1 Cheap & Easy Underground Training Method For Growth Hormone Release, 5 Biohacks to Increase Strength in 60 Seconds, 7 Exercises for the Eyes to Radically Enhance Stamina & Speed

In this episode of the Ben Greenfield Fitness Show.

I'm a big believer that chronic stress is probably the root of a lot of issues in America. And I think that if you can, you know, reduce chronic stress with some intentional recovery, like hot sauna therapy or cryotherapy, these things can really make a profound impact into your performance. Because you're limiting the energy supply, the oxygen supply, to your slow twitch fibers, which require that to really function. It forces your fast twitch fibers, which don't require oxygen, to kick in. Even though you're using lightweight, those fast twitch fibers under normal circumstances wouldn't really do this if you were training with lightweight without the strap.

He's an expert in human performance and nutrition, voted America's top personal trainer and one of the globe's most influential people in health and fitness. His show provides you with everything you need to optimize physical and mental performance. He is Ben Greenfield.

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Hey, folks, it's Ben Greenfield. And I think it was last December that my friend Kusha, Kusha Karvandi, was at my house for this annual entrepreneurial Mastermind retreat that I host. And on the last day of the Mastermind, he whisked me away into my basement gym and showed me how to strap on these special bands that he created. He called them BFR bands. And then he led me through this workout that was really unique and a. A little bit painful, uncomfortable, I'll admit. But it was designed to enhance things like neural function and lactic acid tolerance and growth hormone release. And the whole time I was wearing these special tight BFR bands that restricted blood flow to my arms and also to my legs. So anyways, though, Kucha isn't just a masochistic trainer who cuts off blood flow to your limbs and has you do barbell squats. I also discover in those few days he was at my house that he's actually pretty wicked smart, especially when it comes to stuff like neuroscience and the neurobiology of exercise. He actually has over 20 different exercise related certifications with a unique specialty in the field of neuroscience, which gives him the ability to be able to kind of tap into the nervous system during exercise in a way that I hadn't really seen someone talk about much before. And he also has some really, really cool ideas, terms of things like decreasing Reaction time and improving the health of the nervous system, and even doing things that a lot of trainers don't talk about, like training the eyes and, you know, biohacking strength very quickly. And so I figured it was high time I actually had him on the show to talk about this stuff, because I love to get nerds on the show. So, Kusha, welcome to the show, man.

Yeah, thanks for having me on the show.

Yeah, no problem. And I. I think a perfect place to start here would be to ask you why the heck you actually attach these crazy devices to my arms and my legs, these. These bands. Because I think, if I'm not mistaken, BFR bands, that stands for blood flow restriction bands, is that right?

Yeah, that's right.

Okay, so how do these things actually work? Like, why is it that one would. One would strap the equivalent of a tourniquet around one's arms and legs prior to exercise?

Yeah, no, absolutely. Yeah. It works in a few different ways. You know, I. I became really interested originally with blood flow restriction training. When I first started seeing the research, probably must have been three or four years ago, and I actually didn't know anything about it at the time. I was looking through the. The journal Strength and Conditioning, and I started seeing these studies and. And like most people, I. I thought, this seems kind of crazy. Why would you want to cut off blood flow? That. That seems kind of like the antithesis of everything I had seen up till that point for performance and strength. So it really kind of caught my eye, and I started doing more research into it, and I found it actually wasn't anything new. It was a type of training that has been around for a long time. It's been around probably for 50 years, but it's become more popular in the bodybuilding community probably in the last 10 or 15 years, and probably just more mainstream in the last few years.

Well, I do remember back when I was bodybuilding, there was a period of time where I think it was in a journal where I read about this thing called occlusion training, and I actually tried it. I tried it for a few biceps workouts where I wrapped, I think, at that point, elastic bands around my arms. And I'd forgotten about doing that for a while. But then after seeing some of the stuff that you do, and actually a few of the other folks who seem to be doing stuff like this that I'll ask you about a little bit later on, it seems to be something that's actually catching on in terms of popularity.

Yeah, no, absolutely. I'm seeing a lot more out there in sports, especially, a lot of athletes starting to do this now. The military's starting to use it now. So it's becoming definitely more mainstream in the last few years, more than anything now.

What's going on? Walk me through this. Delve into the science of this with me. What's going on from a physiological level when you strap stuff around your arms and legs like this?

Yeah. So a couple things are happening. You know, the. What the research has shown is that it's doing a few things from a metabolic standpoint. You're getting this metabolic accumulation of these organic compounds, and one of which is lactate. And when you increase that lactate, it triggers different signaling to the brain, such as increase in growth hormone and IGF1. You also get increases in things like interleukin 15 and interleukin 6. IL15. IL6 are. They're technically inflammatory proteins. But a friend of mine, Dr. JTA, he refers to this as metabolic smoke. So you're essentially creating this metabolic smoke in the tissue that then again, is triggering these different effects. It's triggering an increase in muscle growth as well as stimulating fat loss, is stimulating your metabolism as well.

Now, why is that? Is that because when you're cutting off blood flow and. And metabolic byproducts aren't allowed to escape from tissue during training, there's some kind of a unique response.

Yeah, exactly. That's probably something I should mention in particular, is that one of the biggest misconceptions I had about this form of training is that it's a little bit of a misnomer. You know, blood flow restriction training and occlusion training, which are essentially one in the same, they're not actually occluding complete blood flow. I thought, originally, I thought, why would you want to cut off blood flow? But you're not actually cutting off blood flow. What you're doing, when you're doing it correctly is you. You're only slowing the venous blood return. So the arteries carry the blood into the limbs, and when you do this correctly, the straps prevent blood from getting out. So it's just slowing the blood flow from getting out. And that's how you get this accumulation in those areas.

How does that work exactly? That you would maintain arterial flow to a muscle while preventing venous return? I mean, how are you just cutting off blood flow in one direction?

Yeah, the main thing is that the arteries are much bigger and require a lot more pressure. So if you're wearing these elastic straps, you're, you know, especially if you have the right Width of a elastic strap, then you're going to be primarily putting pressure on the superficial veins. You don't really want to be putting pressure on the deep veins or on the arteries. So if you're not training with, you know, too much pressure or. Or extreme amounts of pressure, then, then you wouldn't have that issue. You would know if you were cutting off blood flow completely because your. Your limbs would start going numb and turning blue.

