Why We Are All Here

 Most people argue over whether they should use more weight for fewer repetitions, or use a light weight for higher repetitions — when the far more productive way to train, is to increase the range of motion in that movement. The most important part of every movement is the start and ending positions — while most work only the midrange, and then shorten that even further to accommodate more weight or more repetitions.

All movement is cardiovascular AND neuromuscular — and those divisions are simply manmade — because the body cannot operate that way, one exclusive of the other. However, while all movement will raise the heart rate, it is possible to raise the heart rate without engaging any other particular muscular structures — as most cardio machines do. In the most popular version of the treadmill, the upper body is largely immobilized, while the range of foot movement is minimal, emphasizing a limited range of movement at the hips and knees. So limited in fact that one could continue the exercise indefinitely — because there is no muscle fatigue/demand otherwise. That is true for most movements: if you shorten or limit the range of movement, the muscle can go on indefinitely — even jogging a marathon.

However, if one performs a movement to increase the range in both the contraction phase as well as the relaxation phase, that muscle will fatigue — because an extraordinary demand is placed on it — to which it must adapt and accommodate — both in the short term and in the longer term once one has recovered from that challenge. As one gets older, there is a tendency to decrease the range of movement until eventually one is all but immobilized — and then others have to do for them what they previously could easily do for themselves, but over the years, lost that range of movement — more than that they couldn’t lift their own weight or do endless repetitions of a limited movement.

Everybody who has ever lifted weights, knows there is a beginning position in which they rest, as well as an ending position in which they can also rest. However if they try to extend that range of movement beyond those resting points (bone on bone lockouts), any attempt to do so is extremely fatiguing and even perilous because that is uncharted territory that the muscle will fail. In order to avoid injury, one would not attempt to do so with heavy weights, but even light weights will be challenging enough — and even no weights at all would allow that manner of performance with maximum safety.

The key movement would be expressed at the joint furthest from the center of the body — which are the axis of movements at the wrists, ankles, and neck — as the body is naturally designed to move most critically. For millions of years, humans evolved in conditions that required them to have to use those faculties beyond all else — to survive, and then thrive and prosper. Then, it was quite obvious that if one did not turn their head, they had limited information of what was going on around them — because they had to turn their heads to see and hear better — to know what dangers lurked, or where their next meal was coming from. Throwing a stone or spear required that wrist movement, and the feet were a lever against the earth — to run, jump, reach tall branches.

But modern life made a lot of that unnecessary, and so people just stare ahead into their screens now, and may go to a gym to increase their heart rates while moving very little else. And then they wonder why their brains fail, their grip weakens, and their feet cannot hold them up reliably. But they think the answer to all those ailments is just to force the heart to work harder and faster while immobilizing all the other muscles that are doing very little — as the preferred modality of “exercise.”

And so we have the great fear now that people will lose those critical faculties for full responsiveness beyond just having their hearts beating for years and even decades in that condition. Who will be there to take care of them? It would seem that the far better model for life in the future, is for everybody to take better care of themselves in the manner that makes such extension of capabilities more likely as the conditioning paradigm — over the expenditure of calories and heart beats as though there are no limits and no difference.

Once one is clear in understanding how life works and what one is doing, it is easy to design exercise without the need for equipment, supplements, instruction, measuring devices, etc. Everything will make perfectly good sense — and that is the greater question of why we are all here.