Podcasts about inbound podcasting network

Expert Medical Spa Management Consultant, Terri Ross is joined by Tim Cicciarelli, the Founder of The InBound Podcasting Network to discuss the attendees of the convention their top “pain points” in regards to their medical spas. This inaugural episode of InTouch with Terri was recorded live during The Medical Spa Show 2020 in Las Vegas presented by AmSpa in February 2020. https://www.medicalspashow.com/ Terri Ross Consulting Live Sales Training Course - March 2020 Live Sales training Promo Video: https://youtu.be/B3oZ8s8U1v8 Sign up: http://bit.ly/TRC_LiveSalesTraining Practice Foundational Elements Online Sales Training Course https://www.terrirossconsulting.co/pfe-join Terri Ross Consulting’s Website http://bit.ly/TerriRossConsultingWebsite terri@terriross.com Follow Terri Ross https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCxOkt_vcZd4lXKwcGbgMYaQ https://www.facebook.com/terrirossconsulting/ https://www.instagram.com/terrirossconsulting/ https://www.linkedin.com/in/terriross/ https://twitter.com/terrirossmb InBound Digital Media - Marketing Videos/Social Media Ad Campaigns http://bit.ly/InBoundDigitalMedia InBound Films Aesthetic Marketing Videos http://bit.ly/InBoundFilms YouTube http://bit.ly/AestheticVideos Follow Tim Cicciarelli https://www.instagram.com/inbounddigitalmedia/ tim@inboundfilms.com  

Tim Edwards of The InBound Podcasting Network joins Douglas W. Stephey, O.D., M.S., for Episode One of the Move Look & Listen Podcast.   Douglas W. Stephey, O.D., M.S. is a full-service eye and vision care provider in Southern California and is a sought-after conference speaker, educator, and passionate advocate for patients diagnosed with dyslexia, specific learning disability, ADHD, autism, and any other qualifying diagnosis for an IEP or 504 plan. Douglas W. Stephey, O.D., M.S. 208 West Badillo St. Covina, CA 91723 Phone: 626-332-4510 Website: http://bit.ly/DouglasWStepheyWebsite Videos: http://bit.ly/DrStepheyOptometryVideos The Move Look & Listen Podcast is brought to you in part, by Audible - get a FREE audiobook download and 30-day free trial at www.audibletrial.com/InBound If interested in producing a podcast of your own, like the Move Look & Listen Podcast, contact Tim Edwards at tim@InBoundPodcasting.com or visit www.InBoundPodcasting.com Transcription Below:  Tim Edwards: The Move Look & Listen Podcast with Dr. Doug Stephey is brought to you by Audible. Get a free audiobook download and a 30-day free trial Audible membership at audibletrial.com/inbound. You'll find over 180,000 titles to choose from, including several books mentioned here in the podcast. Support the Move Look & Listen Podcast by visiting www.audibletrial.com/inbound.  Dr. Stephey: If our two eyes are not working together well as a fast synchronized team, our internal mapquest continues to be off. It's consistently inconsistent with our ability to judge time and space. Those that don't feel well-grounded, those that have some measure of anxiety, oftentimes it starts in the visual system. If you can't move, look and listen in a fast, accurate, effortless, sustainable, age appropriate, meaningful way, you're in a world of hurt. There's a whole world in vision and how it affects brain function that no one's ever shared with you. 20/20 is perceived as a holy grail of going to the eye doctor. Well, I'm here to change that paradigm.  Tim Edwards: Hello and welcome to the very first episode of the Move Look & Listen podcast with optometrist, Dr. Doug Stephey. My name is Tim Edwards and I'm the founder of the Inbound Podcasting Network. Amongst our roster of shows, we cover topics such as nutrition, high intensity strength training, celebrity interviews, wellness, family law, and many others. But the topic of this show is more than what meets the eye, so to speak. You might be thinking, why in the world is an optometrist doing a podcast? Well, that is because Dr. Stephey is much more than your everyday eye doctor. As you heard in the opening of the podcast, Dr. Stephey mentions that vision directly relates to one's ability to function in life and that one is very obvious. But vision also affects the development of your sense of self, your place in the world, how you socially engage with others, your ability over your lifetime to receive further education, to live independently and have gainful employment.  Tim Edwards: Now, most of what I just mentioned may seem easy for most, but in reality it's definitely not for some. Dr. Stephey not only has a thriving optometry practice in southern California, but he is also here on the Move Look & Listen podcast to educate how vision therapy combined with specific lenses or prisms can greatly benefit those who might be diagnosed with ADHD. Or for parents who have children that land somewhere on the autistic spectrum. Or maybe even has a student in special education. In this podcast, Dr. Stephey will also educate us regarding common eye problems. How nutrition plays a key role in your vision health, and what exactly is 20/20 vision and why seeing 20/20 is not enough to move, look and listen through your life with ease. Our sister company to the Inbound Podcasting Network is Inbound Films and as you are about to hear, we produced a series of videos for Dr. Stephey's practice a couple of years ago. I was so impressed with Dr. Stephey and his amazing staff that he became our family optometrist and has also become a good friend. So it gives me great pleasure to kick off the maiden voyage of the Move Look & Listen podcast with Dr. Doug Stephey.  Dr. Stephey: Well, thank you and I'm excited to be here. Since we met and you talked about the things that I should be doing, like the videos that are on my website and the podcasting, and at one point in time I said, so let me get this right. I should just listen to you and get out of my own way. Tim Edwards: Yes, you did. And I think it's taken us a couple of years and we're here. And your passion and the message that you have to share is one that our audience needs because you're a nonconventional optometrist. And I hope that you take pride in that and not offended by that. Because you're very different and I believe that the world needs you, not just so that they can have some really cool looking glasses sitting on their nose.  Dr. Stephey: Well, you know, what's interesting about that is no, I did not take offense to it and because many times when I do the weird stuff in my office, people will tell me that I'm a voodoo doctor, or that I'm a witch doctor. And you know what?  Dr. Stephey: I can live with that. I'm okay with that.  Tim Edwards: You know why there's results, right? You're seeing results. I've seen the results myself and with what you've shown me on video.  Dr. Stephey: What's really interesting about that is if I take somebody who has postural issues, right? And most people would not associate posture problems with vision problems. And certainly not in their understanding of that the holy grail of going to the optometrist is to see 20/20. And that's important, but it's not the most important piece. I don't think. So, if I'm going to assess somebody's posture and their response to changes in posture through their visual system, I will often preface our conversation with, I don't know if this is going to work with you or not, but I'm willing to take the chance because if it doesn't work, you're just gonna think I'm crazy. And if it does work, you're going to think I can walk on water. Because how could I change the way your knee hurts or the way your hip hurt or the way your back hurts or the way your neck hurts by putting on a pair of glasses with prism or color. You don't believe it until you've experienced it.  Tim Edwards: That's true and I've experienced it for myself than just a personal story. My wife is experiencing it as we speak. She had the opportunity to see you a couple of weeks ago. She's now wearing her lenses that you prescribed for her, her colored lenses and we'll get into more of that a little bit later. But she is around fluorescent light all the time. That used to bother her and now it doesn't, as a result of these lenses. And that's the first time I've told you that is right here in the recording. So, you know, like I said in the lead into the episode, I told the story of how this podcast came to be Dr. Stephey. We don't want to scare people away when you say the word witch doctor because that might make people freak out a little bit, but give us a rundown of your optometry practice because it's not your run of the mill optometry practice where you're in and out in an hour with a pair of glasses.  Dr. Stephey: Early on in my career when I first bought this practice in 1988 and I was reading practice management tools, one of the fundamental questions that has to be asked and answered is, do you want to be a quantity practice or do you want to be a quality practice? Quantity practice is just that. It's about. It's about crunching the numbers, how many people you can get through your exam in an hour, and I chose not to do that. I wanted to be a quality practice and I see less patients per hour, but I think I spend much more quality time. I actually listen to patients. I've gotten much better over the years about watching patients. It's not uncommon that I'll notice that somebody taps their leg or wiggles a foot or drums their fingers or chews their lip or other quirky behaviors that they oftentimes know they have, but nobody's explained why they have and that's not ADHD.  Dr. Stephey: Most of the time that's an undiagnosed and untreated vision problem and that they need that kind of movement in order to shower up thier otherwise poor vision skills. So I decided to be a quality practice and when somebody comes to see me for an exam, I want them to learn how the eyes and brain have to work together as an integrated team and that in order to function appropriately in life, you've got to have eyes that see fast, that see accurately, that see effortlessly and sustainably over the course of the entire day. And if you can't do those things, there's going to be behavioral consequences to it. Either you're going to be pushed to be in fight or flight or you're going to learn how not to pay attention, right? That's the group that describes themselves or others describe them as daydreamers or spacey or staring out the window or absent-minded professor.  Dr. Stephey: That's an adaptation to typically not being in fight or flight. High fear, high anxiety, high distractibility. And then the third way some people adapt is they're chronically fatigued and they feel like over the course of the whole day they end up walking around on their last nerve. And oftentimes that's one of these undiagnosed underassessed, and undertreated vision problems. So that's really why I have practiced the way I do.  Tim Edwards: And it's evident from the moment that you walk into your practice, again, referring back to the intro to this podcast, I was able to meet you on a video project. And I won't go into too much into it right now because I talked it about earlier. But when I met with you to prepare and plan the video, the very first thing you did was stick me in your chair and go, all right, here's what I do.  Tim Edwards: I mean, I've been wearing glasses and contacts for over 25 years. Even had LASIK surgery back in the early 2000s. And I mentioned earlier that I've filmed dozens of marketing videos for optometrists throughout southern California. So I can say with great confidence that your methods that a patient experiences in your initial exam are slightly unconventional, which is a word that you embrace with your practice. They go way beyond the typical, you know, which lens looks better, one or two. And it's truly Dr. Stephey not hyperbole when I say that you blew my mind when I produced that first video, which of course, again, we'll have links to in the show notes. So you can see Dr. Stephey for yourself, for those that are listening while you're driving to work or walking the dog or on the treadmill or something. But please share, if you don't mind with our audience, some of the things that a new patient can expect when they see you for the first time, for that consultation, that same consultation that blew my mind.  Tim Edwards: How you're able to assess what you just spoke about. How we can, how you can determine whether or not someone is in constant fatigue or feeling anxiety or lack of concentration.  Dr. Stephey: You Bet. So first thing I want to say is there is great value in the part of the exam about which one is better, choice one or choice two. But what's interesting is that oftentimes patients will stress out about picking an answer. And if I ever get the feeling or somebody voices that concern to me, I remind them or tell them maybe for the first time after years of being stressed out with other exams, I remind them that I'm trying to get them to a point where the differences between the choices are so small that they can't pick a right answer because they're both right. So the little secret is we should get you to the point where you can't tell the difference between one or two. So stop stressing out about the choices.  Tim Edwards: There's always anxiety associated with that because you know that you're going to be committing to some lenses and so you want it to be right and perfect. So that anxiety that I've always felt, you know, like I said, wearing glasses for a quarter of a century and going and seeing different optometrists throughout the country, that the anxiety of picking one or two, you alleviate that. Just by how you worded it. And that is the very first thing that I noticed was, oh, that, that was easier than I thought. And that's just step one. That's foundation. Dr. Stephey: That's foundation. And the other thing to consider is a two circle venn diagram. So if we take two circles and partially overlap them those two circles are where most eye doctors practice. And one circle is can you see 20/20 and the other circle is related to eye health and/or eye disease. And again, those two circles have great value but they're insufficient. So there's a third circle that we're going to add into the venn diagram. And that third circle is really in my estimation, where all the magic happens. In that third circle, there is eye taming, eye focusing, eye tracking, visual attention, visual-auditory skills, visual-spatial skills, visual auditory, visual motor. And on and on it goes. Most eye doctors pretend like that third circle doesn't exist. So even if you've got major problems in the third circle.. Dr. Stephey: It's probably gone undiagnosed and untreated. Whether you had an exam the day before you came to see me or whether you've been going to the eye doctor like you have for 25 years. If you don't measure components in the third circle, if you don't ask questions in your history about the symptoms typically experienced by somebody having third circle problems, then you're never going to find those problems.  Tim Edwards: That's pretty clear.  Dr. Stephey: It's pretty simple. So I think one of the fundamental differences in my practice is when you walk in my exam room, well you know what, that's not even really true because it could be outside of my exam room. If I go to a bank and strike up a conversation with the teller about what I do, it's not unusual for me to ask them if they have a history of migraines or headaches.  Dr. Stephey: That's a simple question and a lot of people have those problems. So if I get a yes answer to that, it's already opened the door for us to have a conversation about me asking some other questions and then the patient looks at me like, what? What is going on? Because I'm answering yes to everything that you're asking me. And it's just that easy. So when you walk in my exam room, I am assuming that you have a third circle problem until you prove to me that you don't. And what I mean by prove to me it's either going to be the questions I asked you during the course of the exam or the questions that I hand to you at the end of the exam and have you go home and think about for a few days or during the course of my exam itself where I measure some things.  Dr. Stephey: For example, how easily or how difficult it is for you to cross your two eyes. Because that allows us to strike up a conversation about the way your two eyes work together as a team. How, if we think about the two eyes is being global positioning satellites that have to be in synchronous orbit and if your two global positioning satellites are not in synchronous orbit, then your internal map quest is off. A couple of the other quick assessments that I do in my office, I've got a couple of devices that allow you to see, let's say a vertical line through your rigght eye and a horizontal line through your left eye. And if your brain is using your two eyes together as an integrated team, you should see a plus sign. Well some people look at these targets and only see one line.  Dr. Stephey: So that gives me an opportunity to demonstrate to them that that they weren't looking through one of their two eyes and that is a concept, I think you used the phrase earlier that blows their mind.  Tim Edwards: That was the first thing that blew my mind was, oh my gosh, how did that happen? How was it that I had been seeing this one line and not the other?  Dr. Stephey: Right. And what exactly do you mean that my brain isn't looking through my left eye? I thought our eyes just looked out in space, picked up information and filter it back to the brain that we then processed. Well, that is how most people think about vision, but remember the retina, which everybody's heard of, right? The retina is specialized brain tissue that's pushed out into the eyeball. And the optic nerve is one of the 12 cranial nerves that is a direct branch off of the brain.  Dr. Stephey: So to be very clear, the brain does the scene, not the eyes. And in this context, the brain has to pick up data from the right eye, has to correlate it with the data in the left eye and then combine the two in order to use the two eyes together as a well integrated team. But if there's too much conflict. And now that happens, oftentimes in fact I would argue that the smartest of brains, will figure it out how to turn one eye off because if you can't use your two eyes together as a well-integrated team, your brain's either going to use your two eyes together as a poorly integrated team and lend itself to you being physically clumsy or to have a lot of fatigue or get tired or sleepy when you're read or be prone to headaches or migraines. So the brain's thinking, well, I can use the two eyes together that way, but be miserable doing it.  Dr. Stephey: Or I can shut one eye off and test drive what's life like if I do that. And then what's really the most, I think one of the most fun things about that whole discussion is when I point out to the patient about their wiggley left foot or they're chewing on their lip and we'll do that same assessment again and I'll have them do whatever they're quirky behavior was and probably 95, 97, 99 times out of 100, when they do that kind of movement, their brain will turn that eye on and tend to keep it on. So then we have another blow my mind moment because you know, I convey to them it's like, are you beginning to understand that all that motor overflow that  you've been doing is actually trying to solve the vision problem you didn't know you had. I'm like, how smart is your brain that it has figured that out and you don't even know it.  Dr. Stephey: So I think in part that's how my practice is different. I'm assuming that you have this problem until you prove to me that you don't.  Tim Edwards: And I would venture to guess that the majority, if not every single person who's listening to this has never experienced that at their optometrist, unless of course they're already listening and they're clients of yours. Is this done elsewhere? The way you set up your practice.  Dr. Stephey: Interesting thing about that, Tim, is that optometrists, at least part of us have been doing this kind of work since the 1930s and it was likely more common in the 50s and 60s maybe up even until the mid to late 70s. And then optometry as a profession started to increase it's scope of practice and started to do more medical things, which is fine. I think we should be able to practice within our scope so we should embrace the things that we're trained to know how to do, but not abandon the things that have made optometry so unique in its history.  Dr. Stephey: And as more optometrists adopted the medical model, they moved away from this behavioral or this neuro-developmental model. So I would venture to say that there's maybe 10 or 15 percent of optometrists in practice today that practice in this way. But I wouldn't change it for the world. I've said this in other venues, being able to practice this way and change people's lives in the manner in which we can do this. It's chicken soup for my soul, so I get to feel great everyday about what I do because it is life changing. You bet, Tim. So as an example, you're going to learn in the future why 20/20 is not enough. It's important. But remember that third circle part of the venn diagram, 20/20 is not enough. There's a whole lot more going on. You're going to learn about a concept you've never heard before.  Dr. Stephey: Called the magnocellular visual system, which is about seeing fast.  Tim Edwards: Seeing fast.  Dr. Stephey: Seeing fast. People know that when they go to the eye doctor, it's about seeing 20/ 20, right?  Tim Edwards: That's what we're told.  Dr. Stephey: Well that's not enough. We also have to account for how fast or how slow we see. Because there are a number of patients, kids and adults alike who have been defined as having slow processing speed. What typically isn't getting discussed is what exactly are we referring to when kids have slow processing speeds. While invariably it's tied in to vision. Even though most psychologists and cognitive psychologists don't describe processing speed in vision terms in most cases, there is a tie into these visual skills. So we're going to talk about seeing fast or slow. We're going to talk about the volume of space that you can see. That's something else that doesn't get talked about a whole lot.  Dr. Stephey: Some people who exhibit inattentive tendencies essentially have tunnel vision. So imagine the cardboard tubes at the end of the paper towel roll, and if we took the two of those and glued them to the front of your eyes, and that's the volume of space you could see. Well your head's going to be on a swivel top because you only see that big volume of space. So in order to capture your environment, you have to look and take a snapshot of each picture. That's that tiny, and you effectively have to build a collage and your mind of all the snapshots that you've just taken in order to try to image then the volume of space that you're supposed to see. And similarly, in terms of the tunnel vision, oftentimes people do the same thing with auditory and touch. These are the kids as an example where you might say, Jimmy, Jimmy, Jimmy, because they have learned how to be auditory and attentive.  Dr. Stephey: They have hyperfocused to a task and tuned everything else out in order to be able to try and do the task at hand.  Tim Edwards: There is the listen part of Move Look Listen.  Dr. Stephey: Yup. And similarly, if you're somebody in their 60s and 70s, this becomes an issue when you drive. Because if you imagine again the paper towel tubes and you're looking straight ahead and that's the volume of space that you see and some kids playing in the yard and his ball rolls out in the street and you don't see them until he's right in front of you, that's not good. And when you can only function with a small volume of space, it also contributes to your clumsiness. These are the patients that have bruises from hip to ankle, from running into the corners of tables or chairs, they run into the edge of a door frame, they don't like driving in the car pool lane because the whizzing pass to their peripheral vision of the concrete dividers is too upsetting. So we're going to be talking about those things.  Tim Edwards: Boy, these are every day run of the mill tasks that we all have and without thinking of that volume. It's almost like tunnel vision and it just inhibits how we function.  Dr. Stephey: Yes, because your brain has to make a decision about the volume of space that you're going to attend to or can attend to, and the speed with which you do it. So you can either see big and slow, smaller and faster. And one patient said, well, what if I want to see big and fast anyway, even if I don't have the skills to do it?   Dr. Stephey: I said, well, you can force yourself to do that but then you will be tired and cranky at the end of the day.  Tim Edwards: It's exhausting, right.  Dr. Stephey: It is exhausting. You can do it, but there's going to be a price to pay and it's going to be exhausting. And when you're that exhausted, it's going to wear out your adrenal glands. It's going to have some role to play in chronic gut dysfunction and it's likely to play a role in headaches and that you're just fatigued all the time.  Tim Edwards: My gosh, it's foundational. It's just foundational and everything is connected. If you think about all of the different ailments and problems or struggles or anxiety or stress that can be a result of not seeing fast or having great volume with your vision.  Dr. Stephey: Well, what's interesting about that, Tim, because that ties right into the next topics which has to do with nutrition and fish oil. And I was just at a nutrition conference yesterday all day and during one of the breaks, one of the other attendees, we introduced ourselves and she's a chiropractor. And most people in this group, there were a number of chiropractors, some acupuncturists, there was one M.D., there was one pharmacist and me. And when I told her I was an optometrist, reflexively, she said, what are you doing here?  Tim Edwards: Yeah, why are you here?  Dr. Stephey: And we didn't have much time to talk about it, but clearly she had fallen into the trap of, well all someone would come to see you for is to be able to see 20/20. And then I just said, you know..  Tim Edwards: Send her a link to the podcast and then let her subscribe and then she'll understand.  Dr. Stephey: Yes. That's excellent. Well, you know, she did want my contact information. So I texted her.  Tim Edwards: Wonderful.  Dr. Stephey: I may follow up with her and say, hey, what's your email because I need to send you some stuff. And where are you located? Because you're an 818 area code. So you're, within striking distance to my office, you need to know what I know.  Tim Edwards: That's right.  Dr. Stephey: So further episodes we are going to talk about nutrition and vision because we cannot parse out our brain functioning abilities and the way our GI tract functions from these visual skills that are all happening in that third circle.  Dr. Stephey: So nutrition is a critical part of the way I practice this kind of optometry. It has to be.  Tim Edwards: And again, have never heard an optometrist say that, and it's foundational. I mean, it comes down to what we put in our body, how it affects everything, not just our weight.  Dr. Stephey: No. Every cell membrane in your body has a component of fatty acids to it as an example. And your body and brain is going to make those cell membranes out of good fats or bad fats. And the problem is that we're exposed to way too many bad fats. People have heard something about omega-3 fatty acids and omega-6 as well. We're going to talk about in more detail the differences between those two and the consequences to your brain and your visual skills and you're learning and attention. So those will be coming in future episodes.  Dr. Stephey: I'm going to be talking about something called retained primitive reflexes. Retained primitive reflexes have a foundational role to play in our abilities to develop our move, looking and listening abilities. So I've seen kids as an example who've done six, seven, 800 hours of occupational therapy and speech therapy and adaptive physical education services. They've been to reading tutors six to 800 hours.  Tim Edwards: My goodness. And I didn't hear vision therapy in there at all.  Dr. Stephey: No. And and they still have tremendously poor outcomes because I think most cases the visual skills are never assessed. So they're being jumped over and if you don't have these visual skills, you can't do those other outcomes in a way that you should be able to.  Tim Edwards: It's that key missing component.  Dr. Stephey: It's a key missing component. You know, at the bottom of my learning ladder, there's genetics and epigenetics, there's nutrition, then there's primitive reflexes. So it is really low down on the ladder and if you tried to jump over that and do things that are three or four rungs up the ladder, you're not going to have great outcomes.  Tim Edwards: Perfect example.  Dr. Stephey: And the sad thing about that discussion, which happens all too often, it's pretty much universal, is that you contribute to these kids misery because now there are six to seven out of eight hours in and not really getting better and it snuffs the spark of their really being interested in getting better because they increasingly don't believe they can. Because their life experiences would tell them, hey look, you're 700 hours into doing therapy, you're really not better than when we started. That is really sad.  Tim Edwards: It is very sad and expensive. I mean, of course it's more important that it's sad. But it's also quite expensive too.  Dr. Stephey: It is very expensive and it could be that the school district is paying for it. And in one of the upcoming episodes, we're going to talk about educational rights as it relates to your move, look and listening abilities.  Dr. Stephey: And you're going to learn a lot about what your rights really are as a parent. And how likely those rights have been violated even as we speak. So I think that's going to be one of the most exciting episodes for parents to hear. Parents, grandparents, and even some educators because if you're a classroom teacher who's, in the front lines, teaching these kids, those kids and their behaviors are disrupting the flow of your classroom. So you really want to know this information because it's going to make your life easier in the classroom. And ultimately it's going to affect that child's life who's in your classroom. If not during the year that you have them, certainly for the future.  Tim Edwards: And perhaps these educators with that knowledge can look upon those children with a lot more grace than they would before, knowing what they're going through.  Dr. Stephey: Well, I think they will. And another example of that, this past week I've had an opportunity to assess a 16-year-old. She's had an IEP for a number of years, has never had this vision assessment as is pretty much universally true. Let's be real. It's universally true. And she's currently kicked out of school because she's gotten in one too many fights at school. She's fairly disconnected when she's in class and I believe that it's primarily related to the problems that we're going to be talking about in these future episodes. It is a combination of nutrition and this vision piece. So she is perpetually in a constant state of fear that is beyond her control. I mean it's not surprising or would not be surprising to me that somebody brushes up against her in the hallway and she's ready to punch him in the face because she perceives that as a threat.  Dr. Stephey: And when, when you're pushed to be in survival based behavior, it's survival at all cost. So if somebody invades your personal space and touches you and you perceive it as a threat, you're going to fight back. So I think she's oftentimes swinging the first punch and doesn't even know it until after it's happened.  Tim Edwards: And others might look upon that as an offensive, aggressive behavior and it is. But the root of it is it's really defensive because of what's going on in her mind being in fear all the time.  Dr. Stephey: Absolutely. That's what's happening and I think that is in great part why she throws her hood up. When she's in class because she's trying to withdraw into her shell and not feel that miserable and not feel that anxious, not feel like I want to run out of the room screaming. I'm forced to be here, but the only way I can really survive this is to learn how not to pay attention.   Dr. Stephey: It is really sad and I was talking to her mom about this and you never know when you're going to strike the right chord because I was having a discussion with her mom about about this. Her being pushed to be in constant fear and I made the comment about how if you're in this state, if your autonomic nervous system is so dysregulated that you are in a constant state of fear that you could make eye contact with somebody across the room and be ready to go over and punch him because you perceive them looking at you as a glare. Right. It's like, why are you looking at me that way? Really? I'm just looking at you and then that turns into a confrontation and so her mom had mentioned to me that, that is exactly what happens to her. She misinterprets facial cues and that's going to tie into one of the future episodes as well. We're going to talk about something called the polyvagal theory of affect, emotion and self-regulation. And that if your autonomic nervous system is dysregulated that you are precluded or prevented from engaging in social behavior or at least positive social behavior. You may be engaged in negative social behavior and that's what's gotten her kicked out of school right now. So we're also going to be talking about learning disabilities and dyslexia because as an example, in my estimation, those are just labels.  Dr. Stephey: They don't really tell us anything. And when, when I meet somebody in my office and if it's a parent and they say, oh, my child has a learning disability or my child's dyslexic. I usually say, what do you mean by that?  Dr. Stephey: And then they look at me like, what do you mean, what do I mean? And I said, well, you're the one that threw out the term, I want to know what your understanding of that term actually means. And that's when they pause and they're like, I guess I don't really know what it means. I said, okay, well amuse me for a second. I'm going to rattle off some terms you tell me which of these terms you know could define and specifically how they apply to your child. Phonological processing, rapid naming speed, working memory, convergence insufficiency, vergence facility, accommodative facility, ocular motor skills, retained primitive reflexes, millisecond timing clock deficits, and your child's AA-EPA ratio as measured in their blood. And then I get that blank stare.  Dr. Stephey: They typically don't know any of these answers because nobody's sharing the information with them.  Tim Edwards: They were just labeled.  Dr. Stephey: They were just labeled. So you know, that's really the purpose of this first series of podcasts is that I want to broaden people's knowledge about what is out there. The labels don't mean anything, not really. Learning disability, dyslexia, reading disorder, dysgraphia, dyscalculia, ADHD, inattentive ADD. Those are just labels. They recognize the behaviors, but I want to go back to my holy bucket analogy, and assess why are you ending up with those behaviors. And how again, that ties into your abilities to move, look and listen. And shouldn't we be assessing for those skills and treating those skills because I don't care what your chronological age is. If there's a big gap between your developmental age and your chronological age related to your abilities to move, look and listen you're going to struggle.  Dr. Stephey: And that ties also into kids on the spectrum because you know when we go from however we define normal and we slide down the scale of behaviors while there is normal and then there's ADDness and ADHDness and then there's high functioning autism and asperger's, and nonverbal learning disabilities, and then there's more traditional spectrum kids that are not as high functioning and then there's kids who are nonverbal. All of this is on a continuum. So when I assess even a nonverbal child, I'm looking at their abilities to move, look and listen, and how those skills allow them to regulate their autonomic nervous system and engage their social behaviors to facilitate their ability to read gestural language and body language and facial expressions and think about that for a minute. Gestural language, body language and facial expressions all read through the visual system.  Tim Edwards: That's true. It's all absorbed through their eyes.  Dr. Stephey: It is, and most social psychologists would tell you that 80 percent of what somebody is telling you is through their body language, not the words coming out of their mouth. Because there's more messaging in the nonverbal cues. We're going to wrap up the first series with two different episodes. One is going to talk about brain injuries and alzheimer's and one is going to talk about headaches and migraines because both of those things have a tremendous visual overlay. For example, there's estimated to be 3 million sensory neurons that feed information to the brain through vision, auditory, taste, touch and smell. And of that 3 million nerve fibers, there's roughly 30,000 auditory nerve fibers per ear and roughly 1.2 million per eye. Almost two and a half of the 3 million sensory inputs to our brain and our brain's ability to experience our environment, are tied up in the visual system. And that goes directly in to the third circle of the venn diagram.  Tim Edwards: Wow, that's it. Move Look Listen with Dr. Stephey. You know you mentioned, you alluded to it earlier when we were going through some of the topics we're gonna cover in season one of the podcast, but I'd like for you to dive down just a little bit more to Dr. Stephey if you don't mind, into what it is in one statement, what it is you want to accomplish by producing and distributing this content through your Move Look Listen podcast.  Dr. Stephey: The purpose of my doing this podcast and how it relates to one's ability to move, look and listen, relates to your ability to function in life, your development of your sense of self, your place in this world, how you socially engage with others, your ability over your lifetime to receive further education, live independently, and have gainful employment. That's the purpose of Move Look & Listen.  Tim Edwards: Well, I can't wait to delve into season one with you, Dr. Stephey. This has been a long time coming and I do believe much needed information for anybody struggling with any of those issues that we've talked about here in our inaugural maiden voyage of the podcast. Thank you for your time and looking forward to season one with you Dr. Stephey.  Dr. Stephey: Thank you.  Tim Edwards: Thank you for listening to the Move Look & Listen Podcast with Dr. Doug Stephey brought to you by audible. Get a free audio book download and a 30 day free trial of audible membership at audibletrial.com/inbound. You'll find over 180,000 titles to choose from, including books mentioned here in the Move Look & Listen podcast. You can listen to these books through your iphone, your android, your kindle, your computer, or even an MP3 player. And if for any reason and at any time you choose to cancel your membership, you keep all of your audio book, downloads. Give it a shot for 30 days. You got nothing to lose. Support the Move Look & Listen podcast by visiting audibletrial.com/inbound. We will include a link for your convenience, in the show notes of this and every episode of the podcast. And of course if you like some more information regarding Dr. Stephey's practice or to make an appointment, we will include links in the show notes to Dr. Stephey's website and his youtube channel.  Tim Edwards: Dr. Stephey's website is stepheyoptometry.com. That's s t e p h e y optometry.com. You can also call the office at 626-332-4510. Again, all of Dr. Stephey's contact information will be included in the show notes of each and every episode. One last request before we let you go on to the next episode, please subscribe to the podcast from whichever platform you might be listening in. Of course, it is free to subscribe and it ensures that every time we post a new episode, you'll find it right there waiting for you to listen in your podcast app of choice. We really do appreciate your listening and until next time for Dr. Stephey of the Move Look & Listen podcast. I'm Tim Edwards with the Inbound Podcasting Network.    

Welcome to Tutoring for the Spirit with Nina Impala!  Join Nina  and her producer, Tim Edwards with The Inbound Podcasting Network for candid conversations regarding death.   In this inaugural episode, Nina shares her powerful, intuitive abilities that encourages guidance from the heart to assist her clients in getting through some of the toughest losses in life with a positive alternative to traditional counseling.  Follow Nina Tutoring For The Spirit Website: http://bit.ly/TutoringForTheSpiritWebsite Tutoring For The Spirit YouTube Channel: http://bit.ly/TutoringForTheSpirit_YouTube  Tutoring For The Spirit - Facebook: http://bit.ly/TutoringForTheSpirit_Facebook Tutoring For The Spirit Instagram: http://bit.ly/TutoringForTheSPirit_Instagram Nina Impala’s Book Available On Amazon Dearly Departed: What I Learned About Living from the Dying Losing someone we love is one of the most challenging, fearful, and heart-rending experiences we are ever likely to face, and it is also a very sacred and holy experience. How do we navigate such transitions with love and compassion for those we care for, while dealing with the inevitable maelstrom of emotions, thoughts, and feelings that are natural and inevitable? Drawing on her years of experience in spiritual healing, counseling and hospice care, Nina Impala shares stories of her experiences as a hospice volunteer and how those experiences prepared her for the final days of her own parents. Dearly Departed is about learning to see death and loss with the eyes of the heart instead of the eyes of the head to find peace, comfort, and hope for ourselves and those we love. Purchase Nina’s Book Here: http://bit.ly/DearlyDeparted_NinaImpala Tutoring For The Spirit  is brought to you in part by Audible.  Download a FREE audio-book and enjoy a 30-day free Audible membership trial at www.audibletrial.com/InBound (NEW AUDIBLE MEMBERS ONLY)  With Audible you will find over 180,000 titles to choose from and to listen to through your iPhone, Android, Kindle or mp3 player.  Support the Tutoring For The Spirit Podcast by visiting www.audibletrial.com/InBound If interested in producing a podcast of your own, like the Tutoring For The Spirit Podcast, contact Tim Edwards at Tim@InBoundPodcasting.com Follow Tim: InBound Podcasting & InBound Films Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/inboundcontentcreators  

Explore Enlighten Evolve  - Celebrating 2018 Join Sheila as she celebrates a year of podcasting in 2018 with her producer Tim Edwards of The InBound Podcasting Network, the one and only Lisa May of 95.5 KLOS and Kala Maxym of 5 Senses Tastings.  Kala created and presents a very special music and tasting story based on the Sound Mind & Body mantra – Explore Enlighten Evolve.  Listen to the extraordinary music and tasting that Kala procured as Sheila, Tim, Lisa and Kala reflect on the year and discuss the different ways they have explored, been enlightened and evolved. EXPLORE:  To seek out new experiences, information, and education with an open mind.  To get outside your comfort zone and try out new territories of mind, body and soul.  As Sheila says, “When I think of exploring I think of that feeling of excitement, and being a little scared when I’m trying something new.  That’s what I call those woo-woo moments.”  ENLIGHTEN: Through experiencing and learning, your mind, body and spirit are enlightened.  You discover new thoughts and feelings, new ideas and attitudes, and new places for you to shine.  The result of being enlightened is that you evolve. EVOLVE:  Sheila believes this is a life purpose to do her part to evolve in this lifetime, which in turn will help the entire human race evolve.  In order to evolve we must be open to explore and experience new things, new thoughts and new habits.  Through that we are enlightened and see our world differently.  We explored so many different topics during 2018 with all of our wonderful guests, what were some that resonated with you? The episode ends with a wonderful rendition of “Twas the Night Before Christmas” narrated by Sheila’s dad, Mike Melody aka Grampa Melody.   Happy Holidays to All!  Spotify – 5 Senses Tastings Sound Mind & Body Explore Enlighten Evolve  https://open.spotify.com/user/fivesensestastings/playlist/0gjlbGwTd2U1TanQZVj3sL?si=g-5UfTzlSXa6xH6-4kQt2Q http://www.fivesensestastings.com/ Check out our Sound Mind & Body YouTube Channel here: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC4EanYu-gJYsBydq-i4vz2Q Contact Sheila with what's the most Woo-Woo thing you've ever done by visiting www.soundmindbodypodcast.com Sound Mind & Body is brought to you in part by Audible.  Download a FREE audio-book and enjoy a 30-day free Audible membership trial at www.audibletrial.com/InBound (NEW AUDIBLE MEMBERS ONLY) At Audible, you will find over 180,000 titles to choose from and to listen to through your iPhone, Android, Kindle or mp3 player.  Support the Sound, Mind, & Body Podcast by visiting www.audibletrial.com/InBound If interested in producing a podcast of your own, like the Sound, Mind, & Body Podcast, contact Tim Edwards at Tim@InBoundPodcasting.com  

Dr. Stephey welcomes Celeste Palmer to the Move Look & Listen Podcast. Celeste is a brain injury survivor and the founder of Bridging the Gap, a traumatic brain injury support group & resource network. With roughly 1.2 million optic nerve neurons per eye, there's almost no who escaping the negative visual consequences when suffering from a brain injury. Dr. Stephey and Celeste discuss how memory, gait, balance, risk-of-fall injury, motion sickness, headache, dizziness, speech perception, visual motor integration, etc. are affected in traumatic brain injuries.  Bridging the Gap - Connecting Tramatic Brain Injury Survivors: http://tbibridge.org Douglas W. Stephey, O.D., M.S. 208 West Badillo St Covina, CA 91723 Phone: 626-332-4510 Website: http://bit.ly/DouglasWStephey Website Videos: http://bit.ly/DrStepheyOptometryVideos The Move Look & Listen Podcast is brought to you in part, by Audible - get a FREE audiobook download and 30-day free trial at www.audibletrial.com/InBound If interested in producing a podcast of your own, like the Move Look & Listen Podcast, contact Tim Edwards at tim@InBoundPodcasting.com or visit www.InBoundPodcasting.com   Transcription Below: Tim Edwards: The Move Look & Listen Podcast with Dr. Doug Stephey is brought to you by audible. Get a free audio book download and a 30 day free trial audible membership at audibletrial.com/inbound. You'll find over 180,000 titles to choose from, including several books mentioned here in the podcast. Support the Move Look & Listen Podcast by visiting audibletrial.com/inbound.  Dr. Stephey: If our two eyes are not working together well as a fast synchronized team, our internal mapquest continues to be off. It's consistently inconsistent with our ability to judge time and space. Those that don't feel well-grounded, those that have some measure of anxiety, oftentimes it starts in the visual system. If you can't move, look and listen in a fast, accurate, effortless, sustainable, age appropriate, meaningful way, you're in a world of hurt. There's a whole world in vision and how it affects brain function that no one's ever shared with you. 20/20 is perceived as a holy grail of going to the eye doctor. Well, I'm here to change that paradigm.  Tim Edwards: This is episode number nine of the Move Look & Listen podcast with Dr Doug Stephey. I'm Tim Edwards with the Inbound Podcasting Network. And today Dr. Stephy, this is exciting. We have our very first guest ever in this podcast and I have to say you've chosen a really great one to join us today.  Dr. Stephey: That's fantastic. I'm glad Celeste is here.  Tim Edwards: We're welcoming Celeste Palmer, the founder of Bridging the Gap and a traumatic brain injury survivor. And we're going to talk about what you do at your practice, Dr. Stephey in helping people that have suffered a traumatic brain injury. One of which of course is our very own guest, Celeste Palmer. Celeste, thank you for joining us today.  Celeste Palmer: Oh, well thank you guys. I'm really happy to be here.  Tim Edwards: Now, Celeste, if you wouldn't mind before we get started, I want to introduce our audience to you and let them know your story. You and I had a wonderful conversation a couple of weeks ago and you explained what happened to you and how you have bounced back with flying colors certainly so and to influence the lives of many of those who are benefiting from Bridging the Gap. So please start with your story. Celeste, if you wouldn't mind.  Celeste Palmer: Well, as I've been told my story is that I was in a near fatal car accident on May 1st 2000. And from that it was a retrograde and an antegrade amnesia. So the first 50 years of my life, I don't know, I've been told about them kind of scheduling. And the main thing is that I decided to start over. And to make a new Celeste and in the process of creating that, I've had the wonderful opportunity to meet and know a whole community of people and experiences that have turned out to be just amazing. From Peter Drucker at the Drucker School at Claremont Graduate University to numerous hospitals, rehab hospitals, organizations like the university and, and other schools. And so, that brings us forward to last summer. I believe it was when I met Dr. Stephey and through another one of our participants in a support group and said, "oh my gosh, this is timely." Because I had had vision therapy years ago after the accident because yes, it isn't about being 20/20. It's about being able to see and get your balance back and be able to walk without walking into things. And so it was absolutely amazing to have Kim introduce us and be able to then have someone to talk to and not only talk to, but to have him listen.  Tim Edwards: Have him listen, yeah. That's one of the things that certainly separates Dr. Stephey from, from the rest, for sure. Celeste, you said something that really struck me when you said, from what I've been told, I've suffered a traumatic brain injury. So you're telling us you have absolutely zero memory of the first 50 years of your life.  Celeste Palmer: Right.  Tim Edwards: And if that is not the epitome of reinventing oneself, I don't know what is. I can't even imagine having to relearn everything. And is that the truth? Literally relearning how to move your body, how to speak? Tell me how that worked.  Celeste Palmer: Well, when you're asked if you're in pain, you have nothing to compare it to. So the initial experience was I couldn't answer the questions. The first neurological evaluation you get is, you know, who's the president? Do you know where you are? Questions like that. And I didn't answer them according to the initial first responders, doctors at emergency and things like that. So it was pretty clear from their reports that I really didn't know what it was to be human and I didn't recognize my son when he was brought to the hospital. There were bits and pieces of information, but nothing that really stayed for any length of time or really was the glue of history. But the body and the brain hold muscle memory, I'll call it. So there was 50 years of learning that was in the muscle, bones, tissues that make up the human body. And I think that is what continued on. And so as people told me things, as I started, you know, walking. The fact that I couldn't get through a normal doorway made me think that I was huge. That I couldn't fit through the doorway then to come to find out that that had to do with how the eyes, we're not working with the brain the way they used to and things like that. So, fascinating. Tim Edwards: It is fascinating and an amazing journey of which you've been on. And you've discussed briefly about that journey on how you and Dr. Stephey intersected. So Dr. Stephey, if you wouldn't mind joining the conversation now. Letting us know what your thoughts were when you first met Celeste and what you did for her.  Dr. Stephey: One of the most striking things for me is, here we are in 2018 and yet the brain injury community through absolutely no fault of their own, don't know that optometrist like me exist. And part of the reason it seems is that we seem to have an identity problem in getting our message out there. And it's not from lack of trying. I don't know exactly what the obstacles are. I have a feeling I have some idea and some idea is that I almost get the impression that parts of the rehab community doesn't want to know that we exist or doesn't believe that what we do is as powerful as it is. I know, when I first met the member that introduced Celeste and I, and I told you this story a couple of weeks ago. She's been riding horses most of her life and suffered a brain injury herself 12 or 13 years ago, had done lots of rehabilitative therapies but not vision therapy. Came and started to do some work with us and it changed the relationship that she had with her horse. That really had been disrupted and I think was a significant social bond that had been severed. And so it was a powerful testimony to the work that we do and the way it can change people's lives in ways that it's easy to lose track of and not understand. So when I had the opportunity to meet Celeste, not only was I grateful for that opportunity just because of her own history, but it allowed this forum where she's got this support group and they were gracious enough to, for the first time, invite me in September of 2017 to come out and do a talk to the group. And Celeste had got the word out and I can't remember for sure. Maybe there was 12 or 15 people that were there. I think the message that I was conveying resonated with the group and then they invited me to come back again. I think it was in October and then the word spread further and there might've been 25 people that showed up at the second meeting and then they've been kind enough to invite me out a third time and hopefully in the next month or two I'm going out on for a fourth time.  Tim Edwards: Wonderful.  Dr. Stephey: Because the, so the forum that Celeste has created, it's a powerful tool. Because it's an opportunity to spread a message through the people that need it the most. And yet it's a message that has not been heard very frequently or very loudly or not often enough.  Tim Edwards: Well certainly a little bit later on the episode, Celeste, we're going to talk about Bridging the Gap. This wonderful support group that you've created that connects traumatic brain injury survivors. And let's go back to your story now. Celeste, if we could and tell us about your meeting with Dr. Stephey and what he did to help you on your road to recovery.  Celeste Palmer: The main thing I want to say about Dr. Stephey is that when you have someone who is making a change that rapidly, whether it's putting on tinted lenses or putting on the prism lenses and there's a change in how you can walk down a hallway without bumping into walls or just the fact that standing in place is not so riotous and, and you can actually think about looking at a picture and, and observing your surroundings rather than am I going to fall down? It was pretty significant. Tim Edwards: After how many visits with Dr. Stephey did you notice that difference?  Celeste Palmer: Oh, immediate. Tim Edwards: Immediate.  Dr. Stephey: Well, I think there was some change on the very first visit.  Celeste Palmer: Yes. Yes.   Dr. Stephey: The power of lenses should not be underestimated. You know, most people who know anything about the eye care community has the idea of you get lenses to see 20/20. What most people have no sensitivity to is the role that vision plays in our balance, in our gait, in our posture. One of the things that struck me with Celeste, and this wasn't initially. We had done some work together. I had prescribed her lenses with color in prism and they did provide her some level of relief. And then several weeks might have gone by. I don't remember the exact timeline, but I do remember she said, Doug, you know, I think things have changed again. Okay. Tell me more about that story and let me contemplate what we're going to try differently, and one of the memories I have. This is from several months ago, we were in the hallway and Celeste had made a comment to me about how I believe the left side of her body felt numb, including her fingertips. And I took the smallest lens change that I can make. It wasn't color, it wasn't prism. When you think about farsightedness and nearsightedness, farsightedness has to do with plus lenses. Nearsightedness with minus lenses, and then there's the word astigmatism, which is a whole different thing. But I took a plus, 1/8 of a diopter Lens. The smallest change that I could make and put it over her left eye and she could feel their fingertips when she wrote, when she rubbed them together.  Tim Edwards: That's amazing. That's amazing. Wow. I mean having. Really, it seems like such a simple solution, not to demean or devalue what you do, but it seems like it's such a simple solution that how many thousands of people are not coming to see someone like you to fix that problem. Going to neurologists or some other type of medical professional and the thousands of dollars and time and wasted time and money is spent.  Celeste Palmer: Sorry to interrupt, but the thing is that I've gone through 18 years now of seeing different levels of the medical community trying to help people in my situation and personally to go through nerve conduction studies and all these other things, you know, with people from their expertise trying to help and finding that they had to say we've done everything we can. So you're stable at the level you're at. Not meaning I was getting better or worse, but I was stable at the level I was at. Until well in back, what was it 12, 15 years ago I went through vision therapy with somebody in Texas who did similar to what Dr. Stephey does. It's been a long time since then and obviously technology is, has done amazing things as well and he stays current with what's available and so it is amazing the things that he has done that well I watched him do with others at support group where I have him bring his bag of magic tricks to support groups. So that he tries different things on different individuals and you see somebody coming in and doing the duck walk and he puts blue lenses on them and they walk across the room for the first time in front of a friend in a normal walk with his hands at his sides and his friend says, I haven't seen that in three years.  Tim Edwards: Wow. Yeah. You know, Dr. Stephey, we've mentioned several times in this podcast that I've produced several videos for you and some of the videos that we have not yet released that you have showed me through the permission of your patients, were something you see like if you were back in the old days,when you watch TV and they'd hold their hand over their head and they'd say you are healed and they get up and walk. You know, these videos you showed me where people walking on beams and they couldn't. And then you'd show me a video a moment later with a pair of lenses on and they're walking the beam without falling off.  Tim Edwards: It's, oh, I can't wait to show those videos. Absolute proof of what you do and how you adjust their lives by a simple adjustment in their lenses.  Dr. Stephey: And on a similar note, one of the reasons that I think this community of brain injury survivors is getting short changed is because medicine looks at them and says, well, there's nothing wrong with you because you look normal. And yet, when patients got a pounding migraine most days or they sit in the reception area in my office and the cars drive by on the street outside my office and they double over in pain because they are so sound sensitive, those kinds of outcomes don't show up on medical imaging.  Dr. Stephey: Right, it's not going to show up on a cat scan or an MRI. And I'm telling you, these patients' lives are being discounted because of that, and of course invariably when you still complain about the panning headache that you have or that you can't fit through the door because your body feels too big. Or you've got numbness in one side of your body. Or you're so sound sensitive that a whisper sounds like a Jackhammer in your brain when medicine doesn't understand that and ultimately just discounts that, the end game at that point is when medicine says, you know what, you need to go see the psychiatrist because you're just making this up now. I mean, that happens when somebody goes to qualify for a permanent disability and those kinds of behaviors are getting discounted. It's extraordinarily frustrating for me to hear these stories and I'm not living it every day. I kind of live vicariously through the patient's lives that I have the opportunity to see. And I think it's in great part why I do what I do. Why I listen to patients when they come and why we experiment with different lenses and different colors and different kinds of therapies. Because at the end of the day, if I don't share this information, I've had the opportunity to learn. I don't feel like I'm doing my job every day like I'm supposed to. And that's clear in the reception that I've had when I come to the support meetings and feel the gratefulness of me coming and practicing this way and simply spend time listening to what patients are telling me and then trying to come up with a solution. And you know, I think sometimes a great part of the benefit is just that we've got somebody in healthcare who's taking the time to listen.  And that's, I think, very validating for patients who have been trying for years and years and years to get someone to listen and try and help and they get pushed to the side and discounted. It's so wrong.  Tim Edwards: Well, I can also can't even imagine though, until I met you that somebody with a traumatic brain injury would even consider or think about or the thought entered their mind that they need to go see an optometrist to help them function better when really it's a weird connect, right? I mean it's kind of strange. But then, you know, you showed me the videos and we've interviewed people. And Celeste, you're joining us now of course. And the connection is quite clear. And Celeste, are you seeing that from some of the members of Bridging the Gap too? That have used some of Dr. Stephey's methods to help them function and live a happier, healthier life?  Celeste Palmer: Oh definitely. Definitely. We have, we have several that are already seeing him. We have several more that have just haven't met him yet. That's why we keep having him come back because we have people come through that are just hearing about the voodoo doctor. The magician and want to see. So even if he's coming to talk about a different subject, I have him bring his bag of tricks because there are those that haven't met. It would do them well to see the kinds of things he's offered to many of us. And the thing is he does extend, you know, have them come on over for 15 minutes off their insurance or whatever else. Or to deal with the other issues that we're dealing with. The frustration of trying to deal with the denials at insurance level. And to go the extra mile for us to get that coverage that is included back on, on, on deck. So it is a matter of understanding the, not just the vision frustration we're having because you can be told by an optometrist, well here's your 20/20 vision, but, and go home and get used to wearing these 20/20 vision glasses and still not be able to see even after months. So obviously the issue isn't entirely with the eyes being able to see with 20/20 vision. But it is the fact that the eyes aren't tracking together. The other issues that come with it, the as you mentioned before, we have sound and light sensitivity that's involved so, you know, although the eyes are so predominantly affected, hearing can be as well. And so it's, it's amazing the different aspects and watching. Well I think he was, I think he was being humble because I think we had one meeting where word had gotten out about the vision doctor. We had 45 people in the room. So yeah, he was, he was well, well received and, and folks wondering, well how do you do this and how is it that you do it, other people don't. So the questions that evening were really significant.  Tim Edwards: Well, a question I probably should have asked at the beginning of the episode is, you were talking about traumatic brain injury survivor. And that seems like a pretty broad stroke. So for our friends on other side of the speakers listening, tell us about the type of brain injuries that you can help Dr. Stephey. I mean, is this across the board? Anybody that's, I mean we're talking a concussion, yes? I would assume. But from a concussion up to what point? Is there a scale, a spectrum?  Dr. Stephey: I would say that there really is no upper end to that limit. So I'm going to say that we have the potential to help all brain injured patients. Doesn't make a difference if he had a brain injury from a car accident, a motorcycle accident, a fall, and a stroke, a concussion, repeated concussions, it doesn't make a difference. And what I would have the listeners know if they know somebody who's had any sort of a brain injury, whether it's mild or significant, almost all patients who've had a brain injury have some sort of visual consequence to it.  Tim Edwards: Dr. Stephey, you shared a story with me, I don't know, six months ago or so that really resonated. And if you wouldn't mind sharing that with us here today, and the story is about a gentleman who had suffered several concussions and as a result of those concussions, had some behavioral shifts. And those behavioral shifts lean towards a form of violence or agitation, strong agitation.    Tim Edwards: And through either vision therapy or lenses, he was able to squelch that to some degree. That's my remembrance of your story. Please tell me, I'm not sure how accurate I am.   Dr. Stephey: No, I think that's a reasonable description of what has happened. So, this is a patient who's had multiple concussions over his lifetime and repeated concussions. Right. There's an increase in risk of longterm consequences to it. And one of those consequences is to feel like you spend most days walking around on your last nerve. And so the slightest of things can just completely pushed you over the cliff. And the more I contemplate about this, the more I believe that's likely connected into this Polyvagal Theory of affect, emotion and self-regulation. And the Polyvagal Theory tied into the 10th cranial nerve or the vagus nerve. And vagal nerve tone, and how it contributes to your ability to correctly read and interpret gestural language, including facial expressions and the vagal nerve tone also facilitates your ability to read intent correctly in somebody's voice. So if you have a vagal nerve dysfunction, we'll just, we'll use that term right now.  If you've got vagal nerve dysfunction, you might glance at me across a room and think that I'm like staring you down. And all I did was make eye contact for a half a millisecond, right? Or, I might say something like, you know, hi, how you doing today? And you're like, what? How am I doing today? Like, what are you talking about?  Tim Edwards: You talking to me?  Dr. Stephey: Yeah, you're talking to me. So it's, striking the power of lenses in vision therapy to help reset that vagal nerve tone. That's what I think is happening. I don't know if I, I don't know if anybody right now is clear on the exact neurology, but that's the model and the theory of what I've learned to date that makes the most sense to me. I had a similar situation recently where somebody was complaining about the tinnitus or the ringing in the ears that was so severe for them. And I think that there may have been a recommendation to do surgery to try to reduce this ringing in her ears. And I said, let me pull up my bag of magic tricks and let's put some lenses on you and you tell me if that makes a difference. And she's like, it's dropped by 80 percent.  Tim Edwards: Wow.  Dr. Stephey: Like hitting the light switch. Now again, do I know the exact neurology of that? I have a couple of theories about it, but I don't know. And at the end of the day, would I like to know the neurology? I would love to know that. But does it diminish in any way the clinical effect of, I put the lenses on her and her tinnitus has dropped by 80 or 90 percent and I take it back off and it comes rushing back? No, I mean I don't need an experiment of 100 people at that point. If it changes your quality of life, do you care if there's some experiment or some article that's been published?  Tim Edwards: Especially one would not care because no medication is being consumed either. You know. There's no side effects.   Dr. Stephey: There's no medication, there's no surgery.   Tim Edwards: Right. It's just a pair of glasses.   Dr. Stephey: You're going to tell me I got to wear these purple glasses around. No, I'm not telling you anything. I'm telling you if you want to walk around and see and feel better then you probably should do that.   Tim Edwards: Not to mention look like a rockstar too with the cool purple lenses too, right?  Yes. Celeste Palmer: And I'm not walking around with the purple shoulder because I'm running into the door. Tim Edwards: Well put. That's right.  Dr. Stephey: That's a good one.  Tim Edwards: That's the line of the day, Celeste.  Celeste Palmer: It's all about, you know knowing where you are in your environment. And what that difference is to us. So the frustration, the anger that you're talking about with one person, yeah, it's very prevalent in our community. And we recognize it in each other. We recognize it in ourselves and not being able to do something about it without being told, oh, well you're anxious, so we'll give you a pill. You're either depressed we'll give you a pill. But to recognize that you put on these wonderful colored lenses and find out that all of a sudden the world is at peace around you when it wasn't and whether that's through the tinnitus, the sounds of things that they glare at lights. Just that there is a calm place to live without having to go through pills and the balance of, of going through what dosage works and everything.  It's just that moment. And so harking back to what we said earlier that you know, how fast after going into his office. Well, it was as quick as he said, okay, let's try these lenses. And yes, it is extremely, well it's why I had to invite him to the support group because we had caregivers as well as family members as well as survivors in there and family members and caregivers were thrilled to see their loved ones that were survivors of stroke or a concussion or experiencing PTSD, all of a sudden find a place for a few seconds even that was a much calmer place to be in that meeting. And, and already in a support group, you're in a safe place to discuss the things that are, you're having difficulty with. So on top of that, to find that with Dr. Stephey they're talking about, he was talking about explaining what we were going to be experiencing and then to all of a sudden have the magic glasses on and have that improvement of just your sense of well-being was pretty amazing.  Celeste Palmer: So you know, something else that Dr. Stephey has done for many in our group is the frustration with insurance companies denying their claims. And the fact that he is, has been willing to go the extra mile for those folks that, once you have that frustration and you try as a person already dealing with a situation like a TBI from concussion or stroke or whatever, and trying to make sense out of going after, getting your denial handled so that you can go to a doctor and get the help you need. He's gone ahead and gone to the insurance companies. He's gone ahead and stood up for us in order to get that waived  and make sure that they understand. I love the fact that when I first had my opportunity to talk to the membership services at my insurance, that what they said was well, his letter that went to them said, okay, here's what my patient needs.  Celeste Palmer: Here's what I can do for therapy for them. Here's the treatment and the bottom half of the letter was, you're going to deny this. So by the way, here's the next step. And they immediately said, okay, so that part's done. So we're going to go ahead and let you go ahead and be treated by Dr. Stephey. And that was so proactive compared to what other doctors are doing and so I can already say what goes in group that are saying, gosh, he's saying that he can help me and I can see that he can help me. So he could go ahead and with that first letter have two steps in to getting into his office and getting the treatment they need. And that was number one, the best thing. The second part was that we were finding that there are some insurance companies out there that weren't going ahead with the basic things that say Medicare approves, and he was taking that extra step and getting the federal administrative judge to approve and, and make them do what they should do by law. So to actually go that far, to stay on the phone with a frustrating process that his patients can't do because of their situation. I mean, if you have a brain injury and you're trying to make sense out of what they're saying to you, it doesn't make sense even more. Plus, it can be a trigger for those things that you're already dealing with, with a brain injury.  Celeste Palmer: So I don't have all the words, I guess right now. But to say it the most simple way, but that's part of what's wrong is that it's just the wrong thing is to ask a brain injured person to follow through with insurance companies who are there to make sure that they don't have to do what they should be doing. And here was Dr. Stephey stepping in to say, oh, I'll just go ahead and make this call to an insurance company. And then to another insurance company and at a different level take it that extra step. And he did that. So that's pretty amazing for a provider to go ahead and say, let's make this happen and since I can't make it happen overnight, I'm going to go ahead and see some patients that obviously are going to benefit right now by seeing coming to the office and getting some help.  Dr. Stephey: So in a nutshell, here's, the insurance issues and there's kind of a flow chart of things. So the first question to be asked is, is this insurance code for vision therapy, a covered benefit? And that's a yes or no question. If you have a medical plan where this code typically nine, two, zero, six, five, it's one of the insurance codes. If you're a medical plan says, well no, that's a specific exclusion in your plan. You're probably not going to win on appeal. It doesn't mean that we shouldn't try, but it's harder to do. But I'll take Medicare as an example. Medicare covers the nine, two, zero, six, five code. But if you have a Medicare HMO, you don't have the same freedom to see who you want to see. So you're confined to your medical group network. If you've got a Medicare HMO, I will write a treatment authorization request letter on your behalf.  Dr. Stephey: Here's the patient, here's the findings, here's how it's showing up in their real life. Here's the treatment plan. If you don't have an in network doctor that does this work, I'm happy to provide the care on this patient's behalf. Send me a contract and let's move on. Now I know that medical groups don't have anybody like me in their network. But they don't know that yet or they don't want to know that because the doctors that owned that medical group, if they don't have a contract, a doctor already in network, the doctors that's on the medical group have to pull out their wallet and pay me to do this work. With a premium dollars that the patient has put in their wallet. So it's really the patients money to start with, right? It's not the doctors' money, it's the patients' money, but I'm telling you this is a monster problem and it's true.  Dr. Stephey: Most doctors would just go, oh your medical group said no. If you want this help, I'm happy to provide them for you and it's going to cost you x number of dollars over the next number of months. And of course if you're a brain injury sufferer, you don't have a lot of money. So I've decided that I need to step up my advocacy game and try to push this through and get this changed and let me tell you it's not easy. And there's one patient specifically that I met in September, the first time it came and spoke to the group, I wrote to her medical group. She has a Medicare HMO. They denied her care. They sent her to somebody in network that doesn't do this therapy. I followed up with a letter to the medical group and said, where you sent her was inappropriate.  Dr. Stephey: So I want you to reverse that denial and allow her to come and see me. The medical group said no again, but this time they said, well, it's not because you're out of network that they've denied care. It's because her blue shield insurance said that this is not a covered benefit. So I wrote to Blue Shield and said, what the heck? This is a covered benefit by Medicare. You have to step up your game and provide the same things that Medicare does. Blue Shield said,no, we're not going to. I said, fine. Then I will appeal it to an independent third party who I've dealt with before and they're useless. I'm telling you this third party, I don't even know why they exist, so I knew the third party was going to be a continued denial, but that's the game and I said I'm going to see this out, so appeal to the third party, the third party without really any investigation of their own, sided with Blue Shield and said we uphold their denial and I said, okay, what's the next level of appeal?  Dr. Stephey: And they said, well, you can appeal it to a federal judge with the Office of administrative hearings for Medicare. Great. Sign me up. That's what we're going to do next then. Now mind you, this started in September and I had the phone call with the federal judge and Blue Shield in late March and so the judge and the Blue Shield representative and I are on the telephone and I explained my situation. Judge this is a covered code as an in network regular medicare provider. I build this code all the time. Medicare covers it. I've had other Medicare HMOs cover the code. I don't understand what blue shield is saying. And the judge says to the Blue Shield Rep, so what do you have to say? And the Blue Shield rep says, well, you know, judge, we've looked it, we just can't find anything in Medicare laws that says this is a covered benefit.  Dr. Stephey: And that's what I did to him. I shut my head. I'm like, what are you talking about? I, I said, judge, you want me to get you paperwork from Medicare? I'll do it. She said, I'm going to leave the case open for three weeks because I'm going to go on vacation. I said, I will have you information for Medicare before the day is out. And she said, great. I got all my Medicare stuff together. I faxed it to her and the Blue Shield people about an hour after we had the phone call, it took another six weeks for the judge to finally find in favor of the patient and said, Blue Shield you're misinterpreting Medicare law. You're going to approve this therapy. So this can be done. And my mission, it's a slow process, but my mission is to make these Medicare HMOs and the medical groups raise their game. Because these are people that are suffering every day, get no help when actually help is here and it's available and it's benefits that are covered by Medicare and they're still getting denied care and that's just wrong.  Celeste Palmer: We don't want this to be on the 6:00 news as a news flash. We want this to be common knowledge that doctors like Dr. Stephey are out there and it's not news. It is something that is when you need it, you go to that person and, there's the help. You know, this isn't, this needs to become common knowledge and, that's why I'm doing this. That's why we put it on the website, our website. That's why we have this support group to get the word out there any way that we can.  Tim Edwards: Well that of course is a beautiful, wonderful segue too, if you wouldn't mind, Celeste. Tell us a little bit more about Bridging the Gap, connecting traumatic brain injury survivors. You just kind of did a little bit with the type of people that have suffered various forms of brain injuries, but tell us what to say. Say Somebody is listening and they have themselves suffered or someone in their family or a friend that they know. How could they benefit by joining your support group other than what you've already told us here in this episode?  Celeste Palmer: Well, when I was going through this, I had several people, including the folks at the university, Peter F. drucker and his wife Doris were calling me the wonder woman. And I thought, well, I don't know any other way to be other than I could hide under the quilts, but instead I was researching trying to find my own help because I was told by some of the greatest neurosurgeons in the area that they were learning more from me than they could really help with diagnoses and how to recover from what had happened to me in a near fatal car accident. So, all of the research I was doing though, my friends were finding out that some could help me. But 98 percent was for somebody else, some other recovery, and they said, well don't lose that research, put it on a website, become a nonprofit.  Celeste Palmer: And I said, I'll find a nonprofit that I can help. It sounds like too much work. Nope, nobody else was doing it to the degree they are today. So the growth of this thing after starting Bridging the Gap, which is tbibridge.org, is to have a bunch of resources for folks that have been tried and proved that they work and to have the interviews and talks that we have and the books and the movies and videos that we've seen a place to go and find those things to help others. Because it's difficult to find obviously Dr. Stephey and others who are a benefit to, to all of us and all the different areas of recovery. What works for one won't work for another because every brain injury is different. So every recovery has to be unique.  Tim Edwards: Well, you're unique. And this is a wonderful resource for those that have suffered a brain injury. And we invite everybody to go visit a tbibridge.org. If you know somebody who has suffered a brain injury, we will of course have the links on the show notes. And Celeste, you have been a delight to join us today. Thank you so much for your time and being with us here in the Move Look & Listen podcast.  Celeste Palmer: Well thank you so much and thank you Dr. Stephey every time.  Dr. Stephey: Thank you.  Tim Edwards: Thank you for listening to the Move Look & Listen Podcast with Dr. Doug Stephey brought to you by audible. Get a free audio book download and a 30 day free trial of audible membership at audibletrial.com/inbound. You'll find over 180,000 titles to choose from, including books mentioned here in the Move Look & Listen podcasts. You can listen to these books through your iphone, your android, your kindle, your computer, or even an MP3 player. And if for any reason and at any time you choose to cancel your membership, you keep all of your audio book, downloads. Give it a shot for 30 days. You got nothing to lose. Support the Move Look & Listen podcast by visiting audibletrial.com/inbound. We will include a link for your convenience, in the show notes of this and every episode of the podcast. And of course if you like some more information regarding Dr. Stephey's practice or to make an appointment, we will include links in the show notes to Dr. Stephey's website and his youtube channel.  Tim Edwards: Dr. Stephey's website is stepheyoptometry.com. That's s t e p h e y optometry.com. You can also call the office at 626-332-4510. Again, all of Dr. Stephey's contact information will be included in the show notes of each and every episode. One last request before we let you go on to the next episode, please subscribe to the podcast from whichever platform you might be listening in. Of course, it is free to subscribe and it ensures that every time we post a new episode, you'll find it right there waiting for you to listen in your podcast app of choice. We really do appreciate your listening and until next time for Dr. Stephey of the Move Look & Listen podcast. I'm Tim Edwards with the Inbound Podcasting Network.          

Did you know that both good and bad fats play a huge role in the development of your visual system and brain? Douglas W. Stephey, O.D., M.S discusses the power fish oil supplements have in changing the course of inflammation in our body and brain. The arachidonic (pro-inflammatory) and eicosapentaenoic (anti-inflammatory) acid levels will be discussed: how to measure them and how to reverse this ratio when elevated. Douglas W. Stephey, O.D., M.S. 208 West Badillo St Covina, CA 91723 Phone: 626-332-4510 Website: http://bit.ly/DouglasWStephey Website Videos: http://bit.ly/DrStepheyOptometryVideos The Move Look & Listen Podcast is brought to you in part, by Audible - get a FREE audiobook download and 30-day free trial at www.audibletrial.com/InBound If interested in producing a podcast of your own, like the Move Look & Listen Podcast, contact Tim Edwards at tim@InBoundPodcasting.com or visit www.InBoundPodcasting.com Transcription Below Tim Edwards: The Move Look and Listen Podcast with Dr. Doug Stephey is brought to you by audible. Get a free audio book download and a 30 day free trial audible membership www.audibletrial.com/inbound. You'll find over 180,000 titles to choose from, including several books mentioned here in the podcast. Support the Move Look & Listen Podcast by visiting www.audibletrial.com/inbound.  Dr. Stephey: If our two eyes are not working together well as a fast synchronized team, our internal mapquest continues to be off. It's consistently inconsistent with our ability to judge time and space. Those that don't feel well-grounded, those that have some measure of anxiety, oftentimes it starts in the visual system. If you can't move, look and listen in a fast, accurate, effortless, sustainable, age appropriate, meaningful way, you're in a world of hurt. There's a whole world in vision and how it affects brain function that no one's ever shared with you. 20/20 is perceived as a holy grail of going to the eye doctor. Well, I'm here to change that paradigm.  Tim Edwards: This is episode eight of the Move Look and Listen, Podcast with Dr Doug. Stephey. You know, we've talked about a lot of things in this podcast, Dr. Stephey and today we're going to tie in vision and nutrition. So for those that maybe have just stumbled across Apple Podcasts or whatever platform they're listening to their podcast, they're probably wondering, what in the heck do these two have in common? And you've alluded to them several times. You've more than alluded, you've discussed them in detail in several previous episodes. But today we're going into fish oil, right? How fish oil, in particular, or omega-3's can help  your vision and other aspects of your being.  Dr. Stephey: Yeah, that's right Tim. So let's launch off into this. omega-3's, they are a big deal. There's one theory about human development that goes back, what, 20, 30, 40,000 or so years.   There's one theory that says that when humans started eating the seafood diet, the size of our brain exploded in size. Arguably that's the theory of human development. There's two theories that I've heard about why we have the brains that we do today. One is the amount of mega three fatty acids that we used to eat and the other was man's ability to use tools. Because using tools requires a concept called motor planning and motor sequencing, which ties to that millisecond timing clock that we were talking about last episode. But motor planning and sequencing, it is a platform for speech and language and eye movement control and auditory processing and cognitive abilities. All starting through motor planning and motor sequencing. So omega-3's, as people may or may not know, is the long chain fatty acid associated with fish oil and there's a ratio called the AA to EPA ratio, arachidonic acid to eicosapentaenoic acid levels. And the phenomenal thing about this ratio is that very few physicians actually seem to know or talk about it. And I tell you that because I was in to see my family physician a few weeks ago who didn't seem to know a lot about the AA/EPA ratio .  Dr. Stephey: I have a couple of brain injury recovery patients in my practice who have gone back and asked their neuro rehab doctors about this ratio. They didn't seem to know anything about it. Another patient of mine had a stroke last summer. She's in her late forties. She went back and talked to her cardiologist about this ratio. He didn't know anything about it but at least was interested to read and I talked to a friend of mine who's an ER physician back in Michigan who didn't seem to know a lot about it. And I'm stunned.  Tim Edwards: Flabbergasted. I think maybe because like you said, it's a big deal. You talk about brain development and overall health and yet these physicians know nothing about it.  Dr. Stephey: I remember about probably going back 15, 20 years when I first started to read about omega-3 fatty acid. There was a handful of pregnant women at the time in my practice and I said, hey, has your baby doctor talked to you about omega-3 fatty acids in your diet?  Dr. Stephey: Like, no, what are you talking about? I'm like, you should be taking  omega-3 fatty acids. You should've been taken them six months before you consider getting pregnant.  Tim Edwards: The baby doctor was probably talking about folic acid.  Dr. Stephey: Not omega-3s, and unlike if you don't believe me, just go do a google search for prenatal development and omega-3s. Or infant development and omega-3s. But at the time, this was not being discussed. I'm pretty sure today, most infant formulas have some measurable form of EPA or DHA in them.  Tim Edwards: Because we're talking about the development of the brain and their unborn child from the get go.  Dr. Stephey: Yes, I'm telling you if and when my daughters ever decide they're going to have kids. We're having a long talk about lungs. Six months before you need to be up in your omega-3 game in preparation for being a feeding tube for a newborn.   Tim Edwards: Right. Dr. Stephey: So omega-6 fatty acids versus omega-3 fatty acids. That's the ratio that we're really talking about today relative to what's happening in our blood and in our body dictated by the food we put in it. And the reality is that between vegetable oils and trans fats and processed foods, we're getting way more omega-6 fatty acids than omega-3s. And omega-6 fatty acids are pro-inflammatory and omega-3 fatty acids are anti-inflammatory. And there's a long biochemical pathway that goes from omega-6 fatty acids in our diet to arachidonic acid, that's the pathway. Or omega-3s to eicosapentaenoic acid, which is the anti inflammatory pathway. But now we're talking about what is that ratio in our diet? Well, I suppose the idealistic ratio would be one to one. But three to one or two to one is acceptable and considered still really good.  Dr. Stephey: So you might have three times as many omega-6s in your diet as omega-3s, but that's still considered good. No, that's better than good. So the Standard American Diet.. Tim Edwards: The SAD diet. Dr. Stephey: The SAD diet because in so many ways. The sad and pitiful, I'm going to be sick way before my time diet.  Tim Edwards: And if you don't mind me throwing a plug in for another podcast on the Inbound Podcasting Network, it's the Vibrant Living Wellness Center podcast and we go into the s-a-d or sad diet in great detail.  Dr. Stephey: I can't tell people to learn enough about it because there is a dearth of information people just don't know. And the more that they learn, the more that they're likely to change their behavior. And if you don't know, some years ago, the church I was going to, the pastor said one day said, "you know what," he said, "I've learned over the years that people aren't likely to change their behavior unless they have enough knowledge that stares them to do so, or they hurt enough that they need to change their behavior.  Tim Edwards: Great nugget of wisdom for sure. Unfortunately we all wait till we hurt enough. At least I do.  Dr. Stephey: Well and sadly further is that there are a lot of people today, both in emotional and physical pain that don't have to be, because they don't know this information and they have just come to accept that hurting this much is the way their balance of their life is going to be. And it does not have to be that way.  Tim Edwards: And so circling back Dr. Stephey, I think I derailed you a little bit and I apologize with my comment about the SAD diet, but you were going into omega-3s and omega-6 and the ratios.  Dr. Stephey: Yes. So, the Standard American Diet, I read this a couple of different ways now. The typical American has an omega-6 to omega-3 ratio of somewhere between 15 and 20:1.  Tim Edwards: Wow.  Dr. Stephey: And it's supposed to be 3:1 or better.  Tim Edwards: Have you ever had yours checked?  Dr. Stephey: I did.  Tim Edwards: Your markers?  Dr. Stephey: So my story is that I had my, AA to EPA ratio checked in September of 2016 and it was 9.8. Higher than four and less than 10 was considered goods.  Tim Edwards: So you were borderline good, barely.  Dr. Stephey: I had convinced myself that, oh look at me, I'm under 10.  Tim Edwards: A 9.8.  Dr. Stephey: So I don't really have to do that much about this.  Tim Edwards: You know what, that's a common tale for most of us. I'm sure. I'm in the range! I'm good! But that was in 2016, right?  Dr. Stephey: That was in 2016 and I don't know who's the worst patient. The patient who doesn't know what they should be doing and doesn't do it because they don't know. Or me because I know what I'm supposed to be doing and I don't always do it.  Tim Edwards: That's the worst patient.  Dr. Stephey: I was hoping you'd get me some slack on it.  Tim Edwards: I know, but you know what? Because I'm like you. I mean we're all that way. I mean, you know, we like our comforts unfortunately. But they can become deadly.  Dr. Stephey: Well, you know, here's what I talk about with patients all the time in my practice and then we'll get back really to the topic at hand but this is related to that. Indeed we will definitely get to how this ties into vision, but this is good foundational information. So when you say we like the foods, we like. Well let's be clearer about that. It's not even us that like the foods we eat, it's the bad bacteria in our GI tract. There is a continuous battle in our gut, in the microbiome or the bacterial population that lives there. So that is a good versus evil discussion.  Dr. Stephey: Bad bacteria loves sugar and simple carbohydrates. There's some research that has made the argument that sugar is more addictive than cocaine.  Tim Edwards: Yes, I've heard that, read that, discussed that many times before.  Dr. Stephey: And that proteins in wheat and proteins in dairy act in the brain on the same receptors that opiates do. So when this bad bacteria drives these cravings, it's not even us that really wants that. It's the bad bacteria. And the bad bacteria says to you as it's living host, you know what, I don't care if you get diabetes and lose a limb. I don't care if you get MS or Lupus. I don't care if you have asthma or respiratory disease and need an oxygen tank to carry around. I don't care if you get arthritis as long as you're feeding me sugar and carbohydrates, I'm okay with you being really sick for 40 years.  Dr. Stephey: That is not right.  Tim Edwards: No, but we listen to it so we need to stop. Right? But how do we do that? Is it, is the answer in the omega-3s?  Dr. Stephey: omega-3s I think do play a role in that. And I'll give you an example. So if we talk about that 15:21 ratio, 15 to 20:1 ratio, that means that we're producing way more arachidonic acid in our body than eicosapentaenoic acid, which means that our immune system is highly inflamed. Virtually every cell in our body now is on fire. That is not the way to go about your business. It physically hurt. Your brain hurts. You are more at risk for developing a mood regulating disorder. You're more likely going to have a learning disability. You're more likely going to get diagnosed with ADHD or ADD. This unchecked, runaway, unchecked inflammation is wreaking havoc on us every day and we don't have to have it be that way.  Dr. Stephey: So to go back to my own story, 9.8, I convinced myself it was pretty good. I wasn't taking enough omega-3s as I should have been. And then I had a physical earlier in the year and I've had some issues with my blood sugar being too high. And I'm like, oh, homies not doing that, no. Tim Edwards: Yeah, we're not going there.  Dr. Stephey: So, I decided.  Tim Edwards: You're talking about potential prediabetic?  Dr. Stephey: I was beyond prediabetes. My physician said, Doug, you're now type 2 diabetic, and I'm like, no I don't. I'm not doing that. So the first thing I decided was if my omega-3 to omega-6 fatty acid ratio should be less than four to one then I'm on it. And Tim, I started taking six to 9,000 milligrams a day of EPA and DHA.  Tim Edwards: Now tell me, what is the daily recommended dose?  Dr. Stephey: Well, that's an interesting question and it's why we're doing this podcast because pretty much you got to have a Ph.D. in fish oil to make any sense out of what the heck is going on and what should I be doing?  Dr. Stephey: So when you typically go to the store and pick up a bottle of fish oil and and especially if it's a capsule, it's likely going to say serving size is one capsule and one capsule is usually a thousand milligram capsule. So the first discussion that I have with patients is, are you taking an omega-3? Invariably, the answer is no, but on the rare case that somebody is taking an omega-3, I say, how many milligrams of EPA and DHA are you taking? And they say, I don't know. Okay, how many capsules do you take a day? Well, I take one because that's what the bottle says. All right, well I need you to go home and look at your bottle and report back to me in the thousand milligram capsule. How many actual milligrams of EPA and DHA are in that thousand milligrams because you're not taking a thousand milligrams of EPA and DHA.  Dr. Stephey: I'll tell you that right now because every brand is different. And then I play a numbers game and I say, well, we don't know what you'r AA/EPA ratio is at this point. We could talk about you ordering a test to get it done, but we don't know. But let's say conservatively that you should be taking 3000 milligrams a day. Well, if you were getting a full thousand milligrams of EPA and DHA in that capsule, then you should be taking three capsules a day. But if you go home and your capsule says, oh, this only has 500 milligrams of EPA and Dha, well to get to 3000, you should be taking six of those a day. And if you're a capsule says it's got a 100 milligrams of EPA and DHA in it, then you ought to be taking the 30 of those a day.  Tim Edwards: So not all fish oil is created equal by any means.  Dr. Stephey: Oh, good gracious. No, Tim, there are some commercial official products that when you look at the EPA and DHA content, there are no numbers. They just have little tiny asterisk. Tim Edwards: Oh, boy. So then you're just wasting your money.  Dr. Stephey: So, my AA/EPA ratio, September 2016 was 9.8 and I mentioned that I got diagnosed recently with type 2 diabetes. That I'm going to reverse and mostly have at this juncture. And it's, we're barely three and a half, four months into the diagnosis.  Tim Edwards: Right, you were a 9.8 and 10 was the back end of normal.  Dr. Stephey: 10 was the back end of good.  Tim Edwards: Back end of good.  Dr. Stephey: But 3 to 1 or less was ideal. This is where we all should be. So, I up my fish oil intake and within 60 days and I had my retesting done, it came down to 3 to 1.  Tim Edwards: Oh wow. Amazing! Tim Edwards: Based upon the appropriate amount of omega-3s that you should be taking. Dr. Stephey: Yes. Tim, and I'm glad you said it in that manner because it prompted a memory for me and that is what is an appropriate amount? Because people will often, we talk about this in the office and people say, well what should I be taking? I say, what's your AA/EPA ratio? They're like, what the heck is that? And I'm like, well it's this and this is how you measure it.  Tim Edwards: Yeah. Because the doses cannot be consistent for everybody in any type of medication or any type of supplement.  Dr. Stephey: Right.  Tim Edwards: The doses are different. So, the, the first step for someone to find out their levels, their markers is what?  Dr. Stephey: The first thing to do is get the AA/EPA ratio measured and we'll include a link on a test about how to do that so that you can go read about this test availability and that it's not that hard to get measured.  Doug Stephey: And the kit that I'm talking about is something that can be sent home to you. You take a fingerstick, collect a few drops of blood and you send it off to this lab and then usually within about 10 days, maybe two weeks, we've got these results back. We've got something tangible to discuss.  Tim Edwards: Yeah you've got a benchmark to work with and it's, can I say the name of it?  Dr. Stephey: Yeah, yeah, absolutely.  Tim Edwards: The reason being, because I did it the other day and I'm awaiting my results and I can't wait and this is a service provided through Dr. Stephey. So we'll include a link and then they could just go through you. It's called BrainSpan Laboratories. BrainSpan, cell health assessment. The health of your cells dictate the health of your entire body and we're talking about attention, memory, anxiety and stress, chronic nerve pain and inflammation, weight management and metabolism, soft tissue and musculoskeletal injuries.  Tim Edwards: I mean this test covers a wide range of markers for us to start from and then once we get the test back, then we can make some adjustments.  Dr. Stephey: And that's because cellular inflammation affects every cell in our body. And let's go back to the appropriate dosage because as an example, one of the books that I read some years ago called The Omega-3 Connection written by a physician named Andrew Stole. He's a neuropsychiatrist who specialize bipolar disorder. And in his book he said, look, I've done this research. We have patients with bipolar disorder who are on maximum medical therapy who still have wild mood swings until we put them on high dose pharmaceutical grade fish oil at the range of 10, 12, 14,000 milligrams a day. So if you've got a mood behavior disorder, odds are that you need high dose fish oil because of the cellular inflammation.  Dr. Stephey: Most likely driven by the way that you're eating and that you're getting way too many omega-6s in your diet and your body and brain is on fire. I've got other research that I've read where they took a group of kids, broke them into two. The experimental group and a control group, so they kept them in the same curriculum. The only thing they did, Tim, was to give the kids in the experimental group, 16,000 milligrams of fish oil a day for I think it was 20 weeks and over the 20 weeks I'm not and I'm not telling people to go out and do that much. I'm just telling you this research, but over the 20 weeks periodically, I don't know, at the six and eight week mark, maybe the 14th week mark, 16th and 20th, something like that. They will go back and measure these kids reading skills and the kids on the fish oil their reading outcomes.  Dr. Stephey: Just start climbing and going through the roof and the only thing they've done is up their fish oil intake. Now the the brain has the second highest concentration of fats in our body. Only behind the retina which has the highest concentration of fats in our body, and that's how this nutrition, omega-3 fatty acid vision piece ties together pretty much every cell membrane in our body is made up of a phospholipid layer, water and fat. And to get nutrients into a cell and waste products out of the cell, it has to go through these cell membranes. And your body's going to make these cell membranes out of whatever fat you consume the most of. So if you're consuming too much of bad fats, the cell membranes in your wall are made of like solid brick instead of the semi-porous membrane that nutrients and waste products can go back and forth between.  Dr. Stephey: It honestly it isn't any more difficult than what I've just said.  Tim Edwards: It's very simple for us to understand that the only challenge will be to make the shift, but it doesn't seem like it's that hard of a shift to take the appropriate amount of fish oil. I mean really. It seems like every episode we have this, this crazy astronomical problem and you're like, and we can fix it with this. It's been in front of our face the whole time. Yet we didn't even know it was there.  Dr. Stephey: And you know, sometimes it's about that simple. Even though the podcast and a lot of what I talk about is Move Look & Listen, what I didn't speak clearly about in that triad is the nutrition piece. But it is a discussion with every patient that I have.  Tim Edwards: Well it sounds like nutrition is a major component in all three of those triads in that, in that triad.  Dr. Stephey: Well, it has to be right because if your brain is going to train itself to develop a new skill or a better skill or a skill you didn't have, it can only do that if it's got the nutritional building blocks to be able to benefit from the training or the therapy that you're going to be doing. So yes, there are limits to what my vision therapy protocols can do. If you're eating a really bad diet and you're not willing to change it. Now, I'm not saying you won't make gains, but you won't make the gains that you should have and you won't lead the life that you should have and you won't feel like you should if you continue to eat a crappy diet and don't change those outcomes. And tied to that again, we got to reduce the inflammation in your body and brain.  Dr. Stephey: We've got to get the good bacteria to out populate the bad bacteria in your GI track and this has wide ranging implications. I don't care if you're 90-years-old and have dementia or Alzheimer's. Or if you're an infant who's just now developing their nervous system, including brain and body and auditory processing and motor controls skills. Yet truly we are what we eat. Dot, dot, dot. We are what we're able to digest. So even if you eat really well, but your GI tract is a train wreck, you're not absorbing what you're eating and your body can't use it and it does not have to be that way. And I am happy to be an agent of change to help you get back on track and know the value of these omega-3 fatty acids and how they affect your brain and vision. Tim Edwards: Thank you for listening to the Move Look & Listen Podcast with Dr. Doug Stephey brought to you by audible. Get a free audio book download and a 30 day free trial of audible membership at audibletrial.com/inbound. You'll find over 180,000 titles to choose from, including books mentioned here in the Move Look & Listen podcasts. You can listen to these books through your iphone, your android, your kindle, your computer, or even an MP3 player. And if for any reason and at any time you choose to cancel your membership, you keep all of your audio book, downloads. Give it a shot for 30 days. You got nothing to lose. Support the Move Look & Listen podcast by visiting audibletrial.com/inbound. We will include a link for your convenience, in the show notes of this and every episode of the podcast. And of course if you like some more information regarding Dr. Stephey's practice or to make an appointment, we will include links in the show notes to Dr. Stephey's website and his youtube channel.  Tim Edwards: Dr. Stephey's website is stepheyoptometry.com. That's s t e p h e y optometry.com. You can also call the office at 626-332-4510. Again, all of Dr. Stephey's contact information will be included in the show notes of each and every episode. One last request before we let you go on to the next episode, please subscribe to the podcast from whichever platform you might be listening in. Of course, it is free to subscribe and it ensures that every time we post a new episode, you'll find it right there waiting for you to listen in your podcast app of choice. We really do appreciate your listening and until next time for Dr. Stephey of the Move Look & Listen podcast. I'm Tim Edwards with the Inbound Podcasting Network.         

