fully competent and even gifted.  

People in such disadvantage know that their best gains come from going back to the basics -- and mastering them to build a stronger foundation for which to build further gains on.  It was the inattention to those details that might have inevitably led to their injury -- taking things for granted, or miscalculating one's abilities.

And so the proper course of rehabilitation, is to begin all over again -- as though one knew nothing, and have the advantage of doing it right from the very beginning.  This is particularly true for those starting off exercise late in life -- at which such miscalculations could cost them permanent and lasting injuries, and even death, if they miscalculate their abilities.

So the wise course, is to take nothing for granted, and nothing as known -- which might have been the very reason for their resulting predicament.  In this case, the people frequently in the worst shape and conditioning, are those who think they know everything there is to know about exercise -- that is obviously untrue and not working for them.  Some even go so far as to teach classes of people who are all in better shape and condition than they are -- because they have been duly "certified" to do so.

Most exercise instructors are not "certified" to be experts in any activity or event but have paid their fee to have an organization certify that they took a First Aid and CPR course as entrance to their weekend certification seminar -- of which much of the familiar jargon and misconceptions are indoctrinated and repeated -- such as BMI and Target Heart Rate.

All activity that can be sustained for five minutes is "aerobic," while those efforts that exhaust one in under a minute, is anaerobic because one cannot sustain such efforts without incurring an oxygen deficit.  That happens when one is not breathing deeply and fully to sustain that activity indefinitely.  It is just "one and done," or maybe even three repetitions at the most -- before one must deload and breathe more normally again -- often resting in this way most of their "workout" time. 

That is not the nature of work most people have to do -- and be productive.  Thus, most labor takes place over a course of an 8-hour day, and not just the one and done -- and they go home or do nothing more.  That is more likely not to be productive effort, but destructive effort.  It takes just that one moment of destructive force, to undo eight hours or even a lifetime of constant, steady, persistant effort.

That's how civilizations are built -- as well as individual bodies -- that unrelenting, unwavering effort -- and not the uncontrollable moment of thoughtless rage that destroys everything.  That's what human beings and bodies are designed for -- and what keeps them in good shape and condition all their lives.

It is the fullest articulation of these possibilities over a lifetime, and not the force exhibited in a moment.  So when it is asked what is the proper exercise for a human -- a single attempt or persistent repetitions, the better answer is the expression of strength as endurance -- to persist.  That is what gets most jobs done -- and ultimately, that is the purpose of any undertaking -- to be able to do it as long as it takes.

In most cases, that is taking it slowly and easily -- for as long as one has to, and not be one and done, and doing nothing for the rest of their lives -- thinking nothing more needs to be done.  That is the problem of most of the people who have fallen out of exercise -- they think that it is sufficient what they have done 20-40 years ago, and that should be enough to coast on in for the remainder of their lives.  It doesn't work that way.  

If that were the case, than one could rest on all those heart beats one expended earlier in life, rather than that it is just as necessary now and forevermore.  Those are the rules of life.  If one wishes to maintain those capabilities, one has to actually use (articulate) them -- and just the memories of having done so ages ago, will not suffice.  Every day anew, they have to articulate their fitness -- to go on.

But it doesn't have to be world record efforts and feats, as just the movements themselves -- without making them harder and more improbable.  But that is what most do in thinking of exercise -- not how to make movement easier and effortless, but how to make it increasingly and progressively more difficult -- until invariably, it becomes impossible and unthinkable -- especially for the old and infirm.

Rather than being unthinkable, it should be the first thing one thinks to do -- by first considering, what is the human body designed to do?  There is a good reason the body is hinged as it is -- to provide movement unique to the species.  No other species moves in that way.  That is true for all species -- they each have their unique possibilities of movements.

The obvious is not flying -- but no other animal can do a deep squat -- because their legs aren't hinged for it.  Yet many people think a deep squat is an aberration rather than what humans are built to do.  Many do everything they can not to ever go into a deep squat -- explaining that their tendons, ligaments, and bones won't allow them to.  More likely than not, they just haven't done it since childhood -- when it was the most natural position for them to attain.

But years of sitting on poorly designed furniture rendered them incapable of achieving those positions anymore.  Not only that, but their backs hurt -- and every other joint in their body because of the positions they put themselves in for overly long hours.  So the fluids in their body pool and stagnate rather than providing the optimal circulation to maintain working order.  That becomes the new normal -- of increasing dis-ability, and they think that is what Nature intended in the great evolution of beings.

A Word to the Wise (Old)

The major advantage of the old and wise has been the benefit of learning from experience in one's own life -- and not just learning from one other -- who may not be the wisest person in the world. In fact, most come to question whether the person most influential in that indoctrination knew anything at all -- and not that they knew everything, as they maintained.  

That is a healthy skepticism leading one to eventually question everything, and find out the truth of such matters for themselves -- rather than simply believing everything unquestioningly on face value -- as long as they insisted they were the properly-designated authorities on such matters, and had the "credentials" to prove it.

