S3 Episode 18: The Brain in Motion: How Movement Can Transform Family Life with Aaron Delgrolice

Welcome to My Mighty Quinn

In this episode, I’m joined by Aaron Delgrolice — founder of Hybrid Fitness Training, brain-based movement specialist, and passionate advocate for the connection between movement, the brain, and the nervous system.

Aaron’s work sits at the intersection of neuroscience, movement, breathwork and nervous system regulation — helping both children and adults understand how simple, accessible activities can profoundly influence focus, coordination, mood, behaviour and resilience.

Together, we explore a concept that changes everything:

That movement is not just about fitness.

Movement is brain development.
Movement is regulation.
Movement is connection.

We explore why so many children struggling with ADHD, autism, anxiety, sensory issues, emotional dysregulation, poor coordination and learning difficulties may not simply need more discipline, more therapy or more medication — but more of the right kinds of movement.

Key takeaways

• Why movement is foundational for brain development, regulation and emotional wellbeing
• How the visual, vestibular and proprioceptive systems influence focus, balance, behaviour and learning
• Why movement patterns like crawling, crossing the midline and balance work matter so much for child development
• How nervous system dysregulation can show up as clumsiness, poor posture, emotional explosions, anxiety, poor concentration and sensory challenges
• Why many children today are missing crucial movement experiences because of screens, sedentary lifestyles and modern environments
• The role of breathwork in calming the nervous system and supporting focus, posture and emotional regulation
• How parents can use simple, practical activities at home to support coordination, focus and nervous system regulation
• How co-regulation, connection and movement together can strengthen the whole family

This episode is deeply hopeful because it reminds us that some of the most powerful tools for healing are free, available to every family, and often hiding in plain sight.

Resources

The Brain and Body Reset - A free guided video from Aaron

Hybrid Fitness Training Website

Transcript

Lucia Silver (00:00)
Hi everyone and welcome back to My Mighty Quinn, a mother's conversations with world leading experts. And today's episode is one I have been really looking forward to because we are diving into something that is completely free, available to every family, and yet so overlooked when it comes to our children's development, behaviour, mood, focus, and regulation.

At the Brain Health Movement, is exactly what we're passionate about. Helping parents understand what may be really sitting underneath symptoms and struggles and showing them simple, practical ways to support the nervous system development, learning and the behaviour, but from the roots. Because so often parents are told, look at the behaviour, look at the diagnosis or the label in isolation. But here we are always asking, what is happening underneath? What is the brain communicating?

What does this child's nervous system need in order to feel safer, calmer, more connected, and more ready to learn and thrive? And one of the things we know for sure, undisputable through the science, is that movement is not just about fitness. Movement is brain development. Movement is regulation. Movement is connection. And movement can be one of the most powerful and accessible tools we have as families.

Because when we think about movement, many of us think about exercise, sport, burning off energy or getting children outside. But what if movement is actually one of the most powerful ways we can influence the brain and nervous system? What if balance, coordination, visual tracking, vestibular work, rhythm, crawling patterns, cross-body movement and simple games are not just extras but foundational tools that help children regulate focus, learn, connect and heal.

And perhaps just as importantly, what if this is not only good for our children, but us too? Because many families today are spending less time outdoors, less time in nature, less time moving together, and more time in front of screens. And in a world where so many parents feel disconnected and overwhelmed and exhausted, this feels like such a beautiful invitation back to something simpler. More play, more movement, more laughter, more connection, more co-regulation.

time together in the garden, in the park, on a walk, kicking a ball, throwing a tennis ball, balancing on logs, playing Simon Says, or seeing who can crawl fastest across the lawn. Because perhaps some of the most powerful healing happens not in a clinic room, but in those small moments of connection and movement that help the whole family feel calmer, more connected and more alive. So I hope you can hear why I am so excited to be joined today by Aaron

Delgrolice, founder of Hybrid Fitness Training. Aaron specializes in brain-based training and neuro movement, teaching people how to tap into their brain and nervous system through neurological drills, movement, breath work, and more. He works with everyone from people recovering from injury, pain, stroke, and traumatic brain injury through to those wanting to improve performance, balance, concentration, and wellbeing.

And what I really love about Aaron's work is that he looks at movement differently, not as a punishment, not as performance, not just as fitness, but as a way of speaking to the brain. Aaron, welcome to my Mighty Quinn. I'm so delighted to have you here.

Aaron Delgrolice (03:37)
Yeah, thank you so much. I'm excited to be here as well. It's just, you know, been a little bit of a long time coming and so happy to have connected with you, you know, on Instagram and, you know, the work that you're doing, you know, obviously with with kids and families and so, yeah, thank you so much for having me.

Lucia Silver (03:56)
You're most welcome. Well, I'd like to start, Erin, with ⁓ kind of before we get into the science really, I'd love to start with your own story. You know, how did you first become interested in the connection between movement, the brain and the nervous system?

Aaron Delgrolice (04:12)
Yeah, often times these interests are spawned from ⁓ events in our own lives. What happened with me essentially with the nervous system and neuroscience training and neurology, I essentially just going through a little bit of a hard time of my own. I grew up my whole life playing sports. I've always been a mover. ⁓

I'll backtrack a little bit. As a kid, obviously I was a very rambunctious boy. I grew up in the, born in the 80s, raised in the 90s, and that was a big time when ADD, now it's ADHD, and different diagnoses were really being very prevalent. So of course I was, as a rambunctious boy, was ADD, so I was seeing counsellors and they wanted...

put me on medication and all these things. So I have a history of kind some of those things as I was younger, but I was also a mover. And I know for me as a kid, sports and movement and play was so crucial and just my well-being and my ability to kind of regulate some of that energy that I had in me and a lot of the things that were going on. ⁓ And then as I got older, ⁓ life kind of happens and things, you go through experiences.

and I had some traumatic experiences. I was having some health issues. I had gone through some personal things as well and again was suffering a little bit from some physical things that were kind of manifesting in these emotional things as well and was going to doctors and kind of...

trying to figure out what was going on was having panic attacks and anxiety and I was depressed and you know, of course the answer was well, medications and different things and you know, just a lot of the answers at the time. This was, you know, roughly about, let's say close to 15 years ago now or so, you know, 13, 14 years ago. I just kind of wasn't satisfied with, you know, the answers I was getting and kind of the direction I was being led. And so I was I was even a trainer at that point. I had still

I'd been a trainer and I'd still been doing movement and stuff, I wasn't focusing on kind of the holistic.

you know, ⁓ you know, healing nature of movement and, and mindfulness in these things. And I just started stumbling on essentially some neuroscience companies ⁓ or these companies that were blending ⁓ neurology with movement. And then I started looking into, and then that led me down a path of, you know, some of the breath work and meditation and mindfulness that goes along with those things. And then, you know, looking at nutrition and sleep.

and then once I started looking deeper into neuroscience and looking at the effects of some of the drills of movement drills and then some of the drills that we'll talk about where I use the visual system and the vestibular system and the cerebellum and some of these things and I started looking at the science and then applying these concepts to myself was that kind of aha, light bulb moment of like, wow, like.

One, the fitness industry is missing out on so much by not looking at neurology and neuroscience. And, you know, obviously we know that there's been yoga and there's breath work and there's movement and there's things and a lot of that is caught on more recently, I would say over the last maybe five years or so, five to 10 years. But ⁓ none of this stuff was mainstream and it still isn't quite mainstream when it comes to even people that I've worked with and probably people you've worked with, even kids and people that I've dealt with that have had concussions and strokes

and other TBIs and brain injuries, even when they see specialists and they see some of these people, they're not getting ⁓ some of the movement care and some of these drills that I started to learn again when it comes to like, you know, visual vestibular training and some of these things. you know, often the specialists, you know, they're very focused on one thing and often it's medications or it's, you know, these crazy interventions sometimes that maybe just, you know, aren't appropriate, aren't

applicable aren't...

is accessible in some ways. And so for me, I started finding what I felt like were very simple but powerful ways to tap into the nervous system and teach people, you know, through this learning through these companies that I went through out of, again, you know, going back to my own traumas and need for this kind of nervous system regulation training and, and, you know, applying these concepts to my to my own self and then getting the benefit and really going, wow, this

stuff works. This is amazing. There's really simple ways that you can help people just calm their nervous system, regulate their nervous system, train their brain, train their body, you know, again, through movement, breath work, you know, these neurological drills, all these different things, and really create some impactful change that could be done very easily. It can be very accessible, you know, again, as you mentioned, you know, parents and kids can do these things together in the comfort of their home or outside in a park or things like that.

and yeah so again it was out of my own need of going through some trauma some anxiety some depression started applying these concepts and then really feeling the benefit and and kind of coming out of out of my own shell out of my own kind of dark place of of trauma physical mental and emotional trauma and that was when I was like people need people need this stuff I need to share this knowledge

Lucia Silver (09:58)
People need this, this is

everywhere. Absolutely. And can you imagine with everything that you know now, had you known it then, what might have been preventable or what might have been able to be put into place, you know, to stop some of those feelings escalating from anxiety or depression or as you say, the inattention and lack of focus that we know now that those are higher executive functions in the brain and that what we're often doing with kids who are

Aaron Delgrolice (10:00)
you know, like.