Got it. Okay. So the roaches get in, but they don't get out.

Exactly.

Interesting. Why would this lead to an increase in growth hormone?

Yeah, so the main thing, again, is that you're getting the. The, you know, the change in the body chemistry is sending signals to the brain. So primarily, one of the mechanisms, or two mechanisms really, is an increase in nitric oxide as well as an increase in lactate.

Okay.

And so when you're accumulating that, then it's sending a signal to the brain to then stimulate human growth hormone and the release of testosterone as well. Really?

You get an increase in testosterone and growth hormone?

Exactly, yeah. Primarily from those increases in nitric oxide and lactate.

Okay. So basically what you're doing is concentrating nitric oxide and concentrating lactic acid by cutting off blood flow from getting out of the muscle. It's not blood flow getting into the muscle because arterial flow stays high, venous return stays low. And that increase in lactic acid and nitric oxide causes an increase in testosterone and an increase in growth hormone.

Exactly. I like to think of it as like weight training for your circulatory system. You're putting this stress on the circulatory system, and when you're doing it correctly, your body should respond with these positive results.

How much of an increase compared to, like, a control group that wouldn't do occlusion training would you see, when it comes to something like growth hormone or.

Testosterone, I think I was reading there's a bunch of different studies. I mean, there's over 200 studies to date on this style of training. And I think I saw a study that was showing 10 to 15% increases over the control group. It tends to work best when you combine it with traditional training. So that's kind of. The. The main thing that I like to explain to people is that you don't have to use this by itself. It can be used by itself, but it can actually work best as a bolt on to a traditional program. So I like to look at it as another tool in your tool belt for performance and strength.

Got it. Now. Now, if you are Limiting blood flow to a muscle, wouldn't you also limit the ability of a muscle fiber to contract or limit the amount of strength and power that you can produce and potentially inhibit your increases in strength or increases in power you might get during a workout? Are you trading a metabolic effect for a strength training effect in a case like this?

Yeah, no. It's actually interesting. What they found is that number one, one of the other things that I found is that it increases mechanical tension. So you're stimulating these receptors known as baroreceptors. They sense pressure in the tissue that tells the brain about where your limb is relative to space and time. So you have better spatial awareness. Whenever your brain has better input, then your brain has the mechanism to say, you know what? I have less threat and less reason to keep your muscles tight and weak for safety and prediction. And then therefore, your brain starts to increase strength and performance and contractile capability. Now, to your point, because you are inhibiting energy supply to some of those muscle fibers, like your slow twitch, you know, type one muscle fibers. These are the muscle fibers we traditionally associate with the marathoner versus the fast twitch fibers, which we associate with the sprinter. So what happens is the kind of the magic of this style of training is that because you're limiting the energy supply, the oxygen supply, to your slow twitch fibers, which require that to really function, it forces your fast twitch fibers, which don't require oxygen, to kick in. Even though you're using lightweight, those fast twitch fibers under normal circumstances wouldn't really do this. If you're training with lightweight without the straps, but because you're doing it in this format, they're, they're getting, you're getting muscle damage and muscle breakdown of those fast twitch fibers, which have the propensity to grow and increase strength and size with lightweight. So it's a very cool hack in that way.

Okay, interesting. So, so basically you're enhancing the fiber, the, the activity in the fibers that would be responsible for like anaerobic or glycolytic training.

Exactly, exactly.

Gotcha now. Now you had like a, like a very specific series of sets and reps. You were having me do, like I would do a high number of reps and then a lower number of reps and then typically a third set with an even lower number of reps. And you were kind of like changing up the tempo and the speed. Can you go into the set and rep scheme for when someone's doing something like occlusion or blood flow restriction training? And why you would use that specific set and rep Scheme?

Yeah, you know, the studies were talking about a traditional scheme of four sets where you would do 30 reps or more on the first set. You take a short rest break of about 20 seconds or so, you do three more sets of 15 reps each. And of course, that's going to depend on what you can do. I always say, you know, you want to do perfect form. So if you can only do 10 reps with perfect form on that last set, then you're only going to do 10. But. But the real goal from what I found is you want to be actually training to what they call volitional fatigue, which is a fancy term for muscle failure. So you want to be training with good reps to muscle failure. So for some people, I find that you kind of have to manipulate it based on your body type and kind of your training background and your physical goals. You have to kind of tweak those variables up or down. For most people, that scheme is going to work fine. But for some people, maybe if you have a bodybuilding background, if you're a little bit bigger, you might need to do more sets. You might need to do 5, 6, 7, 8 or 10 sets instead of 4 sets like we did, or you might have to do more or less reps. So it just kind of depends. But the rest periods should always be short. I would say probably no more than 15 to 30 seconds.

And is that to actually ensure that you get a large amount of lactic acid built up in the muscle?

Yeah, exactly. Exactly.

Okay, gotcha. Now, how is this any different than Katsu training? K A, A T, S U training, or is it the same thing?

Yeah, Katsu stands for additional pressure in Japanese, was invented Originally by this Dr. Yoshiadi Sako Yoshiaki Sato in Japan about 50 years ago, I believe. And he was using it with. With some of his patients who couldn't really do a whole lot to help them with their muscle catabolism. These are people who had a lot of inflammation, they had disease, and they were having muscle atrophy, but they couldn't do a whole lot of exercise, so he couldn't have them go in the gym and do a bunch of weight training. So he was basically, I think, at the time using blood pressure cuffs as a way to, you know, create the same type of stimulus. And since then, I think he's designed his own device called the Katsu device, which is a contraption. It's basically a pneumatic device, a contraption that, that it fills. It takes this electronic device and fills These tubes with air that go into these straps that have basically like a bladder that fills with air. So it puts pressure around the limbs in that way. And it's used primarily, you know, by athletic trainers, physical therapists and some doctors and such. But yeah, it's an expensive device. I think it's like two to $4,000. I have one myself. I like it. It's a very cool device and it does, it does kind thing. But, you know, I found that it might be a barrier for some people. For the average person. Might not be very practical to go spend $2,000 to be able to benefit from this style of training.

I was going to say it's expensive. I think I've used something like this. A couple years ago, I was trained at the Onnit Academy with Aubrey Marcus. And I think what we were doing is he had this special device. It may have been this same device you're alluding to where it's like this dashboard that you hold in your hand and then you strap like an elastic tube around your muscle and it fills or it contracts around the muscle at a specific, you know, like pressure, like millimeter, or would it be millimeters of mercury or.

