Timestamp Speaker Transcript
00:00.15 Tony Fowler And we're rolling.
00:03.26 Taylor Kruse Welcome back to the Cruise Elite Podcast. What's up Tony?
00:06.90 Tony Fowler Good morning from sunny Folly Beach.
00:10.97 Taylor Kruse Nice.
00:12.50 Tony Fowler Yeah I'm out here for the week so doing this one remote.
00:17.75 Taylor Kruse Excellent. That's awesome.
00:20.95 Tony Fowler Yeah man.
00:21.23 Taylor Kruse It's good that you can do that.
00:23.29 Tony Fowler Sometimes sometimes it lines up. um But yeah it's kind of something that we're we're trying out a little bit to see if it's something we could do more of. Because with the podcast work you know it's like you're in New Hampshire I'm in D.C.
00:36.98 Tony Fowler it kind of doesn't matter where I am.
00:38.68 Taylor Kruse Yep.
00:39.78 Tony Fowler Right.
00:40.38 Taylor Kruse Right right.
00:40.86 Tony Fowler But with live events obviously that's the opposite of the truth. So thinking about that.
00:45.59 Taylor Kruse Right.
00:49.30 Tony Fowler But you know what I did do the other day I texted you about binaural beats.
00:54.84 Taylor Kruse Yeah.
00:56.25 Tony Fowler And you didn't have any recommendations. So I looked up uh just like a playlist on Apple music. They have one that's curated.
01:03.09 Taylor Kruse Yep.
01:04.01 Tony Fowler And what's nice is they actually put like the frequency in the title of the track. Um and so I just listened to a ah couple of tracks outside in my backyard like with the sun shining and um
01:18.17 Tony Fowler Yeah some of them were better than others. And I'm like how much is that the music and how much is that the frequency?
01:20.92 Taylor Kruse Yeah.
01:25.30 Tony Fowler But I think I gravitated towards like the 12.5 hertz.
01:29.85 Taylor Kruse Interesting.
01:30.58 Tony Fowler Range which is interesting because a lot of times. ah Most of your like human hearing they kind of say is 20 hertz to hertz
01:43.69 Taylor Kruse Uh huh.
01:43.96 Tony Fowler so twelve point five is below what's considered the threshold for for human hearing. And i I think that that's not a hard line right?
01:50.87 Taylor Kruse Yeah yeah.
01:53.72 Taylor Kruse Yep.
01:53.94 Tony Fowler um Anyways I just thought that was interesting. I didn't realize that they would go that low.
01:58.55 Taylor Kruse That is cool. I'll have to play with that again sometime.
02:03.35 Tony Fowler Yeah. One thing about um frequencies is is a lot of times if you can't hear the the fundamental is like the the frequency they're talking about. It's like the main frequency of the note.
02:15.80 Tony Fowler they tend to have all these harmonics. So like going up octaves and octaves there's other frequencies that your brain hears from that fundamental 12.5 Hertz tone.
02:26.97 Taylor Kruse Right right.
02:27.96 Tony Fowler So you might be hearing 25 Hertz or 50 Hertz or a hundred Hertz or going up. So even if the the headphone can't reproduce 12.5 Hertz you would still hear something in your brain wouldn't would fill in the gaps.
02:43.62 Taylor Kruse Hmm.
02:43.93 Tony Fowler Um and so you'd actually you can actually hear a fundamental that isn't there.
02:48.61 Taylor Kruse Hmm.
02:48.86 Tony Fowler Um so just some some audio some audio nerdery to start the podcast.
02:52.15 Taylor Kruse Interesting. Yeah yeah. Hey you know what I bought? Just total change in subject.
03:00.79 Tony Fowler ah Okay.
03:01.54 Taylor Kruse I'm kind of excited about it. um I got a a what is it called? It's a belt squat device. Have you seen a belt squat where you you you set this thing up to your squat rack?
03:10.28 Tony Fowler Mm-hmm.
03:16.98 Taylor Kruse And it's basically like a big arm on a hinge and you can load it with weights and then you have a belt you put the belt on but you put it around your waist like like your pelvis basically.
03:21.42 Tony Fowler Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
03:27.67 Taylor Kruse And then you attach the carabiner to the arm and you squat and you don't get like the spinal compression that sometimes you know people struggle with when you put a bar on your back.
03:44.73 Taylor Kruse I gotta say I'm pretty impressed by this thing for such a simple simple device. I'm able to squat with this and do a lot of lower body work without any problems whatsoever when previously the barbell just stopped feeling good to me.
03:58.58 Tony Fowler Yeah yeah.
03:58.97 Taylor Kruse My body just didn't like it. And same with my wife. And and and that's why I was like yeah I'm just going to go for it because Alicia was having some some issues. just It's like uncomfortable for her to back squat. And i have a history of back squats being okay one day and not okay the next.
04:15.55 Tony Fowler Mm-hmm.
04:16.22 Taylor Kruse And i made the I made the leap into this and it's it's been really good. I've been able to load my lower body without any problems whatsoever.
04:24.75 Tony Fowler Yeah.
04:25.81 Taylor Kruse so I'm kind of kind of excited about it.
04:28.44 Tony Fowler So I'm I'm trying to to visualize where is the weight?
04:32.41 Taylor Kruse The weight is on the lever arm that is attached to the squat rack. So it's just yeah yeah yeah it's just a lever.
04:37.40 Tony Fowler Oh it's a leather leather leather arm excuse me.
04:40.17 Taylor Kruse Yeah yeah and and different from like the ones you see like the commercial grade ones are much bigger and much nicer. This is a really inexpensive way to do a to you know have a belt squat device but it's perfectly perfectly acceptable for what I want to do.
04:55.98 Taylor Kruse You can't you can't load it super super heavy um but you can go heavy enough.
05:00.52 Tony Fowler Mm-hmm.
05:03.25 Taylor Kruse And and you you know you're you're somewhat limited as to what exercises you can do because it's a pretty fixed thing. But things like squats split squats reverse lunges calf raises you can even set it up and get your you can do ah RDLs and stuff if you put not Not necessarily using the belt but you can actually put a handle on the chain that is dangling between what would be the belt and the lever.
05:33.50 Tony Fowler Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
05:33.78 Taylor Kruse And so then you can hold the handle or something and turn it into an RDL which is nice because you can kind of sit back into the RDL more. And for me it's actually been really good because it takes unwanted stress off my hamstrings and puts more of the stress on my glutes.
05:51.61 Taylor Kruse And my hamstrings have a tendency to not like the overstretch type of sensation that can come from RDL type work if the range of motion isn't like if if the angle is not quite ideal for my body. and And this allows me to do it perfectly no problem. So yeah kind of cool.
06:09.64 Tony Fowler That's very cool.
06:10.49 Taylor Kruse Yeah.
06:11.32 Tony Fowler Yeah I think a lot of people know the feeling you're talking about where it's like you start kind of dreading your squats and like I don't know is it the the spinal compression?
06:18.55 Taylor Kruse Yeah.
06:22.49 Tony Fowler Or is it just the the this the threat that you feel because this weight is pushing down on your entire body?
06:29.21 Taylor Kruse Yeah. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
06:31.33 Tony Fowler like but do you have any ideas about why maybe you and Alicia are wanting to avoid loading the a back squat?
06:39.19 Taylor Kruse Well I mean at this point yeah I mean at this point you know given given what we've been through with the with the the additional stress from all the mold exposure stuff and all you know all of that like it you know it's a threat bucket kind of thing right?
06:55.73 Tony Fowler Yeah.
06:56.09 Taylor Kruse um So you know when you when you're when your nervous system is dealing with that kind of threat lots of things that worked before for you stop working. Yeah. So I think a lot of it is that for sure. And we're both making a lot of progress. I'm making a ton of progress right now.
07:13.43 Taylor Kruse um And my body's feeling really good and really mobile. And um so that's great. And so it's nice to find a tool that's working for the body. But I'm not a big i'm not a fan of back squatting.
07:22.01 Tony Fowler yeah
07:25.18 Taylor Kruse at all really. um Some body types no problem sure you know do it get get you know you'll you'll be okay.
07:30.54 Tony Fowler Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
07:32.26 Taylor Kruse But you know for the majority of people back squatting at some point your body sort of rejects it. you know And yeah spinal compression a lot of people have asymmetry in their pelvis.
07:39.51 Tony Fowler that
07:46.10 Taylor Kruse you know It's very common. Most people have some level of asymmetry in their pelvis. If you have a pretty significant pelvic torsion and then you're doing bilateral strength training the deeper you go into a squat the more that torsion can start to you know kind of mess things up in terms of what might be optimal load sharing for the rest of the body. And that can lead to different issues in the you know pelvis and spine. And so yeah I mean there's a lot of a lot of possibilities there. But...
08:21.01 Taylor Kruse It's just one of those things where I don't feel like I need to have a bar across my back.
08:24.95 Tony Fowler Sure.
08:25.02 Taylor Kruse um It doesn't necessarily have any specificity to my life. So ah you know at one point i did more of that as an athlete and stuff. And when my goals were more based around...