Lucia Silver (10:27)
symptomatic with ADD, ADHD attention, let's just call it attention issues. We're trying to kind of talky talky therapy them, but we know now that with both children with ADHD issues around attention or children with autism, that sometimes up to 80, 90 % of those kids have got underdeveloped cerebella's. You know, they actually, and they've got coordination issues, no surprise that if that area of the brain has not developed,

Aaron Delgrolice (10:46)
Mm-hmm.

Lucia Silver (10:56)
That is what we need to focus on first, those foundational areas of the brain, then allow, once the brain has developed properly, then you can focus on the higher executive areas like memory and organization and coordination and function and those other things. But you have to start with those lower levels and that comes from movement, doesn't it? It comes from movement.

Aaron Delgrolice (11:15)
Yeah,

absolutely. to your point, so when I first started studying this stuff, one of the certifications I went through, they recommended a book called The Brain That Changes Itself. It's by ⁓ Norman Deutsch, who's kind one of the pioneers of neuroplasticity and kind of how the brain develops in a sense.

⁓ And you know in the book he talks about essentially more of the brain is dedicated to movement than it is even to language So and and to your point, you know the cerebellum ⁓ You know these areas of the brain that the vestibular, you know that are, you know, highly neurologically influential that deal with coordination movement tasks those type of things ⁓ are very much related to You know how somebody actually interacts and can deal with society and and we separate those

those things we see, especially with kids. We know now we're understanding more the importance of play and getting some of this energy out. But before it used to be very separated. It's like, OK, go take, we had 15 minute recess and you get a lunch and you get these little movement, small little movement things in a day filled of sitting in a class of droning and language and things that for most kids are not great at. Even for me, I did really well in school. I got good grades, but I

I was so bored. It's kind of funny, even in sixth grade, my teacher had a special desk made for me that had walls and she put me over to the side of the classroom because I would literally get my work done and I would get up and I would go mess with kids and I would like, so they were like, how do we contain this kid? And it was like, well, I didn't need to be contained. I needed to be let free and I needed movement and exercise. And we would, again,

Lucia Silver (12:54)
Yeah.

You need to be exercised.

Aaron Delgrolice (13:08)
for many years, it's a little different now. seems like things are changing in that sense, but there's still this idea of like this separation that's like, know, play is just this one thing, but no, play is just so crucial. Yeah, you know, for kids, and as you pointed out, you know, like what you were saying, you know.

Lucia Silver (13:20)
Integrated. Yes.

Aaron Delgrolice (13:28)
I didn't know these concepts. My parents, and bless them, they did the best they could. They were very supportive, tried to do everything they could to help me. ⁓ Fortunately, they had worked very hard and created their own business and were able to at least financially maybe do some things that other kids maybe wouldn't be able to or be exposed to. So I was fortunate in that, but I was also too. They were, to your point, just taking me to counselors where I'm sitting in these rooms talking with people and just

bored out of my mind, you know, and so it's like, yeah, you know...

Lucia Silver (14:01)
And

many of those therapies, Aaron would have had a better impact had those foundational areas of your development been addressed, had you been given the chance to develop in the ways that you needed to with your nervous system. And then maybe some of those talkie therapies would have harnessed better, but the problem is now we take kids and we think we can chat them out of nervous system dysregulation and it...

Aaron Delgrolice (14:21)
Right.

Lucia Silver (14:27)
But let's wind back because it's so beautiful to have the context now of why you do what you do so well and why you do it from a point of absolute understanding of what families are experiencing. It's now one in four children, by the way. When we were younger in classrooms, you may not have even known an autistic child or you might have seen one or two hyperactive children. Now it's the prevalence in the classroom because of the way the many reasons that the brain health movement teaches why we've ended up in this state.

protocols or lifestyle, you know, ways now like yours of brain-based movement are actually, we need to consciously understand why we're doing that. So just want to wind back and ask you to explain a few things. First of all, for those parents listening, hearing for the first time brain-based movement, this may be completely new. ⁓ What do we actually mean? ⁓ And secondly, if you don't mind, you talk just now, you've alluded to vestibular.

proprioception and cerebellum and visual systems. Maybe just take us through each of those if you can, ⁓ Aaron and just kind of in simple language, what those systems are and why they actually matter so much for particularly for a developing brain, let alone an adult one.

Aaron Delgrolice (15:42)
Yeah,

yeah, absolutely.

⁓ Yeah, so brain based movement essentially is so I'm certified one of the companies I'm certified with is called Z health. Dr. Cobb is again kind of one of the pioneers in the field of what we call, you know, brain based movement or movement neurology where you're combining movement or neurological concepts and science with with movement, but also looking a little deeper, as you mentioned, in terms of the visual vestibular progress

of cerebellum and into those systems and and how can we you know kind of gain access to those systems ⁓ mindfully intentionally and quickly in some ways and so yeah some of the brain-based movement one is just moving you know with intention and mindfulness and kind of being very present you know and you can do that with anything ⁓ changing tempos changing your balance your base of support the other thing as you mentioned is

going in a little deeper into the neurological anatomy and kind of aspects of the visual vestibular proprioceptive cerebellum. So it's a hierarchy of systems. So it starts with our visual system with our eyes. And as kids and babies and children, the first thing that's developing really is our vision. The first thing that happens, one of the first things is when you're born, you're searching with your eyes for your mother generally.

So, and they, use our eyes. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. Survival essentially, you know, that the brain's really the brain's number one job is survival first and foremost. And so unfortunately the problem is, is we're in a society now where everything we're in a comfortable society. our survival mechanisms are haywire based off things that really aren't, you know, emergencies or things that are threat to us. It's just, we've gotten to the point where we live in, in, in, a way.

Lucia Silver (17:17)
For a boom.

Aaron Delgrolice (17:45)
in

such a comfortable way that we don't have to worry about predators or hunting for food or things that we used have to worry about. So now it's worrying about school and relationships and emails and business and as you're a kid, friendships or whatever is developing for you. So when we look at these systems, again, the visual system is one of the most important. It kind of starts there in a lot of ways because most of, up to 70 to 80 %

of the information we're taking in from our environment is going through our eyes, our visual field first. And so as a kid, as a baby, and as we're developing our visual system and our ability to one, know, search out danger, search out threat for our nervous system, because again, the brain's first job is survival, so we need to be able to see our environment. So we need the information going into the eyes as efficient and clear as possible. And often what we see is,

you know, kids with, with development issues and just people in general, even adults that I've worked with and whatever, even people who see specialists don't really train their eyes or their vision and their, their, their visual system. So again, we're taking that information in through the eyes. The brain then has to decide what to do with that information and then it has to produce output. So input processing and then output. So if the, the input going in through the eyes first and

then I'll talk about the other systems. But if that information isn't efficient or clear, then the processing of the brain of that information may not be as clear as it could. So then the output, whether that's concentrating, writing, talking, moving, whatever, output is many different things. ⁓ That can suffer as well.

So we start looking at the visual system and I start having people train their eyes with various vision drills and looking for just like any other type of training, you know, the neurological system is like a muscle. It can be trained, can be strengthened, it can be grown and your nervous system can be built up. It can be more robust. Oftentimes people's nervous systems, especially kids, are under regulated in the sense that it's too much, too jacked up, too fight or flight, kind of, you know, too chaotic.

Let's say for lack of a better word when you start training these neurological systems, especially the visual system One that taps into the frontal lobe and the prefrontal cortex which can help decision-making Reaction goal settings think concentration things like that So very important and also just important in terms of of our life being able to process information with our brain, know through the eyes ⁓ and then the vestibular system, which is kind of next and

the line. Again, very highly influential neurological system. ⁓

look at that as it pertains to balance. But it's much more than that. it regulates emotions. It deals with blood pressure. There's a lot of other things that the vestibular system is linked with. And the eyes and the vestibular system have to work together. So if those systems are a little bit off or if one system isn't functioning as well, the other system can be doing too much of the work or compensating and that can cause issues.

And then you go into proprioception, your body's ability to understand where you're at in space. So one, what I do is I train those systems specifically through drills, through visual drills, vestibular drills, things like moving the head, why balancing, proprioceptive drills, know, moving the joints around, moving in maybe ways, you know, these coordinated ways that you haven't moved before and linking those systems together, one, priming those systems. So firing them up, getting them

activated, but also strengthening them in the process. And then the cerebellum is very highly involved in movement. But again, also other things, you know, again, mood regulation, ⁓ these things also deal with pain with pain perception. So, you know, as we talked about in the beginning, when I started looking at kind of the science of these systems, what they do, how they affect the brain and the body and the nervous system, that was where I was like, wow,

this is the missing link in fitness and just in development. People need this. ⁓ So yeah, you know, again, and we can obviously talk more about how I stimulate those systems and how we train those systems. But yeah, first and foremost, we start with the eyes. We go to the know, the inner ear, the balance, proprioception, cerebellum, and work all of those things together through specific movements and specific

drills.

Lucia Silver (22:45)
Thank

you. mean, that's so insightful and so important to understand because we talk about healing as well, having a sequence, but the foundations of the way that the brain builds has a sequence too. We talk about it from bottom up and not always working from top down, or you can have a bottom up in conjunction with a top down approach, which sounds like gobbledygook, but you basically talked us through why that's important and how

We're really just going back and replicating what nature intended originally. This is not reinventing the wheel. This is the way the brain develops in its most orderly fashion. And because we are developing strangely where, you know, modern birth interventions are getting in the way of natural deliveries and we're doing all sorts of antibiotic interventions, we're doing all sorts of stuff. So unfortunately, alongside the fact we're slapping a screen in a two-year-old's face and it's not rummaging around in the garden,

We're interfering at so many levels, their movement patterns, their breathing patterns, their eating patterns, so many things. And so really what you're talking about is something very, very natural alongside something brilliant in our engineering, which is called neuroplasticity, which has long since been acknowledged, thank goodness, by mainstream medicine, as well as root cause functional medicine and functional neurology that is the department, I would say, that we're kind of discussing.

