To many, health is simply the absence of sickness. Thinking this way is the product of a reactive healthcare system, often leading to mediocrity. This is an unacceptable outcome for those who want the most out of life. For those individuals, health is more than the absence of sickness. It is the foundation from which great achievements are pursued and realized.
This foundation is high-performance health.
High-performance health takes mainstream health concepts and pushes them further: physiological optimization.
Physiology, in basic terms, is the systematic way the body operates using coordinated functions and communication pathways. Because human physiology is so complex, it can be examined at multiple levels, from broad actions and functions like muscle contraction, which involves neurological, cardiovascular, and metabolic coordination, to more specific aspects like cardiovascular efficiency. Deeper analysis can then explore detailed mechanisms such as cellular glucose metabolism. This layered approach allows for a greater understanding of an individual’s complex inner workings and serves as a guideline for total systematic optimization.
An optimized physiology ensures physiological readiness. And physiological readiness gives way to outcomes of the highest possible quality. Whether personal, professional, physical, or creative, success depends on mental and physical performance both of which stem from physiological optimization and readiness.
Determining mental and physical daily readiness with data like sleep time and heart rate has become common practice. These metrics are helpful day-to-day but ultimately limited by being downstream results of the inner workings of your physiology. More or less, these are generalized data points. And generalized data can only support generalized interventions. True understanding and the ability to optimize the body for enhanced performance relies on data of greater depth and quality.
Vitality considers generalized data, but ultimately high-performance health is based on deeper measurements and digging into the details. Systemic biomarkers found throughout the body are the data source offering the deepest, most personal insight into human physiology. By examining these internal signals, markers, and compounds through a performance lens, a detailed picture can be developed. This picture drives a comprehensive understanding of an individual’s physiology that sets the stage for real optimization.
This understanding gives way to personalized interventions to proactively maximize physiology and achieve the highest levels of performance readiness and health.
Human performance is the output of a complex human physiology. The Vitality system is built on the concept that observing small details within the body using the right context can inform an actionable understanding of this intricate, interconnected system. Comprehension of the systems, processes, and functions within an individual’s physiology drives a specific understanding of performance readiness (and constraints) from the inside out.
From these insights, personalized interventions can be identified to address opportunities for improvement within the mind and body. These interventions work to elicit specific changes to ensure optimized physiology and, thus, optimal performance.
Biomarkers are the most basic component used to evaluate human physiology. These markers are typically an input to or end result of an internal physiological process. The status of each marker therefore offers insight into the quality of a given internal function. For example, insulin levels give insight into how well cells are using insulin for glucose metabolism and cellular efficiency in energy production. The power of biomarkers as a tool to build objective understanding of health and physiological statuses is the basis of high performance health.
Biomarker analysis begins by examining individual markers and comparing them to Vitality's high-performance standards, but analysis doesn’t stop there. Relationships involving two or more biomarkers can also be assessed to give greater context to the status of underlying physiological functions and processes. Vitality Blueprint uses three methods to evaluate biomarker concentrations in relationship to one another for added insight.
Human performance is the synergistic result of many physiological systems working together in concert. In the Vitality system, these systems are called “Functional Areas”. Each Functional Area describes a specific area of performance or the status of a physiological system. Areas can be analyzed by looking at various biomarkers specifically related to it. By examining the relationships between many biomarker concentrations, ratios, calculations, and patterns, a detailed understanding of each Functional Area can be fully developed.
Vitality Blueprint uses 13 Functional Areas to evaluate and optimize the physiology for high-performance health.
Evaluating the relationship between all 13 Functional Areas gives a comprehensive understanding of individual physiology that can be represented by an aggregate Vitality Score. Functional Areas are interconnected. An issue in one area can constrain the entire system and thus bring overall physiological readiness down.
The Vitality score indicates physiological readiness in total–how ready the body is to perform at its full potential. This calculation is determined by how well each system, or Functional Area, is working individually and within the system.
The Vitality Score is the highest level of understanding of physiological readiness and can be considered a descriptor of overall health.
Through in-depth analysis, specific physiological inefficiencies are identified and can be corrected with targeted interventions. By leveraging extensive scientific research and practical application, Vitality has developed nutritional, supplemental, and lifestyle protocol recommendations to help address each physiological limitation. Removing constraints across Functional Areas in this way ensures systems operate efficiently and overall readiness to perform improves.
By consistently following relevant recommendations, individual physiology can be optimized and high-performance health can be realized.
Capturing achievements in life requires maximum physiological readiness. This level of readiness requires an approach to health that looks for more than just the absence of illness. It demands high-performance health: physiological optimization.
The Vitality system goes beyond general data and reactive health practices to systematically identify the inefficiencies within an individual’s physiology and address them using science-backed interventions.
Using the protocols laid out across the Vitality system, high-performance health can be attained, individual physiology can be optimized, and life’s goals can be realized.
