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What Is Z Health

Guys, welcome, thanks for being here, there's going to be really believe it or not, fast two days, because we're gonna spend a lot of time talking about not only your vision, but your brain, your body, how all those things interact together really cool hearing about the histories, because one of the big things about the way that I teach and really, I believe how the body and brain are designed to work together is that if we do something, well, we should know it immediately. So we're gonna spend a lot of time in this class not only teaching exercises, but also testing, so you'll be you'll know, probably by the end of a segment two or three today, if a couple of exercises that were starting to do are already having an impact and that's that, to me, is one of most exciting reasons that I do all the stuff that I do. So to get us started, I'm gonna take you guys through a little bit of information about his health is a system, because I get asked a lot about what it is that I do, and and ho...

w is it that I'm not an eye doctor? But I talk about the eyes, so I'm developed a system it started over a decade ago, actually, about fifteen years ago, and but I was tell people that the business actually started when I was about five years old, because I was born and raised or whatever. I had some weird genetic mutation that my huge interest in life has always been enhancing performance. I had a big interest in pain as well, that you can read about some of my story because I had a lot of personal injuries and issues is an athlete, but really, what I got interested in was, how do we take people from wherever they are and make them extraordinary? And so one of my kind of life believes is that the extraordinary informs the ordinary. And so the question always was, what is it that makes high performers so good compared to amateurs? But then the other question I always had was what separates number one in the world from number ten in the world. And so the system that we've been designing ever since has been based around those ideas in those concepts and the question wass if I could look the very best, what are the small one to two percent differences in how they move, how they think, how they perform that I could then build practical tools and drills from to teach everybody. That makes sense you so when you hear about our system one of the things that you'll hear over and over as we talked about the brain we talking about the brain and the nervous system and that is going to be the the consistent theme throughout this course one of the hardest things for me to do is to well I don't teach without context so just to be really, really clear so we're going to spend a couple of hours today in the beginning number one looking at how your eyes in your brain interact because that's actually the most important pieces in the emerging neuroscience of why these exercises might actually work because a lot of people in the more traditional medical fields or whatever you know there's been studies back and forth over the years do vision exercises work? Do they not work in some cases they've shown that they really good improvement other case is not so good and so there's confusion but there's confusion around everything related to the eyes some of you have probably been told hey you need to wear your glasses so that your eyes don't get weaker he probably told her you need where you you should take your glasses off so that your eyes don't get weaker right you're going to hear a lot of confusing information so what I want to do today is we're going teo said start with some context we're gonna talk about number one, the consequences of visual issues because that's one of the things that a lot of people don't realize I spent a lot of time, as jim said, working with high level athletes, I work with professional athletes, olympic athletes I also work with people that are in need of significant rehab people have had neurologic injury that are suffering from chronic pain, and the thing that I want you to hear from the beginning today is that the exercises that we teach are the ones that I use across the board I don't just do vision exercises, we worked with the whole body, but I will tell you that over the progression of my career and as I've understood more about how the eyes and brain and body interact, I virtually do no work with any human being in which I don't evaluate their visual function because the eyes are our number one system for dealing with our environment and the human nervous system is really designed with one major goal in mind is to keep you alive. All right? I was still people like goal number one is survival and the best way to survive is to actually able to see well, because if I can see well, I can look out into my environment and go hey, that car that they're driving erratically, I'm on my bicycle hey, that dog looks a little bit unhappy right? And so the level of clarity of our vision has a strong determining factor on our survival but what's cool about that toe understands that's been very, very deeply entrenched into our reflexive movement patterns and so the point that I'm always trying to make with people is that if you have a visual issue, the likelihood of moving worse increases the likelihood of having pain goes up and so we're gonna go through some of that today and as I said will also start to talk about how using the brain and looking at current research we can actually show that a lot of these exercises can be very effective all right? The other thing I want to make sure that you understand about the system that I teach is that I don't expect everything to work for everybody and this is really important to me a lot of people think that exercise is so simple that you can't mess it up and that's not the case in fact there's this growing body of research that's very