Aaron Delgrolice (23:37)
you

Yep.

Mm-hmm.

Lucia Silver (24:06)
right now

and our understanding by all departments in agreement that the brain has the most genius way of rewiring itself of adapting constantly to whatever is needed for its, as you say, survival for its optimum development, as long as we just get out of the way of it doing that. So I think this is so important to understand these milestones and the idea that movement can influence not just physical strength, but pain.

as you've said, focus, stress levels, emotional regulation, and even confidence. Can you break down for us, ⁓ how that actually happens? mean, from a neuroscientific point of view, from a movement point of view, why is that happening? Why is it having that effect on so many levels through movement?

Aaron Delgrolice (24:41)
Absolutely.

Well, yeah, again, so what it comes down to essentially is building a more kind of robust nervous system in the sense that it's better able to handle

what we would say load or stress, right? For lack of a better term. ⁓ know, we, we, we, in one of the certifications, I'm going through a company called integrated kinetic neurology. They use the term putting load onto the nervous system, which is what we use as like a weightlifting term, putting load or adding weight to something, right? Or stressing a system out, which in a, in a weird way seems counterintuitive. It's like, well, why would we want more stress on our system? But

But

really what we're doing is we're actually, you're kind of, you're adding stress.

Lucia Silver (25:48)
Stimulating.

Aaron Delgrolice (25:50)
Stimulating. Yes, that's another way of looking at it as well. We're stimulating, you know, and I'll backtrack a little bit. You know, a lot of times what happens so the nervous system on this kind of give it a real quick kind of, you know, parasympathetic, sympathetic, fight or flight, rest and digest. Right. What happens is for most people and especially kids ⁓ because of their environment. And as you mentioned, you know, development issues, antibiotics that wreck the gut screen time. You know, I just saw a thing that talked about how

You know if you put if you a kid uses a screen before they're two or you allow them to start doing that it has very severe consequences in their brain development their ability to develop attention span and communication skills and and things that are highly important as they continue to grow and create that neural plasticity that you're talking about because you know the little brain is a sponge and that's that's it's growing very rapidly and in creating all these

connections the problem is unfortunately as as we grow up, know and especially into adulthood But even as kids that fight-or-flight mechanism, right that that sympathetic drive is Over stimulated is kind of too much and it's up here. So the nervous system is a push-pull system What I'm talking about in terms of the parasympathetic and the drills that I do and what we're mentioning with movement The areas of the brain, you know ⁓ the visual vestibular

stimulus, those type of things, those specific drills activate the parasympathetic so that rest and digest exactly. And it's calming through stimulation or through adding kind of load or strengthening that system. And so that's where, you know, the value and the importance comes is we need the nervous system. Fight or flight has its purpose. The problem is, it's on overdrive. We need the nervous system more robust.

and more resilient to be able to take us out of that fight or flight sometimes when we don't need it when it's when it's too much and be able to regulate that balance better so it's not so offset. ⁓

Lucia Silver (28:01)
That makes sense.

then would you, does that correlate, ⁓ Aaron with, so Dr. Joshua, we're on our kind of primitive reflex integration work on neurodevelopmental work for kids. We talk about how more input, more stimulation into the cerebellum, it, load it up with, get it to coordinate and do this and catch this and time this, challenge it. And then it in turn shuts down the prefrontal cortex, which is.

you know, essentially the emotional regulation, but you have to build from the bottom in order for the top to shut down. Is that what you're talking about with this sort of dance of weights a little bit?

Aaron Delgrolice (28:39)
little bit, yeah. And as you mentioned, there's bottom up approach, top down approach. So you can look at the brain stem, cerebellum, that type of thing. But I think ultimately they both are valuable because the top down, going directly to the visual system or the vestibular system.

can have some very profound effects as well. some of these things, we're all different, so some of us respond, even my clients respond to different drills differently. But yes, ⁓ it all in a sense is kind of doing the same thing in terms of helping the nervous system better able handle, or be better able to handle these stressors and... ⁓

regulate, essentially. So yeah, it's the cerebellum, highly, highly critical with that. But there is a theory of thought in a sense, you get a little bit of like inhibition through inhibition, where you kind of work the system out.

and then it can relax. That's a little bit of the Wim Hof and some of those methods where you actually put yourself more into stress and more movement and breath and these things and you really get the system worked up, worked up. And then...

it drops down and you kind of get that effect of like, oh, I've just stressed my system out. And then now all of a sudden that that sympathetic shuts down and the parasympathetic kind of turns on and you get that that kind of relief, essentially.

I look at it a little differently because yes, think movement is important and I think, you know, especially for kids, they need some of these tasks and they need to be stimulated and they need a lot of this. And if you do enough of that, eventually it's going to get that nervous system to kind of shut down and calm down and regulate. ⁓ But also what I've seen.

you know, from my approach and some of the things I've learned with kind of the top down going straight into the visual system or the vestibular system and actually tapping into the prefrontal cortex or tapping into some of those areas, you can also get, you know, some pretty profound change ⁓ and some pretty profound results when it comes to.

let's say instant neuroplasticity calming the nervous system down very quickly. Now again, that may not last. I feel like you need both. need to, you know, it's not an either or it's, ⁓ you know, using both at appropriate times. But generally, as you mentioned, the primitive reflex, some of that. So one of the things that I've studied and I work with is a thing called DNS, dynamic neuromuscular stabilization, which is very simple.

Lucia Silver (31:05)
Yeah.

Aaron Delgrolice (31:25)
to primitive reflex and that where these are ⁓ it's a system designed more so you know for people who are you know older and have had injuries and stuff but really what it looks at is how we developed as babies and how we started our movement patterns and what I was talking about with you with visual one of the first things we have to develop is neck head and neck strength to be able to hold our head up right because babies are you know they're wobbly their head so these systems these midline

the eyes, inner ear, into the cerebellum, into the brain stem, into the spine, and these muscles and all that, that's what's developing first. So to your point as kids is if we tap into these systems through specific drills but also through the movement capacity then you can strengthen those systems.

in a more efficient way, essentially. And then as these kids, you know, kind of move forward and they're doing these drills and doing these movement patterns and doing the primitive reflex and stuff, those neurological systems of the brain are developing better, more clearly, more efficiently, getting stronger. And then, you know, the reflexes, the spinal cord, the brain stem, you know, the cerebellum, they're all developing kind of together and in unison. So, yeah, I mean,

I look at it from both lenses and some people, as I said, know, some things are better for others. They may need a different approach. And so that's why there's a variety of these things and you can try different ones and kind of see in a sense either how it helps, you know, if it doesn't, if maybe something needs to be changed and you you approach it a little differently. But

In my opinion, you know, it all goes hand in hand. You need the movement part, you need the primitive part, you need that developmental crawling, rolling, those type of things, but.

Lucia Silver (33:22)
Absolutely.

And I think there's a piece there where you trust yourself as a parent, you know, these movement patterns, I've often been challenged on radio, you know, how do you know that, you know, this isn't going to have a harmful effect? It's amazing, because you can you can give Rittle into a two year old without the research to show whether that's going to have any effect long term after five years of use. But you want to challenge me over natural movement patterns. I mean, it's kind of nuts. But the truth of the matter is, if you are doing, for example,

Aaron Delgrolice (33:47)
Yeah, I agree.

Lucia Silver (33:50)
what we would call a morrow reflex or an ATNR movement pattern, and your child isn't calming down or your child is getting revved up or anxious, just stop.

Aaron Delgrolice (34:01)
Yep. Yeah.

Lucia Silver (34:02)
You know, and then everything will be fine

and tomorrow try something else or try it less or do it less frequently. But, know, none of these are interventions that are going to be catastrophic. These are natural movement patterns that we would have made as babies that replicate patterns like moving, like, like, crawling, like coming down the birth canal that maybe we missed out on for whatever reason. So I think we don't need to come with a health warning with anything that we're, you know, suggesting today. These are.

very much something that the families in our community who are parenting children with ADHD, autism, anxiety, sensory challenges, emotional dysregulation, and often poor coordination, sometimes tics, sometimes learning difficulties, this brain-based movement work can really be hugely beneficial, it? I mean, this is really what we're looking at. This can be hugely contributory to their development.

Aaron Delgrolice (34:58)
Absolutely. Yeah. And to your point, you know, I see it all the time with, you know, ⁓ from even a fitness lens, right? So I'll see stuff on social media of, you know, little kids lifting weights or kids doing certain things. And there's there's always these comments of like, it's dangerous. It's these things. It's that's like.

actually no kids playing on a playground and swinging on monkey bars or jumping off of things or or you know running and jumping and playing sports that's highly you know stressful and impactful on the body and amazing I think it's great I think you know but but there is this misconception when it comes to movement and health and fitness and applying some of these concepts you know and I get the same thing often times with ⁓ my page you know I post vestibular things or other things and I'll have people come

you know like ⁓ you know oftentimes people that have conditions, let's say vertigo or PPPD or certain things with the vestibular system and you know, they go well this this makes me dizzy or this does this or this does that and I say well, we'll stop don't do it or do do you know do less or Go slower or take a break. I mean and to your point, you know, these things aren't

Lucia Silver (36:01)
not doing it.

