The less wear and tear we can expose the body to, with the biggest benefit from an exercise standpoint, the better. If we can give you more bang for your buck physiologically, and in terms of results from your exercise with less wear and tear on the joints and the tissue, we think that’s a home run.

An important strategy in that regard is making a visual tweak to your exercise.

First, determine which is your dominant eye, if you don’t already know it. In many of your exercises, you can simply cover that eye so that your nervous system has to process the same information with only one filter versus two. The body will then have to give more bandwidth to that process, making the exercise a little bit more difficult in terms of coordination and work.

Give it a try with a simple squat. There’s not a big balance requirement here, which will help you ease into this.

As you progress into a more challenging exercise like a lunge, you’ll see the difference.  We’re changing three different variables here: There’s a bigger balance and coordination requirement, and we also have your body weight load on one leg.

Now, let’s change the sensory input. You may wobble a little bit, as you have to gain control. This is great for both the joints, the musculature and the nervous system in general.

If we add weight, it’s not going to take much of it, depending on how much you rely on that dominant eye. Whether you’re doing the exercise at a light weight and high repetitions for systemic demand, or at heavy weight with low repetition for strength demand, your body has to process that information. That creates a physiological demand that makes the load a little bit heavier, and you’ll get more of that desired result in any of the cases.

Again, just tweaking out your dominant eye, a technique introduced to the industry in the last couple of years by Integrated Kinetic Neurology, a great group of instructors. It’s not a technique you’re going to do on a daily basis through the entirety of your sets, but pick a couple exercises. Be safe with it. See if you can’t start getting more for less.