How much exercise for Health & Longevity

[Nick1974]

What frequency/volume/intensity type of exercise would RMAX recommend for a person that is only concerened with health and longevity (ie not concerned about sport specific attributes)?

Over the years a number of protocols have been "advertised" by RMAX ranging from intu flow only, through to Flowfit®® 3 times per week, through to the 4x7 protocol (which I believe promotes a balls-to-the-wall met con workout performd once every 4 days followed by a waving of intensity from low back up to high).

Our governemnt recommendation is, I believe, 30mins per day at least 5 days per week, but that is a bit vague and doesn't advise the type or intensity of the exercise.

So how do we determine which protocol is appropriate for us?

[Jarlo Ilano]

In my opinion, the more one engages in daily practice, the answer to your question will become apparent.

It seems to me (and I may be wrong), but a lot of your posts indicate a fear-reactivity of doing "too much". And in my experience, most people that fear doing too much, are probably barely doing enough.

For health and longevity? IntuFlow everday. Do this daily for at least three months. If you can do this, add FlowFit I every other day. Do this for a month. See how you feel. A lot of people may stop there, if you feel good, add some kind of weighted activity (clubs, KBs) once a week to your plan.

The key is daily practice, do this and you'll find what you need.

[Nick1974]

Thanks, Coach, a few questions


in my experience, most people that fear doing too much, are probably barely doing enough.

What is "enough"? thats the essence of my question.


For health and longevity? Intu-Flow® everday. Do this daily for at least three months. If you can do this, add Flowfit® I every other day. Do this for a month. See how you feel. A lot of people may stop there,

Coincidentally (or maybe not) this is exactly what I did. My current practice consists of intu flow one day, and low intensity flowfit the next day. I feel great from that, so are you saying its "OK" to stop there? What extra health/longevity gains can be made by adding the ectra club session, or by ramping up the intensity? At what point do we start to get diminishing returns?

In reference to your point about the fear of "doing too much" - you're correct, I don't want to waste my time on superfluous attribute training, I want to make it count, and get the most health/longevity bang for my buck. I want to gain energy and vitality, not squander it.

Thanks

[Coach Gostnell]

Nick, I've been reading a book, "Younger Next Year", by Harry Lodge, (an Internist), and Chris Crowley (a "geezer" of 70 :) who still skies powder at Aspen, "while the grownups in town are still ordering breakfast"), that might answer some of your questions.

They don't go into specific exercises much, but the book is quite detailed about what needs to be done in general, including recommendations about frequency and duration, with explanations of the benefits/differences of strength, aerobic and anaerobic training. The WHY of all this, physiologically speaking, is presented in highly readable fashion.

While they don't explore some CST specialties, such as the Six Degrees of Freedom, they do address the importance of joint mobility, and emphasize having fun, the dangers of overtraining, and being smart about avoiding injury.

[Cody Fielding]

Hi Nick,

Let's see what we can come up with here.

You want to increase your vitality, energy & longevity and do that in an efficient manner, is that the essence of it?

There are longevity communities that specialize in this, you can find them online. I've been a practioner of Dr. Roy Walford's work for many years and his work "Beyond the 120 year diet" - a long read but it will give you much of the information on that 'living long' score. Short version is avoid the top 5 killers and reduce your calorie consumption and overall body mass to slow down your metabolism to extend life.

On the exercise front, I'm an advocate of something Arthur Devany (find his blog on the web) is doing a lot of research on in terms of Gene Expression. In other words why do certain 'good' or 'bad' genes express and others remain dormant?

I'm in agreement with Art that vigorous exericse is critical to best gene expression over the long haul of life. Using the CST ratings, something in the 8-10 range and once a week or so with other lesser ones along w/ Joint Mobility (not in Arts repertoire) is critical.

As you get younger/more vital that notion of what is "hard work" will change.

Beyond that, each person is unique and there a few absolutes in this area. I completely agree w/ Coach Ilano that
It seems to me (and I may be wrong), but a lot of your posts indicate a fear-reactivity of doing "too much". And in my experience, most people that fear doing too much, are probably barely doing enough.

Each of us has a journey. These are guidelines, principles and concepts. As you explore, share your insights here and add to the collective knowledge and experience.

Eat a clean diet, work hard (for your level of conditioning), recover well and enjoy a long and vigrous life.

That help at all?

[sebastian andrew]

You want to increase your vitality, energy & longevity and do that in an efficient manner, is that the essence of it?

As you get younger/more vital that notion of what is "hard work" will change....Beyond that, each person is unique and there a few absolutes in this area....
Each of us has a journey. These are guidelines, principles and concepts. As you explore, share your insights....Eat a clean diet, work hard (for your level of conditioning), recover well and enjoy a long and vigrous life.
That help at all?