Yeah.

Aaron Delgrolice (36:11)
they're not gonna hurt you in any sense of the word. mean, to your point, the screens and the medications and some of those things are gonna do far more damage than doing this eye drill or doing a balance drill or crawling around on the floor. And again, that's where I feel like what you're doing and what I'm doing and what we're trying to do is spread this knowledge and awareness of how impactful and how important.

Lucia Silver (36:21)
are more negatively impactful. Absolutely. Yeah.

Aaron Delgrolice (36:38)
Movement is and and just training these systems and doing these things that are again highly accessible They don't take a lot of money and time. They don't take you don't have to you don't really need equipment You don't need really anything to do some of these very powerful things ⁓ that can help You know in tremendous ways, so

Lucia Silver (36:39)
Yeah.

Yeah, you're so right. And also looking back at some of the things we kind of half know and half remember as parents, I mean, I consider myself a relatively educated parent, as I shared with you when I was pregnant, I was reading a bit, but if somebody had asked me, what are the fundamentals? What does your child need? I would not have known movement was one of the fundamental pieces. I simply wouldn't have done. It's not taught, it's not explained. We hear things like tummy time, tummy time on the floor with a baby.

And I remember hearing it. I had no idea what it meant other than put your baby on the floor and give them tummy time. I suppose I thought that was getting them prepared to crawl and walk. I had no idea. Now I realize it's what you're talking about is the postural reflux. It's learning to develop the core and hold your head and neck up because until you can do that, you can't look around. And then the vestibular and all of this is all connected to that. A lot of the time now when you look at these children,

who have the symptoms of ADHD, they have no core stability, it goes hand in hand, they have not developed their coordination. They sit in a chair and they're slouched, have no, it just hasn't developed. So it speaks absolutely to why the brain in turn has not developed. I've kind of answered a little bit of my own question here, but I wanted to ask you, Aaron what are some of the signs that...

Aaron Delgrolice (38:14)
Mm-hmm.

Lucia Silver (38:21)
child's nervous system may need more support through movement or even an adult, what would you see when you're ⁓ looking at someone's almost physicality in their presence that indicates to you that the nervous system needs support?

Aaron Delgrolice (38:38)
Yeah, well, and you touched on that a little bit, you know, again, looking at...

First and foremost, we start looking at midline structures. And that's kind of in the beginning, the eyes, the jaw, the tongue, the spine, the core, ⁓ and then obviously the brainstem and the spinal cord and the postural muscles, right? So when you start looking at the midline structures and assessing those, you can start to get a little bit of a picture on.

Maybe there's some issues going on when you start looking at, I look at people's eyes, how are their eyes functioning? How is their jaw? Can they coordinate their jaw or their tongue? And again, to your point, posture can be reflexive. The kind of the thing with posture is that it can change minute to minute, hour by hour. So depending on how you're feeling, if your nervous system is overstimulated or you're

you're just too stressed out or whatever's going on, that's gonna reflect in your posture. So as you mentioned, slouching, things like that, lack of core stability. ⁓ But yeah, again, for me, it's like when I start looking at people's, how their eyes are functioning, balance is obviously another very big one of those. It's very highly influential when it comes to...

how well the nervous system and the neurological systems are adjusting essentially. If your balance is not good, then that means those neurological systems are not functioning well either. And if those aren't functioning well, then it's a systemic thing. we're an organism of ecosystems. And if those ecosystems are off, that's going to create that domino effect. So yeah, so coordination is a big one.

that I see with people that come to me, ⁓ generally, you know, they're usually coming to me because of, you know, pain or trauma or injuries. You know, like I said, I've worked with kids who've had concussions and things like that as well. So often there's a need at the surface of like, this thing happened, we need to look into this. But when you start digging deeper, you start realizing that some of these other systems are just not functioning.

as well as they could when it comes again, you know, the postural systems, the core, the eyes, the balance, those types of their awareness of space. And so, as I mentioned before, with the visual system specifically, but also just the neurological systems, the information going in is not efficient. It's not clear. It's blurry, let's say for lack of a better term. So then the brain is not able to process that information as appropriately yours.

Lucia Silver (41:15)
Yes.

Aaron Delgrolice (41:36)
as well as it could. then now the output again and output, you people think of output as just movement. It's output as many things. Output is your ability to concentrate, to focus, to to talk to people, to make decisions, you know, whether that's sitting in a classroom and taking tests or, you know, giving a presentation or interacting with your siblings or your parents or your teachers or whatever. Those are all outputs that our nervous system has

to do and if the information going into the system and into the brain is not clear then those outputs are gonna are gonna suffer and that's where you see this developmental thing either again coordination posture but also lack of ability to focus to regulate emotions you know goal planning

Lucia Silver (42:26)
And to, as you say, process

information. mean, as you're speaking, I'm thinking all the different, as you say, outputs and outcomes. You know, in a classroom, what could be a few more nanoseconds, because the brain, of course, is working so fast, we don't even realize. But when you slow down that processing speed, it's the difference between a child or an adult hearing a series of instructions and not. They got the first one, but they didn't get the third one. And then they can't organize that. I see this very much in my son, Quinn. You know, this is what

where his autoimmune disorder has affected his development a little bit in this area is that he's super smart, but if you throw him instructions, he's gonna get the first one. You're gonna have to repeat the last two over and over again. That's just cognitively a little bit too much. you know, he's super sporty, we're speeding stuff up, but, you know, these are all the knock-on effects. And I wrote down in our first conversation, just to gather these thoughts for parents listening, when you and I first spoke, I wrote down,

in terms of, you know, outputs, poor balance, clumsiness, fidgeting, poor concentration, anxiety, emotional explosions, difficulty processing information, difficulty sitting still, poor posture, car sickness, difficulty crossing the midline, poor coordination, walking on tiptoes, avoiding swings or spinning, constantly crashing into things. I mean, and you and I probably could go on and on and on and on, but for parents listening, that's out.

Right? Well, that's poor or inefficient output. That is when systems are underdeveloped in some cases, but yeah, not overdeveloped, but underdeveloped. But that's also the consequence of a system that, and I thought about this a lot after we first spoke, Aaron we were talking about vestibular. A body doesn't feel safe either when it doesn't feel balanced. You know, when a system is already in fight or flight and then in time and space, it doesn't feel safe either.

Aaron Delgrolice (43:56)
Mm-hmm. Yep.

Lucia Silver (44:21)
That's just further, you know, stress on the system. So emotional explosions and anxiety are not just the result of these underdeveloped systems, they're also the result of a system in a state of constant sympathetic dominance, where it just can't relax because it doesn't feel itself in time and space, can't hold itself in time and space, can't balance. And you start, you know, looking at the stacking of this on a system and you wonder why eventually that child, that adult gets mentally unwell.

prolonged anxiety leading to depression or prolonged leading to bipolar, you can start to see the escalating effects of leaving this nervous system unattended to, if that makes sense, if I'm making sense.

Aaron Delgrolice (45:04)
No, 100%. Yeah. mean, everything you said, you know, was, was right on. Yeah, it's, it's absolutely. Um, and, and again, that's, know, we were talking about, and what I'm trying to do and what we're trying to do is get this information and knowledge out there and let people know that again, this is highly important, highly critical, but also very easy to access and very easy to implement, you know, in, in our daily lives, you know, from young to old, you know, I think everybody should be regulating their nerve. I do it all the time.

I do these drills and to your point, you know, I grew up again, you know, I was fortunate to I think sports were a great outlet for me, but you know, I had I got in a lot of trouble as a kid, you know, I was going to counselors, I got sent to a therapeutic boarding school at one point and, you know, fortunately for me, you know, that that school was was great. I'm grateful that, you know, my parents were able to send me there. I did a lot of emotional therapy at that school, but.

You know, again, there was a lot of things throughout my adolescence that I didn't realize. I I've had anxiety, or I had anxiety for most of my life. I just never quite realized it in many ways. I just either stuffed it down, stuffed my emotions down, or I started to medicate, you know, through alcohol and through other substances. ⁓ And then it wasn't until kind of, you know, for me, as we mentioned in the very beginning, when it all kind of came crashing down on me and I started having panic attacks and really bad physical, ⁓

emotional things and then again not getting much help from and I have nothing against Western medicine. think it has its place but I think it's incomplete and I think it's good for certain things. I think the holistic approach you know gets kind of poo-pooed and kind of pushed to the side. It's getting more traction now but

you know, once I started looking into more and again, you know, the science is there neuroscience. This stuff is not fufu or crazy like things. This is actual neuroscience that's being studying and being developed and neuroscience is changing very rapidly. I mean, what we were looking at 10 years ago is now becoming outdated. And so we're just scratching the surface when it comes to the brain, the brain development, neuroplasticity, how all of these things, you know, it's weird.

almost like reverting back a little bit now where we it's like we needed all this technology now we're like

We don't need all this technology. We don't need a lot of this stuff. so, yeah, you know, and to your point, yeah, I mean, it was, you know, as a kid, those things developed later in my life and I wasn't even aware of it until it all kind of just hit me like a truck. And then that's when fortunately I stumbled onto these things and started practicing mindset and reading books and breath work. And then, you know, looking at my nutrition, then really digging deeper into all the visual vestibular cerebellum, brainstem,

Lucia Silver (47:29)
coming back, yes, yes, stripping it back.