>80-90% of kids on the spectrum can't move, look, and listen in a fast, accurate, effortless, sustainable-appropriate, and meaningful way. This results in high fear, high anxiety, high distractibility, and will leave your child in a perpetual state of fight or flight or your child will simply adapt and learn how to not pay attention. In this episode, Douglas W. Stephey, O.D., M.S provides information regarding children on the Autistic spectrum and how to effectively assess the visual system and provide solutions for them to move, look, and listen through their life with greater ease. Douglas W. Stephey, O.D., M.S. 208 West Badillo St Covina, CA 91723 Phone: 626-332-4510 Website: http://bit.ly/DouglasWStephey Website Videos: http://bit.ly/DrStepheyOptometryVideos The Move Look & Listen Podcast is brought to you in part, by Audible - get a FREE audiobook download and 30-day free trial at www.audibletrial.com/InBound If interested in producing a podcast of your own, like the Move Look & Listen Podcast, contact Tim Edwards at tim@InBoundPodcasting.com or visit www.InBoundPodcasting.com Transcription Below: Tim Edwards: The Move Look and Listen Podcast with Dr. Doug Stephey is brought to you by audible. Get a free audio book download and a 30 day free trial audible membership www.audibletrial.com/inbound. You'll find over 180,000 titles to choose from, including several books mentioned here in the podcast. Support the Move Look & Listen Podcast by visiting www.audibletrial.com/inbound.  Dr. Stephey: If our two eyes are not working together well as a fast synchronized team. Our internal mapquest continues to be off. It's consistently inconsistent with our ability to judge time and space. Those that don't feel well-grounded, those that have some measure of anxiety, oftentimes it starts in the visual system. If you can't move, look and listen in a fast, accurate, effortless, sustainable, age-appropriate, meaningful way, you're in a world of hurt. There's a whole world in vision and how it affects brain function that no one's ever shared with you. 20/20 is perceived as a holy grail of going to the eye doctor. Well, I'm here to change that paradigm.  Tim Edwards: Hello and welcome to episode number seven of the Move Look & Listen pocast with Dr. Doug Stephey. I'm Tim Edwards with the Inbound Podcasting Network and a patient of Dr. Doug Stephey, who is an optometrist practicing in the southern California area. Now Dr. Stephey. Today's topic, I believe is going to be a gold nugget found by parents of children who happened to land somewhere on the autistic spectrum. Never have I heard how autism and vision are connected, but we're going to discuss that here today.  Dr. Stephey: We're talking about autism and vision because about 80 percent of our brain's neurons are wrapped up in the processing of visual information. Remember, there's about 3 million sensory neurons that feed information to the brain, vision, auditory, taste, touch and smell. And of that 3 million fibers, there's about 30,000 auditory fibers per ear and roughly 1.2 million per eye. A staggering difference, and there's instances clinically.  Dr. Stephey: What I've seen this happen in the office where vision has the capacity to change how you hear, vision has the capacity to change balance and gait and posture. Vision has the capacity to change the way your body feels, your feet on the floor. It changes a term called proprioception or the awareness of your body in space. I've had patients, kids and adults alike where I'll tell them, I'm going to take my index finger and lightly rub it along your forearm. And I want you to tell me how it feels. And if you're a touch sensitive in this manner, it just about freaks you out. It's like walking into a spiderweb when it gives you the heebie jeebies. Who hasn't done that?  Tim Edwards: No. But it is fun to watch people do it.  Dr. Stephey: It sends a shiver through your whole body.  Tim Edwards: It's creepy. Yes.  Dr. Stephey: So people in this manner don't like light touch. And so I'll lightly rub their forearm and I can, sometimes I can see them visually get the shutters. And or they'll get a screwed up look on their face where it's like, oh man, I really don't like that. And then I stop and I say, how does it feel? And they're like, well, I didn't like it, number one. And if they don't spontaneously tell me, I always then ask, is it still itchy? And they're like, yeah, well then itch then and make it go away. So then they'll itch their forearm and I'll say, okay, well you know what, let's put on this pair of glasses with color in prism in them or color or prism or whatever. Whatever the combination is. And I'll say, let's try it again. And more times than not I'll do that when they put the glasses on and they're like, oh, just feels like you're touching me now.  Dr. Stephey: And how about when I stopped? They're like, well, you just stopped. It's not itchy anymore. No, it didn't feel like anything. Tim, it's the craziest stuff.  Tim Edwards: That is something you see at a circus that just seems like hocus pocus. I mean that's like something you'd see at a magic show or something.  Dr. Stephey: Well, it seems like hocus pocus to me as well, but I've learned over the years that this is repeatable outcomes. There's two adult stories to tell you. One is I did this with a wife who was in the exam room with me and her child. And she laughed about how annoyed she was by touch. And essentially she said it's a wonder we have any kids. Because I like it so little.  Tim Edwards: Never heard it put that way before. I like it, so little to be touched. Wow.  Dr. Stephey: So yeah, so I put the glasses on her and she's like, this is crazy. And then I had a different mom do the same thing and she remarked about how she didn't like it and hugs from her husband. And we put the glasses in prism on her and it again, remarkably changed her sense of touch. And then I said, well, you know what I want you to go out of my exam room. I want you to go out to the reception area with my glasses on and I want you to give your husband a hug and come back again and tell me how it was. And so she did. And she's like, oh, it was awesome. And he let go of me before I was ready for him to let go.  Tim Edwards: Dr. Stephey, it sounds like you could add marriage counselor to your repertoire there. Dr. Stephey: I am the love doctor.  Tim Edwards: And she had this and it's immediate. This is something that's immediate. Because they're putting the lenses on right there and boom, there's change instantaneously.  Dr. Stephey: It is the craziest stuff. Now, has anybody written an article about this? No. I don't know if any of my colleagues are even trying stuff like this. You know, I've, I've.  Tim Edwards: How did you discover this? Like how did you, how did you know? Maybe you didn't discover this. Maybe this is just something that that's been happening for years in your industry, but no one's talking about. Or is this something that you just happen to discover while experimenting with lenses with your patients?  Dr. Stephey: You know that's a good question, Tim. And I don't really know how to answer that because I don't think I've had this discussion with my colleagues, so I don't know if they're doing similar stuff. I haven't had anybody spontaneously tell me that they do. So I don't really know. I do know that there's a modest amount of time that I feel like I'm the only person on the planet thinking about these things and putting these things together. And there's very few people that I can really talk to about this because they just don't know.  Dr. Stephey: So if we circle back to the kids with autism, let's recognize a couple of things first of all. It is a behavioral disorder by its very definition. There's no test for autism per se, but you look at a checklist behaviors and the timelines of which they manifest and the consensus is you then fall on the spectrum based upon the checklist that's completed. Arguably and most commonly speech delays. Right? Kids have delayed speech or their nonverbal. It's one of the most easily recognized markers. There's some research that I don't particularly know all that well. That indicates that we might be able to use eye movement and eye contact and gaze of infants as a predictor of autism even before they're were even close to having speech.  Tim Edwards: Yeah, I've heard that many times.  Dr. Stephey: So I think speech becomes one of the most common indicators because if the kid's not talking when they should be or they're talking very little, well, it's obvious that that's the case. But if you have a child who doesn't know how to point and focus their eyes and space easily or effortlessly or accurately or sustainably, that's not obvious.  Dr. Stephey: They might be clumsy. They might not like wearing certain clothes or the tags in their shirts or the seams in their socks. So remember there's normal quote unquote, is a pretty broad spectrum and that's a pretty continuous continuum. And because again, autism and ADD and ADHD are behavioral disorders. They're really driven by a checklist of behaviors. And my whole contention is if you can't move, look and listen in a fast, accurate, effortless, sustainable, age-appropriate, meaningful way, you're in a world of hurt. So that's what I think in great part is happening with kids on the spectrum. Because so much of our sensory input is tied up in vision and the vision input we're talking about has nothing to do with the ability to see 20/20, which is where most eye exams default to, right? If you can see 20/20, everything's fine and vision has no role to play in your kid's autism.  Dr. Stephey: I could not disagree more. 20/20 is the tiniest little bit of what we're talking about.  Tim Edwards: And that's where most parents, this parent included just stops. Oh, you're 20/20. We're good. Don't need to investigate any further, as far as your vision is concerned.  Dr. Stephey: No absolutely.  Tim Edwards: You know 20/20 is what we're taught. That's what we were told. You get your glasses to fix it or contacts. Let's move on to something else and that's where it should not stop.  Dr. Stephey: This is universally as what is happening and that's why so many kids have trouble recovering function because in most cases I'm going to be so bold as to tell you conservatively 80 to 90 percent, 100 percent seems too boldt. But I can tell you 80 to 90 percent of kids on the spectrum have vision problems that have remained undiagnosed and untreated. And unless your finding somebody who really is taking the time to look at components of nutrition, retained primitive reflexes, something called a millisecond timing clock deficit, motion processing or magnocellular vision.  Dr. Stephey: Eye focusing, eye tracking, eye taming and working memory in executive function and visual-auditory integration, visual-cognitive skills, visual-spatial skills, visual processing speed, your kid's been under assessed, underdiagnosed and undertreated.  Tim Edwards: Now, are you talking about every child or just a child that might have been diagnosed as being somewhere on that spectrum?  Dr. Stephey: Well, the thing that I would just rattle off, they're all skills that we have to possess to function in a relatively normal way. What might be referred as neuro typical behavior. So I would suggest to you that any child who's been diagnosed with dyslexia or a learning disorder or a specific learning disability or reading disorder or have been diagnosed or suspected of having ADD or ADHD or is on the spectrum or has a diagnosis called clumsy childhood disorder, they likely have a vision component that again, has been underassessed, underdiagnosed, and undertreated. And the problem that I see is this is so commonly true that oftentimes these kids get lots of other therapies, speech therapy, occupational therapy, maybe adaptive P.E. through the school district. ABA therapy as a behavioral therapy. But the missing factor in all of that is nobody's looking at the vision piece. And it's tremendously huge.  Tim Edwards: Sounds foundational, again.  Dr. Stephey: It is foundational. And as an extension of that, I go back to something I believe we talked about before. It has to do with our subconscious mind continuously asking ourselves the question, do I feel safe? Do I really feel safe? I'm not sure if I feel safe. If you can't subconsciously answer that question, then you're gonna default to, well, I don't feel safe, which now means that all of your sensory systems are going to be at defcon one. You are on high alert status because your brain is perceiving your environment as one giant eminent, unrelenting threat.  Tim Edwards: Can't even imagine the anxiety going through one's being living like that and how it affects their behavior.  Dr. Stephey: Oh, absolutely. Because at that juncture, and especially when you're a kid, these outcomes now are reflexive in their outcome. Meaning you have no ability to control how you're behaving. So if you're that child and you have a meltdown that is beyond your voluntary control, because what.. Dr. Stephey: Whatever the episodic event was, it triggered you to have a fight or flight response, which is high anxiety, high fear, high distractability and survival at all costs. Which means that if you feel that you're being cornered, there's an expression that a wild animal is the most dangerous when you corner them. If you don't leave them an escape route, they have no choice but to go crazy.  Tim Edwards: For self-defense. Right. Dr. Stephey: Yes, their very survival is based upon them escaping the perceived or real threat. So much of these kids' aggressive behavior is beyond their voluntary control. You can talk to your blue in the face. But until they can regulate their autonomic nervous system and facilitate a more calmer response, you can't talk them off the ledge. It's very challenging because it's beyond their voluntary control. And remember, vision and auditory are our two primary threat detectors.  Dr. Stephey: They are the two sensory systems that we use to gauge a threat at distance in preparation for fight or flight. And you know, the idea of personal space and that your arm's distance is like a personal space bubble.  Tim Edwards: Yeah, no doubt.  Dr. Stephey: I don't know if somebody's written about it, I wouldn't be surprised. But my clinical take on this is if your visual system is operationally functional, you don't need a bigger bubble than arm's distance. Because your ability to perceive a threat at arm's distance gives you the opportunity to punch it away or push it away and then turn and run. Right? Does that make sense?  Tim Edwards: It does. Perfect sense. Yes.  Dr. Stephey: But here's the problem. If you can't see a large volume of space and you can't see it fast, arm's distance isn't good enough for you. You've got a bubble around you that's maybe 20 feet in diameter and any sound within 20 feet or any motion within 20 feet or any target or object visually within 20 feet is going to freak you out.  Dr. Stephey: So now the question becomes, remember separate from 20/20 because all that means you can see a tiny letter at 20 feet on a chart. The volume of space that you can see and the speed with which you see it is paramount to you being able to ask that question, do I feel safe? And is arm's distance as a personal space bubble around me an adequate amount of space? Well it's not, for these kids. One of the things that patients never accused me of is never giving them enough information.  Tim Edwards: That is true. I have a folder over here of information that you've given me, which I love. Thank you.  Dr. Stephey: And so because I read not only within my own discipline but because I read in so many other disciplines, I've got a book list that I put together that I share with parents. I have a computer full of articles that touch on every topic that I'm likely to discuss and assess. In the kind of evaluation that I do.  Dr. Stephey: The primary thing that I want parents to know is that almost without exception, the child has been under assessed and underdiagnosed and undertreated. So whatever they thought their child's life trajectory was going to be, I'm here to point them in a different direction and give them a different trajectory. Because of how the kids have been underassessed and underdiagnosed and undertreated. Typically when someone comes to see me for a first visit, I am going to talk about eye focusing, eye tracking, and eye taming. I'm going to talk about a concept called visual elea scene, which is the inability to look at black and white stripes either comfortably or without having eyestrain or the patterns move or blur or wiggle or you see colors or it's just overwhelming. And that you can't get yourself to look at these stripes. I might initially look at aspects of balance and gait and posture and how those things change with a low plus lenses or colored lenses or prism lenses.  Dr. Stephey: Because if I can notice a behavioral change in visual output or sensory input on the first visit, we have an opportunity right then to change that kid's life. Just by prescribing a pair of glasses, even if they can't see 20/20. So I will oftentimes prescribed glasses in this manner that have nothing to do with seeing 20/20 because I'm interested in how these glasses change the kids' physicality or their motor abilities or their ability to hold the pencil and improve their handwriting skills or make it so that they can tolerate a hug for mom or dad. Or they can play with a sibling and not freak out. Or they can join in other kids on the playground at school and not be overwhelmed by the motion and the sound of their environment. That's the initial part of what we do. When I do have patients come back and we do further testing, we do discuss components of nutrition. We look at a term called retained primitive reflexes. We look at this millisecond timing clock in our brain and how it facilitates our attentional control networks and how it facilitates our brain's ability to integrate different lobes in the brain, so that it improves our cognitive efficiency. We will look at eye focusing, eye tracking, eye taming. We look at working memory. What I want to do is do a comprehensive assessment so that when I come up with a treatment plan, we've got enough data to be able to do it in a logically, developmental hierarchy.  Tim Edwards: So you mentioned treatment plan. What are some examples of a treatment plan beyond lenses now? Something that I want to make sure that our listeners are not confused by. You said if a child comes in or a person comes in with 20/20 vision, you will still prescribe lenses. So we're talking color?  Dr. Stephey: Yes, we're talking color. We could be talking prism or we could be talking low plus lenses are any combination there of.  Tim Edwards: All right, so it doesn't just stop at seeing clearly.  Dr. Stephey: That's right. It doesn't stop at seeing 20/20.  Tim Edwards: So what other type of treatments are there?  Dr. Stephey: Well, typically there's nutritional interventions. Could be inulin fiber to change the gut bacteria. Could be omega-3 fatty acids to change and reduce inflammation in the body and in the brain. It could be zinc and magnesium discussion or calcium or sodium. I think the two most common things though are dealing with the microbiome. Microbiome being in the gut bacteria, and the omega-3 fatty acids. Those two things are monstrously huge.  Tim Edwards: And we'll be discussing omega-3s in our next episode.  Dr. Stephey: The next thing I look at is retained primitive reflexes. Retained primitive reflexes can be simply thought of as software that we're born, within our brain stem. And they're pre-programs, if you will, that facilitate our survival behavior.  Dr. Stephey: It helps us as a baby roll over on her stomach, lift our head, push up our upper body off the floor, get up on all fours, start to crawl, get up on two feet, free our hands to manipulate space around us and begin walking. And all of that motor planning and sequencing, serves a role into a springboard for developing speech and language and eye movement control and working memory and cognitive abilities. So primitive reflexes is something that's been commonly overlooked for a long time. And it can no longer be. It's too critical. I alluded earlier about this millisecond timing clock, the instrument that I use and the company that's been around for 25, 30 years now is called Interactive Metronome and there's no other device like it on the planet that I'm aware of. It is a powerful tool, not only for measuring whether you're timing clock is off, but more importantly to facilitate your brain's ability to retrain it and get it back to a normal timing function.  Tim Edwards: To retrain it. So that seems like a monumental task? Or is it?  Dr. Stephey: No, it's simple. It couldn't be simpler. The interactive metronome instrument was originally created by a music producer and a conductor. And it was designed to look at other musicians timing so that he wanted to produce better sounding music. So if your timing was a little faster, a little slow, he wanted you to be able to change that and feel where you were in that timing output. And he created this instrument to measure that. And it has just turned into this a wonderfully creative tool to change brain function. It is a powerful tool.  Tim Edwards: My goodness. Great Story.  Dr. Stephey: So, so the initial stage of therapy for me typically is nutrition intervention, retained primitive reflexes and this millisecond timing clock. Now I have some kids on the spectrum where the timing clock therapy, it's beyond their current abilities.  Dr. Stephey: So when that's true, I will either incorporate something called the safe and sound program put together by a researcher, neurophysiologist by the name of Stephen Porges, who has written about the Polyvagal Theory of affect, emotions, self-regulation and communication. It's a big deal. So if I, if I find somebody who is highly dysregulated, they don't feel safe and sound in their environment, we will do this program as a, as prep work for the other therapies.  Tim Edwards: To build them up too.  Dr. Stephey: Yeah, the safe and sound program is specifically filtered music where you, you do the listening one hour a day for five consecutive days.  Tim Edwards: That doesn't sound too arduous or painful, that's for sure. No sounds almost kind of fun. ] Dr. Stephey: It is. And it can really change your body's ability to regulate your autonomic nervous system or the part of your body that pushes you to be in fight or flight, or that you're so overwhelmed that you go into shutdown.  Dr. Stephey: So if we do the safe and sound program as a five hour introduction and interactive metronome is still beyond the child's ability. We'll then on incorporate different sound therapy into our treatment model. And this sound therapy is best done with bone conducting headphones and bone conducting headphones are over the ear headphones that have a, a button or a vibrating transducer, if you will, that sits on the top of your cranium. And it vibrates imperceptibly.  Tim Edwards: Wow.  Dr. Stephey: So if I turned the headphones off, but turn the music on, you'd still hear the music. But only by the way the bones in your cranium were vibrating.  Tim Edwards: Now is that how those who are deaf are able to enjoy music?  Dr. Stephey: Yes, it's called, it's called a cochlear implant. And they're getting sound into their head through that cochlear implant, which is vibrating the bones in the cranium.  Tim Edwards: Gotcha. Wow.  Dr. Stephey: And the bone conduction is different than air conduction. It's getting sound in the brain in a different way and in a more powerful tool and it seems to stimulate the stipular system or the inner ear in a way that air conduction can't do. And the reason that's a big deal for me as an optometrist is because the vestibular system and the visual system are intimately linked with each other. So we might see better eye movement control when we do sound therapy. And just like when we developed the visual skills and somebody is able to see faster, that person can use lip movements in order to prime the auditory cortex to change auditory processing outcomes. So the two systems are very interconnected with each other. So just to review, stage one, nutritional discussion, retained primitive reflexes, safe and sound program, if needed. Sound therapy. If they can't handle interactive metronome and if they can handle interactive metronome, I will usually start with that intervention rather than more conventional sound therapy.  Dr. Stephey: And the reason I do that is because interactive metronome involves physical movement in conjunction with this metronome beat and there's something magical about this temporal sequencing or you generating physical output in conjunction with this beat and being given feedback about changing your internal timing clock. So for me, that's stage one. Stage two, we're going to move on to magnocellular vision or motion processing and eye taming, eye focusing and eye tracking. And stage three therapy in my office is then working memory and executive function skills, the ability to multitask, how large of a chunk of information you can hold in your mind, components of processing speed, divided attention, selective attention, sustained attention. And that's stage three. And stage four might move us on into phonological processing and something called rapid naming speed. And then in stage four, I might even weave in some reading therapy at that juncture, either provided through my office and the training that I've had. Or then at that point suggest that the kids get other reading therapy even if it's not through my office.  Dr. Stephey: And that model, Tim, for me, it makes perfect sense. It's based on a developmental model. It's done in a order that we develop in as humans and it is not the model that is happening in practice today.  Tim Edwards: And you're talking about these four phases of therapy.  Dr. Stephey: I'm talking about these four phases of therapy and what I'm really more getting at is I think that the kids on the spectrum should see a developmental optometrist first, not last. And too often, what I see, is I get kids that come to my practice and let's say they've had an IEP through their school district since they were three years of age and maybe I see them at eight or nine or 10, so they've had an IEP for five, six, seven, eight, nine, 10 years, and never had this kind of a developmental vision exam. So they might've done speech therapy or occupational therapy six, seven, 800 hours, but they never had an exam like this.  Dr. Stephey: I think that parents need to know that this exists and need to seek out and find optometrist like myself that will do this body of work and do it in a comprehensive way. And too often I'll see kids again on the spectrum. Eight, nine, 10, up to 15, 16, 17 years of age who've had hundreds of hours of reading interventions and are still struggling to make any substantial gains in their ability to read and comprehend. And then I find them and they've got a whopping array of all the stuff that we're talking about today and parents have never heard it before.  Tim Edwards: Oh, my. That's a tragedy and that's why we're doing what we're doing.  Dr. Stephey: That's exactly why we're doing what we're doing. We want to. We want to get this word out so people know one, that this exists. Two, what's the depth of what exists and three, that they know if they're getting a comprehensive assessment or not.  Dr. Stephey: It's not enough to go and be told that you've had a vision therapy assessment. If it doesn't include all of these pieces. And that's one of the other reasons that I'm doing this podcasting because I would tell you that vision therapy either seems like it's the best thing since sliced bread. Or it doesn't work at all. And don't waste your time and money. And that really bothers me as an optometrist. Because I know the power of vision therapy when it's done correctly. I know the power of vision therapy when it's done comprehensively. I know the limitations of vision therapy. So if kids need assistive technology or they need an audiological assessment or they need further speech or occupational therapy or they need assistive technology to facilitate their ability to access the curriculum at school, I'm the first one to make those recommendations. And the supportive parent in and looking at other things. But there is just a vacuum of information that parents don't know because medicine hasn't told them that. Nor has the educational community. I'm hoping to fill that void.  Tim Edwards: Thank you for listening to the Move Look & Listen Podcast with Dr. Doug Stephey brought to you by audible. Get a free audio book download and a 30 day free trial of audible membership at audibletrial.com/inbound. You'll find over 180,000 titles to choose from, including books mentioned here in the Move Look & Listen podcasts. You can listen to these books through your iphone, your android, your kindle, your computer, or even an MP3 player. And if for any reason and at any time you choose to cancel your membership, you keep all of your audio book, downloads. Give it a shot for 30 days. You got nothing to lose. Support the Move Look & Listen podcast by visiting audibletrial.com/inbound. We will include a link for your convenience, in the show notes of this and every episode of the podcast. And of course if you like some more information regarding Dr. Stephey's practice or to make an appointment, we will include links in the show notes to Dr. Stephey's website and his youtube channel.  Tim Edwards: Dr. Stephey's website is stepheyoptometry.com. That's s t e p h e y optometry.com. You can also call the office at 626-332-4510. Again, all of Dr. Stephey's contact information will be included in the show notes of each and every episode. One last request before we let you go on to the next episode. Please subscribe to the podcast from whichever platform you might be listening in. Of course, it is free to subscribe and it ensures that every time we post a new episode, you'll find it right there waiting for you to listen in your podcast app of choice. We really do appreciate your listening and until next time for Dr. Stephey of the Move Look & Listen podcast. I'm Tim Edwards with the Inbound Podcasting Network.     

An advocate for children diagnosed with dyslexia, specific learning disability, ADHD, autism, conduct disorder, oppositional defiance disorder, and any other students in special education, Douglas W. Stephey, O.D., M.S provides valuable information regarding Child Find regulations and why students with IEP's and 504 plans are not being comprehensively assessed. Strategies will be provided on how to get what your child needs to move, look, and listen through their life with ease. Douglas W. Stephey, O.D., M.S. 208 West Badillo St Covina, CA 91723 Phone: 626-332-4510 Website: http://bit.ly/DouglasWStephey Website Videos: http://bit.ly/DrStepheyOptometryVideos The Move Look & Listen Podcast is brought to you in part, by Audible - get a FREE audiobook download and 30-day free trial at www.audibletrial.com/InBound If interested in producing a podcast of your own, like the Move Look & Listen Podcast, contact Tim Edwards at tim@InBoundPodcasting.com or visit www.InBoundPodcasting.com  Transcription Below: Tim Edwards: The Move Look and Listen Podcast with Dr. Doug Stephey is brought to you by audible. Get a free audio book download and a 30 day free trial audible membership www.audibletrial.com/inbound. You'll find over 180,000 titles to choose from, including several books mentioned here in the podcast. Support the Move Look & Listen Podcast by visiting www.audibletrial.com/inbound.  Dr. Stephey: If our two eyes are not working together well as a fast synchronized team. Our internal mapquest continues to be off. It's consistently inconsistent with our ability to judge time and space. Those that don't feel well-grounded, those that have some measure of anxiety, oftentimes it starts in the visual system. If you can't move, look and listen in a fast, accurate, effortless, sustainable, age-appropriate, meaningful way, you're in a world of hurt. There's a whole world in vision and how it affects brain function that no one's ever shared with you. 20/20 is perceived as a holy grail of going to the eye doctor. Well, I'm here to change that paradigm.  Tim Edwards: Hi and thanks for joining us for episode number six of the Move Look & Listen podcast with Dr. Doug Stephey. Hopefully you have found our previous episodes to be educational and insightful and eye opening. No pun intended, but today we're going to talk a little bit more about how vision plays a part in your child's special education needs.  Dr. Stephey: Well, Tim, I'm glad to have this episode being recorded because it's important information and I think the listeners, not only will it resonate with them, but I'm hopeful that it will act as a springboard and they can use this information and share with others. Because even if the listeners of this podcast don't have a child of their own, who would benefit from this information, I'm confident that everyone is going to know someone who does have a child who would benefit from this information. And the reason I know that to be true is because I've been in practice now for 30 years and from the first week that I was in practice, I decided that we were going to have to provide vision therapy services because the need is too great.  Dr. Stephey: For example, it's estimated that 10 to 20 percent of the population at large have some sort of vision related problem. Meaning their two eyes don't work together very well. As an integrated team. That's probably the most common problem, so when you think about that from the population at large, 10 to 20 percent, that's one out of every five people or one out of every 10 people that you're going to meet on the street who has a problem with the way their eyes work together. And it has nothing to do with seeing 20/20. That's tremendous. Now, if we preselect the populations, those that have a migraine history of a brain injury, history of dyslexia, learning disorder, reading problem, specific learning disability, carry a diagnosis of autism or ADHD or inattentive ADD or executive dysfunction. The prevalence of those populations, having an associated or causative vision problem associated with those diagnoses, I can confidently tell you it's at least 80 to 90 to 95 percent.  Tim Edwards: So this is a no brainer for you to incorporate this into your practice.  Dr. Stephey: This not only is it not a no brainer, I don't know how you can't practice this way. And I've said for years, I don't mind if you don't practice this way. But you can't pretend like these patients don't exist in your practice. More than 20 years ago, probably almost 30 years ago, I was pretty involved with our state association. So I would travel the state, meet different doctors at different venues and invariably we'd have a discussion. I would have a discussion and say, hey, remember when we were in school, like how common are these vision related problems? And invariably the doctors would say, oh, 10 to 20 percent. Isn't that right? I'm like, yeah, that's about right. So if you're doing 10 exams a day and you work five days a week, you're doing 50 exams a week and if 10 to 20 percent of the population have these problems, so what you're telling me then is that you're talking to patients five or 10 of them every week about vision therapy, and then their eyes get big as saucers.  Tim Edwards: Do their eyes get big as saucers because they looked at the potential revenue stream from something like that by offering vision therapy or the amount of money they're leaving on the table?  Dr. Stephey: No, no. That should only be too easy and I'd be happy if that was the reason because it would mean that more people are getting their needs met. No, their eyes get big as saucers because they are playing a movie in their head thinking, when's the last time I ever talked about vision therapy? And they know it's been forever and so they typically. then after they contemplate that in their minds, then they tell me, oh, Doug, I don't see patients like that in my practice, because they can't even remember the last time they discussed it.  Tim Edwards: Well, like I mentioned to you before in previous episodes, Dr. Stephey is, I've had the opportunity to interview dozens and dozens of optometrists throughout southern California and in those interviews you are the only one that has ever mentioned vision therapy to me to talk about your practice.  Tim Edwards: None of them have ever mentioned vision therapy. And so that just goes along with what you're saying. They don't think they have the patients who need it because they don't ask about it. Or they don't know how to present the material, right?  Dr. Stephey: Yes, exactly, and the truth be told, they don't want to know those patients exist and the reason they don't want to know those patients exist is because if they find them, they have to act upon the information.  Tim Edwards: Are they just not educated enough regarding vision therapy or have the means to acquire the unnecessary and appropriate equipment and software and skillset to execute vision therapy?  Dr. Stephey: I'd like to tell you that was the case, but it's not. Every optometrist in this country has had that vision therapy training  Tim Edwards: Then what could possibly be the reason why they don't venture into that area of their practice?  Dr. Stephey: I think the reason most doctors don't venture into vision therapy is because it requires a fair amount of work.  Dr. Stephey: You have to think about what you're doing and the way you're going to treat these patients. And that requires a commitment of time. It requires a commitment to ongoing education to read outside your own discipline. To try to incorporate what you do into the practice and how you're going to change the trajectory of the lives that you treat every day. And then it does become somewhat of a money game because minute for minute, if we broke practice down into revenue, dollars per minute of time spent in patient care. The truth is you can make a lot more money prescribing glasses and contacts and medical management and pre and post op refractive surgery kinds of outcomes relative to the time that you allocate towards vision therapy.  Tim Edwards: So it's the path of least resistance?  Dr. Stephey: Yeah, I think it is a path of least resistance. I think more importantly, my experience over the years is if you don't do vision therapy in your practice, you don't want to find patients that need it because you either are going to ignore the problem and then have to go home everyday and feel guilty about what you didn't do or you've got to bring up the vision therapy discussion and refer to someone like me who will take care of the patients needs.  Dr. Stephey: And I think at that point you're more worried about the patient leaving your practice and not coming back.  Tim Edwards: All right, so instead of looking at the total care of the patient, there is a need that's not being met. And it sounds like an epidemic.  Dr. Stephey: I would argue that it is. And with the help that you provided me over the last couple of years, I have more of a presence on the web. Hopefully an increasing presence on the web and from week to week I have patients that call my practice even though it's out of the area who say, I think I need to come and see you or my kid needs to come and see you. Because the things that I found that you do in your practice sounds like my child. And that transitions us into the topic of the day, which is school districts and kids that have special education needs.  Dr. Stephey: There is something called the child find regulations. This is close to verbatim, but the language might be a little different, but child find regulations stipulate that school districts will have written policies and procedures in place, to systematically seek out and find the children that have special education needs and that those students will be comprehensively assessed in all areas of suspected disability by qualified personnel. Including the following areas, vision, auditory, speech, language, motor and cognition. Which goes along with the whole theme of my practice, which is move, look and listen. So these regulations are supposed to be in place. The problem is a systemic one. I've been involved with school districts for over 20 years now and it's still a battle every single day.  Tim Edwards: Even though it is spelled out in black and white, that this is a right for the students?  Dr. Stephey: Yes. You stated at wonderfully. This is an educational right. This is a civil right to have equal access to the educational curriculum to meet your individual placement needs. A typical scenario for me that I might see a student for the first time, maybe third or fourth grade, and let's say that they have a diagnosis of autism. And I say, how long have you been involved with your public school district and trying to meet your kids special education needs? Well, if a parent is savvy enough, they got an individual education program or an IEP when their child turned three years old. So you don't have to be in public school to get an IEP. You can get one when you're three years old.  Tim Edwards: And before kindergarten.  Dr. Stephey: Yes. Two years before kindergarten. Right. So let's say this is the fourth grader. They've had an IEP since they were three years old. I say to the parents, what kind of services have you received and how many hours would you speculate that you've received them?  Dr. Stephey: And invariably the two most common services, are speech therapy and occupational therapy. Twoo therapies fairly entrenched within the public school system. It's not unusual that I'll see kids in that age group who've had six to seven to 800 hours of those therapies and then when I measure their abilities to move, look and listen in the model that I've adopted over the last 20 years or so, they still have major deficits in those areas. Even six, seven, 800 hours into doing these other therapies.  Tim Edwards: So none of the therapies have anything to do with vision, but it sounds like that should be the first step, but that's foundational.  Dr. Stephey: It is one of the first steps because we go back to the child find regulations. It says kids will be comprehensively assessed in all areas of suspected disability.  Tim Edwards: All areas?  Dr. Stephey: All areas and it listed very clearly including vision. But when I see a battery of tests that have been conducted at the school, usually referred to as a psychoeducational battery or psych ed battery of tests. Typically on the first page, two thirds of the way down, there's a line item that says vision. And then next to it, it says past or right eye left eye 20/20 and that's usually it. And let me tell you, as a neurodevelopmental optometrist, that's not a comprehensive vision assessment. It's not even a fraction of what these kids need and are entitled to. So when I see someone who's got an IEP, one of the first things that I will coach a parent on, is you need to write to the district and ask for an independent educational evaluation in vision, and I would prefer you name me to be your provider of choice so you don't get misdirected, in my opinion, to someone who's still not going to do a comprehensive assessment.  Dr. Stephey: So there's. There's very specific language how a parent requests that. So for our listeners who have a child with an IEP or 504 plan or no one who does, here's the letter that you write to the district. In reviewing my child's psychoeducational testing battery, I disagree with the vision conclusions drawn and I am now asking for an independent educational evaluation in vision and I'm naming Dr. Stephey to be my provider of choice. If he doesn't have a contract with the district already, please contact him at the following address, et cetera, et cetera. And that's what you submit to the district.  Tim Edwards: Well, what we're going to do for our audience too Dr. Stephey is we'll include a pdf in the show notes for them to download that particular letter where they can just kind of use it as a template, fill in the blank and then send it off.  Dr. Stephey: That's wonderful. And what's really interesting about writing such a letter is the response that you're likely to get back from a district. Because the shot across the bow that you've just sent them is that you are now a parent who's increasingly knowledgeable about what your kids' educational rights are. And my gosh, you're going to ask them to step up and provide the assessments these kids have been entitled to all this time.  Tim Edwards: Dr. Stephey, is there a particular age range where this might not apply? I know we talked about it'd be great for these parents to get these for their children when they're around the age of three, prior to going into kindergarten, but say a parent has a child that is struggling and they might be in high school. Is it too late?  Dr. Stephey: It's never too late. And it's interesting that you would pose me that question because that's exactly what I was going to just bring up. I've got a handful of kids right now who are 11th and 12th graders who've had IEP since they were three, four, five years of age, who as seniors in high school still read like second graders and can't comprehend what they're reading because no one has ever assessed their abilities to move, look and listen in this manner, and my heart bleeds for those kids because we changed the trajectory of their lives by failing to provide them their educational rights and having equal access to the curriculum we have precluded them from having further educational opportunities. We've reduced their opportunities for gainful employment and in some cases we've almost completely knock them off the idea of independent living, which is the purpose of special education. Special Education regulations are not specifically about academic achievement, although that's where the singular focus tends to be. It is about further opportunities for education, gainful employment, independent living, and it also includes aspects of social and emotional development. It is not simply about academic achievement.  Tim Edwards: Or just moving them through the system.  Dr. Stephey: Even sadder still, and I say this with some measure of cautiousness, but there's truth in what I'm saying when we know the educational regulations and what these kids are entitled to and we know neurodevelopment related to motor and auditory and vision and how those tie into speech and language and vocabulary and logic and reasoning skills and the ability to make an argument and think your way through an argument to come to a reasonable conclusion. When we have withheld those abilities from these kids, I think that is a form of child abuse. Honestly, I do and people should be held accountable for the way they apply these special education laws. If I practice optometry, the way I see educational laws practiced, I would lose my license for malpractice. But there seems to be no personal accountability within the system.  Tim Edwards: Well you have been an advocate for this for many, many years. What type of progress have you seen Dr. Stephey in moving the needle towards the direction it should be pointed?  Dr. Stephey: Probably the first 15 years that I was involved with this, it was arguably a significant struggle in great part because I didn't fully understand educational laws. I know them better now because I'm more battle scarred, but I learn stuff every day and parents can learn it too and I'm happy to be a resource to point them in the direction of how to become more knowledgeable because there's nothing worse than feel like you're an old tin can, getting kicked down the road and that you're just worn out from arguing with your school district about what your kids' needs are. There truly is power in knowledge. And knowledge is power and there are resources available. There are folks like me who serve both a clinical and an advocacy role.  Dr. Stephey: There are advocates and educational attorneys who are designed and whose mission in life because that's what I really feel this to be. This is a mission in my life. It is a cross that I am happy to bear and I can't imagine not practicing this way and not advocating for kids and their needs. For me to have this knowledge and not share it just seems wrong,  Tim Edwards: Well I've seen it firsthand with you, Dr. Stephey, because when you and I had an appointment a couple of weeks back for me to get a new pair of glasses, I know immediately following our appointment together that you had a very important phone call where you had to go to bat for one of your patients children.  Dr. Stephey: That's true. And so here's how the scenario usually plays itself out. So there's two ways that you're likely to come and see me. You find me on the web, you contact my office and say, Hey, I think my child's got an IEP at school or a 504 plan, or they have a diagnosis of ADHD or ADD or autism or dyslexia or reading disorder, and it seems like you really know what you're doing both with your optometry degree and your education degree. So how does this play itself out? And I said, well look, you can come and see me and simply pay out of pocket for the kind of testing that I do and we can take it from there and I can give you a therapy plan and you can simply adopt the plan. We work it out and you never involve your school district. That's an option that you have. Option two is I coach you on what your educational rights are. You realize that you have access to a lot more things than you thought you did.  Dr. Stephey: You're ever led to believe that you have rights in areas that you didn't know about. So one option is I send you the IEE letter and you ask for the educational evaluation independently of the district at the public's expense and you get to come and see me that way. I do my testing, I write a report I submit it to the district. You schedule an IEP or a 504 plan meeting. You tell me what it is. I teleconference into that meeting. I have a chance to review my results for consideration by the special education team. And it's supposed to be a team decision that then says, yes, we adopt the plan and we will fund the services, or no, we reject the plan. Which is not uncommon for the plan to be rejected. Is that the end of it then? No, because then you can go to alternative dispute resolution or you can go to mediation or you can file a due process complaint.  Dr. Stephey: So there are systems in place to not take the first no as an answer. And again, listeners need to know that those are options. It's hard to do this on your own. It's really hard to do this on your own as a parent. And I think many districts understand that and their job is to wear the parent down until they give up. So I know a handful of advocates and a handful of education attorneys who are wonderfully effective at what they do. And we can go from a parent hearing, no, we're not going to pay for the assessment and no, we're never going to pay for vision therapy to, oh well we're just kidding. We will pay for the assessment and we will pay for vision therapy. Now that you have an attorney who knows how to call us out on how we're violating your kids' educational rights, and so yes, we will provide them services that we've been refusing for a long time.  Dr. Stephey: So in closing today, I want you to know that you've got lots of rights that you didn't know about both in terms of assessment and treatment. So if you have a child with an IEP or a 504 plan, regardless of their qualifying diagnosis, so it could be autism, inattentive ADD, ADHD, specific learning disability, dyslexia, reading disorder, language disorder, working memory or executive function disorder, or other health impairment, including anxiety, bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, it doesn't make a difference what the diagnosis of the label is. Your child is still entitled to a comprehensive assessment in all areas of suspected disability. We're going to include access to my website and access under the resources section of my website. There'll be a number of resources that you can access to learn how to become a better advocate for you and your child. So please contact me. There's no reason not to.  Tim Edwards: Thank you for listening to the Move Look & Listen Podcast with Dr. Doug Stephey brought to you by audible. Get a free audio book download and a 30 day free trial of audible membership at audibletrial.com/inbound. You'll find over 180,000 titles to choose from, including books mentioned here in the Move Look & Listen podcasts. You can listen to these books through your iphone, your android, your kindle, your computer, or even an MP3 player. And if for any reason and at any time you choose to cancel your membership, you keep all of your audio book, downloads. Give it a shot for 30 days. You got nothing to lose. Support the Move Look & Listen podcast by visiting audibletrial.com/inbound. We will include a link for your convenience, in the show notes of this and every episode of the podcast. And of course if you like some more information regarding Dr. Stephey's practice or to make an appointment, we will include links in the show notes to Dr. Stephey's website and his youtube channel.  Tim Edwards: Dr. Stephey's website is stepheyoptometry.com. That's s t e p h e y optometry.com. You can also call the office at 626-332-4510. Again, all of Dr. Stephey's contact information will be included in the show notes of each and every episode. One last request before we let you go on to the next episode. Please subscribe to the podcast from whichever platform you might be listening in. Of course, it is free to subscribe and it ensures that every time we post a new episode, you'll find it right there waiting for you to listen in your podcast app of choice. We really do appreciate your listening and until next time for Dr. Stephey of the Move Look & Listen podcast. I'm Tim Edwards with the Inbound Podcasting Network.      

"If you want to understand the whole child you must understand their visual system and if you want to understand their visual system you must understand the whole child.” - Famed Yale pediatrician, Dr. Arnold Lucius Gesell Vision therapy is a brain-based program of "eye exercises" designed to change the way one’s neural networks control any variety of visual skills which are assessed and remediated. Douglas W. Stephey, O.D., M.S provides information regarding the various vision therapy methods utilized in his practice. Douglas W. Stephey, O.D., M.S. 208 West Badillo St Covina, CA 91723 Phone: 626-332-4510 Website: http://bit.ly/DouglasWStephey Website Videos: http://bit.ly/DrStepheyOptometryVideos The Move Look & Listen Podcast is brought to you in part, by Audible - get a FREE audiobook download and 30-day free trial at www.audibletrial.com/InBound If interested in producing a podcast of your own, like the Move Look & Listen Podcast, contact Tim Edwards at tim@InBoundPodcasting.com or visit www.InBoundPodcasting.com  Transcription Below: Tim Edwards: The Move Look and Listen Podcast with Dr. Doug Stephey is brought to you by Audible. Get a free audio book download and a 30-day free trial audible membership www.audibletrial.com/inbound. You'll find over 180,000 titles to choose from, including several books mentioned here in the podcast. Support the Move Look & Listen Podcast by visiting www.audibletrial.com/inbound.  Dr. Stephey: If our two eyes are not working together well as a fast synchronized team. Our internal mapquest continues to be off. It's consistently inconsistent with our ability to judge time and space. Those that don't feel well-grounded, those that have some measure of anxiety, oftentimes it starts in the visual system. If you can't move, look and listen in a fast, accurate, effortless, sustainable, age-appropriate, meaningful way, you're in a world of hurt. There's a whole world in vision and how it affects brain function that no one's ever shared with you. 20/20 is perceived as a holy grail of going to the eye doctor. Well, I'm here to change that paradigm.  Tim Edwards: This is the Move Look & Listen podcast with Dr. Doug Stephey. I'm Tim Edwards with the Inbound Podcasting Network and a patient of Dr. Stephey's and we appreciate you tuning into the podcast today. We know when you hear the, the term or the word or the profession, optometrist, you think I'm going to go get some glasses, get some contacts and be on my way. And that's traditionally what happens when you go see an optometrist. Well, if you listen to some of our previous episodes, you know that I have a video production marketing company and I have interviewed dozens of optometrists here in the southern California area, but there was this one day that I produced a video for Dr. Doug Stephey in Covina, California. That changed the way I thought of optometrists, or at least this one in particular. Because Dr. Stephey was the first optometrist that told me about vision therapy, not just how I could see 20/20.  Tim Edwards: Dr. Stephey we have touched on vision therapy in previous episodes, and you talked a little bit about what it entails. But let's just dedicate an entire episode to vision therapy. Because future podcasts will depend upon the information we present today.  Dr. Stephey: Tim, I think it's a wonderful idea and there is a lot of information and misinformation about vision therapy and what it is and what it does. So one of the first myths that I want to talk about is when somebody says, well, I heard vision therapy doesn't work. And I say it doesn't work to do what? And then they say, what do you mean? And I say, what do you mean? Dr. Stephey: You're the one that said vision therapy doesn't work. I'm asking you it doesn't work to do what? And then they pause again and then I say jokingly, well, does vision therapy cure world hunger? No. Vision therapy doesn't work to do that? And then we have a chuckle about that because that seems so preposterous, right?  Tim Edwards: Right.  Dr. Stephey: But it opens the discussion to talk about what vision therapy does and doesn't do. For example, there are components within medicine and education that put out the argument. There is no proof that vision therapy cures dyslexia. Therefore vision therapy doesn't work. Well that's a heck of a statement and conclusion. I don't really know of any optometrist doing vision therapy that would make the claim that vision therapy cures dyslexia.  Tim Edwards: That vision therapy or even glasses cures anything.  Dr. Stephey: Well, that's my point. So when the false premise is written by others that want to denigrate vision therapy, that vision therapy, there's no evidence that vision therapy cures dyslexia.  Dr. Stephey: Therefore vision therapy doesn't work and make a global blanket statement, right? That's the classic. You set up a strong man's argument and then argue the false premise. It's just wrong and it's disingenuous at best. So does vision therapy cure dyslexia? I would make the argument that no, vision therapy doesn't cure dyslexia. But we're back to the issue of what is vision therapy and what is it designed to do? Well, that's a really wonderfully complex and loaded question.  Tim Edwards: But for those like me who've never heard of vision therapy before, what is it?  Dr. Stephey: Right. What is it? So when I have that exact same conversation in the practice and I've got a limited amount of time to do it, kind of like doing this podcast. It goes something like this. I said, imagine a three circle venn diagram, one circle is can you see 20/20. The second circle is are your eyes healthy and that's where most eye doctors practice optometry and ophthalmology alike.  Dr. Stephey: In those two circles. You can have an exam like that and be told everything is fine and you could still have a profound vision therapy problem because that exists in the third circle. It's like the third rail at the subway, right? The third rail. Well in this case, that third circle, in it has items like this retained primitive reflexes, magnocellular vision deficits, visual aliasing and visual stress, convergence and facility, accommodative infacility, accommodative dysfunction, motor planning and sequencing deficits, working memory and executive function issues, rapid naming skills deficits, even phonological processing deficits, and even some auditory processing outcomes are affected by visual skills.  Tim Edwards: Okay, but I got to interrupt you because these are really cool sounding terms.  Dr. Stephey: I know.  Tim Edwards: But someone like me is like, I don't know what that is.  Dr. Stephey: And ultimately that's really my point to start with. My point is that when I list those terms off and it sounds like I'm talking to foreign language, that's really my point because I say anything that I just said, does it sound like it's related to seeing 20/20 letters out an eye chart at 20 feet. And then patients are like, well, no, I've never heard of those things before.  Dr. Stephey: Like that's my point. There's a whole world in vision and how it affects brain function that no one's ever shared with you. So in that context and in a simpler version of things, vision and auditory are our primary threat detectors. It's the primary sensory modality of how we interact with the world around us, both in us asking ourselves the question subconsciously, do we feel safe and do we have the visual skills to know where we are in space to be well grounded? And that goes to our sense of ego and our sense of self and how we fit in this world. We also use vision to read gestural language and facial expressions and I would argue that most social psychologist would make the argument that 80 percent of how we communicate is done through body language, not through the words that come out of our mouth.  Dr. Stephey: There was a show called Lie to Me that was about reading body language. Remember reading body language isn't through touch or auditory. It's happening through vision. So there's a number of skills like the terminology I rattled off a few minutes ago that people don't know about. So my job as a neurodevelopmental optometrist is to figure out do you have such a problem and what areas might it lie in and how does it show up in your day to day life. Whether you have issues with driving at dusk or night time. Or I have some patients that avoid driving the freeway. I can't do it. It's too anxiety producing.  Tim Edwards: I know several people that won't drive on the freeway, period.  Dr. Stephey: That's a vision problem because driving at freeway speeds is about using your visual skills to judge the movement of time and space. And the faster the speed, the less time and space that you have in order to make that judgment, so people avoid it.  Dr. Stephey: I have other people that don't drive in the carpool lane. The concrete dividers whizzing past their peripheral vision, acts like a magnet on their visual attention, and in some patients their car feels like it's demonized and wants to drive itself into the wall. So these vision therapy related skills and the deficits within those skills affect every aspect of our lives. I don't care if you're a baby learning speech or you're 90-years-old wanting to keep your drivers license, or not trip and fall and break something and then never recover from the broken bone. All of this ties into these visual skills. So in my estimation, the biggest challenge is doing the right assessment to start with. So you know all the pieces within that third circle of the venn diagram so that you can then create a developmental hierarchy to what should we treat first and second and third. Much like the expression you gotta walk before you run, or you got to crawl before you walk and you've got a rollover before you get up on all fours and before you can roll over, you've got to be able to lift your head off the floor.  Dr. Stephey: You got to be able to push yourself up with your arms, got to know that your arms and legs even belong to you and that you have some voluntary control over them. That's all a developmental hierarchy and it ties in to the whole theme of my practice and this podcast, which move, look and listen.  Tim Edwards: Dr. Stephey not looking for an exact number here, but maybe more of a ballpark figure. If someone hears the term like myself, vision therapy, my first thought would be, well that's probably a very small percentage of the population that needs something like that because of the word therapy. Right? But in your estimation, over your 30 years of being in practice, I'm sure that number's pretty high. What percentage of your patients you think could benefit from vision therapy?  Dr. Stephey: I think the more general question is what about the population at large? Not just about my population?  Tim Edwards: Yeah, absolutely. Sure.  Dr. Stephey: So 10 to 20 percent of the population at large likely has a vision related deficit that they know nothing about because it falls in the third circle that's never been assessed. But again, just generally speaking, If we look at different subcategories in the population, autism, ADD, ADHD, working memory, executive dysfunction, reading disability, dyslexia, learning disorder, bipolar, schizophrenia, motion sickness and migraine, chronic headache, fatigue, pick one.  Tim Edwards: Yeah, that's a lot of people.  Tim Edwards: That's a lot of people.  Dr. Stephey: That's a lot of people. It is estimated today that one out of, I think every 68 kids born today is getting a diagnosis of autism.  Tim Edwards: Wow.  Dr. Stephey: By 2030. It's speculated one out of every three kids and a retired psychiatrist that I know who's been to some continuing education says that where she's gone to the speculation is that by 2050 there'll be no neuro typical kids left.  Tim Edwards: Well, that's a whole other podcast because I in the Inbound Podcasting Network, we have other clients that talk about what they believe are the reasons for that increase. We don't need to get into that right now, but there are hard numbers, true data to support what you just said.  Dr. Stephey: Yep. So let's circle back to what is vision therapy then. The simplest explanation is that vision therapy is like physical therapy on the eyes and brain. Some people mistakenly think that vision therapy is something that we're doing that makes your eye muscles stronger. That is not the case. It's never a question or it's rarely ever a question that your eye muscles are quote unquote weak. What's more significant is how your brain tells those muscles what to do. So there's certain neural networks that control these skills. Visual attention, visual processing, speed. In lay terms, eye focusing, eye taming, eye tracking, visual-spatial skills, visual-auditory integration, visual-motor skills, visual-cognitive abilities. Again, each of those different categories has therapy tied to each of those singular items. But globally it's changing the way your brain tells your eyes what to do and it changes the way your brain processes visual data, so there's a sensory component.. Dr. Stephey: of how you take in visual information. There's an integrative component that's happening in your mind about how you process and assimilate that data in preparation for acting upon that data, usually through some sort of motor output, either with speech and language or that I've got to move from point a to point B or I've got to throw a ball from third base to first base or that I've got a parallel park her car and not hit the car in front of me or behind me. So you get the idea that vision's pretty pervasive in every waking second of everyday. So vision therapy is not making your eye muscles stronger. It's changing the way your brain processes visual input. That's the most simplest of explanations. And then there's a couple different models of the delivery of that care. There are models that would propose to really never, and you know the absolutes of never and always you're always going to want us to, you'rer always going to stay from absolutes. Tim Edwards: I think we understand it. You're right and I'm guilty.  Dr. Stephey: So one camp would say you need to do free space activities that do not involve a computer screen and that involved whole body component in the eye movement activities. So it's a whole body, eye movement experience and there's value in that. There was a pediatrician from Yale, I believe, named Arnold Gazelle back in the 50s, I believe it was. Worked with a handful of optometrists to study vision development from infancy up to the ages of 10 or 12. And one of the that that group wrote about way back then, think about that back in the 50s? They wrote, if you want to understand the child's vision, you have to understand the whole child and if you want to understand the whole child, you have to understand their vision development. So there seems to be a lot of misconception about that vision therapy is just an eyeball based activity.  Dr. Stephey: It is not. It is a brain based activity. For example, there are 12 cranial nerves that are direct branches off the brain itself, major cranial nerve, 12 of them, roughly two thirds to three quarters of them are directly tied up in vision. That's a lot of brain space allocated towards vision and vision development. Vision development really is kind of a lifelong process. Something I just re-read a few weeks ago said that the beginnings of the optic nerve and the beginnings of the eyeball begins to take shape roughly two weeks after conception. That two weeks. And on the same vein, there's something called frontal lobe activity or executive function skills and I think in some behavioral optometry circles we might describe frontal lobe activity as visual imagery. Can you visually image the consequences of your actions? Frontal lobe activity or these visualization skills seemed to not really fully develop until our early to mid twenties.  Dr. Stephey: So we're talking about..  Tim Edwards: Those are extremes right there. From two weeks after conception to our mid to late twenties or early what'd you say? Early to mid twenties?  Dr. Stephey: Yes early to mid twenties.  Tim Edwards: Oh my goodness.  Dr. Stephey: Vision development takes place over quite a long time. And beyond that we maintain neuroplasticity in the brain over our lifetime. So we can always make changes to brain based behavior. I don't care how old you are. I think the oldest patient, this is such a funny story because I sometimes will tell the story in the office where somebody is contemplating do they want to do vision therapy? And I say, you know, I had a mother and her daughter come and do vision therapy in my practice maybe year and a half ago. And people listening to the story, they're like, oh, that's interesting. And I say the daughter was 62. Dr. Stephey: They're like what?  Tim Edwards: Changes the whole perspective. That's right. Wow.  Dr. Stephey: Perception is everything.  Tim Edwards: It is indeed. That's right.  Dr. Stephey: Her mom was in the early nineties.  Tim Edwards: How about that.  Dr. Stephey: So it's never too late to do this in therapy.  Tim Edwards: So again, when you say that I'm chomping at the bit to go. What do we do? What is vision therapy like? You're talking about, you know, getting away from a screen but aren't there software packages that you have or where you need to be in front of a screen, and then there's getting out into the world and doing things.  Dr. Stephey: There is. So everybody is different. Everbody's their unique individual. Research studies are nice for global kind of statistics relative to the general population, but at the end of the day when you're sitting in my chair, your unique needs are your unique needs. So my job is to do a proper assessment to start with and then come up with a developmentally appropriate plan. What I go back to the comment about the name of this podcast, Move Look & Listen. My model, generally speaking from bottom up, we look at nutritional components of how you're functioning. We look at something called the retained primitive reflexes. We look at something called millisecond timing clock deficits, and whether they exist in your brain. You know the expression you are, he is walking to the beat of his own drum. That's this millisecond timing clock deficit and it is measurable and it is trainable. And the interesting thing about this millisecond timing clock and the company that has done something about it to measure it and train it, it's called interactive metronome and that was created by a music producer who was also a conductor. And I think he got tired of talking to musicians about their timing and how they were a little bit ahead or behind the beat and he created this instrument to measure it and then train them and it has taken on a whole life of its own.  Tim Edwards: That's awesome. That's awesome.  Dr. Stephey: It is phenomenal. So that's a millisecond timing clock and that's usually the first stage of my therapies, nutritional considerations, primitive reflexes and this millisecond timing clock. So that's stage one for me personally. Then we might move into stage two. Stage two is something called magnocellular vision or emotion processing. Your ability to see fast and do it under low contrast conditions because magnocellular visual skills, if it's not the gateway to attention, it's pretty close. So it is about seeing fast and my experience and the literature that I've read over the last 10, 15, 20 years from a variety of different disciplines, cognitive psychology, neuro psychology, social psychology, neuro optometry. When I tell you these things, they're in assimilation of me reading in a lot of different fields and then trying to weave that all together into the model of where I practice currently because it's very different then when I practiced 20 years ago. And I still learn stuff every day.  Dr. Stephey: I added a new therapy to my practice six weeks ago called the safe and sound therapy. People can google that, safe and sound therapy.  Tim Edwards: We'll put a link in the show notes for that.  Dr. Stephey: Yup and it fits into my model of what I do now. And there's the magnocellular theory of dyslexia that most of the people listening to this program are going to go, what? I thought dyslexia was just a reading disorder. Well, that's the outcome. It doesn't tell me why you're having difficulty with reading. It doesn't tell me why you're not benefiting from reading instruction that your peers are benefiting from. It's just given me a label and an outcome. Which is not the way to determine a course of therapy. I would say in most cases, if you have a child with a reading disorder or specific learning disability, which typically means a reading disorder or they even have the label dyslexia.. Dr. Stephey: Invariably what you're told is you just need to do more reading. I'm not going to be so bold as to tell you that there's not gains to be made if you're doing more reading because it's kind of like saying, well, if standard instruction is like trickling water into a bucket, over time, you'll fill your bucket up. That's true, but if you've got a bucket full of holes like primitive reflexes, millisecond timing clock problem, magnocellular vision dysfunction, focusing, tracking and taming problems, et cetera. It's like you've got a bunch of holes in the bottom of your bucket until you even know those holes exist, let alone to have the holes and what they represent assessed, and then put in some sort of developmental hierarchy in terms of treatment strategies, you're completely shooting in the dark. Right? So now if I take that same holey bucket analogy and I stick a fire hose in the bucket, like just doing more reading, I will temporarily fill your bucket up, but not because I plugged up your holes, it's because I poured it in so much.  Tim Edwards: Gotcha.  Dr. Stephey: But as soon as I stopped pouring that fire hose in, what I thought you knew it leaks right back out.  Tim Edwards: So vision therapy will help plug the holes.  Dr. Stephey: Big vision therapy is designed to help assess how many of those holes you have, what deficits and how big are the deficits, and then let's come up with a developmental plan that makes sense to plug your holes. Because remember there's primitive reflexes, millisecond timing clock, nutrition. Then there's magnocellular vision. Then eye focusing, eye taming, eye tracking. In my model, that's stage two. Stage three is really working memory, executive function, rapid naming, speed and phonological processing skills, and then ultimately if we still need to address it, then there's true reading outcomes and going back and retraining your knowledge of our alphabetic writing system. So that you now can benefit from reading instruction in a way that you couldn't benefit from before because we didn't know you had all these problems.  Dr. Stephey: I have some kids that it truly is painful to look at print. It's painful. So if I take a kid who's pained by looking at print and simply tell them and I don't recognize that that's the problem, and I say, oh, well, your eyes hurt after looking at print for five minutes while I need you to look at it for four hours a day because I need to do this reading to a dream to intervene to up your decoding outcomes. But your eyes hurt after five minutes of looking at print. Can you imagine looking at it for four hours?  Tim Edwards: Now there might be some listening saying, wait, what do you mean that there are people whose eyes hurt after looking at print? Because that sounds like a a ludicrous notion to most people. What do you mean, your eyes hurt? You have to read every day. How can you even function when your eyes hurt?  Tim Edwards: The way I understand it, Dr. Stephey is it's more than just it's, it's, it's almost repellent to some people because of how their brain is processing the way the words look on the paper. So it's not just that my eyes physically hurt, like someone stuck a needle in their eye, but it's also there's some anxiety associated with it.  Dr. Stephey: Tim, you are starting to catch on.  Tim Edwards: It's only taken me two years, but I'm getting there. Thankfully we have this podcast.  Dr. Stephey: There's a term called visual eylea scene and there's a term called visual stress. And visual stress and visual eylea sane really are representative of the same outcome, but their origins are slightly different. And there's a cognitive psychologist in the UK named Arnold Wilkins. W I L K I N S. Arnold Wilkins who wrote a book called Visual Stress, and he wrote a book called Reading Through Color.  Dr. Stephey: Both are powerful, powerful books. What he talks about is the black and white striped nature of print, specifically and how truly visually repellent it is, for some people you've probably heard the term photo epilepsy or how some people have seizure activity with certain rates of flicker. Well fluorescent lighting flickers and black and white stripes electrically have the potential to do the same thing to the brain that flicker does. And Wilkins, created a pattern of black and white stripes that is specifically designed to solicit this kind of a response from you if you are prone to visual eyelea scene or visual stress response. So you look at this center fixation dot of this pattern of black and white stripes, and my simple question to you initially is, is this comfortable or uncomfortable to look at?  Dr. Stephey: That's the first question. So if you're not prone to a visual eyelea scene or visual stress response, you look at the black and white stripes and you're like, it feels fine. If you are prone to this response, we have some people who can't even look at it for more than about two seconds and they say it's so disturbing to them in their eyes.. Dr. Stephey: In their brain, in their ears, jaw, throat, chest and/or gut that they can't even look at the stripes.  Tim Edwards: Yeah, again, that is part of what really attracted me to your practice was you asking me that question during my first visit with you. Because I was one of those who does not like looking at the printed paper and I do not like to physically read. I love to absorb my content through my ears, which is why I started a podcasting network and was in broadcasting for many years. And audible is a big sponsor of all of the shows on my network. But can you imagine though being a student who doesn't have the luxury of absorbing all of their content through their ears? Of course they, the teacher speaks, but you have to read your homework or read a book or do something that requires the visual component and that is why what you're saying is so paramount to the success of children in particular that are going through school.  Dr. Stephey: Well, I'll give you a couple of examples that are relevant to this discussion. One example is a guy who was in his early 50s, he's got a master's degree in social work and I was telling him this story about the way his two eyes work together and a light bulb went off. And he said, oh, you wanna know how it got to graduate school. He said, I couldn't read and comprehend at the same time. So I read my assignments, tape them, and then listen to myself on tape.  Tim Edwards: Now, that takes a lot of time to do that.  Dr. Stephey: Think about that.  Tim Edwards: That takes a lot of time. So think about had he perhaps had the opportunity to experience vision therapy at a younger age. How much time and how much easier would it have been for him to obtain his master's degree without having to go through that extra time arduous step.  Dr. Stephey: I had an optometrist come visit me in 2008. She was finishing the vision therapy residency. She came to see me about 11 months into a 12 month residency and during the course of my assessment with her, because she didn't like this grid that I'm alluding to. And when she saw me pull out this grid, she said, you know, I'm probably not going to do very good at this either. But I said, what do you mean? And in the span of about 30 seconds, she said, well, I don't really like to read. And then she said, that's not really true. I hate reading. And then she said I'd rather cut my fingers off than read. That's how painful reading is to her.  Tim Edwards: It's a real thing folks. I know there are a lot of people that just don't get it because they love to read. Like my wife loves to actually hold a physical book with paper and I'm not talking like on the kindle or something like she just loves the process and I can't think of anything more repellent.  Dr. Stephey: And that's the truth and so I get it.  Tim Edwards: It's a real thing and Dr. Stephey, we're running out of time on this episode right here, but it really is a perfect prelude episode to what we have coming up in our next episode.  Dr. Stephey: One final comment I want to make.  Tim Edwards: Please.  Dr. Stephey: Vision therapy is a pretty broad umbrella and there's lots of pieces that can come underneath it. And you could have had vision therapy elsewhere and still have a vision therapy problem. Because if we haven't comprehensively looked at all the pieces of this puzzle, it means that maybe all of your vision therapy diagnoses didn't get treated. Maybe some of them never even got assessed to be treated and maybe the things that got treated worked when you did the therapy. But maybe six to nine to 12 months passed and you come and find me by the web or word of mouth or a school district referral and I measure skills that purportedly we're fine six or nine or 12 months ago and now it seems like you've lost those skills altogether.  Dr. Stephey: I think those might be examples of why in some circles the perception is that vision therapy doesn't work. My experience would say that you didn't get fully assessed and you didn't get fully treated. And you didn't get treated in the right developmental sequence because for example, I won't do eye taming and eye focusing therapy in my office. If you've got a millisecond timing clock deficit or you've got retained primitive reflexes or you got a magnocellular vision problem. Because my experience has been over the years that if I try to do eye taming, eye focusing therapy without knowing those other lower level developmental skills, it's going to take me longer to treat those deficits to start with and they're likely not going to stick as well. My model is like a house of cards. If you got a shaky foundation to start with, which is primitive reflexes, nutrition, millisecond timing clock deficits.  Dr. Stephey: If you've got a shaky foundation, the second and the third foundation up is built on shaky ground. So I want to start from the ground floor up. You may not necessarily like all the things that I'm going to tell you, but you'll appreciate the depth of what you'll learn and you'll know the sequence of what should happen. You'll know the depth of what's happening with you or your child and you'll have a much fuller understanding of the work that lies ahead of you and that you know that there's a path that this can work and that's the most significant thing for me. At the end of the day. At the end of the day, you were the judge and jury of whether or not you accept my findings and the knowledge that I have to share. No one's ever accused me of not sharing enough information.  Dr. Stephey: You want literature on primitive reflexes? I will send it to you. You want magnocellular vision and the theory of dyslexia? Got it covered. You want things about convergence insufficiency and eye taming and eye focusing? I'll send you a couple links. I'll send you some articles. You want, millisecond timing cock deficits, and how it affects our abilities across the board? Got you covered. So be careful what you ask for when you come and save me because it is a red pill, blue pill moment from the matrix. If you will take the time to listen to me, there's no going back. It is going to change the course of how you think about life and what your needs might be and what your kids' needs might be.  Tim Edwards: I was intrigued from the moment I met you. It's the truth and it was right two years ago and I'm so thrilled to help get this information out because so many lives can be changed with what you're doing. I really believe that with all my heart and soul and like I said a few moments ago, and I'd love for you to kind of tease what our next episode is because all of this is so incredibly relevant to what we're about to talk about.  Dr. Stephey: And our next episode, I'm going to try to dive a little deeper into how to connect the vision therapy with your kids special education needs and what their educational rights are and how we can advocate with you and for you so that you have more power in your corner so that you can have more power in your corner and be a more effective advocate for your child and their needs.  Tim Edwards: Thank you for listening to the Move Look & Listen Podcast with Dr. Doug Stephey brought to you by audible. Get a free audio book download and a 30 day free trial of audible membership at audibletrial.com/inbound. You'll find over 180,000 titles to choose from, including books mentioned here in the Move Look & Listen podcasts. You can listen to these books through your iphone, your android, your kindle, your computer, or even an MP3 player. And if for any reason and at any time you choose to cancel your membership, you keep all of your audio book, downloads. Give it a shot for 30 days. You got nothing to lose. Support the Move Look & Listen podcast by visiting audibletrial.com/inbound. We will include a link for your convenience, in the show notes of this and every episode of the podcast. And of course if you like some more information regarding Dr. Stephey's practice or to make an appointment, we will include links in the show notes to Dr. Stephey's website and his youtube channel.  Tim Edwards: Dr. Stephey's website is stepheyoptometry.com. That's s t e p h e y optometry.com. You can also call the office at 626-332-4510. Again, all of Dr. Stephey's contact information will be included in the show notes of each and every episode. One last request before we let you go on to the next episode. Please subscribe to the podcast from whichever platform you might be listening in. Of course, it is free to subscribe and it ensures that every time we post a new episode, you'll find it right there waiting for you to listen in your podcast app of choice. We really do appreciate your listening and until next time for Dr. Stephey of the Move Look & Listen podcast. I'm Tim Edwards with the Inbound Podcasting Network.     

