Balance
Ben Greenfield
Lessons
Class Introduction
00:57 2Seven Big Issues in Training
11:58 3The Right Way vs. The Wrong Way to Train
11:15 4Mobility
10:27 5Balance
06:30 6Fueling for Performance
06:47 7Fermented Foods & Sweeteners
07:13 8Ultimate Human Performance Juice & Smoothie
03:23Lesson Info
Balance
considered balance, the ability to maintain a line of gravity within a base of support with minimal postural sway or collapse, basically it's just being able to move around without falling on your ass. And that's my fancy way of saying that. But essentially um balance is an incredibly neglected component and there's three different areas that you need to hit if you want rock solid balance and it's not hard once you grasp these concepts. Okay so the first thing that you need to do is you need to work what's called your vestibular system. So this is your ears. You've got tiny little circles in your ears that are filled with fluid that detect your head and your neck movements and help to tell your body or help to tell your brain where your body is at in space based off of what's happening with those fluids. So essentially healthy ears and a healthy vestibular system is one key component of balance. So some of the things you want to do um if you're if you're serious about balance, never ho...
ld your cell phone up to your ear, okay? You're always using your head set your speakerphone or using what's called an air tube headset which actually causes the signal to travel through tubes. So you've got a lot less E. M. F. Next to your head. Okay? So you avoid loud sounds, loud music and holding your cell phone up to your ear if you're serious about your vestibular balance, um a lot of your ears um sensory information comes from your feet. And so the more you can go barefoot or unsure. God or where a minimalist footwear the better. Okay so as much as I can I take my shoes off, I do right now but I have really ugly feet that I do not want on T. V. Um Balance on one leg while keeping your gaze on something stationary. That's another way that you can that you can train your vestibular system. This actually causes the fluid in those in your ears to move around a little bit. Um Eventually you look at objects farther away and then you progress to keeping your eyes closed with that exercise and then eventually you proceed to an unstable surface. Now there is one supplement that's really really important for your ears that tends to get underplayed when it comes to vestibular balance. And that's folate. Now taking synthetic folic acid supplements is not a good idea because that can have some toxicity issues. But working full it from things like romaine, lettuce, spinach, asparagus turn up greens, mustard greens, basically any dark leafy green and then some of those stinky er vegetables like broccoli and cauliflower as well as beats. Having those type of things in your refrigerator can all be really really good for your vestibular system. So that's component number one of balance. Component number two is your somatosensory system. You've actually got sensors in each of your joints that allow for what's called appropriate reception or your brain to actually know where your joints are in space and there are ways that you can work your somatosensory system as well. Standing on like thick mats or disk pillows or bOSU balls like that. Some of this stuff kind of overlaps with ways that you can strain your vestibular system, but anything that makes your joints wobbly, okay, anything that makes your joints wobbly is gonna help out with your somatosensory system. You even hear about rebounding. A lot of people do rebounding to strengthen their lymphatic system and to jumpstart their metabolism at the beginning of the day. That's where you jump up and down on those mini trampolines. And a lot of people think that stuff is dumb and it doesn't work. But not only is it good for your lymph system but it's also good for your somatosensory system. That's another really good way that you can train is using these mini trampolines, especially if you use a single leg standing with one leg. But doing at an elevation, like tricking your body into thinking it's out in danger by standing on the edge of a curb with one leg up. That's another really good way to train your somatosensory system and you can stand on one leg while you brush your teeth while you're at the gym while you're lifting weights whenever I'm at the gym. I always trying to do at least one thing on one leg. That's a really good way to train the somatosensory system as well. So then the last system is the visual system. Now, one thing that I'll show you during the bio hacking session as a $700 set of glasses that I own, that I was custom fitted for to not only block blue light but also increase my visual perception and visual acuity. I'll tell you how to get them and where I got them and how to get a cheap version two if you wanted to. Um but basically really being careful when you're staring for long periods of time at a screen and also making sure that you look away from the screen and off into the distance at certain periods of time. So your eyes are getting used to looking at close objects and far objects. That's really important that you do like horizon scanning throughout the day, especially if you worked on a computer. High anti oxidant foods are really good for your eyes. High lutein foods, egg whites are one of the best ways to destroy your vision because you're not getting any of the lutein that you need from that yoke to help out with your eyes. So making sure that you eat eggs, whole eggs or else the egg yolk. Really, really fantastic for the eyes. Um Fish as well is great for the eyes either eating fish regularly or including a triglyceride based fish oil and I'll geek out even more on what I mean when I say triglyceride during our supplement section, but fish oil. Really good for the eyes play a sport that requires eye tracking, golf, tennis, ping pong. Pretty much anything that's making you move your eyes around. Make sure that you don't neglect that component of your life as well. Um avoid small thoughts and eye strain, sleeping. You get a lot of visual and neuronal repair as well as rest for your eyes when you're sleeping 7 to 8 hours a night if you can. And then finally, if you, if you go to the Wikipedia page for the bates method, um it'll give you a pretty good introduction to this idea of training your ocular muscles, which is what the bates method is. Um but that Z health that I talked about, they also have a more modern program called the Vision Jim that works really well. And that's another really good one. And I'm pretty sure I've got that over at Ben Greenfield Fitness dot com slash Creative Live as well. Um Also you want to address imbalances, typical imbalances and folks. VM. Os. That's your vast media Alice oblique us. It's the teardrop muscle located on the inner side of your quads. This is notoriously weakened people and especially people have pain on the front of their knees a week. V. M. O. Tends to be the issue. So pretty much anything where you're working your leg with your toe turned slightly out strengthens at Bmo at the gym. This is one of my favorite exercises to do just attaching a cable or an elastic band standing on one leg. So I'm getting some out of sensory work here and I'm getting V. M. O. Work here. That's a really great exercise to do. If you're just getting started, you can even just use the leg extension machine at the gym and do leg extensions with your toes, turned out.