Movement Refines the Mind: The Power of Vestibular Training with Sheila Thelen | Ep. 292 - The Aging Well Podcast

Episode Transcript
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(00:03):
Have you ever noticed how a simple spin, a shift in balance,
or gentle sway can instantly wake up your mind?
What if the key to sharper thinking, better memory, and
more restful sleep wasn't in a pill, but in your inner ear?
Welcome to the Aging Well Podcast, where we explore the
science stories and strategies that help us live longer,
healthier, and more purposeful lives.

(00:26):
I'm your host, Doctor Jeff Armstrong, an exercise
physiologist with a passion for making science simple and life
better as we age. Today's guest is Sheila Thielen,
President and patent holder of Vestibular Training Services,
LLC Sheila is a nationally and internationally recognized
master figure skating coach and a highly sought after presenter

(00:47):
at conferences and events aroundthe globe.
Through her innovative work in vestibular training, she's
helped thousands of athletes, students, and rehabilitation
clients improve not just their balance, but their cognitive
performance, spatial awareness, and overall well-being.
Sheila's work challenges us to rethink the way movement shapes
the mind and how spinning, alignment and brain symmetry can

(01:10):
play a transformative role in aging well.
Sheila, welcome to the Aging Well podcast.
For our listeners who may not befamiliar, can you explain what
the vestibular system is and whyit matters as we age?
And why are you so interested init?
Hi, thanks so much, Jeff. I'm so honored to be here.

(01:30):
And you know what? I'm obsessed.
You use the word correctly. So I talk about all the time of
the education within our companythat, you know, as a community,
we all learned about calories and carbs and how many steps we
needed. Well, now it's time to learn
about about the vestibular system.
So what it is, it's in the insides of your ears.
There's one on each side. This is blown up by the way.

(01:50):
It's it, this is huge compared to what it really is.
So here's like my eardrum. My eardrum rolls into my
vestibular and then my vestibular rolls out into the
cochlea, which you'll see kids with like a cochlea implant that
are deaf. So the vestibular system manages
25 major systems within your body.
Although before we talk about our balance, cognitive, spatial

(02:16):
and sleep. So those are the four we really
focus on and that's where we're seeing the real changes when a
third with our clients is in those one of those four systems,
sometimes all of them and it kind of depends on where the
person's at neurologically and with their health will really
decide that. But within the vestibular system
are these 3 semi circular canalsand on the inside is a like a

(02:38):
gooey gel. It's like really gooey on the
outside are what they call crystals.
So you'll hear people say Oh yeah, I got crystal problems.
But imagine those little crystals that belong in the
outside that'll sometimes fall into the canal.
And especially like in people that are like in Humvees, car

(02:59):
accidents, you know, horseback riding, jogging, you're like
those crystals, you know, fall into the canals.
And the problem is then the dataisn't moving through nice and
smoothly. It's kind of having to go
through a whole bunch of trafficand parked cars on the freeway.
And so the data just doesn't move through nicely.
So in our company, we spin you, which sounds crazy.

(03:23):
OK, I know it sounds absolutely crazy in a very NASA sense.
And we have slow turning. We have faster turning, and we
have insanity turning, especially in kids.
Like the kids can do it where the adults can't.
OK, So what we do is we spin yougently and throw in some
centrifugal force in there, which you know helps move some

(03:47):
of those crystals out of the way.
The data moves through better. But where we see ridiculous
changes, of course we're showingit in brain scans, but we're
showing it in balance. So I do a ton of pre and post
testing in balance. So now that leads us to the
story of fall prevention. So we work with everyone, with
the brain, but in our aging community, boy, what a

(04:08):
difference in not falling. And that balance is better,
which just leads to a whole arsenal of improvements for
people. Yeah, actually, I turned down a
physiotherapist that wanted to be on the podcast to talk about
teaching people how to fall as they age.
It's like, well, we're really more about teaching people how

(04:30):
not to fall because if we can prevent the fall, you don't have
to worry about how you fall. And So what sparked your
interest in the vestibular system and vestibular training?
So I'm a long story in the fact that I'm a master figure skating
coach. And so I've coached skating for
like 35 years. It's, it's just been my whole
life. And, and I've worked with
everything from beginner, tiny little young skaters all the way

(04:54):
through Olympians and world champions.
And, and I've just worked the entire gamut.
I kind of call it trench warfarecoaching, you know, like I've,
I've, I've been in the trenches for years, but I've owned the
harness company, you know, so like my harness in the
background. So I've been teaching spinning
for decades. But my story really starts 10
years ago because it really, my company's about 30 years old.

(05:16):
So my skating harness company, I've been doing that forever.
But ten years ago I was speakingat an event in Lake Placid.
And so I'm in Placid and I'll behonest, adult beverages back at
the bar, you know, like where business gets done.
And the coach next to me says I have a problem with dizzy
athletes. And I looked at him like, why?

(05:38):
That's So what? No, no, no, Figure skaters never
get dizzy. You know, we can spin them like
crazy and they don't get dizzy. So I thought that was weird.
So that's sort of like the big red light gone off in my head.
And for decades we talked about Figure skaters are smart and,
you know, they're really different than other athletes.
You know, I have 8th graders taking college trig.
Like the group is really, if youlook at even beginning Figure

(06:01):
skaters, they're a very serious group of athletes in a different
way than other sports. So, so the lights started going
off in my head and then, you know, the next coach had
problems and the next coach had problems.
And we went around the whole circle of problems.
And all the coaches, I looked atthem like, no, I don't have any
of these problems. So then the lights were really
going off in my head that what was I doing differently than all

(06:23):
the other sports. And the answer was spinning.
So I'll be honest, I spent the next five years talking to
anyone that would talk to me, doctors, PTS, OTS, you know,
like anyone that would talk to me.
And we really came back to what was spinning doing was affecting
the athletes vestibular systems.So to add to the craziness of

(06:44):
the story I5 years ago. So in January of 2020, I'm like,
I am going to move into the general public and we're going
to change the world. And we'd worked with a batch of
kids with autism and we just kind of kept growing the group
of more and more people. And I'm like, we're launching
this. So January of 2020, like, oh,

(07:06):
you know, no problem. And of course March of 2020,
like, oh, it all falls apart in the entire world in a in it's
still a weird way. Like I look back on I'm like,
what what happened? That was the weirdest thing
ever. And so everyone's telling me to
like, stop launching, stop doingthis.
Like, like don't just stay in your lane.
Just stay in sports, Just only stay in figure skating and we

(07:28):
still launched in the middle of a pandemic and I'm gonna say
good old LinkedIn did people, but that's where people at
times. So I did launch very
successfully. But that's where on LinkedIn in
the pandemic, I met NASA and NFLand MBA and so many of my
athletes and coaches and my chief medical officer and

(07:50):
podcasts and, you know, all of that really developed and I I
got to be a part of it. So, so it worked out, you know,
really not what the plan was going to be.
Possibly no plan, no plan. And it worked, you know, so like
have a whole thing a little, youknow, like 2020 was a mess.
So, so yeah, so we've really just kept expanding through

(08:11):
that. And so really the last five
years, our work with the generalpublic has has been stunning.
And I tear up a little bit with how much we've done.
That's amazing how much kick started in COVID.
It was a little scary. I'm sure it was the.
Husband was like, what are you doing, baby?
I'm like, it's gonna work, I think.

