What Is Your Body Intelligence?

By Dr. Al Sears

I’ve just had an incredible meeting and I’m excited to bring you two new developments.

• The first is that we’ve purchased a brand-new 17,000-sq.-ft. building that will allow us to expand the current wellness clinic and build the center that I’ve always wanted. It will be like a cross between the Canyon Ranch, the Pritikin Center & Spa, the Cooper Aerobics Center, and the Life Extension Foundation.

This new center, The Sears Anti-Aging and Wellness Center, will now give us the space we need to expand our research and technology and provide more cutting-edge services in prevention, healing, anti-aging, nutrition and exercise physiology

• The second bit of news it that the result of all this planning is a new mission for the Center:

In the next five years, we want to make 100 years old the new 50.

That’s my New Year’s resolution to you.

The Center will still provide the services of natural hormone therapy, anti-aging and natural approaches to healing, as it always has.

But we’ll also be developing the technology for a new measurement of how young your body is. It’s called Body Intelligence.

Body Intelligence is the total measurement of:

• the power of your heart
• the strength of your bones
• the flexibility of your arteries
• your VO2 max (human horsepower)
• the reserve capacity of your lungs and heart
• your reaction time
• your vision
• your speed
• your physical power
• your functional muscle strength
• your body’s ability to defend itself from infection
• your capacity to stop inflammation
• your capability for fighting oxidation…

…and much more.

This is nothing like those surveys you may have seen on the Internet that try to tell you your “true age” or anything like that. Those aren’t real measurements. They tell you if you own a bigger car or live in a less violent part of town that you’re somehow “younger.” You might live longer, but that’s not a measure of how young you are.

Body Intelligence is about increasing your body’s IQ and enhancing it, so you can keep moving and stay independent. A higher body IQ means you’ll be able to do more, and have the same freedom and choices when you’re 100 years old that you have when you’re 50.

But it’s not just for people over 50.  

Body Intelligence also is important if you’re in your 30s and 40s, too, because it includes measuring your speed, your power and your strength.

For example, any karate instructor will tell you that to have a powerful punch, you don’t need bulk or muscle. What you need is for your body to be smarter. That’s because you get greater force from a punch by increasing acceleration, not by the mass of your fist. And you increase acceleration by getting the antagonistic muscles to relax – that’s a kind of Body Intelligence.

Another example of Body Intelligence is running.

When you get going – walking or running – your Body Intelligence lets your brain know that all it has to do is stimulate the muscles that cause angular momentum in one direction.

Your flexor and extender of the hip and the knee, and the muscles of your upper body are just focused on the forward momentum, and your lateral (sideways) stabilizers relax.

And because you don’t need the lateral stability, all kinds of accessory muscles can relax, too. Relaxation is how you get more speed, and that’s a kind of Body Intelligence, too.

At the new Center, we’ll be able to track all these measurements, and give you a body IQ score. Then we’ll show you how to improve it so you can keep moving without limits and have total freedom to age to 100 years and more.

You’re going to hear a lot more about your Body Intelligence in the future. For now, let’s have a great New Year together.

To Your Good Health,