Yeah, exactly. It's not exactly. They use their own units. They call them Katsu units or something like that. I can't remember. But they. Yeah, they have their own kind of nomenclature of units that they've, they've designed for that. But that's the essential idea is that you're really dialing it in, making it very precise. Which, you know, in a standardized setting, like a medical setting, you might want that.

How much, how much do these bands cost that you used on me?

These. Anywhere between like 20 to $40.

Okay, so. So it's night and day when it comes to. Obviously there's not like a dashboard and you can't, you can't micro adjust the, the pressure. But essentially it's, it's the same thing. You strap these around your muscle. Why wouldn't, why would I, I buy these and not just use like, like a tourniquet, like a T shirt or something like that?

Yeah, no, exactly. You, you could. The problem with some of those other things that people were using out there, like I saw people, you know, initially when I got into this market, I was doing some research and I saw people were using things like knee wraps, which. I don't know how you would tie that around your arm by yourself. It's almost impossible to get it started by yourself. And, and a lot of people are also using medical Tourniquets and maybe a T shirt or, or these different things. The problem is some of these things, you know, if they're not the right width, the studies talk about having kind of that optimal sweet spot of width, and you want to be around, you know, 50 to 90 millimeters in width. And so if it's, if it's too narrow or too wide, then you start to get arterial occlusion. Again, you know, when we talked about too much pressure being bad. So that's so blood.

So blood doesn't get into the muscle.

Exactly. And medical tourniquets are designed for arterial occlusion. They're designed to cut off blood flow completely. They can be used, I mean, medical tourniquets, what I found when I've tested with them, they're very flimsy. They're cheap, those things. You can buy them for five bucks. They fall off really easily. And the mechanism for tightening is really flimsy as well. So not ideal if you're serious about getting the results from it. And you also can't use them on the legs. Our straps we've designed where you can use our pro bands, for example, for arms and legs.

Have you seen some of the research on occlusion training and sarcopenia in seniors?

Yeah, there's some really interesting studies around. Having people just doing these, these studies where they just walked. You know, they'd have the. People put the, the straps around their upper legs and walk for 20 minutes. And. And you're talking about very, very low intensity exercise. I mean, they were walking, I think, two miles an hour or less, maybe even, even less than that. And they were seeing increases in leg circumference size. So their muscles are getting bigger. They saw increases in their leg strength. They saw decreases in atrophy. It blocks something called myostatin. Myostatin is something that is triggered during exercise that signals catabolism, it signals muscle breakdown. So this style of training helps inhibit that. So it definitely leads to an anabolic process.

Yeah, well, actually, I tweeted out a study a few weeks ago where they actually found that for senior citizens who were training, who couldn't do high intensity or high load training, that when they used occlusion training, right, when they wrapped like tourniquets around their joints in the same way that you were doing with me, that they were still able to get this increase in testosterone and growth hormone. And I think they saw an increase in IGF1, which is basically just a precursor for growth hormone as well. When they did low intensity blood Flow restricted exercise. So basically it's a way to, if you're in injured, for example, to still get many of the physiological responses to higher intensity exercises without actually having to exercise at that same high intensity.

Exactly, exactly. That's one of the beauties of BFR training, is that it can be used as a great standalone. But I also think it's great for people during a deload period. I think a lot of people, they're just always training hard all the time and they forget that you need to have a period to let your nervous system and your body have that active recovery. And this is a great thing to use as a standalone during that active recovery period.

Yeah, that's a good point. Now, what about, and I don't know if you've seen this before, there's a machine out there where you combine occlusion with ice with this crazy exercise machine that almost looks like a fancy elliptical trainer. It's called a Vasper Machine. And I'll link to this in the show notes because I interviewed these guys four years ago about this device that they claimed led to massive improvements in growth hormone as testosterone. And it's like occlusion training like we were just talking about, combined with high intensity exercise, combined with cold. I'll link to the podcast that I did. By the way, for any of you listening in everything in that Kusha and I talk about today, you can go to BenGreenfieldFitness.com koosha that's BenGreenfieldFitness.com K U S H A for the show notes and I'll link to this podcast that I did, but it was called the Vasper Machine. Have you seen this before, Kusha?

Yeah, I came across that not too long ago and it really sparked my eye. It seems like a really interesting concept, I think combines some elements of the occlusion training with almost like cryotherapy in a way.

Yeah, it's really interesting. So I guess the cold restricts the blood flow even more and causes supposedly like a pretty big increase in the nitric oxide that you were alluding to earlier. But apparently you also get this increase in growth hormone from the cold and from the restriction and then you're basically on this device. I tried to replicate this once I actually got my hands on compression gear. There's this company called 110% and they make compression gear that you can find fill with ice, right? Like it comes with ice packs. So you could actually put this on and then get an elliptical trainer or a bike and do like A high intensity set, like a Tabata set, combined with compression, combined with ice. I know this sounds silly and some of you might be snickering thinking, what a waste to strap on a bunch of compression and ice and get in a high intensity exercise machine. But it's really not that hard and you get this, this, this crazy pump in your muscles. And I didn't actually measure growth hormone or testosterone, anything like that afterwards, but it seemed like kind of a way to, to shortcut your way into the same effects that you get from this Vasper machine without actually going out and buying the. I think it's like a. On honestly, I think it's like a $40,000 unit to actually buy one of these for your house.

Yeah, I think it's, it's extremely expensive, but yeah, it sounds like you were able to replicate the similar results.

Yeah, I mean, you could probably do something similar with these BFR bands that you have by wrapping the, the BFR bands around the muscle and then potentially like adding ice or something like that over those if you're so inclined. If you're.

Yeah, no, absolutely.

Yeah, I'll just try it.

Yeah, absolutely.

So how do you know this stuff? Tell me about your, your history in terms of, of your history in neuroscience and studying the nervous system. Because I've, I've been pretty impressed with your body knowledge. I know we're going to get into some other, other like biohacks that you have for, for the eyes and for strength, et cetera. But before we do, fill me in on, on your history, like your education in this stuff.

