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.

Support the show

Please CLICK ON THIS LINK to support the show.

-Check out our website at https://mcminnmd.com for other IMPORTANT LINKS, including social media links. You can find these at the bottom of the main page under the heading "Helpful Links."

-Click on the following link for our FULLSCRIPT dispensary for a 10% discount on physician-grade supplements: https://us.fullscript.com/welcome/jmcminn/signup
FullScript Dispensary is an affiliate from which I receive a commission.

Check out Dr. McMinn's Wellness MD Blog at
https://mcminnmd.com/wellness-md-blog-1

Go to https://mcminnmd.com/reviews to see How to rate and review this podcast on an iPhone

You can contact Dr. McMinn at [e-mail] to leave comments or to make suggestions for future shows.

Follow Dr. McMinn at:
https://twitter.com/mcminnmd
https://www.linkedin.com/in/mcminnmd/
https://www.instagram.com/mcminnmd
https://www.facebook.com/mcminnmd

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:03):
Hello and a warm welcome to Wellness Connection
MD podcast, the evidence-basedpodcast where we discuss all
things wellness.
Have you or someone you know orlove ever had a fall which
resulted in a major setback inyour health status?
Well, you're not alone.
Falls are often life-changing.
They are the number one causeof industrial accidents, the
number one cause of concussionsand the number one cause of

(00:24):
injury and accidental death inthose over 65 years old.
The price tag to our healthcaresystem in the US is over $80
billion per year.
The good news is that most ofthese falls are preventable.
Today on the show we have aspecial guest, jim Klopman, who
has dedicated his life to thesubject of fall prevention and
balance training.
For the athletes in theaudience.
You'll also learn an importanttip that will help you, no

(00:46):
matter what sport youparticipate in.
I hope that you enjoy the show.

Speaker 2 (00:53):
Welcome to the Wellness Connection MD podcast
with Dr McMinn and Coach Lindsay, where we bring you the latest
up-to-date, evidence-basedinformation on a wide variety of
health and wellness topics,along with practical take-home
solutions.
Dr McMinn is an integrated andfunctional MD and Lindsay
Matthews is a registered nurseand IIN-certified health coach.

(01:13):
Together, our goal is to helpyou optimize your health and
wellness in mind, body andspirit.
To see a list of all of ourpodcasts, visit McMinnMDcom and
to stay up to date on the latesttopics, be sure to subscribe to
our podcast on your favoritepodcast player so that you'll be
notified when future episodescome out.
The discussions contained inthese podcasts are for

(01:35):
educational purposes only andare not intended to diagnose or
treat any disease.
Please do not apply any of thisinformation without approval
from your personal doctor.
And now on to the show with DrMcBin and Coach Lindsey.

Speaker 1 (01:49):
Hello and welcome to Wellness Connection MD, the
evidence-based podcast on allthings wellness, where we come
to you to bring you honest,commercial-free, unbiased,
up-to-date, evidence-based,outcomes-oriented information,
along with practical solutionsto empower you to overcome your
healthcare challenges and tooptimize your wellness in mind,
body and spirit and to become agreat captain of your ship when

(02:10):
it comes to your health andwellness.
Coach Lindsay has a day offtoday and we always miss her
when she's not here, but sheshould be back with us for our
next episode.
However, we do have a good showfor you lined up.
Today we're going to be talkingto a very special guest about
the important topic of fallprevention and balance training.
But first you know the drill bynow.
Just a few brief housekeepingduties to get out of the way.

(02:32):
First, our podcast remainscommercial free so that we can
stay completely unbiased.
However, it does cost us moneyto produce these podcasts and we
put many hours of work intoeach episode.
So think of us like publicradio and consider making a
contribution to help us keepthis valuable information coming
to you.
There are a couple of ways thatyou can contribute to the show.
First, if you buy nutritionalsupplements, then consider

(02:54):
purchasing physician-gradesupplements from our Fullscript
dispensary at a 10% discount.
You can see the link toFullscript below in the show
notes, or go to mcmindmdcom andthe link will also be there at
the bottom of the homepage underhelpful links.
It's quite simple Just click onthe link and they'll guide you
through the process.
It's a classic win-win you gethigh quality supplements at a

(03:14):
discount and we get your supportfor the show, for which we are
very grateful.
If you have any trouble withthis, then just reach out to me
at drmcminn at yahoocom and I'lldo my best to guide you through
the process.
You can also safely make acontribution to the show
directly via credit card or byPayPal at the Support the Show
link, which is also in the shownotes below.
Please don't forget tosubscribe to the show so you

(03:36):
won't miss an episode.
And one more thing if you likethe show, then please tell, call
, text or email someone to letthem know about us, so we can
bring this valuable informationto even more listeners.
And thank you so much.
And now on to the show.
Our topic today is fallprevention and balance training.
It's a topic that is uberimportant but it often flies

(03:57):
under the radar.
It's not talked about in thehealth, wellness and medical
communities as much as it needsto be.
We are blessed to have us withtoday a very special guest.
Jim Klopman is an innovator,inventor and entrepreneur who
has dedicated his life andcareer to the issue of falls and
balance.
He is the developer of apatented Slackbow balance system

(04:17):
and the author of an excellentbook entitled Balance is Power.
His methods and equipment havebeen used by professional
football and basketball players,as well as top athletes in just
about every sport.
His program and equipment havebecome the standard in many
physical therapy clinics andthey are also available in the
home setting for everyone who isinterested in improving balance
and performance and in reducingfalls.

(04:39):
I have personally known Jim formany years and can testify to
the time, energy, intelligenceand passion that he has put into
creating a successful andpractical solution to this issue
.
Jim is a pioneer in theintegration of balance training
for improving not only thequality of movement but also the
quality of life.
However, before we bring Jiminto the conversation, let me

(04:59):
just take a few minutes to setthe stage as to the importance
of this issue.
Here are the cold hard factswhen it comes to balance and
falls, falls are the number onecause of accidental injury in
those over 65.
The majority of traumatic braininjuries are from falling, and
falls are also the number onecause of concussions.
Falls are the number one causeof industrial accidents and the

(05:21):
number one cause of ER visitsfor those over 45.
There are over 37 million fallssevere enough to require
medical attention that occurglobally each year, and many of
the folks who don't die fromtheir falls will experience a
functional decline and willrequire admission to a nursing
home.
Falls are among the mostexpensive of the medical
conditions in America.
At last count, in 2020, theprice tag for US was over $80

(05:46):
billion annually to ourhealthcare system for non-fatal
falls, fatal falls added another$1.4 billion.
And here's the big one Fallsare the number one cause of
accidental death for those over65.
In fact, in 2020, there wereover 42,000 deaths due to falls
in the United States, with 86%of those deaths occurring among

