Your eyes are part of the workout

The first time Jon told me to switch my eyes rapidly left-right during a thoracic rotation, I thought it was a gimmick. I was standing at my desk, upper back twisted to one side, holding an isometric, and he says: "Now do ten saccades — eyes left, right, left, right."

I did it. And something shifted. Not in my spine — in my head. A fog I didn't know was there lifted. I felt sharper. More awake. Less reactive.

Thirteen sessions later, the eye work is the thing I look forward to most. Not because it's hard — it takes seconds — but because the effects are immediate and lasting. Here's why Jon builds it into every workout.

What are saccades and why do they matter?

Saccades are rapid, voluntary eye movements — switching focus from one point to another. Your eyes do this constantly throughout the day, but rarely with intention or challenge.

Jon explained it to me during Session 5, while I was holding a rotation:

"By challenging those saccades, you can actually get better decision-making, better long-term planning. And there's an inhibitory function as well — the frontal lobe via the saccade activation will also inhibit things like overemotional decision-making, which is really cool."

— Jon, Session 5

That last part stopped me. Inhibiting overemotional decision-making. For anyone who writes code for a living, who makes hundreds of micro-decisions a day, who needs to stay calm when a production deploy goes sideways — that's not a workout benefit. That's a work superpower.

How we do it

Jon doesn't do eye exercises in isolation. He stacks them on top of physical positions, creating what he calls "neurological compound movements." Here's the progression:

These take 20-30 seconds. You can do them between lines of code.

BDNF: the protein that grows your brain

BDNF — Brain-Derived Neurotrophic Factor — is a protein that promotes the growth of new neurons and strengthens existing neural connections. It's sometimes called "Miracle-Gro for the brain."

Exercise produces BDNF. That's well-established. But Jon's approach targets it specifically through vestibular training — the system in your inner ear that manages balance, spatial orientation, and coordination.

"We also know that saccades in particular can change fascial tone — your plantar fascia, your feet — and they can also do things like release hamstrings. They can make your hamstrings feel less tight. So a lot of stuff going on already."

— Jon, Session 5

In our sessions, the vestibular-BDNF work shows up in several forms:

• Head circles with VOR — Slowly circle your head while eyes stay fixed on a point. Your vestibular system works overtime to reconcile head movement with stable vision.
• Single-leg balance with eye convergence — Stand on one foot and bring your finger from arm's length to your nose while tracking it with both eyes. Challenges balance, proprioception, and eye convergence simultaneously.
• Saccade stacking on isometrics — Hold a strength position (like a split-stance lunge) and layer eye work on top. The brain has to manage strength, balance, and visual processing at the same time.
• "Eyes, Nose, 10 Toes" — Stand on one foot. Touch finger to nose, then to big toe, back to nose, next toe, all five toes. Combines cerebellum activation, eye convergence/divergence, vestibular challenge, and proprioception in one playful drill.

Why this hit me so hard

After Session 3, I wrote in my notes:

"We hit the BDNF stuff and two things. One is there's so many more Jon moments where, like, something was happening and falling, and I just kinda caught it. And it was like, it soothed me. It felt like I was a well-tuned machine."

— Walter, Session 3

I started calling them "Jon moments" — these reflexive catches throughout my day where my body just handled something my old body would have fumbled. Slipping on ice. Catching a falling glass. Pivoting quickly when my dog bolts. My wife Geeta started noticing them too.

But the cognitive effects were even more surprising. After Session 6, Jon led me through a Sufi-inspired breathing protocol combined with foundation training postures. Mid-session, while holding a breath and a wide stance, I entered a flow state and had the product insight that became this entire project. The physical practice had unlocked a cognitive door.

"As a side note, as we were doing that, my brain went into flow. And something I'm working on is coach-led AI."

— Walter, Session 6 (mid-breath-hold)

The occipital ridge trick

One of the most dramatic demonstrations happened in Session 12. Jon had me do a simple assessment: forward fold, reach for the ground, note how far I got. Then he had me rub the occipital ridge (the bony bump at the base of your skull) for about 30 seconds and do a few eye saccades. Then fold forward again.

The difference was dramatic. Instantly more range. Better balance. From a 30-second intervention.

"They found in strength training that simply pressing the tongue in its entirety to the roof of the mouth could increase strength by up to 30% in the moment."

— Jon, Session 12

This is Jon's world — he operates at the intersection of neuroscience and movement, where small inputs create outsized outputs because they work through the nervous system rather than around it.

Jon's philosophy: root functions, not symptoms

What makes Jon different from any trainer or PT I've worked with is that he goes to root functions. He doesn't say "your hamstrings are tight, let's stretch them." He says "your saccades are unchallenged, and that's affecting your fascial tone, which is making your hamstrings feel tight. Let's fix the input."

That reframe — fix the input, not the symptom — runs through everything:

• Back locked up? Don't just stretch. Reintroduce segmented spine rotations so the nervous system maps movement as safe again.
• Feeling stiff after a long coding session? Don't do yoga. Do 10 saccades and a VOR drill. Your brain will literally release fascial tension.
• Anxious before a presentation? Don't just breathe. Do Amy Cuddy's power pose with foundation training and double-sip breathing. Jon's version of it decreases cortisol and increases decision-making confidence — and he doesn't even need the full two minutes.

His pro surfer client Nadav used these exact tools before competition: Sufi breathing and foundation training for 15 minutes before every heat in a world championship event, wearing a dark mask on the beach. He won.

What this looks like in practice

Every Intention Workout session includes at least one eye/vestibular stack. On the workout pages, these show up as "Neuro" tagged moves — usually stacked on top of a physical position you're already holding.

In the move cards, you'll see entries like:

The beauty is that these take seconds and can be done at your desk, in a meeting (saccades only — invisible), or during a full workout session. They're the highest-return-per-second investment in any workout I've ever done.

The bottom line

Your eyes aren't just for seeing. They're part of your nervous system's control panel. Training them — with intention, with stacking, with vestibular challenges — produces BDNF, activates your frontal lobe, releases fascial tension, improves reflexes, and makes you a better thinker.

Jon trains world-class athletes with these methods. I'm a guy who codes at a standing desk. The same tools work for both of us because they work at the level of the nervous system, which doesn't care whether you're surfing a wave or debugging a function.

Every session I do with Jon, the eye work is the thing that makes me feel most different when it's over. Sharper. Calmer. More responsive without being reactive. It's the piece that makes this a brain workout, not just a body workout.