confusing to people because what's happened is they started looking at you know, workout routines and fitness routines and you take one hundred people and give them all the same routine and have them all do the same thing for twelve or sixteen or seventeen weeks and about twelve to fifteen percent or even more depending on the study at the bottom actually not only don't get fit they actually lose fitness from exercise which is very strange right? It doesn't that seems weird to go so I can run for three days a week for seventeen weeks and actually lose aerobic fitness yes you can now what's happening out there is people blaming genetics like oh well you're just you're just a non responded exercise I don't personally believe that all right because the while genetics play a role in our eyes and our vision our balance our athleticism there's a huge amount of work that we can d'oh based on our lifestyle choices are dying and everything else that can have a much bigger impact in the point of that I was trying to bring up about those studies is that we see fifteen twenty percent of people not improving do we take a step back and go what were the exercise is appropriate did they perform them correctly because all of those things matter to your nervous system so we'll talk more about that as we go forward but that's why says up here z health is designed to target the human brain because ultimately everything that we are the results of all of our exercise everything that we do ultimately is going to be determined by how the brains perceiving that information that makes sense to me so as I said the reason I'm prefacing with that is that not every exercise that we do in this two days may be helpful for you. We may find some that actually make it more difficult for you physically make it more difficult for you to see, so we're going to go through and we're going to identify for you individually so that you can build your personalized program of exercises that work best, and this is actually it's it's ah, almost metaphorical for what you should be doing in the rest of your life if you go to the gym, if you go too, if you'd like to swim, you like to do other types of exercise, figuring out which ones you respond best to and the way they respond best to them can be a real key piece and getting fit on actually kind of doing what I call hacking exercise so that you get the biggest benefit for the least investment of time. That's what we're going for, all right? So the human brain really, really important will keep coming back to that over and over. Eso this first segment I just entitled meet your eyes and the reason we're going to do that is I want to give you some background on the anatomy, physiology of the eye in the brains, if you can't understand, we're talking about dr copy ready for your first question running the internet? Yes, sir. Fantastic. So we knew we were going to get these so here's our first one coming in this is from s p mom says my seven year old daughter has and blow emily opium amblyopia will these exercises potentially help her? Yeah, there is a with amblyopia. It depends on the severity, but there are there's, a significant body of research that shows a visual exercises can be very effective for amblyopia as I go through and talk a little bit more through the couple of days, I'll talk about different professionals that she might want to also see. But it's definitely something that would be considering for particularly someone that young because the beautiful thing about young brains and young nervous systems is that they're very malleable so there could be some great benefit for awesome. Thank you very much, sir. Could you explain what amblyopia is? Yeah, amblyopia. Most people know what is a lazy eye, elka and I that doesn't really line up with the other one. So there's a coordination issue and also often muscular issue s oh, yeah, all right, so, like I said, we're gonna talk about meet your eyes now I do want to make sure to cover this stuff in the beginning, all right, consult your eyecare professional obviously the three of us are going to be working together for four of us will be working together over the course of these two days, but as I said, my background, I'm not an optometrist, I'm not an ophthalmologist, alright, I am s o I'm not a doctor, and so I want to make sure that everyone understands that your eyes are precious, and if you if you start to have issues, you do any of these exercises, just stop them and talk to your doctor, make sure that what you're doing is appropriate for you. Now, on the whole, everything that we're doing is, in my opinion, incredibly safe. We're just going to be doing different versions of eye movements and different focusing drills that you do all day anyway. What? We're gonna do them with intent, but I want to make sure, like I said, to cover that if you have a cz, we go through, you know you mentioned you have a vestibular issue, which is an inner ear issue. Some people doing eye exercises in the beginning can have some strange sensations like you may get a little bit dizzy. Your eyes may feel a little fatigued, so as long as it's at a level that you're comfortable with perfectly fine, but anything beyond like that seemed really weird, I had pain. Or I wasn't able to see in a certain area all of that absolutely you need to stop what you're doing consult your eyecare professional there was clear on that just really important because like I said, your eyes watching people lose vision is very, very difficult um if you've never experienced that in your family with friends or whatever my father lost his vision before he passed away and he was an avid reader his whole life so watching that progression it was a disease process that he had but washington progression was really difficult on me andi obviously incredibly difficult on him so this is their set reminder that we're here kind of