[00:00:00] Tayson: Hey everybody. Welcome back to the live ultralight podcast. Powered by outdoor vitals. Today, we have a very special guest Chase from Chase mountains YouTube channel coming on to share some insights now. Chase had really aligns, I feel like with the purpose of this podcast, which is to help you get outdoors, more comfortably, more confidently, and a lot of that has to do with the physical side of things. Yes, we can help you, you know, make your choices, we can educate, but if you're not in a physical situation to go and Hike, or you're wanting to increase from saying 10 miles a day to higher Realms of maybe 20 miles a day. Preparing for a through hike, all those kinds of things lead, you to needing to understand your own body and how to work through pain, how to strengthen things that are creating pain. So that you can maybe be hiking more pain-free. And, and I hate to say this, but if you don't have an injury right now, you likely will at some point. And so, this conversation really dives into the meat of that because Chase has such a profound background in working through these and movement in the body and I thoroughly enjoyed this. But if you're not familiar with Chase again, he's primarily known for his YouTube channel, Chase mountains. He's gained 176,000 subscribers at the time of this recording is a very large Channel, that's very very informative. He does a great job of just being Dynamic on this channel captivating and explaining some of these things in a very straightforward manner. He's also a through hiker, he's hiked a handful of sections in Europe where he's based out of right now, including the gr11. The hrp, you know, these are both 500 Miles through hikes and so he's a very Seasoned hiker as well. And he really initially got started by guiding trips into New Zealand and Nepal. So, between his his desires to go and Summit, you know, 6,000 meter Peaks or, you know, whether that's ski mountaineering or climbing, he's an avid Outdoorsman who understands a lot about what it takes to be logging big miles on Trails or staying healthy, so that you guys can do what you want to as long as possible with your life. I mentioned this at the end of the podcast today, but My goal, my life is not only to be the best I can be today but it's all to be able to do all of these things that I loved as long as possible and I think that if you listen to this podcast, you will find some some nuggets in here that are really going to help you with your own longevity. And we'll give you some options for next steps to take. If you feel like this is something that you do need to work on very aggressively. So, I think you're gonna find some of those Snippets in this. But last thing, before I roll this podcast, or this interview here, is that at the end of this, I will announce the winner of the cs40. Ultra backpack giveaway. We were just doing again. That was for those of you guys that were writing in reviews and I know we had a few people emails directly and we entered all of you guys in and we do have a winner and so I will announce that at the end. But for the time being, let's go ahead and roll this interview with Chase from Chase mountains. All right, Chase, I'm super excited to have you on the podcast today. How you doing?
[00:03:14] Chase: Listen, yeah, thanks for inviting me. I'm doing really well.
[00:03:18] Tayson: I followed you for quite some time actually maybe from a distance and a lot of what you say resonates heavily with me is as far as you know, functional aspects, working through injuries, where did that come about for you? How did you get into you know, figuring those elements out and then and then start
[00:03:38] Chase: teaching those big kid came from. This is going out on hiking trips myself. And you know how having Eagles in my body and not really understanding things, you know, not understanding why My back aches. When I carried us and why to why my cobs with high. So any, any other little that I had, I just had a lot of curiosity. I think that's a good place to stop from. and, Yeah, ended up turning into a full-time job and a career.
[00:04:12] Tayson: That's one thing that I've seen a lot is one thing that I like worried about for people, even like close friends and family members is when pain starts to settle in. I feel like there's kind of two ways you can go about it. There's, there's one way, which is like avoidance, right? Where it's like. Okay, I've got knee pain, I'm going to Stop doing whatever gave me knee pain like indefinitely and my fear with that is that it turns into like a domino effect of other elements. Like you start counteracting like okay if I don't want to put weight on this knee then I start putting more weight on the other knee and and it just starts dominating, you know? And the other option would be to figure out what the root cause of things are. Me, it seems like that's like what you're all about as the figuring out, those root causes. And so, I mean how do people go about doing something like that?
[00:05:02] Chase: Well I think it's it's a combination of becoming interested and then taking inputs from from other people that and know a lot more than you. And it doesn't have to be me. Like, I got a realistically, I don't know that much but my my small niche. It's hiking. I know a decent amount from that but I think it's yeah, being interested and then experimenting with things like I'm constantly telling people Give give whatever your experimenting with like four weeks because that's a good amount of time for the body to start to settle in. Like it'll take you a week or two to start understanding how certain movements affect your body, maybe even take you like two weeks to to get the movement, right? You know, because a lot of this stuff is fairly there's a lot of nuance to it and it's fairly complex. So I think they're the two things like having the interest and then a little bit of input. Maybe that input is just from a YouTube video. Maybe it's from Ideally, you know, seeing a professional face-to-face who can do some, objective table tests, and get a little bit closer to what might be that, that underlying issue. That's triggering all these, all these things that you're experiencing but the first thing I like I want to be really clear and just Like sighted, if you are experiencing pain. And discomfort and, you know, 100% comfortable in your body all the time. That's kind of just part of being human, right? Like, I'm not perfect and I guarantee you every single person is making videos about paying on YouTube has something that they're working on, you know. No one's got this. perfect ideal physique, we're all working towards somewhere, so, don't feel like, Being in pain or being in discomfort like you're not broken, you're not. Don't let pain become. Part of your identity because then it can lead you down this path of chronic pain and and it becomes part of your psyche. And that's a very dangerous place to be and it's very hard to come out of
[00:07:13] Tayson: yeah, I actually like that you brought that up because I feel like in the last while it's been a shocker to a lot of people at least for me like it was it was very apparent recently with just when you're looking at a high level of people, Um, you know, the Instagram, the YouTubers and stuff and what they? What they look like and what they say can be very different from from realities, right? I don't know how much you followed this. There's that there's this crazy guy in the US called the liver King who was getting all sorts of famous, right? You're laughing here. I'm sure you've heard it, right? And then it finally comes out. He's like, no, I don't touch, you know, steroids and Peds and and all this stuff, and of course he was, but it was really interesting because that kind of like tipped a domino over for me, where I started to look at maybe other people that I'm like, I'm pretty sure they're natural or, I'm pretty sure they're this or, and just kind of made me realize, like, man, there's no way like, there's no way that like, somebody's people are natural or that they're actually paying free or that they're like this, perfect. Physique or whatever, and it's really changed. I guess not like a massive significant level but it definitely changed. Some of my beliefs of what I see. So I actually really appreciate that. Comment right there. That everyone's going to have some level of pain and discomfort. And that's weakness in the body or whatever it is joints that are. They're giving you more grief. I think that can be expected. If people come in, with that expectation, they're less likely to get burnt out or quit something, right?