That was a very thoughtful question and a very thoughtful reply. When I first started to "work out" consistently
in '04 I wanted strength and started w/ BWEs and then incorporated strand-pulling with the thought of getting a 300 LB barbell set. As time went on I realized that it is "movement" that I wanted and needed to pursue and the barbells were left unpurchased. A little bit of "body awareness" came to me and I noticed that my breathing patterns weren't very healthy-another practice to incorporate. With greater awareness I realized posture was lacking both during training and in everyday life so I began paying more attention to breaking the old patterns and straightening up if you will. Just recently I purchased Clubbells and find myself back to "strength" but more fully equipped with sound and safe(r) principles to guide.Of course some of these distinctions-strength, movement, etc.-are really parts of a whole.It is strength to be able to operate in a full range of motion-loaded or unloaded. Lifesyle I think is the key word that I'm looking for here. Not long ago I had to show my driver's license to a young cashier at the checkout. She looked at it for a few seconds then looked at me again and said:
You look much younger than your picture.

I politely thanked her and proceeded to float out to my car (HAHA).
I'm at a very basic level of conditioning and not nearly the athlete that many or even most of you-all are, and until recently didn't even think about the things that are routinely discussed and explored here; but the journey is part of the process and it is proving to be very interesting.

[Nick1974]

Thanks everyone for the responses. I appreciate it.

I should just narrow down what I'm asking about here. My story is similar to Terry's in the post above. I started my CST journey 2.5 years ago with Warrior Wellness and Be Breated then moved onto Intu Flow and Flow Fit. The positive transformation in me not only physiologically but psychologically has been profound and I would comfortably say that I'm a 'different person' to what I was 2.5 years ago as a result. So I have no questions or doubts about the intu flow and yoga wings of CST - they are great and bring great benfits to health and well being, that's for sure.

My personal confusion is in relation to the 'athletic' wing of CST. Is it for me? Do I need to explore it? Should I expolore it? Is it primarily for sport or martial art enhancement or is it for everyone? Would engagement in high intensity exercise be beneficial for me or would it just be another stress in my life I should avoid? Do I need more strength? Do I need more muscle mass or more aerobic conditioning? We know a sedentary life is a hazard to health and we know that overtraining is also a hazard to health, but what is the happy medium?

In terms of my own personal experience I have found that I just cannot tolerate high intensity exercise. I find that it takes me at least 3 or 4 days to fully recover from a bout of high intensity exercise, and I simply don't want to live my life 'recovering' from workouts. Thats not how I would define health and vitality.

Coach Fielding mentioned Art Devany - I am a fan of his work too, but he seems to model his philosophy on how our ancestors lived. Our ancestors didn't spend 8 hours a day behind a desk responding to the demands of a "boss" (suffering the chemical dumps and stress as a result). They had the luxury of recovery time and time to relax bewteen bouts of exercise.

Intu flow and yoga are working wonders for me, a great way to unwind and recharge after a day at the office, but the thought of high intensity exercise after a day's work? Not very appealing at all!

[Coach Wilson]

My personal confusion is in relation to the 'athletic' wing of CST. Is it for me? Do I need to explore it? Should I expolore it? Is it primarily for sport or martial art enhancement or is it for everyone?

Yes, Nick, it is for everyone. It is just different levels of intensity and different goals for different people.

You won't really know until you try and see. When you do, you may find that the higher intensity stuff really helps in other areas. Or you may discover that it is not for you. But I honestly believe that everyone can benefit.

Enjoy.

Smile.

[Ryan Murdock]

To echo Coach Wilson...



We know a sedentary life is a hazard to health and we know that overtraining is also a hazard to health, but what is the happy medium?


It's totally subjective. Only you can answer that. A session that you might feel is recovery level might for someone else (a totally sedentary person, for example) feel like a taxing high intensity day.

That's why we aren't able to give a stock answer to your question. It would only sell you short.

What are your goals? If you have no specific goals, ask yourself, are you adequately meeting the current demands of your life, job, leisure time, etc? If yes, great! If no, what do you need to do to get there? And don't forget to build yourself a bit of a buffer for when things deviate from the expected.

The best guide to finding your own subjective happy medium, as Coach Steer suggested above, is to apply the 4x7 formula of No/Low/Moderate/High intensity (remember, each day has guidelines when it comes to RPT, RPE, etc). By applying the formula over several cycles and journalling your training you'll gain a pretty precise sense of where your happy medium lies. Beyond that, its simply a matter of changing up your training enough to keep you engagaed and interested, and taking into account compensatory movements for whatever work you're doing.

As an aside, speaking of the daily demands of life and job, i noticed that you wrote:



Our ancestors didn't spend 8 hours a day behind a desk responding to the demands of a "boss" (suffering the chemical dumps and stress as a result).

Check out the RESET program (http://www.profcs.com/app/?Clk=2201044). It'll really help with this.

[Connie Brown]

My personal confusion is in relation to the 'athletic' wing of CST. Is it for me? Do I need to explore it?
Yes without a doubt.

Nick I'm also an office worker, for whom excess intense exercise made me barf and incur days' worth of recovery without, by the way, any "exercise high," and I still think it is absolutely critical to include the strength and athletic part of CST. IMO for any and every knowledge worker, artist, writer, or scientist whose work or passion is mental and fine-motor only.

Some thoughts in random order:

- The strength you get from the athletic part of CST can make you more resilient to bouce off the pressures, slings and arrows from work. If you think Intu-Flow and Prasara are great for this, you will love the added glow from the clubs.

