Commenting on the Soleus Pushup
When I used to give presentations on exercise at the senior, disabled, terminal venues -- I used to focus on movement at the head, hands and feet -- as implying the rest. What most people seem not to notice, is that the whole orientation for movement, is to move primarily at these critical organs and faculties -- and the rest of the musculature really serves for support and stabilization for these critical movements at these organs.
That is to say that the fine motor movements implies the gross motor movements -- but not vice versa. The major justification for exercising these larger muscles, is that they may expend more energy -- but not necessarily serve a greater purpose -- in mastering a specific skill -- always manifested at the head, hands and feet. Those movements require a rotation around the axis at the wrists, ankles and neck -- while most conventional exercises, immobilize them, with the focus entirely on increasing the heart rate, or making the heart work infinitely harder.
Instead, the skeletal (voluntary) muscles actually determine (complete) the extent and effectiveness of the circulatory effect -- which is why exercise can be effective. It's when those specific muscles change muscular states, that accelerate the push back towards the heart -- just as the heart does unfailingly throughout one's life in pushing the flow towards the extremities. It is these skeletal (voluntary) muscles that need the exercise rather than the heart because the heart is automatically programmed to beat as it has to.
That is the weakness in increasingly sedentary lives -- not necessarily because one is seated f(or lying) or many hours of the day, but that there is no necessity for moving the head, hands and feet -- because of modern conveniences obviating the need to do so. That accounts for the lack of blood flow to (from) the extremities resulting in the dementias, weak grip strength, lack of foot strength (balance) -- which have become problematical in long lives -- and even traditional exercises seem powerless to affect.
But in producing muscle contractions at the extremities, it is like creating a heart (pump) from the extremities back towards the heart -- because the capillaries are designed to slow down the movement as much as possible, and so the heart has no effect on the primary push back towards the heart, and evacuating that space so new blood and nutrients can enter. But in understanding fluid dynamics (volume is inversely related to pressure), muscle contractions provide that push of fluids back towards the heart and other purifying organs. That is why compression and compression garments also work well to reduce swelling and inflammation.
In most of the development and evolution of the human being and body, one had to produce those contractions in the normal activities and work of life -- which is no longer true of increasingly unexercised lives. But the answer is not simply increasing the work and burden of one singular muscle to optimize that effect -- but to recruit the entire musculature in also producing that effect, of alternating contractions and relaxations (changes in muscle states) -- particularly at the extremities.
Otherwise, exercise is entirely misplaced, and seems to be mostly ineffective at producing these therapeutic and life-enhancing effects -- especially in longer lives, where the circulation is notably weakest. That is what has to strengthened as the greatest effect of exercise -- and not the biceps, abdominals, other core areas -- to the utter neglect of the most critically important organs of the human body.
posted by Mike Hu @ 8:37 AM
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