(06:07):
adults 65 or older.
It is a proven scientific factthat mobility is directly and
profoundly related to overallhealth, quality of life and life
expectancy, and you cannot havemobility without balance.
In fact, as Jim points out inhis excellent book entitled
Balance is Power, the humanbeing is incapable of walking,

(06:28):
running, swinging an object oreven sitting without balance.
The bottom line is that anymovement requires balance.
Unfortunately, this issue isnot emphasized enough by our
medical providers.
So, despite advances in fitnesstraining and safe spaces, the
number of falls per capita isgoing up dramatically, with
disastrous consequences.
In 2020, 14 million US adultsage 65 or older that's about a

(06:53):
quarter of that populationreported falls during the
previous year.
As a former ER doctor myself,who has cared for many of these
fall victims, I can testify howthese falls can be life-changing
for many of those unfortunatefolks.
It could be accurately statedthat good balance can be the
difference between life anddeath for any of us planning to
live to a ripe old age.
So the bottom line is that theissue of balance and falls

(07:16):
should be taken seriously andshould be given a much higher
priority than it is gettingcurrently.
So we're excited to have with ustoday Jim Klotman on the show
as our special guest to sharewith us the wisdom of his many
years of attention to thissubject and to leave us with
some practical solutions.
And for our younger and moreathletic listeners, jim will
also discuss the benefits ofimproving balance for just about

(07:38):
every sport.
So, now that the stage is seton the important issue of
balance and falls, let'sintroduce our guest today, jim
Klotman.
Welcome to Wellness Connection,md, jim.
Thank you so much for joiningus today.
Thank you Appreciate being here.
You know, jim, the issue ofbalance and falls is so
important and I know you haveworked on this for many, many
years.
We go way back, you and me, andyou put a lot of hard work and
dedication and passion into this, so I'm really excited to have

(08:00):
you on the show today, thank you.
Well, let me start myquestioning with just the
general concepts of balance andfalls, and then we'll transition
into discussing youroutstanding line of products
that you've developed in orderto help people improve in this
area.
Along those lines, what aresome of the most common causes
of falls in older adults?

Speaker 3 (08:16):
You're not going to believe this, but the number one
cause of falls for people overthe age of 65 are curbs, and the
reason for that is that if youwalk around today's world, it's
all perfectly designed for ADAlevel balance, so all the steps
are equally separated apart andno step is even an eighth or a

(08:37):
sixteenth of an inch differencein terms of their height.
But curbs kind of all look thesame and they are different
heights just because of the roadbuildup.
Also, I think you'll see a lotof times on sidewalks it must be
a problem because you'll bewalking along what looks like a
perfectly fine sidewalk and thecity has spent a lot of money to

(08:57):
grind down a half an inch risein one of the little platforms
on the sidewalk.
But number one is curbs.

Speaker 1 (09:04):
You know I have a personal interest in this
subject with my family.
My mom and dad both suffer withfalls and with my mom, let's
see, she tripped over a dog, shetripped over a little threshold
in the house.
It was really the beginning ofthe end for her.
She broke her hip and she wasnever the same, had pain in her
hip the rest of her life andthen just decreased mobility and

(09:24):
all that kind of stuff, and soit definitely impacted her life.
And then my dad it's kind ofinteresting, he had Parkinson's
and he was kind of going alongokay, but then he fell and he
didn't break anything, butwithin a few days, I mean, there
was a sudden decline in hisstatus.
Within a few days he was in thehospital and he never came home
and it was really tragic andsad.
So once again, this subject isso important and it is personal

(09:46):
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 (09:58):
Well, the interesting thing about both of those
deaths is neither one of themare classified as deaths from a
fall, although they were prettymuch 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'sundercounting, 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 comealong.
I used to have the saying thatbad things happen to old people,
and now that I'm an old personmyself, I can testify for that.

Speaker 3 (10:28):
But so how does the aging process affect things like
balance and how does itincrease fall risk?
I think you know a big part ofit is it's a use factor.
So you know, in the book I gothrough four different causes of
loss of balance and you knowone is you are walking around
this perfectly flat, easy tonavigate world and there's no
balance challenge.
So it doesn't get better, itgets worse.
The second is and when you tellme a story about your mother it

(10:49):
makes me think of that we startwearing these multi-vision
glasses and when you wearmulti-vision glasses you're
shutting off a great deal ofinformation that comes from the
lower part.
You know where your feet are, tohow well you can balance and
move and I don't think thatthere needs to be that level of
balance loss.
I think that people, if theyjust continue to train their

(11:10):
balance, they'll get better.
Now, one of the problems isthat 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 forthe walker and cane people and
if you go around and your ownscore gets down to around 25 and
you get a challenge of 35 or 40, you're like you fall and you

(11:32):
know.
I think that's.
The bigger problem is it's ageis 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 talkingabout you know, when you walk
down the the sidewalk, just moveover and walk on the grass
parallel to the sidewalk.
Absolutely, so you get more ofa balance challenge All day long
.
Absolutely, so every day youcan just do little things like
that to give yourself a balancechallenge.
Absolutely.
I do a little boxing routineand it's one of my little
exercise things I do every day,and some of it's on the concrete

(12:01):
, but sometimes I step off ontothe grass and so I can have that
little balance challenge there.
But anyway, another thing thathappens as we get older is we
lose muscle mass.
I have a really good friend.
He's 80ish or so and has a hardtime just getting up out of a
chair, and that's pretty classic.
And so talk to me about theimportance of muscle mass as it
relates to and especiallystrength in your legs as it

(12:23):
relates to falls.

Speaker 3 (12:23):
Well, you know there's this big thing about
muscle mass and generallyweightlifters and bodybuilders
don't live a terribly long time,so they don't have a history of
living longer with biggermuscles.
So there's not a directcorrelation.
The other is a muscle that youlose as you get older is fast
twitch muscle.
It's not slow twitch.
So slow twitch is how I buildmuscle and make it bigger, and a
lot of the muscle that we buildends up being these big

(12:46):
mobilizer muscles and you losethe control of the small
stabilizer muscles, which are alot of the fast-twitch muscles.
So to me it's how muchfast-twitch work do you do?
Do you do little plyos?
Balance is almost 100%fast-twitch.
There's no large muscle groupactivation to make you balance.
So these things that you can do, like walking outside on grass,

(13:07):
is a great thing.
Taking your shoes off when youwalk around the house, you know,
being able to take a stepwithout looking down All these
things, I think, are moreimportant 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, butI really don't know enough about
medications to know.
I know that I've seen I had oneclient who had his vestibular
canals destroyed by a medicationhe took and he could barely
balance.
And we trained him and he gothis balance back, which just
told me that it's a multimodalsystem and you don't need to

(13:46):
have all parts to make it work.
You can have a few of the partsand still work pretty well.

