Movement is the Resistance

As people get older, moving itself is difficult enough -- without adding further resistance, so that the challenge then, is to make that movement possible, and even, as easy as possible -- because the movement itself, is the value.  The deception is the thinking that simply adding weight, is the only meaningful measure, when in fact, it may not indicate anything meaningful at all.  What is meaningful, is simply the range of motion, and secondly, its frequency -- of performance.  However, the major difference is the difference of possible from impossible -- as a person being able to stand, is in a realm of difference from one no longer capable of even that anymore.

And then if they can still do that, the frequency of such an occurrence, is greatly preferred to that of exhibiting it once in a great moon.  In that manner, one exhibits the ability to change at will, and as needed -- and not being able to respond adequately, even if the house is burning down.  In such events, the difference from those who can, and those who cannot, is the critical response.  Those who cannot get out of their chairs, are at a survival disadvantage.

More often though, the challenges and outcomes are less dramatic and stark -- but only to a degree.  All that is usually lost on the young and able -- until they are old and immobile -- who take it for granted that they will always remain so, and so don't bother to deliberate what is involved with such essential movements -- as well as the extraneous ones, which is when a few like to exhibit that they can do what few, or nobody else can do -- to distinguish themselves above the rest.

That is the realm of athletic competition -- which sole purpose is to eliminate the weak, and not make them stronger.  That's why that is not the model for strengthening when one is weak -- and trying to get stronger.  A few may overcome in that way, but most will be eliminated -- by the very nature of that self-selection.  Instead, what one desires to do, is to formulate a strategy by which even the weakest, can get stronger -- and not simply eliminating all the participants until only the strongest remains -- and then studying them as though that was the winning formula for everybody else -- rather than the exception.

But such limited studies of exceptionally small population samples, are frequently the basis for promoting strategies and regimen that work for nobody else -- as evidenced and exhibited by the population at large of that cohort, and even former champions who have aged badly as well.  What they testified work at their peak, they are now wise enough not even to attempt -- which does not stop a whole generation of young at their peak, from recommending it anew.  And then they get older too, and the same does not work for them either.  And so that leads to the inescapable conclusion that nothing works anymore -- as well, and so it is time to prepare for one's passing -- instead of looking for better ways that might work.

Of course, that would change everything -- even as much as people complain about things as they are.  They feel that an even worse fate, would be for everything to change for that certainty that the status quo provides -- even if it is hopeless, and vain to think otherwise.  This is true no matter how old or rich they become; they are trapped by the conditioning of the previous time and generation -- and cannot make the leap to another, to remain in the newer generation -- that every succeeding one is simply born into.

And so it becomes a quandary and a choice -- to leave the old, and embrace the new -- that many simply will not make.  They are conditioned to the old -- even if it is nothing working very well for them.  Such people have little to lose, and much to gain, by embracing the new -- but their erroneous conditioning, won't allow them to leave.  They are the casualties of every age and stage of human development and evolution.  They provide the resistance despite it being unnecessary and counterproductive because they were ingrained to believe it was necessary and productive -- despite the obvious results.

What might be less obvious, is that the resistance is coming from within the muscle itself -- as in many muscular diseases -- and dysfunctions.  What is often overlooked is that the muscular action produces the more obvious movement -- and not vice-versa.  All the body cares about, is what is actually happening within the body -- and its organs.  Externally, it could care less how much weight is being lifted or moved.  It can be effected by a machine, gravity, momentum, leverage, inertia, another.  Once that is seen clearly, that all that matters is the muscle action in itself -- which is the effectiveness of its change in state -- from full relaxation to full contraction, and how effectively that is effected -- even without resistance.

Many older people, just do not have that range of movement, nor the control at will.  And so the movement itself, overrides all the considerations of how much further resistance to add -- to an already restricted and compromised range of motion, that deteriorates even further from the added load.  Certainly that can't be better -- because the limited range is the overriding problem. If one can get them to move beyond the range of their momentary restrictions, that would be the greatest achievement.  That is true for every movement -- whether one can, or not -- regardless of making it more difficult, and impossible.  The better course, is to make all movements easier and less restricted.  That is the healthy range of movement -- while the very restricted, is an indication that all is not well.

But the typical ill-advised remedy, is to make it as hard as momentarily possible -- and at no time, should it ever become easy and effortless.  Yet that would be the articulation of a robust individual.  When does he ever get to express it?  Most testing is devised in this manner -- to make it difficult, rather than as easy as possible, to qualify as many as possible.  And that should be the public/community health standard, and not disqualifying and disabling as many as possible -- with arbitrary demands.

So the important question is not how much weight one can lift overhead, but how many in the room can lift their arms overhead -- in the full range of that possibility?  That is, without the limitations of range of movement that marks them as a feeble and failing individual.  The ease and grace of movement, is much more telling, than a show of brute strength -- exhibiting no such grace and ease.  We are looking at the wrong things -- thinking we have seen everything, and enough.  We have not even begun to ask the right questions.