08:37.91 Taylor Kruse building a lot more muscle and being strong. But yeah at this point it's longevity you know is the goal and being reasonably strong and fit and mobile you know is is what's what matters and certainly not getting hurt from the actual fitness effort.
08:56.13 Taylor Kruse You know what i mean?
08:56.79 Tony Fowler Yeah totally.
08:57.61 Taylor Kruse Yeah.
08:57.76 Tony Fowler Something you can really lean into that's working for you.
08:58.15 Taylor Kruse Yeah. Yep. Yep.
09:01.07 Tony Fowler It's probably going to be better for you than something that you're going to constantly hit a roadblocks. Right.
09:06.04 Taylor Kruse Right. Right.
09:07.48 Tony Fowler I mean that's this. This is what attracts me kettlebell training. And like I'm trying to push the weight up like I'm trying to. Like make it hard you know um from a strength perspective not just from like a an endurance perspective but even so it's like my heaviest kettlebell is 40 kilograms.
09:26.87 Tony Fowler you know a barbell is 20 kilograms. And then as soon as you start loading it you're way past that. so
09:35.93 Taylor Kruse Sure.
09:37.27 Tony Fowler But yeah I think like finding training that you can do consistently that feels good when you're done and the next day is is pretty pretty underrated.
09:44.02 Taylor Kruse Exactly.
09:48.98 Taylor Kruse Yes.
09:51.48 Tony Fowler Very cool. Very cool. Well we've got a fun episode lined up today. um And I guess kettlebells is a good segue because I brought this concept up to you because it's something that I heard in the kettlebell community.
10:06.84 Tony Fowler And i think it's I think it's a term that Pavel Satsulin coined but I'm not 100% sure on that.
10:07.12 Taylor Kruse Mm-hmm.
10:13.25 Tony Fowler So don't quote me. But basically it's this idea called the what the hell effect. And ah you know what? What they were getting at is kind of like this idea. It's like okay I'm training with this implement with these kettlebells and maybe I'm doing a really minimalist program like Simple and Sinister where the only things you're doing are swings and Turkish get ups.
10:38.20 Tony Fowler And that's not entirely true because there's a whole warmup protocol with goblet squats and halos but those are the main movements that you're progressing right?
10:44.45 Taylor Kruse Sure. Sure.
10:46.39 Tony Fowler And so people do this for six months or a year or whatever and they're moving up in the weight. And then they go to do a deadlift for fun with friends or something. And all of a sudden their max deadlift shoots up by 50 pounds.
11:01.85 Tony Fowler Or they you know were always kind of the weakling in their friend group. And like they're helping a friend move and suddenly they're like picking up the the couch and the other guy's like struggling and it's like what the hell?
11:16.37 Tony Fowler Like when did this happen?
11:17.11 Taylor Kruse Yeah. Yeah.
11:17.69 Tony Fowler i'm I'm only swinging these these lighter weights relative to like a barbell or like other things. And yet I'm experiencing these kind of like a unexpected or like outsized
11:30.58 Taylor Kruse yeah
11:31.99 Tony Fowler results. And so you know when we talk about applied neurology I feel like you've you've talked about bunch of times where you have been working with someone and you have been you know trying to solve a problem.
11:49.21 Tony Fowler you know Maybe they it's they have a back problem or a balance problem or something. And in doing so and in using applied neurology and and your training practices all of a sudden something else in their life gets better.
12:01.66 Taylor Kruse Sure.
12:01.85 Tony Fowler some Something like what the hell moment right? So I thought that that would be a cool way to just kind of talk about some of these interesting and unexpected benefits that come from from applied neurology training and maybe tell some stories.
12:16.79 Taylor Kruse Yeah yeah it's a clever idea. I like it. almost feel like with applied neuro it's almost like all the results are what the hell.
12:24.31 Tony Fowler Surprising right?
12:24.95 Taylor Kruse yeah yeah Yeah it's like still you know after after all these years a lot of times when you see these results yeah it's like how the heck did that happen?
12:25.18 Tony Fowler Yeah.
12:34.68 Taylor Kruse What actually went down you know in the moment? But then also yeah sometimes sometimes these are things that – are sort of presented to us later you know in our life where results are transferring over in some way.
12:51.92 Tony Fowler Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
12:52.25 Taylor Kruse And it's like wow how did how how am i how am I experiencing that from just these seemingly simple exercises? You know I'm thinking of one immediately that I wasn't even it's just coming to me now. I wasn't even I didn't prepare it but recently in our community
13:12.44 Taylor Kruse one of our students who's taking our foundations course which man has flown by we've got two more live calls before that that course comes to an end.
13:24.76 Taylor Kruse um the live calls anyway we never really it's never really over. Our students have a tendency to hang out. we We encourage it to continue their education. And so we're always we're always doing talking about the material and stuff but the the live portion will be coming to an end soon. And one of our clients has been or sorry students who's been really engaged in the course has done a really nice job at applying a lot of the material to themselves.
13:53.11 Taylor Kruse And recently she had posted just an exciting you know an exciting thing in the in the community where she said that she's a if I understand correctly because I don't know the lingo but it sounded like she was ah she is a like scuba diver.
14:08.89 Taylor Kruse So she was either describing scuba diving or like free diving. I'm not totally sure because I don't understand the lingo she was using. But what she went on to explain is that previously she had to really limit the amount of diving that she could do because of back pain.
14:27.35 Taylor Kruse And I think she said maybe shoulder and hip pain too. And she was only able to dive like once a week and she was limited to what she could do because of all the equipment that she has to lug around with her.
14:39.81 Taylor Kruse Sounded like it's pretty heavy gear.
14:40.34 Tony Fowler Oh okay.
14:41.56 Taylor Kruse Yeah.
14:41.56 Tony Fowler Sure. Yeah.
14:42.65 Taylor Kruse Yeah and so what she was going on to explain in the community is that ah before getting started with the material she was diving once a week and wasn't having success lugging around the community. And now um she's diving I think she said up to ah i think it was up to eight sessions in a week with the equipment and she's pain free.
15:06.14 Taylor Kruse And it's like wow that's a like when when the results creep into your life where you least expect them that is definitely a what the hell kind of result right?
15:11.21 Tony Fowler Yeah.
15:16.45 Taylor Kruse Well it it's especially a what the hell kind of result because she went on to describe what she attributes it to. And it sounds like her main focus was vision training.
15:28.06 Taylor Kruse So she had yeah exactly.
15:29.12 Tony Fowler What the hell?
15:31.02 Taylor Kruse she She had been practicing smooth pursuits which is tracking a visual target. So smooth pursuit exercises visual saccade exercises which is jumping your eyes back and forth between two targets.
15:42.79 Tony Fowler Mm-hmm.
15:46.14 Taylor Kruse And I think she said gaze stabilization which is essentially an isometric for your eyes where you stare at a target. And all of this stuff you know is dynamic in the sense that there's different directions and things that we would practice.
16:01.85 Taylor Kruse So I think she was exploring those directions. um And then she had mentioned also some opposing joint mobility work where the the opposing joint theory is really neat and it's something that we use quite often with the joint mobility exercises that we teach.
16:20.44 Taylor Kruse And essentially every single joint in the body has what's called an opposing joint and so some of the basic relationships would be like the shoulder and the hip ah oppose one another.
16:32.76 Taylor Kruse So um if kind of if you want to think about like application if you had a right shoulder problem moving your left hip in some way might actually help your right shoulder.
16:41.07 Tony Fowler Mm-hmm.
16:47.18 Taylor Kruse And we see this be effective constantly. It's it's actually so effective that it's It feels like cheating when it works. it's it's you know it's it's either It either does nothing or it works amazing. It's one of those things.
17:00.82 Taylor Kruse And there's different relationships in the body the ankle to the wrist the knee to the elbow. There are opposing joint relationships in the spine too. pelvis to neck thoracics to lumbar. So there's quite a few cool little relationships there. And she'd been practicing some of the joint mobility drills using opposing joint theory and I think blending it with the vision exercises.
17:25.50 Taylor Kruse And it really hasn't been that long.
17:27.92 Tony Fowler Yeah.
17:28.34 Taylor Kruse right i mean To give our listeners an idea I mean we've only i only taught gaze stabilization smooth pursuits and saccades in the last three weeks here of the course. So yeah as she's been learning the material she's just been immediately applying it. And now she's doing something in her life where the work she's done has has given her a reflexive result.
17:53.11 Taylor Kruse or an ah an unconscious kind of thing now where it's been integrated into her life and she's not feeling the pain she's moving better she's able to handle the the loads better.
18:04.18 Taylor Kruse That's really the ultimate expression of progress. you know I always i tell people you can improve in the gym right? Or we can improve you in the moment where You have a pain complaint we do a drill the pain gets less your movement gets better.
18:23.00 Taylor Kruse That's all great and it's giving you clues that you need to keep going in that direction but it generally takes consistent work to teach your brain how to own the result. Like any skill the more repetition you do eventually it starts to become more automatic if you will.