Speaker 1 (13:50):
You know it's interesting, there are a lot of
medications that cause falls andthere's a concept called
polypharmacy.
You know, when people take morethan, say, four medications,
then there's a significantincrease 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'redefinitely at increased fall
risk because of that.
But you know, classically youthink of things like your
narcotics and yourbenzodiazepines, like Valium
type drugs, as causing falls,sleep medications as well.
But one of the main culpritsand I was surprised at this was
your what we call SSRIantidepressants.
You know, people who are on,say, prozac has significant

(14:26):
increase in risk of falls.
So that was kind of surprisingto me.
But yeah, especiallymedications that are new, I
think once you've been on it forabout a month or two, you kind
of know if it's affecting you.
But you know, when you get on anew med, then that's a big deal
.
Another one that's a big one isthe antihypertensive medicines.
Sometimes we over-medicatepeople.
You know, look at them.
On a little blood pressuremedicine you end up too much.
Next thing, you know, they'regetting weak and dizzy and they

(14:47):
fall.
So, yeah, it's a big, big, bigdeal.
Well, there's alcohol too.

Speaker 3 (14:51):
You know people kid me.
They said you know you ought tostart a course on training
people how to improve theirbalance so they can pass, which
is not really a test anymore.

Speaker 1 (14:58):
Yeah, yeah.
So what about the issue of whatI 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 andthey'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 haveavailable free tests that trains
balance training on one leg andI think that that's one thing
that's missing from a lot ofbalance training and it has to
be one leg that activates thebig toe and bare feet.
My only safety concerns aredon't balance train in the
bathroom, kitchen or bedroom.

(15:31):
Those are just dumb places to doit you know the bathroom is the
number one place in the housewhere injuries occur, so you
know how do you be careful inthe bathroom.
I think is the most importantthing probably.

Speaker 1 (15:42):
Yeah, I know, once again back thinking about mom
and dad.
We had these huge basementsteps.
My dad built the house and sohe had these basement steps on
the town and there was norailing and here he was like 75
years old.
Yeah, I think those things canhelp, like a little grab bar by
the toilet or in the bathtub,whatever that.
If you start to fall, you canhave something you can grab onto
.
But then my next question hasto do with what I call the fear

(16:05):
of falling.
You know, back again to my mom.
She fell a couple of times andshe had this great fear of
falling and the fear itself waslimiting as far as her mobility.
And then it's this viciouscycle, because once you have
less mobility then you're ateven greater risk.
And so what about that conceptof fear of falling?

Speaker 3 (16:21):
When I train, people we respect fear 100%.
So if we push people beyondtheir fear limit while training,
they actually regress to wheretheir actual balance can be.
So you can overcome fear, butyou have to build up to that
level again.
So with your mom I'd start offwith just the simplest things in
the world.
First of all, I'd take off herglasses and make sure she didn't
have multivision glasses on,but we'd train her with her

(16:45):
shoes off, make sure she didn'thave multi-vision glasses on,
but you know, we train her withher shoes off, make sure her
feet are engaging in the ground,and we do really simple, low,
low level stuff and build herconfidence up.
But if you have fear you justcan't sort of push through the
fear.
It is the most powerfulautonomic system we have in the
body.
You can raise your heart rate,you can change your blood
pressure, you can change thetemperature of your hand if you
want, but you cannot fake goodbalance and you can't fake bad

(17:09):
balance.
So when they have a fear, it'sa real, honest to God fear that
needs to be dealt with andthere's ways of dealing with it
without talk, therapy andgetting into the brain.
It's not a psychological thing,it's totally in the body.
It's totally autonomic and youhave to work them up to that
level again and do itprogressively 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 aboutour tech is we know that
pre-fall position.
We see movements in the bodythat says you're at your balance
limit, and I never pushsomebody beyond that balance
limit Because if you do, theyregress to back to someplace
lower than where they werebefore they started.

Speaker 1 (17:52):
Yeah, speaking of PT or physical therapy, I'm going
to go back to that homemodification thing.
I think it's hard for us toknow as lay people what you need
, so sometimes if you can get aPT a physical therapist out to
look at your home and try toassess what kind of fall risk
you might have, then that couldalso 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 itmakes them look like right.
So what I recommend to parentsto clients who have parents
asking this question is get areally nice pair of walking
poles and they can walk in thatcontralateral movement pattern
where the left leg goes forward,the right hand goes forward and

(18:31):
as they do that, they're goingto walk more comfortably.
They got two outbound thingsthat can hold them up and it
looks cool and it's much morefun 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 Nordicwalking.
It was really kind ofinteresting.
Of course a lot of old peoplelike me when they were out there
walking around.
I think it was really greatexercise.
And they were on this unlevelpath Terrain's a really good
challenge for the balance Greatthing to do.
It was just a great thing to doexactly.
So what about the concept ofproper footwear in fall

(19:02):
prevention and balance?

Speaker 3 (19:04):
It's like the most important thing.
That's right, tell me more aboutthat.
I mean, it's just number one.
You know you have 100,000 to200,000 receptors on the bottom
of your feet that provideinformation.
A couple of years ago at theJonas Salk Institute, they
discovered that you haveneuroreceptors on your lower
spine.
What they only found was thatyou get data from the lower
extremities, it manipulates thatdata and sends the data back

(19:26):
down to the informationinformation to lower to your
legs, basically telling themsomething about stride and how
to move.
And that's just a little bit ofwhat they discovered.
I think balance is a hugecomponent of that as well.
So whatever you do to disruptthat flow of information is just
patently stupid.
So when you see, people getolder and they have neuropathy.
They wear thicker and thickerand thicker shoes.

(19:47):
The second thing is you have25% of the bones and muscles in
your body are in your hands, andso your hands get to move and
do all this cool stuff.
Well, guess what?
25% of the bones and muscles inyour body are in your feet and
you've got them caged in a dangmushy cast.
And the big toe is a hugecomponent of balance.

(20:07):
And you look at shoes today andthe big toe, with the front of
the toe box, is lifted off theground.
So even when I stand around, I'mnot allowed to engage the most
important component of my foot,which is my toe.
And then you add to that somany of these shoes have a
lifted heel that forces you totuck your butt underneath.
And I think this is, you know,if you watch older men stand
around.
They're in these shoes and theyhave a tendency to stand with

(20:29):
the arch in the back, kneestraight, and tuck their butt.
Well, they're putting all thatweight to carry all that weight
on their lower back.
They lose their glutes, theylose their hamstrings and, oh
goodness gracious, they starthaving back problems.
It's because they've lost thosetwo muscle sets.

Speaker 1 (20:43):
All those things go away when you wear a minimalist
shoe, and so even just walkingaround the house barefoot might
be helpful.

