Timestamp Speaker Transcript
00:00:00.41 Tony Fowler And we're rolling.
00:00:03.06 Taylor Kruse Welcome back to the Cruise Elite Podcast. What's up Tony?
00:00:06.46 Tony Fowler What's going on Taylor?
00:00:09.43 Taylor Kruse Are you refreshed from little vacay time?
00:00:14.56 Tony Fowler Refreshed is never... i was refreshed. And then I got back to real life and then got unrefreshed super quickly.
00:00:18.36 Taylor Kruse Yeah. Yes.
00:00:23.03 Tony Fowler um Some of that's my own fault but you know it's it's the cycle. The cycle continues.
00:00:29.66 Taylor Kruse Same here. we we We've had a nice a nice break. And let's see. So right after the 4th of July we went camping.
00:00:41.30 Taylor Kruse And that was awesome. And then that kind of overlapped with the next weekend. And yeah I was feeling refreshed. But now like you um'm I'm playing catch up you know.
00:00:52.50 Tony Fowler Did you get back Tuesday?
00:00:55.94 Taylor Kruse Oh geez it's all a blur. What did we do? tell you right now. We left on Sunday. So that was yeah right after 4th.
00:01:08.22 Taylor Kruse And then we camped through think we got home on Thursday think it was.
00:01:15.06 Tony Fowler Oh okay.
00:01:16.79 Taylor Kruse And then yeah and then that overlapped into the weekend. So it felt extra long.
00:01:22.61 Tony Fowler Man that's lovely. That's lovely.
00:01:24.28 Taylor Kruse It was.
00:01:25.24 Tony Fowler when When you're out camping are you looking at your phone ever?
00:01:30.62 Taylor Kruse Well yeah so to take pictures and do stuff like that but we didn't have service.
00:01:36.02 Tony Fowler Yeah.
00:01:36.09 Taylor Kruse We didn't we didn't have anything.
00:01:37.85 Tony Fowler You didn't have the option. Yeah.
00:01:39.32 Taylor Kruse Yeah. We didn't have the option which is pretty typical when we camp you know we were about an hour and a half North of where where we live. So we were up by Mount Washington and you know just yeah limited service. And that's usually how it goes when we camp.
00:01:52.76 Taylor Kruse So which I like.
00:01:53.27 Tony Fowler Yeah. No I think that's one of the that's one of the main benefits to me. It's just like re you're just completely unplugged.
00:02:01.75 Taylor Kruse Yeah.
00:02:01.88 Tony Fowler And it's it's more and more precious in our modern time I feel like.
00:02:06.58 Taylor Kruse Yeah yeah.
00:02:08.38 Tony Fowler um Did you get out fishing at all? Were you able to to make an escape?
00:02:13.43 Taylor Kruse Yeah we fished kind of like family fishing. You know it's not it's not like the you know intense missions that I like to run. But yeah it wasn't as tactical.
00:02:21.62 Tony Fowler tactical fishing.
00:02:24.31 Taylor Kruse You know it's in some ways it was. But you know we were with our other our other friends and they have two young boys and um and both of them will do some fishing and fishing.
00:02:35.19 Taylor Kruse One of them's really into it. um Our daughter is is into it you know as much as she can be as a five-year-old. And so we all did like a hike ah you know up. It was elevation. And it's kind of cool because we call it blue lining.
00:02:50.30 Taylor Kruse And basically what blue lining means is you can look you know at and any region where it's you know there's mountains and stuff around us the White Mountains. And you can basically find all the little blue lines on the map.
00:03:03.90 Taylor Kruse Some of them are named little streams and some of them are so small that they're unnamed. And we call that blue lining. And that's typically what we do in the hottest periods of the summer because the the trout fishing in other places where the water gets a little too warm gets dangerous for the fish.
00:03:21.50 Taylor Kruse So like if you catch them you'll probably kill them accidentally.
00:03:22.13 Tony Fowler Wow.
00:03:25.46 Taylor Kruse And you know we we catch and release primarily. So we blue line in the summertime especially in August. And so that means hiking up to some of these little streams at elevation. They're really small really beautiful big boulders lots of little plunge pools crystal clear and they're full of native brook trout.
00:03:44.79 Taylor Kruse Right. So and the fish are eager and they're easy to catch. And you know I can put the rod in my daughter's hand and you know she can catch a couple of brook trout in a short period of time you know with the attention span that she has. And it's awesome.
00:03:58.10 Tony Fowler That is so cool.
00:03:58.42 Taylor Kruse You know? Yeah. So we did that and yeah it was cool. I did a little bit of fishing probably not as much as i I wanted to when we were doing that. Cause I actually got carried away taking pictures which was cool.
00:04:08.59 Taylor Kruse And I got some good ones. I i had my nice camera with me and yeah it was it was a blast.
00:04:12.29 Tony Fowler Oh nice.
00:04:15.45 Tony Fowler Oh man you'll have to send me something.
00:04:17.11 Taylor Kruse Yeah I will. Yeah
00:04:19.42 Tony Fowler That sounds lovely. That sounds lovely.
00:04:21.02 Taylor Kruse it was great. We got another camping trip lined up coming quick too. We've got one at the beginning of August. We're going out to the Berkshires in Western Mass. And we'll meet up with our same friends. And then we finish our little camping circuit at the end of August. We're actually going out to Cape Cod.
00:04:37.75 Taylor Kruse So we'll we'll camp on the outer Cape which will be but to be nice.
00:04:44.34 Tony Fowler ah charm A charmed life at times maybe.
00:04:46.30 Taylor Kruse Yeah yeah this is yeah this is yeah this is good. This has been a nice summer and it's going to it's going to be really nice to have to have those things in the calendar. So.
00:04:57.08 Tony Fowler Yeah yeah. I often think about it in terms of like ah getting away from work and responsibilities. And it's like you know I just I just opened by saying like oh like I was refreshed but now you know it doesn't feel like it anymore.
00:05:10.77 Taylor Kruse Mm-hmm.
00:05:13.56 Tony Fowler But you know what you do get even if you're playing catch up you get the memories you know and and the work it all kind of blends together.
00:05:20.99 Taylor Kruse Yep. Mm-hmm. Yep.
00:05:24.86 Tony Fowler But stuff like this it's punctuated. You'll have pictures you'll have fish with your daughter. and
00:05:30.30 Taylor Kruse yep
00:05:30.71 Tony Fowler Yeah that's that's amazing. I'm super happy.
00:05:32.86 Taylor Kruse Yeah. Yeah it's it's it's good. So now it's just you know i then we've been answering emails we've been catching up in our community. I've been starting to get back on Instagram because you know I took quite a long break there. And so the algorithm is reminding me that you know I haven't posted in a while. You know it always starts off kind of slow and you know our our followers don't see everything. And then as we kind of start posting with more consistency people start seeing it and there's more engagement and then I'm busy there and
00:06:02.81 Taylor Kruse Yeah so just getting back into the swing of things.
00:06:05.75 Tony Fowler Yeah. speaking Speaking of swing of things and getting back into it I think I finally am getting the hang of Indian Club ah windmills.
00:06:16.60 Taylor Kruse Nice.
00:06:18.26 Tony Fowler And so it's it's fun. I'm like able to to actually kind of really string them together.
00:06:22.94 Taylor Kruse Nice.
00:06:23.64 Tony Fowler And so my question for you is just for like – I use it as a warm-up essentially before I do other stuff.
00:06:30.33 Taylor Kruse Yeah.
00:06:31.30 Tony Fowler Yeah.
00:06:31.70 Taylor Kruse Yep.
00:06:33.21 Tony Fowler But if I were to to be more purposeful with it how do you recommend programming for for stuff like that?
00:06:40.76 Taylor Kruse um You know what? the warmup The warmup idea is great. i think I think that that is a good way to go. Excuse me. um I typically do that a lot.
00:06:54.59 Tony Fowler Mm-hmm.
00:06:55.06 Taylor Kruse And I also will just create dedicated skill sessions that are almost like an extension of the warmup.
00:07:00.31 Tony Fowler Mm-hmm.
00:07:03.67 Taylor Kruse And that's typically where I will insert more technical things that demand a lot of coordination. you know Beyond that occasionally i will just pair it with other strength exercises because rather than kind of sitting down and twiddling my thumbs after doing you know something heavy I'm getting that recovery time but I'd rather be doing something that I could be using as kind of an active recovery and learning something at the same time.
