What Makes a Difference

As a person who has observed "exercise" all his life, one asks, what is one trying to do in all these movements -- and theories/explanations of what works best?

Why this particular movement, rather than something else?  What makes it "work?"  What fundamentally, is the objective of all movement?  And what is so important to move?

Many will say the weight -- or even the body -- but the only movement of significance and importance, is a particular blood molecule -- making the round trip from the heart, back to the heart -- and not being clogged/impeded somewhere along the journey.

The circulation process, is what keeps a body healthy and alive -- and not just one part of it, frequently at the expense of all the others.  That would be counterproductive, because the strength and integrity of any system (organism), is limited by its weakest link -- which is different in different individuals.  With Achilles, it was his heel, although he exhibited no other weakness; but that rupture was enough to immobilize all his other strengths.

And so it is with many people -- living today's contemporary life, that often do not actualize and engage all the parts of their bodies sufficiently -- to ensure a healthful (maximal) blood flow to all areas of their body -- to keep it functioning even at its lowest level, and thus succumbing to disease -- because it is not part of the healthful flow.  In order to achieve this, it is not necessary to increase the heart rate alone, but optimize the circulation -- by creating a circuit, with as complete a cycle of contraction and relaxation -- by which liquids and gases flow -- to the greatest extent possible.

And the greatest extent possible, is the furthest extremity to which blood can flow, before returning to the heart again.  That requires movement at that furthest extremity (joint) -- at the head, hands and feet -- where most people do not think to move, but rather focus on the relatively strong parts of the body -- which are not where the human body begins to fail, that is not obvious except to the most observant.

That's why hands hang limply, and feet barely articulate while walking, and head movement (and facial expressions) has all but ceased -- so as to make one a great danger in driving, and not being able to look around -- easily and routinely -- as the quintessential human movement.  One often makes the right moves, just because of that awareness -- of what is going on around them, requiring such moves.  Otherwise, one can only move by memory and thought -- rather than in response to real time exigencies, and such conditioning, has real survival value -- and not just arbitrarily doing what one has been conditioned to think is important to do -- whether it is appropriate or not.

That is the question in much of life -- one can become good at something that is not necessary to do (although one may win prizes at it), while ignoring those things that are important to do -- but think they have no time to do it, because they are so busy doing all those things -- that are not important and may even be counterproductive, or injurious to do.  It is no accident, that the leading cause of injuries, is people thinking that they are injury-proofing themselves against that possibility -- until they are inevitably injured, and can do it no more.

For unfortunately many, that is the end of all further activity, as they no longer want to risk the inevitable further injury -- while ignoring the many other ways around doing just that.  It is their very conditioning, that has taught them there is no other way but that -- and that is the variations on the theme that more pain and difficulty, is the answer.

They cannot think of an easier and better way -- because that has never been part of their conditioning (education) to think so.  Their entire education (conditioning) has only been to make everything harder, more difficult, more complicated -- as objectives in themselves, as though overcoming them, made that right.  To such people, anything easy and effective, seems to be wrong -- because it seems too good to be true, and therefore cannot be.

But the best things in life, are easy, and as straightforward as that.  That is the obvious and the logical -- rather than doing the opposite, which is the very definition of dysfunctional.  Life wants to make it easy -- but one has to be conditioned to go with that flow, rather than to fight it at every opportunity -- making everything, and all their lives, very difficult, because their teachers tell them, that is how they must be -- in order to win their approval.

But as the years pass, those who have learned only that conditioning -- realize it doesn't take them very far past that education -- when they have to earn from their own lives and experiences, what actually works for them.  At that point, many already begin to lament that they are growing "old," and the world they were prepared (conditioned) for, is a constant frustration rather than fulfillment of everything they know and thought to be true.

But certainly, it should be easy to understand that only working one muscle of the body harder, faster and tirelessly, won't get the superior results of working all the muscles nominally -- which is really what is required to maintain peak physical condition and responsiveness throughout a long and versatile life -- capable of doing the many things, and not just the one.