EP 168 WTH?!?: Empowering Mobility and Longevity with Dan Metcalfe

Foreign.

Welcome back, everybody. Dr. Greg Eckle. And what the health for part two of how movement is critical for longevity. Again, I've got dan Metcalf of 60 up here and we're really going to get into it today with why balance and mobility, how this fits together with, you know, aging gracefully and with strength. We have a lot of folks that have neurodegeneration and balance issues, gait problems. As we age, we notice the frailty of aging. Dan, this thing, you know, you shared on our last meeting about the stories with Bob Eubanks and how this came to fruition. And I wanted to invite you back and really, let's kind of see what you're talking about here. And so I'm really excited for today's conversation.

No, thanks. It's great to be back here. And there's nothing that I enjoy more than really demonstrating how you can add seven to eight years to your life with which is a clinical study. This is real data that a study was done back in 2010 with 1300 women who were tested for their balance. And they followed. And this was ladies that were over 65. And the top 30% lived seven to eight years longer. And that's not just life. That's quality of life. And when you look at balance, and I'm sure everyone watching this knows as well, falls are the biggest cause that lead to death. It's not maybe the fall itself, but think about this, people over 65, 10% that fall would die within that year. Wow.

10%. 10%.

And it's. Yeah. And this is all the, you know, statistics that come from CDC and all the different places.

Yeah, It's a massive issue as we age with frailty of bones breaking of bones in particular secondary to falls. And that really is, you know, maintaining our dexterity, our flexibility, our strength, our balance. These things are amazing. And when we met with you at a longevity conference and you put us through your rigamarole, I was super impressed with it. So much so that, you know, I'm, I'm bringing you in on our communities. We're going to do some specialized training and coaching of folks. And this is really our intro out. I wanted to share this because this is a big, this is a big deal, Dan.

Yeah, everyone's going to suffer from some form of loss of mobility, whether it's because they've had an accident or a neurodegenerative disease. I've worked with so many people with Parkinson's. In fact, one of the Top scientists from Parkinson.org turned around after I Did a demonstration. She said, everyone with Parkinson's should have this. So, you know, again, it was great that you got on the board and understood the program, because it's like anything. If you don't feed it or I should say, when you feel it, you completely understand it. Otherwise, it just looks like a regular board. Oh, I got a balance board, a wobble board. But it's the program. And so if I could embellish a little bit or indulge, I should say how this came about for those that may not have seen the first one. Bob Eubanks, newlywed Game rose Parade for 38 years, was 79. He had been falling quite a lot. And I owned a sports performance gym which was based on movement for top athletes. And I thought I knew what I was talking about. So I said to Bob, let me train you. So he's a little resistance to begin with, because people don't want to admit they've got a balance issue or a mobility even they fall and they think they get better. So I got Bob in. I said, okay, we're going to do what every good trainer would do. I'm going to strengthen your legs, strengthen your hip flexor, strengthen your core. You'll be more stable and you're going to walk better. And within two minutes, I was 100% wrong. In fact, it changed my life as much as it changed Bob's. Your balance comes from the brain. Everything is originated thought to the cerebellum, sending down the messages, your proprioceptive, your pressure points exactly the same way as a baby learned to walk. So I went back, created this program, created the board you're going to see in a minute with over 300 exercises to have complete proprioceptive messaging and speed up. And this is what's critical, speeding up the messaging. Because if you feel, but it's not quick enough, by the time brain feels what's happening, you're already going over. And in three weeks, I'm so proud to say that Bob went from stumbling and unable to get in and out of a car and walk in what I call the old man shuffle. He went to six miles an hour on a treadmill, running up and down these stairs, back playing golf, in and out, walking miles. And the biggest change was emotionally, he was excited to live again. So that's how it all came about. Never meant to sell just to help Bob, but he had so much success that people were like Dan. And then I trained stroke survivors. My own mother, who's incredible, she's a doctor from Harley street back In London. In five days, she went from having been a stroke survivor and unable to dance for a year in five days a year. And then she went back to dancing. That's my greatest story, because here's the lady who gave me life and I gave her back.

It's your mom, of course. That's awesome.

Yeah. Wow.

Well, so let's, let's get into it. I, you know, I think the component we. We realize, you know, mobility and our strength and our balance is really crucial. So you've got a unique board. This is not just your. Anybody's wobble board or, you know, I, you know, the wood board on a ball, which are very difficult and somewhat dangerous, especially for guys like me. How does this, how does this differentiate? How is this different?