00:07:27.97 Tony Fowler Right.
00:07:41.24 Taylor Kruse So that's occasionally I'll take one of my steel club exercises not not usually that heavy if I'm pairing it up with something else that's strength related or I'll take the Indian clubs and I'll do that paired with a heavy strength training exercise and just take a few minutes to kind of practice.
00:07:49.85 Tony Fowler right
00:07:57.23 Taylor Kruse With those clubs I'm i'm not counting reps really. I'm not doing anything like that. I'm just practicing. You know when I mess up I start over you know and I just I'll do that for a few minutes and then go back to whatever strength exercise I'm working on. So yeah I mean that's typically how I do it you know just to kind of keep it simple.
00:08:16.34 Tony Fowler Yeah because a lot of the benefit is the the coordination effort right?
00:08:22.39 Taylor Kruse Yeah.
00:08:22.81 Tony Fowler um Complex nonlinear movement but then also...
00:08:25.88 Taylor Kruse You got it.
00:08:27.96 Tony Fowler um You're getting you're getting a i mean there's a mobility component right? And you're getting ah increased circulation and you're you're you know moving your shoulder joint through a full range of motion.
00:08:32.54 Taylor Kruse No question. Yeah.
00:08:41.82 Taylor Kruse Yeah.
00:08:41.98 Tony Fowler um So maybe heavy isn't the goal.
00:08:45.03 Taylor Kruse Heavy is not the goal. That's right. That's right. Heavy is not the goal. You get a great deal of of shoulder mobility out of the clubs. You also it kind of goes under the radar but there's a lot going on with your hands that I find very valuable because your hands for most people are completely neglected when it comes to fitness.
00:08:58.97 Tony Fowler Yep. yup
00:09:06.66 Taylor Kruse Right. You know very very rarely is somebody you know doing hand exercises. I mean people who get it do it. They they they practice strength with their hands and mobility with their hands and their fingers.
00:09:19.03 Taylor Kruse But I mean generally speaking people leave that out. So you get a lot out of Indian club work with your hands. Yeah. So and and you can do them at different speeds too. And I think there's a lot of value with that.
00:09:30.74 Taylor Kruse And you get a lot of spinal mobility out of this too. It's not just isolated to the shoulders.
00:09:37.24 Tony Fowler Spinal mobility?
00:09:38.84 Taylor Kruse Yeah.
00:09:39.28 Tony Fowler how's How's that happening?
00:09:40.63 Taylor Kruse a Well you're you are going into a fair amount of spinal extension when you're when you're bringing the clubs behind you.
00:09:53.14 Taylor Kruse right So there's that. There's also rotation involved because using the clubs may feel somewhat isolated but it's really not. You're rotating your spine and your rib cage.
00:10:04.31 Taylor Kruse And you're also going into extension when when your arms go up overhead. And yeah so there's more there than than meets the eye you know when it when it comes to the spine
00:10:15.45 Tony Fowler Yeah no it's a really fun ah skill and exercise. So once I really get this down pat I'm gonna you know get some scarves and move on to juggling.
00:10:30.49 Tony Fowler That'll be my next skill conquest.
00:10:32.12 Taylor Kruse Oh that's great. That's great. Yeah we we actually have to buy we were talking about this recently we have to buy some new ones. Ours just kind of I don't know we they they got pretty beat up and we need to get some because they're a really good training tool for our daughter as well.
00:10:48.73 Tony Fowler Yeah.
00:10:48.89 Taylor Kruse Yeah so awesome to learn how to juggle with. You can do so much with them.
00:10:53.56 Tony Fowler how how young was How young would you teach someone how to juggle?
00:10:58.84 Taylor Kruse Um so the youngest person I've ever taught to juggle I think for me was eight. I taught an eight year old girl how to juggle. was many years ago. Just somebody I was working with when we were doing some in-person stuff and use the scarves and she was quite successful.
00:11:17.75 Taylor Kruse Yeah. So you know we're getting there. Yeah.
00:11:23.19 Tony Fowler Well if an eight-year-old can do it I can do it.
00:11:24.92 Taylor Kruse Yes. it
00:11:26.58 Tony Fowler Maybe. Mm-hmm.
00:11:27.82 Taylor Kruse it's It's tough to make the transition from the scarves to like balls. But yeah anyone can learn how to juggle but it does take some practice and it is it can be frustrating but it's it's not too bad.
00:11:40.22 Taylor Kruse so also one of those things like riding a bike. like you Once you dial it in like i I don't practice it that much anymore. But once in a while I'll just grab three tennis balls from our you know I've got this crate that sits next to my squat rack and I've got different stuff in there. And I might be like well what should I do to warm up today?
00:11:59.38 Taylor Kruse And then I see those tennis balls and i'm like okay I'll do some juggling. And I never forget how.
00:12:05.34 Tony Fowler Yeah.
00:12:05.40 Taylor Kruse You know it might be a little rusty but then you you know you shake the rust off pretty quick. it's It's weird like that you know it's it's very similar to like riding a bike. You you can just do it. I never got amazing at it but I can juggle three balls solidly you know with good coordination. And then I can even use letter balls which is actually a really favorite vision exercise that I like where you you take tennis balls and you write letters. i mean you can use numbers too but we do letters all over the tennis ball.
00:12:35.13 Taylor Kruse And then as you're juggling them which whichever ball is at like the apex of the curve as you're throwing the balls up you say what letter you see.
00:12:47.69 Tony Fowler I
00:12:47.70 Taylor Kruse And so you're just you're basically very quickly doing little visual saccades which is just moving your eyes a little bit left and right as you focus on the ball and try to find the letter.
00:13:00.44 Taylor Kruse Awesome integrated vision exercise. Really really good. that's kind of like the progression. It goes scarves then it goes balls or like we have like little bean bags.
00:13:13.75 Taylor Kruse So yeah it's they totally.
00:13:13.80 Tony Fowler say bean bags might be a little easier right? Because they're easier to grab.
00:13:17.25 Taylor Kruse Yeah I actually like the feel of them. So scarves bean bags balls letter balls.
00:13:23.57 Tony Fowler Yeah.
00:13:24.06 Taylor Kruse Yeah that's a great progression to to follow.
00:13:26.04 Tony Fowler And then uh letter balls with different colors.
00:13:30.39 Taylor Kruse You can make color balls number balls. You can do all of those on one ball. I've done a lot of different like what you know lot of different styles. When I was teaching my daughter how to catch and throw we used the color ball right?
00:13:45.70 Taylor Kruse And that was pretty good for helping her. Because she had for a while she was having a difficult time focusing on the ball when it got really close to her face as she was sort of like building her convergence skills.
00:13:53.66 Tony Fowler Mm-hmm.
00:13:59.13 Taylor Kruse you know I noticed she was kind of in a period where they needed some work and she was flinching when the ball would come into a certain kind of zone close to her face. And the color ball really solved that quickly because it it gave her a target right? it in it um it just added that extra focus. And ah you know i started out by just walking the ball into her face rather than throwing it. And she would call the color and actually reach out and touch it.
00:14:29.56 Taylor Kruse And then I started at you know a few feet away and kind of lobbed it at her and she would call the color and catch it. And that just sort of evolved into standing 10 feet back. And then you know before you know it she was calling them out and catching them very well. was great.
00:14:45.53 Tony Fowler You know it occurs to me that your applied neurology and and coaching background would make you a pretty killer like young sports coach because all that developmental stuff I do i even mean just at like a very young age like when when when the brain is still learning how to do things for the first time right?
00:14:56.92 Taylor Kruse I used to coach wrestling. Yeah. Oh sure.
00:15:07.00 Taylor Kruse Yeah.
00:15:07.83 Tony Fowler um
00:15:09.14 Taylor Kruse That would be fun.
00:15:09.21 Tony Fowler You might have a leg up but yeah.
00:15:11.38 Taylor Kruse i mean I often wonder if I'll circle back at some point to like more coaching. I do miss coaching wrestling. And the thing is when I coached wrestling I knew a lot of cool stuff but I didn't know neuro.
00:15:21.49 Tony Fowler Mm-hmm.
