Fall Prevention and Balance Traiining

This episode contains an interview with inventor, author, and entrepreneur Jim Klopman about the important issues of fall prevention and balance training.

Falls are the number one cause of accidental injury and death in those over 65 years old. Many victims of non-fatal falls are left with severe functional impairments, often requiring long-term care. In the year 2020 the price tag for falls to our health care system in the US was over 81 Billion dollars.

Balance training is a proven method for reducing falls, and it is also a cornerstone of training for improved athletic performance for sports of all kinds. Standing, walking, running, and even sitting would be impossible without balance. It is also a proven fact that mobility is profoundly related to morbidity and mortality

On today's show we will discuss some of the causes of falls, medications that affect falls, home modifications to reduce falls, fear of falling, proper footwear, the effects of certain medical conditions on falls, fall risk assessment, the role that vision plays in balance, the effects of aging on falls, neuroplasticity and neuro-rehabilitation, and the utility of balance training for fall prevention and for improved sports performance. We will also discuss Jim Klopman's book "Balance is Power" and his SlackBow and SlackBlock training devices for balance training and fall prevention.

Chapters

• 0:03 Fall Prevention and Balance Training Importance
• 13:19 Medications, Home Modifications, and Fall Prevention
• 16:21 Optimizing Balance for Performance and Health
• 24:30 Balance Training for Optimal Performance
• 32:22 Unlocking Balance
• 40:06 Improving Balance for Performance and Longevity
• 43:11 Neuroplasticity and Neurorehabilitation in Balance
• 48:47 Dynamic Balance Training Tips and Recommendations
• 58:45 Preventing Falls

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:03

Hello and a warm welcome to Wellness Connection MD podcast, the evidence-based podcast where we discuss all things wellness. Have you or someone you know or love ever had a fall which resulted in a major setback in your health status? Well, you're not alone. Falls are often life-changing. They are the number one cause of industrial accidents, the number one cause of concussions and the number one cause of injury and accidental death in those over 65 years old. The price tag to our healthcare system in the US is over $80 billion per year. The good news is that most of these falls are preventable. Today on the show we have a special guest, jim Klopman, who has dedicated his life to the subject of fall prevention and balance training. For the athletes in the audience. You'll also learn an important tip that will help you, no matter what sport you participate in. I hope that you enjoy the show.

Speaker 2: 0:53

Welcome to the Wellness Connection MD podcast with Dr McMinn and Coach Lindsay, where we bring you the latest up-to-date, evidence-based information on a wide variety of health and wellness topics, along with practical take-home solutions. Dr McMinn is an integrated and functional MD and Lindsay Matthews is a registered nurse and IIN-certified health coach. Together, our goal is to help you optimize your health and wellness in mind, body and spirit. To see a list of all of our podcasts, visit McMinnMDcom and to stay up to date on the latest topics, be sure to subscribe to our podcast on your favorite podcast player so that you'll be notified when future episodes come out. The discussions contained in these podcasts are for educational purposes only and are not intended to diagnose or treat any disease. Please do not apply any of this information without approval from your personal doctor. And now on to the show with Dr McBin and Coach Lindsey.

Speaker 1: 1:49

Hello and welcome to Wellness Connection MD, the evidence-based podcast on all things wellness, where we come to you to bring you honest, commercial-free, unbiased, up-to-date, evidence-based, outcomes-oriented information, along with practical solutions to empower you to overcome your healthcare challenges and to optimize your wellness in mind, body and spirit and to become a great captain of your ship when it comes to your health and wellness. Coach Lindsay has a day off today and we always miss her when she's not here, but she should be back with us for our next episode. However, we do have a good show for you lined up. Today we're going to be talking to a very special guest about the important topic of fall prevention and balance training. But first you know the drill by now. Just a few brief housekeeping duties to get out of the way. First, our podcast remains commercial free so that we can stay completely unbiased. However, it does cost us money to produce these podcasts and we put many hours of work into each episode. So think of us like public radio and consider making a contribution to help us keep this valuable information coming to you.

Speaker 1: 2:48

There are a couple of ways that you can contribute to the show. First, if you buy nutritional supplements, then consider purchasing physician-grade supplements from our Fullscript dispensary at a 10% discount. You can see the link to Fullscript below in the show notes, or go to mcmindmdcom and the link will also be there at the bottom of the homepage under helpful links. It's quite simple Just click on the link and they'll guide you through the process. It's a classic win-win you get high quality supplements at a discount and we get your support for the show, for which we are very grateful. If you have any trouble with this, then just reach out to me at drmcminn at yahoocom and I'll do my best to guide you through the process. You can also safely make a contribution to the show directly via credit card or by PayPal at the Support the Show link, which is also in the show notes below. Please don't forget to subscribe to the show so you won't miss an episode. And one more thing if you like the show, then please tell, call, text or email someone to let them know about us, so we can bring this valuable information to even more listeners. And thank you so much. And now on to the show.

Speaker 1: 3:51

Our topic today is fall prevention and balance training. It's a topic that is uber important but it often flies under the radar. It's not talked about in the health, wellness and medical communities as much as it needs to be. We are blessed to have us with today a very special guest. Jim Klopman is an innovator, inventor and entrepreneur who has dedicated his life and career to the issue of falls and balance. He is the developer of a patented Slackbow balance system and the author of an excellent book entitled Balance is Power. His methods and equipment have been used by professional football and basketball players, as well as top athletes in just about every sport. His program and equipment have become the standard in many physical therapy clinics and they are also available in the home setting for everyone who is interested in improving balance and performance and in reducing falls. I have personally known Jim for many years and can testify to the time, energy, intelligence and passion that he has put into creating a successful and practical solution to this issue. Jim is a pioneer in the integration of balance training for improving not only the quality of movement but also the quality of life. However, before we bring Jim into the conversation, let me just take a few minutes to set the stage as to the importance of this issue.

Speaker 1: 5:04

Here are the cold hard facts when it comes to balance and falls, falls are the number one cause of accidental injury in those over 65. The majority of traumatic brain injuries are from falling, and falls are also the number one cause of concussions. Falls are the number one cause of industrial accidents and the number one cause of ER visits for those over 45. There are over 37 million falls severe enough to require medical attention that occur globally each year, and many of the folks who don't die from their falls will experience a functional decline and will require admission to a nursing home. Falls are among the most expensive of the medical conditions in America. At last count, in 2020, the price tag for US was over $80 billion annually to our healthcare system for non-fatal falls, fatal falls added another $1.4 billion. And here's the big one Falls are the number one cause of accidental death for those over 65. In fact, in 2020, there were over 42,000 deaths due to falls in the United States, with 86% of those deaths occurring among adults 65 or older.

