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-----...Yes...Yes...that's me. I am a scientist of the world...And so, Dr. Alterwein asked me if I would be so kind as to write this page..."
Roy (Dr. Alterwein): "Professor...hello. Glad to see you could make it...to talk about the page you wrote for me. (pause)-----You saved me a lot of time."
The Professor (speaking in a short, abrupt, terse, and deliberate manner of speech): "...Yes...yes...I wouldn't have had it any other way...of course...of course I wrote it...and of course I'm here...to speak about it!"
Roy: "Thank you Professor."
Professor: After all, you asked me to be an actor in your video...and I am grateful for that. I have been a scientist all my life...and now you have given me a chance to have fun...to act...(then with an exhuberant, happy tone to this voice)...and I had such a wonderful time acting...wonderful...wonderful...very good time! And I always say, 'One good turn deserves another'...So of course I wrote this page for you...Thank you Dr. Alterwein...thank you...
-----...Besides, I rather like explaining things like this...especially this little story you told me to write about...about the 'magic rope'...it sounds so simple, yet it is actually so...so...so profound."
Roy: Yes indeed, Professor. The little story about the 'magic rope' is truly a remarkable story.
The Professor: Yes...yes...I agree... completely...after all, imagine, when you compare the 'magic rope' to a regular rope, there is no comparison. The regular rope is just that, a regular, everyday kind of rope. The kind you can buy in a store. For example, let's take a thin rope...perhaps no more than a quarter of an inch in thickness.
-----So you tie one end of the rope to the doorknob of a locked door. And then you pull the rope by the other end. The only problem. The rope is just so strong. For this rope we might say its tensile strength is perhaps only about 25 pounds. In other words, when pulling on the rope, the rope will hold its own up to about 25 pounds. At somewhere just over 25 pounds of 'pull,' the rope will snap. And that's that. That's a regular rope.
-----Let's say you pull on the free end of the rope with about 5 pounds of pull. The rope remains taught, but it does not break. At a pull of 10 and then 15 and then 20 pounds, the rope will still not snap. We might then say that this particular rope is a '25 pound rope' because with just over 25 pounds of pull it will snap. Obviously with any amount of force or pull greater than 25 pounds, the rope will always snap.
-----We would say then that the rope is just so strong. It was made that way, and it's not about to become stronger. If anything, with deterioration over the years its tensile strength might even decrease, and in such a weakened and deteriorated state as that it might then snap at somewhere under 25 pounds, perhaps at 20 pounds or even less.
-----Fine. All well and good. Nothing amazing here. That's the way things work in this world, and the rope is nothing more than an inanimate (non-living) object that exists within this world.
-----But what if we were to get hold of a 'magic' rope? And exactly what do I mean by a 'magic rope'? I might say it's nothing like a regular rope because it's a special rope with special powers. So how would such a rope work? If both ropes were '25 pound ropes,' both ropes would snap with a pull of over 25 pounds.
-----And if we had a job, let's say, that required 35 pounds of pull, it would seem we'd have to buy a new, stronger and thicker rope. After all, the 25 pound rope cannot simply become stronger, and in a sense grow thicker so as to become a 35 pound rope. Of course not. That would be absurd.
-----But then again, perhaps that's what makes the 'magic rope' so magical. Imagine if the rope could automatically respond or 'adapt' to the increased need for a different tensile strength by 'growing' in thickness!
-----What it you had a 35 pound job and the 25 pound 'magic rope' could simply grow into a 35 pound rope? And if you needed 45 pounds of pull, what if the 'magic rope' could grow and become a 45 pound rope? In a very real sense this magic rope would be able to change its microscopic rope fibers and become a visually thicker and stronger rope. Like magic.
-----One might say the 'magic rope' is able to change its structure--its thickness--so as to be able to perform a different and more difficult function. 'Structure' changes in order to adapt to the new need so as to be able to perform a new 'function.'
-----...Structure and function. They go hand in hand.