(08:33):
So Speaking of thinking, you've said that cognitive function
starts with movement. Can you kind of walk us through
how the vestibular system influences our brain beyond
violence? So I, I love just the just gate
training, just watching people walk, you know, like watching a
kid walk, but watching my mom walk, watching someone with

(08:55):
Parkinson's walk, like watching people just walk.
I also talked about that at the airport, like seeing people with
orthopedic problems walking ahead of me.
I'm always like, oh, are we? Your knee must really hurt.
You know, like, like, and I watch people struggle through
airports. Balance, step one, balance
walking. It really shows what's going on

(09:15):
cognitively, especially when we see children that aren't
walking, you know, or walking incorrectly.
What all of these pieces are part of the brain running the
process. There's so much great research
out there on kids in school sitting too much, you know, and
sitting and learning versus moving and learning. 2 totally

(09:38):
different outcomes we know that for especially our boys with
ADHD like they're not designed is a boy you're not designed to
sit there for 8 hours and sit onyour butt.
Let's just go home and play video games the rest of the day.
You know, like that's not with aboy is designed to do and we
wondered or a girl or a girl. They're they're not.

(09:59):
Yeah, let's not be sexist. So, but, but like, I find it
fascinating because when we talkabout cognitive, we can see it
in human movement. You can see a fact.
I recently had a Harvard Dr. be like, so I need a paper on if
you improve their balance, they become better athletes.
And I kind of looked into the camera like, do you think he's

(10:21):
kidding me? You know, like he's, Oh my, he's
serious. Like I, he didn't, he didn't put
those together because I'm like,well, just as a coach, like I
don't need a paper to tell me. I want to work with the fast
kid, not the slow kid. You know, the kid that fell down
20 feet back isn't going to shoot the winning goal because
they're, they're they're still back there.
The kid that was moving and on their feet and going is probably

(10:44):
your better athlete. You know, my face and half my
Zoom calls are like, what? You really?
But yeah, for sure. Cognitive is tied to human
movement and balance. And in your knee, if you want to
be a football player and you need to break left, what got
that left knee moving was your brain, not the left knee didn't

(11:06):
move on its own. Your brain moved that left knee.
Right. I always teach my students that
muscle contraction always beginsand ends with the brain.
Absolutely. Simple logic.
I didn't didn't realize that they don't teach that at
Harvard. Yeah.
And the other piece of it too. This is so fun.
This is so mean. Anyway, his other comment was,

(11:27):
well, balance comes from your feet.
I go, no, it comes from your, your, your vestibular balance
comes, he goes, no, no, it comesfrom your feet.
Because I need a paper to prove that I'm like, I can do that
without a paper. If I cut your head off, you
can't balance. OK, yet I can cut your foot off
and you could still balance. It's not going to be fun, but
you can do it. OK, and I can cut your other

(11:49):
foot off. Still not fun, but you can
balance. It's, it's not, it's not going
to be great, but you can do it. No, it's your inner ears, you
know, like Vestibular. There's been 50,000 papers
written on Vestibular that have already been published, Sir.
How many more do you need? You know, oxygen keeps you

(12:09):
alive, you know, Did you need a paper on that?
Can I just smother you and let you find out yourself you know?
Let me cover your mouth and nosewhile I get that paper and we'll
see how fast you learn I. Know, but like I have a whole
thing at like yes, I'm a huge yes, there's so many academic
papers that I truly do think areimportant, but there are a whole
bunch that I'm like duh, duh, that's mean.

(12:32):
OK, but duh. Oh boy, A.
Little mean, sorry. No, I'm the same way.
It's just, and I'm actually finding as a professor that
it's, it's much more about teaching common sense.
It's like here, here's the basicPhysiology.
Now you should be able to figureout the rest.

(12:53):
You know, exercise Physiology ispretty easy.
I'm just giving you the the tools to be able to look at and
say, OK, well that makes sense. So it's probably OK.
That doesn't make sense. So it's not OK.
Right. Yeah.
So yeah, 50,000 papers. Go go dig up pubmed.gov.
You know, vestibular plus you know, like I love, I do love pub

(13:14):
med.gov and the fact that you can do vestibular plus aging,
vestibular plus fall prevention,vestibular plus autism,
vestibular plus ADHD, vestibularplus concussions.
You know, like you really, there's some amazing papers out
there. That's the advantage of the
Internet. I remember as an undergraduate
and first time in my master's program, having to go to those

(13:36):
little green books in the library and you have to flip
through them to find the articles to get all your
potential sources. And then you had to go from
there to the stacks, find the article, put a couple Dimes in
the copier to make copies of it.Now it's like I just go on the
library's resources and type in a few words.

(13:56):
I got a list of tons of articles.
I can get those articles instantly.
Or worst case scenario, I just hit interlibrary loan and I get
it a few hours later. Well, and I, I love my weird
2:00 AM deep dives. You know, like I just suddenly
start searching and boy, the things I can find, well, it's

(14:19):
exciting, you know, So yeah, there's all of these pieces.
But you know, the the example ofworld class sports coming to the
general public I think makes sense.
And and I do have to say I move very easily through the sports
world that that that's a breeze for me.
You know, we have NFL guys and NBA guys and here in
Minneapolis, I have a ton of NHLguys with a lot of concussions.

(14:41):
I'm going to say too, those hockey players, they're that's,
that's a tough group. And of course, you know, NFL and
concussions. And yet at the same time, coming
to the general public has been extremely, extremely exciting
and something our company's justobsessed with.
So what is the connection between spatial awareness,

(15:03):
decision making and vestibular training because that's
important in sport and in kind of general population?
Well, and I talked about my talkabout my mom all the time.
You know, she wanted to do one of those Vikings riverboat
cruises, OK? You know, she's 7879.
You know, like the internationalflight, you know, on the boat,

(15:24):
off the boat, up the stairs, down the stairs, cobblestones.
Europe's very unlevel, really unlevel.
On the bus, off the bus. You know, driving well, so I

(16:05):
talk about real life vestibular.She's she's a good driver.
OK, that's exciting, you know, like that's really, really
exciting. So I talk about real life
vestibular, but that's not some of my work with the military,
you know, it's all tied together.
Pilots. Yeah, we talk about pilots.
That seems obvious. Oh, they flip the plane.
They flip the plane. You know that, you know, OK,
that seems obvious. Yeah.

(16:26):
But what about a gymnast? You know, she's she's flipping
on different literally planes too, you know, but then let's
talk about people driving or walking in different conditions
or slippery or, you know, like all of these different pieces of
real life, you know, that that affects everyone.