00:15:22.04 Taylor Kruse you know And and and we were we were definitely we were still the weird people doing the weird stuff. Don't get me wrong. ah we yeah i've been doing i've been doing things that are not yeah I've been doing things that are not widely accepted forever basically.
00:15:30.58 Tony Fowler It's in your blood you know?
00:15:37.88 Taylor Kruse Um and so it was great. We had we had a lot of fun and a lot of success but like the neuro piece now I'm like how would I approach that? You know and it's there's a lot to think about there and it would be cool. And um there was ah a short time period where I was sort of on the tail end of doing a lot of the youth development stuff for sports that I used to do. I used to team up with a good friend of mine.
00:16:02.04 Taylor Kruse And she was also into you know developing youth athletes. And we did a lot of Burdenko method together because it's such an amazing system for physical education.
00:16:09.89 Tony Fowler Mm-hmm.
00:16:14.26 Taylor Kruse lot of coordination lot of balance a lot of mobility. And at that point I was just starting to get into the neuro. And so we were blending some of that into it which was really cool. So a lot of the integrated style stuff that didn't demand so much isolation.
00:16:31.51 Taylor Kruse It was cool.
00:16:33.50 Tony Fowler Yeah. Yeah. Well you mentioned an important uh word or important phrase earlier when we were talking about uh Indian clubs and you said spinal mobility it's good for your spinal mobility.
00:16:43.42 Taylor Kruse Yeah.
00:16:46.42 Taylor Kruse Yes.
00:16:48.76 Tony Fowler Um and spinal mobility is something that I've heard about for a long time. i know it feels good when I do like a T spine stretch or like a yoga pose that kind of
00:17:00.66 Tony Fowler how i how I think about it kind of like opens that up for me.
00:17:04.20 Taylor Kruse Right.
00:17:04.60 Tony Fowler um But other than that I don't really think about it much. And it wasn't until our episode on the eight levels of applied neurology that spinal mobility the importance of it
00:17:21.94 Tony Fowler kind of started to click in my mind um from from an applied neuro perspective right? And so I thought we would do an episode dedicated to spinal mobility and maybe we'll talk about the midline in general.
00:17:36.82 Tony Fowler um I'll leave that up to you.
00:17:37.27 Taylor Kruse Yep.
00:17:39.67 Tony Fowler um But yeah and then you know hopefully we can go over some... tips and tricks and drills that people can do at home.
00:17:47.35 Taylor Kruse Nice.
00:17:49.33 Tony Fowler um so to so So to start off why do we care about spinal mobility?
00:17:49.43 Taylor Kruse Nice I like it.
00:17:55.35 Taylor Kruse Yeah it's a it's a great question.
00:17:55.58 Tony Fowler Why does it matter?
00:17:58.11 Taylor Kruse um The spine is a high order system. You know we talk about high order systems. if you've been listening to the podcast you've been hearing about high order systems the eyes the inner ear the vestibular system right? Talking about different brain regions the cerebellum the cortex all the different lobes the brainstem. These are all high order systems. The spinal cord is one of those high order systems.
00:18:29.40 Taylor Kruse And um you know when we when we look at why it's important geez there's so many reasons why it's important. I think the first ones that are easiest to understand is if you just look at what the spine is you know in terms of like more biomechanically.
00:18:51.74 Tony Fowler Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
00:18:52.09 Taylor Kruse In fact before when I was sort of getting my mind in the zone before this before this episode I was just kind of quickly looking up a couple of things and I was like wait a minute I've never actually i've never actually looked into how many dedicated joints would be in the spine.
00:19:13.43 Taylor Kruse like Like typically we talk about spinal segments
00:19:16.54 Tony Fowler then
00:19:16.85 Taylor Kruse got You've got you know the upper spinal spinal cord like the cervical segments which is your neck. You've got the kind of middle area of the spinal cord which is known as the thoracic spine and even the rib cage is part of that.
00:19:30.55 Taylor Kruse And then the low back area we've got the lumbar segments. And then below that we've got the sacral area. And kind of just always am thinking about it like that.
00:19:42.65 Taylor Kruse And I never really looked into like okay that There's a lot of segments there right? and And that tells me that by design there's a lot of movement there because there's a lot of individual bones right?
00:19:59.38 Taylor Kruse Anywhere in the body where there are lots of bones well there's a lot of movement that takes place and it's also a very proprioceptively rich area.
00:20:11.70 Taylor Kruse So I looked it up. like Found couple different varying answers but things were roughly close enough. And this is kind of crazy to think about but what I what i found says the human spinal column contains over 130 joints. at it like joints.
00:20:29.82 Taylor Kruse So that to me is crazy. That's wild. you know like like joints right so that to me is crazy that's wild and so Other areas of the body that have lots of joints the feet the hands.
00:20:47.20 Tony Fowler Yeah I was thinking of the hands too you know.
00:20:49.05 Taylor Kruse Yeah we have a lot of joints in and the cranium actually in our in our head which is also ah fun an interesting one that's kind of wild to think about. And then of course we if you're if you're considering the rib cage as part of the thoracic spine um that we have a lot of joints in the thoracic spine and rib cage.
00:21:09.21 Taylor Kruse But man that's a lot of joints. And so that tells you by design it was intended for movement. A lot of movement. And that a lot of force has to be able to be transferred through it.
00:21:26.61 Taylor Kruse So that in itself creates some interesting questions because
00:21:31.63 Tony Fowler Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
00:21:33.75 Taylor Kruse What do we know about kind of how general fitness views the spine? Well they don't. Because the the thing you always learn in general fitness about the spine is keep it neutral right? Don't move it right? Or or you hear about you know having back pain and going to your doctor and they're like yeah you got to stop moving your back.
00:21:58.30 Taylor Kruse You know when you bend over to pick stuff up make sure you don't flex your spine because that's bad for you right?
00:22:05.95 Tony Fowler Mm-hmm.
00:22:06.55 Taylor Kruse There's so many funny things that you hear in regard to the spine. And those funny things really i think have become funny things because overall people feel like when I think a lot of it comes down to when your back hurts it feels very serious right? Like if you've ever had back pain like real back pain like pretty intense back pain you feel very fragile.
00:22:42.78 Taylor Kruse You feel very compromised. You feel incredibly compromised. If you've ever had sacral pain or like lumbar pain that that has really sidelined you you feel incredibly compromised.
00:22:57.02 Taylor Kruse And I think that a lot of the rules that we've made in fitness and in health around the spine like the silly ones like don't move your spine are because of how fragile and compromised you can feel when you have an issue there.
00:23:12.95 Taylor Kruse And the bottom line is if you look at how the spine is designed in all of those joint areas and segments just based on that alone you know that this is a structure that is designed to move with complexity.
00:23:27.96 Taylor Kruse right that's That's the thing. It's with complexity. So that's one idea. Now if you look into the contents of the spinal cord itself still thinking anatomically here you know and mechanical
00:23:45.18 Taylor Kruse There's a lot of contents of the spinal cord that nobody ever considers or talks about and especially with you know when we're talking fitness. The only time the contents of the spinal cord really get brought up in conversation is if you are seeking you know ah help on a back issue and maybe Maybe you get images done and you get somebody to look at your spine and you're looking at the integrity of your spinal cord and discs and you know facet joints and all that.
00:24:18.26 Taylor Kruse But really there's a lot more there right? There's a lot more there. In fact I encourage our listeners to look up.
00:24:26.15 Tony Fowler Thank you.
00:24:28.44 Taylor Kruse a cross section of the spinal cord. It's just easy to to Google up. And look up to be a little bit more specific look up descending motor pathways and ascending sensory pathways of the spinal cord and find a cross section of that.
00:24:53.06 Taylor Kruse It's very interesting. You'll see that there's a lot of internal contents to the spinal cord that gives you an idea of how important the spine is for essentially everything that we do.
00:25:07.38 Taylor Kruse every every Everything for performance everything for survival. You're you're going to see actual cross-section of um tracks that you know for movement. You're going to see actual cross-sections of different sensory systems.
00:25:25.05 Taylor Kruse like For example and we've talked a little bit about these in past episodes the dorsal column system and these the spinal thalamic system. These are essentially sensory pathways that transmit very specific types of sensory information to the to the spinal cord to other parts of the spinal cord and are also the brain.
