Daily Tip #22 - Tongue Training
I forgot to mention it in the video, but this can help a lot with snoring!! And that can equal better sleep too :-)
0:01 - Intro
Hello! It's Tuesday. And this is Week-Daily Tip #22. It's kind of fun when things work out like that, isn't it? Or maybe it's just the time that we're in now that we have to enjoy the little things. Either way, I'm Shane, from MATRIX.
0:15 – Science Behind Tongue Work
In yesterday's tip, I mentioned that today we're going to do something that's a little bit different. And that's still the case. Today, we're going to be working on the tongue. I know that sounds weird. But once I give you a little bit of a background behind it, you might not think so anymore. We're going to learn that the tongue and doing some training for it can help you sleep better, can help you breathe better, and it can give you more strength. It's really pretty wild. There was a study done back in 2014, where they held tongue position constant while doing different strength training exercises. Amazingly enough, what they found is with the tongue in a certain position, people were up to 30% stronger! I bet you're like, "What? That doesn't make any sense!" And it doesn't off the top of it. But when you think a little bit more about it, the tongue itself is highly connected with other muscles of the jaw and the neck. Which includes helping you stabilize the neck and stabilize the spine. When those things are stable, that's when you actually have more strength to use your limbs. That's why core training is such a big thing nowadays. So, it's kind of interesting when you dive in a little deeper, how things you might not have thought about before start to come to light as being important.
1:38 – What Exercises We Can Do
What we're going to do today, is I'm going to give you two and a half different exercises for you to train your tongue. We're going to learn where the spot is that is most efficient for strength generation. We're going to train it in that spot. And then, after we've done a little strength training for it, we're going to do a stretch for it. What you're going to need is a piece of gauze or maybe a towel. The one thing I can recommend is that you do not use a tissue! Just like M&Ms, it melts in your mouth and not in your hand. You're better off just using your fingers if you don't have a towel or a piece of gauze. So, let's dive into them.
2:16 – Finding “The Spot”
The first part is learning where the tongue should rest. And that's up against the roof of the mouth. Now, just take a moment. Close your mouth. Breathe normally. And just notice for yourself where your tongue is resting. Is it kind of at the bottom? Floating in the middle of your mouth? Or is it actually up against the top? If it's not already against the top, you're going to want to try it and do this exercise with me. Now, you're at home watching this. Be brave. You can do it. I'm doing it on live camera. Just to put things in perspective. What we're going to do is we're going to take the tongue and we're going to put it -- if this is my tooth of the upper jaw -- we're going to put the tongue just behind but on top of the teeth. With the tip of the tongue sitting there, the next thing that we're going to do is take a really big smile and try to swallow. So, let's do it! Tongue in the spot. Big smile. Swallow. And hopefully as you did that, you actually felt the tongue start to press up against the roof of the mouth. That's where you want the tongue to sit. Let's do it one more time. And then after you've done it, see if you can actually hold the tongue there.
2:55 – Doing the Drill
3:36 – Strength Training the Tongue
Hopefully, the tongue, you can actually press it up and hold it in place once you release the tension of the smile and the swallowing. That's part one-half. The drill -- once you have it there -- is to work on pressing the tongue into the roof of your mouth. If you do that -- press up, release gently, press up, release gently -- for 10, 20, 30 reps, you'll actually feel the muscle of the tongue starting to fatigue a little bit. And that's what you want. That's the training of the tongue. And remember, since it's so connected through the neck, as you create more strength and control through the tongue itself, you'll start to gain more mobility through the neck. And that will help you stabilize the rest of your body.
4:21 – Stretching the Tongue
Once you're done exercising the tongue, then maybe we should give it a stretch. And this one might actually be more important. Go ahead, grab your gauze, grab your towel, or just grab your tongue with your fingers. What we're going to do for this one is -- sticking the tongue out -- we're going to grab onto it on either side and just slowly start to stretch it forward. You'll start to feel some sensation on the bottom side of the tongue. We're going to hold it -- I' not actually going to do it on the video but at home you're going to hold this -- for 30 seconds to a minute. And as you do, you might actually start to feel the tongue stretch out, stretch out, and stretch out a little bit more. Just so you can see what it looks like. Sticking the tongue out. Grabbing a hold of it with your fingers. We're going to pull straight.
5:09 - Demonstrating Stretch
That's it. The more time that you spend holding that stretch, the more stretch you might actually start to get out of the muscle. Because that's really all the tongue is; it's just a muscle.
5:29 - Summary
In recap, we gave you some tongue drills. Taught you where the spot is -- up against the roof of the mouth. Do some strength training by pressing into the roof of the mouth. Then do some stretching by just gently pulling the tongue forward and giving that some time to take effect. The benefits you're going to see, number 1, more stability through the neck. The looseness of the tongue might also help relax your neck musculature so that your neck feels better. And again, as we talked about yesterday, when we're looser, feeling better, moving better, our overall health tends to feel better as well. We'll be stronger after pressing the tongue into the roof of the mouth.
6:12 – Bonus Challenge, Breathing
And then the last little piece that I want you to try and do is once you found the spot -- if you can keep the tongue in the spot -- try walking around. Maintaining the tongue in the spot at all times. What that's going to force you to do is have to breathe through your nose instead of being a mouth breather. Now all of a sudden, we're working back into that CO2 generation, proper breathing mechanics that we've been working on for the last three weeks’ worth of Tips. So, this one really starts to bring a whole bunch of things home even it seemed a little bit weird upfront.
6:44 - Farewell
Give that a shot for today. Tune in again, tomorrow, I'll be bringing you another Tip. We're going to be exercising a little bit in this one with a really big challenge. I hope you're ready for it! I'll see you then.