from a fitness perspective to look at how your eyes function if you have anything that seems weird it's not worth not getting it checked out everyone clear on that? Okay? And dr cobb, do you mind if I jump in a cz well eso you guys we do want to let you know out there on the internet that this course you know, speaking of what we're just talking about this course provides information on exercise and wellness and is not medical advice please do is dr cobb mentioned seek individual medical advice and care from a doctor before starting any exercise diet or no trish in program relying on the information in this course may result in serious injury or illness and to you and if you're pregnant your unborn child you assume all risk when using or relying on the information in this course so but that was a good time for that they're gonna have our standard disclaimer yeah that is our standard issue here really important all right yeah. Any questions so far because we're good so far yeah okay so I want to talk a little bit as we get started like I said about the far reaching consequences of how your eyes function um sometimes you got to do a little experiment for me all right go ahead and scoot out to the edge of the year your couch right or chair or your fear at home wherever I want you to sit out, scoot out there and I want you to sit up in kind of what you would consider to be good posture right now most of us going okay, you know, I get kind of straight to get my head kind of pulled back a little bit now what I want you to do is what you put your hands out and act as if you're reading something and now act as if you're having a hard time reading it what would you normally d'oh right? So people typically do this they're like here and they start the you know, playing with the arms but also they start playing with their head and neck and all of a sudden we're making wide body wide partial adjustments what's going on with our eyes that make sense, everybody okay? So if you're if you read this, what it will tell you yes, and sit back on the last one that wasn't too hard first exercise. So if you read through this, basically and I'm going to go through the physiology here, but I believe that your eyes actually play a very important rule. Not only how will you move, but how much pain you experience? Um, and there are some very clear indications to why that is also what you can see is eyes impact athletic performance I mean that's, incredibly calm, and if you look at one of the handouts that comes with this course, I've recommended some books in there. There's a great new book that came out about a year ago called sea to play it's by optometry ist who worked with high level athletes, and he talks about the unique visual skills that athletes have but also how to train the eyes so eyes are incredibly important for athletic performance. You'll hear that a lot, even in sports commentators, right? They'll talk about someone who has great field vision or someone who sees the court well, and the fact is when you look at even high level, athletic performance what's really fascinating. If I take if I take two guys, they're both professional athletes and I tested their strength in the reflex time and their speed there there's gonna be some differences, but for the most part those differences are very minor what's really important that I tell them a lot of times is it you could be a really fast athlete, but if there's a guy who's just slightly slower than you that sees faster than you or sees more than you, you'll get beaten every time right? Because it's actually perception that tells us how to move and what to do where to move as an athlete so eyes play a huge role in athletic performance but then a couple of other weird ones frustration, anxiety? Ah lot of people don't realize that poor vision can actually add kind of a low grade stress throughout their day have you guys know that when you spend a lot of time working up close here on the computer at the end of the day you feel kind of bad, right? You're like I'm tight, my neck feels terrible and you're just general frustration levels go up a lot of that's visually driven on and so we'll talk as we go through about what's called sensory integration uh and sensory integration basically means we have three main ways that we experience the world we experience the world through our eyes through our balance system, our inner ear, and then all of the kind of nerve endings and signaling from the rest of the body and all of those have to say the same thing to your brain. Yeah, and if they don't say the same thing, your actual general anxiety levels in frustration level could go up. So there are some huge benefits toe working on your eyes that go far beyond. Hey, can I actually read the paper now? This was one of my big mistakes, and I'll just I'll tell you this from the beginning, as I said, I started training vision when I was about fourteen years old. Um, I was a tennis player in a martial artist, and I read a book on bjorn borg. I don't know if anybody here play tennis remember be onboard the guy of short, you know, swedish descent, this shorts and and fantastic, one of the best tennis players of all time, and I remember reading an article and he was talking about some of his practice sessions and how he worked on his vision, and I thought, that's a great idea. So I hung a ball up over my bed and I lay in bed at night and hit the tennis ball, and I just moved my eyes and I would follow it. And I would do different drills when I was on the court I would do different girls in the gym and I found that I worked on my vision that I improved my vision and that my sports performs improved so I had this kind of early experience where I thought hey seems like it works so that point I considered it just mandatory for everyone that I ever worked with that hey we need to look at their eyes but what I didn't understand