Yeah, you know, I started as a personal trainer originally and you know, originally as a personal trainer I was, I've always been kind of an eternal student. I just, I love to learn and acquire more education and so I started getting all these different certifications in the field, all these different nationally accredited certifications. But they were all kind of saying the same thing. I always felt kind of limited when it came to helping my clients with, you know, with pain, with performance. I just felt like there's only so much I could do. And yeah, all these things were kind of saying the same thing and really wasn't until I started studying this concept of functional neurology. Originally it was through a company called Z Health out in Arizona.

Oh yeah, I've interviewed them on the show before.

Oh, okay, cool. Yeah, they're great. Yeah, I've gone through all their stuff, through many of their courses a few years ago and, and that really, that was the initial thing that really changed my Paradigm really shifted my perspective, and it really showed me that I was really training from the neck down. Is really what I learned is that I was really not looking at all at the role of things like the vision system and the eyes or the inner ear or really the brain in performance and strength and pain, et cetera. So it really. That was kind of the first thing that really change my direction. So I started studying under Dr. Carrick at the Carrick Institute, which is a guy that's basically trained every doctor there is on this concept of functional neurology. And for those that don't know, functional neurology is similar to neurology, but it's. It's more of taking a holistic approach of instead of saying, hey, you know what, we're going to jump to prescribing drugs or referring out for surgery, we're going to look at how we can take the assessment and turn it into an exercise to stimulate the brain. Or, or, you know, maybe do some blood panels to assess, maybe if there's some nutritional interventions that we can use to help make the brain healthy, to make the body healthy.

So. So what would be. What would be an example of how you would actually do that?

Yeah, so one example, you know, for instance, if. If I wanted to improve my posture, for example, so if we're talking about somebody who has, you know, bad posture, bad movement, or back pain, I might assess their vision. So I might actually look at something called their visual saccades, which is where you switch your eyes from one target to another. And if I find that they can't easily switch their eyes from one target to another, if they overshoot or undershoot the target, that tells me a little bit of information about what parts of the brain are maybe lacking. Maybe the frontal cortex is not having enough good stimulus, or maybe it doesn't get enough good nutrition, or maybe the cerebellum is lacking good nutrition. So there's all these factors that can play into it, like diet, as well as circulation and stimulation. So when you narrow down which parts of the brain are affected, then you can do specific exercises. I can actually use that assessment, those saccades. I can actually use that as the exercise. I can say, okay, I want you to only do saccades to the left and practice this, because this is what is exactly. Saccades are where you switch your eyes from one target to the other. So maybe your eyes are focused on a target on the right, and then they rapidly switch to a target on the left. That's one example.

Okay. Interesting. So in terms of some of the other things that you did with me, when we were, for example, warming up for this occlusion training, you had me use some cross body stuff with an elastic band to warm me up. What was that all about? Was that related to this Z Health type of stuff or something different?

Yeah, no, exactly. One of the first things I learned through Dr. Cobb was really these kind of three systems that he. He kind of groups everything.

Dr. Cobb is the guy who runs Z Health, right?

Exactly. Yeah, he's the one who teaches all.

He's the guy I interviewed.

Yeah, that's right. Yeah, he was the one who really taught about this concept of, you know, you have, your brain needs good information. I think the analogy he uses is that your brain's like a gps. It needs good information to create a clear map of where your body is. And he said that's your brain's primary job is to keep your body safe, so it needs to know where you are. So it triangulates this information from these so called satellite systems. And one satellite is your vision system, another satellite is your inner ear vestibular system. That's like your sense of equilibrium. And then the third one is your proprioceptive system, which is a fancy word for your body's nerve endings.

Gotcha. So what were you doing with this elastic band that we used prior to the workout?

Yeah, so what we were doing essentially we were working on specifically on that proprioceptive system. What we were doing is we were trying to prime the brain to have good input about how to move the joints and get good stimulus to the brain before going into the exercise, just to enhance motion, enhance movement and accuracy.

Okay, so what exactly were we doing? Can you walk me through the process of kind of like waking up the nervous system prior to a workout?

Yeah, I think the first thing we were doing, if I remember correctly, is we put the band in what I call the sling position. So we put the band, it was like one of those crossfit loop elastic bands, those long ones. We put one on your right foot and we put it over onto the left shoulder. So it looks like it was going across the body from your left shoulder to your right leg. So you had this resistance in this cross pattern. And then what we did is we had you do like a quarter squat. Not even really too much of a deep squat, but a quarter squat. And then as you come down, you rotate the body and then stand all the way back up and then rotate back to center so you're squatting down, turning with the resistance and then standing back up while you're still turned. So you return to the right. For example, you're pointing to the right with your upper body while your feet were pointed forward. And then as you come all the way back up, then you turn your body and orient it back forward. And I think we did about five or ten repetitions each direction. We did five where you'd squat down, turn to the right, come back up, and then five coming down, turning to the left and coming up. And then we did the same in the other position with the band on the left foot and right shoulder.

Okay, gotcha. And. And so the idea is that that enhances my neural function prior to starting into other movement patterns.

Exactly. And it also helps kind of associate the upper and lower body because, you know, you have these, these different systems, these different. You know, they say that there's this concept of tensegrity. Like, basically it's a kind of a str concept that, that says that your, your, your bones are basically floating in a sea of muscle. And, you know, for. For you to be able to generate strength and power correctly, especially in complex movements that, you know, where we're using a barbell for squats or poles or whatever it may be. When you're doing squats, for example, you're not just using your legs, you're not just using your glutes. You're actually using your whole body. You're using the whole kinetic chain. So this is a good way to kind of prime that whole kinetic chain to help your body really associate that whole kinetic chain.

Okay, gotcha. Now, you mentioned the eyes earlier and how you could use like, like training of the eyes to, for example, just low back pain. What exactly do you do? If you wanted to say, train the eyes? Like, what would be good exercises for the eyes, for example, in terms of like a training session for that?

