46 The Balance Training Trend is on Shakey Ground

Adam Zickerman and MikeRogers discuss something the vast majority of us take for granted every day, our balance. Some of the myths and facts regarding the maintenance of our balance through the myriad of training methods practiced in gyms all over the country, some of which are downright dangerous.

Show Notes

Adam Zickerman and MikeRogers discuss something the vast majority of us take for granted every day, our balance. Some of the myths and facts regarding the maintenance of our balance through the myriad training methods practiced in gyms all over the country, some of which are downright dangerous.

Adam Zickerman - Power of 10: The Once-A-Week Slow Motion Fitness Revolution http://bit.ly/ThePowerofTen
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46 The Balance Training Trend is on Shaky Ground Transcript

SUMMARY KEYWORDS

balance, unstable, walking, surface, leg, exercise, trainers, sensory input, called, problems, people, sensory receptors, standing, stable, fitness, improve, muscles, confidence, motor skill, adam

SPEAKERS

Tim Edwards, Mike, Adam
 

Adam  00:05

So based on current research I and inform fitness in general does not recommend the use of unstable surfaces outside of a rehabilitative setting. Physical therapy, exercise performed on unstable surfaces does not transfer well to stable surfaces or our everyday life. Nor do the risks outweigh the beneficial adaptation. Some experts even believe that there may be a reduction in stable surface performance for the same exercise. When developing training programs for clients fitness practitioners, a must focus solely on safe, intense strength training.

 

Tim Edwards  00:46

That of course, was New York Times best selling author and founder of inform fitness, Adam Zickerman. I'm Tim Edwards with the inbound podcasting network and a client of inform fitness. Shortly we will be joined by Adam and his general manager and trainer of the inform fitness location right there in the heart of New York City, just about five or six blocks east of the base of Central Park. Here in Episode 46, Adam and Mike discuss something that the vast majority of us take for granted every day, our balance, they will discuss some of the myths and facts regarding the maintenance of our ever so important balance through the myriad of training methods practiced in gyms all over the country, some of which are downright dangerous. So how do you safely train to improve your balance? Well, let's hear from the experts.

 

Adam  01:34

So the thing about balance is that most of us take our balance for granted. Man, I don't think any of us think twice about walking across a gravel driveway, or transitioning from walking on a sidewalk onto grass, or getting out of bed in the middle of night without stumbling. I mean, it's just things that just we do, we don't think about it. And believe it or not, there are people that have impaired balance, meaning activities, like I just mentioned, can be extremely fatiguing, hard to do. And dangerous. I mean falls I mean, especially older individuals. And there's so much confusion about balancing what balance actually is, and all the myriad factors that influence balance, and our esteemed. Our esteemed exercise industry, as usual, oversimplifies the solution to improving one's balance, mainly because they don't even understand all the parameters of balance and all the things that go into somebody's balance. And of course, you know, as a result of not understanding it, and over simplifying it, you know, most of the recommended exercises to improve balance are best ineffective, and at worst, they can actually lead to more injury. So the story about balance, it kind of reminds me of the same story about saturated fat absolutely how its still bad for you to have saturated fat. And the reason the balance and the saturated fat story kind of are similar to each other is because on the surface, it seems very logical that saturated fat must be bad for you, right? I mean, how could it not be? I mean, you can practically see the gobs of fat clogging your arteries as you eat it. But still, there is no compelling evidence backing this idea up. Yet, despite the fact that there's no compelling evidence, researchers are still warning us against its consumption and skew the results actually to fit their argument. And we talked about that in depth. In podcast, which one Tim

 

Tim Edwards  03:16

it was episode 34 titled is the American Heart Association misleading us about coconut oil? So we go certainly deeper into it about some of the studies and how some of those studies are incredibly outdated, which are telling us that saturated fats are harmful for us.

 

