25 Solcast - Episode 25 w/ Alex Bernier: One Simple Trick to Sleep Better, The Importance of Mobility Work and Hidden Muscle Groups

Episode 25 of the Soulcast with Alexander Bernier. How you going, man?

Great, man. Thanks for having me.

My pleasure. Um, So I first came across your work on Twitter. You run the Online School of Exercise, and man, I just want to say that I appreciate what you talk about because the, you know, things like the jaw exercises, the eye movement exercises, those little tweaks and, you know, muscle groups that aren't really taught about or even talked about, really online at all. It's mostly, you know, the bigger, how to build your chest and shoulders if you're a guy. But there are so many little different muscles in the body or mobility things or whatever it is, self-massage techniques that we don't think about for the most part, but they're so, so important, especially that jaw one. So I just want you to maybe just give us a little bit of a background of how you got into all this stuff Um, on the whole.

Yeah, for sure. Well, you know, like many other professionals out there, my main driver is my own, uh, experience, right? I've been working out since I was 14 years old. I've been an athlete, I played ice hockey, and then I got into, you know, strength and muscle growth and all that stuff. So, uh, it all came— it was all about, um, my own learning in order to get better results with my training, and eventually with my clients, obviously, because you realize that what worked for you doesn't necessarily work for the others, or, you know, work the same way for the others. So you have to keep learning, and each new client brings, uh, sort of a new challenge that forces you to go and, uh, and keep, you know, keep learning. So yeah, that's it, man. That's what it's been. And, uh, all the Jaws stuff, the eyes, the how to eat comes from something called the Posture Pro Method, which I learned in Montreal. And I had also talked about the jaw with a lot of other health professionals in my circle. So physiotherapists, my dentist was one of the first professionals to introduce me to, you know, teeth clenching and its negative effects on the rest of the body.

Yeah.

So, and that was, you know, that completely changed the quality of my sleep. So the results were very real. And, you know, it was almost overnight where my sleep quality improved by 300% just from addressing teeth clenching, which I had no idea was an issue until then. So again, it's all about the results that I've gotten in my real life and on myself and my clients. That, you know, pushes me to continue and never stop learning.

Yeah, I think that's key. There's never a point that you want to get to where you go, okay, I know enough. I used to think that the brain— maybe it's the more Western science view of the brain— is that it's kind of like a hard drive, and then once it fills up with X amount of data, other things get replaced. But I've I don't think that's the case anymore. Like, I think there's, uh, I don't know if you've ever read into the— how water can be programmed to hold info, and the idea that because of its molecular makeup, uh, or atomic makeup, the kind of the capacity to store information in water is infinite because of the way that it works. Um, I'm not exactly sure how it is. I'm not a in-depth physicist or whatever, but I think the brain kind of acts as a receiver in that way, uh, depending on how the neurons kind of fire against each other, to the point where I think that we, we have the capacity to just learn, uh, not infinitely, but it, you know, if you study something, you're gonna remember it as long as you commit it to memory. It's— I don't think it's like, uh, the hard drive kind of fills up with, um, useless stuff, shall we say. I used to be very against kind of— well, I still am. Like, I think you should curate your information diet, especially in the social media world that we all live in today and the online world. So I think it's important to keep on learning. Like you said, you never know. Like, a lot of it is just life experience. When you, when you go through life, you learn things that you, you wouldn't be able to be told these things other than learning it yourself and making mistakes. And, you know, as we know, mistake is not a mistake, it's just a learning process. And I encourage everyone to make as many mistakes as possible within reason. Don't, you know, go out and fail or whatever.

Screw up too much.

Yeah, exactly. Well, yeah, keep in mind that a screw-up is just, okay, what didn't work last time? How can I change that? And obviously your work through clients kind of facilitates that as well in the learning journey.

For sure. And, you know, just to add to what you said about, about water, you know, the brain is about 80% water, if not more. So that just makes a lot of sense.

Yeah, that's what I think. I'll probably have to dive into that a little bit more so I can get more of a grasp of it. Um, but let's, let's dive into the jaw clenching issue. So what was it? Because I know a lot of people, whether they realize it or not, have this teeth clenching issue, uh, at night. Maybe they grind their teeth or, or whatever else it is. So, so is it stress related? Is it just tightness in the jaw that they've never released? Um, talk a little bit about the jaw, the teeth clenching thing at night to improve sleep quality, and How the jaw muscle relates to our power output? Maybe a two-part question there.

Okay. Well, uh, like any symptom, uh, you know, jaw clenching has multiple factors causing it. Uh, maybe it's maybe, you know, depending on the person, maybe it's one thing, maybe it's multiple different things working together to create that clenching. It could be stress, it could be a nutritional deficiency, which I guess is a sort of stress, uh, it could be tightness, right? Because we chew so much during the day. And like you said, some people don't realize it, but when they stress, they actually clench their teeth. My dentist told me that when he goes to the gym, he sees, you know, just people clenching while they're doing their sets. And you see it in a lot of social media videos where they're like, they're lifting heavy weights or whatever, and then their teeth are just like grinding down. So, um, the problem with that is that your, your teeth, your tongue, your jaw are all part of a system that relays information about your head's position to your brain. So when you're clenching, it's like you're kind of screaming into a microphone and you get that, you know, nasty feedback.

Yeah.

So you override the system which calculates your head's position. And so all of a sudden you don't know where your head is, and so your muscles will react accordingly. But that might come out as a tension in the neck or tension in the pecs, the triceps, the shoulders. It's all, you know, every muscle around your jaw will respond to the clenching with tension, right? So when you're chewing, your neck has to tense in order to keep your head upright and make sure that your head doesn't just wobble while you're trying to chew. So when you're clenching, you know, there's tension happening in your neck. So that's why people that clench at night will wake up with, you know, a sore jaw.

Yeah.

And so, if I go off on a tangent, you know, let me know.

Go ahead.