Yeah, no, absolutely. I'd say kind of two things. The first thing I think would be to actually reduce over stimulus to the eyes. And the way you do that is just palm the eyes. You don't put too much pressure on the eyes, but you just palm the eyes. You put the palm of the hand over the eyes so that there's no light getting in. So you just see nothing but darkness. And you do that for about a minute. What that does is it basically allows your visual cortex to kind of reset because we're always getting so much visual stimuli, and probably a lot of. It's probably not that great because we're getting so much blue light from Our computers, from our phones, from the fluorescent lights at work, whatever it may be, that our eyes and our brain essentially are not getting good stimuli. So giving it that visual reset will help kind of, you know, nervous system for the activity. So that's kind of the first thing I would do. And then the second thing would be an exercise called visual convergence. So it's very simple. Anyone you know who's listening could do this right now. You know, I would start doing this exercise seated, although you could do it standing, but I would do it seated. You want to make sure you're sitting really tall in your chair. So you're sitting upright and not slouching. And essentially what you do is you take your finger or a pen or whatever it may be, you put it at arm's length while your head is upright and looking straight ahead. And you look at the tip of your finger, you look at that finger and you bring the finger towards the bridge of your nose. And so you bring it as far as you can until it looks like your finger is splitting into two. It might look a little blurry, that's okay. But what you're really looking for is when does it split into two? When does it look like the image is splitting? And when that happens is when you want to push it back out. So you just repeat that process of basically pushing the finger far away from you and following it, making sure you see it clearly the whole time and then bringing it back towards the bridge of your nose and doing that. About five to ten reps. I would say. Probably start out with less reps in the beginning and then do the same thing on the other side.

Okay, gotcha.

Onto the left hand.

Have you seen the vision gym that Z Health creates where you get a whole bunch of These almost like 3D eye tracks charts that cause you to do or, or that walk you through convergence and divergence?

Yeah, no, that's a great program. I used to use that in the past with several clients. And I would say that's a great program to use because it's. They have a follow along that's like, I think it's like 20 minutes. And I was using it myself for, for a while, about four days a week. And I saw some pretty good improvements in strength and, and just overall everything. Mental focus, mental clarity. I mean, it was pretty, it was pretty profound for, for something that seems so simple, like just simple eye movements.

Okay, what else would you do for the eyes in addition to like palming and, and convergence and divergence? Like what are some other go to exercises you would do for that.

Yeah. Another thing I like is similar to the convergence is something called Brock string, which is very simple. It's a string with a series of beads on it. But it's a tool that you use.

To what's called a Brock string.

Yeah, Brock, B, R, O, C, K. Brock string. It was invented by an optometrist probably 100 years ago for treating something called physiological diplopia, which is like double vision. And so you basically use this string. You want the string to be tight, so you would put it, you know, attach it to the wall or a doorknob, whatever it may be. You want it essentially at eye level, though, initially, and you hold it at the bridge of your nose. And what you do is you try to look at the center of each of these beads. And traditionally, this Brock string usually comes with three beads. There's a red bead first, yellow bead second, and green bead third. And each of them are at different distances. The red beads pretty close to your face, yellow beads kind of middle distance, and the green beads probably about six feet away. And what you do is you look at the center of the bead, and what you should see, if your eyes are bringing in and converging together correctly, you should see two strings going into the bead and two strings going out, almost like an X. You should see that. If you don't, you might be suffering from what's called visual suppression, where basically your brain is always taking in input from both sides, from both eyes, and it's comparing and contrasting and selecting information. And if you're only seeing, essentially, let's say you only see one string going into the bead, then that means your brain's not really using that much information from that other eye. It's only really. You're getting visual dominance. And visual dominance can be bad because over time, you're getting this hemisphericity where you're getting a lot of activation in one part of the brain and a corresponding lack of activation in the other side of the brain. And that can create changes in how you move, because we know the brain is what sends signals down to the muscles to instigate movement. So if you have this imbalance in brain function that can change your posture, it can change your muscle tone, it can change your pain and so forth.

That's interesting. I see you can even buy these Brock strings for, like, three bucks on Amazon.

Yeah, exactly.

And that. That's exactly what you're referring to.

Yeah, exactly. It's a simple thing. You could make one. You could buy them. It's very, very simple. Like I said, you want one that's either 6ft or 10ft long with at least those three colored beads on it, and you want to train with them at those. Those distances. The red bead should be about 4 inches away, 4 to 6 inches away from the face. Yellow bead should be about middle of the string, and the green should. Green beads should be towards the far end. And the cool thing I like about it is that you can train with this at different angles and in different positions. So maybe I'm an athlete. I want to improve my squat. Well, I can get into a deep squat and do this activity. I could do this Brock string exercise where I go, basically, I look at the red bead. As soon as I see that X, I move to the yellow bead. As soon as I see that X, I move to the green bead and so forth. And so that could be a powerful sports performance training tool for improving not only your strength, but also improving visual acuity.

Interesting. Okay, cool. So when you get these Brock strings, I would imagine they come with some kind of instructions on how to use them to kind of walk you through what you just outlined.

Yeah, exactly. Yeah.

What about, like, more advanced versions of this? Like, have you seen, for example, like, the strobe goggles that Steph Curry is using? And I'll put a link over in the show notes@BenGreenfieldFitness.com Koosha to this article, but it goes into how Steph Curry, the professional basketball player, uses, like, float tanks and, and, you know, motor cortex stimulation using, like, transcranial direct stimulation, using, like, this. This halo unit. But then they also go into how he has these special strobe goggles that he uses. Have you seen these?

Yeah, you know, I didn't know too much about it until recently. I came across this, and I thought it was so interesting. So I, I dived into it a little further, and what I found is that what the way it works is that it's basically reducing the visual input to the brain. So the input that you are getting from the eyes, your brain has to make basically make more use of less information. So your brain has to kind of get used to doing the same task, which is, you know, in his case, playing this sport, performing in basketball while getting less good information. And it seems interesting. It makes sense why it would work because it's almost like, again, it's like resistance training, but for your visual cortex. Now your vision system in the brain has to Work harder with greater demands and less information.

Yeah, it's really interesting that he does this and then he also uses this halo. Have you seen the Halo before? I mean, you're in neuroscience, and this thing's right up the alley of a neuroscientist, where you're, like, stimulating the motor cortex prior to physical activity. And I have one at my house. I don't know if I showed it to you, but. But it's supposed to reduce the rating of perceived exertion for a workout that you do after you wear it. Increase, like motor skill acquisition. I. I interviewed them on my show, but I'm curious if you have any thoughts on that type of thing, like tdcs?

Yeah, you know, I. I haven't used it myself. I did see it at your place when I was there, and I'd be curious to get your. Your opinion on it if you've used it and what it's done for you. But it makes perfect sense to me on why it would work. I'm a big fan of. Of the tms. I don't know if you've seen the TMS machine, the actual transcranial magnetic stimulation that's happening out there.

So what's the difference between TMS and tdcs?

