Friday, August 3, 2007

Push-Ups for Life

Modern-day society [of developed nations] is lazy. Its not that we want to be lazy, but the society deems it necessary. We do a little as we can "physically" to maximize "productivity."

Stop what you're doing and do 10 push-ups every 15 minutes.

Whether you're at work, if you're studying, or if you're performing almost any given task on any given day a lot of time is spent sitting, or standing, in one place. If you've worked too long or have studied too much you can go lie down to relax and take a break. The mind is restless and the body rarely stops resting. This is, sadly, what our lifestyle and our society deems necessary.

Every 15 minutes stop what you're doing and do 10 push-ups.

When it comes time to shift from neutral to drive, the body takes time to warm up--just like a car in a Saskatchewan winter. If something sudden happens, like needing to move an extremely heavy box into the house, the body's engine revs up and the dormant muscles experience high strain to accomplish the 10 minute task. After the dust settles, the body is promptly placed back into hibernation as the heart lowers the revving and the muscles cool down. Isn't this being a slightly-incredibly harsh on the body? Is it possible to train the body to be in a state of always-readiness?

Take a break and do 10 push-ups every 15 minutes.

It takes time for the heart to "warm-up" and ready itself, it'll pump away during physical activity, and it'll cool off and slow down when inactive. Assuming that the more times the heart readies itself the more efficient it will be at doing so, and assuming that increased blood circulation is beneficial for muscles as well as many organs of the body, the heart can be trained to attain a permanent state of readiness.

Regardless of what you're doing, stop every 15 minutes and do 10 push-ups. This will take anywhere from 5-20 seconds [the time it takes will also significantly shorten after a few days, though for some it will lengthen after the first few hours before shortening). In a standard 14 hours day 560 push-ups can be completed, you'll use nearly every muscle in your body but significantly the ones in your arms, the efficiency of your lungs will increase, and more importantly your heart will have the chance to start-up/perform/cool-down 56 times. Eventually [me thinks] your heart will build towards the pattern, reach an always-ready state, and possibly lower your performance bpm to your warm up bpm. I wish to scientifically experiment and collect data on this hypothesis in future. I'll definitely blog the results whenever I get around to it!