00:25:50.94 Taylor Kruse and And so it's just cool to get this visual and see all the contents because thinking again more mechanically when you see how many joints there are
00:26:04.41 Taylor Kruse in the spinal cord and then you actually go a little further and look at the contents of the spinal cord with you know nerve roots and those branching out into peripheral nerves and all these cross sections of ascending and descending pathways that exist it is so easy to build the case for why it is important to move this structure.
00:26:29.66 Taylor Kruse Because if we don't move it move it guess what? What you don't use you lose. That is very real. And so in order to keep our spinal cord healthy so that all of these things can continue to function well peripheral nerves and all of these sensory and motor ah pathways we've got to move it right? We can't ignore it And it's ah it's one of those areas of the body that for some reason to this day is still kind of misunderstood and gets tagged as fragile and it's not at all.
00:27:11.74 Taylor Kruse And we just yeah we just kind of ignore it. every you know people People pay more attention to you know biceps and triceps than they do the spine. But if you're an athlete
00:27:24.41 Taylor Kruse The spine is a big deal right? Because if you can improve your spinal mobility and this goes beyond just mobility and maybe we'll talk about different things but that alone can help you from a performance standpoint right? And a lot of times what I see is that when people...
00:27:42.81 Taylor Kruse have injuries regardless of what that injury even is and they become more sedentary and you know people go you know start to go through the aging process.
00:27:55.83 Taylor Kruse Some people you know find themselves in different health crises along the way where you know there's a disease state of some kind. What you will often see is that people lose the ability to move their trunk and spine.
00:28:12.34 Taylor Kruse And this is not a good thing. right so we got to put this at the top of our priority list when it comes to structures of the body that we want to keep in good health. And one of the ways that we can do that is by knowing how to move it.
00:28:27.11 Tony Fowler Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Yeah I guess in a strength training context I would think about the spine in terms of just it being able to bear load.
00:28:37.66 Taylor Kruse Yes.
00:28:38.10 Tony Fowler So you know if you're squatting you know a heavy amount of weight on your back um you know it was it was pretty clear to me that you're your spine needed to transfer that force or the muscles around it or whatever down to your down to your feet right?
00:28:52.60 Taylor Kruse Yeah.
00:28:54.81 Tony Fowler Yeah.
00:28:56.25 Taylor Kruse Yep.
00:28:59.19 Tony Fowler so So I feel like that that's of o excuse me let me start that over. So I feel like that's a you know kind of like a primal example of of why the spine is important. But then also you mentioned all of those pathways.
00:29:14.81 Tony Fowler um And you know I think in a previous episode we kind of called it like ah an information super highway right?
00:29:14.96 Taylor Kruse Right.
00:29:22.20 Taylor Kruse Yes.
00:29:22.36 Tony Fowler It's like all of the touch sensation and temperature sensation and You know all of these different feelings that you get from your extremities and and your body they they get routed through the spine and up up to the brain where you're actually processing that information right?
00:29:39.19 Taylor Kruse You got it. Yes.
00:29:41.34 Tony Fowler So if there's a problem along the way maybe in the spine you mentioned just now injury or disease or...
00:29:53.05 Tony Fowler um just being sedentary you know maybe that that blurs that connection. um
00:30:00.95 Taylor Kruse No question it's like a kink in the garden hose. It's like a kink in the garden hose. And that's that's how we wanna look at it is an information superhighway because all of the all of the inputs that are coming in from the outside world through our different sensory systems well that information is eventually going to make its way to the spinal cord and ascend the spinal cord. And you know like you said to get it to the brain for processing.
00:30:28.86 Taylor Kruse So if if your spine doesn't move well or you've had a previous injury that's you know affected the integrity of the spinal cord um different you know people have different history things you know we disc injuries and and there's a lot of different things that you know can come up when when you have spinal issues.
00:30:49.69 Taylor Kruse Yeah that that is an interruption basically in terms of not only just how you move because you will transfer force differently and possibly be more compromised in certain ways.
00:31:03.19 Taylor Kruse But as far as the neural inputs go it's interference right? It's interference. And and interference slows down everything. And it skews signaling.
00:31:16.18 Taylor Kruse Right so so quality of of signals from brain to body and body to brain they just they they get less right? And that's ah that's a big deal for sure.
00:31:29.05 Tony Fowler So what does that look like? Like what are some common issues you might see with a compromised?
00:31:36.63 Taylor Kruse Spine yeah.
00:31:37.33 Tony Fowler Yeah.
00:31:38.68 Taylor Kruse Okay so some history finding stuff.
00:31:46.84 Taylor Kruse common Common issues is muscle weakness is is one. So if you if you have a spinal cord issue it is possible that you will experience muscle weakness. Now that that weakness can be one-sided.
00:32:05.53 Taylor Kruse It can also be bilateral. And that's something to really point out here is that a lot of times when somebody has bilateral issues in the extremity
00:32:16.82 Taylor Kruse The spinal cord is actually the problem. So this is this is very important for listeners to hear because I talk to people all the time who complain of bilateral elbow tendonitis.
00:32:29.88 Tony Fowler Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
00:32:30.14 Taylor Kruse That is not an elbow problem most likely. Bilateral Achilles tendon issues. That's probably not an Achilles tendon issue primarily.
00:32:43.22 Taylor Kruse right So when you see those that bilateral patterning all arrows point back to the midline. okay So bilateral issues like tendon problems or muscle problems often we want to think about muscle weakness.
00:33:02.46 Taylor Kruse Other common ones for for history findings um you can have sensory issues. right So if you've got spinal cord problems happening you could have sensory loss maybe of a specific type of sensation or even several sensations.
00:33:24.79 Taylor Kruse to one side of the body maybe one area of the body or in some more significant cases even bilaterally both sides of the body. Like for example quite a few years ago I worked with a gentleman who had had several injuries that resulted in brain damage and pain.
00:33:44.09 Taylor Kruse injuries that resulted in brain damage and as he basically he had he broke his his neck essentially.
00:33:54.60 Tony Fowler Cheese.
00:33:54.90 Taylor Kruse And he yeah. And he did it twice. And the stories are horrific. um One of them he was driving he was driving and there was a big truck in front of him and a sheet of ice came off the top of the truck went through his windshield and and you know and impacted him.
00:34:07.64 Tony Fowler Oof.
00:34:12.12 Taylor Kruse And then Not that much longer later like a couple of years. At this point he was still very compromised and recovering from the first injury. He was sitting on a stool fell off the stool.
00:34:25.17 Taylor Kruse So I think he passed out for some reason related to his health because he had had ah tough go and he broke his neck.
00:34:28.99 Tony Fowler Mm-hmm.
00:34:34.04 Taylor Kruse I mean talk about bad luck. So this guy when he's very lucky because he he did get back to the point where he could walk but he was very unstable.
00:34:46.74 Taylor Kruse He had to rehab and build back. And what we saw was bilateral very significant muscle weakness that did not improve with strength training.
00:34:59.64 Taylor Kruse It didn't improve with strength training. So this is what you know the gym bros have to hear this. like
00:35:04.67 Tony Fowler Yeah. Yeah.
00:35:05.40 Taylor Kruse Progressive overload doesn't always work when you have serious stuff going on. You know what I mean? Um and so this you know he tried he he was trying to do a lot of um whatever strength training he could do. And he he did not he was not successful at getting stronger. His he had a lot of significant muscle tone issues. And when I started doing sensory testing on him cause when someone has
00:35:31.41 Taylor Kruse spinal cord injuries in their history. It's a very good thing to start some sensory testing with them. And sure enough he had some very very large bilateral deficits.
00:35:42.65 Taylor Kruse um Specifically now remember that cross-section I talked about that I wanted you get our listeners to look up specifically in the dorsal column system.
00:35:54.07 Taylor Kruse So what that meant for him was that he could not feel vibration and light touch. He couldn't feel it. He could not feel it anywhere I tested him. And that's a very very serious large deficit.
00:36:07.64 Taylor Kruse But when I poked him with a sharp needle he said ow.
00:36:07.78 Tony Fowler Mm-hmm.
00:36:12.79 Taylor Kruse And when I poked him with a sharp needle and then a dull the dull side of the same tool he was able to tell me that's sharp that's dull.
00:36:26.36 Taylor Kruse And when I touched him with a cold pack He said that's cold. And when I touched him with a warm pack he said that's warm. But when I touched him with vibration he looked at me and said I got nothing.