[00:08:48] Chase: Yeah, I mean, the end of that, I painted, just A signal. It's part of a conversation that you have with the body that you're living in. So it's your responsibility to to be able to listen to those signals and from the other side of the perspective. If you're not in pain and you don't, you're not really feeling any kind of discomfort that actually might be a bad sign because you're not really in tune and you're not. Dealing. What what's happening and maybe? Because of the Footwear that you're wearing, or maybe you just a little bit too much up in the up in your own head or the time. So it's not like what I'm trying to say is that pain is not necessarily A Bad Thing, don't look at it, like it's the end of the world. It's just a signal for us to Start on the standing at the Deep level. What what made me happening with are without physiology?
[00:09:43] Tayson: Yeah. So speaking of pain and how it relates to hiking, what are the most common injuries or issues that you see coming up for people?
[00:09:56] Chase: well, knees are the most common one, I think and that's just That's just the nature of me because they're stuck between the ankle and the hip and a lot of the time. These aren't the problem. Like, these are just they're always the culprit that Where the pain arises but often the problem is is not actually in the knee. Then the knees are fairly simple joint, it's like it's just a hinge joint, you know? It can't rotate. Well, it can, but it doesn't do it a lot. The hip on the other hand, Is a very complex joint and the foot is even more complex. So these are often where the problems that arise, but it doesn't necessarily mean the knee, the knee is the problem, and it's often the ankle, or the hip. And if you could go, if you want to go another little deeper and then it's probably to do with The ability for you to stabilize your own body, using your diaphragm. So it's it could be a breathing issue. And, and the more that I start to understand about these things, the more that I'm inclined to think, well, yeah, this the way that the ribs are interacting with the diaphragm is having an effect on the pelvis and that's having an effect on the knee. and the longer I stayed in this game and the more I learned, the more, I sought a tend to look towards the center of the body, And if we can stabilize and Center a breathing and we can fully create support within our abdominal cavity. When we breathe like each breath, we do 22,000 breaths a day. So if we can make a 1% Improvement on that when it's likely going to have An impact on the rest of our body, because the diaphragm is, the largest stabilizing muscle in the body. so, if it's not, We're not getting good amplitude, if our Zona that position, it's the space within the rib cage, if that's very wide. We actually want more a closer. Zone where the ribs are sort of closer to together and closer into towards the spine and that creates intra-abdominal pressure, which stabilizes our midst section. and so, we can do all of the work to You know, the feeders feed our big issues, as well, because they're so complex. But we can do all the work with the hips and the shoulders and everything and run up against these these problems continuously. and if we're not looking at breeding, as the fundamental pattern that it is stability wise and Like that's where I would recommend people looking to because if you know, continually you these walls but they're just like not getting anywhere with this stuff. I can do all this mobility and all these drills and nothing's changing. And then I'll be looking at the breathing. And so, like the last year and a half of my life has just been diving, deeper and deeper and deeper on this. And it's been really interesting, but I guess the hard thing is to get people to understand. Well, let's make this potentially,
[00:13:07] Tayson: let's make this a little more like personal then, because I think that that's, that's really it's really fascinating because I mean, I first, I was thinking, all right, let's talk about ankles, let's talk about hips. But let's, let's come back to those and talk about breathing here for a second because I've had a few issues come through. My life, right? I've had plantar fasciitis, I've had knee pain. But the one that's been the most common has been back pain and for years that like really played me. And then I learned how to Stretch and stretch, like my. So as muscle, that was like a bigger point and issue for me. And so I learned that and and then I was able to kind of like Stave it off. Like if I did all my stretches, then I would, I would keep it at day and then a couple years back, I started to get into trail running quite a lot and that seemed to actually help my back. I feel like I had some initial pain for like the first month and then it almost seemed like the motion of movement and getting that movement in more on a daily basis. I think helped me a bit but So then like and I dropped some weight, I dropped, you know, 20 pounds or so from running. And and was in a good spot and then just this last March, my back. I just woke up one morning and my back was just like out in it and I couldn't train and I couldn't do anything for a week and I was really frustrated by it because I'm like, usually I know these, these triggers that start to lead into some of this stuff. And the biggest thing I could really think about was I was dealing with with a higher stress, loading up to that, which I've also linked to my back pain at times, but I'm, but, I've never had a link to it, right? Like, I've never been able to, I'm stressed. This is why my back can be more susceptible and stuff like that. I'm wondering if maybe there's a connection with what you're talking about and it affecting my core which then affects my back, like you've mentioned,
[00:15:10] Chase: hmm. I'm sure there is I can't I don't know if I can give you a clear answer. But let's talk about I guess the nervous system which I like to think of as the governing body. That is really in control of Everything that happens in your body and and including that in the mind. So, you went through this period of time where you were a little bit sort of jacked up on your nervous system under a lot of stress and that's not only in the mind like the body holds that engine and so you you may have been storing certain amounts of tension in other parts of the body and then maybe you had a Kind of a crappy night's sleep where you're in a great position and the lifted yourself out of bed and then boom, the LOL back, starts firing up. so, when it comes to the nervous system, this is inherently tied to breathing because As far as I know, the only way to influence our nervous system. Now, automatically autonomic nervous system is to do control breeding. To to manipulate that. So, there's the stability aspect that I talked about before we choose a bit more of a mechanical thing. So that's really about Utilizing the diaphragm, just stabilize the body but then there's breeding as a method of influencing the nervous system or the autonomic nervous system. And so this is basically your your fight or flight response or fight flight or freeze. Versus your rest and digest. So we can utilize breathing as a way to purposefully put us up into fight or flight so that we have more So I guess we're more Mobile in our autonomic nervous system so we can force our way up, which means we can up-regulate. Let me choose and then we can also choose to down regulate so, it's more flexibility in the In the state that the nervous system is. in as a like, when we're going about our daily lives when there's no threats, But then that threat could not necessarily like a tiger that threat can be distressed from work, you know. so then if we're spiking up and we're being up regulated into a sympathetic state where you know, fight flight or freeze, that certainly going to impact our physical body.