Adam  03:31

So you know, that's another example of this idea that it must be true, because how can saturated fat not be bad for you, and we try to support our beliefs, our biases, and the same thing with balance. You see, there's a growing trend in our fitness industry now. And it's the use of these unstable surfaces during resistance training. You know, if you walk through any local gym or Personal Training Studio in the functional training gyms, you'll see bozhou domes, air disc balance boards, and some professionals, a lot of professionals actually are claiming that unstable surfaces, increased balance, proprioception, which is the ability for the body to know where it is and how it is moving in space, and of course, core stability. All right, well, at first glance, as with the saturated fat story, at first glance, it's easy to see why most of the population would believe such claims. I mean, if you balance on an unstable surface, why wouldn't you be able to bounce better on a stable surface? If your core is constantly contracting? To maintain your center of mass? Why wouldn't your core stability improve? And while these claims seem logical, the truth of the matter is current research has not been able to support any of this. So first things first, let's define balance as it's truly defined in the medical world. So simply put balance is the ability to maintain the body center of gravity over its base of support. And a properly functioning balance system allows us to do four things really alright. First, it allows us to see clearly while we're moving or Vision. Alright, it also balance allows us to identify orientation with respect to gravity, three, it determines direction and speed of movement. And then, with those three abilities, it also helps us make automatic postural adjustments to maintain posture and stability in various conditions and activities. Now, balance is achieved and maintained by a complex, a very complex set of sensory motor control systems. And that includes sensory input from several sources, our sight, our touch, which is called proprioception, and something called the vestibular apparatus within the ears, our inner ear, and that stimuli input from motion, equilibrium spatial orientation. So already you can see this is kind of complicated stuff. And there are there are disciplines and just this balance alone, I mean, ear nose and throat doctors deal with this regular basis. ophthalmologists deal with this on a regular basis, neurologists deal with people with balance problems on a regular basis, because that's what balance is part of it's part of our neuro system, our visual system, and our inner ear. All these things contribute to our balance, then is the integration of all the sensory input, and then the motor output to the eye and skeletal muscles that react to the sensory input. And all along this chain things can go wrong and affect our balance, injury, disease, certain drugs, and even just the aging process can affect one or more of these components. In addition to all this, there are also psychological factors that impair our sense of balance. If you've fallen in the past and got hurt, now you're nervous, you know, there's all kinds of psychological things that make us think that we don't have balance or affects our balance, even though really there's nothing wrong with those sensory systems that I just mentioned. So I just want to briefly touch upon, no pun intended, some of the sensory input. I'll try not to get too bogged down in the biology, but this stuff is really fascinating. So you have the input from muscles and joints, right. So this is called proprioceptive. Information from the skin, the muscles and the joints. And they involve sensory receptors that are sensitive to stretch or pressure and their surrounding tissues. For example, increased pressure is felt in the front part of the soles of the feet when a standing person leans forward. With any movement of the legs, arms and other body parts sensory receptors respond by sending impulses to the brain. Now along with other information, this these stretch and pressure cues help our brain determine where our body is in space. So that's the input from muscles and joints, but you also have input from what I mentioned before the vestibular system, sensory information about motion, equilibrium and spatial orientation is provided by this vestibular apparatus they call it, which in each ear include something called the utricle, the sacral, and these these three semicircular canals. You might remember this from high school biology. But anyway, the utricle and a sacral, they detect gravity and linear movement. And the three semicircular canals, well, they detect rotational movement, and are located right angles to each other and are filled with this fluid, alright, I think it's called endo lymph, this fluid if I'm not mistaken, regardless, the head rotates in a direction. And sense by these canals, this fluid moves in a very specific way and exerts pressure against the canals. sensory receptor is this whole chain of events. And the receptor then sends impulses to the brain about the movement, and the muscles react accordingly. Now, if you have an inner ear problem, balance can be completely affected. And there's nothing a trainer can do about that is, is where my point is going. So we also have this input from the eyes, our vision has a lot to do with their balance, you know, the eyes have these sensory receptors. In the retina, they're called rods and cones. And they send impulses to the brain that provide visual cues, identifying how a person is oriented relative to other objects. So if you have vision problems, or blurred vision, or peripheral vision problems, that can screw up your balance. And then all these inputs from the eyes touch proprioception, from our ears, the vestibular apparatus, all these sensory inputs, then they have to go get integrated, and that's a whole system, there was anything wrong with the integration system, then balance can be affected. So as you can see, the human balance system involves a complex set of sensory motor control systems, and malfunction or damage to any of these components, either through injury or disease can lead to all kinds of balance problems with all this in mind, doesn't it seem rather primitive to think that people's balance issues can be solved by working out on unstable surfaces, or using free weights versus machines? As Dr. McGuff once said, and I don't think this is his quote, but I like it. He said that. If all you have is a hammer, then the whole world looks like a nail. Trainers are not EMTs trainers are not neurologist trainers are not ophthalmologists. So when a client comes in and mentions that they're having trouble with their balance, what is a trainer to do? They turn to the tool that they have the hammer that they have Alright, the unstable surfaces and Knowing all this, if you really know about balance issues, this is so primitive, it's mind boggling. So let's start exploring the exercise industry's claims of increased balance. Now that we know what balance consists of. There are few, if any actual studies to date that show that the type of increased balance and core stability developed through exercises performed on unstable surfaces transferred to stable surfaces. Therefore, while performing exercise on unstable surfaces, while that may increase an individual's ability to perform the exercise is on that particular surface, it doesn't transfer to the stable services grass, the court, or even ice. Now, optimal balance is gained by performing a given task on the surface on which it will be performed in everyday life. Matter of fact, many researchers also believe that performing exercises or sports skills on unstable surfaces actually decreased the ability to perform the same tasks on a stable surface. Now, I think the reason of this decrease is because it's according to well established motor learning principles. The movement pattern on stable surface interferes with the original pattern created on a stable surface. As far as the body is concerned, doing a similar exercise on a stable surface versus an unstable surface, they might as well be two completely different things. Although we think it's similar enough to kind of mimic, but it doesn't work, it just doesn't work that way doesn't transfer they call it negative transfer. In other words, the unstable surface is not specific to the movement being practiced, the time spent on an unstable surface could have been better spent just mastering the movement itself that you're trying to improve. Another popular claim made by proponents of unstable surface training is an increase in what they call your core stabilization. As with balance, any core stabilization that is possibly enhanced by activity on unstable surface, again, has not been shown to transfer to stable services. Again, most research even shows that performing resistance exercises on stable surfaces requires more core activation and stabilization, then performing the same exercise on an unstable surface. Again, most likely because the ability to provide progressive overload, which means that's what exercise is progressive overload, meaning gradual increases in weight. As you get stronger, you're progressively increasing the weight. And because you're on unstable surfaces, you really can't keep raising the weight when you are on an unstable surface. As the individual gets stronger it becomes too risky to increase the weight while on unstable surface, which is probably why those findings were what they are. So based on current research, I and inform fitness in general does not recommend the use of unstable surfaces outside of a rehabilitative setting. Physical therapy, exercise performed an unstable surface does not transfer well to stable surfaces or our everyday life. Nor do the risks outweigh the beneficial adaptation. Some experts even believe that there may be a reduction in stable surface performance for the same exercise. When developing training programs for clients, fitness practitioners, they must focus solely on safe, intense strength training. And if you want to get better at a particular activity, practice that activity. I have a client for example, that, well she has trouble walking, she's very weak, she had a fall, she got sick, she gained a lot of weight. Now she has trouble walking. What should I do? I say let's do leg press. Let's get those legs strong. Let's get strong overall. And you know what? Start walking. If it's hard to walk for two blocks, walk one and a half blocks. And then keep increasing it till you can walk two blocks and three blocks and four blocks. Well guess what? She can walk now she's walking five, six blocks without a problem anymore. And all she's been doing is doing leg press and all the gross motor skills of developing gross motor strength. And she's walking. As another example of some of the hardware. Some of the some of the crazy stuff that's out there is there's these ideas that if you start practicing walking backwards, that it will help you walk forward. Again, the only thing that practicing walking backward does for you is teach you how to better walk backwards. It does nothing, it's a completely different motor skill. That's like saying, learning how to play the guitar is going to help you play the flute, there might as well be two different instruments, completely two different instruments. And this is going on all over the place. And you know, what if some of this stuff was just benign, and it really didn't do much for you. I don't know if I'd be making such a big deal about this. Because you know, the bottom line is these these track a lot of these practices are not benign. My good friend Bill DeSimone just told me he came back from functional training seminar just to see what they're teaching and they're having you do like squats on one leg with with weight on just one side of a barbell over your shoulders just to just to kind of strengthen your core.