18:42.39 Taylor Kruse you know and And that's when you know something amazing has happened. You know that's kind of that idea of plasticity where you you've practiced with enough repetition intensity and frequency and now it's it's become you know the result has become you and that's the best. So I was very pleased to hear that.
19:04.50 Taylor Kruse I thought it was a cool one.
19:06.84 Tony Fowler Yeah. I mean to go from once a week to six eight times a week and to go from having back and hip pain and having no pain lugging that gear around.
19:10.94 Taylor Kruse Yeah.
19:16.44 Tony Fowler And it's not like she just all of a sudden got a lot stronger um from like a muscle growth development perspective like three weeks isn't long enough to to really do that.
19:16.99 Taylor Kruse Yeah.
19:19.80 Taylor Kruse Yeah right.
19:23.74 Taylor Kruse Yeah. Yep.
19:28.26 Tony Fowler Yeah. That's that's incredible. Um
19:30.14 Taylor Kruse Yeah it just it just goes to show you the power of threat reduction right? The power of effecting muscle tone you know through these through these neurologic drills.
19:43.51 Taylor Kruse Yeah I mean it's it's wild.
19:45.75 Tony Fowler So so is the visual are we thinking that the visual drills were affecting muscle tone like by by engaging the the PMRF for example.
19:55.70 Taylor Kruse Yeah so the yeah the nice yeah the PMRF the brainstem is certainly involved in all the vision exercises for sure. So you know when you start improving your vision mean I suppose there's a lot of reasons that we could things or theories we could point at to say hey you know it could have done this it could have done that. But you know neurologically speaking it's a very strong cortical stimulus. It's a very strong brainstem stimulus.
20:22.94 Taylor Kruse And your cortex is working with your brainstem to set muscle tone. right very globally throughout the body. So yeah you can you can see very good improvements in posture and ah you know reflexive tone in the body when you start filling in some of these let's just call them mapping issues or deficits you might have within the visual system.
20:51.03 Taylor Kruse And the neat thing is even if you don't have a vision problem you can still get this kind of result from using vision exercises. The novelty of the stimulus um you know it it just it it can still help you with this type of thing. You know it's ah you know fact is most people have some kind of vision issue you know because to some degree. so when you start doing even generalized vision training
21:20.90 Taylor Kruse You're going to get something out of it for sure.
21:25.21 Tony Fowler Another example that made me think about this episode is a couple episodes back. You had mentioned I don't think this was a client. I think this was just someone ah messaging you on social media.
21:37.48 Tony Fowler But they basically said they had started doing some of your protocols and suddenly they were able they like they had lost at some point they had lost the ability to parallel park and and now they were able to.
21:48.25 Taylor Kruse Yeah.
21:50.74 Tony Fowler can you Do you remember any of the details on that one?
21:52.22 Taylor Kruse Yeah so i she didn't really give me a ton of details but but here's what I know. So basically she she messaged me and she said this work you're doing is is amazing. She said I i ah i've have symptoms of different kinds from menopause.
22:10.33 Taylor Kruse And she said so she'd been having a hard time um managing that and and had seen some doctors and stuff to try to figure out what to do next. And One of the odd things that had happened um you know recently for her was like she she was having some vision issues.
22:28.73 Taylor Kruse And so when she shared this with doctors they were just like yeah it's you know menopause you know just like whatever. That's just you know that's just how you're experiencing it. And know she you know good for She she didn't stop there.
22:44.22 Taylor Kruse You know she seemed resourceful. And she said one of the weird things that had really kind of scared her was that she had lost the ability to parallel park from a confidence standpoint but also
22:58.78 Taylor Kruse she she wasn't really able to describe it in very much detail. And that's honestly sometimes what it's like having a vision problem. It's sometimes very difficult to explain it.
23:10.20 Taylor Kruse But what she was I think describing to me was that her sense of awareness like her sense of position in the environment had been altered in some way so that she no longer had the confidence and like
23:27.45 Taylor Kruse mapping abilities to figure out how to accurately parallel park. And it's just one of those things that you take for granted. Like the average person does not realize how much their eyes help them understand where they are in the environment right?
23:44.28 Tony Fowler Mm-hmm.
23:45.37 Taylor Kruse Like the distance between you and the thing right the the way The reason the way that you know what that distance is is through your visual system.
23:58.42 Taylor Kruse And so if that is thrown off in some way right that that depth perception your understanding of where you are in the environment relative to an object if that is thrown off in some way things get very weird.
24:15.37 Tony Fowler Mm hmm.
24:15.61 Taylor Kruse you know and And so she was describing that I think. She went on to say this is amazing work that you're doing because I just started generally doing the vision exercises that you've been posting on Instagram and YouTube.
24:29.05 Taylor Kruse She said and I'm parallel parking now. And it's just it's not an issue anymore.
24:32.25 Tony Fowler That's. That's so cool. I actually have ah another theory about what else could be going on there.
24:35.13 Taylor Kruse Yeah.
24:40.66 Tony Fowler You told me a while back about something called the blind map.
24:44.63 Taylor Kruse Oh sure.
24:45.69 Tony Fowler that Is that the term stepping into the blind map?
24:47.19 Taylor Kruse Yeah blind map. Yeah. ye
24:48.54 Tony Fowler Yeah. So like ah in the context you had brought it up that I remembered ah was when I had injured my knee my theory was kind of I'd step backwards on the mat just funny and like the angle just kind of torqued something.
25:00.09 Taylor Kruse Yeah.
25:01.22 Tony Fowler And and there that was the whole story. It wasn't like a cool combat story of jiu-jitsu. It was just I stepped i stepped backwards wrong.
25:07.22 Taylor Kruse Yeah yeah right right right. Yep.
25:10.10 Tony Fowler um And you told me about this blind map and I'm wondering you know if like she has a peripheral vision deficit or something. And when you're parallel parking you're looking back right?
25:17.08 Taylor Kruse Could be.
25:20.22 Tony Fowler Cause you're you're seeing where your car is.
25:20.54 Taylor Kruse Mm-hmm.
25:21.94 Tony Fowler You're like turning. So you're craning your neck back I guess ah usually to the over your right shoulder.
25:28.34 Taylor Kruse Mm-hmm.
25:28.89 Tony Fowler And so I wonder if there's like a blind map thing where it's like she felt really uncomfortable with that because she wasn't really seeing everything she should be seeing in that and that peripheral looking behind her shoulder thing.
25:38.26 Taylor Kruse Totally that that is a very valid yeah that's a very valid theory. I mean the peripheral awareness is huge. like we That's another thing we take for granted.
25:49.56 Taylor Kruse I mean and and and nobody really understands this one okay? This is very interesting but peripheral vision i mean when we when we dive into it it's almost like its own system.
26:04.44 Taylor Kruse And it is essentially the proprioception if you will of the visual system. It's like the foundation.
26:12.21 Tony Fowler Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
26:12.70 Taylor Kruse And so when you when you lose peripheral awareness you're losing a massive chunk of sensory input. Massive. And a lot of times we map our movement using peripheral awareness even if you're not look you know when you're not looking directly at something you can still pick up on on it and you are using that input that information to do whatever else you're focused on.
26:41.24 Taylor Kruse And in that that idea of the blind map is more to me more about what happens to proprioception when we cannot see the body part moving.
26:50.48 Tony Fowler Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
26:57.50 Taylor Kruse right Because a lot of times our movement is mapped. The quality of our movement is mapped by the visual system. So when you're for example doing a movement in front of your body even if you're not looking directly at your hands you are still aware of what your hands are doing using your peripheral vision.
27:15.45 Taylor Kruse As soon as your limbs go behind you like what you were describing with stepping backwards on the jujitsu mat generally what we see is that there is a decrease in proprioception a blind map
27:21.33 Tony Fowler Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
27:27.67 Taylor Kruse a map that has not been as developed and someone who relies more on their visual system to move well which is honestly most people and not everybody is practicing movements where their limbs are behind them right?
27:43.90 Taylor Kruse So basically if you think about the body anytime you go You go into a range of motion that's behind you with your arms or your legs or even backbending. You can take your whole spine and in head into this blind map. right People lose their ability to understand where they are in space as well as if they could map their movement still using their visual system.
28:11.58 Taylor Kruse So back to your point yeah if there was a peripheral vision issue that could absolutely alter the way that somebody is moving in their environment right?
28:25.83 Taylor Kruse Because just a huge chunk of input missing.
28:25.94 Tony Fowler Yeah.
28:29.30 Tony Fowler Yeah that makes a lot of sense that the the blind map is where the visual system is no longer adding input.
28:36.08 Taylor Kruse Right.
28:36.37 Tony Fowler it's It's just you're you're fully relying on your proprioceptive mapping.
28:40.02 Taylor Kruse Yeah and i don't know the I don't know the details of this woman's you know health history and stuff but you know describing
28:40.73 Tony Fowler Yeah.
28:46.26 Taylor Kruse menopause-type symptoms and I'm sure her stress levels being very very elevated. What we know is that when stress levels are elevated for a long period of time we generally see decreased function in neurologic systems um at least in the long term.