- One goal is to "be more prepared than the challenges you face." If we are only prepared for desk or arty/geeky challenges that is a little too limiting for me. I also live in a world where sometimes it's good to lift, push, squat, throw, catch, run...

- That response to hard work is worth looking at. When I looked closer at my own, I found (with a doc's help) that I had underlying problems and was working TOO hard for my condition. Cranking it back removed the barf and wiped-out-feeling problems and allows me to continue to work it. sometimes our RPE is skewed too far from not having enough perception practice, or keeping up with someone much more strong. Or something.

- It is fun to read Art Devany in the voice of William Shatner.

- The one hard session a week Coach Fielding mentions will save your muscles from atrohy due to under-use and age.


Is it primarily for sport or martial art enhancement or is it for everyone?
And that is why I think it's for everyone.

[Cody Fielding]

Nick,

Lots of good discussion going on here...thanks for bringing it to up. As the others are saying, YES the athletic component is vital.

I believe we may have a perceptual gap here. After a long day of sitting, the vigor is exactly what's needed. I'm glad you're familiar with Art D's work - he's a huge advocate of high intensity training. Our ancestors did wide varieties of work including high intensity, IMO it's essential to long vigorous life - it's a natural part of our development.

This is not true for some and 'untrue' for others. We are mammals and we're meant to push our boundaries physically.

When I have discussions like this with some folks it feels as if they're looking for a particular answer that fits within their already prescribed belief systems. That is not what I/we're offer.

Intensity can be built up slowly/gradually allowing the body to adjust. It's a process of reorientation that you have to be willing to explore to see what's on the other side. You can't answer the question fully (for yourself) unless you go there and look back over the landscape traversed.

Coach Sonnon points out that many people need to work vigorously for years before they truly understand what a high intensity workout really is.

I do this all day long as my only source of income (and have done so for more than 10 years). I have witnessed people get younger (including both of my parents and my 89 year old grandmother) with what I'm discussing - I'm using tools I've empirically witnessed and fostered in others and myself.

Keep exploring.

C-

[Nick1974]

Thanks everyone.

Well, it seems to be unanimous, training with intensity is recommended. OK, I'm sold!




Intensity can be built up slowly/gradually allowing the body to adjust.

This makes sense to me. For me it will have be a VERY slow build up, possibly over years starting from very low intensity. (I have tried in the past to jump into the deep end and it has failed every time)

I think what I will try is a 3 day cycle of day1: intu flow, day2: yoga, day3: mini clubs. Over time I will increase the intensity of the club day and eventually move up to heavier clubs. Would that be a reasonable plan?

thanks again.

[Cody Fielding]

y1: intu flow, day2: yoga, day3: mini clubs. Over time I will increase the intensity of the club day and eventually move up to heavier clubs. Would that be a reasonable plan?

Nick you are a scholar. Your plan sounds....sound. Do some further reading on the CST "Intuitive Assessment" ratings and that will help your process. Keep plugging into and challenging us as you have here, but most of all keep exploring forward.

Side note: Flowfit® "should" be on the menu...

If you had any idea that my dad is playing 18 holes of golf 3x week less than a year after being on his deathbed (this is not an exaggeration) - the body is more amazing than we know. Have faith that the body wants heath, vitality and stasis but we have to give it the opportunity and that comes (from my experience) primarily by the willingness to reexamine our beliefs and go places we've avoided - to quote Coach Sonnon "The poison is the antidote.".

You may have a ways to climb but that's a small matter. No matter how tall and steep the mountain we can build a ramp as long as needed and the climb will be gradual - oh and the view along the way can be a bit scary but really is GREAT!..;).

C-

[rtappan]

Nick,

I used to get really bad headaches (like migraines--which I used to also get on their own) when I would really try to work out intensely, to failure, etc. Even 15 years ago when I was in the military.

For the past year I've been using CST principles exclusively and have slowly but steadily increased my intensity and have not had a single headache (except for pushing myself too hard on a couple of occassions with running on a hot day--my own fault). Just stick with the Rate of Perceived Technique/Discomfort/Effort parameters, start so slow/light it seems like nothing is happening, and gradually ramp it up over the long haul.

Good luck!

[Nick1974]

Nick you are a scholar. Your plan sounds....sound. Do some further reading on the CST "Intuitive Assessment" ratings and that will help your process. Keep plugging into and challenging us as you have here, but most of all keep exploring forward.

Side note: Flowfit®® "should" be on the menu...

If you had any idea that my dad is playing 18 holes of golf 3x week less than a year after being on his deathbed (this is not an exaggeration) - the body is more amazing than we know. Have faith that the body wants heath, vitality and stasis but we have to give it the opportunity and that comes (from my experience) primarily by the willingness to reexamine our beliefs and go places we've avoided - to quote Coach Sonnon "The poison is the antidote.".

You may have a ways to climb but that's a small matter. No matter how tall and steep the mountain we can build a ramp as long as needed and the climb will be gradual - oh and the view along the way can be a bit scary but really is GREAT!..;).

C-

Thanks Coach. I appreciate your input.

and thanks to everyone else, a good discussion.