 

Tim Edwards  14:49

So as you know guys in addition to the inbound podcasting network, I run a video production marketing company and one of my clients is an agency that hires my company to go out and film other gyms Of course that aren't inform fitness and practice some of these weird and crazy modalities. And I literally filmed this woman standing on this ball that looked like Saturn, I'm sure that's what you're talking about. And while she was standing on this ball, this blue ball with this wooden outside that she was standing on platform, she was doing curls. And first thing, and then she was doing those curls, and it was next to some machines. And I thought, well, if she falls, she's gonna hit her head. And so I was thinking that that must be what you're talking about some of these other facilities, offering some of these, you know, like you mentioned, Bill DeSimone was just came back from a conference to see what they're teaching nowadays of some of these crazy exercises that, that some of these trainers are having their their clients go through that would cause more harm than good.

 

Adam  15:47

I mean, that's a disaster waiting for happen. I mean, you get hurt doing that you're not just pulling a muscle, you can have a spinal injury that can set you back for the rest of your life. So these are not benign practices that are going on. They're telling sedentary, middle aged people to stabilize on these balls with one leg. And they're damaging, and getting ACL tears and all kinds of crazy knee problems as a result of just trying to improve their balance as if they even know what balance actually is, and why it consistents of. So unless your goal is to perform in a circus, or balance on top of a bowl, don't waste your time trading on these unstable services,

 

Mike  16:24

I actually work with people on their balance and try them. In a similar fashion to what Adam explained, I tried to explain to them what's involved with it. And I think he made a big a very big point, especially with like, vision and the vestibular elements of it. I mean, if you have problems with that, it's nothing we could do training wise, you know, to help those issues, which are part of what maintains your center of gravity. But the tone of this is that outside of strength training, there's nothing you could do to help your balance outside of the actual motor skill of whatever this specific activity is. And just strength training. And there's nothing else that we could be doing for helping our our balance.

 

Adam  17:06

Nope, I really don't think there is absolutely anything you can do as trainers, we are trainers, right? So, so the best thing we can do for our balance, as trainers is strength. I mean, a good portion of people that have balance problems are just weak, it's weakness, it's low muscle tone, so just strengthen their quads, but you don't have to strengthen our quads on unstable surfaces, the idea is the idea of unstable surfaces having some additional benefit for somebody balance, then just doing a leg extension, just doing a push up just doing a classic exercise that's congruent to our biomechanics, that's going to strengthen every muscle in your body. And then if you're having issues with your balance, walking, or, you know, you went on a boat ride, and you're falling all over the boat, then you know what, go on the boat more often. Because the more you go on a boat, the better your balance is going to get, as long as you're strong enough, if now if you're really weak, if you have really weak legs, you know, you're gonna have balance problems on a stable service, much less an unstable surface. But learning how to stand on a boat, if you're strong enough, can only be improved by standing on a boat and this woman that I was telling you about, I mean, forget about things as complicated as that these older people who've had injuries and they got really weak, and they have trouble walking. So now you're telling this person to stand on one leg, which which has potential issues, as if that's going to help being able to stand on one leg is not going to help them walk, it's going to help them learn how to stand on one leg. Now unless they want to be a crane in Florida, they don't have to do that to improve their walking. They just have to improve their quad strength to improve the walking and then walk perform the skill that you want to get better at with your additional strength.

 

Mike  18:52

Well, if there's if there's limitations, and even in the simple act of walking in the simple act of walking, like like, just say, like an elderly person who shuffles oftentimes, and obviously absolutely right. If your quads in your hip flexors are strong, then you're going to lift your leg a little bit higher. So therefore you won't be shuffling so much like I while you were talking kind of sort of alluded to where I was going a little bit when I was like thinking is there a difference between an unstable because I agree with the the balance board creating an unstable situation, not an unstable surface, but an unstable situation on its own. And I'm thinking in its fundamental sense, where to end we're going into a common thing as balance for walking or balance for getting up or something like that. Finding your center of gravity, let's just talk about walking in it fundamentally, you're switching from one leg to the next leg to the next leg to the next leg and that is a skill. It's a motor skill. It's that it's 

 

Adam  19:46

one way to practice that skill. If it's walking, then walk. There's nothing you can do other than walking to perfectly improve that skill.

 

Mike  19:54

But if you're but if you're having difficulty with that already, fundamentally if you're already an As I don't do anything on an unstable surface, but I create an unstable situation so they can have awareness of what it feels like to be on one leg. And all of the muscles that do fire which proprioceptively unconsciously, which guides you to shift your body slightly to in each direction. If you stand on one leg, you feel right. So everything's, everything's firing.

 

Adam  20:23

Yeah, I get what you're saying

 

Mike  20:24

involved in an involuntary way

 

Adam  20:26

yes

 

Mike  20:26

just sort of give you a little bit of awareness. Now, the thing is, I guess what I'm leading to I haven't done the full research or though I have seen studies that exist, that there are ways to train to improve those proprioceptive, that that firing, so you can actually maintain your, like, even if it's just standing on one leg, I mean, which is inevitably, a fundamental piece of it's happening very slowly, or rather quickly, in the process of walking

 

Adam  20:55

the skill, believe it or not, then this is this is the the big misconception that people have, they underestimate the power of motor learning. And even standing on one leg, even the act of knowing learning how to stand on one leg doesn't prepare you for the action of walking, because the two different motor skills, the only thing that standing on one leg does for you in is teach you how to walk on a stand on one leg. Again, you're much better off, strengthening the legs, and then learning how to walk now, if it is such a problem for somebody to walk, where you have to start breaking it down to the elements that you're talking about. They've already disqualified themselves from working out with us, as a trainer now starts getting into they need to work with an occupational therapist, if it's that hard for them, they have to work with a neurologist possibly, and really get down to why it is. So apps, if their strength is fine, then then you then that's what I was talking about all these other things that go into balance, there got to be some other issue.

