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.