(16:47):
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(17:09):
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Thank you. And now back to the podcast.
Yeah. So you work with a wide range of
populations, anywhere from eliteFigure skaters to children to
people with special needs, olderadults.
What are some of the most surprising benefits you've seen
from stimulating the vestibular system?

(17:31):
So I'm going to say a couple of them I don't even understand.
Like, like I have to tell you, like I had to call in the chief
medical officer because I, I don't understand how we achieved
it. Does that make sense?
Like I'll be not like this is such a new realm that we're even
learning as we go from our clients.
My favorite is my concussion, several of my concussion

(17:54):
clients. And I actually I have a bunch on
LinkedIn. My favorite is we call him Thor
because the dude looks like Thor, OK.
Like 6 foot five with the hair and the beer.
Yeah, the dude, he throws axes. You know, like the guy is Thor
in his concussion. It started out with a
snowboarding accident that that turned into a brain bleed that

(18:15):
then after that, then it's it's the stereotypical story of he
kept running his head into everything, the car, the wall,
the door, the bed, that like he just it turned from one
concussion into 10 or 12 or 15 or, you know, it just kept he
just couldn't control his body and just kept slamming his head
into everything. Started working with me and that

(18:36):
and like, and where he started, like I'm always fascinated.
Where do we start? Where are we at?
Six months later and couldn't drive.
His employees drove him to come work with me.
You know, couldn't handle light and sound.
Had to wear the glasses and the earmuffs, like, like a, like a
kid, you know what I mean? Like at a concert, you know,
like he didn't realize he'd losthis sense of humor.

(18:59):
But in six months that that comes back.
He didn't even realize he lost it.
He was so excited. He came into the training room
one day, he goes, he was so excited.
He goes, I was just at a weddingand I stood in a group of six
guys, you know, drinking and he goes, I was talking shit and it
was great. I could keep up with the
conversation. He said like 3 months ago he

(19:22):
would have just whizzed right past me.
I, I couldn't keep up with it because he also talks about like
he was kind of, you know, like awaking dream is, is how he
describes his concussion of like, I'm awake, but it's all
moving around me so weird. Like a dream, you know, the
time, time and space and where am I at?

(19:43):
It was all, he was just all confused.
He calls it like being permanently drunk.
He just couldn't. And he couldn't decision make
and he couldn't figure it out. Like he's just like, yeah, he
comes back. He's like, I was talking shit at
the wedding. It was so great.
I'm like, oh, I'm so proud of you.
Those little things in life, youknow?
But I just talked about so much of the real life of Thor in his

(20:06):
own recovery, yet how that affected his fiance and his
family. And his business and his career,
like everyone else that was affected by the concussion, you
know, so, so we always talk about the individual and we
talked about like my mom and we talked about, you know, autism,
but how does that affect all thepeople around you?

(20:28):
Has been just inspirational in, in the changes that we've seen
that I have to tell you. Could I tell you that vestibular
is tied to humor or talking shit?
You know, like, I don't know, I,I guess I can't say that, But at
the same time we're seeing that,you know, in, in a way that I
even, I don't understand. And you haven't found a doctor

(20:49):
to kind of give you any explanation?
They're working on it. More papers.
Brace yourself. Here comes more papers.
You know, Yeah, I've teamed up with so many.
And we do have a pH. D research coordinator and a
chief medical officer. And so to be honest, the papers
are starting to flow, you know, and although they also tell you
in business, it really takes 17 years to really, really launch.

(21:13):
And I, of course the business side of me questions that
because I, who wants to wait 17 years to help your mom?
You know, who wants to wait 17 years to help your kid?
And it's, it's really, our projects are teaming up, of
course, with academics and with professional sports and more
papers are being written and more projects and, and the
bigger the projects, obviously the more exciting, you know, yet

(21:37):
still at the grassroots level because, you know, I talked
about my pro athletes. Yeah.
Oh, it's so exciting. It's super sexy pro athletes,
you know, but in the same sense too, our work with children and
ADHD and autism and and stroke patients is, is super exciting.
I should connect you with my recent guest, Therese Houston.

(21:58):
She's a neuroscientist from the University of Seattle that just
wrote a book called Smart and Sharp.
I'm sorry, sharp it in, in Sharpis the name of the book, if I
can get that straight. I don't know why I keep wanting
to call it smart, but it's like 14 different things you can do
to kind of improve brain function.
And, you know, we're talking a lot about that, the importance

(22:18):
of movement. And there are some connections
in there in different areas of the brain.
She probably knows better. I, I confess that when it came
to anatomy, and I studied anatomy in my PhD program, I've
taught anatomy, but the neuroanatomy is not kind of my
best area. There's just too many things
going on in the brain, too many different areas.
But it makes sense that, you know, with the vestibular system

(22:41):
communicating with so many different systems within the
brain that it has to tie in somewhat with focus.
And if it's disrupted, then focus is going to be disrupted.
And I can that makes it a littlebit harder to to think, you
know, wittingly or, you know, tobe able to focus better, to be
able to tune out some of those like extraneous sounds or, you

(23:04):
know, to be able to kind of focus in on light.
So it's all connected. I mean, that's what I love about
Physiology. It's all connected.
But even like I talk about sleep, you know, the of the four
things I talk about sleep, OK, but there's there's my whole
like about my PTSD population. The guys aren't sleeping okay.
The the service members are not sleeping.

(23:25):
And so because of that, it's, it's all the trickle down
problems, you know, of not sleeping.
So if I can improve your sleep boom like you're everything
improves, everything improves. And you talked, we talked a
little bit earlier about KedrickBloomquist and his work in
Colorado Springs with my gear. I'm just, he's amazing.
I'm so impressed with him. But he talks a lot about like

(23:48):
working with a lot of this PTSD guys who step one is rage, step
one is rage, step one is rage. Well, after working that
spinning and and getting some gentle vestibular in there and
the guys slept. A West Side barbell showed a 72%
improvement in sleep from Apple Watches and aura rings in their
athletes. So of course everyone's sleeping

(24:09):
better. Well, if you're sleeping better
now, Step 1 isn't rage. Maybe could be more like step 7,
you know, got some time before you hit rage, you know, could,
could we could we improve that for people?
And and I'm just gonna just callit just flat out sleep better
sleep quality sleep better. Boy, would that do for your

(24:29):
family and your wife and your kids and your husband and you.
Like if everyone was sleeping, What, as a human factor, can
that do for your entire life? Yeah, we've just like I started
out, started this podcast with four pillars that I kind of
accumulated from teaching pathophysiology and exercise.
And that was, you know, regular exercise, physical activity,

(24:49):
maintaining a healthy body composition, eating a healthy
diet and not smoking. But we've since added over the
last year, sleep and purposeful social connections.
And I've had to admit that as anexercise physiologist, I got to
put sleep above exercise becausewithout sleep, you can't
exercise effectively. And if you can't exercise

(25:11):
effectively, you're not going tosee gains.
And if you can't sleep, you're not recovering from that
exercise. And so it's really probably the
most important thing. You want to get healthy sleep?
Just like yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, absolutely.
You know, I can't agree with youmore.
Like that's like everything can just calm down when you have

(25:31):
sleep. And, and my favorite example is
of course, when my kids were little and they weren't
sleeping, I cried all the time. I cried all the time.
I was the insane mom, you know, like I really was.
And then out of that, of course,once the kids started sleeping
like I was back to being a. You know, he was dead at 51.