So what you're talking about, the Halo device, is a little bit different than the actual medical device that's being used out there to treat things like depression. Like there's something called transcranial magnetic stimulation. TMS that's made by a few different companies. I think the main one that I've seen that's the best out there is a company from Israel called Brainsway that has these devices across the country, across the U.S. u.S. That uses these coils to basically penetrate deep into the brain. So there's many other TMS type of devices, like the Fisher Wallace device, which is a device you use at home, or there are some clinics you can go to that use a probably less effective machine, in my opinion, called the neurostar, which basically only penetrates into the superficial areas of the brain. But the brainzway device, this TMS device, basically, you go into this clinic, usually it's facilitated by a psychiatrist. They basically first map your brain. And the way they do that is they basically put this thing that looks like Magneto's helmet on your head, and they have this technician basically stimulate the device, and you don't really feel anything in terms of sensation. You don't really feel anything on your head when this thing is stimulating you, but it's firing up parts of the brain. And then you'll usually see some type of reflex in the body, like your finger might move or something like that. So, so it helps them kind of map where things are in the brain. Because everyone's brain map is slightly different in terms of position. And then what they do is. For instance, this thing is FDA approved for depression. If someone's going in and getting regular treatment, the map actually changes. So what's interesting is that with neuroplasticity, that person has to have their brain remapped every few weeks or so because their map and the way it's structured actually shifts a little bit.

Interesting. So. So the one that you were talking about is called the brain's way.

Yeah, brains way. It's really interesting. It's, it's, it basically is proven to get the same results. Like if someone's going to psychologist for therapy, you know, for several years, this will get the same results in about four weeks.

Wow.

In about like 20 or 30 sessions. Yeah. And it's a short treatment. It's like 20 or 30 minutes.

The same results for what exactly?

Oh, for things like depression. It does have some off label treatment, you know, benefits like sleep, anxiety. I think they're working on some studies right now related to addiction, smoking cessation, all kinds of. Really.

Can anyone buy one of these or is this something that you need to get prescribed by a physician?

No, you'd have to get a prescription. And you go into this facility, the machine's really expensive. It's like a few hundred thousand dollars or something. So you had something, you'd go in there. But the cool thing is that I'm almost positive that almost every insurance will cover the whole thing.

Wow.

It's. Yeah. Otherwise it's like 300 bucks a session or something. But in from what I heard, insurance should cover all of it.

Now you told me also that you have some kind of a biohack to increase strength within like 60 seconds. Can you tell me what that biohack is?

Yeah, you know, one of my favorite biohacks is, you know, working that vestibular system. So we talked about before, you know, doing an exercise for the eyes that gives input to the brain. And we also talked before about how I did that exercise with the elastic band with you that works the body. And that third component is that vestibular system, your inner ear. By doing an exercise for that, you're actually kind of getting the double benefit of getting information through the eyes and the inner ear, enhancing your brain's map. And the way I Look at it is that if you can enhance the brain's awareness and enhance the brain's map and increase the clarity of that map, you can enhance strength output. So one exercise I might do is something called vestibulo ocular reflex vor, where you basically, again, you're sitting upright in your chair, or you could be standing, you hold your arm at arm's length with your finger extended so you can see your finger clearly. And what you do now is instead of moving the hand, the hand actually stays still, but your head moves. And what you can start with is just moving your head simply left to right and up and down. So you keep your eyes fixed on your finger while your head is in motion. You know, your head's moving left to right, up and down, and you do maybe five reps each, you know, left to right five times, up and down five times. And what you're doing is you're kind of recalibrating your brain in terms of visual integration and vestibular integration. And this is essential because when it comes again, when it comes to strength, we, our brain, primary forms of input, our vision system and our inner ear, vestibular system are the fastest information sources. So there's so, so much more preferred than the body. So, you know, nowadays we sit so much, we're sitting in our cars, we're sitting at home, we're sitting at work, we're staring at a computer screen all day. So our eyes and our inner ear don't really get that great a stimulus even when we go to the gym. What are we doing? We're on a treadmill, running straight. We're sitting on a machine on the chest press, not getting any good head motion. There's no integration during our exercise or activity of the eyes, the inner ear and the body. So they're kind of in a way out of sync. And so that this type of exercise could be a cool, quick hack that you can use especially before any type of, you know, high intensity or heavy lift. This will just enhance that.

Okay, and, and, and, and just real quick again, the, the quick walkthrough. How exactly do you do it?

Yeah, so again you, you sit upright or you could do it standing. I always say to start first time you do this, do it seated. And you put your arm at arm's length. You put the. I would just use your thumb. Have the thumb straight up and look at the tip of your thumb and keep your eyes fixed on the tip of the thumb as you move your head left to right. The key here is to not let your head turn too far. So some people will turn their head so far to the left that both eyes can't see the thumb clearly. And you want to make sure not to turn too far so that you want to make sure your eyes can see your finger clearly the whole time. And you're just turning again. You're turning your head left and right. You do that about 5 to 10 reps, and then you do the same thing going up and down.

Okay, got it. Interesting. Can you send or do you have access to, like, a video that shows, for example, how one would use this or how one would use these brock strings that you mentioned? If I wanted to put some visuals over in the show notes?

Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. I can send you a quick demo video on recapping some of these exercises.

Okay, cool. So if you're listening, you can go to BenGreenfieldFitness.com Koosha K U S H A and you can check out some of these. What about since. Since you're. You're into neuroscience, Kusha. Things that would help to decrease reaction time or increase muscle firing speed. You know, for example, I. I interviewed Nick Kherson from Speed of Sport recently, and we talked a lot about the benefits, especially for athletes of. Of executing movements extremely quickly, focusing just as much on rate of force development as much as the actual force itself, and doing things like doing weight training sessions with a relatively light weight, but moving that weight at a very, very fast pace. Do you have any exercises or techniques that you use for things like increasing muscle firing speed or decreasing reaction time that you've really found to work?

Well, yeah, no, absolutely. I looked at some of Nick's stuff, and it looks like he has really done a great job at increasing that muscle firing speed and decreasing reaction time as it pertains to the proprioceptive system. So a lot of the stuff he talks about is related to some of the stuff that Russia has been utilizing with shock therapy, otherwise known as plyometrics. You know, a lot of the stuff, I think on their website even says that a lot of their speed of sports stuff is based on the research of Dr. Yuri Verkhoshansky. I can't pronounce his name correctly, but essentially that whole idea of plyometrics and shock training has been one of the best things you can do from a body perspective and a training perspective to help increase that muscle firing speed and decreasing reaction time. So I like things like that.