00:36:38.81 Taylor Kruse And when I stroked his skin with a tissue light touch he said I got nothing. So that is a very specific example of how based on the actual contents of the spinal cord how due to his injury somewhere there was a very specific problem.
00:36:58.46 Taylor Kruse Remember that kink in the garden hose that was causing him to not be able to feel any of the dorsal column sensations.
00:37:00.34 Tony Fowler Mm-hmm.
00:37:07.35 Taylor Kruse And that's very important information to know because now we know what missing sensation we have to work with and restore. But it's also very important because when you get into this material like we teach in our courses you learn where this ascending pathway starts and crosses in the midline and then where it goes as far as processing at the cortical level.
00:37:33.50 Taylor Kruse And then you have to consider remember our eight levels you have to consider these different levels of neurology in the process of trying to restore the person's ability to feel the sensation.
00:37:37.13 Tony Fowler Mm-hmm.
00:37:46.68 Taylor Kruse So there's ah there's a lot that can that can go wrong with a spinal cord injury. And obviously his case is pretty extreme but but I see this all the time at a more subtle level.
00:38:01.27 Taylor Kruse where let's say so i'm just thinking of people i've worked with so i worked with a professional athlete for quite a number of years and she was a was a alpine ski racer that it had several disc injuries it's pretty common for high level skiers to eventually deal with disc issues because there's just so much force involved in skiing and
00:38:17.12 Tony Fowler Mm-hmm.
00:38:27.80 Taylor Kruse You know this is healthy individual obviously competing at a high level but still experienced mild sensory disturbances in her lower body because of the history of disc issues.
00:38:42.10 Taylor Kruse There was also some things we found in there related to the spinal cord too like an absent deep tendon reflex. right which is sometimes what happens to people when they've had disc issues. And as a professional athlete you do not want your deep tendon reflexes not to working.
00:39:00.98 Tony Fowler Yeah.
00:39:01.37 Taylor Kruse That is like taking the shocks off your car. not good right? So deep tendon reflex issues mild sensory loss not so mild more extreme sensory loss. These are all really common things that that you see when the spinal cord is has been compromised in some way. And you know that's not to say the obvious ones like pain.
00:39:25.53 Taylor Kruse you know we we We didn't even say that yet. And having having a pain issue because of either just a blurry map with the spine or sometimes we have more mechanical issues. right We have compression on a nerve root that can become very painful.
00:39:45.40 Taylor Kruse right So there's a lot of mechanical things and mechanical sensitivity ah to consider too. and One of the less talked about things that also is a history finding for spinal cord issues for some people is visceral dysfunction.
00:40:01.50 Taylor Kruse So someone who's experiencing a good deal of viscerally mediated pain which essentially means you feel pain either in your abdomen or there's other referral areas in the body. um If our listeners have not seen a chart yet um for visceral referral areas you should definitely look one up. Look up Dr. Head's Zones.
00:40:32.18 Taylor Kruse So Head Zones. And what you will what you will find is a chart that shows common referral areas for pain symptoms that have nothing to do necessarily with mechanical sensitivity but more to do with a problem or let's say irritation of an organ.
00:40:55.87 Tony Fowler Mm-hmm.
00:40:56.47 Taylor Kruse and this is very important to know as a professional. If you're a professional in health and fitness and you have not learned this yet look this up because this matters. People with a lot of spinal cord issues sometimes experience more visceral pain.
00:41:14.71 Taylor Kruse Everyone experiences visceral pain. It's not that it's not common. It's just that we need to know when it's presenting like visceral pain.
00:41:26.49 Taylor Kruse so that we can understand more what's happening.
00:41:29.60 Tony Fowler Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
00:41:30.01 Taylor Kruse And it's very interesting because when you look at the chart you'll see that for example the low back like the lumbar area all the way if you think about like your oblique muscles and how they wrap around your sides basically like your low back all of your oblique area all the way down into your groin and the outside of your hips is all associated with the kidneys.
00:41:53.02 Taylor Kruse okay A very common thing that we see is that people that have issues going on with their liver or even their gallbladder may get referral pain to the right side of the scapula or even like the right QL area.
00:42:13.69 Taylor Kruse Do you know how many clients have told me they have a problem with their right scapula and right QL? And even the right shoulder. like up around in the upper trap region that's also like a liver gallbladder referral zone.
00:42:28.02 Taylor Kruse Only on the right side primarily. I think there's going to be instances where it's not perfect but um yeah it's very very interesting. And so...
00:42:41.17 Taylor Kruse Uh yeah there's all sorts of zones there to know about. And there's even some for the stomach and um you know there's some for ah the appendix there's some for the urinary bladder. Yeah. it's It's really really useful to know.
00:42:59.22 Tony Fowler So quick question about that.
00:43:00.66 Taylor Kruse Yeah.
00:43:00.92 Tony Fowler when we When we spoke about visceral or viscerally referred pain earlier the the takeaway that I had was sometimes these organs when they're in trouble they don't actually have the same sensory pathways the same...
00:43:05.98 Taylor Kruse Yeah.
00:43:18.81 Tony Fowler nerve pathways to communicate that to the brain. Like you're not feeling your kidney on a regular basis. So what they do is they refer that pain to a nearby system a nearby bundle of nerves and mm-hmm.
00:43:26.39 Taylor Kruse Yes.
00:43:32.28 Taylor Kruse get Skin and muscles. Yeah skin and muscles basically.
00:43:36.66 Tony Fowler So my question to you is ah could you ever get a reverse could you ever get a problem where it shows like a like for example that pattern in the right trap scapula shoulder would kind of indicate potentially the kidney might be having a viscerally referred pain reaction.
00:44:00.34 Tony Fowler Could it ever go the other way where the pathways indicate the kidney because there's a problem somewhere along along the way? Or is it only is it ah is that mostly just a one-way street in in practice?
00:44:14.65 Taylor Kruse I don't think it's a one-way street. You're asking a question with an answer that is very not widely accepted.
00:44:21.41 Tony Fowler Okay.
00:44:21.40 Taylor Kruse this is This is where we're now getting into acupuncture right?
00:44:25.80 Tony Fowler Okay.
00:44:26.68 Taylor Kruse We're getting into you know like acupuncture is a great example. There is so much to know. You can't know it in a lifetime. It's wild.
00:44:38.74 Taylor Kruse But you know some... um there's a lot of theory that goes into you know other other techniques traditional Chinese medicine and it goes way beyond what I just described way beyond. And and so I think I want to say it's a two-way street because I think that um those clues that we get with different points locations in the body that either become painful or even express more sympathetic tone.
00:45:17.37 Taylor Kruse um for example an area of the body that sweats a little bit more or if you're if you're into manual work and you know you know the differences in skin right?
00:45:28.70 Taylor Kruse Kind of boggy um saturated feeling skin um and excessively dry skin indicating like sympathetic burnout.
00:45:41.50 Taylor Kruse Like for example what you see is when when someone has had a chronic issue for a long period of time in a certain body area the skin usually gets thinner drier very chronically dry scaly.
00:45:54.97 Taylor Kruse And you know these are all indications of what's happening and how the nervous system is expressing sympathetic tone. So there's so many things there's so many methodologies that that use understanding the body's responses like this and then being able to trace it back to a problem.
00:46:17.40 Taylor Kruse So there's a lot there. And and this this idea of head zones that I was just describing is a very great place to start. It's a very very simple place to start because visceral pain is super common. Some some researchers say that most of the day-to-day pain that we experience is viscerally mediated.
00:46:42.52 Taylor Kruse So You know that low back discomfort that somebody might be feeling chronically might not actually be a mechanical problem. It might not be a problem with the spinal cord.
00:46:55.67 Taylor Kruse It might be stress on the kidneys right? That chronic right scapula that you've had released a thousand times the muscles around the scapula or that right QL or right shoulder issue that you've been on and off on and off. Nothing seems to actually ever fix it.
00:47:12.57 Taylor Kruse might be a liver that is working overtime right? With you know for whatever reason. It's there's there's a lot there but it's good to know this. And also it's worth mentioning that typically viscerally mediated pain is more colicky and it's hard to pinpoint. So when you ask somebody what kind of pain are they experiencing and it happens to be visceral pain they'll usually tell you that it's dull and achy And when you ask them to point at the exact spot they typically will not point at a very localized spot.