But, and so my dentist was the first person to talk to me about the effect of clenching. He told me I clenched. I was like, what are you talking about, bro? Like, I don't, I don't clench. And then he showed me, he's like, okay, well, whatever. Then the next appointment 6 months later, he told me, you know, I can tell that you keep clenching because your teeth are just grinding down. And I was like, okay, I took him a little more seriously. And he sold me a mouthpiece. I was a little reluctant at first, you know, but I ended up buying it because I trusted him. You know, he works out, he takes care of himself. I trusted his medical opinion. And the first night I wore it, it was a mouthpiece custom made to my teeth, that if I clenched, the front of my, my front teeth would hit, would contact the mouthpiece first, and that would automatically release my jaw muscles. So instead of clenching, the masseter muscle, which is one of the most powerful muscles in the body that closes the jaw when you're chewing, it just relaxes. So I would clench and get that immediate response of relaxing. And so I woke up the next day realizing, you know, just my thoughts were a lot clearer. I had a lot more energy right off the bat. And I was like, okay, well, there's, there's really something to that. And so those, those were my first, uh, that was my first feedback on, uh, clenching. And then obviously, uh, like I said, I kept learning. Uh, I met a health professional in Montreal that, uh, is specialized in there, and she also makes a different kind of mouthpiece that you use for working out, or that you can even wear during your sleep. And so she showed me, you know, uh, the link between the brain, the jaw, and all the muscles, and how to apply it in my own practice with real clients. And so for the last 3-4 years, I've been into that, learning more and more every year, but more importantly, applying the, the theory to real people and getting feedback from them. So that's been one of my areas of focus in the last few years.

Awesome. Yeah, so I know for myself, I feel like I can lift more when I am clenching my jaw. I like to use— I don't know if you've heard of Mastic Gum before.

Oh yeah, that's amazing.

Yeah, so a little bit of that. What that is for people that don't know is a resin from a Greek bush, so it's a naturally occurring gum. It gets harvested from the bush and it appears as what's called these tears, tears of mastia, and it's like this clear resin. It's quite piney tasting, natural flavor, and you can use it as chewing gum. I use it, it can clear the debris from your teeth. If you chew it for a while, your teeth will feel cleaner than if you've just brushed them. And it also acts as like, you know, it's a— people enjoy chewing gum, but the artificial flavorings and sweeteners in most gums, or just sugar in general, means that chewing those types of gum is not necessarily good for the body. But this Mastic Gum stuff, it's super natural, uh, really good antibacterial, anti-inflammatory, promotes digestion. If you've just had a big meal, you can just chew in a bit and it'll settle the stomach. But for me, one of the most amazing things has been because it's quite a tough resin to chew, the masseter muscle, uh, when it's kind of chewing up and down and moving the jaw through it, you can kind of— it's almost like weights for the jaw. And I've had my masseter muscle grow in size, which, you know, aesthetically gives the appearance of a larger jaw and a more chiseled jaw, which of course everyone loves. But I found from doing that as well, eating food is now easier. So, you know, like anything, you're introducing a tougher weight, strengthening the muscle, you know, the day-to-day life becomes easier. You know, it's like you never realize how much you're using your core until you do a particularly hard set of sit-ups or, you know, weighted cable crunches or something, and then your abdominals sore the next day, and you realize like, oh shit, I'm using these muscles all the time just to stand up. Similar to how you're holding your neck up, holding your head up all day over your neck. People might not think that they're like consciously exercising the neck muscles, but if you're holding your head up like everyone does, you're using that all day. So stretching the neck, stretching the jaw, and strengthening the neck and jaw as well are kind of these overlooked muscle groups that, like you said, they contribute to so many different things in the body. Um, what would you say are the best kind of releases we can do for the jaw and the neck that you've had in your client experience?

Well, uh, I know you retweeted that, uh, that jaw massage, you know, the, the pressure plus release. So that's a good one for the sort of day-to-day stuff, right? You do it before bed, you do it, but if you don't address the sources of the clenching, you're always gonna be releasing that tension. So it's gonna be, it's just, it's gonna be like constantly doing something without, you know, a real result. Out of it. So, uh, one of the things, one of the things you could do to address this is to do tongue exercises, right? Because the tongue has 8 muscles and it's the neighbor to the jaw, and they're both part of that same system that relays the position of your head to your brain. So by training your jaw, by strengthening your jaw, uh, one of the byproducts is that— sorry, not the jaw— by training your tongue you're going to release a lot of pressure right next door in the jaw joint. And you actually feel it when you do it because your jaw stretches out when you're doing different tongue exercises. That's a really good one. Mastic is also excellent. You feel it when you chew it, right? You chew it on one side and it just releases right at the jaw joint into your skull. Feels really nice. And for the neck, I don't know, have you ever tried the Iron Neck? Did you ever end up getting one?

No, I didn't. I usually just do a dumbbell kind of held to the side of my head or a plate and then the flexion in every kind of direction for the neck.

Yeah, that's a really good one. That's one of the classics. And the Iron Neck is a helmet that you put on your head. It looks really— it looks, uh, look, yeah, it looks cool, but people definitely look at you when you've got it on in the gym. Yeah, and it's a circular helmet, so it allows you to strap it onto either an elastic or to a pulley system, and it lets you hit some angles that are very hard to hit with a dumbbell, right? Because you've got that circular resistance, so you can do 360s, you can do, uh, side-to-side diagonals, uh, and that's the first time I really realized that the neck was part of the, the core of the abdominals. Because I did a bunch of neck exercises with the Iron Neck against a pulley, and, uh, you know, my neck was really sore, and I felt some muscles that I hadn't felt before from regular neck exercises. Yeah, I felt improved mobility, but I also felt soreness in my abs without having done anything to train them. But as I was moving my neck, you know, against resistance, my abs had to keep the rest of my body steady, and you really felt them working. So I had never really thought of the neck as part of the abdominals, but really they're just in line with each other, right? So yeah, they're, uh, their strength goes hand in hand. And when you strengthen your neck, your core improves. And then if your core improves, well, all your other lifts improve. And by training my neck, by strengthening my neck, I felt, uh, almost immediate improvements in my chin-ups, my presses, and all my lower body lifts, deadlifts, squats, right? Because if your head is steady, then everything else flows more naturally.

Yeah, I've definitely felt that as well. It's like the things like the deadlift is a whole body exercise, uh, but even still, like, everyone, you know, knows that as such, but maybe they'll still only focus on it on the back. And I think the further you get into weightlifting, it's like a What's the, what's the expression? You're kind of doing two conflicting things at once. You want to isolate the muscle that you're training and make sure that that's doing the majority of the work, but it also requires tension in the muscles that aren't working. For instance, you might need to lock your shoulders in place in order to do a curl, but you don't want like even the rear delts and things just to keep that stable and locked in so that the bicep can make a move. And I think as you develop, uh, further on the weightlifting journey, as you realize that you have to use all of the body and have that locked in simultaneously, not using those muscles to lift. Does that make sense to you?

Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, and that's why I never really get why people, you know, either say, oh, you only have to do full body exercises, or never isolate, you know. Because, you know, that you get such good benefits and different benefits from isolating and from working everything as a whole. So I don't see why someone wouldn't use both in their training, right?

Yeah, no, I agree. It's that whole thing of you don't need to train abs if you're doing deadlifts and squats, and that's a pervasive fitness myth. But, uh, I think more people are coming around to it. That's kind of just garbage. Yes, the abs are used to stabilize, but if you're not doing any direct ab training, one, you're not going to get the muscularity development that you would like in your abdominals, but you're also not going to get as strong. And that goes for any isolation. Yeah. Um, so what would you say, uh, the kind of— with your clients that you see I know in the modern world most people are sitting at a chair like I am now, maybe in their office jobs or just watching TV at home or whatever it is. And obviously we like to cultivate and improve general movement on the whole. And, you know, movement is healing in that you're always going to be better off whether it's walking or doing some other kind of low-impact cardio more of the time than not, like sitting is not necessarily bad for you, but whenever you're in one position the whole time, uh, or a large period of the day, you're automatically going to develop imbalances. So with the people that you see, what are the main things, uh, that, you know, you see are imbalances in the body or weaknesses that in the modern world we kind of neglect?

Yeah, for sure. Well, first of all, Most people's feet are wrecked, right? They've got poor toe movements, either fallen arches, flat feet, or other kind of arch problems. They have weak legs, right? Uh, yeah, tight, tight hips, weak legs. Uh, also, you know, weak shoulder blades. All the, all the scapular muscles that hold the arm into the torso are weak. So, you know, the pot, the their neck, their posture is thrown off as well. Weightlifting isn't popularized as what people— what everybody should be doing, right? And for a while it was, you know, only— it was a thing reserved for bodybuilders. Nobody else weightlifted. And then more recently, obviously, you've started to see it more and more, but it's still kind of, you know, with— especially with my clients who are 40 or 50, they have a harder time getting into weightlifting because it was never told to them that It's important that they got to strengthen their muscles.

Yeah.

In order to, to withstand all the demands of the world. And I see it, uh, their, their bodies can't, uh, hold themselves anymore.

Yeah.

Right. So they always have to sit, and by sitting for long periods of time, they make the problems worse, and it just becomes a vicious cycle of inactivity, weakness, tightness, poor sleep. Sleep is a big one for most people as well.

Yeah.

Either they have sleep issues, they wake up with an anvil instead of a brain, right? They can't think in the morning. All sorts of problems related to sleep. And then that just creates other problems during the day. And it all just compounds over the years. And so when you're working with them, they're 50 or 60. And they want to lose weight, well, you have to make them understand that, you know, for the first year, if not more, because they've waited so long to get started, they're not going to be training to lose weight. They're going to be training to get stronger and so that their bodies can actually tolerate the workouts that will help them lose weight.

Yes.

Yeah, so I'd say sleep, feet, uh, and then weak muscles. Untrained muscles.

Yeah, I, I feel like even now, uh, especially the more I do yoga, uh, and stretching in general, it's when you get more flexible— flexibility on the whole, I think it's, it's better to be thought of as strengthening in the end range and having that active conscious control, uh, in those muscle fibers at the end ranges that you've never activated before because because you've been kind of limited. And what the body does when you are weak in those end ranges, uh, maybe the, the deep part of a squat or whatever it is, is the tightness is a protection mechanism. The body knows subconsciously that it's weak there, so to prevent you from hurting yourself, it, it doesn't allow you to access that range of movement. So With yoga and flexibility, it's like every day I'm kind of feeling more control, which is good, it's progress. More control in the end ranges, and always that translates to me, you know, walking around, going upstairs, whatever I'm doing, uh, having more control and strength just means that my quality of life overall is improving each day. So I think everyone should not just weightlift do yoga, do the flexibility training that's not as, you know, maybe as fun or, or sexy as weightlifting. It is a holistic approach to improving the physical health overall, which is in turn going to support your capability to develop more muscle if that is your main goal.

Yep, and muscle needs space to grow. So if you're always tight, if you're always just going for, you know, weightlifting and accumulating that tension, you miss out on some— on results, on gains, because, well, the muscle doesn't have enough space to grow. So it's, it's always going to be restricted. And I find that sometimes, you know, after neglecting mobility for a while, maybe a month or two, I do intensive sort of yoga stretching, and I find that my body changes almost within a few days I get just a little, a little bigger. My muscles get a little more toned, right? Because now they're free, they can breathe. And like you said, you've, uh, you've made yourself stronger at that end range and, uh, and you actually see the benefits.

Yeah. I've, I've definitely noticed that as well. It's like, uh, when you tap into those end range muscle fibers, they get the blood flow, uh, they get a bit of a pump, uh, if you will, even if it's smaller. And in general, you feel bigger and look better as well. So really, it's a no-brainer for everyone to do. Do you know much about the fascia?

Uh, well, I know of it in practice, right? I wouldn't be able to just recite all the science and scientific terms behind it. Yeah, but I've, you know, I've learned about it, uh, on the surface and, and use the, the methods with, uh, my, my clients. So, but no, it's the— it's definitely, it's definitely real, and, and the methods definitely work and improve the range of motion, reduce pain, all that stuff. I've had real results, uh, in practice.

Yeah, so I guess colloquially we can just go into our limited knowledge about it, the fascia is the connective tissue that runs through all muscle, uh, that gets bunched up with our lack of stretching or only focusing on weightlifting. And that fascia is kind of the, the network that runs through all parts of the body. And there are fascia stretches you can do when you do deep tissue management Yoga, of course, diving into that. But I think when you— that's what's responsible for your motor output. So if you want to get stronger, look into the fascial network and the stretches you can do there. But otherwise, it just feels so good to stretch that kind of stuff. What are the other— what are the exercises mainly that you do for that?