What the heck is a magnocellular neuron you say? Douglas W. Stephey, O.D., M.S. will tell us why is it important to attention, movement, reading, and understanding where we are in space. Furthermore, the magnocellular visual pathway also plays a role in staying out of being in a perpetual state of fight or flight. This visual pathway will be explained in easy to understand detail and will be differentiated from the parvocellular or what visual pathway. Douglas W. Stephey, O.D., M.S. 208 West Badillo St.  Covina, CA 91723 Phone: 626-332-4510 Website: http://bit.ly/DouglasWStepheyWebsite Videos: http://bit.ly/DrStepheyOptometryVideos The Move Look & Listen Podcast is brought to you in part, by Audible - get a FREE audiobook download and 30-day free trial at www.audibletrial.com/InBound If interested in producing a podcast of your own, like the Move Look & Listen Podcast, contact Tim Edwards at tim@InBoundPodcasting.com or visit www.InBoundPodcasting.com Transcription Below: Tim Edwards: The Move Look & Listen Podcast with Dr. Doug Stephey is brought to you by audible. Get a free audio book download and a 30 day free trial audible membership at audibletrial.com/inbound. You'll find over 180,000 titles to choose from, including several books mentioned here in the podcast. Support the Move Look & Listen Podcast by visiting audibletrial.com/inbound.  Dr. Stephey: If our two eyes are not working together well as a fast synchronized team, our internal mapquest continues to be off. It's consistently inconsistent with our ability to judge time and space. Those that don't feel well-grounded, those that have some measure of anxiety, oftentimes it starts in the visual system. If you can't move, look and listen in a fast, accurate, effortless, sustainable, age appropriate, meaningful way, you're in a world of hurt. There's a whole world in vision and how it affects brain function that no one's ever shared with you. 20/20 is perceived as a holy grail of going to the eye doctor. Well, I'm here to change that paradigm.  Tim Edwards: This is the Move Look & Listen podcast with Dr. Doug Stephey. I'm Tim Edwards, the founder of the Inbound Podcasting Network, and a patient of Dr. Doug Stephey. He located in Covina, California. Episode four today, Dr. Stephey. We're talking about seeing fast. Never heard that phrase ever. And I've said that a lot in the last few episodes. I've never heard that before. Going to visit various optometrists throughout the last 25 years or so when I first started wearing glasses. It seems like everything that you bring up, every time we get together, there's something new and enlightening regarding our vision and our brain and how our eyes work together. Seeing fast. Tell us what that means.  Dr. Stephey: Yeah. What the heck? Seeing fast. What's that all about? Well, certainly come into the optometrist. 20/20 is perceived as the holy grail of going to the eye doctor, right? If you could walk out seeing 20/20, it's all good.  Dr. Stephey: Well, I'm here to change that paradigm. Fundamentally, the world generally is made up of prey, animals and predators. And prey animals have eyes on either side of their head, like horses and rabbits and predators have eyes closely spaced on their face.  Tim Edwards: Like us.  Dr. Stephey: Like us. And the reason that's true when you really stop and think about it. Is prey animals have to have almost a 360 degree field of view because they want to know when a predator is coming to eat them and they need to be able to see fast themselves in order to give them enough time.. Dr. Stephey: To flee the scene. Right? Because prey animals generally don't have great fighting skills. Their abilities to survive another day is that they have camouflage and they're fast, short term sprinters, and then there's lack of movement. Like the proverbial deer in headlights.  Tim Edwards: So they can either hide or escape quickly.  Dr. Stephey: That's it.  Tim Edwards: To survive.  Dr. Stephey: So predators have eyes closely spaced on our face because we need to be able to see in 3D. Now inherently to that we have to use our two eyes together as a well integrated team. And we also have to be able to see fast. And we have to see a large volume of space. Because if you and I were out walking down a wooded trail and we're looking at something straight ahead of us at 12:00 and the deer that hurt us, or saw us coming was off at 10:00 and it's now holding still because it doesn't want to enter our visual radar. So you and I are looking at 12:00.. Dr. Stephey: There's a movement in our periphery. If we're able to see fast, one, we should be able to perceive the movement and two, we should be able to localize a general area space of where that movement is coming from. So that when we turn and look and use eye focusing, eye tracking, eye taming skills to localize where we think we perceive that movement well then we should kick in our pattern detecting abilities so we can break their camouflage. I'm pretty convinced that's why we like playing where's Waldo and word search puzzles and hidden picture things in the highlights magazines at the dentist office. Because it feeds into our skills. We're good pattern detectors. It's innate, it's innate. It's inherent in how we see that we should be able to see fast and use our two eyes together as a well integrated team to localize a target of interest in space. And that in its essence is predator versus prey.  Dr. Stephey: So when you think about the anatomy of our sensory systems, vision, auditory, taste, touch and smell, there's about 3 million sensory neurons in those five systems. And of that 3 million neurons, there's about 30,000 auditory neurons per ear. There's roughly estimated to be 1.2 million optic neurons per eye.  Tim Edwards: A big difference.  Dr. Stephey: It's huge. So almost two and a half of the 3 million sensory inputs are tied up in vision. And of those senses, vision, auditory, taste, touch and smell, the two senses that are our primary threat detectors, are vision and auditory. Because both of those sensory systems allow you to perceive a threat at distance in preparation for fight or flight. So that's the reality of how our sensory systems are put together. If you have to wait to feel something before you consider it to be a threat, it is way too late.  Tim Edwards: Too late. That's right. You're dinner.  Dr. Stephey: You're dinner, dinner, and your gene pool didn't make it. So you were weeded out generations ago. If we inherently had poor binocular vision and we couldn't catch an animal source of protein, we probably would have all ended up vegetarians because we never would've been able to catch an animal source of food. Because to be able to do that, you've got to be able to see in 3D because you've got to localize where that prey animal is in space and you have to be able to predict the future. You didn't know you had a visual system that look into the future. Did you?  Tim Edwards: No, I didn't. I can't wait to hear about this. Fight of the lottery numbers are for tomorrow.  Dr. Stephey: So typically does a prey animal runaway in a straight line?  Tim Edwards: No.  Dr. Stephey: No. They zigzag, because it's hardwired into their system that if they zig and zag, it is harder for us to predict where they're going to be in the future. If I'm going to throw a spear at escaping animal or shootable it. Or an arrow or a slingshot, whatever my mode is. If I can't predict where they're going to be in the next instant in time, if I shoot to where they were, I'm going to always end up shooting behind them. So we've got to be able to predict the future by being able to analyze where we think that animal is going to be at the next instant in time. And all of that is dictated by how fast we see and how accurate we use our two eyes together as a well integrated team. Because at that juncture the escaping prey animal is the apex of the triangle and our two eyes roughly 60 to 70 millimeters apart in our face is essentially the base of that triangle and we've got to be able to localize where that pretty animal is in space, but we can't do that if the base of our triangle isn't stable.  Dr. Stephey: If our two eyes are not working together well. As a fast synchronized team, our internal mapquest continues to be off. It's consistently inconsistent with our ability to judge time and space. So in that context, a lot of patients that I see and certainly a lot of folks walking around every day, those that don't feel well-grounded, those that have some measure of anxiety, oftentimes it starts in the visual system. Because they truly don't feel well-ground because their internal mapquest is off and there's a significant visual component contributing to their sense of where they are in space.  Tim Edwards: So there is the need to see fast in today's society and not just back to the caveman days, right? You talk about anxiety issues because I would think that if somebody is not seeing fast based upon your examples, that they are in a constant state of fight or flight.  Dr. Stephey: I think that's a reasonable statement. And related to that is something called the polyvagal theory of affect, emotion, self regulation and communication.  Tim Edwards: That's a mouthful.  Dr. Stephey: It is. And it's been written about for the past 30 or 40 years primarily by a fellow by the name of Stephen Porges. He wrote a book called a pocket guide to the polyvagal theory. That's the more readable of his books. So if you're going to read a book that's the one to read. It's really user friendly and it's interesting too because fundamentally we want to feel safe. There's not much more that we can do in life if you can't feel safe. So when we roll out of bed in the morning and we look around our environment and throughout every waking, second of the day, our subconscious mind is asking yourself the question, do I feel safe? And we're primarily answering that question through auditory and primarily vision. Just because of the anatomy of two and a half, almost two and a half to 3 million neurons feeding information to the brain is tied up in vision.  Dr. Stephey: So when we look around and ask that question, do I feel safe? Well, a great part of that is your ability to see fast. So if you're able to see fast enough to just glance around your environment, subconsciously answered that question, why yes, I do feel safe. Then you go about your day and that question never bubbles up to your conscious awareness. It doesn't need to because your subconscious mind has already answered the question for you. But the problem is, in part, if you can't see fast or use your two wires together as a well integrated team and your subconscious mind asks itself that question again, do I feel safe and it can't answer that question below the level of conscious awareness, your brain goes into defcon one and the subconscious mind asks your conscious mind, well, do we feel safe? And the conscious mind says, you know what, I'm not really sure I appreciate you asking me for a second opinion so you know what I'm going to start to pay attention to whether or not I actually feel safe.  Tim Edwards: And there's a level of anxiety boosted a little bit right there.  Dr. Stephey: Absolutely, because now your conscious mind has to be on high alert status, which means now that you're more sensitive to movement in your periphery, right? Because that's where predators are going to come from out of your peripheral vision.  Tim Edwards: But a predator could also be a dresser in your bedroom. When you're getting up in the morning, you can't really see, a little dark and you nip your toe on it or something. Right? I mean, I'm being serious. Is that, that's not necessarily a predator, but like that's part of being able to see quickly or in the dark perhaps?  Dr. Stephey: Well, it is because I suppose at that juncture, any object in your peripheral vision, whatever that object is, can be perceived as a threat which goes along with that whole expression about perception is reality.  Tim Edwards: Yeah.  Dr. Stephey: Well, if your perception is off and in most cases when we talk about perception is reality, we are talking about visual perception. But it doesn't usually get elaborated on to that degree. But it's not just objects in your periphery anymore.  Dr. Stephey: Now your auditory hypersensitivity is elevated. Your touch sensitivity is elevated. Your tastes and smell sensitivities are elevated because now your brain is perceiving the environment as potentially one giant eminent threat and it better be on high alert status in preparation for anything that it needs to flee or fight from. Is that why individuals who are completely blind always seem to at least we're told, have this hypersensitive sense of, of, of smell and taste and sound. I think. I think arguably the answer to that is yes. If you. If you're losing out on that much visual input, but your brain still has to perceive your environment, it has to be tuned into other senses. The other interesting thing about blind folks is that when they use a white cane, for example, to maneuver around a room, their visual cortex lights up so they see the room in their visual cortex, but they're doing it through, feel, not through their eyeballs.  Tim Edwards: It's amazing. Dr. Stephey: From what I remember reading, when they read Braille, again, their visual cortex lights up at the same areas that relate to the written word in a sighted person. The same areas of the brain light up, but you're just doing that on your fingertips. You're looking through your fingertips. And I find that common in the patients that I see in my practice, typically more pediatric related. But when I see a kid in my practice who has a difficult time sitting in my exam chair when I'm talking with the parents, they want a slide out of my chair and they want to walk around my exam room because I got a lot of cool stuff to look at.  Tim Edwards: You do.   Dr. Stephey: So they feel compelled to go pick up everything and feel it. And most of the time I'm really tolerant to that because I understand the reason why. But I also understand what that kid is really telling me through their behavior, through their motor overflow, if you will, or what typically gets described as their ADHD behavior.  Dr. Stephey: I know in most cases that's just a vision problem and they're looking around, but they have to do it through their fingertips.  Tim Edwards: But the general public would say they're not paying attention. They're misbehaving and therefore they should be in trouble or suffer some type of consequences.  Dr. Stephey: Yes, absolutely.  Tim Edwards: Wow.  Dr. Stephey: And related to that, are the kids that do have a difficult time sitting still and it is true that if we looked at an ADHD or an ADD checklist of behaviors, a lot of the kids' behaviors will fit those checklists, but they're just checklists of behaviors. There hasn't been any actual testing that has gone on. There's not a blood test to determine if you're ADHD and my experience over the years that I've been in practice and everything that I've read inside my field of optometry and all the stuff that I read outside my discipline really says ADHD ought to be a diagnosis of exclusion. And what I mean by that is that you should have ruled out everything else.  Dr. Stephey: Things that ought to be measured and can be measured and can be trained, should be measured and assessed and treated. For example, there's something called retained primitive reflexes. There's nutritional aspects to behavior. There's seeing fast or magnocellular vision. There's eye tamng, eye focusing, eye tracking and working memory and executive function skills. All these things are tangibly measurable skills and they all could be trainable. We should do that rather than look at a checklist of behaviors and reach a conclusion that that kid's got ADHD and that we should put them on meds. That to me is malpractice. I'll give you a practical example. Picture yourself at the movie theater and they start the film and the video and the audio tracks are slightly out of sync. Maybe 20, 30 milliseconds. How's that gonna make you feel?  Tim Edwards: I hate it.  Tim Edwards: I've been to a few movie theaters where they're out of sync and I'm the guy that gets up and goes and complains in the back they fix it. No, it's aggravating.  Dr. Stephey: It is. And I think those frustrating, aggravating, discombobulating, annoying. Those are the kinds of adjectives that describe what it's like to do that.  Tim Edwards: Wow. So these people are living with their "films" out of sync all the time?  Dr. Stephey: Well, I think so because fundamentally I think what that represents, it means that vision and auditory aren't in sync together and that's very disturbing. Now, if I sat in the back of that theater with a clipboard and a checklist of ADHD behaviors, about five minutes after starting a film like that, pretty much the entire audience, is going to start manifesting ADDness and ADHDness.  Tim Edwards: Absolutely.  Dr. Stephey: So if all I did was look at the behavior and not the underlying skills related to moving, looking, and listening. I'm going to think everybody's got ADHD. Or they're inattentive and I would have missed the whole representation of what was really happening. Well and the reason I want to talk about those kinds of things because I'm going to circle back to a more fundamental component of how we see fast and what it represents in terms of us asking and ultimately answering that question about whether or not we feel safe and tied to that is the idea of autonomic state.  Dr. Stephey: Autonomic state relates to the idea that are we in a perpetual state of fight or flight? Or can we be calm and mindful and in the moment. And it's really intriguing because the brain has 12 cranial nerves. Or 12 branches that are nerves directly off of the brain itself. And roughly two-thirds to three quarters of those are directly tied up in the visual system and a few others tie vision and the inner ear and the auditory systems together. And the 10th cranial nerve. It's called the vagus nerve. Vagus means to wander. So the vagal nerve or the vagus nerve wanders throughout our organ systems. And and it ties into our ability to self regulate and the really fascinating thing to me is the patients that I might see and they could be an adult patient, what I'm going to describe as a neuro typical patient could be a kid who's been diagnosed with ADD or ADHD, could be a student, has been diagnosed with dyslexia or reading disorder, could be a kid on the spectrum, could be any child who has some sort of a medical syndrome that has challenged their abilities to move, look and listen.  Dr. Stephey: So there they do not find it easy to self regulate their behavior. And this is what's so fascinating about the work that I get to do every day. As an example, one of the assessments that I might do is to stand 10 feet across the room from somebody and I say, we're going to make eye contact with each other. I'm going to slowly walk towards you and you tell me when it feels like I've invaded your personal space bubble. I don't care how you measure it. Your heart skips a beat, you catch your breath, your palms get sweaty, you feel like you've got to step away. Or you feel like you want to run away from me coming across the room, you use your own benchmark. But I'm describing what we're going to do.  Tim Edwards: Basically when they don't like it.  Dr. Stephey: When they don't like it.  Tim Edwards: It hits a point when they're uncomfortable in any way, shape or form.  Tim Edwards: Interesting.  Dr. Stephey: Yes. Doug, you're too close. So I start 10, 11 feet away. We make eye contact with each other. I slowly started to walk across the room and I can't tell you how common it is that I might be six, seven, eight feet away. And people telling me you're too close.  Tim Edwards: Wow. Really?  Dr. Stephey: It's phenomenal. And one of the things that I do straight away in that measure is I'll usually give them colored lenses to look through or some kind of prism lenses to look through and then we'll do the same thing again. It's astonishing in many cases how close I can get. I did that with. I did that with one adult gal and I was so close to her with the glasses on. I couldn't. I couldn't have asked for her to do a better response because she said I was so close. She said, oh, I feel like we're going to kiss and I'm okay with that.  Dr. Stephey: Now mind you, this is the same. This is the same woman. That one I did at the first time without the glasses and I may be seven feet away and I describe this sympathetic overflow or this elevation of fight or flight, and she says, I felt like my arm pits are sweaty, and then she had this aha moment and she said, "do you think this is why I'm armpits get sweaty when I get in the crowd of people?" I'm like, yes, of course it is. Because the crowd milling around your periphery is triggering off this, this vagal response, your 10th cranial nerve is disregulating your behavior and it's wanting to push you into fight or flight.  Tim Edwards: Think about the children in classrooms that don't even know why they're uncomfortable because there's one child right in front of them in one to their left and one to the right and one behind them in a teacher, maybe six to 10 to 15 feet away and all of that. I mean, if you can alleviate that anxiety that a child is feeling in classroom alone, think about how much better they're going to do in school.  Dr. Stephey: Well, Tim, that's really well said. Because whenever I interact with school districts and the perception is, well the kids just not paying attention. When I say, well, it sounds to me like you've just rendered an opinion and that you act like they're willfully not paying attention. I'm here to humbly suggest that they are paying attention, but at survival based behavior. And survival based behaviors are going trump learning about reading and math every single time. So they are paying attention just not to the things that you want them to and that's not willful, that is reflexive behavior that's based in survival. It sounds a lot like what we're going to be talking about in our next episode. Actually that's true. We're gonna. We are gonna. Continue. The next episode was talking about the educational system and special education rights and how kids are being assessed and how they're not being assessed.  Dr. Stephey: But let's continue on with this idea about the vagal nerve because fight or flight is something that people commonly relate to and that's true. But there's other components to the vagal nerve as well. And in the wild, there are some animals that survive based on their ability to play dead. And classically, what does it mean to play possum? Right? And, and there's something about predators that don't like prey animals when they're dead. And you can see that with domesticated cats, right? If you have a domesticated cat and they happen to find a mouse in the house.  Tim Edwards: They're not interested. If it's dead.  Dr. Stephey: Well they're interested in it while they're slapping it around, but when the mouse is so overwhelmed by fear and their vagal response pushes them to basically pass out, the cats like, oh, oh, you're not going to try to run away from me anymore? Tim Edwards: I'm bored.  Dr. Stephey: I'm bored, I'm off to do something else. And then the animals got to wake itself back up because in that moment they've depressed their heart rate. They've depressed their respiratory rate. They literally are on the verge of death and you see that happen in humans. Oftentimes with trauma survivors or even if you've got a really dysregulated vagal nerve, some people just easily pass out on something that seems innocuous to, I don't know, 95 percent of the population. Those that have a really highly dysregulated vagal nerve will pass out at the craziest things. I don't think I've ever had anybody do this personally in my office, but I know of optometrist that have where they go to put a contact lens on somebody's eye and they pass out in the exam chair. That is a vagal response.  Tim Edwards: Sure.  Dr. Stephey: And it's beyond voluntary control. So the interesting thing about the vagal nerve is that it, it sets people up for fight or flight and Dr. Porges refers to that as mobilization with fear. So it is, I'm getting the heck out of town, I'm going to run away because I've had the pants scared off of me. Mobilization with fear. There's two branches to the vagal nerve, a relatively newer one from an evolutionary perspective and a much older ancient one. And the much older ancient one is where people pass out or some trauma survivors disassociate from reality in the middle of the trauma as a means of surviving. So one part of the vagus nerve that induces fight or flight, Dr. porges refers to that as mobilization or movement with fear. Another response of the vagal nerve, if fear is so overwhelming that you're frozen in time, you are that deer in headlights, that is immobilization. You are paralyzed. You cannot move a muscle because you're so scared. That's immobilization with fear. And then there's a third response which is really interesting. He refers to the third response as immobilization without fear and this is where it gets really interesting. Because the vagal tone of the 10th cranial nerve also ties in their idea of having a gut feeling right when we talk about having a gut feeling that's a vagal nerve response. Really interesting stuff. And play..  Tim Edwards: And let me hold on. So when we have that gut feeling, I think the gut feeling we have usually leans towards something negative or fearful. I don't know that I have too many gut feelings except for when I'm at a ball game and I think this guy might hit a home run and he does in my life to claim it that it was mom the reason for that. But no. Is that true? I mean, is that or is that just my perception? Do you think that gut feeling might normally be like something's a little off, something's wrong or can it go both ways? Well you're talking about fear here.  Dr. Stephey: Well, but that's where the third part comes into play. Because the third part, when I talked about immobilization without fear, that actually facilitates our social adjustment skills. And our social adaptive skills and our abilities to engage with other humans in a playful, productive, emotionally connected way. So it's still a vagal response, but in a good vagal response. So you're probably right. Maybe most gut feelings tend to associate with fear, but I don't think that's true all the time. And you know, when you meet somebody new, it's really interesting because in many cases you can have an immediate connection to that person. Absolutely. And, and you can't even explain why. And others, you're like, no way, I don't want to be in this room with you. That's a vagal response that is happening. That is a perceptive response below the level of conscious awareness happening through vision and auditory and then activating that 10th cranial nerve through that response and making it so that you feel really comfortable with that person.  Dr. Stephey: And if somebody you can welcome into your personal bubble and there's a lot of emotion and connectedness to being able to do that. The idea of being touched and a lot of cases, it's a pullback response like I don't like being touched or is it a touch that's really we would perceive as a caress and something that's inviting and something that we want more of. Ultimately that's a vagal response. Either that we invite more of the same response or you want to pull away from it. But it's a vagal response nonetheless and I find his body of work so fascinating because it ties in to the vision stuff that I do and he's looked at, Dr. Porges has looked at regulating vagal tone more through the auditory system and I'm looking at regulating vagal tone through the visual and the auditory system to the degree that I can.  Dr. Stephey: There was some research recently out of Duke University that's so new that people don't even know what to do with it yet. And it reveals the connectedness of the visual system and the auditory and the vestibular or inner ear system so that when we look in right gaze, both eardrums, move to the left and when we look in the left gaze, both eardrums move to the right. But I find it fascinating to know to look at the connectedness even further between vision and auditory. And I also want to make a comment about vagal nerve tone because regulation of the vagal nerve also ties into the seventh cranial nerve or the facial nerve. And this is what is so interesting about Dr. Porges' work to the how it connects to what I do. Because the facial nerve ties into our own ability to regulate our own facial expression.  Dr. Stephey: And I was just reading this morning about how exuberance and happiness is manifested by the facial nerve regulation of the orbicularis oculi muscles. Or the muscles that really circle around our face and eyes. So when you refer to somebody as having a twinkle in their eye, it's probably the facial nerve response in that orbicularis oculi muscle. And the flip side of that, if you've got poor vagal tone, it affects really more the lower jaw. And when we talk about somebody gritting their teeth or they set their jaw in a certain way. So if you have to fight your way out of survival or you have to bite your way out of survival, that's lower jaw. That's a different connection with the facial nerve. So how we express emotion ourselves happens to the facial nerve which is connected to vagal tone. The facial nerve connects to vocal cords, so how we intonate and the rhythm and the melody of our own voice is tied up in the facial nerve and those things are really interesting because they're also connected to our ability to perceive emotion in others and our ability to read their body language, which that's all vision, right?  Dr. Stephey: When we talk about when social psychologist talk about how 80 percent of our communicative language is through body language, reading body language is a visual language. And so the vagal nerve and how it sets that tone throughout the body, particularly in the facial nerve. If you're vagal nerve is poorly regulated, you likely are going to default to being more fearful. So you're going to misread somebody's facial expressions. You're going to misread the intent and their voice because now if you've got poor vagal tone, you're predisposed to be fearful. Because it's better to be safe than sorry, and it's also really interesting because the facial nerve also connects to tiny muscles in the auditory system that connect the middle ear to the inner ear and to the auditory system. Those three tiny little bones that regulate tension on the eardrum also connected to the facial nerve also connected the vagal tone. And it's really interesting because if you're in a perpetual state of fear or your vagal nerve is dysregulated, the tension that's placed on your eardrums predisposes you to hear low frequency sound.  Dr. Stephey: That tends to be more predatory based. So if we dial the clock back a number of generations, whether it was eat or be eaten, if you're in a fearful environment, predators are more likely going to make low frequency noise. So when your vagal nerve is disrupted, you're more attuned now. Your auditory frequencies are predisposed to low frequency sound and the human voice is more in mid frequency ranges. So if you lose the ability to hear human voice when your vagal nerve is disrupted, it's the whole thing is fascinating. One of the questions that typically arises in this discussion is, well, Doug it's really fascinating, really interesting that this is happening, but what the heck do we do about it?  Tim Edwards: We fix it.  Dr. Stephey: Because I don't want you to just tell me I got a problem that I can't make better. Yeah, and I don't like that either.  Tim Edwards: Well, that's the point of this podcast actually.  Dr. Stephey: Well, that's right. People need information so that they can then act upon the things that they learn and then know where to seek answers for because most eye doctors are not going to talk about this stuff.  Tim Edwards: Well, I think one of the reasons this particular topic, Dr. Stephey when I was in your chair was so fascinating to me because you really broke it down to a very simple example of why one might feel a sense of anxiety. Or why and how it relates to our vision. So therefore, it seems like it could be a simple little tweak or a simple fix to alleviate all of these problems and I'm focusing mostly on maybe children in school. So that they can be more at ease and learn or if they don't see fast, how they can see fast so therefore they can move forward through life without that anxiety or at least having it minimized. Dr. Stephey: Well so let's break it down into several different categories. The treatments ultimately are the same, but I do think it's important that the listening audience appreciate the breadth and the depth of how this applies across the spectrum. So if we talked about school age, kids that have an IEP for dyslexia or a reading disorder, well, lenses and prisms or vision therapy or sound therapy is designed to help regulate that vagal tone and ultimately shift them out of survival attention into learning attention. But it's fascinating stuff because I can really change somebody's quality of life frequently by color in prism in a prescribed pair of glasses. Sometimes they need vision therapy, sometimes color in prism is good enough. Sometimes they need sound therapy to access vagal tone in a different way and there are a number of optometrists that I believe I'm one of them and I think there are a number of others that incorporate sound therapy into the model of how they practice. And for me it's such an easy transition because the visual system and the vestibular or the inner ear are so intimately intertwined and because so much of our brain function, two thirds or three quarters of it is tied up in visual processing.  Dr. Stephey: That if I can affect one of the other systems, motor or auditory, I know there's going to have a salient or an improvement in the visual side of things. I think we're just remiss if we don't pay attention to global aspects of things. There were several optometrists and a pediatrician at Yale back in the 40s and 50s who studied vision development. From infants, I think up until 10 or 12 years of age and they wrote a book about that and a number of articles. One of the things that stuck with me from that perspective and that study that was done was an expression that went like this. If you want to understand the whole child, you have to understand their visual system. And if you want to understand their visual system, you have to understand the whole child. So we can't parse out vision from everything else and that's why when I talk about move, look and listen, I really mean that in its totality.  Dr. Stephey: So other than school age kids, who else? Well, some of the most highly dysregulated of the population are kids on the autistic spectrum disorder. They spend a tremendous amount of their time in fight or flight as a survival mechanism to not be overwhelmed by being in fight or flight all the time. They tend to be inattentive or they tend to disassociate, I think from their environment because it's an adaptive survival response. They have to learn how not to pay attention just to get through the day. So that's the pediatric sort of student population side of things. But does that mean that this doesn't carry over into the adult population? No, not at all because there are a number of trauma survivors who have made their way into adult hood who still have significant behavioral or emotional outcomes. And again, this is typically based in behavioral outcomes. But we're talking about autonomic state and vagal tone and how vagal tone is affected by the auditory and the visual system.  Dr. Stephey: And it's interesting because there are a number of psychotherapies that are designed to try to help trauma survivors let go of the emotional conflict that they experienced for years later. For example, there's something called EMDR. Eye movement desensitization and retraining. Well, think about that name, eye movement desensitization and retraining. So somebody who's doing EMDR, psychotherapist, who's doing EMDR, is typically using left or right, rhythmic eye movement in order for that trauma survivor to re-experience some component of that trauma, but do it in a more emotionally disconnected way so they can come to truly at the core of their being believe that what happened to them was not their fault and that they did the best they could in the circumstances that they found themselves in. And from the reading that I've done, if a trauma survivor can come to believe those two questions, it wasn't my fault and I did the best I could. They can let go of a lot of emotional problems that persist with that preexisting traumatic event.  Tim Edwards: Wow. Dr. Stephey: Eye movement, desensitization and retraining.  Tim Edwards: I'm familiar with that. I did some, a series of videos for a psychotherapist who actually had that modality in their office and it looks like it's a relatively simple form of therapy. It looks like watching pong, number pong.  Dr. Stephey: Yes, of course.  Tim Edwards: For this, for those of you who are now playing fortnite and are young and have no clue what pong is it's one of the very first video games. And there's that movement of following this dot.  Dr. Stephey: Well, you've heard of EMDR? Have you heard of brainspotting?  Tim Edwards: No.  Dr. Stephey: So brainspotting is a variation of EMDR. But rather than using the rhythmic movement from left to right, the psychologist who developed the brain spotting technique realize that he can have better outcomes and faster outcomes if he has patients look in certain positions of gaze.  Tim Edwards: You mean just shifting your eyes to a different place?  Dr. Stephey: Yes, so maybe up and right or maybe up and left or down and left. So still using eye movements to have this therapeutic outcome and I know I've had a number of patients over the years when we do some of the vision therapies that we do. They started remembering their dreams as an adult. There's one gal that was 67 I think when I did therapy with her and she hadn't been to the office for maybe six or seven visits. She came in one day and she said, hey, last time I left here on my way to the car, I started remembering stuff that I haven't thought about in 50 years. She's like, have you had people tell you that they're starting to have memories from long time ago? Well, it was her history that made me ask a handful of other patients back at that time. One adult who was for 47 years old when she did the therapy. She's the one that said, I haven't remembered a dream in 20 years, but I started remembering my dreams. The husband of my vision therapist at the time started the therapy and quit because he said, Doug, I've started having nightmares from when I was a kid growing up in World War II, Germany, and I've spent my whole life running away from that and now I'm having, I'm dreaming about that.  Tim Edwards: Alright. So we're talking to some potential negative effects from EMDR.  Dr. Stephey: Well, potentially negative effects for vision therapy and I won't, and I won't say negative effects from vision therapy, but the point I'm really making is that vision therapy is more than about learning how to see fast and using your two eyes together in a coordinated way. It is a, is a powerful tool of healing.  Tim Edwards: Wow. I've never thought of it that way. And you know, and you and I have known each other for a couple of years and you've mentioned vision therapy and I always perceived that as just a way to maybe strengthen your eyes, you know, like lifting weights for your eyes or something. And, maybe you've said that, forgive me if I didn't absorb the information correctly, but, but what you just said is pretty poignant. Please repeat that for our audience.  Dr. Stephey: Vision therapy is a powerful tool for healing.  Tim Edwards: For healing. Dr. Stephey: Emotional, mental, cognitive, physical. We keep a lot of memories stored in our body. One of the books that I have is called the body keeps the score. Well, people don't really realize that the visual system has a tremendous effect on balance and gait and posture. And for those of you listening audience out, quick way to demonstrate how much vision affects balance would be to have you stand with your arms crossed, eyes open, and then balance on one leg and then focus on how stable you are and then immediately see what happens when you close your eyes. You'll find your ankle wobbling and you probably won't be able to stand on one leg with your eyes closed for any length of time. People don't really realize how much vision affects everything. There's something called the Mcgurk effect.  Dr. Stephey: And the McGurk effect is when we use the visual perception of lip movements to prime the auditory cortex. So watching lip movements can actually change what you hear. That's fascinating.  Tim Edwards: You mean, you mean lip reading?  Dr. Stephey: No, not just lip reading. Because lip reading would be perceiving speech without the vocalization of speech. Well, let's go back to the movie analogy. When the audio track is slightly out of sync with the video track and it makes your brain hurt trying to put the two things together. That's that asynchrony between vision and auditory. So what I'm saying is that even when somebody's speaking, you hear better when you watch their lips move. Because vision happens so much faster than auditory, right?  Tim Edwards: The speed of sound as opposed to the speed of light, right?  Dr. Stephey: The speed of sound is about 1100 feet per second. The speed of light is 186,000 miles per second. And think about if you've got disrupted vagal tone and you don't see, lip movements fast. You don't read facial expressions fast and your default setting is to be pushed. And the fear to be rather safe than sorry. You can't socially engaged with others in a way that you should be able to. And if no one figures this out about you, you go through your whole lives and really become more and more isolated because you can't put yourself out in that social environment because your vagal nerve disrupts your ability to self regulate your behavior. And the whole thing just starts to snowball.  Tim Edwards: And you're labeled as socially inept and maybe a lot of this can be fixed, diminished and completely eliminated through various forms of healing therapies.  Dr. Stephey: You've got to be able to move, look and listen. You got to be able to see fast. You've got to have nutritional foundations. That's going to be one of our upcoming episodes. We're going to talk about the nutritional side of not only the visions discussion, but how it ties into memory and attention and reading and learning and cognition in general, so hopefully you'll tune in and the near future when we talk about the nutritional episode because I think you'll appreciate what I'm going to say about that topic as well.  Tim Edwards: Well, Dr. Stephie, I think there may be a lot of people and I'm sure parents that are listening to this that are elated at this information because you're offering some solutions that they've never heard of before that seemed quite simple, that don't involve medication. Well, that's true. You know, medication has a place. I'm not, I'm not anti medication. It does have a place, but again, I think generally it should be a diagnosis of exclusion and we've got to measure the things that we can measure. We've gotto  address all of these pieces. They're all trainable. I don't care if you're an infant. I don't care if you're 90-years-old. All these things can be measured and all of it can be trained.  Tim Edwards: Thank you for listening to the Move Look & Listen Podcast with Dr. Doug Stephey brought to you by audible. Get a free audio book download and a 30 day free trial of audible membership at audibletrial.com/inbound. You'll find over 180,000 titles to choose from, including books mentioned here in the Move Look & Listen podcasts. You can listen to these books through your iphone, your android, your kindle, your computer, or even an MP3 player. And if for any reason and at any time you choose to cancel your membership, you keep all of your audio book, downloads. Give it a shot for 30 days. You got nothing to lose. Support the Move Look & Listen podcast by visiting audibletrial.com/inbound. We will include a link for your convenience, in the show notes of this and every episode of the podcast. And of course if you like some more information regarding Dr. Stephey's practice or to make an appointment, we will include links in the show notes to Dr. Stephey's website and his youtube channel.  Tim Edwards: Dr. Stephey's website is stepheyoptometry.com. That's s t e p h e y optometry.com. You can also call the office at 626-332-4510. Again, all of Dr. Stephey's contact information will be included in the show notes of each and every episode. One last request before we let you go on to the next episode, please subscribe to the podcast from whichever platform you might be listening in. Of course, it is free to subscribe and it ensures that every time we post a new episode, you'll find it right there waiting for you to listen in your podcast app of choice. We really do appreciate your listening and until next time for Dr. Stephey of the Move Look & Listen podcast. I'm Tim Edwards with the Inbound Podcasting Network.        

In this episode you will learn why seeing 20/20 is simply not enough. Douglas W. Stephey, O.D., M.S. will explain how the three circle Venn diagram of vision will most likely show that your last eye exam may have come up short to enable you to move, look, and listen through your life with ease. Douglas W. Stephey, O.D., M.S. 208 West Badillo St. Covina, CA 91723 Phone: 626-332-4510 Website: http://bit.ly/DouglasWStepheyWebsite Videos:   http://bit.ly/DrStepheyOptometryVideos The Move Look & Listen Podcast is brought to you in part, by Audible - get a FREE audiobook download and 30-day free trial at www.audibletrial.com/InBound If interested in producing a podcast of your own, like the Move Look & Listen Podcast, contact Tim Edwards at tim@InBoundPodcasting.com or visit www.InBoundPodcasting.com Transcription Below: Tim Edwards: The Move Look & Listen Podcast with Dr. Doug Stephey is brought to you by audible. Get a free audio book download and a 30 day free trial audible membership at audibletrial.com/inbound. You'll find over 180,000 titles to choose from, including several books mentioned here in the podcast. Support the Move Look & Listen Podcast by visiting audibletrial.com/inbound.  Dr. Stephey: If our two eyes are not working together well as a fast synchronized team, our internal mapquest continues to be off. It's consistently inconsistent with our ability to judge time and space. Those that don't feel well-grounded, those that have some measure of anxiety, oftentimes it starts in the visual system. If you can't move, look and listen in a fast, accurate, effortless, sustainable, age appropriate, meaningful way, you're in a world of hurt. There's a whole world in vision and how it affects brain function that no one's ever shared with you. 20/20 is perceived as a holy grail of going to the eye doctor. Well, I'm here to change that paradigm.  Tim Edwards: This is episode three of the Move Look & Listen podcast with Dr. Stephey. I'm Tim Edwards with the Inbound Podcasting Network. Happy to have Dr. Stephey with us here in our roster of shows as we move forward in the Move Look & Listen podcast. Dr. Stephey, we've talked about common eye problems in our last episode and now you alluded to this topic in our last episode and this is I think something that's quite interesting and I think might raise an eyebrow or two of somebody listening on the other side of the speakers. 20/20 is not enough. You've said that from the first day that I've met you and I've known you a couple of years now. 20/20 is not enough. `We've been told our whole lives. Oh you've got perfect vision. You could see 20/20. Not the case apparently.  Dr. Stephey: That is not the case. That's right. 20/20 is presented as a holy grail of going to the optometrist and it is. I'm here to tell you it is a tiny piece of the puzzle. It's an important piece because clarity of vision is a big deal, right? But it's only a piece. So for example, picture three circle venn diagram.  Tim Edwards: Okay.  Dr. Stephey: And one circle is can you see 20/20. One circle is related to eye health. Make sure you don't have dry eye or glaucoma or macular degeneration or bleeding in the eye if you're diabetic or any untold number of eye health issues. That's circle two. Circle one and circle two is where most eye doctors practice. They do have a place for sure and they do have value, but there's the third circle that oftentimes is missing. And within that third circle there's pieces like, eye taming, eye focusing, eye tracking. There's components related to visual-auditory integration, visual-cognitive skills, visual-spatial skills, visual attention, visual processing speed, magnocellular vision or motion processing, visual vestibular or vision and inner ear integration issues.  Dr. Stephey: There's a lot of stuff going on in that third circle. And my experience over the years is that if you don't do vision therapy in your practice, you tend to ignore that third circle. I went to a lunch meeting a number of years ago at a local credit union. They did lunch meetings for their employees. They invited me to come as a speaker and I talked about this specific topic. And I was talking about eye taming, eye focusing and eye tracking. And that if you didn't have those skills, you might get sleepy or tired when you read, you might get headaches when you read, you might get motion sickness when you're riding in the car. You might have to be the driver because if you don't, you get dizzy or motion sick that you're ridiculously clumsy. Can't play sports that include catching a ball or throwing a ball accurately, and one of one of the attendees, they were sitting in the back. They raise their hand and they said, hey, so what kind of questions do I need to tell my eye doctor the next time I have an eye exam? And I said, if you have to tell your doctor what kind of questions he should be asking you, you're going to the wrong eye doctor.  Tim Edwards: Absolutely. Well, what you just said that you really mentioned a good portion of the population there, Dr. Stephey with all of those things that people might be suffering from.  Dr. Stephey: Tim, the list is ridiculous. Right, so just a quick review. Headaches, migraines, motion sickness, ADHD, autism, dyslexia, learning disorder, clumsiness, can't play sports, uncoordinated. It goes on and on.  Tim Edwards: And all of those sit inside that third circle.  Dr. Stephey: They really sit inside that third circle.  Tim Edwards: And you said a minute ago that most optometrists disregard that circle or don't even acknowledge that it exists. So what do you do in your practice that's different so that you can help people that are suffering from this?  Dr. Stephey: Well, there's another story to tell you. I was at a meeting long, long time ago, probably more than 20 years ago. I used to be involved in with our state association politically before my first daughter was born. And when I would meet people around the state, I might ask the question, hey, remember when we were in optometry school?  Dr. Stephey: What was the percentage of patients that were thought to have vision therapy related problems? And all most to a doctor, they'd always come up with 10 to 20 percent.  Tim Edwards: Seems rather small.  Dr. Stephey: Well, if we look at the population at that's probably not unreasonable. The prevalence of those problems go way up almost to everybody. If you have any of those diagnoses I mentioned a minute ago. But population at large, I say, okay, I'll give you the 10 to 20 percent. So let's say that you do 10 exams a day and you work five days a week, so you're seeing 50 patients a week. So you're telling me that you're talking to five to 10 patients a week about vision therapy. And then that's when things get quiet. And the eyes get big as saucers because they're running a movie in their head about when's the last time I talked about vision therapy to anybody?  Tim Edwards: Now do they not because they don't know enough about it? Or did they not because they don't have time to take on the case load? Or and or should they because there's actually more revenue to be generated?  Dr. Stephey: Well, this has been my impression. It's not because they don't have the training because we all get this training when we go to optometry school. So it's not that. Their go to answer historically was, well, Doug, I don't really see patients like that in my practice. And my typical answer was I believe that you don't see them. It doesn't mean they're not there.  Tim Edwards: Well put.  Dr. Stephey: So I think there was truth in their statement. They don't see them and the reason they don't see them is because they don't ask the same kind of questions that I ask and they don't do the kind of testing that's going to reveal those kinds of problems.  Tim Edwards: It's true. And what's fun to watch is because I've had a front row seat, not only to be the one that you were asking those questions too, but I, I recently brought my wife and to meet with you to fix an ailment she's been suffering from.  Tim Edwards: And the look on her face as you were asking some of these questions was hilarious to me. Because these are not questions that one normally gets asked when they're sitting in the chair at the optometrist office.  Dr. Stephey: No, you never get asked these questions. You dig deep.  Tim Edwards: And you find solutions by digging deep.  Dr. Stephey: You know, one of the things that I thought for a long time about what sets my practice apart from most is that whenever I have an encounter, I'm going to presume you have one of these problems until I asked you enough questions or do enough testing to prove to me that you don't.  Tim Edwards: To omit it. Gotcha.  Dr. Stephey: That is a completely different mindset. Because I've had patients come where they have complained about a lot of the questions I'm going to ultimately ask of them and discuss. They've brought up these issues with many of their past exams and then get shined on so that's even more egregious.  Dr. Stephey: If he never asked the questions and the doctor doesn't find your problem, that's one thing. But if you're actually complaining about stuff and your needs still go unaddressed, that's just wrong. And I can't practice that way. I'll give you a good example. I got a phone call from a medical group yesterday who was calling me to work out a contract to provide vision therapy to a mutual patient of ours. This gal has an HMO that I'm not contracted with. I wrote her a treatment letter. It's been a long fought battle. It's been, I kid you not probably nine months since she started this trial with her medical group and her parent insurance company. Around and around they go. Well, somebody from the medical group calls me yesterday and she said, I've never heard of medical insurance paying for vision therapy. Okay, well, I don't know what to tell you.  Dr. Stephey: And then she said, well, one of my kids did vision therapy years ago and I paid for it out of pocket. Well, maybe your eye doctor should have had this conversation with you and been a better advocate for you. And then I said, by any chance, did that child have an IEP or a 504 plan at school? And she said, well they had a 504 plan and I said, well your optometrist should have told you that vision therapy is should have been funded by your school district as well. And they didn't tell you that either. And that's going to be one of the upcoming episodes that we do where we really dig deep into special education regulations and what these kids are not getting and how to be a better advocate for your child and really go out and fight for their educational rights because there's a lot of them.  Dr. Stephey: And we're going to spend at least one episode really drilling that down so that you'll be much more knowledgeable about how to go fight for your kids' rights. So then when this gal's on the phone with me, and I know now that she's got a child who's got a history of needing vision therapy, well I started to ask her some of my standard questions. Do you get sleepy and tired when you read? Does overhead fluorescent lights bother you when one of the bulbs starts to flicker? Does are you bothered by bright sign, light and glare. And of course she starts answering yes to all my questions and so we really kind of finished the conversation and she said, you know what I need to, I've been putting off making an appointment.  Tim Edwards: And that's not the reason she was talking to you in the first place? Dr. Stephey: No, heavens no. So she made an appointment to come and see me before we got off the phone.  Tim Edwards: I love it.  Dr. Stephey: So and I did the same thing. I went back to Illinois to visit family back in November and went up to the local small town bank that I grew up in and the person who's working with us at the bank, I start to ask him some of the same questions and sure enough he's got problems with the way his two eyes work together. So it doesn't make a difference who I'm meeting, where I'm meeting them. If it lends itself to have this conversation, we'll start to have it and I'm never surprised anymore about really how commonplace these problems are and nobody's finding out. Hopefully you begin to understand that 20/20 in fact is not enough and there's that third circle in the venn diagram that holds a whole bunch of magic in that third circle and those are about diagnosis. So you can't have a treatment option or you can't have a treatment plan if you don't have a good diagnosis. So we've got to dig deep into the third circle and do the kind of testing that's required to determine what's really happening and then once we know that information, we can come up with a treatment plan and how we're going to manage these things.   Dr. Stephey: And there's short term goals and there's long term goals. Short term goal for me is I want to improve your quality of life. If you get migraine headaches, I want you to have them less or to get rid of them altogether. If you're motion sick and you limit your travel because how sick you get driving in the car, well then I want to make a short term goal. What you do to be able to drive in the car, go to the local mountains, whatever, go to the amusement park, ride in the tea cups at Disneyland, whatever. Whatever it takes.  Tim Edwards: Those days are done. I can check that box or I need to go see you. We just got back from a Disney world vacation and just looking at the tea cups made me a little queasy, so..  Dr. Stephey: That's a magnocellular vision problem, Tim.  Tim Edwards: Let's fix it then. So I'm going to tea cups again with my kids.  Dr. Stephey: So short term goals are about improving your quality of life. How do we go about doing that? Well, I go about doing that primarily by being sensitive to your prescription needs, not just the conventional farsighted nearsighted astigmatism. One thing I've learned over the years is that there are many patients who are super sensitive to the tiniest amount of change. And because there's a tremendous amount of our brain space, if you will, that's allocated towards vision and vision processing. I might make the tiniest change in your prescription and you think I can walk on water because of how much better it feels. So we normally prescribe lenses in quarter diopter units, right? We go from a minus a quarter to a minus a half to minus three quarters to minus one, so on. But if you're really sensitive to what I'm alluding to, I might refract you down to an eighth of a diopter.  Dr. Stephey: So it's a point one, two power change. And I've had a number of patients over the years where I make an eighth of a diopter change, in one or both lenses, and it immediately changes their quality of life. Their entire perception changes.  Tim Edwards: Can you do that with contacts as well? Or are they all just made in quarter increments?  Dr. Stephey: You cannot get an eighth of adopter in a contact lens as far as I know. In a soft lens you can get an eighth of a diopter, I believe in a hard lens. Yep. So the first is be sensitive to the patient's prescription. Sometimes it's being sensitive to the frame that they were wearing. So one of the things that I do in my exam room, I've got two black clips that are,  like a black plastic ring that is about maybe an inch and three quarters in diameter and I can clip them over your glasses and what I will oftentimes do is have patients look at my standard eye chart, I sneak these two little black clips out of my drawer and put them over your glasses and ask you to tell me how my art shot looks and how it feels.  And namely is it clearer and is it calmer?  Tim Edwards: And that's the difference. How it feels.  Dr. Stephey: Yes. Because oftentimes people will pull back away from my black rings and they'll say what? I'm like, I want to know if it's clearer, but I'm also interested in whether it feels calmer. And so now they've got a new context of what to pay attention to because nobody's ever asked them how it feels to see just how clear is it to see.  Tim Edwards: Now explain that. There might be our friends on the other side of the speakers that are saying or thinking, what do you mean? How it feels to see?  Dr. Stephey: Well, if you have a problem with motion processing or binocular vision or visual vestibular or visual inner ear integration issues, you don't feel calm when you see.  Tim Edwards: You mentioned going on like some anxiety associated with it.  Dr. Stephey: Yes, and that's going to be in one of the next episodes where we talk about the polyvagal theory of affect, emotion, self regulation and communication. And that's going to be a really fun episode to do because it's one of my favorite topics to talk about.  Tim Edwards: Absolutely.  Dr. Stephey: So when we look around every day and every waking second of every day, it ties into us subconsciously asking ourselves the question, do I feel safe? Well, if you look around and can't answer that question, then you're not going to feel safe and you're more likely to be highly distractable, highly anxious, highly fearful, and that does not feel calm. If you're in a perpetual state of fight or flight, that does not feel calm. But because nobody's ever asked you that question before, if you have those kinds of experiences, you don't even know that there could be a vision component to those experiences.  Tim Edwards: So let's simplify that a little bit because you said, does one feel safe when they look around. Now that goes back to our primitive days, right? It's primal in terms of feeling safe and you're not talking about if you're in a good or bad neighborhood. You're talking about and how you're processing the information that you can see.  Dr. Stephey: I'm talking about you roll out of bed in the morning in your own home and your brain is looking around and asking itself the question, do I feel safe? And an example of that would be if you have a TV in your bedroom and if you've ever noticed if the room lights are dark and you stand off to the side, the TV images that are generated, it really has a strobe like effect. There's a great deal of flicker involved with the changing of that imagery. Well, if you're the kind of patient I'm talking about, you don't like flicker. You don't like flicker, you don't like bright sunlight and glare. You don't like movement in your periphery and you don't like regular repeating patterns. Certain stripes, checkerboards, plaids, polka dots, certain patterns really, really bother you.  Tim Edwards: And that's where one might not feel safe because they bother them. Those things that you're talking about, they're troublesome.  Dr. Stephey: It is troublesome, so it's like a neon sign flashing in your brain that says, look here, look here, look here, look here, look here, and like a tractor beam. You can't help but look, but you're more miserable when you do so. It's like the proverbial moth to the flame. One of the other questions that I love asking and when I get this as a yes answer, it really makes my day. Because one of the questions I'll ask people is, hey, when you drive in the carpool lane and the concrete dividers whiz past your peripheral vision, does that bother you? Well, I can't tell you how many people. When I say when you drive in the carpool lane, I don't do that.  Tim Edwards: Yeah, because that's right. They can stop you right there. It bothers me. Right.  Dr. Stephey: Yes. Here's my favorite part of that question and that's what I followed up and I say, okay, so has it ever felt like your car was and going to drive itself into the wall and that's when I look at me like how could you possibly know that will. That is a perfect example of whether one feels safe or not with the information they're eyes are bringing into their brain. Yes. And, and, and for those people that say that's exactly how I feel. Yes. It feels like the car's going to drive itself into the wall. Like how could you possibly. I know that and then I, then we have a chuckle about it because I say I'm pretty sure nobody else has ever asked you that question and I'm pretty convinced you've never offered it up as a symptom because people would think you were crazy. Yeah.  Dr. Stephey: But when you, when you don't see fast and you've got that movement in your periphery, zinging along in the periphery, it again, it's like a tractor beam to your attention. Your attention goes that way. Your eyes go that way. Your head wants to turn that way and when your hands are on the steering wheel, when you physically want to turn your head and look to the left, sometimes your arms want to move in the direction of your head turns and there goes the steering wheel and the car is going to want to drive itself right into the wall and those are the folks that are, even if they don't avoid the carpool lane, they white knuckle it the whole time they're in there, they break out in a cold sweat. They tell everybody in the car, don't talk to me right now. I'm concentrating. They turn off the radio and they break out in a cold sweat because they're exhausted when they get to where they're going.  Tim Edwards: Now that's just one example. There are many things, like you said, that people go throughout their day. That's just an obvious example, but little things throughout the day that trouble people, they might not even know that it's troubling them until you put that clip back to your exam again.  Dr. Stephey: Yeah, so we put the black clips on and oftentimes they will tell me. Well, yes, it's clear and calmer. I really liked these lenses. And then I take my black clips back that have no lenses in them and I stick my finger through the empty black hole and then they look at me like, what? What just happened? Like how, no, wait a minute, how did that work? And I say like, are you tricking me? I'm like, I didn't. No, I'm not tricking you. I didn't try to talk you into telling you who was going to be better. I just asked the question, you tell me is it clearer, calmer when I do this? And then of course when you have that experience, you immediately want to look again to see if you get the same effect. So I tell you that example because one, it's a great opportunity to discuss that 20/20 is not enough and that there's a whole lot more going on that people didn't know about. It may also tie in to when we go out front and talk to one of my staff about the kind of frame I'm going to tell that patient to pick out because I might tell that patient, you know you need to get a frame that's got a full wire, a full plastic rim to it.  Dr. Stephey: Don't get a rimless frame, don't get a thin wire frame. I want you to get a thicker frame with thicker temples and thicker eye wire because we want to use that frame like the black rings that you just told me are clearer and calmer. And sometimes the black rings don't really make a difference and that's okay. Because then we'll continue on with some other testing strategies to then compare their outcomes with their standard prescription or if I add color or prism over the top of their glasses prescription. I have a variety of ways that we're going to determine that outcome. And one of the outcomes that I love when it works, it is powerful. I will have those patients sit in my exam chair, look up at one of my overhead fluorescent lights and ask them to simply breathe, take two or three deep breaths, and they do and I watched their chest and abdomen when they do that and get an idea if that's easier, effortful, then I'll give them prism or color or some combination of things and have them do it again. And I can't tell you how many people take the glasses back down and look at me and say, how does this possibly work? Because that is remarkably easier for me to breathe.  Tim Edwards: Now let's tell our friends on the other side of the speaker again, that these are lenses that have, could have a little bit of color tint to them.  Dr. Stephey: These are lenses that could have a little color tint and I've got a whole briefcase of colors in my office. I've got about 50 pair of lenses, a variety of different colors, different shading of each of the colors. Most people that I do this with and most of the research that I've read over the last 15 or more years, blue itself is a very calming color. So if you have a nervous system, if you're prone to anxiety, if you're prone to motion sickness, if you're prone to headaches, if you're prone to high distractability, you've got a nervous system that is functionally hypersensitive, and if you're one of those patients you don't like bright colors.  Dr. Stephey: You don't like looking through bright colors. You don't like looking at bright colors. You don't want bright colors in your house at home. You're not going to typically wear bright colored clothing because yellows and reds and oranges take a hypersensitive nervous system and make it even more hypersensitive.  Tim Edwards: Which gives somebody a sense of anxiety. Dr. Stephey: It does, so that person is going to, their breathing is going to be worse if I have them to look up at my lights, let's say through a yellow, orange or red lens. But the more calming colors, blues, lavenders, sages, those are more calming and it really changes the reading outcomes. And I love talking about that stuff because it's powerful and people get an appreciation that they aren't having an exam like they've had elsewhere.  Tim Edwards: Well, you say it's powerful and I can just tell you from my own family's experience, when my wife was in there, I mentioned earlier that she's come to see you. And fluorescent light bothers her and so she is a substitute teacher and everyday she's in a different school and the lighting is different at each school and a lot of it is fluorescent if not all of it.  Tim Edwards: And sometimes they flicker and there are some schools that she will not substitute there anymore because the light bothers her. Well, I haven't told you this yet. So she wears her glasses with a slight blue tint in them everywhere to watch our son play volleyball in the big gyms with a lighting, watching TV at night. But then she tried one school where she stopped going because the light bothered her and it doesn't bother her anymore. So now she doesn't have to limit where she spends her time because it doesn't bother her anymore. All because of that little shift with a slight prescription, I believe in her, glasses as well, but mostly it's that blue tint. She loves them. She looks great. And, it's helped her quite a bit.  Dr. Stephey: You know, Tim, of course, I always love to hear stories like that and it's exactly why I practiced this way. I can't imagine not practicing this way and I can't imagine how anyone could not practice this way. Because that, those are life changing experiences and they are, they're powerful. And what seems like a little thing, it has given her options to substitute back at any probably variety of schools that where he was limited in their choices before now she doesn't have to. That's powerful stuff.  Tim Edwards: It is power stuff. And you know, and I said before, Dr. Stephey then, you know, I can say with great authority that the way you practice is very different. Extremely different because, and I'll say it again for those that might not have had the opportunity to listen to episodes one or two. But you know, I have a video production marketing company and I've filmed dozens and dozens of optometrists here in the southern California area where we're recording and none of them, and I mean that none of them compares to what you do Dr. Stephey, which is why you are the one and only optometrist we have here on the Inbound Podcasting Network because you've saying for a long time.  Tim Edwards: Listen, the world needs to hear this stuff. This is very different. The questions you ask, the way you practice and the enthusiasm of which you speak of how you do this. And I could see the joy in your face when I was telling the story about my wife. It really is astounding.  Dr. Stephey: Well, and for the people listening to this, you have to understand that when I first met Tim a couple of years ago and we did some videos for my website and we did talk about this stuff and he did say to me, well, you really need to get the word out better. And I said, well, okay, I hear you. I hear you. And then we didn't do anything for awhile, then we did some other videos together and he's like, hey, you really need to do some podcasts. And I said, yeah, okay, I'll, you know, I'll think about it.  Dr. Stephey: I'll put it on, put it on the calendar of things to do. And, I do remember probably a year or so ago having a conversation with Tim and saying  Tim. So what you're really saying is that I should just listen to you and get out of my own way and have you help me spread this message and that's why we're doing this.  Tim Edwards: It is a joy to be able to bring this to people and hopefully open their eyes, pun intended, as to how they can manage what they're doing with their eyes. You know, like we said, this is the title of this topic is 20/20 is not enough. And you alluded to the topic that we're going to have next time seeing fast polyvagal therapy.  Dr. Stephey: Well I, and I'm excited about it. So make sure you come back and listen to the next episode because motion processing or seeing fast and the polyvagal theory of affect and emotion, it's huge in our lives in ways that you just, you don't know and it's so not connected to 20/20, but it has everything to do with how we read body language and gestural language and facial expressions and how we develop those skills in ourselves and it's a powerful talk and I'm looking forward to the next episode.  Tim Edwards: Thank you for listening to the Move Look & Listen Podcast with Dr. Doug Stephey brought to you by audible. Get a free audio book download and a 30 day free trial of audible membership at audibletrial.com/inbound. You'll find over 180,000 titles to choose from, including books mentioned here in the Move Look & Listen podcasts. You can listen to these books through your iphone, your android, your kindle, your computer, or even an MP3 player. And if for any reason and at any time you choose to cancel your membership, you keep all of your audio book, downloads. Give it a shot for 30 days. You got nothing to lose. Support the Move Look & Listen podcast by visiting audibletrial.com/inbound. We will include a link for your convenience, in the show notes of this and every episode of the podcast. And of course if you like some more information regarding Dr. Stephey's practice or to make an appointment, we will include links in the show notes to Dr. Stephey's website and his youtube channel.  Tim Edwards: Dr. Stephey's website is stepheyoptometry.com. That's s t e p h e y optometry.com. You can also call the office at 626-332-4510. Again, all of Dr. Stephey's contact information will be included in the show notes of each and every episode. One last request before we let you go on to the next episode, please subscribe to the podcast from whichever platform you might be listening in. Of course, it is free to subscribe and it ensures that every time we post a new episode, you'll find it right there waiting for you to listen in your podcast app of choice. We really do appreciate your listening and until next time for Dr. Stephey of the Move Look & Listen podcast. I'm Tim Edwards with the Inbound Podcasting Network.      

Have questions about an eye condition or vision problem?  Douglas W. Stephey, O.D., M.S. explains the differences between hyperopia, myopia, astigmatism and presbyopia. You will also learn how many of these conditions can be treated with lenses, prisms and vision therapy. Douglas W. Stephey, O.D., M.S. 208 West Badillo St. Covina, CA 91723 Phone: 626-332-4510 Website: http://bit.ly/DouglasWStepheyWebsite Videos: http://bit.ly/DrStepheyOptometryVideos The Move Look & Listen Podcast is brought to you in part, by Audible - get a FREE audiobook download and 30-day free trial at www.audibletrial.com/InBound If interested in producing a podcast of your own, like the Move Look & Listen Podcast, contact Tim Edwards at tim@InBoundPodcasting.com or visit www.InBoundPodcasting.com Transcription Below: Tim Edwards: Welcome to episode two of the Move Look & Listen podcast with Dr. Doug Stephey. I'm Tim Edwards with the Inbound Podcasting Network and a client of Dr. Stephey's over the past couple of years. In our last episode, we got a chance to meet Dr. Stephey and get to know him personally and professionally and to learn a little bit more about some of Dr. Stephey's unconventional methods that he practices at his optometry practice. And when we say unconventional methods, we mean when you visit Dr. Stephey, you're going to experience a session unlike you've had with any other optometrists. I can almost guarantee that. Can you back that guarantee up with me Dr. Stephey? I think that's pretty true.  Dr. Stephey: Tim, I think that is true. I do practice all the kinds of regular optometry that most people can eventually know. But I do things that go back in optometry to the 1930s and 1940s. So what's interesting about a lot of this stuff is it's not really new. It's just that the profession in expanding its scope has moved away from some of the tenants that has made this kind of optometry so unique and yet at times in the field of neuro rehabilitation, especially with traumatic brain injury and concussions, the rehab community understands the value of this kind of optometry better than regular optometry itself in some cases, and certainly that's true that the neuro rehab community understands this better than the educational community or the medical community as it relates to how this kind of optometry practice can affect the quality of somebody's life. Whether they get migraines or motion sickness or headaches or have a history of dyslexia or a learning disability or ADHD or autism. This kind of optometry cuts across a lot of different disciplines and a lot of different diagnoses.  Tim Edwards: And as you mentioned in our last episode, we are going to dive deep into each of those elements that you just described and how through vision therapy and through some of the modalities that you use at your practice can be relieved, hopefully, maybe and sometimes eliminated.  Dr. Stephey: I think that's true.  Tim Edwards: And today what we're going to do, we're going to bring it down to the elementary school level. For people like me, if you don't mind Dr. Stephey, and we're going to talk about common eye problems. So I think it would be important for those that are binge listening to this podcast, much like people do on Netflix, right? You find a show you like and you'll watch every episode, the same type of consumer habits occur with podcast listening, so let's give some basic common eye issues that you would deal with that we are all dealing with.  Dr. Stephey: So the most common things that people know are nearsightedness, farsightedness, astigmatism and reading glasses.  Tim Edwards: That's pretty much the scope, no pun intended, of my knowledge or something like this.  Dr. Stephey: And the idea that seeing 20/20 is the holy grail of going to the eye doctor. I'm here to suggest that seeing 20/20 is a small, albeit an important piece of the puzzle, but it's just a tiny piece of the puzzle. So for example, the expression 20/20 conventionally means that you can read a letter just slightly smaller than nine millimeters at 20 feet. That's it.  Tim Edwards: That's where the 20 comes in.  Dr. Stephey: That's where 20/20 comes in. That's all it means. It doesn't say anything about the way you use your two eyes together, whether you see fast, how you integrate vision and auditory or vision and motor or visual and processing speed or vision and attention or vision and movement skills. It just means you can read a tiny letter at 20 feet.  Tim Edwards: And why did they choose that? Whomever created this chart, right? And the distance. Why at 20 feet.  Dr. Stephey: Honestly I have no idea.  Tim Edwards: Because that's the size of the room when they put this whole thing together and they say well..  Dr. Stephey: There's probably some logic behind why they chose the 20 feet, but I honestly do..If I ever learned that in the past, I don't remember it.  Tim Edwards: So that it's not that relevant anyway. It's just a, a baseline form of measurement.  Dr. Stephey: So and as an extension of that thinking, people are nearsighted. Maybe they read the big E on the eye chart and that big E is referred to as a 2,400 letter. And what that means is that the "normally sighted person who could read that size letter at 400 feet, a nearsighted, a person has to walk up closer and closer and closer until they're 20 feet away from the letter. And then they can finally read the big E."  Tim Edwards: I got it.  Dr. Stephey: That's where that fraction comes from. Common misunderstanding is when people refer to themselves as being legally blind. Well the definition of legal blindness has to do with the best corrected vision in your better seeing eye.  Dr. Stephey: So when we go back to that standard eye chart, it's called a Snellen chart. And if somebody has best corrected vision in their better seeing eye,no better than 20/80, that would meet one of the standards of, of truly meeting the definition of being legally blind. Because your best corrected vision is worse than 20/70 in your better seeing eye. Well if you don't have glasses on and you can't see the 2400 letter, that is not the standard of being legally blind. You could, you couldn't see two inches in front of your face without glasses on. But if you put glasses on and you can see 20/20, you're not legally blind. So that's a really common misunderstanding that patients have about their uncorrected vision versus their best corrected vision. And just for completeness sake, someone who's nearsighted, you think about what that word is saying, you have sight at near.  Dr. Stephey: So the implication is that you're blurry far away. And so that is true. If you're nearsighted and you don't have correction on you have distance blur. And the more nearsighted, the more blur you have at distance. Interestingly enough though, you can continue to see well up close if you're nearsighted and don't have glasses on. And that particularly is advantageous when you get to be 40 to 45, that's the most common window when you develop a condition called Presbyopia, which I looked up a few months ago and essentially it means old man eyes.  Tim Edwards: And I had been suffering from that for quite some time.  Dr. Stephey: But presbyopia is a gentler way of saying the same thing or at least it's a more confounding way. And patients don't really know that. I'm telling them that they're getting old, they just think that they're getting presbyopic.  Tim Edwards: Sounds a little nicer. a little bit, but if you.  Dr. Stephey: But if you're near sighted and presbyopic, you might be able to avoid reading glasses or a bifocal. You just take your glasses off and then you can see for for quite a long time, depending on the level of your nearsightedness. Farsightedness or hyperopia. That's more confounding because again, farsightedness means you have site at far, so there are limits though about what we can tolerate with faraway vision when we're farsighted and not wearing the glasses correction. So many people that are farsighted, their primary complaint is they have trouble seeing up close. That's not age related and so we might prescribe farsighted glasses that are primarily used for near vision or we might give you farsighted glasses that you wear full time. There is a term called accommodative esotropia. Accommodation, meaning eye focusing and esotropia meaning your one or both eyes turns in towards your nose.  Dr. Stephey: So the term accommodative esotropia means that without glasses on, you have one or both eyes. That turned way inward whether you're looking at far away objects or even up close objects.  Tim Edwards: Is that just a muscle issue in the eye?  Dr. Stephey: Well, it's a muscle issue in the sense that it's related to, and I'm having a lot of farsightedness, but nobody's figured that out yet. So someone who's an accommodative esotrope, you see that they have crossed eyes. What you don't know is that without crossing their eyes, the retina registers a fair amount of blur and the brain is experiencing that blur and his thinking to itself, this is not good. I don't want to see blurry. And the only way to make it clearer is that the brain has got to make the eye focusing inside. The brain has got to make the eye focusing system in the eye work harder and the eye focusing and the eye taming systems are neurologically tied to each other.  Dr. Stephey: So if you focus harder, your eye's going to turn in. So somebody who's an accommodative esotrope, they're really farsighted but nobody's figured that out. And when you finally do figure it out and you put glasses on them and the brain says, oh, I got the glasses to do all this extra work for me and I don't have to do that. Great. I'll turn the eyes back out to a straight ahead posture and get them to work together as a team. So that's what it means to be an accommodative esotrope.  Tim Edwards: So is that different than a lazy eye?  Dr. Stephey: Yes, yes. The simple answer to that is yes. So Lazy. I the common term that people know. Amblyopia is the fancier term. And most of the things that we talk about, there's always exceptions to the rule. So typically somebody who has a lazy eye, "can see 20/20 in one eye and less than 20/20 in the other eye." Dr. Stephey: Maybe it's 20/25, maybe it's 20/30, maybe it's 2100, maybe it's 2,400. But you don't really know why they have that poor vision until you do a comprehensive exam and begin to figure out why these things are true. So in an accommodative esotrope, if there's an asymmetry in prescription between the two eyes, one eye has got little to no prescription and the other one's got quite a bit of farsightedness. The far sighted eye that has not been wearing a correction is going to see blurry because the brain will take the path of least resistance. It will do whatever work it has to, but not anymore than it has to. So if you can see 20/20 with one eye and it takes very little effort, the brain says, well I'm not going to work that other eye because I'm seeing 20/20. That was my ultimate goal.  Dr. Stephey: I don't have to work the other eye harder so I'm just going to let it be blurry. Well, the longer that other eye stays blurry, the cells in the visual cortex or the occipital lobe or the back of the brain where visual input is sent to, those cells never get stimulated with clear vision. They constantly see blurry. So those brain cells that receive visual input don't know how to see clear. And so when you go to measure clarity of vision, like on the standard eye chart, they can't get to 20/20 because they've never seen 20/20. So in that context, oftentimes in every case is different. But oftentimes when you put glasses on, someone who's like that, and maybe give them four or five or six weeks just to put glasses on, wear them full time. Let clear images be on both retinas. Let both retinas send that information back to the brain to be stimulated.  Dr. Stephey: And perhaps we do a follow up exam in four to six or seven weeks and recheck the snellen chart again in the lazier eye and see how much better it's getting. If it's getting better on its own, maybe just more time is all that's necessary to get the eye back to 20/20 or close to it. And facilitate the brain's ability to begin to learn how to use the two eyes together. And if time alone and the prescription alone is not sufficient, then we come up with a vision therapy plan about how are we going to intervene to teach the brain how to keep both eyes on and see clearly at the same time. Because and historically, if you get diagnosed with a lazy eye, and this is still true to some degree in some circles, the classic example is that you patch the good eye, right?  Dr. Stephey: You cover up the good idea, have forced the brain to see through the blurry eye and sometimes even in 2018, that is still the conventional approach with a lot of eye doctors. And I'm going to tell you that is woefully inadequate because it is true that when you patch the good eye, the brain will look through the other eye because it has no choice. Once you take the patch back off, the brain goes back to look through the "good eye" and turns the lazy eye back off.  Tim Edwards: So this has never worked then.  Dr. Stephey: I wouldn't say it's never worked, but it has limited value because the ultimate goal and what's really necessary is the brain has to learn how to use the two eyes together as a team and you can't do that if you patch one of them. So the extension beyond patching, if patching is even necessary at all, is that you have to develop a vision therapy program where the brain is aware of what both eyes are doing, but that the brain is also aware that the two eyes are seeing different colors or different colored objects or that the objects at the right eye and the left are seeing are polarized.  Dr. Stephey: So the right eye sees one polarized target. The left eye sees a different polarized target so that if the brain doesn't keep both eyes on, one of the one of the targets is going to disappear. Well, when you can see that happen and your brain says, Hey, what the heck happened to that other object? Well, the brain's now got immediate real time feedback to turn that eye back on, and that's the coup de gras in this whole thing. The brain's got to be aware that it has two channels and that it is supposed to learn how to use the two eyes together as an integrated team. That's why patching has limited value. And I got an email several days ago from a colleague of mine that this is crazy when I tell you this. It is a practice that has been done within the discipline of ophthalmology who's big on patching.. Dr. Stephey: Not so much the binocular vision piece, but big on patching. And if you're a kid who sees good in one eye and really poorly out of the other and someone puts a patch on your good seeing eye, are you going to want to wear that patch? No. The answer is no. So you're going to take it off. Well, believe it or not, I've seen cases where an eye surgeon has actually sutured a patch onto somebody's face.  Tim Edwards: Sutured? Sutured, so they cannot take it off no matter what.  Dr. Stephey: They have stitched it into their skin. That seems really egregious. And the second one that's close to that is that they put elbows splints on the kids so they can't bend their arms.  Tim Edwards: Oh my goodness. Wow. That's like the cone that you put over a dog's head so it doesn't lick its wounds. Right.  Dr. Stephey: When when I read that email, I thought the exact same thing.  Tim Edwards: That's terrible. That's archaic.  Dr. Stephey: Yeah, well it seems pretty extreme. I don't know. I'd have to go back and read more about it and make my peace with whether or not it's ever necessary and maybe it is. But those are two pretty extreme examples of what it means to patch.  Tim Edwards: So we're going to take a short break Dr. Stephey and when we come back on the other side, give us a little insight as to what we can expect.  Dr. Stephey: When we come back on the other side of this, I'm going to talk a little bit about astigmatism. I'll talk a little bit more about presbyopia and I'll talk a little bit about myopia control. Because myopia is an out of control epidemic worldwide and there's lots of research and lots of discussion being done about how do we control this.  Tim Edwards: And why don't we also give some solutions as well too, that they can find at your optometry practice.  Dr. Stephey: Sounds great.  Tim Edwards: Welcome back to the Move Look & Listen podcast with Dr. Stephey. I'm Tim Edwards with the Inbound Podcasting Network. And today we're talking about common eye problems. Getting a nice education on when you hear that somebody has astigmatism, which we're about to talk about. Or presbyopia. Did I say it right?  Dr. Stephey: Presbyopia. Yeah.  Tim Edwards: And what's the other one?  Dr. Stephey: There's hyperopia, myopia, astigmatism and presbyopia.  Tim Edwards: I'll never be able to do that without it written down in front of me, unfortunately. After I listen to this number two, I will. So why don't we pick up where we left off?  Dr. Stephey: Well, let's talk about astigmatism because that's a common component of a lot of people's prescriptions. And I think there's some confusion about what it really means. So if you think about the shape of the basketball, it's got one radius of curvature and that's typical of whether you're nearsighted or farsighted. Meaning that when light focuses in front of or behind your retina to induce that blur, it's only got one focal point of blur, and that's to be implied by the shape of the basketball, only having one curve. In contrast, to a football which has one radius of curvature from the long end to the other long end, and it's got a steeper radius of curvature around the center.  Dr. Stephey: Those two major curvatures are 90 degrees apart from each other and each one has a different focal point. So with astigmatism, you've got two different blur points around your retina instead of the single blur point. So with myopia, you're primarily blurry at distance and have sight up close. With hyperopia, you're primarily blurry at close and have good vision far away unless you're really farsighted then you have blur everywhere. And astigmatism because you've got to blur points. You're blurry everywhere as well. So that's what astigmatism is. There's two different blur points and we have to correct both of those blur points to give you clear vision.  Tim Edwards: I've heard astigmatism my entire life. Never knew that. You're talking about different blur points within each eyeball.  Dr. Stephey: Yes, that's right. And furthermore there is something called the astigmatism axis. So if you think back to high school math class and you ever had to pull out a protractor, it's got degrees on it, right from zero to 180 degrees. And those degrees on that protractor make up part of your astigmatism prescription.  Dr. Stephey: And it's interesting to look at symmetry in the human body because most prescriptions that contain astigmatism are along the 180 degree line plus or minus 10 degrees. So like 170 to maybe 10 degrees somewhere in that range or they're 90 degrees away from that. So now you're at an axis 90 and maybe a common range from 80 to 100. That's pretty common with astigmatism prescriptions. And every once in a while you get an oddball prescription where it's at an oblique axis like 45 degrees or 135 degrees. Not along the 180 or the 90 degree line. And what's also interesting is how sensitive somebody can be to changes in that cylinder axis. So degrees on a protractor change in one degree increments. And if you don't have a lot of astigmatism, maybe you have a tiny amount of astigmatism prescription and your axis could change five to seven degrees and it wouldn't bother you very much.  Dr. Stephey: But if you have a lot of astigmatism, sometimes you can't even tolerate a one degree change in the axis in your prescription because if you're that sensitive or you have that high of astigmatism power, that one degree change, it doesn't feel right. Like it almost gives you eyestrain or a headache or blur or it throws off your visual perception or it's just not tolerable. I used to have about $4.50 worth of astigmatism. And if you think about prescription changes, we do it in quarter diopter units. Well $4.50 is 18 quarters worth of astigmatism. That's a lot. Before I had Lasik, I couldn't tolerate a one degree change in my astigmatism axis. If I got a pair of glasses made and literally they were one degree off, I have to send them back, I couldn't wear. And some people are really, really sensitive to that.  Dr. Stephey: If there's one thing I've learned over the years is that every single patient that comes into my practice is unique unto themselves and it doesn't make a difference. Yes, we have had a lot of training. Yes, I've had a lot of experience and yes, most people kind of fall in the bell curve of statistical population outcomes, but that's not you. Everybody's different. And I wouldn't have been sensitive to this probably the first 10 or 12 years that I was in practice. But now I really listened to every single patient that comes to me and what their complaints are and what I think their complaints could be. And nobody's maybe even asking those questions to find out if they have any of the symptoms that I might think you have. For example, there was a gal came into my office recently. She's 48 years old.  Dr. Stephey: Her two eyes don't work together very well and that's caused her a host of problems. Motion sickness, being clumsy, being ridiculously anxious, and really most of her life feeling like she's got two left feet. And when I started to ask her some of the questions that we're going to talk about in later episodes, she broke down in tears in my exam chair because she said, I've been trying to tell other doctors this most of my adult life. And no one has ever understood what I've been trying to tell them. Well, and they all just think I'm crazy.  Tim Edwards: Which type of doctors has, she asked?  Dr. Stephey: She's asked her family doctors this. She's asked neurologist this. She's ultimately been referred to psychology and psychiatry because no one has understood what she's trying to convey.  Tim Edwards: And you're the first optometrist she's asked?  Dr. Stephey: No, no, she's 40-years-old. She's been going to see eye doctors since she was a kid. So it's that no one took the time to listen to her and no one took the time to do the kind of testing that would reveal this to know what questions to ask, and so she broke down in tears because she finally felt like she had somebody who understood what she was trying to convey. All this time. It was unbelievable.  Tim Edwards: That must have been just one of those days like you talked about in the last episode where you just go home smiling because you just found a way to not only listen to this patient of yours, but to fix this patient of yours.  Dr. Stephey: Well, it's true. Most people probably have heard of the movie, the Matrix with Keanu Reeves. And there's a scene in there that's a red pill, blue pill moment. I love that scene and it's perfect for this kind of optometry because my contention is that when you learn this information, I dare you to go back and not practice this way. I can't do it. I can't unlearn what I know and when I have a chance to talk to parent groups or occupational or physical therapist or I go to maybe a special education conference. I'm going to a conference tomorrow. I'm one of the speakers on the visual aspects of dyslexia. I'm going to talk about that red pill, blue pill moment because once you learn this, you can't go back.  Tim Edwards: So you're offering them a red pill, blue pill moment as well.  Dr. Stephey: Yes, that's exactly what I'm going to do tomorrow.  Tim Edwards: And that is our intent on the Move Look & Listen podcast as well. Dr. Stephey we come to the close of this episode. Can we go over some of the solutions to these ailments that we've talked about for the last 25 minutes or so?  Dr. Stephey: I would love to do that. The one thing I'm really going to focus on right now is myopia or nearsightedness because it is a worldwide epidemic that is being studied in many countries and people throw in lots and lots of money research wise at myopia control and in part why that's a big deal is that myopia compared to the other kinds of prescription changes that you might need, myopia is associated with higher incidence of glaucoma and higher incidences of retinal tears and retinal detachments. So it's not just that, oh, I need a thicker and thicker pair of glasses to see better. It's that there really are some longterm consequences healthwise and vision wise and blindness wise. So trying to get this figured out is a big deal. Conventionally, the most common way that we handle blur is by prescribing glasses. While prescribing glasses this isn't solving your problem, it's compensating for your problem. And allowing you to see clearly. So what we want to do in myopia control is to see if there's other alternatives that might be better choices for you. And some of the common choices that have been tried and have some modest success and some that have really pretty significant success. A really simple fix would be put somebody in a bifocal, even if you're eight years old, you may benefit from being in a bifocal pair of glasses to slow down your runaway myopia.  Dr. Stephey: Or alternatively we might put you in a standard hard or gas permeable contact lens to slow down that progression. Or we might put you in a hard contact lens that you wear overnight. Much like you wear a retainer after you've had braces and the hard lens w overnight attempts to flatten your cornea overnight. So it does two things during the daytime. One, the ideal goal is that you don't need glasses or contacts then to see all day and that it's also designed to slow down the progression of the myopia so that over some period of time, even if you stop wearing the overnight lens at night, you will not progress to the same level of myopia you would have, had you never worn that lens to start with.  Tim Edwards: So it just reshaping the eye a little bit?  Dr. Stephey: It's reshaping the eye little bit. That's exactly what it's doing. And then there's atropine eyedrops and standard atropine eyedrops dilate the pupil really big and they pharmacologically knock out your eye focusing system so you can't see up close because your eye focusing system doesn't work because it's been pharmacologically paralyzed. Well, I'm here to tell you that in the US there is no one that's going to tolerate full strength atropine eyedrops for those two reasons. They may get by with that in some other countries, but people in the US just aren't going to tolerate that. And they don't really have to because there are diluted atropine eyedrops where they're diluted to a 0.01 percent. So you don't get the pupil dilation, you don't get the eye focusing problems, but you do get a significant myopia reduction control over time. So that's pretty cool.  Tim Edwards: And this is just drops that you put in your eye?  Dr. Stephey: Yup. Maybe once a day and off you go.  Tim Edwards: So it's like a pill. Except a drop for your eye.  Dr. Stephey: It's sorta like a pill but in drop form.  Tim Edwards: That's amazing. I've never heard of that before. It's great.  Dr. Stephey: Yup. And I would say that the diluted atropine drops are relatively new. I don't think they're particularly well known even in the eye care community and that has not been particularly well conveyed into the patient population at large. So I have a handful of patients who are doing the myopia control with the atropine eye drops, but it's not a huge part of our practice at this juncture. But it's an option that's available and you should know about it. Here's a final thought about presbyopia or old man eyes. Rememberit happens between 40 and 45.  Tim Edwards: Middle-aged man eyes.  Dr. Stephey: Yes. Yes, that's right. If you've been fortunate enough to have 20/20 vision at distance your whole life, I'm here to tell you, you feel cheated when you turn presbyopic.  Tim Edwards: Absolutely.  Dr. Stephey: And it's like, what do you mean I need reading glasses? I've never needed glasses my whole life.  Tim Edwards: And it grows subtle. I mean, it's not like overnight. You can't see. It just seems to happen over some time and you realize I am not functioning like I used to. It's, it's terrible. It's exhausting, actually.  Dr. Stephey: It, you know, that's a good point. It is exhausting. Even when you can see some degree of clarity, your brain has to work so hard to achieve that, that oftentimes those people can read without reading glasses initially, but they have trouble remembering what they're reading because their brain's working so hard to see. And that group is challenging because they typically don't want to wear glasses full time and I certainly understand that. But then they're confronted with these choices. It's like, well doc, how am I going to fix this? Well I can give you a reading glasses? Sounds great, but you're not going to be able to walk around in them. What do you mean? Well they're just for reading, if you try to walk around, you're going to get dizzy and fall over.  Dr. Stephey: Well yeah, but so what? Wait a minute. What are you, what are you telling me? Are you telling me you're going to use the B word? Yeah, that's the other choice.  Tim Edwards: That no young man wants to hear. No 45-year-old man wants to hear that.  Dr. Stephey: Like you're saying, I need a bifocal? And I'm like, well I didn't say that exactly. I implied it but I didn't say it.  Tim Edwards: Right, but then you know, a lot of men or a lot of people basically they don't want to see that line, you know, but there's a solution to that. That line in their glasses that tells the world I can't see up close without the aid. And so it looks like, I'm guessing there's a stigma attached to that. Sorry.  Dr. Stephey: And I think that it's, it is an acknowledgement that in fact you are getting older.  Tim Edwards: It is indeed. Yeah.  Dr. Stephey: And it's nothing to do with really the wearing of it. It's that it's acknowledgement of your aging. And people are really resistant to that.  Tim Edwards: Listen, I get it. I was that guy. I was like, I'm 51 now and I just gave up. I just gave up, you know, I need to be able to see and if you don't like the line on my glasses and think I'm an old man then too bad. I have to function. But then again, there are some solutions to that you don't have to have that definitive line.  Dr. Stephey: That's right. There are bifocals with lines that are obvious. There's bifocals with lines that aren't as obvious. There are round bifocals that technically have a line that are almost invisible and then there's progressive lenses that don't have any lines.  Dr. Stephey: And of course that has great appeal if you're bothered by the idea of a line and announcing to the world that yes, I'm wearing a bifocal. And I've been wearing a progressive lens for almost 16 years now. I don't think I would go back to wearing a bifocal with a line. But they do have some limits.  Tim Edwards: Some of the limits I learned this. First of all, it takes some getting used to. It does. There's some, there's some adjustment to that transition.  Dr. Stephey: Well, there's an adjustment of getting used to anybody bifocal.  Tim Edwards: Oh that is true. That is true.  Dr. Stephey: But it is also interesting because when I see patients that have trouble with the way their two eyes work together, if they have tried progressive lenses in the past and failed, it's usually not because they can't wear a progressive lens.  Dr. Stephey: It's because they can't adapt to the progressive lens because of the binocular vision problem that no one has told them about. So when you get a lot of motion and swim through the no line portion of a progressive, you can't tolerate that. Well then nobody told you why you're getting so much swim because your two eyes aren't working together in a coordinated manner. You just think that progressives aren't for you and you don't know that they're really a viable option. If we address this binocular vision piece.  Tim Edwards: So there are options. There are options there. And you know what, the only way to know is to get in there and try. And that's what exactly what I did and of course I settled for a great mix of contacts so I could see far away really well and reading glasses. And reading glasses that work while I'm wearing my contacts that you did for me.  Tim Edwards: It is a perfect combination. Now they're not bifocal glasses. I just put them on when I need to see up close. But this combination works for me.  Dr. Stephey: Well, Tim, and you make a good point, which is listen to your patients, come up with viable solutions, talk about the viable solutions and put them on the table so that you and the patient then can have a good discussion about their quality of life, what they do vocationally and avocationally and how these lenses are gonna work and how they're not going to work. Because it reminds me that there's also bifocal contact lenses that many people don't know even exist. And there's also instances where we'll fit one eye with the distance contact lens and the other eye with a reading contact lens. And roughly 85 percent of people that try that do really well with it. But again, you have to know it's an option and you have to know it doesn't work for everybody. But that's the point of listening to your patients and working with them and that you really are a collaborative team, which is exactly the kind of practice that I want to have.            