00:47:49.68 Taylor Kruse They'll use their whole hand and basically show you a region of the body where they're experiencing the dull kind of achiness versus like hey it hurts right in this spot right? And a lot of times it is not reproducible with movement.
00:48:08.86 Taylor Kruse So they'll tell you when I move I don't really feel it. But then like all day long at work I'm sitting on the computer and I can kind of feel this like achiness or this on and off tension that I experience. So there's ah there's a specific presentation that is more common with viscerally mediated pain. And that's that's important to know too. you know And kind of sort of tying this together with the spinal cord one One idea worth you know talking about is that like obviously scoliosis is an important topic when we discuss the spinal cord. It's a deformity of the spinal cord.
00:48:46.26 Taylor Kruse And for more like extreme cases of scoliosis a lot of times people those individuals will have digestive problems. right So that's like one example you can think about where digestion your digestion is affected by the spinal cord. And and yeah so you can you can have internal health things going on that are are related to the spinal cord. And you know our listeners who have been following along remember my story right?
00:49:17.34 Taylor Kruse I thought I had a spinal cord problem. right Back when i was you know really struggling with a variety of things coming from um mold exposure mold toxicity I was sure I had a spinal cord issue. or you know that was kind of if you If you had asked me at the time I would have said yeah I've probably got i've got like some sort of compression going on that's causing me these symptoms down my leg.
00:49:44.60 Taylor Kruse And in the end i had to I had to fix an inflammation problem that was gut related.
00:49:57.02 Taylor Kruse So it's it's interesting to kind of understand the I don't know the two way street there right? How you could have symptoms that mimic something like sciatica or piriformis syndrome. And in fact it's really a gut problem you know and um therefore maybe not a spinal cord issue or peripheral nerve issue. So it's yeah there's there's definitely it's a two-way street right?
00:50:26.05 Tony Fowler Yeah. Yeah no I mean all of this stuff can get amorphous at times right? Yeah.
00:50:35.67 Tony Fowler But even so you you have some tools to assess very specific pathways. um You mentioned some of these in earlier when you were discussing your your client who had broken his neck twice.
00:50:43.49 Taylor Kruse Right.
00:50:50.49 Taylor Kruse Yeah.
00:50:51.81 Tony Fowler ges um And you know you were you were you were testing these different sensory pathways. So I'm curious you know where do you start when it comes to assessing you know the function of the spine from an applied neurology perspective.
00:51:07.50 Tony Fowler And um maybe you can give a few more examples of of stuff like that.
00:51:08.66 Taylor Kruse Yeah.
00:51:13.18 Taylor Kruse Yeah sure. So i think I think it starts for me anyway it starts with motor assessments and mobility assessments first. right So I want to see where a person can move and where they can't move well.
00:51:25.88 Taylor Kruse And so evaluating basic movement of the spinal cord is something that I like to do. So basic flexions and I'll have people flex through the spine. and extend through the spine and side bend right? If you can visualize this stuff. And I just wanna see like can you rotate? Can you side bend?
00:51:44.18 Taylor Kruse And when you're evaluating spinal mobility you can get pretty precise with it and palpate and think about like actual segments. Typically what you see is that areas that don't move well on the spine are often quite flat.
00:52:02.01 Taylor Kruse So when you see somebody for example flex and you're looking to see okay does this look like a healthy flexion where the load and the movement is shared throughout the spine?
00:52:15.45 Taylor Kruse Oftentimes for example it's pretty common for people to have thoracic issues where they don't move well in their T-spine and that area might look more flat compared to what you're seeing in the lower back area and even the neck.
00:52:33.69 Taylor Kruse And so those little flat areas can indicate mobility ah areas where mobility is needed. So that's that's one you know thing to think about. Same thing when you're when you're going into extension.
00:52:49.33 Taylor Kruse You'll see you know again it's common in the thoracic area. You'll see like everything extend except the thoracic spine. You know I like to see I like to look at rotation and see like do they have a healthy amount of rotation?
00:53:03.86 Taylor Kruse Is one side more limited than the other? That's a great place to begin. And just selecting mobility and motor control drills to target those areas of where the mobility concerns might be goes a long way.
00:53:20.70 Taylor Kruse goes a long way and so that's why we have a whole series of thoracic mobility drills like thoracic anterior posterior glides and lateral glides. These are all ways to start to to build that motor control.
00:53:34.23 Taylor Kruse I also like to evaluate the spine when walking. So I'll do a gait assessment and wanna look and see what's moving what's not.
00:53:48.22 Taylor Kruse That kind of thing. Because you'll see like different everyone's different. There's there's different compensatory things happening. You'll see people with very limited rotation. You'll see people with way too much movement in let's say the sacral area and the pelvic area.
00:54:04.89 Taylor Kruse right and And that's you know causing a kind of a chain reaction of the spine. So I evaluate gait. And then at the same time I'm doing a neurologic gait assessment you know looking at are looking for different patterns that that we might find.
00:54:19.01 Tony Fowler Mm-hmm.
00:54:19.87 Taylor Kruse and you know So these are just more of the movement-based things that i that I do and I even will evaluate the spine with breathing. I think it's a very useful thing to do. and When you for example we have a ah assessment that we test in our foundation or that we teach in our foundations course called a breathing wave assessment and uh or an arrhythmic excursion assessment. So basically the arrhythmic excursion is the person standing or seated and you basically put your hands around their lower ribs.
00:54:51.74 Taylor Kruse and you have them do some breathing and you're you're feeling and observing whether or not the right stuff is moving and whether or not they're moving in the right area of the rib cage. A lot of times people who are very restricted in the rib cage and thoracic spine won't be able to move well in the lower ribs.
00:55:09.85 Taylor Kruse I like this other version where you lay somebody down on the floor or something and you have them do some breathing for a couple minutes and you watch the wave-like action that should be happening as they breathe
00:55:23.61 Taylor Kruse and you see expansion of hopefully the lower ribs you'll actually see movement that begins at the sacrum and in a wave-like action moves up the spine. And if you put your hands on the different segments you can feel movement that's happening. So the the spine is involved and the rib cage in breathing.
00:55:46.87 Taylor Kruse And so when I have people do these breathing drills and I don't see or feel movement in the areas that I should i know that okay we wanna be targeting this potentially with breathing drills used as kind of a mobility drill.
00:56:04.41 Taylor Kruse which is very useful where you're channeling or kind of directing breath into these more restricted areas. And then we can also target these areas with some of our basic mobility joint mobility drills.
00:56:17.24 Taylor Kruse It's all all very important stuff to do initially. So
00:56:21.56 Tony Fowler Mm-hmm.
00:56:23.67 Taylor Kruse To go further into an arena that almost nobody is using that's when we start to evaluate the health of peripheral nerves and the skin right? Muscles and skin because we know that the inputs that are coming in right have to go somewhere. That's the spinal cord.
00:56:47.90 Taylor Kruse So starting to evaluate the health of peripheral nerves because Some have shared motor and sensory components so they will innervate both muscles and skin.
00:57:01.75 Taylor Kruse Some have only motor some have only sensory. We got to be able to test these things and history will kind of lead you to maybe which which areas are the most important to test but that's where I'm kind of going next.
00:57:17.18 Taylor Kruse Again some of that is based on history but if someone tells me that they have had a low back problem for an extended amount of time and it's come up three times in the last five years I'm gonna start asking questions about that.
00:57:36.73 Taylor Kruse And maybe they're explaining like sciatic symptoms. Well I'm gonna do tests on their lumbar and sacral region because I wanna know like how's that stuff moving?
00:57:49.88 Taylor Kruse But I'm also going to start testing nerves like the femoral nerve the tibial nerve the peroneal nerve And I'm going to do that with motor testing like how are those muscles functioning? And then I'm also gonna follow up with sensory testing.
00:58:07.19 Taylor Kruse So I have to know where those nerves originate as far as the spinal segments and then where do they go? In this case where does the sensory component go? Like what part of the skin does it supply for sensation? And that's where I run my test.
00:58:25.56 Taylor Kruse So for example it's not uncommon for somebody that has had sacral nerve root issues or disc issues to have some kind of loss of sensation in the gastroc region the calf muscle.
