by Pax Beale

Weight-resistance training is the only athletic endeavor wherein you can focus on any muscle in your body (and the heart is a muscle). The Body For The Ages Heart Wellness Program is directed at conditioning the cardiovascular system against heart risks using weight-resistance training.

The Heart Wellness Program is actually a multi-step program, creating a synergistic effect with Basic Nutrition, Scientific Supplements, the Principle of Total Commitment, and Prescription Method of Training. Herein, let’s focus on the Prescription Method of Training.

The Prescription Method of Training gets a little complicated, but hang with me here.

Anaerobic Vs. Aerobic

Weight-resistance training is considered an anaerobic exercise (exercise in an oxygen deficit), not an aerobic exercise (with oxygen).

As a result, when you perform weight-resistance training near the end of each set of multiple repetitions (against a weight), you accelerate the intensity of your effort, by putting yourself into various degrees of oxygen debt. Thus, the resulting anaerobic exercise compared to aerobic exercise like jogging.

The result is a calculated and momentary higher blood pressure. Our Heart Wellness Program does it in a controlled manner. We avoid the negative effect that is referenced as the Valsalva effect of holding one’s breath, as the key to success is continual breathing, and specifically exhaling when force is applied against the weight. It takes practice to adapt to the proper breathing techniques.

The alternating raised blood pressure, as one increases repetitions in a set while performing weight-resistance training, gradually increases an alternating controlled force on the arterial wall.

The Net Effect

The net effect is that the artery is repeatedly expanded when force is applied to the artery wall, and this repetitive action on the artery wall increases the flexibility of the artery, or minimally, reduces loss of flexibility, and can result in a gradual increase in the size of the artery.

Thus, the heart (a pump) has a smaller demand on it during normal functioning, and pumps the blood more easily through the expanded, more flexible artery.

Beale Research Center’s Findings Validated

These are the findings of the Beale Research Center, and subsequently in sizeable research projects, the Beale Research Center findings were validated by Harvard to materially reduce heart risks. Harvard’s results were taken from approximately 3,400 subjects, and showed a 24% reduction in heart risks.

You might view the effect to be an “angioplasty al naturel.” In organized medicine involving an angioplasty, balloon therapy is used to expand the artery wall, but not gradually. The balloon performs the expansion in essentially one single repetition (expansion) of the balloon.

In some cases, if the artery doesn’t remain open, a repeat procedure is required, because after removal of the balloon, the artery returns to its original size (diameter). Repeat procedures occur about 30% of the time in balloon angioplasties. Even with successful enlarging of the artery, there can be some damage to the artery wall, due to the abrupt expansion from the impact of the balloon, as it exceeds the limits of elasticity to foster expansion. Thus, once permanently expanded, the artery wall can be permanently weakened. Naturally, the balloon creates a force against any plaque build-up on the artery wall, but it would be foolish not to think that some of that force wouldn’t be transferred to the artery wall.

In the alternative, a stent (like a tube) is inserted, which forces the artery wall to remain permanently open. In essence, the angioplasty is somewhat like taking a person who can’t touch their toes, and forcing them down to touch their toes with one repetition, and somehow “freezing” them in that position. No wonder stents can harm a patient with residual pain for an extended period of time, even years.

Conversely, with multiple sets comprised of a host of repetitions involving weight-resistance training, one applies the known Gradual Adaptation to Stress System conceived by recognized expert Hans Selye.

No wonder angioplasty has a limited lifespan and all sorts of frequent negative side effects. We have had multiple clients with this experience visit our Body For The Ages Health Center here in San Francisco. You don’t forcibly open up an artery with essentially one single expansion of the balloon or keep it open with a stent, without having risked a negative side effect. Persistence overcomes resistance…gradually, but not in the angioplasty world. The negative side effect is that it is almost essential with angioplasty that the artery wall remain open, thus the artery wall has to be expanded beyond the limits of elasticity, resulting in damage to the artery wall.

Whew! I trust you can see how weight-resistance training can accomplish the foregoing. Unless you have a heart problem, my guess is that it’s not the most exciting facet of a discussion involving wellness.

Nonetheless, the issue is life vs. death.

More than Life Vs. Death

However, there’s more to weight-resistance training that’s worth an analysis…and may be more exciting to the masses.

I can’t think of an athletic endeavor that is not enhanced by weight-resistance training.

