The Most Practical Exercise

 A hundred years ago, when a person took a fitness class, the standard of achievement was whether they could walk with a book on the top of their head — exhibiting the control and grace in that movement. Fast forward a hundred years and most people approaching one hundred cannot walk at all — and by a few decades earlier, they require either a cane or walker, and those who adopt walking as their main exercise, are doing it poorly — usually by shuffling their feet so as not to fall. The axiom of conditioning activities is that no amount of doing anything improperly will substitute for doing a movement properly and perfectly. So when a person is advised to walk for 10,000 steps and all will be well, there is no telling definitively what a person is actually doing — because that movement is limited by manner of performance. That is true for every movement that is recommended as “proper” exercise. That is the major reason some people attain remarkable results, while most do not — while thinking they are doing the same thing. And in fact, many older people do not get the results they did 50 years ago — not because of age, which is convenient to blame it on, but that they’re simply not doing the same thing they were 50 years ago — but thinking they are doing the exact same thing.

Nowhere is that more true than the simple movement of walking — when many can barely walk, or even stand anymore. So what can they do? — when they can’t even walk in a straight line anymore? Using a walker won’t regain their best walking form, nor will using a cane. What may help in restoring proper walking form is the use of trekking poles — that makes the proper form possible again by using four legs (sic) instead of merely two. Often, the problem with walking for older people is that it hurts their feet, knees, hips, and back by placing all the weight on the legs, while using the arms to aid in that support and propulsion, makes proper movement possible again — by reducing the weight (resistance) supported entirely by the legs.

That is similar to weight-training machines — which most people fail to realize that the advantage is in the ability to lower the weight rather than raise it infinitely more. It is a well-known fact that the average person cannot do even one pull-up. But with a pulley and adjustable weight stack, it becomes possible to do the pull-up movement because the weight (resistance) can be lowered to their present ability — and so rather than no repetitions being possible and performed, they can now do 50 and obtaining the benefit of that movement performed sufficiently to effect a meaningful blood flow that is the value and purpose of any exercise.

That doesn’t happen if they don’t perform the movement properly (or at all) — as to effect its fullest contraction alternated by the fullest relaxation — which is the muscle acting as a pump — just like the heart works. Thoughtfully done, that is to dedicate the entire musculature of the body to perform that health enhancing effect — rather than presuming that the heart alone can perform that sufficiently and optimally for the more than hundredfold mass it is thought to service adequately without additional thought andeffort.

That is the reason some bodies actualize a lot more than most of the others. They have thought to do that very deliberately and systematically — as their bodybuilding program. That same effort and attention is required by any other faculties of the body — to achieve its highest actualization and performance. That should come as no surprise. One doesn’t become the best at what one does, unless they practice it. But practicing anything, is not the same as practicing perfectly and precisely — so there has to be a standard of performance — which trekking pole walking seems to demand — as the simplest, most practical standardized movement to master and repeat — to improve their mobility and coordination, for most practical purposes.

That is the movement working most of the muscles — and as such, that its practitioners achieve proportional muscular development and functioning.