Is 20 Minutes a Day Enough?

 I workout 20 minutes a day — just to recover from the aches and pains of juvenile arthritis/old age, and to lubricate my joints for subsequent movements throughout the day.

However, once a week I go to the YMCA a half-mile uphill and workout for an hour with light weights for 50 repetitions of each exercise — focusing on extending my range of motion in both the contracted position and the relaxed position as the primary objective. There are plenty of older guys “lifting” weights but I noticed with most — including Arnold and these former/older bodybuilders that their range of movement is quite restricted, and they don’t spend any time in the most productive positions — which is the extended ranges of contraction and relaxation, but are merely moving the weights through a limited mid-range, and therefore,  hardly changing muscle states at all.

The importance of this is that in fluid dynamics, the rate of flow is determined by the difference in the pressures created inversely by the volume — which is also how the heart works. Pressure is inversely related to volume, and so as the heart contracts, the pressure increases — and moves into an area where there is less pressure.

This also happens when the skeletal muscles contract and relax — producing the flow from the tissues back towards the heart and recycling organs of the body. Otherwise, the veins conducting the flow relies on the valves to prevent a backflow but no powerful push as when a muscle contracts (volume gets smaller). In most people, and particularly those who never produce these muscle contractions in their inactive and sedentary lives, this can cause fluid buildups in the tissues — as is familiar in edema, lymphedema, lipedema, swollen ankles, swollen hands, sluggish brain functioning. This is a circulatory problem determined by the lack of regular voluntary muscular functioning as most humans have evolved for — causing the most vigorous and productive, to development greater capacities and efficiencies — while the immobile would largely die off because they could not fend well for themselves — just as we see of the runts of the litter in every species.

The more vigorous get most of the food, while the weak and incapacitated are eliminated in this way. Those are the conditions which life evolved — over millions of years — and what each has to work with as the fact of life. Once we see that clearly, we can simulate (exercise) those conditions that favor our survival, while eliminating those actions that are counterproductive and undermine those purposes — including eating as our only activity — which some have taken to the level of constant eating, as with the advice to eat and drink as much as possible — as an end in itself. Instead, one could devote that time to optimizing the circulation and respiration as a better use of one’s time, energy and focus — as even the ancients have recognized for centuries.

So where these people get the idea that 20 minutes of intentional movements (exercise) for this enhancement is a bad idea is a truly remarkable reversal (perversion) of what Nature intended. Nature wishes life to succeed — but one must do so on those terms — and not just eat, drink and be merry — while not taking exceptional care of what has been provided us as what we have to work with. When we have that fundamental understanding of reality, then it doesn’t make sense to do anything less — to ensure the success of everything else we subsequently do in our lives — because it is all dependent on this basic operating conditions.

That is to be functioning on one’s highest levels of possibilities — and not simply mindlessly doing everything equally and arbitrarily. In order to get one’s head into it, one should place as primary importance, the actual movement of the head — otherwise, there is very little difference from a head that cannot move, and eyes, ears, and brain that can no longer function and take in the information the body needs to respond effectively.

As people age and become less capable, the neck muscles are the first to go — resulting in the atrophying of the neck muscles with the characteristic turkey neck. That doesn’t happen with people in the practice of moving their heads (think dancers) — because it follows the same principles of the development and maintenance of every other organs of the body. It is dependent on the blood flow (circulation) to those tissues, and that is what makes them function well and grow — and not by all that mumbo-jumbo trying to sell heart monitors or whatever is the new gimmick of the day.

Some even go further down that path in insisting that one cannot spot-reduce or spot-develop particular bodyparts they wish to — and that the only thing that matters is elevating the heart as high as possible — which is to suggest that all phenomena is random. That’s not the world we live in. People actually become good at what they exercise and practice, and it shows in their development. That should be a well-known fact by now — but we have academics who now rule the roost proclaiming that they are “the science” — and everyone should not trust their own lying eyes, ears, and brains — but listen only to their certified lunacies and propaganda — that don’t work, and if 20 minutes is not enough, then 40 minutes would be better, etc.

It depends on what one does, and how one does it — and not that they will get the same results doing anything — depending on their calorie expenditure and highest heart rate sustained — because life and the world is random in that way. The problem is seldom that the heart is not pumping and one is not eating enough — but the skeletal (voluntary) muscles are not working — which explains how the marathon runners have enlarged hearts with very little muscular development otherwise. One cannot assume that just because the heart is working at its hardest that the circulation through the other muscles (organs) are optimal — and that is the problem of the dementias and neuropathies (arthritis) at the extremities of the hands, feet and head. That is what needs to be exercised for at least 20 minutes every day to achieve and maintain optimal functioning and development throughout life.

The Optimal Exercise (Movement)

 Any variation of the pullover would be the optimal exercise — for young, old, dying, world class, most sedentary, skinny, obese, beginner, lifelong exercisers, etc.