for many many years including going through school it wasn't until I was out of school for about a decade and I was getting frustrated with the lack of results with some of my clients that I really began delving into the neuro physiology of how the eyes work and how they impact on the body uh and so from that perspective the deeper I've gotten into this the more like I said the more I want to understand that your eyes have an incredible impact and I want to make sure that you never you don't leave these two days without feeling inspired to explore it alright everyone clear yeah all right now when you talk about being healthy when you talk about being athletic when you talk about being able to perform whatever it is that you want your life where I've worked with about twenty thousand clients just so you know over the last two decades on top of of working with about twenty thousand people individually I teach for a living our company certifies personal trainers physical therapist in some physicians in our methodology and we have about a thousand thousand plus trainers around the world I teach in europe I teach supposed to go to australia this year to teach all over the place we have basically reached out to over one hundred thousand hundred fifty thousand clients through this network of people and so we've been able to collect a lot of data and what's become really evident over the course of working with the thousands and thousands of people is that they're really three major things that people need in order to actually get the most out of their life because how many of you and this is like actual question have you dig exercising like you just love to exercise good when your done it yes that's a typical example right like I do it because I have to I do it it feels good when I'm done because right there's that mental benefit of going at least I did something I loved playing handball but I hate doing exercise right and that's one of the things we're going to talk about I'm the same way like sports racquetball you know love it right you know pumping iron that's not it's not so much and that's actually my experience with most people there aren't that many people they just love the gym most people if given the opportunity to play well, would like to play more, but one of the things that happens is we hit our twenties we had our thirties creeping in our forties and now of a sudden you're like, oh man, these are killing me and yeah, you know, I used to be able teo, I cannot tell you how many times I've heard I used to be able to well, the what we're really looking for for most people to enjoy the most of their life is a really good balance between mobility and strength. S so one of the things that we teach in our system is we work a lot on how well do you just move without weights in your hand without a racket in your hand? Can you control your body? All right? So in other words, you can't move your neck any direction if you can't move your spine if you can't move your feet and legs and ankles, there gonna be some missing pieces in what we call your movement map that will show up whenever you're trying to play a sport, the likelihood of injury goes up so at that point we say listen, what we want to work on first get your body moving and then once you can move well, then we could make you stronger the second thing that's super important is your breathing now, most people never give a thought to their breathing. We're actually do some breathing exercises on day two because one of the things that you're going to hear from me really soon we start getting into the brain in the physiology of the brain is that poor breathing actually promotes poor brain function, and if our vision lives in our brain, which is where it lives, poor breathing can actually have a direct, uh, costume direct ramifications on your belly to see. So we'll talk about breathing a little bit during this course from now, we're going to talk about mobility, the third thing that then comes in his posture. Now most people have heard from the time they were little you need to have good posture, but no one really knows what that means, right? Let's, let's just think stand up straight and if you ever done that, you know, you get up against the wall and get really tight like this feels terrible. Why would anyone move like this? So posture is supposed to be this nice, fluid, dynamic thing and it's also supposed be reflexive so people that we see all the time that it kind of looks like we're going back in the cave man, rivers right back to this position, they can try and try and try to stand up but as soon as they forget what happens is they go right back into that posture that's because posture is really supposed to be primarily reflexive and guess what controls a lot of posture the brain but also the eyes all right so it's going to really important like I said, we look at these three things if you have visual issues, visual issues can cause problems and all of them all right, any questions about that? So so you're saying that vision actually influences how good or bad a posture we have? Wow, absolutely. Let me show you a couple pictures about that and just go all right all right. Any other questions? Just add to that would you like how much of a percentage oven influences that have on your posturing? Aside from other factor there's there's some research that says that balance and posture are about seventy percent determined by how well your eyes function now I don't again that's really hard to determine for sure we don't know but I think that your visual function does play very high has a high percentage application and how well you stand how you move so it's hard for me to say hey it's definately seventy percent because it's hard to look at all the different factors but I do want you to realize that it is going to be again a preeminent factor at least on how we work with the body