 

Mike  21:56

I think I think there may be other issues, I think, and part of them are psychological.

 

Adam  22:02

And now he's talking about

 

Mike  22:04

but I'm talking about like, but I think is I think sometimes going back to progression, okay being walking, say progression level 10. And now we have a person who has no confidence in the ability to walk because they had a knee surgery, and they're 68 years old or something like

 

Adam  22:19

that. And that's why they go to occupational therapy, and they and they work with them. And then when they're ready through occupational therapy, they come to us and we finish the process by getting them strong as shit safely

 

Mike  22:29

I think is what I was saying to you did say something confidence, I think is part of

 

Adam  22:34

God. Now. Now Now we're getting something that we're going to agree on. Because I mentioned earlier that the psychological benefit, there's a psychological component of balance. All right, now, if some of these, there are some benign things we can do, planks, bird dogs, you know, those those also help not so much with balance, but they help with the small rotor, stabilize muscles of the spine, the rotary muscle, the spine and the multifidus, you know, so it's not so much the bird dogs and the planks that I have the problems with, it's really the unstable surfaces, even standing on a leg, even though I don't think it's going to help them walk from a motor skill point of view, standing on one leg and learning how to balance like that, or doing a one legged lunge safely, you know, and slowly and controlled with a TRX strap, possibly, I'm not, I'm not going to dismiss that completely out of hand. Because if somebody learns to do that, and they feel confident doing that, that confidence can kind of teach them to do other things, it gives them the confidence to do other things. So even though it's not going to actually help them walk per se, if that's what their problem is, it's going to give them the confidence to try walking because they're doing these things now like wow, look at me, I can stand on one leg and I was never able to stand one leg, you know, and that confidence goes a long way. It's almost like a placebo effect. You know, so So I don't know.

 

Mike  23:44

So therefore some if it's not something like a dangerous exercise

 

Adam  23:47

yeah

 

Mike  23:48

it's standing out, that's kind of where I'm leading into a little bit is a the confidence part. The other part is which

 

Adam  23:54

which, which can be huge, by the way

 

Mike  23:55

which I haven't, I've seen studies that exist, but I haven't really gotten to be able to do the deep dive into them that are sort of showing that there are connections between proprioception and motor learning if practiced if practiced and it starts with various things like even whay you were talking about

 

Adam  24:12

I don't think they're saying it transfers to other activities just for that particular activity again, you have I have no

 

Mike  24:18

perhaps Perhaps not right

 

Adam  24:19

So anyway, so So my ultimate point is not to not to bash you know, occupational therapy and some of the modalities they use for people that have injuries and all kinds of stuff is that but but we have to be we have to be very careful not pretend that we're neurologists or EMTs. Understand what our limitations are as trainers and we do something really good we get people strong and that goes a long way to helping somebody with their balance issues. And that might be just what they need. Most people like remember Tess Nakamura, we had this old client that always use a walking stick for confidence and we got her really strong by doing I wasn't doing anything other than leg press with this woman. Right and she worked out really hard as time went on. She was, she felt she didnt even need a walking stick, although she carried it just in case, she she felt a lot more stable on her feet. And I wasn't doing any of this crazy on stable servers and stuff, I was just giving her strength and maybe even the confidence of walking again. So So that's, that's our sweet spot. That's what we do best, we get people strong, and we get them strong without undermining their health and make it really safe. And we don't play around with things that Waste Time and that don't transfer to real skills. And again, if there's something that you want to do, like playing, standing on a leg or doing some of these things that are relatively benign, and really can't hurt you, and it helps build their confidence. I'm for it, I'm for it. But let's let's not get carried away with it. And I'm not talking about the things that I see you do with your clients, and that I even do sometimes to clients to help build confidence and give them awareness of one side, you know, having one side of that glutes fire versus another side and things like that. Those are all confidence builders that kind of makes them in touch with their body. And those are all good. But but that's not balance to me. That that's mind body connection, that opposites are different from balance

 

Mike  26:06

that you're saying the reason why I'm bringing it up is because I think what you just said, is how people get it confused. I think they're thinking balance

 

Adam  26:15

right

 

Mike  26:15

Really it is oftentimes it is a mind body connection that that sometimes isn't patterned correctly, you know that sometimes you either you're leaving something out, which is not letting you do something that you're trying to do or

 

Adam  26:29

Yeah

 

Mike  26:30

or and you even said it before you said like, in the course there's a chain of things that are going on, early on, and something could be broken in the chain. And and as trainers, I obviously the strength element is, is a big part of the whole thing. But it

 

Adam  26:46

can also be a new medication. You know, the thing is, there's a there's a very strong motor learning principle that's being ignored out there. And I just want people to be buyer beware when it comes to doing all these crazy things on unstable surfaces as if it's really going to do a better job for strengthening their core or do a better job of them going on a weekend trip on a boat. And they think they're going to do better on the book because they've been working on unstable surfaces. And that's really the big point. Especially the point where people lifting weights and doing all these kinds of dangerous moves on unstable surfaces is if it's going to help them on the athletic field or the tennis court.

 

Mike  27:19

That's unfortunate. Yeah. Well, before what was described, I mean thst is horrible

 

Adam  27:25

yeah, yeah. So so that's the big point. Let's not get let's not get fooled with this stuff.

 

Tim Edwards  27:32

Thanks, guys. Hey, if you're new to the podcast, and are just now learning about slow motion, high intensity strength training, and you want to try it for yourself, simply click the link in the shownotes to the inform fitness website. Once you're there, click the try us free button right there on their homepage, fill out the form, pick your location, and improve more than just your balance. With a slow motion high intensity full body workout in just 20 minutes for free. You'll feel great, I promise. If you're not near one of their several locations across the United States, Adam has a book titled power of 10. The once a week slow motion fitness revolution, pick it up today at a bookstore near you or to make it simple, it's just a click away and available at Amazon. That link will also be in the show notes. For less than about 15 bucks. You'll find some nutritional tips and a handy list of foods that support the power of 10 protocol, and some effective exercise demonstrations and you can perform in the comfort of your own home. Many great episodes on the way in the coming week. So please hit that subscribe button from whichever podcast app you might be listening. We have close to 50 episodes for you to binge listen, and if you don't mind, we'd appreciate it if you took some time to leave us a review. Until next time for Adam Zickerman and Mike Rogers of inform fitness. I'm Tim Edwards with the inbound podcasting Network.