00:58:42.36 Taylor Kruse right that's not uncommon to find. so So I'm gonna run sensory tests and I might find because I've got tests for two different pathways initially that I'm gonna look at. So we've got dorsal column tests and spinal thalamic tests all different sensations. So for the dorsal column I'm gonna test you know initially to be as fast as possible I'm gonna test vibration two-point discrimination and light touch.
00:59:12.31 Taylor Kruse and get some feedback there like how's that going? you know Are they feeling that? Is there any side to side differences when we compare? And then I'm also gonna test something like sharp dull.
00:59:24.18 Taylor Kruse you know is this Does this feel sharp or does this feel dull? and warm cool. And that's gonna cover a lot of my you know that's gonna check a lot of boxes. And maybe I find that there's a specific sensory deficit in one sensation or several sensations.
00:59:40.63 Taylor Kruse That gives me a lot of information. I don't yet know what the problem is because I have to consider several other levels. But I'm thinking I have to do some level of sensory work in this area.
00:59:55.90 Taylor Kruse and possibly work on the peripheral nerve. And maybe we do that with some of our neuromechanic exercises that we've talked about many times on the podcast. And then I gotta consider the spinal segments that are involved with where the nerve originates.
01:00:11.10 Taylor Kruse And so maybe then i'm I'm seeing that this person that's had several back injuries and is also having this mild sensory loss in their gastroc also has virtually no movement in their sacrum when they walk. And when I have them do some of our joint mobility drills they can't move their lower back.
01:00:28.89 Taylor Kruse So now I'm thinking well we have to restore movement there because that's going to be part of this whole picture right? And the process goes on because I have to think about well where does that sensory input get processed?
01:00:41.40 Taylor Kruse So the rule the basic rule that we like to follow is all sensory input goes to the contralateral cortex except smell. So I know that those inputs that missing sensation that we found could be causing a higher order issue in the let's say contralateral parietal lobe where that input eventually goes for processing.
01:01:08.66 Taylor Kruse This is where it gets cool but this is also where you can lose people. Because everyone's pretty capable of understanding mechanically how when there's a spinal cord issue that could affect the nerve that originates there.
01:01:27.48 Taylor Kruse And if the nerve that originates there has an issue sure. we are pretty clear on the fact that that could affect the function of muscles and how you feel stuff on the skin.
01:01:40.89 Taylor Kruse But almost yeah.
01:01:40.92 Tony Fowler I mean people take paralysis for granted right? It's like oh someone had a spinal injury and they were paralyzed from this ah you know area down.
01:01:44.50 Taylor Kruse Yeah.
01:01:49.07 Taylor Kruse Right. Yeah. and
01:01:50.90 Tony Fowler That's like accepted as fact right?
01:01:52.89 Taylor Kruse Yes. And and when you when you have a possible disc issue or you think you might and you go to a specialist and they check you out like this is all common knowledge. like If you work with a neurologist that's checking out your back they're going to do some they might do some muscle testing.
01:02:06.61 Tony Fowler Thank you.
01:02:09.16 Taylor Kruse They might do some sensory testing. They might even check your deep tendon reflexes to get an idea of what's happening with the spinal cord. okay So this is pretty widely accepted when we use this sort of mechanical thought process.
01:02:25.83 Taylor Kruse It's like okay well the wires start there. They go there. What do they do? What are they for? We got it. The part that's not widely accepted or just more unknown is we also have to consider that there is an eventual consequence to missing sensation.
01:02:45.24 Taylor Kruse So if you've had a sensory problem ongoing for a long period of time on let's say your left gastroc you also have a right parietal load problem.
01:02:59.02 Taylor Kruse You also have a medulla issue. So now we're in the brainstem because that's where the pathway decusates which means crosses at the midline. So by knowing your levels and your pathways where they start where they go you can start to consider other structures that might play a problem that may have started as a spinal cord injury but then manifested into peripheral nerve issues sensation issues weak muscle issues.
01:03:33.27 Taylor Kruse you know And so we have to we have to know how to expand the thinking. That's why I love the eight levels because we can do that. and And it's a great thought process to use. So now I'm taking it much further. And instead of saying let's think about this now.
01:03:49.82 Taylor Kruse You've had a spinal cord injury in the sacrum. That has created peripheral nerve issues and loss of sensation and motor control let's say in the gastroc on the left side. Now...
01:04:02.39 Taylor Kruse we've got kind of all the boxes checked because we're also doing exercises for the right parietal lobe and integrating that into the training of those muscles that have become atrophied right? And maybe at the same time adding in the missing sensation and using that to as activation and teaching the person how to restore um their feeling of that sensation.
01:04:33.95 Taylor Kruse it's it's ah It's a great much more complete way to look at things. The sensory part of rehab is almost 100% ignored.
01:04:45.79 Tony Fowler Mm-hmm.
01:04:45.94 Taylor Kruse and And it's problematic because rehab is totally incomplete without it. Totally. so And some people are doing it but a lot of times it's more of like a Hail Mary approach. Like we're gonna we're goingnna put this electrical stim on you with broad strokes. you know We're gonna use this tool on you with broad strokes rather than being precise and really understanding okay what sensation matters here?
01:05:12.60 Taylor Kruse What receptors are in need of the activation? That's really key. And you can get a good feel for that through thorough neuro evaluations. So everything I described here is an example of kind of starting with movement slash motor assessments.
01:05:31.70 Taylor Kruse And then based on history and what you're seeing you let that sort of lead you to where you might think it's important to do some sensory testing.
01:05:44.57 Tony Fowler So you know you laid you laid out how a lack of spinal mobility could indicate other problems whether it's something along the spinal column or something in a different part of the system right?
01:06:01.09 Tony Fowler that That's you know your parietal lobe or
01:06:01.46 Taylor Kruse Right.
01:06:05.14 Tony Fowler um that kind of thing viscerally referred pain perhaps. But
01:06:12.02 Tony Fowler I guess um on the flip side let me let me let me start this question over. um
01:06:22.62 Tony Fowler We talked about how the spinal cord can
01:06:29.98 Tony Fowler trying to wrap my head around how I how i want to say this but there's there's a...
01:06:37.82 Tony Fowler The idea that the spinal cord isn't mobile is giving you clues about you know other parts of the nervous system right that you may want to look at.
01:06:45.96 Taylor Kruse Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
01:06:49.53 Tony Fowler But if you have a parietal lobe issue or another issue... in the nervous system does simply mobilizing the spine like physically moving your spine potentially do anything for that?
01:07:06.01 Taylor Kruse for for the cortical issue like for the parietal issue?
01:07:08.18 Tony Fowler Yeah yeah.
01:07:09.08 Taylor Kruse Yes it can. Yes. Everything in neurology is a two way street. So it absolutely can. You can find improvements in other areas of the eight levels from working on a primary area.
01:07:24.73 Taylor Kruse Yeah. There's no there's no question that that's that's happening and and that's what's kinda cool too. it's like It's almost like you never have to be perfectly right you just have to be close.
01:07:37.05 Taylor Kruse you know I feel like I'm kind of at a place where you know it's like at the beginning right learning all this stuff. I was all excited and wanted to find all the problems and wanted to be right you know wanted to wanted to be able to say in my mind that's what that is.
01:07:49.36 Tony Fowler Right.
01:07:55.06 Taylor Kruse And now I'm sort of at a place where I'm like I'm not sure if that's what that is but we're close enough because our functional outcomes are showing us there's improvement.
01:08:07.06 Taylor Kruse you know So i I really do believe that there's a two-way street in in respect to that. And you know you you had mentioned like or said other structures and and there's some there's definitely some stuff to unpack in regard to like posture in the spinal cord because Obviously the spinal cord is a is a big part of posture right? We have reflexive systems that hold us upright against gravity help us recover our balance as we're moving.
01:08:42.10 Taylor Kruse And it's worth mentioning that for example extensor tone which is basically the muscles on the back of your body your anti-gravity muscles that are helping you with axial extension standing up and essentially think posterior chain muscles as well.
01:09:01.30 Taylor Kruse a lot of the higher order systems are creating that muscle tone. So one of the ones we talk about a lot the vestibular system has a very large role in calibrating extensor tone.
01:09:15.26 Taylor Kruse And so this goes beyond just having a spinal cord problem because you could have a vestibular problem that's creating a posture issue that then creates a spinal problem.
