Crucial Exercise You Ignore on PaleoJay's Smoothie Cafe podcast

You should address each and every part of your body on a daily, or at least near-daily basis!  For me, each day when I arise, I go through a brief limbering session right away, in the bathroom before going downstairs- rotating all of my joints, and gradually awakening with deep breathing and simple mobility movements.  (I hesitate to call them ‘exercises’, since they are simple, easy, and enjoyable, taking a maximum of 2-3 minutes total).

Next, downstairs, I brew my coffee, feed the cats, and go into my workout area.  (The Living Room!)  I start the TV, and my workout at the same time, only pausing to sip my organic brew…  it is the very best, most satisfying part of my day!  It not only grounds me, it gradually energizes me in that early morning hour or so that I devote to both myself, my sanity, and my overall health.

You can either look up exercise at www.paleojay.com, or get my book Perfectly Paleo Exercise to understand everything that I do.  Or email me: I’ll be glad to let you know what to do- it is my mission!

But I know that, even if you follow my prescription of early morning exercise, daily, in front of your TV- you are probably ignoring some of the most important parts of your body!  Most everyone does…

Stretching!  Just crucial- lie on the floor and stretch in every way imaginable-this becomes more and more important as you age, crucial really.

Exercise your FACE, NECK, HANDS and FEET!  

This is ignored by pretty much everyone, and really- what is more important to your overall health and well-being than having a good looking, healthy FACE?  

There are all kinds of facial exercises, and the ones I do take perhaps 1 minute, two at most.  They tend to be virtual resistance types of exercise, which means that you make faces while flexing throughout the range of motion.  That is really what virtual resistance means, whether it if you arms, shoulders, legs or face- it really is the very core of paleo exercise.  NOT weight lifting!  Lifting heavy weights is a joint destroyer, and unnecessary for maximum strength anyway.

Your neck can be exercised this way, but the best way for the neck, as delicate as it is due to the vertebrae, is to use manual resistance.  Simply resist the forward movement of your head with your two hands, to the fore, and then back.  Push against the resistance of your hands hard, and keep resisting for perhaps 5 seconds or so.  Then, repeat to each side, pushing isometrically with effort- you are done!

Then, grasp your jaw, and resist the upward pull of your jaw muscles isometrically for the same 5 seconds.  Done!

Lastly, fold a towel on the floor, and do a back bend, rising up on your toes while lying flat on your back, and simultaneously lift your upper body up using your head, and coming to rest on just your forehead and toes- hold for a good minute, if you comfortably can!  This is actually a superb whole body exercise, but puts wonderful stress on the neck, while stretching your back very beneficially.

The face, neck, and jaw can be exercised fully in a small fraction of time, but the benefits are off the charts important!  Small muscles don’t need much time, for massive improvements not only to your overall function, but also to your appearance.  People focus overall far more to the appearance of your face, than to your chest or biceps!  

The hands and above all the grip are essential to overall health and functionality!  You can manually resist both the upward and downward motion of the wrists by resisting with the other hand, and also the side to side movement, ending with a strong isometric.  Using a dowel or bar, and attempting to ‘break’ it in two is another way to exercise the grip.  Grip strength is a key sign of aging…

This last is my favorite, for I suffered for years with not knowing how to address it- plantar facsiitis.  This is foot pain, which is endemic in the modern world, and which standard medical science has no clue how to address.

Your typical MD will recommend wearing orthotics to ’cushion’ the foot, and to ‘never walk barefoot’, both of which are completely and utterly wrong!  

What you want to do is to walk barefoot AS MUCH AS POSSIBLE, outdoors preferably, on uneven ground.  This will strengthen the overall foot and supporting structures in the most natural, and effective way possible!

So- do this!  Walk, run, sprint, and jog around in parks or on sandy beaches, in barefoot state, or at least wearing minimal shoes without arch support, orthotics, or any other crutch that modern medical doctors and podiatrists might prescribe.  

And, for the ultimate cure for acute plantar fasciitis- exercise the dorsiflexion of your foot, rather than the flexion!!

I mention this to save you time and frustration.  When I was suffering from extreme foot pain, I followed all of the recommendations of the standard medical advice: 

Stretch downwards on a block to extend range.

Wear orthotics to cushion the trauma.

Neither does anything whatsoever to relieve the condition. NOTHING!

What does?

Using resistance to resist motion going UPWARDS- resist the toes going UP rather than DOWN.  Use the manual resistance of your hand or a stationary object, and do an isometric of your toes rising upwards, rather than the endless extending of the toes upwards!  Dorsiflexion.

This one thing will bring about near instantaneous relief from your pain of plantar fasciitis, and encourage you to follow the rest of my prescription:

Which is walking, jogging, and running around barefoot, as much as possible, as often as you can do so!  For the human foot, just as the human body overall, is strengthened and energized by being used as it was designed.  

Your foot was not meant to be encased in tubes of leather or vinyl, and cushioned with padding as you walked around in a flat floored mall or on a living room carpet- 

No. Your foot was meant to twist, flex, pronate and dorsiflex as it adapted to multiple stressors in the natural environment!  Your foot is like a complex cable bridge, able to adapt and build its very strength by twisting and turning along with changes in the environment- and without those stressors it becomes like an ancient decadent Roman emperor- it turns into a painful mound of flab!

So, treat your feet (and your overall body and mind!) like the natural, vibrant animals they are meant to be (and are!).  Let your body live in the natural world, and don’t listen to those who advise you to coddle it, and cushion it, and inject it with every drug that will supposedly protect it from the natural world!

We are creatures of nature, and the natural environment.  The further we remove ourselves from that place, the more traumatized and painful, even pointless, our lives seem to be.  Supposed ‘experts’ are decadent, and false signposts.

Listen to your own body and mind.  Eat real food, and live as much as possible in Nature.  Breathe pure air and drink pure water.  Stay away from medical advice, and live as far from government and big medicine as possible. 

Vote only to MINIMIZE GOVERNMENT!

And above all- IGNORE THE MEDIA!