-----If the magic rope could talk: "I'm a 25 pound rope. No need changing. All I do is 25 pound jobs. But when I'm presented with a 35 pound or 40 pound job or whatever, I have the magical ability to change my structure so that I can perform a new 35 pound function."
-----One might say that the 'magic rope' has the unique ability to adapt accordingly in the face of a new need to perform a different function.
-----The 'magic rope': "Why would I need to change if I'm performing only 25 pound jobs? That would be inefficient. A waste of my effort. I'd be changing for nothing. No. I can change at will. But I'll only do so in the face of a new job. When the new need comes up, that's when I'll change."
-----Amazing! This would truly be an amazing rope and an amazing phenomenon. We might almost say that this non-living, inanimate rope is no longer 'lifeless.' Perhaps in a sense it is a living rope. After all, it can grow!...just like people grow, just like animals grow, just like all living creatures grow...
-----...living creatures, they all have the ability to grow. And they're composed of organs and organ systems...like the cardiovascular and gastrointestinal and musculoskeletal systems...and the heart and lungs and liver and kidneys, and muscles and bones. They all have the ability to grow...a child grows up. Its organs increase in size and grow...and they change. They grow and they change into the organs and organ systems as that of an adult. And the adult's organs...they change, they begin to look different as they grow old.
Professor (thinking pensively): "...Interesting. Very interesting. Organs change...organs grow...growing and changing, different forms of the same thing, of the same process. Hmmm...very interesting...organs change...organs are made of tissues, living tissues. A significant sign of living is the ability toundergo growth and change. Hmmm...And tissues, in turn, they're made of living cells...and of course the cells can grow, and change.
-----...Hmmm...and I thought the 'magic rope' was amazing. Living tissue is by far even more amazing. After all, the 'magic rope' could only adapt by increasing its thickness and strength. Living tissue, on the other hand, and organs and organ systems adapt to the need for new functions by undergoing thousands upon thousands of changes!
Roy: Professor...this all seems so obvious...so simple...
The Professor: Yes...simple, but yet so profound. The 'magic rope' is a very, very, very simplified version of what it means to be living tissue...to be living.
Roy: Yes Professor...Yes...So now let me ask you, what directs the 'magic rope' to change? What causes it to change?
The Professor: We've spoken about that. But I'll say it again because of its importance. 'Function'...new function...the rope changes or adapts in accordance with its having to perform a new function.
Roy: Yes Professor. You might say the 'magic rope' has the ability to make 'adaptive changes'...and very efficiently, might I add. Adaptive changes are only made with 'efficiency' in mind. No wasted energy, motions. No wasted changes.
The Professor: Yes very efficiently. The rope doesn't change unless it needs to...unless it needs to perform another function.
Roy: True Professor...and it does so 'magically.' But what about the human body? What about living tissue? What causes or directs living tissues to change?
The Professor: Well, that is easy to answer...the genes within the cells...the genes give instructions to the cells and tissues and organs and organ systems. The genes give instructions on how and when to change.
Roy: Yes Professor. The genes are nothing more than a compelx arrangement of molecules usually found within the cells of living tissues. The genes are sort of like the blueprints or set of instructions telling the millions upon millions of cells throughout the body how to change...how to grow.
-----...Yes, you would think the genes 'fix' the way cells grow. The genes are all powerful. Whatever the genes tell the cells of the body to do, they do it, or so it would seem so.
The Professor: I know what you're getting at Dr. Alterwein. A child grows up. Its growth is fixed by the genes. An adult grows old. It's inevitable to grow old, so we think, because the genes directed the body to do so...to change and grow old.
Roy: Yes...but did you ever notice how identical twins, born with exactly the same sets of genes...how as they grow older and older they begin to change and look more and more different from one another?
The Professor: Yes...yes. Of course. You would think they would always look exactly the same as they grew older if the same set of genes had complete control upon the way they changed.