Okay, maybe weight-resistance training wouldn’t enhance one’s ability in ping-pong. Sudden thought: I guess ping-pong (table tennis), which incidentally is an Olympic event, is about the only athletic endeavor that can’t be enhanced by the use of steroids either.

I was on the Rose Bowl team in 1951 at the University of California at Berkeley (but didn’t play in it – that’s a separate story). We didn’t have a weight room, and it was thought that weight resistance training would make one muscle bound and reduce one’s ability in other sports.

Today, every single football team has their own weight room, the general student bodies have their own weight room, every major hotel has a weight room, and every hospital has a weight room.

It’s been proven that our maker did not create us at such a high level of proficiency that we couldn’t improve ourselves in sport and/or general physical activity by incorporating weight-resistance training.

Thus, if someone else wants to incorporate swimming in their exercise regime, or be a high school shot putter, or they want to play football, or they want to wrestle, or do mixed martial arts, or be stronger to work in their garden, or you name it, weight-resistance training will make an individual better in their chosen endeavor.

Basketball doesn’t make a person better at football, football doesn’t make a person better at wrestling, and soccer doesn’t make a person better at swimming, but weight-resistance training will enhance one’s athletic performance in all of those sports, and in fact any sport of one’s choice. Today, progress in all sports invariably leads back to weight-resistance training.

Beale Research Center Conceived of, and Proved the Benefits of Weight-Resistance Training

Beale Research Center had “zero” to do with the impact of weight-resistance training on athletics. Conversely, Beale Research Center introduced the weight-resistance training concept to reduce heart risks. Subsequently, the American Heart Association recommends weight resistance training.

Since weight-resistance training is known to increase one’s self-esteem, it’s also a contributor to one’s positive attitude for life in general. That impact reduces absenteeism, unnecessary use of emergency rooms, and creates more energized employees.

Amazing Impact on Sociability

The sociability aspect of weight-resistance training can’t be underestimated. Weight-resistance training involves many pauses between performing exercises, and therefore participants find it easier to communicate in a social context than most any other athletic endeavor.

I like to swim, but I also like to breathe properly. Creating sociability while practicing an athletic endeavor like swimming can be highly unforgiving.

Seriously, the sociability aspect can’t be underestimated involving weight-resistance training. The individual also stimulates opiates in the brain, which act like a natural drug and are a mood enhancer within the participant, all of which can open the door for more sociability.

Thus, the participant of weight-resistance training has a more positive attitude about a sponsoring company that has recommended the Heart Wellness Program. In fact, the participant will have more commitment to an athletic facility, as a result of their added energy.

The net effect between sociability and natural opiates from weigh-resistance training also creates a stronger fidelity to the entity that introduces them to the activity.

You Can’t Flex Fat

One underappreciated benefit of the Body For The Ages Prescription Method of Training is its unique fat burning benefits.

Fact: be it female muscle or male muscle, muscle shapes the body aesthetically…and remember, “you can’t flex fat.”

Unlike swimming, jogging, and a host of other athletic endeavors, wherein the fat burning benefits cease the moment you stop exercising, uniquely, weight-resistance training continues to burn fat for about an hour after ceasing the activity.

Bottomline Beale Says, “Reflect on Some Positives.”

The bottom line is that because of the multiple benefits of weight-resistance training, using that athletic endeavor as a “Prescription Method of Training” can have a material impact as a component of a bona fide wellness program, particularly for a heart-oriented wellness program.

Third Party Approval

McMaster’s University Health Center in Canada essentially used the Beale Research Center Prescription Method of Training (not all weight-resistance training is the same), and got amazing results. Muscle biopsies were taken at the commencement of their weight-resistance training research project on a sizeable group averaging 30 years of age, and another group averaging 70 years of age. Naturally, the muscle biopsy results were different, due to aging.

Six months of weight-resistance training resulted in what appeared to be true anti-aging. Repeated muscle biopsies showed that the 70 year olds’ muscle biopsies were essentially the same as those of the 30 year olds. Both groups got stronger, as expected, but the shocking fact was that the difference in strength between the 70 year olds and the 30 year olds narrowed by 50%!

Weight-Resistance Training Fuels Longevity

The result of weight-resistance training that I selfishly like best is that a heart bypass, particularly a five-way heart bypass (as I had) is estimated to have a lifespan of about 10 years on most patients. My five-way heart bypass that has lasted over 25 years!

