PALEO JAY SMOOTHIE CAFE: April 2025

Wednesday, April 30, 2025

Total Indian Takeover

Tuesday, April 29, 2025

Fleetwood Mac - Rattlesnake Shake

New podcast- Strength Should be the Ultimate Goal of Exercise!

There seem to be many views on what should be the goal of exercise!

Should you aim, above all, at flexibility, or should it be cardiovascular ability? Or should you shoot for a balance of strength, flexibility, and cardiovascular (aerobic) fitness!

Well, obviously it seems to me, that a balanced approach is better- after all, all of these three components are crucial in their own ways. But together, they are the key to ultimate fitness, right? Well- kind of…

It used to be axiomatic that running, particularly long distance running, conferred the most health advantages! A strong, enduring cardiovascular system would keep you from getting a heart attack, and that is the ultimate goal…

However, it turns out that endless distance running also consumes your musculature and strength, while simultaneously rendering you more and more inflexible and lowering your immune response to many diseases, and cancer itself! It also, over long distances and years, destroys your knee and hip joints. And the cardio benefits seem to be very temporary: once you stop running (from your self-inflicted destruction), those benefits disappear.

Flexibility as a sole benefit is very slight. The ability to bend your body and limbs over a wide range of motion might seem impressive and desirable, (especially after you have destroyed most of your flexibility by long-distance running alone), by itself to become a kind of ‘yogi’ like this is more a type of parlor trick, other than the sum of being fit. It just doesn’t make you capable of much at all!

No, ironically, the number one goal of overall fitness is to build strength and muscle! This is the last component that has been considered to be important in the last few decades. But, as you age, it becomes apparent that strength training is by far the most important thing you can do.

To be self-sufficient and vital, you need strength above all. Muscle tissue is what will burn calories, even when you are not exercising, thus keeping you from becoming obese. Of course, strength is also what keeps you mobile and walking, able to lift heavy items and move things as well as yourself.

The main goal of the elderly, and those of us who will all eventually become elderly, is actually to build strength and muscle tissue. Strength training is what keeps us out of the nursing home, and in our own homes! Everything else: sports of all types - running, basketball, racket sports, gymnastics, horseshoes, basketball and other “ball” sports- they might be fun, and improve us in some subtle ways; but they do not give us true, measurable, and long-lasting benefits.

Only strength training does that, and it can be done for our entire lives! In one study, researchers compared muscle building ability in women in their 90’s to those in their 20’s, and found that the elders built muscle and strength as fast as those much younger!

This shows us how much muscle is valued and needed by the body, providing we induce the stimulus by strength training to show that the muscle is needed. Muscle that can keep us from falling, helping us to keep our balance, and also building our bone strength along with our musculatures.