Okay, so going back and studying kids and understanding different movements and what's happening, the brain has to have time to figure the pressure points out. So if you look at a baby trying to stand, it will fall to fall. And the brain has to have multiple repetitions of the same movement just to be able to stand and balance. And then when they take the first step, they fall, they take the first step and they do it time and time again. So I looked at our neurological system and said it doesn't change. It's. It comes from the brain. It goes down through our spinal column. We've got our neurological system. All we need to do is rewire it or strengthen it. I should say, rather than we're not rewiring. But even with Parkinson's, ms, if there's. Or accidents, strokes, if we move, the brain will find, because of our neuroplasticity, ways to connect down again. So very simply, we've got to remove fear and allow ourselves time to let the brain go. Because we know with the. Your sympathetic system and our fight flight, freeze or flock or, you know, whatever we want to start looking at. We're only free when we have no longer have fear. So what I had to do was create a program that removed any fear, that gave the freedom for the brain to feel and have enough time to really connect.

Awesome. I like that. End fear.

Yep. Look at, look at the. I can't even talk today. Look at the lack of confidence. And that's normally when you'll see people, they'll start shuffling. Their eyes go down to the ground. They watch, they become completely consumed with not falling. And we know what you focus on is where you're going to go. And we also know that if you spend all the time with your eyes down one, you're taking your body forward because as you look down, your head leans forward. There's more chance of going forward. But also when we're looking, the brain can get a little lazy of feeling. Because now the brain, the eyes are doing the adjustment. They're telling us what's going on. Then we're beginning to go. The eyes are going to the brain. Hey, I'm falling. The brain goes, well, I haven't felt it as quickly. Because the brain should be autonomic when it comes to pressure points and feeling. Once we've learned it, we never think about our balance. When we're at the height of our athletic ability, it's natural. We can do multiple different things. Now you'll go skiing down, you know, the slopes. You've got your music on, there's someone waving at you, and you feel good, the wind's blowing. You'd never think of your balance. You're just in flow. And whenever something changes, you've corrected before it's ever an issue. Once we become cognitive and scared, we now know that the brain now is having to be guided to correct our body. We want to remove that and let it become autonomic again. That we feel and correct before we're even conscious of a change in our balance.

Back to flow. All right, well, how. And this can be trained and retrained?

Absolutely. I've trained tens of thousands. Yeah, I mean, I've trained tens of thousands of people. And again, aging Mississippi. My own girlfriend has Ms. And went from being on a walker back to 10 miles an hour on a treadmill. It creates confidence. Parkinson's, ataxia, stroke survivors, TBI. As we thought about last time, I'm a TBI survivor. Part of my brain died in 2018. I had to learn to talk again properly. I got hit in the head by a metal pole and knocked unconscious.

Yeah.

And I use this because movement creates activity in the brain, and the brain having that activity back to the body creates a complete system. Not overhaul, but reinforcement.

I also want to just put a plug in. I'm sure you have worked with multiple athletes and working on performance and top achievers. So maybe let's. Let's bring that into that discussion, too. So it's not just for pathology or degeneration.

Yeah. In fact, Willie Galt, some of you may have heard of Willie Goat. He ran the second leg in Carl Lewis's 4 by 100 meter team that won, broke the world record. And then he was also with the NFL. He's a hall of Famer, played in two Super Bowls. I took it for him to see, and he was like, this is when he first saw it. He's like, yeah, whatever. Yeah. He gets sent products to review all the time. I met him for lunch, I got on it. I demonstrate. He goes, yeah. I said, get on. Within a minute of him getting this. Can I keep this? He's one of our biggest endorsers. He uses it, he. He said, because he felt it again. You look and then you see. It's like walking down the road and seeing a dog that looks unfriendly or it's just another dog. But when you kneel down and you pet it, it's got the most beautiful personality. And that's what I love to think about. The 60 up board. It's got the most beautiful friendship. Personality is there to help you and the men's 4 by 100 meter team use it. I was a head coach on the Olympic program. I used it with college athletes, male and female. Brilliant for abs, thighs and buns as well, because once you've got your balance back, now you can take it to a workout level. But also it's. Instead of just rehabilitation, it's preventative. And athletes love to use it because it helps them focus in even more on their core, their pressure points, and the ability to move and adjust quickly without actually even thinking. It retrains the brain to be your maximum.

All right, well, let's. Let's see it. Let's see it.