[00:17:57] Tayson: Yeah. Yeah, it makes me and this might have been in that. I know this is a book. You've read the breathe book by James, Nestor, but I feel like I've seen the stat somewhere that that breathing is one of the only ways to like, Almost immediately reduce stress levels in the body, like doing a controlled breathing pattern or like, you know, some people I hate to say the word meditation because I think people get the wrong like knowledge of that but a lot of meditation can just be breath work, right? But it if I remembering, right? It's one of the quickest and only ways to really just reduce stress. Almost immediately in the body is by, by focusing on breath for, and doing maybe a like a box pattern breathing, technique or something, right?
[00:18:46] Chase: The whole bunch of fees and smoke some weed, Maybe. Then you piece of that light up.
[00:18:51] Tayson: That's right,
[00:18:53] Chase: that's true. So yeah, this place, I mean, if this is the modern human eye, we cope with stuff like this. so,
[00:19:04] Tayson: okay, so so link for me, let's because I'd like to bring it back to like the knees, you know, ankles and hips for a bit but What's the easiest way to understand a connection between breath and how it might be affecting your lower body like that?
[00:19:20] Chase: Okay. So, If you imagine like a like a party balloon, just get a party balloon and blow it all up, and then just imagine that balloon is sitting just under your rib cage. And it's sitting between your colors and your ribcage, right? And that balloon. If you can, imagine that balloon is being being responsible for, keeping you stable, So rather than the muscles having to work really hard all the time to constantly readjust your posture and your balance. If we can get that balloon. To. Take over that job of keeping us mostly stable. Then the rest of the muscles don't actually have to do that much work. They can focus on what they Normally do, which is power is forward or to the side rather than having to keep this upright all the time. So this is all integrated with posture and the body will find stability. Like very few people walking around fall and overall time unless we get to, you know, I just I ate in above so, the body in, in the case that you are, Not stabilizing through the diaphragm. There is going to be muscular compensations. Usually, you know the muscles that you mentioned already. Like the solar system is a big stabilizer. That's why a lot of people tend to have really tight hip flexors and Solace and they're constantly stretching and like you said before, you had found a workaround because you were you determined a series of stretches that you know, would you know, pull you back into a more comfortable alignment. but, Do we really want to? I personally don't want to have to do a whole bunch of stretches every day just to just to pull myself back into my natural alignment and other struggle with this, we really long time. And for a while back, I'll just decided it was like, I'm gonna stop stretching, like, I haven't put stretching videos out on YouTube, or, or a while. Moving videos. Yes, but not actual stretching because I'm starting to think that okay stretching has a place when, you know exactly what needs to be stretched and you use that to temporarily overcome sort of some sort of discomfort or misalignment. but, if it's Something that you have to do every single day in order to just be comfortable. For me, personally, I don't want to have to do that. I'd rather just wake
[00:21:51] Tayson: up and be like. Yeah, I'm sweet. You know. He resonate with that. 100% is like man if I don't do these stretches, this is the consequence but it just felt like a like a hamster wheel. Like you're just running in a circle all the time and not getting any like true progress, right?
[00:22:05] Chase: Hmm. Yeah. And it is something that has been repeated a lot and I'm also probably guilty of it if you get back on my channel for years ago, do these stretches. This is important blah. But, you know, the more I learned, the more I changed my mind. I'm like, actually one of these standing, you know, 25 or 30 minutes a day, or even more like day, and not trying to realign myself. Why can't I just be good? And so, yeah, like the journey that I'm on now, is I Discovering. and it's weird because I learned this stuff like 10 years ago, but until you It until he's like, suffer from this and it gets to the point where you just like, I'm just so tired of this. It's only when you get to that point, you start looking down the path of things that are a little bit On The Fringe. Like, okay, maybe I, maybe I should be, you know, having another crack at meditation. Maybe Stillness is the answer, maybe I'm what would happen if I just start for five minutes or stood for five minutes and felt How my? How my balance is being. Constantly shifted shifting and changing in order to, to maintain this upright posture. so, you know, I would love to be able to provide us solution and just like do this and I think I'm I always think I'm close to that and I keep discovering more things like this is going to be, this is the magic things that everyone that doesn't know, you know, but I've been to that like 10 times, so,
[00:23:41] Tayson: Yeah, I don't know why there's certain lessons in life that I feel like we have to learn more than once. I'm guilty of that just recently but What what are your thoughts on like? I want to, I don't want to like, weighted stretching or or just like what? Like, a lot of what you teach with actual movement, I think is how you kind of categorize, that that's kind of, when I was like, started to be feel like, hey, all this stretching, isn't getting me. True lasting progress. I was trying to replace it with more. Um, our classifies weighted stretching, but really it's just range of motion movement, right? Whether that's body weight or whether it's very lightweight. Do you see that as like another aspect of this as well as as the breathing and the technique there?
