The constant movement of the blood and the continual renewal of the cardiovascular system is crucial for the body to remain in homeostasis, and exercise is fundamental to this process.
Exercise not only works the physical body, but it allows connective tissue to transport the heart’s electromagnetic energy, increasing the communication and vibration of all the cells in the body. Exercises can also help bring in new perspectives to our lives by helping us move in ways that specifically energize the heart.
Which Came First? The Stress or the Anxiety?
A great teacher once said, “Immortality starts with the breath.” When there is an adequate supply of oxygen to the body’s cells, they do not tell the brain more oxygen is needed, so the heart slows down. With a slower resting heart rate, the heart’s efficiency increases, and the longer you live. It also means the more you can consciously control the breath, the less that stress can affect you.
Sir William Osler, the father of modern internal medicine, wrote that hardening and clogging of the arteries is, “the nemesis through which nature exacts retributional justice for the transgressions of her laws.” The type A personality is driven by the brain’s mental state of stress and is largely caused by brain dominance, especially left brain dominance, ignoring a deeper sense of the self — the heart. This state is really anxiety.
The heart is responsive, while the brain is reactive. Through the wisdom of knowing, the relationship between the heart and brain can be symbiotic. Anxiety is what causes extra-stressful situations; it’s not the stressful situations that cause the anxiety. Circumstances never come first, unless you buy into them. If the heart is really tuned in, anxiety cannot exist at the same time.
Strength Training for the Cardiovascular System, Not Endurance Training
As strong as any muscle is physically, in order for a muscle to get stronger, it must be given more demand so it can grow through adaptation. If we know this is true, why is cardio like running on the treadmill and using the elliptical or bike for 30-60 minutes still done? This does not make the heart stronger. It builds its endurance. Building endurance can be beneficial, but not to the exclusion of strength building. If strength training is not in place, then the person performing the low intensity cardio endurance training will be caught in a vicious cycle of improper and destructive weight loss. This is where too much muscle is lost along with little fat. When muscle is lost, fewer calories are burned at rest. So a person can eat really well and do cardio almost every day, yet they will still reach a plateau. Then more exercise is added, or worse, longer periods of exercise, hoping for more weight loss. This just adds more stress to the body, and it becomes incapable of properly recovering.
High intensity cardiovascular exercise conditions the heart in a different way, just as a heavy weight differs from a light weight for external muscles. This intense exercise for the heart has been shown to improve blood pressure, cholesterol, overall energy, lung capacity and heart strength. With high intensity training, the body learns it needs to able to use energy more quickly and unexpectedly, so more energy gets stored in muscle. This is training at a deeper level to make the body smarter. When the body is smarter, it’s more efficient. That means more intense workouts in shorter times, and it functioning in a way that’s most beneficial for your performance and health.
Be Careful of Overtraining & Hidden Risk Factors
We hear about well-conditioned athletes having heart trouble and think, “how could this be?” Jim Fixx who died of a heart attack, and Alberto Salazar who nearly died, are two of the more well known sufferers, and similar stories have been in the news recently. This could easily be caused by too much endurance training, which can shrink the heart and lungs. Overtraining is common because of other factors such as lack of nutrition, not enough recovery time, lack of deep and restful sleep, overusing stimulants to push through workouts, not enough workout variety and not cycling back. An immobilized ribcage, or even too much water, which kills the electrical charge of the heart, fall into other categories of lesser known problems. Consider the possibility of all the above conditions stressing the heart at the same time during and after exercising, and it’s not such a mystery as to how a heart attack could happen to an athlete.
The study of body mechanics in regards to the heart shows that a jammed rib cage could be one of the more commonly undiagnosed contributors to heart attacks. Spasms in the ribcage often go undiscovered by doctors because they don’t look for them. Deep diaphramatic horizontal breathing can mobilize the rib cage and condition the heart. Place one hand on your lower abdomen and one hand at the top of your rib cage on the side, right below your chest. Take a deep breath in and feel your rib cage expand, while keeping your stomach flat and strong. To exaggerate this a little, pull in your stomach on the breath out but don’t let it expand on the breath in. Breathe into your rib cage and let it expand instead.
Eating too close to a workout can also be a problem. It’s recommended to wait at least two hours after eating to start exercising, or the heart can be stressed enough to cause a heart attack. Many heart attacks happen while simply going up or down stairs after a meal. Eat and refrain from doing any type of physical activity for a while.