Okay, this is my favorite part. Awesome. Okay, so a great reveal. This is the 60 upward. Okay, you can see this. All right. Yes. Okay, so this is the board. It has a gentle rock. It's not excessive. It's not like the Bosu ball. That can be very extreme. And certainly when I could put bob on this, or you get scenes or people with balance issues, they're scared to get on this because they're even scared on the floor. So by having it a gentle rock, it gives them the freedom to move the handles, stop them from falling. In other words, when I get on here, we know when you hold on to something, you feel safer already. And instead of holding onto a wall and the ball board rocking that you'd normally be on and the wall's stable. And so you're really cheating what's happening because you're using your arms in here, your whole body's moving. So let me show you how this works a little bit and feel free to ask questions on the board. It's hard to see from this angle, but we have the numbers 1, 1, 2, 2, and 3, 3 outside the pole, inside the pole, feet together. That's because we want to train multiple areas of pressure point to work left and right side with different foot placement and widths. So what I do to start with is very simple. I just start by lifting my foot and tapping on the number one. It's a straightforward movement. Nice and safe. And people go, oh, that's easy. Okay. Okay, let's go up a little bit higher. Now let's go across to the number three. So we start tapping here. Now, the beautiful thing here is the. And again, when you feel it, you'll get it. The leg that's working is not the one that's moving. Yeah, the leg that's working is the one that's staying on the ground. Because that's why people shuffle when they're like this. It's not because they can't lift their leg for gait. It's if I lift my leg, I'm going to fall over. And so we want to make sure that we have the confidence to do this. Look how slow this is. And now if I did that slow, look at the stride I've got. So now walking at a normal speed in here, I feel completely safe because I've trained at a higher level. I'm going to jump this on a little bit. So now we'd spend doing 1, 2, 3, 2, 1, or even crossing over. So every time you move, the pressure point in the foot you're standing on is changing. And we'd always work at both sides. I even have it where people will write their name. So now, cognitively, they're not thinking of the foot, they're thinking of spelling their name. And the foot's beginning to balance itself. Now, when we first started here, Dr. Greg, people will be like this, and they're falling in here, and they can't get it on. That's what makes it beautiful, is the board would catch them. And now they're not scared to go. Okay, I'm safe. Now I'll start. Then the confidence starts to come in, and slowly they get into that ability. We've already passed what I consider the hardest part makes sense.

It does. It does.

Okay, Next thing, walking upstairs. So now we can step and do our little knee lifts in here. And the difference is, as you're stepping, so does the board move. So you learn to have different pressure points engage. As I also build my hip flexor and the confidence to go on one leg and lift my foot up, I'm going to jump onto this because I know we've got a lot of. I've got so many exercises, but eventually we'll get up on the board and just start with the gentle rock. Now, this is such a smooth exercise, but to begin with, you'll be amazed how many people, especially that have balance issues, are nervous just doing this. But very quickly, they'll learn to get confidence. They realize they can't fall forward, they can't fall to the side. If they go backwards, they can just step down and their confidence is there. Or put it in front of the sofa so they know there's always that safety out as well. And now we just start to rock. Then we start transitioning to single leg movement going across. Then we have it where we'll actually touch the poles. We begin to cross the center of our body as if we were taking a step across, you know, to the side. Then we'll come and say, okay, now find your balance. And they'll have to start doing this. And what's beautiful is the brain now is engaged. We make sure the eyes are up. We don't want the eyes looking down. Judging changes the skeletal form, but we want to have our head up. So again, we're not judging with the eyes. And when we get off of the board, we get used to getting the eyes up so we can go and walk. You can live life. Then we'll come to different positions. You'll like this one. Here's my ski. Movement.

E movement.

I love it.

I love it.

Yes. And what we're doing is obviously pushing on the outside, the foot and the little toe, which is a big weakness. When people fall, they tend to roll. We hear, my foot feels like rocks. And so when they go to the side, they don't have the strength to push back or the flexibility to push back. Then we come to the center. Can we find that? That whole point? Then we're going to go up on our toes. So we strengthen the toes. We can change that up by turning our feet very slightly out. So now as we go up, it's more on the big toe. So we strengthen up on the inside. And then this is where it starts getting really cool. Obviously, we've got the wider stance, but now what happens if I want to train my body to be stronger? I've had an injury. My left leg is a little weaker than my right leg. So now I'm going to try and just rock center in here. So I've got more pressure close to the center. So my leg is working on the left side more than my right. Now let's Go and find the balance. As I'm doing that, I got the left and right side of the brain working together to find me balanced. But we've got the corpus callosum figuring out together where's my balance? But the pressure points are different. Then I might move it to 1 and 3. This is the hardest position. So now I'm working in here, pushing. Now it's much more strength being used in my quad muscle through my glutes again, my core is tight, and now we've got to come and find that balance. And as I do this, now I'm going into a point. You see, if I take my foot off and adjust, I've got 90 weight pressure on my right foot, 10 on the left. So the brain is figuring out different pressure points. And I can just go to here and find my balance, go to here, find my balance, go to here. And I'm pretty good at this. I've done it a few times, but it's a lot harder than it looks.