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46 The Balance Training Trend is on Shaky Ground

SUMMARY KEYWORDS
balance, unstable, walking, surface, leg, exercise, trainers, sensory input, called, problems, people, sensory receptors, standing, stable, fitness, improve, muscles, confidence, motor skill, adam
SPEAKERS
Tim Edwards, Mike, Adam

Adam 00:05
So based on current research I and inform fitness in general does not recommend the use of unstable surfaces outside of a rehabilitative setting. Physical therapy, exercise performed on unstable surfaces does not transfer well to stable surfaces or our everyday life. Nor do the risks outweigh the beneficial adaptation. Some experts even believe that there may be a reduction in stable surface performance for the same exercise. When developing training programs for clients fitness practitioners, a must focus solely on safe, intense strength training.

Tim Edwards 00:46
That of course, was New York Times best selling author and founder of inform fitness, Adam Zickerman. I'm Tim Edwards with the inbound podcasting network and a client of inform fitness. Shortly we will be joined by Adam and his general manager and trainer of the inform fitness location right there in the heart of New York City, just about five or six blocks east of the base of Central Park. Here in Episode 46, Adam and Mike discuss something that the vast majority of us take for granted every day, our balance, they will discuss some of the myths and facts regarding the maintenance of our ever so important balance through the myriad of training methods practiced in gyms all over the country, some of which are downright dangerous. So how do you safely train to improve your balance? Well, let's hear from the experts.

Adam 01:34
So the thing about balance is that most of us take our balance for granted. Man, I don't think any of us think twice about walking across a gravel driveway, or transitioning from walking on a sidewalk onto grass, or getting out of bed in the middle of night without stumbling. I mean, it's just things that just we do, we don't think about it. And believe it or not, there are people that have impaired balance, meaning activities, like I just mentioned, can be extremely fatiguing, hard to do. And dangerous. I mean falls I mean, especially older individuals. And there's so much confusion about balancing what balance actually is, and all the myriad factors that influence balance, and our esteemed. Our esteemed exercise industry, as usual, oversimplifies the solution to improving one's balance, mainly because they don't even understand all the parameters of balance and all the things that go into somebody's balance. And of course, you know, as a result of not understanding it, and over simplifying it, you know, most of the recommended exercises to improve balance are best ineffective, and at worst, they can actually lead to more injury. So the story about balance, it kind of reminds me of the same story about saturated fat absolutely how its still bad for you to have saturated fat. And the reason the balance and the saturated fat story kind of are similar to each other is because on the surface, it seems very logical that saturated fat must be bad for you, right? I mean, how could it not be? I mean, you can practically see the gobs of fat clogging your arteries as you eat it. But still, there is no compelling evidence backing this idea up. Yet, despite the fact that there's no compelling evidence, researchers are still warning us against its consumption and skew the results actually to fit their argument. And we talked about that in depth. In podcast, which one Tim

Tim Edwards 03:16
it was episode 34 titled is the American Heart Association misleading us about coconut oil? So we go certainly deeper into it about some of the studies and how some of those studies are incredibly outdated, which are telling us that saturated fats are harmful for us.