Well, the, the the best method, and that was taught to me by a massage, deep tissue massage therapist here in Montreal, is pressure and release. So you wanna just, let's say, let's say the area between your ribs, right? A lot of tension accumulates there just because of how many breaths you take, and you know, every time you contract your core, these muscles get tight too. So you just wanna take one or two fingers Just start at the edge, find one of the edges of your rib, either the upper or the lower edge, press and then drag your fingers along the rib while maintaining that tension. And so you're just going to drag it all the way around. And so that method, the press and drag, really releases the tissues and it feels great. Like if you do it in the shower when you're when you're wet, right, it goes even better. You can go— you can press even harder, and, and then you take a deep breath and you feel like you've got more of a range of motion in your own breath. But then you can do that on the jaw, right? So you find your masseter muscle right under your cheekbone, you press and you drag down towards your jaw as you open your mouth. So again, it's pressure plus movement, and that automatically releases the fascia. Another example of that is rolling a ball under your foot.

Yeah, right.

I don't know if you've ever done that.

Um, I haven't— I definitely have in the past. What I've been doing with my feet recently is, uh, using a Shakti mat. Have you seen those?

The what?

A Shakti mat. It's like— okay, you'd love this. Um, so it's a massage tool in a way, but it's based off the Indian bed of nails, and it's like thousands of little different spikes. Uh, it's just a plastic, um, spike.

Okay, yeah, I know what that is.

Yeah, yeah. Um, so I just stand on that, and I never realized how much tension I was holding in the foot. And if you look at, you know, uh, an x-ray diagram of the foot, it's pretty much all muscle apart from the thin bone in the middle. And when you stand on these things and it has thousands of different spikes kind of releasing the tension there, it has a cascading effect throughout the whole body that you can, you know, you feel— yeah, you can feel that instantly. But I think with the foot especially, because we're walking all day, and even if you are not a someone that's delving into exercise, you're walking most of time. If you're shoving your foot into a tight business shoe all day, um, so you're already kind of not allowing the foot muscles to expand, so you're not going to be working from a good base there. Um, but coupled that with never stretching your foot muscles or releasing them in some kind, it has an effect of the kinetic chain. Your knees are going to hurt, your hips are going to hurt, That translates to not being able to run properly or not being able to get proper hip torque if you're throwing kicks and things like that. So what do you do for foot management? Um, I know that there are a lot of stretches you can do, the ShaktiMat for instance, standing on a ball. Have you seen that in clients? I know I, I recommend doing barefoot walking as much as possible, just getting your foot out of the constrictive shoes, which I think is like, it's a very pervasive kind of Western society issue is that whatever we're doing, we're putting our feet into these misshapen, usually tight shoes during any type of exercise. And that goes for like weightlifting as well. If you're doing a squat, take your shoes off. They're a very— like, if you're using a fat heel on most running shoes to do squats on, you're automatically going to be off-center or off-kilter. Your ankle is going to be a bit weaker. Um, I know some weightlifting shoes are flat and very thin, which is good, but still barefoot is way, way better to be doing pretty much any exercise from.

Yeah, I completely agree. And, uh, no, it's, it's definitely been one of the main areas of focus in the last 3 years for me. It's rebuilding feet because people come into my office, they've got back pain, they've got neck pain, they've got all sorts of different problems with movements and mobility. And then you look at the way their, their toes move and their feet move relative to their body, and it's just all over the place. Some people can't even, uh, independently move their big toes. If they, if they want to move their big toe, they have to move all the other ones automatically. It's like they're there. It's like all one clumpy mass.

Yeah.

They can't, you know, just lift the big toe and keep all the others pressed against the floor. So that's one of the things that I assess is toe movements, just to see how they are. And you should see what I see, man. It's, uh, it's not pretty really. Uh, people's feet are destroyed. Uh, you know, women in high heels, their ankles, their feet are completely destroyed, and it causes knee problems, it causes lower back problems. Um, and yeah, you know, increasing total stimulation is huge because there are hundreds of thousands of sensors in your feet that, you know, provide your brain with information about where you are on the ground, what kind of ground you're standing on. Are you on sand? Are you on grass? Are you on Concrete. All that information is flowing up in order to dictate your overall muscle tone, your posture. So if you've got issues with the feet, you've got flat feet, or, you know, you're always in socks and tight business shoes, then you're, you're kind of numbing that communication with the brain. Yeah. And so your whole posture kind of shifts and your movements are, are going to be affected. So by spending more time strengthening your feet and, you know, stimulating them, being barefoot, exercising barefoot if you can. You know, sometimes commercial gyms don't let you be barefoot, uh, yeah, when you're training. But if you can, uh, you know, train at home or at least do some, some lunges or squats at home where your feet are in contact with the ground so that, you know, everything can touch and you can feel.

Yeah.

And then, you know, all your— every, every other muscle is going to follow along naturally.

Yeah, the feet are the base of all movement, and I've definitely noticed that since I got some Vibram Five Toe shoes, you know, the ones that look a bit silly.

No, but they feel amazing.

Yeah, they do feel amazing. And once you make the switch to a barefoot shoe, you realize how stunted and, you know, like you said, they're like your feet are— have these sensors all over them, and if you've got a glove over them, similar to how if you have thick gloves on your hands, you can't really do the same things and manipulate your fingers as well. It's the exact same thing when your foot is in a shoe. And I've noticed that consciously, it's like I'm barefoot pretty much all the time unless I have to go to the shops or something. Um, my feet have gotten bigger. And I already had big feet. I had trouble buying shoes before. So now even— now that they've expanded and the foot muscles have actually gotten bigger, like any other muscle group that you train and get stronger, it's even harder to find shoes now that fit me that aren't like a barefoot shoe. But it just feels unnatural to have my foot in these clunky things that we were told we need to run. In, you know, all the advertisement from big sports companies, our shoe will make you run faster and all the rest of it. But, you know, that might be the case to begin with, but, and if, especially if you are used to wearing a running shoe, the biggest issue that I see with running is that with these thick padded heels in most running shoes they enable the body, or that it feels more— I wouldn't even say it feels more natural, but what it encourages is a heel strike when you're running. And if you're running and landing on your heel, usually if you weren't wearing shoes, that would be very jarring and it just doesn't really feel right. Because you're wearing the running shoes that have a higher heel to counteract that, your body naturally wants to land on the heel. And that's actually very jarring to the knees and hips. Proper running technique is to land on the fore— on the ball of your foot, and as you're running and landing on the ball of your foot, your weight slowly shifts through the step to come kind of higher up of the foot onto your toes, and it's more of a smooth transition rather than being a doosh and landing on your heel. If you're overweight or just starting running for the first time, It can be quite discouraging because you go for a run, you put your running shoes on, do this big heel strike usually on concrete over and over again, and that is, you know, over the long term, that's why we see runners now who have their knees destroyed after 20 years of running like that.