Roy: One might think so, but it doesn't work quite the way you might think. The genes are powerful, yes, but their power is used to control the ability of living tissue to carry out and undergo adaptive change. It's sort of like saying, we've inherited the ability to live to 120 through adaptive changes. But if we don't take advantage of adaptive change and understand how it works, most all of us die prematurely, a good 40 years earlier, the way most people do so in modern society today!
-----...So, what obviously am I leading to that must account for the increasing differences noted in identical twins as they grow olderer...despite the fact they have exactly the same set of genes.
The Professor: Evidently, it's like you said. I'll say it again in a different way. The genes are powerful. But what most people do not realize is that one of the most important set of instructions within the genes is to direct tissues throughout the body to undergo adaptive change, just like the magic rope, but with living tissue the process is much, much more complex of course.
Roy: Of course Professor. The identical twins begin to look and change differently because they continuously come in contact throughout their lives--within the environment in which they live--with difference forces and influences, which in a sense are 'needs.' After all, in order for the individual to survive in a changing environment constantly interacting with the individual, the individual must adaptively change.
-----...Everything people come in contact with every second of their life, whether physical or mental, changes them differently, structurally and functionally.
-----...This is true of all living creatures, all living beings, all living tissues...all organ systems within the body...coming in contact with the different nature of air, of food, of work...of motions of the body and of exercise...of physical labor...of walking up a flight of stairs...of carrying packages.
The Professor: ...And of different stresses and different occupations and different interpersonal relationships. They affect you physically and mentally, and therefore they will always be changing you structurally throughout your entire life.
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One Of Dr. Alterwein's Mind/Body Techniques: ...regular and repetitive application of mental and physical stresses along with repetitive motions & postural stances rhythmically performed to the regularity of musical beats ...and performed while blindfolded in an 'altered' state of mind ...so as to enhance 'emotional sensations' and 'feelings' within the mind ...all of which in turn helps to develop 'internal sensations' and the ability to 'feel changes' within the body as a 'guide' to which motion or series of motions need be made to bring about the desired mental and physical changes |
-----...Millions upon millions of influences within the environment within which we live and exist are continuously changing every tissue and every cell and every organ system of the body, throughout all our lives...and it's all pretty much based on the principle of 'adaptive change.' Amazing stuff indeed. A whole new science of longevity and prevention of disease and well-being emanates from these ideas, but society hasn't yet really tapped into it. I've been studying and figuring it out practically my entire life.
The Professor: Yes...yes. With the 'magic rope' we spoke of the rope changing its thickness in accordance with a new need to pull let's say a 45 pound weight instead of a 25 pound weight. But the presentation of the new need is nothing more than a changed aspect of the environment. A 35 pound pull would bring into existence a 35 pound rope. A 50 pound pull would bring into existence a 50 pound rope.
-----...The idea is simple. But the ramifications of it all and the fantastic effects of carrying it out can actually be quite unbelieveable. That's probably why society hasn't yet latched on to these ideas, the ramifications are too unbelieveable, and most people have difficulty accepting or understanding even a little change. So something like this--like the genetically predetermined lifespan to be at least 120 years of age--forget it!
Roy: Yes, the wonderful ramifications are mindboggling. The simple aspect we see in the gym. Repetitively increased weights result in increased muscle mass and strength. That's a no-brainer. But the same principles tell us that we can change our lungs structurally and functionally at will, even in old age and perhaps with many illnesses, by simply applying varying volumes and rates of air flow to and from the lungs. The lungs will change accordingly. You just have to know and figure out how to apply the stresses...the lung related air volume rates of exchange.
-----...We're already doing that but few peole realize the significance and if they did they'd able able to dramatically change their lungs. For example, with repetitive aerobic exercise or endurance training or otherwise, howmany times have you heard or yourself discovered that the breathing--the function of breathing--becomes easier.
