Part 14 (1/2)

”He shrugged and said, 'incredible.'

”Acute traumatic injury is common in the world of athletics, so Earthing is a great boon. Grounding helps minimize injury downtime and speed recovery. I know how long it takes to recover normally. And I also know what happens when an athlete is grounded. The changes in terms of body recovery from day to day, the ability to repair tissue, to recover from activity and the stresses and strains of the day, are amazing. To me, it's obvious that any athlete should make Earthing part of his or her regular wellness program.

”Earthing also appears to accelerate recovery from surgery, which, as far as the body is concerned, is basically a form of traumatic injury. One of my patients is a champion in Supercross, a wild and wooly sport where off-road motorcycles race in stadium dirt tracks filled with steep jumps and obstacles. My patient suffered a bad shoulder injury that required surgery. He was treated in a variety of ways to speed the healing process, including sleeping grounded. In three weeks, he was able to compete in a national event and win the compet.i.tion. He made an amazingly rapid recovery.”

Less Pain ”Among the different athletes I help, the common feedback I hear about Earthing goes something like this: 'I'm sleeping so much better and have less pain. I get up the next day, and I feel so much more recovered. I can't believe the workouts that I'm doing. I should be more tired. My results and improvement are increasing with more frequency. They're staying at a high level. It takes less effort to get and stay where I am.'

”Athletes say frequently they are able to push through the day better. They don't have that midafternoon energy drop. They get up in the morning with much more clarity, ready to seize the opportunity of the day. They seem to need less sleep. They have better quality of sleep. They may have been used to having eight hours of sleep before. Now they need maybe an hour or so less, but they still can perform at the same level. Matter of fact, they even feel better.

”Professional football players live with one degree or another of pain from all the hard physical contact in their sport. They tell me they just don't have the normal pain that they think they should based on what they do. These are the things that I constantly hear.

”Probably the greatest value that I've found with Earthing is that it provides a rock solid biological platform, a basis, for all the other treatments and care that I use. It makes everything else work so much better. Everybody wants a treatment for a specific problem. Earthing, though, is like a universal antidote. It seems to reset the physiological playing field, allowing the body to be its own best healer and do the job it's designed to do-repair and regenerate itself, and create energy to sustain a long and productive life. I think of Earthing as the primer for a canvas on which I paint all the strategies for getting my clients to the top and keeping them there. In art, if you don't properly prime the canvas, the paint won't stick.

”It's now been seven years that I've been Earthing personally and in my work. During that time, there have been only a handful of days that I have not been grounded. On those occasions where for some reason I either forgot my bed pad or the building that I was in didn't allow me to use the technology, I could definitely tell the difference in terms of how I felt and recovered from exercise. I do a lot of traveling, both domestically and internationally, and one of the personal benefits that I found is the dramatic reduction in jet lag. I get up the next day and function fully in the time zone I'm at and not where I came from.

”Earthing is amazingly simple. It's as easy as going barefoot on the beach or in your yard. Or if you have an Earthing device, all you do is plug it in. You lie down, you go to sleep. You do what you normally do. No refills. No prescriptions. No calibrations, settings, timers, no nothing.

”In my view, biology is biology. It doesn't matter who you are. We all share the same basic human biology. What I've observed with high performers in terms of the response to the Earth is exactly what I have observed with patients who aren't athletes. All of us need to perform as best as we can in life and have the stamina to carry out our daily routines, which often are very demanding and stressful. Whatever we can do to enhance our performance and bolster our recovery from day-to-day stresses helps ensure that we become consistent top performers in whatever we do in our lives. That's really what life is all about.”

EARTHING AND FOOTBALL.

Chike Okeafor, thirty-three, linebacker for the National Football League's Arizona Cardinals: ”I've been sleeping grounded regularly for more than five years after experiencing the effect of grounding on a leg injury. It was a hamstring injury in the back of my knee, plus some deep bruising of the thigh, incurred during a practice session. As I lay on a grounded sheet, I watched a computer monitor connected to a real-time thermal imaging camera. I was amazed to see the colors depicting the intensity of the inflammation from the injury cool down quickly, like within fifteen minutes. The intensity was dramatically different within an hour or so. I felt the difference physically, but to see the changes like that so rapidly was mind-blowing. ”I've been sleeping grounded regularly for more than five years after experiencing the effect of grounding on a leg injury. It was a hamstring injury in the back of my knee, plus some deep bruising of the thigh, incurred during a practice session. As I lay on a grounded sheet, I watched a computer monitor connected to a real-time thermal imaging camera. I was amazed to see the colors depicting the intensity of the inflammation from the injury cool down quickly, like within fifteen minutes. The intensity was dramatically different within an hour or so. I felt the difference physically, but to see the changes like that so rapidly was mind-blowing.