I was gonna say you are making that look easy because I've been on that board. And while it doesn't look like he's doing much there, that is. That's intense. The other component I wanted to mention for folks, because it might be a little intimidating even at this point, you have those yellow bars, but you also have some ones that are much more sturdy for those with really big balance issues.

Yes. So if I explain, it's a great point. Thanks for bringing that up. These are metal poles. They can't bend at all. So it's as strong as a walker. Stronger than a walking stick, stronger than crutches. They're just one piece. There's no joining them at all. And I created this because I was training stroke survivors that could only use one side of their body. And so I had to make it strong. I love these ones for the confidence and for people. If you're on a walker, if you're in a wheelchair, we've got people from wheelchairs that haven't walked in five years back walking unaided again. So you'd start with these, and eventually you'd take these out and put one of the flex poles in. Because what the bad thing about the metal poles is you can actually control the board with your arm. So I can actually move the ball with my arm, whereas with the flex ones, I can't. So eventually, once your confidence comes up, you remove this. I'd actually have one flex, one metal, and eventually I'll take both metal out and go back to the Flex. But these flex, you'd be surprised how much they give you confidence and they make your feet do the work, which is the perfect place. And of course, once you get really good, you can take the poles out. Yes.

Wow.

Pulls out.

There's some other things that you demoed for me and I'm wondering for folks that may have that shuffle gate or some instability. Now, there was some side to side motions that you gave Kitty and I when we were doing it. I wonder if you could demo those.

Yeah, absolutely. Make sure though. I want. Before I finish, I want to show you how we move the brain further back so we train that the brain becomes autonomic again, that we're not thinking about our balance. So remind me on that one. Okay, so the beautiful thing is we can now go sideways because we want to have balance not just side to side, both front and back. And that's one of the things that makes this board unique, is the ability to change direction and have wider stance on multiple different levels. So the way that I train gate is you'll step on the board this way and when you're not confident, you'll hold on to both poles, but as you get confident, you'll move your hand to the front. So what we do is we stand on the board and all we do is we're just going to just tap in here. And what we're doing is we're teaching ourselves again to stay comfortable on one leg that's not even flat. So we again have more engagement of stabilization muscles. Then what we do is we'll go 1, 2. Now this is longer than a stride we would normally do. So now we're actually training at a higher level than we need. Then I'd have it where you tap, you'd push, you come back, tap back. So we're taking a lot more time than we normally need. Then as we get that, then we just step forward again. The head is up and you just feel I would change the other side. I'm just going to show one leg for the sake of time. Right, perfect. And then with being here, just rocking and now I can just bring the leg up into here as we're going. Then we'll go in work. Okay, now I've got to find my balance. And as you find that balance in there, the core's lifted, your head's up, you can feel the pressure point change from the front to back leg. And this is the beautiful thing right as we're doing this again, the beauty of this is I've created over 300 exercises. We have a 16 CEU course through Issa, and physical therapists will create. Doctors will create another hundred exercises because it's geared to fit your client, not your client. Fit us.

Yeah.

And we are using the greatest technology in the world. People say, what's the greatest technology in the world? Our brain. Your client is using their brain. What's better? So this is full prevention. I'll show you this last one, and then we'll go back. Or any other questions? When someone trips, this is what happens. They fall, and their body goes forward, their hands go forward, our weight goes forward, and we're not going to save the fall. So I teach fall prevention and how to save a fall when you trip. So as I trip, two things have to happen. I triple as my head goes forward, I've got to pull my head back, and I've got to speed my feet up. So that's the two things. What we work on in here is going across the board. As I step down, my body weights forward. As I touch the ground, I keep hold of the pole, which means as I go up, my body has to come back. And then I do quick feet and I turn so I'm here, here, quick feet here, here, here. And then quick feet. And you'll see we have people 80, 90 doing these exercises. Then we'll get to the point where now they'll let go as they step off. So when they get into this position, they naturally do this, and they do it instinctively because we train the brain to react from here. And how do we speed the feet up? We do loads of exercises of turning, little side shuffle where the board will tell me, are they off balance. And when they can hold it in the middle, we know we're good. And then we can step up on the board and we can get into a little running. So we get the heart rate up and it increases the cardio ability. Where we have people in their 80s and 90s that run for 21 minutes in a little club that we have.