Speaker 1: 6:10

It is a proven scientific fact that mobility is directly and profoundly related to overall health, quality of life and life expectancy, and you cannot have mobility without balance. In fact, as Jim points out in his excellent book entitled Balance is Power, the human being is incapable of walking, running, swinging an object or even sitting without balance. The bottom line is that any movement requires balance. Unfortunately, this issue is not emphasized enough by our medical providers. So, despite advances in fitness training and safe spaces, the number of falls per capita is going up dramatically, with disastrous consequences. In 2020, 14 million US adults age 65 or older that's about a quarter of that population reported falls during the previous year. As a former ER doctor myself, who has cared for many of these fall victims, I can testify how these falls can be life-changing for many of those unfortunate folks. It could be accurately stated that good balance can be the difference between life and death for any of us planning to live to a ripe old age. So the bottom line is that the issue of balance and falls should be taken seriously and should be given a much higher priority than it is getting currently.

Speaker 1: 7:22

So we're excited to have with us today Jim Klotman on the show as our special guest to share with us the wisdom of his many years of attention to this subject and to leave us with some practical solutions. And for our younger and more athletic listeners, jim will also discuss the benefits of improving balance for just about every sport. So, now that the stage is set on the important issue of balance and falls, let's introduce our guest today, jim Klotman. Welcome to Wellness Connection, md, jim. Thank you so much for joining us today. Thank you Appreciate being here.

Speaker 1: 7:50

You know, jim, the issue of balance and falls is so important and I know you have worked on this for many, many years. We go way back, you and me, and you put a lot of hard work and dedication and passion into this, so I'm really excited to have you on the show today, thank you. Well, let me start my questioning with just the general concepts of balance and falls, and then we'll transition into discussing your outstanding line of products that you've developed in order to help people improve in this area. Along those lines, what are some of the most common causes of falls in older adults?

Speaker 3: 8:16

You're not going to believe this, but the number one cause of falls for people over the age of 65 are curbs, and the reason for that is that if you walk around today's world, it's all perfectly designed for ADA level balance, so all the steps are equally separated apart and no step is even an eighth or a sixteenth of an inch difference in terms of their height. But curbs kind of all look the same and they are different heights just because of the road buildup. Also, I think you'll see a lot of times on sidewalks it must be a problem because you'll be walking along what looks like a perfectly fine sidewalk and the city has spent a lot of money to grind down a half an inch rise in one of the little platforms on the sidewalk. But number one is curbs.

Speaker 1: 9:04

You know I have a personal interest in this subject with my family. My mom and dad both suffer with falls and with my mom, let's see, she tripped over a dog, she tripped over a little threshold in the house. It was really the beginning of the end for her. She broke her hip and she was never the same, had pain in her hip the rest of her life and then just decreased mobility and all that kind of stuff, and so it definitely impacted her life. And then my dad it's kind of interesting, he had Parkinson's and he was kind of going along okay, but then he fell and he didn't break anything, but within a few days, I mean, there was a sudden decline in his status. Within a few days he was in the hospital and he never came home and it was really tragic and sad. So once again, this subject is so important and it is personal to me and my family and so, yeah, any kind of obstacle like I said, the dog, the threshold, the curb, anything like that is certainly going to increase that.

Speaker 3: 9:58

Well, the interesting thing about both of those deaths is neither one of them are classified as deaths from a fall, although they were pretty much precipitated by a fall.

Speaker 1: 10:06

Yeah, and so when you crunch the numbers and you look at statistics and epidemiology, they might say X amount of deaths from fall, but that's undercounting, isn't it?

Speaker 3: 10:11

Exactly, way undercounting yeah.

Speaker 1: 10:12

And so, yeah, you know, with the aging process we have lots of things that come along. I used to have the saying that bad things happen to old people, and now that I'm an old person myself, I can testify for that.

Speaker 3: 10:28

But so how does the aging process affect things like balance and how does it increase fall risk? I think you know a big part of it is it's a use factor. So you know, in the book I go through four different causes of loss of balance and you know one is you are walking around this perfectly flat, easy to navigate world and there's no balance challenge. So it doesn't get better, it gets worse. The second is and when you tell me a story about your mother it makes me think of that we start wearing these multi-vision glasses and when you wear multi-vision glasses you're shutting off a great deal of information that comes from the lower part.

Speaker 3: 10:58

You know where your feet are, to how well you can balance and move and I don't think that there needs to be that level of balance loss. I think that people, if they just continue to train their balance, they'll get better. Now, one of the problems is that you get used to this perfect world of what we have, this index of 0 to 100, and 20 is you need a walker or a cane? Well, the world is designed for the walker and cane people and if you go around and your own score gets down to around 25 and you get a challenge of 35 or 40, you're like you fall and you know. I think that's. The bigger problem is it's age is not so much a factor, as you use it less and less.

Speaker 1: 11:40

I remember one time I forget if it was a speech or a podcast this lady was talking about you know, when you walk down the the sidewalk, just move over and walk on the grass parallel to the sidewalk. Absolutely, so you get more of a balance challenge All day long. Absolutely, so every day you can just do little things like that to give yourself a balance challenge. Absolutely. I do a little boxing routine and it's one of my little exercise things I do every day, and some of it's on the concrete, but sometimes I step off onto the grass and so I can have that little balance challenge there. But anyway, another thing that happens as we get older is we lose muscle mass. I have a really good friend. He's 80ish or so and has a hard time just getting up out of a chair, and that's pretty classic. And so talk to me about the importance of muscle mass as it relates to and especially strength in your legs as it relates to falls.

Speaker 3: 12:23

Well, you know there's this big thing about muscle mass and generally weightlifters and bodybuilders don't live a terribly long time, so they don't have a history of living longer with bigger muscles. So there's not a direct correlation. The other is a muscle that you lose as you get older is fast twitch muscle. It's not slow twitch. So slow twitch is how I build muscle and make it bigger, and a lot of the muscle that we build ends up being these big mobilizer muscles and you lose the control of the small stabilizer muscles, which are a lot of the fast-twitch muscles. So to me it's how much fast-twitch work do you do? Do you do little plyos? Balance is almost 100% fast-twitch. There's no large muscle group activation to make you balance. So these things that you can do, like walking outside on grass, is a great thing. Taking your shoes off when you walk around the house, you know, being able to take a step without looking down All these things, I think, are more important than the aspect of just building bigger muscle.

Speaker 1: 13:19

So what about the relationship between medications and fall risks?

Speaker 3: 13:26

You know I'm not qualified to say. I'm sure there is effects, but I really don't know enough about medications to know. I know that I've seen I had one client who had his vestibular canals destroyed by a medication he took and he could barely balance. And we trained him and he got his balance back, which just told me that it's a multimodal system and you don't need to have all parts to make it work. You can have a few of the parts and still work pretty well.

Speaker 1: 13:50

You know it's interesting, there are a lot of medications that cause falls and there's a concept called polypharmacy. You know, when people take more than, say, four medications, then there's a significant increase in falls.

Speaker 3: 14:00

Today's world.