-----...Well, think about it...think...that means structurally the lungs had to change! So why not figure out which motions or exercises change the lungs which way? That's what I've been trying to figure out and what I've been doing and how I so dramatically changed my body. Of course, the mind has a great deal to do with it, but we'll be getting to that.
Professor: Yes...yes. If you think about it, the word conditioning...becoming conditioned...you've actually changed your functional abilities of your heart, your lungs and so on, and therefore you've actually changed their physical structures.
Roy: That's why a bodybuilder has one kind of heart such as can be viewed with medical tests, echocardiograms, EKG's, and so on, and the long distance runner another structurally different heart, and the swimmer, another kind of heart, structurally and functionally different.
-----...So why not figure out how each exercise changes the heart, and go to it...combine the effects, instead of just exercising, and doing anything, without really knowing or realizing what you are really doing internally. Many people are actually progressively hurting themselves and they don't even know it, because they're progressively adapting their body negatively, but slowly over time. When something finally becomes obviously wrong with them, they'd never know where it came from!
-----...Not knowing all this has a lot to do with why people hardly ever change, let alone at an older age. They don't have the knowledge, nor believe it possible to change the way I'm talking about, nor have they ever thought this way.
-----...But, as I've pointed out time and again, that's what this web site is all about. To teach the world a new science of the world. It's vast and spans many fields...from the biological sciences, to theoretical physics, to fitness, to psychology, to anthropology, even to litererature and sociology, and on and on and on. Even certain aspects of what some people might consider the paranormal or metaphysical. I don't like those terms because within those fields there is muchin the way of untruth, but yet some truth which I've had to figure out and isolate, to see what was real and what's not real. Even spiritualism enters into it all.
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-----The deleterious harmful stresses of modern society which are resulting in disease, premature aging and death are being done to ourselves at our own hands... -----...by such things as our misguided implementation of improper kinds and amounts of foods, to improperly or insufficiently applied physical motions and activities, to degenerative family and other interpersonal relationships, to chronically applied job stresses, to divorce, to uncaring for others, to internal self-centered feelings of selfishness, to the overall deleterious physical effects of underlying negative and improper emotional feelings and sensations -----Most all of us throughout society are so uniformly doing these things to ourselves and giving in to our self-destructive hedonist drives...that we are quite literally causing our own deaths...quite literally...burying ourselves... -----...dead! ----- |
-----...For example, how many people think of the different kinds of 'needs' for increased pumping action of the heart and circulatory system depending upon the type of motions or exercise or activities performed with the body...which in turn results in correspondingly different structural changes of the heart andblood vessels and other interrelated organ system throughout the body. Who would think in terms of exercise having an effect on the liver and kidneys...and even the skin and its appearance of youthfulness depdning upon which exercise is done, how it's done, and how one is thnking and feeling!
-----...It's mind-boggling! It's amazing! I'm flabbergasted.
Roy: I know Professor. I know. I've found it fascinating all my life. I've been able to figure out some amazing things. But theone thing I haven't been able to figure out completely is why society hasn't ogtten into it and figured it out before. To me that's mind-boggling!
The Professor: Perhaps...perhaps. But don't include me in that category of people. I've always been interested.
-----...And that business about structurally changing the brain and in turn changing the mind. You've mentioned there are loads of research studies in the literature of one sort or another backing up the fact that the physical matter of the brain undergoes adaptive change microscopically and even macroscopically, overtly.
-----...For example, you mentioned some rat studies wherein one group of rats had to go through a maze to get their food while another group didn't have to go through the maze to get their food. When the rats were later sacrificed, the brains of the 'thinking' mice, the ones that had to think to get through the maze...their brains were different microscopically. Minute projections from the brain cells called dentrites had increased voluminously in number, plus many other changes, and in some studies their brains were even larger, or weighed more.
-----...Amazing stuff, to think you can actually progressively adapt and change the physical structure of the brain through mental activities, thinking and the like!