Adam 03:31
So you know, that's another example of this idea that it must be true, because how can saturated fat not be bad for you, and we try to support our beliefs, our biases, and the same thing with balance. You see, there's a growing trend in our fitness industry now. And it's the use of these unstable surfaces during resistance training. You know, if you walk through any local gym or Personal Training Studio in the functional training gyms, you'll see bozhou domes, air disc balance boards, and some professionals, a lot of professionals actually are claiming that unstable surfaces, increased balance, proprioception, which is the ability for the body to know where it is and how it is moving in space, and of course, core stability. All right, well, at first glance, as with the saturated fat story, at first glance, it's easy to see why most of the population would believe such claims. I mean, if you balance on an unstable surface, why wouldn't you be able to bounce better on a stable surface? If your core is constantly contracting? To maintain your center of mass? Why wouldn't your core stability improve? And while these claims seem logical, the truth of the matter is current research has not been able to support any of this. So first things first, let's define balance as it's truly defined in the medical world. So simply put balance is the ability to maintain the body center of gravity over its base of support. And a properly functioning balance system allows us to do four things really alright. First, it allows us to see clearly while we're moving or Vision. Alright, it also balance allows us to identify orientation with respect to gravity, three, it determines direction and speed of movement. And then, with those three abilities, it also helps us make automatic postural adjustments to maintain posture and stability in various conditions and activities. Now, balance is achieved and maintained by a complex, a very complex set of sensory motor control systems. And that includes sensory input from several sources, our sight, our touch, which is called proprioception, and something called the vestibular apparatus within the ears, our inner ear, and that stimuli input from motion, equilibrium spatial orientation. So already you can see this is kind of complicated stuff. And there are there are disciplines and just this balance alone, I mean, ear nose and throat doctors deal with this regular basis. ophthalmologists deal with this on a regular basis, neurologists deal with people with balance problems on a regular basis, because that's what balance is part of it's part of our neuro system, our visual system, and our inner ear. All these things contribute to our balance, then is the integration of all the sensory input, and then the motor output to the eye and skeletal muscles that react to the sensory input. And all along this chain things can go wrong and affect our balance, injury, disease, certain drugs, and even just the aging process can affect one or more of these components. In addition to all this, there are also psychological factors that impair our sense of balance. If you've fallen in the past and got hurt, now you're nervous, you know, there's all kinds of psychological things that make us think that we don't have balance or affects our balance, even though really there's nothing wrong with those sensory systems that I just mentioned. So I just want to briefly touch upon, no pun intended, some of the sensory input. I'll try not to get too bogged down in the biology, but this stuff is really fascinating. So you have the input from muscles and joints, right. So this is called proprioceptive. Information from the skin, the muscles and the joints. And they involve sensory receptors that are sensitive to stretch or pressure and their surrounding tissues. For example, increased pressure is felt in the front part of the soles of the feet when a standing person leans forward. With any movement of the legs, arms and other body parts sensory receptors respond by sending impulses to the brain. Now along with other information, this these stretch and pressure cues help our brain determine where our body is in space. So that's the input from muscles and joints, but you also have input from what I mentioned before the vestibular system, sensory information about motion, equilibrium and spatial orientation is provided by this vestibular apparatus they call it, which in each ear include something called the utricle, the sacral, and these these three semicircular canals. You might remember this from high school biology. But anyway, the utricle and a sacral, they detect gravity and linear movement. And the three semicircular canals, well, they detect rotational movement, and are located right angles to each other and are filled with this fluid, alright, I think it's called endo lymph, this fluid if I'm not mistaken, regardless, the head rotates in a direction. And sense by these canals, this fluid moves in a very specific way and exerts pressure against the canals. sensory receptor is this whole chain of events. And the receptor then sends impulses to the brain about the movement, and the muscles react accordingly. Now, if you have an inner ear problem, balance can be completely affected. And there's nothing a trainer can do about that is, is where my point is going. So we also have this input from the eyes, our vision has a lot to do with their balance, you know, the eyes have these sensory receptors. In the retina, they're called rods and cones. And they send impulses to the brain that provide visual cues, identifying how a person is oriented relative to other objects. So if you have vision problems, or blurred vision, or peripheral vision problems, that can screw up your balance. And then all these inputs from the eyes touch proprioception, from our ears, the vestibular apparatus, all these sensory inputs, then they have to go get integrated, and that's a whole system, there was anything wrong with the integration system, then balance can be affected. So as you can see, the human balance system involves a complex set of sensory motor control systems, and malfunction or damage to any of these components, either through injury or disease can lead to all kinds of balance problems with all this in mind, doesn't it seem rather primitive to think that people's balance issues can be solved by working out on unstable surfaces, or using free weights versus machines? As Dr. McGuff once said, and I don't think this is his quote, but I like it. He said that. If all you have is a hammer, then the whole world looks like a nail. Trainers are not EMTs trainers are not neurologist trainers are not ophthalmologists. So when a client comes in and mentions that they're having trouble with their balance, what is a trainer to do? They turn to the tool that they have the hammer that they have Alright, the unstable surfaces and Knowing all this, if you really know about balance issues, this is so primitive, it's mind boggling. So let's start exploring the exercise industry's claims of increased balance. Now that we know what balance consists of. There are few, if any actual studies to date that show that the type of increased balance and core stability developed through exercises performed on unstable surfaces transferred to stable surfaces. Therefore, while performing exercise on unstable surfaces, while that may increase an individual's ability to perform the exercise is on that particular surface, it doesn't transfer to the stable services grass, the court, or even ice. Now, optimal balance is gained by performing a given task on the surface on which it will be performed in everyday life. Matter of fact, many researchers also believe that performing exercises or sports skills on unstable surfaces actually decreased the ability to perform the same tasks on a stable surface. Now, I think the reason of this decrease is because it's according to well established motor learning principles. The movement pattern on stable surface interferes with the original pattern created on a stable surface. As far as the body is concerned, doing a similar exercise on a stable surface versus an unstable surface, they might as well be two completely different things. Although we think it's similar enough to kind of mimic, but it doesn't work, it just doesn't work that way doesn't transfer they call it negative transfer. In other words, the unstable surface is not specific to the movement being practiced, the time spent on an unstable surface could have been better spent just mastering the movement itself that you're trying to improve. Another popular claim made by proponents of unstable surface training is an increase in what they call your core stabilization. As with balance, any core stabilization that is possibly enhanced by activity on unstable surface, again, has not been shown to transfer to stable services. Again, most research even shows that performing resistance exercises on stable surfaces requires more core activation and stabilization, then performing the same exercise on an unstable surface. Again, most likely because the ability to provide progressive overload, which means that's what exercise is progressive overload, meaning gradual increases in weight. As you get stronger, you're progressively increasing the weight. And because you're on unstable surfaces, you really can't keep raising the weight when you are on an unstable surface. As the individual gets stronger it becomes too risky to increase the weight while on unstable surface, which is probably why those findings were what they are. So based on current research, I and inform fitness in general does not recommend the use of unstable surfaces outside of a rehabilitative setting. Physical therapy, exercise performed an unstable surface does not transfer well to stable surfaces or our everyday life. Nor do the risks outweigh the beneficial adaptation. Some experts even believe that there may be a reduction in stable surface performance for the same exercise. When developing training programs for clients, fitness practitioners, they must focus solely on safe, intense strength training. And if you want to get better at a particular activity, practice that activity. I have a client for example, that, well she has trouble walking, she's very weak, she had a fall, she got sick, she gained a lot of weight. Now she has trouble walking. What should I do? I say let's do leg press. Let's get those legs strong. Let's get strong overall. And you know what? Start walking. If it's hard to walk for two blocks, walk one and a half blocks. And then keep increasing it till you can walk two blocks and three blocks and four blocks. Well guess what? She can walk now she's walking five, six blocks without a problem anymore. And all she's been doing is doing leg press and all the gross motor skills of developing gross motor strength. And she's walking. As another example of some of the hardware. Some of the some of the crazy stuff that's out there is there's these ideas that if you start practicing walking backwards, that it will help you walk forward. Again, the only thing that practicing walking backward does for you is teach you how to better walk backwards. It does nothing, it's a completely different motor skill. That's like saying, learning how to play the guitar is going to help you play the flute, there might as well be two different instruments, completely two different instruments. And this is going on all over the place. And you know, what if some of this stuff was just benign, and it really didn't do much for you. I don't know if I'd be making such a big deal about this. Because you know, the bottom line is these these track a lot of these practices are not benign. My good friend Bill DeSimone just told me he came back from functional training seminar just to see what they're teaching and they're having you do like squats on one leg with with weight on just one side of a barbell over your shoulders just to just to kind of strengthen your core.