I’m well into my 80s as I’m writing this, and in fact targeting my 90s, which beats the average longevity of a male American, but I guess that just shows my competitive juices. I’ve overcome the pattern of heart disease in my family, as my father died at 61.

I was advised by cardiologists that weight-resistance training was an absolute “no-no” for me as a post-five-way heart bypass patient. My head surgeon even came down to the gym to watch me work out. After viewing the intensity of my workout, he said to the gym owner, “Get a body bag, because Pax is going to kill himself!”

The missing link to the doctor was my concept of a Prescription Method of Training, wherein I avoided raising my blood pressure to the dangerously levels of the Valsalva effect. Yet, I got the alternating blood pressure effect on my artery walls. Five years after my bypass surgery, my cardiologist reported that the positive effect on my arteries had literally changed the configuration of my heart, a true rarity in heart patients.

My highest blood pressure during weight-resistance training was still lower than the higher, Valsalva-induced blood pressure levels resulting from activities of daily living, such as a constipated bowel movement, a sexual orgasm, or a complete loss of temper. These activities can be known killers to one with heart disease.

The bottom line is that the Body For The Ages Heart Wellness Program and its Prescription Method of Training is a source of physical exercise that has, at its core, weight-resistance training to obtain ideal benefits.

The Heart Wellness Program is not a menu of exercise options, but a goal-driven program that targets methods for specific results. Namely, the results are Heart Health, Weight Loss (or control), and Building a Body of Your Dreams, plus increased self-esteem.

We added “weight loss” because obesity is a heart risk, and it has general appeal to the masses.

We also reference “building a body of your dreams,” because nothing can influence the aesthetic shape of the body like weight-resistance training. Paradoxically, building a body of your dreams varies in meaning from one person to another. It’s in the eye of the beholder. But deep down, all of us have some vision of a desirable bodily appearance. Candidly, that appeal is much greater than heart health, to many. A little bit of “switch and bait” marketing psychology. Our goal is to tackle America’s #1 killer, heart disease, but if we get you there through appealing to your self-esteem resulting from building a body of your dreams, so be it.

I want to make a point that for some reason I have to repeat over and over again. Weight resistance training is targeted and result-oriented. That is to say, weight-resistance training for pro bodybuilders is totally different from an Olympic swimming champion, who has a different protocol than a 300 plus pound professional football lineman. Likewise, the protocol for heart health is specific and is unrelated to the enormous volume and heavy weights used by these athletes. The Body For The Ages Heart Wellness Program weight-resistance training regimen is specifically heart related, and not even considered by these hardcore athletes. That’s vital to know, as we are talking about workout Levels that are pleasantly rewarding. Any male or female can do the weight-resistance training. We stimulate, and don’t annihilate the muscle.

An Offer You Can’t Refuse

I can’t think of a more admirable goal than joining forces to attack America’s #1 killer, heart disease. It’s morally a good target. It’s good for the community, good for family and friends, and good for the reputation of all involved.

The reward is not just heart health, but also the positive recognition and respect that come with being part of a program that attacks on America’s #1 killer, heart risks. All of us should be on the team to stop the unnecessary and insidious number of deaths from heart disease. Body For The Ages Nonprofit extends the invitation.

Cancer, AIDS, and other diseases may not have a known solution, but unquestionably, when it comes to the major heart risks, there are known methods of reducing death rates.

The methods are backed by Beale Research Center and their United States patents, patents from the University of Pittsburgh, prestigious McMaster’s University in Canada, the American Heart Association, and Harvard University research. They’re also backed by non-paid testimonials specifically for the Body For The Ages Heart Wellness Program, including one from a University of California cardiologist. Perhaps the most compelling evidence is that I’m still here to write this epistle.

Exercise in general is routinely recommended, and now it’s accepted that weight-resistance training, specifically, is a key component in combatting heart disease.

Some Guys Are Hard to Convince

After I made a believer out of my doctor, and overcame all the criticism, one doctor dug deep and projected another criticism. He said he bought into my weight-resistance training concept, but he said, “Pax, a shortcoming of your Prescription Method of Training is that no one is going to work out as hard as you do.” I only had one answer: “Then let them die young.”

So, when people ask me how it feels to be well into my 80s, and still be able to work full time, plus perform weight-resistance training six days a week, at the volume of a professional bodybuilder (though I didn’t say I was still lifting weights as heavy as a professional bodybuilder)? My answer is, “Not bad, when you think about the alternative.”