(26:21):
What? And I'm just going to say, you
know, like, and we weren't shocked by that as a family, you
know, like we, you know, that just seems obvious.
You know, it's OK. We call it our duh factor in the
company. Like, duh, you know, like what?
Gary's dead. Yeah, duh.
You know, look what he look whathe did, you know, look how we

(26:42):
lived, you know, like it just makes total sense.
And the interesting thing about all this is, you know, we know
very young at a very at a young age how important spinning is.
I mean, how many of us in our childhood, I mean, you don't see
it as much now, but you had the little merry go rounds at the
playgrounds and kids would, you know, challenge one another,
take a bat and spin around the bat and do all these spinning

(27:04):
things, get each other dizzy andthen just laugh and have a great
old time with it. So let's talk a little about
spinning. Why is spinning so powerful for
the brain? OK, I as a kid have vivid
memories of Joey Edland, like like pushing us on that that big
Mario ground, flying off of it. You learned physics at the young
age of like, if you stood in themiddle, it wasn't as bad.

(27:26):
But when she moved out to the corners, you wouldn't fly it off
like early physics lessons for five year olds, you know?
You learned quick, you know, but.

(28:05):
So we checked it very unscientifically.
If lean in, I got a secret, which ear would the kid lean in
with? And to be honest, my dyslexics,
my struggling kids, my kids and reading programs all leaned in
with their left ear. So my kids that weren't
struggling all leaned in with their right ears.
So what we did is we started forcing them to all rotate

(28:27):
counterclockwise in my gear, trying to get that right ear
dominance for the balance and the axis of the rotation.
OK, so they're not bouncing all over the room.
They're they're staying with that right ear.
So this cute little girl, struggling kid comes back to me
a year later. OK, not struggling, had really
moved up in her class, was out of her reading programs,

(28:50):
becoming a really good athlete, you know, so like all these huge
improvements on this little girl, she comes in one day and
she goes, I know why spinning works.
I'm like, hit me, you're 8, giveit, give it to my sister, you
know, like. And her answer was it was so
cute. She goes everything spins.
She goes the universe spins, theearth spins around the sun.

(29:11):
We're spinning right now on thisplanet and you don't even
realize it. She goes, our blood spins, the
smallest atom spins, everything spins.
So when we spin, we become part of our world, in our universe.
I'm going to be like. What wisdom?
Yeah. Brilliant children, you know,

(29:32):
really brilliant children, you know, So.
But like it, I took a moment to be like, Oh my gosh, honey, you
are like a baby genius, you know, because she looked at it
in a way that the rest of us hadn't.
Like spinning is part of our world.
We're on a spinning planet rightnow.
How do you feel about that? You know, like, could you spin
with it? You know, although I've had
different scientists talk to me about spinning directions

(29:53):
differently if you're on the North hemisphere of the planet
or the southern hemisphere, and I'm like, I don't know the
answer to that. I'm not smart enough.
But that's an excellent question.
We could ask that as a group, you know, going back to ear
dominance, you know, like we really could see.
And the really interesting thingis a lot of my concussion people
switch ear dominance in the concussion.

(30:15):
So maybe they start out left ear, but after the concussion,
their right ear. And then they talk about like
they can't write correctly and they can't focus.
They can't. So I work hard to get them to go
back to their original year of dominance, and boy, they
instantly feel better because now they're processing through
the correct hemisphere of what they learned it as.
Pretty sure the whole idea of like the right brain, left brain

(30:38):
dominance has been kind of refuted.
But you know, we do have different aspects of functioning
on each side of the brain. So it it is interesting that you
know, if you have maybe the concussion area was more damaged
on one side versus the other andhow you spin is going to have an
impact on how that brain. Functions, yeah, we just try and
bring it back to what you reallylearned it as.
But that's what people talked about instantly, like an

(31:00):
improvement in their handwritingagain or that they're processing
correctly or, you know, which even their eye dominance, a lot
of them felt it had changed fromfrom the concussion or the
accident. So like, yeah, it's a whole
other realm that we're just starting to look at.
Some cool areas of science opening up here give me all kind

(31:21):
of ideas, but I'm too far along in my career and too drained to
start on a new energy or new research projects.
But. Maybe come hang out with me, you
know, load up. I'm in Minneapolis, you know,
Although I do have gear more spread out throughout the whole
country with master trainers. We will get you on some gear.
We'll get you spinning. It'll be so fun.

(31:42):
Yeah, I can see me spinning and falling down when I'm done.
So you'll you'll laugh. So like people of course assume
it's a feeling of like Vertigo, like, Oh no, I'll throw up.
And of course, when I post my really fast videos, all you get
is vomit like emojis down it, you know, like, you know, like I
get it. But the kids can do that.
But of course, for the adults, alot of times it we just start

(32:05):
with one spin, you know, then wego, you know, it's just a set of
three quiet one turn spins and that's it.
That's where you start just likeyou would in any form of
physical training. Like we're not going to start
with a £300 bench press, you know, you're just going to die.
So like we start with the barn, we work on technique and we
start adding weight, you know, just like you would in any other

(32:26):
physical training. Same thing with vestibular.
We start slow and we just slowlywork our way up.
And it's not a feeling of Vertigo, it's a feeling of like
alertness, like snap. Like you can feel your sounds
crazy, but you can feel your brain.
So you spin with us, we stop thegear and I get the same look
from everybody if they kind of stop and go, yeah, yeah, yeah,

(32:49):
OK. But you can see their brain like
come back online. It's fascinating, you know, and
in a lot of my videos, I kind ofstop and wait for that.
So you can see it in the video where the kids immediately are
like not dizzy, like I've trained it out of them yet the
adults still you can watch them like feel their brain and you
can feel that snap. And, and the one interesting one

(33:09):
too, I get a lot from my, my proathletes is did you change the
lighting in here? Because I think they've had,
they've gotten some tunnel vision and we opened up some of
those peripherals and a lot of my, even my concussion kids are
like, you know, I didn't realizethe training room was this big,
like, OK, honey. And we didn't change the size of

(33:29):
the room, baby, you know, and they're like, oh, wow, it's
really big and it's really bright.
Like, OK, kid, it's always fascinating, you know, in the
training room. So, but those little pieces of
like, it's not a feeling of I'm I'm gonna puke.
And that's my thing too. The whole goal of all trainers
is to get you up to activation, not vomit.