Speaker 3 (20:50):
It's good.
You always got to warn peopleabout neuropathy.
You don't want to step onsomething but yeah.
And on the grass is a greatthing Anytime you can go
barefoot.
But even if you get into, weuse Xero Shoes X-E-R-O-Shoescom
and they've been around foryears and they have like 80,000
client testimonials and justsearch whatever your topic is

(21:12):
neuropathy and you'll find10,000 comments about my
neuropathy was cured because Iput on these shoes.
Because now you're activatingthe nerves, you're putting the
system to work.
When you're in a soft shoe, thenerves don't get to work.
We would take people I'mtalking too long about this
subject.
Clients would come in and seeme and they'd have their thick
athletic shoes on and they goshoes or no shoes.

(21:33):
And the first time I go, no,keep your shoes on and literally
within two minutes they go.
My feet are killing me andwhat's happening is the feet are
going.
I need to get engaged in thisprocess.
What can I?
You know, and they're overactivating, trying to work
through that foam.
Take the shoes off, go throughand do the same.
Training goes away completely.

Speaker 1 (21:52):
Interesting.
Now again.
This may not be in yourwheelhouse, but I'll just go
ahead and ask you what aboutthings like chronic health
conditions, like things likediabetes and arthritis.

Speaker 3 (22:02):
How do they affect fall risk?
I think they do to a largeextent, but I think what happens
is that you have to be carefulto what sort of compensatory
muscle patterns you're puttingin place to protect yourself,
whatever you think it is that'saffecting you from those
diseases, and not over-engagethem.
And the great thing aboutbalance training is it basically

(22:23):
forces you to use your body thebest way you possibly can,
regardless of what your injuriesare, 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 SlackBowprogram involves more demanding
balance challenges and ismainly designed to deliver
results for athletes.
So let's go ahead and startwith some athletes, and they
might have some in the audience.
And certainly athletes arealways invested in constant
improvement.
They want to run faster, jumphigher, ski better, strike the

(22:52):
ball with more power, and so howcan your program help them with
those things?

Speaker 3 (22:57):
It's real simple.
It's one you can't outperformyour balance.
Your balance system will slowyou down and retard whatever it
is you're doing to stay withinbalance.
So I can't swing a baseball batany harder than my balance
system allows.
If I swing past that balancelimit I'm going to become
unstable and I won't be able tohit and I won't be able to have
control.
It's true with any sportactivity.

(23:19):
Two, it's an unseen loss.
You don't know how good yourbalance is.
I've had thousands of peopleI've trained and they say well,
my balance is good and I'd sayit's 50-50.
People don't know whether theyknow it's good or bad.
So you can have a loss inbalance skills and not recognize
that that skill is being lost,but it represents itself in a
degradation in your performanceand your sport and you go crazy.

(23:40):
You train harder, you lift more, you train more and it's not
getting better and all it is isa change and your natural
balance has gone down.
So two it's not measured andpeople don't know how it affects
them.
And my third question always iswhy wouldn't you have the best
balance you possibly could have?
Now there's a lot of challengein the industry about standing

(24:01):
on unstable surfaces.
Well, nobody can stand stilland we can take photos of people
and you can show there's aconstant postural sway going on.
Now, why is that going on?
Is that a natural movement oris that a response to what's
going around the world?
Unstable surfaces is just sortof accentuating that.
I mean, the results are, and wefeel a little Darwin-like in

(24:23):
this sense, in that maybe wedon'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 andNBA players and all kind of
stuff.
So tell me about your program.
How do people get in touch withyou and get on your training?

Speaker 3 (24:41):
list.
Just go to slackbowcom andcontact me through those contact
points there.
Cool, cool, and then we can gofrom there.
We can do remote way.
To start, we've got a fullstudio 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 folkswho might be more, say, frail
and elderly, like people maybein a nursing home who've had a
fall and they want to preventanother one, right?
Any thoughts on how thosepeople can improve their?

Speaker 3 (25:05):
balance and getting one of those sort of fuzzy,
hairy-looking doormat thingsthat we have in front of our
doors in our houses, getting oneof those taking off your shoes
and just putting your feet onthat and standing up on that.
The next thing I'd do while Iwas sitting down is I would do

(25:25):
what's called a cross-crawlpattern, which is an ipsilateral
pattern.
When you walk, your left footgoes forward and your right hand
goes forward, and then yourright leg goes forward.
Your left foot goes forward andyour right hand goes forward,
and then your right leg goesforward, your left hand goes
forward, and you watch a lot ofelderly people.
Their arms don't move at all orthey'll move their right leg
with their right hand and justsitting down, all they need to
do is reach over and lift uptheir left knee and touch it

(25:47):
with their right hand, and liftup the right knee and touch it
with the left hand, and just bydoing that pattern you'd be
shocked what a difference itmakes.
The next thing I'd suggest allof 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 inhere and I say, well, just take
off your glasses and they'relike, oh, I can't see.

(26:08):
And then suddenly they'rebalancing better, because the
whole balanced informationsystem does not come through the
central part of the vision, thepart of the vision that you see
with it comes through thesecondary 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 thatfor a moment.
Certainly, part of the issue isthat you can see what you're
about to trip over right andnavigate your environment, but
you're saying that there'sactually a neurologic process
that's going on there.
Absolutely yeah, Tell me moreabout that.

Speaker 3 (26:37):
Let's see there's a hundred different ways.
When I first started out withthis, I would notice that as
people's vision got better, theywould start looking up and you
could see their vision getsofter.
It comes down to this realsimple thing your eyes don't see
, they collect data, and so youhave two photoreceptors in your

(26:57):
eyes cones and rods.
Cones are what see color andshape, and you have like 7
million of those, and then youhave rods, with which you have
120 million, and supposedly rodsare only there to see movement
and when it's dusk out and it'snot so bright, well, rods also
are a thousand times morepowerful in terms of light
receptor.

(27:17):
They can see all the way downto an electron.
So you're telling me we haveone system that's 20,000 times
more powerful than the othersystem and it's really not that
important.
That's not the case, yeah, andwe found it's exceedingly
important and we've developedmethods of training that system
and how to train that system,and I think that that's what

(27:38):
happens.
You know we work with and Idon't mind releasing this
information because I don't everend up in this business but we
end up.
I've worked with concussionclients who literally can't move
.
They are wheelchaired into meand then I have them walking
after one session.
This is after they spent 30, 40days in allopathic systems,
been in intensive care.
The whole thing and a big partof it, has to do with they have

(28:00):
to get out of thatpost-traumatic stress response
of trying to consciously pick upevery threat.
And you can't do that.
You have to rely on thatsubconscious system.

Speaker 1 (28:12):
And when you walk, that subconscious system is a
big part of it.
Yeah, back to that concept ofwhat older folks can do.
We have great suggestions and Ialso might mention that years
ago I read this interestingstudy.
I'm not sure what the size was,but I think ultimately the
results were really interesting.
They had a big nursing home andthey had some of the women
signed up for tai chi and thenthey looked over the years they

(28:33):
had like a 75% reduction in hipfractures just in the women who
did tai chi versus the women whodid not.
And I think other things likesome 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 yourdad with Parkinson's and your
boxing there's a physicaltherapist up in New York
somewhere and it's become sortof a thing now is that he took a
group of Parkinson's patientsand had them start boxing.
And what is that boxing motion?
It's crossing the center lineRight, right, right, right.
People who hadn't talked inyears started talking.