Speaker 1: 14:05

And yeah, oh my gosh, patients come in and you see their med list. It just goes on forever. And so, yeah, they're definitely at increased fall risk because of that. But you know, classically you think of things like your narcotics and your benzodiazepines, like Valium type drugs, as causing falls, sleep medications as well. But one of the main culprits and I was surprised at this was your what we call SSRI antidepressants. You know, people who are on, say, prozac has significant increase in risk of falls. So that was kind of surprising to me. But yeah, especially medications that are new, I think once you've been on it for about a month or two, you kind of know if it's affecting you. But you know, when you get on a new med, then that's a big deal. Another one that's a big one is the antihypertensive medicines. Sometimes we over-medicate people. You know, look at them. On a little blood pressure medicine you end up too much. Next thing, you know, they're getting weak and dizzy and they fall. So, yeah, it's a big, big, big deal. Well, there's alcohol too.

Speaker 3: 14:51

You know people kid me. They said you know you ought to start a course on training people how to improve their balance so they can pass, which is not really a test anymore.

Speaker 1: 14:58

Yeah, yeah. So what about the issue of what I call home modifications when it comes to reducing fall risk? Things like grab bars?

Speaker 3: 15:10

railings and stuff like that. If somebody contacts me and they've got a cane or a walker or they've come off of surgery, I just refer them to a PT. Now I will say that we have available free tests that trains balance training on one leg and I think that that's one thing that's missing from a lot of balance training and it has to be one leg that activates the big toe and bare feet. My only safety concerns are don't balance train in the bathroom, kitchen or bedroom.

Speaker 3: 15:31

Those are just dumb places to do it you know the bathroom is the number one place in the house where injuries occur, so you know how do you be careful in the bathroom. I think is the most important thing probably.

Speaker 1: 15:42

Yeah, I know, once again back thinking about mom and dad. We had these huge basement steps. My dad built the house and so he had these basement steps on the town and there was no railing and here he was like 75 years old. Yeah, I think those things can help, like a little grab bar by the toilet or in the bathtub, whatever that. If you start to fall, you can have something you can grab onto. But then my next question has to do with what I call the fear of falling. You know, back again to my mom. She fell a couple of times and she had this great fear of falling and the fear itself was limiting as far as her mobility. And then it's this vicious cycle, because once you have less mobility then you're at even greater risk. And so what about that concept of fear of falling?

Speaker 3: 16:21

When I train, people we respect fear 100%. So if we push people beyond their fear limit while training, they actually regress to where their actual balance can be. So you can overcome fear, but you have to build up to that level again. So with your mom I'd start off with just the simplest things in the world. First of all, I'd take off her glasses and make sure she didn't have multivision glasses on, but we'd train her with her shoes off, make sure she didn't have multi-vision glasses on, but you know, we train her with her shoes off, make sure her feet are engaging in the ground, and we do really simple, low, low level stuff and build her confidence up.

Speaker 3: 16:53

But if you have fear you just can't sort of push through the fear. It is the most powerful autonomic system we have in the body. You can raise your heart rate, you can change your blood pressure, you can change the temperature of your hand if you want, but you cannot fake good balance and you can't fake bad balance. So when they have a fear, it's a real, honest to God fear that needs to be dealt with and there's ways of dealing with it without talk, therapy and getting into the brain. It's not a psychological thing, it's totally in the body. It's totally autonomic and you have to work them up to that level again and do it progressively and slowly.

Speaker 1: 17:29

Is that something a good physical therapist could help with?

Speaker 3: 17:32

They could, but I don't know if they do it. We do it. When I train high-end athletes, you know, one of the things I think that's interesting about our tech is we know that pre-fall position. We see movements in the body that says you're at your balance limit, and I never push somebody beyond that balance limit Because if you do, they regress to back to someplace lower than where they were before they started.

Speaker 1: 17:52

Yeah, speaking of PT or physical therapy, I'm going to go back to that home modification thing. I think it's hard for us to know as lay people what you need, so sometimes if you can get a PT a physical therapist out to look at your home and try to assess what kind of fall risk you might have, then that could also be helpful, I think one of the most important things, too, is that people over-rely on canes.

Speaker 3: 18:10

Yeah, yeah, and I think for an elderly person they don't like canes because it makes them look like right. So what I recommend to parents to clients who have parents asking this question is get a really nice pair of walking poles and they can walk in that contralateral movement pattern where the left leg goes forward, the right hand goes forward and as they do that, they're going to walk more comfortably. They got two outbound things that can hold them up and it looks cool and it's much more fun than just a walker. Yeah.

Speaker 1: 18:40

I was out at the park the other day and they had a class that looked like a Nordic walking. It was really kind of interesting. Of course a lot of old people like me when they were out there walking around. I think it was really great exercise. And they were on this unlevel path Terrain's a really good challenge for the balance Great thing to do. It was just a great thing to do exactly. So what about the concept of proper footwear in fall prevention and balance?

Speaker 3: 19:04

It's like the most important thing.

Speaker 3: 19:05

That's right, tell me more about that. I mean, it's just number one. You know you have 100,000 to 200,000 receptors on the bottom of your feet that provide information. A couple of years ago at the Jonas Salk Institute, they discovered that you have neuroreceptors on your lower spine. What they only found was that you get data from the lower extremities, it manipulates that data and sends the data back down to the information information to lower to your legs, basically telling them something about stride and how to move. And that's just a little bit of what they discovered. I think balance is a huge component of that as well. So whatever you do to disrupt that flow of information is just patently stupid.

Speaker 3: 19:43

So when you see, people get older and they have neuropathy. They wear thicker and thicker and thicker shoes. The second thing is you have 25% of the bones and muscles in your body are in your hands, and so your hands get to move and do all this cool stuff. Well, guess what? 25% of the bones and muscles in your body are in your feet and you've got them caged in a dang mushy cast. And the big toe is a huge component of balance. And you look at shoes today and the big toe, with the front of the toe box, is lifted off the ground.

Speaker 3: 20:12

So even when I stand around, I'm not allowed to engage the most important component of my foot, which is my toe. And then you add to that so many of these shoes have a lifted heel that forces you to tuck your butt underneath. And I think this is, you know, if you watch older men stand around. They're in these shoes and they have a tendency to stand with the arch in the back, knee straight, and tuck their butt. Well, they're putting all that weight to carry all that weight on their lower back. They lose their glutes, they lose their hamstrings and, oh goodness gracious, they start having back problems. It's because they've lost those two muscle sets.

Speaker 1: 20:43

All those things go away when you wear a minimalist shoe, and so even just walking around the house barefoot might be helpful.

Speaker 3: 20:50

It's good. You always got to warn people about neuropathy. You don't want to step on something but yeah.