Welcome to the Richard Ross Associates Family Law Podcast.  InBound Podcasting Network founder, Tim Edwards, introduces you to Richard and Denise Ross.  Richard and Denise will provide an overview of their family law firm and will share some valuable tips & first-steps to take when looking for a divorce attorney. Richard Ross Associates serves Ventura and Los Angeles counties in the areas of divorce and family law.  If you face a family law matter of any kind, please do not hesitate to contact Richard Ross Associates. Their mission to provide compassionate, experienced legal counsel to each and every client they represent.  Richard Ross Associates, 2801 Townsgate Rd, Ste 217, Westlake Village, California 91361 Call:  (805) 777-1011 Visit their website:  http://www.richardrossassociates.com  YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/user/RRAFamilyLaw Facebook:  https://www.facebook.com/RichardRossAssociates Twitter:  https://twitter.com/RRAFamilyLaw The Richard Ross Associates Family Law Podcast is brought to you in part, by audible - get a FREE audiobook download and 30-day free trial at www.audibletrial.com/InBound.  You will find over 180,000 titles to choose from and to listen to through your iPhone, Android, Kindle or mp3 player. Support the the Richard Ross Associates Family Law Podcast by visiting www.audibletrial.com/InBound If interested in producing a podcast of your own, like The Richard Ross Associates Podcast, contact Tim Edwards at Tim@InBoundPodcasting.com  

Six months since launch, 34 informative and thought provoking episodes, and over 10,000 downloads!In celebration, Episode 35 is a re-release our very first episode, "Adam, You Look Like Crap!" Hear what inspired Adam Zickerman to build InForm Nation up from a small basement studio in Long Island, with just a few machines, to the growing force we are today.For those of you who joined us late and have not had a chance to hear how Adam Zickerman started InForm Fitness, we are re-releasing our very first episode titled, Adam, You Look Like Crap!Subscribe now for future episodes that will teach you how to reboot your metabolism, burn fat, and build muscle with the revolutionary Power of 10, the high intensity, slow motion, strength training system that's so effective, you'll get a week's worth of exercise in just one 20-minute session.Your hosts for the show are Adam Zickerman, the founder of Inform Fitness, Mike Rogers, trainer and GM of Inform Fitness in Manhattan, Sheila Melody, co-owner and trainer of Inform Fitness in Los Angeles, and Tim Edwards, founder of the InBound Podcasting Network and client of Inform Fitness in Los Angeles.To find an Inform Fitness location nearest you visit www.InformFitness.comIf you'd like to ask Adam, Mike or Sheila a question or have a comment regarding the Power of 10. Send us an email or record a voice memo on your phone and send it to podcast@informfitness.com. Join Inform Nation and call the show with a comment or question.  The number is 888-983-5020, Ext. 3. To purchase Adam's book, Power of 10: The Once-a-Week Slow Motion Fitness Revolution click this link to visit Amazon: http://bit.ly/ThePowerofTenIf you would like to produce a podcast of your own just like The Inform Fitness Podcast, please email Tim Edwards at tim@InBoundPodcasting.comThe transcription to this episode is below:01 Adam You Look Like Crap - TranscriptIntro: You're listening to the InForm Fitness podcast, 20 minutes with New York Times, best-selling author, Adam Zickerman and friends. Brought to you by InForm Fitness, life changing personal training with several locations across the US. Reboot your metabolism and experience the revolutionary Power of 10, the high intensity, slow motion, strength training system that's so effective, you'd get a week's worth of exercise in just one 20-minute session, which by no coincidence is about the length of this podcast. So, get ready InForm Nation, your 20 minutes of high intensity strength training information begins in 3, 2, 1.Tim: And with that we welcome you to the maiden voyage of the InForm Fitness podcast with Adam Zickerman. How about that guys? We're finally here. [cheering] Yeah. [laughs] You're hearing several voices in the background and of course we're going to get to know each and every one of them here in the next few minutes.After about, what, two months of planning and scheduling and equipment troubleshooting? Now finally recording and excited about passing this valuable information onto those who are looking to build muscle, lose fat, maintain cardiovascular health and maybe even improve your golf game or whatever it is that you love to do. I'm certainly on board.My name is Tim Edwards and I'm the founder of Inbound Podcasting Network and we are very proud to add the InForm Fitness podcast to our stable of shows. Not only because we've assembled a knowledgeable and entertaining team to present this information but I am also a client of InForm Fitness. I'vebeen training, using the system for close to about four months I believe and very pleased with the progress I'm making and I certainly have become a believer in the Power of 10 in which we will describe in great detail later in this and in future episodes.So, let's get started by going around the room or the various rooms that we're all recording from via the magic of Skype and formally introduce each member of the podcast team to our listeners. Of course we'll start with the founder of InForm Fitness Studios and the author of the New York Times, best-seller, Power of 10: The Once-a-Week Slow Motion Fitness Revolution, Adam Zickerman. Adam, it's a pleasure to finally launch this podcast and get started with you.Adam: Longtime coming. I'm so happy we're doing this.Tim: And I believe joining us from the Manhattan location of InForm Fitness, from across the hall from Adam, is Mike Rogers. Mike's been training at InForm Fitness for about 13 years and has served as a general manager for the New York City location for the past five. Mike, glad to have you in.     Thank you. It's great to be a part of it.And finally, joining us from the Los Angeles area is Sheila Melody. Sheila became a Power of 10 personal trainer in 2010 and in 2012 helped Adam expand to the west coast by opening the first InForm Fitness Studio just outside of Los Angeles in beautiful Toluca Lake and has since instructed hundreds of clients through the years, myself included. Sheila, this was your idea to launch the podcast. We're finally here doing it. Good to see you.I'm so excited to do this, to bring -- to introduce Adam and Mike and the Power of 10 to everybody out there and let's go.Let's go. Alright. So, there's the team, Adam, Mike, Sheila and myself, Tim. And we're all looking forward to diving deep into the content. But Adam, before we do, remind us of that very sophisticated title you came up with, for our very first and ever so important episode of --[laughs] The InForm Fitness podcast. That title of the show again, Adam, is what? You Look Like Crap.[laughs] Very interesting title and in addition to the story behind that title, tell us -- before we get into that, tell us a little bit about your background. What led you to launching InForm Fitness and writing the book, Power of 10?Well, exercise has always an interest of mine, since I was a kid. I was a jock. My father's a jock. So, I became a jock and, you know, I had trainers and people telling me how to train and I read books on it [inaudible 04:06] magazines and I did it the way everyone was doing it, the way my trainer just wanted me to do, the way my coaches were telling me to do it and it was the conventional biometric type stuff. It was the free weights.When I was in high school, they didn't even have Nautilus yet. [Inaudible 04:25] Nautilus had just started. We had a universal machine in our gym. Those are -- but it was the first introduction to machines that I had. You know, looking back on it, it was kind of primitive but, the bottom line is, you know, you have -- you worked out hard. You worked out often and you got hurt a lot. [laughs]     Did you get hurt sometime in that progress, in leading towards InForm Fitness, did you suffer an injury?I had plenty of tweaks up until the point I had my major injury during a deadlifting program but way before that I was -- and what led to the title of this, was way before my major injury, what led to the title of this, was when a boss told me that I looked like crap even though I exercised all the time.Well let's -- let me stop you there. So, you said you looked like crap. Did you in your mind?Oh, no. No, I thought I was a stud.[laughs]And nothing's changed.[laughs] And you could see Adam for yourself if you go to informfitness.com and [laughs] see if he really does.Confidence is important in life, you know?[laughs] Yes, it is.And you got to fake it too sometimes.So, you were an exercise guy, you were doing it all the time and he knew that you were exercising. What is it that led him to tell you that you looked like crap?As you can imagine, I was working in the laboratory at the -- that I was working and as you can imagine from Scientific Laboratories, there aren't too many jocks hanging around Scientific Laboratories. I was -- [inaudible 05:49]. What Mike? I see you want to say something.A lot of studs are hanging out with [inaudible 05:57].Yeah, exactly. There are always too many. You know. So, I kind of -- and I was new on the team and I was probably -- I would -- I'm an over -- when it comes to scientific inquiry and research I was over my head. I'm an overachiever with that. It was such a passion of mine that -- but I had to work ten times as hard to get where I was in that laboratory, where all my colleagues, you know they read it once and they got it, you know, and I had to spend hours into the middle of the night trying to figure out what we were doing in the lab.     So, the one thing I had on everybody because I didn't have brains on them and I had brawn them and I had my so called experience in exercise and I tried to [profitize 06:33] how they should be exercising. Again, it was like lots of hardcore stuff, everyday working out. You got to do a cardio, you got to do at least a couple mile runs every day. You got to do three weight training programs.Mhm [affirmative].I was working out with this guy, Ken [Licener 06:48], maybe he'll be a guest one day on our podcast. He's a real pioneer in this and he used to work out -- he was a chiropractor that worked out of the basement of his house. And when you puked, you had to puke in this bucket.Oh jeez.And then, you can't just leave your puke there and you had to walk out with your bag of puke in your hand and everyone would see you and they'd clap if you had a bag of puke in your hand.Oh my God. [laughs]And you'd have to throw the puke, the bag of puke, into a garbage pail on the corner of his house.Oh my God.Oh.And by the end of the night there were like 30 bags in this thing.[laughs]You know, I can imagine the guys picking up this stuff, you know, in the morning --[laughs]So, Tim, that was the best. That's the type of workout that I'm trying to explain to these exercise -- these scientists in my lab and so my boss, he was kind of tired of hearing it all and it didn't make sense to him at all and he's a smart guy, obviously.And so he said to me, he says, you know, Adam, someone who knows so much about exercise and works out all the time, I have to say, you look like crap. That's where it came from.Tim: Did that piss you off a little bit or did you maybe kind of step back and go, “Hey, well maybe he's right. Maybe I am taking the wrong approach.”Adam: At the time, I paused. It was a seed that was planted and it didn't start germinating for many years later and it was through other experiences, other injuries, and all the comments from friends that said, this can't be good for you and then there was the epiphany, when I read the Ken Hutchins manual which basically put into words things I was questioning and he kind of answered a lot of those questions for me.Tim: So, tell us a little bit about Ken Hutchins. Who was he and what's in his manual?Adam: Ken Hutchings. [laughs] He's an eccentric guy. Ken questions all the things that I couldn't articulate and he made -- he point -- he made the point about how exercise is your stimulus and then you let it -- then you leave it alone. It's not about more is better.He also brought home the point that exercise has to be safe and it's not just the acute injuries that he was talking about. It's not the torn muscle here and there, or the sprain here and there, it was the insidious effects of over training that are much more serious than a strain or a sprain. The kind of insidious things that lead to osteoarthritis, hip replacements, lowered immune systems and therefor susceptibility to disease and those types of problems associated with chronic overtraining.My father ran marathons his whole life, didn't eat very well. In his early 70s he had quadruple bypass surgery and this man ran many, many miles and you know so that -- all this, all this experience and then reading this manual, you know, that -- it blew me away. I mean, honestly it changed everything for me.Then I started seeking out people that were already kind of gathering around Ken Hutchings that also were touched by what he had to say, that also I guess were feeling the same things I was feeling leading up to that moment. And it kind of reminds me of the movie Close Encounters of the Third Kind, where, you know, like, the aliens kind of shone that light on them and the people that had that light shown on them all of the sudden were compelled to go to Devils Tower. They didn't understand, you know, but they would just -- they just couldn't help themselves. They were driven.And I felt, you know, you read this manual and all of the sudden -- and somebody else reads this manual and all of us, these people that read this manual like zombies being led to the Devils Tower to you know congregate and talk about this and that's what the original super slow exercise guild was about. I mean it was a bunch of exercise nerds now, you know, that were touched by these ideas and our mission, the power phrase was to you know change perception of exercise and change the way people look at exercise and why we exercise and how we exercise.Tim: So, Adam, with this new mission of changing the perception of why and how to exercise, tell us how InForm Fitness came to be.Adam: So, it was 1997. 1997 where Rob Serraino actually sold me some of his original equipment. He was upgrading his equipment and I bought his, his original [inaudible 11:28] five pieces of equipment [inaudible 11:30] MedX leg press and new MedX [inaudible 11:32]. So, I spent about, I don't six grand initially to start my business and I opened it up in a client's basement. A client of mine said I can have his basement, rent free, as I perfect my trade. I was like, thank you very much. I went to his basement and it was like 300 square feet and it was musty and there was another tenant down there that was a chain smoker.Tim: And you learned why it was rent free. [laughs]Adam: Now I realized why it was rent free. Exactly. So, that's where I started. I didn't have paying clients right away at that moment. That's where I had this equipment and I trained myself and my clients who owned the building and a handful of friends.Tim: Well --Adam: And from there I started trying to get as many people as I can to come to this basement and it's a testament to the workout that I was able to build a solid client base in a very inconvenient part of Long Island, by the way. Not to mention the fact that it was in a basement that smelled like smoke but it was also not easy to get to this place because all my connections were on the north shore of Long Island and this place that I was talking about was on the south shore of Long Island and I didn't know anybody on the south shore of Long Island. So, I wasn't getting clients from my -- from the neighborhood. I was getting clients where I'm from, my network.I mean, listen, I was passionate about it. I was and I had the war wounds and I, you know, I was licking my wounds and I told a story about -- and people, you know, as you know people were able to relate to my story because I'm not -- I'm not like this gifted athlete or with this, no matter what I do my physique is perfect. You know, I mean, I have to work maintaining my -- I'm not a natural like that. So, I am a regular guy. You know, I'm a five foot nine and a half Jew. You know, I mean [laughs] You know, I had some things to overcome. [laughter] Giant among us Jews though. [laughter]So, you were mentioning earlier, you know, you wanted to test to see if this had any staying power and here we are about 19, 20 years later almost. So, mission accomplished.I couldn't be prouder to be associated with these two people. Mike Rogers I've know him now -- how long, Mike? It's so long, it's like --[Inaudible 14:00] 14 years. Like, we grew up together at this point. 14 years.I'm always attracted by something that's a little counterintuitive, that something that seems -- I mean, that's -- I'm just -- I find interest in that and I like to just sort of look deeper into it. I wasn't sure what we were doing was right or wrong. It just felt like it made sense and then it was very hard.And you know, I had a shoulder injury. I still have it. It's a separated clavicle, separated shoulder from when I was 20 years old, a snowboarding accident and it always kind of nagged me. It was fine. It was okay but like, I couldn't lift boxes without it bothering me. I couldn't do a lot of things without it bothering me.And the big thing that made me really believe that this is like "the thing" is my shoulder stopped bothering me after about seven weeks of doing Power of 10 and I couldn't believe it. I was just like, “Oh my God, that injury just -- it just went completely away.” That nagged me for at the time like nine years, nine or ten years and then I couldn't -- I saw -- I felt and saw and felt incredible results with my own body within -- with less than two months.And so, and Adam, you know, I think, you know, we liked each other and I thought we could help each other and I literally -- I was working at Citi Bank and I literally one day I just quit my job and I became a trainer and it was that, that was it and 14 years later and it's by far the best job I've ever had in my entire life.     I've trained, you know, over 2,000 people. I don't know how many and I've seen magnificent triumphs over the years. I have a lot of experience with questions and stuff and it's been, just the most unbelievable experience for me to everyday, look forward to helping people and to work with the team that we have here and to the expanding global team as well, so --Well, and you mentioned the global team and I think that would include Sheila Melody over here on the Westcoast. Adam, tell me about how you and Sheila met and how that came to be.First time I met Sheila was through a course, a little certification, a little class that I had out in LA. It was my first time -- it was actually my first time in LA.I had been introduced to the Power of 10 or the super slow technique by an ex- boyfriend and he brought me to a guy here in Calabasas, California --[Oh, that's nice 16:17].Named Greg Burns and Greg Burns is known to all of us super slow people. He's real old school and he works out of his garage and he's got about six pieces of equipment. So, I learned kind of the old school way and I loved it immediately. I was like, “Wow, this is so cool. I get to --” I felt strong and, you know, I had always worked out just typical workout. Go to the gym three times a week and then a few years later as Adam said, this is where Adam comes into the picture, I had been given his book, Power of 10 and saw his picture on the back and, "Oh, look at this cool guy. You know, he looks so cool." [laughs][Crosstalk 16:59].Yeah a cute guy because it's hot guy on the back of this book, you know, and Greg Burns actually gave me that book. So, I was training with a girlfriend of mine who had been certified by Adam and she started her own place and then after a few years, I was like, “You know what? Maybe I should get certified and just kind of do this on the side. I really like it.” And so that's how I got introduced to Adam and first of all just over the phone doing, you know, we had conference calls weekly and just, you know, fell in love with him right away. I mean, I mean that in the most, you know, brotherly sense really [laughs] --Every sense of the word.We just definitely hit it off and he -- mostly because of Adam's style. He is very -- not only is he knowledgeable about all of this but I just -- he's such a great teacher and he knows what he's talking about. He has great integrity and he, you know,makes sure that all the people he certifies are -- he will not pass you unless he believes that you really get this and you really know what you're doing and so, he's got great integrity when he does that.And I was so proud -- when I did that first certification it was one of the best things I've ever done, like, what Mike is saying. I'm definitely drinking am drinking the Kool-Aid here. It's one of the best things I've ever done. So, I called him up and said, "Hey, you want to start an InForm Fitness in LA?" And we worked it out and next thing you know, three years later -- it's three-year anniversary today actually.Really? No, shit. Yes. Wow. Very cool.Three years. I was looking at Facebook posts things and it was saying, oh, two years ago today, Adam, you were in town and we were doing our one-year anniversary, so.Cool.Three years ago and, as I said, the best thing I've ever done and love all these people that are involved with -- the clients and trainers and, you know, that's my story. [laughs]So, we're getting kind of close to the end of the very first episode of the InForm Fitness podcast, 20 minutes with Adam Zickerman and friends. The name of the book is Power of 10: The Once-a-Week Slow Motion Fitness Revolution. It can be picked up at several bookstores across the country and through amazon.com. Adam, before we put the wraps on the show, if you would please, tell us what your vision is for this podcast and what you hope to accomplish in upcoming episodes.I want to inform people of current exercise ideas and I want to push things forward and there's a lot of things that we need to talk about to push things forward. We're finding out -- I want to talk about genetics and its role in how we progress and exercise. I want to talk about the physiology we're learning about and the kinds of great things that happen from high intensity exercise that no one's talking about. You'd think by reading what's out there, that we'd have it down.That we've got it. We got the secret to exercise. That just do this, just do that and you're fine but we are so far from fine. The injury rate for exercise is huge. Obesity is through the roof.I mean, we're resting on our laurels and I want people to realize that there's so much more to this than meets the eye and I want to bring on the experts that are going to bring this new stuff to light. I want to bring out some really good pioneers in this and talk about the science that's out there, talk about the successes that we've had. You know, and educate and inform. I mean that's the, you know, the mission of my company and the name of my company and I want to continue that.Tim: And we will. So, there it is. Episode one is in the books and by the way, we have hit the 20-minute mark in the show, which means, if you began your slow motion high intensity training at the start of the show, you'd be finished by now for the entire week. Intrigued or perhaps skeptical? We understand. I was until I tried it for myself. Just a couple months in and I have already shed several pounds and I'm getting stronger every week. If you'd like to try it for yourself, check out informfitness.com for all of the InForm Fitness locations and phone numbers throughout the country and please tell them you heard about it from the podcast.In future episodes we will introduce the interview segment of the podcast. Our goal is to schedule interviews with experts, authors and other podcasters, as Adam mentioned earlier, who's specialties land somewhere within the three pillars of high intensity exercise, nutrition and recovery as discussed in Adam's book, Power of 10: The Once-a-Week Slow Motion Fitness Revolution. As our listenership grows and our community, we call InForm Nation starts to build, we'll have some swag available in the form of t-shirts and whatnot so stay tuned for that.And, hey, if you'd like to ask Adam, Mike or Sheila a question or have a comment regarding the Power of 10. It's very simple. Just shoot us an email or record a voice memo on your phone and send it to podcast@informfitness.com. You can even give us a call at 888-983-5020, Ext. 3. That's 888-983-5020, Ext. 3 to leave your comment, question or even a suggestion on a topic you'd like covered here. Or perhaps you have a guest in mind you'd like to hear on the show. All feedback is welcome and chances are pretty good your comment or question will end up right here on the show.And finally, the best way to support this show and to keep it free for you to learn from and enjoy, subscribe to the podcast right here in iTunes, SoundCloud, Stitcher Radio, Acast, YouTube or wherever you might be listening. Of course, again, it is absolutely free and please rate the show and leave us a review. That is vital to the success of this program. I'm Tim Edwards reminding you to join us for our next episode, Can Recreation Really Be Considered Exercise? For Adam Mike and Sheila, thanks for joining us on the InForm Fitness podcast, 20 minutes with Adam Zickerman and friends, right here on the Inbound Podcasting Network. 

Inform Fitness Founder, Adam Zickerman, welcomes Clinical Psychologist and InForm Fitness Strength Training Instructor, Joshua Cagney to discuss the varied psychological and emotional aspects encountered by both clients and trainers and how high-intensity strength training can be a cathartic experience.We want to reward you for listening to the InForm Fitness Podcast by offering a free training session at an InForm Fitness location nearest you plus an opportunity to qualify for an InForm Fitness Prize Pack.Earn one FREE SESSION when you leave a review for InForm Fitness in iTunes, Yelp, Google+, Facebook,  & Amazon! Simply write a review and send a screenshot to podcast@informfitness.com - that's it!  For each review you leave, you will receive and entry for the GRAND PRIZE!One lucky listener will receive a personally autographed copy of Adam Zickerman's book,  Power of 10: The Once-a-Week Slow Motion Fitness Revolution. That listener will also get decked out in InForm Fitness apparel including an InForm Fitness T-shirt, hat, and a hoody jacket. And we'll top off the prize pack with an Amazon Echo! Click here to see the Amazon Echo in action:http://bit.ly/2InFormFItnessGrandPrizeContest ends May 31st, 2017.  Listen for more details!To find an Inform Fitness location nearest you visit www.InformFitness.comIf you'd like to ask Adam, Mike or Sheila a question or have a comment regarding the Power of 10. Send us an email or record a voice memo on your phone and send it to podcast@informfitness.com. Join Inform Nation and call the show with a comment or question.  The number is 888-983-5020, Ext. 3. To purchase Adam's book, Power of 10: The Once-a-Week Slow Motion Fitness Revolution click this link to visit Amazon: http://bit.ly/ThePowerofTenIf you would like to produce a podcast of your own just like The Inform Fitness Podcast, please email Tim Edwards at tim@InBoundPodcasting.com28 The Psychology of the Trainer/Client RelationshipJosh: The truth is that if we're doing our jobs effectively as instructors, that's entirely placing the clients' needs ahead of our own. We each have an innate need to want to sympathize, to want to offer our sympathies whenever someone suffers a loss or a stressful period of time emotionally, but the longterm consequence of that is we blur those lines. The goal is making sure that you know the client well enough to understand what is going to be most conducive to getting her through a really productive workout. That's when an instructor is really showing his or her metal, when they're able to put the clients' needs ahead of their own.Tim: Hey InForm Nation, can you believe it? We are already at episode 28 of the InForm Fitness Podcast: Twenty Minutes with New York Times bestselling author, Adam Zickerman and friends. I'm Tim Edwards with the InBound Podcasting Network and I'm a client of InForm Fitness, and in just a moment, we'll hear from the founder of InForm Fitness, Adam Zickerman. Sheila Melody, the co-owner of the Toluca Lake location is back with us, and still on vacation is Mike Rogers. Looking forward to having Mike back with us next week, as we interview one of his clients from the Manhattan location, Gretchen Rubin. Next week's episode is bound to be one of our most popular episodes, and I'll explain that at the end of this one. Also at the end of the show, I will remind you of our May 2017, exclusively for InForm Nation. We have a really cool prize pack, valued at over two hundred bucks, but let's not get ahead of yourselves. Remember that voice you heard at the top of the show? That was InForm Fitness trainer/instructor, Joshua Cagney from the Restin, Virginia location. Joshua also happens to be a clinical psychologist, which is why Adam invited him to join us here on The Psychology of the Trainer/Client Relationship. Sometimes after a period of time, those who are being trained become so comfortable with their trainers, they might start to share some intimate details of their life, and the trainer, in essence, becomes their therapist. So where do we draw the line? Can this type of relationship actually help, or hurt the progress of your strength training? Let's join the conversation with Joshua Cagney, Adam Zickerman, Sheila Melody, and myself, with The Psychology of the Trainer/Client Relationship.Adam: So first of all, I've had this conversation with Josh in person, a resident clinical psychologist/exercise instructor. I was talking about — I was there giving a certification course, and many times when I'm talking with trainers, we talk about how to motivate, how to inspire, how to keep people on track. How to make them feel that, I know this is hard but you can do it anyway and stick with it. During that conversation, we were talking about the relationships that develop over time and that there is a definitely a psychology involved in maintaining these relationships and motivating your client. Then lines start getting blurred, and I hear very often, it's kind of a pet peeve of mind, and maybe it's a pet peeve of mine because I've been doing this for twenty years now and I've seen the damage, I guess. The pet peeve is when I hear that you're more like my therapist, the client would say. I come here and it's like a therapy session, or the trainer would say, I feel like I'm a therapist sometimes or I act like a therapist. People come to me, they talk about their problems, they lay it all on me, they can tell me things that they can't tell anybody else, and I get all that, but when I hear that, the hair on the back of my neck goes up a little bit. Maybe because it's my twenty years experience, and the reason that the hair goes up on my neck is just because there's a psychology involved in motivating and working with your clients, doesn't mean that we're psychologists, and that's when Josh said, unless you are a psychologist. I realized that Josh is not only an exercise instructor, which was what I was talking to him as, but I then realized that he's actually a clinical psychologist. So I guess that doesn't apply to him, he is a psychologist when he's dealing with psychology of training clients, and we have to be careful, both as clients and trainer, to make sure we're not blurring those lines, and the instructor doesn't get all full of himself or herself, thinking that they can actually solve these people's problems. I think that the client themselves needs to know what their boundaries are as well, and as much as you connect with your trainer, as much as you appreciate your trainer, as much as this trainer builds you up, not just physically but mentally, as much as all of that happens, they're not their therapist. The reason this is important to me and the reason the hair goes up on the back of my neck is because we end up, both client and instructor, we end up not doing our jobs. What we find happens during the exercise session is a lot of chit-chat going on, there's a lot of wasted time, and the workout suffered. It's a twenty-minute workout, and there's no way you can be a therapist and a trainer in twenty minutes. So then you lose a client, and this is where my twenty years experience comes in. What ends up happening is one day, the client wakes up and says, what the hell am I going there for. I'm getting bored, I'm not feeling the results, I'm feeling a plateau. It's becoming a chore to go there. Maybe the time before that, the quote unquote therapist trainer said something they didn't like, the way therapists sometimes do, and then you've got your patient not wanting to come back anymore, when they weren't your patient in the first place. They were your client, the person you were supposed to train, and now that they don't like you as their therapist anymore, they don't want to come back. So it's a slippery slope, and if you've been a trainer long enough, you've been there. If you're listening to this and you're not a trainer but you're a client of a trainer, and if you've been doing this for any amount of time, you might also relate to this trap that we tend to fall into. If you're listening to this and you've never hired a trainer, when you do, or if you do, this is an important thing to keep in mind. So Joshua, being both an instructor and a clinical psychologist, am I making sense? Am I right?Josh: I think you are absolutely right. From a clinical perspective, one of the things that's important for a therapist to understand is that we each specialize in something that's unique. So if I specialize in trauma based therapy, it does not mean that I'm a good marriage counselor, doesn't make me a good family counselor, and the inverse is true. So when we look at what the specific goal is for any kind of relationship that we have with a client, we need to keep that goal premiere in mind when we develop that relationship. There's blurred lines that come to play when, based on vulnerability and the relationship that you've built, and this is something that you commonly see in a clinical environment when you're dealing with long-term therapy, where clients will be opening themselves up in ways that make them vulnerable, exposed, and it's very easy to misassociate or misassign feelings that a client will have towards a therapist based on that vulnerability. Being in the studio isn't a whole lot different in that regard. You're in physically compromising positions, you're in incredibly intense situations under a lot of physical and emotional stress, so you feel incredibly vulnerable for those twenty, thirty minutes at a time. So the net result is, people tend to feel, when they're working out, open and extremely emotional and extremely anxious and stressed at different points, and the one person that they have contact with is their strength trainer, their instructor. So it's easy for those lines to get very blurry and it's absolutely critical for the strength training instructor to be in a position where they have clear boundaries and clear guidelines about what's appropriate, what's not, and leading that relationship. I think that you're actually really on target, I think that's pretty insightful. Whether it's twenty years of experience or whether it's something you're able to impart to people, it's important.Tim: Speaking from the client's perspective, as a client of InForm Fitness, as you mentioned Josh, it's a very intimate relationship and connection with that trainer. As you said, we're vulnerable, we're hitting muscle failure, but also the environment at InForm Fitness is conducive to building that relationship with your trainer because it's not a crowded gym. It's a very private, one-on-one situation so I guess it's incumbent on the trainer to manage where those lines are, where that blurred line stops.Josh: It is important, and those boundaries again, they're not always very clear, and there are certainly things that are critical for the client and the trainer to both bare in mind. Ultimately that is what is contributory and what is conducive to achieving the goal that my client is here for in the first place. If you have a client who walks in after having been thrown out by their spouse the night before, they're not going to be in a position, chances are, to exercise. So that may be an appropriate time to say, you're just not ready for today, and that's alright. Take a day, take as much time as you need to be able to put yourself in a position where you're ready to focus, but that's part of the boundary. Not saying, please talk to me about what it is that is going on and how can I help, but instead, staying focused on the goal and supporting the client back to what the real mission is.Sheila: Yes, people come in and they may have gone through something or they may have just received a very disturbing email or phone call or something like that, but they want to continue on their schedule because it helps them to stay feeling normal. I have had people come in and they're not revealing to me what happened, but then in the middle of the workout, you're in that really intense position, and after a couple times of exerting that, they can't hold it in anymore and they start crying because they cannot hold that emotion in anymore, because you're letting all of that energy go.Adam: This workout definitely brings out, for me and I've seen it with others, it definitely brings out your emotions. It's an emotional experience with such intensity, and if you have something going on in your life like you just mentioned Sheila, that's going to pull right on out.Sheila: We do need to be prepared to deal with situations like that, and understanding the difference between being a therapist and just being encouraging or being able to tell the difference of this person shouldn't be working out right now. Sometimes just quietly allowing them to move to the next exercise and get through it, we've had people say, thank you so much. For instance, after the last election, it was very emotional for a lot of people, and some people came in the day after. Especially in L.A, and it was like, we just took people through. They were all saying thank you, thank you for helping me to do something good for myself even though I'm really upset right now, but maybe because in L.A, everybody already has a therapist. Josh: That's different than Washington D.C. where everybody needs a therapist.Tim: For somebody who has been working out at InForm Fitness for quite some time, say with one trainer in particular. You can't help but have that relationship build. You're seeing that person every single week, you're vulnerable with them. There is a little bit of time between some of the machines and the exercises, and a good trainer, I believe, will find their client's interests and use those interests to motivate them through those exercises, so there's a connection that's made there. As in any relationship, it grows, there's ebb and flow, but do you think after a certain period of time, where it gets too comfortable, maybe it's okay or you should shift to a different trainer to kind of mix it up a little bit or start over again? What do you think about that?Josh: I think that's a healthy question to ask, but I think there is no one size fits all answer. This is really entirely dependent upon what the client is like, what their disposition is, what their needs and goals are, and then what the trainer is able to give them. So when we're talking about someone who is developing a relationship and a degree of trust, that's not really something that is easily transferable to another trainer, because we personalize that. So outside of that, when you're looking for something that's ultimately going to be most enhancing component of a relationship for a specific client, maybe it is breaking away from that personal relationship and creating something that's much more concrete and core.Adam: When you're a sole practitioner and you don't work for a company like InForm Fitness and you're the trainer, it's hard to give them to somebody else, one of your colleagues, and kind of swap out. So that's not even always an option.Josh: Particularly if your income is based on client retention.Adam: That's what you mentioned earlier before, Josh, the mindfulness of knowing when to speak, when not to speak. Knowing what to say, what not to say. They're coming in in a very emotional state. It reminded me of a client that I have whose sister passed away, and she's a client for a year. When I first met her, her dog had passed away, and I remembered how as soon as it brought it up with her, how are you doing with the dog, she'd get all teary eyed and the workout kind of suffered. Now her sister passed away about a year later, and I knew better this time. So it was interesting how I didn't say anything to her. Now here's somebody whose sister died, she comes to her workout, and I don't even give her a hug like hey, sorry, because I just know how that sets her off. It might have seemed insensitive but I think she really appreciates it because she comes in, we go in there, we work out. I don't say much, and she leaves and every once in a while, we'll talk after the workout, and I'll say next week, we'll talk about the future of her plans and stuff like that because we are friendly, and she says I'm not quite ready for this or that, she'll say. I've had a tough year. She knows I know what she's talking about, yet I've never even sent her a condolence. I know when I see it in her eyes, she looks at me when we talk about these things, that she appreciates the fact that I'm not talking about it. Sheila: I know I can be like that.Adam: This is one of those cases where you just don't bring it up. She knows you know, she knows you care, and because you care, she knows this is why you're acting this way.Tim: Well that's because of the relationship that you've build with her through the last year or so, but there might be some others that think how insensitive for them to act as though nothing has happened.Adam: Including me. I'm listening to this conversation with us right now, and I'm finally — this is like therapy for me, because I'm realizing I'm even judging myself. Like I can't believe I didn't say anything, but I just didn't feel right to say something, I don't know. Maybe it's just my own discomfort that I didn't say anything and my own avoidance. So if you're listening to this and you just listen to this podcast because you want to learn about techniques of training and health, and how exercise is related to that, so why this conversation? How is this going to help me, you might ask yourself, if I'm not a trainer or I don't have a trainer. At first, I think Josh hit on something, and that is knowing whether you should work out or not. We have somebody come in here after some kind of bad news or tragedy, and it might be too soon. I know they want to keep their schedule, I know they want to keep their routine, maybe but maybe not, you have to make that judgment as a trainer, to say to somebody, maybe today is not the day. Let's sit down, let's have a cup of coffee, no charge, let's just sit down and talk for a second and I'll see you next week. Other times, you might say to yourself as an instructor who is confronted with this particular person, say you know what, let's go in there, let's workout, let's not talk, let's just get this thing over with and do it. Let's just focus on the workout, that'd be the best thing for you. Let's face it, this is meditation. A high-intensity workout done properly — I had one client who I loved to death, he's definitely somebody I admire and has influenced me in a lot of ways. Very successful business man, has a great mental fortitude, discipline, and he knows himself, a guy I admire, and I remember him saying to me, I love this workout because it's the only time in my week that I'm concentrating on just one thing for twenty minutes, it's amazing. It's freeing for him, and I was like wow! Here's a guy who is very disciplined in his life always. He always has his stuff together, and he's saying that this is the thing that he has that keeps him totally focused on one thing and one thing only. So coming from him, that was like a big statement. So I get sometimes you might want to just do that with somebody who has all this stuff going on. I remember during a financial crisis, especially in Manhattan, I had guys that worked for [Inaudible: 00:18:53], guys that worked for Bear Sterns, coming in and I'm thinking these guys are going to cancel left and right, and gals for that matter, and they weren't. Matter of fact, they looked crappy, they looked beat up, but they came in and said, thank god I have this.Sheila: I also think it's very important to maintain — to remember that it's good to make people laugh and to feel like they're having a good time. That's how we kind of — we're like a family environment in Toluca Lake, and make people have a good time because I've recently heard, even in that Secret Life of Fat book and in some things that Gretchen Rubin's podcast and things they've done, studies that they've done about people who watch a funny movie or laugh about something, and they actually become stronger. They can maintain a little longer, so I think it's important to keep that mood fun and happy, and that's kind of what we try to do, and then the clients are competing with each other and things like that. So we try to keep that environment like a fun place so that they want to come in and they know they'll be uplifted.Adam: Good point. Levity in the face of a very intense workout can be very helpful, just not while they're in the middle of a set.Tim: Agreed. When I'm in failure, I do not need to laugh.Adam: I'm guilty of that. I think we might all be guilty of that. I am so guilty of like saying something to a client when in the middle of a set, it cracks them up and they laugh and I'm like, why did I just say that, that was the dumbest thing I just did.Tim: Agreed though. As a client coming in, I love the levity, I love the family atmosphere, that can only be achieved through connection. That's one of the reasons that I like to keep coming back, is because of that connection, those friends, that community that you instill over there at Toluca Lake and I'm sure at all of the other locations as well.Adam: Well it's important, but it's a bit of irony because it is a very intense, serious workout. Twenty minutes in and out, we're not wasting your time. It's not necessarily a coddling thing, but at the same time, we should all be excited that — first of all, as instructors we're doing incredible work and for me, it's very fulfilling to do this kind of work, very rewarding, but also it's fun. In a way, even though it's a serious workout, we're rejoicing in this fact, this idea, that we're getting incredibly strong and healthy from a twenty-minute thing. Whether it's InForm Fitness or any of the other great practitioners out there who are understanding brief intense workouts are where it's at. There is joy in that, that there is rejoicing, there is fun. We have lightening in a bottle and I almost feel like to a lot of people, it's still a secret in a way and I don't want to it to be this way, I want the whole mainstream to be understanding. In the mean time, I feel like I'm in an exclusive club, that we know something that nobody else does, but there's too much at stake to keep this a secret. So many people are not working out at all because they think they have to do everything. There's people working out too much, and listening to your advice that intensity at all costs and more is better and you got all those problems. So not only are we helping one person at a time, but wouldn't it be unbelievable if all of a sudden, as a society, the paradigm shift is what we're doing and everyone understands less is more? That would be fantastic. For the person who is listening to this that doesn't have a trainer, who is not a trainer, your emotions are important. Your emotions when you go into a workout are really important and it's okay to miss a workout if you're just not mentally up for it, that's okay. It's a once or a twice a week thing anyways, so it's not like you're not going to lose all your gain so to speak if you miss your Monday workout. As a matter of a fact, if you're an emotional wreck and you try to do it, you might lose focus, you might get hurt because you don't have the focus. It'll be a sub-par workout, it's just not something that you necessarily have to do just because it's your day and you want to keep your routine, and you don't want to think about it.Tim: So how much of this do you bring into your training when people are being certified, this component of managing the relationship.Adam: I end up talking about this stuff a lot, sometimes to the detriment of what it needs to be taught also. Sometimes two days of the workout will go by and I'll find that we talked a lot about these types of things, and then I realize oh darn, I didn't go over glycolysis with you guys did I?Sheila: One of the number one things you tell us —Adam: And that's on the test, so you need to know glycolysis here.Sheila: One of the number one things you tell us and teach us is to connect with that client. We have to connect with the client in order to understand what their needs are and to be able to design the workout for them, to make it work for them.Tim: The client, I can just speak for myself, we don't want a robotic experience so again, that's where the lines come in, the blurred lines. How close are the InForm Fitness trainers supposed to get to the clients? Would you encourage outside activities between the trainer and the client, is that something that shouldn't be approached, or is there a definite yes or no answer to something like that?Josh: I think honestly that one of the most critical things that we have to embrace at InForm Fitness, and I think this is more true than it is for conventional exercise personal trainers, is that I work with every client to teach them about mindfulness and self-awareness. This isn't just about a philosophical abstract idea of mindfulness, it is about being conscious of what is going on so that your mind controls the pattern of thought, throughout a stressful situation. So that there is judgment removed from what's going on associated with pain or discomfort, and instead, the mind is able to be focused purely on breathing. Focused on what muscles are being used, focused on the position of the shoulders relative to the hips. The goal ultimately is to create maximized performance. There's just a tremendous amount of research that's been done in the last 30 years or so about mindfulness training for top performance and top athletes. The relationship between the head and the body is overwhelming. That's something that I think we commonly understand to be true, but the mental gain, the metal component, the mental skill set of what we're trying to help InForm Fitness clients achieve is the level of awareness of what their body is doing, and a level of calm, devoid of anxiety, when they start to feel the anxiety build. When they start to feel the tension to build in their body, to be calm in the moment, to focus on letting go of the results and instead, let the results be what they are, and instead just be calm and focused on breathing, presence, and that's about it. So outside of that, I would suggest that the relationship that we build and the sort of contact that we build with our clients as Adam talks about is something that is being very conscious of the fact that we are instructors. I sort of pull back a bit when somebody refers back to me as a trainer. I'm not training anyone, I'm instructing someone on how to be calm in a time of high stress and tension. Outside of that piece, the physical benefits follow, but the mental piece has to be there at least at a basic level in order for them to build to a point, because without that, intensity can't come. In every consultation, I encourage clients to follow what I have found, and that is, this is a purely meditative and monastic time. You're in a very intimate environment where it's very calm and very peaceful, so to connect yourself with the environment such that you are focused entirely on just a handful of things, the phone, the iPad, the computer, the children, the family, the job, the dead car, all the things that are bothering us emotionally when we walk into the door, they stay at the door of the studio. They do not come in, they're not allowed. Everything in the studio is purely the relationship between the instructor and the client, and what the client is focused on doing at any given exercise.Adam: The idea of staying focused, the idea of working out when the conditions are good. Don't use the excuse not to work out every time you have a little bit of strife, then you can very easily say, I'm not in the mood today and Adam said it's okay if you're not in the mood, if you're emotionally — and then use it as an excuse not to work out. Obviously,  sometimes you have to kick yourself in the pants and pull yourself from the bootstraps and say Adam, go work out. Right now. Do it, and focus, and try to be meditative. Try to block out all of that stuff, which is exactly what meditation is supposed to be also. You're focusing on one thing, and understanding that while you're working out or while you're meditating, things break through that you don't want to have break through. Acknowledge it, move on, and keep going. Bring it back, bring it back to what you're there for. Sometimes, as a trainer, we have to understand that the best thing we can do is get out of our client's way and I think sometimes we are too empathetic. We try to be more empathetic, and we end up not giving them what they need which is a really good, kick butt workout that doesn't allow all these distractions to come in, and helping them to really focus.Josh: Adam, I think you hit the nail on the head. I think what we're really looking at when we look at the example you spoke about earlier with the client who had suffered a death in the family, where you were judging yourself by not being more empathetic, not offering your sympathies for the loss. The truth is that if we're doing our jobs effectively as instructors, that's entirely placing the client's needs ahead of our own. We each have an innate need to want to sympathize, to want to offer our sympathies whenever someone suffers a loss or a stressful period of time emotionally, but the long term consequence of that is we blur those lines. When those lines and those boundaries stay clear is when I'm placing the client's needs ahead of my own, as you did by recognizing that your client is going to most benefit from not talking about something, that she talks about probably the other twenty-three and a half hours out of the day.Adam: My wife has to know this. I have to put somebody else's needs ahead of mine.Josh: The goal is making sure that you know the client well enough to understand what is going to be most conducive to getting her through a really productive workout. That's when an instructor is really showing his or her metal, when they're able to put the clients' needs ahead of their own.Sheila: And luckily, our workout is only the twenty minutes or the thirty minutes, so you can completely focus, you don't have to think about — I have to go in there for an hour and not think about this or not think about that email, phone call, or terrible thing that just happened. So that's what's so great about our workout for anybody who is listening and want to give it a try. It's just as effective and yes, it's a very cathartic thing to just say okay, for the next twenty minutes, I'm just going to focus on me.Josh: The truth is that when we talk about — rest is a good segway — when you talk to clients that you only have to work out once or twice a week, I actually suggest to clients that you may only work out once or twice a week. It's not that you don't have to do it once a week, you may not do it more than once or twice a week. So then when they walk in with any kind of emotional stress or whatever it is that's bothering them when they walk in the door, I tell them you may not bring it in here with you. This is your opportunity to not think about it, I am absolutely demanding of you that you leave this at the door. You can pick it up on the way back out, but for the thirty minutes that you're here, you're focused solely on what it is that we're doing together.Adam: Question that comes up very often with me and clients of ours. When we talk about how you shouldn't be working out so often, like once or twice a week, and each workout is twenty or thirty minutes. How do you respond to the client that says, but I need exercise for stress relief and I'm afraid once a week for that purpose is not enough. How do you respond to that saying, I want to come three, four times a week but you're telling me not to. Part of it for me anyway, they'll say, I need more exercise for stress relief. You're telling me that I shouldn't do anything else, and I can't come here more than once and it's only twenty minutes. I don't know if this is for me.Josh: I think a that's healthy question to ask, but I think that the simple answer is something that we preach very heavily at InForm Fitness and that is creating a very clear line between constitutes exercise versus what constitutes recreation. With every client, I encourage them to walk, run, bike, swim, whatever it is that they enjoy doing that provides them some physical benefits, but that's not the primary purpose behind why they do it in the first place. People who run regularly, at some point, they cease to do it purely for the physical benefits, they do it for the endorphin rush, they do it for the stress management, they do it because they disconnect from the world around them. That's good stress management, so stress management from the physical manifestations, how it builds up our blood pressure, how it builds up muscle tension. Those are all things that we can address concretely here at InForm Fitness, but recreationally, those are the things I encourage clients to deal with. If they really want to do some good stress management techniques, get outside. Go for a walk, take your dog out, take your kids out to a park. Do something that is going to provide stress management and be recreational in the process, that's good mental health.Adam: Josh, do you have trouble separating the different hats you wear? Do you find yourself acting like a psychologist with your clients from time to time, do you catch yourself?Josh: Well yes, but having said that, I think it's more of an asset for me in the long run, simply because I'm relying on my clinical expertise and education to be able to keep clients focused on what it is that I want them to do. I let my expertise and my experience influence the way that I navigate a relationship with a client, but I never sit down and say, step into my office and tell me about your mother. That's not what we're trying to do here, but I think that the point simply is in any environment, when you're working as a therapist or as an instructor, the goal is going to be to keep the client focused on the specific set of goals. In the studio with InForm Fitness, that specific set of goals is entirely about getting the absolute best performance that I can get out of the client for a thirty minute stretch at a time, so that they're deeply fatiguing the muscles and achieving a level of intensity that is appropriate for what it is that I'm asking them to do. That environment is totally different in a correctional setting or in a therapist's office or something like that, but ultimately the drive to achieving those goals, whatever those goals may be, is the same.Adam: Like I've always said, there's definitely a technology involved in training people. Like Sheila pointed out, it's so important as an instructor to make that connection. I know plenty of instructors that are technically very good, they can put somebody through an incredible workout, but the experience overall for the client is left flat. They don't feel a connection to the person that may just seem like they're just dialing it in. As good as they are. So you can be the greatest technical instructor in the world, if you're not making that connection, if you're not figuring out how to motivate, to inspire this person to do what is arguably a very, very hard thing to do, even for just twenty minutes, you're not going to succeed. You're not going to be able to really help these people because they're not going to stick with it, they're not going to want to see you. So there's definitely that psychology that's really important, so I don't want people to misunderstand that psychology isn't involved in being a good instructor. Knowing people listening, being a good listener and hearing what they're saying, but also knowing what not to say sometimes is also very important, and just to be a listener. Not to be so full of yourself, and think that you're going to be able to solve all of their problems. The best thing you can do for them, the best thing that I think I can do for them in times is like that is to really, even more so, double down on the quality of the workout at that moment, and even pull back more from a friend position. Almost like a tough love type of thing saying hey, let's go there. This is for you right now, let's just go in there and do it. Even if you're training yourself to maybe have that same attitude sometimes and let it go. When you sit down at that machine or you pick up that barbell, take a deep breath, visualize, let it go, and do the job, be in the moment and do the job.Tim: Many thanks to InForm Fitness trainer and clinical psychologist Joshua Cagney for joining us here on the InForm Fitness podcast. Hey, if you're in or around the Washington D.C. area and would like to have Joshua as your high-intensity strength trainer, head on over to informfitness.com, click on the Restin, Virginia location, and request Josh. You'll also find six other InForm Fitness locations across the country, and you'll see Adam's blog, InForm Fitness Videos, and every single episode of the InForm podcast there at informfitness.com. Okay, next week: author, award-winning podcaster, and happiness expert, Gretchen Rubin joins us here on the show. Gretchen has a new book coming out titled The Four Tendencies: Learn How to Understand Yourself Better, and Also How Influence Others More Effectively. Utilizing the Four Tendencies framework as mentioned in Gretchen's book, we'll discuss how those tendencies might affect how you approach your workout, and why exercise is an important component to happiness. And one last thing before I let you go. Remember, here in May 2017, we are giving away a personally autographed copy of Adam's book, Power of Ten: The Once a Week Fitness Revolution, InForm Fitness apparel in the form of a hat, T-Shirt, and a hoodie jacket, and a device to listen to all the InForm Fitness podcasts, Amazon books, Audiobooks and more, using the Alexa voice service. I'm talking about the Amazon Echo, and if you haven't seen the Amazon Echo yet, check out the link in the show notes for a full description and even videos explaining what it does and how it works. This is a really cool prize pack, worth over two hundred bucks. Okay, so what do you have to do? Step one, leave InForm Fitness a review here in iTunes or on Facebook, Google Plus, Yelp, and even Amazon. If you do, you'll receive a free training session at an InForm Fitness location nearest you. Step two, take a screenshot and email your review to podcast@informfitness.com. That will be your entry into the grand prize drawing for the all the items I just mentioned, so here are the rules. You can only receive one free training session for your review, however, you can get an entry into the grand prize drawing for each review that you submit, thereby dramatically increasing your chances to win. For instance, if you leave us a review here in iTunes and then one in Yelp and Facebook, you only get one free training session, but three free entires into the grand prize, but you better get on it. You must emails to us by 11:59PM Eastern Time on Wednesday, May 31st to qualify for the free session and the grand prize. The winner will be announced on our Monday, June 5th episode here on the InForm Fitness podcast. So good luck, and thanks again for joining us. For Sheila Melody, Mike Rogers, and Adam Zickerman of InForm Fitness, I'm Tim Edwards with the InBound Podcasting Network.

We want to reward you for listening to the InForm Fitness Podcast by offering a free training session at an InForm Fitness location nearest you plus an opportunity to qualify for an InForm Fitness Prize Pack.Earn one FREE SESSION when you leave a review for InForm Fitness in iTunes, Yelp, Google+, Facebook,  & Amazon! Simply write a review and send a screenshot to podcast@informfitness.com - that's it!  For each review you leave, you will receive and entry for the GRAND PRIZE!One lucky listener will receive a personally autographed copy of Adam Zickerman's book,  Power of 10: The Once-a-Week Slow Motion Fitness Revolution. That listener will also get decked out in InForm Fitness apparel including an InForm Fitness T-shirt, hat, and a hoody jacket. And we'll top off the prize pack with an Amazon Echo! Click here to see the Amazon Echo in action:http://bit.ly/2InFormFItnessGrandPrizeContest ends May 31st, 2017.  Listen for more details!To find an Inform Fitness location nearest you visit www.InformFitness.comIf you'd like to ask Adam, Mike or Sheila a question or have a comment regarding the Power of 10. Send us an email or record a voice memo on your phone and send it to podcast@informfitness.com. Join Inform Nation and call the show with a comment or question.  The number is 888-983-5020, Ext. 3. To purchase Adam's book, Power of 10: The Once-a-Week Slow Motion Fitness Revolution click this link to visit Amazon: http://bit.ly/ThePowerofTenIf you would like to produce a podcast of your own just like The Inform Fitness Podcast, please email Tim Edwards at tim@InBoundPodcasting.com _______________________________________________________________ Tim Edwards: InformNation Hello and welcome to a very quick bonus episode of the Informed Fitness Podcast. 20 minutes with New York Times Bestselling author, Adam Zickerman and friends. Well Like I just said, this is just a quick bonus episode, so just a couple of minutes today. I'm Tim Edwards with the Inbound Podcasting Network and a client of Informed Fitness. Adam Zickerman, Mike Rogers, and Sheila Melody are taking some much deserved time off. Just for one week. Then we'll be back at it again next week. I'll get to some of the topics that we have in store for you coming up in just a minute. But first, we want to reward all of you for listening to Inform Fitness Podcast by offering a free training session at an Inform Fitness location nearest you. Plus, an opportunity to qualify for an Inform Fitness prize pack. Now, this is cool, listen up. One lucky listener will receive a personally autographed copy of Adam's book Power of 10: The Once-A-Week Slow Motion Fitness Evolution. That listener will also be decked out in Inform Fitness apparel, including an Inform Fitness T-shirt, hat, and a hoodie jacket. And we'll top off the prize pack with a device to listen to all of the Inform Fitness podcast, Amazon music, audio books from Audible, and more using the Alexa voice service. I'm talkin' about the Amazon Echo. Now, if you haven't seen the Amazon Echo yet check out the link in the show notes for a full description and videos explaining what it does and how it works. Okay, so what do you have to do? First and foremost, if you would be so kind, we would love to hear from you in the form of a review of either the podcast here in iTunes or a review of Adam's book on Amazon. We would also appreciate a review on the Inform Fitness Facebook page and, of course, a review in Google+ or in Yelp of your experience at one of our seven Inform Fitness locations across the US. We have them in Manhattan, Long Island, Port Washington, Denville, Burbank, Boulder, Leesburg, and in Reston. So, leave a review, take a screenshot of that review, and email it podcast@informfitness.com and you will receive one free training session at one of our seven locations. Plus, you'll qualify for the grand prize of the personally autographed copy of Adam's book, inform fitness apparel, and the Amazon Echo. And this prize is valued at over $200. So here are the rules. You can only receive one free training session for your reviews. However, you get an entry into the grand prize drawing for each review that you submit. For instance, if you leave us a review in iTunes, Yelp, and Facebook you get one free training session, but three entries into the grand prize. Got it? Okay, so get on it. Submit those reviews, screenshot it, and email 'em to podcast@informfitness.com. You must get those emails to us by 11:59 PM on Wednesday May 31st to qualify for the free session and grand prize entry. Now, the winner will be announced on our Monday,  June 5th episode here on the Inform Fitness podcast. Now, like I said, we have some terrific topics lined up for you over the next few weeks. We'll be joined by clinical psychologist Joshua Cagney with an episode titled Blurred Lines. Adam, Joshua, and Sheila will have a discussion about the trainer to client relationship and maintaining proper boundaries. We'll also be discussing genetics and exercise response with exercise physiologist Ryan Hall. And an episode with long-time Inform Fitness client and author Gretchen Rubin. Gretchen will be discussing how by regularly participating in an exercise program, such as the one we do at Inform Fitness, can actually contribute to your overall happiness. You see, Gretchen is a happiness expert and has authored several books and has sold more than 2 million copies in 30 different languages. So, we have a lot in store for you coming up here in the next few weeks. Get those reviews submitted in iTunes, Facebook, Amazon, Google+, and Yelp. Send them to podcast@informfitness.com, grab that free training session, and qualify for the grand prize of an autographed book, Inform Fitness apparel, and an Amazon Echo to be announced on Monday June 5th. Until next time, thanks for listening. For Sheila Melody, Mike Rogers, and Adam Zickerman at Inform Fitness, I'm Tim Edwards with the Inbound Podcasting Network. 