[00:24:32] Chase: For sure. Yeah I think that's probably like a first step really because it's a lot easier to do that and it's mostly complex.
[00:24:42] Tayson: If you, right, it's easier to do that than to breathe, right?
[00:24:45] Chase: Yeah. Exactly. You know, yes laying down on the floor and just focusing on your breathing is tough. And and I'm trying to make it easier with like, making videos with cues for the clients that I'm working with, to give them, you know, real tangible stuff that they can, you know, listen to and get constant feedback. But yeah, to your point about what I the term I use the loaded Mobility but yeah, wait to wait is stretching or just really heavy or not even really heavy but strength training in full range of motion. I spent a good two years working with that modality through the atg system. I don't know if you know these advertised guy, I trained on the system and resumed his realm of coaching for a couple of years. And I was like, at the time, I was like, yes, this is it, we need more strength and we need more range of motion because yeah, more range of motion and more proof. Mm-hmm. However. my experience going through that was that I was trying so hard all the time to Create more strength and create more muscle activation, you know, thinking, oh, there's muscles that. That aren't being activated. So, I need to work and work harder and harder to activate these certain muscles. The result of that was that I ended up experiencing a lot more tension in my body. I had more resting tension in the muscle. And so, while I think many, many people will benefit from that and I still put people on that style of training program all the time because I think it's useful for a lot of people but for certain individuals who are like wound a little bit more tightly like naturally I'm more of a natural sort of anxious person. I spend probably more time in in this fight or flight part of my nervous system. so, you know, It just so happens that probably that wasn't the best thing for me to do for two years. And but it's all part of the process and like, and I'm not saying that that's not going to work for other people. It's certainly does, and there's plenty evidence of it and I think it is really For my mind is the best way to try and if I could train that way all the time and get continual results without getting an excessive amount of tension. and, I would try it that way, but it just went right. When you say
[00:27:23] Tayson: When you say tension, you just mean like you're having a lot of soreness on a daily basis or you're just feeling very tight like instead of getting more loose with these big range of motion exercises where you feeling more, tighten it I guess maybe it just explain that a little bit.
[00:27:44] Chase: okay, so you can, you can have an individual who is strong and mobile, and it can reach The end ranges of certain positions, like I can pretty much get into front splits. but if I work up to it for 10 minutes, 15 minutes however, The results of that is generally more muscle tone. So not tone in the way that all this guy is toned and he looks ripped. But tone in terms of like actually, you feel the muscle, And where the muscle should be relaxed when we should just be laying on the couch and just being completely at rest. Instead there's this holding tension and a tone and the muscle. And whether that's, you know, it's almost certainly got to do with the nervous system and fashion and all the rest of it. But basically the muscle spindles and are all, you know, Tightening together defense mechanism.
[00:28:43] Tayson: There is a 100%
[00:28:45] Chase: yeah it's 100% of different defense mechanism because it started into The autonomic nervous system and it's part of flight. Sorry essentially. With me what I'm sort of starting to discover is that I'm holding more of this tension. That's not serving me, so What can I do now to, to relax and, and release that? Because I know I'm strong enough, you know, I can, I can go and do all these, all these things and I'm fine, you know, but I can get through it, but I'm getting through with. A lot more discomfort than I would like to have. So. My focus. Now for me personally is on trying to down regulate them and system trying to bring more stability with documented breathing and that intra abdominal pressure of that balloon that we spoke about earlier. So that I don't have to do. Half an hour of stretching in the morning. To remain pain-free and balance.
[00:29:46] Tayson: Yeah, you know one of my one of the most interesting takeaways for me from that brief book was how it related to high altitude sickness. I I started to experiment with either devices that would open up my nose more for night time or even the taping your mouth shut aspect of it. And anytime that I do that at high elevation, I track my heart rate. My resting heart rate pretty closely because I've been able to tie my resting heart rate to my susceptibility of getting altitude sick the next day. And you know, there's there's elements of hydration in that but there's there's other elements of just your body. You know. reducing stress per se or feeling, you know, at elevation and so I have found personally that when I do those types of things that elevation and able to get into a more resting state and have a reduced heart rate when I'm sleeping and then that end up reducing my wrist of altitude sickness. It seems like the next day. So the really is like a lot of It's like this, you know, spider web effect of just, it just all kind of comes out from from that Center. But let's let's change. Oh, go ahead.
[00:31:06] Chase: I was just gonna say there's many ways to skin a cat as well. Like there's many different, many different modalities that we can that we can Implement to see what what changes they bring about in the body. Yeah, and
[00:31:17] Tayson: that's the the hard part with all of this is life is too short to your learn from your mistakes alone, right? So you like you've really got to spend a little bit of time and that education field and and go to guys like you and and take those shortcuts, right? Because if you know, you've been on a whatever 10 plus your journey or your whole life journey of figuring a lot of these things out and for a lot of people, they could shave years, and years off of those times to get to a better place for themselves without having to learn every step of the way first hand, right? So I think it's always it's always wise right to look to the experts and to figure out how to cut some of those Corners per se because it's life's just too short to to make every mistake. There is out there.
