Most windows are two ways, and the eyes are also the body’s primary input for how it gets information about what is going on around us.

Two Eyes, One Brain (aka, how our eyes work)

A real quick anatomy lesson to explain why proper eye function was important on Kilimanjaro. I promise — this will be painless.

We have two eyes, right? But, we only see one set of information (right now, that information is what is on this screen).

When we are look around, the brain takes in the information from both eyes and matches up the information from each eye to create a single image. But, if your eyes aren’t working together your eyes will send mismatched information, much like when you take a photo with the camera shaking. When that happens the brain throws out one set of information to avoid giving us a giant headache.

So, now we are working with one data point, and not two. Just like you need three data points to triangulate on a location for something (I think I’ve been watching too many crime shows on Hulu), the eyes need information from both eyes to have depth perception.

OK, anatomy lesson over. Phew!

Lacking Depth Perception = Bad

If both eyes aren’t working together you don’t have depth perception. Not having depth perception when you are spending days on end climbing up and down rocks is ROUGH. Your body doesn’t reliably know how far up, or down, that next step is. So, you are foot strikes are more abrupt than they should be, you are missing steps, unsteady when your foot sets down, etc. Those little mis-steps accumulate, and when you are taking well over ten thousands steps per day — which we were — it can become a real problem.

In addition to growing up not breathing right, my eyes have also become wonky (that’s a technical term) from years and years at a computer. Fortunately, most eye function is controlled by muscles, and muscles can be retrained.

Vision training is a ginormous field of study that goes well beyond a visit to the optometrist. And, with that, there are countless ways to correct vision that don’t involve getting glasses, contacts, or surgery. We’re going to start here really small. If you want to know more, shoot me a note in the comments below.

Vision Training Drills

Pencil Push-Ups

This is a great exercise for getting the eyes better coordinated and working better at close distances.

• Hold a pencil directly out in front of your face, tip up.
• Slowly bring the pencil in towards the tip of your nose, keeping your focus on the pencil tip.
• When the pencil tip doubles, then bring the pencil back away from your face.
• Repeat 4-5 times

If your eyes are working well, then you should be able to get the pencil tip virtually to the end of your nose.

Eye Tracking

This exercise is great for getting your eyes muscles to work through all of the movements they are capable of.

• Hold your finger out in front of you.
• Take your finger and draw a large circle, tracking your finger with both eyes.
• Continue to make a circle (you can change hands) or create other shapes with your finger for about a minute

While simple, they are really effective exercises designed to get both eyes working together and more accustomed to working in places and distances we don’t normally look.

For cardio training, most people I know simply go longer — either based upon time or distance. So, an extra 10 minutes on the bike, mile around the track, etc.

For strength training it is usually either additional weight or volume. So, in this case, it would be moving up to the next size kettlebell, performing another five lifts, etc.

However, there are a lot of other ways to still progress your training that is as, if not more, valuable that the methods I defined above. You may actually have NO NEED to run that extra mile, so why? Maybe you really don’t get any additional benefit from being able to press an additional 5 pounds.

BUT…..

The nervous system likes a target, and we always like to walk away from any training session feeling like we accomplished something. So, let’s change the rules of the game a little bit, shall we?

• Instead of going longer, try to cover the same ground in less time. For cardio training, instead of running a 9 minute mile, work to get to 8:30 mile.
• RPE (Rate of Perceived Exertion). This is a fancy way of saying, how tired did you get from what you were doing? It is usually measured on a 0-10 scale, with 0 being no noticeable exertion, 5 is heavy, and 10 is very, very heavy. The goal would be to accomplish the same amount of work with a lower RPE rating at the end. That means it’s getting easier, so that’s GOOD! This works for both cardio and strength training.
• Reduce the rest between your cardio or strength sets. You can still do your 3 sets of 10, but instead of a minute or two between sets, drop your rest period down to 30 seconds. (Confused as to how this works for cardio? Think circuit training.)
• Change the temperature or time of day. I’m a temperate climate kind of girl and I hate training before mid-afternoon, so asking me to train when it’s hot or in the morning is some sort or torture for me. That same set of stairs that I have no problems with on a 50-degree afternoon is sheer torture on a 40-degree morning.

I listed out some of the easy ones, but there are a lot more ways to modify your training — for either novelty or progression — that I didn’t mention. The list is really only limited by your imagination.

List your favorites below!

Although a really annoying fact of life, pain lives solely in the brain, and is a figment of our imaginations. Pain is an interpretation of what signals our nervous system receives. In this case, it certainly LOOKS as if the nail has gone through the foot, so the pain signal goes to the brain, because the body wants to get our attention that we need to do something about it. It’s the same mechanism that is behind phantom limb pain and all sorts of other body responses “that don’t make sense.”

The body desperately wants to survive and be efficient and will do whatever it takes to get our attention. Because people respond really well to pain, that is an easy mechanism for the body to use. You can think of it as the body saying, “psst, hey you, something is wrong, and I need to you to stop your busy life and take care of it.” If you ignore the signal, the pain will intensify.

It’s one of the reasons why Z-Health works so well – pain is a signal, so to get rid of the pain we need to simply change the signal in a positive manner and the pain will go away. It’s why I can mobilize a hand to make shoulder pain go away, why working on a collarbone makes a hip feel better, etc.

So, the next time you are in pain, it may be that the nail really is going through your foot, or it may be something else entirely. Just don’t take it too literally.