Yeah, and you hear it, right? You even, you see it and you hear it, like there are Footlands, you hear the "crk" and you see the knee cave in and then it's just very unnatural. And then like you said, if they're overweight or they've been told that they need to burn calories and go run as much as they can on a treadmill and outside, then they— it's even worse, right? Because it's just shock after shock after shock of excess weight on the knees. And yeah, I've worked with a lot of joggers, helping them get back into their sport, uh, and perform, right? A lot of, a lot of, uh And a lot of neck pain and shoulder pain, surprisingly, in joggers, right? So it just shows you how, you know, the impact of the foot can travel all the way up to the upper body and the head.

Yeah, it's all connected. And I think encouraging exercise outside, obviously we all know the benefits of nature and we can go into that. But when you're running on a treadmill or concrete, because it's a hard surface with no give, that's also going to exacerbate the problem of heel strike through running. So again, I've put the barefoot shoes on. You can feel the individual stones and sticks and divots in the ground that naturally occur if you're running in a forest or on a trail. That intuitively just feels so much better and is so much better for the body because like you're saying, your feet tell the brain within microseconds how to adjust the— your gait and where you're putting weight on the foot. Um, you know, it is really quite amazing because it all happens subconsciously, um, the translation of information. So recommend everyone put the shoes off and, and get into nature. Start with a walk. Uh, I think if you've never walked barefoot, uh, or with barefoot shoes, you have to slowly work up to it. You can't instantly go do the same amount of, uh, distance that you would with those padded shoes. Um, but it is a kind of health habit, if you will, to incorporate, and it's going to have dividends for everything in the long run.

Absolutely. And one thing I've observed clinically is it takes a long time to really reverse feet issues. I don't know if it's because it's the— it's so far from the brain, or it takes a long time to adapt. You will feel short-term improvements, definitely, but, you know, in the long run, before you have to stop actually actively strengthening your feet, it could take a year if not more, you know, if you've had any kind of injury or sprained it or something like that. So you have to be patient with your arches and your feet. Because, uh, you have to take care of them every day, and you have to do that for a while before it actually sets in and becomes normal for you, right? Because they're exposed to so much impact during the day. You know, if you take, uh, the average American takes 5,000 to 7,000 steps in a day. That's a lot of, uh, hitting the ground, right? So they're, they're constantly exposed to pressure. Which is why you got to take care of them every day. Because it's not like you're training your biceps or your chest and they're going to have a few days to recover. No, you're using your feet all the time, so it requires constant effort. So if you've got, you know, flat feet or you want to fix your feet and your posture, you just have to be a little patient because it takes— it can take a lot of time.

Yeah, definitely agree with that.

But yeah, I mean, you feel the grounding, right? It's just not the same as when you have shoes. It's literally like— it's when you put on— when you put shoes on, it mutes you. It mutes that communication and you just feel off. And then the second you take them off and feel it, you're just like, whoa, it's a completely different movement.

Yeah, I think anyone realized that. Hopefully we can get get everyone out of those almost like foot bindings they are in the end.

Big Shoe is, uh, Big Shoe is coming after your arches. They want you with flat arches, literally. But I, I had a good laugh because you wrote, uh, big underwear talking about— but it's, you know, because then I just imagined it, right? I imagine the whole entity, that whole corporation just like trying to make, uh, trying to make you less manly by tightening your— I thought it was really funny.

Well, look, like, yes, that was, that was said in jest, obviously, but yeah, of course, when there is any company— and this is the— whenever something exists solely for the purpose of profit, which is what happens when corporations get big Whether or not it's a big agenda where these people working these corporations are actively trying to make you weak or whatever is not the case most of the time. What is the case is that they want to maximize profit and they're not considering the health effects. The same with Nike tries to make tries to sell more running shoes and they're not really thinking about the long-term effects, or even if they know the long-term effects of people wearing their running shoes while trying to do normal exercise. The underwear thing, underwear companies want to sell more underwear. They're not concerned with, or do they even know, the effects of constricting your testicles for 8 hours a day at a minimum, especially if you're wearing tight briefs. Like that is not good. Like, you can't get erections the same, um, the temperature of your balls and the regulation and creation of testosterone is that like sperm counts are higher in people that wear loose boxers. And even loose boxers have some kind of limiting movement. So I think that's a big one. Um, all of these corporations that are trying to increase their bottom line, they're not worried about the negative externalities to society on the whole. Uh, and maybe that's just a— we need to look at what or how we structure corporations and trying to see if there's a, a more social, socially beneficial way, uh, we can structure these things. I don't think that's going to happen really, uh, at a mass scale. But I think if everyone can keep that in mind as to, in general, companies that attain these massive amounts of power, they're not looking out for your health. Maybe they're not aware.

You're numbers.

Yeah, you're a number. You're a number. They want to maximize as much, as many dollars as they can get out of you, and they don't care whether it makes you depressed, sick, immobile, inflexible in the process.

The best way to counter that is sort of what we're doing right now on Twitter and all the, you know, sharing information, sharing our experiences. Yeah, it's the only way to go against it because they're just too strong. If you try to go directly against them, they're gonna crush you. Right, because they can afford the— yeah, they can shut you down pretty much. So it's, it's all about building your own community, your own little army, making people strong, fit, and, you know, teaching them about all these things that you only really learn from experience. You don't learn it from the corporations because, like you said, they're, they're worried about the profit.

Yeah.

But it's by communicating, and you know, social media has been such a great thing for this. Yeah, the widespread of the right information for you.

Yeah, and it requires some discernment. Obviously there's a lot of stupid information out there, but on the whole, uh, I find if you read something, you try it. Always, you know, give it a go, uh, and make sure that you have your own anecdotal evidence. I think, uh, especially even with scientific studies, we can see that there are financial motivations. Who paid for the study? Sometimes it's a corporation, again, that wants to then point towards this study as a reason why it can pollute more in the environment or sell more of these toxic things to people.

Is that your process with when you learn something new? You, you, you try it right away? Do you research it more? What's your, uh, yeah, pretty much.