[00:32:05] Chase: Yeah, absolutely. I'm reminded of that, every day, when I'm getting a little bit older and like, Oh, you should have this figured out by now,
[00:32:16] Tayson: right? Right. I think in some ways though, like, I think that that at my age, It's hard to say this like outright, but I feel like I'm in the best shape of my life, which is pretty cool to be. I don't know what I'm 32 or 33. I should know that and, you know, but to feel like I am in the best shape of my life because I mean, I played Sports and stuff when I was younger and dabbled collegiately for a second and, you know, and just it was to be able to feel like I'm actually in better shape now than then is, is I think a pretty cool thing. But I think that the amount of knowledge that I've accumulated over the last decade, you know, really, really plays into that and and in my abilities, right? But hmm. So yeah, I want to come back to this. I'll go ahead. Go ahead. I was
[00:33:06] Chase: gonna say, as you as you get older, I think He's more nuanced, Things become more important. Like when you are icing on the 19th, his young guys will feel his listening to this. Every likely could you don't have to worry about this, just go out and play a sports. Lots of variety, you know, experiment with different things. Get his much variety as you can. And get that General preparedness up and You know, do what you can to increase your athleticism because that's when you put money in the bank for the rest of your life and I'm part of what I'm doing is. trying to get that message across because from my perspective, you know, the people that I've hung out with and hi to They're not always, you know, the most athletic people when they haven't had it, you know, a huge background in sports and that kind of thing. And Hiking is their only one of the only physical Outlets. So, I'm really trying to meld these two worlds like, strength and conditioning and And Hiking together so that people can have a more well-rounded sort of athletic physique and and life, and mind. So, it's it's been interesting to see different people come from like different perspectives and different ages of life and go through my training programs and, and See how? How they lives and how he's been affected by
[00:34:35] Tayson: it. yeah, I think it's See, when I was about 24 almost, all right, 24 25. I gained a bunch of weight. I kind of went through this cycle where I was starting, you know, providers and just recently got married and I just kind of Click onto the gym, quit doing all these things and I gained a bunch of weight and I kept that weight on for a couple of years and and then kind of had that that moment where I was like, holy cow. Like if this is everything I care about in life. But my physical body isn't capable of doing those to the level that I'd like. Like, it was just this real light bulb moment for me where it was. Like, no, like Focusing on health empowers, you to do more of everything that that she loved. If you're listening this podcast, more than likely, the things that you care about are getting into the outdoors, and being in a healthy state is so much more empowering to to getting out. Consistently to go going farther to experiencing more that I would, I would absolutely urge you to, to go and check out, you know, some chases courses and figure some of these things out. And well, that's even like dropping weight or things like that. You know, join our 100 Mile Challenge checks in this course out because they because in the end like like, I think my biggest thought now too, is like in the longevity side of things or it's like, man, I want to do these things but life is short and I want to do these things for a long time. Like I don't want this window to be short that I'm able to go and do all these things that I really, really care about. So and I feel like that's what what people will get out of your courses and I wanted to maybe bring this conversation back to Um, I think it's called Mountain tough ankles is one of the modules or courses that you
[00:36:23] Chase: teach ya Mountain proof ankles. Yeah
[00:36:26] Tayson: Mountain proof tools Mountain.
[00:36:27] Chase: It's it's a free program that I've put out maybe three years ago that is that's more or less me like just throwing paint on the wall to see with six to be perfectly honest but tons of people would come back to me and said like this literally changed how I walk and You know, for a lot of hikers. A foot problem or an ankle problem is not just a full problem. It's an identity problem because it prevents you from doing the thing that you love and it's such an important part of people's lives. If if you're a hacker and that's what you do, we'll probably is a is not just a problem.
[00:37:07] Tayson: Well, and like you mentioned already, when like we've put a poll out here on our end too. And knee pain is the most common issue people have right? But you kind of you brought up a really good point. I hadn't actually looked or thought of it that way where the need does have way less Mobility way less going on inside of it compared to the hip or the ankle or foot area, right? So maybe let's let's like walk us through a little bit about how The ankle per se because I personally like I had knee pain but I would never classify myself as having ankle pain or I did start to develop, you know, plantar fasciitis and I dealt with that for a while. But again it was always like knee pain is has been something that's kind of coming on at times and I've never really linked that to my foot and ankles. So I think if you're really interesting to hear how you link those and and how other people can why they should care about their feet more,
[00:38:05] Chase: so, the ankle Requires. a good amount of my ability so that then they can push over the toe and one of the big things that's Been discovered and strength training in the last three or four years, is that there was a myth going around that we should never squat with the knee passing of toe. And that for him from one study in, I don't know, I think there's IDs on 90s and it was just taking his gospel, and there was never really Revisited. So strength, coaches, like myself and me. millions of people all around the world with going into the gym or going into their workouts, thinking I could never pushed me up inside, but it's essential to be idle to to have that, like, Knees over toes happens. When you go downhill, it happens when you go down stairs. So we need to be strong and protected in that. And one of the people who has, or the person who has been best in that field at literally dispelling, that myth, and that myth alone has been Patrick and he was the guy that I spoke about earlier. Who's developing this atg system? So, we need a little, we need enough ankle Mobility for the meter pastor at the time in order to be, you know, comfortable going downhill. So, that's the first, that's the first thing. But then so what
[00:39:32] Tayson: ankle dance, what do they do?