28:57.33 Tony Fowler Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
29:06.71 Taylor Kruse kind of weird because sometimes they're increased in almost a good way but then it doesn't work for you in the long term. um And when so when your sympathetics are elevated for too long sort of you know we'll call it that flight or that fight or flight activity can make people sensitive in certain ways but it can also decrease awareness with other senses.
29:35.70 Taylor Kruse peripheral vision is actually one of them. So the more stress you're under whether we're talking about acute or chronic think acute just like in the moment usually what we see is the peripheral field will start to tunnel.
29:52.82 Taylor Kruse It will get more narrow. So to the point where you can actually test this. um If you are just in a really stressed situation whether it is you know traumatic life-threatening or just an athletic event usually what you see is your peripheral vision will start to tunnel so that you have less awareness of what's happening around you and more awareness of what's happening in front of you like right in front of you.
30:24.59 Tony Fowler Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
30:26.62 Taylor Kruse It's kind of that fight or flight response that allows you to focus on the task at hand. It's a survival-based response of what is right in front of you. you know So point being long-term stress has the ability and it's not like an absolute but it can tunnel your peripheral field.
30:50.78 Taylor Kruse So you can become less aware of what's happening around you.
30:55.53 Tony Fowler Yeah. Yeah. And you know it's like we talk about this type of stuff right? Like oh like your peripheral vision might be decreased or like you might have a deficit.
31:06.38 Taylor Kruse Right.
31:07.48 Tony Fowler But we sometimes and this maybe this is something we should think about is sometimes we don't talk about what the real world effect of that is. It's like we talk about the threat or like the.
31:17.34 Taylor Kruse yeah
31:17.53 Tony Fowler oh yeah that we found that they had this deficit of some kind but it's also like what what's happening in their life that they can't do as well anymore that they can't do at all anymore?
31:26.94 Taylor Kruse right
31:26.90 Tony Fowler um And and you know I think that this story in particular just kind of drives that home. It's like I would have never thought my ability to parallel park would be compromised by something like that.
31:40.28 Tony Fowler you know
31:40.54 Taylor Kruse I know i know. Well that's the thing. like a lot those types of Those types of things that we're doing in our life we take it all for granted until until there's a problem. you know
31:50.63 Tony Fowler Yeah.
31:51.47 Taylor Kruse It's like very relatable when you talk about balance. like I've been telling people for years and years and years of all ages you should train your balance.
32:03.25 Taylor Kruse It's a really important quality. And almost nobody listens until they have a balance problem.
32:07.35 Tony Fowler Yeah.
32:09.78 Taylor Kruse Because having a balance problem is very it feels very serious. you know But until you actually feel that kind of challenge it's kind of like yeah well I've got good balance. I don't have to practice that until I'm old.
32:26.17 Taylor Kruse right But yeah it's it's there's so many things like that.
32:27.47 Tony Fowler Right.
32:30.49 Taylor Kruse right? There's so many in in your vestibular system in your visual system. I mean those are those are the two big ones you know? um Breathing too.
32:42.33 Taylor Kruse You know you should train your breathing. Why? Most people don't really make that connection until they actually feel a difficulty breathing. Again feels very serious you know?
32:54.20 Taylor Kruse So it's it's interesting.
32:54.74 Tony Fowler Yeah sure.
32:55.16 Taylor Kruse You know yeah we take so many life skills for granted and think about movement as more of like a gym environment thing or and you know being on the athletic field. But yeah there's until you have kind of difficulty with something that you've never imagined having difficulty with you don't really realize some of it.
33:18.01 Tony Fowler Yeah one ah so one time I was here right after my here in Folly Beach same place when I was ah right after I was injured. And so I was still on um crutches at the time.
33:30.68 Tony Fowler And I just remembered that the driveway coming up to this place felt so much longer.
33:36.54 Taylor Kruse Oh.
33:37.43 Tony Fowler It was like going back to your like elementary school when you're older and you're like everything seems tiny now. like These hallways used to feel so big.
33:44.92 Taylor Kruse Yep.
33:45.40 Tony Fowler I had that for this location and that was like what two years ago or something?
33:49.62 Taylor Kruse Yep.
33:49.69 Tony Fowler um And I was like man this driveway feels ways shorter than I remember it because it was a lot harder to navigate um last time I was here.
33:57.98 Taylor Kruse Yeah.
33:59.50 Tony Fowler So I don't know just to bring that up taking things for granted right?
34:01.37 Taylor Kruse yeah Yeah so...
34:02.97 Tony Fowler like It's so easy for me to to walk down a ah driveway now.
34:07.10 Taylor Kruse Yeah I hear what you're saying.
34:08.10 Tony Fowler Thank you.
34:08.26 Taylor Kruse too So it was either yesterday the day before. I was out on a walk with Alicia and I was saying to her you know this whole nervous system threat thing is so...
34:21.29 Taylor Kruse It's still so weird to understand the global effects of nervous nervous system threat because you know we we're talking about our... what we've been doing to improve our health and you know all this we've made a lot of changes in our nutrition and we're working on these detox protocols from mold exposure and all that. And I was recalling that you know within you know two years ago maybe even just a year ago i purchased some shoes uh uh like some trail shoes for like walking and running on trails.
35:01.08 Taylor Kruse And I uh I put them on I walked in them and I thought they were okay. And like a few days later I'm walking in them again I'm like I don't really like how these feel. And they became really agitating. And then I'm looking at my foot and I'm like yeah they're kind of like forcing this. The right one seems to almost have like a very minimal factory defect on the sole. And it's sort of like pushing me into sort of pushing me into like pronation or something.
35:31.45 Taylor Kruse And so anyways it became a thing and I threw them in the closet and I'm like forget those shoes. Like I hate those things. Why did I keep them? Now I can't return them. It's been too long.
35:42.39 Taylor Kruse And then this spring comes around and I popped them back on my feet and I was like yeah I'll just wear these and I've been wearing them now and I'm not agitated by them at all.
35:52.92 Tony Fowler Interesting.
35:54.20 Taylor Kruse And I'm telling Alicia this because I can feel that they're forcing me to do the thing that I did not like.
36:00.16 Tony Fowler Mm-hmm.
36:00.73 Taylor Kruse But the thing that I did not like is no longer aggravating my body and my attention is not going to it. So it's just like it's really interesting because during the time that I purchased those shoes and back then when I was walking that was like peak stress levels for us with everything that we've been dealing with.
36:19.97 Tony Fowler Mm-hmm.
36:23.10 Taylor Kruse And my body was so sensitized in so many different ways that I was over aware and was focusing on a problem that might not actually exist now.
36:38.47 Tony Fowler Right right.
36:39.00 Taylor Kruse And that is um'm i'm running yes exactly because right right because it was perceived at the time based on my current state of health.
36:40.79 Tony Fowler But it was very real and it did exist at the time for you. It's not that it didn't exist. Yeah.
36:54.01 Taylor Kruse And as my health has been improving I have lowered the threat in my threat bucket and my tolerance is getting greater.
37:02.22 Tony Fowler Mm hmm.
37:02.33 Taylor Kruse And it's a really interesting way to look at the threat bucket because it's you know we're not talking about the usual pain kind of you know um idea. It's it's more it's something i didn't expect you know to really have this experience. And now I'm understanding. I'm like wow like I still don't love the shoes but they're fine.
37:24.57 Taylor Kruse and And that is all a reflection of where I was in the moment and how I'm perceiving them now. And I think about that because so much of the time that same example is what is happening to people when they have different health issues pain concerns performance issues.
37:42.68 Taylor Kruse So much of it is relative to the moment and where you are with your health you know?
37:49.40 Tony Fowler I I wish I would I I want to figure out a term for this because I've i've brought it up before and i always think about this when you talk about um kind of like that resilience going away as as your threat bucket goes up.
38:02.04 Taylor Kruse Yeah.
38:05.85 Tony Fowler And it's it's like this this cloud that follows some people around. And I feel like we've all either been there it sounds like you might have been there a couple years ago or ah you know someone where it's like man they've they've got like work stress and money stress and then like they get injured biking and now they have gut problems.
38:15.70 Taylor Kruse oh yeah
38:28.45 Tony Fowler And it's like every time you get it you catch up with the person it's like you hear there's like another bad thing that happens and you're kind of like why does this person just have the worst luck?
38:34.30 Taylor Kruse Yeah.
38:38.55 Taylor Kruse Right.
38:39.29 Tony Fowler And from a neuro perspective the question maybe should be you know ah why why does this person's why is this person's threat bucket so elevated because it's manifesting as all of these things that seem like bad luck?
38:53.58 Taylor Kruse Right.
38:57.23 Tony Fowler Yeah.
38:57.82 Taylor Kruse Right. I get it. Absolutely. um I think about that kind of thing a lot especially working with clients right? Because as a coach you're trying to find ways to help them reduce threat and improve their performance.
39:12.31 Tony Fowler Right.