(33:50):
You know, you think of that one clutch, it made you puke as a
kid. Still don't like them, Like, ah,
you know, they're a terrible coach because that's that's not
the goal is vomit. The goal is activation and
that's that's good enough. That's all I need.
That's what's kind of cool aboutthis kind of training is that it
does fit the model of progressive overload where you
can gradually ramp it up and andsee more and more effects

(34:15):
overtime. And it's not an all or nothing
kind of thing. No, you can just start gently
and work your way up. And people really do.
And, and weirdly, the results for us seem to last about 3
days. You know, so most of my clients
come in once or twice a week. You know, good enough, they come
in, they spin, they leave, 5 minutes they're in, they're out.
In the same sense, my athletes do it seven days a week and I

(34:36):
coach a batch of kids from the Ukraine that moved here and they
were Russian trained athletes, but moved to Minneapolis trained
with us. And they told me that back in
Russia they were doing vestibular really hard spinning
stuff three times a day. So I'm not alone in figuring out
vestibular. The Russians have figured it out

(34:58):
too. Go Russia, but they're doing it
three times a day. We're doing it once a day, which
is different to see. But the interesting part is in
the physio world too is we're really similar to physio and the
fact that it really sticks at the six to eight week mark.
So when at 6 to 8 weeks, like when, whether you're rehabbing a
knee or a hip or about 6 to 8 weeks, it's kind of that magic

(35:18):
number where you're really starting to see the success.
And we're kind of at the same point.
But when at that point, when I give you the option to do less,
I'm like, oh, you're doing great.
It's been 6 to 8 weeks. It's really sticking.
I can't get you as dizzy anymore.
Let's, let's get you, let's do less.
People are all like, no, I'm good, I'll see you next.
I'll see you Tuesday. You know, I'll see you Thursday.

(35:40):
You know, when they're given a chance to do less.
All my clients decline. They, they still like doing it.
They they want to keep doing it.So I, I find that that's so
interesting that they, they loveit, so they don't quit doing it.
I wonder how far you can take them because I just kind of
imagining some of those movies I've seen of, you know, the NASA
training the astronauts and the,the amount of spinning that they

(36:02):
they do. Well, I'll be honest, my Figure
skaters are OK and I'll be honest.
So I worked with some special forces guys, OK.
Like I've worked with some Marines and some Seals and yeah,
I've worked with all of them andI have some 8 year old girls
that can beat every single guy, every single seal I've worked
with. Now I'm going to say too,
there's also mass. OK, at some point, you know,

(36:24):
there's mass. So like the girls are tinier and
the guys are just bigger and so their mass spin slower.
Just saying. But I, I have some kids that can
just turn it down. They're so good.
Even I'm impressed. I'm like, wow, this little girl
so good, you know, but it's training.
What step one, What, how do you get good at anything training?

(36:46):
How do you get good at reading? You read, you know, how do you
get good at tennis? You, you play tennis, you know,
like reading won't make you goodat tennis.
You got to go do it, you know, because as humans and my other
favorite question get all the time is can I do it once and
never do it again? And I'm like, can I go for a jog

(37:07):
and lose 100 lbs? You know, I mean, like, can I do
something once, can never do it again and benefit from it?
And I was like, are you a human?That's not really how humans
work. It's really not how humans work.
If we can find that magic pill and exercise science that you
know you can do it once and holdon to it forever, then would be
billionaires. I know, but there's also a

(37:28):
delusion to that, Like, like human delusion, you know, like,
yeah. Yeah, this figure skater has
just amazed me how they can spinlike they do and then stop that
spin and then just start skating.
I know, but. How do you do that without just
puking and? Different, you know, and that's
what we can train to apply to everybody else.

(37:48):
So like, yeah, if you really look at a figure skater and I
also talked about like standing even at like ice level and watch
a really good figure skater, youcan't even get to their starting
position, you know, you can't even skate there.
You know, like I watch you watchpublic skating, you're like, oh,
you know, this is how people diewhere these these athletes that

(38:09):
we're working with are doing extraordinary things.
And my favorite example of of the sport of figure skating
away. I got to do this one just
because you'll love this. So they're in .72 seconds and
they said even the bio mechanicsguys are like I said, it's
impossible. Quad axle, OK, to go from your
left foot to your right foot, switch feet in midair, jump it

(38:30):
yourself .72 in midair and to turn 4 and a quarter turns,
ready, take off land and you turn 4 and a quarter turns.
Could you have done that? Yeah.
OK. Like, like it's crazy what
they're doing. And the fascinating part is they
said it was totally impossible. We've got two kids doing it
right now in the world, the onlytwo in the world, but they're

(38:53):
doing it and they're doing it consistently in .72 seconds.
Like the sport has completely changed.
We always talk about like Dorothy Hamill, she wouldn't
even qualify at the state level anymore.
I mean, we had we had eight-yearolds that could beat her.
The sport has completely changed.
But how did the sport change? And the answer is these kids all

(39:13):
grew up on harness systems and really learn to rotate younger
and faster at younger ages. And now I mean look at what I
used to manage a personal training.

(39:42):
Facility for Allison Tagalay Nettie.
Her husband at the time was PeteTagalin Tagalin and he played
for the Penguins. And I ran into her and her twins
and her older son at the skatingrink and she was laughing at me
so hard. She's like my 3 year olds can
skate better than you. I coached, and this is so funny.

(40:05):
I coached Herb Brooks from Miracle on Ice, the head coach.
Herb Brooks's grandchildren herein Minneapolis, And at 322 and a
half, three years old, the boys were good at crossovers at 3,
like they were doing forward andbackward crossovers at 3.
Brill. I'm glad you said you you
coached his grandchildren, not him.

(40:26):
This is like, I didn't think youwere that old.
I. Coached her, Brooks's
grandchildren. Yeah.
Kelly's kids. Yeah.
It was really fun. So it's Minneapolis.
Everybody can skate. Yeah, you have to.
I mean, what else can you do in Minneapolis in the winter time?
The kids all learn to skate and swim because between the lakes
and the, the ice arenas and, andthere's hundreds and hundreds of
ice arenas here in the Twin Cities, you know, so all the

(40:48):
kids learn to skate and people have even birthday parties like
skating birthday parties are a thing here in Minneapolis.
Yeah, I just never took the skating.
But where'd you grow up? I grew up in I grew up in
Pittsburgh. OK, you know Pittsburgh Penguin.
The best hockey town in the world, but.
Yeah, Joe Ditzig, one of the former Penguins coaches.