Speaker 3: 20:54

And on the grass is a great thing Anytime you can go barefoot. But even if you get into, we use Xero Shoes X-E-R-O-Shoescom and they've been around for years and they have like 80,000 client testimonials and just search whatever your topic is neuropathy and you'll find 10,000 comments about my neuropathy was cured because I put on these shoes. Because now you're activating the nerves, you're putting the system to work. When you're in a soft shoe, the nerves don't get to work. We would take people I'm talking too long about this subject. Clients would come in and see me and they'd have their thick athletic shoes on and they go shoes or no shoes. And the first time I go, no, keep your shoes on and literally within two minutes they go. My feet are killing me and what's happening is the feet are going. I need to get engaged in this process. What can I? You know, and they're over activating, trying to work through that foam. Take the shoes off, go through and do the same. Training goes away completely.

Speaker 1: 21:52

Interesting. Now again. This may not be in your wheelhouse, but I'll just go ahead and ask you what about things like chronic health conditions, like things like diabetes and arthritis.

Speaker 3: 22:02

How do they affect fall risk? I think they do to a large extent, but I think what happens is that you have to be careful to what sort of compensatory muscle patterns you're putting in place to protect yourself, whatever you think it is that's affecting you from those diseases, and not over-engage them. And the great thing about balance training is it basically forces you to use your body the best way you possibly can, regardless of what your injuries are, your conditions are.

Speaker 1: 22:30

In your fabulous book. By the way, it's a great read. I really enjoyed it. I learned a lot. It was excellent. You mentioned that the SlackBow program involves more demanding balance challenges and is mainly designed to deliver results for athletes. So let's go ahead and start with some athletes, and they might have some in the audience. And certainly athletes are always invested in constant improvement. They want to run faster, jump higher, ski better, strike the ball with more power, and so how can your program help them with those things?

Speaker 3: 22:57

It's real simple. It's one you can't outperform your balance. Your balance system will slow you down and retard whatever it is you're doing to stay within balance. So I can't swing a baseball bat any harder than my balance system allows. If I swing past that balance limit I'm going to become unstable and I won't be able to hit and I won't be able to have control. It's true with any sport activity.

Speaker 3: 23:19

Two, it's an unseen loss. You don't know how good your balance is. I've had thousands of people I've trained and they say well, my balance is good and I'd say it's 50-50. People don't know whether they know it's good or bad. So you can have a loss in balance skills and not recognize that that skill is being lost, but it represents itself in a degradation in your performance and your sport and you go crazy. You train harder, you lift more, you train more and it's not getting better and all it is is a change and your natural balance has gone down. So two it's not measured and people don't know how it affects them. And my third question always is why wouldn't you have the best balance you possibly could have?

Speaker 3: 23:58

Now there's a lot of challenge in the industry about standing on unstable surfaces. Well, nobody can stand still and we can take photos of people and you can show there's a constant postural sway going on. Now, why is that going on? Is that a natural movement or is that a response to what's going around the world? Unstable surfaces is just sort of accentuating that. I mean, the results are, and we feel a little Darwin-like in this sense, in that maybe we don't have a direct cause and effect, but it's our observation. Results are off the charts.

Speaker 1: 24:30

Now you mentioned you train thousands of people. You've trained NFL players and NBA players and all kind of stuff. So tell me about your program. How do people get in touch with you and get on your training?

Speaker 3: 24:41

list. Just go to slackbowcom and contact me through those contact points there. Cool, cool, and then we can go from there. We can do remote way. To start, we've got a full studio here where we can do with visits.

Speaker 1: 24:52

We've got a full studio here where we can do with visits. Now let's move on to some folks who might be more, say, frail and elderly, like people maybe in a nursing home who've had a fall and they want to prevent another one, right? Any thoughts on how those people can improve their?

Speaker 3: 25:05

balance and getting one of those sort of fuzzy, hairy-looking doormat things that we have in front of our doors in our houses, getting one of those taking off your shoes and just putting your feet on that and standing up on that. The next thing I'd do while I was sitting down is I would do what's called a cross-crawl pattern, which is an ipsilateral pattern. When you walk, your left foot goes forward and your right hand goes forward, and then your right leg goes forward. Your left foot goes forward and your right hand goes forward, and then your right leg goes forward, your left hand goes forward, and you watch a lot of elderly people. Their arms don't move at all or they'll move their right leg with their right hand and just sitting down, all they need to do is reach over and lift up their left knee and touch it with their right hand, and lift up the right knee and touch it with the left hand, and just by doing that pattern you'd be shocked what a difference it makes.

Speaker 3: 26:00

The next thing I'd suggest all of them do is not wear their bifocal glasses all the time, but go to single vision glasses as soon as they can and even try. You know we have people come in here and I say, well, just take off your glasses and they're like, oh, I can't see. And then suddenly they're balancing better, because the whole balanced information system does not come through the central part of the vision, the part of the vision that you see with it comes through the secondary information source, the data that your eyes collect.

Speaker 1: 26:22

So yeah, I wanted to ask you about vision. Let's go and talk about that for a moment. Certainly, part of the issue is that you can see what you're about to trip over right and navigate your environment, but you're saying that there's actually a neurologic process that's going on there. Absolutely yeah, Tell me more about that.

Speaker 3: 26:37

Let's see there's a hundred different ways. When I first started out with this, I would notice that as people's vision got better, they would start looking up and you could see their vision get softer. It comes down to this real simple thing your eyes don't see, they collect data, and so you have two photoreceptors in your eyes cones and rods. Cones are what see color and shape, and you have like 7 million of those, and then you have rods, with which you have 120 million, and supposedly rods are only there to see movement and when it's dusk out and it's not so bright, well, rods also are a thousand times more powerful in terms of light receptor. They can see all the way down to an electron. So you're telling me we have one system that's 20,000 times more powerful than the other system and it's really not that important. That's not the case, yeah, and we found it's exceedingly important and we've developed methods of training that system and how to train that system, and I think that that's what happens. You know we work with and I don't mind releasing this information because I don't ever end up in this business but we end up.

Speaker 3: 27:45

I've worked with concussion clients who literally can't move. They are wheelchaired into me and then I have them walking after one session. This is after they spent 30, 40 days in allopathic systems, been in intensive care. The whole thing and a big part of it, has to do with they have to get out of that post-traumatic stress response of trying to consciously pick up every threat. And you can't do that. You have to rely on that subconscious system.

Speaker 1: 28:12

And when you walk, that subconscious system is a big part of it. Yeah, back to that concept of what older folks can do. We have great suggestions and I also might mention that years ago I read this interesting study. I'm not sure what the size was, but I think ultimately the results were really interesting. They had a big nursing home and they had some of the women signed up for tai chi and then they looked over the years they had like a 75% reduction in hip fractures just in the women who did tai chi versus the women who did not. And I think other things like some of the yoga poses it could be helpful.