[00:39:35] Chase: Well, like,
[00:39:35] Tayson: is there a good test to like like instantly just show you can. If you have an issue,
[00:39:41] Chase: basically, your toe up against the squirting board, With a wall and then if your big toe on the on the skating board and then drive the knee forward, Don't Let It Go in. Medially don't let it pass inwards but keep it directly over the second and third. So and drive the knee, as you can hit the wall, good Shuffle back, another inch. if you can get your toe and inch away from the wall, And hit your knee to the wall. You've got a decent amount of Mobility there and if you don't, you simply just do that and you work towards that. so
[00:40:18] Tayson: some people that's interesting, that seems like such an easy test At the same time, as there are a lot of people that can't do that.
[00:40:25] Chase: Yeah, yes. So many people. Or some people will get an immediate better for that. They do that for like you know every day for four weeks and I okay I'm starting to hold on to a little bit more mobility and perhaps they maintain that Mobility by just you know, squatting more often getting down deep into the ankles and the hips and doing a few more drills exploring with, you know, crawling and and just generally being down low on the floor and not in chess, so much for the, a lot of people that will be plenty. For another subset of people. People like myself, who tend to hold a little bit more tension. Maybe there's a foot issue. That's restricting that that drive of the toe, then. The nervous system is going to see that as a threat, and it's not going to let you go into that position without a lot of awesome and effort all the time. And if you stop doing the drill, And everything goes back to the original state. Then it's like, okay, Particular drill didn't work, but it's likely that other similar drills. May not also work. So if we tip that box and say, okay, that didn't work. My next, In the assessments sequence, I would go to looking at the foot. So hmm. So it's really complex because there is 26 bones, 33 joints. 200 something thousand nerve endings in the bottom of the foot. And then we have the way that the lower leg interacts with the ankle as well. So my current Methodology with this is mobilized, so we're mobilizing firstly, the toes because the big toes needs to be mobile. Every single step off with your running or walking hiking. We have toll off with a big Tony needs to Lex and push off. So we need to be term mobility and this is where its people start losing people because they're like, oh what? I've got a mobilize my little toes to be able to get rid of us because it doesn't like On the surface level if you don't know much about your body and biomechanics. It's like, how is this even relevant? But we are, it's all one system and it's also intricately connected, you know? So yeah, I have people, you know, doing things like inserting their fingers into the into the toe joint, I call the toggle up and then that is so painful. Very
[00:43:01] Tayson: yeah. So painful for me. Yeah. No like I bought So I I recently, I've last couple years of dabbled with this. Even putting like in Gingy socks, like toe socks onto my feet, I could feel that like it was a little bit uncomfortable. The first time I did that and then, you know, I got like toe spreaders and that was just outright painful like that. Actually, felt painful for me, whereas my wife, she could sit there like move, each individual toe and pick things up off the ground on my I just I just say she has monkey toes, not in a bad way but she could do things up their feet that I just like, I've never dreamed of right
[00:43:42] Chase: training, isn't it? My my girlfriend's exactly the same. Yeah, so I discovered all these drills about like toe dissociation, where you trying to lift the big toe but then we dissociate a little toe. So they're going on the opposite direction and you can start doing that manually by like manually, forcing it with your hands, but then, the next level, this is, this is a conversation of Hardware versus software. So, the hardware is you physically moving the toes and seeing if they physically have the joint Mobility to be able to move into, Full range and full range believe it or not. It's pretty, it's pretty extreme like when you see people who are expressing full range of their sizes, like, well, it's like 90 degrees. So that's the hardware part, just moving it. But then there's the software which is doing that movement with Just Your Mind Body Connection with just your brain. So you sit there. You're not manipulating with your hands Then you'll disassociating your standing. Wait evenly placed into the feet. and then lifting the city toes and then pressing the two big toes down and lifting the little I can't do it with my fingers and whether the interesting thing is when you do this You say all sorts of strange things start to happen, like weird things happen with your hands, or do you like moving your negative in a weird way. But it it's really interesting work because It is. you know, progress really deep and nuanced, proprioception, where Improving that in mind body relationship. Yeah. So yeah, as I was saying, yeah, mobile Mobility first And then stability. So I get people doing a lot of single leg standing. Exercises in lots of different ways with like, eyes closed, eyes, open, or support. No, support or dissociating the head, and there, and seeing how that impacts the stability. And so, Every step that we take when I'm running a walking that is essentially is a single leg balance. So if we get better at single leg balancing and if we can get better hopping and using that natural elasticity, that the foot and the lower leg has a slightly going to impacts our hiking and walking and running in a positive way because That's what's in contact with the ground all the time.
[00:46:15] Tayson: Yeah, I guess, I guess from, if I'm understanding correctly with increasing, both your foot, your foot's ability to move. Balance, which is strengthened as well. That's going to take less load for transferring up to your knee. When it's trying to counteract per se, a lack of flexation or Mobility. So then it keeps you need more free to do it. It's supposed to do and set of overcompensating for muscular weaknesses or like you mentioned, the lack of ability of just having Movement. Like that's that just is going to put a big cap in my mind on your abilities for you need to work properly and get a full range of motion. If your foot can't have a 4 inch emotion, that's instantly going to come into a knee range of motion Out. Imagine that kind of this oh,
[00:47:12] Chase: Often these things just they move Upstream. So everything Downstream is the feet and the foot is not doing his job to be stable. This is why I have a bit of the A graph against, you know, modern Footwear because modern Footwear is, you know very big sport supported cushiony souls and that's providing an extra level of stability which makes the feet kind of dumb and insensitive. So yeah, that is the foot isn't doing the job. Then it likely goes Upstream, often it goes into the tibialis anterior, which is the muscle at the front of the lower leg. And no one. Very few people, and very few standard gym programs are doing. Specific exercises. Like the only lower leg exercise that you see in the Lord of standard strength, programs is just half rights. but, A lot of what happens. When we hiking and walking happens below the knee. So I for that reason I do a lot of work on the lower lake and a lot of the time it's the TV Allison interior.
