“Frankly, Neil, I prefer a brisk morning walk and some light stretching to your stuff. Your stuff is hard and makes me sore. I like my stuff better.”
- Dumb people
I love your thoughts on this. Seriously, nothing appeals to me more than the notion we can become optimally healthy without doing all the shit we don’t like. Burpees? Fuck those things. Eating right? Nah. I just prefer some light walking, easy stretching, and twinkie munching. I hope more than anything else in life, these things are attainable.
They aren’t.
The physical needs of all humans are the same. Preferences be damned. We all need to do the same things to become and stay “Optimally Healthy.” Understanding how your body works is the key element in developing a complete, balanced physique. It’ll also save you from wasting time and effort.
The fact your body has the ability to do a thing MANDATES participation in that thing.
This is true much to the chagrin of many a skinny runner, a fat bench presser and weak yogi. Nope, none of these participate in complete, balanced fitness routines. Most runners don’t use their upper bodies comprehensively. Neither do they perform strength movements for their lower bodies. Running alone leaves a lot of healthy components of exercise unaddressed. This makes running alone (and biking, walking, swimming) poor exercise. By that same mark, people who weight lift without doing cardiovascular exercise are also off the path when it comes to optimal health training. Yoga, I love you. I hate to pick on you, but your techniques stimulate neither the health benefits of strength training NOR cardiovascular exercise.
What running, cycling, swimming, lifting & yoga done alone fail to realize is that not only are they poor choices for exercising, they are also inefficient. To get the MOST out of running, you’d need to do a LOT of running. You actually have to spend hours and hours running. If you were doing a balanced fitness method (RWND) you’d need to do a lot less of it. That’s the secret of proper exercise. When designed right, it’s efficient and effective. It takes less time to complete, not more and more.
Your body will reward you with positive change and healthy improvements only with proper stimuli. But when you don’t give it stimulus it doesn’t just NOT reward you, it becomes diseased and unhealthy. IOW your cute little walk won’t give you the needed benefits and health of lifting weights. And you have to be careful because all unhealthy results are systemic. Letting one part of your body go to hell is usually quickly followed by many others.
You can’t develop muscle, bone, and connective tissue in a place you aren’t stimulating. And your body hates homeostasis. You are always either becoming stronger or weaker. If you aren’t stimulating growth you are shrinking. When muscles shrink, connective tissues shrink. When connective tissues shrink, joints become less viable. When this happens you become weaker and less capable. In other words, if you don’t use it, you really do lose it!
The needs of all humans differ by degree, not kind. All humans need the same kinds of exercise to become and stay “Optimally Healthy” - preferences be damned. It’s the same for young and old. The only difference is the degree of difficulty you can apply at different times of your life.