Speaker 3: 28:41

Well, here's why tai chi is important. And I think now go back to your dad with Parkinson's and your boxing there's a physical therapist up in New York somewhere and it's become sort of a thing now is that he took a group of Parkinson's patients and had them start boxing. And what is that boxing motion? It's crossing the center line Right, right, right, right. People who hadn't talked in years started talking. Oh my gosh, people who hadn't walked stood up, started walking. Yeah, unbelievable. And I think the difference between Tai Chi and yoga is Tai Chi has all sorts of crossing patterns. You're doing all sorts of this contralateral crossing the body from side to side and moving and turning and looking over your shoulder, and I think it's great for older people who do balance training Wonderful.

Speaker 1: 29:23

Yeah, also in your wonderful book you mentioned that the human balance is what you call an extremely complex multimodal neural system. It really requires a whole body training approach. So tell me about how your program trains the whole body in support of balance.

Speaker 3: 29:37

The best example of that is eyes closed balance training. We've gone to balance training centers of you know giant hospital systems and they go on and on about eyes closed. Well, the amount of information that eyes collect is massive. They believe right now there's a possibility that 60% of your moment-to-moment processing in your brain is just from what you get from your eyes. So when you shut off your eyes, you feel like, oh, I'm isolating vestibular system. But you're not isolating the vestibular system. You have several other systems in play. You have that information we talked about before. On the bottom of your feet you have your system of I forget what you call it where you know where all your body parts are and how you're moving Proprioception, Proprioceptive system and then you have a mapping system in your brain. Your brain has a map of every position your body can be in. It's activated.

Speaker 3: 30:29

I'm listening to Paul Baccarita, who's the godfather of neuroplasticity and developing neurological prosthetic products. It's clear if you look at a product he developed that the tongue is integral and involved with balance. And if you watch great athletes, they all have their tongues in different positions. I think of Michael Jordan with his tongue Exactly right, and the same is true with—and I see people move their hands in different ways as their balance gets better, so somehow I know there's some sort of information that's coming through their hands. So to me, why shut off one system? Activate and utilize all systems to the fullest extent.

Speaker 1: 31:05

So let's kind of focus on your line of products and your training system. And so let's see, I understand you have the Slack bow, the Slack block, the Slack and the Slack board. Let's start with the slack bow. What inspired you to invent these products and how did you get that going?

Speaker 3: 31:20

Long story but I skied one time with Stein Erikson years ago. Nancy, my wife at the time gave me that as a gift For the non-skiers who was that Stein Erikson won three gold medals in the 1954 World Championships and two gold medals in the Olympics and he was considered the. He was the first celebrity skier and he was a beautiful skier and there's all sorts of movies and videos of him and I skied with him when he was 74 and I was 50. And I mean I could ski like him. I've been imitating him since I was a child and somehow we got along and had a lot of fun and continued a relationship afterwards. But I asked him I said what is it that keeps you skiing so well at 74? And he goes well, I ski every day. He said that helps a lot. I said, well, I don't get a chance to do that. And I knew he studied gymnastics and I said does gymnastics have anything to do? And he goes yeah, he said I think it does. He said, in fact I still do some of my gymnastics exercise and there's a lot of balance with gymnastics. So I left that day going. I want to ski well into my 80s and 90s.

Speaker 3: 32:22

And what is it? And it wasn't strength, because you know you can build. You and I are probably just as strong now as we were when we were in our 30s. And it wasn't repetition, because the more you do things, the better you should get, not worse. It wasn't vision we can generally buy better vision. So what was it? And I'll shorten this part of the story down I determined that it was some sort of hidden loss of balance. And then I went out into the fitness industry and there wasn't really a product that challenged my balance, until I got on a slack line one day and I said, oh, this is a balance challenge. And then I realized that walking on a slack line was one foot in front of the other and that's not an athletic position. So I started just saying how long can I stay on one foot on the slack line? And I trained myself like that and I was like wow, when skiing that winter, I was blown away by how well I skied my first day. Wow, when skiing that winter, and I was blown away by how well I skied my first day.

Speaker 3: 33:21

So then I went to Auburn to help them, get them to help me develop a device, and I met with one of their you know junior professors, 29 years old. He met with me. I gave him some equipment I had developed that was outside of the slack line and he called me a week later and he said I'll do anything you want me to do to make this project succeed. And I said why are you saying that? He said well, my specialty is power generation and steam. And he said I'm in these big plants all the time. And he said when I was 23, I hurt my back and I've been in pain ever since. I've taken every medication. I've done everything I possibly can do to make that feel better. He said I've trained using your methods and your equipment for three days and the pain is gone Unbelievable. So I've had that result a hundred times over. So you know, these serendipitous type of events came together and then I developed a Slack bow.

Speaker 1: 34:06

Well, pretty cool. Now, slack bow, as you mentioned, is kind of similar to a Slack line, right, and I've seen that at the the park Some people mess it around. They've got to tie between two trees, but you don't always have trees available, right, and you can't bring those into your home. I'm looking across the room. I see a nice slack wheel right here. So your concept was to take that slack line that you tie between trees and to bring it into some kind of equipment that you can bring into the gym or into your home.

Speaker 3: 34:30

We don't walk on them ever, so walking is one foot in front of the other in an unnatural position, unless you're a water skier. Yeah, so we do these balance exercises. One leg only on the slack bow, so we go from moderately difficult to the setup that you see over. There is insanely difficult. There's probably two or three athletes on any sport that you get up there the first time and do well on it.

Speaker 1: 34:52

Yeah, pretty cool, and let's move on to the slack block Right.

Speaker 3: 34:56

So slack bow is expensive, difficult to make and I had that foam as a protection device on part of the slack bow. And I was developing that plate for the slack line because I want you know it's difficult, I had to keep washing my lines, we were training in barefoot and it's hard to clean the line. So I want you know it's difficult, I had to keep washing my lines, we were training in barefoot and it's hard to clean the line. So I said, well, I'll build a plate to go on the line. So I built a plate to go on the line.

Speaker 3: 35:21

Well, it turns out, the plate had phenomenal effect because now people were balancing on the line with a flat platform, which is where they live. They can engage their bigger toe more and get pressure on the big toe. And then one day I married the two up. I had the foam there for something on the slack bow and I put the plate on top of the line. I went oh my God, this represents what happens on the slack line at 75% of the level of difficulty. And I have people contact me and say, hey, I've been using the slack block and now I can get on my slack line and do slack line much better. So it represents that same motion that we look for anytime we train somebody in balance training.

Speaker 1: 35:58

Now I have a slack block right here with me and I'm looking at it. Basically, it's a piece of foam covered by about a seven-ply board and in a kind of a non-slip circus and in the bottom of it. I actually watched some YouTube videos and they were very positive on this. By the way, universally, and if I understand these little plugs in the bottom, you can remove the plugs and that will increase your level of difficulty. Is that correct? Yeah, so.

Speaker 3: 36:20

I mean there's three sizes. It's based on weight. So if you have too much foam underfoot, it's going to stand on a two by four. It's not going to move. If you have too little foam underfoot and you're too heavy for it, you're going to crush it down and it's not a challenge. So we have the three sizes and then we have the plugs you can take out to reduce the volume even more. So you can. You know if you're really light it helps you there or if you get better, you can take the plugs out and you can replace the plugs. It's not a permanent take them out and you've ruined it. You can put them back in and and it'll bring it back up to its original level of ease for difficulty.

