Chapter 24
Doctor Exercise makes this statement, “To rest is to rust!” And rust means decay and destruction. In other words, the good doctor tells us that activity is life and stagnation is death. The good doctor further informs us that if we do not use our muscles, we lose them! In order to keep muscles firm, strong, vigorous and youthful, they must be continually used. Activity is the law of life! Action is the law of well-being. Every vital organ of the body has its specialized work, and its performance depends on its development, strength and health.
When we use the body, we build endurance, strength and vigor. When we become lazy and do not use our muscles, it brings decay and slow death. Daily exercise quickens and equalizes the circulation of the blood, but in laziness, the blood does not circulate as freely and the changes in it that are so vital to life and health do not take place. We have poor muscle tone and the muscles become flabby and unable to perform vigorous activity.
People who do not exercise often have poor skin tone. Exercise brings on healthy perspiration in the 96 million pores of our body. The skin is the largest eliminative organ in the entire body. If someone would shellac or gild your body and thus clog the pores, you would die within a few minutes. With exercise, you bring on healthy perspiration. Impurities and toxins are expelled when you exercise and perspire freely – you are allowing the skin to perform its natural function of eliminating poisons. If you don’t exercise daily to the point of perspiring, the work that the pores are not doing throws a double burden on the other eliminative organs and then you get into health problems.
Exercise Helps Normalize Blood Pressure
Exercise helps to normalize blood pressure and create a healthy pulse. Exercise is an anticoagulant, meaning that it keeps the blood flowing smoothly and not clotting (called a “thrombus” which could cause a heart attack).
Every creature seeking to eliminate internal waste does so by means of muscular action. Inside your intestines there are 3 muscular layers which undergo a rhythmic, wavelike action called peristalsis. A serious condition results if you allow the internal and external muscles, through inactivity, to become flabby and fat instead of muscular. The muscles lose their tone and power to contract, resulting in intestinal clogging. The abdominal muscles play an important role in the evacuation effort. What happens when the internal and external muscles become flabby, soft, sick and infiltrated with fat? They refuse to work and we pile up intestinal waste that should have been eliminated. This brings about autointoxication, or the building of large amounts of toxic poison. Again, inactivity is the avoidable cause of many diseases.
Fasting and diet are 2 allies in your struggle for long lasting youth, health and symmetry. When it comes to fighting fat, diet and fasting come first. But when it comes to keeping fit, it is exercise that matters most! However, they all help each other, for by exercising regularly you may be more generous in your diet and, up to a certain point, your extra food will make for increased vitality. The human machine loves exercise, outdoor activities, and can work at top performance when fit and healthy. As with all machines, it improves with intelligent use. Nothing betrays its weak spots like inactivity and rust.
Brisk Walking for Health, Fitness & Longevity
I believe in all of the many forms of exercise, but without hesitation I will tell you that brisk walking is the best all-around exercise. Of all the forms of exercise, walking brings most of the body into healthy action!
Brisk Walking – The King of Exercise Your Body’s Best Health Friend
As you walk, grasp yourself in the small of the back and feel how your entire frame responds to every stride. Notice how almost all of your muscles are functioning rhythmically. No other exercise gives us the same body harmony of movement and improved circulation. Brisk walking is the best exercise for almost everyone. Your walking should never be done consciously. No “heel and toe” business. No getting there in a certain time. Let it be fun and natural. Of course, you will carry yourself well. Walk tall naturally with head high, spine and chest lifted up. You will feel elated, so you will carry yourself proudly, straight, erect and with arms (your extra pumps) swinging. It’s fun to clip a *Pedometer at waistband, to keep track of your daily walks in a daily journal (page 245).
Vow to become a health walker and make your daily brisk walks a fixed item in your health program all year, in all kinds of weather. Stride with your spirit free. If the outer world of nature fails to interest you, turn to the inner world of the mind. As you walk, your body ceases to matter and you become as near poet and philosopher as you will ever be. Walking has astounding benefits for your health! A study published in the New England Journal of Medicine showed by walking 30 minutes a day, three times a week, reduces risk of death from all natural causes by 55%! Research shows that walking releases pent-up emotions, like anger and frustration; and reduce stress, tension and depression (see page 150).
Gardening is another rewarding form of exercise. But gardening may not prevent weight gain if there is too little movement and because you are bent over more instead of being erect. For this reason, I prefer some of both. Satisfy your conscience by applying your energy productively in your health garden, then take the kink out of your back with a healthy brisk walk. In our personal life, Patricia and I combine gardening with calisthenics, rebounding (trampoline), brisk walking, weightlifting, swimming, and tennis to stay in shape.
The Importance of Abdominal Exercises
I believe that the most important exercises are those that stimulate all of the muscles of the human trunk from the hips to the armpits. These are the binding muscles which hold all of the vital organs in place. When you develop your torso’s muscles, you are also developing your internal muscles and posture. As your back, waist, chest and abdomen increase in strength and elasticity, so will your lungs, heart, stomach, kidneys, etc. gain in efficiency. Be faithful with exercising!
The widened arch of your ribs will give free play to your lungs. Your elastic diaphragm will allow your heart to pump more powerfully. Your rubber-like waist will, in its limber action, stimulate your kidneys and massage your liver. Your abdominal muscles will strengthen and support your stomach with controlled undulations. All of this strong, clean development of your torso will stimulate and help maintain the sound walls of your house and fortify the interior to resist the ravages of time. Trunk exercise acts like a massage of the vital organs (page 118), for that reason alone, it has a positive influence over the whole body that cannot be underestimated. See Bragg Exercises at Waikiki Beach, Honolulu (pg. i) and on website: BraggHawaiiExercise.com.