Aaron Delgrolice (47:58)
movement. You know, I healed myself through those modalities essentially and I've helped heal other people with those things. You know that oftentimes even specialists and other people either just overlook or don't help people with or don't give them the tools and resources. Yeah, exactly.

Lucia Silver (48:03)
Yes.

Yeah, well, they don't have it in their armory. Absolutely.

I mean, you have it in your armory to offer those things. And when you said, you know, we're going back to, you know, these originalism, well, they were there in the kind of tens and twenties, but we kind of got rid of the holistic physicians and we basically introduced Rockefeller, introduced the pharmaceutical industry. And from then on in, we treated illness, but we didn't really treat for health. We, you know, we treated a symptom and that was it. And we lost, you know,

access to the original ways of the herbs of nature, the movement of patterns of nature, and all the original things that keep us healthy. Medicine nowadays really should be defined as a way of treating a sickness, not of sustaining health. And I think that really is the point. We're really not reinventing the wheel. We're just kind of uncloking stuff we really have always known, but we've kind of lost our agency and lost our confidence in advocating for our own health. And instead we pick up the phone,

Aaron Delgrolice (48:56)
Right. Right.

Lucia Silver (49:13)
the man in the white coat and we go, I'm sick and we get a bottle and we take it instead of my child is that I've never given my child any medication except once when we had to and I've never taken any medication. I've never once called the man in the white coat. I'm not saying like you, I am saying like you there is a place and a time, but really this is about coming back to championing and advocating for what we really already know and can feel in our bodies. Just reconnect again. ⁓

So yes, hail that, amen to that. I just want to go back, because we've mentioned a couple of things, and I'm always really, really mindful when we speak and our parents are listening that you and I have been in this world for a while, and we might throw around some phrases here and there. ⁓ This is an important area, and I often get parents picking up on this when I speak about it, that many, children that struggle with dyslexia, ⁓ as an example, didn't crawl.

That's an example of a movement pattern that can have a direct effect on the way we process information or the way that we integrate the left and right sides, the information coming into the brain and as you call it, the output. And I've seen with a lot of your exercises, Aaron crossing the midline, bilateral integration, and why some of those patterns are super important, especially for those who perhaps never crawled or they're just good anyway, irrespective of where you are in life. But would you...

Just before we move on to breath work, which I want to spend some time on with you, would you talk to us a little bit about what that's all about crossing the midline and bilateral integration, why it's important and how it can help?

Aaron Delgrolice (50:51)
Yeah, so, you again, you're you're always you're doing a great job of essentially explaining these things. I mean, you kind of hit it how it was is the cross coordination is getting the both hemispheres of the brain to activate. Right. Which is what we want. And essentially, you know, all of these drills for the most part are just strengthening the brain's ability to.

take in information, process that information, and then produce, as we talked about, the output. So by doing these cross-coordination patterns, we're getting just a lot of activity in both hemispheres of the brain, which can be really important, especially when it comes to just being able to focus and coordinate a task. Again.

you're being told to do a task, you then have to do that task. The brain has to fire neurons and the brain have to fire and produce that output to be able to do that. again, I use the word robust, we're just building a more robust brain and getting more neurons, essentially. When you start combining tasks and crossing the midline with coordinated tasks, or what I do is if I'm combining certain things, a visual, vestibular, cognitive,

drill, something with some coordination, rotation, crossing patterns, you're really, you know, in the simplest kind of terms or ideas, you're just getting more neurons in your brain to fire, you're getting more what's called summation, essentially, just just more connections in the brain, which can help development and can help, ⁓ you know, just many areas of life when it comes to just being able to function in a unpredictable environment and an unpredictable

predictable world. you what we do is we use these movement patterns in a controlled way to light up the brain, light up the nervous system, ⁓ to then be able to go into an unpredictable environment, which is everything else that you do. And now the body and the brain again is more resilient and more able to process information and get more neurons to fire essentially and just function better in a somewhat

chaotic environment or society or whatever it is, whether it's, you know, again, the classroom or, you know, other places, you know, wherever you have to go and deal, you know, crowds or going to, you know, even for some people going to a grocery store, going to a store, going, getting in a car, as you mentioned, you know, being able to, you know, you know, people get motion sickness or just these, all of these things that happen.

you're just making your body and your brain stronger, more resilient. But yeah, the cross coordination, very important for just brain function ⁓ and stimulating against cerebellum, which is important, and brain stem.

Lucia Silver (53:58)
Okay, thank you. And Aaron you've mentioned it a few times, meditation, mindfulness, breath work and so forth. For you, what role does breathing specifically play in all of this?

Aaron Delgrolice (54:14)
Well.

I mean, breathing is one of our most, if not the most important kind of functions we have. you can go, you know, a few weeks without food, you know, a few days without water. You can only go a few minutes without oxygen. And, you know, unfortunately you touched on it earlier, many people's. So breathing is highly, you know, we used to think that breathing was this thing that you, know, and when you look at the autonomic nervous system, we used to think, well, you can't really affect these things. They just are what they are. But we're starting to realize that you actually can, you

affect your heart rate and affect different things, you know, through what we would used to just consider these automatic processes, breathing, that type of stuff, right? So, yeah, one breathing is crucial when it comes to just nervous system regulation, when it comes to posture, when it comes to different things, because, ⁓ you know, one of the things that I subscribe to and what I look at is called the oxygen advantage. ⁓ That's a system of breathing. It's from

a Russian doctor named Butako, this guy Patrick McCown has now further kind of developed and taken that information and created what's called the oxygen advantage, where they look at nasal breathing mostly, and then hypoxic breathing, hypoxic breath holds and things like that. But what we're seeing is that, you know, oftentimes breathing patterns are off, you know, people are mouth breathing, that actually can mess with development of the

jaw and the facial struct you know, breathing funda how to breathe nasal nasa time. Anytime that your m in fight or flight. w you panting or bre talking or expelling a and kind of exhausting th often breathe up here, from their diaphragm and do

off which can cause anxiety and cause other problems. So we know that regulating breath and doing breath work is very powerful. You know, it's been around for...

Thousands of years, you know with yoga and other things but now at least there's starting to be some some scientific studies in Western, you know ⁓ Medicine and philosophy is coming out going Wow actually, you know if you regulate your breathing It has profound effects on the brain and the nervous system So I'm very big in into you know, teaching my clients proper breathing patterns and techniques I really like I said, I lean more towards the nasal breathing the calm breathing timed breathing, know box breathing

type drills. ⁓ know, the science shows Z-Health talks about this. If you can get your breath to about a breath every 10 seconds or six breaths per minute, that can really calm the nervous system, reduce pain, reduce inflammation, reduce stress. So yeah, know, breathing is something I work on myself, what I talk with all my clients about. ⁓

And yeah, I highly recommend and I like the oxygen advantage. There's many breathing techniques out there. Another great book that was put out that's gotten a lot of notoriety is called Breath by James Nestor. You know, yeah.

Lucia Silver (57:31)
Yes, was about to say, I just finished that.

It's great, isn't it? And so revelatory of my work, yeah.

Aaron Delgrolice (57:35)
It's amazing. Yeah, because

it's done really well. It's not too heavy. It's not too sciencey in a sense, even though he does get into that. But, you know, he basically goes and tries out all these different breathing techniques and talks about. Yeah. Right. And again, like we talked about before, you know, maybe not all techniques are applicable for some everybody. Right. That's why some people like Wim Hof. I'm I personally have nothing against it. I think he's done great things. I'm not I don't do

Lucia Silver (57:48)
Yeah, with his mate and they're like, ⁓ exhausting. ⁓ that was great. Yeah.

Aaron Delgrolice (58:05)
that type of breathing. think the hyperventilation, the fire breathing and stuff, just not my cup of tea. think if it works for some people, great. I think it's amazing. I'm kind of on the other side of it. I'm more into slower, calmer breathing, hypoxia type breathing, that type of thing. So.

Lucia Silver (58:21)
Well, that's what you were

saying. I think it reflects what you were saying. It depends on the individual because some of us are in a hyper, you know, we're in a sympathetic dominant state. We need to come back into parasympathetic, but there are those that are kind of stuck in dorsal vagal, which is, you know, they're in freeze and they actually need to be elevated.

Aaron Delgrolice (58:27)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah. Yeah.

Lucia Silver (58:43)
you know, our nervous systems have responded in very different ways. People who have been in chronic stress for years may have shut down, right? And then something else is required. I know for me that when people say, a deep breath, I'm like, well, no, actually, this person kind of needs to exhale more than they need to inhale. And we need to get the breathing going through the nose right now. And you're telling someone who's already in an anxious state to take great big breaths through their mouth. Like that's...

Aaron Delgrolice (59:04)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Lucia Silver (59:12)
kind of exactly the opposite of what is one of those old wives tales where like, just take a deep breath. Well, take a deep breath through your nose and hold and release. You got it so wrong, haven't we? Sending someone into a complete panic attack unintentionally. ⁓ But yes, breath is life, right, Erin? I mean, it's massive. ⁓ listen, we could do 20 podcasts on that alone, but the point is I love that your approach is appreciating it.

