Nautilus Revisited

I might have been one of the first persons to embrace the Nautilus Principles after its inventor Arthur Jones described them to me -- as we took smoke breaks together during the congregation of many luminaries of weightlifting and weight-training at the Teenage Nationals and Teen Mr. America at York, Pennsylvania in 1970.  

At least I was the only one who was not hostile to hearing him expound them, and felt I had to have his back when he fearlessly took on a roomful of Mr. Universes and other weight training gurus who countered his observations with threats to knock off his head if he persisted in preaching his heresy against the sacred authority of brute force.

In that arena, Arthur was attempting to inject persuasive scientific plausibilities against the notion that in order to obtain fantastic results, one had to spend all one's time in the gym, lifting as much weight as possible.  The crux of his argument was that in doing so, one was increasingly prone to injury -- because the violent, explosive contractions were capable of tearing the tendon off of their attachments, because the beginning position exposed the structures to unfavorable leverage -- while also noting that the finished position was its position of greatest strength, and so to accommodate those varying differences, the Nautilus cam produced the desirable varying resistance -- over the pulley.

That was the essential problem with the pulley -- increasingly being utilized at the time -- in the Universal machines, which claimed as its major feature, that it was safer than free weights.  The problem with the pulley was its inherent mechanical advantage -- that one had to explode violently to overcome the resistance -- but once it got going, momentum reduced the need for further muscle involvement -- and one could just ride it to the finished position, and then simply resist it going back to the starting position.

The Nautilus cam actually nullified the mechanical advantage (and danger) of the pulley, by providing the appropriate resistance throughout the range of the movement, and in that manner, would work the muscle harder, while also ensuring safety.  But the critical mistake, also became its undoing -- in thinking that the resultant severity of muscle soreness was a positive in the process, rather than the negative that pain indicates.

A few years later, some would profess the new liturgy of training as, "No pain, no gain," which set lifelong exercise back an entire generation -- in the religion that pain and intensity, were the Holy Grail -- and not that that mentality, conditioning and training, would cause premature and unnecessary death and injury to many because of the exorbitant and insatiable demands on an individual's personal resources and reasonable wear and tear.

One would not expect to take one to the edge of their capabilities every day, and not succumb to death or injury -- prematurely.  Nothing else would be possible.  You just can't go there everyday, and not expect to pay the price.  You can't tax the body to the limit, and think that one will always recover stronger for it.  One day, it will kill them.  Long before then, wise men know to draw back from the edge, and save a little more in reserve, for the time they may actually need it.  Doing so will enable them to build up those reserves -- for the later years of life, when most have traditionally reached that age and stage, totally exhausted, and barely hanging on with as little recovery ability as they can still muster -- not knowing how to.

And that is the whole point of one's conditioning -- not to drain all one's energies and resources at every frivolous opportunity, but rather, to conserve and build up one's reserves -- throughout life.  There's no quitting and going home at 5 pm, or at age 65 -- and waiting for one's final demise.  Maybe in an earlier time, that would have been a life expectancy -- but now, who knows what those possibilities are?  That remains to be discovered, and manifested -- in this day and age.

So quite predictably, there is a break from that past -- or better is not possible.  Far more meaningful in this day and age, is the obviousness, of people needing to live better -- longer, and not just win the championship at 25, and then go into irreversible and unrelenting decline thereafter.  Few would call that a life well lived -- for that single moment of fame and glory -- sacrificing it for the greater life of lifelong improvement.  That's a very different story, altogether.  But that is the story being written as we live it -- in this unprecedented time, and not simply a repetition of the past, many are content to defend and perpetuate -- as though nothing else was possible.

The possibilities are being created -- as we speak.  The major defenders and perpetuators of the status quo, are those who fancy themselves as the institutions of their time -- legends of their times, and in their own minds.  They know better than everyone else -- what is best for all, and particularly themselves -- at the top of the socio-political pyramid.  They are the self-appointed, self-designated, self-certified gatekeepers of all that is correct and righteous.  Meanwhile, history, evolution and progress marches on, leaving them to fight the rearguard battles -- until most have passed on to the new era. 

Traditionally, they have been the old left behind -- too weary to go on, unwilling to embrace the new, even if it is available to all. They've had enough.  "They've seen it all" -- even if they haven't seen anything yet.  Everything they know, they learned in kindergarten -- and then stopped learning anything more -- and could die peacefully and content, knowing they had lived life to its fullest.

That was another age.