”I needed to play that weekend in a big game and there wasn't much time to recover. We were thinking it was going to be nothing short of a miracle to get me ready. My naturopath did some work on me, and I slept grounded the rest of that week. I recovered enough to where I was able to play and without injuring myself further. I was sold on grounding from then on.

”There haven't been very many occasions since then that I do not sleep grounded. I can always feel the difference. In those situations, my wife and I always notice that we're not getting as restful sleep as we do when we are grounded. I used to be a guy who needed eight hours of sleep, and I would take ten if I had the opportunity. I quickly saw that with grounding I was well rested with six hours.

”I have also felt a big difference on the days after games. Normally, you are super sore the day after because of the physical nature of the game, from all the hits and banging that goes on. I never ever miss grounding the night after a game because it so dramatically reduces the inflammation. I am not nearly as sore. It feels almost as if I have skipped that tough day of normal recovery. With grounding, the experience is more like how I used to feel on day two after a game.”

EARTHING ON THE TRIATHLETE FRONT.

Chris Lieto, thirty-seven, a professional triathlete, is three-time Ironman champion and former U.S. National Champion: ”I first got involved in the sport more than ten years ago. Early on, I set a goal of being world champion. So I needed to figure out the best route how to get there and as quick as possible. I needed to maximize everything-my effort, my equipment, my supplements, my food, my water, and my recovery process, that is, recovery from injuries and exhaustion, and that's where grounding came in. ”I first got involved in the sport more than ten years ago. Early on, I set a goal of being world champion. So I needed to figure out the best route how to get there and as quick as possible. I needed to maximize everything-my effort, my equipment, my supplements, my food, my water, and my recovery process, that is, recovery from injuries and exhaustion, and that's where grounding came in.

”I train full-time. That's my job. I love it. I love being outside and being healthy. My training schedule is a little bit different every day, depending on what race is coming up. The Ironman involves a 2.4-mile swim, followed by a 112-mile bike ride, and then when you're done with all that, you run a marathon. That's 26.2 miles. So it ends up being a very long and tough day to say the least. But that's just in the Ironman. There are also half-Ironman distances, with a 1.2-mile swim, a 56-mile bike race, and a 13.1-mile run, and other variations on the theme as well.

”I usually get in anywhere from three to eight hours of training daily on a regular basis, about twenty to twenty-six hours a week total. That includes swimming and biking four or five days a week and running about five or six days a week. There are days I will rest and not train at all. When I am preparing for an Ironman compet.i.tion, during the course of a week I'll swim probably twelve miles, bike up to fifteen miles, and build up to about eighty miles a week running.

”The sport is really tough on your body. You have to train so much and for different activities. This is different from most any other sport. For most sports, you go out and train specifically for one event or one thing, and you train for two to four hours a day. Here, you really put your body through the ringer every day. So recovery is a major issue. Anyone can go out and train. But if you don't have that recovery, and your body's not adapting, then the training is just going to be hurting you instead of benefiting you. You have to take the time and the focus to recover. You need to get good sleep and get enough good foods and protein and calories in you. It's vital to stay on top of everything.

”I've been sleeping grounded for more than four years, and it has been a huge boost for me and my recovery process. I'm able to come back a lot stronger and feel a lot better. I noticed right away that I wouldn't get as fatigued on a daily basis. If you're tired and you go out and train, you're just going to dig yourself a hole. I was now able to recover better to be able to workout the next day. Because that's what it's about. You want to get in the workouts day in and day out. But you want to make sure that you recover enough to get that workout to be of benefit. So for me, grounding has been a simple way to recover without really doing anything different.

”The swelling is a lot less. During the day, if I have a chance, I'll put my feet on a grounding pad. When I get done with a workout, I make my recovery food and drink, sit down, and wrap my legs in a recovery bag. Any time for me to be hooked into the Earth is good.