Tim Edwards 14:49
So as you know guys in addition to the inbound podcasting network, I run a video production marketing company and one of my clients is an agency that hires my company to go out and film other gyms Of course that aren't inform fitness and practice some of these weird and crazy modalities. And I literally filmed this woman standing on this ball that looked like Saturn, I'm sure that's what you're talking about. And while she was standing on this ball, this blue ball with this wooden outside that she was standing on platform, she was doing curls. And first thing, and then she was doing those curls, and it was next to some machines. And I thought, well, if she falls, she's gonna hit her head. And so I was thinking that that must be what you're talking about some of these other facilities, offering some of these, you know, like you mentioned, Bill DeSimone was just came back from a conference to see what they're teaching nowadays of some of these crazy exercises that, that some of these trainers are having their their clients go through that would cause more harm than good.

Adam 15:47
I mean, that's a disaster waiting for happen. I mean, you get hurt doing that you're not just pulling a muscle, you can have a spinal injury that can set you back for the rest of your life. So these are not benign practices that are going on. They're telling sedentary, middle aged people to stabilize on these balls with one leg. And they're damaging, and getting ACL tears and all kinds of crazy knee problems as a result of just trying to improve their balance as if they even know what balance actually is, and why it consistents of. So unless your goal is to perform in a circus, or balance on top of a bowl, don't waste your time trading on these unstable services,

Mike 16:24
I actually work with people on their balance and try them. In a similar fashion to what Adam explained, I tried to explain to them what's involved with it. And I think he made a big a very big point, especially with like, vision and the vestibular elements of it. I mean, if you have problems with that, it's nothing we could do training wise, you know, to help those issues, which are part of what maintains your center of gravity. But the tone of this is that outside of strength training, there's nothing you could do to help your balance outside of the actual motor skill of whatever this specific activity is. And just strength training. And there's nothing else that we could be doing for helping our our balance.

Adam 17:06
Nope, I really don't think there is absolutely anything you can do as trainers, we are trainers, right? So, so the best thing we can do for our balance, as trainers is strength. I mean, a good portion of people that have balance problems are just weak, it's weakness, it's low muscle tone, so just strengthen their quads, but you don't have to strengthen our quads on unstable surfaces, the idea is the idea of unstable surfaces having some additional benefit for somebody balance, then just doing a leg extension, just doing a push up just doing a classic exercise that's congruent to our biomechanics, that's going to strengthen every muscle in your body. And then if you're having issues with your balance, walking, or, you know, you went on a boat ride, and you're falling all over the boat, then you know what, go on the boat more often. Because the more you go on a boat, the better your balance is going to get, as long as you're strong enough, if now if you're really weak, if you have really weak legs, you know, you're gonna have balance problems on a stable service, much less an unstable surface. But learning how to stand on a boat, if you're strong enough, can only be improved by standing on a boat and this woman that I was telling you about, I mean, forget about things as complicated as that these older people who've had injuries and they got really weak, and they have trouble walking. So now you're telling this person to stand on one leg, which which has potential issues, as if that's going to help being able to stand on one leg is not going to help them walk, it's going to help them learn how to stand on one leg. Now unless they want to be a crane in Florida, they don't have to do that to improve their walking. They just have to improve their quad strength to improve the walking and then walk perform the skill that you want to get better at with your additional strength.

Mike 18:52
Well, if there's if there's limitations, and even in the simple act of walking in the simple act of walking, like like, just say, like an elderly person who shuffles oftentimes, and obviously absolutely right. If your quads in your hip flexors are strong, then you're going to lift your leg a little bit higher. So therefore you won't be shuffling so much like I while you were talking kind of sort of alluded to where I was going a little bit when I was like thinking is there a difference between an unstable because I agree with the the balance board creating an unstable situation, not an unstable surface, but an unstable situation on its own. And I'm thinking in its fundamental sense, where to end we're going into a common thing as balance for walking or balance for getting up or something like that. Finding your center of gravity, let's just talk about walking in it fundamentally, you're switching from one leg to the next leg to the next leg to the next leg and that is a skill. It's a motor skill. It's that it's

Adam 19:46
one way to practice that skill. If it's walking, then walk. There's nothing you can do other than walking to perfectly improve that skill.

Mike 19:54
But if you're but if you're having difficulty with that already, fundamentally if you're already an As I don't do anything on an unstable surface, but I create an unstable situation so they can have awareness of what it feels like to be on one leg. And all of the muscles that do fire which proprioceptively unconsciously, which guides you to shift your body slightly to in each direction. If you stand on one leg, you feel right. So everything's, everything's firing.

Adam 20:23
Yeah, I get what you're saying

Mike 20:24
involved in an involuntary way

Adam 20:26
yes

Mike 20:26
just sort of give you a little bit of awareness. Now, the thing is, I guess what I'm leading to I haven't done the full research or though I have seen studies that exist, that there are ways to train to improve those proprioceptive, that that firing, so you can actually maintain your, like, even if it's just standing on one leg, I mean, which is inevitably, a fundamental piece of it's happening very slowly, or rather quickly, in the process of walking

Adam 20:55
the skill, believe it or not, then this is this is the the big misconception that people have, they underestimate the power of motor learning. And even standing on one leg, even the act of knowing learning how to stand on one leg doesn't prepare you for the action of walking, because the two different motor skills, the only thing that standing on one leg does for you in is teach you how to walk on a stand on one leg. Again, you're much better off, strengthening the legs, and then learning how to walk now, if it is such a problem for somebody to walk, where you have to start breaking it down to the elements that you're talking about. They've already disqualified themselves from working out with us, as a trainer now starts getting into they need to work with an occupational therapist, if it's that hard for them, they have to work with a neurologist possibly, and really get down to why it is. So apps, if their strength is fine, then then you then that's what I was talking about all these other things that go into balance, there got to be some other issue.

Mike 21:56
I think I think there may be other issues, I think, and part of them are psychological.