[00:48:21] Tayson: Yeah. That was that was happening to me. Last year I did a big effort in the Grand Canyon did 38 miles in a day but we descended like 10,000 plus deep that day, right? So A massive amount of downhill. We are running a part of it with a loaded pack on. And by the end of the day, my knees were were in a lot of pain and then I dealt with that pain through the rest of the summer. Ran an ultra marathon at flared back up and it's my butt on that ultramarathon and then it really took me 12 months later when I started to do things, like, tip raises that I started to feel like I was making like real progress with it. so yeah, I I totally resonate with what you're saying there on on the tibialis and trying to strengthen that because it's to me that that I wouldn't say ruined but drastically impacted my entire last year, my life. Yeah,
[00:49:24] Chase: sure. And I like to think of that muscle was really The muscle that was primarily responsible for deceleration. So you can see about going downhill is the acceleration or let's say, you'll sprinting flat out 100% And then you have to slow down. That's decentralization. So a lot of that. Oh, this is going into the TV off. And if that tissue isn't Up to scratch to take that amount of load. Then that's when you get something like shin splints.
[00:49:57] Tayson: Yeah, do you do you see or I don't know. Is it more common to have a foot issue that goes into the knee and into the hips or to people also build hip issues that come downwards into the knee?
[00:50:13] Chase: It can go either way and to be perfectly honest, half the time I have no idea. Um, yeah,
[00:50:19] Tayson: you get that out, I guess.
[00:50:21] Chase: Yeah, we did, you know, like I said, it's growing pain on the wall and seeing what sticks You could go to a really, really good. Physiotherapist and is tons of them. Who will do objective, tablets that you really need someone there. With you feeling, you feeling your body, feeling the tone and the muscle when you do these tests. and I can say, with, a good level of confidence that you know the problem is coming from here and then you objectively test that by Implementing a set of exercises and then reassess it.
[00:51:01] Tayson: Is that something that you coach on as well? Is trying to diagnose or not so much or not.
[00:51:07] Chase: I'm I'm I don't diagnose anything. I try and stay away from Labeling. Pane my, I mean, if I discover something for my body that I know, helped me and I documented that process and And I'm confident that similar people who are the similar physiology to me, will benefit from that. Then I'll make a video about that and I'll put it on YouTube for free but I really have A lot of. Hesitation in. Putting something out there saying do this. And it will fix your knee pain, ankle pain, whatever. There's been certain cases rather have made videos on something like one example was iliotibial band syndrome. and that just so happened that I was talking with a guy who was experiencing that and I was like he was really just intuition. I was like do these five things and I said it with a lot of confidence and I was hiking with him every day so he was under pressure you know, for me to do these things and he did them and he by the end of the hockey, thrown away those knee supports and He's really, really, really strong. Now, still a really good friend of mine. I'm going to easily within the next week. That's
[00:52:27] Tayson: awesome.
[00:52:27] Chase: That's so these situations where I've lived that experience or have had Direct experience with that with the, with a client or a friend, or whatever family member. I'll put something on YouTube for free. But I don't want to be in a position where someone comes to me with pain. because it's going to be very hard for me to diagnose that even in real life, because I'm not that an expert at this. I'm an expert in hiking and, you know, movement and I don't necessarily want to be that that God that people come to. With with pain because I think there's better people more educated. People with systems who can quickly get them to the problem? Well, I like to do is Preparation. And prehabilitation. As opposed to Rehabilitation. And so what I'm trying to do is get people for their engineered to be like, okay, you're in a good spot. Let's get you strong, let's get my ball. Let's get you in tune with your breathing. and, Hope For the Rest. Yeah. And then we're in a situation where we can push things and when we push it and we do something like 100 mile race or We do like a big day of hiking and we feel maybe we push our limits a little bit. Then we have a framework to be like, hmm. Okay, that's interesting. Rather than On absolutely screwed. And I can't really
[00:54:04] Tayson: Yeah. So I want to bring it back to your issue with modern Footwear for a second. I've recently been thinking a little bit more about this. I recently read the Born to Run book. Decade behind the times, you know? But it's a really interesting concept of by going back to more natural foot, positioning how it affects everything else. And I'm, I would say in the very beginning stages where I'm, I'm considering, you know, what smaller adaptations, I could try to to implement that. So, you know, first it's like oh you need like a zero padding shoe and you know it's Gotta Have a big wide foot box and all these kinds of things Or toe box. So my compromises to I've been like anti Altra shoes for a long time and I re-bought a pair of ultra shoes and started just started just with that. I'm like there's still padding in there but it's a zero drop and and there's you know space for my toes display out but Yeah, from your perspective, what do you see? Are the issues with with some of the Footwear that's out there and and what do you recommend people, you know, consider doing about it.
[00:55:29] Chase: I recommend if you have kids get them in. Minimal basically, sell shoes. Because our those are the brands out there that do that. Sure. Yeah, xero shoes I just had a big conversation with Stephen, the CEO from from zero. Just a couple hours ago. Yeah, I've met him before. He's a cool guy. I like him? Yeah,
[00:55:49] Tayson: I energy.