(41:09):
I've I work with them here in Minneapolis.
Joe Ditzig. Yeah, there's, there's some
concussions there. Yeah.
Yeah, I'm sure we better not getdown the Hockey Rd.
Here. There's a discussion there.
I may not be a good hockey player, but I'm a big hockey
fan. So all right, let's get back to
kind of the science of this. You talk a lot about, like the

(41:29):
Romberg, if I'm pronouncing thatcorrectly, test.
That's a classic test in assessing postural control.
What is this and how does it connect to your work?
So the one to be honest I use the most is my favorite, the
modified cat Sib. OK, and this is also what
Kedrick Bloomquist is using too.You'll see it in a lot of his

(41:50):
videos of standing on the flat surface.
This is a company called BalanceTracking Systems.

(42:19):
FDA approved. Great company of the human
movement. And so we do this test all the
time and we've used several companies and, and I'll be
honest, we love to pre and post test on all different types of
things. So we've also pre and post
tested on even like neuro tracker.
Huge fan of neuro tracker. So it's the moving ball game.

(42:39):
You got to keep track of the balls and the ball speed up as
you speed up and the balls slow down as you slow down.
OK, so we'll pretest neuro tracker go spin with me, come
back and retest and your score goes goes up because your brain
just firing better. So same thing at like the zoo
sports from interactive, you know, like they're they're a

(43:01):
smack board or like smart fit, really great companies, 2 great
companies that you you do reactionary testing, you spin
with me, you retest, your score goes up.
It's it's stunning. But the balance tracker is our
favorite. We've also teamed up with
neurocatch. I'm a hand talker like a, you
know, neurocatch when moving, but neurocatch is a great brain

(43:25):
scan company. It's about a 6 1/2 minute brain
scan. Same thing pretest with the
brain scan spin with me retest. And that's where I'm going to
take just a second to tear up a little bit in people's
improvements, especially on in groups that I wouldn't think
could get better, got better. And so my, my 3 great examples

(43:48):
and I'm happy to send you the data is really exciting.
Have some data. I have data for you from
neurocatch is that the, the ladythat had had strokes and
concussions only improved 100% in her brain speed.
OK, and use less electrical energy to do it.
OK in the post test. So she speed up by 100%.

(44:09):
The lady with early onset Alzheimer's improved 400%.
I'm like how is this even possible?
And my gentleman with special needs adult gentleman.
His left hemisphere was inactivein the pretest and in the post
test it came up to speed and talked to his right.
So left and right were communicating where it was

(44:32):
inactive in the pretest, all from just some gentle spinning.
And so, so I was talking, we always keep going back to like,
how can you test this? How can you prove it?
And I feel like in the world of in the olden days, you'd call it
like woo woo, like, oh, this is woo woo.
OK, But we can prove that now because there's so many great
ways to test things now with other scientific groups.

(44:54):
So like, how did we show balanceimprovements, balance tracking
systems? How do we show cognitive brain
scans pre and post tests? I got to go back Thor, my
concussion guy, who I talk aboutall the time, tested normal in
his pretest after six months of working with me.
So six months of working with meonce a week going from I can't

(45:15):
drive, I can't handle light, I can't handle sound.
I, I don't have a sense of humorlike, you know, like that whole
story. He tested normal in the pretest
to the point Tanya Yardley over at Neurocatch said, Are you sure
he's had concussions? Be like, oh, yeah, we're
positive he's had concussions, We're positive.

(45:36):
You know, so like like these. So we can test on neurocatch for
brain scans. Spatial is a little harder to
prove. OK, that.
But people talk about the light,they talk about the, the sound,
they talk about the driving, youknow, So I, I talk about driving
skills is where we can probably show that.
But of course then the fourth big one of sleep once again

(45:56):
Apple watches and aura rings than people just dropping into
that REM sleep faster, you know,So is it testable?
All of it's testable, you know, which is where we can prove our
products work. So I might need to do some
spinning and don't actually haveaccess to you.
So what are some simple vestibular training techniques

(46:19):
that older adults I can include myself or anyone really can try
at home? Well, there's the obvious, you
can, you can spin yourself, you can stand up and spin in a
circle. And my favorite story to this is
there's a lovely 3000 year old Tibetan spinning theory called
the Five Tibetan Spinning Theories that you spin with your

(46:41):
palms up three times a day, at least eight turns, and you will
lead a harmonious life. There you go.
So the Tibetans have figured this out too.
For sure. You can spin yourself.
And I'll be honest, we've even pre and post tested that of
spinning yourself and people didimprove.
Like absolutely people improved,but they improved faster in in

(47:04):
our studies with my gear only because it forced you to react
to what I was doing to you. So yes, we were still spinning
you, but you had to react to theequipment, which I also compared
to like sitting in the passengerseat and driving the car.
Yeah, Yeah, you're both, you're both cognitively there, but one
has to do more work than the other.

(47:25):
And the whole piece to of standing and moving versus
sitting, two totally different things.
So you'll see like a spinning office chair for sure.
You could spin around on an office chair for sure.
OK, well, OK, good. Fine.
Yeah, you can do that at home. But it's different than standing
and spinning because it's two different cognitive loads of

(47:46):
sitting versus standing. So I can just kind of go to one
of the local parks if they have those merry go rounds anymore
and just stand in the middle andpay some kids to just spin me as
fast as. Possible.
Exactly. Hold on, I have a nice plate in
my wrist for mine. You'll not as artists have
harnesses so that you're safe and secure and not falling off.

(48:08):
Let's avoid that piece to it, you know?
So. But yeah.
But I still go back to just gentle spinning, gentle turning.
And I'm going to even say, too just moving your head, like
getting that because I feel likeas we get older, the temptation
is to hold our head still and and not move our head like, oh,
you know, that makes me dizzy. Well, the more you got to move
your head to keep that gel moving through that vestibular

(48:29):
system and it not just sitting all day, you know, I mean, like,
like by as we age, we're like, oh, well, we'll just sit and
we're not going to move And OK, well, duh, that's not good for
you. Duh.
OK, you got a movie that turn your head in.
And my favorite example is like,how do kids get onto a couch?
They flip, they twist, they turntheir whoa, you know, like, how
do kids move? OK, And as adults, I I watch my

(48:53):
one auntie kind of shuffle. Yeah.
And I'm like, OK, yeah. Like, oh, cognitively you can,
you can see the decline because she's not moving enough and
keeping that head moving and, and even just like walking and
turning your head, it's, it's hard and that shouldn't be hard.
That seems like my Bulgarian bag, which is another one of my
favorite tools, can be very useful because you're getting

(49:15):
that rotational spinning and allthat.
Because too many of us, we go tothe gym.
You get on a treadmill, you're moving linearly.
You get on a bike, you're not even moving, you're just
pedaling. You're doing weight training.
You're doing a lot of more linear types of movements.
You're not working. Yeah, you might work in multi
planes, you might work frontal plane, you might work sagittal
plane, you might work in an oblique plane, but you're not

(49:37):
working in all those planes moresimultaneously.
So as much as we can just simplyget moving in multidirections
and have a benefit. Well, and Kadrik Bloomquist does
it best, but I'm going to totally quote Kadrik Bloomquist.
Like, like cardio is for your heart, OK yeah, treadmill for
your heart. OK, vestibular for your brain,
you know, and and I just think that's just a great way to say

(49:59):
it, but, you know, but it's moving.
And I also talked about real movement, OK, Like, like, and I
compare it to like even like video games, like I understand
it looks real, but your brain knows it's not OK.
So you're doing like all this miscellaneous stupid stuff and
your brain knows that. So it's like, ah, we can, we
don't have to work as hard, you know?

