The Meaning and Purpose of Exercise

 The reason for exercise as a vital activity is to enhance and optimize the circulation and therefore the functioning of the human body — so whatever achieves that, has served its purpose — whether realized or not. Child’s play will accomplish that — but on the other end of the spectrum, when one is greatly limited or constrained, a superior understanding of that process does much better in achieving the maximum benefits at the least cost. That is a major concern among the aging Baby Boomers who belatedly realize that simply doing what the 20 year olds are doing, is not enough to remain youthful. If it was, then as many naive “certified” instructors recommend, one should lift as heavy as possible because “what doesn’t kill you will make you stronger.” Instead, such misguided advice may lead to death or permanent disabilities — long before the miraculous promised results manifest.

So the first requirement in designing a proper fitness regime, is to eliminate the risk of injury and damage as much as possible — including speed of movement, or explosive movement — like sprinting, one rep maximum lifts etc. — all of which I’ve seen highly recommended as the keys to the Fountain of Youth and well-being — while ignoring or denying their dangers. In fact, many well-intentioned people who finally decide to embark on a fitness program, actually experience some kind of trauma in their initial experience that they don’t return, and resign themselves to the consequences of doing so.

That is very unfortunate because most of what these physical educators think is necessary, is simply not so — but that was what they were taught, and have never questioned, although adopting more contemporary jargon that makes it seem more scientific and well-researched. However, the ultimate test of any truth, is one’s own experience (experiment) with it — no matter how much the “promoters” claim otherwise. That includes the doctors who thoughtlessly recommend to a legally blind 104 year old that she should walk for half an hour each day — in an urban environment. Thus each day, while I was living in a 55+ complex, I would have to pick this person up after falling just getting outside her door, and recommend that she’d be better off just remaining in her apartment and simulating the full range foot movement while holding on to the back of a chair — in the safety of her own residence.

I don’t know if the doctor ever realized that encouraging a blind person to walk for 30 minutes outside her apartment every day was virtually a death sentence — considering the uneven sidewalks, and vulnerability to anybody looking for an easy prey. That is a well-known problem of urban environments today — that must be taken into consideration, but that does not preclude all the other possibilities for achieving those positive health effects — when one looks beyond the unnecessary and arbitrary — to the essential understanding of its requirements.

Movement effects circulation not because of gravity — but because of the pressure differences produced in the alternation of the muscle volume from contraction to relaxation — which pushes the blood and fluids back towards the heart, while the heart unfailingly pumps blood out towards the extremities of the body. Thus the lack is not the failure of the heart to pump, but the problem of inadequate pumping that occurs in inactive movements and lifestyles — which don’t have to be violent or extraordinary — but determined by the difference in one state of the muscle from the other determining the rate of flow. Conversely, a muscle contracted that never relaxes, impedes that flow, as much as a muscle that never contracts — which is usually discernible as movement.

The genius of the Nautilus machines by my friend and mentor Arthur Jones was that in designing his machines, he figured out in which position the muscle in isolation and rotating (moving) around a single axis, had to be contracted and where it had to be fully elongated (relaxed) — and more than lifting weights, that movement from one extreme to the other, effected the flow. But he determined that the maximum demand was produced by the focus on the shoulder and hip girdle involving the most and largest muscles — placing an extraordinary demand on the heart to accommodate, which is why it was experienced as the most demanding and stressful exercise one could possibly do — and for that reason, could not be sustained for more than a short cycle of around six weeks — which was the length of most studies.

Then they extrapolated that if such training could be sustained indefinitely, one would have remarkable gains — well into older ages, but almost everybody would have abandoned such training style from injury and the lack of inability to recover, or died of a heart condition. So I thought, how can such effective principles be applied for lifelong sustainability — even beyond 100. You make the muscles at the extremities work harder rather than the heart — beginning from the axes at the wrist, ankles, neck — which are the well-known sites of atrophy and functioning exhibited by most older people in an inflamed state by which they report as arthritis in the hands and feet, and more contemporarily, deteriorating brain function I noticed was associated with the lack of head movement as well.

But the most amazing thing was that the full extension and flexion of those areas, required the similar state of the supporting muscles proximal to the center of the body, where the heart is located — providing the perfect complement to the circulation problem. That is the fallacy in the thinking that all that is necessary to optimize the circulation for optimal health is to make the heart work harder and faster — instead of realizing that the proper focus should be of the movements at the extremities, which most exercises and exercise equipment ignore the importance of — and so the circulation is only optimized to the heart, while the critical organs at the extremities — including the brain, grip and balance and left to fend for themselves — and in many cases, die unattended deaths — while he heart alone goes on for another 20–30 years!

Now some are claiming that the “soleus pushup” is the second heart of the body — because in articulating the full range foot movement while sitting (and thus bearing no weight), it has that specific function — but that is also true for the extremities at the hands and most importantly, the brain — where even the brain specialists and dementia experts maintain that circulation makes absolutely no difference to that continued optimal functioning — as long as the heart is merrily beating away — as though that was all there was to it.

Thus the emphasis of exercise and movement is entirely misplaced — and simply doing more of what is not the solution is not going to make the problem go away. But when one identifies the proper vectors for study, then it becomes clear on why the human body fails in its characteristic way — despite whatever effort(s) are placed in that way. The obvious signs are the atrophy and deterioration at the neck, hands and feet — that when addressed, maintain the health of the rest of the body — because nothing else is possible.