[00:55:51] Chase: So, you know, there's a lot too. You know, he said he's been, he's been around since the beginning. And then yeah, Vivo as well. They make they make shoes for kids. And like it's growing exponentially, there will be more companies. But what I was speaking to Stephen about, I was like you guys are doing a good job of the education part because I feel like these shoes could almost come with a manual for the body and a manual to how to use the shoe, you know, there should be like an e-book that comes with these shoes. A lot of science people just like, put these shoes on and start running and you know, some people be fine but a good amount of people will learn that lesson and then swear them off. so, the first thing is that Modern Footwear the way that it's shaped the stability aspect of putting a large amount of material between the foot and the ground. These things all Impact our sensory development in when my children, when we developing motor skills, when we're developing the brain, and if we're deafening that it has an impact on on kids, That's at the neurological level. But if we talk about the biomechanical level that tends to result in the things that we've been talking about with knee pain and foot issues and hip issues and lower back pain and all this Sort of stuff. So the best thing, For our future is to get kids wearing wide flat shoes so they can not go through the process that you and I have gone through where we jammed our feet and restrictive shoes and messed up our toes and lost that sensitivity. now, it's not to say that as adults, we can't regain that the book, the body is incredibly intelligent and for the month like we see it every day that people regain that sensitivity, and they regain that stability and the And the ability that we once had. But it's certainly a lot harder. As you as you age to be able to regain that. so yeah, sooner the data for most people Having said that? There is there's a shoe for every purpose. There's a shoe for every individual person out of point in time. And so it may be that you need to go to a, you know, an old school podiatrist and have a wedge. Putting your shoe to boost this. A certain part of your foot to regain some natural biomechanics. It's there's really I have a problem with saying, as a blanket statement, everyone should be in. Barefoot style shoes. because there's, you know, there's a lot of nuance but for kids,
[00:58:46] Tayson: Next fighter sense,
[00:58:47] Chase: why not?
[00:58:49] Tayson: Yeah, what what? Man, this is such a big topic, right? Like it's it's a very interesting topic. Obviously, the more, the more Barefoot style, the shoe, I think, at a high level and just correct me if I'm wrong here. But the more Barefoot style of the shoe, the more, the body can move naturally. Strengthen itself naturally. It can, it can feel things like you've mentioned with reduction in foam, it can be beneficial. But I think one of my biggest concerns with going like full bare foot, which is like no padding, really write just a piece of rubber underneath. Your foot is like these bigger efforts that I enjoy doing and like I was just recently on a hike in Zion National Park and one of the one of the guys there had a pair of xero hiking boots. and he's like, yeah, like I've really enjoyed minimalist outfit wear over my life, but it kind of sounded like, like his his takeaway from all of it was You know, I like these boots but I don't think I'd want to do more than like 15 miles in them or something for a day or like and he was also mentioning like he has to be a lot more careful with foot placement. You know, he's paying attention to where he's putting his feet down, you know, more and more. And to me, I was like, man, I really like the idea of all this but That sounds like a lot of, like, some drawbacks for me, in, in leaning into going full barefoot-style shoe. So I'm curious like for you, because you've been, you've been in this realm for quite a while, like when you go out hiking, Like how many miles a day are you doing? And and how much weight are you carrying? And how does that equate to your Footwear?
[01:00:48] Chase: Well I'm still pretty much an ultralight honka unless I'm going on a big mountaineering trip or ski trip. I'm not carrying more than 8 9 kilograms maybe. I think that's probably around. Let's say my base. Weight is probably like six at the moment. So add food and water. Yeah, seven, eight, nine kills.
[01:01:11] Tayson: So you're roughly bouncing for, for those in the US between maybe 10 and 20 pounds.
[01:01:15] Chase: Thank you.
[01:01:16] Tayson: Yeah,
[01:01:17] Chase: if I remember correctly is, yeah, somewhere like 1718 pounds. I think I did my best way calculation last year and then you know, distance. So on the weekend, I Was about 20 somewhere between 28 and 30 kilometers. That was Over two days and I was a pretty chill effort. So, You know, I'm not out. doing massive miles and if I was, I probably wouldn't be wearing before shoes because there's a certain amount of, Risk that I'm willing to to take in that realm. Like I guess the good thing is the guy that you just spoke about Seemed to me, like he had a pretty good knowledge of these body. Like he, he's aware of his limits and he was in tune with his musculoskeletal system. And so that in my mind is the big benefit of Bethel shoes. There's no rule book. Saying when you buy your first barefoot-style shoes that you sign up for them, for life, and you wear nothing other than barefoot shoes, it's not how it has to be. There's a shoe for every occasion and so, On the weekend, you know, I wore pretty standard supportive shoe wide enough. Like I personally, like Ultra is a lot for big big Mi days. Like last time I did a big through. I was a while ago that was wearing Ultras. because I was doing like, 40 kilometers a day or more sometimes. So I'm not willing to put myself in that position, just to say hey, barefooter and look how strong and cool. I am like if I bust my shit up and my other big problem, you know. Yeah, work. I can't earn money. If I can't, you know, don't move without pain. So, It. It's yeah, it comes down to the individual and and the circumstances of trip and Lord of the time, Maybe a Beverly shoe isn't going to be appropriate for that for that trip. So you just got to make those decisions.
[01:03:43] Tayson: that's, Actually, really good to hear. Some reason in my mind. I don't know where I don't even know where this came from. But I kind of thought that, like, if you went through the process of training, your body to To do barefoot shoes that you were like committed for life if that makes sense. Is that? Is that just a myth like is that not? Does that? Is that not reality? I guess.