Oh, wow. Oh, I can't wait. You know, so we are having you, and I'm inviting you listeners and viewers, to our Tuesdays, our Energy for Life community. It's open and free to all. And then my Wednesday night community is for my brain regeneration renegades, I call them. So now that you. You wanted me to come back to this component of resetting the autonomic balance system of the brain, so I want to maybe finish there. Yeah.

Thank you. So let me show you how this works again. At the height of your Fitness. And we talk about your mobility fitness, your cognitive awareness. You can walk down the street on the cell phone, looking in a shop window, talking to someone. The fire department goes by, you've got distractions as a dog. And we never think of our balance. We're completely engaged. The brain is so far back because it takes care of us. Now our brain is created to take care of us, keep us safe. So how do we do that? What I'll do in here and you'll see. And this is what's so important. Balance is not about finding the middle. Balance is as soon as I begin to go off, how quickly can I correct? That's what mobility balance trading is. This is static trading, which serves no purpose except in the line at the grocery store when it's not moving and someone's got a load of groceries. So how do we train the brain? So we'll start by trying to find that balance. Then I'll say, okay, now start running your fingers, little finger to top finger. So now we're beginning to dual task the brain where it's got to think and create that movement. And my balance now is being engaged. Then I say, okay, great. Now as you're doing that, now look left and right. So I'm keeping my fingers going. I'm now looking left and right and I'm going, okay. And you'll notice that my balance is a little off, but it's correcting without me thinking about it. Then I go, okay, that's three steps. Let's take a fourth step. What I want to do now is I'm going to count backwards out loud. So we got auditory, we changed our spatial awareness. And now from that I'll just say from 19 to 1. Odd numbers only. So now as I'm looking, I'm going 19, 17, 15, 13, 11, 9, 7, 5, 3, 1. And you'll notice that as I was going, my cognitive awareness is thinking, I want to get the numbers right. And I'm having to think, my fingers are still going. Now I'm looking right and left. Now the last one that I do in here, which goes to a whole nother level. And again, you'll see this is all about corrective adjustments. I'm now going to close my eyes while I'm doing it. So now I'm looking, I'm going 20, 18, 16, 14, 12, 10. As we're going here, you'll see we're constantly adjusting. But I have to think I've taken out the eyes ability. And that's the beauty of the polls. Is I can be here, close my eyes. And when I close my eyes and take out our biggest sense for balance, apart from the proprioception, now I'm really training the brain. And when I have my eyes back in, it's incredible what we can do. Last little thing, real quick. Everyone says, what's the Red Bull for? Yes, Red Bull. It's critical to loosen your feet up. If your toes aren't supple, if the tendons aren't firing, if you can't get and have the strength in the toes and feel them independently working, then you're always going to have a problem. So we have the Red Bull in here to do different exercises. Loosen the feet up, loosen the ankles, knuckles up, come up and do loads of different exercises. Calf raises, so the ball's compressed while the board is rocking. So we've got a double adjustment going on. So it really helps pick the brain, its ability.

Wow. I'm gonna give you the red pom pom moment of the afternoon. Thank you. That was brilliant. And I am really excited to get this out. I'm gonna have. We'll have links in the, in the notes on where you can get your board and also an invitation to everybody to come in on our Tuesday trainings. They happen 4pm Mountain time every Tuesday. They are open to you worldwide. We want to share just fundamentals of movement and other components of health that we want to just make available to everybody. So, Dan, I look forward to the years to come and the training that we're going to be doing together with folks on for this main maintaining and strengthening our balance and relearning good habits and agility. This is really awesome and I'm super pumped. So thank you so much for sharing your gift and coming on and more to come, everybody. If you like today's show, get out there, share it with a loved one. This is, this is a game changer. You can really save somebody. You can really get them back in your life. Get their mobility, get their sovereign being out there, their balance back, their confidence goes up. They're not as not living in fear anymore. So again, Dan Metcalf, thank you so much. 60up.com More to come, everybody. We'll see you next time on what the health.