(50:19):
And I talk about that even, oh, kids and screens, too many
screens for the kids. It's not real.
And they're looking at just mundane, stupid reels of nothing
that means anything to any. What are we doing, you know,
filling their brains with junk, you know, real movement, real
time, real space. I, I think that's important.

(50:41):
But even like there's been some really kind of not great papers,
even on treadmills that, you know, I'm walking, but I'm not
walk outside. It's different than a treadmill,
you know, and you know, the, thetipping and the moving and the
on level surfaces and the curb, you know, that's, that's real.

(51:02):
Yeah, I love that one treadmill that Kendrick talks about that,
you know, it moves from side to side, forward, up and down, and
you can control it so that you can progress it, but it makes
you know you're progressing withyour reactiveness.
Yeah. It's called Reactive.
There's so many. It's a great company.
Great company. Yeah, well.
And, and there are so many different tools out there.
I, I had a Athletic Republic franchise for a while and we

(51:25):
opened up when they were then partnered with a athletics shoe
wear company that I will not mention because they really
pissed me off because they discontinued the whole
partnership just as I was opening.
And we were kind of foundationalon that partnership.
But they had serbophonic glassesthat, you know, would they'd
flash, you could see, they'd go blank.

(51:46):
And, you know, so it, it regulated how much visual input
you were getting. And so that was a big part of
our training was working with athletes reactively and doing
that. And it's 1 component of the
many, many dimensions of the reactiveness in sport.
But one of the phrases that I continue to teach, and this has
been probably 12 years since I closed the facility, I learned

(52:08):
from Steve Swanson, who was her chief science officer and
brilliant biomechanist, brilliant guy.
And he always talked about training the brain.
And you know, as we are trainingwith athletes and training with
non athletes, it's always about training the brain.
Everything begins and ends in the brain, whether it's our
ability to maintain posture, balance, coordination, reaction

(52:29):
time, contracting a muscle, strength, you know,
cardiovascular even. All of that begins and ends in
the brain, OK. So I'm going to not a secret,
I'm not supposed to say it, but I'm just going to say it.
Don't tell anybody, OK? Don't tell anybody.
But we, we're teaming up with everyone and, and that's really
in an industry that I think mostindustries fight.

(52:52):
I'm working on bringing all these, these groups together.
So of course, I think my product's great, but I think
when you team it up with other products, it's extraordinary as
an industry of this whole neuroscience group coming
forward. So we partnered with Lifetime
Fitness. OK, so we're talking about the
body and the brain in the same location.
So we're opening up at the it's,it's built.

(53:15):
You can go see it. Come hang out with us in
Minneapolis. It's at their their flagship
location in St. Louis Park, MN, 13,000 members
in the building and master trainers using the gear.
And you can workout your body and your brain in the same
location. But in that room is reacting.
Neurotracker, US balance tracking systems, Maverick.

(53:37):
All of us are waiting. Did I say interactive anyway?
Interactive Zoo sport. Yeah.
Make sure I get the right companies here.
We're all teaming up in the sameroom so you can work out your
body and your brain in the same location.
And I have to take a second to talk about Brahm.
Their CEO at Lifetime Fitness came and trained with me.
He's he's a busy man. He's got 190 locations.

(53:59):
The guy is busy where's 24/7 andhe came to train with me and he
loved it, you know, But he talksabout as a child in Iran growing
up watching the whirling dervishes, you know, that would,
that would spin, you know, in the costumes, you know, but
they, they'd live forever like those those old people live
forever, you know, But it's beenhours, you know, it's

(54:21):
fascinating to see, you know, the whirling dervishes.
So, so like these projects are teaming up all over and we talk
about our master trainers and you know, where you can reach
our gear and we've teamed up with other, we talked about like
1 specialist can help 1000 people with our gear.
We have some guys down in Tampa at the Bio Optimizational
Institute and oxygen too, so that they spin you, they have

(54:42):
red light, they have oxygen. It's it's fascinating to see
them apply our gear with their specialty.
Yeah, I think the potentials areendless and you've kind of
described yourself as having huge theories about brain and
spinning. What is 1 theory that you are
most excited about right now? I think I can help everyone with
a brain. If you have a brain, I think I

(55:04):
can help you. I can help you in one of those
four areas, and where those fourareas are I what what you need,
your brain will figure out. But I think I can help every
single person with the brain. Pretty powerful words, but.
I'm obsessed like, and you can, you can see that and people talk
about me all the time. I'm, I'm an overwhelming person,
which is really funny because I'm super short and look like a

(55:26):
figure skating coach, you know, but like I am obsessed with
children with ADHD and autism and, and seeing all these
changes that I can see and they can feel in how that affects
that individual, much less theirfamily.
I'm just obsessed with, I can't stop talking about it to the
point my family is so sick of me.

(55:46):
Yeah, the whole thing, like my family is so sick of me.
We'll be somewhere in a restaurant.
People like, So what do you do for a living?
I'm like, oh, look what I get here.
Look at these videos, you know, people like my family's like,
uh, you know, but at the airport, at the post office, at
the bank, you know, I'm that person, you know, so I'm a lot,
but when I see how many people we can help, I, I just can't

(56:09):
stop being obsessed. And that obsession has led to
more than a couple patents. Tell us about some of your
products you've developed and what inspired their creation.
No, I I have a couple of patents.
My first start out in figure skating, it was a bungee cord.
Oh, I have one right here. Just happened in this.
Case. It's a bungee cord with a clip
on it. I have a patent on this.

(56:31):
It just ran out. It's been 20 years, but it's a
it would hook to your skate and then the cord would go up to
your hand and then it would tie you together kind of like a
puppet. And you had to move as a unit.
So I force you to move as a unitand not unorganized and
ridiculous results. All the Olympians grew up on

(56:52):
them. You know, all the world.
The little kids used them and I think they're a fabulous
product. They were called Champion Court.
So this is my first run at business and Patents and my one
uncle who told me I was stupid, you know, you got to have those
people in your life, you know. And then we have a patent on our

(57:14):
fly system of our harness with the electric spinner underneath
it with a family option. We have a patent on that with
the US that we just got only about a year ago.
And then we have a patent pending on our rail system that
you can hold on to, which is great for my aging population
and my concussion people. So the fly option is where I

(57:37):
love it for military kids, firefighters, cops, chaos people
because it adds not only the vestibular, but the chaos
training of flight. It's, it's insanity.
Like you can feel your brain. It's and it's overwhelming to a
lot of people. So that's kind of like phase