The proof always, is in the actual results and difference it makes -- in every real world test.  The laboratory conditions, are invariably contrived to whatever conditions one thinks is important -- and begins with that flawed premise -- that it actually matters.  Otherwise, they would just test it in the real world -- and dispense with the highly manipulated conditions.  Often, as is frequent now, the results merely confirm with what those funding the study want to "prove," and nothing beyond that objective can be considered.

In fact, many are thought that the "scientific method" is to propose a hypothesis and prove it -- rather than more importantly, finding out the truth of the matter.  That might be that there are much more important matters to consider, and while one can prove their hypothesis, that may not be the most significant consideration.  One has only proven what one set out to prove -- which is usually a simple matter of excluding every other explanation.

That is definitively not science -- but simply believing whatever one wants to believe -- which is how most people operate, and then complain that what they are doing is not working.  It may be that they are exercising a lot -- but feel compelled to do more (because they are not getting the desired results).  But instead of thinking they might be wrong, they think they merely need to do more -- of what is obviously not working.

There is a belief among many people that a lot more of the wrong thing, eventually makes it the right thing -- rather than that the right thing manifests from the very beginning, and is self-evident immediately.  Thus we have the common belief that in a year from now, what they are doing now, will show favorable results -- rather than immediately, and thereafter.  Time is used in this way to disconnect from the present reality in favor of an imagined scenario divorced from the present reality.

In this way, many come to prefer their ideas rather than the reality -- which tells them they are wrong.  It is more important to such people to always be "right" -- no matter how wrong they are, and everything in reality tells them so.  So as they get older, they become more delusional -- and you can't convince them otherwise.  That's why it is so important to connect the mind with the body -- as the manifestation of the truth.

Understanding Exercise

 People naturally have an aversion to anything they don't fully understand -- especially when it is coupled with the advice that they must do it despite not seeing any good reason for doing it.  The problem is a lack of understanding of what they are doing, and until that is fully grasped, there will understandably be great resistance -- to do what doesn't make perfectly good sense and is aligned with everything else they know to be true in their lives.

Frequently, that is because those who offer that advice don't understand themselves what they are talking about -- but that is what everybody else also says, and nobody asks if it can be proven right or wrong in the present moment and situation.  That's what makes anything "scientific" -- that those results can be repeated by anyone, and not just a small group of "experts" jealousy protecting their "secrets," that only they are privy to.

That is the same in every human activity -- the desire to be the smartest person in the room -- without having to demonstrate it.  In that manner, they hope to intimidate all the others who know even less than they do -- because real confidence is very hard to come by.

That confidence arises to the extent that what one believes and thinks, closely relates to how it predicts real world events and outcomes.  People told to do something that doesn't make convincingly good sense to them -- are understandably reluctant to charge into the battlefield -- while those who unquestioningly, are merely replaced by the next recruitment of newbies.

So survival would dictate that one would filter all new information and actions through the filter of the tried and tested -- or what has developed through life and eperience as the "scientific method," as well as self-evident truth -- which is to say that if it sounds too good to be true, it should be put through a more rigorous examination and stands the test the first time and every time -- and not just sometime in the future will miraculously transform into the truth.

Reality doessn't work that way -- and what we are trying to do in life is have our thoughts and ideas align with realities, rather than thinking one can impose whatever fanciful ideas one wants upon the existing realities -- and eerything will turn out hunky-dory, rather than the disasters we are witnessing so famously in declining civilizations, cultures and societies.

There is a reason they go extinct -- rather than having "survival value," which is the name of the game of life.  It is not about beating everybody else -- but simply perfecting one's own game throughout life.  However, it is not merely doing one's own thing -- as the immature think -- but actually doing everybody's thing -- and then some, to arrive at a greater synthesis and summation of all of life.

That means learning from everything -- and not just learning and doing the one thing -- as though it is everything.  Those are the specializations that have their moment and quickly flame out and move off the stage after their 15 minutes of fame -- to spend the rest of their existence in oblivion -- of which the most typical are the drug, sex, and other diversionary addictions that numb one from their sensitivities and awareness of what is important to do.

That which is important to do, must receive the highest priority among all the possibilities -- at every moment -- and not the "entertainment," which is invariably the fragmentation of life into the many parts that are less than the whole comprehension of it.  In that way, everything is made less meaningful and significant -- until inevitably, nothing makes any sense at all, and becomes merely arbitrary and the fad of the moment.

These fads are dictated by whomever is most motivated and funded to convince everyone else that their way of thinking is the only way that can be thought -- and one should consider no other explanations.  These campaigns usually appeal to greed or fear -- or the combination of the two which is the fear of missing out (FOMO) -- as though that truth might not last if one does not act quickly enough.

But the truth is that which endures -- and stands the test of time -- rather than what is easily forgotten as soon as the vested interests run out of money to promote them, and are displaced by the next fanciful ambition.

And that is why it is so important to begin each day grounding oneself in reality -- especially to see what one is momentarily capable of -- not only at one's peak, but importantly, at one's weakest -- because that is one's vulnerability -- that must be worked on and strengthened for the greatest integrity of that individual.  That is all one can do -- but that is what one must do -- to achieve the best of what their life is capable of being.