What do you call it? Shock therapy?

Shock training.

Shock training. So, yeah, you're not talking about shock, like using. Using electrical muscle stimulation. You're talking about some. Something more like plyometric training.

More like plyometrics? Yeah. Okay. That's just what they called it as we would refer to it. We would call it plyometrics.

Okay.

And so one. One other thing I like similar to that is, is more of kind of the opposite, which is controlled landing. Because I think that the industry is really focused, fitness industry is really focused right now on jump mechanics and jump training. And. But nobody ever really talks about, you know, when we look at things from the brain's perspective again, I'm always like, everything I look at now is, what does the brain want? Because whatever. The brain's the CEO of the body. So if I can give the brain what it wants, then the brain will unlock speed and performance, et cetera. So the brain wants to know how to land appropriately. If you can train landing mechanics and landing patterns, then you can unlock probably a higher vertical jump, probably better muscle activity when it comes to explosiveness in your concentric lifting phases. So controlled landing, which would be the opposite of plyometrics, where it's more so that your feet don't even need to leave the ground. For instance, you might just start standing, come up on your tiptoes, and try to drop into a squat as fast as you can without really being bouncy with trying to stick it and being very sharp and precise with your movement. And then what you can do is you can actually vary your, you know, your feet position so you can actually move your feet internally rotated or externally rotated. You can put your feet in different. Your legs in different positions, maybe in a forward lunge or a side lunge. So you can start to train your brain about how to understand how to land and learn how to fall.

Interesting.

You could do the same thing for the upper body, too. You could go like, I don't know if you've seen in one of those Batman movies with Christian Bale, he kind of falls into a push up in one of the scenes. You could do kind of the same thing you fall into. You don't have to do it necessarily like that. You can make it a little bit easier by falling onto an elevated box or a bed bench to make it a little bit easier and regress it initially. But that is kind of the same thing for the upper body.

Okay. So basically you're just. You're just like falling forward or squatting down. But it doesn't have to be like from a. It doesn't have to be like you, for example, falling down from a surface, like a box, doing, doing like a box jump, for example, and landing off of a box and then just sticking the landing. You can literally just like drop down into a squat very quickly. So, so what are you focusing on, like slowing yourself down? Are you just like, like doing the eccentric contraction to slow yourself down and training yourself in that manner?

Yeah, exactly. You're trying to really control the, you know, the eccentric portion. You're trying to really slow that down as fast as you can. Because a lot of people initially when they do stuff like this, especially like the example I gave where you drop into that squat, they don't stick it very well. They go, they, they're a little bit bouncy, they're not very precise with their movement. So they're, they're not able to really control that landing. And that can lead to injuries. If you're playing sports and whatnot, you can have, you know, easily injure the ankle or the knee because you're not landing correctly.

Okay, but you don't have to actually land to train that. You instead just drop very quickly into a push up or drop very quickly into a squat.

Exactly.

So it's almost like deceleration training.

Exactly.

Cool. Okay, so another question that I have for you is about sleep because obviously sleep has a lot to do with neural function. Do you have any sleep hacks or sleep tips that you personally use or have found to be really effective?

Yeah. One thing I would recommend is, number one, I think the common thing that people use out there to help with their sleep is things like melatonin. Nowadays melatonin is actually a hormone, so I'd actually be very cautious about using it and I don't recommend it unless it's for specific purposes.

I used melatonin last night. I had some of that liquid melatonin and I was getting, was going to spray some of my mouth. I couldn't get the spray to work and it was like dark and I was fumbling at night. So. And I recently just got back from back east, Right. So I've been traveling and I thought I'd use a little melatonin to, to reset my circadian rhythm. But I took the cap off and I dumped it in my mouth and I think, I think I wound up with about 60 milligrams of melatonin, which is a lot for those.

That's a lot.

It's a lot. That, that's like what my Chinese herbal practitioner physician uses to like knock out pain and cancer. Cancer patients. So I, I slept well, I, I wound up sleeping in a little bit late this morning. However, I, I interrupted you. But, but I, I think I, I met you. You're making me feel bad for using way, way too much melatonin last night. But, but you're not a fan of melatonin, it sounds like.

No, I mean, the doses that people are using are usually 3 to 6 milligrams. That's kind of the standard dose. That's way too high. What you would want to use if you were using it for. Let's bag. You'd want to use like half a milligram to one milligram only.

Yeah, well, usually I use this stuff called, called sleep Remedy and I think it's about 0.3 milligrams. So it's like a micro dose of melatonin.

Exactly. That's perfect. Yeah, that's not too bad. That's a good dosage. But yeah, I mean, there's studies in Europe that, you know, they showed that melatonin for women was an effective contraceptive. So it was messing with their, their estrogen, it was messing with their hormones. Well, you can't even, you can't even.

Buy it in Europe, you know, like a health food store, like you can in the US because it is a hormone.

Hormone. Exactly, exactly. Yeah. It's much more regulated over there than it is over here. So I would be very cautious about just popping melatonin because I think a lot of people perceive it to be kind of the healthier version of taking Tylenol PM or nyquil or something like that. They think, oh, this is non habit forming, it's healthy, it's no big deal. But I wouldn't look at it like that at all.

Okay, got it. Interesting. Good to know. So you like microdosing with melatonin? Anything else that you do?

Yeah, the other thing I really like is L Theanine. I think, you know, if the main thing, I think for a lot of people, their big problem is just getting their brain to unwind and kind of, you know, decrease the activity in their brain. They're all, their brains probably all wound up from the stress of the day. Also, the, the stimulus of life is, is a stressor. The stimulus from the light in your home, the stimulus from your TV and whatever you're watching on TV right before bed or whatever you were thinking about before bed said all those things can keep your brain awake and wired. And L. Theanine, what it does is L Theanine is one of the only things that can actually cross the blood brain barrier. I know a lot of people like gaba, but actually GABA shouldn't cross the blood brain barrier. If you're healthy, a lot of practitioners will actually use what's called a GABA challenge to test for that to see if you have a leaky blood brain barrier. They'll give you a couple hundred milligrams of GABA and see if you get, like, a little bit drowsy or relaxed from it within a few hours. And if you do, that's a sign. So not really a big fan of gaba, but L Theanine I like, because it crosses the blood brain barrier. It attaches to these GABA receptors to help your brain basically start to inhibit it reduces that excitation so that your brain can relax and you can fall asleep.