”If I have really sore s.h.i.+n splints or a sore calf or a hurting hip, I'll attach a grounded electrode patch right on the spot. The Earth's energy gets fed straight into that point, and the swelling in that area will go down. Recently, I had an ankle that flared up. For a week, I was applying alternate ice and heat, but it wouldn't go away. I put the patch on it, and the following day it felt normal and I could run that day. So now I use the patch directly on the spot whenever something feels a little sore or is a little swollen. I'll put a patch on and I'm good.

”I haven't won the world champions.h.i.+p yet. That's the big goal that has eluded me so far. My career has gotten better and better every year, and even as I am getting older-I'm thirty-seven and racing against guys who are ten years younger-I am keeping up in fitness and my ability to race. Grounding has been a big help in allowing me to do that.”

EARTHING AND WEIGHTLIFTING.

Ken Jones, Ph.D., fifty-three, Clarksville, Tennessee, is an exercise physiologist, high school math teacher, and football coach. In 2008, he won the American Drug-Free Powerlifting Federation t.i.tle in the master's 110-kilo division and, later in the year, the World Amateur Athletic Union t.i.tle: ”I've been a powerlifter since the age of twelve, and over the years I've achieved many records with different federations. I have been grounding myself for more than two years, ever since the age of fifty. The most I had squatted before that was 505 pounds. After six months of grounding, I was able to increase my lift to 585 pounds, a jump of 80 pounds. When that happened, at my age, I thought it was a bit strange. So I went to an endocrinologist to find out if something was going on with my testosterone level. He checked me out. My testosterone level was not real high. So that wasn't the thing causing my lifts to go up like I was a kid again. ”I've been a powerlifter since the age of twelve, and over the years I've achieved many records with different federations. I have been grounding myself for more than two years, ever since the age of fifty. The most I had squatted before that was 505 pounds. After six months of grounding, I was able to increase my lift to 585 pounds, a jump of 80 pounds. When that happened, at my age, I thought it was a bit strange. So I went to an endocrinologist to find out if something was going on with my testosterone level. He checked me out. My testosterone level was not real high. So that wasn't the thing causing my lifts to go up like I was a kid again.

”I improved across the board. Not just squats, but bench press and dead lifts as well. My overall strength level has gone up. I'm able to lift heavier with the big muscle groups in training and still recover faster than I used to from my workouts. That's a big deal. And then to top things off, I won national and world powerlifting champions.h.i.+ps last year.

”I didn't change any of my workout patterns. I didn't change my diet. I didn't lay off and then come back. The only thing I can attribute to this unusual improvement is grounding. If I can make those kind of gains at an older age, it should be amazing what someone younger will do.”

EARTHING AND GOLF LONGEVITY.

Ted Barnett, seventy-one, Palm Desert, California, retired mattress factory owner: ”My wife and I owned a mom-and-pop mattress factory. We did at least half the work ourselves and had one or two employees. We made mattresses, delivered them, and set them up in the homes of our customers. In our factory, I was the 'closer.' I ran the big tape-edge machine, which is one of the toughest jobs in a bedding plant. This operation is where you sew the top quilted mattress panel to the side border. People who run this machine for any length of time have problems with their hands because they are constantly pulling hard with their fingers. My hands were in pretty bad shape. I had arthritis, and I was concerned. ”My wife and I owned a mom-and-pop mattress factory. We did at least half the work ourselves and had one or two employees. We made mattresses, delivered them, and set them up in the homes of our customers. In our factory, I was the 'closer.' I ran the big tape-edge machine, which is one of the toughest jobs in a bedding plant. This operation is where you sew the top quilted mattress panel to the side border. People who run this machine for any length of time have problems with their hands because they are constantly pulling hard with their fingers. My hands were in pretty bad shape. I had arthritis, and I was concerned.

”Our factory made some of the first Earthing bed pads for Clint Ober back in 2001 or so. And in the process I got grounded. I thought that grounding might be able to help my hands and my heart. I had had open-heart surgery the year before.

”The grounding helped indeed. My hands stopped hurting. I don't recall exactly how long it took, but I remember that I was significantly impressed to the point that I continued doing it. Even to this day, if I travel or otherwise go without sleeping grounded for two or three days, my hands will start hurting again, as well as the shoulders, neck, and other parts of my body where I have a touch of arthritis. As soon as I get home, I ground myself. Within one day, or even within hours, I can stop the pain. It disappears.