Adam 22:02
And now he's talking about

Mike 22:04
but I'm talking about like, but I think is I think sometimes going back to progression, okay being walking, say progression level 10. And now we have a person who has no confidence in the ability to walk because they had a knee surgery, and they're 68 years old or something like

Adam 22:19
that. And that's why they go to occupational therapy, and they and they work with them. And then when they're ready through occupational therapy, they come to us and we finish the process by getting them strong as shit safely

Mike 22:29
I think is what I was saying to you did say something confidence, I think is part of

Adam 22:34
God. Now. Now Now we're getting something that we're going to agree on. Because I mentioned earlier that the psychological benefit, there's a psychological component of balance. All right, now, if some of these, there are some benign things we can do, planks, bird dogs, you know, those those also help not so much with balance, but they help with the small rotor, stabilize muscles of the spine, the rotary muscle, the spine and the multifidus, you know, so it's not so much the bird dogs and the planks that I have the problems with, it's really the unstable surfaces, even standing on a leg, even though I don't think it's going to help them walk from a motor skill point of view, standing on one leg and learning how to balance like that, or doing a one legged lunge safely, you know, and slowly and controlled with a TRX strap, possibly, I'm not, I'm not going to dismiss that completely out of hand. Because if somebody learns to do that, and they feel confident doing that, that confidence can kind of teach them to do other things, it gives them the confidence to do other things. So even though it's not going to actually help them walk per se, if that's what their problem is, it's going to give them the confidence to try walking because they're doing these things now like wow, look at me, I can stand on one leg and I was never able to stand one leg, you know, and that confidence goes a long way. It's almost like a placebo effect. You know, so So I don't know.

Mike 23:44
So therefore some if it's not something like a dangerous exercise

Adam 23:47
yeah

Mike 23:48
it's standing out, that's kind of where I'm leading into a little bit is a the confidence part. The other part is which

Adam 23:54
which, which can be huge, by the way

Mike 23:55
which I haven't, I've seen studies that exist, but I haven't really gotten to be able to do the deep dive into them that are sort of showing that there are connections between proprioception and motor learning if practiced if practiced and it starts with various things like even whay you were talking about

Adam 24:12
I don't think they're saying it transfers to other activities just for that particular activity again, you have I have no

Mike 24:18
perhaps Perhaps not right

Adam 24:19
So anyway, so So my ultimate point is not to not to bash you know, occupational therapy and some of the modalities they use for people that have injuries and all kinds of stuff is that but but we have to be we have to be very careful not pretend that we're neurologists or EMTs. Understand what our limitations are as trainers and we do something really good we get people strong and that goes a long way to helping somebody with their balance issues. And that might be just what they need. Most people like remember Tess Nakamura, we had this old client that always use a walking stick for confidence and we got her really strong by doing I wasn't doing anything other than leg press with this woman. Right and she worked out really hard as time went on. She was, she felt she didnt even need a walking stick, although she carried it just in case, she she felt a lot more stable on her feet. And I wasn't doing any of this crazy on stable servers and stuff, I was just giving her strength and maybe even the confidence of walking again. So So that's, that's our sweet spot. That's what we do best, we get people strong, and we get them strong without undermining their health and make it really safe. And we don't play around with things that Waste Time and that don't transfer to real skills. And again, if there's something that you want to do, like playing, standing on a leg or doing some of these things that are relatively benign, and really can't hurt you, and it helps build their confidence. I'm for it, I'm for it. But let's let's not get carried away with it. And I'm not talking about the things that I see you do with your clients, and that I even do sometimes to clients to help build confidence and give them awareness of one side, you know, having one side of that glutes fire versus another side and things like that. Those are all confidence builders that kind of makes them in touch with their body. And those are all good. But but that's not balance to me. That that's mind body connection, that opposites are different from balance

Mike 26:06
that you're saying the reason why I'm bringing it up is because I think what you just said, is how people get it confused. I think they're thinking balance

Adam 26:15
right

Mike 26:15
Really it is oftentimes it is a mind body connection that that sometimes isn't patterned correctly, you know that sometimes you either you're leaving something out, which is not letting you do something that you're trying to do or

Adam 26:29
Yeah

Mike 26:30
or and you even said it before you said like, in the course there's a chain of things that are going on, early on, and something could be broken in the chain. And and as trainers, I obviously the strength element is, is a big part of the whole thing. But it

Adam 26:46
can also be a new medication. You know, the thing is, there's a there's a very strong motor learning principle that's being ignored out there. And I just want people to be buyer beware when it comes to doing all these crazy things on unstable surfaces as if it's really going to do a better job for strengthening their core or do a better job of them going on a weekend trip on a boat. And they think they're going to do better on the book because they've been working on unstable surfaces. And that's really the big point. Especially the point where people lifting weights and doing all these kinds of dangerous moves on unstable surfaces is if it's going to help them on the athletic field or the tennis court.

Mike 27:19
That's unfortunate. Yeah. Well, before what was described, I mean thst is horrible

Adam 27:25
yeah, yeah. So so that's the big point. Let's not get let's not get fooled with this stuff.

Tim Edwards 27:32
Thanks, guys. Hey, if you're new to the podcast, and are just now learning about slow motion, high intensity strength training, and you want to try it for yourself, simply click the link in the shownotes to the inform fitness website. Once you're there, click the try us free button right there on their homepage, fill out the form, pick your location, and improve more than just your balance. With a slow motion high intensity full body workout in just 20 minutes for free. You'll feel great, I promise. If you're not near one of their several locations across the United States, Adam has a book titled power of 10. The once a week slow motion fitness revolution, pick it up today at a bookstore near you or to make it simple, it's just a click away and available at Amazon. That link will also be in the show notes. For less than about 15 bucks. You'll find some nutritional tips and a handy list of foods that support the power of 10 protocol, and some effective exercise demonstrations and you can perform in the comfort of your own home. Many great episodes on the way in the coming week. So please hit that subscribe button from whichever podcast app you might be listening. We have close to 50 episodes for you to binge listen, and if you don't mind, we'd appreciate it if you took some time to leave us a review. Until next time for Adam Zickerman and Mike Rogers of inform fitness. I'm Tim Edwards with the inbound podcasting Network.

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