It Doesn't Take A Genius

It is very easy to design an exercise program that people can't -- or won't do.  It doesn't take a genius to do that.  The genius lies in designing an exercise program that someone can and will do -- every day of their lives, and not just when they feel good enough to do it.  Obviously, the greatest value of any exercise program, will be one that can change one from not wanting to move, to moving because it makes them feel better -- rather than requiring one to feel at their best to even try.

Yet that is the mindset of most exercise regimens -- that people give up at the first opportunity and challenge to do so.  So obviously, the barriers to entry must be low -- and one is moving before one knows it -- and the resistance (fatigue) builds.  And then beyond that, many add on greater layers of complexity -- that all but the most able are capable of -- which of course proves the superiority of the instructor (strongest), but eliminates most of the weak and less abled from further participation -- all in the misguided notion that it is actually making the weak, strong, or would, if they merely persisted and overcame their limitations and objections.

And rather than thoughtful and educated people realizing those errors in wishful thinking -- they devise even more difficult and tortuous things that only they can do, to prove the superiority of their indoctrination, and people give them the benefit of the doubt that it makes sense at all to proceed further down that path of a well-proven failure.

Of course, they will argue, if everyone did the impossible (could fly), they would be in much better shape -- and more fit to take on the even more preposterous and ambitious.  They may even designate and certify themselves as "experts," allowing them to charge exorbitant amounts for such advice.  These fads and madness may even rise in popularity until all those who can do it are aboard -- before moving on to the next "challenge" -- until exhausting all their time, energy and resources, and realizing there is no end in sight, while receiving very little benefits in return.

But most of them, are not used to thinking about returns and results because their conditioning is to believe that expenditure alone is enough -- and when one runs out of that unlimited resource, then one simply doesn't get up, and suffers the decades in decline and deterioration to their final end.  In such a case, it should become obvious that just a little will go a long way -- and running marathons and setting a new Guinness record is not a motivation that simply picking oneself off the floor as many times as one needs to, is sufficient to maintain that viability all one's days -- while the fast and the furious, are whiling the rest of theirs, with hip, knee, heart replacements -- while immobilized in their beds and wheelchairs for the remainder of their days.

That is the simple, stark truth of the matter.  If one can't move, move the easiest thing possible -- and that will always be, the minimal response possible -- invariably at the smallest joint/muscle for doing so.  That is the realization and understanding that makes greater movement possible -- and not starting with the greatest recruitment of the largest muscles -- familiarly known as the core.  Movement at the core, gets one nowhere -- because those muscles are not designed for movement but for stability.  The muscles at the extreme distances from the core -- are those designed for movement, articulation -- and expression.  There is where all the senses and sensibilities are located -- which is the genius in placing them where they can be maximally mobilized.

You don't want your nose, eyes and ears at your rectum.  But increasingly, as one does less and less, the only movement they think possible, and are capable of anymore, is that movement at that focal point, which they now refer as the "movement."  That is the sad regression from movements and expressions at their extremities -- which necessarily implies all the intervening supporting structures and functions -- but not vice-versa.  With that fundamental flaw in understanding, doom is a certainty -- because that is not the design and function of a body in good health, understanding and functioning.

That is where one would measure functionality and health -- and not at the vital organs of the heart and lungs -- which are the given and constants, and not the variables.  All the other things one can do, are the variables -- that one can do, but to think that all that is necessary to optimize health is to directly affect the heart rate and breathing, is wholly misguided.  That results as a response to everything else one is doing.  That is to say, that one does not get their heart rate and breathing up, in order to run a marathon, or do anything, but that rise results from the effort in doing anything -- quite naturally, as a response to what is needed.

If one mistakes the effect for the cause, then serious damage will result -- and at the least, be unproductive -- so that one no longer bothers to try. That is what insightful people have called wrong understanding -- and more of it is not the solution -- but the cause of the problem.  However, the right understanding, produces right effort.  So that is where one has to begin -- and not arrive only at the end. Obviously in that way, one will never arrive at the right outcome -- beginning with the wrong understanding -- no matter how much one puts into any effort.  It is not the effort but the understanding that ultimately matters -- and results.