”I'm an avid golfer and have been so all my life. Now that I'm retired I play practically every day, and even though I'm seventy-one, I'm still very compet.i.tive. I was a 2 to 3 handicap golfer in my younger days. Now I'm still at a 4 to 5 handicap level. None of my contemporaries are at my level anymore. All the guys I used to play with when I was younger and who played me even or beat me can't come close to me anymore. They have lost their capacity to play compet.i.tively. I have not. I play with the pros my age and I kick their tails. They can't believe it.

”I play golf grounded. I put copper wires in the insole of my shoes, bend them through a hole in the soles, and then bend them again flat against the bottom of the shoes. I think that sleeping and playing grounded has something to do with being supple and able to take the physical beating caused by regular practice and playing. Most people my age stop being compet.i.tive on the golf course because they can't take the abuse to their body. They can't practice, swing really hard, or push their games to be a winner because it hurts. So they don't win. They lose. I can't beat the really good twenty- or thirty-year-old kids. Nothing hurts when they swing. But the older ones don't beat me.”

CHAPTER 14.

The Auto Connection: Earthing on the Move A truck stop is an unlikely setting for a ”scientific” experiment. But one busy truck stop just north of Los Angeles along Interstate 5 was just that for a few days in February 2000. Truckers who stopped there were approached by an enthusiastic trio of Clint Ober and two old friends, Corky and Kathleen Downing.

The three of them were busy enrolling long-haul drivers into a simple experiment. All the drivers had to do was agree to sit on a 10-by-14-inch conductive seat pad connected by a wire to the metal frame under their seat. Installation would take less than five minutes. When they got to their next distant destination, the drivers were asked to write down if they felt any difference while driving with the seat pad, such as any change in tension, pain, or fatigue levels, and then mail in their comments with a provided self-addressed stamped envelope. Any driver doing that would receive a check for $25. And twenty-seven of them, with an average age of forty-eight, did just that. They were all from different parts of the country and didn't know each other.

As Corky explains, ”We wanted to test the concept of grounding drivers to the metal frame of their seat, which in turn is connected to the huge metal cha.s.sis of the truck. We believed that vehicular grounding in this manner would help ease the strain and tension involved in long-distance driving.

”My wife was the first person to try the seat pad in her car. She didn't like driving at night. It made her nervous and raised her blood pressure. When she drove sitting on the seat pad, her blood pressure actually went down. She still uses it to this day.

”If you go into any truck stop and examine the counter near the register, you will see a lot of over-the-counter pain pills and no-doze remedies. The truckers live on that stuff. They need them to keep awake and ease their driving aches.”

LESS STRESS FOR THE LONG HAUL.

Clint Ober was very aware of these common challenges facing long-distance drivers. He had parked in many a truck stop during his years of driving an RV around the country. While living in Ventura in 1999, he thought he could help truckers with a grounded seat pad. So he approached a neighbor who drove up and down California in a big rig. Here's Clint's story: ”I asked to go along with him on one of his trips to test the seat pad. I brought a square of conductive material and put it on his seat, then connected it to the metal frame beneath the seat with an alligator clip. There are 10 tons of metal in a truck like that. Seats in cars and trucks are bolted to the floor, and thus connected to the metal frame of the vehicle. I figured this setup would offer an electrical ground plane that could perhaps serve as a 'sink' into which static electricity from his body could be discharged. A lot of static electricity builds up on the body as a result of the material from the s.h.i.+rt or jacket of a driver or pa.s.senger rubbing up and down against the back of the seat as the vehicle is in motion. This phenomenon is called 'triboelectrification,' and it builds up whenever you drive. It's particularly noticeable on dry days whenever you slide across the seat of your car and touch a metal door handle to exit the vehicle after driving a distance. Though sometimes quite jolting, these shocks are not really dangerous to a driver or pa.s.senger.

”I took a voltmeter with me on the trip and I measured the trucker's body voltage connected and unconnected. There was a big difference. When the driver was grounded, the buildup on his body disappeared. The electrical potential of the body of the trucker and the truck became the same. The trucker told me at the end the trip that he felt much better and more relaxed than he usually did after his long hauls.

”Based on this experience, I then designed a proper seat pad. It had conductive carbon fibers set into a nylon fabric backed with a soft, nonskid material. We then went out to test it on more truckers.”