Adam Zickerman discusses his 90-day journey of religiously dedicating himself to following a ketogenic diet here in Episode 25 of the InForm Fitness Podcast.  Adam reveals the challenges of sticking to the ketogenic diet along with some misconceptions and the dramatic results.Here is a link to the website Adam mentions in this episode:  http://eatingacademy.com/nutrition/ketosis-advantaged-or-misunderstood-state-part-i Don't forget Adam's Zickerman's book, Power of 10: The Once-a-Week Slow Motion Fitness Revolution.  You can buy it in Amazon by  clicking here: http://bit.ly/ThePowerofTenTo find an Inform Fitness location nearest you to give this workout a try, please visit www.InformFitness.com.  At the time of this recording we have locations in Manhattan, Port Washington, Denville, Burbank, Boulder, Leesburg and Reston.If you'd like to ask Adam, Mike or Sheila a question or have a comment regarding the Power of 10. Send us an email or record a voice memo on your phone and send it to podcast@informfitness.com. Join Inform Nation and call the show with a comment or question.  The number is 888-983-5020, Ext. 3. For information regarding the production of your own podcast just like The Inform Fitness Podcast, please email Tim Edwards at tim@InBoundPodcasting.comThe transcript to the entire episode is below: Adam: You know when you're wearing clothes, my lean muscular build, it's hard to know that I was getting a little bit of a spare tire underneath them, but I was getting a little bit of a spare tire, but besides that, there were two things. One, my chronic back problems which you covered last episode, and I wanted to do whatever I could to ameliorate these back issues. Consistent and safe back exercises are one of them, and the other thought I had was maybe my diet is affecting my back, because I was reading a lot about the typical American diet and it's inflammatory. I'm thinking I might have an inflammation issue going, my back keeps going into spasm, it's probably chronically inflamed. If I can not only exercise my back properly but maybe reduce my chronic inflammation, that might be my answer. Tim: InForm Nation, welcome to episode 25 of the InForm Fitness podcast. Twenty minutes with New York Times bestselling author, Adam Zickerman and friends. I'm Tim Edwards with the InBound Podcasting Network and a client of InForm Fitness. Joined as always by Sheila Melody, Mike Rogers, and of course Adam Zickerman. Okay team, at the time of this recording, spring has just sprung, summer is just a few months away, and I'm sure a good portion of InForm nation is already thinking about summer which means they're thinking about slimming down a little or in some cases a lot, so dieting is on their minds. We've all heard of, and I'm sure participated, in at least a few nutrition plans, like the paleo diet, the Atkin's diet, or the one that I really enjoyed a few years ago was the slow carb diet from Tim Ferris. Most recently I had tremendous success by just eating cleanly as you describe Adam in chapter three of your book, Power of Ten: The Slow Motion Fitness Revolution.So Adam, you visited LA. just a few months ago when we recorded the Adam in LaLa Land episode and frankly, you looked extremely fit. So in the last episode, you mentioned that we're going to talk about a diet that you've been on for the last X amount of days, and my question is why did you even consider going on a diet in the first place because you don't look like you need to go on one.Adam: I picked up a few lessons from my female friends and I know how to dress to hide it.Tim: You wear Spanx, that's what you're telling me?Mike: Spanx and New York black. Everyone in New York knows how to hide it.Adam: Hide our emotions.Tim: You don't hide your emotions in New York, come on.Adam: The people in L.A want to hide their emotions.Tim: We're the passive aggressive ones.Sheila: Oh no, we want to talk about our emotions.Tim: That's down in the south where they're passive aggressive, but anyway, we digress. You mentioned the diet, and here's a guy, the guru, the InForm Fitness and you're fit. So what prompted you to go on a diet?Adam: I'm so glad you asked me that question, because you know the other question I get asked in a similar vein is why do you work out Adam, you look great. Sheila: You say because I never want to look like you.Adam: That just reminded me of something Yogi Bear once said. Nobody goes to that restaurant anymore, it's always too crowded. So listen, why did I go on this diet. Well first of all, diets are not always about weight loss, fat loss. Diets are about health, or they should be. Now I know that anyone who goes on a diet, their number one concern is I want to lose body fat, which is a noble goal because being overweight has health problems associated with it. Now I did want to lose a little weight first of all, because I always said that I hide it well half-jokingly, because the other half, I did need to lose a couple of pounds and it is true that when you're wearing clothes, my lean muscular build, it's hard to know that I was getting a little bit of a spare tire underneath them, but I was getting a little bit of a spare tire, but besides that, there were two things. One, my chronic back problems which you covered last episode, and I wanted to do whatever I could to ameliorate these back issues. Consistent and safe back exercises are one of them, and the other thought I had was maybe my diet is affecting my back, because I was reading a lot about the typical American diet and it's inflammatory. I'm thinking I might have an inflammation issue going, my back keeps going into spasm, it's probably chronically inflamed. If I can not only exercise my back properly but maybe reduce my chronic inflammation, that might be my answer. So for years, I've been reading about the ketogenic diet, and for years I was poo-pooing it.Tim: Why?Adam: Because I had a vast misunderstanding about what a ketogenic diet was. Basically using ketones for fuel. I'll get into what a ketone is a little bit later, but my understanding of ketones was when your body is using ketones for fuel, or if you're producing a lot of ketones, I always understood that to be very dangerous. In my mind without realizing it, I was really thinking about what they call ketoacidosis, which is much different than nutritional ketosis, using ketones for fuel from a nutritional point of view, as opposed to something very dangerous called ketoacidosis. That was where the confusion comes in. Whenever you talk to a doctor or a nutritionist and say I want to go into ketosis, they say it's dangerous, and being in ketoacidosis is very dangerous but you cannot go into ketoacidosis just by eliminating carbohydrates or going to what they call nutritional ketosis. Ketoacidosis, let me explain what that it is. It usually afflicts people with Type I diabetes. Type I diabetics cannot produce insulin, and when you cannot produce insulin, when you eat carbohydrates, the sugar starts building up and building up, and what happens is the body can't utilize that sugar, because the insulin is not there to use that sugar and bring it into the fat cells and the muscle cells, or bring it into any cell that needs that for energy. So the body, if it can't get glucose for energy, it starts metabolizing fat for fuel. That's where it's going to get it's energy from, and it starts going crazy producing these ketones. You see ketones come from fat, the metabolism of fat. An alternative sense of energy for the body are ketones, fat gets broken down into ketones, carbohydrates get broken down into glucose and when the body breaks down carbohydrates for glucose and those glucose molecules can't be used, the body will say okay, let me go break down some body fat, get some ketones out of it, and utilize that for fuel. So it's another source of currency if you will, and if you're a Type I diabetic, your body goes crazy producing these ketones and you end up having so many ketones that you go into an acidic state, a dangerously acidic state where basically all functions of the body cannot produce and cannot function when you're in such a high acidic state. In other words, we have to have a pH level that's very, very stable, like about normal, about 7. Our pH is about 7, that's the normal functioning pH of the human body. When you start having all these ketones that start going through the roof — ketones are acidic by the way, and ketones that are not being checked or regulated, start going through the roof and you are in a very dangerous state. So a Type I diabetic can very often go into ketoacidosis and they have to go the hospital, they have to get the injections, and usually it's a diabetic that's not taking care of themselves. You cannot go into that acidic state being in what I have been in the last ninety days which is called nutritional ketosis. Nutritional ketosis is a state in where you body instead of using glucose for fuel, not because there's no insulin, but because you're not eating anything that's going to produce a lot of glucose, your body says well I need energy, so I'm going to start using fat for fuel. Every cell cannot use actual fat for energy, they have to break down the fat. Just like we have break down carbohydrates for glucose, we have to break down fat, and we're breaking them down into fat and these ketone bodies are being used for fuel. Well there's a lot of evidence right now that's showing that these ketogenic diets which are to break it down into macronutrients about 70-75% fat, about 10% protein, maybe 15% protein, and then the rest which is about 5% carbohydrates.Tim: Now immediately, red flags are flying all over when you say the diet is made up of 75%  fat. Now let's drill down on that a little bit more. We're not talking cheeseburgers.Adam: Well we're not talking cheeseburgers with the bread, but we are talking cheeseburgers. I will have red meat, I will have cheese. Red meat has to be grass fed, not this factory raised cow. So the quality of the foods that you're eating is also very important, so I eat grass fed beef and beef, the fat in the beef is very good for you. What you have to be careful of, this is what I realized and this is a very common mistake that people make on ketogenic diets, that they think it's a high fat, high protein diet, but it's not really high protein. Having too much protein can actually produce an insulin response or produce sugar, because protein can be converted into glucose, it's called gluconeogenesis, and it can be almost as bad as actually eating carbohydrates. A lot of people will eliminate their carbohydrates and they'll end up having tons of red meat, which is a lot of protein.Tim: That sounds like the Atkin's diet to me.Sheila: That's what I was just going to say.Adam: The Atkin's diet, in essence, a ketogenic diet and the misinterpretation of the Atkin's diet of a ketogenic diet is that the image is like a bunch of caveman sitting around gnawing on a dead animal or something like that and just eating fat and bacon and protein all day long. It's not like that, it's mostly vegetables that are saturated in fat like olive oil, or coconut oil or avocado oil. Salads that are doused in that kind of fat, so getting vegetables or other types of oils and avocados in general, grass fed meat, pasture raised chickens, eggs, and of course wild fish. That is my diet, and it's not like I'm eating tons of meat. I'm eating six ounces of a steak, I'm eating tons of brussel sprouts that have been roasted in coconut oil.Tim: All sounds good to me so far.Sheila: Probably 85% of the time I eat exactly what you just described.Adam: I committed to eating this way without exception for ninety days. I started at the beginning of this year.  Here we are. Tim: Where are you now at the time of this recording?Adam: It's a coincidence but I am literally, today, on my 90th day. It started January 3rd, which is a Tuesday. So I don't know if it's the 90th day, but I just finished my twelfth week starting January 3 and this is a Tuesday. So today is the last day of my twelfth week.Mike: I don't think 90 is divisible by seven.Tim: Well he's close.Mike: I've got my advocates in the corner there.Tim: So nonetheless, let's review.Adam: By the way, at the beginning I said why I did this. I thought it'd help my back, anti inflammatory. Ketogenic diets are well suspected to be anti-inflammatory. The second reason why I wanted to do this diet was because I had my annual checkup and I'm in my early 50s now, but 50s nonetheless, and my blood work is creeping the wrong way. They're starting to get on the high side of normal.Tim: Let me ask you, is that prior to going on the diet?Adam: Prior to going on the diet, I had my annual checkup and the results came in and he said to me hey, nothing to be alarmed about at this point but you're trending the wrong way. You're C-reactive protein is creeping which is an inflammatory marker, and he said your cholesterol is creeping up, it's not too high per se but it's on the higher side of normal. My A1C which is an indicator of your blood sugar was creeping up again on a high side of normal. I was like wow. These are all things that indicate that I'm going towards what many Americans go towards which is metabolic syndrome. It reminded me the same situation that Dr. Peter Attia, his story when he started his quest on ketogenic diets, and he was in the same situation. He worked out all the time, he thought he ate well most of the time. We think eating well is eating whole grain breads, and fruits, and occasionally what's so bad about having a beer here and there, and next thing you know, in a day you're still ingesting 250 grams of carbohydrates without even thinking about it. So he started taking control of it as well, and when I saw that my blood numbers were going up and then I read what Dr. Attia went through as well, I was like holy cow that's me. So that also prompted me, I wanted to see if going on a ketogenic diet would change these numbers. Well this is the 90th day so I'm about to get those numbers checked, so I'm going to report back on this but when I can talk about now is how I feel. Tim: Let's start with your back.Adam: And what has happened. First of all my back, in combination with what I've been doing with my lower back exercises and staying consistent with that, my back has never felt better. I can sit for hours in a car, or I can sit for hours at my desk, and get up sideways.Tim: And you're giving this ketogenic diet credit for assisting with that.Adam: First of all, I'm a sample size of one, so this is scientific at all, but I am giving it credit. That in conjunction with taking care of my back with the exercises. So I don't know where the cause and effect is because I've been doing a couple of things at once, but the big teller is going to be obviously the blood work that I get done soon. Besides that and besides the fact that my back feels better, I've lost fifteen pounds of weight that you didn't think that I needed to lose. So I look a lot better naked now, so I don't have to wear clothes anymore. I don't have to wear a T-Shirt to the pool anymore.Mike: You know when your body gets a little bit smaller, it gives the illusion that other things are bigger.Adam: You have that as well. Big thing that I noticed was my digestion. My digestion changed dramatically. I don't have upset stomach, my elimination if you know what I'm talking about has been undramatic, it's been beautiful.Sheila: It's a beautiful thing.Tim: Well your good friend Dr. Oz would be proud of that.Mike: Maybe this will get edited out, maybe it won't, but I'm just curious. What does beautiful mean? Tim: That actually is so it will not be edited out, so describe beautiful? You mean like one clean long — Adam: Exactly, tapered on both ends, perfect.Tim: Dr. Oz was his thing right?Adam: It's embarrassing, especially since you're talking about me.Mike: You don't sound like you're embarrassed.Adam: I am. You've got to remember that this is someone who is too shy to urinate in front of his wife. Mike: I'm going to remind you that you're the one who is talking about himself right now. Tim: So nonetheless there's a lot of fiber in this diet and it's really helping Adam a lot, so good.Sheila: That's really, really very interesting and I want to ask a question about is there a difference in how women react to this diet as opposed to how men react to this diet? Coming off that interview we had a few weeks ago with Dr. Sylvia Tera and The Secret Life of Fat, and how different men and womens' makeup is and how we process fat and everything. It sounds like something I'd like to try, and I feel like I've been kind of doing this for the most part.Tim: I think she's committing, I think she should jump on 90 days.Adam: I'm not sitting here saying everyone should jump on the ketogenic diet bandwagon first of all. I need to make that disclaimer. First of all, women are different and we're all different. I'm different from another man, and women certainly have their issues. When you talk about nutrient partitioning and that no matter what you eat, some of it is going to be partitioned to fat. Hormonal issues with women as they get older, all kinds of things. Genetics for men and women are different amongst ourselves and all these things play into it for sure, but having said that, sugar is bad. Sugar is bad, sugar is inflammatory. There is nothing good that comes out of sugar and excessive carbohydrates. I don't believe being in ketosis is dangerous anymore, and this idea of eating a lot of fat, even if it's saturated fat, especially if it's saturated fat, is not bad for you. It's been shown over and over again that dietary fat does not raise your cholesterol, so just check that box off. It's not true, it is just not true that eating egg yolks and eating red meat raises your cholesterol, that is not what is raising your cholesterol. The last ten, fifteen years have been really showing that. My blood work will show this, if I go to my blood work and my cholesterol is through the roof I'm going to have to eat my words. It might even be another cause of it, but the thing is if all my triglycerides are good and inflammatory makers are lowered and my cholesterol happens to stay on a higher side, and everything else is really, really good, I'm not going to worry about high cholesterol. High cholesterol, high LDLs are not a very good marker on heart disease.Mike: On its own.Adam: On its own. Now there's this other test that Dr. Attia actually told me to get which is an NMR, nuclear magnetic resonance test, to test for your LDLP. See when you go to the doctor and you get your cholesterol and blood work done, you're getting blood work for your LDLC. LDLC is how much cholesterol, low density cholesterol is in your blood, whereas the LDLP is showing you how many LDL proteins are in your blood. I'm getting technical right now, but it's a different marker and a much better marker and indicator of potential heart disease, this LDLP. So I'm going to get that done, and see if my LDLP is nice and low, and if that is, regardless of what my LDLC is or total cholesterol is, I'm not going to be worrying about it. Again, my A1C, my C reactive protein, these markers, if they stat going down after ninety days of eating, I'm not kidding you, 70% of my diet being fat, I'll be pretty convinced. At least for myself. Let me tell you about my experience psychologically.Tim: I'm curious how you managed this, because it seemed like a lot of drastic changes.Adam: This is why I'm not necessarily telling people to just go on this ketogenic diet. First of all, I'm not a nutritionist, I just play one on TV. So I'm a nutritionist, secondly, I'm not going to lie, it's not easy to adjust to this type of diet. If you're used to eating grains and carbohydrates — I'm essentially a vegetarian that is saturating their vegetables with saturated fat and all kinds of fats, and having small portions of animal protein, whether it be a chicken or a fish or a cow, all well raised, but they're small quantities. I'm not eating a lot. I'm also intermittent fasting. I'll go at least two or three times a week, I'll go anywhere from eighteen to twenty four hours without eating. I'll be drinking lots of liquids, I'll be drinking homemade beef broth or chicken broth, and that's it. So that's all I eat, one meal all day.Tim: So tell us your schedule Adam. So with this intermittent fasting, what time are you stopping eating at the end of the day?Adam: I'll eat dinner.Tim: At what time?Adam: Anywhere between five and seven most days. So let's say I finish eating seven. I won't eat again until at least two or three o'clock the next day. On some cases I won't eat again until dinner the next day.Mike: When you work as much as we do, I've got to be honest with you, time flies and you sometimes forget about food. I'm not as strict as Adam is, but I'm probably doing about 85% or 90% of what he is doing in regards to the ketogenic model, and the fasting model without even trying to.Adam: We work a lot and that speaks to one of the techniques that people recommend to help you through these intermittent fasts and that's distraction techniques. So when your mind keeps saying eat, eat, eat, distract yourself, pick up your guitar, write a letter, do something else. Distract yourself. A lot of this hunger by the way, is psychological, we're just not used to it mentally, but besides that, at the beginning, your body is physically wanting that food but once you start utilizing your fat for fuel and you become what they call keto-adapted where your body is primed to really use fat for fuel, and that takes a couple of weeks. Three weeks, four weeks sometimes. The first there or four weeks was the toughest because I was not adapted yet, so I was very hungry. Now, well it's 4:30 and I haven't eaten yet today. Last time I ate was dinner time around five yesterday.Mike: That's a lie, he had two celery sticks from me.Adam: That's true, it's two celery sticks so I broke my fast. Honestly I grabbed them because they were there, it was not because I was dying to eat something, and if I was dying to eat something, I certainly wouldn't have picked that.Sheila: When you say you're fasting, so you mentioned the broth though. So you have that when you're fasting, or you just have nothing, you have water.Adam: I have water mostly, but yeah, we serve bone broth here, we're making our own bone broth now. We can talk about that at a later date, but yeah, that doesn't count as cheating. It's 99.9% water, it just has the minerals and the amino acids in it. So I don't consider that really cheating, but come on. Even if I was to have a small meal, the gist of it is going long periods of time without eating, and that from my understanding is the real anti-inflammatory aspect. I mean sugar causes inflammation, and eating a lot also causes inflammation because you're breaking down all this stuff and getting all these free radicals and all this oxidative work going on, and that's what causes a lot of the inflammation. Now I'm reading and I'm learning that intermittent fasting forces the body to regenerate its cells at a lot faster of a rate. There's something to that.Sheila: I also read that an easier way to do the intermittent — well, for a sixteen hour fast that you can basically do is just stop eating at seven, and then don't eat again until eleven AM. That's sixteen hours.Adam: Basically skipping breakfast.Tim: A lot of people do that anyway.Adam: But this is the problem with intermittent fasting. When I go 24 hours, I'm hungry by then. A lot of people say they can go days without eating and these are people that are really and truly keto-adapted, maybe they've been doing it for a year or more. I don't know, but so far, I haven't been able to go more than seventeen hours without all of a sudden having all those hunger pains, and at that point I just deal with it for another few hours. At that point, when I do eat, this is the hard part. You have to eat a regular, small meal. Tim: No binging.Adam: It's so easy when you're famished like that and you've gone all day without eating, it's like you want to eat lunch, breakfast, dinner, and snacks all at one time in one sitting. You have to stop yourself from doing that.Mike: That's probably one of the differences to what was going on even before you did this 90-day thing. Our lifestyle really lent itself to — none of us eat that many carbohydrates ever. Adam hasn't for a while, but when you were, you probably — I'm just guessing because you're like me, I do these all day fasts also. If I don't have some snacks or prepare my food throughout the day as I did this week, I will come home and I will eat like seven pieces of chicken and I'm not proud of it afterwards. Unless you can control that voracious urge, you're not going to get what Adam is talking about here.Tim: So Adam, as we come to end of this episode, I really would love you to encourage you to get those tests done quickly, and if you don't mind, share some of them with our audience so that we can gauge your success. The question that I have for you right now as we put the wraps on this is okay, we're close to or at day 90. Are you going to continue and forge ahead with the exact same plan that you've had for the last three months or so, are you going to augment it a little bit, what are your plans?Adam: I'm going to continue, I'm going to stay on this. I might eat a little bit more often at this point, because I don't really need to lose anymore body fat. I've got the six pack going for the summer, that's all good.Tim: Look at you, he's in his 50s and he has a six pack, that's impressive.Sheila: Do you drink coffee, can I ask that?Adam: I drink coffee. Let me speak to something Mike just said. He was saying that we're generally very good about not eating carbs, and that's partially true, with me anyway. What I mean by that is I have two young kids and I grab the M&Ms. My wife buys five-pound bags of them so she can make pancakes for the kids. Don't get me started, my wife will not let me put my kids on a ketogenic diet.Mike: My wife is a nutritionist and she would never let it happen either.Adam: Because they're afraid of ketoacidosis, but anyway what I wanted to say was this. My diet before I started this, yes, I'd go three or four days really good, and then I'll eat a whole pizza. I would never really string along many consistent weeks or days. I'd eat well one day, not very much the other day, summers come, barbecue, hotdogs, hamburgers, I just went for it. I can get away with it. You said at the beginning of this piece, Adam you don't look like you need to lose weight, why'd you start this diet? I was creeping up, and even though it appears that I eat very well, and I obviously eat well most of the time. I certainly eat good foods but I also supplement them with not such good stuff. This last 90 days, I made a commitment not to deviate from that, to be really consistent with it. Yes it's higher fat than I would normally do when I did eat well. Less protein than I would normally — that's what I learned about a ketogenic diet, that most people make the primary mistake of eating too much protein on a ketogenic diet, and so this has been the first time in my life that I've been this disciplined in my eating. I'm older now, I can't get away with what I used to get away with. The other thing that I want to say before we wrap this up is about cravings. I always hear about how you go on these low carb diets and when your body starts getting used to and primed for utilizing fat for fuel, they say you eliminate all your cravings. Bullshit. To me anyway. Maybe the physical cravings aren't there and I told you I could go all day and not really be hungry, but the truth of the matter is, I'm craving the foods that I've been giving up nonstop. To this day, 90 days into it give or take, I still crave the pizza. I still see my kids eating the pizza, I still see the buns on the hamburgers and I want it, I want it bad. I say no, the cravings are there. Maybe the physical cravings aren't there as much.Tim: What do you mean by physical cravings, define that.Adam: My stomach growling and saying man you're hungry, you've got to eat. Or feeling a little lightheaded, or physically feeling the effects of hunger. Now that I'm keto-adapted I don't have those physical — when I'm 24 hours in I start to feel them, but eighteen hours fasts, it's a no-brainer for me, it's as easy as it could be. Even though those physical things aren't there, I pass a pizza place, I pass chicken wings at the Superbowl, hot dogs at the baseball game. Beer, alcohol, I want it all, those cravings have not subsidized. I don't look at them and say ew. I want it badly, but I don't do it.Sheila: It's easier to not do it.Adam: So going forward, I'm going to continue my strict ketogenic diet for at least another 30 days. I might eat a little bit more food, but not the foods I'm not supposed to be having on a ketogenic diet. The foods I can have, add a little bit to my portions, but that's the extent of it for the next thirty days. By that point, I'll have my blood work done and we'll talk about this some more.Mike: I just think before we wrap up, I think blood tests aside, that's data that we all need. It's great to get all that stuff, but the bottom line is you've taken an educated approach to selfexperimentation and troubleshooting your body to figure out how to improve it, and your back has felt better. Do we know it's because of the ketogenic diet, maybe it did, maybe it didn't, but regardless you're in a trend where you feel so much better. Your body feels better, your back feels better. You like the way you look, you feel, it's like I almost want to say — if the tests are completely negative or there's no improvement or any markers have been changed, who cares. Looking at someone who looks healthy also. They say that they feel great but they don't look healthy, but this is not the case.Adam: Like vegans. First of all, I want to say that this is not a ringing endorsement or a push for people to go ketogenic. I'm not going to be that bull at this point to say something like that. It's definitely a viable option, and before you go into something like this, check with your doctor and do a lot of research, because compared to the recommendations by the ADA, the American Diet Association, this is not what's recommended. I want to make this disclaimer. Look into it for sure, do your research. If it sounds like you, if I sounded like you, definitely look into it. Like Mike just said, I'm very well researched. I have a background in biochemistry, I know how to read these things. I'm a little bit different than your average bear when it comes to this type of thing. If you're not in that world, you should get advice when you do something like this.Sheila: Can you give us a starting point?Adam: Yeah, I do, I recommend the doctor that I mentioned earlier. Dr. Peter Attia, and his website is called the eating academy. Read everything this guy writes, and he also refers you to other things he reads so that is a great start. The eating academy by Dr. Peter Attia. So if you're interested in possibly doing this for yourself, well pay attention to our podcast, we're going to be reporting back on this in a little while when I get my blood work back and we'll take it from there. Good luck.Tim: Okay. So don't forget to check out the show notes for a link to the website that Adam referenced, spotlighting the research done by Dr. Peter Attia. That's eatingacademy.com. Looking forward to the results of Adam's blood work to gauge the success of his three-month ketogenic dietary journey, and we should have that for you coming up in the next few weeks. Also on the way, we have a couple of interviews that we're really excited about here at the InForm Fitness Podcast. In two weeks, we'll be speaking with happiness expert, Gretchen Rubin. Gretchen has authored several books and has sold more than two million copies in thirty different languages. She has been a client of InForm Fitness for many years, and she has a popular podcast of her own, titled Happier with Gretchen Rubin. So give it a listen and even subscribe to her podcast so you can become more familiar with Gretchen before she joins us here on the show, and in the process, pick up some valuable tips on being, well, happier. Next week, we'll be talking to Dr. Martin Gaballa, the author of the One Minute Workout. Adam and Dr. Gaballa will contrast and compare high-intensity strength training like we do here at InForm Fitness, and high-intensity interval training, as described in Dr. Gaballa's book, The One Minute Workout. If you'd like to find an InForm Fitness location nearest you so you can give this high-intensity strength training workout a try for yourself, please visit informfitness.com and at the time of this recording, we have locations in Manhattan, Port Washington, Danville, Burbank, Boulder, Leesburg, and in Restin. If you aren't near an InForm Fitness location, you can always pick up Adam's book via Amazon: Power of Ten, The Once a Week Slow Motion Fitness Revolution. Included in the book are several exercises that support this protocol that you canIf you aren't near an InForm Fitness location, you can always pick up Adam's book via Amazon: Power of Ten, The Once a Week Slow Motion Fitness Revolution. Included in the book are several exercises that support this protocol that you can actually perform on your own at a gym nearest you. We'll have a link to Adam's book in the show notes as well. Thanks again for listening, and for Sheila Melody, Mike Rogers, and Adam Zickerman of InForm Fitness, I'm Tim Edwards with the InBound Podcasting Network.Thanks again for listening, and for Sheila Melody, Mike Rogers, and Adam Zickerman of InForm Fitness, I'm Tim Edwards with the InBound Podcasting Network.

You might recall in our last episode, Adam shared the very intimate details of his lifelong struggle with lower back pain and how he's conquering it by combing slow motion, high-intensity strength training with a positive attitude.Here in episode 24, we get into some of the psychological aspects of a negative diagnosis, such as a lower back problem, and how that diagnosis alone can prolong an illness or injury.Conversely, we'll share some interesting data that supports the notion that a simple attitude adjustment can change the course of your rehabilitation towards a faster recovery.Dr. Louis Fierro who is a chiropractor and works with the InForm Fitness Active Rehabilitation program joins Adam Zickerman to offer up his suggestions and solutions for those experiencing back pain.Below is a link to the book Adam mentioned in this episode: Foundation: Redefine You Core, Conquer Back Pain, and Move with Confidence: Below is a link to the article Adam mentioned in this episode: http://bit.ly/FoundationRedefineYourCoreA Rational Approach to the Treatment of Low Back Pain by Brian W. Nelson, MD http://www.medxonline.com/pdf/rationalapproachtotreatment.pdfDon't forget Adam's Zickerman's book, Power of 10: The Once-a-Week Slow Motion Fitness Revolution.  You can purchase Adam's book in Amazon by  clicking here: http://bit.ly/ThePowerofTenTo find an Inform Fitness location nearest you to give this workout a try, please visit www.InformFitness.com.  At the time of this recording we have locations in Manhattan, Port Washington, Denville, Burbank, Boulder, Leesburg and Resten.If you'd like to ask Adam, Mike or Sheila a question or have a comment regarding the Power of 10. Send us an email or record a voice memo on your phone and send it to podcast@informfitness.com. For information regarding the production of your own podcast just like The Inform Fitness Podcast, please email Tim Edwards at tim@InBoundPodcasting.comTranscription to this episode is below:Motion is Great Joint LotionLouis: People get diagnosed, and then they go into this sick syndrome if you will as Adam described and their anxiety levels go through the roof. They're told to take [Inaudible] and medication and immobilize, rest, don't actively engage and really here at InForm Fitness, it's the opposite. The patients are clients with the clients and taught to enthusiastically actively engage in not only an exercise program of high-intensity, but a healthy lifestyle.Tim: InForm Nation, good to have you back with us here on the InForm Nation podcast. 20 minutes with New York Times bestselling author, Adam Zickerman, and friends. I'm Tim Edwards with the InBound Podcasting Network and a client of InForm Fitness. You just heard the voice of Dr. Louis Fierro, he's a chiropractor who works with Adam in the InForm Fitness Active Rehabilitation program. Now in this episode, Dr. Lou as he's affectionally called, will offer up his suggestions and solutions for those experiencing back pain, much like Adam has. You might recall on the last episode, Adam shared the very intimate details of his lifelong struggle with lower back pain, and how he's conquering it by combing slow motion, high-intensity strength training with his attitude. Here on episode 24, we get into some of the psychological aspects of a negative diagnoses such as a back problem, and how that alone can prolong an illness or injury. Conversely, we'll share some interesting data that supports the notion that a simple attitude adjustment can change the course of your rehabilitation towards a faster recovery. Joined as always by Sheila Melody, the co-owner and general manager of the Burbank location, and Mike Rogers, the general manager of the Manhattan location. Here is the founder of InForm Fitness, Adam Zickerman.Adam: I read this article a couple of years ago which really resonated with me, written by some doctors that treat lower back problems, non-surgically, the way we're actually doing it here and the way we recommend people do it, but it's not just a physical program of exercise that he was talking about. There was another aspect about people getting better, and that was the mental side of it which I found really interesting. For years and years and years, people kept telling me you've got to do something about your back. Every so often you're getting these spasms, you've got to get some MRIs and some interventions, like surgical type of interventions. At the very least, get injections into the facets of your spine, all these techniques that I was very resistant to because in my mind, my back problem was a temporary thing that I had to solve. I didn't really believe that I had a back problem, I thought that there were some muscular things that weren't being dealt with and putting me into spasm, it wasn't a structural thing with my back, I was convinced of that, and therefore I never accepted the fact that I was somebody with back problems. Obviously when I had a spasm I had to accept the fact that I had a back problem, but the chronic pain that came and went from a one to a four, back to a one, I was just saying I need to do something in a nonsurgical way, I just haven't figured it out yet, and then the article talked about that. He was saying that a lot of patients, they fall into this sick role when they're told they have a back problem and it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy and now they have a back problem, and they just accept the fact that they have this back problem, and there's a huge psychological component to this. I realized that one of the reasons why I wasn't debilitated long term is because I never accepted the fact that I had this back problem and it's because of that nonacceptance if you will that I am where I am right now, but my attitude towards this whole thing is what I'm saying is what got me through this and there are a lot of people that kind of feel when they have a back problem, that's it and you rely on these surgical methodologies because there's no other way to fix it. Even though they have MRIs that are less remarkable than mine, so Dr. Lou Fierro, chiropractor that works out of our studio here in Manhattan and is involved in our active rehabilitation program and uses some of our equipment to help patients, is here with us today and I want him to talk about this idea that people play this sick role when all of a sudden they're told by a doctor that they have a back problem. Do you find that to be true?Lou: Absolutely, and you shared this article with me several months ago, and I thought the title said a lot [Inaudible: 00:05:10]. Adam: Brian Nelson, exactly.Lou: A rational approach to the treatment of lower back pain, and after I read it, I said this is really a proactive approach and that's the model we've always taken. Whether we had an elite level athlete, a professional athlete, a weekend warrior, the de-conditioned mother that's caring for kids that have so much anxiety when they're given an MRI and shown the results of a herniation, and the reality is if we took 100% of the population and gave them an MRI, specifically in the lumbar region, about 82% studies show, there would some shape or form of a degenerative change or a herniation between the ages of 22 and 65. Only about 30% of that population has a subjective complaint to follow and mirror that objective finding, so people get diagnosed and then they get into this sick syndrome, if you will as Adam described, and their anxiety levels go through the roof. They're told take [Inaudible: 00:06:02], take medication, immobilize, rest, don't actively engage, and really here at InForm Fitness, it's the opposite. The patients are educated, the clients are taught to enthusiastically actively engage, not only in an exercise program of high-intensity, but a healthy lifestyle. Once they're shown that I can BLT, bend, lift, and twist, and not exacerbate my condition, now I can walk up a flight of stairs. I can care for my children, I can be a good spouse. They just really decrease in their pain threshold, and inflammation in their body, because there have been studies to show that inflammation is not only caused by poor diet, overactive activities, but by stress levels. Cortisol —Adam: Lack of sleep.Lou: Side effects of medication, so I don't know the exact date that I first met Adam, but once I really saw the program that they were doing here, I kind of had to look twice at it and I realized wow, he's onto something. He's onto something more than most medical doctors have doing for the last twenty-five years. Tim: He's the guru, I keep telling you.Lou: I think as recently as last week in [Inaudible: 00:07:56], I said Adam you've got to come in here, I've got a patient that actually had a three level laminectomy and she's got rotational scoliosis in her back, and she has had nagging, nagging pain. I cannot remember [Inaudible: 00:08:13] may be the medication she's on, but without that medication, it's hard for her to function. I said you know what, we're going to throw her on the MedEx machine here, lumbar extension machine. This is after I did a little bit of what I call white knuckling, trigger point release into one of her spinal muscles that was contracted. Put her on that machine, she stood up, and she said I'm pain-free. Holy crap, I'm pain-free.Adam: It's like one of those evangelists that touch you.Lou: I said to her listen, marching orders are go leave now, live your life, don't do anything out of the ordinary, and she says I'm going to see my trainer tonight that's going to come to my house. I said you never told me you had a home trainer, what do you do with the trainer? She started demonstrating rotational chops, high force activities, high load activities, high back torque, loading the spine in ways that really aren't necessary. So she said do you mind talking to my trainer, I said not a problem. So I spoke to her and I have a patient the person and trainer may listen to this podcast, which is all cool but anyway. I spoke to the trainer, and I said let's just remove certain of those BLTs for right now, no bent over single arm rows and just keep it very linear, very static if you will. She was feeling good and I didn't want to say don't train at all because I didn't want to impede on her lifestyle. She came back in today, and she had discomfort, and I said when did the discomfort start? She said from the time I left you guys all the way up until I had my training session, I was pain-free, and then after my training session, it started to exacerbate again. I'm going to give a little bit of a time out, I don't know how comfortable I am giving this admission from her testimonial today because I don't want to offend her trainer.Anyway we put her back on that machine today, and once again she felt phenomenal. So this machine, essentially what is allows someone to do that is in an active back spasm or even or has a neurological deficit from a disc compression, locks down the pelvis in such a way that when you actively extend, the only muscles being engaged and being recruited are the lumbar and rector, and even some of the deep spinal rotators have to engage in straight extension. So it allows for a term that I like to use, instead of traction it's called decoaptation, where it's a joint segment that's being lengthened without cavitation of the joint.Adam: So for those of you that don't speak science, what he's saying here is that by fixing the hips in place and by doing a back extension but pushing yourself back, you're actually opening up the spaces of the vertebrae which gives you relief. Lou: On the note, it also gives kind of a self-massage into those spinal segments. The only time — I'm starting to question some of the traditional medical research, the only time where they say don't put a patient into extension is if they have facet arthrosis or facet arthritis, degeneration of the joints. Lately, I've kind of taken Adam's approach a little bit and said I'm going to test this, and I'm put a patient or two on there with facet arthrossi as diagnosed by a radiologist and confirmed by a surgeon, and they came out of it feeling better. So it goes back to my principle of motion is great joint lotion, and if we can actively engage a patient, not passively. The difference there is passively is the therapist is moving the patient, actively is them moving themselves and us assisting as a coach, making sure they're in the bio mechanical correct position. They feel better, not only from a physiological point of view, but from an emotional and social wellbeing. I can do this, I can exercise. Guess what, we do that for two or three sessions and then we move them to a leg press. As you mentioned earlier, I don't remember who said that they were struggling with it but then you just altered your position and you were pain-free.Adam: The leg press actually — I don't want to give the leg press a bad name, the leg press is actually very good for the lower back because it's strengthening your hip extensors which are your glutes. Those primary moves are also very important to work, matter of fact one of my mentors, Rob Francis told me that it's very important. Once you start doing some lower back extensions and you're starting to feel that relief, that it's important to start doing some of the major hip movements like leg press.Mike: Dr. Lou you can add onto this. There are probably sometimes, like if you wanted to do a leg press, there may be some conditions or just a status that a person is in, a client is in, where they're just not ready to perform a certain movement pattern and I guess the low back machine can prepare you for a leg press, or manual therapy of some kind. Is that what's necessary sometimes?Lou: Absolutely. Even when we had the patient in today, she was saying that she was getting some burn in her quads while doing the back extension.Adam: There's some static contraction in there.Lou: Exactly, but it's just a progression physiologically but it's also a progression mentally where hey, I just did that pain-free. Not only pain-free, I'm not in pain anymore therefore I'm going to do something else, and there have been many times where I've had a patient that's gotten acute lower back exacerbation. We get them through the back extension pain-free, and you say you know what, you're going to do one of the safe chest presses here. I'm going to add that in, what does that have to do with their back? Maybe not a lot but everything to do with their psychological profile about themselves, and years ago, I'm trying to remember the first time. I don't think I've ever shared this with Adam, but he actually probably knew. In 2002, I had opened up a rehab facility as part of my practice, and around that time I had a really bad, acute lower back condition and it was in the summer, and mine came — it was actually on a tractor. I was cutting my lawn, and the tractor went into an old kind of stump hole, it went down, I went up, and we met somewhere in the middle. It created an avulsion fracture on my left hip, and some secondary lower back issues. I went to see a doctor and they said take an epidural, have these pills, I didn't want to do that. I wanted to let my body heal, and I was in such excruciating back pain one morning that I said I'm going to get up and do some deep knee bends, and I did and it immediately increased my range of motion. So I started testing on patients, I started having patients who had acute lower back pain doing kind of wall squats if you will. We were loading the muscles, strengthening and opening up the spinal segments, and now that I really think about it, probably as Adam just said, it had a lot to do with the mental approach of them actually being able to exercise. After being told immobilize, bed rest, don't do anything and I was doing the opposite. Fast forward to now, I've met Adam and he's created this circuit where I look at InForm Fitness and in my mind, people ask me how to describe it and I say it's probably one of the hardest forms of exercise that I've ever come across, while being the safest form of exercise. Adam: That sums it up pretty well.Lou: It really does. Recently I had the pleasure of bringing in what I consider an elite level athlete. Not a professional yet but an elite level athlete who just finished his two years of junior hockey and he's going own to play at a high level one collegiate hockey. This guy is about as conditioned as anyone that I know. I had him do the protocol here, and he said that was by far the hardest twenty-five minutes of exercise I've ever done. I just don't understand why it was only twenty-five because he was so mind conditioned that it has to an hour, or hour and a half. As opposed to being able to get it done in what I call short duration, high intensity.Mike: Real quick, we've had a few pro athletes here over the years and they've all made the same comment in regards to this strength training program, as opposed to any other strength training they've been a part of.Adam: I want to bring it back to first of all, I want to summarize on kind of what we just said. So these passive modalities of back treatment, taking medication, inactivity, some of these things that physical therapists do on a passive level such as electric stem, heat packs, so the thing about those is they're all well and good for acute situations but they're not going to help an overall situation for long term. I think the takeaway from this is one, inactivity is not what you should be doing if you have some back problems. First of all, don't accept your back problems, and know that most people, if they don't have something really serious going on like a spinal tumor or some kind of neurological deficiency, you have to move that joint, but you have to do it safely. There are ways of doing it safely, I don't want people just running out there now and just doing all this crazy stuff because they listened to this episode of our podcast and they just said move, so all of your sudden you're doing all these crazy things like doing Crossfit or some of the things we were talking about with Lou's patient. It has to be controlled, but this idea that you have to immobilize and not do anything, and be very, very careful, you have a back problem. That has not been working.Lou: No, and on that point Adam, this article by Dr. Nelson does a great job about utilize the science that's there, utilize the diagnostic studies, the MRIs. If there's a space occupying a spinal tumor, something that needs surgical intervention, you go for it, but what Adam is saying is very similar to this article is go through the correct markers and then actively engage and take an active role in getting your body mobile.Adam: The second thing besides just knowing that you should not be inactive just because you have a back problem, and not give up life, is doing some very specific things for your lower back. Dr. Lou is mentioning our program here, and we have some very special equipment. It does, it fixes the hips in place and allows somebody to go into a type of back extension that you cannot do without a machine like this, without something that can actually keep the hips fixed. So to plug InForm Fitness, we all have these machines in our gyms at InForm Fitness, so if you're fortunate enough to be near to one of our locations, it'd be great to try one of these machines. These MedEx, lumbar extension machines. Having said that, and knowing that most people listening to this episode are not going to have access to these machines, all is not lost, and I want Mike, since he does a lot of work with people on these types of movements, I want Mike to talk about some of the things that you can do should you not have access to this type of machine.Mike: It starts with a few mobility exercises, and they don't take long at all to do, and the first thing I would recommend people to do is just to get down on all fours on a mat and get into a little child pose. You sit on your heels with your feet tucked underneath, and you tilt your body all the way over as if you're bowing towards the sun. Just stay there for about twenty seconds or so, and for a lot of people who are dealing with acute pain or just some ordinary tightness, that often times gives some simple relief. After that, Adam mentioned before, pelvic tilts. They can be done from many different positions, from all fours once again to on your back, to standing up. Basically from an all fours position, you are doing what's called an anterior pelvic tilt and a posterior pelvic tilt. The posterior sort of feels like you're, while being on all fours, you arch your lower back up a little bit and you're creating what feels like an ab crunch, and then the anterior tilt is when you do the exact opposite movement. After that, I usually guide people through doing another child's pose for about twenty seconds, and then come back to all fours, and then a more extended version of what that last pose was which is cat cow, which is recommended by every chiropractor and physical therapist. It's a full tilt of spine, the whole thoracic spine to the lumbar spine, and then a full arch as well. Followed by that a bird dog, so once again, being on all fours and where you extend your left arm forward in front of you, and then the opposing leg, the right leg back, and hold the position for ten to twenty seconds and then switch off. After that, some glute bridges, which are just lying on your back with your feet placed down on the mat, and your hips will come off the floor, and you just do some very, very light bridging off the floor and then coming back down to the floor. So these can all be demonstrated online, it's a little difficult sometimes to say them without a visual, but it starts with simple stuff like that, and then a few more beyond that. I think if someone is dealing with some back tightness, it's generally safe. Without any diagnosis, it's probably safe to go down and give these little things a try. Obviously, if you're dealing with some acute pain while trying these very simple movements, then you definitely some advice from a professional.Adam: There's a good book on the subject. There's a lot of books on the subject, but a good one that I like, it's well written and has great pictures, it's called Foundation, subtitle Redefine Your Core, Conquer Back Pain, and Move With Confidence. I like the subtitle because we were just talking about moving with confidence, this confidence thing keeps coming up doesn't it. It's by Dr. Eric Goodman and Peter Park. Not Peter Parker. Foundation.Tim: We'll have links to that in the show notes as well.Mike: I personally loved this book and there are a lot of different exercises. It gives a great explanation of the anatomy of the low back, some of the common problems that can happen to the low back, and it goes into several different exercises but it revolves around one fundamental exercise which they call the founder, which is essentially a back extension, and they show you how to do it in that book.Adam: So my final thoughts are, and the takeaway I'd like you to have and I mentioned this, is one, don't accept your back pain, and use surgical methodology really as a last resort, and really try some of these — hire somebody or try some of these movements, therapies if you will, to help with this. Movement is so important, movement is really important, and I can tell you from my own experience that I've never thought of somebody who has back problems. I always thought of myself as somebody who had muscular problems in my lower back, and I think I might be right. What I'd like to do is come back to this in six months to a year, and let you know how I'm doing. I'm going to continue doing what I've been doing, and I'll let you know because let me tell you something. If it doesn't come back after another six months and I've been doing what I started doing six months ago, almost a year ago actually, and I don't have these episodes going forward for the next six months or a year, I think my conclusion is going to be right because nothing else ever worked, short of doing surgical types of things which I'm not going to do. So stay tuned. The other thing that we're going to be talking about on our next episode is the second thing I did which I feel contributed to a lot of the alleviation of my lower back problems, and that is my diet. That is what we're going to be talking about in our next episode, the diet that I undertook in the last ninety days and how it's changed me forever.Tim: So there you have it. In next week's episode as Adam just mentioned, we will be talking about a diet plan that Adam has been participating in for the last three months. A plan that Adam credits for assisting with successfully managing the lower back issues that he's been dealing with for most of his life. Coming back in the next couple of weeks, we will be speaking with Gretchen Rubin. Gretchen's books have sold more than two million copies in thirty different languages. She has a popular podcast of her own, it's called Happier with Gretchen Rubin, and she's also a client and has been for many years of InForm Fitness. Also on the way we have a terrific conversation with Dr. Martin Gaballa, author of The One Minute Workout. We will contrast and compare high-intensity strength training with high-intensity interval training. Looking forward to this one. Hey if you'd like to find an InForm Fitness location nearest you to give this workout a try for yourself, please visit informfitness.com. At this time of this recording we have locations in Manhattan, Port Washington, Denville, Burbank, Boulder, Leesburg, and Restin. If you are not near an InForm Fitness location, you can always pick up Adam's book, Power of Ten, the Once a Week Slow Motion Revolution. Included in Adam's book are several exercises that support this protocol that you can actually perform on your own. We'll have a link to Adam's book here in the show notes. For Sheila Melody, Mike Rogers, and Adam Zickerman, I'm Tim Edwards, with the InBound Podcasting Network.     

As the Founder of InForm Fitness' Power-of-10 Workout, Adam Zickerman makes the claim every day that InForm Fitness offers the safest, most efficient strength training program around. But Adam has a confession for InForm Nation. Adam suffered an injury while exercising that resulted in acute, knock-you-on-your-butt, back muscle spasms. You can imagine Adam's dilemma as to whether or not he should fess up or cover up his recent injury.Hear the whole story in Episode 23 beginning with the surgery he experienced as a child, the details of his injury, and how he seems to have found a cure for his lifelong ailment.Click this link to read Adam's story at INFORM INSIGHTS: https://informfitness.com/back-spasms-exercise/Pick up Adam's Zickerman's book, Power of 10: The Once-a-Week Slow Motion Fitness Revolution.  You can buy it in Amazon by  clicking here: http://bit.ly/ThePowerofTenTo find an Inform Fitness location nearest you to give this workout a try, please visit www.InformFitness.com.  At the time of this recording we have locations in Manhattan, Port Washington, Denville, Burbank, Boulder, Leesburg and Resten.If you'd like to ask Adam, Mike or Sheila a question or have a comment regarding the Power of 10. Send us an email or record a voice memo on your phone and send it to podcast@informfitness.com. Join Inform Nation and call the show with a comment or question.  The number is 888-983-5020, Ext. 3. For information regarding the production of your own podcast just like The Inform Fitness Podcast, please email Tim Edwards at tim@InBoundPodcasting.comThe complete transcriptions for this episode is below:Tim: And we're back, InForm Nation! Glad you're doing us once again here for episode 23, on the InForm Fitness Podcast. Twenty minutes with Adam Zickerman and friends. For those  joining us for the very first time, let's go around the horn and introduce everybody. I'm Tim Edwards with the InBound Podcasting Network, and a client of InForm Fitness, and joining me here in person at the InBound Studio is co-owner and general manager of the Burbank InForm Fitness location, Sheila Melody. Sheila, nice to see you three dimensionally instead of 2D via Skype nowadays, thanks for joining me.Sheila: Yeah, this is fun!Tim: And still in boring old 2D through the magic of Skype is general manager of the Manhattan location, Mike Rogers, and the founder of InForm Fitness, New York Times bestselling author, Power of Ten: The Once a Week Slow Motion Fitness Revolution, also affectionally known as the guru, Adam Zickerman. What's up fellas?Adam: Hey.Mike: I've never called him the guru.Tim: No, ever? Mike: I'm going to start calling you that now, matter of fact, the guru.Adam: Mike was booking some guests on one of our podcast episodes, in his letters he writes, and he refers to me as his boss. I meant to talk to Mike about that, saying boss. Refer to me as your — I don't know — Tim: Your superior. The boss, the founder, Adam.Adam: Your colleague and the founder of InForm Fitness. Mike: You're going to go there, okay. You're going to wish I said boss next time.Tim: Alright well the boss has been having problems with his back, or at least he has in the past, and here in episode 23, we're going to refer back to a blog post of yours Adam from June of last year, 2016: Back Spasms From Exercise, which we'll have a link to in the show notes of course if you'd like to read them. In the blog post Adam, you offer up a confession, and you mention a back injury that you suffered as a kid. Now we'll get to that confession in just a moment, but let's start with the injury you suffered; what caused the injury, back many, many decades ago?Adam: Yeah I was a teenager, and I don't know exactly what caused the injury. I think it was a combination of sports and being active, but I also had this weird obsession about jumping staircases, and when I think back on my childhood life, I really think that my back injury was from trying to jump down ten stairs or fifteen stairs. I started to keep increasing the amounts of stairs I could jump.Tim: I did the same stuff, I really did.Mike: You probably hit your head one time and that's why your memory is —Adam: I do remember where it manifested itself. It could have been the stairs — when the back problem happened, I didn't feel it right away. It was during actually a basketball game, I was a point guard, and up until that point I was a pretty good point guard. At this particular game, I couldn't cut to my left. There was no pain, I was just very slow cutting to the left, and the ball kept getting stolen from me at mid court, and my father who was watching the game was like, and my coach and everybody was like, that's very unusual for Adam to get the ball just taken from him like that, every time he brings the ball up. It was that night that all of the sudden the back pain started. Now I've been saying for years that I think it was the basketball game that hurt my back, but very likely it was probably something before that that led up to it, and I'm thinking that crazy idea I had about jumping off of staircases.Tim: So 35, 40 years ago is when this probably began. Adam: Yeah, the symptoms were numbness in my right leg, radiating down my leg. I couldn't bend at all, I couldn't bend at my waist at all. I couldn't sit for more then a couple of minutes without the pain, I had to stand or lie down.Tim: As a kid.Adam: I was a kid, and the back of my leg was in a lot of pain and numb at the same time, my calf was numb. To this day, there is slight numbness to my slight calf compared to my left calf. I can feel some sensation, but it's definitely dulled; to this day, it's never recovered, so there's probably a little bit of nerve damage back then.Mike: So did you go to the doctor and find out what exactly happened?Adam: So we go to a doctor and remember I'm eleven, and when you have these symptoms as an adult, right away they say let's look at the back, but as a child, the last thing they were thinking about was a nerve compression of a herniated disc. So they were looking for everything else, including tumors of the spine. So there was a point there where I was meeting with oncologists and getting tests at NYU at New York University Medical Center. The tests for everything but a herniated disc, and when they eliminated all those things, they said could this kid have a herniated disc, and they performed a procedure called a myelogram. Which is a crazy procedure where they inject a dye into your spinal column, and they turn you upside down on a table, literally upside down, and let the dye kind of go down the spine or really up the spine, and when they see the fluid, this dye that they inject into your spinal column. When they see that dye deviate to the right or the left, that's where the herniation is, and that's how they were able to  determine disc herniations back in the day, in the 70s. They still do that procedure but much less so now. So a myelogram is more or less an archaic methodology now, MRIs have pretty much taken over that. So when they saw the fact that I had a disc herniation, they were like holy cow, and I had surgery. I had surgery by a neurosurgeon, the surgery is called a laminectomy, and in part of the spine vertebrae, there's something called lamina, and the lamina was removed to pretty much reduce the pressure that was being pushed against it by the disc, pushing a nerve into the lamina. So they took away the lamina, no more pressure against the nerve, and the pain went away, but there was a compromise there. There was a structural compromise done when you remove structure from your vertebrae. So ever since that surgery, I've been able to bend and I've been able to play all my sports, and I've lived a fairly normal life. However, probably ten years into post surgery, I would start getting back spasms. These horrible, horrible, bring you down to your knees, can't move, and if you move, you go into another spasm. It's almost like being hooked up to a car battery and every time — you sit and you're kidnapped, and every time you say something wrong, they hit the switch and you're shocked. That's what a back spasm is, where there is sometimes I would be suffering spasms and if I tried to move out of my position, I would go right back into position. It was just nonstop spasm after spasm after spasm, and this can go on for hours. They're excruciating, it's literally like being shocked.Sheila: It sounds like torture.Adam: It's very painful.Tim: And this is something you experienced in your twenties now? These back spasms.Adam: I've been experiencing those from my twenties up until now. Mike: I've seen Adam over the years about half a dozen times, during the workday, they kind of come out of nowhere. I don't know if he worked out earlier that day or whatever, but I've seen him have to go down to the ground and put a tennis ball, just lay down on a tennis ball and stuff like that. Adam: Those are for the good ones. Sometimes they got so bad that I would literally get nauseated and want to vomit, and it's just relentless, it doesn't go away. The only thing that makes it better is time. A couple days on my back, it finally starts to subside. I also take Flexeril, which is a muscle relaxant, and that seems to take the edge off when things are really bad. Alright so that's the history.Tim: Let's fast forward a few years now, right, because Adam, let's jump to the confession now. I'll tell you, if I'm listening to this and I'm hearing you, Adam Zickerman, the founder of InForm Fitness, suffering from back spasms, my first question honestly is, well did that happen as a result of high-intensity strength training? Adam: No, definitely not. Although I've tweaked it during workouts, the confession that you're referring to, this blog that I wrote, I was doing leg press, and I was pushing myself. I set a new weight, it was a new seat setting that put a little bit more strain on my back apparently. I was training myself and probably my thought went somewhere else, and my hips lifted a little bit, and all they have to do is lift a millimeter, and bam, I felt something. It wasn't the spasm, but I felt something, I was like oh boy. Usually, you feel something and it just progressively gets worse, and I know I'm in for it. Sometimes you feel that pain, I've been dealing with this for so long in my life, you feel that initial pain and you say to yourself, okay, five more hours from now, I'm going to be on my back. I've got to get my ass home, put that ice pack on, and hope for the best. Of course, it comes, it does come, and it came this last time, and this was less than a year ago.Tim: I remember we recording some podcasts last year, and you were really struggling with your back during one of those episodes that we had. So this happened, that's your confession Adam, in your blog post was —Adam: The confession is here I am, exercises quote unquote guru with a bad back. It's like being an obese nutritionist or something.Mike: They're out there.Adam: I interviewed one, not to change the subject, but somebody came looking for — making some nutrition referrals and she was overweight, I was like come on. Tim: So here you are, again like we said, founder of InForm Fitness, on one of your machines. You just lost focus, and maybe one of the mistakes you made I guess was training yourself, and someone not watching you as closely as all of the trainers at InForm Fitness do with their clients, and this happened. So there's that confession. So since this incident Adam that you mentioned in your blog post, have you had any back spasms?Adam: No I haven't, and I think there are a couple of reasons for it. One reason we'll talk about now, and another reason we'll talk about in another episode of our podcast.Mike: Real quick Adam, is this the longest period you've gone without a back spasm?Adam: This is — I'm approaching the longest period I've gone without a back spasm right now. The last five years, I've been getting about maybe two or three back spasms a year, now it's been about a year since I had one. When I was in my twenties, I only got one a year. The difference between when I was in my twenties and recently was they came more often, and they healed a lot slower when I got older. When I was in my twenties and thirties, I would get one, a couple of days later, back to new. Now, been lingering, my wife has been saying, wow Adam, it just seems like your back is always hurting now, always crooked. Even when I wasn't in spasm, my posture was just off, and there was always this like — I would say, I would give it a 4/10 in terms of pain, just ongoing. So I was always feeling something in my back at a level four, spasms are a ten plus. When I'm about to go into spasm, sometimes there's an eight and seven, and I can work. I can go into work with an eight and deal with it, and I kept saying this is muscular, this is neuromuscular, this is not structural. I know my body, I know an MRI is going to be what they say in medicine as remarkable, it's not going to show much of anything, but of course, because they were lasting longer and becoming more frequent, I was like what do I have to do lose? Go get an MRI, what's the big deal? So I got it, and I got it about a year ago, and it showed some slight herniations, grade one vertebrate slippage, but there are MRIs out there that show a lot worse, and the patient is asymptomatic and they don't have any back problems. And there are people that don't show anything that have severe back problems, so my MRI was basically unremarkable, and it didn't indicate anything major that would be causing all of these spasms, let's put it that way. So I was frustrated, I trained people day in and day out with safe exercise, and I strengthened their lower back, and there's that expression that cobblers' children don't have any shoes. I have to — here's another confession, I was not doing my back exercises that I keep imploring my patients or clients to do, to do that regular back extension, back strengthening exercise, and I wasn't doing any follow up type of work like pelvic tilts, hip thrusts, things that could create movement of that hip and lower back area. I was working all the time, I was sitting, I was commuting long commutes, and I really wasn't doing what I thought I should be doing. I just couldn't take it anymore, after the MRI came back and showed that there was nothing to really write home about, I said you know what, I've just got to start taking care of myself. I was doing all of the major exercises, the leg presses and the chest presses and all of the things that guys like to do, but I was ignoring the lower back. So I've been doing that regularly now, absolutely regularly for the last year, and I have to say especially in the last four or five months, I am, well, for the first time since I was in my twenties, I can say that I don't feel my back anymore. I don't feel that thing there that's been following me around like a black cloud. I have literally no pain in my lower back, and it hasn't been this way for quite a while now, knock on wood, because it can come at any time, but I don't remember the last time that I could say that I have no pain in my lower back.Sheila: And would you say consistently?Adam: I was at a three or four for months at a time, I can keep it at a three or four. The one long airplane ride or car ride and I'm back to a five and six, or funny enough, when I would do sports, it would feel better. So there's something to that movement that would make it feel better. I remember going to skiing and thinking to myself, I don't know if this is a good idea dude. I know you love skiing, but maybe it's time to hang up the bindings, and well I went, and I'm telling you, it felt batter. My back would feel better after something like that, or long bike rides, my back would feel better. So there was something to that movement, and all these things together made me say let's take care of your back finally. Get on that lower back extension machine on a regular basis, do your pelvic tilts. Ice, I would ice my back on a regular basis. I would get massages on a regular basis, and now here I am.Sheila: You say on a regular basis, are you talking weekly, weekly you're doing a routine that supports your back?Adam: Yes, weekly and daily. The weekly thing is the high intense, lower back extensions. The daily is the icing it once a day for twenty minutes or so. I would do pelvic tilts, I would do some light stretches, and I would also on a weekly basis, I'd have some manual therapy. Some deep tissue massage, and the combination thereof — I've been doing a lot of things, so it's hard to know which one of those things is the answer. It's probably the combination, and the reason we're doing this podcast, this episode of the podcast right now is because I think I'm onto something.Tim: You see a very dramatic change.Adam: Mike has also been doing a lot of this stuff recently with his patients or clients.Mike: The thing is, I think all around health, this is from my experience and I've talked to chiropractors, physical therapists, orthopedists, and we've read lots of books on the matter, and I've taken other courses in fitness, and what I've learned is there is our weekly exercise that we need to do for our strength, and we've found a nice, safe, efficient way of doing that, but Adam mentioned some daily exercises, and I've prescribed very, very simple little things that take about five minutes on a daily basis, and people who are compliant to these little things — and these are just mobility exercises, activation of the muscles, nothing intense at all, and they involve little pelvic tilts. Whether you're laying down on your back or you can be on all fours, like a child pose, bird, dog, some little glute bridge leg raises type of things, and very light stretches of the hamstrings and calves, and I've found unbelievable results from people, in addition to their workouts that they come for once a week. The ones that are compliant, doing it three, four or more times a week, within two weeks they're feeling a lot better. So I think the formula involves some small daily exercises as well.Tim: In addition to that Mike too, I'll just speak for myself. I had some lower back issues and when I first started at InForm Fitness, the leg press was really giving me some problems, and Anne Kirkland, one of the trainers at the Burbank location, went in and made some adjustments to how I was sitting in the leg press. She put something behind my back I believe.Sheila: A lumbar pad. Anne has additional certification in low back.Tim: And immediately fixed whatever issues I was having with the leg press, so you do the same thing there I'm sure as well in New York.Mike: I'm sorry to interrupt — if you're in the wrong position, things are not going to be good no matter where you are, and I think that's the benefit to being here is it's one on one, it's slow motion. We have time to sort of assess and see where we are, first of all, to make sure that the seat position is correct, and then to monitor your form throughout the set.Tim: That's right, and that's what happened to me as I mentioned a few moments ago. I was on the leg press, having a few issues with my back, just a few minor adjustments from my trainer and the back pain went away. Hey guys, as you can tell by the music, our twenty minutes allotted for this episode is up, so it's time for us to wrap it up. It also means that for you, on the other side of the speakers, if you began your high-intensity strength training workout at an InForm Fitness when we began this episode, you too, would be wrapping it up. For the entire week, now you'll be wiped out, but you'll be done, and you can begin enjoying your rest and recovery, to prepare for next week's workout. We'll do the same here at the InForm Fitness Podcast, we are going to continue our talk regarding back pain. We'll also be joined by Dr. Louis Fierro, a chiropractor who works with Adam in the InForm Fitness Active Rehabilitation program. Dr. Lou will offer up his suggestions and solutions for those experiencing back pain of their own, plus we'll dive into the psychological aspects of a negative diagnosis, such as a back problem, and how that alone can prolong an illness or an injury. We'll share some interesting data that supports the notion that a simple attitude adjustment can change the course of your rehabilitation.If you'd like to give this workout a try for yourself, to find an InForm Fitness location nearest you, just visit informfitness.com. At the time of this recording, we have locations in Manhattan, Port Washington, Denville, Burbank, Boulder, Leesburg, and Reston. If you're not near an InForm Fitness location, you can always pick up Adam's book: Power of Ten, the Once a Week Slow Motion Fitness Revolution. Included in Adam's book are several exercises that support this protocol, that you can actually perform on your own at a gym nearest you.Hey we have a lot planned here at the InForm Fitness Podcast that we can't wait to share with you. In the next few weeks, we'll be speaking with Gretchen Rubin from the award winning Happier podcast. We'll also be talking to Dr. Martin Gibala, author of the One Minute Workout, and in another episode, Adam will be discussing a diet plan that, in his words, has changed his life, and of course as I mentioned earlier, chiropractor Dr. Lou Fierro joins us next week. For Sheila Melody, Mike Rogers, and Adam Zickerman of InForm Fitness, I'm Tim Edwards, with the InBound Podcasting Network.

This podcast episode includes about a 10-minute interview between Adamand Joanie which basically recaps what we talked about in the last two episodes ofThe Inform Fitness Podcast. Then at the completion of the video a little magic happened.  A relatively spontaneous little jam session broke out between Adam and Joanie.Adam pulled out a guitar and Joanie shared her voice with us and we captured it all on video. It was really great and we hope that you enjoy it as much as we did.Click here to see the video of this episode: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GL5GaDyQDCcTo find an Inform Fitness location nearest you visit www.InformFitness.comIf you'd like to ask Adam, Mike or Sheila a question or have a comment regarding the Power of 10. Send us an email or record a voice memo on your phone and send it to podcast@informfitness.com. Join Inform Nation and call the show with a comment or question.  The number is 888-983-5020, Ext. 3. To purchase Adam's book, Power of 10: The Once-a-Week Slow Motion Fitness Revolution click this link to visit Amazon:  https://www.amazon.com/Power-Once-Week-Revolution-Harperresource/dp/006000889X/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1485469022&sr=1-1&keywords=the+power+of+10+bookIf you would like to produce a podcast of your own just like The Inform Fitness Podcast, please email Tim Edwards at tim@InBoundPodcasting.comThe transcription to this episode is below:14 Jammin with Adam and Joanie - TranscriptIntro: You're listening to the InForm Fitness podcast, 20 minutes with New York Times,best-selling author, Adam Zickerman and friends. Brought to you by InFormFitness, life changing personal training with several locations across the US.Reboot your metabolism and experience the revolutionary Power of 10, the highintensity, slow motion, strength training system that's so effective, you'd get aweek's worth of exercise in just one 20-minute session, which by no coincidenceis about the length of this podcast. So, get ready InForm Nation, your 20 minutesof high intensity strength training information begins in 3, 2, 1.Tim: Hey InForm Nation. Welcome into a special bonus addition of the InForm Fitnesspodcast, 20 minutes with Adam Zickerman and friends. I'm Tim Edwards with theInbound Podcasting Network. A few things are a little different about this episode.For one, it's definitely going to be a little shorter than 20 minutes. And Mike andSheila won't be making an appearance but certainly will be returning in the nextweek's episode. The audio was captured from a video that my company, InboundFilms, produced for InForm Fitness.Now, if you listen to the podcast with any regularity you know that Sheila and Iare here in the Los Angeles area but we record the podcast from two separatelocations. Mike Rogers and InForm Fitness founder, Adam Zickerman, participatefrom their Manhattan location in New York City. Well, in June of 2016 AdamZickerman visited the InForm Fitness location in Toluca Lake near Burbank,California and we filmed a ton of trainer certification and marketing videos forInForm Fitness. Some of which you'll be able to see at informfitness.com. Well,during Adam's visit here in Los Angeles, Joanie Pimentel from the group NoSmall Children and the special guest of our last two episodes here in the podcast,Fat Loss and Face Melting, stopped by InForm Fitness to chat with Adam in oneof the videos that we were producing.Now, this podcast episode includes about a 10-minute interview between Adamand Joanie which basically recaps what we talked about in the last two episodes ofthe podcast. Then at the completion of the video a little magic happened. Arelatively spontaneous little jam session broke out between Adam and Joanie.Adam pulled out a guitar and Joanie shared her voice with us and we captured itall on video. It was really great and we hope that you enjoy it as much as we did.So, here is our bonus episode of the InForm Fitness podcast, 20 minutes withAdam Zickerman and friends. This episode is called Jammin with Adam andJoanie.Adam: Hi, I'm Adam Zickerman. I'm here with Joanie Pimentel from No Small Children,one of my favorite new bands. And she was just a recent guest on one of myshows called 20 minutes with Adam Zickerman and friends. Joanie, I love yourband. I love No Small Children. I've met you guys. I've seen you live. Your albums are great. You have high energy. It's really awesome. Your voices are --your voice, it kills me. It kills me.Joanie: Thank you so much. Thank you. Thank you.Adam: Really. Really. So, tell me about the band a little bit. Tell everyone about that.Joanie: Well, we are a power trio as you had mentioned.Adam: Yes. It's a power trio.Joanie: We play original rock music. We've been playing together about three years now. We have three albums out and we are super active on all social media, Facebook, Instagram, all those things the kids are doing nowadays. And we actuallysomething very exciting has just happened for us. We were -- one of our songswas selected to be in the new Ghostbusters movie.Adam: Oh my gosh.Joanie: We had actually recorded a version of the Ghostbusters' theme song andsubmitted it to Sony Pictures, thinking this, you know, probably nothing with everhappen of it but it did and they actually fell in love with our version of the song atthe last minute, snuck it into the movie. So, you will hear --Adam: It's going to be opening credits of the movie.Joanie: It's going to be in the closing credits of the movie and over the blooper reel. Yes.Adam: Wow.Joanie: So, you will hear us playing that version.Adam: Oh, right on. Congratulations.Joanie: Yeah. It's really exciting. It's really, really exciting, so.Adam: That's great.Joanie: Yeah.Adam: Yeah. Well, it couldn't happen to a better group of people.Joanie: Why thank you so much.Adam: You definitely deserve it.Joanie: We are very serious about having fun.Adam: Yeah [laughs].Joanie: Very serious, so.Adam: So, tell us, the reason you were on our podcast is because you went through atransformation recently.Joanie: I have indeed. Yes.Adam: And you've been -- part of that transformation was using the Power of 10workout. So, why don't you tell me a little bit about that?Joanie: Well, over the past about a year, just over a year, I have been in the process of losing quite a bit of weight. I've lost about 120 pounds at this point. And early on Imet with Sheila through InForm Fitness. I met her through my sister who is alongtime friend of Sheila's and I came to the open house and I have always beenone of those people who despises working out. There really is nothing that beatsrelaxing on the couch. It's very hard to beat that [laughs] but --Adam: [laughs] I'm with you.Joanie: Yes. It feels good, right? So, I came to the open house and I was a total skepticand I said to Sheila, just so you know, I hate all exercise. I don't like going to thegym. I do not like going to classes. It's not for lack of effort or willingness. I justtried it and really disliked it. So, she said, great. I said, what do you mean great?She says, this is going to be perfect for you. This approach it takes 20 minutes. Itspeaks to the things that are very important to you. There is lots of data andscientific information to back up its effectiveness and it's results driven. So, I said,alright. I'll believe it when I see it.So, I started working out with her once a week and within three weeks it was veryclear that it was working. I started to feel really strong and for me personallythat's actually very important, that part of it. I have to move a lot of equipmentand gear, often have to do it very quickly. And when you're in an all-female trioand you're the biggest person [laughs] --Adam: After the Ghostbusters you can have roadies soon. Joanie: Yeah. Oh, wouldn't that be amazing? I would love that. Yes. But in the interim we manage all of our own gear and things like that. So, being able to do that's veryimportant. And also not getting hurt is very important because those things canreally end your career if you get seriously hurt. Not being able to jump around onstage and perform is a big problem. So, that was always a concern.Adam: Yeah. Well, that's our number one value principle is don't do any harm and[crosstalk 06:41] results.Joanie: That's right. And actually that was one of the things that appealed to me rightaway, is that the emphasis was put on safety. All the equipment looked likesomething you would see in a medical rehab center. Not even necessarily at yourlocal gym. So, and I did the workout the first time and I could barely walk to thecar. And I said, okay, this is clearly a workout. I was skeptical that you could get itdone in 20 minutes but it definitely worked for sure. And then I came back thenext week and came back the next week and like I said, after three weeks, I reallynoticed a difference. And then it continued to grow from there.Adam: [Crosstalk 07:19].Joanie: About four years earlier I had been treated for thyroid cancer and one of thetreatments, the treatment requires that you essentially be starved of thyroidhormone which makes you completely exhausted to the point where every musclein your body stops working effectively. And that was very difficult for me.Actually, strangely enough that was the most difficult part of the entire process.Because I have always self-identified as being very strong, physically strongperson. Being able to lift things that are heavy, more so than the average woman.So, when that part of me was gone I felt like part of my identity had gone.Adam: Hm [contemplative], interesting.Joanie: So, maintaining that was very important to me. And, so that three weeks later Isaid, okay, this is working and the Sheila and I continued to work out for quitesome time and then we had some trouble with our schedules and things didn't lineup and I got busy with touring and I'm also a teacher as well, music teacher. So,that became difficult. So, I had gotten the book. The Power of 10 book early on.My first time, the open house and --Adam: New York Times best-seller by the way.Joanie: Yes, and so --Adam: For one week. Joanie: It was -- it's -- and I'll tell you, it's not like reading through a novel. It's verypractical the way the book is laid out and written. So, what I did was after I readit, I took pictures of the various workouts and then kept it on my phone.Adam: That's [crosstalk 08:45] [laughs]--Joanie: And when I couldn't meet with Sheila I would go to the gym and look at myphone and look through all the workouts and do it at the gym. And I get a lot ofstrange stares here and there.Adam: That's interesting.Joanie: You know, everybody's kind of going fast and putting in and I'm there --Adam: Yeah. I know.Joanie: One, two and then three. You know, slow and steady and the people at the gymthat I've gone to have seen me shrink over time.Adam: Yes. That's funny. You talked about this weight loss. 100 and how many pounds?Joanie: It was 119 as of today.Adam: 119 pounds. So, let's talk about that because I think it's important for everyone tounderstand how you lost that weight.Joanie: Yes. It is.Adam: That obviously no exercise program in the world can ever be responsible, solelyresponsible for weight loss, fat loss. So, how'd you do it?Joanie: Well, as you said, exercise is relatively small part of losing that much weight.Adam: Absolutely.Joanie: So, I did have a vertical sleeve gastrectomy in September of 2015. That's a type ofweight loss surgery. It's not as --Adam: Bariatric surgery, mhm [affirmative].Joanie: Yeah. It's not as -- it's not as restrictive as a gastric bypass but it is a very popular,growing in popularity procedure. Now, the thing about weight loss surgery, what they often don't tell you going into it is that actually 50% of people who haveweight loss surgery gain all of their weight back.Adam: Mhm [affirmative].Joanie: And also during the process and you're losing weight very rapidly, it's very easy to lose muscle mass. And you also excess skin is a problem, especially the older youget. So, what the Power of 10 did -- what the surgery did for helping me loseweight, the Power of 10 helped me to actually make my body strong and fit. So,my body does not look like it would if I had not done Power of 10. Absolutelydoes not. The extra muscle not only aides in the weight loss because at a resting --when I'm resting metabolically, I'm still burning more calories than I would if Ididn't have that added muscle mass. It prevented me from losing muscle massduring this process which is very easy to do and it -- the added tone to my framehelps to support excess skin. I mean, there's really not a whole lot you can doabout excess skin but you can help how it looks by supporting the skin withmuscle. And I feel stronger right now than I ever have in my entire life, ever,hands down.Adam: Right on.Joanie: Yeah.Adam: Well, congratulations.Joanie: Thank you so much.Adam: You look so great. You look great.Joanie: Thank you so much.Adam: You always looked great to me actually.Joanie: Thank you. Thank you. And I'll tell you there is no weight loss surgery, there's no exercise program in the world that's going to change how you feel about yourself.That way's a two stage process. I had to start with my body and then I had to workon my head. So, the in -- that the only -- that it's a lot easier to change how yourbody looks than how you feel about how your body looks so.Adam: Right. Well, you said on our podcast that you never thought of yourself -- youwere not an insecure person. [laughs] Joanie: No. It's very -- thankfully, music -- that's one of the gifts of music is that from a very young age my identity was more about being a musician and being on stageand things like that. I before the surgery I was not ashamed to be an obese person.I was -- I didn't feel like I was ugly or disgusting. Fitting in airplane seats waskind of tricky and --Adam: [laughs] [Crosstalk 12:04].Joanie: Finding matching clothes was a little -- because our band we actually always wear matching dresses. So, it's much easier now find matching dressing than it used to be. You know, we don't have to worry about finding extra small, small and adouble extra-large. Now it's small, medium and large. So, or actually small, smalland medium. I am at a size eight right now.Adam: You're a medium. You're a medium, officially.Joanie: I wear size eight pant and I wear a size six dress. I have not been in a single digit dress or pant size in my entire adult life ever.Adam: Now, I asked you also and you said no. And the question was, it doesn't affectyour voice losing all that weight.Joanie: Nope. That's a misnomer. That's a very old like classical --Adam: Mhm [affirmative]. Yeah. Can you prove that with me?Joanie: Absolutely. Are you asking me to sing with you?Adam: I am asking you to sing with me. Yes.Joanie: I would love to. I would love to.Adam: It would be a real honor because I'm a frustrated rock star. And never had thetalent for that so I went into fitness. But this would fulfill a fantasy of mine.Joanie: Oh my gosh. Hey, you know the difference between a frustrated musician and a working musician?Adam: Probably not much, right?Joanie: Just getting up on the stage and doing it. Just got to get up on the stage and do it.That's the only cure. Adam: Alright. Alright. So, let's do it then.Joanie: Alright.Tim: So, there's a little backstory that I want to share with you before we get ready tohear Jammin with Adam and Joanie. Since Adam was traveling he didn't have hisown guitar with him and Adam wasn't quite sure if Joanie would be interested insinging when she showed up for her on camera interview. But he wanted to beprepared just in case. Well, I have a guitar so I offered to let Adam use it. Now,even though I have a guitar, I don't play it. It really serves as a decorative piece inmy house. Well, many years ago I had it signed by many popular musicians and since it'sbeen on a shelf for close to 20 years, the strings were as Adam calls it, dead.Nonetheless, it was all we had. So, when Joanie graciously accepted Adam's offerto perform with him Adam made the most of my 20-year-old dead guitar strings.My guitar truly never sounded so good. Judge for yourself. Here's Joanie Pimentelfrom the group No Small Children with Adam Zickerman performing TracyChapman's ”Give Me One Reason” live from the InForm Fitness studios in TolucaLake.Joanie: Alright, Adam, you ready?[“Give Me One Reason” cover by Joanie Pimentel and Adam Zickerman plays]Adam: [laughs] [claps] I love it.Joanie: [laughs] Nice.Adam: Very good.Tim:  That was pretty cool. That was Joanie Pimentel from the group No Small Children and our very own Adam Zickerman with Tracy Chapman's Give Me One Reason. Remember the ladies from No Small Children will be hitting the road out in the east coast and the mid-west here in the month of August in 2016 and don't forget to head out to the movies this summer and see Ghostbusters. If you do, stick around to the closing credits and the bloopers so you can hear Joanie and her group No Small Children perform the song “Ghostbusters” over the closing redits and the bloopers. Very, very cool.We'll be back again for another regular addition of the InForm Fitness podcast, 20minutes with Adam Zickerman and friends. Please don't forget to subscribe righthere in iTunes, we would greatly appreciate it. Thanks again for listening to thespecial addition of the InForm Fitness podcast. For Adam, Mike and Sheila, I'mTim Edwards with the Inbound Podcasting Network.  