Um, if it's a supplement that I see, always, you know, a quick Google. There's examine.com is a great one for supplements. They of course will only have the scientific studies there, and otherwise they say, you know, there's no evidence for these things. But if you compare that side of things with also the historical, you know, go back hundreds of thousands of years, some herbs were mentioned in Ayurvedic medicine, is— and that Western medicine will be like, oh, it's just a herb, it's not going to do anything, you need this pharmaceutical drug instead. That's not the case a lot of the time. So if I see anything, it's like when you posted about the jaw release things. I did that as soon as I saw the tweet and I was like, wow, that makes a huge difference. Um, yeah, and I've been telling people about it in my own life as well. Um, I think what one of the responsibilities that we have now that we have access to all this information at the touch of our fingers on social media is to communicate that to— and that's what I try to do much of the time with my social media. It's like, I'll learn something and it'll have benefits to me in my life, so let's get this out to as many people as possible. And that's what it's about, you know, helping your parents or grandparents. They might have inflammation like arthritis. Hip pain and knee pain. Okay, when's the last time you stretched? Historically, our grandparents, they, like you were saying earlier, they were never told that weightlifting is important, or no one that really knew. And you look at pictures of the beach back then, it's like no one was really trained in that sense or had any meaningful level of muscle gain because it wasn't a thing really unless you were an athlete. Um, so I think it's important and I hope to create some kind of community outreach organizations one day that kind of push this information, uh, as young as possible to kids as they're growing and learning in physical education. Like, at least for me, you're taught, you know, run, play dodgeball, swim, but you're not taught about really about how the muscles work together, what we can do to prevent injury. Like, I feel like there's a massive gap in the way that we are educating kids or educating people in general, uh, that I think if we can all just push that information as much as possible out there, then everyone's going to be happier because they are experiencing less pain. Like, it's, it's very hard to fix your life if you have a constantly nagging back pain, for example. That's always gonna, you know, take precedence over, okay, I want to go meditate or something and improve my mental state. Oh, but my back and leg hurting, I can't really concentrate on anything. If you want to study and you've got a headache all the time, you're not gonna be able to study effectively. So it really is this greater idea that we gotta fix our bodies, then we can fix our minds, then we can fix our lives.

I completely agree. And, uh, it should be like brushing your teeth, and it should be, you know, that kind of, that kind of level. It's just ingrained in everybody's routine, and, and you do it, and, uh, the world will be stronger and healthier.

Yes, I agree. And that's what we should aim to do.

It's a very nice, uh, outlook and objective to have, uh, because you're right, there's definitely a gap. And, you know, here Uh, in public— public— some public schools offer physical education once every 8 days. Yeah, so that's nothing, right? And they're just keeping children in, in class, not moving, eating the freaking, you know, all the snacks and processed food. And it's just, uh, it's a nightmare. And, you know, it's our generation and the one, uh, the ones under us who are gonna have to to clean that up. So it's going to be important, it's going to be a very important, uh, objective for the next 10, 20 years.

Yeah. So I, I just have one of your tweets saved here talking— it is showing a, a brain scan of the brain after sitting down and after a 20-minute walk. And the activity in the brain after a 20-minute walk is far, far higher than obviously the brain at rest. I like the idea of walking, and I recommend everyone to do it. It's like my best tweets or ideas for tweets come in motion, and I don't know why that is exactly, whether it's the blood flow that's just shifting around the body, um, or what it's doing to the brain itself. What do you know about the relationship between movement and the brain? I think it's important to talk about because a lot of people that consider themselves academics, or maybe they neglect the body for the mind and doing only study, but I have to reiterate and, and back up that the movement feeds back into the brain. And if you are truly, uh, serious about getting the most out of your brain, you have to accompany that with physical exercise. Walking, of course, being the quintessential human movement that has so many different benefits. Do you walk every day, and how do you feel that impacts the brain?

I definitely walk every day, and if I don't, I feel the effects in my sleep. And, you know, to— about movement and the brain, movement is what grows our brain in the first place, right? So when a baby is born, it feels the world with 5 senses, and then it moves, and then it's that movement that stimulates the different parts of the brain and grows them and kind of links them together and creates the connectivity between the different parts of the brain. And so to coordinate movement works the same parts that are active when you're thinking or when you're creating ideas or whatever. It's the you know, it's all different parts communicating together at once. And so by moving, you're stimulating that network, right? So just taking one step requires amazing coordination. Yeah. A step is so simple to us, right? Because we do it every day, but the amount of coordination that has to happen for you to stabilize your weight on one foot and then not fall when you're stepping forward is huge. So you're— you've got different parts of the brain working together, and it's the same parts that are involved in regulating your breathing and your, your thoughts, your emotions, uh, other movements. So it just creates a feed-forward mechanism that everything, you know, everything just radiates onto the other. All the functions radiate onto the other. And it's— I'm like you. All my best tweets and my best writing and thought— thoughts came after a long walk or physical activity or during a workout or after a workout, right? You just feel like the ideas are flowing. And that's because the movement, all the movements that you did in your workout or while walking stimulated different parts of your brain. So they're active. And now that they're active, well, you know, then your thoughts, your emotions and Everything else is smooth, is fluid. So I, you know, I have a dog, I walk my dog, so I don't have a choice, right?

Yeah.

If I don't walk him, he's annoying, and it's not just annoying, but it's terrible for his health. So I have to walk, and it's good because, you know, otherwise I would do work, I would work all day maybe, and walk once or twice, but he forces me to to go multiple times in a day. And that's, uh, that's a huge benefit of having a dog, is that it keeps you active.

Yeah, I need to get my— I need to get a dog. I've been feeling that recently. The place I'm in at the moment won't let me have one, but hopefully soon I can rectify that.

Um, yeah, but, uh, and yeah, so anyways, to continue on walking and the brain Let's say you're walking in nature, then that effect is enhanced because now you're just like, you've got all the smells, you've got the sights, you know, you're seeing trees, the fresh oxygen. And so you're just fueling that whole orchestra happening inside your head. And so like, if you, you know, if you're able to get out and see green, see trees, it'll have a positive impact on creativity, on your, you know, your mood, your energy levels. Again, because it's, it's all the different parts of your brain are connected and then you're connecting all that to the outside world. And so that's when you get into that flow state.

