The Science & Practice of Movement | Ido Portal

**Andrew D. Huberman** (0:00)
Welcome to the Huberman Lab podcast, where we discuss science and science-based tools for everyday life.
I'm Andrew Huberman, and I'm a professor of neurobiology and ophthalmology at Stanford School of Medicine. Today, my guest is Ido Portal. Ido Portal is somebody who truly defies formal definition. He is, however, credited by many to be the world expert in all things movement. Movement is one of the more fascinating and important aspects of our nervous system. In fact, it was the great Nobel Prize winner, Sherrington, that said movement is the final common path. And what he was referring to is the fact that so much of our nervous system is dedicated to movement. And in particular, that the human nervous system can generate the greatest variety of forms of movement. We can run, we can jump, we can crawl, we can move at different speeds. Far more variation in movement and different types and speeds of movement than any other animal in the animal kingdom can perform. My interest in bringing Ido Portal onto this podcast stemmed from a discussion about just that, about Sherrington and the enormous range of movements that humans can engage in. Ido is both a practitioner and an intellectual. We all know what a practitioner is. It's somebody who walks the walk, who actually performs the thing that they are knowledgeable about. And indeed, Ido has studied capoeira, a number of other martial arts, dance, gymnastics, various forms of sport. He's trained top athletes like Conor McGregor, and he has many, many other credits to his name as a practitioner and teacher. However, he is also a true intellectual of movement. I define an intellectual as somebody who can both think about and talk about a subject at multiple levels of granularity. That is with exquisite detail and with exquisite simplicity, depending on their audience and depending on the topic at hand. And as you'll soon hear from my discussion with Ido, he is both a practitioner and a true intellectual of all things movement. Today, through our discussion, you will learn how the nervous system generates movement and the different forms of movement, the different speeds of movement. You're also going to get an incredible insight through Ido's mind and eyes of how movement can serve us in the various contexts of life. Not just in sport, not just in exercise, but in every aspect of our lives, from the time we get up in the morning until the time we go to sleep at night, how we engage with others, how we engage with ourselves, indeed how movement even informs relationships of different kinds. I found our discussion to be one of the most enlightening and interesting discussions that I've ever had, not just about movement, but about the nervous system. I can assure you that by the end of this episode, you will not only learn a tremendous amount about movement through the eyes and mind of the one and only Ido Portal, but you also will learn a tremendous amount of neuroscience about how the cells and circuits and hormones and neurotransmitters of your body assist in creating the various forms of movement that you can generate, that you're trying to learn and generate, and that perhaps you should think about trying to learn and generate. And indeed you'll learn some protocols and tools for how to do that. In science, we have a phrase, actually it's a title, that's reserved for only the rarest of individuals. We say that somebody is an N of one, meaning a sample size of one. And as you'll soon learn, Ido Portal is truly an N of one. Before we begin, I'd like to emphasize that this podcast is separate from my teaching and research roles at Stanford. It is however, part of my desire and effort to bring zero cost to consumer information about science and science related tools to the general public. In keeping with that theme, I'd like to thank the sponsors of today's podcast. Our first sponsor is Athletic Greens. Athletic Greens is an all in one vitamin mineral probiotic drink. I've been taking Athletic Greens since 2012, so I'm delighted that they're sponsoring the podcast. The reason I started taking Athletic Greens and the reason I still take Athletic Greens once or twice a day is that it helps me cover all of my basic nutritional needs. It makes up for any deficiencies that I might have. In addition, it has probiotics, which are vital for microbiome health. I've done a couple of episodes now on the so-called gut microbiome and the ways in which the microbiome interacts with your immune system, with your brain to regulate mood, and essentially with every biological system relevant to health throughout your brain and body. With Athletic Greens, I get the vitamins I need, the minerals I need, and the probiotics to support my microbiome. If you'd like to try Athletic Greens, you can go to athleticgreens.com/huberman and claim a special offer. They'll give you five free travel packs plus a year supply of vitamin D3K2. There are a ton of data now showing that vitamin D3 is essential for various aspects of our brain and body health. Even if we're getting a lot of sunshine, many of us are still deficient in vitamin D3. And K2 is also important because it regulates things like cardiovascular function, calcium in the body, and so on. Again, go to athleticgreens.com/huberman to claim the special offer of the five free travel packs and the year supply of vitamin D3K2. Today's episode is also brought to us by Element. Element is an electrolyte drink that has everything you need and nothing you don't. That means the exact ratios of electrolytes are an element, and those are sodium, magnesium and potassium, but it has no sugar. I've talked many times before on this podcast about the key role of hydration and electrolytes for nerve cell function, neuron function, as well as the function of all the cells and all the tissues and organ systems of the body. If we have sodium, magnesium and potassium present in the proper ratios, all of those cells function properly and all our bodily systems can be optimized. If the electrolytes are not present and if hydration is low, we simply can't think as well as we would otherwise. Our mood is off, hormone systems go off, our ability to get into physical action, to engage in endurance and strength and all sorts of other things is diminished. So with element, you can make sure that you're staying on top of your hydration and that you're getting the proper ratios of electrolytes. If you'd like to try element, you can go to drink element, that's lmnt.com/huberman, and you'll get a free element sample pack with your purchase. They're all delicious. So again, if you want to try element, you can go to element, lmnt.com/huberman.