(29:04):
Oh my gosh, people who hadn'twalked stood up, started walking
.
Yeah, unbelievable.
And I think the differencebetween Tai Chi and yoga is Tai
Chi has all sorts of crossingpatterns.
You're doing all sorts of thiscontralateral crossing the body
from side to side and moving andturning and looking over your
shoulder, and I think it's greatfor older people who do balance
training Wonderful.

Speaker 1 (29:23):
Yeah, also in your wonderful book you mentioned
that the human balance is whatyou call an extremely complex
multimodal neural system.
It really requires a whole bodytraining approach.
So tell me about how yourprogram 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 trainingcenters of you know giant
hospital systems and they go onand on about eyes closed.
Well, the amount of informationthat eyes collect is massive.
They believe right now there'sa possibility that 60% of your
moment-to-moment processing inyour brain is just from what you

(29:59):
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 thevestibular system.
You have several other systemsin play.
You have that information wetalked about before.
On the bottom of your feet youhave your system of I forget
what you call it where you knowwhere all your body parts are
and how you're movingProprioception, Proprioceptive

(30:20):
system and then you have amapping system in your brain.
Your brain has a map of everyposition your body can be in.
It's activated.
I'm listening to Paul Baccarita,who's the godfather of
neuroplasticity and developingneurological prosthetic products
.
It's clear if you look at aproduct he developed that the
tongue is integral and involvedwith balance.

(30:42):
And if you watch great athletes, they all have their tongues in
different positions.
I think of Michael Jordan withhis tongue Exactly right, and
the same is true with—and I seepeople move their hands in
different ways as their balancegets better, so somehow I know
there's some sort of informationthat's coming through their
hands.
So to me, why shut off onesystem?
Activate and utilize allsystems 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 understandyou have the Slack bow, the
Slack block, the Slack and theSlack board.
Let's start with the slack bow.
What inspired you to inventthese 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 gaveme that as a gift For the
non-skiers who was that SteinErikson won three gold medals in
the 1954 World Championshipsand two gold medals in the
Olympics and he was consideredthe.
He was the first celebrityskier and he was a beautiful

(31:43):
skier and there's all sorts ofmovies and videos of him and I
skied with him when he was 74and I was 50.
And I mean I could ski like him.
I've been imitating him since Iwas a child and somehow we got
along and had a lot of fun andcontinued a relationship
afterwards.
But I asked him I said what isit that keeps you skiing so well
at 74?
And he goes well, I ski everyday.

(32:04):
He said that helps a lot.
I said, well, I don't get achance to do that.
And I knew he studiedgymnastics and I said does
gymnastics have anything to do?
And he goes yeah, he said Ithink it does.
He said, in fact I still dosome of my gymnastics exercise
and there's a lot of balancewith gymnastics.
So I left that day going.
I want to ski well into my 80sand 90s.
And what is it?
And it wasn't strength, becauseyou know you can build.

(32:26):
You and I are probably just asstrong 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, notworse.
It wasn't vision we cangenerally buy better vision.
So what was it?
And I'll shorten this part ofthe story down I determined that
it was some sort of hidden lossof balance.

(32:46):
And then I went out into thefitness industry and there
wasn't really a product thatchallenged my balance, until I
got on a slack line one day andI said, oh, this is a balance
challenge.
And then I realized thatwalking on a slack line was one
foot in front of the other andthat's not an athletic position.
So I started just saying howlong can I stay on one foot on
the slack line?
And I trained myself like thatand I was like wow, when skiing

(33:10):
that winter, I was blown away byhow well I skied my first day.
Wow, when skiing that winter,and I was blown away by how well
I skied my first day.
So then I went to Auburn to helpthem, get them to help me
develop a device, and I met withone of their you know junior
professors, 29 years old.
He met with me.
I gave him some equipment I haddeveloped that was outside of
the slack line and he called mea week later and he said I'll do

(33:33):
anything you want me to do tomake this project succeed.
And I said why are you sayingthat?
He said well, my specialty ispower generation and steam.
And he said I'm in these bigplants all the time.
And he said when I was 23, Ihurt my back and I've been in
pain ever since.
I've taken every medication.
I've done everything I possiblycan do to make that feel better
.
He said I've trained using yourmethods and your equipment for

(33:56):
three days and the pain is goneUnbelievable.
So I've had that result ahundred times over.
So you know, theseserendipitous type of events
came together and then Ideveloped a Slack bow.

Speaker 1 (34:06):
Well, pretty cool.
Now, slack bow, as youmentioned, is kind of similar to
a Slack line, right, and I'veseen that at the the park Some
people mess it around.
They've got to tie between twotrees, but you don't always have
trees available, right, and youcan't bring those into your
home.
I'm looking across the room.
I see a nice slack wheel righthere.
So your concept was to takethat slack line that you tie

(34:26):
between trees and to bring itinto some kind of equipment that
you can bring into the gym orinto your home.

Speaker 3 (34:30):
We don't walk on them ever, so walking is one foot in
front of the other in anunnatural position, unless
you're a water skier.
Yeah, so we do these balanceexercises.
One leg only on the slack bow,so we go from moderately
difficult to the setup that yousee over.
There is insanely difficult.
There's probably two or threeathletes on any sport that you
get up there the first time anddo 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 protectiondevice on part of the slack bow
.
And I was developing that platefor the slack line because I
want you know it's difficult, Ihad to keep washing my lines, we
were training in barefoot andit's hard to clean the line.
So I want you know it'sdifficult, I had to keep washing
my lines, we were training inbarefoot and it's hard to clean
the line.
So I said, well, I'll build aplate to go on the line.

(35:17):
So I built a plate to go on theline.
Well, it turns out, the platehad phenomenal effect because
now people were balancing on theline with a flat platform,
which is where they live.
They can engage their biggertoe more and get pressure on the
big toe.
And then one day I married thetwo up.
I had the foam there forsomething on the slack bow and I
put the plate on top of theline.
I went oh my God, thisrepresents what happens on the

(35:40):
slack line at 75% of the levelof difficulty.
And I have people contact meand say, hey, I've been using
the slack block and now I canget on my slack line and do
slack line much better.
So it represents that samemotion that we look for anytime
we train somebody in balancetraining.