In this episode we'll revisit Joanie's amazing weight loss journey and of course, we'll finally explain the title of this episode, Fat Loss and Face Melting. Here at the Inform Fitness Podcast we have the great privilege of announcing a major development for Joanie's group, No Small Children. News that was received just a short time after the recording of this podcast. News that after hearing this episode you'll want to grab your friends and family and head to the movies.  To find an Inform Fitness location nearest you visit www.InformFitness.com If you'd like to ask Adam, Mike or Sheila a question or have a comment regarding the Power of 10. Send us an email or record a voice memo on your phone and send it to podcast@informfitness.com.  Join Inform Nation and call the show with a comment or question.  The number is 888-983-5020, Ext. 3.  To purchase Adam's book, Power of 10: The Once-a-Week Slow Motion Fitness Revolution click this link to visit Amazon:  https://www.amazon.com/Power-Once-Week-Revolution-Harperresource/dp/006000889X/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1485469022&sr=1-1&keywords=the+power+of+10+book If you would like to produce a podcast of your own just like The Inform Fitness Podcast, please email Tim Edwards at tim@InBoundPodcasting.com The transcription to this episode is below: 13 Fat Loss and Face Melting Part 02 - Transcript Intro: You're listening to the InForm Fitness podcast, 20 minutes with New York Times, best-selling author, Adam Zickerman and friends. Brought to you by InForm Fitness, life-changing personal training with several locations across the US. Reboot your metabolism and experience the revolutionary Power of 10, the high intensity, slow motion, strength training system that's so effective, you'd get a week's worth of exercise in just one 20-minute session, which by no coincidence is about the length of this podcast. So, get ready InForm Nation, your 20 minutes of high-intensity strength training information begins in 3, 2, 1. Tim: InForm Nation, thanks again for joining us here once again at the InForm Fitness podcast, 20 minutes with Adam Zickerman and friends. This is part two of Fat Loss and Face Melting. A little confused by the title? Hang on. We'll get to that in just a second. But before that, if you didn't have a chance to listen to part one, we recommend you go back and give it a listen first before venturing on into this episode. Of course again today we have the regular cast of characters, Mike Rogers, Sheila Melody, myself, Tim Edwards and the founder of InForm Fitness, Adam Zickerman. But our special guest joining us once again is Joanie Pimentel of the LA based all-female trio, No Small Children. Rocking chicks by night, school teachers by day. The main reason Joanie's joining us again is because she has lost over 118 pounds over the past two years in large part through her participation in the Power of 10. In this episode we'll revisit Joanie's amazing weight loss journey and of course we'll finally explain the title of this episode, Fat Loss and Face Melting. Oh, and one more thing, I have the great privilege of announcing a major development for Joanie's group, No Small Children. News that was received just a short time after the recording of this podcast. News that I know that after hearing this episode you'll want to grab your friends and family and head to the movies here in the summer of 2016. That's enough hints for right now. What do you say we rejoin the conversation with Adam, Mike, Sheila, myself and Joanie Pimentel? Here's part two of Fat Loss and Face Melting. You know, Joanie, one of our last few episodes was about fat loss. And it really ties into what we're doing today too because we're going to talk a little bit about your career as a musician, your career as a teacher and weight loss too but looking at your website nosmallchildren.com and I was trying to do a little research and learning a little bit about you before we had you in the program I love the very first line in the about section. It says, "Three teachers walk into a bar, onto the stage, plug their instruments in and then ... they melt your face." And [laughter] after watching all of you play through some of your videos you definitely perform some face melt-ers there. So, I love the way that all tied in perfectly. 1 13 Fat Loss and Face Melting Part 02 - Transcript Joanie: Adam: Joanie: Adam: Mike: Adam: Tim: Adam: Tim: Joanie: Adam: Tim: Joanie: Mike: Joanie: Mike: You know, I -- melting somebody's face is a common term used by punk rockers and metal guys. And, so, Tim you read on our website that we try to melt faces with our performance and that is true. But my face has literally been melted by doing this workout so I'm very grateful. Joanie, what do you consider your most face melting song? [laughs] You know, my most face melting song is the next one we're going to write, probably. I would say, it's the next one. Ah, as in like -- That's a great answer. [laughter] It's also a copout. [laughter] Alright. Okay, now we're going to challenge you from this point back -- It is a great answer but just give me one. Yeah. One you love to melt people's faces with. There's a lot of them. It's like being asked to pick your favorite kid. Well, you know, it's not going to be one of your ballads, right? So, come on. Narrow it down a little bit. One you love to do. Well, you know what, that's not necessarily true. That's not necessarily true. That's not necessarily true. I'm with her on that. Because, you know, most of my life I have been a soul singer. This is really the first project I've ever been involved in where I'm doing punky rock songs. To me the idea of melting your face is more about the intensity of your performance. And it has not so much to do with the tempo of the song but how you deliver it. And so there's been plenty times in my life when I'm singing soul music that I just pour everything I have into it in that moment. And that's for me what it means to melt someone's face, so -- It's an intensity thing, just like slow motion weight training. That's right. Just like our workout. I was thinking more like Motorhead type melt. Adam, honestly, I was thinking more about slow motion weight training which is very slow and very, very intense. Yes, it is. Yeah and it totally melts your face off. That's right. And your fat cells as well. I totally get what you're saying regarding how you can melt your face off being a very soulful singer. That's right. Well, and the proof to it is if you look up Joanie's version of “Hallelujah”. My gosh, my face was melted when I heard that. It was beautiful and really depicts your amazing range as an artist. Thank you so much. And actually that was recorded for my mother who has been -- I remember. Yes, who asked me one year in typical Italian mother way said, I don't want any presents this year. I just want you to record this song for me. I love it so much and will you please do it. I don't want any presents. So, I -- I wish my wife would say that. Yeah. [laughter] When I write her a poem or a song, she's like, is that it? That can't be it, is it? You can't just come in with just a poem. [laughs] No, but I've actually gotten a lot of positive feedback about that.     Tim: Joanie: It's gorgeous. It's one of my very favorite songs composed ever. I really love it but the song that comes to mind right off the top of my head is the very first track on our most recent album. It's called Big Steps. It's kind of synonymous with some of the changes that have happened for me over the past year which, you know, if you're going to do it, do it 100%. You know, I had to basically making and getting in control of my health a full time job. And, so, I went into it big. So, you know, if you get a chance to look up the lyrics of that song they're really powerful. And when I play that song I feel really powerful and Lisa sings vocals on that but, you know, I get to sing some backup vocals. I just feel really powerful when we play it. We actually, recently have been opening our set with that song. Joanie, were you concerned when you went on your weight loss mission that when you lost the weight that it would affect your voice? You know, that's a question I've received more than once. And that's kind of a misnomer. It doesn't actually happen with weight loss, any effect on the voice really. It used to be thought many years ago, it's kind of a throwback to a classical voice and I'm trained as a classical singer believe it or not but they used to believe that, you know, Opera singers had to be really hefty in order to project their sound effectively and that's actually not true. There's really no difference at all. If anything you could say it might help because in order to sing properly you have to use your diaphragmatic muscles in your belly and the better developed your diaphragmatic muscles are, the better it is for your voice. It was, like I said, it's kind of a throwback to a very old fashioned premise that has been pretty much disproven but -- so, the short answer is, no. I was not worried. [laughter] Well, that's a great concern. I'm sure there are a lot of singers that might be concerned about losing the weight that it would change their performance. So, I think it's a fantastic question. Thank you for answering that. Just to add to that, it's beneficial because the type of music that I do requires me to be very lively on stage and I am, have always been kind of lively on stage but now it's just a little easier to get around. You know, I can jump up and down and not worry that my clothing is going to split. [laughs] Or the stage is going to fall down. That's right. That's right Yeah. Hopefully -- thankfully that's never happened to me. Never had any stage collapses so. [laughter] Adam: Joanie:     Tim: And let's circle back, if you don't mind, back to the exercise and back to the Power of 10 and InForm Fitness because your story is a little bit different. Certainly your success is astounding. Joanie: Thank you. Tim: To have such amazing success and which I, seems to me, like a relatively short amount of time to lose that much weight but to do it in a nice, steady pace and a very healthy way to do it. But you worked out with Sheila at InForm Fitness for how long? Joanie: I believe we did about six months. Sheila, is that right, from beginning to end. Sheila: Yeah, I think it was at least that. Yeah. Tim: And you have a very interesting, busy schedule. You're a musician. You're on the road. So, it doesn't necessarily work out for you to workout at one facility because you're on the road. So, what's interesting, what one of the components that's interesting about your story is that you continue to practice this Power of 10 but not at an InForm Fitness facility. Joanie: That's correct. Yeah, so, Sheila and I had worked together for about six months and then at some point our schedules just despite our best effort just couldn't coordinate and it was primarily because of my schedule. Like you said, between travel and touring, things like that. So, at the very beginning when I attended the open house, I received the Power of 10, the book and read through it. I treat it like a bible honestly. And I've actually since loaned it to a number of other people saying, “Everything you need to know is in this book.” So, when Sheila and I could no longer meet together I was still really committed to the process and was so happy with the results I didn't want to give it up. So, I took the book, opened it up to the workouts, took a picture of each of the various workouts with my phone and then took my phone with me to the gym and did the exercises on my own using the pictures and you can choose how many times a week that you want to do the workout. And because I'm still in some active weight loss right now I choose to do it twice a week but in the beginning I was only doing it once a week. Now I do it twice a week.And I use an app on my phone where I can log in everything that I eat and all my exercise and it allows you to create your own exercises. Tim: What's the name of that app?     Joanie: I use MyFitnessPal. Tim: Mhm [affirmative]. Joanie: And the exercises you can enter them in and create your own. So, I actually created the exercises, Power of 10 workout 1, Power of 10 workout 2, workout 3, [inaudible 11:16] that so forth and so on so that when I log in all of my exercise, my physical activity, I just click a button and it updates it. So, I can always keep track of the last workout I did. So, when I go, you know, on Mondays and Thursdays I can see what I last did so I know which one to do next. And it has worked out really well. There's a couple people at the gym who have kind of watched me shrink over the last year and I know they're really curious and they really want to ask me because I am not doing the same thing that they're doing at all. You know, there'll be a person sitting next to me lifting really heavy, grunting and carrying on and you know they do fast and fast and in my mind I'm thinking slow, slow, slow. You know, go slow. And I actually one, one thousand, two and I count to ten and I do the same thing every time and I know they're very curious and I'm just waiting for the moment for somebody to ask me, “I'm just curious, what are you up to?” And then I'm going to evangelize Power of 10. There's no doubt about it. Tim: Hey, don't forget to stick around till the end of the podcast for a major announcement for Joanie and her bandmates in her group No Small Children. An announcement that will make you want to head to the movies here in the summer of 2016. Can't wait to share all of that with you. Right now I'm going to share with you a promo code that will save you 15% off your grocery bill. If you are here listening to this podcast, there is no doubt that you are dedicated to living a healthier lifestyle. It's not like this is a radio station and you're flipping around the dial looking for a good song. You're listening to this podcast to make some changes in your life and with your health just like our guest Joanie did to lose over 118 pounds. Let's start with your food. Thrivemarket.com is the place you'll find InForm Fitness friendly food, wholesome food at wholesale prices. It's just that simple. I have already done the research for you. Thanks to Adam's book I now know the right foods to eat, how much I should eat and I've lost several pounds of fat and replaced that weight with new muscle thanks to the Power of 10. I've researched the prices between the grocery store and Thrive Market along with the selection and the winner hands down is Thrive Market. You heard me talk about it over the last few episodes now it's time to check it out for yourself.     Visit www.thrivemarket.com to register for your 30-day free trial, place an order and if you're happy with the service and the products, join the community. At that point it's just an annual fee of $59.95 which you'll probably save in your first order. On top of that, email me directly at tim@inboundpodcast.com and I'll send you a promo code that will shave 15% off your first order. InForm Fitness and Thrive Market are on a mission to make healthy living easy and affordable for everyone. Speaking of healthy living, let's get back to the conversation with Joanie Pimentel who continues to fill us in on her mindset and strategies that helped her lose over 118 pounds. [“Can't Say No” plays] There's another taste of Joanie and the girls from No Small Children. If you need more than just a little taste check out their website nosmallchildren.com. There you can sample all of their music and even purchase all three of their albums. They also have several tour dates up there for you to check out. Some shows here in the Los Angeles area this summer and several dates back east throughout the month of August. So, if you're in the area stop on by, say hello to Joanie and tell her you heard her right here on the InForm Fitness podcast. Joanie, in order to lose over 118 pounds, you really had to make a serious commitment to this weight loss journey. What was the mindset you adopted to tackle this, what I'm sure must have felt like an impossible task? Even though the changes I've made have been small and incremental, I did have to change my mindset and that had to be -- that was the one dramatic thing where I basically decided I was going to make getting in control of my health a fulltime job. That was going to become my fulltime job and I had to be committed to it 100%. Now, that commitment may come in small little increments but my head really had to be in the right place for it. And then the other thing I wanted to mention, this is actually really important to me is that I have never been ashamed of being a fat person. Right. I felt beautiful before and I feel beautiful now. It honestly has absolutely nothing to do with the way that I looked although, I mean, I love the way that I look now but it was never about shame for me. I've never been ashamed of being a big person. It's 100% about I need to live a long time. That just wasn't going to happen if I stayed at that weight. I wrote that down earlier when you said you want to live a long time because it's something that I think about like all the time as well. Like I even, I always joke, I say, I plan on living to 140 years old and be spry and energetic and could do anything. Even though it sounds like a ridiculous joke it actually is something that's in my mind and speaking of music and rock 'n roll and you know, I recently saw, I saw Straight Outta Compton. Did you guys see that film? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's terrific. And the scene with Eazy-E when they tell him that he has AIDs and you know, it's right when he's about to get his band back together again and everything. And he has all these hopes and dreams and all of the sudden it kind of gets flushed, they're like, your T-cell count is like 14 and I was -- like, I watched that and I just thought to myself and I looked at my wife and I said, man, you got to stay healthy, man. You got to [inaudible 16:55] your dreams to do everything. It just made me think do whatever it takes to be healthy. I don't know, like you just brought it back to me that whole idea and it becomes visceral for my own personal life and, you know, I don't want to evangelize, I mean, we all have to figure out what we all want for ourselves but it's to hear you say that though, I think, we all want to be healthy so we can see our children and -- Adam what was your mantra again? Exercise you need so you can live the life you want. Exactly. Exactly. And Joanie, are you -- you are living the life you want. You're a teacher. You're influencing young lives and you're rocking all around the country. How has this change in your lifestyle and in your body, this has been only what, about two years or so, a year and a half, so you can notice the difference now. How you feel, how you look, is there a confidence thing? Tell me the difference between before Power of 10 and now. I would preface this by saying even at my biggest I was not ashamed of being heavy. I felt beautiful then and I feel beautiful now. There are some practical things though that come with losing that much weight that have improved the quality of my life. I can fit airplane seats way easier now and I love to travel and I have to travel quite a bit. So, that's been a really big change. Buying clothes is a little more fun because there's more fun things for people my size. Those are more superficial things but in all honesty, the world is designed for people who are not as big as I was. So, I feel like I fit into the world around me a little better. I would also say that I feel very strong. That I don't worry about something getting hurt if I pick it up a certain way. And as I get older, I will admit that is something that's important to me. I want to protect my body and having lean muscle mass is really the best way for me to do that. And I said this before, I want to live a long time but I also want the quality of that life to be as good as possible and I know that having a fit and strong body for me anyway is the best way for me to achieve that. I've recently actually come across a number of studies that are making really kind of remarkable connections between the health benefits -- between exercising and reduced risk of some serious diseases, in particular cancer. I was just -- I think, Sheila, I shared those with you and how important it is not only for your heart and for your body but also to reduce the health risks that threaten so many of us as we get to be older. When you talk about benefits to cancer, you know, we're seeing the actual proteins, these myokines that we talked about in another episode. I mean, we're seeing properties of these myokines that actually have cancer-fighting properties. So, we're actually starting to learn the actual mechanisms involved in how high-intensity exercise actually helps fight cancer among other things. It's fascinating. It is fascinating and something that drives me very much is evidence-based action. Like, if I'm going to pour myself into something, I have to really believe it and I can't really believe it unless there is evidence of its effectiveness and it's -- that's something that's followed me pretty much throughout my whole life. Not just about health and fitness but about anything. If I'm going to really buy into something, it has to be believable and I had mentioned that earlier, this system makes sense to me. It's believable. And as somebody who has a cancer history, that connection between exercise and reducing cancer risk just appeals to me a great deal. And just add that to the enormous list of reasons why it's good for you to do it. What was the thing that made -- what was the point where you actually believed it. Because most people from our experience when the first time they hear a 30- minute workout once a week, a lot of people I find to be -- thing is, people believing that oh my God, you can't -- obviously that doesn't work 20 minutes, 30 minutes, once a week or twice a week. When was it that you actually believed it? It was about three weeks after I started working with Sheila. And [laughs] in the interest of full disclosure, I met with Sheila because she's my friend and I felt like I -- you know, I didn't want to hurt her feelings and, you know, but honestly -- So, you didn't buy it at first when she told you.     Not at first. And, you know, she made a good sell but at first I didn't but after the first workout I was like, I was spent when I walked out of there. That's honestly -- that's a first thing. I was convinced it was going to be a workout because my legs were like jelly when I walked out of there that first time to go into my car and I think I texted you Sheila right after that and said, “Oh, my God.” [laughs] Yeah. It was -- I felt really like it was definitely strenuous and then about three weeks later it kind of happened of the sudden where I became very aware that I was actually stronger, physically stronger. And I think I was picking up a piece of equipment, going into a show it was an amplifier. And Lisa plays through this triple rectifier which for non-musicians it is a very heavy piece of equipment and we don't have roadies right now, I'm hoping in the near future that will come but for now we move all of our own gear. I'll be a roadie. I'll be a roadie. Yeah. [Laughs] You got it. you got it. But at the time I was picking up this amplifier and moving it on stage and I know the amplifier didn't get any lighter. So, it had to have been me and that was kind of the moment where I realized that it was really working. And the next week when I came in to talk to Sheila I was very excited to share that with her and told her that it's working. It's working. And then that was really the first time in my life that I had stuck with an exercise routine that long. And secondly that it produced results that were very noticeable to me. In a relatively short period of time. I mean, that was three weeks. Yeah. You know, I don't even know, Sheila, do you have the 6, 12, 24 pack? Is that what you sell in LA? Yeah. That's what we do sell. Mhm [affirmative]. Yeah. That's what we're doing in New York, also. And Adam and I have talked about this a long time ago about like, why 6, why 12, why 24? And it seems like from our experience, you usually make that turn around somewhere in the first, around six weeks. Like where you're like, oh my God, I really am feeling stronger right now and it's only because of this once a week work out and it makes sense that you had a hard workout after your first workout but, you know, muscle takes a little bit of time to actually adapt.     And then you get acclimated to it pretty quickly, right. Like your body starts to go, okay. You get used to having that little feeling after your workout but you recover quicker. It doesn't take me down like it did in those first few workouts, you know. Yes. Yeah, and I think it was also I knew what to expect after that too. So, and you know, in the very beginning I had to actually experience it in order to believe it, so -- I know. I remember sitting there in the office with you and you were just like, I hate exercising. I just have to be honest with you, Sheila. I hate it. And I said, well, good. You're going to love this. And you're like, well, you seem very confident about that and I'm like, I am. [laughter] You did. It's also what's on the 48 hours, when we were on 48 hours Barbara Walters said that too. She goes, first thing she said was, I hate exercise. That's true. That's true. And you know what, the other thing that really appealed to me about it was that when you're sitting down at the equipment the main focus first is always to make sure that you're doing it safely. So, nothing -- you don't hurt yourself. But secondly, you know, all the time at gyms you see trainers working with their clients and they're like come on, you can do it, you know, one more, push it, der de der [aggressive]. You know, and it's loud and it's you know in their face and come on and this and that and Sheila's like, okay Joanie. Just give me one more. Good, that's [gentle] -- and it was -- but it was -- there was a certain amount of quiet focus that made it easier for me to concentrate on exactly what I was doing. Not just to muscle through something but to really focus on the exercise so that I could do it precisely and -- That's a great point. As somebody who is surrounded by noise and activity all day and all night, to have my focus become so much more precise, that really helped a lot. And I enjoyed the kind of quiet pace of it. That's important for performance [inaudible 26:20] we know and what's funny is just this past week or sorry maybe last Thursday but new client who said, who literally said, it's amazing how your voice is so calm and so peaceful and so wretched. [laughter] I was like, thank you. That's great. So, she's lost close to 120 pounds. She's a cancer survivor. She's a teacher by day and a musician by night and a member of the LA based band, No Small Children. Joanie Pimentel, you're an amazing woman. You really are. Thank you. Thank you so much. Yes. I appreciate that. So, now that everybody's had a chance to get to know you through the podcast, let's let our listeners get to know you through your music. So, if you tell us about the albums. How they can find your website and where about you'll be touring in the summer and fall of 2016. Absolutely. So, we actually have three albums. We have two full length albums and an EP. The first one is Dear You. That's our EP and then Trophy Wife is the second one and our most recent release was is called Hold Tight I'm Flying. All of our music is available online, iTunes, CD Baby, Bandcamp. But if you go to our website which is nosmallchildren.com, you can see links to all of our videos, all of our music. You can buy merchandise, all of those things and learn also about our performance dates, tour dates, things like that. And we're super active on social media. Please like us on Facebook. [laughter] We are also going to be on tour on the east coast and in the Midwest for the entire month of August or most of the month of August. So, like I said, if you go to our website, all those dates are up there so we will -- and we post regularly. So, if people want to come out and see us, we'd love to see them. We'll certainly put the links to your website and tour dates and everything else up on the show notes here. And so if you're listening in the Midwest or you're here in Los Angeles, go out, see Joanie and walk up and say, hey, I heard you on the podcast. And become a fan and give them a like on Facebook for sure as well. Joanie, thank you again for joining us. What a treat it's been to meet you via Skype. I can't wait to meet you in person. Thank you so much. I appreciate you having me. And there you have it. It's fat loss and face melting here on the InForm Fitness podcast. Now, as I mentioned at the top of the show, the ladies in No Small Children received some awesome news shortly after the recording of this episode. What's the first thing you think about when someone says, "Who you gonna call?"     Go ahead. Say it out loud, unless you're at the gym or walking the dog or something then you might get some weird looks but, who you gonna call? Ghostbusters. Well, Joanie and her cohorts in No Small Children have been asked by the folks at Sony Pictures to perform the classic Ray Parker Jr's song over the closing credits and bloopers in the July 2016 Sony Pictures remake of the 80's classic, Ghostbusters. Isn't that cool? So, head out to the theater. See Ghostbusters and stick around for the credits and listen to Joanie and the girls in No Small Children. Hey, by the way, we have a special bonus episode coming up next week. If you've listened to the podcast with any regularity you know that all the members of the podcast team here are spread out all over the country. Sheila is in Toluca Lake. I am also here in the Los Angeles area at a different location. And then we hear from Mike and Adam across the country in New York City. Well, Adam Zickerman visited the InForm Fitness Toluca Lake location near Burbank in June of 2016 and we filmed a ton of videos that will be released shortly and you can see those at informfitness.com. Well, during Adam's visit here in LA, Joanie stopped by InForm Fitness, not only to chat with Adam on film but Adam pulled out his guitar and Joanie lent us her voice and we captured it all on video. We'll have the audio for you InForm Nation right here on the podcast. So, make sure you come on back and give it a listen. You'll be glad you did. If you have a question or a comment for Adam, Mike or Sheila, we sure would love to hear from you. Shoot us an email or record a voice memo on your phone and send it to podcast@informfitness.com. Or you can even give us a call and leave a message at 888-983-5020, Ext. 3. That's 888-983-5020, Ext. 3. All feedback is welcome. And I'm going to ask you to do one more thing before we let you go, if you like the show and want to hear more of them, please subscribe to the podcast right here in iTunes or wherever you might be enjoying your podcast. Of course it's absolutely free to subscribe and we would love it if you left us a review. Thanks again for joining us InForm Nation. We sure do appreciate you listening right here on the InForm Fitness podcast. For Adam Zickerman, Mike Rogers and Sheila Melody, I'm Tim Edwards with the Inbound Podcasting Network. SHOW NOTES Joanie singing Hallelujah on YouTube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g48SdeITejE Two app links for Apple and android. The app mentioned was MyFitnessPal. 1. https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/calorie-counter-diet-tracker/id341232718?mt=8 2. https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.myfitnesspal.android&hl=en    

InForm Nation member Joanie Pimentel, from the Los Angeles based rock band No Small Children, joins the Inform Fitness Podcast here in Episode 12.   Joanie talks about her 2-year weight loss journey with Adam Zickerman's Power of 10 that resulted in her losing 118 pounds!   For more information regarding No Small Children's music and tour schedule visit www.NoSmallChildren.com To find an Inform Fitness location nearest you visit www.InformFitness.com If you'd like to ask Adam, Mike or Sheila a question or have a comment regarding the Power of 10. Send us an email or record a voice memo on your phone and send it to podcast@informfitness.com.  Join Inform Nation and call the show with a comment or question.  The number is 888-983-5020, Ext. 3.  To purchase Adam's book, Power of 10: The Once-a-Week Slow Motion Fitness Revolution click this link to visit Amazon:  https://www.amazon.com/Power-Once-Week-Revolution-Harperresource/dp/006000889X/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1485469022&sr=1-1&keywords=the+power+of+10+book If you would like to produce a podcast of your own just like The Inform Fitness Podcast, please email Tim Edwards at tim@InBoundPodcasting.com The transcription to this episode is below: 12 Fat Loss & Face Melting Part 1 - Transcript Intro: You're listening to the InForm Fitness podcast, 20 minutes with New York Times, best-selling author, Adam Zickerman and friends. Brought to you by InForm Fitness, life-changing personal training with several locations across the US. Reboot your metabolism and experience the revolutionary Power of 10, the high intensity, slow motion, strength training system that's so effective, you'd get a week's worth of exercise in just one 20-minute session, which by no coincidence is about the length of this podcast. So, get ready InForm Nation, your 20 minutes of high-intensity strength training information begins in 3, 2, 1. What's up InForm Nation? Thanks again for joining us here on a very special addition of the InForm Fitness podcast, 20 minutes with Adam Zickerman and friends. Now, why is it so special? Well, today, we have added a very talented guest to Adam's group of friends to discuss high-intensity weight training, weight loss and face melting. And we'll explain that in a minute. But first, if you are joining us for the very first time, let's roll around the room and introduce the team. I'm Tim Edwards from the Inbound Podcasting Network here in Los Angeles. And approximately 2800 miles from our LA studio is Mike Rogers and the founder of InForm Fitness, Adam Zickerman there in Manhattan. Now, back over here on the left coast is Sheila Melody. And Sheila, I'm going to go ahead and let you introduce our very special guest today. I am so excited to have this very special guest on our show today. She is not only gorgeous and super talented but she is just an amazing person and she has a really, really inspirational story to tell us. She's in an incredible band called No Small Children. She's also a music teacher. Please welcome Joanie Pimentel. [applause] Joanie. Hello. Hello. Hello. Thanks for joining us Joanie. Unfortunately, what you're hearing at this very moment are my dogs going crazy. [laughter] I apologize. How many dogs do you have, Joanie before we dive into the content here? I have two small dogs that hopefully my husband can wrangle then before they cause too many problems. I apologize. We're glad to have your dogs on the podcast right there along with us. Yeah. It's -- 12 Fat Loss & Face Melting Part 1 - Transcript   That was a great introduction. Indeed. Yeah. It's a little like an ice pick in my ear but -- Joanie, before we go into the incredible success you've had with the Power of 10, please just give us a little rundown on what you do not only onstage but offstage. I think it's a terrific story. Thank you so much. And first of all Sheila, thank you for that -- your kind words and that awesome introduction and right back at you. So, I, as Sheila mentioned, I am a professional musician. My primary instrument is voice, but I am also instrumentalist and during the day I am a music teacher and in fact, the band that I play in all three of us are teachers at the same school. So, we can get into that more a little later. Well, I find that interesting because all of you are teachers yet the name of your band is No Small Children. Is this because you've had your fill throughout the day and you need to just kind of get away from the kids and get up on stage and rock out a little bit? You know, there's a number of ways to interoperate that. The first being that myself and my two band mates were all female and it first came about as a kind of protest to this expectation that is made of women to somehow that we have to have kids and we have to do this and that a lot of our identity is wrapped up in being a parent and finding a way to celebrate the life of a woman outside of her role as a mother. So, that's the first part of it. Then the other part is in fact, you know, what we do during the day is all about kids but a lot of our music is not for children so -- [laughter] Oh, I can attest to that. Well, okay, so, in a little preparation for today's show I did go through and I'm so thankful to have discovered you and your music and your group thanks to Sheila introducing you to the team here. What fun music first of all. It's very fun and it's terrific but it's also quite funny. There were a couple of songs that I really -- and just the titles alone. One of them was FU in Any Language. Am I correct with that? Yeah. Yeah. That's a song about world peace.     [laughs] Oh, of course it is. [laughs] I got confused on the chorus track, right? That's right. Sheila [crosstalk 04:33] -- Did everybody hear that? Sheila say that again for those that didn't quite catch that. I was in the FU chorus, had to sing it. [laughter] [FU in Any Language plays] Well, there's our first little sample of some music from our guest, Joanie Pimentel's group, No Small Children. If you listen closely you can hear Sheila singing backing vocals. Joanie, how did you and Sheila become acquainted? My sister Lisa and Sheila are friends for many years. And Lisa's actually in the band with me. She is the lead singer and the guitar player. And she introduced me to Sheila and that's how I became familiar with InForm Fitness. She said, just come to the open house. Just come to the open house. And I said, okay, but Sheila I have to tell you this. I hate working out. I mean I hate it. I hate it with a burning passion. I really do. She said, trust me. Trust me. Just come and do the open house. I said, alright, okay I'll go. So, I did and I listened to the information about the workout and she quite honestly talked me into it. She made some really, really compelling points to me about the way that the workout is done. And I really loved that it looked super safe because as a musician, it is very important to me that my arms are not hurt. Right. That I can stand up on stage. That I can move heavy gear and if I'm hurt, I can't do any of those things. And that was literally the first thing that she said to me is that this is very, very safe. So, I said, alright. And then the other thing and this is how she really hooked me was that it only takes a very short amount of time. I said, alright. I'll give a try. So, I came in and I did my first session and she completely kicked my butt and I remember a couple of times saying to her, Sheila, I hate you. I love you. I hate you. I love you and then other times saying, Sheila, why do you hate me? [laughs] But truthfully it worked very quickly. I honestly, within probably about three weeks I really noticed a difference and at one point I think it, probably, Sheila and you can correct me if I'm wrong, it's probably about three months in, I honestly felt like I was physically stronger maybe than I have ever been in my life. Well, yeah. I remember you telling me because you also had the thyroid cancer. Yeah. And so part of that is you get very week when you're taking the medication and when you lose your strength is when you realize, oh my gosh, how important your strength is. By this you started to realize, oh my gosh, this is a great way that I can, you know, find my strength and really get stronger safely and without taking up too much of my valuable time so -- Yes. I remember because you were doing gigs and having to lift gear and things like that and you were like, it's so much easier for me now. [laughs] Mhm [affirmative]. That's true and actually you brought me back to the original reason that brought me to this process. At the time when I first came to you Sheila I was close to my largest size ever and just to kind of give a little information in the past year I've lost 118 pounds. Holy smokes. Wow. Congratulations. Oh my gosh. Yeah and -- yes. And it was kind of serendipity that Sheila introduced this system to me when she did because as she had mentioned, I had been treated for thyroid cancer. First of all, that really spooked me. I'm very grateful that I've been, you know, haven't had any issues with it since. It is certainly one of the more treatable forms of cancer but anytime you hear that word it is terrifying. And the treatment made me very, very weak and being physically strong is something that has always been an important part of my identity that being able to lift heavy things and move heavy things and maybe even being stronger than the average woman, I guess, I will admit that. That something that has, like I said, was a big part of my identity and when I went through that treatment it really shook me. It really disturbed me because I felt like I wasn't myself. So, it kind of set me on a trajectory because I want to live a really long time and when something like that happens to you it has a way of motivating you in a way that other things can't. So, right and I think that this particular system, why it has worked for me is because it's easier to execute. It makes sense to me. It's short. It's intense. And I can be done with it and for somebody like me it means that I'm going to comply. My mantra for the past year has been, the solution to obesity is really simple, it's just really hard to execute. And anything that I can incorporate into my life that makes it easier to execute, that's what I'm going to do. And literally this is the one and only thing any fitness system that I've ever tried in my life that A, I can stick with, and B, I have results and C, it makes sense to me.     Really enjoying getting to know Joanie Pimentel on the podcast today. And we're going to learn more about her weight loss strategy that led her to shedding about 118 pounds. And coming up on the back half of the show Joanie will be talking about pillar number two in the Power of 10, nutrition. You can't lose the weight you want to lose with exercise alone. And our friends at Thrive Market make it easy to establish new habits with wholesome foods at wholesale prices whatever your lifestyle. Be it Paleo, gluten free, vegan or maybe you just want to eat cleaner, you'll find what you're looking for at thrivemarket.com. You'll also find great prices on all your purchases. Compare them for yourself to your local grocery store. We've been using several Thrive Market products at our house for the last few months and we love it. Give it a shot. Visit thrivemarket.com to register for free. Once you do your 30- day free trial begins. If you love it, join the Thrive Market community. It's only $59.95 and often times you'll make that investment back within your first visit from all the savings. Tell you what, I'll add an additional 15% off your first order if you email me directly at tim@inboundpodcast.com. I'll respond with a promo code that will slice an additional 15% off your order. Thrive Market is on a mission to make healthy living easy and affordable for everyone. [KMA plays] You're listening to No Small Children featuring our guest Joanie Pimentel here on the InForm Fitness podcast. Joanie, what are you ladies working on now? So, we have just released our third album and actually one of the tracks from the previous album we recorded a video for. It's called Might Get Up Slow, but I Get Up. And a segment of our video we actually shot it at InForm Fitness. You can see the logo right behind us. It was an homage to an 80s throwback video kind of, that segment. It was really fun. And Sheila was happy enough -- we were happy that Sheila agreed to let us do it there. You'll see me pumping iron there. They were on the equipment but they were also did their little dance which was, you know, it was awesome. You have to see the video. And we'll put a link to that on the podcast page. So, let's sample a little bit of that song. That song was called what again Joanie? I Might Get Up Slow but I Get Up. [I Might Get Up Slow but I Get Up plays]     This is us at InForm Fitness right here. There it is. By the way I made those [inaudible 13:07]. Did you? [laughter] Is that a trombone or a tuba? That is trombone. Trombone. Cool. Nice and the alarm clock getting her up but getting her up slow for sure. That's right. Very cool. No Small Children. Joanie, that's fantastic. Wow. Thank you so much. And not only was the music terrific but the video was great and like Sheila said, we're going to put the link to the video in our show notes as well but I love the fact that you're there at InForm Fitness location Toluca Lake in your -- what, your Jane Fonda clothes, it looks like, right? [laughter] That's right. Right. Our matching Jane Fonda outfits. Joanie you look very different now from how you looking in the video. How long ago did you film that? That was filmed, I want to say about two years ago. Two years ago. You look like a different person. It was probably about six months after that, that I really things started to kick into high gear and -- What was it that made you -- what was the catalyst that made you say, alright, now, I'm going to go ahead and make this change and change my lifestyle and adopt the Power of 10 into your life? What was the one moment that made you decide I'm going to make a turn? I wish I could say it was like an ‘aha' moment where you know the sky's opened and I just figured it out. But it was actually more gradual than that. I think sometimes when you're really, really big, when you -- the bigger you are the more impossible it seems to reach your goal. It's like an insurmountable task and there was a time in my life where I felt like I was being asked to move a mountain with a spoon. And what I've realized is that it's more about chipping away at the mountain. The mountain will move. Even if you only chip at it with a spoon. But it will move eventually. So, I think it started with, A, I had to make the decision that I was going to do something, like I said before, the having being treated for thyroid cancer, that was the first thing. And then it took me a little while to figure out how I was going to go about doing it and when I moved to Los Angeles from Boston -- I'm originally from the Boston area. I couldn't tell really. No, I'm kidding. [laughter] You should hear me with a couple drinks in me. [Inaudible 15:34] I sound like you know something you see in the movies but -- [Inaudible 15:40] from Brooklyn. [Inaudible 15:42] you should ask my mother or my father about that. They'll tell you. Yeah. There you go. There it is. There it was. It's -- going to go to Dunkin' Donuts and get a coffee. Joanie, when did you start -- when did you make the decision to do -- make nutritional changes? Was it simultaneous with starting Power of 10? Was it shortly before? Was it after the cancer treatment? It was -- that's a great question and I will say that, you know, I didn't get to be 278 pounds, yes, that's how big I was, 278 pounds because I exercised too little. I got to be that size because I ate way too much and too much of the wrong thing. So, the workout actually came first and then the eating was the thing that it kind of came in stages. The changes came in stages and once I got -- I really buckled  down and changed how I ate, that's when the weight loss really became rapid. You know, the weight loss for me has been probably 70% about the food and 30% about the exercise. I do -- it's the only weight training that I do and -- Don't ask her to take a yoga class. [laughs] Oh, man. You know, cheers to anyone who loves yoga but, man, do I hate it. She hates it. Yeah. And it's not -- and everyone I -- and of course I'm in LA so everybody wants to sing the praises of yoga and like I said, everybody that I know that's crazy into it, they're in great shape but it is just not for me at all. It's a classic contrarian punk rock attitude. [Inaudible 17:26]. [laughter] Yes, it is. Why do you hate it? You know, I think it's maybe the kind of -- Because everybody else in LA is doing it. No. You know what and I tried it when I lived in the Boston area too. It's more about I don't have -- You said to me when we were -- Patience for it. I don't -- Yeah. When we were talking about it at first when you said I hate exercise and I hate yoga and I hate this and I hate that. I don't like group classes and don't ask me how I feel. [laughs] Right. Exercise to me is something I just need to get it over with. You know, it's like to me what I've learned is that it's like going to the dentist. Right, I don't really like going to the dentist but I love having teeth. [laughter] So, exercise is the same way. I don't particularly enjoy working out but I love being strong. I love not worrying about being hurt. I love that things don't ache when I wake up in the morning. Joanie, I like that you're very much like, hey, you know, I don't like yoga, everybody else could do yoga. It's like live and let live type of thing. And you know what I've learned is that there's so many different personality types that we train that they're out there that have the same goals or same, even situations that Joanie has but they just don't have the same personality type and there's a different approach to how that goes. I mean, I guess one of the things I would want to know, you know, like I -- your exercise stories is the classic one we hear with anybody who gets results. It's amazing. Yes. What I -- is there anything that you would give as advice to people who are like you or maybe even not like you personality wise for motivation for the nutrition part because that seems to be always something that, you know, we hit and miss with all the time. And often times I think it comes down to the, you know, when someone's ready to make a certain commitment that it's usually it's never an easy thing to do. I think if anybody thinks that there's an expectation that's an easy thing to lose five pounds, ten pounds, twenty pounds, a hundred pounds. It's a challenge always. And my question is, do you have any advice for people out there? Like, what's the starting point for some real motivation? Just don't do nothing. You know, start there and I know for me that it is more dangerous for me to look at eating like every little bad decision I made it's all is lost. You know, it's like say, you know, I decide I'm going to change how I eat if I in the past when I had like one little thing that's not on my diet. I would just throw my hands up and say you know forget it. All is lost. and then I'd just go off the rails and eat whatever I wanted but that in fact is more dangerous to my long-term success than anything that I'm going to put in my mouth. That every moment is a new moment. That, you know, don't wait for the perfect time to start it. That the perfect moment is the next one whatever it is. And then I would also recommend maybe starting off small. You know, like I said, when I know for me because I was really big that losing that much weight just seemed like almost impossible like an insurmountable task. So, I have to set small achievable goals for myself. I say okay. So, my goal was not to lose 118 pounds. My first goal was to lose five pounds and then after that to lose another five and then another ten and I might say my first, another goal would be I want to be able to do a certain amount of weight that I'm going to lift or I want to be able to drink a certain amount of water every day or to stay -- You'd set like short term targets, right. Yes.     Right. Right. Make it because smaller achievable goals because those little things really do add up -- And when you started Joanie if you can if you can go back to the beginning of this what were some of the nutritional changes you actually made? Well, at first -- well, let me tell you where I am right now. Mhm [affirmative]. What I do right now. And then I can break it down more incrementally. So, as of right now I don't drink soda. I stay away from caffeine. I try to eat only whole foods. You know no prepared or you know, processed food. My diet is primarily made up of vegetables and protein and fruits. I really don't eat a lot of carbohydrates but I won't say that I never do. I just don't eat refined carbohydrates. I drink a minimum of 70-100 fluid ounces of water every day. I don't eat artificial sugars. And what else -- yeah. That's primarily where I'm at right now. Wow. It's like a -- it's a pretty large leap though for somebody who -- It's a huge leap. Ate anything they wanted. So, did you just start that way and just cut everything off cold turkey or was it kind of gradual? How did you start? I would did it incrementally. My largest vice has always been volume. So, I would start of saying okay, I'm going to cut out soda. I'm going to cut out bread. Or I'm going to cut out pasta or I'm going to cut any of those things and I was never really a big junk food junkie but I just ate a lot of everything. So, most of what I eat right now, I mean, I don't weigh and measure every single thing that I eat. I did for a while but now I can kind of eyeball it and know how much is a cup or things like that. But I started off with small things and then worked my way up. Well, sounds like a perfect plan. Just get started. Start with the small things and work your way up. Well we're not done with Joanie. This was part one of our episode, Face Melting and Fat Loss. We talked a lot about the fat loss today but nothing on the face melting. That's coming up in next week's episode. The name of the podcast is 20 minutes with Adam Zickerman and friends and we have surpassed the 20-minute mark in the show which means if you began your 20-minute slow motion high-intensity workout at the beginning of the show, you'd be done by now and you wouldn't need to do it again until next week. How about that? Sound too good to be true? Well, just listen to Joanie's story and that of countless others who have come through the doors of all eight InForm Fitness locations. It just works. Visit informfitness.com for a location nearest you. If there isn't one close by, purchase Adam's book, Power of 10: The Once-a-Week Slow Motion High-Intensity Fitness Revolution just like Joanie did. And follow the simple instructions. It worked for her and it will work for you. Click on the link in show notes and it will send you right to Adam's book in Amazon. Also, don't forget to subscribe to the podcast right here in iTunes so that you don't miss a single episode and we have a lot of exciting and educational topics on the horizon. It really will help ensure the success of this podcast. And if you do subscribe we would greatly appreciate it. Thanks again for listening to the InForm Fitness podcast. For Adam, Mike, Sheila and Joanie, I'm Tim Edwards with the Inbound Podcasting Network. SHOW NOTES: Here is another link for your show notes. This is a link to the YouTube video that takes place in InForm Fitness. The song title is I Might Get Up Slow, But I Get Up. https://youtu.be/ VFmNbfU75Gs        

The number of women clients who express their fear of “bulking up” from doing strength training at Inform Fitness grows every day. Almost all the people who train at an Inform Fitness locations want to ‘tone up' and create “long and lean” muscles. The fact is most women won't “bulk up” from weight lifting. After listening to Episode 10 of the Inform Fitness Podcast visit Adam's blog for even more information to debunk the myth that women will 'bulk up" from weight training: https://informfitness.com/will-women-bulk-up-from-weight-training/ To find an Inform Fitness location nearest you visit www.InformFitness.com If you'd like to ask Adam, Mike or Sheila a question or have a comment regarding the Power of 10, send us an email or record a voice memo on your phone and send it to podcast@informfitness.com.  Join Inform Nation and call the show with a comment or question.  The number is 888-983-5020, Ext. 3.  To purchase Adam's book, Power of 10: The Once-a-Week Slow Motion Fitness Revolution click this link to visit Amazon:  https://www.amazon.com/Power-Once-Week-Revolution-Harperresource/dp/006000889X/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1485469022&sr=1-1&keywords=the+power+of+10+book If you would like to produce a podcast of your own just like The Inform Fitness Podcast, please email Tim Edwards at tim@InBoundPodcasting.com The transcription to this episode is below: 11 Will Women Bulk Up with the Power of 10 - Transcript Intro: You're listening to the InForm Fitness podcast, 20 minutes with New York Times, best-selling author, Adam Zickerman and friends. Brought to you by InForm Fitness, life-changing personal training with several locations across the US. Reboot your metabolism and experience the revolutionary Power of 10, the high intensity, slow motion, strength training system that's so effective, you'd get a week's worth of exercise in just one 20-minute session, which by no coincidence is about the length of this podcast. So, get ready InForm Nation, your 20 minutes of high-intensity strength training information begins in 3, 2, 1. Alright. Welcome back InForm Nation. Thanks again for joining us here on the InForm Fitness podcast, 20 minutes with Adam Zickerman and friends. I'm Tim Edwards with the Inbound Podcasting Network joined as always by Sheila Melody with the InForm Fitness Toluca Lake location here in Southern California with me. And across the country we have Mike Rogers from the Manhattan location and Adam Zickerman, the founder of InForm Fitness. This podcast is designed, created and produced to help you super-charge your metabolism and to increase cardiovascular endurance which will make you leaner and stronger. Just ask one of our founding members of InForm Nation, Susanne who feels that she's discovered the fountain of youth within the walls of the Toluca Lake InForm Fitness location. I'm in my early 60s and the workouts have made me feel a whole lot, like, younger. I've been coming here for a few months and I can already see the results. Not just in having more energy but I can see the results in muscle tone. Other people are like, “Wow, you look great.” And that obviously makes you feel good so you keep coming back but I can see it when I look in the mirror. I can see the muscle tone and that's one thing I wanted to get from this workout was not only to feel more healthy and more energetic, just to look better. I'm glad that she's looking better and aesthetics is obviously a very important thing to people but what really resonated with me was when she said she felt younger. And then went on to say that she felt stronger, improved endurance, more energy I think she used the word, energy. And that is markers of youth. In part of Susanne's interview that you'll see in later videos that we produced for InForm Fitness, she does mention the fact that she did want to work out. She did want muscle tone but she did not want to get that bulky buffed look. Is that something that you hear from a lot of your female clients when they come in for an intake? Are they concerned about bulking up? Every single one of them. [laughter] Really? Really?   Yeah. Exactly. I was going to say the same thing. Almost. Almost every single one. Unless they already have, you know, a lot of experience working out. Then they don't really ask that question but most women think that they're going to, if they're building muscle, they're going to get bigger, you know, and it's just not true. When a female tells me they're afraid to bulk up, I say, you should want to bulk up. But I don't want to bulk up, I said, you do want to bulk up. Says, but I really don't want to bulk up. No, you do want to bulk up. [laughter] We go back and forth and right before she's about to walk out of my office I finally come clean with her and I say look [laughs] you know, listen, you know, you have such little potential of getting bulky the way you're afraid of being bulky. But the reason I say you do want to bulk up because every muscle you do put on your frame is just going to be a huge benefit to you and it's not going to look bad and you really need it. So, let's hope that this will be too much for you where you bulk up so much that you don't even like all your muscles. That's a good prompt to have. We can just work out less at that point but -- Very hard to achieve. Especially for a woman. Yeah. It's like if you're going to be a bodybuilder and -- It's hard for guys for crying out loud. Yeah. It's hard for guys too. Crying out loud. Oh my gosh. I'm one of those guys. [laughter] It's one thing that I want to make clear too is just they say, “Oh, I want to be toned.” Well-toned is muscle. You know, when you're toning up that's what you're doing. You're building your muscle. So, what's the difference between toning and body building? Genetics. That's the difference. Hm [contemplative].     I mean the reason those women look the way they do is they have multiple genetic cards not just one genetic card but a combination of a bunch of genetic cards that just happen to go in that direction. It's rare. That's why it's so rare because that's like a royal flush of genetics as opposed to a straight or three of a kind. You know, it's not that hard to get three of a kind but to get the kind of genetic combination like these women have, it's like a royal flush. So many different factors have to be pointed in that direction on a genetic level. The way your body stores fat, the way your body builds muscle, the tendon lengths of your muscles, the muscle belly sizes. The list actually goes on and on. Your levels of other kinds of hormones. There's also a lot of supplement -- in body building and especially the competitive body building there's a lot of supplementation and a lot of hormone supplementation. And it's actually very hard to do that -- True. Naturally for a lot of the people who are involved in that. Well, yes and no. Yes, absolutely the steroids helped but there are a lot of natural body builder competitions and those people that win those competitions or even have the chutzpah to enter those competitions are still already blessed even without the drugs and they are much different from your average joe. Yeah. It's a genetic predisposition. Certainly. Yeah. It's like the question -- And we talk about genetics, it's also, you know, how they react to the way you eat. And we all say like, oh it's diet. It's diet. It's mostly diet. Well a lot of it is diet for them but even for them when they go on a low carb diet it works beautifully for them whereas some people that go on a low carb diet, which is supposed to work for everybody, and I say low carb loosely because I don't want to get into the whole, you know, philosophies of fat loss but, you know, the paleo type of diet has been shown to really work well for a lot of people. You know, it doesn't work well for everybody and it works particularly well for body builders for example. I mean, it's just they have all the genetic cards including how they metabolize glucose and sugar and all that stuff.     Tim: Well what about -- are the body builders are they working out more than once a week and perhaps rising injury by -- then that's how they're bulking up is because they're lifting three times a week or five times a week. Adam: No. Not necessarily. They could actually be inhibiting some of their progress. But again, those kind of guys, they just have to look at a weight and start getting bigger. I mean, it almost doesn't matter what they do. As long as they do something they're going to get big and they are getting hurt if by overtraining. A lot of them are getting hurt overtraining and they necessarily have to do that and that's -- I'm glad you brought that up because I'm interviewing tomorrow, a person that's going to be on one of our future podcasts, a fitness model who is essentially a body builder. He has entered some competitions but he's really on the cover of a lot of fitness magazines that you see without their shirts on and completely ripped and huge. And he's going to be talking about how he just does this type of workout and that the idea that bodybuilders have some kind of magical or special workout is a fallacy. And he's going to say I look the way I look not because I work out more or better. I look the way I look because I have these type of genetics. Tim: Alright. Certainly looking forward to hear that interview which will appear in future podcasts here at the InForm Fitness podcast, 20 minutes with Adam Zickerman. Speaking of which we're pretty close to that 20-minute mark. Any more thoughts that you'd like to add? Sheila, perhaps, being the lone female on the show [laughs] in terms of bulking up. Sheila: I just wanted to say, you know, I get this all the time obviously but one of the questions that we discuss in the certification Adam has on his questionnaire when we're practicing is, you know, what do you do when a client says, “I want to get Michelle Obama arms.” [laughter] And you're like well, that, those are her arms, you can't get her arms. You're going to get the best version of your arms because everybody's muscles are shaped differently and everybody, you know, my arms don't look the same as Ann, who's the other trainer in our studio, because our bodies are totally different. So, you know, be the best you and as Adam said, the muscle on your body is going to benefit you in so many ways. So, bulk up, ladies. Tim: Bulk up. Bulk up, ladies. It's a good thing. Again we invite you to head over to informfitness.com to review the blog post that we discussed today. Will women bulk up from weight training? And the answer is, of course,  Adam mentioned earlier and Sheila just alluded to it again, yes, you want to bulk up and I think we've answered those questions here today. In just about a minute we have a question from another member of our InForm Nation family. Aiden in Thornton,     Colorado shot us an email and asks how old is too old to participate with the slow motion high-intensity weight training system. Adam, Mike and Sheila will give us their two cents on that in just about 60 seconds. But right now I'd like to welcome a brand new sponsor to the InForm Fitness podcast. It's Thrive Market, wholesome products at wholesome prices. Thrive Market is an easy online shopping solution that will enable you to save some money while enjoying InForm Fitness friendly products. 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Email me directly at tim@inboundpodcast.com and I'll send you a promo code that will cut an additional 15% off your first order. Thrive Market is on a mission to make healthy living easy and affordable for everyone. Alright. In just a few minutes we'll get to that email from Aiden. But first let's hear from longtime InForm Nation member, Amir. I started with InForm Fitness about two years ago and I really love it. I mean, I actually live about an hour away. So, I drive an hour to come here. Honestly, it's amazing to me that in, you know, 20, 30 minutes, you can walk out of here and I can feel like, you know, some of the workouts I had where I was going for an hour. You know, here it's like I'm getting the benefits but I'm not just completely wiped out. I feel it but it feels good afterward. It's like it feels right. The thing I react to when I heard which is the very last thing he said, it feels right. I tell people that after a couple of workouts that they're not going to need me to sell them on this concept anymore. That's true. They're going to intuitively realize, “Ah, I get it.” Their body is going to understand. They're just going to intuitively understand that this is what they should be doing. And that's what I felt when he said, it just felt knew that the safety, the logic behind it, how they feel when they're done, the results later, it makes total complete sense. Tim: It does and that's my favorite part of Amir's comment. Appreciate him participating in the program. He attends the Toluca Lake location where Sheila trains and when he said it feels right as somebody who's been training there for several months, that's exactly how I feel. I'm not wiped out after the workout but I do feel like I did something really great for my body and that lasts for several days to where I can't wait to get back in the gym the following Sunday. So, you know, I think what he was comparing his workout that he has been doing now or has been doing for the last two years at InForm Fitness with the workouts he's been doing before, years before where he was there for an hour and it would just kill him, well, he's getting that workout now in 20 minutes and consolidating his time in the gym. Now, let's focus on those individuals who may be interested in starting the Power of 10 but have never really participated in any type of exercise regime of any kind. For instance, we have InForm Nation member, Aiden, who is in the Thornton, Colorado area, is concerned about his mother. It says: "Adam, thanks for your podcast. I'm very interested in learning more about your Power of 10 and just ordered your book from Amazon. My mother is severely overweight and in her late 60s. I'm considering visiting your location in Boulder and want to take her with me to check it out. She says though that she's too old and fat for a workout as intense as yours. I look forward to hearing from you, Aiden." So, here's a guy that's close to the Boulder location and wants to do it himself but Aiden wants to bring his mom in because she's overweight and in her 60s. Is she too old to start this workout and possibly a little bit too overweight, Adam? Adam: No. Tim: [laughs] Plain and simple. Sheila: Never too old. Tim: Do you suggest perhaps that she should maybe see a doctor prior to beginning her workout? Adam: Yes.     And that's it for today's episode. That's all -- [laughter] is that a concern do you think? Do you ever get that from people that think I'm too big to do this, severely obese people? No. It is a concern and the answer is that simple. Yes, you should check with your doctor or I'd want to know if there's any health problems associated with being obese. Some people don't have a lot of other associated health problems such as high blood pressure and things like that. It's actually amazing to me how many people can be pretty overweight and not have a lot of those dangerous markers. On the other hand, a lot of people do and we have to get clearance if they do, from a doctor, make sure that it's okay to do. On the other hand, the intensity in of itself because you're overweight or you're older, you build up the intensity to somebody that's severely out of shape. You know, you're conservative at the beginning but there's no reason why over time that somebody that hasn't been in shape and is overweight can't work out intensely. Sheila, don't you have a client that came to you a few years ago who was severely overweight did this protocol on their own and had some tremendous success? Well, I wouldn't say she was severely overweight. I would say she was, you know, definitely would be considered obese. She was probably over 200 pounds and you know just an average sized girl. She was very active though. You know, musician. Not active in sports or anything. She actually came into me, she hated going to the gym. She hated group classes. She was like, literally was like, I'm not going to do that. I'm not going to do this. I said, good, you're going to love this workout and she was like intrigued by that. By my answer and my, you know, like I was confident she would love this. So, she went and tried it and I did work out with her for several months. I showed her. She absolutely loved it. Actually, she did put a yelp review several years ago when she started. She's continued to do the workout according to the book. She looks at the book. She goes to her gym and she does it. She said, everybody's looking at her and going why is she going so slow? And she's been doing it -- And why is she holding that book in her hand? [laughter] Well, I think she, like, took pictures of it with her phone and so she could know what she's doing. She really attributes her continued weight loss and her sticking to the program, she would not be exercising, if it wasn't for this workout. Well, the woman of which we speak will joining us in the next two episodes of the InForm Fitness podcast. Her name is Joanie Pimentel. She's also a member of the LA based band, No Small Children. Sheila just gave us a quick overview of what Joanie will be talking about but Joanie will go into great detail on how she shed about 118 pounds over the last two years with the Power of 10. If you're thinking about embarking on a weight loss journey, make sure you join us. I guarantee Joanie will inspire you. Plus, we might even turn you onto a great new band. Check out nosmallchildren.com to see their music videos including the one filmed at InForm Fitness in Toluca Lake. If you'd like to participate in the conversation here on the podcast and officially join InForm Nation with a comment or question, send us an email or record a voice memo on your phone and send it to podcast@informfitness.com. You can even do it the old fashioned way by giving us a call at 888-983-5020, Ext. 3. That's 888-983-5020, Ext. 3. A few more reminders for you before we get out of here. If we've piqued your curiosity and you want to learn more about the Power of 10, click on the link in the show notes that will guide you to Adam's book. It's a nice easy read with a simple nutrition plan and all the exercises you need to lose fat, build muscle and supercharge your metabolism. If you want to try the workout for yourself with one of their many cool and certified trainers, bounce on over to informfitness.com to see if there is a location near you. And finally, please subscribe to the podcast here in iTunes. It's absolutely free to subscribe and all it takes are a few simple clicks. We would greatly appreciate it. Thanks again for listening to the InForm Fitness Podcast. For Adam, Mike and Sheila, I'm Tim Edwards with the Inbound Podcasting Network. SHOW NOTES: This following link leads to an InForm Fitness blog post that was mentioned during the podcast. http://informfitness.com/will-women-bulk-up-from-weight-training/          

It's almost sacrilegious to say you don't need to stretch before a workout or a sporting event because it's part of our culture.  However, recent studies suggest that stretching does not improve performance, prevent injury or reduce soreness. Check out Adam's blog post to the link below for Adam's Twist On Stretching: https://informfitness.com/twist-stretching To find an Inform Fitness location nearest you visit www.InformFitness.com If you'd like to ask Adam, Mike or Sheila a question or have a comment regarding the Power of 10. Send us an email or record a voice memo on your phone and send it to podcast@informfitness.com.  Join Inform Nation and call the show with a comment or question.  The number is 888-983-5020, Ext. 3.  To purchase Adam's book, Power of 10: The Once-a-Week Slow Motion Fitness Revolution click this link to visit Amazon:  https://www.amazon.com/Power-Once-Week-Revolution-Harperresource/dp/006000889X/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1485469022&sr=1-1&keywords=the+power+of+10+book If you would like to produce a podcast of your own just like The Inform Fitness Podcast, please email Tim Edwards at tim@InBoundPodcasting.com The transcription to this episode is below: 10 Adam's Twist on Stretching - Transcript Intro: You're listening to the InForm Fitness podcast, 20 minutes with New York Times, best-selling author, Adam Zickerman and friends. Brought to you by InForm Fitness, life-changing personal training with several locations across the US. Reboot your metabolism and experience the revolutionary Power of 10, the high intensity, slow motion, strength training system that's so effective, you'd get a week's worth of exercise in just one 20-minute session, which by no coincidence is about the length of this podcast. So, get ready InForm Nation, your 20 minutes of high-intensity strength training information begins in 3, 2, 1. Alright. Welcome back InForm Nation. And thanks again for joining us here on the InForm Fitness podcast, 20 minutes with Adam Zickerman and friends. I'm Tim Edwards with the Inbound Podcasting Network joined as always by Sheila Melody with InForm Fitness in Toluca Lake. We also have Mike Rogers from the Manhattan location and Adam Zickerman, the founder of InForm Fitness. This show is chock full of info to help you supercharge your metabolism and increase cardiovascular endurance which will in turn make you leaner and stronger. In addition to the many health benefits from the high-intensity training you'll experience at InForm Fitness you'll also enjoy the time you spend with your trainer and other members of InForm Nation such as John. My trainer, Sheila, very knowledgeable. Incredibly friendly and warm and conversational and, you know, when you come here, you know, obviously you feel like a client but you feel like you're coming back and just hanging out with friends. Like, “Hey, here's what we're doing this week. Cool, alright. How you been?” It's always very conversational. So, that adds a fun element while, you know, you're burning your muscles. [laughs] [laughs] I know John is awesome. He's been coming for about a year and he takes it very seriously. And so therefore he's getting a lot of benefit from it. You know, so, he's a great client. He's achieved so much. He's doing like over 300 pounds on the pull-down. Very proud of him. Wow. That soundbite you heard from John is just one of many soundbites that we're going to include here in the InForm Fitness podcast, 20 minutes with Adam Zickerman and friends. And that came from a series of testimonial videos that my company Inbound Films is producing for the Toluca Lake InForm Fitness location. And if you'd like to see more of John's story and maybe grab a glimpse of what this slow motion high-intensity workout looks like, jump on over to informfitness.com. We'll have a bunch of videos over there for you. And while you're there you can also check out Adam's blog which has over 30 informative topics regarding this protocol. And one of the topics Adam tackles stretching. And, Adam, I got to tell you, at first glance, when you first look at Gumby there at the top of [laughs] the stretching blog post. You would think that your twist on stretching your muscles prior to exercise is something you should do. But after reading the article that's not necessarily the case. It seems to -- [siren] it's almost sacrilegious to say you don't need to stretch before a workout or a sporting event because it's part of our culture. Speaking of culture. So -- [laughs] You hear that siren in the background? Just -- Yeah. Just, you know, if you're listening to this podcast while you're in your car, you're not being chased by a police officer. They're -- Well, there's the thing, stretching is so much part of our culture, even talking about it sends the police over [laughter] to where we are. I got to tell you. I've listened to a few of our podcasts and I do hear sirens in the background and I look in my rearview mirror and I realize that, oh, well, Adam and Mike are Skyping this podcast from New York City and they're right next to windows. So, that is a sound you hear all the time, all day long in New York City. So, but you're talking about how it's almost sacrilegious to mention that you should not stretch prior to an activity. The bottom line is it's been looked at a lot. This is not one of those subjects that has been ignored and we don't know much about it. What we have been finding out over and over again is that all studies that talk about stretching and the efficacy of stretching have not proven out. And maybe it's still true, these ideas that we have about stretching, but we haven't proven it yet. And I don't think we will. I think, I'm not saying we know everything there is to know about stretching the benefits or lack thereof but it's not a topic that I spend a lot of time on anymore because I'm pretty convinced. I've seen it and what are we talking about? We're talking about the idea that number one, stretching prevents injuries during sports. That has been a big reason why stretching has entered athletics because it will warm up the muscles and prevent injury. Has not been proven to be true, at all. At all.     Tim: Wow. See, every time I walk into the gym it's just natural for me to just start stretching just because you know my whole life playing sports that's just what we're taught and told to do. Adam: Doug McGuff talks about that a little bit. Doug McGuff talks about the idea that the reason we do all that before a sporting event especially when you have teams involved -- Tim: Mhm [affirmative]. Adam: It's cultural. It's preparing for battle. It's no different from what -- Doug McGuff points it out in the movie, Gladiator where he grabs sand in the pit and rubs it in his hands before he starts the fight. What was the actors name again in Gladiator? Tim: Russell Crowe. Adam: Yeah, Russell Crowe. So, Russel Crowe before every fight, if you remember, he picked up some dirt and rubbed it in his hands before that. Doing that didn't give him any actual advantage from a physical point of view. Didn't add more friction to his hands for some reason that he needed. And Doug McGuff points out that the stretching before sporting events you're doing it together. You're all on the sideline. You're all doing your stretches. It's a comradery thing. It's a team thing. It feels good to do that together and prepare. Even if you're all doing your individual stretching but you're all doing it together, you're all stretching and doing -- it definitely has a sociological element to it. Tim: But not a physiological element is what you and Dr. McGuff is saying. Adam: No. And remember we have to differentiate, I mean, and maybe define what we're talking about when we talk about stretching. What is stretching, right? We're not talking about the kind of stretch you do in the morning or a cat or dog does when they wake up in the morning and that [stretching noise] downward dog yoga kind of just feel good stretch. There's nothing wrong with that. You know, we're not talking about and some of that stuff will straighten your spine a little bit and get you moving but it doesn't warm up your muscles. It doesn't warm up your muscles. And one of the things that I talk about in my blog and research has shown in regards to warming up your muscles is -- what you're actually doing when you're stretching -- the kind of stretch where it's a static stretch and you're holding a position that's somewhat uncomfortable for a little while until it's not uncomfortable anymore, that kind of stretch. That kind of stretching for a cold muscle actually it's very dangerous and not only is it helpful but it's many times detrimental. To take a muscle and put it at its most vulnerable position which is the stretched position, that is when the filaments of the muscle are at their most vulnerable and weakest point where they're most vulnerable to tear and here you are going into a static stretch thinking you're warming up the muscle. Stretching actually takes blood away from the muscle. Only contraction actually brings blood to the muscle which is what you want to do. So, warm up -- you're much better warming up just by, kind of, you know, light jog in place or, you know, walking around even. You know, just walking around if you just got out of bed and move a little bit. But actual stretching, static stretching has been shown to also make you weaker, not just maybe just tear a muscle and hurt you but if you're not hurting yourself, at the very least you're making yourself weaker after a series of static stretches. And think about this. You're making yourself weaker going into a sport that you're about to play for 60 minutes or so. Something where you need as much power and speed and endurance as possible and you are doing this ritual beforehand, making yourself weaker before you enter into it. It's not logical. It doesn't make any sense. That's -- and this research is out there. It's not like these coaches don't know this but you're never going to see an athlete not stretching before an event. Tim: Well, let's use -- if you don't mind, Adam, if I could interject. So, I'm a softball player and I've been playing baseball my whole life or softball and so before the game we warm up. We take the ball and we, you know, we loosen up and we play catch to warm up. And I find I certainly get much more benefit from that and I can throw harder after about maybe two, three minutes of some light toss and then we start firing it and it feels good. Adam: Right. Tim: Now, the other type of warm up is, you know, when you're almost 50 years old like me and your legs are like they are and I feel really tight and so maybe this is, I'm just conditioned this way but I do stretch my legs and I feel better or looser. Do you think based upon the research off some of the references, that you include at the end of your blog post, indicate that's all in my head than it is in my body and stretching my legs before I sprint down to first base and pull a hammy? Adam: Maybe a little bit in your head but maybe it's also because you're not doing the kind of stretching I'm talking about. Again, we have to make sure we understand the kind of stretching we're talking about. Light stretching before you're about to go into a game where you're just kind of bending over a little bit and stretching your back and your hamstrings a little stretch and you're not doing it very much or very painfully. You know, it's a little side bends here and there, throwing the ball around lightly, you know, walking around and chatting. If it's not a serious stretch,you're okay. And that's fine. Like, I said, you know, like the way a dog or a cat stretches when they wake up in the morning. That's all good. I'm not talking about that but if you ever sat and watched a bunch of soccer players before a match or if you sat and watched a bunch of football players before a match, they are doing all those hurdle stretches where their leg's behind them and their quadricep is totally stretched and they keep it there for a while and they're bouncing and they're trying to make it looser and looser and doing the other leg and they're all these serious static hold stretches that really are damaging their joints and they don't realize it right away because they're athletes and they're flexible and -- But maybe it catches up to them later. They don't, they don't even understand the insidious damage that they're doing and then they're going into a sport that's ballistic and then, you know, by the time they're retired or way before that actually, their careers are cut short by an injury. They never connect all that stretching to the possible injury. They actually might say, “Well, I might have got injured sooner if I hadn't done all that stretching.” I mean, all the research is not showing any of this to be true, any of it. You're promoting ease of mobility. I think the warm up is not in the stretching itself but in a very slow progression of the movement that you're trying to do. You know, Adam -- So, there's the difference between stretching and warming up and that makes sense. I can visualize that. Having played softball where instead of, you know, getting down on the ground and doing those hurdle stretches which we were taught to do, get to the point where it hurts and then hold it for 15 seconds and then switch legs. Right, the damage that can be done there really just kind of go through the motion of the sport loosely until your muscles get warmed up. Am I understanding that correctly? Yeah. Exactly, you are. What about with yoga? Okay. So, let's go with the yoga. Sheila, I know that you've done yoga for many, many years and participated in Bikram yoga and other forms of yoga. How does stretching tie in with yoga and high-intensity training? How does that all fit together?     I do yoga for totally different reasons than I would do strength training and yes, it adds -- but you're doing yoga, you're specifically, kind of, trying to -- there's more of a core balancing and you're holding positions while breathing and kind of releasing, you know, tension. That's kind of how I look at it. [Crosstalk 12:06] -- Well, Tim, you just -- yeah. Tim, you just brought up a question that indicates a common misunderstanding about yoga in general which is yoga is good for your flexibility or good for stretching Right. That's how I've always perceived it. I've never participated. No, I mean what -- Yeah. Yeah, what Sheila is saying is it's really more about holding certain positions and it's kind of like static weight training in a way. It's just holding positions. Yeah. And sometimes they're not hard positions to stay in and that's why you do focus on your breathing and all kinds of other things. It has a meditative, I think, benefit to it. And I'm more of somebody who feels that the more the meditator breathing yoga is more beneficial than let's say some of the more physical yoga like a Bikram yoga, for example, is very physical. And that is on the continuum of exercise is getting closer to what weight training is. So, if you're going to go towards weight training you might as well just do weight training because yoga is quite inefficient than when it comes to that. I do -- the yoga -- yeah. I mean, for me I feel like the balance is perfect to do this Power of 10 workout and then if I want to do yoga I do that separately and actually the Power of 10 helps me in my yoga. Like, if I do Bikram yoga it is an hour and a half class and it's very -- there's a lot of endurance and I'm using my muscles. As I said in a previous podcast that I do not get as sore as I used to if I, you know, miss my yoga class for a couple months because my muscles are strong. So, just one more question as we get close to wrapping up this topic on stretching is, where does flexibility factor into the Power of 10? Of course, I imagine, like myself, most people figure that the only way to become flexible and pliable is through a rigorous stretching regime. Can flexibility be acquired through high-intensity training like you do with the Power of 10?     Yes. The flexibility will be enhanced through strength training. A lot of times our reduced flexibility comes from the fact that we're just weak. So, getting stronger will enhance your flexibility but you have to make the differentiation between enhanced flexibility and improved flexibility. Strength training or stretching for that matter will not improve your flexibility or very, very little. And anything that is improved is nominal. You know, even if you can improve your range of motion a little bit through stretching. I mean, I think the most anyone has ever really observed is like 20%. You know, and most people way below that. So, for what purpose? And -- If you're going beyond 20%, you're often times creating an injury in the connective tissue probably. Wow. If you're going -- yeah, I probably say, if you're going beyond 10% you're [crosstalk 14:55] -- Yeah, or whatever the number is. You know, but it's a very low tolerance for it and then the question is, is there any benefit to that? And again there doesn't seem to be any benefit. Matter of fact studies are showing the opposite. When, you know, they went into these studies thinking they were going to prove that flexibility is good and then they find -- and then these studies end up finding out the opposite. Wow. That flexibility, not only, isn't it good but it creates joint laxity and joint problems. And that's -- And isn't there a whole thing to about as far as the understanding of what is flexibility. Like, you're born, basically, it's just like your muscle, you know the DNA and your genetics and how you're born, some people are just a little more flexible and they always will be, right and then -- Of course. Yeah and -- And a lot of people say they lose flexibility as they get older. Though that's not necessarily a problem either or a bad thing either. And it might not have to -- it doesn't probably have anything to do with your muscles. It has to do with your bones are changing. Your hip sockets are developing more and deeper and your femur gets larger as we get older and quite honestly you end up becoming less flexible because of that. Which is a physical thing. It's not something you can change. I think the word flexibility sometimes is -- it's the word that everyone's used to but it's not necessarily I think how we should be thinking about it. I always think about ease of mobility to do whatever you're trying to do. The more stable you are, the less flexible you are. The more flexible you are, the less stable you are. This is reminding me of a story I heard once about this woman who was really into yoga and she was just like, you know, really flexible and everything and then by the time she was in her, you know, I think late 50s she literally had to get hip replacement because she had totally overstretched and, you know, ruined her hips. Mhm [affirmative]. And, you know, so what we do is protect your joints and hips with you know, this by strengthening the muscles to support them, like what Mike was saying making them stable. So, to sum up, let me just list once again the things that we expect from stretching that we don't get. Okay, first of all, stretching does not improve your flexibility. Stretching does not warm up your muscles. Stretching makes you weak. Stretching leaves joints and ligaments vulnerable to injury and overstretching causes injury. So, those are the things that we are finding out happens from stretching. So, buyer beware. Buyer beware. And again we invite you to head on over to informfitness.com to review the blog posts that we discussed today. It's really easy to find. Just click blog and then look for Gumby. At the bottom of the article you'll find references to additional articles that support the science behind Adam's approach to stretching. Alright. Coming up in a mere 60 seconds we're going to hear from another member of InForm Nation, Nicole, regarding the convenience of her once a week workout and we'll read an email we received from the Santa Rosa, California area with a question regarding cardio in fitness fact or fiction right here in the InForm Fitness podcast. You know, we spent a lot of time on this podcast discussing the important of high-intensity slow motion weight training and getting the proper rest so that you're ready to jump back into the gym a week later but let's not forget the ever so important component or pillar to this lifestyle. It's nutrition. You got to feed those muscles and be very mindful over what you put in your mouth. Adam does an excellent job simplifying the nutrition system necessary to supercharge your metabolism, burn fat and build muscle in chapter 3 in his book Power of 10. And you will find plenty of InForm Fitness friendly feed at thrivemarket.com. And at wholesale prices. If you're into the Paleo diet or perhaps you might be leaning towards being gluten free or even exploring a vegan lifestyle. You'll find everything you're looking for at thrivemarket.com. In addition to simplifying the buying process, it's much more affordable than the grocery store and they deliver your items right to your door. Plus, with all orders over $49, you get your shipping absolutely free. You can try it for yourself, just visit thrivemarket.com. Register for free. You can start your 30-day free trial and if you're happy with the service and the products you can join the community. It's only $59.95 and most customers will save that amount in their first order. And then you can continue to save a bunch of money and grow healthier in the process. As a matter of fact, I'm going to save you some more money right off your first order. Simply email me directly at tim@inboundpodcast.com and I will send you a code that will shave 15% off your first order. Thrive Market's on a mission to make healthy living easy and affordable for everyone. Alright. Let's get back to the show. Let's hear from InForm Nation member Nicole who absolutely loves the convenience of a once-a-week workout. The convenience is huge. I do work a full time job. So, having, you know, only one day a week that I have to commit to a workout has made my life less stressful because the pressure of having to think you have to work out three to five times a week can kind of take a toll on you. So, the once a week it definitely works with my, you know, job, personal life, and it's been really great. So, there you have it, the psychological benefit of this whole workout. Just the thought of working out five days a week can raise your cortisol levels. [laughter] True. Just at the stress of just thinking about what you have to do and the -- she said a key thing, something that I wrote in Power of 10 and that is the pressure is off. That's huge. That is so huge. Not to mention the fact that it's sustainable because you come, you do your hard workout, it's hard. I get it. You don't even want to do that one workout but it's one workout 20 minutes a week and you do it because you have to do it and it is relatively stress-free and it's sustainable. Something that you can do. You can kick yourself in the butt to say just do your 20-minute workout once a week, you wimp. And you get yourself to do it. It's not as easy to get yourself to psyche yourself up to do your five day a week workout every single Monday that you start your week. I got to tell you, Adam, I've been trying various types of workouts my entire life, all of them required me to participate three to five times a week and I quit all of them. [laughs] And now that I've been doing the Power of 10 workout at the InForm Fitness location in Toluca Lake, I've been going since November, the middle of November and I've only missed one week because it's doable. It's easy. It's easy to fit into your schedule. If you can't fit it into your schedule, then you probably have some other time management issues you need to deal with for sure. Alright. Time for another feature here on the InForm Fitness podcast. It's fitness fact or fiction. We've got an email here from Rachel from Santa Rose California. Rachel writes: "Hello, InForm Fitness podcast people. I just --" [laughter] We're the "podcast people" [laughter]. "I just subscribed to your podcast and listened to the first five episodes. How come I'm not hearing anything about adding cardio to your Power of 10 workout? I've always thought that cardio is necessary for optimal health. I hope I hear my question on the show. If so, does that make me an official member of InForm Nation?" Yes, Rachel, you are an official member of InForm Nation and we certainly appreciate you listening to the podcast. So, I guess the fitness fact or fiction question is, is cardio necessary for optimal health. Well, that is not a very quick answer. But to give you one, no, it's not necessary, not in the conventional form that we all think of cardio. So, give us examples. Such as? Jogging, biking, walking -- Treadmill. The treadmill. These conventional forms of steady state cardio that we have mentioned a little bit in previous podcasts.     Tim: There are definite cardiovascular benefits through this slow motion high-intensity strength training system. Adam: But I also have to add that it is very controversial. And if you think that the idea that you don't have to stretch is controversial, you know, that's nothing compared to the controversy that swarms around the idea that you need to do cardio. Mike: The thing I want to emphasise is that strength training is cardio. It's not an addition to cardio. It is cardio. You're getting your cardio in it and your heart has to support your muscles in order to do that. And if you do something that is a mechanical work, that considered mechanical work that is outside its comfort zone, what's it's conditioned already to do, then which is what you are doing when you're doing high-intensity strength training big time, then your heart is going to have to work a lot harder. And until it gets conditioned to do so, you are doing cardio. Tim: And Rachel, we dive deep into cardio in episode eight, titled the Cardio Conundrum. So, you might want to go back into iTunes and download that episode. Better yet, you can subscribe to the podcast in iTunes and that way, every new episode as it's released is instantly downloaded to your phone or whatever device you might be listening from. If you'd like to join InForm Nation like Rachel did and have a question for Adam, Mike or Sheila with fitness fact or fiction, send us an email or record a voice memo on your phone and send it to podcast@informfitness.com. You can even give us a call at 888-983-5020, Ext. 3. That's 888-983-5020, Ext. 3 and you can leave your comment, question or even a suggestion. All feedback is welcome. Hey, we have three really cool episodes on the horizon here and we hope you'll join us. Next week is for the ladies. Especially for the ladies who might be concerned about bulking up with the Power of 10. Many women don't want to bulk up or have that body-builder look. Adam, Mike, and Sheila will weigh in on that very topic next week. And in two weeks we will be talking to InForm Nation member Joanie Pimentel. She is also a member of the LA-based band, No Small Children. For a glimpse of Joanie and to sample her music head on over to nosmallchildren.com. The reason we'll be talking to Joanie is she lost 118 pounds over two years with the Power of 10. She is a ton of fun, incredibly talented and can't wait to get her on the program. You know, when Joanie's on tour with her band she takes Adam's book Power of 10: The Once-a-Week Slow Motion Fitness Revolution and performs the exercises by herself in a local gym. And you can do the same if you are not near one of the several InForm Fitness locations across the US. You can order Adam's book through Amazon. To see if there is a location nearest you just click on over to informfitness.com. Hey, thanks again for listening to the InForm Fitness podcast.     We really do appreciate it. For Adam, Mike and Sheila, I'm Tim Edwards with the Inbound Podcasting Network.        

Body fat is stored energy. And the body stores it because it doesn't need it at that moment. So, what you have to try to do is get your body to utilize that fat.  Ther are 3 pillars to enjoy the profound benefits of Power of 10. Adam Zickerman explains the 3 pillars of success here in Episode 9 that will assist you in supercharging your metabolism and increasing your cardiovascular endurance with slow motion, high-intensity strength training. To find an Inform Fitness location nearest you visit www.InformFitness.com If you'd like to ask Adam, Mike or Sheila a question or have a comment regarding the Power of 10. Send us an email or record a voice memo on your phone and send it to podcast@informfitness.com.  Join Inform Nation and call the show with a comment or question.  The number is 888-983-5020, Ext. 3.  To purchase Adam's book, Power of 10: The Once-a-Week Slow Motion Fitness Revolution click this link to visit Amazon:  https://www.amazon.com/Power-Once-Week-Revolution-Harperresource/dp/006000889X/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1485469022&sr=1-1&keywords=the+power+of+10+book Ilf you would like to produce a podcast of your own just like The Inform Fitness Podcast, please email Tim Edwards at tim@InBoundPodcasting.com The transcription to this episode is below: 09 Losing Fat Without the Treadmill - Transcript Tim: Hey gang it's Tim from the InForm Fitness podcast. We'll get to the show in about 60 seconds but first I want to save you some money while you adopt the Power of 10 lifestyle. There are three pillars necessary to amplify your success of the Power of 10. Pillar number two is nutrition and our friends at Thrive Market are going to make following this protocol easy and affordable. At Thrive Market you'll find wholesome products that are InForm Fitness friendly at wholesale prices. Their products are much more affordable than the grocery store and they deliver the items right to your door. Plus, with all orders over $49 you get shipping absolutely free. Try it for yourself. Visit thrivemarket.com. Register for free. Start your 30-day free trial and if you're happy with the service and their products you can join the community. It's just a one-time $59.95 fee and most customers save that amount in their first order. Then you can continue to save a bunch of money and grow healthier in the process. Want to save some cash? Simply email me directly at tim@inboundpodcasts.com and I will send you your own personal code that will shave 15% off your first order. Thrive Market is on a mission to make healthy living easy and affordable for everyone. Alright. On with the show. Intro: You're listening to the InForm Fitness podcast, 20 minutes with New York Times, best-selling author, Adam Zickerman and friends. Brought to you by InForm Fitness, life-changing personal training with several locations across the US. Reboot your metabolism and experience the revolutionary Power of 10, the high intensity, slow motion, strength training system that's so effective, you'd get a week's worth of exercise in just one 20-minute session, which by no coincidence is about the length of this podcast. So, get ready InForm Nation, your 20 minutes of high-intensity strength training information begins in 3, 2, 1. Tim: InForm Nation, welcome back in. Thanks again for joining us here on the InForm Fitness podcast, 20 minutes with Adam Zickerman and friends. I'm Tim Edwards with the Inbound Podcasting Network and the gangs all here once again. We have Sheila Melody with InForm Fitness in the Los Angeles area, Mike Rogers from New York City and across the hall from Mike is the founder of InForm Fitness, Adam Zickerman. This show will assist you in supercharging your metabolism. It will give you the information that you'll need to increase your cardiovascular endurance, make you leaner and stronger especially if you engage in the principals of pillar number two in the Power of 10, nutrition. And that's exactly what InForm Nation member Hayley did and she lost 35 pounds with this system. Hayley: At one point in my life I was 35 pounds heavier and I was not happy with it. I was depressed and I didn't feel confident and I definitely didn't have the strength that I have now and so I started coming to InForm. My friend told me about it and I came and I have loved it ever since. So, she's had some great success, lost 35 pounds but it took more than just exercise, high-intensity exercise for her to reach that goal. Right, Adam? Oh, yeah. Definitely. I mean, listen, when you're strength training, when you're doing high-intensity exercise, you're definitely helping your cause for sure by raising metabolism a little bit, by controlling the blood sugar a little bit. And we'll get into how that happens. But she definitely had to have changed her diet to lose those 35 pounds. I think it all comes down to another misconception which is that it all has to do with calorie expenditure versus calorie intake. And that's why I think a lot of people think that they have to do a lot of cardio because it's all down to calories. And what we realized, in short, is that that's not true and Adam you can dive a little bit deeper into this but fat regulation has very little to do if any -- to do with calorie expenditures. Isn't that correct? But actually, the body wants those calories back. So, yes it does. The more you increase your activity level, the more it's going to actually increase your appetite. And so the more calories you burn, the body is going to try to reach some homeostasis and slow you down in other ways. You can't fool mother nature. So, activity level to burn calories have been doomed to fail since we started trying and it's not working. People are not losing massive amounts of weight by adding a lot of cardio to their routines. Alright. They're only doing it really by proper nutrition. There's an old YouTube that we saw years ago -- do you remember? There was a couple of personal trainers -- On the treadmill? Yeah. Pizza. It was a couple of personal trainers who -- Eating the pizza. Yeah. On the treadmill. Yeah. One trainer was going to run as fast as he could on the treadmill for as long as it took the other one to eat two slices of pizza and when it was done in eight minutes or whatever, one trainer, he burned 90 calories running and the other one consumed like 900 calories in the same amount of time. And their whole point was you can't out train a bad diet. No matter what. There are a lot of benefits to what you are doing in exercise that can get your metabolism going which will be making a fat burning machine which Adam will go into but what we do know is that it's not just sitting on the treadmill burning calories the whole time. Tim: So, Mike, you just mentioned turning your body into a fat burning machine. And that requires all three of those pillars for the Power of 10. And we'll just reiterate again, of course, high-intensity exercise, nutrition and rest and recovery. So, Adam, if you can, dive in a little bit deeper on how to turn that body into a fat burning machine through nutrition. Adam: Body fat is stored energy. And the body stores it because it doesn't need it at that moment. So, what you have to try to do is get your body to utilize that fat. And the only way your body is going to utilize that fat is if you don't give it anything else besides that. In other words, it's going to go to sugar first. It's easier to metabolize sugar. It's less, you know, less effort in doing it. It's kind of like when you come home and it's cold in the house you just turn on the -- you turn the dial on the thermostat and it gets warmer. But what happens if you didn't get an oil delivery? You know, you don't have any oil. Now you have to do something else. You have to heat the house. So, now you have to go down, outside, get some firewood, start a fire, get the kindling going, you know, it's effort to actually -- and then it takes time to warm up the house that way because it's not a very efficient way of heating a house. And that's kind of what we're essentially doing when we try to burn fat. We want to try to run out of gas. The easy way of heating a house which is the glucose, the sugar. If you can eliminate that, the body is going to say, hey, there's no sugar. There's no easy gas. I'm going to have to actually work to get my energy right now. And I'm going to have to go to fat for this food. And the body learns to metabolize efficiently the fat by finally telling the DNA to express for the enzymes that it's never had to express for because the person's blood sugar was so high all the time. But now all of the sudden blood sugar drops, now we have to metabolize fat. That needs special enzymes to do that. So, now the body says, hey, DNA we need some, you know, enzymes here that metabolize fat. There's none around. You know, make it ASAP and the body, you know, works as hard as it can to do so but it takes some time. So, there's adjustment period from going from a high sugar diet to a very low sugar diet. It's kind of like going from sea level to high altitude. The body has to adjust to that as well.     So, knowing this, I feel that the diet that we should be generally thinking about or at least as a starting point is reducing sugar in your diet and see how that goes. And there's a lot of hidden sugar in our diets and we don't realize it. Even when we're eating a lot of vegetables and fruits we are getting plenty of sugar. And if you're having more than 50 to 100 grams of sugar a day it's going to be hard for the body to really need to use fat for fuel. It's just the way it is because fat is regulated by hormones and I'm oversimplifying it for sure. But that's a good starting point. Everyone's metabolism is different. Everyone's genetics is different. So, this 50 grams or 100 grams of sugar thing is just a guideline and there might be other considerations. You know, but that's where I usually start. Our obesity epidemic in this country is not because we're [inaudible 08:34] and we're sitting behind computers more. Alright. Our problem is because we are as a society eating way too much sugar, way too much sugar. And it really means to me, depending upon the person, anywhere from 100 grams or less per day of sugar. And that's including fruit sugars and all kinds of sugars. Exactly. So, if you're going to have an apple which is already 20 grams give or take. Wow. Alright. Which is -- who's going to say not to have an apple, you know, I mean, I know weight loss is important so you still have to count those calories as those grams of sugar. So, there's 20. Now you have either 30, you know, 30 to 80 left. So, you just take that into account and when you have your vegetables and your salad, alright and you have some nuts which have carbohydrates in it and maybe you eat some beans. That's plenty of carbohydrates in beans. I mean, that has good protein as well. All of a sudden you're like, oh, boy, that hundred comes up fast. Those hundred grams -- and then nowhere is there room for cake, pizza, bagels, bread. Even yogurts and oatmeals are going to start putting you over the top if you're eating your veggies. [laughs] Mhm [affirmative]. Then if you want to have fruit, I mean there's some people that just don't have the fruit. There are people that are very sensitive to the spikes of sugar and those people to really lose weight really have to go really low on the sugar side. And sometimes that doesn't even work, you know. Adam, you mentioned that high-intensity training helps in controlling blood sugar. Why don't you talk a little bit more about that?     Okay. Well, like I was saying about nutrition by not having a lot of sugar in your diet your body's going to say well there's not that much sugar in my diet I'm going to need fat for the rest of this fuel. Well, in keeping in line with that and helping control that blood sugar, high-intensity strength training does something really cool. When you work out to muscle failure and it's the whole body, you're depleting your muscles of much if not all of its glycogen stores. What are glycogen stores? Glycogen is where the muscles -- is a polymer of glucose. In other words, it's a chain of glucose molecules that is stored in the muscle. And it's stored in the muscle because the muscle needs it right away for fight and flight. So, biology, evolution has kind of made this really nifty system where you can actually store the fuel right there at the muscle site where you need it the most. So, when you exercise and you dump your muscles of all their glycogen. To the body, that is actually having a fight and dumping all your glycogen. Fighting a bear for example. Alright, so when that happens, your body wants to put that sugar back. It wants to put that sugar back. And this is where it gets really cool because in an attempt it's put the sugar back into the muscle after high-intensity exercise. That's another usage for the sugar. That's not going to go into fat store because if your body needs it in a muscle it's going to take whatever carbohydrates you are eating and instead of storing it as fat it's going to actually try to put it back into the muscle. Alright. So, that's just a little bonus. The reason the body wants to put it back, by the way is because -- why is it uncomfortable? Why when you dump glycogen out of the muscle does the body prioritize putting it back? It's kind of like the spare tire in our car. Alright. We don't feel comfortable striving around in a car that doesn't have a spare tire because if you get a flat somewhere in the middle of nowhere you're in trouble. Well, the body says if I don't have any glycogen stored in my muscles and I get into a fight with a bear, I'm going to lose. I'm going to probably lose anyway, glycogen or not. [laughter] You know. The Revenant. Yes. [laughs] Yeah. [inaudible 12:13] Leonardo DiCaprio. So, we're back to that fight or flight response. So, the body is like wants to be prepared for an emergency and it is going to prioritize replacing that glycogen in an attempt to replace that glycogen it's going to keep your blood sugar low. It's going to be taking that sugar out of your blood and putting it into the muscle instead of putting it into fat. But again, you have to eat a low glycemic diet to start with for that to actually have a benefit. So, Adam, you were just saying that how if, you know, your muscles use this the glycogen that is stored when we do this high-intensity workout but if you're not marrying that with a good nutritional diet that has low glycemic, you know, values in it, then how is that different. When you're doing this high-intensity workout and you're not and you're say you're eating a lot of sugar, say you're not really matching it with a good diet. What's the difference? Yeah. I say it's not going to help much if as far as fat loss is concerned. If you're still eating a lot of carbohydrates in your diet because for a average sized male that is fairly well built, you can probably only expect to store maybe 225 grams of glycogen in his muscles. In other words, you don't have to eat too much sugar to replace all that. That's, you know, if you're eating -- a lot of people eat a lot more sugar than that in a day. So, you do this workout. You deplete your muscles of 200 some odd grams of carbohydrates, [laughs] and then you eat a bagel. You just gained it back. So, it's only in conjunction with a low glycemic diet, a low sugar diet that this will actually give you some extra boost for controlling your blood sugar. But in the same breath, are you still productively doing something? Are you still building muscle? Are you still increasing [crosstalk 14:03] but you know -- Oh, yeah. I mean, we're talking specifically about fat loss. Right. I mean again we're trying to control the hormone insulin. Fat is regulated by hormones. Period. Alright. You have to play that right. You have to have the right hormones that you want suppressing the hormones that you don't want. You want insulin to be suppressed. So, the hormones necessary for using fat for food or have free reign to do what they have to do. Sometimes the people start this workout and they're not really prepared yet to go on that proper diet but they're still going to do the workout and maybe it will take them a couple of months to kind of get, you know -- Well, the, yeah the workouts -- The motivation.     I see what you're saying. I mean, the workout, of course is still worth doing. Just because you're not losing fat or you're not willing or if you're not ready to engage in a rather what some people might consider a draconian type of diet. I'd rather be strong and overweight than weak and overweight. I mean, they're going to reap all the benefits that come from being really strong and from maintaining muscle mass and we've talked about all those benefits and we're going to continue to talk about profound benefits of building strength as we get older and maintaining it as we get older. That goes way beyond fat loss. And then when they're ready, let's say they've been working out for like four months and then they finally say okay, I'm really going on this diet now, do you think it will be easier? Well, their metabolism will be a little bit higher obviously. They'll have more muscles. So, probably. [laughs] I think it just means the truth is everyone's very, very different and we see great results very fast. We've heard several testimonials already on this show before and what Adam and I have seen so many hundreds over the years of people losing, you know, 10 pounds to 20 pounds to 70 pounds even up to 150 pounds. Wow. And that readiness if different for everybody. The reality is it's a little bit of a troubleshooting process to get to the bottom of it all. There's a little bit of exercise involved which is high-intensity strength training and there's a lot of nutritional work that's involved. And it's unfortunately it's not an easy thing for most people. And as Adam said, insulin is the primary regulator of our fat but there are so many other factors involved and there's nothing lost in attacking your strength training program immediately. And it's definitely going to have an effect, a positive effect over the course of whatever the journey is for that client. But it's -- the reality is there's nothing that happens quickly. Well, for most people. And it starts I think the usual suspects start with what Adam said is your simple carbs and then your complex carbs and then they can go into other things too depending on where allergies and sensitivities occur. It's a tough topic but an important one. And one that is covered in great detail in Adam's book, Power of 10: The Once-a- Week Slow Motion Fitness Revolution. Adam does a terrific job simplifying the information so that it is easy to understand. You'll find easy to follow tables and charts and descriptions in chapter 3, nutrition the second pillar. We invite you to pick it up at an InForm Fitness location or you can order it through Amazon. We have a link available to the book right here in our show notes. We have a lot of interviews lined up for future podcasts. So, we hope that you'll stick around and continue to learn more about the Power of 10 from other experts in the field of fitness. Along with some amazing testimonials like the one we have lined up for you over the next two weeks. We will be talking to InForm Nation member, Joanie Pimentel. She is also a member of the LA-based band, No Small Children. And for a glimpse of Joanie and to sample her music, head over to nosmallchildren.com. The reason we'll be talking to Joanie, she lost 118 pounds over two years with the Power of 10, slow motion high-intensity weight training She's a lot of fun with some really great stories and highly inspirational. So, make sure you come back and join us. And to join InForm Nation for yourself and give this workout a try, pop on over to informfitness.com to find a location nearest you. If you would like to ask Adam, Mike or Sheila a question, maybe you have a comment regarding the Power of 10, send us an email or record a voice memo on your phone and send it to podcast@informfitness.com. You can even give us a call at 888-983-5020, Ext. 3. That's 888-983-5020, Ext. 3 to leave your comment, question or even a suggestion. All feedback is welcome. And speaking of feedback, please leave us a review right here in iTunes or wherever you might be listening and don't forget to subscribe. We really do appreciate you listening to the InForm Fitness podcast. For Adam, Mike and Sheila, I'm Tim Edwards with the Inbound Podcasting Network.  