39:13.06 Taylor Kruse But there's also so much we have no control over. when you're trying to help another individual and you have to hope that one result leads leads them to the next result right? And kind of this flow of motivation happens where and awareness where they're they're becoming aware of these changes and that
39:33.75 Taylor Kruse it becomes one thing becomes a catalyst to another thing. and And then this person is now on a journey to improving all parts of them right? Not just hey I'm working on my knee pain.
39:45.26 Taylor Kruse Because when you when you take it to that level and you start thinking about it more holistically beyond just the exercises what are you doing to feel better during your day?
39:51.41 Tony Fowler Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
39:57.82 Taylor Kruse What other categories of your life can you work on in certain ways? What habits can you change for the better? That is really when that snowball effect happens and you see a person becoming healthier over time.
40:15.67 Taylor Kruse A lot of it is shifting. your ship The person is shifting things in their behavior.
40:22.26 Tony Fowler Right.
40:22.65 Taylor Kruse you know
40:23.73 Tony Fowler Where it's like a you know you could have a bad you know you get into an accident or something and that can shift everything in the opposite direction. Now you can't go to work.
40:32.30 Taylor Kruse Yeah.
40:33.53 Tony Fowler So you're now you're stressed about money.
40:36.22 Taylor Kruse Yep.
40:36.31 Tony Fowler Now you're worried about that. You'll never be the same again. and the stress now all of a sudden that cascade effect is going in the wrong direction.
40:44.76 Taylor Kruse I mean the deeper you go into this conversation you know it's like the easy part is the exercises.
40:51.42 Tony Fowler Yeah.
40:51.71 Taylor Kruse Like the easy part is the okay what do we have to do physically? That's the easy it's not always easy to get people to do the work. But generally speaking Like that is the easy part. Like all right let me assess your performance. Let me assess your nervous system okay?
41:08.90 Taylor Kruse Here's an exercise that has helped you improve in the moment. Gosh that's the easy part right? It's it's ah yeah you gotta let that be a catalyst to the next thing.
41:16.25 Tony Fowler And you take that and.
41:22.55 Taylor Kruse You know I'm on that journey right now you know? It's like getting myself out of pain ah You know back the last summer was really tough really tough. I told the story on one of our not so pretty actually fairly recently I told think I told the story back in January and on an episode about having all that what I was describing as like sciatic pain and starting this journey of supplementation and detox protocols.
41:56.25 Taylor Kruse And it just started with that. It started with supplements detox protocols and some results kind of leading me to the next thing. And then I found neuro drills that were helping me again. And then that led me to the next thing. And you know this was back in January when I was really starting to make some progress but still there was a lot of challenges.
42:19.96 Taylor Kruse And now here we are. And all of that has taken me in on this journey where now I'm making big changes in my nutrition that previously I wasn't ready for.
42:35.68 Taylor Kruse i'm I've now been able to because of improving my health I've now been able to get back to figuring out how to improve my diet but now I'm tracking my food.
42:49.04 Tony Fowler Oh wow man.
42:49.30 Taylor Kruse right where Whereas like previously i was having a really hard time. i was having a lot of negative blood sugar responses and i had had I tried to lose some weight to get back to my ideal body weight but I ran into roadblocks because my blood sugar just was out of it was just out of whack and it was not allowing me to be in a calorie deficit.
43:11.45 Taylor Kruse um Anyways the point I'm making is I'm now tracking my food. I figured out what has worked for me. I've done a ton of repair on my blood sugar and I've got my protein dialed.
43:26.47 Taylor Kruse I've got my fiber dialed. I've got these things dialed and I'm tracking it. And it's just like one thing keeps leading to the next. And now I'm i'm losing body fat for the first time in several years. And i'm I'm on my way to getting back to my ideal weight successfully and sustainably.
43:44.76 Taylor Kruse I couldn't have done any of that at the beginning. Right but one thing is like a catalyst for the next and you just keep going and you keep going and so it's
43:54.52 Tony Fowler You know what else is interesting? You know couple times I've asked you how your training is going.
43:59.90 Taylor Kruse yeah.
44:00.60 Tony Fowler And you sort of just been like you know I'm just getting it in when I can. Like I'm not like I'm working on other things like this isn't really the goal.
44:04.22 Taylor Kruse Yeah.
44:07.70 Tony Fowler And today you're like I'm stoked about this squat rack this squat belt dude.
44:09.37 Taylor Kruse Yep. I yes.
44:12.42 Tony Fowler So I can see a little shift there too.
44:15.06 Taylor Kruse Big time. i but you know So exercise intolerance is something I've been struggling with for years actually ever since this whole thing had had begun like where some days I just really couldn't exercise. Other times I would pay a price for exercising that I thought went well but then my body wasn't responding good to it later on.
44:35.00 Taylor Kruse and And lately yeah lately I've been i've been getting the the sessions in and recovering and feeling good you know feeling good. So yeah.
44:48.44 Tony Fowler Yeah I guess um you know this is this is the stuff that I think we all we all want.
44:48.92 Taylor Kruse It's...
44:56.14 Tony Fowler It's not the super surprising like what the hell story. but it's the like little gains here catalyst for more gains there and and and yeah momentum.
45:05.69 Taylor Kruse Exactly.
45:09.48 Tony Fowler I mean that's awesome.
45:09.94 Taylor Kruse Yeah.
45:10.86 Tony Fowler That's awesome.
45:10.97 Taylor Kruse Yeah. And that's that's the part that I think people fail to understand right away when they think they're ready for the for the experience especially when working with a coach. It's like well are you you know it's like because um there's a lot of layers and levels to this.
45:23.93 Tony Fowler Yeah.
45:29.29 Taylor Kruse And so that's what you try to do as a coach is you try to make people aware of that eventually and be a help them you know help them find the next thing.
45:39.42 Tony Fowler Yeah I had a note here. um About another another story that I remember from a while back and.
45:48.76 Taylor Kruse Yeah.
45:53.03 Tony Fowler Essentially and and please tell the tell the story more detail but essentially essentially one of your clients you've been working with and doing visual training with. And she got mad at you because she had to get new glasses
46:08.79 Taylor Kruse A new prescription.
46:08.89 Tony Fowler because her eyesight improved and she was upset.
46:09.59 Taylor Kruse Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. She got mad. Yes this is funny because it was very early on in my in kind of the second generation of my career as a coach where I was actually pretty new to neuro.
46:24.15 Taylor Kruse I was really just kind of getting into it and finding my flow and figuring out like all right what's my process? Like every client that comes through the door what am I definitely doing with them?
46:34.94 Taylor Kruse um Kind of just really figuring out the groove. And I was at that point and they... a woman had come to work with me and you know it's one of those things where she thought she was coming for general fitness and she was but it's like there were so many things that were roadblocks for her health wise that it wasn't it really wasn't a client that I could be like all right well let's start.
46:53.63 Tony Fowler Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
47:06.41 Taylor Kruse Today we're goblet squatting. um there was There was obstacles right? and And she was unaware of those. But she came in with big really thick glasses right? So already I know there's something wrong with your eyes.
47:21.24 Taylor Kruse Like really really thick glasses. And you know took a history and stuff and kind of got to know her a little bit and could tell right away that there were health concerns metabolic type things.
47:34.10 Taylor Kruse And she was a very and I don't think she even understood this really. and don't think she was super conscious of this but she was very lethargic. She got winded very easily from you know movement that really shouldn't have you know winded her.
47:52.02 Taylor Kruse And yeah it wasn't somebody you were just going to jump right into intense fitness with right?
47:58.52 Tony Fowler Yeah.
47:59.29 Taylor Kruse So we started the process assess reassess. You know I did some cerebellar testing on her and stuff. And I knew I had to test her breathing because she had given me a history that suggested breathing issues. And yeah again I could tell she was out of breath. She was intolerant to
48:14.07 Taylor Kruse You know cardiovascular exercise she got air hungry really easily. So basically what all this meant within the context of just you know let's say three or four sessions where we started getting the ball rolling for her was I started doing some CO2 tolerance exercise with her.
48:35.06 Taylor Kruse And in you know in that breathing category ah mainly to help her with energy. because she was so fatigued. right and And I know from experience that if you push somebody into doing more work fitness-wise and they happen to have a really low tolerance to CO2 and they have breathing issues i mean that backfires.
48:59.70 Tony Fowler Yeah.
49:02.23 Tony Fowler Threat goes way up.
49:02.81 Taylor Kruse That yeah it backfires all the time.
49:03.51 Tony Fowler You've got fuel issues now and yeah.
49:05.60 Taylor Kruse Yeah yeah exactly. So we're trying to do something for her metabolism that can help support her so that little by little she can take on more movement. And so we did a little bit of you know movement mobility work and think I had her learning how to juggle which is something I did with everybody. This was an older woman. um If I remember she think she was probably in well
49:31.77 Taylor Kruse She probably was in her early 60s. So somebody might be upset. I said older. I don't know. um Depends what you what you consider older.
49:41.02 Tony Fowler It's all relative my friend.