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 foamcovered by about a seven-ply
board and in a kind of anon-slip circus and in the
bottom of it.
I actually watched some YouTubevideos and they were very
positive on this.
By the way, universally, and ifI understand these little plugs
in the bottom, you can removethe plugs and that will increase

(36:18):
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 foamunderfoot, it's going to stand
on a two by four.
It's not going to move.
If you have too little foamunderfoot and you're too heavy
for it, you're going to crush itdown and it's not a challenge.
So we have the three sizes andthen we have the plugs you can
take out to reduce the volumeeven more.
So you can.
You know if you're really lightit helps you there or if you

(36:42):
get better, you can take theplugs out and you can replace
the plugs.
It's not a permanent take themout and you've ruined it.
You can put them back in andand it'll bring it back up to
its original level of ease fordifficulty.

Speaker 1 (36:53):
Yeah, yeah, I'm holding this.
It's about what?
One pound or two pounds orsomething, 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 kindof nice as opposed to the—.

Speaker 3 (37:06):
We suggest keeping the box because it's designed to
travel with, it's designed toopen and close.

Speaker 1 (37:09):
Yeah.
So, yeah, it's a nice piece ofequipment and I actually you
sent me one about a week ago andI've tried it and it's
certainly a challenge, but Ithink I'm maybe getting a little
bit better already.
Yeah, it's interesting too.
Now there are some balanceboards I've used in the past and
they require that you standwith both feet, whereas your
products are all one-footproducts.

Speaker 3 (37:34):
So tell me about the difference or the challenges
between one foot and two foot.
Well, we have, you know, rightover there, you see a stack of.
You know, we, we have designedthe one foot boards and I've, I
mean the, the, the teeter totterboards with a roller underneath
.
Right and I've used every onethat there is and I've framed
people on them for years.
One is you really need a goodprotocol to get people started
on that.
Secondly, we have differentdesigns that nobody else has in
terms of level of difficulty inthat teeter-totter board.

(37:56):
But back to the slack pull andthe slack block.
All balance is pretty much oneleg or the other or you're
transitioning from one leg tothe other.
So when you, let's say, like amarathoner, a really great
marathoner runs a marathon intwo hours and 15 minutes and a
really great marathoner has afoot strike time of 25% of his

(38:17):
stride, which means 25% of thetime he's on one foot or the
other Well, 25% of two hours iswhat?
Half an hour.
Half of that's 15 minutes.
So they're basically balancingon one foot for 15 minutes and
the slower you are, the longerthat strike time is.
So you may be a terrible runner, you may be at 50% strike time.

(38:40):
You're balancing now for hourson end when you're running any
sort of run, whether it's a 10Kor 5K or a marathon.
So all sports are pretty much onone foot or the other, and the
thing I say about one foot isthat you know like 20 million
species in the world.
There's like 98 differentprimates and there's only one

(39:01):
species that's bimodal.
And they're bimodal becausethey can do amazing balance on
one foot that no other animalcan do, no other mammal can do
for sure there's birds that canso we're just supremely unique
in that way and it's justsomething we kind of don't pay
any attention to, which ismind-blowing to me, particularly
when we talked about earlieryou know statistics and you

(39:23):
probably have questions later onthe effects of some sort of
balance.
Degradation worldwide ismassive, but it's just something
we don't pay much attention toDegradation worldwide is massive
, but it's just something wedon't pay much attention to.

Speaker 1 (39:36):
You know, you were talking we were talking earlier
about the fact that it's thiscomplex multimodal neural system
.
It's fascinating to me, youknow, coming from a life where
my dad was a farmer and youwatch a little calf come out and
within hours he's walking right.
You look at a human baby and ittakes years to walk, because I

(39:56):
guess we're, because we'rewalking on two feet, we're
standing upright, and it's kindof fascinating how it takes that
long to develop that complexneural system.
Exactly, yeah, Interesting.
Now, of course, we talked aboutthe fact that your program
helps with athletes and I wouldthink, especially things like
surfing, skiing, those kinds ofthings, 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 Ican't advertise it.
So this is an informationprogram.
But we, our program is usedextensively at University of
Michigan and you know the headstrength and conditioning coach
called me two days after theygot back after winning the
national championship andbasically said we were on the
phone for 18 minutes that wewere instrumental to their

(40:39):
success that season.
But besides him saying that,you can look at the factors of
that team.
One, the end of the season theyonly had two players out for
injury.
Availability is what winsnational championships
oftentimes.
You can look at the NFL andI'll guarantee you the team with
the best availability of theirstarters is the team that wins
the Super Bowl all the time.
And two, they develop moreplayers than any other team,

(41:03):
which was you recruit playersfrom high school that are
three-star, four-star, five-starand you always want to get
five-star recruits when yourecruit from high school.
Star recruits when you recruitfrom high school.
Well, michigan had fewerfive-star recruits by multiple
over that of any other team inthat championship series.
So that meant that they tookmore three and four-star players

(41:23):
and developed them into betterplayers.
All that balance has a lot todo 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 toperform better, live longer and
look younger.
The live longer is interesting.
There is a direct correlationbetween balance and longevity.
It's kind of fascinating, Hugecorrelation, yeah, and so what
about any other benefits you'dlike 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 studiesabout blue zones and all these
different things and nobody eversays that.
Just about every study that hasbalance as a component of it
says you'll live longer if youimprove your balance.
And there's that one study, Iguess a couple years ago, where
they retroactively went backinto the data and they just saw

(42:09):
20 years later.
One of the parts of this studywas how long can you stand on
one foot?
And those people who stand onone foot 10 seconds or longer
this is 20 years after the studywas done lived longer than
those who couldn't.
And that's just standing on onefoot for 10 seconds or longer.
What are some of the otherbenefits of your program?
I think there's a hugecomponent to just feeling better

(42:30):
, to being outside, being in abalanced challenge world, being
in a world that doesn't havethese perfectly rectilinear
surfaces around you, and there'sa little bit of research that
supports that.
There's a whole group ofresearchers out there now and
they have a different name forit where they say if you walk in
the woods, it has dramaticimpact on your well-being,
psychological well-being.

(42:50):
They say it's the trees andnature and all that stuff.
I say a big part of it's yourbalance challenge.
Anytime you have a balancechallenge, you feel better.
And if you start to look at thereviews on the Slack block and
we don't publish reviews on ourwebsite, but if you look at the
reviews on other websites aboutthe Slack block you'll see
people comment my brain feelsbetter, 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 balancetraining with concussions.
So yeah, you talked about acouple of concepts in the book
called neuroplasticity andneurorehabilitation 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 aboutpost-concussive syndrome that's
not discussed enough is yourprobability of getting a second
concussion within a year is very, very high, and that just tells
me you weren't fixed the firsttime through.
And I've treated clients likethat one every year for 10 years
and we work with them andthey've never had another
concussion.
But neuroplasticity is theability of the mind to rewire

(43:56):
itself, and it was discovered bythe man I spoke about before,
paul Bacrita, and it's afascinating story.
If people want to look into it,I'll tell you.
You can cut it out, but he hisfather, had a horrible stroke.
He was a college professor,couldn't really walk and Paul
was a medical student at thetime.
He left medical school, heworked with his dad.