Aaron Delgrolice (59:21)
Yeah. Right. Yeah.

Alright.

Yeah.

Lucia Silver (59:41)
is integrating it and I mean again, isn't it astounding how much is going on within the fitness industry without understanding not just the brain but the breath. So the fact that you are bringing these things together is just so valuable. Is this what gives you hope when it comes to children who may be struggling and well any of your clients who may be struggling because these things can genuinely help, right? Can genuinely reverse a lot of conditions that we're seeing.

Aaron Delgrolice (1:00:10)
Absolutely. ⁓ you know, the some of the easiest accessible things for our health, sunlight, breathwork, movement, nutrition, mindfulness, all of these things are accessible.

free in most cases. Most of these things don't cost money to go outside and get a little sun on your face or feel a breather, breeze or, you know, go for a walk, do some breath work. ⁓ You know, so yes, it's.

It's shifting. know, people like us are continuing to shift and bring more of this out there. And yeah, I mean, to me, again, it's multifaceted and these things are very accessible and very easy to do and don't take a lot of time. just that, again, most people unfortunately aren't don't have the knowledge, the tools, the resources or just don't know maybe how to implement some of these habits into their daily life. And, you know, I've seen some very

Again, remarkable, profound results with my clients from doing simple things as a breathing drill or an eye drill or a movement drill. You know, had one of my clients actually just recently, I had her basically do a simple kind of isometric drill and she started to get very emotional just from that. you know, ⁓ I won't go too much into it, but I'm listening to the body keep score, which, ⁓ you know, not necessarily new stuff for me.

stuff I've been studying for a while, but very applicable in everything that we're talking about where it comes to, you know, all of our emotions, physical, mental, emotional, the nervous system doesn't differentiate. These are all traumas and these are all things. So sometimes our emotions get stuck in our tissues. Sometimes, you know, our pain can manifest in emotions, physical pain can manifest in emotional pain, psychological, vice versa, all those things.

And so, yes, I'm very hopeful and I've seen, again, the results and ⁓ some of these profound moments for people with just very simple, accessible...

Drills like I said, vision drills, breath work, balance drills, movement things. Again, going out in the sun, listening to music, reading a good book, having a laugh with your friends or your family, socializing. All of these things are free, accessible, easy to do. It's just how do we help people start to understand that and implement that in their daily lives and give them what I call just little bite-sized chunks of

things to start doing. It's like, okay, just do this easy breathing drill for two minutes, right? Start there. try, do this visual drill for 30 seconds and just do that. know, yeah.

Lucia Silver (1:03:06)
Little by little, move the needle, you know, absolutely. And I

can speak to that too, that when I had the first big changes, Aaron, with Quinn, ⁓ the first thing I learned about before we put 25 modules together on our incredible healing roadmap course with all the experts, before we put that together, I was doing primitive reflex exercises with Quinn. And they really were simple movement patterns that we did.

three times a day for 10 minutes. And that was all we did. It was a lot for us, but it was just me and him. we started some of it during, a little bit during COVID. And it was just a sort of messy time, but we did it. And he genuinely moved from being, know, dysregulated, malcoordinated, couldn't, you if I threw a ball at him, he'd kind of shy away from it to now being kind of my kid, I'm sporty, know, throwing balls, catching them.

you know, getting into football, suddenly this incredibly coordinated kid who's out on a bike all the time. And that came from just maturing those systems. We didn't at that point go see a specialist. I learned about those patterns and I did them at home and I might've not got them all right. I don't know, but I was just following what I was seeing with my son improving and just stuck at it a little bit each day.

So let's move with that because that's hugely hopeful hearing you say what you see with your clients and hopefully listeners reminded of what I was able to do with Quinn. These practices, we're approaching the summer in our hemisphere. You wouldn't believe it. We've got storms brewing behind us and thunder going here, but we are supposed to be embarking on the summer.

Aaron Delgrolice (1:04:42)
Hehehehe... Hehehehe...

Lucia Silver (1:04:45)
So it feels like the perfect time to begin introducing more of this, you know, into family life. So for parents listening and thinking, where do I even start? What are some simple movement-based games or exercises that families can do together? ⁓ You know, if a parent wanted to support the things we've been talking about, focus, concentration, regulation, balance, body awareness, and so forth, what are some of your favorite activities or games for some of these that you can encourage us to do this summer?

Aaron Delgrolice (1:05:12)
Yeah, mean, a couple that I just saw, I have worked, you know, with kids and stuff and.

Doing even a couple of the eye drills, you know, is a fun place to start because, you know, a kid can hold a pen, a pencil, a ruler or something, or a parent can hold their finger or an object and just have the kid start kind of tracking the object with their eyes or moving their head around. Very simple, very easy to do. You can do it together. You can have the kid do it themselves with a toy, with whatever. Playing simple things like throwing a tennis ball, just playing catch, you know. You could even do that

in the living room or one of the things I do that Z-Health does is you take a tennis ball and you draw some letters or some symbols on it. You throw the ball to your kid, they catch the ball and they tell you the letter or the number that they see. So we call it letter ball or number ball, things like that. ⁓ Simon Says type of games where it's like, you're gonna stand in a ready position, I'm gonna say right arm or left arm or both arms.

of Simon says where maybe the parent gives some type of cognitive task or an instruction and the kid has to do a physical task to kind of coordinate with that. ⁓ So as we spoke before, I put together a few videos of things that kids can do, a simple breathing exercise that you can count out or you can use a metronome with where you turn on a noise like a clicking noise or you count for your kid like, okay, we're going to do this breathing drill.

and I'm gonna count to three and you're gonna inhale and then you're gonna hold your breath and exhale. you know, I find oftentimes with kids, if you just get involved with them and show them things and kind of just like make anything that you do kind of a game or something fun or something that exactly, right? Like, and when I was doing eye drills, one of my clients, I was training him, but his little four year old would come in and I had these pencils. now have other, I have one right here actually. I have other visual drill aids that I use now.

Lucia Silver (1:07:04)
together, time together even.

Aaron Delgrolice (1:07:18)
this is one of the ones that Z-Health would do, but I would have him do these brain, these eye drills, and I would tell him, we're making you smarter, this is for your brain, and he would just get so into it, and then he would tell his mom, like, Mom, I'm doing these brain drills, like, I'm getting smarter, and when I would come over, he'd be like, I wanna do those brain drills, you know, so I would just hold the pencil for him in front of his face, and I would say, okay, look at the letter.

follow the pencil with your eyes and he would be just so into it. So little simple things like that, throwing a ball, doing some eye drills together, doing a breathing drill, doing a Simon Says or some type of a movement game, ⁓ getting up and down off the floor or just simple things that you could do in your living room. You don't need a lot of space. You don't need a lot of time. No, don't need equipment, don't need any of that. ⁓

Lucia Silver (1:08:03)
Yeah, and again, yeah, no excuse. Yeah, you don't need a gym, you don't need a, yeah.

Aaron Delgrolice (1:08:11)
be,

you know, again, really fun because like you said, one, you're spending time together, you're interacting with each other and there's a very real, yeah, energy transfer, you know, yeah, 100%. And so, ⁓ yeah, you know, so like I said, some fun vision drills, some coordinate balancing drills, let's see who can stand on one leg the longest or, you know, stand on one leg and start moving your head around like, you know, so just simple fun movement, neurological drills, movement drills.

Lucia Silver (1:08:18)
That's great for the nervous system, we've got co-regulation right there haven't we? Yeah.

Yeah.

Aaron Delgrolice (1:08:41)
that people can do.

Lucia Silver (1:08:42)
What about some of the ones,

what about some of the movement patterns that are specifically good for say calming the nervous system? ⁓ I mean, when I was away with Quinn this weekend, he said, I haven't swung for so long, mommy, I love swinging. And I thought, that's interesting, because I'd forgotten that that was, you know, that's another, is that a vestibular one? I'm not quite sure what that speaks to. Yeah.

Aaron Delgrolice (1:09:05)
Yeah.

Highly,

highly vestibular. Yeah. So what we found, we find, and there's a couple of companies that I follow. There's a guy, a couple of guys on the East Coast, they're doing amazing things with kids who have very severe developmental issues using lasers and stuff, but they're also using movement. And one of the big movement things that they use is vestibular movement. So swinging, spinning, turning, that type of stuff. So yeah, absolutely highly, highly stimulating.

vestibular system. So that type of swaying swinging movement again getting up and down off the ground. ⁓ Balance drills so standing like you're on a tightrope or standing on one leg you know kind of like a yeah like a balance board yep absolutely. Yep.

Lucia Silver (1:09:41)
Yes.

I put Quinn on a balance board and I played catch with him on a balance board. Again, intuitive,

but it just felt like, and he seemed to quite like that. I thought that'll be working his core as well because he's got a balance while he's doing what he's doing.

Aaron Delgrolice (1:10:06)
Yep. Well, the vestibular

system deals with the postural muscles in the spine, so it helps stabilize.

it activates your posterior chain and it stabilizes the spine. And so you get this immediate effect of like posture regulation. And yes, very, very ⁓ critical when it comes to pain and emotion regulation as well. But yeah, the vestibular system, again, very easy accessible things like what you're talking about standing on a wobble board.

⁓ Swinging on a swing set, even just spinning around. Spinning around, sitting in a chair like a chair that I'm in. Spinning in a chair, even just little fun things. Yeah, yeah.