Speaker 1: 36:53

Yeah, yeah, I'm holding this. It's about what? One pound or two pounds or something, that one's one pound. One pound and very portable. You can put it in your suitcase, take it with you anywhere you want to go, and so that's kind of nice as opposed to the—.

Speaker 3: 37:06

We suggest keeping the box because it's designed to travel with, it's designed to open and close.

Speaker 1: 37:09

Yeah. So, yeah, it's a nice piece of equipment and I actually you sent me one about a week ago and I've tried it and it's certainly a challenge, but I think I'm maybe getting a little bit better already. Yeah, it's interesting too. Now there are some balance boards I've used in the past and they require that you stand with both feet, whereas your products are all one-foot products.

Speaker 3: 37:34

So tell me about the difference or the challenges between one foot and two foot. Well, we have, you know, right over there, you see a stack of. You know, we, we have designed the one foot boards and I've, I mean the, the, the teeter totter boards with a roller underneath.

Speaker 3: 37:42

Right and I've used every one that there is and I've framed people on them for years. One is you really need a good protocol to get people started on that. Secondly, we have different designs that nobody else has in terms of level of difficulty in that teeter-totter board. But back to the slack pull and the slack block.

Speaker 3: 37:59

All balance is pretty much one leg or the other or you're transitioning from one leg to the other. So when you, let's say, like a marathoner, a really great marathoner runs a marathon in two hours and 15 minutes and a really great marathoner has a foot strike time of 25% of his stride, which means 25% of the time he's on one foot or the other Well, 25% of two hours is what? Half an hour. Half of that's 15 minutes. So they're basically balancing on one foot for 15 minutes and the slower you are, the longer that strike time is. So you may be a terrible runner, you may be at 50% strike time. You're balancing now for hours on end when you're running any sort of run, whether it's a 10K or 5K or a marathon.

Speaker 3: 38:50

So all sports are pretty much on one foot or the other, and the thing I say about one foot is that you know like 20 million species in the world. There's like 98 different primates and there's only one species that's bimodal. And they're bimodal because they can do amazing balance on one foot that no other animal can do, no other mammal can do for sure there's birds that can so we're just supremely unique in that way and it's just something we kind of don't pay any attention to, which is mind-blowing to me, particularly when we talked about earlier you know statistics and you probably have questions later on the effects of some sort of balance. Degradation worldwide is massive, but it's just something we don't pay much attention to Degradation worldwide is massive, but it's just something we don't pay much attention to.

Speaker 1: 39:36

You know, you were talking we were talking earlier about the fact that it's this complex multimodal neural system. It's fascinating to me, you know, coming from a life where my dad was a farmer and you watch a little calf come out and within hours he's walking right. You look at a human baby and it takes years to walk, because I guess we're, because we're walking on two feet, we're standing upright, and it's kind of fascinating how it takes that long to develop that complex neural system. Exactly, yeah, Interesting. Now, of course, we talked about the fact that your program helps with athletes and I would think, especially things like surfing, skiing, those kinds of things, but that includes all athletes in all sports.

Speaker 3: 40:16

Basically, right, yeah, we were you know it's not like public knowledge. I'll say it here because I can't advertise it. So this is an information program. But we, our program is used extensively at University of Michigan and you know the head strength and conditioning coach called me two days after they got back after winning the national championship and basically said we were on the phone for 18 minutes that we were instrumental to their success that season. But besides him saying that, you can look at the factors of that team. One, the end of the season they only had two players out for injury.

Speaker 3: 40:49

Availability is what wins national championships oftentimes. You can look at the NFL and I'll guarantee you the team with the best availability of their starters is the team that wins the Super Bowl all the time. And two, they develop more players than any other team, which was you recruit players from high school that are three-star, four-star, five-star and you always want to get five-star recruits when you recruit from high school. Star recruits when you recruit from high school. Well, michigan had fewer five-star recruits by multiple over that of any other team in that championship series. So that meant that they took more three and four-star players and developed them into better players. All that balance has a lot to do with.

Speaker 1: 41:29

Yeah, In your book again. Once again, Balance is Power, the name of the book you talked about. Improve your body's balance to perform better, live longer and look younger. The live longer is interesting. There is a direct correlation between balance and longevity. It's kind of fascinating, Huge correlation, yeah, and so what about any other benefits you'd like to talk about of your system?

Speaker 3: 41:49

Well, one about you know longevity is that they don't talk. You know it's. You can read all these studies about blue zones and all these different things and nobody ever says that. Just about every study that has balance as a component of it says you'll live longer if you improve your balance. And there's that one study, I guess a couple years ago, where they retroactively went back into the data and they just saw 20 years later. One of the parts of this study was how long can you stand on one foot? And those people who stand on one foot 10 seconds or longer this is 20 years after the study was done lived longer than those who couldn't. And that's just standing on one foot for 10 seconds or longer.

Speaker 3: 42:25

What are some of the other benefits of your program? I think there's a huge component to just feeling better, to being outside, being in a balanced challenge world, being in a world that doesn't have these perfectly rectilinear surfaces around you, and there's a little bit of research that supports that. There's a whole group of researchers out there now and they have a different name for it where they say if you walk in the woods, it has dramatic impact on your well-being, psychological well-being. They say it's the trees and nature and all that stuff. I say a big part of it's your balance challenge. Anytime you have a balance challenge, you feel better. And if you start to look at the reviews on the Slack block and we don't publish reviews on our website, but if you look at the reviews on other websites about the Slack block you'll see people comment my brain feels better, I feel I'm in a better mood Now.

Speaker 1: 43:11

in your book you also talked about concussions and the importance of balance training with concussions. So yeah, you talked about a couple of concepts in the book called neuroplasticity and neurorehabilitation that were really interesting, especially, I think, in the context of the post-concussive syndrome.

Speaker 3: 43:33

One, by the way. One of the biggest things about post-concussive syndrome that's not discussed enough is your probability of getting a second concussion within a year is very, very high, and that just tells me you weren't fixed the first time through. And I've treated clients like that one every year for 10 years and we work with them and they've never had another concussion. But neuroplasticity is the ability of the mind to rewire itself, and it was discovered by the man I spoke about before, paul Bacrita, and it's a fascinating story. If people want to look into it, I'll tell you. You can cut it out, but he his father, had a horrible stroke. He was a college professor, couldn't really walk and Paul was a medical student at the time. He left medical school, he worked with his dad. He got his dad back to. He first started teaching him how to crawl, then the walk, and within two years his dad was back teaching. 10 years later his dad dies from some other condition and Macarita now is a full-time. I don't know if he's a researcher yet, but he's an MD and he has his dad's brain autopsied and the stroke had destroyed 75% of his brain, so with 25% of the brain tissue left he was able to reorganize all that information back into a system to work again. He could learn how to walk, type, talk, all the things he couldn't do after the stroke. So theoretically we have all these locations You're able to do things in your brain, but they all can be repurposed and he showed that and that's become a big term, such that I think some advanced stroke training that goes on nowadays is, you know, used to be. Well, you're paralyzed, you can't use left hand anymore. They start training you to use your left hand and they'll put a coffee cup in front of you and say, grab the coffee cup, and you can't. And then every day you work on that and suddenly the arm twitches and twitches again, twitches again. Before you know it's picking up the coffee cup. And that's the neuroplasticity, the rewiring of the brain to start operating that left side again.