The purpose of exercise is to build muscle as quickly and as safely as possible so you can live the life you want. So, does performing the physical activities you enjoy like hiking, cycling, playing basketball, golfing or gardening count as legitimate exercise? ___________________ If you'd like to ask Adam, Mike or Sheila a question or have a comment regarding the Power of 10. Send us an email or record a voice memo on your phone and send it to podcast@informfitness.com.  Join Inform Nation and call the show with a comment or question.  The number is 888-983-5020, Ext. 3.  To purchase Adam's book, Power of 10: The Once-a-Week Slow Motion Fitness Revolution click this link to visit Amazon:  https://www.amazon.com/Power-Once-Week-Revolution-Harperresource/dp/006000889X/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1485469022&sr=1-1&keywords=the+power+of+10+book Ilf you would like to produce a podcast of your own just like The Inform Fitness Podcast, please email Tim Edwards at tim@InBoundPodcasting.com The transcription to this episode is below: 02 Exercise vs Recreation Rough - Transcript Intro: You're listening to the InForm Fitness podcast, 20 minutes with New York Times, best-selling author, Adam Zickerman and friends. Brought to you by InForm Fitness, life changing personal training with several locations across the US. Reboot your metabolism and experience the revolutionary Power of 10, the high intensity, slow motion, strength training system that's so effective, you'd get a week's worth of exercise in just one 20-minute session, which by no coincidence is about the length of this podcast. So, get ready InForm Nation, your 20 minutes of high intensity strength training information begins in 3, 2, 1. Alright. Welcome into episode two of the InForm Nation podcast with Adam Zickerman. If you stumbled across this episode in iTunes, SoundCloud, Stitcher Radio or YouTube and have not yet had a chance to listen to our first episode, we invite you to go back, give it a listen because in that episode you'll hear some important foundational information to help you understand the mission of this podcast and be formally introduced to all the members of the podcast team but we'll quickly run through the room here and reintroduce everybody. I'll start. My name's Tim Edwards. I'm the founder of the Inbound Podcasting Network and have been training with the Power of 10 system at the Toluca lake location in Southern California. Joining me here in the Los Angeles area, just a few freeways away from the Inbound Podcasting studio, is one of my trainers at InForm Fitness, Sheila Melody. Hey, Sheila. Hi, Tim. How ya doing? I'm coming here from sunny Southern California. It's a beautiful day. It's perfect today. Maybe not -- [laughs] Yeah. I'm just going to rub that in to our -- [laughs] Well -- To our New York cohorts here. Yeah. As we record this through Skype we can see our other cohorts here wearing sweaters and jackets. So, probably a little chilly over there across the country on the East side of New York City. We'll start with the GM of the Manhattan InForm Fitness location, Mike Rogers. What's up, Mike? Hey, what's up? Yeah, it's like an arctic 50 degrees here right now. It's hell. [laughs] No, it's actually not so bad. I just came back from Vegas over the weekend. So -- Nice. You know, I'm ready to sort of recharge, restart and -- And recoup. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, but I'm excited about the podcast today. [laughs] And of course, the reason we're all here, the founder of InForm Fitness and author of New York Times Best Seller, Power of 10: The Once-a-Week Slow Motion Fitness Revolution, Adam Zickerman. How you doing, Adam? Hey guys. Looking forward to this. We got one under our belt and here we go with number two but before we drill down into today's topic, the definition of exercise, Exercise vs Recreation, let's quickly recap what we discussed in the first episode. Adam, if you don't mind for our listeners who have not yet listened to that show, what is the Power of 10? Well, it's the name of my book, Power of 10. There wasn't a Power of 10 until the book came out actually. It was just Inform Fitness. The premise of InForm Fitness and then the book was to understand and put exercise in its proper perspective and what we should expect from exercise. Ultimately, the premise is that the sole purpose of exercise is to build muscle, to maintain muscle mass as we get older. That to me is the number one priority and the exercise plan. The whole book Power of 10 and the whole technique starts there. The technique, of course, enters into intensity and safety considerations as well as balancing exercise, with proper nutrition and rest. There you have the Power of 10, balancing exercise, rest and nutrition, the three pillars we call it. On there that's the foundation. Then there all your recreational pursuits, the life that you want to life, sits right on top of that. If you want to life the kind of life you want to live, an active life, a happy life, a pain free life, it starts with exercise, rest nutrition and everything else follows from there. Adam always says like, you know, the mission of InForm Fitness is to provide people with the exercise they need to give them the life that they want, you know, so --     I could have just said that. [laughs] Could have said that but -- We need a little more [laughter], a little more detail. Of course InForm Fitness -- Sheila, why don't you chime in on that? If you don't mind, why InForm Fitness? I always say there's a couple reasons for that. One is that we want to inform our clients always. We're all informed. We're informing them about why you're doing this exercise, what it, you know, even to the point of what muscles are working at that particular time. Then we also are real sticklers on performing the exercise in proper form. So, I might find, you know, myself saying, “Okay. Stay in form.” Then I'll go, “Oh, yeah. That's our name.” [laughs] It's perfect. That is -- we are calling our community, that we're building here through the InForm Fitness podcast, to InForm Nation because that's what we're trying to do. If you're listening to this podcast and you're enjoying what you hear and you're becoming educated, becoming informed, we invite you to join InForm Nation. We'll have more details on how you can do that at the conclusion of the show. Now, this show is geared towards those who are looking to build muscle, lose fat, maintain cardiovascular health and maybe even improve whatever it is that you love to do which really ties nicely into today's topic, Exercise vs Recreation. Briefly, let's go around the room and discus, what are some of the physical activities we all enjoy that might be confused with exercise. Let's start with you, Sheila. What I really love to do, around LA especially, is hiking. Lots of hiking, lots of canyon hiking and tennis and yoga. Those are things I actually enjoy doing. So, when you're hiking do you ever go up to Runyon Canyon? Is that right? Up there off of Mulholland Drive and see some celebrities. Yes. [laughs] I've gone up there. It's definitely a very busy hiking area actually. It is.   I prefer to kind of be out here in Malibu Canyon area because it's way more wide open. That's kind of the city hiking area but there are plenty of places here in Southern California to hike. As I'm sure there's plenty of places in New York and the Upstate New York and surrounding areas too. Are you a hiker, Mike, or what do you do for exercise or for recreation, I should say? You know, I like to take a hike often times in life. [laughs] [Crosstalk 06:43] -- You're told to hike often. Yeah. [laughs] I love hiking. I don't do it on a regular basis. It's usually if I'm away or wherever. If I was in California, I'd probably be taking a hike. You know, I grew up with a lot of -- very, very active. Every sport and I did soccer and lacrosse very competitively. As I've gotten older, I sort of phased into triathlon sports, like, biking, swimming and running. Love cycling the most there and even more recently, tennis and golf over the last few years. So, I do a lot of, a lot of stuff. I just have a problem sitting still. So, being active is extremely important to me. You know, using my body is very important to me, so -- Adam, what do you do? I know -- I thought you told stories in the past, you liked to ski. I'm a seasonal, recre-ator. I mean, during the winter I pretty much are limited to skiing. In the better weather I like to hike. Actually, I go fish. I do a lot of fly fishing. I love fly fishing. We just got a puppy, just got a puppy. [laughs] What kind of dog? A golden doodle. So, we're going to -- we have some beautiful preserves by our house and we're going to start doing some more of those walks and hikes with the dog now. Walk the dog. It will force you outside. Then in New York City too, do you drive through the city or do you do a lot of walking to and from somewhere? Well, that's another thing. It's a walking city for sure. Yeah. Mhm [affirmative]. Boy, I got to -- We're on the move all the time. Tim: I got to take up hiking just to keep up with all of you. That's not something that I've really explored. All I do outside of what I do at InForm Fitness in Toluca Lake is I play softball once a week. Outside of that basketball with my kid and that's it. So, I probably [laughs] need to get out a little bit more often and add to my recreation list. How is all of this different from exercise? All of these things that we're mentioning, one would say, “Well, isn't that exercise?” You're playing tennis a few times a week. You're hiking. Tell us the difference Adam. This is really -- it seems like a relatively easy concept to grasp but you say there's a difference between exercise and recreation. Adam: I think once it's explained it seems easy but you still have a push back. It's hard for people who have been told their whole life that you have to be active and be out there. They've been playing tennis their whole lives and playing soccer their whole lives, to tell them that's not exercise. They're not wrong by thinking it is in some sense and that is there's an exercise effect. Again, exercise, specifically is to build muscle and get stronger. There's no doubt that a lot of these sports and recreational pursuits have an exercise affect in the sense that they do make you stronger. A tennis player is going to get stronger legs from it, a stronger arm or upper body in general from that sport. That's not necessarily the goal of that recreational pursuit. The goal of that recreational pursuit is to enjoy that recreational pursuit is because you love it. Alright. That is the goal of that. The goal of exercise is to make you stronger. The problem with recreational pursuits being perceived as exercise is that's not the goal of recreational pursuits. They can get you stronger to an extent but it comes with its risks. It's not comprehensive. It's not going to do what you really want exercise to do. It's not going to build your muscles from head to toe. It's going to build them in a very specific way for that particular sport. That's not a general conditioning program. You don't have to spend a lot of time to get strong. 20 minutes once a week without the risk of getting injury. As opposed to being a weekend warrior or maybe even more so and thinking that, you know, you join a bike club and you're biking on the Wednesday night bike trips and you have the weekend stuff. You're thinking you're doing all of this because it's in place of your exercise. Tim: For people that are saying, “Well, I don't need to work out,” or, “I don't need to lift weights or do anything because I play tennis three times a week,” or, “I golf every week.” Right. That's the problem, people who think -- We hear that a lot. We hear that -- I'm sure Sheila and Mike and myself, we hear that a lot when we do an intake. We say, “So, have you exercised in the past?” They'll say, “Yes,” and they'll start listing the sports that they play. [laughs] Right. We get into that discussion. I said, “Alright, well, great. I mean, those are great things and I hope you continue to do them or maybe will want to do them again once you feel up to it.” That's one way I make that distinction with people, to help them make that distinction. That this exercise program might get -- especially if they haven't done their recreational pursuits in a while because they don't feel like they're in shape to do them. [laughs] Or they may have hurt themselves in the process of doing them. Tennis players constantly, we have them all the time, like they had tendonitis, tennis elbow or golf -- [Crosstalk 11:35]. Golfers with back problems and it's just like and it's keeping them off the course. I mean, and to -- and so I mean, that's the thing. It's walking like four miles and they get to miss out on type of thing. It's unfortunate. So, what's -- I have an interesting story just personally as far as I did -- I'd done a lot of yoga and I was always doing yoga. Then I started to get into do this. Then when I got certified and I opened the Toluca Lake facility. Then it was like, you know, my life got very, very busy and I couldn't go to my yoga class for over a year. So, and I go to this very hot, you know, the Bikram yoga which is an hour and a half. It's very, you know, intense, kind of. So, I finally made it to a yoga class after a year and this was the testament to me that this works as far as just building your muscle because I used to like go to the yoga class and then I'd be off for a couple months and go back and the first time back the next day I was so sore. You know, just from doing it. This time I hadn't been in a year I went and even though, yes, it was a little more, like a different kind of endurance getting through that class, the next day I was not sore. That was like, “Oh my gosh. This is because I have been building my muscle and I'm strong.” So, it was a whole different eye-opening thing for me. Yeah. I noticed it when the first time I went skiing and I went to high altitude and when you're coming from the East Coast and you go out to Colorado and you're at 12,000 feet, 11,000 feet, and you do a couple of runs you really feel it. My ski mates that were living in Colorado were always impressed that the East Coaster, me, actually hung in with them until about 3 o'clock. They went till five but the fact that I even lasted until three doing the runs that I was doing with them coming right off the plane from the East Coast, they were impressed. Yeah. I get that as a testimonial. So, like, probably more often than any other in regards to sports performance or recreational type of performance in regards to their strength and endurance and ability to stay out on the slopes. I hear it all the time and I just heard it last week from one of our clients. He specifically said, “It's night and day. Night and day.” He's a very athletic person already but he said, “It's absolutely so clear that the strength training that he did here,” for only a couple months too, maybe about 8, 10 sessions previous to his skiing, he said, “It was unbelievable.” Frankly, over the whatever how long I've been here, thirteen years, I think I've heard that the most. At least, you know, a few times a season I hear that. Especially from new clients. Yeah. So, this is a thing I want to say. Alright, what Mike just said is very interesting as far as what I would want to know is why. Why? What is happening? What is it about this exercise in particular that is actually preparing somebody in some sense to be able to handle a ski trip at high altitudes for the first time even when in the past they would need at least three days to adjust to the altitude. What's actually happening there physiologically and what is it about our exercise program that's causing that? Before we get right to that I just want to sum up the difference between exercise versus recreation. Alright, again, exercise has a very specific goal to build muscle and to do it without undermining your health at the same time. When I say not undermining your health, I'm not necessarily talking about getting hurt right there on the spot. That is part of it of course. The acute injuries that can happen from lifting something too fast or the wrong way and then boom, herniated disc, torn muscle. That happens. I'm also talking about the insidious things that occur that when you don't realize are happening. When you go for those runs and runs and runs, five days a week and everything feels okay but you know, your knees are sore from time to time but you know an ice pack, an Advil later and it's okay. You're feeling that year after year, next thing you know it's getting a little worse. It's getting a little bit worse. Fast forward another five years or so and you're still doing all that, you're being told you need hip replacement, knee replacement, you have arthritis here, you have arthritis there. Your neck is hurting you now. Your shoulder's hurting you from the repetitions. Tennis isn't fun anymore. Alright, the back is killing you after a tennis game, the knees are killing you, the shoulder is killing you, the elbow is killing you -- These are our experiences. These are direct observations. We've heard these all through the years. It's unbelievable. You know, I think we have a front row seat to these type of complaints too all the time so. These are primarily -- these are people that looked upon their recreational activities as their exercise as opposed to making their exercise foundation. And now they're realizing -- exactly. Yes. But now they're saying, okay, this is great. So, the pressure's off. I don't have to look at these activities or feel guilty that I didn't play tennis this weekend or I didn't run this weekend. I don't have to feel guilty about that. As long as I took the time, 20 minutes, about and worked out really hard, really intensely which is the whole reason and the whole way you should be exercising because what we're finding is all this magic that occurs. All the strength that we get, all the endurance that we build comes from the magic of pushing your muscles to a level that they rarely get pushed to. When that happens, all that magic happens. All that change, all that positive change actually occurs. Having said that, also, exercise is not about entertainment. The purpose of exercise is to build muscle as quickly and as safely as possible so you can live your life. If you want to have something that's not boring, join a book club, join any kind of group where you can have fun but when it comes to your exercise just work out. Do what you have to do. You know, trying to make exercise not boring is kind of like trying to make brushing your teeth not boring. You know, you don't consider that because it's ridiculous to try to change the way you brush your teeth just so you're more entertained during the process despite the risk you take of having rotten teeth. This is the challenge though. Like, Adam's points are absolutely valid and that's the way it is. I mean, people have to consider that if they're really, really taking seriously their health and thinking about it. I think some of the challenges sometimes is A, helping people believe that you can actually get a workout in 20 minutes. And we know you can and we have hundreds and hundreds of testimonials that you can but it's -- but sometimes people I think just plain don't believe that you can do it in 20 minutes. That's A. B, I think some people, they really, they need to feel like distracted if they're exercising unfortunately. That's why they need to be in a spin class with the music pumping and the candles and whatever. That's the challenges that we do have being, you know, before you experience InForm Fitness, it sounds very counterintuitive to what you've been taught to make yourself healthier but when you experience it you realize that what Adam said is absolutely right. It really is just like brush your teeth, you know, you want your teeth to be healthy? Brush and floss and you know what, drink water. You know, on that note, from a female perspective, I have found it to be very fun. Are we stopping? [laughs] I found it to be very fun because it's challenging. Women don't typically go to the gym and try to like, you know, compete or lift heavy weights or I mean for the most part. I never did. I feel like it's just kind of like a fun little victory every week when I come in and you see other clients -- our clients have developed friendships. You know, they're seeing each other coming in and out. They love telling a new client, you know, like, “Wow, I've been coming for 62 sessions.” You know, and it's just -- they're so proud of themselves. You know, that's what I see. It becomes fun. Not the process. Not when you're in that leg press. What's fun for you -- True. [laughs] Is the results from it. What's fun for you is the culture of InForm Fitness because we all feel we have lightening in the bottle and we have this big secret and no one knows about that you can get in the best shape of your life in just 20 minutes. That's all fun. That's all something to be very proud of and very enthused about but when you're on a leg press, those last ten seconds on a leg press, I mean, I don't know, I'm not thinking fun at that moment. That's not fun. No. [laughs] [laughs] To me, again, I think a lot of people appreciate the very direct approach about this as far as, you know, saying listen, I understand that you think exercise has to be fun and I can understand your reasons for wanting it to be fun especially if you're going to spend three hours a week doing it. [laughs] Right. Adam: You know, I get it. I get that feeling. Here's a relief for you, you can have fun without the guilt. You can have fun without mixing it up with your exercise and just do your exercise for 20 minutes not thinking about fun but get it over with in 20 minutes. I'm going to show you and convince you that 20 minutes is enough for that. That's how you start the consultation. That's how you start your introduction. Right now you have to believe or want to believe that 20 minutes is enough. All it's going to take for you is to follow my lead for six weeks and you'll get it. You won't have to have me have to talk you into it anymore. Then you'll be like, wow this is great. Now I can have fun the other how many minutes or less in that week. Tim: Well, that certainly is what first attracted me to this workout, minimal time investment, great returns. In just a few months I've shed a few pounds, my clothes are fitting better, and more importantly, I'm getting stronger. As a matter of fact, we'll include the PDF of my progress in the show notes. That way you can see how each week I'm lifting, pulling, pushing more and more weight. I love it. Alright. There's the music which means that we're close to the 20-minute mark in the podcast. So, if you began your slow motion, high-intensity workout at the start of this podcast, you'd be finished by now for the entire week. So, as Adam just said, you can have fun the remaining 10,060 minutes of your week. Great discussion today. Remember, if you'd like to ask the team a question or have a comment regarding the Power of 10, it's very simple. Just shoot us an email or record a voice memo on your phone and send it to podcast@informfitness.com. You can also leave us a voicemail by calling 888-983-5020, Ext. 3. That's 888-983-5020, Ext. 3. All feedback is welcome. Speaking of which, if you enjoyed the show, the best way to support it and ensure that we continue producing additional episodes is to subscribe to the podcast and please rate the show and leave us some feedback and a review right here in iTunes, SoundCloud, Stitcher Radio, Acast, YouTube or wherever you might be listening. To join us here at InForm Nation, give this work out a try for yourself. Just visit informfitness.com for phone numbers and locations nearest you and please tell them you heard about the Power of 10 from the podcast. I'm Tim Edwards reminding you to join us in the next episode, The Importance of Muscle, and we're not talking about just looking good at the beach but all the physiological benefits that come from losing fat and building muscle. For Adam, Mike and Sheila, thanks for joining us here at the InForm Fitness podcast, 20 minutes with Adam Zickerman and friends, here on the Inbound Podcasting Network.

Can a strength training workout really take the place of a typical cardiovascular conditioning program? Adam Zickerman, the founder of Inform Fitness and the author of the New York Times best-selling book: Power of 10, explains the difference between steady-state cardio workouts and the slow motion, high-intensity strength training workouts offered at Inform Fitness locations across the country. To find an Inform Fitness location nearest you visit www.InformFitness.com If you'd like to ask Adam, Mike or Sheila a question or have a comment regarding the Power of 10. Send us an email or record a voice memo on your phone and send it to podcast@informfitness.com.  Join Inform Nation and call the show with a comment or question.  The number is 888-983-5020, Ext. 3.  To purchase Adam's book, Power of 10: The Once-a-Week Slow Motion Fitness Revolution click this link to visit Amazon:  https://www.amazon.com/Power-Once-Week-Revolution-Harperresource/dp/006000889X/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1485469022&sr=1-1&keywords=the+power+of+10+book Ilf you would like to produce a podcast of your own just like The Inform Fitness Podcast, please email Tim Edwards at tim@InBoundPodcasting.com The transcription to this episode is below: 08 The Intro: Cardio Conundrum - Transcript You're listening to the InForm Fitness podcast, 20 minutes with New York Times, best-selling author, Adam Zickerman and friends. Brought to you by InForm Fitness, life-changing personal training with several locations across the US. Reboot your metabolism and experience the revolutionary Power of 10, the high intensity, slow motion, strength training system that's so effective, you'd get a week's worth of exercise in just one 20-minute session, which by no coincidence is about the length of this podcast. So, get ready InForm Nation, your 20 minutes of high-intensity strength training information begins in 3, 2, 1. InForm Nation, welcome in. Thanks again for joining us here on the InForm Fitness podcast, 20 minutes with Adam Zickerman and friends. I'm Tim Edwards with the Inbound Podcasting Network and the gang's all here once again. We have Sheila Melody with InForm Fitness from the Los Angeles area. Mike Rogers from New York City. And the founder of InForm Fitness, New York Times best-selling author of Power of 10: The Once-a-Week Slow Motion Fitness Revolution, Mr. Adam Zickerman. So, Adam, we introduced you as the New York Times best- selling author. Are you always introduced that way when you're at parties hanging out with your friends? [laughs] Actually, no. [laughs] You know, much like an Oscars' winner is always Academy Award Winning, Tom Hanks or Baseball Hall of Famer, Mickey Mantle, New York Times best-selling author, Adam Zickerman, has a nice ring to it. You know, it's been on the -- it was only on the best seller list for one week by the way. Don't diminish it. You don't need to throw that out there. [laughs] Hey, [crosstalk 01:41]. And by the way it was the publisher's list. So, in other words, the published -- what's published in the New York Times paper itself are the first ten. Fiction or nonfiction, ten of each. Mhm [affirmative]. I was number 15 which is the publisher's top 15 list which still makes me a New York Times best seller but I wasn't actually in the paper itself. You know what we need is like a top 15 list of how many ways Adam can de- emphasize his achievements.     [laughter] Yeah. He's so humble. [laughs] I would have that on my business cards. I've known Adam a long time and he is a people person but for some reason he likes to -- he doesn't want to be announced about anything. [Inaudible 02:26]. [laughs] Well, he is a New York Times bestseller and it's a fantastic book. It's the Power of 10: The Once-A-Week Slow Motion Fitness Revolution and we recommend you go out and pick it up. If you want. If you want. [laughter]. You must pick up the Power of 10 at amazon.com. [Crosstalk 02:41]. You can get it at the library. You don't have to buy it. [laughs] You're a horrible businessman, Adam. I'm surprised -- [laughter] Yeah. [Inaudible 02:50] library [inaudible 02:51]. No, it's true [inaudible 02:53]. People still go to the library? Okay. The library's actually [crosstalk 02:55]. I don't even know what the library is anymore. Amazon's my library. That's true. Starbucks or something. I don't know what's my library but it's not the library. It's not the physical location. Do you remember the Dewey Decimal System? Yes. Those cards that you'd have to pull out -- I do. And go -- well, you're not supposed to pull them out. You're supposed to write them down but I always cheated and snagged it [laughter] and walked around. Did you put them back? I'm not admitting that here on our podcast. There's so many people that don't even know that. [laughs] Yeah. Dewey Decimal System, right along with eight-tracks. Alright, we have a lot of info to cram into our 20 minutes together. So, let's get to it. This show will assist you in super charging your metabolism, increase your cardiovascular endurance and will make you leaner and stronger. Just ask James a proud member of InForm Nation. After doing this workout for the past two, two and a half years I've gone down from a 36-inch waist to a 32 and I've gained a lot of muscle, lost a lot of fat. I have a lot of energy. I'm able to keep up with my guys on job sites and basically have been able to increase my efficiency at work. And you'll notice he mentioned he went down in waist size with no cardio all through the Power of 10 workout at the Toluca Lake location. So, that's our topic today, is the cardio conundrum. I love that alliteration, the cardio conundrum. I had to look up conundrum, I got to be honest with you. I didn't know what a conundrum was but [laughs] I found that it means a confusing and difficult problem or a question. So, Adam, what is it about cardio that makes it so confusing? We think that the activity itself of a steady state cardio activity is actually going to either help us burn calories and lose weight which it doesn't and there's conundrum because people get frustrated when they do it and it doesn't really work all that well. Another conundrum with cardio is that we feel that that activity is the only way to actually affect and improve the heart and that gets confusing as well because everyone's told, well, if you want to improve your endurance and your oxygen uptake, you need to do cardio. And we have to make sure when we talk about cardio that we get all of our definitions straight. So, you know, Adam, one of the first things I noticed when I was first exposed to InForm Fitness and the high-intensity strength training workout with Sheila at the Toluca Lake location was when I toured the facility I didn't see any treadmills and I was a little taken aback when I realized that there is not a mainstream typical cardio portion of the workout. And honestly, I've been doing this for now about six months. I've loved the results and I love telling people about my results and my workout but I get asked 100% of the time, well how can that work if you're not doing any cardio? Adam: Well, my answer, and I have to admit it's a little snarky when I say this, but I say, well, this is cardio but just not in the conventional sense and I say, you see the way the heart gets stronger is by responding to demands. The higher the demand on the heart the better it's going to respond and it's going to improve for that demand. So, if the demand is low, the heart's not really going to adjust very much or it's not going to become more efficient. It has no need to. But when the demand is really high via high-intensity exercise, doing a leg press for example to muscle failure where the demands are huge the body is going to react to that and the heart's going to get stronger. Now, the heart doesn't differentiate between where the demand is coming from. It just knows demand. So, the demand is coming from a leg press or from a treadmill it doesn't differentiate. It has no idea what you're doing. So, when we look at studies, especially recent studies, that are actually able to show that there are improvements to the heart via high intense -- brief high-intensity exercise versus a long steady route. Now we're faced with a choice. There's no need now to spend five hours to improve the heart and the markers that show that the heart's been improved or endurance has been improved. When you can actually improve those same markers with much briefer but more intense exercise. And I'd rather choose that not only because it saves me time but it also saves me from injury because when you're doing a lot of so-called conventional cardio, we're talking hours a week versus minutes a week and when you're spending hours doing a repetitive motion that is where we start getting into problems of injury, of energy depletion, lethargy, lowered immune system, cortisol levels going up. So, we started getting into some messy territory when we start extending our workouts too long. It's a very fine balance. So, I'd much rather do a very brief, intense, make the demand high, have the heart respond equally. Mike: The conditioning happens when you actually work the muscles and, you know, our workout is the one that will prepare you to do any task that you need whether it's a sport, whether it's a simple task, everything seems to be better if you're building your muscles and our -- the Power of 10 is the way to do it safe and efficient. Sheila: Yeah. And I also think there's something to be said for, you know, the quality of the stimulus. You know, you're stimulating -- it's an intense demand and then you end your exercise at InForm Fitness -- the way we do it, when you end your exercise your heart may be beating a little bit like you just did a sprint but then what happens is when you walk out of there your heart has to continue working to go repair, you know, the muscles and what you just did. It stimulates that to continue on in a productive way. Tim: Would that fall under the third pillar with rest and recovery where your heart is still working as your body is recovering from that high-intensity strength training? Sheila: I feel so. I feel that it's -- that's what we're doing is stimulating that. So, that then when you let your body fully recover and you let your heart get to work and deliver the nutrients all over the body and help to replace the energy that was just used and help to heal, then you come back and it's a way more efficient and productive way to build your muscle and to simulate those systems in your body. Mike: Cardiovascular conditioning as we understand it, as the people outside the world of science, who are trying to exercise and become healthier, as I understand it they do cardio because they, A, think it's the way to lose fat and, B, it's the way because their doctor said, oh, I have to make sure my heart is healthy. Those methods have always been, oh, I should run you know, jog on a treadmill, three times a week for 20 minutes and/or bike for half an hour or do the elliptical if my knees are bad because I have to make sure all those things are going on. And I'm just following my doctor's orders because he says I need to have a very healthy heart. And -- Adam: And that would work if you had the time and your body didn't give out for that amount of time every single week for the rest of your life. That could work. And how do we know it works? Scientists look at certain markers of improvement and some of these markers for example are oxygen consumption. If your oxygen consumption has improved, the cardio is working. And aerobic enzymes are improved, that is scientific evidence that your endurance is improving. Now, this is the interesting part about it. Compliance is a big problem. You have doctors telling people to do cardio all the time. You have people being told to go walking and then the walking programs all the time. Compliance is a big issue. People don't have the time. They don't want to do it. They get frustrated. They get hurt. Well, the good news is with these markers of health and endurance can improve with much less time if the intensity is improved and increased. Several studies coming out of McMaster University in Canada that have actually had two groups, one doing steady state exercise and then one group doing high intense exercise similar to what we do except on bikes but they're like interval training. Much less time spent on the bike compared to how much time the other group spent doing steady state cardio on a bike. And they measured the O2 max which is the oxygen consumption. They measured some of these enzymes. After the study was completed, the amount of exercise that the high-intensity group did was tenfold less time. Eight minutes a week of exercise versus like six hours a week for the cardio group. Then they measured the improvements in these markers. This is the fascinating thing. The markers improved equally for both and to me and to a lot of people, what does that say. That says that it's not how often you work out or it's not the tool in which you work out on that creates these changes, it's the demand. It's the intensity of these changes. What that means is the real winner, the real thing we should be going for in exercise is not how long or how often or how high we get our heart rate but how intense is the exercise and how safe it is. We've talked about that. This intensity turns out to improve these markers that the cardio, the aerobics camp has always been hanging their hat on for saying hey the reason you should do this cardio is because it improves oxygen consumption this much. And if you do cardio it's going to improve these enzymes which proves that you're building endurance. That's why you should do all this cardio. Hey, guess what guys, we improve those markers equally by doing like six minutes a week of exercise. So, now what's your reason for doing all that cardio? If you could improve all those markers by just doing six minutes a week versus your whatever, what six hours a week. Is it really the treadmill that's doing this? Is it really the heartrate that's been up for an hour a day every single day that's really improving these things? No. What's happening when you see those improvements from doing cardio is that eventually there's a lot of demand doing six hours of exercise a day. Of course your body's going to eventually respond to that but that's the scenic route. Who has time for the scenic route most times? Right? I want to improve those markers. I don't have time for that. I'm going to do one really brief, intense workout and then live my life. And those markers, my heart, my endurance will improve just as much and these studies are starting to be repeated by other places. So, there's not just one one-off study that McMaster did. Other places are starting to do similar studies like this and very similar findings are presenting themselves. Mike: And some people they enjoy taking the scenic route but I think they need to also understand that there are costs taking the scenic route a lot more that they need to be concerned about. And there's an alternative. And what the Power of 10 does is present that alternative. Tim: And that alternative is an express route to get it done quickly, safely, with the same if not better results.     Adam: The scenic route is not just the scenic route. I know people like to take the scenic route but the scenic route is also fraught with potholes and dirt roads and things that can get you kind of stuck. So, as much as we like to romanticize about the scenic route, you know, unless you have a four-wheel drive you might not make it. My point is really that there are costs taking the scenic route. It's not all you know fun and games. Alright, when you're working out that much it's inevitable that you eventually get hurt. So, yes, like Mike said, people like taking the scenic route and we don't like discouraging people from doing what they like and if you like doing cardio because it's a stress reliever or it's just in your DNA to just be active and do that, okay, so be it. Just understand the risks involved with that and that they're not necessary for health improvement. Period. Tim: Alright guys, we're getting close to that 20-minute mark and we still have a few more elements to cover here in this episode. So, Adam, like I mentioned at the beginning of this episode, the cardio conundrum, it's going to bleed over into other episodes because there is so much content to cover. What can we look forward to in the next episode as we continue? Adam: Well, the other confusing aspect of cardio, besides the fact that we all think it is the only way to strengthen our hearts is that cardio is the only way to lose weight or if you want to lose body fat, you have to do cardio and that's what we're going to talk about next. Do you need to do cardio to lose weight? Tim: Alright. So, that's coming up in our next episode but on the way here still in this episode we're going to hear from another InForm Nation member who works out at InForm Fitness in the Los Angeles area with Sheila. She's a retired pediatrician and actually one of the stars of the Hallmark Channel. Plus, we received our first question via voice memo for Fitness Fact or Fiction. It's from Linda with a question that has to do with alcohol and exercise. Interesting combo. That's coming up in a mere 60 seconds. Right here on the InForm Fitness podcast. Well, this certainly is an episode of firsts as this podcast continues to grow in popularity. We welcome in our first sponsor to the InForm Fitness podcast. It's Thrive Market. Now, I want to remind you that one of the three pillars necessary to maximize your results with the Power of 10 is nutrition. Especially if you're looking to super charge your metabolism, burn fat and build muscle which is the point of this podcast. At the time of this recording I've been working out at the Toluca Lake InForm Fitness location for about five months and in that time I've already lost a couple of inches off my waistline and I'm getting stronger every single week.     But I've done more than just my once a week workout. I've been pretty mindful of what I've been eating and where I've been buying my food. Of course you can get everything on that list at your grocery store but I found everything I need to maximize my results at thrivemarket.com. At Thrive Market you'll find wholesome products that are InForm Fitness friendly at wholesale prices. If you're into the paleo diet or perhaps you're leaning towards being gluten free or even exploring a vegan lifestyle, you'll find everything you're looking for at thrivemarket.com. In addition to simplifying the buying process it's much more affordable than the grocery store and they deliver your items right to your door. And with all orders over $49 you get shipping absolutely free. Try it for yourself. Visit thrivemarket.com. Register for free. Start your 30-day free trial and if you're happy with their service and their products you can join the community. It's just $59.95 and most customers save that amount in their first order and then you can continue to save a bunch of money and grow healthy in the process. As a matter of fact, I'm going to save you some dough right off your first order. Simply email me directly at tim@inboundpodcast.com and I'll send you a code that will shave 15% off your first order. Thrive Market is on a mission to make healthy living easy and affordable for everyone. Alright. Jumping back into the program let's hear from InForm Fitness member, JJ Levinstein who also happens to be the medical expert on the show, Home and Family on the Hallmark Channel. JJ: Hi, I'm JJ Levinstein. I'm a retired pediatrician and I took care of kids for 30 years so I probably lifted several tons of children every single week. As a result of that I didn't really take good care of myself. I took great care of them but my average diet was a Diet Coke and red licorice for lunch and zero exercise. So, when I retired a few years ago I had an epiphany. I literally said to myself, “If I want to live and enjoy my retirement in a good way, I've got to start taking care of myself.” So, I found this place. First of all, I left so many dollars at so many gyms and so many paid training hours that I never took advantage of because I didn't like the environment of gyms. Gyms are for younger people and folks who didn't really look like me or want the same things in life that I did. So, I found that it just was a really noxious experience for me. I live four blocks away. So, the fact that I can just literally get up, walk over here in whatever I'm wearing during the day, have my little workout in a half an hour, not really sweat. I swear but I don't sweat. [laughs] I can actually move on with my day and it's not a big intrusion. There's not a whole big social scene. It's not expensive for what you get and the amount of bang for your buck it has really been worth it for me.     And for me as someone who's hitting 60 next year, I think myself and all my peers we live in fear of stepping off a curb and breaking our hip. Did my homework, found out about this particular mode of exercise, was intrigued with it and here I landed 18 months ago. What's really great about this is that it's real people training other real people. There's just no bravado. It's a lot of fun. It's sincere. It's empathic and it's effective. That's JJ Levinstein. I like how she said she doesn't sweat but she swears from time to time. [laughs] And I'm a little guilty of that as well. I was raised on George Carlin so I can connect with that. She also said a lot of funny things about lifting several tons of children over the years. Yeah. And she ended with something that always rings with me and we've pointed this out before. Once again, when she's talking about the broken hip stuff and how she can do this workout and not break a hip and not hurt herself. Again, it came down to the safety aspect of this. The intuition that doing it this way is going to allow her to have her cake and eat it too. That she can finally get stronger the right way and not get hurt in the process. Once again, what I feel is the mission of exercise is to make yourself as strong as possible and reap all the benefits of that while at the same time not undermining your health. Well, again, that comment that we heard just a few moments ago, from JJ Levinstein is from a series of videos that my company has produced for InForm Fitness which you can see for yourself at informfitness.com. Sheila, I noticed that as we were filming I had a chance to meet some of the clients there in Toluca Lake and a good share of them seem to have their own, IMDb page. Well, yeah. We have a lot of people who are in "the industry." Mhm [affirmative]. But overall I would say that all of our clients are basically just very smart people. They are very busy people. They are very successful people. They find us and they get it and they don't have time to waste their time doing things that aren't working and those are the people that we -- and the same in New York and I'm sure the same in all of our other locations. Yeah. I'm sure there's no shortage of -- Same thing. Smart people. Of smart people and celebrities over there in your location in Manhattan, right guys? Yeah. Well, you know, over the years we've had our share of those A-listers coming in here, you know. We don't really like talking about it. One celeb who I know wouldn't mind because she's talked about our workout and her workout in the past is Gretchen Ruben, the author of The Happiness Project and also of the podcast of -- what's the -- Happier. Happier. Mhm [affirmative]. Happier podcast. She wasn't a celebrity when she started working out here but she sure is now. [Crosstalk 22:17] Absolutely. Well, we'd love to have Gretchen on the program. So, we'll have to see. And I train her sister Liz and who just completed her 100th workout last week. Oh, congratulations. Mike trains Gretchen actually and the whole family as a matter of fact. I train Gretchen, her husband, their daughter, her in-laws. They're whole family. Her daughter has her own podcast too. Well, we'll put the links to their podcasts in our show notes as well too. So, our audience can go ahead and check out their podcast. And plant that seed in Gretchen's mind. See if she'd like to join us sometime on the InForm Fitness podcast. Alright. Now, time now for Fitness Fact or Fiction. If you have a question for Adam or a member of the crew here regarding fitness, you can type out an email to podcast@informfitness.com or better yet use your phone to record a voice memo and email it to the same address. That way you can hear yourself right here on the InForm Fitness podcast just like Linda will. Hi, Adam. This is Linda calling. I work out at the InForm Fitness studio in Toluca Lake and I have a question for you. My husband brought me a newspaper article that says having a glass of wine is just as good as working out for an hour in the gym and we're winos. We love our wine but I'm really trying to get my husband to come in and work out. What do I tell him? Help! Help! Help! I wish it was that easy. And I wish I can rely on these studies that they're talking about. He can't. Most of -- Are you sure about that, Adam? [laughter] Yeah, I'm sure. I saw you looking at to dispute that. Well, I looked up -- I don't know. I don't know if -- I don't know red wine. I don't know good wine Yeah. [laughs] Obviously. It's a scam. [laughs] Yeah. [laughs] Well -- It's like, you know, really, a glass of wine. Adam, are you really going to continue talking about it? [laughs] So, remember, it's Fitness Fact or Fiction. I think this lands under the fiction umbrella. I'm calling fiction on that one. [laughs] Well, you know, I looked it up on -- I'm looking at Adam and I see friction right now. Yes. [laughs] Look at -- his face is turning as red as the wine. Yeah. And I see affliction. [laughs] Have some wine. And very little diction.     Adam could use a glass of wine today. [Crosstalk 24:22]. Well, I found the article on Brightside. Brightside's a website and the article that I think she might be alluding to after a search from receiving her voice memo says, “A new study says a glass of red wine is the equivalent to an hour in the gym.” However, in the article they don't list where the research has come from. Just conducted, possibly, somewhere in Canada. So, no -- [Inaudible 24:48] talking about this all over the news and all over -- like it was on a recent John Oliver show and in his piece he was talking about all these "studies" and if you just start an article with a new study, a new study, a new study says and nobody really looks into the science of this study. They just go by that headline and then it goes viral over the internet. Hey, I can just drink a glass of red wine and I'm just doing the same thing as you're doing, you know. So, I'm calling fitness fiction on that one. [laughs] Fiction. I think it's across the board, fiction, fiction, fiction, unanimous. Sorry Linda but I don't think that's going to work. You got to find other ways to get your husband into the gym and pull that glass of wine out of his hand. Get him a gift certificate. We got gift certificates here. Just buy it, say, “I spent the money. Get in there.” [laughs] So, you're committed now. Alright. So, again, if you'd like to ask Adam a question on fitness fact or fiction, you can send a voice memo or just type out an email to podcast@informfitness.com. Or you can do it the old fashioned way and give us a call at 888-983-5020, Ext. 3. 888-983-5020, Ext. 3 and you can leave your comment question or even a suggestion. And while you're on your phone, why don't you scroll over to the podcast icon, find our show in the search and subscribe. It's very easy. It takes just a few swipes and clicks and of course it is absolutely free. This is vital to the success of this show and we would greatly appreciate your feedback with a review right here in iTunes. Alright. We have surpassed the 20-minute mark which means that if you started your high intensity workout when we began this podcast you would be wrapping it up right about now just like we are. We are going to continue our conversation regarding cardio and fat loss in next week's episode. Then in a couple of weeks we have a very special treat for you. We will be speaking with an amazing woman who in the past two years has lost, get this, 118 pounds by participating in the Power of 10 workout. She also plays a mean bass and has one hell of a voice.     We'll introduce you to her and sample some of her music right here on the InForm Fitness podcast. To learn more about slow motion high intensity weight training and to join InForm Nation by trying it for yourself, visit informfitness.com for locations nearest you. If you don't have a location nearby, pick up Adam's book, Power of 10: The Once-A-Week Slow Motion Fitness Revolution and we'll have a link for it right here in the show notes. For Adam, Mike and Sheila, I'm Tim Edwards with the Inbound Podcasting Network. Thanks for listening.  

In Episode 7 of the Inform Fitness Podcast, Adam Zickerman, Mike Rogers, Sheila Melody and Tim Edwards discusses the pros and cons of high-intensity strength training with free weights versus machine weights versus your own body weight.  You will learn more about the type of equipment you can expect to use with your very own personal trainer at Inform Fitness. To find an Inform Fitness location nearest you visit www.InformFitness.com If you'd like to ask Adam, Mike or Sheila a question or have a comment regarding the Power of 10. Send us an email or record a voice memo on your phone and send it to podcast@informfitness.com.  You can join Inform Nation and call the show with a comment or question.  The number is 888-983-5020, Ext. 3.  To purchase Adam's book, Power of 10: The Once-a-Week Slow Motion Fitness Revolution click this link to visit Amazon:  https://www.amazon.com/Power-Once-Week-Revolution-Harperresource/dp/006000889X/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1485469022&sr=1-1&keywords=the+power+of+10+book Ilf you would like to produce a podcast of your own just like The Inform Fitness Podcast, please email Tim Edwards at tim@InBoundPodcasting.com The transcription to this episode is below: 07 Working Out with Machine vs. Free vs. Body Weights - Transcript Intro: You're listening to the InForm Fitness podcast, 20 minutes with New York Times, best-selling author, Adam Zickerman and friends. Brought to you by InForm Fitness, life-changing personal training with several locations across the US. Reboot your metabolism and experience the revolutionary Power of 10, the high intensity, slow motion, strength training system that's so effective, you'd get a week's worth of exercise in just one 20-minute session, which by no coincidence is about the length of this podcast. So, get ready InForm Nation, your 20 minutes of high-intensity strength training information begins in 3, 2, 1. InForm Nation, thanks for being with us once again. I'm Tim Edwards with the Inbound Podcasting Network. We have Sheila. We have Mike. And we have Adam, the founder of InForm Fitness and New York Times best-selling author of Power of 10: The Once-a-Week Slow Motion Fitness Revolution. That's what this show is all about, supercharging your metabolism, increasing your cardiovascular endurance and getting you leaner and stronger to enjoy your health and your life to the fullest. In today's episode we'll discuss working out with free weights versus machine weights versus your own body weight and the equipment you can expect to see when becoming a member of InForm Nation. Mike, let's start with you. Give us a quick rundown on the type of equipment InForm Fitness uses to support the Power of 10. In regards to the machines versus the free weight versus body weight, you know, InForm Fitness, here in New York, we have the Rolls Royce set up here as Adam said many times before and all of the locations in California, Virginia, etcetera. Our machines, they're outstanding. They're made by Nautilus. They're made by MedX and they're all retrofitted for our style of weight training to accommodate for the strength curves of the body. I never knew what a strength curve until I got certified and went through all this, you know, information. Basically, it's like when you start out a movement, like what Mike just said, you know, you go through this movement in the muscle group that your isolating. At the start of it you're normally a little weaker and then there's a point in that movement that you're the strongest and then there becomes another point where it's weaker. And what we want to do is stimulate that strongest part of the movement. So, if you're in the middle of this, you know, compound row and in the middle of it where you're strongest you can do 150 pounds but at the back you can't or at the very beginning it -- the equipment allows for the resistance to fall off where your strength curve is the weaker part and then you get that -- the best stimulus in the middle of it. If that [crosstalk 02:59]. And this cannot be accomplished, I'm sure, with free weights or regular machines that you would see at a conventional gym. There are tricks. You can simulate cams on free weights if you know how to use them properly. Like a lateral raise, you wouldn't be standing straight up. You lean to the side while you did a lateral raise, you actually in effect create a cam that's proper and congruent. So, if you know what you're doing, if you understand the limitations of free weights and how to work around them, you can have a very intense and safe workout. One thing that I think we overemphasize that people give more importance in, is actually needed is this thing, this concept called full range of motion. That we need to go through a full range of motion and some people in the older generation might remember this but there used to be, you know, a protocol called statics or isometric training and that's where you don't move at all. They don't go through any range of motion at all. You just fatigue the muscle just by pushing and using the muscle in a stationary position but pushing as hard as you can until it exhausts and you got good results from doing statics or isometrics. The range of motion for a lot of situations in trying to maximize that range of motion can end up being a very dangerous situation. When you're at the extremes of the range of motion, those are the most vulnerable parts of the muscle, the most stretched position. That's where things tear and go a little and get really dangerous. I like to stay right in that midrange and if unless you have specialized equipment, you should stay in that midrange and avoid the extremes. Only with retrofitted equipment where the machine makes it actually lighter where we're right in our most vulnerable and weakest positions. So, the weight is not being taken over by the connective tissue because the muscle can't handle it all right in that position. So, that's why we retrofit our machines and we do get a little bit more range of motion using machines like that. But again, I'm -- I don't really care about maximum range of motion. It doesn't matter. You can strengthen a muscle group or single muscle by just working it really deeply in a static position. In its strongest position. In the middle position. I think, you know, Adam I think one of the best examples of that is the leg extension because of all the controversy and all studies and all of the, you know, it's -- over the last -- as long as I've been a trainer there's been a lot of news articles and studies that said the leg extension is absolutely the worst machine and one of the most dangerous machines in the gym and the thing is -- well, the question is, how are you doing the study? How are they doing the exercise? How is the leg extension set up? And, you know, for example, our -- you know, Adam can describe probably the best exactly the alignment of the seat and how it drops off at the top and you know to -- I mean where if he doesn't do that, if you are going through a fuller range of motion, you are putting your knee in a lot of jeopardy at a regular gym versus at -- our leg extension makes that accommodation if you're going to a fuller range of motion but as Adam just sort of stated, it's and often in many cases, it's not necessary to do so. A leg extension is a rotary movement. The rotary movements are more challenging for free weights and the leg extension does have risks associated with it if you don't -- so our leg extension machine has a lot of retrofits done to it to make it a safe machine and exercise. Without getting into all the details, if somebody was to say to me, I want to do this exercise on my own and I belong to a gym, what should I do? I would not have them do the leg extension machine because I don't know what kind of machine they have and it's harder to use that correctly. I would stick him on -- I would keep them on the basic leg presses. That's what you can do on your own or a wall squat is even safer in these compound movements versus the rotary movements. So, right there would be how somebody can do this on their own just knowing what machines to avoid, what exercises to avoid and what is more effective given that you have crude equipment or free weights available to you. There's ways, again, of having an incredible workout in a full gym and avoid 90% of the equipment that's in that gym. Adam, you have state of the art equipment at all of the InForm Fitness locations across the country. Can you briefly just kind of run through this type of equipment that you have? What makes it so special for InForm Fitness and this type of workout? The key to this type of workout -- the impotence to this workout in general, lifting weights slowly was to make it safer and the special equipment is just one more step in that direction of making it safer. And one way you make exercise safer is making sure that while you're fatiguing a muscle, you're not doing anything harmful to the joints around that muscle and that's where the specialized equipment really shines. Because when you go through a range of motion through a particular exercise, let's take the bicep curl for example, when you start the bicep curl when your arm is straight versus when it's bent at a 90 degree angle that change and range of motion, your muscle is not the same strength. It's much weaker when you start to position -- 20%, about, weaker, than it is in the 90-degree angle. So, if you could handle 100 pounds in the strongest position, that means you can only handle about 80 pounds in the week position. And what does this macho, tough guy do when he wants to do bicep curls? He takes the most weight he can handle which is 100 pounds in the strongest position. So, he takes 100-pound dumbbell and he starts in the week position that can only handle 80. What's going to make us the other 20%? Well, I can tell you this, whatever is making it up, it's not good. [laughs] Because that's the connective tissue of the elbow, of the shoulder, of the back needing to heave and hoe just to get that extra 20%. And there's no good that comes from that. And if you do that regularly for all these kind of exercises for all the joints, all the time, there's an insidious negative effect to all that because you might not have tendonitis on day one doing that but if you keep doing it where you're straining the joints and in order to lift a weight in a certain position, over time it's going to bite you. So, our equipment just makes it lighter in the weaker points and makes it heavier in the strong point so it matches that strength curve. And therefore, you're not straining the joints and connective tissue is not doing the work of what the major muscles should be doing. Tim: So, as we wrap up this episode on machine versus free weights versus body weight exercises, Adam, you did say that you don't need to be at an InForm Fitness location in order to perform a high-intensity slow motion strength training system. There are safe ways to go about this with free weights and body weights but you do need some type of a trainer and some education before you take this type of a workout outside of an InForm Fitness gym. Adam: Yes, you do. And it doesn't take a lot. Knowing some of the pitfalls of free weights and certain exercises, knowing to stay away from some of the dangerous things, it wouldn't take too long to know more than most trainers out there actually. [laughs] Tim: Well, a good first step might be to pick up Adam's book, Power of 10: The Once- a-Week Slow Motion Fitness Revolution. Inside the book you'll find several workouts that support this slow motion high-intensity strength training system whether you use free weights, your own body weight or are fortunate enough to live near an InForm Fitness location. By following the three pillars Adam discusses in his book along with just a small investment of 20 to 30 minutes a week, it won't be long until you start seeing some measurable results and achievements from your newfound strength. Adam: How about, “Hey, Adam, guess what, for the first time I was able to put my stuff in the overhead compartment in the airplane without some young gentleman offering me any help. I did it myself.” How about that small achievement that is a big deal to a lot of people right now? Just the everyday tasks alone is worth it. A very small price to pay, truly, 20 minutes -- [Crosstalk 11:36] that's the real functional training right there. [laughs] Yeah. And then I'll take it to the, you know, older, to the senior crowd I heard one of our friends Greg Burns who had some very senior -- they were probably in their late 70s. They loved going on cruises and the wife had been very upset because they couldn't go on cruises anymore because she had to -- she couldn't, like, walk around that well. They started working out, doing this workout and within the next year -- like they did it for about a year and they went on a cruise and she was so happy. She felt like she had their life back again because she didn't have to have a wheelchair. She could walk around on her own. It's that kind of a level. It goes from snowboarding, gardening, whatever to simply being able to walk and balance yourself. Yeah, I've heard -- I've recently also same thing, senior used to have to go up the stairs, like, you know, up one step and meet the other foot with the other foot and then up the next step and so like -- and then would go on from that to one step to the next step to the next step to the next step. So, it's like little stuff like that and -- Right. It becomes very noticeable. And what is this older person going to do if they didn't have us? Like what other kind of strength training that involves the necessary intensity. What are they going to do if it's not this? What is an older person that has problems walking up a flight of stairs, for example, as simple as that one flight of stairs they have major pain and problems with it, what are they going to do if they are that far gone already that they can't even walk up a flight -- what else are they -- what is their option? A walking program? I don't think so. What is it? No. They got to strength train. How about -- they going to join a CrossFit class? [laughs]     Like physical therapy is the other option. [laughs] They may find other exercise alternatives but probably one that's not going to -- they might not hurt them along the way, you know, I mean, it's very difficult to do that and that's why we -- They have to strength train. They got to strengthen the muscle. They got to do it without any force because they're so week already the last -- they can't afford any additional force that's not necessary. They can't afford it. They'll break. So, let me ask you this then. So, how old is too old to call InForm Fitness and say, I'd like to sign up for a high intensity slow motion strength training program. How old is too old? That's a good question. Dead. [laughs] Honestly, I don't think we can answer that question. [laughs] I don't know if there's an answer to that question but we can say we have people in their 90s. We have a 92-year-old woman who's on our website. We have a nice video of her and we've had another 90-year-old who would still be here but she moved to Baltimore, remember, Adam? Yeah. Yeah. So, it's like -- we have several in their 80s, several in their 70s, lots in their 70s. More than several. Yeah. More than several. Yeah. Lots and lots. It's -- so -- We forget they're in their 70s, Mike. Yeah. Yeah. I mean -- It's unbelievable. That's true.     Adam: Honestly, like, anybody that's over 60 and working out here, I think they're all 60. Like I basically say, yeah we have a lot of people in their 60s but it turns out that a lot of the people that I think are in 60s are actually in their 70s. Tim: So, we found the fountain of youth at InForm Fitness and is not a magic pill. There's work that goes into but like Adam was saying, a 20 minute a week investment is about as minimal as it gets. It's safe and it's effective and we've interviewed people over the last couple of months, Sheila, with the videos that we've been producing that I think they're in their 50s and I'm not kidding, with no exaggeration they're in their late 60s or early 70s and Keith comes to mind in particular. Sheila: Yeah. Keith is [crosstalk 15:10]. Tim: We're going to be talking about Keith here coming up shortly in another episode, a very charismatic gentleman and I think he's 70 something. Is that correct? 71? Sheila: 72. Tim: He's 72 for goodness' sake. My gosh, I thought he -- Sheila: And he's like solid muscle. Tim: Yeah. Sheila: And talk about intense. He just really goes intense. You know? Tim: So, if we have people listening we know just looking at demographics a lot of older people, baby boomers don't necessarily listen to podcasts but we know their kids do or their grandkids do. So, if you're a child or a grandchild of somebody that you love that you think could use some physical conditioning, you might want to give InForm Fitness a call or check them out on the website so -- Sheila: Well, not only that. I don't want to seem like we're only for old people too. We have, you know, younger people that are -- you know, we have 15-year-olds. We have a number of, like, in their late 20s to, you know, early 30s. And they don't have time. You know, they're trying to build their lives. They're working. They're starting to get into their, like, the peak of their, you know, careers. And they love this workout. You know, so, we have a, you know, grandson and a grandmother coming in and, you know, it's funny because he was like, look, you know, my grandma can lift more weight than some of the girls I know. Tim: [laughs] That's awesome. You know, which is true because she's been coming in religiously and just doing it, you know. Just slowly building and consistent. The workout is certainly for everybody. I have an 11-year-old client. I have athletes, very serious athletes here and it's for everybody. The whole point before was just that because a lot of people get very concerned about how much they can actually exercise when they get into their golden years and even up to like their 90s, which we have them here and they're thriving so. The limit is pretty much nowhere. There is no limit. Yeah. Yeah. You know, I think the only limit -- there are two limits. There are definitely some orthopedic or medical [inaudible 17:17] indications to exercise that. True. True. That's how we gauge whether there are limitations to this, not age. Age in of itself, it doesn't matter. It's really the state of the person. There are some medical issues that needs to be dealt with and cleared with some medical doctors but the other limitation that I think that exists more than anything else is the mental limitation. Mhm [affirmative]. You know, I mean, if you can get somebody to kind of let go and really push themselves to an uncomfortable level that they might not be used to, if you can get them to break through that barrier, it opens up a whole world in a profound way, way beyond just getting stronger actually. Not just to their physical abilities but if -- you know, when you're physically pushed to the point of failure in a specific movement, I know for a fact that that mental shift can also take place in anything you do in life. I believe that what we learn in those seven or so exercises in that 20 minutes can be applied outside in every area of your life not just in your body. I mean, I think absolutely, when we push ourselves in almost any capacity and then afterwards we take a proper rest, our body grows, our mind grows, our, you know, like, you wouldn't -- if you didn't sleep, your memory wouldn't improve. All these things, all of your cognitive abilities and it applies to everything and that's where, how do you do that in a safe fashion is and I think that InForm Fitness and the method that Adam has developed here is your best option. That was really cheesy. I kind of liked that moment for a while. Yeah. [laughs] Were we getting deep? You know a little cheese every once in a while, you know, as long as you're not lactose intolerant. I guess. [Inaudible 19:01]. [laughs] Never underestimate the power of cheese. I'm not lactose intolerant. I'll go there all day, Adam. [laughter] Yeah. Just cut back on putting that cheese in your mouth if you're looking to shed a little fat while you're building your muscle with the Power of 10. Again, check out Adam's book for a simple and handy list of food that you should avoid and enjoy in chapter 3, nutrition, the second pillar. We'll provide you a link to Adam's book in the show notes. Well, that episode went by fast. If you started your high-intensity training with InForm Fitness at the start of this episode, you'd be wrapping it up about now just like we are. Hey, we're going to be kicking off a new segment called, Fitness Fact or Fiction, in the next couple of episodes. So, if you would like to ask Adam, Mike or Sheila a question, maybe you have a comment regarding the Power of 10 or maybe you saw something on your Facebook feed regarding the many fitness trends that are making the rounds, send us an email or record a voice memo on your phone and send it to podcast@informfitness.com. You can even give us a call at 888-983-5020, Ext. 3 to leave your comment, question or suggestion. All feedback is welcome. And seriously, this is very important to us, the best way to support this show and keep it free is to subscribe to the podcast right here in iTunes or wherever you might be enjoying your podcast. Of course, it is absolutely free to subscribe and we would love it if you left us a review. Hey, our next four episodes promise to be both entertaining and educational. In this podcast you've heard a lot about weightlifting but not a lot regarding cardio. Should you hang onto that treadmill that's collecting dust in your garage or continue paying for that spin class you hardly ever go to or is the cardio you need included in your 20-minute workout with InForm Fitness? We'll discuss the cardio conundrum and fat loss in the next two episodes. Plus, we'll be speaking with a very talented musician who's lost 118 over the past two years by adding the Power of 10 workout to her weight loss program. We'll catch you next week right here on the InForm Fitness podcast. For Adam Zickerman, Mike Rogers and Sheila Melody, I'm Tim Edwards with the Inbound Podcasting Network.    

Coming up in this episode we'll weigh in on the immediate physiological benefits of high-intensity training. What is the difference between weight training and weight bearing exercises? And steady state exercise, what is it and how does it compare to high-intensity weight training? _________ If you'd like to ask Adam, Mike or Sheila a question or have a comment regarding the Power of 10. Send us an email or record a voice memo on your phone and send it to podcast@informfitness.com.  Join Inform Nation and call the show with a comment or question.  The number is 888-983-5020, Ext. 3.  To purchase Adam's book, Power of 10: The Once-a-Week Slow Motion Fitness Revolution click this link to visit Amazon:  https://www.amazon.com/Power-Once-Week-Revolution-Harperresource/dp/006000889X/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1485469022&sr=1-1&keywords=the+power+of+10+book Ilf you would like to produce a podcast of your own just like The Inform Fitness Podcast, please email Tim Edwards at tim@InBoundPodcasting.com The transcription to this episode is below: 06 Benefits of High-Intensity Weight Training - Transcript Intro: You're listening to the InForm Fitness podcast, 20 minutes with New York Times, best-selling author, Adam Zickerman and friends. Brought to you by InForm Fitness, life-changing personal training with several locations across the US. Reboot your metabolism and experience the revolutionary Power of 10, the high intensity, slow motion, strength training system that's so effective, you'd get a week's worth of exercise in just one 20-minute session, which by no coincidence is about the length of this podcast. So, get ready InForm Nation, your 20 minutes of high-intensity strength training information begins in 3, 2, 1. Tim: Welcome in to the InForm Fitness podcast, 20 minutes with Adam Zickerman and friends. I'm Tim Edwards the founder of the Inbound Podcasting Network back with Adam's friends and colleagues. Sheila Melody from the InForm Fitness Toluca Lake location and Mike Rogers from the New York City location. And across the hall from Mike is the founder of InForm Fitness and author of the New York Times best seller, Power of 10: The Once-a-week Slow Motion Fitness Revolution, Adam Zickerman. Coming up in this episode we'll weigh in on the immediate physiological benefits of high-intensity training. What is the difference between weight training and weight bearing exercises? And steady state exercise, what is it and how does it compare to high-intensity weight training? Adam, Mike and Sheila, good to have you back on the show and looking forward to today's discussion. Adam, let's start off with the debate between high-intensity training and your, say, run of the mill exercise routines that we're all familiar with. Adam: Why is high intensity so important versus just getting on a treadmill and doing that steady state, getting the heart rate up a little bit and spending the time, maybe an hour, every single day, which is generally what's been recommended and why do I say, and why do plenty of people in my camp say, that's the, you know, big deal. I mean, like, you don't have to do all that. And this is what we're finding out. First of all, a lot of people like to say to me that I don't think that steady state cardio is worth anything. I don't say it. Plenty of studies have shown that the physiological benefits that we see can come from steady state exercises. Certain markers have definitely been shown to have improved. Tim: I have a question Adam, if you don't mind, for the layperson like me, what is steady state exercise? Adam: Steady state exercise is doing cardio to the point where you can read People magazine for a while. Tim: Got you.     Steady state cardio is the kind of cardio that passes the talk test. That you can have a conversation with somebody next to you while you're doing it. And steady state cardio gets your heart rate up maybe 20/30/40 percent above its normal heart rate sustained, steady state. Got you. Sustained. Steady-state activities as such has definitely been shown to cause certain physiological improvements. They've been shown to raise certain markers that we look for. Some of these markers are oxygen consumption, improved oxygen consumption. They call it the O2 max. Certain anaerobic and aerobic enzymes go up. Glucose sensitivity is improved as a result of steady state exercises. These are all good things. You want to be able to handle glucose better. In other words, somebody that is out of shape, their ability to -- if they eat something that has sugar in it, their ability to metabolize that sugar is very slow and keeps your blood sugar up high and that leads to obesity and all kinds of metabolic problems. All these kind of markers are improved from steady state activity. What I'm saying is you don't have to spend that kind of time to improve those markers to that level. Turns out, you spend a lot less time doing it but it's a lot more intense actually, you can improve those markers equally and that's what the McMaster's studies have shown. At McMaster University in Canada they compare steady state activity and the markers of improvement to high intense exercise. And you'd think that the group that did the steady state activity for like for hours a week versus four minutes a week, that they would have at least a little bit better improvement of those markers compared to just four minutes of exercise but as it turns out there was zero improvement compared to the high-intensity group. In other words, the marker that went up for the steady state group, hours of exercise per week were no better than the group that just spent about four minutes a week exercising at a much higher intensity. So, it begs the question, why are we doing all that steady state activities if the markers that we decided are markers of improvement -- if high-intensity exercises are improving those markers equally, why are we taking the scenic route. So, the question is this and this is it. I don't think that if you like to do steady state cardio and you want those physiological improvements, we're all big boys and girls, go ahead and do it. If you want to spend the four or five hours a week doing it, fine. If you also understand the risks associated with doing four or five hours of exercise a week at a steady state level. If you understand those risks because a lot of people don't understand but if they did understand these risks because they still want to do it that way because that's what they like to do, it's certainly better than sitting on a couch doing nothing and those risks are orthopedic risks and overtraining risks of course. And, you know, quite honestly, some people don't see it this way but I see it as a risk of time, I mean -- Tim: For sure. Adam: You only have so much time on this Earth. I mean, like, I don't want to spend four hours a week of my time exercising if I don't have to. I'd much rather be with my family. Tim: Mhm [affirmative] and that's the part that's most attractive about this exercise, your exercise, the high-intensity slow motion strength training system as opposed to riding a bike for four hours a week. I mean, who has time to do that unless it's something that somebody really enjoys to do or they use it as a recreational activity. I do not have four hours a week to work out and I'm sure the majority of the people listening don't have four hours a week to work out especially when the benefits are equal [laughs] if not better. Adam: Well, that's the point. So, we have choices. So, we have choices. When someone says you don't believe in cardio, you don't think people should do cardio, I'm like, you know, we have a choice and I have mentioned scenic route before. I mean, some people like to take the scenic route. Again, it's a choice and most people I think want to just get it done, get it over with. And the people that want to take the scenic route, take the scenic route but I think a lot of people that take the scenic route, number one, don't realize it's just a scenic route, that there is even an express route. And number two, the people that take the scenic route, they don't know about the side effects of it and maybe they'd think twice about it if they knew what the side effects were. I think exercise programs don't have enough disclaimers with them. You know when you see a drug commercial on TV, they always have a disclaimer at the bottom. Tim: Yeah. [laughs] Adam: They read really fast and really small letters. Alright. Well I think, for the most part, that's the way the exercising industry kind of covers their butts but they don't really tell you truly what the risks are doing these types of activities and that's sad. Tim: So, in addition to the obvious benefit of becoming stronger, what are some of the other direct physiological benefits that we can enjoy as a result of this protocol? Adam: Well, there's a lot of anti-inflammatory responses and free radical absorption responses that occur when you push the muscles that deeply we're finding out. This is kind of new stuff. I mean, last five years or so. When you work out that intensely the muscles are starting to produce things that really have more profound effects and like you just mentioned, just getting stronger can affect our immune system. It could affect how we deal with free radicals. The fact that we're balancing the intensity with plenty of rest, allowing the body to do these things. So, you are actually enhancing your immune system as opposed to actually the opposite where your immune system is actually run down and you get more vulnerable to sickness because you're over trained. So, the balance there is very important. Yeah. I mean, the immune system, I think the immune responses, that's a huge thing because we always think about that's how we keep our body's, you know, to be able to fight disease and everything but you know something, I think even more direct and we talk about just strength training in general. We know strength training in general, you know, it, you can -- when you have a program, hypertrophy, increased muscle sizes is a benefit, burning fat is a benefit, cardiovascular endurance is a benefit and it's interesting. And Adam, I don't think no one describes it better than you do, about what the effect of intensity has on hypertrophy or fat burning for example versus a steady state stimulus. I mean, when you're pushing the body to that level of intensity, it sets off a cascade of things and basically all the systems -- it's a supply and demand thing. When you're producing -- so, intense exercise, that kind of demand and the muscles are growing and require constant demand, all our systems need to meet that demand. Osteoporosis, the bones have to get stronger when the muscles are stronger. The cardiovascular system has to become more efficient as your muscles become stronger. The integrity of your joints need to improve if your muscles around those joints are stronger. Your digestive system needs to keep up with the demands of more muscle and high, intense exercise. Temperature regulation is improved as a result of this. When noticing all kinds of benefits just because you're spending 20 minutes to push your energy systems to their max. Yeah and the other thing that I just want to make very clear is that how safely we achieve that intensity with this Power of 10 workout because, you know, you can get the intensity, CrossFit or those other things that people are doing, that's intensity, yes, but it's very injury prone. And by going very slowly it is really amazing when people try this for the first time. They don't believe it and then you get them on there and just by simply going very slowly with the right amount of weight in the perfect form, how deeply and how quickly they can achieve that muscle failure or that deep intensity. You know how you have to think of this is meditation with weights.     Hm [contemplative]. Mhm [affirmative]. Going to muscle failure is very similar to meditating. You have to focus on one thing and not -- and try to cancel out all the other distractions. And you have to accept the fact that there are going to be other distractions. In the occasion of reaching muscle failure the distractions are, you know, the big obvious one is the burn. The absolute discomfort that comes from going to muscle failures. You have to kind of ignore that burn and realize you have a very specific goal and that is to reach a certain level of muscle fatigue and you have to breath properly through this. You can't hold your breath. You can't do all the gyrations and histrionics associate -- those are distractions. So, what you're trying to do, just like meditation, is focus, as like meditation on the breath, here you're focusing on the movement on the objective muscle failure and as soon as a distraction comes in, what do you do? You note it and you bring yourself back and this is -- you never perfect it. I'm doing this workout for 18 years or more and you're never perfect at it. And when you think of it that way, I think all of the sudden, intensity is not so bad. So, Adam, let's say we have somebody listening in an area where InForm Fitness is not located and they're interested in doing this workout but they don't have the actual machines that you have there in your InForm Fitness facilities or gyms. Can this workout translate to free weights or Nautilus machines they could find at a gym where they might be located or maybe even just body weight exercises? Does it translate across the various platforms? Yes. Principles of lifting weights slowly, keeping it safe, crossing that threshold of intensity can be applied using almost anything. My father, I remember building stuff in the garage with my dad growing up and he had all hand tools. And I would say, you know, why don't you get one of those nice electric routers or hand sander, you know, like the electric sanders and things like that and he's like, a good craftsman never blames his tools. Hm [contemplative]. Point is my dad didn't have the money to buy this kind of stuff but he still didn't let that stop him from building some really cool stuff for the house. And that comment always stuck with me and to achieve muscle failure, to work out intensely according to muscle and joint function safely, you don't need to have our fancy retrofitted equipment that we spent lots and lots of money on [laughs] because if you're going to do this for as a business, a good craftsman will also tell you he'll use the best tools available if he had the opportunity. So, yes, you can absolutely do this with anything because you have to just reach intensity and you want to try and do it as safely as you can and you want to keep it as brief as possible. Tim: But if you are within the area or within driving distance of an InForm Fitness, it certainly would be to your advantage, clearly, to jump onboard, join InForm Nation and try this out for yourself. And if you would, remind our audience of the markets where they can find an InForm Fitness place. Adam: Sure. I mean, there's a reason why I spent all this time and money on this retrofitted equipment. You know, we're in New York City. We're on Long Island. We're in Burbank, California. We're in a couple places in Virginia, Boulder, Colorado and of course people in these areas are really enjoying the service of using equipment like this with a trainer that kind of has taught them the whole way how to go into that level of intensity and how to find that Zen master in each of us. But again, you know, lifting weights slowly or pushing your muscles to their ultimate threshold, exhaustion point, doing that safely, doesn't take much, doesn't take much. A set of wall squats, a push-up position, a plank. Doesn't take much to stimulate this type of change, now, there are all kinds of people, all kinds of orthopedic issues, motor skill issues, genetics, where having a trainer, of course, is a benefit. Tim: Mhm [affirmative]. Adam: But in theory, anyone can do this, with anything and I know the subject is equipment versus free weights or our equipment versus any other kind of equipment. Not too long ago I was interviewing a trainer who was thinking about becoming a trainer at InForm Fitness and I'm talking about the equipment and the special cams and the low friction and how -- and all the body mechanics and matching resistance curves of the machines with the strength curves of the human body. And I got into all this biomechanics and I'm thinking he's like eating all this stuff up, like, this is like unbelievable and in the end he was like, you know, I think this would be a little bit more varied, I'm kind of thinking I don't want to limit myself to just equipment like this. You know, I think free weights is important and all kinds of different exercises, you know, for a well-rounded workout should be applied. And I was like, this guy did not hear a single word I said for the last 12 weeks, honestly. He didn't get it. He says, you know, you're a little bit more machine -- you're like a machine based company and I'm thinking I don't know if I want, as a trainer, I want to limit myself to a machine based type of protocol. You know, I was like, oh boy. Either he didn't listen or I didn't do a good enough job in explaining what we're all about because his takeaway was we're a machine based company then there was some kind of miscommunication going on because I really, I mean, I have this beautiful pulldown machine that I personally don't use because I like to do chin-ups. You know, it -- but the pulldown machine is great and it should be used by a lot of people. It doesn't matter. It doesn't matter. And you have in your book too. In your book, there's a whole, like, the last, you know, part of the book is all exercises you can do at home, right? Of course. Yeah and for those that have stumbled across this episode and haven't had an opportunity to listen to some of the early episodes, the first few episodes of this podcast, the book is called Power of 10: The Once-a-week Slow Motion Fitness Revolution with Adam Zickerman. Of course,  you can pick this up at amazon.com and I would imagine there are some bookstores across the country that carry it as well too and you have these as each one of your facilities too. So, explain the difference Adam, between when women come in and they're told that they need to do weight bearing exercise in order, you know, to stave off osteoporosis. What's the difference between weight bearing exercise and weight lifting? Is there a difference and what is it? Yeah. I don't know what -- there's seems to be a lot of confusion because I don't think doctors are explaining to their patients clearly enough what they mean by weight bearing or even if they know what weight bearing is because a lot of doctors are a little paranoid to get and recommend their patients, especially if they have some kind of osteoporosis or some kind of orthopedic issues, I think they're a little nervous telling them to start doing a high-intensity program. So, what they do is just say weight bearing. I guess they can't get sued for just saying do weight bearing exercise. And weight bearing has become such a ubiquitous word if you will. It almost means anything as long as your active. Like a walking program by some is considered weight bearing exercise. Especially if that person doing the walking program has a big butt. [laughter] You're bearing your own weight. That's weight bearing. That's right. Well -- Yeah. Weight bearing is like Zumba. To me that's not what weight bearing is. That's not -- to me, weight bearing is high intensity exercise. Pushing the muscles to their max. That's what weight bearing exercise is to me. A walking program doesn't qualify. Jogging doesn't qualify. Lifting five pound dumbbells to music while you're riding a bike does not qualify. You have to go into the zone. You got to push yourself to your limits. Doesn't have to be long. Doesn't have to be unsafe. Doesn't have to be with fancy equipment but you got to do that and that's weight bearing exercise. So, Adam, are there opportunities for other professionals in this industry who have been listening to this podcast who really are starting to subscribe to this high-intensity slow motion strength training system, enjoying the science behind it and all that you and Mike and Sheila have to say, they might be able to get in contact with you about maybe getting certified to teach this in their area where an InForm Fitness is not located. Yes. As a matter of fact, I just got back from San Francisco with a group of six people for exactly that. There was an owner of a gym up there that wanted to get all their trainers exposed to this and certified in how to teach this exact type of training. So, I just did a 12-week course with them, Skype and lectures and then a workshop at the end for two days and then boom, they're off and running. So, you have a curriculum in place to go ahead and bring -- Yeah. The curriculum I've been working on for, like, the last five, six years. Mhm [affirmative]. Every time I give this course it gets better and better and better. And I just want to add from personal experience, it's one of the best things that I've ever done is to take that certification course from Adam. And I've also been through probably two or three different, probably three different groups of people that he has certified including some of our own trainers and if anything, you learn, you know, this whole new way of exercising which you can take with you for the rest of your life. And a lot of people imagine that are getting in touch with you like the folks in San Francisco, they already have a gym. They already have members. They already have a client base and they're just going to teach this new method, something that they haven't taught before.     Sheila: I was just going to say that we've actually had people call us up and say, you know, I know that we're not -- you know, there's not an InForm Fitness in my area but I read the book, I wanted to learn this. Can I just -- I'm going to fly in and can I do a little mini-workshop which is like a consultation or whatever. We'll take a couple hours with you and work with a trainer and show, you know, show them how to do this. And we've had several people, like, fly into Burbank Airport. And, I'm serious and I was like really. Do you really want to do this? And yeah, we've done it. So, that's always something. If you're kind of close but you're not really close, find a trainer that is certified in this and then just, you know, pay them to go through it with you. Tim: Yeah. That's a great idea. Or perhaps if you'd like to hire Adam directly to train you or your staff to offer this slow motion high-intensity training to your clients, just send Adam an email or a voice memo from your phone to podcast@informfitness.com. You can also leave us a voicemail by calling 888-983-5020, Ext. 3. That's 888-983-5020, Ext. 3. And to join InForm Nation for yourself to give this workout a try, just visit informfitness.com for phone numbers and locations nearest you. That puts the wraps on this episode. We are close to that 20-minute mark in the podcast which means if you began your slow motion high intensity workout when this podcast started, you'd be finished with your workout for the entire week. Join us next time as we learn more about the equipment necessary to perform the Power of 10 and we'll discuss age limits for this very unique and effective workout. How young is too young and how old is too old to begin? And please, don't forget to subscribe to this free podcast from whichever platform you might be listening from, iTunes, SoundCloud, Stitcher Radio, Acast and even YouTube. And please, rate the show and leave us a review. It only takes a couple of minutes and will ensure the continuation of this podcast. For Adam, Mike and Sheila, I'm Tim Edwards and we appreciate you listening to the InForm Fitness podcast, 20 minutes with Adam Zickerman and friends right here on the Inbound Podcasting Network.