49:42.08 Taylor Kruse Yes.
49:42.50 Tony Fowler It's all relative.
49:43.67 Taylor Kruse And so and I taught her to juggle and we started with these scarves right? I've got these synthetic scarves you throw up in the air and they open like a parachute and drift down nice and slowly.
49:53.75 Taylor Kruse And it's a very novel stimulus for somebody that hasn't done any hand-eye coordination in a long time and you can be successful with it right away. So in it in and itself it's vision training right?
50:05.91 Taylor Kruse So we did some of that and I started doing more isolated vision training exercises with her. She had really really poor convergence which is um the skill of like either following a visual target in towards your face where both eyes are following the target or just staring at something in front of your face.
50:27.10 Taylor Kruse You have eye muscles that pull your eyes together towards the midline to help you converge. And she had what we would call like a convergence insufficiency. And bottom line is a vision problems. ah they They are incredibly energy expensive to somebody in a pretty unconscious way.
50:49.78 Taylor Kruse right and and it's not like it's not like energy expensive like hey I don't have good cardiovascular fitness and now you've asked me to run a mile. That's very conscious.
51:00.70 Taylor Kruse You can feel that that's hard and that you have no business doing it if you're not prepared for it. right Vision's different. it's It's such a reflexive system. And your eyes are capable of doing so much and your brain is capable of literally filling in the gaps quite well like a compensatory mechanism that people don't really feel the connection always when their eyesight or their visual skills are lousy how that can contribute to their overall fatigue.
51:21.80 Tony Fowler Mm-hmm.
51:34.87 Taylor Kruse In a more serious example yes they do. Like if you've had a concussion and you're in that acute phase after having a head trauma people will say my eyes feel tired they hurt they're giving me headaches they're causing me neck pain you know I feel nauseous when I go out in public because of all the visual stimulus.
51:53.56 Taylor Kruse That certainly is you know more intense. But on more of a kind of low-grade sort of chronic level very few people connect fatigue with vision right?
52:07.73 Tony Fowler Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
52:08.63 Taylor Kruse And this is one of those people that I think was having a lot of fatigue issues because they had really lousy vision as well as breathing. So just gonna get the ball rolling with CO2 tolerance work where we were essentially flooding her body with increased levels of CO2 through these specific breathing exercises.
52:28.79 Taylor Kruse And what that does when you know you do it correctly is it essentially is useful for circulation very globally to all tissues so brain included. increase You increase CO2 you generally get more blood flow to areas that maybe didn't get as good a blood flow as they did before.
52:50.62 Taylor Kruse So combination of CO2 training yep.
52:52.12 Tony Fowler So real quick if if someone's like kind of anemic or they have like cold cold digits right? Like fingertips and toes could could like bad breathing actually be like a useful thing to do.
52:59.13 Taylor Kruse Yeah yeah.
53:02.26 Taylor Kruse Totally. yeah yeah it's not uncommon Yeah yeah it's not uncommon for people to report immediate increases in feeling warmth in their hands and feet from bag breathing.
53:03.87 Tony Fowler That's so cool.
53:13.71 Tony Fowler That's incredible. Yeah.
53:14.46 Taylor Kruse Yeah that that I've heard that many times from people.
53:14.75 Tony Fowler All right.
53:17.24 Taylor Kruse um that That doesn't happen to everybody necessarily but yeah that's that is absolutely possible. And so... And that can even happen from other exercises beyond just bag breathing.
53:30.78 Taylor Kruse But bag breathing is a very strong CO2 stimulus like right away. It's very intense. So that one you typically hear stuff like that.
53:38.35 Tony Fowler Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
53:41.85 Taylor Kruse So a combination for this woman of CO2 training plus basic vision exercises like pencil pushups. And I just had her doing it for homework. And she was you know relatively compliant for yeah you know sort of you hear it in my voice like here's the reality.
54:00.60 Taylor Kruse but When someone has a fuel issue they usually don't listen to you. so So a client that has some kind of fuel issue they're usually a client that's gonna be hard to get them to do much on their own right? And so as the coach that can be a challenge but she did enough.
54:16.76 Taylor Kruse She checked in with her exercises enough. She was bag breathing. quite a bit several times a day which was nice. And then she was doing her pencil pushups. And anyways it all it all ended at this place where she got mad because when she went to the eye doctor her eyes were better.
54:38.01 Taylor Kruse And the eye doctor was confused but said we got to change your prescription. And then she came back and she said I didn't know this was going to change my prescription. Now I've got to spend money on this.
54:49.98 Taylor Kruse And I laughed basically because to be completely honest with you at the time when I was doing this one-on-one work this was in an kind of an a very affluent community right?
55:05.18 Taylor Kruse And there was just an attitude in this area that I was working
55:08.11 Tony Fowler Yeah.
55:11.77 Taylor Kruse So it was just another thing on the list of stuff to laugh about in the long term. But yeah she actually got mad for that mad about that result because it was it was something that she never imagined possible and she didn't know that that could happen. you know She was just kind of going forward with the process but it was a funny one.
55:28.92 Tony Fowler Well with glasses it often feels like it's a one way street like you get your first glasses and then it's just downhill from there like your prescription is going to get worse and worse.
55:36.79 Taylor Kruse I know I know yeah.
55:38.89 Tony Fowler And then you know your your nearsighted vision is going to after 40.
55:39.39 Taylor Kruse Yep.
55:44.25 Taylor Kruse Yep right yeah well her her vision yeah her her visual acuity was really ah really bad.
55:44.78 Tony Fowler It never feels like
55:50.87 Taylor Kruse And what we what we often see is when you increase CO2 in those people their acuity increases. So they the yes mean
56:00.12 Tony Fowler Like immediately
56:00.41 Taylor Kruse dick yes i mean so
56:03.35 Tony Fowler in real time.
56:04.44 Taylor Kruse In real time.
56:04.51 Tony Fowler Yeah.
56:05.16 Taylor Kruse So I wouldn't call it a permanent result by any means when this happens in real time but what happens and I've seen this more times than I could even count at at this point because one of the things we often will do is a visual acuity assessment with a client where you stand them in front of a Snellen chart.
56:22.06 Taylor Kruse A Snellen chart is the same chart you would see at the eye doctor.
56:25.01 Tony Fowler Mm-hmm.
56:25.91 Taylor Kruse We don't use it the same way because we're not in a dark room and putting it on the wall and lighting it up. It's more of a hey stand right here on this line read the Snellen chart down to the line where you can no longer read it And then that becomes a visual acuity assessment so that after we do neuro drills we can always put them back on the same line and have them read.
56:46.58 Taylor Kruse And sometimes with a high payoff stimulus somebody will go oh my gosh I can read line seven. And they go on to read it. Whereas maybe the time before the drill they couldn't.
56:58.97 Tony Fowler That's awesome.
56:59.80 Taylor Kruse And it happens immediately. And I've seen people jump several lines on the Snellen chart up to three lines where They read down to line six or seven ah couldn't couldn't read anymore too fuzzy.
57:15.16 Taylor Kruse We do some CO2 tolerance work put them back on the line and they read line six line seven line eight and then maybe they get a couple letters on line nine before they're like I can't do that one.
57:24.86 Tony Fowler Yeah.
57:26.38 Taylor Kruse and it's like what?
57:27.86 Tony Fowler Wow.
57:28.73 Taylor Kruse that That's a what the hell effect right? So I mean and that is that is simply from the increased CO2 levels from an exercise like bag breathing or some kind of reduced breathing or even air hunger work where you're purposely holding your breath as you do some movement to create air hunger.
57:30.90 Tony Fowler Yeah.
57:50.90 Taylor Kruse All of that increases CO2. You increase CO2 you get better circulation. You get better circulation to tissues those tissues work better.
58:01.40 Tony Fowler ah Taylor I lost you.
58:02.62 Taylor Kruse And we see it a lot. that That result is not uncommon. When people have pretty significant in acuity issues the breathing work can be really powerful in their process of increasing their visual skills and visual clarity.
58:10.79 Tony Fowler Hopefully if we stay in the session you will come back.
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Timestamp Speaker Transcript
00:00.06 Tony Fowler So it could be on my end.
00:00.18 Taylor Kruse Yeah.
00:02.68 Tony Fowler Could be on your end. Who knows?
00:04.22 Taylor Kruse It looked like at least while I was finishing what I was saying there I was i was watching it. um like it I was thinking the file probably would be OK like it recorded it.
00:22.14 Tony Fowler Yeah typically it records it all.
00:24.12 Taylor Kruse Yeah.
00:25.82 Tony Fowler um So wherever wherever you left off maybe you just kind of clue me in because I was going to jump in. but you were talking about air hunger. What was the last thing you remember really?
00:35.48 Taylor Kruse So i i I essentially finished what I was saying where I basically was like yeah that's a result that we we actually commonly see is when you increase CO2 you increase blood flow to to the tissues you increase blood flow to the tissues you see better function of those tissues vision included.
00:46.19 Tony Fowler Yeah.
