Many Americans are listening to their bodies, and are doing exactly what their body tells them to do!  They eat all they can and avoid any form of exercise!

   Over the last 4 million years of mankind's existence, these instincts that have told us to eat all we can and avoid exercise whenever possible have helped us survive while many other species have perished!  For 99.9% of our existence, we have had to eat as much as possible because food was usually scarce and there were often long periods with little or no food.  We also needed to rest as much as possible during those rare times when we could.

     We have just entered a new and unprecedented time in the history of mankind, where for many of us, there is an overabundance of food, and we no longer have to move most of the day. We are simply not designed for the success we have created!  Our instincts that saved us over millions of years are now leading us to obesity and premature death, while suffering from all kinds of diseases!
    People often say, I try to exercise but "I know my body" and it is telling me not to.  Well of course it is.  Some say our bodies "lie to us", but they really don't "lie." They are working with the 4 million years of successful adaptation and telling us exactly what enabled us to survive for all those years. 

     Times have changed relatively and our bodies haven't. What worked in the past is killing us today!  
Eventually we will evolve and develop new instincts, but as Dr. Harry Lodge says in his best selling book "Younger Next Year", "It will probably take another million years to adapt, so in the meantime, you better make alternate plans."  Unlike many other species that have vanished, our oversized brains have allowed us to adapt and survive despite what our instincts tell us. The catch is we have to use our brain!

    Scientists have used their brains to conclusively prove exercise is the most important thing we can do to maintain our health and avoid disease.  They have proven that the instincts telling us not to exercise are wrong!  It is up to us to use our brains and utilize this  knowledge. It is an intellectual decision to exercise despite our body's signals to the contrary, particularly when we first begin exercising before we feel any benefits. It is truly mind over very powerful instincts.

     Our instincts give us a myriad of misinformation.  For example, when we are doing strengthening exercise they tell us, we should speed it up and get it done quickly.  Again under our earlier circumstances 
this is good information and helped us to survive. It helped us get the most work done with the least energy expended. But when our goal to use a half hour of exercise, a couple of times a week, to build our  muscles, the tendency to speed the movement is counter productive. We want to load the muscles by using the least efficient method and lift the weight slowly to reduce the momentum.  This is the 
best way to stimulate muscle fiber growth. Slow movement also allows the weight to provide resistance to all the muscle fibers through the entire movement. In fact the slower you go, the better the results, 
which again is counter intuitive! 

     When should we listen to our body?  Pain, for example, can be a very helpful signal if interpreted correctly.  In a well conditioned person, pain can mislead them by getting them to quit before they get the full benefit of an exercise. However, in the case of an injury, pain can prevent us from doing further damage or preventing healing.  The key is how to interpret it. 

    Scientists have shown that exercise substantially helps the healing process.  We are designed to heal on the move, since in our past, immobility meant certain death. 

     If you have joint or muscle injury, you will usually have pain in some part of your movement. This should not be misinterpreted as a signal not to move. The pain is telling us what part of the movement to avoid.  Usually there are sections of the movement that are pain free and those are the parts of the movement where exercise should be performed  to promote healing.  Unfortunately the advice we are often given is to eliminate the movement entirely. In some cases this is necessary but in the majority of cases this is a misinterpretation of the pain signal and will slow the healing process.

     As an example, with the Healthy Back and Neck program, most people begin the program with existing back pain, sometimes severe. Even with severe pain there is usually an area of back movement that is pain free and that is the range in which the exercise is performed.  Proof of the success of this approach is in the results.  The MedX Healthy Back and Neck Program is THE MOST successful treatment for back and neck pain.  In many cases it has helped people who have exhausted every other option from surgery to chiropractic treatment.

     Another misinterpretation of pain is in the case of tendonitis where the pain often vanishes during exercise.  This can be interpreted that it is ok to do the exercise. In fact, if we keep doing the same 
exercise that caused the tendonitis, it will certainly worsen. If we stop exercising altogether this will slow the healing process and it will possibly never heal.  The answer is to make changes to your exercise, warming up well before exercise and altering the specific movement that created the problem.

      For example, if tennis is the source of an elbow problem, lessons to improve your swing form coupled with exercises for the muscles around the afflicted area, while skipping any painful exercises, is the best way to expedite the healing process for tendonitis.

    If exercise is the cause, then altering the exercise routine can help.  For example, we have discovered that the Pulldown (Torso Arm) machine can cause tennis elbow when the handles are pulled down so far that the wrist is curled at the bottom to try to gain another inch of movement.  The weight that is right for the torso muscles, the prime movers in the Pulldown, is way too heavy for the wrist curl that is done at the end of each rep!  Simply stopping a little short on the bottom of the Pulldown exercise, so that the wrist curl is eliminated, alleviates the tennis elbow tendonitis.
     When your body gives you the pain signal, get help from a trainer on how to interrupt the signal and if it persists check with your doctor.  Listen to the signal, but don't jump to conclusions and listen with a large grain of salt!

     For comments or questions please email me at marteaga@libertybiz.rr.com.

Mike Arteaga

 Back to top

    But does stress really effect the body?

    According to the American Psychological Association, 43 percent of all adults suffer from adverse health effects from stress.

    The Mayo Clinic explains stress is "a normal psychological and physical reaction to the demands in life." Your brain comes hard wired with an alarm system for your protection. When your brain perceives a threat, your body releases a burst of hormones to fuel your fight or flight response. When the threat is gone, your body returns to normal. Unfortunately, the nonstop stress of modern life means that your alarm system rarely shuts off.

   How does the body react to this stress? Headaches, high blood pressure, chest pain, anxiety, irritability heart disease, decreased immune response, stomach problems; the list goes on.

    But exercise can help reverse many of these negative responses of stress.

    Exercise causes a chemical response in the body: a reduction of stress hormones, increased secretion of endorphins and release of dopamine and serotine in the brain.

   Exercise increases blood flow and oxygen to the muscles and increased blood vessel dilation results in blood pressure reduction. 

   Psychologically, exercise is a great distraction from our stress, and creates positive feelings of accomplishment.

   So try a dose of exercise, it is your best medicine.