Speaker 3: 45:27

Now the other term, neuro what was that? Let's say neurorehabilitation. So to me that was the next level, which was when we work with post-concussive syndrome people. I don't think that their issues are psychological, I think that there's a neurological fight or flight or post-traumatic stress that takes over the body. So I call it the flinch response. So you have this flinch response. And so when you have post-traumatic stress, you have this automatic like where am I, what am I doing, what's the threat? And it's being able to sort of rewire the body and that subconscious data collection that goes into the body and teach it that the threat's not there and to move without that threat.

Speaker 1: 46:09

You know, jim, this is so interesting as I think back on my training in medical school and residency. The science is very clear about the importance of all this, with the balance in falls and stuff like that. I don't think I ever had a lecture on balance or falls. You know it's crazy, isn't?

Speaker 3: 46:28

it.

Speaker 1: 46:29

So yeah, I mean, it's directly correlated with morbidity and mortality, and yet we never talk about it. So I'm really thrilled once again to have this discussion here with you today. So is your system something that's best used at a gym or in a physical therapy office under supervision, or is it also intended for home use?

Speaker 3: 46:44

No, it's definitely for home use. I mean 90% of my customers are home use people.

Speaker 1: 46:49

Oh great. And so if somebody wants to embark upon balanced training, what's the best time for them to start?

Speaker 3: 46:55

Well, you know, my experience has been the. You know, if you're in your 40s, it's a good time to start. The problem is, most people in their 40s are operating with a 25-year-old brain, with a 40-year-old body, so they don't think that they need it. So it ends up being more like the 50s. But I have found that the older people are, the slower the system is to come back. And when I say come back, we don't really improve muscle strength, we don't teach a new skill like hitting a tennis ball or a golf ball. We're somehow awakening a sleeping system and the return to improved balance occurs very, very quickly. The younger you are and if you're aware, let's say in your 40s, it becomes part of your life. You don't let go of it.

Speaker 3: 47:45

The number one reason for emergency room visits for people over the age of 45 are for falls. And that's just the fall. That's bad enough that it calls for a visit to the emergency room. It's a big problem for people in their 40s and they should start to recognize it as such. And when people fall, it's just not like, oh, I wasn't paying attention, that's number one. People say, oh, it was my shoes number two. Or I didn't see that, that's number three. No, those things were all there before that fall. You just didn't have what it took to stay balanced or at least reduce the velocity of which you hit the ground with to prevent an injury.

Speaker 1: 48:22

Also in your book you talked about how true progressive balance challenges should take you to the point of failure, which means a fall or a near fall.

Speaker 3: 48:30

Please explain this concept. Yeah, so you watch. Going back to the babies learning how to fall, I mean learning how to walk and balance they fall all the time and every time they fall they've taken their balance to that balance limit and that's how they learn. So I determined when I created this program was I have to be able to take you to a balance limit without you falling. So if I push you to one of our levels of training that's beyond your balance limit, you might be able to do it, but there's a good chance you're going to fall.

Speaker 3: 49:03

I'll never do that because I don't want you to fall, but I do see where your balance limits are and I think that's a big part of our tech is that I say, oh, I see where your balance limit is, we're going to keep you here at this balance limit, and then I see that, whatever that information I get in terms of what the balance limit is, and then I take you to the next level. So, basically, I'm taking you to a balance summit, but gradually, and I never push you beyond that balance summit and, like we talked about with your mother, I never push you into fear.

Speaker 1: 49:30

No, fear at all. Yeah, speaking of which, you outline your Stepwise kind of iterative training program in the book and it's quite extensive and something that you know. You don't need a physical therapist or a doctor to help you with that. It's well laid out, but I think it's too much to really go into here in the podcast, so I'll just refer people to the book unless there are any other comments you want to make on that.

Speaker 3: 49:51

Well, you know, the only comment I'd make on that is you know I get hammered like there's not enough, you know, instruction in the book and there's too much chat and blah, blah, blah. You know you sort of get go back and forth. But there's a comment on Amazon. A woman said I go to a Zumba class, I do great in the class and we always finish up the class with these balance exercises and I can never do them and I feel like an idiot. She said I read this book, I did his balance exercises twice and my next Zumba class had no problem at all. Oh, isn't that cool? Yeah, so my point is it doesn't take much, it's shocking sometimes how quickly.

Speaker 1: 50:30

I mean I've been accused of hypnotizing people because the results come in so quickly. You know, it's so interesting, jim, how, if you look at the recommendations by the American Geriatric Society, they recommend that doctors should be screening patients at, say, the age of 65. One could argue younger, but that's their recommendation and then every year thereafter they should have a screening test for falls. You know, I'm well above 65. I've never been screened. I've had some pretty good doctors, you know, but nobody's ever talked to me about it, assessed me, screened me, and I think that that's kind of standard of care.

Speaker 3: 51:00

Unfortunately, Well, the screens are horrible. Number one they do the Romberg test, which is close your eyes, lock your leg out, stick the other leg in front of you, put your hands on your hip, a position that you're never in in life at any point in time, and then you see them doing it with people with their big fat shoes, on which is ridiculous.

Speaker 3: 51:15

The other is called the sit-stand test. You sit, walk 10 steps, turn around, come back and sit, stand, walk 10 steps, turn around, come back and sit again and they evaluate that. That doesn't tell you anything either. So they don't even have good evaluation tools. And I think that you go into these balance labs and they have all these sort of balance training devices that have been into them, but all of them are missing a huge component of, I think, what it takes to improve your balance. And it may be good for their chronic balance loss people that they're working with, but the reality is that your balance challenge has to have some reality in movement and single foot and if it doesn't, you're not teaching anything and you're not learning anything. So I think that they're wholly missing something on that part. I have a balance measurement system, zero to 100. We have an analog part of it that Michigan had. I haven't shared it with anybody else. We're trying to get it digitized because I think the whole world I want the whole world to get to that place of.

