Designing a Better Treadmill

There is no rule that prohibits useful activity -- so while one is just breathing and pumping blood -- there is no requirement that one make the heart alone work harder, while all the other muscles do nothing.  That is really not as Nature intended.  It foresaw that living a good, productive life, would enable them to continue to do so, and even better their prospects.  That is the well-known survival of the fit -- and not that one has to battle constantly with others to prove it.  Most likely, one lives longer if they are not engaged in constant battle with every other -- all the time.  Then like the alpha of every species, one can just pick their spots, and rise to the challenge that nobody else can.

When and how those challenges arise, is anybody's guess, and fate to determine.  Thus, one tries to be prepared for anything as much as possible and practical -- while also realizing their weaknesses and vulnerabilities.  Then one can answer the right challenges, and not just every challenge like the juveniles of every species think they must respond to.  Of course, that's what gets them into trouble and shortens their lives, or disables them thereafter.

One hopes to avoid those early childhood traumas -- and get to the long and prosperous lives we think possible.  The most crippling of those formative years, is the belief that there can only be one way -- and it doesn't work -- and so there is only despair that things can ever get better.  But that is what civilization and culture is all about -- creating that baseline foundation for everyone to proceed from and discover the unknown and unrealized.

The ultimate objective of life is not just to make the heart work harder -- but to be firing on all cylinders -- and not just the one.  The obvious example is when the heart continues to beat heartily when the brain is dead, or has stopped functioning for most recognizable purposes.  Obviously, such people are not much fun to be around -- and will cost other lives to be sacrificed for their care and continued sustenance.  You don't want to be that person.

That's why one should do everything within their power and abilities not to be -- including taking the necessary precautions whenever appropriate -- assuming that everybody else's job is not doing that for him.  That fully eliminates 90% of what could go wrong -- just being aware of what is going on around them, and not thinking that is everybody else's job to ensure for them.  Life doesn't happen that way.

So the essential exercise should be increasing that awareness -- while they are doing anything and everything, and that not only knowing what is going on in their own heads is all there is to know and worth knowing.  Often, the difference between being mugged and not, is acknowledging and being aware of the presence of others, rather than denying their existence.  It is the same in the wild kingdom, that those most alert and aware, are less likely to be victimized -- while the oblivious, are the preferred targets of the opportunists.

Not that one should necessarily be overly paranoid about everything.  Simple awareness takes 90% of the surprise out of most incidents.  And that is why in one's choice of conditioning activities, one should prefer to develop one's awareness of what one is doing -- over thinking one is doing anything else.  It's like a person reading and planning for their next vacation -- while being oblivious to the one they are presently on.  Or simply reading a magazine while they are treadmilling.  Their body is dispassionately doing one thing, while they minds are engaged elsewhere -- so a great part of their conditioning, is to be fully engaged and present in what they are actually doing.

That has great power -- because the mind operating with that awareness, is very powerful, and may be the difference between succeeding and failing.  That mind, can make an immediate adjustment -- as required by the actual circumstances and developments.  And that is what life is all about -- making those adjustments and adaptations, and not merely continuing to do the same thing over and over again -- despite it not working, and even being the source of all one's problems.

That fragmentation in thinking about exercise began in the '60s with the thought that there could be exercise for the heart and exercise for the muscles -- as though they were antagonists rather than integral to the entire operation of a healthily functioning body.  That notion was largely promoted by those selling the measuring devices -- including the heart monitors and resistance machines.

But the object is not how hard one can work the heart alone, or how much weight a muscle can move -- but the healthy benefit of optimizing the circulatory effect that ensures one's health and well-functioning.  Then muscles naturally grow, bones get stronger, organs remain functional, etc.  It is not just the one thing -- but everything -- working well with each other.  That is the well-integrated individual -- and not each part fighting for primacy within the individual and so one is out of balance and proportion -- and looks it.

That's why many gym physiques look unproportional and unbalanced -- when the ideal even of antiquity, was for aesthetic balance -- especially the mind in a well developed body.  In fact, that was what the body manifested -- as the most accurate gauge of that development.  That was how the being showed its intelligence -- and still is, but not necessarily in the puerile ways many think it so.

That would be the objective in thinking that the measure of any activity is the amount of calories burned -- or even heart rate despite the atrophy of the rest of the musculature.  Instead of deliberately minimizing the engagement of the rest of the musculature, it would make far more sense to make a treadmill of any more meaningful movement -- such as are designed in any other exercise machine -- with minimal resistance -- while accentuating and increasing the range of movement.

That's what most people fail to do -- even while making their hearts work ever harder.  That is especially true of the older exercisers -- distinguished most notably by their lack of range at every joint, mostly because their inactive (sedentary) lives don't demand it of their normal and usual movements.  Treadmills are not normal and usual movements -- as much as is made to normalize them as such -- as the standard of human movement and activity.

Far more useful and meaningful is the movement at the head, hands and feet -- and those movements give meaning to the larger, supporting muscular structures -- and not vice-versa, and why those conventional exercises fail to halt the deteriorating effect most visible at the head, hands and feet.  That development produces a well-proportioned physique because that is how the body is designed to work.  Anything else is reinventing the body by pasting body parts according to one's tastes -- while ignoring the millions of years of evolution to get it right.