Lucia Silver (1:10:45)
Yes, I used to do that with Quinn. ⁓ Yeah.

And is it important which way you spin them? Because I think with our neurodevelopmental doctors, most of these children need to be spun one way more than the other again, because of the overdevelopment of one side of the brain.

Aaron Delgrolice (1:10:59)
It can.

That's where you start getting a little, you know, I want to say deep, you, that you, yes, depending on the vestibular system, because you have the right and the left. So yeah, some kids may need stimulation to the left or to the right.

that starts getting a little more complicated in terms of how you would look at maybe vestibular dysfunction and what way a kid would need to spin. Oftentimes what you'll find though, like, you know, when I've had, when I've done myself or kids or whatever, when they do like gymnastics type exercises or cartwheels or any of that, generally they're going to naturally spin to the way, a way that's more comfortable that their brain kind of like, I, you know, I want to spin to the right or the left or whatever. But yes, you,

Lucia Silver (1:11:38)
Yes.

Yeah, was about to say,

again, don't worry about it too much because they will lead you, won't they? They will lead you. ⁓

Aaron Delgrolice (1:11:48)
Yeah, yeah, I mean,

yeah, you can get deeper and actually understand, well, maybe we need this or that, but for the most part, just global stimulation often is enough. ⁓

Lucia Silver (1:12:00)
Again, as you say, feedback

and just getting the cerebellar working, right? Is trampolining and bouncing? How about that?

Aaron Delgrolice (1:12:04)
Yeah.

Absolutely. Another great, great point. So that's one thing I do with people. So bouncing, shaking. One of the things we do is you bounce and you kind of hit your heels on the floor and you get this kind of this like reverberation throughout the body, highly stimulating to the vestibular, but also the vagus nerve. So that's the other thing, you know, when we're talking about these things, we're stimulating the vagus nerve, which helps with nervous system regulation, but also digestion and many, many other things because it's, you know, connect to internal

Lucia Silver (1:12:31)
Yes.

Aaron Delgrolice (1:12:37)
organs and so yes, balancing, shaking. So I just have people just shake it out, know, or balance trampoline. Absolutely, you know, very, very important and stimulating and beneficial and just just good way to kind of get some of that energy out. What I, you know, to your point, what I tell people a lot of times is

Just let your brain and body kind of do what it wants to do in a way. Don't overthink some of these things. Just move, bounce, shake, crawl, move around, like, you know, jump around, balance on one leg, you know. Obviously there's ways to organize it and part of my job and what we do is we organize these things and put them in a more structured manner or in an outline. But oftentimes, too, I like people. I just let people move sometimes. I'm just like, you know, do this or do that.

Lucia Silver (1:13:26)
Yeah, especially if they're not.

Aaron Delgrolice (1:13:29)
Yeah.

Lucia Silver (1:13:30)
Because some of the time, you know, when we're looking at the situation we found ourselves in Aaron, a lot of parents are saying, I just want to get them off the screen, you know, anything frankly, rather than just worrying about a set. I mean, it's nice to have and we're going to we've got this wonderful giveaway, which we'll talk about towards the closing that you put together for us. You know, it is nice to sometimes have something to follow, particularly if a parent

themselves has lost the habit of exercise. I don't really know what to do with my kids. Send them outside on the trampoline. Am I supposed to go on it with them? You know, what am I supposed to So it is sometimes helpful to have a little bit of a routine, but really any movement's great. If they love to be on a bike, do that. If they want to play football, do that. If they want to be on the monkey bars, do that. If they want to be on the swings, do that. ⁓ All of the above is great. But what would be some of your tips?

Aaron Delgrolice (1:14:14)
Yep.

Lucia Silver (1:14:15)
Aaron, if a child resists exercise or says they hate sport, how can parents make this feel playful or achievable and safe, of course?

Aaron Delgrolice (1:14:24)
Mm-hmm. Well, and you know goes to kind of what I was just talking about a little bit ago is You know, there's multiple things that you can do, right? So let's say maybe they don't want to throw a ball around. Okay

Maybe try a balance exercise. Maybe they don't like the balance exercise. Okay, maybe try the Simon Says exercise. Maybe that, you know, or breath work. So there's multiple things that you can do that generally a kid, you know, will show you, you know, very quickly if they're kind of into it or not, right? If they have some, some,

you know, ⁓ interest in whatever it is that you're doing. That's why I like having multiple things that you can do. You can try an eye drill and if they're like, I don't know, this is weird. They kind of have some pushback. Okay. Well again, like I said, let's try a breathing drill. Maybe they're like, you know, they don't have the attention for that. So, you know, to your point one, if you know there's things that they like to do, you know, let's reinforce that. Right. So maybe you try five of these drills and they

really like that balance drill or they like the balance. Okay, well, let's look deeper into that. For some reason, they enjoyed the balance. Well, how can we expand on that? Right? Or let's say maybe they really enjoyed doing a tracking drill with their eyes. Okay, well, let's look more into that. it's maybe finding, know, or trampling, finding something that they have interest in and trying to maybe expand on that. And then again, or trying multiple things and seeing what they respond

well to. And so that's part of what I try to do is give multiple things to do. You know, let's try a bear crawl, let's try a balance exercise, let's try a visual exercise, let's... yeah.

Lucia Silver (1:16:11)
of finding the sweet spot there to kind of get in there

and get them. And do you find, do you give kind of motivation or reward? I mean, your work is so much involved in keeping everything from athletes to people recovering to children and families, keep them going, keep them doing it. What do you use as sort of motivation? What language or any tips there that we can steal?

Aaron Delgrolice (1:16:36)
Yeah, I mean, it's a little tricky because, you know, oftentimes the people I work with, what we look at more is kind of like assessing and reassessing, right? So, you know, we're looking at we were trying to produce a desired outcome. So then what we do is we get a baseline and we look at, OK, this is this is what's happening. And you can do that even with balance and crawling. Right. You know, let's say, you know, a kid has a hard time crawling or balancing, you know, as as they do it. Or maybe you try a different drill and all.

of sudden that improves. So what we look at is, okay, this is where you were at, we do this drill or two or three things, and then we reassess. That's a little different when it comes to like, you know, with kids, what I find for them, it just more has to be.

You know, don't think they're necessarily, and again, I can't speak as well on this because I don't have my own kids. ⁓ But what I've seen with the kids that I've worked with, it's more of the emotional connection of benefit that just something that they feel like.

is fun or they enjoy or something that is stimulating to them in a positive way. And when you do that, that as I said, that emotional connection of benefit, like I was telling you with my client and his son, he started to associate these eye drills with making him smarter or training his brain. So to him, that was the motivation. Well, if I do this, I'm going to be smarter because

Lucia Silver (1:18:07)
Yeah.

Aaron Delgrolice (1:18:15)
of it or I'm doing these brain drills.

Lucia Silver (1:18:17)
Yeah, a Premier League footballer

would have got Quinn about, you know, six months ago, he was obsessed with football, you know, fighting that thing.

Aaron Delgrolice (1:18:24)
Well, and I mean, if there's a

sport aspect or something there, obviously you can track improvement, can see,

You know, you're moving faster, you're dribbling the ball better, you're kicking harder, or things like that. So there's measurable, quantifiable things. But often what I've found, you know, even with my clients, is just when they do something and they associate it with some sort of stimulation or benefit that, again, of feels good or produces this idea that like, this is doing something for me.

then I want to keep doing this drill because if I keep doing this, this is going to get better. And for kids, like I said, you know, it's more about like they think that it's not that they think, but it is. It's like, well, this is going to make me smarter. This is going to help me, you know, be better at the, or the balancing, right? If I can balance better than I can play football better, or I can, you know, I can do these things. So it's tricky when you're motivating, you know, kids or whatever. A lot of it is discipline.

Lucia Silver (1:19:20)
next week.

Aaron Delgrolice (1:19:28)
know, discipline is a skill and it's something that has to be practiced. But if you can't apply discipline and kind of some of this motivation on something that is a chore or something that you're forcing yourself to do. So it's kind of straddling that line of finding something that's fun and enjoyable, but something that's repeatable and you can build up that momentum and that discipline. And as you mentioned, kind of move that needle like you did with Quinnware, just little bite-sized chunks. And what you start to see is that develop.

and you look back three months or six months and you go wow he couldn't even do that three months ago and now he's you know yeah yeah

Lucia Silver (1:20:02)
Yeah. And also remind them, remind them of the development because that was something I remember

Dr. Josh saying to me is like, he has parents coming and kids coming, they're like, you know, wow, I do this and this and this. And he's like, yeah, but do you remember when you didn't? Do you remember when you couldn't? Or do you remember when it wasn't possible? And I have to say that to Quinn now, because occasionally I think, I'd really like him to be doing a little bit more of this type of movement because I can see still his core needs some development. And we were doing some really quite difficult core work.

Aaron Delgrolice (1:20:19)
Mm-hmm.

Lucia Silver (1:20:32)
this 15 minute little high intensive thing that Turbis used to do and it used to hurt and we were like, and we stopped doing it. And then I, kind of look at him now and I can still see it's a little bit of work there. He still slouches quite a lot and it's definitely his, this area needing a little bit more core stability. And I'm thinking, you know, I have to remind him that the great little sportsman that he is now is because of that work, because they forget, we all forget, we forget how good it felt.