The more you fast – the more toxins and fat you will clean from your body! As your body increases in internal cleanliness, your muscles will have more tone and vitality. You will find after a fast that the old sluggish, lazy feelings are gone. It’s replaced with a desire for more exercise and physical activity. You will bubble with new found energy.
Should You Exercise While Fasting?
This is a question which only the faster can answer. If there is no inclination for physical activity during a fast, then you should not exercise. The fast is giving you a physiological rest and – unless you have a tremendous, overwhelming urge for physical activity – it is wise to rest and relax as much as possible. Your body is using all of its Vital Force for internal purification. But if you should feel that you need some stretching or walking during a 7 to 10 day fast, by all means enjoy. It is between fasts and in your daily Bragg Healthy Lifestyle that you should spend a portion of every day of your life pursuing outdoor exercises, walking, gardening, etc. when possible.
Between your fasts, you must promote vigorous circulation, because sluggish circulation is one of the main causes of unhealthy discomfort, pain and misery in the body. Please reread and follow pages 138, 140 and 222.
When people don’t exercise, their ankles and legs often swell because there is not enough blood circulation to remove the waste from the cells and carry it back to the organs of elimination. There should be no excuse for not exercising because, regardless of your physical condition, it’s vitally important some exercise be part of your life. Daily exercise prevents sickness and premature ageing. It builds a fund of endurance and resistance. It helps build a strong heart and a rich bloodstream, giving proper balance of white and red corpuscles to attack and overcome any harmful germs that may invade the body.
Exercise helps to maintain a serene and tranquil mind. A 3 to 5 mile walk in the fresh air will help to soothe any unhealthy emotional upset. Exercise will help increase your confidence, for there is no better way than the satisfying knowledge of improved mental and physical abilities. Exercise gives you a positive attitude. It cultivates willpower and it helps give you absolute mastery of your physical, mental, emotional and spiritual self which promotes personal efficiency for a smoother, happy life.
Exercise is the greatest health tonic one can give oneself! You will attain the feeling of radiant, glorious living by following your fasting program and exercise regime. You will feel better and look better! Satisfying the body’s craving for physical activity produces the miraculous feeling of agelessness and youthfulness.
Iron Pumping Oldsters (ages 86 to 96) Triple Muscle Strength in U.S. Government Study
WASHINGTON, In a landmark study – ageing nursing home residents in Boston study “pumping iron,” Elderly weightlifters tripling and quadrupling their muscle strength? Is it possible? Most people would doubt it! But government experts on ageing answered those questions with a resounding “yes” thanks to the results of this amazing landmark study! Visit the website:
antiagingresearch.com/behavioral_factors.shtml
They turned a group of frail Boston nursing home residents, aged 86 to 96, into weightlifters to demonstrate that it’s never too late to reverse age-related declines in muscle strength. The group participated in a regimen of high-intensity weight-training in a study conducted by the best Agriculture Department’s Human Nutrition Research Center on Ageing at Tufts University in Boston. “A high-intensity weight-training program is capable of inducing dramatic increases in muscle strength in frail men and women up to 96 years of age,” reported the study director, a dedicated researcher, Dr. Maria A. Fiatarone.
Paul C. Bragg and His Youthful Friend, Roy White
Amazing Health & Fitness Results in 8 Weeks
“The favorable response to strength training in our subjects was remarkable in light of their advanced ages, extremely sedentary habits, multiple chronic diseases, functional disabilities and nutritional inadequacies. The elderly weight-lifters increased their muscle strength by anywhere from three-fold to four-fold in as little as eight weeks.” Fiatarone said that many were stronger at the end of the program than they had been in years!
Fiatarone and her associates emphasized the safety of such a closely supervised weight-lifting program, even among people in frail health. The average age of the 10 participants, for instance, was 90. Six had coronary heart disease; seven had arthritis; six had bone fractures resulting from osteoporosis; four had high blood pressure; and all had been physically inactive for years. Yet, no serious medical problems resulted from the weight-training program, only positive health outcomes!
Study Shows Fitness Improves Wellness
A few of the patients did report minor muscle and joint aches, but 9 of the 10 completed the program. The study participants, drawn from a 712 bed long-term care facility in Boston, worked out 3 times a week. They performed 3 sets of 8 repetitions with each leg on a weight-lifting machine. The weights were gradually increased from about 10 pounds initially to about 40 pounds at the end of the eight week program.
Fiatarone said the study carries some important implications to improve the wellness and fitness of older people, who represent a growing proportion of the U.S. population. A decline in muscle strength and size is one of the more predictable features of premature ageing.
Muscle strength in the average adult decreases by 30% to 50% during course of life. Experts on ageing do not know whether the decrease is unavoidable ageing, or results of sedentary lifestyle and other controllable factors.
Building Up a Healthy Body with Exercise
Paul C. Bragg and Patricia Lift Weights 3 times Weekly
Muscle atrophy and muscle weakness are not merely cosmetic problems in elderly people, especially the frail elderly. Researchers have linked muscle weakness with recurrent falls, a major cause of immobility and death in the American elderly population. This is results in millions of dollars yearly in staggering medical costs.
Previous studies have suggested that weight-training can be helpful in reversing age-related muscle weakness. Dr. Fiatarone said physicians have been reluctant to recommend weightlifting for frail elderly with multiple health problems. This new government study might be changing their minds. Also, this study shows the great importance of keeping the 640 muscles as active and fit as possible to maintain general overall good health.