It used to be the foundational exercise of bodybuilding in the ’50s and ’60s — when most of the people doing it were doing it to build up their health foremost — often from a 98 lb. weakling to surprising physique champions. The classic case was Tommy Kono — who got into it to help cure his asthma, and then went on to become the weightlifting champion as well as Mr. Universe. Other big proponents of the pullover were George Eiferman, Reg Park, Steve Reeves, Pat Casey, Freddy Ortiz, etc.

Unfortunately, that exercise has gone out of style — which largely accounts for the fact that most people who train don’t achieve the muscle pump and immediate transformations most of these guys would exhibit from their training sessions. The magic of the pullover is that it focuses the attention on breathing — and when one has optimized that oxygenation of the blood, circulation becomes transformative in a way not possible if one has not first optimized the oxygenation (breathing).

Instead, that is what people supposed they are getting by doing “cardio” or “aerobic” exercises and breathing faster but more shallowly. For this reason, it was highly touted by the strength magazine publishers Bob Hoffman and Peary Rader — with light weights and high repetitions as the introductory exercises for any other exercises to follow — or not. People were amazed at the gains they achieved from one set of breathing squats followed by light pullovers to enhance that circulation through the upper body. Thus it was no accident that Arthur Jones made his first Nautilus machine the pullover movement — to prove the validity of his Nautilus principles. His second machine, was the Hip and Back — which is more like the Yoga Bridge (lying hip lift) — because he recognized that in order to activate the large muscles of the glutes and back, the femur has to be moving backward in this manner rather than terminating in a bone-on-bone squat finish which doesn’t produce this severe glute contraction. That is also the problem with the Deadlift — or any other traditional exercises claiming to be the best for this development. The finished position, is a resting position, and so the muscle is not engaged.

One of the great tenets of his “Nautilus Principles” was to provide variable resistance through the full range of movement — which became corrupted by the attempt to use it in the standard manner to lift as much weight as possible — thereby undermining its value. One can only achieve the greatest range of movement by having the resistance go to zero — not in the relaxed position but in the fully contracted position. The resistance prevents attaining the full range of movement possible — because increasing the range, increases the resistance — because one cannot contract infinitely.

An easy example of this is simply turning one’s head as far to the left or right as possible. No matter how little the resistance (or none at all), the head will not continue to move infinitely further — but the muscle will be so powerfully contracted, that it will provide the resistance against any further contraction. Most never realize that because as they increase the weight (resistance), they shorten their range of movement — to make it easier, or even possible. And so the effect of a heavier weight, is to prevent the muscle from achieving its fullest contraction — and the importance of this, is that the contraction is what is pushing the fluids out of the tissues and creating the space (vacuum) for new nutrients and oxygen to enter — because the heart cannot achieve this flow by itself — through miles of capillaries which design is to slow the flow down so there can be efficient exchange of waste products for nutrients.

Thus the proper concern is to use a weight (resistance) that allows one to achieve the greatest relaxation possible — which is obviously not going to be their one rep maximum — and claiming they’ve exercised to “failure.” Failure is that state achieved when one has so totally fatigued and exhausted a particular muscle, that they can’t perform the movement with no weight at all — and at that point, require all the muscles of the body to assist in completing that movement. Thereby, that becomes the ultimate recruitment of all the muscles available — to move even a negligible weight. At that point, the body has gotten the signal (message) that it has to greatly improve its present capabilities — which is the stimulus for growth and strengthening.

If it can do a bench press, squat, deadlift, or anything else easily — why should the body have to improve? It can do everything it is called on to do already — easily. That’s not “failure.” Failure is when one is doing everything one can, and it is hardly sufficient — so these people who are claiming to do 5 sets until failure, have no idea what they are talking about, because one set of 50 is all you can do — and may require a week to recover from that exertion. Thus the further admonishment that High intensity exercise must be brief and infrequent is an actual requirement — and not asking if they can work out to failure every day — let alone doing 5 sets?

Rather, the movements one should be performing are movements with no weights just to move from one state of contraction to relaxation in relieving the muscle soreness from that single high intensity workout — that may take a week to fully recover from. But one is understanding that the objective is to use one’s skeletal (voluntary) muscles in that characteristic way that produces a flow — out of the tissues and back to the heart and recycling organs of the body. It’s not enough just to make the heart alone work harder; the heart is always working, and is the hardest working muscle in the body. It is the other muscles of the body that aren’t doing anything — and why they atrophy because there is no flow of nutrients and removal of the accumulated waste products by the voluntary (skeletal) muscles.

That is why we’re trying to optimize the breathing function as the primary improvement that makes that difference. That has been recognized by the Ancients as the reason for focusing on breathing and circulation mindfulness as the key to health. And we know that is a huge problem of simply living longer lives — in declining health. Even as much as we devote our lives to much exercise and practice in the traditional and conventional manner of thinking about these things. Obviously, we need to change the paradigm and not simply put more energy, pain and effort into what hasn’t worked so well before — because the science and thoughtfulness is not there. It doesn’t make any sense but hopes to achieve miracles through opposite thinking — or denial.

Recognizing this, one asks, what would be the optimal exercise of our faculties to achieve the life (condition) never actualized before?

