Exercise versus Recreation

Probably one of the most seminal things I’ve ever read about exercise was an article written by Ken Hutchins, the originator of Superslow.  Ken’s exercise protocol was groundbreaking, in that he pinpointed exactly what the actual goal should be in exercise!  

If you don’t know what you are even aiming at, you are never going to hit the target!  And it is a true statement that: the vast majority of people, exercise “specialists” included- don’t know what exercise really is, and what the real goal of exercise is.  

Most “exercise” falls in the recreation category, not exercise.  Real exercise has the goal of improving physical fitness, period.  This means doing what it takes to improve-

Muscular size, strength and endurance

Bone strength

Cardiovascular efficiency

Enhanced flexibility

Contributing to body leanness

Increased resistance to injury

That makes perfect sense, right?  Exercise is all about improving your body.  Of course, stress relief and other benefits also incidentally accrue- but the bottom line in physical improvement!  Exercise should send a signal to the body- improve, or you may die.  The basic demands of nature are that severe.  

I think that many in the paleo community, as well as of course the general public, are completely ignorant of this.  The prevailing concept is that any movement is exercise.  

Wrong.  Just “moving”, whether it be in a sport, or any other activity, however strenuous, is recreation, not exercise.  Recreation is fun.  Exercise is definitely not fun- it is hard, uncomfortable, and brutal!  To be truly effective, it must go just beyond your comfort zone, into a place where you want to stop before you’ve reached real fatigue- but you don’t!  You go on, doing a couple of more reps, even though it burns.  You do this for the results, not because it’s “fun”.  

It’s kind of a fine point, because almost everyone says they are walking, or running, or skiing, or playing football or baseball or doing Cross Fit or dancing for exercise.  You may gain a small bit of physical benefit from these activities, but it is incidental, and comes at the cost of possible injury and is a very inefficient means of increasing fitness.  For instance, in most sports, let’s pick football for instance, the off-season is when players concentrate on actually building fitness.  Then, during the playing season, they progressively become less and less fit, as they overtrain and inevitably get injured.  Their sport is recreation, not exercise.

Real Exercise is actually pushing yourself hard, but briefly.  This not only increases muscular size, strength and endurance- it also trains your cardio system at the same time, since stressing the musculature is exactly the way that we stress, (and thus enhance) the cardiovascular system!  

The other component of real exercise is allowing the body adequate nutrition, and the time for the body to adapt to the exercise stimulus.  The body does not grow stronger while you are exercising- it can only rebuild once you are done.  If you sleep adequately, eat a good, paleo type of diet, and wait long enough before you truly exercise again- why then, your body will grow stronger, and better, more resilient- it will improve.  This, my friend, is true exercise!

Now, Ken Hutchins went to extremes.  He recommended training to absolute failure, and then taking 5 days or so between sessions.  I disagree with this, as I found that not only does maximum muscular overload become dangerous in the long term, but this practice ignores the importance of the daily, or near daily oxygenation of the blood pumping through the musculature.  I believe this blood pumping, only achievable with high-rep exercise, is crucial for overall health and fitness!  

Hence, my recommendation of doing high rep calisthenics, along with near maximum resistance isometrics, self resisted exercises, and above all virtual resistance exercises.  These can all be done perfectly safely, and they all address the six factors of real exercise that I mentioned before.  

In addition, doing a set of super slow exercise, such as pushups done really, really slowly- (10 seconds up, 10 down) is a brutal, yet highly effective way to perform real exercise!  In fact, it is the “most bang for the buck” of any exercise you can do.  But do it in moderation.  

It is that taxing on the central nervous system, and can “burn you out” if you do it too much.  I say, exercise daily!  Enjoy it, but make sure you make it hard, not fun.  Then, take a walk in the woods.  Go dancing.  Play basketball, baseball, or whatever trips your trigger.  Recreation is great, really!  Enjoy it- that’s what it’s for.

Just don’t think it is exercise.

pqtd 131 Superslow

I am an old adopter of the Superslow exercise protocol, as advanced years ago by Ken Hutchins.  This was a 10 seconds up on an exercise (or positive motion), and 5 seconds down (negative).  Of course, this was in my olden days of training with weights, back in the early 1980’s…  I did make rather amazing progress using this protocol, but the bad effects of training with heavy weights were still apparent- I had blocky, chunky kinds of muscle, with a big butt from heavy squats and deadlifts, a chronically sore back from overloading the bar for those heavy squats, and a protruding gut, again from the squats and deadlifts.  In addition, my shoulders were in pretty constant inflammation from heavy bench pressing, as were my elbows.

I switched to body weight exercise, which I term Perfectly Paleo Exercise, and rejuvenated myself in my 50’s.  I do high rep pushups, which actually put the shoulders through a full, natural range of motion, unlike the bench press.  I do virtual resistance, as I have described numerous times, both here and at www.paleojay.com, and also in my book of the same name, and in PaleoJay’s Smoothie Cafe in ebook and paperback.  Pull-ups, dips, hindu squats, and gymnastic ring work, along with barefoot sprinting fill out my workout regimen, along with barefoot heavy hands walks through the woods on pretty much a daily basis.  It made me much stronger and fitter than when I was younger, and my aches and pains all went away.

Some damage was done in those long ago times, though.  Sometimes, I get a pain in my shoulder, or a twinge in my elbow joint.  Thankfully, I never have back pain anymore, which I attribute to daily stretching, and especially my back bridge onto my forehead, which I also do daily and hold for a couple of minutes.  I highly recommend that exercise to everyone!

But, when I do get that pain in my elbow or shoulder?  That is when I go back to my Superslow training!  I do my pushups in very, very slow motion- 10 seconds up, 5 down.  It is rather agonizing to do this, and your reps go way down… but your results can be amazing!  And, by moving so slowly, you can control the movement so well and exactly that you do not aggravate the pain in the joint, and it can heal even while you train. 

For pull-ups and chin-ups, you can either use your gymnastic rings (this is the best!) to do pull-ups with your feet on the ground, and just help yourself enough to do the movement with a little bit of assistance.  (True 5 seconds up and 10 down pull-ups are a real feat, especially for reps!)

To tell the truth, I don’t really feel the need to be exact on the speed of cadence nowadays:  I just go really, really slowly, and feel the muscle deeply as it works.  I watch the second hand on a clock often, and just go for time, not even counting reps.  (For pushups, putting a watch on the ground in front of your face works great for this).

And that’s it.  Even with an inflamed joint, you can train safely and productively, even enhancing healing by the improved blood circulation, just by going slow.  But not just any old slow. 

SuperSlow!

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