Improve Your Posture
Depression can be seen in a person’s physiology: Slumped shoulders, a rounded spine and a caved-in chest. Their overall energy is low, and it’s not just about the lack of communication from the brain with neurotransmitters. Joy is low, so energy is low, mainly in their heart. When depression is diagnosed, the brain should not be given the focus. There are more neurotransmitters in the gut than in the brain, and with our discovery that the heart has its own neurotransmitters, then we can see a depressed person’s heart health should be looked at just as analytically as their brain health. Solutions for depression that gave the heart more consideration, and how it was communicating with the rest of the body, including the brain and gut, would be much more effective.
As for exercises, the deadlift is one of the best traditional strength exercises to keep you confidently standing tall. Men and women should do this exercise regardless of their specific fitness or health goals. With an overhand grip, pick up a barbell keeping it close to your body and let your arms hang straight with the bar. Contract your legs and lats to support the weight, and keep a strong core while standing up. Pull your shoulders back, open your chest and squeeze your shoulder blades together once you’re standing up with the weight. Don’t lean back or arch. Lengthen your spine by imagining a string pulling you up from the top of your head. Stay conscious of how the movement feels, and use just enough weight where it’s challenging, but easy enough to do 10-15 reps.
A yogic exercise that really opens the heart and improves posture is a simple back bend. Go into a half squat position and rise up while lifting your arms and head to the sky at the same time. Open your chest and stretch deeply. Yoga will teach you to use muscles you never knew you had, and can energize you in a unique way. Union of the heart and mind will give you a new type of strength to use for your other workouts.
Losing Weight for Your Appearance, and Your Health
Everyone wants to feel confident about the way they look, and getting in shape for that reason is good, but don’t let that be the only reason. There is an idea that being big is beautiful. Maybe, but it’s definitely not healthy. Carrying around too much weight puts excessive stress on the heart. When a person carries around other people’s “weight” in the form of expectations, beliefs, negative emotions and memories, it literally can show up on a person’s body, as fat. Too much fat can become toxic. Does this mean someone who’s overweight is more negative and toxic than a person who is at their ideal weight? Not necessarily. These things show up in different ways for different people. Oversensitivity is usually the energetic reason for carrying around extra weight, as a protection mechanism, which could be a sign of a softened heart.
Many doctors realize how intimately connected our legs are to our heart. Just by walking and being physically active, circulation increases and gets the heart pumping. Walking has one problem though; it’s not intense enough to fully detoxify the organs and cells. Therefore, walking is not really an exercise. Yes, it’s beneficial to do often, and necessary. Some have even reached their weight loss goals with power walking, but it’s not enough for true health. Breaking a sweat while walking is better for physical body health, and leisurely walking is great for peace of mind. In other words, connectedness of heart and mind.
So what if you don’t want to sweat every time you exercise but you still want to get a good productive workout? The Cellerciser falls into a unique middle path of exercise, somewhere between walking and running, without the hard surface. Sweating is optional in this case, because unlike walking, your trillions of cells are being stimulated by the gravitational forces being generated by bouncing. Nothing can replace Cellercising.
Dr. Gus Prosch, Jr. explains, “With Cellercise, the membrane around the cells strengthen as they demand more protein. These thicker membranes are better able to fight off foreign invaders like germs, toxins, poisons and other pollutants more effectively. Here, everything improves: The blood, the brain, the lungs, the muscles, all the internal organs, those of the senses and even more.” The Cellerciser is the only piece of exercise technology where you can almost passively bounce, without breaking a sweat, and still get the benefits of a full body workout without damaging the nervous system. It is better to use it more intensely, for the same reasons why high intensity cardio should generally be done, but what about the people who can’t use it intensely? These include people with disabilities, injuries, in recovery from an illness or surgery, in rehabilitation, or elderly people who don’t have the strength to perform conventional workouts. The health effect a person at a less than optimal fitness level can get by Cellercising opens up a new fitness realm for those who may have never considered exercise could be something they’re into. It also broadens the training tools for those already advanced and gives fitness professionals a new toy to enhance their students’ performance.
Do This Anywhere at Any Time
Operating from the fight or flight state could be happening every day without someone even realizing it. This subconscious state dictates every emotional and physiological communication to your heart, and every outcome in your life. Asking why you’re doing what you’re doing and where it’s coming from can make you more aware and help change your state. This is an exercise you can do anywhere while working. Take a moment to pause, and relax. Shake your arms out and take a few deep breaths. Sit and observe. Tenseness is not needed to work efficiently. From now on, relax in the most unexpected moments.
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