That would be, lying on a hard mat preparatory to doing the hip raise but beginning with the arms straight back and then bringing them forward and pressing into the mat and then commencing to lift the hips up — to engage all the muscles of the body with a single exercise. If one does not believe that it is the further extension of the contracted position that optimally fatigues a muscle, then I invite them to load the barbell with their usual weight in a bench press, and in the usual finished position — begin to press up the bar even further. Failure will be imminent — and that tels the body, I have to get stronger. But not so much if their “finish” position is a bone on bone lockout requiring no muscle engagement as is usually seen in the conventional bench press, squat, deadlift, press, etc. One has to extend the range of both the relaxation as well as the contraction.

In looking around at my peers in the gym, what is obvious to me, is that the oldest and most disabled are so because of their limited range of movement — rather than the lack of weight (resistance) in their exercises. I’m not impressed with those who load up a barbell with great weight and proceed to do very little with it. I am impressed with those in advanced ages who even with no weight, have a greater range of movement than most everyone else can even imagine doing. That is also true for young athletes beyond the level of their peers —they exhibit a much greater range of movement (articulation and expression) than others even think possible.

One set of 50 repetitions is the best scheme for most people because they lack the attention span to persist in anything for that long — and not because it is too easy they will get bored and need to get back to their smartphones or some other diversion/entertainment — and why their workouts are unproductive. Then the magic happens — because there is a sound basis for doing so — just as Nature and Evolution intended.

Aerobic or Anaerobic?

 Whether an exercise is “aerobic” or not, is determined by the manner in which it is done. The original concept was to establish at what levels exercise could be done by people with heart problems — so as not to unduly stress the heart, and not as it came to be distorted as — the minimal thresholds for exercise. Obviously, when a person hits 101% of their maximum theoretical heart rate, there is imminent danger of death.

And so the benchmark for determining this, was whether an activity could be conducted while continuing to carry on a conversation — which is a very low threshold. That makes an activity “aerobic” — because it is dictated by the cadence of normal breathing — rather than forcing the breathing to catch up to the activity or effort, which is best exemplified by maximum weight reps of 3–6 — often done with no breathing at all, or very shallow, forced breathing because the resistance is so heavy as not to allow any relaxation between reps.

A good example is the proxy for pushups of the bench press. When a weight is heavy, no proper breathing can take place because a minimal amount of chest pressure must be maintained at least equal to the weight of the bar, and one has to contract a minimum above that in the characteristic bounce off the chest. No competitor would begin their lift from a completely relaxed position — which is the hardest thing to do — but resulting in the greatest change from the complete relaxation of a muscle to its fullest contraction. That can only be done with extremely light weights — making deep and thorough exhalations and inhalations possible — which is the primary purpose of any exercise for health purposes.

The primary focus should be on the breathing — and once that is effected — circulation can be directed specifically to those other areas exercised with beneficial results. The effectiveness of breathing is determined by the change of chest volume housing the lungs. The objective is not to breathe faster, but more deeply and more thoroughly — so that the residual air that remains in the lungs is exhaled as completely as possible, thus creating space for new air (oxygen) to enter. The completeness of the exhalation is particularly important because of the structure of the lungs — which means branching tissue so that the last molecules out, are the first to be replaced — and if only the air in the top portion of the lungs is expelled, the deeper (residual) air remains — producing an anaerobic condition because there is no effective breathing until one can exhale fully again — when the load is removed, and one can carry on a normal conversation again.

A better exercise for aerobisizing the body is the bent-armed or straight-armed pullover done with a fairly light weight for 50 repetitions. More than any other single exercise, it focuses on the action of the breathing — and as such, was the foundational movement for bodybuilding in the ’60s along with the breathing squat with light weights also done for 50 reps. Those two movements alone accounted for the transformational developments of those times — and were highly recommended by the two most popular bodybuilding magazine publishers of the time, Bob Hoffman and Perry Rader. That was the characteristic development of bodybuilders in the ‘50s and ’60s — notable mainly for their ribcage development and differential between the chest and waist measurements.

An activity can be sustained indefinitely if it is performed “aerobically” — with this attention to breathing as the limiting factor, and if not, is terminated by the inability to breathe properly as when occurs in limit lifting because the breathing is constricted and not by true muscle failure. True muscle failure occurs when the muscle itself gives out before the lack of breathing forces them to stop — which is actually cardiovascular failure. That is anaerobic exercise. It can be attempted briefly and infrequently — when one’s life depends on it, but is not the preferred conditioning modality otherwise — because the organ most susceptible to a lack of oxygen, is the brain — and its neuromuscular functioning.

Invariably, this style of training will result in the absolute cessation of all movement activities because of its cumulative damaging effects overwhelming the decreasing benefits one achieves exercising in this manner. There is no net gain but an acceleration of the anaerobic effect. But at this point, most people don’t know how to exercise any other way — and so they just stop, otherwise they might go on indefinitely exercising in the manner that increases their aerobic capacities.