Roy: Well how about this Professor. think about this. If you can progressively adapt your brain structurally and functionally and in turn your mind, and since the structure of your brain--mind and matter--are interrelated in ways I have theorized about and written papers on...the connection between mind and matter...would it then be possibe to progressively adapt and change the brain matter so as to change one's level of consciousness?
-----...We know you can present the brain, via input through our senses and the like, with new and different activities, and change it, each activity changing it differently. One would therefore think it reasonable to assume that each type of thought process would change the brain matter differently, whether it be mathematical thought, or scientific thought, or thinking of a literary nature...or even emotionally presenting the brain with different feelings and different sensations. That's what I've been doing for years, especially when I've been blindfolded and in an altered state of mind exercising rhythmically. Most people would think I'd primarily been exercising my physical body, when in fact the exercises to my mind have had effects that have been profound, and I have reason to believe they have had effects on the aging process!
The Professor: Yes...yes. I agree dr. Alterwein. You can change the muscles with physical exercises, and the bones, and the heart and the lungs...and all other tissues of the body can be changed through progressive adaptation when the proper stresses or forces are applied. But you can also change the actual microscopic and gross structure and in turn the functional abilities of the brain by presenting it with the need for differing types of thoughts, and sensations, and emotions!
Roy: Yes...once you figure out which forces or stresses to apply to which tissues of the body...then you can change all those tissues to one degree or another pretty much at will.
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It is within the domain of all living tissues to undergo 'progressively adaptive change'...from your muscles to your bones, to your tendons, to the cartilage in your joints...to all the hormone producing glands and organs within your body from your heart to your lungs, to your liver and kidneys...and even to your skin. |
Roy: Yes Professor. Even though the 'magic rope' cannot change its structure suddenly, overnight, from a 25 pound to a 35 pound rope, it can do so very securely over a period of time by repetitively presenting the rope with increaed forces between 25 and 35 pounds let's say, working its way up slowly from the 25 pounds to the 35 pounds, such as by increasing the weights one or two pounds at a time. And the repetitive nature of adaptive change over time should be no different for other tissues of the body wherein the corresponding 'stresses' are repetitively applied.
The Professor: Yes...and although the 'magic rope' is a fantasy, it is a simplified example of the amazing abilities of living tissue to undergo genetically predetermined adaptive changes in accordance with the presentation of varying 'environmental influences.' By the way, you should note, I've been using the word 'stress,' not in the usual sense as a bad emotional stressful feeling, but rather as a general, overall term representing the multitude of physical and mental 'environmental influences,' or anything that affects and interrelates with any given organism or living tissues of those organisms.
Roy: Yes...nature gave living tissues the ability to change overtly by first changing progressively and methodically at a microscopic level. After all, living tissue is made up of cells. and the cumulative effect of millions upon millions of cells undergoing progressively adaptive changes is the appearance, for example, of a totally different looking or changed body!
The Professor: Yes...yes. You used the principles of progressively adaptive changes to bring about a total body transformation of your own body, and you did so by learning which of thousands of stresses and forces would need be applied to which organ systems and organs and tissues of the body.
Roy: Yes Professor. Ironically, if you look in bodybuilding books the term Progressive Adaptation is mentioned, but only in reference to changing muscles. The idea is that by progressively applying a repetitive series of increased weights or forces to given muscles, those muscles would eventually change in size and strength. But in fact, this is an extremely narrow-minded view of of the vast potential to change all tissues throughout the body, and that's what I've been learning to do.
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It's a fact. You can progressively adapt and change the muscles in your arms and legs. So what's the difference when it comes to the muscle out of which your heart is made? How about regularly applying a variety of stresses to the heart by means of a repetitive series of motions and postural stances and resistances, continuous and discontinuous, and in so doing effectively change the strength and thickness of the heart muscle? |
-----...Well, I would say that's obvious. Unless you repetitively present a new stress or force to the body or to the mind, there will be no change in the structure or function of either the mind or the body.