Yeah. The calming effects of nature. Um, if you're feeling upset, if you're feeling anxious, usually because you haven't been outside in a while. And I know that that's for me as well. Uh, it, You know, when we are doing work on a computer, we get in the zone, a few hours can pass, and that's— before long, that's 20% of your day where you haven't been moving. And I, I wish there was a way that we could walk and write at a computer at the same time, and maybe there is. I need to get like one of those treadmill things and then a standing desk, but for the most part, uh, It is a tough thing to get used to, especially if you're at an office where you can't necessarily go off and walk for 20 minutes. I recommend doing things like when you just pop to the toilet, go into the disabled stall, do 50 air squats while you're in there. And while you're not walking as such, you can push the blood around, fire off all the same different things that are going to activate the brain and have you back in working at your desk a lot more refreshed and feeling a lot better for it as well. I wanted to talk about breathing as well. It's a huge part of health. A lot of people are breathing the wrong way, and it being the root of all, uh, life, I guess. If we stop breathing, we can't breathe, we we— our body degrades and we pass away. But a lot of people— doesn't take long, not at all, a few minutes. You would say it's probably the most important thing in order to live. But the actual act of breathing, even that, we've moved away from the proper ways to do that. Like, a lot of people, they're not even deeply breathing the entire day, and they'll go, 'Wheat's not doing that,' and it It's one of those things you can access all the time. Just a few deep breaths, 10 deep breaths in a row. If you're doing— if you're listening now, pause the podcast and go do that. Just in through the nose is very important. A lot of people are mouth breathing, and I don't know if you see this in your clients, but 100%. 100%, yeah. If you're again sitting at a desk, if your mouth's open, when you're breathing through the mouth, your body activates the sympathetic nervous system, which is our state of arousal, and that can contribute to anxiety. Your body thinks it's in a stressful situation if you're breathing through the mouth, because we're meant to breathe through the nose. If we breathe through the mouth, your body subconsciously interprets that as you're in a dangerous situation. Situation where you need to force lots of air into the body because you're in a, you know, maybe you're getting chased by a tiger or something. So what are your thoughts on breathing in general? I encourage everyone to nasal breathe only as much as possible, even within exercise. Takes a while to get used to if you're not used to it and you're used to breathing through the mouth during exercise, but if you stick with it, uh, I think in general you feel a much more calm, steady state your arousal in general is going to be lower, your stress is going to be lower. But yeah, that movement of the, the rib cage, the diaphragm, it's a whole body exercise really that we can consciously train to do deeper. And yeah, what are your thoughts on the breath?

Uh, well, like we said, it's, it's essential to life, right? And a lot of people have been disconnected, not in the sense that they're not breathing, but that it's just so unconscious that they don't think about it and they don't do anything about it either. So they've got really, you know, short breaths, they don't get as much oxygen as they could, it's not optimal. And let's say they breathe through their mouths, one of the other byproducts of that is that your neck, your traps, and your chest will get tight. The more you do it. Right. So it will create all sorts of upper body issues as well. But, uh, you know, I, when I started nose breathing during my workouts, I couldn't do, I couldn't do it for longer than a set. I would do 1 or 2 sets and I would have to go back to mouth breathing. And then it took a few weeks, but then I was able to do the entire workout breathing through my nose. And so I realized, well, you know, that was something that was completely missing from my, from my brain, from my body, because now I can do it. So I've increased my capacity, and it's just— it's been night and day in terms of, like you said, uh, staying calm, staying present, uh, sleep, activating my core, right? Because you're using your diaphragm, you're, you're using your abdominals in a certain way when you breathe properly, that when you're doing squats or whatever, it helps you lift the weight. Uh, one thing I've noticed working with, uh, let's say a lot of beginners who have never exercised before, is that when they get into their set, they just hold their breath. They— not the, the— yes, they call the Valsalva method, but it's, it's like they just— and then they, they keep breath in for the, for the 8 reps, right? And they're bright red after.

Yeah.

And it's just like, I have to teach them to, to breathe, right? And— but it's not easy to coordinate breathing and movement. So a lot of time I have to do breathing exercises. I do it at the beginning of the session, at the end of the session, to help them relax, but also to sort of get the, the, the movement in and get them to the— in, in store proper breathing patterns throughout their day. And so the first step is making them conscious about it, which isn't always easy, but as they realize how they're breathing, then it becomes easier to change it and the effects are almost immediate, or whenever you start getting it right, you can feel something. Like if you take a few deep breaths, it actually calms you down. You feel it right away, right? So it should be easy to sort of, uh, continue. But, uh, again, that's, that's another thing where they didn't really— at least for me, they— I didn't learn that in school, you know.

And, uh, schooling in general is not really It's not like, uh, when schooling was created that they all sat down and said, okay, what's, what's the most important information that's going to help people out with their lives? Uh, let's build the foundations of that, you know. That would be ideal, uh, and hopefully some schools are like that, but not really. Uh, schooling that we know today, uh, was created to create better factory workers that can clock in, clock out at a certain time of day, do what they're told, uh, and complete and remember what they're told. Um, but that's a whole other topic we could go into.

Yeah, no, I could go deep.

But yeah, if you want to live a healthy life, it does require some or a lot of information seeking yourself. And again, personal experimentation. Breathing One is I, like, I've found this myself again through yoga, is they encourage the in and out breath constantly while you're moving. And that's really improved my day-to-day life. Like, sometimes earlier on in my life, I would find that if I was bending over to get under a sink, I would go, and then I realized I hadn't breathed for 4 seconds. But it doesn't— you don't need to do that. You can continue breathing while you're moving. And that's something that yoga's taught me so well. It's the same with exercise. You don't need to hold the tension while you're doing a bench, like you said, until your face goes, "Ugh!" You know, it's— you can breathe normally. It will take practice, but the benefits are amazing once you do that. Another thing with sleep that I found, and maybe the mouthpiece does the same, the same thing for you, but taping the mouth, uh, before sleep means that if you are prone to mouth breathing during sleep, uh, that just gets closed off in a way. So you're only going to be nasal breathing throughout the night. When you're on nasal breathing, your diaphragm is more involved in the movement of, of the rib cage and the breath in general. When your diaphragm is moving then your spine moves. And that gentle movement of the spine through sleep is what clears the inflammation in the brain through the movement of cerebrospinal fluid. And that is principally what's— what makes sleep so restorative. If you're sleeping through the night, breathing through your mouth, snoring, not getting that flow and that movement of the spine, yes, you may be asleep for 8 hours, but it's not going to be as restorative as it could be. So the whole mouth breathing, breath in general, has so many far-reaching consequences that people aren't really aware of these days. Absolutely.

And it sounds awful too.

It's just like— Yeah, I used to snore quite badly until I started breathing through the nose and taping my mouth.