00:55.08 Taylor Kruse And so I basically finished all that and then realize we and then yeah and then we realized that we
00:57.40 Tony Fowler Perfect. So I've got a question about that.
01:02.78 Tony Fowler Okay I'm just going to jump in then with my question as a reaction.
01:05.48 Taylor Kruse Cool. Right.
01:06.42 Tony Fowler So earlier you were talking about tunnel vision and like a fight or flight scenario I wonder if there's a similar similar mechanism going on like
01:14.04 Taylor Kruse right
01:17.30 Tony Fowler your sympathetics are raised when you do this CO2 like air hunger thing. And maybe that's kind of like now I'm really focused on what's in front of me and my acuity my visual acuity increases in the frontal range.
01:32.15 Tony Fowler I wonder if that's related.
01:32.60 Taylor Kruse yeah there's yet and totally So no doubt there is there is an increase in sympathetic activity especially with that style of breathing. no No question. The the increase of CO2 in the sensation that comes along with that with air hunger because that's ah air hunger basically happens when chemically your your body is triggering you to breathe.
01:48.67 Tony Fowler Mm hmm. Mm
01:57.10 Tony Fowler hmm.
01:57.37 Taylor Kruse right? And so as CO2 builds up it essentially triggers your body's reflexive response to breathe. So yeah yeah you're just you're feeling that you're feeling the need to breathe.
02:04.31 Tony Fowler It's like that gasp like like you're.
02:10.22 Taylor Kruse And in somebody's tolerance to that feeling of air hunger our tolerance to that is different depending on Well our CO2 tolerance right? That's why it's called that. It's like how how well can you handle that buildup before you have to get triggered with more of a threat response to breathe? you know So we all have a different tolerance to that.
02:36.54 Taylor Kruse and And yes that style of breathing actually has it's very stimulating for the sympathetics. So so that yeah that actually also would be would be a part of the response if we're talking about increasing visual acuity. And you know a large part of that's going to come from the circulation part but also the neural activation part as well.
03:02.97 Tony Fowler Right. Because I imagine it's a two-way street. If your sympathetics go up I imagine your circulation... goes up but your heart starts beating faster right?
03:11.42 Taylor Kruse Yeah.
03:11.67 Tony Fowler um That maybe that there's a maybe there's a relation there too as well.
03:12.25 Taylor Kruse Yeah. A lot of times. Yeah. Totally. And that's the thing like you know people that whole increasing sympathetics thing people people have a tendency to think that's a bad thing.
03:24.66 Tony Fowler Mm-hmm.
03:24.82 Taylor Kruse But but almost every almost every technique that we use to help somebody feel better in the moment has some level of um you know increase on on their sympathetic activity. Because that's how you that's how you affect autonomics right?
03:41.05 Taylor Kruse And usually the best results come from changes in autonomic tone.
03:50.36 Tony Fowler Awesome. um So I think there's one more that I had flagged and I'm not sure if that's the one you want to to spend time on or not.
03:55.51 Taylor Kruse yeah
04:01.02 Taylor Kruse Which one was that?
04:01.27 Tony Fowler But so basically someone's height changed after you had worked with them.
04:08.47 Taylor Kruse Oh yeah yeah. I have that on my list. Yep.
04:11.19 Tony Fowler Yeah let's talk about it.
04:11.83 Taylor Kruse I have that on my list. Yeah so this was a joint um client that Alicia and I basically split time with. So his name is Corey great guy.
04:26.58 Taylor Kruse And lot of a lot of complications for him health-wise from when he was a baby. And he ended up being ah the recipient of a double lung transplant.
04:42.63 Taylor Kruse He very very intense history. and um In our work with him he had a lot of he had a lot of posture issues and challenges and we had picked up on a lot of the deficits that he had with his vestibular system.
05:06.23 Taylor Kruse And so we started doing a lot of integrated types of vestibular exercises with him things like infinity walks right? Where you're looking at a visual target on the wall and you're walking a figure eight pattern around these targets.
05:23.32 Taylor Kruse And there's different variations of the infinity walk. And it's a very good vestibular stimulus and you can make it more or less challenging depending on how fast you're moving what direction you're going. It can be done forwards and backwards and with skipping. And there's so many things you can do. it's ah It's a great kind of platform for so many other drill ideas.
05:45.05 Taylor Kruse And we did a ton of infinity walks with him and progressed those to even some running and stuff. he he We actually taught him how to run. this isn't he could He did not know how to run.
05:55.77 Taylor Kruse He had never run in his life. And he had never caught a ball in his life. We taught him how to catch a ball. All skill hand-eye coordination type things we were doing lots of vision training lots of vestibular training.
06:09.24 Taylor Kruse and
06:09.46 Tony Fowler Was this because he had lung issues and so he just never did like any athletic activity?
06:09.53 Taylor Kruse and
06:13.98 Taylor Kruse Yes that yes that.
06:15.56 Tony Fowler Okay.
06:15.94 Taylor Kruse he He just had a lot of ah health issues. he um He did not get exposure to the types of movement that most people do. I think he he skipped different milestones as a baby with crawling and the way he was moving and much of that was due to his intense medical history.
06:37.74 Taylor Kruse He actually had a feeding tube. He had never eaten food. um and literally you know chewed his food and swallowed his food.
06:43.44 Tony Fowler Oh Yeah.
06:45.62 Taylor Kruse So he he he didn't even know how to control food in his mouth chew it swallow. So there was lots of very large um deficits that he had because of lack of exposure to all the things we kind of take for granted.
07:02.65 Taylor Kruse and And that has consequences you know in in your function. So the vestibular system we kind of figured out was a way for us to really help him with these things.
07:13.80 Taylor Kruse And we did a ton of vestibular work a lot of the infinity work a lot of the VORs and interestingly enough a lot of like a modified um sprint mechanic drills.
07:27.22 Taylor Kruse like running form type drills. We just had to modify them for him to really train his gait right train his reflexes to work in that contralateral reciprocated fashion for locomotion because he did not walk well.
07:47.56 Tony Fowler Mm-hmm.
07:47.64 Taylor Kruse He had some very serious balance problems and when you have balance problems you don't walk well.
07:47.74 Tony Fowler Mm-hmm.
07:52.63 Taylor Kruse your Your body is on high alert all the time. There's a lot of tension in your body. It's more about balancing and the the compensations your your body creates are tension-based ones. they're trying Your but brain's trying to help stabilize you right if locomotion is a threat because falling is...
08:14.07 Taylor Kruse really the the most serious physical threat that we have as humans next to not being able to breathe right? And well he had that threat too because of his history with you know his his lungs.
08:25.59 Tony Fowler Yeah.
08:28.95 Taylor Kruse So anyways lots of work. this is not a This was not a hey this happened in two weeks. This was several years um of consistent vestibular training.
08:42.68 Taylor Kruse And the ah the neat part about this story is he actually his height increased by an inch and a half during the time that we were doing this vestibular work because of the changes in posture that were happening.
08:58.07 Tony Fowler Yeah.
08:58.26 Taylor Kruse which is so cool.
08:59.70 Tony Fowler Yeah.
08:59.77 Taylor Kruse So he was standing up taller. His spinal position was changing. um It was really neat to see. And that was one of the some of the feedback that he brought back to us after having had like one of his checkups and stuff. We also did a lot of breathing work with him.
09:14.55 Taylor Kruse We did a lot of resisted breathing work. So we had him purchase a resisted breathing device that he could blow into not only in the training session but also his homework where you can set the dial to a certain resistance and practice forcefully exhaling or forcefully inhaling to train your respiratory muscles to do their job better.
09:34.84 Tony Fowler interesting
09:38.90 Taylor Kruse And so we did a lot of that work with him.
09:39.38 Tony Fowler is this different from like the climate um training where like some people are not climate um uh what am i trying to say oh my gosh um altitude training
09:47.61 Taylor Kruse Oh yeah so I know what you're thinking like like elevation.
09:58.17 Tony Fowler Yeah you're frozen again. I heard you say oh oh you're back.
09:59.44 Taylor Kruse Yeah. Yeah.
10:00.89 Tony Fowler ah Altitude training. Is this different from like altitude training devices?
10:02.68 Taylor Kruse Altitude yes. um No not really. So altitude training devices are really similar.
10:07.81 Tony Fowler OK.
10:10.20 Taylor Kruse you um There's different ones. There's mouth breathing altitude devices. There's also now masks that go over both your mouth and your nose so that it's not only your mouth. it's You can actually do nasal breathing which is pretty cool.
10:24.57 Taylor Kruse um The thing is like a lot of people... kind of poo-poo this idea of these resisted breathing devices because when they first came out onto the market there was a lot of marketing claims about what it could do for you as far as altitude training went.
10:39.77 Taylor Kruse And people didn't really understand breathing that well at the time. And so a lot of people just said ah that's bogus. well We're coming full circle back now to understand more of the science and the CO2 tolerance work and also now how those devices can actually transfer over to helping people even with with how they breathe at altitude.
11:04.62 Taylor Kruse It's a very specific work I think. um And we were using similar tools mainly for the resistance element so that this client could do strength training with his respiratory respiratory muscles.