Now, I think the only exception to that would be this PH gaba. The ph GABA is like a very, very small form of GABA that I know can actually cross the blood brain barrier. Have you heard of this before?

I haven't heard of that one, but if it is smaller, it could.

Yeah, it's in that stuff, that sleep remedy stuff that I talked about. It's basically like a microdose of melatonin mixed with ph gaba. And I know there are, like, when you take any gaba, you can get a little bit tired because you have GABA receptors all over your body, even if it's not crossing the blood brain barrier. But this actually has, like, a very, very small form of ph GABA in it. It was designed by a doc who I know who works with a lot of Navy Seals. His name is Dr. Kirk Parsley, and he has this stuff called sleep remedy, and it's called PH gaba. And it's like a smaller form of GABA that actually crosses the blood brain barrier. Even if you don't have, say, a leaky blood brain barrier. It's just like this powder packet that you take.

Yeah, no, I would believe that. Yeah. If it's a smaller version of that molecule. GABA naturally, is a pretty large molecule. And usually, like I said, it won't cross the blood brain barrier, but it sounds like this particular product kind of overcomes that obstacle. So that sounds pretty cool.

Yeah, yeah. It's interesting stuff. Okay, so you do quite a bit. You've got this occlusion training, the Z health style training that you do. You're into some of this, like, brainsway TMS therapy. Any other little biohacks or tips or tricks that you want to share with the audience, while I have you on that, that, that you think kind of fly under the radar or that people should know about.

Yeah, I mean, besides the occlusion training, I mean, my other big thing that I'm a big proponent of is just intentional recovery. You know, I own a cryotherapy spa in San Diego. I also have an infrared sauna, kind of similar to what you have at your place. I have a sunlight and sauna at my house here. And I feel like nowadays everyone's always talking about training harder, doing more, and all these training tactics, but no one's really given any attention to recovery and how to recover better. And I found as. Even as a trainer and a coach in the past, that was kind of my always. My instinct is that for many of my clients that. Who are already working out, I found that what they really needed was not necessarily to train harder like they do in the Biggest Loser or have some huge intervention into their training program. A lot of times it was maybe making small tweaks there, but more so figuring out how can I optimize the recovery. I'm a big believer that chronic stress is probably the root of a lot of issues in America. And I think that if you can reduce chronic stress with some intentional recovery, like hot sauna therapy or cryotherapy, these things can really make a profound impact into your performance, into your fat loss, into your testosterone, your growth hormone, your longevity, your happiness, you name it.

Interesting. So do you use cryotherapy pretty often? Like, like the actual. You're. You're talking about, like the. What is it like the liquid nitrogen that they, that they cool? Is it liquid nitrogen?

Exactly. Yeah. Liquid nitrogen has a very, very low. It's like a sub zero boiling point. So it turns into vapor at these low temperatures. So basically we have this, you know, this machine that. It's a whole body cryotherapy unit. So your head sticks out, but your body's inside the machine. And it, it. It's hooked up to a hose that's hooked up to these tanks. Tanks, these large nitrogen tanks. And it basically inserts vapor into the machine that cools the body down. And you know, the machine has like three different levels, goes anywhere between negative 166 and negative 202 Fahrenheit. And the cool thing is that it's. It doesn't actually feel that cold because it's dry and it's just vapor. It doesn't feel, it doesn't feel like you're in negative 200 degree weather. It feels, it feels like, you know, maybe zero. It felt like how it was in December at your house. Felt like zero degrees outside. That's kind of what it feels like while you're in there. It's just, it's so quick and it's so short that I like it because, you know, it's really effective and not too much of a pattern interrupt. I don't have to go, you know, shower and go through the hassle of making an ice bath.

Yeah.

So it's just really efficient.

There's something about the cold water that I still like. Maybe it's the hydrostatic pressure. Maybe it's just like the, the ancestral primal feeling of plunging into water. Or maybe it's like the mammalian dive reflex that you get when you, your. When your face goes under the water. I still feel like I get more out of the cold water, but yeah, you're right. With those cryotherapy chambers, at least you don't have to get fully undressed and get all wet and then have to towel dry your hair.

Yeah, no, I really like both. There's a lot of benefits to the cold water that cryotherapy doesn't do. But I definitely from just a. I think for the average person who wants to get the benefits and doesn't maybe have access or the time to set up maybe a cold ice bath or cold water plunge, then it's a good solution.

Yeah, yeah, I hear you. Well, there's obviously a lot here and I'm going to link to this stuff@BenGreenfieldFitness.com Koosha I'll have to remind you, Koosha, send me some videos because some of the stuff that we went into was kind of like visually intensive, like perhaps how to use some of these brock strings or how to do some of this vestibular training that you talked about. So anything you want to send me, I'll definitely put in the show notes. Notes. And I know also that you want to give folks a discount on the BFR bands that you do. So I'll put the promo code and the link to your website for that in the show notes as well over@bengreefulfitness.com Cuccia not that they're expensive as it is, but if you guys want a discount code on these bands, Koosha wound up giving me a few of them. And I actually go in my gym and I've been doing some body weight training. They're really good for body weight training. Training like push ups, squats, stuff like that that would normally not be that hard, but that can be a lot harder. And like we mentioned earlier, it can also increase things like growth hormone and testosterone when you combine them with this, this occlusion training or this blood flow restriction training with these BFR bands. No fancy multi thousand dollar Katsu training devices required. So we'll put links to all that over@bengreedfulfitness.com kuccia and in the meantime, Kusha, thanks for coming on the show and, and sharing all this stuff with us, man, your wealth of knowledge.

Yeah, no, thanks so much for having me on the show. I really appreciate it.

Awesome. Cool. All right folks, well, I'm Ben Greenfield along with Kusha Karvandi signing out from BenGreenfieldFitness.com have a fantastic week. And again, if you have comments, questions, anything else you want to leave, go to BenGreenfieldFitness.com Kucha and either Kusha and I will jump in and reply. So Cuccia, thanks man.

Awesome. Thanks again.

All right folks, thanks for listening in.

You've been listening to the Ben Greenfield Fitness podcast. Go to BenGreenfieldFitness.com for even more cutting edge fitness and performance advice.