And I think some of the discipline also comes from getting started. If you can just get in the starting gate and then go, how did that feel? Right? How do you feel? I feel better. How did you sleep? I slept better. How do you, you know, as you say, monitoring their improvement on the football pitch or on the running field. Wow, that was faster. And assigning it to what you just did so that you can keep that kind of

Again, it's the neural networks. When I do this, it produces this. When I do this, it produces this because God only knows we're in a very strange way with ourselves these days where we're not naturally productive. We're quite destructive. Like I haven't exercised properly for a long time and yet I know how good it feels. I just need to get in and physically remind myself of the fact so that I can get back into that discipline again. It's, you know.

It's hard work in a busy world, but this is what we've got to do. just as a sort of global view in, Erin, we live in a world where so many parents are looking for the next supplement, the next therapy, the next protocol. What would you say to parents, you know, simply about the importance of getting back to basics and movement? That's my first kind of summary question. My second is...

If you could wave a magic wand and change one thing about modern childhood, what would it be? So first off, what would you say to parents about the importance of getting back to basics?

Aaron Delgrolice (1:22:26)
Okay, yeah.

Well, again, and we've touched on this a little bit, I think in many ways parents have to realize this stuff doesn't have to be complicated and it doesn't have to take a lot of time and it doesn't cost really any money in most cases, right? So this is not something that, this is accessible and like I mentioned before, is just kind of...

learning how to implement these things, because what happens is you're trying to take new habits, regardless of what is going on, you're trying to implement new things in a structure of life. that even when on the surface, let's say parents know like, hey, I want my kids to move more, I wanna start implementing some of these things, right?

even on the surface when they know consciously this is something that's good and that should be done, same thing with working out, there is still gonna be some pushback from the brain.

because it's still uncomfortable. Even though, like you said, you haven't worked out in a while, you know that working out is good for you. But to get started again or to get rolling again or to start implementing that in a busy life, when you haven't been doing that, there's gonna be some pushback at first because it's a new habit, even though, like I said, it's something we know is good for us. So understanding that in the beginning, you don't have to overhaul everything. don't have to all of sudden do this whole new training regiment with your kids.

minutes a day, start in bite-sized chunks, start with very easy accessible things, five minutes a day, set a timer for five minutes. Be surprised how fast five minutes goes when you set a timer, even 10 minutes, and just start trying a couple things to say, you know what, all right, you know, and what you want to try to find is when it's convenient, ⁓ because oftentimes if you're trying to force it, it's not going to work. So

as best you can, you know, for parents maybe there's this five minute window in the morning or in the afternoon right before dinner, before whatever it is, you know, find that five minutes and say, okay, we're going to set a timer for five minutes. And today we're going to try this drill or we're going to do this or we're going to do a couple things. And you don't even necessarily have to do it every single day. Start with two times a week, three times a week.

bite-sized chunks start implementing these things. And as you said, when you do this, one, you're gonna start to create that discipline and you're introducing the new habit and that over time will become part of your routine. it won't be a chore, it won't be something that's forced. It's just something that's part of it. And then as you, the parent or the kid, or both of you start to...

get the benefit and that emotional connection and start building that plasticity around that, then you're gonna be more likely to wanna do that and continue that habit because now your nervous system and your brain starts to associate that with pleasure and benefit. And you go, I haven't moved today. We didn't do our five minute thing. We need to do that. We gotta set the timer. So it's creating that discipline and that mindset.

But again, don't try to overhaul, don't try to think that you're gonna change everything tomorrow and that you need to do it for hours on end. Start with very simple things.

five minutes a day, two minutes, five minutes, whatever, set a timer and just find a time that you can kind of stick to that's appropriate, that's convenient and just start to implement and go from there. And then you see that you start to weave that into kind of the fabric of your life and your habits. And it just starts to become kind of routine. ⁓ then, you know, as for, guess, know, magic wand, I think what we're starting to see

One is getting rid of the screens. So, ⁓ you know, trying to...

minimize, especially in the very early stages of development. know, again, I've come across multiple things that said if you, you know, put a kid in front of a screen before they're two years old, that has very ⁓ severe detrimental effects in brain development. So don't, you know, not letting kids have screens from the very beginning and starting at a very early age, working with what you're talking about, these movement skills, these primitive movement skills.

developing these systems you know very early on and just being mindful of that that development you know from really until you know from basically until the kids at least five even older than that ⁓ you know I know it's not maybe realistic and ideal in today's society with screens everywhere and the things that are but you know letting the kids go outside

get in, you know, get dirty, stay off the screens, you know, play, get the energy out. know, basically, you know, my magic wand would just, I guess, go back to kind of how I was. We were raised before screens and before all that. I was outside all the time. I was out riding my bike all the time. I was out playing. I was doing multiple things, you know, associating with friends, having connection, you know, having community, doing just these very basic fundamental

things, being out in the sun. I was very fortunate that my mother, she was a great cook, cooked good meals for me. So eating well, not having a lot of processed junk food, just going back to basics really. The magic wand to me would just be like, just do the very basic.

you know things that we know work. I understand again it's hard in the society we live in everything is so convenient screens are there junk food is there it's you know it's very prevalent but you know

Lucia Silver (1:28:37)
Yes, yes. It is hard,

but as one doctor once said to me, do you want hard now or do you want harder later? And I thought, that's such a good way of putting it. Just listen to Aaron, get your shoes off, get out in the grass, do some monkey bars, do some trampolining, do some weights, do some bike riding, do some handstands, sit in the grass, roll around, whatever you do, just stay away from the screen, watch the sun, connect with nature, be with friends. I mean, wow.

Aaron Delgrolice (1:28:44)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Lucia Silver (1:29:05)
It's so incredible that most of time we're being marketed and offered very, very expensive, very superfluous, unnecessary things. And here we are, eat well, sleep well, breathe well, move well, full stop, right?

Aaron Delgrolice (1:29:22)
Yeah. Yeah.

Lucia Silver (1:29:23)
Aaron

thank you so much. This has been such a fascinating conversation and I know parents are gonna come away seeing movement in a completely different light, not just something children should do, but as one of the most powerful and accessible ways we can support the brain, the body and the nervous system. And perhaps just as importantly as a way of reconnecting as families, right? Because movement costs nothing and it can happen in the garden, in the park, on the driveway, in the kitchen, on a walk. What have we listed? On a trampoline, a tennis ball, skipping rope.

Or as Aaron has said, a game of Simon says, sometimes the things that help our children the most are not the most expensive, they are the things we have forgotten are foundational. You can find Aaron and learn more about his fantastic work at hybridfitnesstraining.com. And we'll also include links to his app, his videos and his brilliant social media, which I'm guilty of scrolling on, there's me trying to get off the phone. I will scroll Aaron.

which I blame you for because it's addictive watching you exercising. You'll find it all in the show notes and Aaron has...

Aaron Delgrolice (1:30:21)
There's worse things you could scroll through for sure. So if you are going to scroll,

hopefully get some things that are beneficial for scrolling, right? And formative or yeah, yeah.

Lucia Silver (1:30:35)
And wholesome, right. ⁓

And you've also very kindly created a brilliant free compilation of ⁓ it'll work out to be probably depending on how quickly you do it 10 to 15 minutes, an exclusive video just for us with a resource for our listeners, which is called the brain and body family reset. And on that, we're going to see some simple movement, some of the balance and visuals and nervous system exercises that Aaron's alluded to in our

podcast episode today to help your child and you feel calmer, more focused and more regulated. And inside, we'll be combining some of these simple drills, balance work, ⁓ tennis ball exercises that parents and children can do together at home. So do make sure you download that too. Thank you so much again, Aaron. You are an absolute joy and a gift. And I hope that we'll look forward to doing a lot more things with you in the future.

Aaron Delgrolice (1:31:28)
Yeah, Lucia, I really appreciate this. This was amazing. I'm so glad we connected. This has been one of the great things, you know, for...

you know, some of the negativity of social media and the Internet, there's some positive things that have come of this. I've met some really amazing, like minded people that are, you know, and ultimately our mission is to help. Right. And often that comes from our own necessity of helping ourselves or helping our children. You know, one of the biggest things is I've been in the darkness and I've seen the light and I know this stuff works. And, you know, you've seen that with Quinn and the stuff that you're doing and the things

that we're doing. I know both very passionate of getting this information, getting this out there to help people kind of take their lives back and help their kids and just, you know, be better developed humans and kind of navigate this life. You know, it's difficult, but, you know, if we can find ways and tools and resources and help and information, ⁓ you know, to better able to live a better life, that's, you know, what we're here to do. And I'm here to help and spread that knowledge. so, again, I'm glad we've connected. Thank you.

so much for having me on. I'd love to chat with you anytime on or off screen and obviously share. You've learned so much and I've learned from you. And that's one of the great things with this is I'm not a know-it-all, I'm a learn-it-all. I want to learn more and continue to help people and connect with people. so, ⁓ yeah, this is great. Thank you. Thank you again. I really appreciate it. And look forward to, yeah, working together and collaborating and really helping as much as we can.

Lucia Silver (1:32:51)
Thank

Thank you.

Amen to that. Let's all stay curious, right? If you enjoyed this episode, please do share it with another parent, practitioner, teacher or family member who might need it. And as always, please like, follow and subscribe to My Mighty Quinn so that more families can find these conversations, feel less alone in what they are navigating. Until next time.

Aaron Delgrolice (1:33:10)
Yeah, absolutely.