So, and like I said, you felt it almost overnight, the change, right? Literally, that's it. So it's fast, and that's motivating.

Yeah, yeah. I think people get overwhelmed a lot of the time with all the information that's out there, but the general mentality to have is just, okay, I'm going to improve this today, I'm going to feel better. And then stack another thing the next day or continue the stretching the next day. You know, even 5 minutes, 10 minutes, everyone has that amount of time to just pop down, do some foam rolling, do some stretches. There really is no excuse to— once you hear the information to do the work, it's going to pay dividends.

You have to look at it like it's like your own scientific experiment. Where you, you have your, your hypothesis, your theory.

Okay.

You read, then you apply it, you observe, and then you move on. Right. Based on the results. So, and if you have that mindset, it's not about being right or wrong. It's how does your body respond to this?

Yeah.

And then you might be wrong. You might try something and not feel anything, or it might take a while before you feel it. Yeah. But, uh, you know, it's, it's, there's always— I don't get why people are arguing about stuff when it's, it's all about the experiences, the personal experiences. It's the only thing that matters.

Yes, 100%.

Yeah. And so, and if, if you, if you're overwhelmed by the information or you don't know, you're lost, then, you know, seek a professional. And nowadays with social media, it's so easy to connect with people from all over the world. You know, I've got clients, uh, in India and Europe and the States. And it's just incredible. We're just sharing information and I'm helping them out. So don't be afraid to seek a professional because, you know, we're, we're trained to consider many different variables that maybe you haven't thought of. So we can help you find what you need to do the most and strengthen, take it from there.

Wise words. Um, so I just wanted to touch on one last topic. And that's of the eyes. I had never thought about eye exercises until you tweeted out that graphic a few weeks ago, but it makes a lot of sense. It's okay, so your eyes are moving around. How do we get movement? Through muscles. So the muscle fibers attached to the back of the eyeball pivoting left, right, up, down, in circles. If you don't use those muscles, They similarly atrophy like any other muscle in the body. So a lot of the time now we are sat in front of our screens, uh, looking at the one direction straight forward, and maybe there's a, a limited amount of movement from the left and right of the screen. But if you look at the whole field of vision, that's such a small amount, you know, 5% of your total field of vision of the eyes, that you're you're never really looking at for the most part, 8, 10 hours a day, and then you go home, you watch TV, it's the same kind of thing. Uh, what does the— do the eyes in general and the eye muscles, uh, in relation to health, uh, from what you've seen? Um, and then also, what are the differences that are going on in the eye muscles when you're looking at a screen versus looking at the horizon? Or you're out in nature looking far ahead of a path or something like that.

Well, so your eyes move, uh, about 250,000 times in a day. They're constantly in movement. They're constantly recording and sending the information to your brain. And 80% of that feedback about where you are in space, where you're standing in space, comes from your eyes. 70 or 80%. So it's a big chunk of your— in the information about where you are, right? And so if both eyes aren't moving symmetrically, let's, let's say that you're right, the, the, your right eye muscles are weaker or they're deconditioned, and so they're not moving the same way as the left. So let's say when you focus on a target, one of them rotates perfectly and the other one struggles, so you don't have a symmetrical movement, then your brain gets two different images. It doesn't get sort of two halves of the same image. It gets a distorted perception of where you are. And so to make sure that you don't have to use— so make sure that you don't see, you don't have a double vision, right? It kind of corrects, distorts the signal, and then gives you what you see, which is wrong. But then your whole body, every single muscle, you know, from your neck down, will adjust accordingly. So your brain thinks you're somewhere else than you actually are. So your neck is going to tense in a certain way, your shoulders are going to— maybe your, your, your right shoulder is going to be higher than the left. Same thing with the hips. The spine is going to be sort of a bit of a scoliosis because that is the muscle tone that your brain is dictating based on the information sent by your eyes. I'm not sure if that makes sense.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

And so that's it. So I mean, you need to get your both of your eye muscles moving symmetrically. And how do you do that? You do that by, by training them. By doing different kinds of convergence exercise or moving them in every single direction so that they can both work together. They can both move symmetrically and send your brain a clear image of where you are so that your muscles can, you know, respond and contract properly. So, uh, you know, things like concussions, head trauma staring at a screen all day long, right? You're, you're, you're sort of overstressing your eyes, which eventually kind of just, you know, the, the muscles weaken. And so, you know, repeat every day, then you lose that— that's the symmetry between your left and your right eye, and the rest of your body is put into an unfavorable posture. So that's the first question. Second question was about staring at a screen versus the horizon. Well, again, it's— look at it like lifting weights for your eyes, right? So when you're staring at a screen, something is close, your both eyes are going to be rotated inward, focusing on the small prints on the screen or whatever. And so that's going to strengthen them in a certain way. But if you, if you're only looking, you know, the, the short-sighted, if you're only looking close, then you're never using the muscles that actually make your eyes focus on the horizon, on whatever's— on everything that's far.

Yeah.

And so it's kind of like, uh, only training your chest, never training your back kind of situation, right? So the muscles that are supposed to help you look far aren't conditioned, aren't ever stimulated because you're always looking at something close. And over time it just kind of becomes an imbalance and stays that way, and it has repercussions everywhere else in your body, including your sight.

Yeah, I think that's a lot of the reason why, at least I'm seeing, uh, is kids wearing glasses way more often these days is because they're just given an iPad and that's all they look at all day.

Yep.

Alright, man, well, I think we've covered a lot here. Hopefully that gives a lot for people to kind of go off and work and strengthen all those little things and those little parts of the body that we don't really think about day to day, but I know will have very, very good health consequences for them if they delve into that. So why don't you just give us where you're at, social medias, website, and what you're working on at the moment?

Uh, well, my, my website is, uh, www.theonlin— not the— onlineschoolofexercise.com, and that is, uh, the, the platform that I use to, uh, assess different students and then give them the appropriate workouts or exercises to fix based on their, uh, their assessment. Uh, my Twitter account is @mythoughtfood. You can also find it under my name, Alex Bernier. And I only use— I'm only using Twitter right now. I'm getting my Instagram set up. So I don't— I'll be releasing that when it's ready. But no, that's it.

Awesome, man. Well, thanks so much for joining me on the SolCast. And let's do this again in a few months' time or so.

Yeah, man. It was great talking to you.

All right, thanks, brother. Bye.

All right, well, take care, huh? Ciao.