(44:17):
He got his dad back to.
He first started teaching himhow to crawl, then the walk, and
within two years his dad wasback teaching.
10 years later his dad diesfrom some other condition and
Macarita now is a full-time.
I don't know if he's aresearcher yet, but he's an MD
and he has his dad's brainautopsied and the stroke had
destroyed 75% of his brain, sowith 25% of the brain tissue

(44:40):
left he was able to reorganizeall 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 allthese locations You're able to
do things in your brain, butthey all can be repurposed and
he showed that and that's becomea big term, such that I think

(45:01):
some advanced stroke trainingthat goes on nowadays is, you
know, used to be.
Well, you're paralyzed, youcan't use left hand anymore.
They start training you to useyour left hand and they'll put a
coffee cup in front of you andsay, grab the coffee cup, and
you can't.
And then every day you work onthat and suddenly the arm
twitches and twitches again,twitches again.
Before you know it's picking upthe coffee cup.
And that's the neuroplasticity,the rewiring of the brain to

(45:25):
start operating that left sideagain.
Now the other term, neuro whatwas that?
Let's say neurorehabilitation.
So to me that was the nextlevel, which was when we work
with post-concussive syndromepeople.
I don't think that their issuesare psychological, I think that
there's a neurological fight orflight or post-traumatic stress

(45:46):
that takes over the body.
So I call it the flinchresponse.
So you have this flinchresponse.
And so when you havepost-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 ofrewire the body and that
subconscious data collectionthat goes into the body and
teach it that the threat's notthere and to move without that

(46:08):
threat.

Speaker 1 (46:09):
You know, jim, this is so interesting as I think
back on my training in medicalschool and residency.
The science is very clear aboutthe importance of all this,
with the balance in falls andstuff like that.
I don't think I ever had alecture 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 yetwe never talk about it.
So I'm really thrilled onceagain to have this discussion
here with you today.
So is your system somethingthat's best used at a gym or in
a physical therapy office undersupervision, 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 arehome use people.

Speaker 1 (46:49):
Oh great.
And so if somebody wants toembark upon balanced training,
what's the best time for them tostart?

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 intheir 40s are operating with a
25-year-old brain, with a40-year-old body, so they don't
think that they need it.
So it ends up being more likethe 50s.
But I have found that the olderpeople are, the slower the

(47:19):
system is to come back.
And when I say come back, wedon't really improve muscle
strength, we don't teach a newskill like hitting a tennis ball
or a golf ball.
We're somehow awakening asleeping system and the return
to improved balance occurs very,very quickly.
The younger you are and ifyou're aware, let's say in your

(47:41):
40s, it becomes part of yourlife.
You don't let go of it.
The number one reason foremergency room visits for people
over the age of 45 are forfalls.
And that's just the fall.
That's bad enough that it callsfor a visit to the emergency
room.
It's a big problem for peoplein their 40s and they should
start to recognize it as such.
And when people fall, it's justnot like, oh, I wasn't paying

(48:03):
attention, that's number one.
People say, oh, it was my shoesnumber two.
Or I didn't see that, that'snumber three.
No, those things were all therebefore that fall.
You just didn't have what ittook to stay balanced or at
least reduce the velocity ofwhich you hit the ground with to
prevent an injury.

Speaker 1 (48:22):
Also in your book you talked about how true
progressive balance challengesshould take you to the point of
failure, which means a fall or anear fall.

Speaker 3 (48:30):
Please explain this concept.
Yeah, so you watch.
Going back to the babieslearning how to fall, I mean
learning how to walk and balancethey fall all the time and
every time they fall they'vetaken their balance to that
balance limit and that's howthey learn.
So I determined when I createdthis program was I have to be
able to take you to a balancelimit without you falling.

(48:52):
So if I push you to one of ourlevels of training that's beyond
your balance limit, you mightbe able to do it, but there's a
good chance you're going to fall.
I'll never do that because Idon't want you to fall, but I do
see where your balance limitsare 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 keepyou here at this balance limit,

(49:15):
and then I see that, whateverthat 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 youto a balance summit, but
gradually, and I never push youbeyond that balance summit and,
like we talked about with yourmother, I never push you into
fear.

Speaker 1 (49:30):
No, fear at all.
Yeah, speaking of which, yououtline your Stepwise kind of
iterative training program inthe book and it's quite
extensive and something that youknow.
You don't need a physicaltherapist or a doctor to help
you with that.
It's well laid out, but I thinkit's too much to really go into
here in the podcast, so I'lljust refer people to the book
unless there are any othercomments you want to make on

(49:51):
that.

Speaker 3 (49:51):
Well, you know, the only comment I'd make on that is
you know I get hammered likethere's not enough, you know,
instruction in the book andthere's too much chat and blah,
blah, blah.
You know you sort of get goback and forth.
But there's a comment on Amazon.
A woman said I go to a Zumbaclass, I do great in the class
and we always finish up theclass with these balance
exercises and I can never dothem and I feel like an idiot.

(50:12):
She said I read this book, Idid his balance exercises twice
and my next Zumba class had noproblem at all.
Oh, isn't that cool?
Yeah, so my point is it doesn'ttake 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 soquickly.
You know, it's so interesting,jim, how, if you look at the
recommendations by the AmericanGeriatric Society, they
recommend that doctors should bescreening patients at, say, the
age of 65.
One could argue younger, butthat's their recommendation and
then every year thereafter theyshould have a screening test for
falls.
You know, I'm well above 65.
I've never been screened.
I've had some pretty gooddoctors, you know, but nobody's

(50:54):
ever talked to me about it,assessed me, screened me, and I
think that that's kind ofstandard of care.

Speaker 3 (51:00):
Unfortunately, Well, the screens are horrible.
Number one they do the Rombergtest, which is close your eyes,
lock your leg out, stick theother leg in front of you, put
your hands on your hip, aposition that you're never in in
life at any point in time, andthen you see them doing it with
people with their big fat shoes,on which is ridiculous.
The other is called thesit-stand test.
You sit, walk 10 steps, turnaround, come back and sit, stand

(51:21):
, walk 10 steps, turn around,come back and sit again and they
evaluate that.
That doesn't tell you anythingeither.
So they don't even have goodevaluation tools.
And I think that you go intothese balance labs and they have
all these sort of balancetraining devices that have been
into them, but all of them aremissing a huge component of, I
think, what it takes to improveyour balance.

(51:43):
And it may be good for theirchronic balance loss people that
they're working with, but thereality is that your balance
challenge has to have somereality in movement and single
foot and if it doesn't, you'renot teaching anything and you're
not learning anything.
So I think that they're whollymissing something on that part.
I have a balance measurementsystem, zero to 100.