Roy: Yes...and by the same token, if you apply less of a stress or force to any given tissue of the body than it had otherwise been routinely presented with, those tissues will deteriorate or change commensurate with the lack of repetitive stress! Remember this last senstence. This is a very important sentence. It encompasses within it the very nature of disease and aging.
The Professor: Yes...yes. For example, if you don't use your muscles, they become weak and thin. The astronauts in zero gravity...no gravitational forces being applied to the body...when they came back to Earth they could hardly walk because their muscles and bones had atrophied and deteriorated to one degree or another secondary to disuse...and I would add, this would have also been true for most all the other tissues in the body, besides their legs. Disuse of most aspects of the body should have come into play with the lack of gravity.
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-----Most of modern society believes in the 'natural' and inevitable occurrence of what is thought to be the 'aging' related deterioration, 'slowing down,' and 'weakened' state of the cardiovascular and respiratory systems (heart, lungs, blood vessels throughout the body)... ...when in fact much in the way of these effects are indicative of 'Progressive Deadaptation' through disuse of the body in multiple ways secondary to an improper and 'disuse ridden' lifestyle. Therefore, through 'Progressive Adaptation' via the proper application of 'stresses' to these various tissues and organ systems, they can be changed back functionally--and to some degree even structurally--close to the way they might have been in the past, and in many instances even come to be functioning better! |
-----...It's a funny thing, but that the narrowly viewed principle of progressive adaptation as it has been usually used...referring to muscular development...as well as the 'use it or lose it' principle...both of these principles have been hidden in bodybuilding books for decades. Ironically, by having extended these theories to encompass all of the human body, and not just the muscles, and by having interrelated these extended theories with all of the environment influences, many of the answers to disease and aging have and will continue to become evident, ideas and cures and discoveries heretofore unknown.
The Professor: Very interesting...very interesting. You have taken the underlying principles for changing muscles in the field of bodybuilding...and you have taken the concepts of becoming 'conditioned' with regard to exercise in general [conditioning, as we will see, is merely another example of progressively adaptive change]...and you have thereby figured out how to apply those principles to adaptive changes throughout the entire body and so as to in turn have major effects on disease and aging.
-----...So, with all this in mind, I now come back to the previous thoughts about how a child changes and grows up, and about how an adult changes and grows old. I would ask, how much of these changes are really fixed, genetically predetermined changes, and how much are actually under our control through adaptive change?
Roy: Yes Professor. You want to know, when a person grows old, is it inevitable. Is growing old inevitable? Is it predetermined genetically? Are all changes which go along with growing old...are they all immutable changes, things we cannot possibly do anything about?
The Professor: Dr. Alterwein...thanks to you I now know that many of the changes we are otherwise calling signs and symptoms of aging are nothing more than the improper application or misapplication of repetitive stresses--or lack of application of repetitive stresses--to the body.
Roy: Yes. The irony of all ironies is that such profound changes throughout the body can be made by simple principles that have gone untapped for decades. For example, even the 'use it or lose it' principle often referred to in bodybuilding books, as I have noted above, routinely referr to muscular development or lack of it, and nothing more. But yet this principles is profound and I have learned and am continuing to learn how to apply it to the tissues throughout the entire body in health, disease and aging.
-----...And furthermore, when you take this sort of thinking further, you begin to realize that most of the so-called diseases that human beings contract and often die from are nothing more than examples of the same kind of misapplication of the proper environmental stresses to the body, both mentally and physically.
-----...By saying that many diseases are related to lifestyle we are thinking here only of the very tip of the iceberg. As you will see, I will be redefining the definition of what the term 'disease' means. By understanding that most diseases are coming from nothing more than the misapplication of environment stresses (otherwise known as improper lifestyle), society would then have at its command a whole new and amazing modality and series of methods which could be utilized to offset disease, and aging. Both disease and aging are evidently similar in this nature, both in large part stemming from the misapplication of repetitive environmental influences or stresses.