11:18.71 Taylor Kruse So mapping the respiratory muscles getting more body aware of all the midline structures involved in breathing was a very important thing for him. And definitely breathing definitely plays a large role in posture. So this combination of breathing work with vestibular work was really good for him.
11:41.34 Taylor Kruse And yeah we had that. ah He came back and said you're not gonna believe it but my i was you know i was measured my height was measured and I was an inch inch and a half taller from from the work that we're doing. So that was really cool. was a good what the what the hell moment.
11:59.32 Tony Fowler What guy wouldn't want to clock 1.5 inches taller?
12:04.02 Taylor Kruse Yeah yeah yeah.
12:06.22 Tony Fowler That's awesome.
12:07.00 Taylor Kruse Yeah yeah it's cool.
12:07.51 Tony Fowler um You know something that that comes to mind that I think is easy to overlook um is that this stuff is... is useful for the sedentary individual your client with glasses.
12:23.13 Tony Fowler This stuff is useful for the athlete that's working on coordination and and reflex training and whatnot. this This stuff is useful for someone like him who was really dealing with severe health issues that like really were ah you know impeding a normal lifestyle um and a normal function.
12:37.91 Taylor Kruse Yeah yeah.
12:44.38 Taylor Kruse Yeah.
12:46.90 Tony Fowler And you're it's the same tools. It's the same tools that you might use across all three examples.
12:50.06 Taylor Kruse It's the same tools. It's funny you bring that up. I was literally thinking about this this morning because you know all day long I'm getting DMs on Instagram. you know the people plantar fasciitis question mark tennis elbow question mark neck pain back pain knee pain and then all the fancy names with their diagnosis and half of them I don't even know what they are.
13:05.41 Tony Fowler Yeah. who
13:15.79 Taylor Kruse It's just you know it's like um and i and I get this constantly every day and and it's very hard to respond to people. I try to respond when I can and it's like
13:30.01 Taylor Kruse how do you tell someone who hasn't leaned in far enough to understand what we're doing here how do you tell them that the name of their issue doesn't matter right?
13:41.27 Tony Fowler Mm-hmm.
13:41.78 Taylor Kruse The body part might not even matter because what we're actually doing with neurologic work is we are finding ways to send the right input right or improve the right input which changes output and that changing of output is really a change in muscle tone and a change in muscle tone can help a lot of these these complaints right when people have pain when they're moving.
14:13.06 Tony Fowler Yeah. Mm-hmm.
14:15.70 Taylor Kruse And so it's it's so it's a it's a I sort of have to take a step back and go it's like well how do you how do you get that across? Because everybody wants a solution that they want your solution to have the name of their diagnosis in the solution.
14:32.69 Taylor Kruse That's how people are approaching trying to improve their health in whatever you know issue they have. And so i create content and people are like they'll DM me and say hey I saw your um i so here's a good one. This is actually just this morning again.
14:51.38 Taylor Kruse Somebody was like hey do you have any content on frozen shoulder? All I saw on YouTube was your video for the rotator cuff. And it's like yeah I themed the video right?
15:06.46 Taylor Kruse I themed the video because if I don't theme it people really won't watch it right?
15:09.53 Tony Fowler People don't find it. Yeah.
15:12.89 Taylor Kruse So you got to kind of leave some breadcrumbs and be like hey you know if if it is in fact your rotator cuff or at least you think it is try these exercises they might help you. But somebody with frozen shoulder won't try them.
15:24.54 Taylor Kruse right but They don't know because they don't they don't know the philosophy enough yet. They don't know that all they have to learn is the assessment process and the basic foundational education that we teach in my free masterclass.
15:42.71 Taylor Kruse And you you don't need to become an expert in neurology. All you have to know is the threat bucket and the three things the nervous system does for us which is takes in input from the outside world processes it decides what to do with it creates meaning based on the input and then creates an output.
16:03.67 Taylor Kruse So if you understand that piece somebody who has had my education on the threat bucket and the assessment process eventually goes oh now I get what this guy's saying.
16:16.06 Taylor Kruse I can assess all these things and see what my body's response is relative to my complaint.
16:23.24 Tony Fowler Mm-hmm.
16:23.45 Taylor Kruse And now I have a bunch of options that I can try and I don't have to wait around for him to eventually make a video on plantar fasciitis.
16:23.44 Tony Fowler Mm-hmm. Yeah.
16:33.50 Taylor Kruse You know what i mean? Because like you're saying it's all the same tools. And so many of the tools have the ability to help with a huge variety of symptoms or complaints right? So it's
16:51.86 Taylor Kruse This is where the disconnect is between people who don't understand this yet versus people who who do and they they get the those foundations and then they they have a lot of options to work with right?
17:05.30 Taylor Kruse I get pretty excited when somebody does DM me and they're like hey I took your master class.
17:05.49 Tony Fowler Yep. Yep.
17:10.71 Taylor Kruse I learned the assessment process. I went over on YouTube like you said and I started assessing stuff and I did in fact find drills to help me and that means they're learning exercises in an in a knee health video right?
17:25.94 Taylor Kruse that is helping their elbow. you know They ignored they they got my permission to ignore the theme and work with the drills and assess them.
17:35.38 Tony Fowler Right.
17:36.31 Taylor Kruse and And that's if if people can do that you will you will be shocked at what you find and in what you can do to help yourself.
17:36.64 Tony Fowler Yeah.
17:48.63 Tony Fowler Yeah the visual that that I have in my mind and and we did just do this episode on the eight levels so it's it's fresh on my mind.
17:56.33 Taylor Kruse Right.
17:57.56 Tony Fowler But I'm just imagining like the human body you know maybe in like a Leonardo da Vinci kind of set up. And there's just arrows going from the limbs up through the spine into the brain and then back out into all the limbs and down.
18:13.05 Tony Fowler And when you realize that everything's going up into the brain and coming back out again then it's not so weird to be like hey what can I do to tap into that part in the brain?
18:16.22 Taylor Kruse Right.
18:24.63 Taylor Kruse Exactly.
18:24.85 Tony Fowler Um when I have a a knee problem or an ankle problem or a shoulder problem.
18:30.46 Taylor Kruse And if you can visualize those arrows and at least understand that pain and performance is a construct of the brain you couldn't possibly stick with a biomechanical model only.
18:30.86 Tony Fowler Um
18:47.80 Taylor Kruse You just couldn't.
18:48.01 Tony Fowler yeah.
18:48.95 Taylor Kruse you You can't. like it's not it's It's no longer biomechanical. It's neurobiomechanical. And the nervous system and the brain are going to inform biomechanics.
18:59.83 Taylor Kruse and then form follows function. So if you wanna train mechanics you have to go to the control centers as well. And and that's that's the piece that matters for long-term change. It's you know are you also using the inputs to improve the function of all of these control mechanisms for movement?
19:25.50 Taylor Kruse And if you can do that you're going to inform better mechanics right? And then form like literally your form your posture the way that you move will follow function.
19:37.40 Taylor Kruse right? And as function improves you will see these changes. And so it's it's just a great you know when people arrive at that place where they start to understand oh sure it's knee pain right? But there's going to be there's goingnna be a lot of involvement of the brain and nervous system in terms of what I'm actually experiencing with this with this knee.
20:04.02 Tony Fowler Yeah. Yeah. Well this is awesome. I personally really like this format and would love to revisit it.
20:10.42 Taylor Kruse Yeah this was fun.
20:12.92 Tony Fowler I have a feeling you have more stories ah that we can dive into.
20:13.53 Taylor Kruse Same here.
20:18.26 Taylor Kruse Definitely.
20:20.63 Tony Fowler Yeah. And I guess maybe maybe i'll I'll make an appeal to the listeners. If if you guys like this style of podcast in addition to kind of the more um you know topic focused or almost like lecture focused episodes head up Taylor and let them know let them know what you're liking.
20:36.87 Taylor Kruse Definitely.
20:37.88 Tony Fowler leave Leave a five star review you know that that really helps us get our message out.
20:41.18 Taylor Kruse Yeah that would be wonderful.
20:43.03 Tony Fowler And yeah we really appreciate it.
20:46.58 Taylor Kruse For sure. And for the listeners remember if you if you haven't seen the free masterclass yet you can you can do that. You can still find the link within our our social media or within the show notes here.
20:59.99 Taylor Kruse And it's just a great it's a great place for you to go if you're especially if you're just starting to really get into all of this and you want to start applying some of this work to your to yourself. That's where the foundations are.
21:11.48 Taylor Kruse you know and And from there depending on you know what you want to do you can... There's just going to be a lot of options for you. And if you want to get even deeper into the work we obviously have our courses that you can explore as well. But definitely hit up the masterclass.
21:26.70 Taylor Kruse We've got some really we've been getting great feedback about that particular masterclass. So ah you don't want to miss it. All right. Well thank you everybody for listening. We really appreciate your support here on the podcast.
21:40.41 Taylor Kruse And we'll be back soon.