Speaker 3: 52:15

Hey, let me tell you what my balance index is. You know I call it the Klotman balance index. Let me tell you what my balance index is. I'm a 60 or I'm a 55, or hey, I came back from the doctor and he tested me and I'm at a 40 and I need to get better. Or hey, my golf game's gotten worse. My balance index used to be 70. Now I'm down to a 50. I think I'm going to improve my balance and see if that improves my golf game. There's no direct correlation. You go to the gym and you can lift 10 pounds and 20 pounds, then 20 pounds, 50 pounds. You know you're getting better. You can run your 50. You can do all these things. You have these quantifiable self things everywhere out there, but there is no quantifiable self thing for true dynamic athletic balance.

Speaker 1: 52:54

Yeah, what about some of the if you'll mention some of the safety issues you brought up in the book to keep in mind when people are doing the balance training?

Speaker 3: 53:01

I worry about it because people are like oh hey, look at me, I'm doing this in the kitchen. I'm like that's just a dumb idea. You know, there's slippery floors, wet floors, there's hard surfaces. People like to do it in the bathroom. I said the bathroom is the number one spot in the house for serious injury from falls. It's the worst place in the world to balance train. So people say, oh, I'm on my slack butt, you know brushing my teeth, good for you, but it's a bad idea.

Speaker 3: 53:26

And I think the bedroom's bad. You got dressers and beds and plus, oftentimes they're carpeted and there's other things around that you can trip and fall on. So it's good to do it in a living room or an open space garage, even outside, where you can step off and land properly. The other is and we go through this a lot we don't want you to touch any of our products until you take the balance test, and I'll give you the link that you can put on with this podcast Everybody just take that balance test. And, by the way, if you fail a balance test, the balance test is also a protocol to improve your balance without buying one of my products, and I'm perfectly okay with that. But it is really the best balance test out there and that if you can do this balance test fairly well and this is floor-based balance test, not getting on one of my products it'll do more for you than any other balance training that's out there or any other balance test that's out there.

Speaker 1: 54:15

Well, we'll look forward to posting that link on the show. Yeah, and the book once again Balance is Power by Jim Klopman K-L-O-P-M-A-N. It is, I noticed on Amazon. Is is Powered by Jim Klopman K-L-O-P-M-A-N. It is, I noticed on Amazon. Is that where you recommend people buy?

Speaker 3: 54:26

it. Yeah, that's the only place we have, just because.

Speaker 1: 54:28

I'm lazy, right, okay, good, and yeah, it's easily obtainable on Amazon. It's an easy read and quite informative.

Speaker 3: 54:40

And then also, where do people go to buy your other products now selling the Slack block there as well.

Speaker 1: 54:45

Nice. And then I do notice you have the excellent website. I went to it, checked it out quite informative wwwslackbowcom. Are there any other resources you'd like to recommend that people can learn more about your products?

Speaker 3: 54:57

That's it. I mean, you know, you just search the term Slack bow, slack block. There's reviews everywhere out there. Yeah, we have a lot of really high-end athletes and high-end trainers using the product, but they don't show it because it's a secret. It's been a marketing problem. I told you about Michigan. I'm okay with that because Ben Herbert's left there to go with the Los Angeles Chargers. But when you have a product that dramatically improves your performance and you're a competitive athlete, you're not inclined to say anything about it. And you know, the great Caitlin Clark recently was on 60 Minutes and they were talking about her shooting and they said well, how come you're so good, she goes? Really, the most important thing is balance. Oh wow, how about that?

Speaker 1: 55:42

So you know, one of the best shooters in the world telling you balance is the key ingredient. I wonder if Steph would say the same.

Speaker 3: 55:48

He probably would, right he does balance ring and you can find old videos of him doing some, and if I watch his pregame routine, it's clear that he does balance ring.

Speaker 1: 55:56

Yeah, of course I'm talking about Steph Curry, and I'm not a Warriors fan, and he moves beautifully too, and I think that's a conclusion I came to too.

Speaker 3: 56:06

The best movers are the best athletes and they all tend to be the best shooters. So you look at Gretzky, steph Curry people like that. They're never over-muscled people and they're never power people. If you look at the top 100 athletes from the 20th century from Sports Illustrated, you look at the photographs. None of them are ripped, other than Bo Jackson. But he was ripped. He was born ripped. He was born ripped, for sure. He never like. You can read about it and watch him on 30 for 30. The strength and addition coach at Auburn said Bo, you need to come work out. He goes no, I don't. Yeah, I put it all out on the field. That's all I needed to do.

Speaker 1: 56:43

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. He's got ripped jeans, doesn't he, for sure? So, anyway, is there anything I've not asked you about, jim, that you'd like to share with us today? No, it was very comprehensive, I appreciate all the research that you've done.

Speaker 3: 56:55

Thank you.

Speaker 1: 57:00

Well, I want to thank you so much for joining us today. On the get-go you talked about this and I just could see that you really had a burning passion for it and and you've poured your whole life's work into it. So, yeah, I got a great line of products here. So, again, thank you so much for sharing your wisdom with us. Thank you appreciate it. Bye, well, that will about do it for this episode of the wellness connection md podcast. We hope that we were able to share something with you that was helpful for you. After all, that's why we do what we do.

Speaker 1: 57:27

For your reading pleasure, I have prepared some free handouts for you. You can find at mcmindmdcom on our website under the documents section. The direct link to that would be wwwmcmindmdcom. Forward slash documents. Just look for all of the titles which start with the word falls. I will have articles for you on the common factors that cause falls, aging and fall risk, early warning, signs of fall risk, medications of fall risk, home modifications which have been shown to reduce fall risk, fall risk assessment, exercises to improve balance and overall strategies to reduce fall risk. I will also have a bio of Jim Klotman on the mcmdcom website under the guest biographies tab, along with a picture of Jim and also a picture of the Slackbot and the Slackblock products Also on the homepage. At the bottom of the page in the helpful links section, I will include a link to the balance test that Jim mentioned on the podcast.

Speaker 1: 58:24

Please take a moment to rate us on iTunes. These reviews really do make a difference. Also, if you like the podcast, then please take a moment out of your day today to let a friend know about the podcast. Thank you so much in advance for helping us to spread the word. If you'd like to reach out to me to comment on the show, then you may do so at drmcminn at yahoocom. Also, I'm always interested in your suggestions for future show topics.

Speaker 1: 58:45

Well, coach Lindsay's not with us today to leave another of her wonderful Coach Lindsay pearls of wisdom, so I'm going to do my best to fill in for her, although I obviously fall short of her in the wisdom department. My pearl is to take this fall situation seriously, as the stats show that I shared with you earlier. It's a huge deal and it's life-changing, if not fatal. Shared with you earlier. It's a huge deal and it's life-changing, if not fatal. Take a look at the document Falls Strategies to Reduce Risk and do whatever you need to do to avoid this disastrous fate so you can go on to live a long and happy and healthy life. I've taken care of many unfortunate people in the ER who will never go home again or who will never walk due to a fall. Unfortunately, most of these falls were avoidable. It's really very sad. Well, that will about do it and thanks so much for listening. This is Dr McMinn signing out. Until next time, take care and be well.