(52:03):
We have an analog part of itthat Michigan had.
I haven't shared it withanybody else.
We're trying to get itdigitized because I think the
whole world I want the wholeworld to get to that place of.
Hey, let me tell you what mybalance index is.
You know I call it the Klotmanbalance index.
Let me tell you what my balanceindex is.
I'm a 60 or I'm a 55, or hey, Icame back from the doctor and

(52:27):
he tested me and I'm at a 40 andI need to get better.
Or hey, my golf game's gottenworse.
My balance index used to be 70.
Now I'm down to a 50.
I think I'm going to improve mybalance and see if that
improves my golf game.
There's no direct correlation.
You go to the gym and you canlift 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 quantifiableself things everywhere out there

(52:48):
, but there is no quantifiableself 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 broughtup in the book to keep in mind
when people are doing thebalance training?

Speaker 3 (53:01):
I worry about it because people are like oh hey,
look at me, I'm doing this inthe kitchen.
I'm like that's just a dumbidea.
You know, there's slipperyfloors, wet floors, there's hard
surfaces.
People like to do it in thebathroom.
I said the bathroom is thenumber one spot in the house for
serious injury from falls.
It's the worst place in theworld to balance train.
So people say, oh, I'm on myslack butt, you know brushing my

(53:22):
teeth, good for you, but it's abad idea.
And I think the bedroom's bad.
You got dressers and beds andplus, oftentimes they're
carpeted and there's otherthings around that you can trip
and fall on.
So it's good to do it in aliving room or an open space
garage, even outside, where youcan step off and land properly.
The other is and we go throughthis a lot we don't want you to

(53:43):
touch any of our products untilyou take the balance test, and
I'll give you the link that youcan put on with this podcast
Everybody just take that balancetest.
And, by the way, if you fail abalance test, the balance test
is also a protocol to improveyour balance without buying one
of my products, and I'mperfectly okay with that.
But it is really the bestbalance test out there and that
if you can do this balance testfairly well and this is

(54:06):
floor-based balance test, notgetting on one of my products
it'll do more for you than anyother balance training that's
out there or any other balancetest 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 againBalance is Power by Jim Klopman
K-L-O-P-M-A-N.
It is, I noticed on Amazon.
Is is Powered by Jim KlopmanK-L-O-P-M-A-N.
It is, I noticed on Amazon.
Is that where you recommendpeople buy?

Speaker 3 (54:26):
it.
Yeah, that's the only place wehave, 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 quiteinformative.

Speaker 3 (54:40):
And then also, where do people go to buy your other
products now selling the Slackblock there as well.

Speaker 1 (54:45):
Nice.
And then I do notice you havethe excellent website.
I went to it, checked it outquite informative wwwslackbowcom
.
Are there any other resourcesyou'd like to recommend that
people can learn more about yourproducts?

Speaker 3 (54:57):
That's it.
I mean, you know, you justsearch the term Slack bow, slack
block.
There's reviews everywhere outthere.
Yeah, we have a lot of reallyhigh-end athletes and high-end
trainers using the product, butthey 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 BenHerbert's left there to go with

(55:19):
the Los Angeles Chargers.
But when you have a productthat dramatically improves your
performance and you're acompetitive athlete, you're not
inclined to say anything aboutit.
And you know, the great CaitlinClark recently was on 60
Minutes and they were talkingabout her shooting and they said
well, how come you're so good,she goes?
Really, the most importantthing is balance.

(55:41):
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 keyingredient.
I wonder if Steph would say thesame.

Speaker 3 (55:48):
He probably would, right he does balance ring and
you can find old videos of himdoing some, and if I watch his
pregame routine, it's clear thathe does balance ring.

Speaker 1 (55:56):
Yeah, of course I'm talking about Steph Curry, and
I'm not a Warriors fan, and hemoves beautifully too, and I
think that's a conclusion I cameto 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, stephCurry people like that.
They're never over-muscledpeople and they're never power
people.
If you look at the top 100athletes from the 20th century
from Sports Illustrated, youlook at the photographs.
None of them are ripped, otherthan Bo Jackson.

(56:29):
But he was ripped.
He was born ripped.
He was born ripped, for sure.
He never like.
You can read about it and watchhim on 30 for 30.
The strength and addition coachat Auburn said Bo, you need to
come work out.
He goes no, I don't.
Yeah, I put it all out on thefield.
That's all I needed to do.

Speaker 1 (56:43):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
He's got ripped jeans, doesn'the, for sure?
So, anyway, is there anythingI've not asked you about, jim,
that you'd like to share with ustoday?
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 aboutthis and I just could see that
you really had a burning passionfor it and and you've poured
your whole life's work into it.
So, yeah, I got a great line ofproducts here.
So, again, thank you so muchfor sharing your wisdom with us.
Thank you appreciate it.
Bye, well, that will about doit for this episode of the

(57:20):
wellness connection md podcast.
We hope that we were able toshare something with you that
was helpful for you.
After all, that's why we dowhat we do.
For your reading pleasure, Ihave prepared some free handouts
for you.
You can find at mcmindmdcom onour website under the documents
section.
The direct link to that wouldbe wwwmcmindmdcom.
Forward slash documents.

(57:41):
Just look for all of the titleswhich start with the word falls
.
I will have articles for you onthe 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 overallstrategies to reduce fall risk.

(58:02):
I will also have a bio of JimKlotman on the mcmdcom website
under the guest biographies tab,along with a picture of Jim and
also a picture of the Slackbotand the Slackblock products Also
on the homepage.
At the bottom of the page inthe helpful links section, I
will include a link to thebalance test that Jim mentioned

(58:22):
on the podcast.
Please take a moment to rate uson iTunes.
These reviews really do make adifference.
Also, if you like the podcast,then please take a moment out of
your day today to let a friendknow about the podcast.
Thank you so much in advancefor helping us to spread the
word.
If you'd like to reach out tome to comment on the show, then
you may do so at drmcminn atyahoocom.
Also, I'm always interested inyour suggestions for future show

(58:44):
topics.
Well, coach Lindsay's not withus today to leave another of her
wonderful Coach Lindsay pearlsof 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 fallsituation seriously, as the
stats show that I shared withyou earlier.
It's a huge deal and it'slife-changing, if not fatal.

(59:05):
Shared with you earlier.
It's a huge deal and it'slife-changing, if not fatal.
Take a look at the documentFalls Strategies to Reduce Risk
and do whatever you need to doto avoid this disastrous fate so
you can go on to live a longand happy and healthy life.
I've taken care of manyunfortunate people in the ER who
will never go home again or whowill never walk due to a fall.
Unfortunately, most of thesefalls were avoidable.
It's really very sad.

(59:26):
Well, that will about do it andthanks so much for listening.
This is Dr McMinn signing out.
Until next time, take care andbe well.