In the last episode we discussed understanding failure. Reaching muscle failure in your workout to be more precise and by hitting muscle failure safely, you get a weeks' worth of exercise in just one 20-minute session. In this episode Adam Zickerman provides a very descriptive and detailed definition of a high-intensity workout from Ken Hutchins, one of the pioneers of this slow motion, high-intensity strength training system.  __________ If you'd like to ask Adam, Mike or Sheila a question or have a comment regarding the Power of 10. Send us an email or record a voice memo on your phone and send it to podcast@informfitness.com.  Join Inform Nation and call the show with a comment or question.  The number is 888-983-5020, Ext. 3.  To purchase Adam's book, Power of 10: The Once-a-Week Slow Motion Fitness Revolution click this link to visit Amazon:  https://www.amazon.com/Power-Once-Week-Revolution-Harperresource/dp/006000889X/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1485469022&sr=1-1&keywords=the+power+of+10+book Ilf you would like to produce a podcast of your own just like The Inform Fitness Podcast, please email Tim Edwards at tim@InBoundPodcasting.com The transcription to this episode is below: 05 Who is Ken Hutchins - Transcript Intro: You're listening to the InForm Fitness podcast, 20 minutes with New York Times, best-selling author, Adam Zickerman and friends. Brought to you by InForm Fitness, life-changing personal training with several locations across the US. Reboot your metabolism and experience the revolutionary Power of 10, the high intensity, slow motion, strength training system that's so effective, you'd get a week's worth of exercise in just one 20-minute session, which by no coincidence is about the length of this podcast. So, get ready InForm Nation, your 20 minutes of high-intensity strength training information begins in 3, 2, 1. Thanks for joining us for the InForm Fitness podcast, 20 minutes with Adam Zickerman and friends. I'm Tim Edwards, the founder of the Inbound Podcasting Network. Back with Adam's friends and colleagues. Sheila Melody from the InForm Fitness Toluca Lake location and Mike Rogers from the New York City location. And across the hall from Mike is the founder of InForm Fitness and author of the New York Times, best-seller, Power of 10: The Once-a-Week Slow Motion Fitness Revolution, Adam Zickerman. We are in the middle of a series of high intensity during your workout. In the last episode,  we discussed understanding failure. Reaching muscle failure in your workout to be more precise and by hitting muscle failure safely, you get a weeks' worth of exercise in just one 20-minute session. Now, coming up in this episode we'll provide a very descriptive and detailed definition of a high-intensity workout from Ken Hutchins, one of the pioneers of this protocol. We'll also discuss how this type of workout will enhance your performance and whatever activity it is you enjoy but first, Adam, let's dispel the stigma associated with the word intensity. I mean, we don't want to scare anybody. Intensity, yeah, an intense workout, I think will scare most people if they feel like they're out of shape or they haven't worked out in a long time and yeah, that raises concern for sure, raises the red flag so to speak in peoples' minds when they hear that this is not only an intense workout but a very intense workout and one of the first things that pops into a lot of peoples' heads is, "Can I do this?" Or, "Is it safe for me?” And that's what I meant when I said it depends who's telling the story about intensity. I think what we do so well is explaining that intensity is not the problem but it's the way we try to achieve intensity that's really where the problems lie. When I talk to clients and when I say high intensity and when I personally think of high intensity I think of that -- the first thing that comes to my mind is that Insanity Workout. High intensity! You know, it's like -- and I always try to tell people, you know, “You're not going to be jumping around. You're not going to be like you know, we're not going to kill you.” So, you have to kind of -- yeah, you do have to kind of qualify it a little bit, you know, when you say, high intensity.     Yeah. It's interesting because a lot of the medical research and fitness research that's been coming out over the last few years which we've been advocating for, you know, I don't know. Adam, how long now? Almost 20 years. Is -- My whole life. Exactly, you know, but it's a -- Yeah, sure. [laughs] Everyone's now a big advocate and they've showed through a lot more of the studies that a high intensity stimulus is the more worthwhile stimulus in order to gain the adaptation and the effect over the muscle in the body. So, it's a, as Adam said, it is the modality. It's defining it. I mean, some of the things that have taken the headlines are the 7-minute workout in the New York Times, CrossFit boot camps. You know, all engaging, fun, highly intense and where people have gotten, like, a lot of results but often times they're not assessing the risk when entering into those types of workouts and I think that's where Power of 10 and InForm Fitness is really, really -- that's where we have the advantage. And when we're talking intensity too and for 20 minutes, we really want to make it clear to somebody who's considering this type of exercise that it is not 20 solid minutes of intensity. Really. I mean, based upon, you know, the five to seven or however many exercises somebody's going thorough within that 20 minutes, the intensity really is in the last 30 seconds of the exercise. At least that's how I feel. Well, Tim, you make a good point actually. Your question is right on because you're not doing 20 minutes of high-intensity exercise. If you're doing six exercises that last a total of a minute and a half, that's nine minutes actually of exercise. Mhm [affirmative]. Alright. So, one and a half minutes, times six is nine minutes. You know, when it comes down to it, whether it's a two-minute set or even a three-minute set or a one-minute set, at the end you've reached muscle failure. At the end it's still those last 20 seconds. Now, there are a lot of people that if you pick a weight where those last 20 seconds come in 60 seconds. Alright, so come on -- that means it's already starting hard and challenging but it's not like grueling. Now, I understand that some people, especially beginners need to kind of work up to that burn but, you know, what I found is once you understand what the bottom line is and where you have to go, a lot of people want to get it over with. People want the weight to be heavier so they don't have to take two minutes to get to that point. And as long as their form is solid it's going to be okay. When on the first couple sessions it's usually not about deep muscle failure. It's just about understanding intensity anyway. So, it's something that you know, we're focusing more on the form and making sure people feel confident and safe while they accept and understand what it feels like to do to have an intense stimulus on their body. Usually, it's unlike anything they've had before. Even with very, very competitive athletes. It's quite a challenge. Right and it certainly takes some getting used to but it really doesn't take long. So, Adam, let's shift gears a little bit here. In your book, Power of 10: The Once-a- Week Slow Motion Revolution, and in earlier episodes of the podcast, you've mentioned the name, Ken Hutchins, one of the pioneers of the super slow technique. Tell us a little bit more about Ken and share with us his definition of a high-intensity exercise regime. We'd be doing everyone a disservice to not mention where this all came from. This was not my brain child, this idea of exercise versus recreation. I wish it was but it's not. Regardless, I'm following it but the person who's responsible for this is a guy named Ken Hutchins and he worked for Nautilus. He was a protégé of Arthur Jones who was the founder of Nautilus and Nautilus had their own protocol. They weren't just an exercise company. They were a protocol, an exercise protocol. A lot of the early body builders were using it back when he came out with this thing in the mid to late 60s, the Nautilus equipment. The protocol was high intensity -- this is the beginning of high-intensity exercise where finally intensity, almost above all else was the key to seeing results and it was done in a -- he called it a two, four protocol which is lifting in two and lowering in four. So, that was drastically slower than what was -- that used to be done and it was being done on equipment which is also very radical because free weights were king at that time, especially for body builders. So, Arthur Jones had approved that equipment. You know, it doesn't matter what the tool is. Matter of fact, the equipment can actually do some better things for you. Ken Hutchins realized that the protocol can even get better. So, here is Ken Hutchins' actual definition. I'm going to read it. "Exercise is a process whereby the body performs work of a demanding nature, in accordance with muscle and joint function, in a clinically controlled environment, within the constraints of safety, meaningfully loading the muscular structures to inroad their strength levels to stimulate a growth mechanism within minimal time."     What does that mean? Simple, right? [laughs] Who wrote that, Justice Ginsberg? [laughs] Yeah, exactly. [Inaudible 08:04]. Wow. I need a law degree to understand that. Yeah. [laughs] [laughs] Exactly. It's brilliant and it is a true definition because as he points out, the definition of definition is to delimit, which means that there are no other possibilities that could exist. For example, if I said somebody, please define what a pen is and they said a pen is a writing instrument. So, therefore, I can hold up a pencil, I can hold up a quill and say, well, therefore this is a pen, right? Says, no. No, actually a pen actually has ink. Oh, so, a pen is a writing instrument that uses ink? Yes. Okay. So, this quill and ink is a pen, right? Okay, so you have to define it, you have to break it down even more. You see where I'm going with this? Mhm [affirmative]. Alright. So, that's what he just did with this definition. I mean, there is no possibility of exercise being anything other than lifting weights really slowly on retrofitted equipment in a very cool environment that is going to reach a certain level of intensity. Alright. There's no other way of doing it according to this definition. He wrote this definition, to narrow down exactly how you have to perform exercise which is to life weights ten seconds up, ten seconds down, according to muscle and joint function so you better have your biomechanics right and your machines retrofitted for those biomechanics. Alright and you better do it in the minimum amount of time and reach failure pretty darn quickly and not hurt yourself in the process, he says here. That's what he just said in a very long way but, like, there is no room for error there. There's no ambiguity with a definition like that and that's his brilliance. He finally did it. Now gardening is not freaking exercise anymore. Tim: [laughs] Adam: Alright. Doctors can't tell their clients, “Oh, go on a walking program. Get some exercise.” They can't say that anymore if they go by this definition of exercise which is good because a doctor that's telling their patients that all they have to do is get out there and be active and go on a walking program because they want to save their ass because even if they die on a walking program, they can't get sued for that. Tim: [laughs] Adam: That's his definition because that is what it has to be but this is how we interoperate it and this is how we explain it to our clients which comes down to basically what Doug McGuff did, which is another great contributor to this movement, writing the book Body by Science who hopefully will be a guest on our show one time. Tim: Mhm [affirmative]. Adam: Yeah. Tim: In that definition nowhere did it say -- in Ken Hutchins' definition, nowhere did it say a leisurely activity. Adam: Right, what I've been doing and what Doug McGuff did in his book is kind of tweaked that definition for layperson, something that you can just kind of have as a mantra if you will. Alright. And have it be that [inaudible 10:51] that will guide you to deciding how you want to engage in exercise and his definition was much more succinct. To build fitness, to improve and enhance your fitness while at the same time not undermining your health and that is the essence of what Ken Hutchins wrote in his definition. Tim: And what you -- Adam: Although -- Tim: Built and based -- Adam: You know --   Yeah. Exactly. When it comes down to it you just have to work out and not hurt yourself in the process. You know, and it only -- it comes down to like doing five exercises or so to work the whole body really hard and then move on with your life. Well, Adam, I have a question. So, as we move forward with the exercise versus recreation debate, so, say somebody comes in and I'll use myself as an example. So, I want to enhance my game in softball. Right. So, somebody comes in with some specific goals because they want to get better at an activity that they enjoy for recreation. Do you tailor an exercise regime based upon that or is it pretty standard throughout? Read Doug McGuff's book. [laughs] That's an excellent question. I get asked that question all the time. You know, “I want to get better,” you know, “I'm a softball player,” to use your example. Mhm [affirmative]. And how are we going to go about that? Do we do certain exercises for throwing? Do we do certain exercises -- we're going to do plyometrics and jump side to side laterally like a shortstop would or how are we going to train for this? And the application is very general. We have to strengthen your hips. So, we're going to do a leg press. We're going to do some abductor exercises. We'll do some adductor exercises to strengthen the whole complex. We're going to do lower back exercises. We're going to strengthen your lower back but we're going to do it in a way that's not mimicking what a stress stop would do. We're going to do it the way your body was meant to move. What's great about our program is we are building all of the muscles of your body which are involved in the movements that you're going to execute when you're performing a sport. And, you know, all the people who are playing golf and playing tennis and playing softball and skiing, they've been -- you know, they report incredible testimonials about it. The bottom line is, doing leg press is not going to make you a great softball player. Doing hip abduction, lower back extensions, they're going to make your hips and your back and all the muscles involved in playing softball very strong and hopefully those joints really safe. And then it's up to you to practice that skill. So, it's a two prong approach and you do both. You have to get strong, you have to do -- you have to get strong without using up all your resources. The last thing you want to do is do an exercise program that's going to make you so tired and so fatigued and put your joints in such stress that as soon as you leap for a ball in the softball field, that's when you spasm in your back and it's because you just worked out like a crazy man in the wrong way all week long. Alright. So, what you want to do is get out of your own way when it comes to exercise and not make -- put yourself at even worse advantages. It's already a demanding sport. You don't need your exercise to be just as demanding in that sense. What you want to do is get strong and not compromise your joints. Alright. So, when you go out on a softball field you're not going to spasm. You're not going to tear something or hopefully not and it's still no guarantee. Yeah. But to get better at softball though like Mike was saying, you have to just keep playing softball and as the stronger you get without compromising your joints, it gives you your best chance of being the best softball player you can be. Just to put it simply, it's physical conditioning or strengthening versus skill. Right? There's a different skill for every activity, for every recreational activity. There's a skill that you develop and then there's the physical conditioning. So, there's those two and there's a great chapter about that in Doug McGuff's book, Body by Science. Oh, terrific. And the likelihood of actually getting hurt while you're practicing softball is going to go down significantly if you're stronger. And that was my question. It wasn't necessarily geared towards just softball but I think everything that you just said probably applies to any activity or any recreational activity that somebody might be enjoying and my question was, do you create a specific training, physical training program for that activity or is your system there at InForm Fitness pretty universal to where just about anything that you want to do whether it's golf, tennis, swimming, hiking, skiing, softball that kind of fits that mold to train physically for those activities. Alright. So, check this out. My story with this, alright. I've been staying very strong for a long time and I took up snowboarding as a 42-year-old.     Mhm [affirmative]. That's encouraging. Right. Yeah. If you talk to anybody that tries snowboarding at middle age most of them give up. They're like, “It was too hard. I was falling. I was getting hurt. I couldn't -- I didn't want to do it anymore. I didn't really stick it out.” I only was able to learn how to snowboard because I was a slow learner and it took me a good five solid days before I can kind of put a turn together on a snowboard without falling. Five solid days of being basically thrown into the ground all day long. All day long. And if it wasn't for my basic strength, my overall basic strength, there's no way I would have survived those five days. To just to get back up off my ass. Alright, on the snowboard. I mean, it was one of the hardest things I've ever attempted. And that's why a lot of people that if they're not young trying to learn how to snowboard they just don't -- they give it up because it's just too hard on the body to learn how to snowboard. It's a great testimonial to this workout that you can pick something up as physically demanding as snowboarding at the age of 42. Yeah and that's just like I said, that's a hugely demanding sport that Adam was trying to do. And we hear time and again, like we heard on the weekend when we were taping testimonials, can be as simple as gardening, you know, or doing things around the yard that people thought, “Oh, I just don't have the energy to do this anymore,” and then they start doing this workout and low and behold a few months later they're like, “Oh, this is fine again. This is easy again. I'm enjoying doing my gardening and yardwork again.”     And not just the recreational activities but just being able to work effectively to make a living. There's one woman that we interviewed that works for a television studio that's in wardrobe department and has to lift and carry and drag. We interviewed a gentleman who's in IT and has to do a lot of crawling and climbing and carrying and so this will [laughs] not only just -- this exercise won't only just benefit you so that you can be a great softball player or golfer but also help you continue to do what you not only love to do, but have to do. And how long does it take to have all these achievements, to reach all these successes. How long does it take to be able to do these things? Oh, just 20 minutes once a week. Are you fucking kidding me? [laughs] Yeah. Shorter than a television episode, right? Preach it. Hallelujah. I mean, seriously, you know if you started telling people, what would you say if I can get you to do all these things that we just talked about like being able to snowboard at 45 and not kill yourself or to be able to actually garden a full acre of land and your property and enjoy that fantasy of actually being an organic gardener and have your self-sustaining garden while you're in your golden years. Alright. Just imagine being able to do that because that's a lot of hard work. Just being able to do that and not pay the price for it. What would you do for that? Well, I don't know. What -- I mean, sounds like it takes so much. It would be like -- I mean, what was it? A five-day week workout and all that cardio and then doing weight training too like those crazy people on TV. I'm like No. No actually. How about just 20 minutes once a week and you can do all that? Yeah and realistically over time what I've noticed with these types of testimonials, when they record something like skiing its I mean, I've seen it as early as six sessions but usually within like eight or ten sessions. So, like, less than three months I think people are noticing very discernable changes in their body in regards to their sports performance or recreational activity. Alright. Thanks, Mike. That music means that we are close to the 20-minute mark in the podcast which also means if you began your slow motion high-intensity workout at the start of this podcast, you'd be finished by now. Done for the entire week. Thanks again to the gurus from InForm Fitness, Adam Zickerman, Mike Rogers, and Sheila Melody. And remember if you have a question for Adam, Mike or Sheila, or a comment regarding the power of ten, it's very simple, just shoot us an email or record a also leave us a voicemail by calling 888-983-5020, Ext. 3. That's 888-983-5020, Ext. 3. All feedback is welcome. And speaking of feedback, if you enjoyed the show, the best way to support it and to ensure that we continue to produce additional episodes is to subscribe to the podcast and please rate and review the show in iTunes, SoundCloud, Stitcher Radio, Acast, YouTube or wherever it is you might be listening. And to join InForm Nation for yourself and to give this work out a try, just visit informfitness.com for phone numbers and locations nearest you. You'll be glad you did. I am. I've been using this workout for several months. In addition to shedding a few pounds I'm feeling great and getting stronger with a minimal investment of just 20 short minutes a week. I'm Tim Edwards, reminding you to join us in our next episode as we continue our discussion on high intensity training with the InForm Fitness podcast, 20 minutes with Adam Zickerman and friends here on the Inbound Podcasting Network.

What exactly is high-intensity training?  Is high-intensity training safe? In this episode we'll hear from a longtime Inform Fitness client, who is 72 years old,  describe the intensity of his slow motion strength training at Inform Fitness in Toluca Lake, California.  Adam continues his explanation of muscle failure in high-intensity training and the value of having a personal trainer guide you through your 20-minute workout. ___________________ If you'd like to ask Adam, Mike or Sheila a question or have a comment regarding the Power of 10. Send us an email or record a voice memo on your phone and send it to podcast@informfitness.com.  Join Inform Nation and call the show with a comment or question.  The number is 888-983-5020, Ext. 3.  To purchase Adam's book, Power of 10: The Once-a-Week Slow Motion Fitness Revolution click this link to visit Amazon:  https://www.amazon.com/Power-Once-Week-Revolution-Harperresource/dp/006000889X/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1485469022&sr=1-1&keywords=the+power+of+10+book Ilf you would like to produce a podcast of your own just like The Inform Fitness Podcast, please email Tim Edwards at tim@InBoundPodcasting.com The transcription to this episode is below: 04 Intensity Defined - Transcript Intro: You're listening to the InForm Fitness podcast, 20 minutes with New York Times, best-selling author, Adam Zickerman and friends. Brought to you by InForm Fitness, life-changing personal training with several locations across the US. Reboot your metabolism and experience the revolutionary Power of 10, the high intensity, slow motion, strength training system that's so effective, you'd get a week's worth of exercise in just one 20-minute session, which by no coincidence is about the length of this podcast. So, get ready InForm Nation, your 20 minutes of high-intensity strength training information begins in 3, 2, 1. You know, I like the philosophy of the program of taking each one of the muscle groups to meltdown [laughs]. Surely what it is and you know there's a certain amount of emotion that goes along with these meltdowns. So, you kind of have to be willing to get into that thing where, okay, the sabre tooth tiger's got me and it's going to bite off my head and it's -- but it's a slow bite and you just got to be willing to stay there [laughs]. You know, I mean, anybody can do half an hour a week. Anybody can do a half hour a week of a sabretooth tiger biting down on your head. If that doesn't define intensity, I don't know what does. That was Keith from the Toluca Lake InForm Fitness location. He's one of the clients. He's been coming for quite some time, I believe. Is that right, Sheila? Yeah. He's been coming for probably a year and a half now, I would say. And Keith is how old? Keith is almost 72 years old. And he has been doing this for quite some time and that's how he describes high intensity strength training and great selling point for InForm Fitness and that's exactly what we're doing here today. Welcome to episode four of the InForm Fitness podcast. My name is Tim Edwards and of course joining us again is Sheila Melody from the Toluca Lake location. We have Mike Rogers from New York City and across the hall from him, the founder of InForm Fitness and the author of Power of 10: The Once-a-Week Slow Motion Fitness Revolution, Adam Zickerman. This episode, intensity, could probably turn itself into two, three, maybe even four episodes because this is kind of the foundation of what you put together with InForm Fitness, Adam. Yes, and that description of a sabretooth tiger biting down on his head slowly -- I'm almost cringing thinking about what people who've never heard about this work out and they come across this podcast and if they listen to this they'd be like, “Screw that.”     Well, it's a slow bite, Adam. [laughter] It's a slow bite but you know what, you got to listen to what he said. Yeah. Anybody can do anything for 20 minutes and the last episode that we had, The Importance of Muscle, is the result of what happens when you're able to just do something for 20 short minutes a week which is also the length of our podcast as well. So, just to kind of give you an idea of how little of an investment it is for some long-term bigtime gains. So, yes, we don't want to scare anyone away with the sabretooth tiger comment but here's a 72-year-old man talking about something he's able to endure 20 minutes a week and I think that's just a fantastic testimonial, maybe not the most accurate description. [laughs] No, no, no. I don't want to -- listen, I was smiling and smirking and kind of cringing at the same time. I mean, I understand why he's saying it and the fact that you just pointed out that he's 75 and doing it should say it all that -- It does. You know, if he's 75 and enduring this kind of intensity, it should give you -- Well, let's not give him that much credit. He's 72 but -- [laughs] [Crosstalk 03:53]. But close enough. [laughs] 72 years young [crosstalk 03:57]. He's an intense guy too. He is. Now, you know, this is such an incredible topic because what I'd want people to get from this episode today, is understanding that, as important as intensity is for exercise, it doesn't mean danger. Doesn't mean I can't do that because I'm out of shape or I'm not that strong right now. I can't work out that hard or I'm not young enough to work out that hard because that's not where the danger lies. It's not intensity that causes the dangers of exercise. It's intensity coupled with high force crazy movements, ballistic movements, high repetitions. It's this force associated with that intensity. So, we don't realize that you can have a very intense experience weightlifting and have it be of the utmost safety at the same time which is the real profound thing about this. I think we talked about this on the first episode, about the safety and intensity. Mhm [affirmative]. So, the thing about intensity is you can get there. I mean you have to get there and if you can get there in confidence that you're not going to get hurt, like our friend Keith just mentioned. Mhm [affirmative]. At 72 years old being able to work out that hard and not worry about hurting himself, that's the beauty in this. That is the true beauty in this. Things that are generally worthwhile often times are not easy and that goes with everything I think we do in our lives and I think it's just, you know, if you want to do something that's worthwhile that's only 20 minutes once or twice a week, I mean, the bang for your buck, this really, really hits hard there. I mean, and we hear all sorts of different scenarios. Like he's mentioned being bit by a sabretooth tiger. The most common one I think I hear especially for women is childbirth and things like that. [laughs] you know something and it's not and they go all over the place. Another really attractive description. Yeah. [laughing] Definitely. People are going to be lining up. Sign me up. Yeah. [laughs] Well, let me just say, you know, as a, you know, as someone who never really went that intense before I started doing this workout and when I was opening InForm Fitness in LA here and our trainer -- I brought our trainer, Ann Kirkland on and she's amazing and we were doing each other's workouts and there was one moment that I'll always remember because it was doing the leg press and the leg press does get scary. Like what Adam says, we don't want them to think that intensity means danger but in your mind it is a little scary when you're lifting the heavy weight and you're feeling in your body that you can't go on but I remember I was getting a little scared, you know, because I was going up towards 200 pounds at that point and Ann said, don't worry nothing bad is going to happen. And that just all of the sudden, that's was like an ‘aha' moment for me because we go so slow, we're watching you the whole time and nothing bad is going to happen. I'm not going to die. I'm not -- the worst thing that's going to happen is I will not be able to push that weight any longer. I will not be able to hold it. The worst thing that would happen is that I suddenly, you know, just stop doing it and drop the weight a little bit. That is the worst and that's what you have to kind of have to work through in your head is just this -- to me it's a very great mental conditioning, you know so. Tim: And that's the value of having a trainer like the three of you and the rest of the staff you have at all the InForm Fitness locations is the fact that there's a trainer with you one on one for that 20-ish minutes or so. And then the part that got a little scary for me like you Sheila was my very first time through the workout is when you hit that point of failure where you can't move that weight anymore, well our natural response is just a boom let it down but as Adam has said, that's where the magic happens. And so then you say, “Alright you're at that failure point, 10, 9, 8,” and you're counting down to one and we're holding it and we're sitting there struggling. That's the pinpoint of the intensity that it doesn't necessarily hurt, there's that burn. It's intense and you want to beat it. You want to be able to hold it as long as you can and then you let it down and there's that amazing release. That to me is the intensity and as Adam, you said in previous episodes, that is where the magic happens. Adam: It is and, you know, again we talk about failure too. The word failure, muscle failure and that scares a lot of people. If you're not careful to define what failure is and that failure is a good thing, people can feel, “Oh, I suck at this,” or, “I'm too weak. I can't do this,” and working out to that level of intensity and muscle failure will do that to you. So, you have to educate. You have to understand that there's a totally different mindset, totally different objective to what we're trying to achieve when we do a set of exercise here. We're lifting weights slowly because it's safer. We're going to safely lift this weight until our muscle has nothing left and that can be a scary proposition. There's a natural survival instinct that I want to kick in, this fight or flight thing but we're smart people. Right? And we're human beings and we have thinking capabilities. So, we're going to overcome that fear. We're going to overcome that temptation to panic and we're going to stay in the pocket and we're going to push that level of intensity where we can't lift the weight anymore and push a little bit beyond that and endure that burn, embrace that burn if you will and then just expire and then like you said Tim, that's where the magic happens but it's also where the exhilaration comes in. You actually get it that you focused on it and the whole experience is only a minute in a half and really it's the last 20 seconds or so that will be uncomfortable part. So, it's 20 seconds of what I like to just call, severe discomfort. That's right. That's really all it is. Severe discomfort. And when Ann said, “Well, what's going to happen?” Because as soon as you stop, the severe discomfort goes away immediately. Yup. It goes beyond just goes away. It's almost exhilarating. [laughs] Exactly. It really is. Yeah. There's seven times a workout where I'm like, “Oh, that feels really good for that to stop.” So glad you're done. [laughs] [laughs] Yeah but -- You know, I think the word sometimes -- you know, like Adam is a very, very direct and I appreciate that and the truth is I actually am attracted to that term ‘muscle failure.' However, over the years I have noticed a lot of people, they don't connect to it and it's something I think we do have to work on with some people. They just won't stick around and sometimes the concept, especially with type A people, the word failure does not sink in quickly. Even if they love a good challenge. I mean, I play around with the terminology. I almost always go back to muscle failure also but -- That's a big hurdle to overcome when I was first exercising with Sheila and she was training me through this, I didn't like the failure. I was like, “Oh, I failed.” Right, you know -- Right. But after a while, once you learn to manage that and understand it as failure, that is the goal. It's the only option and then we're able -- Right. Yeah. Well, that's how I like to approach it. I call it what it is and I say, “But that's okay because failure can have different meanings.” That you can have personal failure, we're not talking about that kind of failure. We're talking about different types of failure. The threshold. Kind of like the word ‘shalom' in Hebrew. It can mean goodbye and hello. You know and the thing is failure can mean several things also. Alright. So, we're smart intellectual people. We're all big boys and girls here. Alright. We're using the word failure in a different way. Alright, get over it. Stop being so touchy feely sensitive, you know. You know a lot of people will say, “Well, I'm not really in great shape. I haven't worked out in like six years.” I mean, I'm very careful -- we all are very careful explaining when you start this workout we're going to kind of build you up to that. We're not treating you like an advanced client from day one. We're going to teach you what muscle failure feels like. We might not even go to muscle failure the first couple of workouts. We might get close to it. We'll bring you up, we'll bring you into it. Then I always like to say to people, we're not going to go anywhere where you're not willing to go yourself. I'm not going to make you do anything. You're going to feel confident enough to do this the right way. You will go to muscle failure and confidently go to muscle failure. Not because I'm imploring you but because you feel safe doing so. Well, what you just said supported what I was about to say and I'll just follow up with this. I really struggled with understanding A, what failure was until after a full week of going through all the exercises, understanding I can't move that weight anymore. Then dealing with the fact that oh, well I failed. I wanted to go more. I believe it takes a couple of weeks at least for me it took a few weeks to my brain around what failure was and my trainer Sheila helped me get there to understand that. And then the beautiful thing about reaching that failure, that threshold, that limit, is understanding those limits later were pushed just a week or two later when you go up weight in maybe two to four to five pounds up on the amount of weight that we're pushing, lifting or pulling. When we passed that threshold that helped me understand it and that's the goal and it's wonderful to push yourself to the limit because otherwise, you don't know how far you can go. You're not going to see any strength and I have seen incredible gains over the last four months. You know Adam talked about educating and talking to people and giving credit to our clients and he's absolutely right about that because you know when you -- like failure if we look at in exercise or all aspects of our lives, like when we look back on times we've failed we've always grown from those types of things in everything. They're always -- when we look back it's always a very positive aspect of our life and we've -- I've conveyed that to clients and reminded them about, “Hey, what about the time when you lost that job but you got a better one later?” Or this thing happened but then the next thing came as a result of that. I read something that my brother wrote years ago and he said something like, I trust my failures much more than I trust my successes because they happen much more often, you know. And I think as a result of just life experience and I think that's what -- like, literally, most things that are worthwhile are difficult. They are challenging. They're -- and this workout is a part of that. This is not a recreational fun activity. I mean, it can be because the trainers are all fun and we have a wonderful environment but when most people come to do is to work out safely and efficiently so they can get back to their life, their work or whatever. And, hey, well, that's my take on failure. I think it's a good thing and we should be looking at it in a very positive light as we educate the clients. So, Tim, you talked about your relationship with failure and how you kind of learned to embrace it and it took you several workouts and several weeks to kind of understand where we were going with this and where you should be going with it. And it made me think about any process whether it be a language, guitar, martial arts. The thing about -- martial arts is a good example because you get your black belt but you're not done learning. Black belt, you're considered fairly proficient at that particular martial art but you've got different degrees of black belt. So, there is no ends in this process. I'm doing it 18 years this way and I am still learning about myself and I'm still finding out things about myself and it's interesting because it's a simple thing going to muscle failure in a way it's a simple, you know, just go until you can't go anymore. I mean it doesn't get simpler than that. I mean there's no degrees of muscle failure. Either you go until your muscles don't have anything left. Done. So in one sense, muscle failure is very simply just go until you can't go anymore, where your muscle just fails. At that point you can't lift the weight anymore and there's no degrees of failure. You didn't almost fail. You either failed or you didn't. It's like being almost pregnant. There's no such thing. So, it's very simple in one hand but then it gets kind of sophisticated on the other hand where there are nuances to going to muscle failure, your breathing, the way you approaching it mentally. It's kind of like meditation in a way. The idea of meditation is very simple, just focusing on your breath and staying focused on your breath. Very simple premise but you never perfect it. Even the gurus of meditation never perfect that. I think a lot of it is reading your client and their attitude towards a challenge and some people are very excited to about this 90 second challenge ahead of them. Some people have a mediocre attitude towards it and some people have a very poor attitude towards it and among other -- even if you have poor attitude towards it a lot of them are here because they know that what they're doing is very, very good for them still you know. And I think we have to work with that and that's where we set the level of intensity. So, we don't -- so they can continue doing it and they can get the stimulus that is necessary. It's a little bit of an art form from the trainer's point of view. Adam's right though, inevitably the goal is to get to the point where you just can't go anymore and as you evolve as a client or in just doing the technique on your own or with a trainer you get better at it. At tolerating what is an unpleasant feeling, what's a lot of discomfort which people sometimes use the word pain dare I say, but it's like it's just a hard activity. It's a hard stimulus but the good thing is it's over quickly. It's a worthwhile stimulus. It's very challenging but it's over fast. And then the other thing about that too is they might be a little afraid to go to that level of intensity. We do have to guide them through it and it takes a few weeks for you to really kind of mentally get into it but you will leave that first session feeling something and that is what, “Wow. Oh my gosh. I'm going to go back and try a little harder next time.” You know and then they get to know themselves better that they can handle more than what they thought they could. And after six to twelve sessions you start to notice and feel and see benefits like the changes in your body and people feel it. So, it's all very worthwhile.     Adam: When I give a consultation I'm not trying to push them as hard as they ever worked out in their life before. I'm not trying to prove to them how tough I am as a trainer. I'm not trying to get them to prove to me how tough they are. What I'm trying to do the first workout is to get their attention if you will. Like, “Wow. I can't believe how my legs feel after just two minutes of doing it.” When they say how amazing it is after their first workout and I know they didn't go into muscle failure and I know they have a lot of experiencing to do. I always say to them, I'm glad you just said that to me. If you think this is crazy cool now, I'm going to ask you how you feel about it in six to twelve weeks and you're going to look back on today's workout as like, “Wow. I thought I was doing it back then. Now, I see I'm doing it.” You know, so, you're going to look back on today's first workout with fond memories if you will because it's never going to be so easy ever again. Tim: Well, there's definitely something special about that first workout. It is an eye-opening experience and a first step towards rebooting your metabolism, burning fat and building muscle. Thanks team. Alright, here's our music composed and performed by our very own Mike Rogers, the GM at the InForm Fitness location in New York City. That music means that we're close to that 20-minute mark in the podcast. So, if you began your slow motion high intensity workout at the start of this podcast, you'd be finished by now for the entire week. If you'd like to ask our InForm Fitness experts a question or have comment regarding the Power of 10, it's very simple, just shoot us an email or record a voice memo on your phone and send it to podcast@informfitness.com. You can also leave us a voicemail by calling 888-983-5020, Ext. 3. That's 888-983-5020, Ext. 3. All feedback is welcome. Chances are strong that you'll end up right here on the show. And if you're learning from the show and enjoying it the best way to support it and ensure that we continue producing additional episodes is to subscribe to the podcast and please rate the show and leave us a review right here in iTunes, SoundCloud, Stitcher Radio, Acast, YouTube or wherever you might be listening. And to join us here at InForm Nation and to give this work out a try for yourself just visit informfitness.com for phone numbers and locations nearest you. Please tell them you heard about the Power of 10 from the podcast. Don't forget to join us in our next episode as we continue the series on intensity. We'll provide you with a very descriptive and detailed definition of a high-intensity workout from Ken Hutchins, one of the pioneers of this protocol. We'll also discuss how this type of workout will enhance your performance in whatever activity it is you enjoy. I'm Tim Edwards. For Adam, Mike and Sheila, thanks for joining us on the InForm Fitness podcast, 20 minutes with Adam Zickerman and friends right here on the Inbound Podcasting Network.    

This episode Adam discusses the importance of building muscle beyond just looking good at the beach or in a cocktail dress.  You will learn about of the profound effects building muscles safely has on all the organs of your body. Some questions answered in this episode are: Will I become more “toned” working out with low weights and high reps? What is muscle failure and is it necessary to build muscles safely.  What is the dose-response relationship and how does it apply to building muscle? If you'd like to ask Adam, Mike or Sheila a question or have a comment regarding the Power of 10. Send us an email or record a voice memo on your phone and send it to podcast@informfitness.com.  Join Inform Nation and call the show with a comment or question.  The number is 888-983-5020, Ext. 3.  To purchase Adam's book, Power of 10: The Once-a-Week Slow Motion Fitness Revolution click this link to visit Amazon:  https://www.amazon.com/Power-Once-Week-Revolution-Harperresource/dp/006000889X/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1485469022&sr=1-1&keywords=the+power+of+10+book Ilf you would like to produce a podcast of your own just like The Inform Fitness Podcast, please email Tim Edwards at tim@InBoundPodcasting.com The transcription to this episode is below: 03 The Importance of Muscle - Transcript Intro: You're listening to the InForm Fitness podcast, 20 minutes with New York Times, best-selling author, Adam Zickerman and friends. Brought to you by InForm Fitness, life-changing personal training with several locations across the US. Reboot your metabolism and experience the revolutionary Power of 10, the high intensity, slow motion, strength training system that's so effective, you'd get a week's worth of exercise in just one 20-minute session, which by no coincidence is about the length of this podcast. So, get ready InForm Nation, your 20 minutes of high-intensity strength training information begins in 3, 2, 1. Tim: Alright. Welcome back to the InForm Fitness podcast with Adam Zickerman. My name's Tim and we are at episode three, The Importance of Muscle. We'll get down to that in just a minute but listen to that music in the background. Just kind of get that -- it's got a good groove to it. Don't you think guys? Adam: Mhm [affirmative]. Tim: Yeah? Mike: I sure as hell think so. Tim: [laughter] And of course was Mike Rogers, GM of InForm Fitness in New York City, who wrote and performed our theme music. What's the name of that song, Mike? Mike: That song is called, “Allergic To The Medication.” I actually co-wrote that with my partner, Brian Lord, who currently lives in Portland, Oregon and hence the demise of the Hypertonics, that was our band. Tim: [laughs] Mike: But, you know, every once in a while, we pop out and we have a show every once, you know, to bring back the love but yeah, that was one of our favorite songs. Tim: Well, we're going to put you on stage at our one-year anniversary show perhaps, maybe and we'll have a show in New York and LA because that's where we're broadcasting from or podcasting from. Alright. Let's get into it, guys. Let's dive in. So, we've had a couple of episodes under our belt now. And if you haven't had a chance to listen to episodes one and two, we invite you to go back and do so. Episode one, we talked to Adam Zickerman in great detail about Adam's history, what led him to building his empire at InForm Fitness and this slow motion high-intensity workout which is what this podcast is all about. This show is for those that are looking to supercharge their metabolism, increase cardiovascular endurance and build muscle. That's what today's episode is all about, building muscle or just, The Importance of Muscle, beyond the obvious, guys. The obvious is, you know, functionality. We want to look good and get as many right swipes for all of you single people out there [laughs] I suppose. Adam, walk us through the importance of muscle. Not just the obvious, the things that we're all aware of. Well, actually I do want, you know -- yeah. First of all, the obvious is not so unimportant. I mean, there's so many things but let's start with the obvious. Mhm [affirmative]. I mean, I guess the one obvious thing about building muscle would be looking better. Right? You know, looking chiseled, looking defined, looking strong, looking fit and that's an aesthetic thing and that's probably the obvious one. To me though, especially for baby boomers, I'd have to say that's probably fifth on the totem pole of importance, you know. To me, probably the most important thing about muscle is the strength aspect that it gives you. To me, that is the foundation of any fitness program. Do you find that that is more prevalent, the importance of strength to, say, baby boomers because that's when the age group that starts to notice that they're not nearly as strong as they once were, is that why that's at the top of their list? That's exactly when they start to realize what's important in life. [laughs] They have the family. They got the girl or they got the guy. Right. You know? They sell the BMW. They get the minivan and now they don't want to be in pain anymore. [laughs] Now they want to be able to go play sports with their kids and not be in pain and to enjoy life and to not exacerbate or have the injuries they've had of their youth start creeping up on them. What this does, what strength gives you, it buys you more time to be pain-free because those injuries they're lurking and as soon as you start getting weaker, those injuries start becoming more pronounced. The main way I think to keep those things at bay is just to not lose any muscle strength as we get older.     You know what I've noticed from all the years I've been training and really, really thinking about this and living it as well is that around age 30, you know, people, both men and women are losing muscle just from the nature of aging. Maintaining that has become and should become the priority in our life. I mean, everything sort of slows down a little bit. We start to store a little bit more fat. Our joints get a little weaker. When we're playing sports, the little injuries that used to go away in a day or two sometimes linger a little bit longer, those little aches and pains and I mean, I'm an active guy and so that happens. A lot of it, what women think is toning, “Oh, I want to tone up. I want to tone up. I want to tone up.” Well, girls, that's muscle. That's what it is. It's muscle and you get, you know, and you're not going to bulk up, you know, and get -- you're going to be the best you can be. Right, Adam? Why don't we talk a little bit about bulking up? Alright. The thing about muscle is this, we all think that if you work out one way, the muscle will respond one way and if you work out another way, the muscle will respond the other way. For example, if you do -- the old adage is if you do heavy weights low reps, you'll bulk up. Your muscles will get big and bulky. And the other thought would be if you do high reps, then you get toned. You get cut. That's like ridiculous. Alright. When a muscle gets stimulated, when a muscle is fatigued, it makes itself stronger and the way it makes itself stronger is by creating more, what they call, myofibrils which are the cells within a muscle fiber and the muscle fibers get thicker and thicker and stronger and either it's stimulated enough for that to happen or it's not stimulated enough for that to happen. Period. It's not like it's going to bulk up one way -- a myofibril is a myofibril. It's the same. That's the reaction. More myofibrils, thicker muscle fibers. So, Adam, when I started my workout with Sheila several months ago and she was explaining this work out through the Power of 10, the slow motion high-intensity strength training system that you developed at InForm Fitness. Sheila did a great job. I loved the word she used when I was in the middle of the workout. I was getting a dose. I feel like I'm getting a deeper penetration into the muscle. Am I visualizing that correctly? Are there different types of muscle fibers that are being stimulated through this protocol? Right. Well, first of all, let's talk about dose and usage of the word dose. I'm so glad that you that resonated with you. Very much.   That that made that kind of affected, “Oh, like,” because, you know, Doug McGuff author of Body by Science talks -- had a whole chapter in his book, Body by Science, about the dose-response relationship. And Sheila, you used the word ‘dosage' because in her head that's how she sees it. Mhm [affirmative]. Because that's exactly what it is and the dose-response relationship that McGuff talks about is a relationship that every medical student, every doctor has to know and deal with. And that is understanding the dosage of a certain medicine to get the proper response. And doctors all know that they have to balance just the right dosage to get just the right response because if the dosage is too little, there's not going to be a response. Or too much. And if a dosage is too much, it becomes toxic. So, this it's balancing act of having exact right doses deal with whatever needs to be dealt with. Now, exercise is exactly the same way because medicine is a dosage and a high-intensity exercise experience is a dosage. And while we need to do it individuals, understand what dosage works best for us to get the response we need. And that dosage in general, on a bell curve of the human population, is about once a week that dosage. It can vary for the individual by days and even weeks for that matter but you have to start somewhere. When you look at the general population, it seems that one week, one work out per week, you start seeing progress, you start seeing muscle strength and muscle gains. Wow, that fast. But this type of workout. Not just any workout, right? If anything -- And the analogy works really well with more or less than you need. If you have too much exercise, well now we're getting into my personal story about how my boss said I didn't look very good even though I was always very fit because I was tired, I was overtraining. I was getting hurt a lot and then you have the opposite. You have people that, you know, they do it half assed. Let's face it. They go through the motions. They go to the gym. They're talking and reading People magazine and they're not really getting any real doses even though they might be spending a lot of time. Point is, they're not going to get any response. The dosage is too weak. Yeah. I think we're always trying to figure out how to create this balancing act and it is a little difficult sometimes because we're all individual. We're all very different. Some people can benefit from going two times a week, sometimes one time a week is absolutely appropriate. And the thing is, I think depending on what you're doing and how intense you're doing it, we have to try and figure this out. And figuring out the right dose, you know, we always start on a conservative level when we're trying to understand peoples' bodies but then -- and then it usually becomes very intense very, very quickly. But understanding this dose-response relationship I think is one of the most important things in how we think about our health in all aspects. From what we're eating, to how much we're sleeping, to the how much in the frequency of our exercise. So, it's something that is worth everyone thinking about a little bit. And one of the thing that, you know. I -- that really had an impact on me when I first heard this is, and Adam said it, was the fact that muscle dictates to the rest of the body what happens. Basically, the muscle is the most demanding tissue in your body. So, when you place a demand on that muscle, it makes the rest of the body stand up and pay attention. Mhm [affirmative]. Right? Well, now you're bringing up something different now. So, we got the dose response thing which means, you know, you have the right stimulus. Alright and therefore you're waiting for the right response. The response that we're looking for is strength. Now, what does strength, getting back to the beginning of this podcast, what does strength give us? Why is strength -- why is muscle so important? That's what Sheila was referring to now when she talked about the demands of muscle. Right? The demands of muscle -- another analogy I like to make is like the demands of a population. What happens when a lot of people start moving into a new town and start developing a new town? Alright. The more people that move into that town, the more services need to be built to service those people. Alright. You'd have to have more restaurants. You'd have to have more supermarkets. You'd have to have a better transportation system. Everything has to improve to meet that demand. The utilities, new electrical units whatever that they call that stuff when they build out a city. So, that's the demand and demand is the people. So, when you're building muscle let the demand [inaudible 11:54]. The more muscle that you put on your frame, the more demands you're making on your body to meet those demands. And what does that mean? That means the heart, the transportation system, has to become more efficient. The infrastructure of the town has to improve. The roadways what do you -- well that's our bones. That's our skeletal system. Once again, that's it's more of a common fact that people understand that building strength will help with bone density. The idea of strength training and exercise and staving off the effects of osteoporosis has been known for a while now. Well, it's because when you have strong muscles, again, the bones have to support those new stronger muscles and they become more dense. So, question I have, is you bring that up and that's a fantastic analogy of the demand and supply and using that city analogy and you're talking about with the building of the muscle, the strength training and its effect on various parts of the body like Sheila introduced a minute ago. What about organ functionality? You mentioned the heart as well too but does that also -- does building your muscles and becoming stronger also help you with other functionalities? What, like say, for digestion? Exactly. [Inaudible 13:07] digestion, our ability to utilize -- our glucose metabolism improves. That's a very interesting point because when I talked about these factors that I wanted to have separate podcasts about. One of those things, the research being done on myokines. Myokines are these proteins that are generated from the muscle after high intensity exercise. They have anti- inflammatory properties but they also have what they call organ crosstalk. Your muscles can release these myokines and talk to other organs in your body to have them perform better. Mhm [affirmative]. Like the pancreas is actually utilizing insulin better. The liver's ability to store more glucose improves. All these types of things, the mobilization of body fat for fuel improves as a result of these myokines being generated from the muscles. That really high intensity exercise can only do for you. So, and this is recent stuff that we're learning about. So, it's called organ crosstalk. So, when you never thought in the past that high intensity strength training -- it only lasts 20 minutes once a week mind you, have these profound effects. Not just on our strength and getting rid of our aches and pains and allows us to put something in the overhead compartment in an airplane, but to be able to actually improve a digestion to be able to help us mobilize body fat in a more efficient way. Fantastic stuff that we're just learning about, anti- inflammatory properties. It's beyond what I ever thought possible. And the thing that just really, really turns me on about this is the bang that you -- [Crosstalk 14:52].     Tim: [laughs] Adam: The bang that you get for your buck. I mean we're talking about yes, an intense experience but we're talking about a 20-minute intense experience on an average of once a week to have these really profound effects occur. I mean you'd think that for those types of positive effects you'd have to work out every single day, hours at a time, to have these things happen. Tim: Mhm [affirmative]. Adam: But, no. So, to wrap up what we're talking about as far as the importance of muscle, of course we started with aesthetics. Everybody wants to look good and one of the challenges that we have as trainers in our field, in our particular business, because we're not selling the pipedream about you're going to look amazing. And this is the problem because everyone expects exercise to give them the body that they want and to lose all the, “In once a week I can look like this?” Well, no. I mean body fat loss is also another part of it and nutrition is as important as the strength training part. Now, what I want to point out all the time to people when they say because you can see the disappointment in their face when you hit them with that dose of reality that no exercise program is going to make them have that hard body that they're looking for if they're not watching what they eat. Everyone wants that exercise to be the magic bullet for them So, they first go, “Ah, are you kidding me? You're telling me that this once a week work out is not going to like give me -- and I'm not going to lose 30 pounds the next 30 weeks this way.” Well, no. Not from the exercise alone but let me tell you something, if you don't lose a single ounce here but you come here once a week and you work out really hard, you're going to be getting so many other benefits and you're going to have a lot of benefits and still be overweight. [laughs] I'd rather be strong and overweight than weak and overweight. Tim: Mhm [affirmative]. Adam: Now, if you want to be strong and svelte, then you got to do the nutrition part too. And you can make that decision whenever you want to make that decision, but if you just did this. If you make the decision to do this once a week, you've found the fountain of youth and you might be overweight but you found the fountain of youth. Your bones will be stronger as a result of it. Your glucose metabolism will be a little bit better because of it and these are things that people don't see and this is the challenge.     When I try to tell people, forget about the fat loss, you're getting all these other benefits, they're like, “Eh, I just want to look good in a cocktail dress.” Like that's almost all that matters and it drives me nuts because there's so many more important things about strength training than just losing body fat especially since weight training or any other exercise [gets louder] is not all that good at helping you lose body fat anyway. Mhm [affirmative]. I mean I just never got that. It's about these incredible profound things that we're finding out are happening, just from 20 minutes of intense exercise. That's what I want to say in conclusion of all this. That you should understand that there's so much more than meets the eye. I mean, the weight loss and looking good is a tip of the iceberg and when you go underneath it's like, “Oh my God, look at all this.” Just do it. Well -- just do it and all this takes is, I don't know. What? Five to seven exercises to supercharge your metabolism, increase cardiovascular endurance, and it will make you leaner and it will make you stronger if you follow those three pillars. Again, Adam, tell us what the three pillars are please to support the Power of 10 in this protocol. Exercise, to maintain muscle mass. Nutrition, that will help foster fat loss. And of course, the secret weapon, and what came up in a way with our discussion on dose response, enough rest. This is the third pillar, rest and recovery. Which is the response part of the dose and response equation. Now, that is all explained in detail in Adam's book which you can get at amazon.com. It's right here, Power of 10: The Once-a-Week Slow Motion Fitness Revolution. I've got highlights. Everything's highlighted in here. I've got tags. I'm going through it and really digesting this information and it's changing my life and you can do the same thing as well. There are several locations if you'd like to try to work out for yourself in California, Colorado, Virginia, New Jersey and New York where Adam and Mike are. We invite you to join InForm Nation. And to find an InForm Fitness near you, just visit www.informfitness.com and when you call, please mention the podcast and maybe they'll throw some swag your way. I think we're working on some swag. Aren't we Sheila? You talked about some InForm Fitness shirts and what do we got? Yup. We are. Yeah. Tim: Alright. Sheila: We're working on some InForm Nation shirts. Yeah. Tim: InForm Nation. That's right. We're looking for you to become a member of folks is InForm Nation. And now, if you have a question for Adam, Mike or Sheila or a comment regarding the Power of 10 or something we've talked about here on the podcast, you can shoot us an email to podcast@informfitness.com. You can also record a voice memo on your phone and send it to podcast@informfitness.com. And pretty soon we're going to start including some phone calls, some questions and some comments from our listeners. The phone number is 888-983-5020, Ext. 3 and hopefully we'll go ahead and get some of those pretty soon to start including those on the podcast. And finally and very importantly, if you wouldn't mind, please, if you like what you hear, if you want more of these shows to continue to be released through iTunes and SoundCloud and Stitcher Radio and Acast and wherever you might be getting your podcast from, please leave us a review and subscribe to the show. That will ensure the success of this program and make sure that we have more episodes coming your way. Alright guys, great discussion today on muscle. The definition of muscle and why it's so much more important to build and maintain than just to look good in a cocktail dress. Thanks guys for joining us today. Good job. Adam: [laughs] Tim: I'm Tim Edwards reminding you to join us again next time as we open up a series on intensity, high intensity in your work out. We'll define it and discuss the many benefits that await you by joining InForm Nation. Thanks for listening to the InForm Fitness podcast, 20 minutes with Adam Zickerman and friends on the Inbound Podcasting Network.  

Welcome to the first episode of the InForm Fitness Podcast, 20 minutes with New York Times, best-selling author, Adam Zickerman and Friends. Inform Fitness offers life-changing, personal training with several locations across the U.S. Reboot your metabolism and experience the revolutionary Power of 10, the high intensity, slow motion, strength training system that's so effective, you'll get a week's worth of exercise in just one 20-minute session, (which by no coincidence is about the length of this podcast). Your hosts for the show are Adam Zickerman, the founder of Inform Fitness, Mike Rogers, trainer and GM of Inform Fitness in Manhattan, Sheila Melody, co-owner and trainer of Inform Fitness in Los Angeles, and Tim Edwards, founder of the InBound Podcasting Network and client of Inform Fitness in Los Angeles. To find an Inform Fitness nearest you visit www.informfitness.com If you'd like to ask Adam, Mike or Sheila a question or have a comment regarding the Power of 10. Send us an email or record a voice memo on your phone and send it to podcast@informfitness.com.  Join Inform Nation and call the show with a comment or question.  The number is 888-983-5020, Ext. 3.  To purchase Adam's book, Power of 10: The Once-a-Week Slow Motion Fitness Revolution click this link to visit Amazon:  https://www.amazon.com/Power-Once-Week-Revolution-Harperresource/dp/006000889X/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1485469022&sr=1-1&keywords=the+power+of+10+book Ilf you would like to produce a podcast of your own just like The Inform Fitness Podcast, please email Tim Edwards at tim@InBoundPodcasting.com The transcription to this episode is below: 01 Adam You Look Like Crap - Transcript Intro: You're listening to the InForm Fitness podcast, 20 minutes with New York Times, best-selling author, Adam Zickerman and friends. Brought to you by InForm Fitness, life changing personal training with several locations across the US. Reboot your metabolism and experience the revolutionary Power of 10, the high intensity, slow motion, strength training system that's so effective, you'd get a week's worth of exercise in just one 20-minute session, which by no coincidence is about the length of this podcast. So, get ready InForm Nation, your 20 minutes of high intensity strength training information begins in 3, 2, 1. Tim: And with that we welcome you to the maiden voyage of the InForm Fitness podcast with Adam Zickerman. How about that guys? We're finally here. [cheering] Yeah. [laughs] You're hearing several voices in the background and of course we're going to get to know each and every one of them here in the next few minutes. After about, what, two months of planning and scheduling and equipment troubleshooting? Now finally recording and excited about passing this valuable information onto those who are looking to build muscle, lose fat, maintain cardiovascular health and maybe even improve your golf game or whatever it is that you love to do. I'm certainly on board. My name is Tim Edwards and I'm the founder of Inbound Podcasting Network and we are very proud to add the InForm Fitness podcast to our stable of shows. Not only because we've assembled a knowledgeable and entertaining team to present this information but I am also a client of InForm Fitness. I've been training, using the system for close to about four months I believe and very pleased with the progress I'm making and I certainly have become a believer in the Power of 10 in which we will describe in great detail later in this and in future episodes. So, let's get started by going around the room or the various rooms that we're all recording from via the magic of Skype and formally introduce each member of the podcast team to our listeners. Of course we'll start with the founder of InForm Fitness Studios and the author of the New York Times, best-seller, Power of 10: The Once-a-Week Slow Motion Fitness Revolution, Adam Zickerman. Adam, it's a pleasure to finally launch this podcast and get started with you. Adam: Longtime coming. I'm so happy we're doing this. Tim: And I believe joining us from the Manhattan location of InForm Fitness, from across the hall from Adam, is Mike Rogers. Mike's been training at InForm Fitness for about 13 years and has served as a general manager for the New York City location for the past five. Mike, glad to have you in.     Thank you. It's great to be a part of it. And finally, joining us from the Los Angeles area is Sheila Melody. Sheila became a Power of 10 personal trainer in 2010 and in 2012 helped Adam expand to the west coast by opening the first InForm Fitness Studio just outside of Los Angeles in beautiful Toluca Lake and has since instructed hundreds of clients through the years, myself included. Sheila, this was your idea to launch the podcast. We're finally here doing it. Good to see you. I'm so excited to do this, to bring -- to introduce Adam and Mike and the Power of 10 to everybody out there and let's go. Let's go. Alright. So, there's the team, Adam, Mike, Sheila and myself, Tim. And we're all looking forward to diving deep into the content. But Adam, before we do, remind us of that very sophisticated title you came up with, for our very first and ever so important episode of -- [laughs] The InForm Fitness podcast. That title of the show again, Adam, is what? You Look Like Crap. [laughs] Very interesting title and in addition to the story behind that title, tell us -- before we get into that, tell us a little bit about your background. What led you to launching InForm Fitness and writing the book, Power of 10? Well, exercise has always an interest of mine, since I was a kid. I was a jock. My father's a jock. So, I became a jock and, you know, I had trainers and people telling me how to train and I read books on it [inaudible 04:06] magazines and I did it the way everyone was doing it, the way my trainer just wanted me to do, the way my coaches were telling me to do it and it was the conventional biometric type stuff. It was the free weights. When I was in high school, they didn't even have Nautilus yet. [Inaudible 04:25] Nautilus had just started. We had a universal machine in our gym. Those are -- but it was the first introduction to machines that I had. You know, looking back on it, it was kind of primitive but, the bottom line is, you know, you have -- you worked out hard. You worked out often and you got hurt a lot. [laughs]     Did you get hurt sometime in that progress, in leading towards InForm Fitness, did you suffer an injury? I had plenty of tweaks up until the point I had my major injury during a deadlifting program but way before that I was -- and what led to the title of this, was way before my major injury, what led to the title of this, was when a boss told me that I looked like crap even though I exercised all the time. Well let's -- let me stop you there. So, you said you looked like crap. Did you in your mind? Oh, no. No, I thought I was a stud. [laughs] And nothing's changed. [laughs] And you could see Adam for yourself if you go to informfitness.com and [laughs] see if he really does. Confidence is important in life, you know? [laughs] Yes, it is. And you got to fake it too sometimes. So, you were an exercise guy, you were doing it all the time and he knew that you were exercising. What is it that led him to tell you that you looked like crap? As you can imagine, I was working in the laboratory at the -- that I was working and as you can imagine from Scientific Laboratories, there aren't too many jocks hanging around Scientific Laboratories. I was -- [inaudible 05:49]. What Mike? I see you want to say something. A lot of studs are hanging out with [inaudible 05:57]. Yeah, exactly. There are always too many. You know. So, I kind of -- and I was new on the team and I was probably -- I would -- I'm an over -- when it comes to scientific inquiry and research I was over my head. I'm an overachiever with that. It was such a passion of mine that -- but I had to work ten times as hard to get where I was in that laboratory, where all my colleagues, you know they read it once and they got it, you know, and I had to spend hours into the middle of the night trying to figure out what we were doing in the lab.     So, the one thing I had on everybody because I didn't have brains on them and I had brawn them and I had my so called experience in exercise and I tried to [profitize 06:33] how they should be exercising. Again, it was like lots of hardcore stuff, everyday working out. You got to do a cardio, you got to do at least a couple mile runs every day. You got to do three weight training programs. Mhm [affirmative]. I was working out with this guy, Ken [Licener 06:48], maybe he'll be a guest one day on our podcast. He's a real pioneer in this and he used to work out -- he was a chiropractor that worked out of the basement of his house. And when you puked, you had to puke in this bucket. Oh jeez. And then, you can't just leave your puke there and you had to walk out with your bag of puke in your hand and everyone would see you and they'd clap if you had a bag of puke in your hand. Oh my God. [laughs] And you'd have to throw the puke, the bag of puke, into a garbage pail on the corner of his house. Oh my God. Oh. And by the end of the night there were like 30 bags in this thing. [laughs] You know, I can imagine the guys picking up this stuff, you know, in the morning -- [laughs] So, Tim, that was the best. That's the type of workout that I'm trying to explain to these exercise -- these scientists in my lab and so my boss, he was kind of tired of hearing it all and it didn't make sense to him at all and he's a smart guy, obviously.     And so he said to me, he says, you know, Adam, someone who knows so much about exercise and works out all the time, I have to say, you look like crap. That's where it came from. Tim: Did that piss you off a little bit or did you maybe kind of step back and go, “Hey, well maybe he's right. Maybe I am taking the wrong approach.” Adam: At the time, I paused. It was a seed that was planted and it didn't start germinating for many years later and it was through other experiences, other injuries, and all the comments from friends that said, this can't be good for you and then there was the epiphany, when I read the Ken Hutchins manual which basically put into words things I was questioning and he kind of answered a lot of those questions for me. Tim: So, tell us a little bit about Ken Hutchins. Who was he and what's in his manual? Adam: Ken Hutchings. [laughs] He's an eccentric guy. Ken questions all the things that I couldn't articulate and he made -- he point -- he made the point about how exercise is your stimulus and then you let it -- then you leave it alone. It's not about more is better. He also brought home the point that exercise has to be safe and it's not just the acute injuries that he was talking about. It's not the torn muscle here and there, or the sprain here and there, it was the insidious effects of over training that are much more serious than a strain or a sprain. The kind of insidious things that lead to osteoarthritis, hip replacements, lowered immune systems and therefor susceptibility to disease and those types of problems associated with chronic overtraining. My father ran marathons his whole life, didn't eat very well. In his early 70s he had quadruple bypass surgery and this man ran many, many miles and you know so that -- all this, all this experience and then reading this manual, you know, that -- it blew me away. I mean, honestly it changed everything for me. Then I started seeking out people that were already kind of gathering around Ken Hutchings that also were touched by what he had to say, that also I guess were feeling the same things I was feeling leading up to that moment. And it kind of reminds me of the movie Close Encounters of the Third Kind, where, you know, like, the aliens kind of shone that light on them and the people that had that light shown on them all of the sudden were compelled to go to Devils Tower. They didn't understand, you know, but they would just -- they just couldn't help themselves. They were driven. And I felt, you know, you read this manual and all of the sudden -- and somebody else reads this manual and all of us, these people that read this manual like zombies being led to the Devils Tower to you know congregate and talk about this and that's what the original super slow exercise guild was about. I mean it was a bunch of exercise nerds now, you know, that were touched by these ideas and our mission, the power phrase was to you know change perception of exercise and change the way people look at exercise and why we exercise and how we exercise. Tim: So, Adam, with this new mission of changing the perception of why and how to exercise, tell us how InForm Fitness came to be. Adam: So, it was 1997. 1997 where Rob Serraino actually sold me some of his original equipment. He was upgrading his equipment and I bought his, his original [inaudible 11:28] five pieces of equipment [inaudible 11:30] MedX leg press and new MedX [inaudible 11:32]. So, I spent about, I don't six grand initially to start my business and I opened it up in a client's basement. A client of mine said I can have his basement, rent free, as I perfect my trade. I was like, thank you very much. I went to his basement and it was like 300 square feet and it was musty and there was another tenant down there that was a chain smoker. Tim: And you learned why it was rent free. [laughs] Adam: Now I realized why it was rent free. Exactly. So, that's where I started. I didn't have paying clients right away at that moment. That's where I had this equipment and I trained myself and my clients who owned the building and a handful of friends. Tim: Well -- Adam: And from there I started trying to get as many people as I can to come to this basement and it's a testament to the workout that I was able to build a solid client base in a very inconvenient part of Long Island, by the way. Not to mention the fact that it was in a basement that smelled like smoke but it was also not easy to get to this place because all my connections were on the north shore of Long Island and this place that I was talking about was on the south shore of Long Island and I didn't know anybody on the south shore of Long Island. So, I wasn't getting clients from my -- from the neighborhood. I was getting clients where I'm from, my network. I mean, listen, I was passionate about it. I was and I had the war wounds and I, you know, I was licking my wounds and I told a story about -- and people, you know, as you know people were able to relate to my story because I'm not -- I'm not like this gifted athlete or with this, no matter what I do my physique is perfect. You know, I mean, I have to work maintaining my -- I'm not a natural like that. So, I am a regular guy. You know, I'm a five foot nine and a half Jew. You know, I mean [laughs] You know, I had some things to overcome. [laughter] Giant among us Jews though. [laughter] So, you were mentioning earlier, you know, you wanted to test to see if this had any staying power and here we are about 19, 20 years later almost. So, mission accomplished. I couldn't be prouder to be associated with these two people. Mike Rogers I've know him now -- how long, Mike? It's so long, it's like -- [Inaudible 14:00] 14 years. Like, we grew up together at this point. 14 years. I'm always attracted by something that's a little counterintuitive, that something that seems -- I mean, that's -- I'm just -- I find interest in that and I like to just sort of look deeper into it. I wasn't sure what we were doing was right or wrong. It just felt like it made sense and then it was very hard. And you know, I had a shoulder injury. I still have it. It's a separated clavicle, separated shoulder from when I was 20 years old, a snowboarding accident and it always kind of nagged me. It was fine. It was okay but like, I couldn't lift boxes without it bothering me. I couldn't do a lot of things without it bothering me. And the big thing that made me really believe that this is like "the thing" is my shoulder stopped bothering me after about seven weeks of doing Power of 10 and I couldn't believe it. I was just like, “Oh my God, that injury just -- it just went completely away.” That nagged me for at the time like nine years, nine or ten years and then I couldn't -- I saw -- I felt and saw and felt incredible results with my own body within -- with less than two months. And so, and Adam, you know, I think, you know, we liked each other and I thought we could help each other and I literally -- I was working at Citi Bank and I literally one day I just quit my job and I became a trainer and it was that, that was it and 14 years later and it's by far the best job I've ever had in my entire life.     I've trained, you know, over 2,000 people. I don't know how many and I've seen magnificent triumphs over the years. I have a lot of experience with questions and stuff and it's been, just the most unbelievable experience for me to everyday, look forward to helping people and to work with the team that we have here and to the expanding global team as well, so -- Well, and you mentioned the global team and I think that would include Sheila Melody over here on the Westcoast. Adam, tell me about how you and Sheila met and how that came to be. First time I met Sheila was through a course, a little certification, a little class that I had out in LA. It was my first time -- it was actually my first time in LA. I had been introduced to the Power of 10 or the super slow technique by an ex- boyfriend and he brought me to a guy here in Calabasas, California -- [Oh, that's nice 16:17]. Named Greg Burns and Greg Burns is known to all of us super slow people. He's real old school and he works out of his garage and he's got about six pieces of equipment. So, I learned kind of the old school way and I loved it immediately. I was like, “Wow, this is so cool. I get to --” I felt strong and, you know, I had always worked out just typical workout. Go to the gym three times a week and then a few years later as Adam said, this is where Adam comes into the picture, I had been given his book, Power of 10 and saw his picture on the back and, "Oh, look at this cool guy. You know, he looks so cool." [laughs] [Crosstalk 16:59]. Yeah a cute guy because it's hot guy on the back of this book, you know, and Greg Burns actually gave me that book. So, I was training with a girlfriend of mine who had been certified by Adam and she started her own place and then after a few years, I was like, “You know what? Maybe I should get certified and just kind of do this on the side. I really like it.” And so that's how I got introduced to Adam and first of all just over the phone doing, you know, we had conference calls weekly and just, you know, fell in love with him right away. I mean, I mean that in the most, you know, brotherly sense really [laughs] -- Every sense of the word. We just definitely hit it off and he -- mostly because of Adam's style. He is very -- not only is he knowledgeable about all of this but I just -- he's such a great teacher and he knows what he's talking about. He has great integrity and he, you know, makes sure that all the people he certifies are -- he will not pass you unless he believes that you really get this and you really know what you're doing and so, he's got great integrity when he does that. And I was so proud -- when I did that first certification it was one of the best things I've ever done, like, what Mike is saying. I'm definitely drinking am drinking the Kool-Aid here. It's one of the best things I've ever done. So, I called him up and said, "Hey, you want to start an InForm Fitness in LA?" And we worked it out and next thing you know, three years later -- it's three-year anniversary today actually. Really? No, shit. Yes. Wow. Very cool. Three years. I was looking at Facebook posts things and it was saying, oh, two years ago today, Adam, you were in town and we were doing our one-year anniversary, so. Cool. Three years ago and, as I said, the best thing I've ever done and love all these people that are involved with -- the clients and trainers and, you know, that's my story. [laughs] So, we're getting kind of close to the end of the very first episode of the InForm Fitness podcast, 20 minutes with Adam Zickerman and friends. The name of the book is Power of 10: The Once-a-Week Slow Motion Fitness Revolution. It can be picked up at several bookstores across the country and through amazon.com. Adam, before we put the wraps on the show, if you would please, tell us what your vision is for this podcast and what you hope to accomplish in upcoming episodes. I want to inform people of current exercise ideas and I want to push things forward and there's a lot of things that we need to talk about to push things forward. We're finding out -- I want to talk about genetics and its role in how we progress and exercise. I want to talk about the physiology we're learning about and the kinds of great things that happen from high intensity exercise that no one's talking about. You'd think by reading what's out there, that we'd have it down.     That we've got it. We got the secret to exercise. That just do this, just do that and you're fine but we are so far from fine. The injury rate for exercise is huge. Obesity is through the roof. I mean, we're resting on our laurels and I want people to realize that there's so much more to this than meets the eye and I want to bring on the experts that are going to bring this new stuff to light. I want to bring out some really good pioneers in this and talk about the science that's out there, talk about the successes that we've had. You know, and educate and inform. I mean that's the, you know, the mission of my company and the name of my company and I want to continue that. Tim: And we will. So, there it is. Episode one is in the books and by the way, we have hit the 20-minute mark in the show, which means, if you began your slow motion high intensity training at the start of the show, you'd be finished by now for the entire week. Intrigued or perhaps skeptical? We understand. I was until I tried it for myself. Just a couple months in and I have already shed several pounds and I'm getting stronger every week. If you'd like to try it for yourself, check out informfitness.com for all of the InForm Fitness locations and phone numbers throughout the country and please tell them you heard about it from the podcast. In future episodes we will introduce the interview segment of the podcast. Our goal is to schedule interviews with experts, authors and other podcasters, as Adam mentioned earlier, who's specialties land somewhere within the three pillars of high intensity exercise, nutrition and recovery as discussed in Adam's book, Power of 10: The Once-a-Week Slow Motion Fitness Revolution. As our listenership grows and our community, we call InForm Nation starts to build, we'll have some swag available in the form of t-shirts and whatnot so stay tuned for that. And, hey, if you'd like to ask Adam, Mike or Sheila a question or have a comment regarding the Power of 10. It's very simple. Just shoot us an email or record a voice memo on your phone and send it to podcast@informfitness.com. You can even give us a call at 888-983-5020, Ext. 3. That's 888-983-5020, Ext. 3 to leave your comment, question or even a suggestion on a topic you'd like covered here. Or perhaps you have a guest in mind you'd like to hear on the show. All feedback is welcome and chances are pretty good your comment or question will end up right here on the show. And finally, the best way to support this show and to keep it free for you to learn from and enjoy, subscribe to the podcast right here in iTunes, SoundCloud, Stitcher Radio, Acast, YouTube or wherever you might be listening. Of course, again, it is absolutely free and please rate the show and leave us a review. That is vital to the success of this program. I'm Tim Edwards reminding you to join us for our next episode, Can Recreation Really Be Considered Exercise? For Adam Mike and Sheila, thanks for joining us on the InForm Fitness podcast, 20 minutes with Adam Zickerman and friends, right here on the Inbound Podcasting Network.  

This first podcast is really an introduction into how this business, Q4Q, started and a synopsis of my four main presentations. It is an overview of the work that I have done over the last 43 years and gives you some ideas about the depth and breadth of my work. I started my career with General Electric, a Fortune 8 corporation, GE provided me with a great start to my career. I moved on to Whirlpool Corporation, the largest manufacturer of appliances in the world and spent 35 years learning and teaching leadership. My career path led to my promotion to the National Director of Sales, responsible for the entire sales team across the United States. During this time I was able to visit and get to know the CEO’s, Presidents, GM’s and others who were leaders of their companies. It served as a base of what I now talk about on the speaker’s circuit. Joe Higgins is joined by the founder of The InBound Podcasting Network, Tim Edwards.