(57:57):
two. Phase 1 is just that rail system
that you can hold on to. We can do a midline cross.
We do some eye tracking, you know, some head movement, move
the different canals. But we do have levels of skill
that we can do for people. But even we've even worked with
amputees on it, you know, like, like they've all adapted and
it's just been fascinating. But yeah, so we have two patents

(58:19):
and then the patent pending. And I always joke my next
husband could be a patent attorney because then file more
patents. There's a lot going on in my
head. There's a whole bunch of ideas
in here. I'm happy it's not happening
soon. So in addition to spinning your

(58:41):
brain literally and figuratively, what else are you
doing personally to age well? So because I've met so many
people, like I've met so many people in the industry, I'm
applying more companies productsto mine, much less myself.
So of course my own spinning, but I even I'm teaming up with a
group called Neuronics, which islike a red light cap, you know,

(59:03):
And every morning while I have breakfast, I got 10 minutes
focus that, you know, I use, I use red light therapy on my own
brain. I love it.
You know, I think it's really fun.
There's some other great companies that I've met along
the way that I really think can tie in with mine.
But I see how powerful they are all together.

(59:23):
So I I do love, you know, Maverick and I love, you know,
Neurotracker boy, you got it. You got to work.
You know, that brain is kicking,you know, and so I really think
there's some wonderful products out there and there's there's
even there's some even some great apps out there, you know,
for you know, that are even I just my favorite ones are real

(59:47):
products that I have to really do like.
I'm not as yes I've done the phone app ones and I've done
some other appy type ones but I like I like real things because
my brain likes real things. And you are clearly passionate
about this work, So what keeps you inspired?
I think that's probably pretty easy, keeping you inspired.

(01:00:08):
But what impact do you hope to have in the world of aging and
brain health? That's a big question.
For the person, I mean that that's easy.
For the person, it's obvious and, and improved outcomes that
that's just an obvious answer. But I also talked about it for
their families. You know, if we can keep your
mom from falling and breaking her hip and $80,000 later and

(01:00:31):
six months in a nursing home anddying a horrible death, I if we
can avoid that, that changes everything for everyone.
Quality of life, quality of living, I it's all pieces that
we as a society really have to look at.
And the cost. I was just, I was just speaking
at an aging conference and there's like, what is the cost

(01:00:52):
of nursing homes these days? It, it'll, it'll bankrupt a
family, it'll absolutely bankrupt a family.
And what's, what's that legacy to your children?
You know, there's no inheritances, there's no,
there's no financial support andlegacies, you know, I mean that
that's hard to look at. You know, I so I feel like
that's pieces we can all improvefor our whole society by quality

(01:01:17):
of life. So as we wrap up, where and how
can our guests connect with you and learn more about your work?
Well, I do a lot on LinkedIn. Find me on LinkedIn.
I love me some LinkedIn, but this is where I feel like we all
have to team up to help bring these products with your PTS and

(01:01:37):
your OTS and your doctors and inyour area in requesting this
type of training so that they will purchase for the community.
Like I do talk about 1 unit and help 1000 people so that one PT
could help a lot of people in their community much as
community centers or or school systems.
I'm doing a couple projects withsome schools, you know that we

(01:01:58):
can help hundreds and hundreds of children with one or two
units and that's that's really the goal of the company.
Of course there's our website, everybody loves a website,
butitsspinyourbrain.com, so pretty easy, spinyourbrain.com.
And then we also, of course, have an Instagram and a Facebook

(01:02:19):
page, although we ran those under vestibular training
services and you got to learn how to spell the stibular but.
They can Google. Yeah, you'll learn.
And. Of course we put some effort
into Instagram and Facebook, nota lot.
We put way more effort into, of course, LinkedIn, so.

(01:02:42):
And this is not a paid advertisement for.
You should. You should be there so, but
especially the professionals youknow.
I mean I understand why 80 and 90 year olds aren't on it, but
their children and their PTS andtheir doctors should be.
I think all the 80 year olds areon Facebook now.

(01:03:03):
Well, LinkedIn is where I connected with you so.
Well, and that's where I actually met my NASA people and
my PTS and OTS and doctors and, you know, like, yeah, but I got
to meet NASA and I got to be part of several their
presentations who was on LinkedIn.
So like, how exciting was that? Yeah, NASA like.
How exciting. So is there anything we missed

(01:03:25):
today? I don't know, I I could keep
talking for hours. Yeah.
I feel like we've covered a lot.Many hours but this.
We can always bring you back. That'd be great, but this is
also my time to invite you and, and and your peers and your
students to come try the gear, come try it, see it, feel it,
use it. Pre and post balance tests come
from the lifetime over in Saint Louis Park.

(01:03:46):
I mean, all of these projects are available to the public and
we, we just keep growing in locations.
So as our locations grow and ourmaster trainers grow, it's, it's
really, it does make it available to everyone.
Yeah, I've been, you know, as aneducator, I have been starting
to use my podcast episodes a lotmore in my classes and I teach a

(01:04:10):
breath of classes everything from pathophysiology and
exercise, exercise Physiology toadvanced programming for sport
and fitness. And I just this past term taught
a class in health, what is it? Sport and health span
optimization. And, you know, so my students
are getting bombarded with all these different tools and, and

(01:04:31):
skills that they can bring into their training.
And many of them are physical, going to be physical therapist,
occupational therapist, sports conditioning coaches.
And so it's really fun to kind of bring all these pieces
together as I kind of get towardthe end of my career, to be able
to kind of all this knowledge that is accumulating to bring it
together and kind of share with my students and hope that they

(01:04:54):
take it forward. Because I think there's so much
we have yet to learn and so manypieces that we can put together
to do it right. And let's go change the world
like and that sound like crazy people for saying that let's go
change the world. Let's go help a lot of people.
Let's let's go make everyone's lives better.

(01:05:14):
But we'll. Make everyone age well.
So we haven't missed anything. We have probably have.
But I just want to thank you forcoming on today.
This has been a fascinating conversation.
Looking forward to kind of sharing this with the world and
hopefully they will connect withyou.
And least try spending a little bit like, you know, do it in the

(01:05:36):
comfort and safety of your home or go to a professional.
Don't just go out in the middle of traffic and try spinning
around. I don't know how much spinning
around drivers do in Minnesota in the winter time.
I used to love doing that as a kid going in the parking lots
when it snowed around here in Portland, OR.
They don't like the snow. They didn't go out in it.
And it's like, I want to go out.I want to like just go in the

(01:05:57):
parking lot and do some Donuts. So thanks again.
And just keep doing what you're doing and keep aging well.
Thank you so much. I'm so honored.
Thank you. Totally grateful.
Thank you. You're welcome.
Thank you for listening. Hope you benefited from today's
podcast. And until next time, keep aging
well.

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Movement Refines the Mind: The Power of Vestibular Training with Sheila Thelen | Ep. 292

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.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}Movement Refines the Mind: The Power of Vestibular Training with Sheila Thelen | Ep. 292