01:09:29.93 Tony Fowler Mm-hmm.
01:09:30.95 Taylor Kruse And then you are seeking to fix a spinal cord problem with let's say strengthening exercises and you're not really getting the changes you think you should be getting because your problem has originated in an in the inner ear.
01:09:49.78 Taylor Kruse Right? Like this is how this is why it's so important to know the role of these higher order systems with what they do with posture and muscle tone. And the same thing holds true for like the cerebellum is very much involved in extensor tone in the midline.
01:10:05.85 Taylor Kruse The brainstem and the cortex really work together to set global muscle tone ipsilaterally. And this is It's more complicated than I'm describing it because it's it's muscle tone of both flexor and extensor compartments so lots of different muscles involved in this.
01:10:25.72 Taylor Kruse But the point is this is all reflexive when we talk about posture and when we talk about balance. And if those higher order things are not doing their job well at the brainstem level at the cerebellar level at the cortical level with the inner ear whatever it is the outcome of that can affect the spinal cord.
01:10:46.50 Taylor Kruse And there's a lot of that happening in the body which is why in my observations over the years have been that like what's happening in orthopedics in regard to the the spine is there's a ton of you know you need to do this but nobody actually knows.
01:11:10.33 Taylor Kruse Like it it becomes way too mechanical. Like sure let's get an MRI. We don't see anything. We don't know what's wrong with you. Sorry you have pain. Go do PT.
01:11:21.75 Taylor Kruse Or I think I see a little something here. This must be why you're having pain. Right? And you have to know so much more. You have to know so much more to understand why somebody might be experiencing pain related to the midline.
01:11:39.70 Taylor Kruse because you have to understand the influence of all these systems. And that's why people get led down these awful rabbit holes you know and get recommended surgery when they don't actually need it.
01:11:50.81 Taylor Kruse Some people do. I'm not saying they don't but from what I can tell this area of the industry is where a ton of malpractice is happening.
01:12:04.02 Taylor Kruse Just back surgery is happening just because it's a last resort and no one can figure out why you're having pain. Um it's uh yeah it's it's not good.
01:12:14.70 Taylor Kruse It's not good. I mean there's there's something people can look up uh that's kind of kind of popular at this point um that will show you that shows you percentages of um
01:12:31.32 Taylor Kruse like so in based on age group the percentage of ages that have spinal degenerative issues.
01:12:42.32 Taylor Kruse It's really interesting to see. I think let me see if I can okay I got it in front of me. um For example this chart says and it's at the top it says age specific prevalence estimates of degenerative spine imaging findings in asymptomatic patients. So these are all people that are asymptomatic. And it says that 80% of 50 year olds have disc degeneration of some kind 80%.
01:13:10.46 Taylor Kruse eighty percent And it says of
01:13:14.55 Tony Fowler of asymptomatic individuals.
01:13:15.80 Taylor Kruse as so they're asymptomatic yep They're asymptomatic and they they have some kind of disc degeneration issue and or that's not causing them problems right?
01:13:16.71 Tony Fowler Yeah.
01:13:29.85 Taylor Kruse Not causing them pain. And it's 52% of 30-year-olds right? And then then the list goes on. Like there's more specific stuff here. Like... like disc height loss and disc bulges.
01:13:41.15 Taylor Kruse like ah For disc bulge it says that 60% of 50-year-olds may have a disc bulge but they're asymptomatic.
01:13:45.70 Tony Fowler Thank
01:13:52.34 Taylor Kruse 40% of 30 year olds right? And there's there's other stuff you can you can look at that's that's similar but it's fascinating because it leads you right back to what we know about well what has modern pain science taught us? That pain does not equal injury and injury does not equal pain.
01:14:11.13 Taylor Kruse And it gets very complicated when it becomes the spine And it becomes very urgent feeling because when you have pain that's happening somewhere in your midline it feels more important.
01:14:18.18 Tony Fowler Yeah.
01:14:26.81 Taylor Kruse And I think that's by design personally. That's my belief on that. because And it's also because when your let's say low back is compromised all force has to go through that area.
01:14:42.97 Taylor Kruse right All four. So sacral issues low back issues you feel very compromised because there's a lot of muscle guarding and like inhibition that happens and in certain muscles when your body's guarding like that and then you can't transfer force efficiently anymore.
01:15:02.36 Taylor Kruse And man it's it feels very compromising. like You can't do the littlest thing. like I remember when my sacrum was in really rough shape putting carrots on a cutting board and cutting them I couldn't do.
01:15:14.16 Tony Fowler Mm-hmm.
01:15:16.06 Taylor Kruse like And it's all because of the stability that has to happen and the intense guarding that happens when you're having a back issue. like Anyone who's had a sacral issue knows like oh yeah um when I have to sneeze or cough like i've I've known clients that have had severe back issues that when they feel a sneeze coming they get on the floor.
01:15:39.77 Taylor Kruse Okay? They know it's coming they get on the floor and they get into a certain position that feels more stable so that they can create muscular tension to help them buffer the fast like explosive movement that happens when you when you sneeze because it can be so painful.
01:15:58.71 Tony Fowler Yeah.
01:15:58.87 Taylor Kruse You know it's wild. Pain in the middle of the body generally and again I think it's kind of by design it feels more important. And it's weird because even the severity of the pain does not necessarily indicate the severity of the issue.
01:16:14.35 Tony Fowler Right.
01:16:14.71 Taylor Kruse So this is why it gets so complicated when you go down the rabbit hole of trying to get professional input on why you have back pain. And it can it can turn out with...
01:16:28.57 Taylor Kruse well they think they see this on my images and because it's been going on so long and I did two bouts of physical therapy my next step is surgery. And some of the conclusions that are jumped to and and so possible solutions blow my mind. Like yeah let's fuse it.
01:16:49.27 Taylor Kruse Like people get their spine fused right? And I'm not saying that some people don't need that. Like that can save a person. But it's happening too much when you don't actually need that. Like there are other solutions. I worked with a i worked with an ultra marathoner that was in there. He was in his late 20s.
01:17:13.72 Taylor Kruse And he ended up finding me and had recently had his sacrum fused. I'm like dude what? How old are you? He's like 28. Why did you have your sacrum fused?
01:17:29.05 Taylor Kruse He's like well I'd have back pain for so long and no one could help me and I did PT for a long time. they this They thought if they fused the... the joint that then I'd be more stable and now I can run. And it totally screwed him up because he's an all he's an ultra runner. Like you can't take away movement at the most important joint for transferring energy across the body and then expect a person to be able to live the same life they were living.
01:17:56.70 Taylor Kruse And so I was blown away that they would do this to somebody who's 28. And I thought man this is crazy. Well when I run the history um'm probably gonna I'm probably going to find out why they did that I thought running the history.
01:18:09.62 Taylor Kruse And it doesn't add up. And I'm like you you're telling me they just they just fused your spine because of the amount of pain you were in? Because he's in a lot of pain. And he they he felt like they felt like they were out of options.
01:18:22.90 Taylor Kruse So I started asking more questions. What did I find in his history? Well he's had chronic gut problems for over 20 years tons of digestive sensitivities and celiac disease.
01:18:35.95 Tony Fowler Hmm. Hmm.
01:18:36.38 Taylor Kruse So I'm like oh man not another one of these cases. Because the most malpractice in my eyes in this sort of arena with orthopedics in the spine is metabolic and gut problems manifesting into what may or may not be a spinal issue but it certainly is spinal pain right? And then people getting these crazy surgeries when really they had a health problem.
01:19:05.97 Taylor Kruse And our listeners should know that most back problems are health problems. They're not back problems. You gotta know that right? as If you're a professional and in the industry you gotta know that. um Once again I'm not saying that back issues don't exist. I'm not saying that you know disc issues can't you know be a thing. And I'm not saying that nobody needs surgery.
01:19:29.14 Taylor Kruse There's a time and place for that stuff. But what I am witnessing is that the crazy surgeries like fusing the spine are being thrown around when in this case the guy just needed better gut health.
01:19:43.93 Taylor Kruse He went on to get that surgery reversed as a matter of fact. I didn't work with him for long but I do remember him you know getting getting that reversed somehow and Yeah I don't know the outcome of that but it was interesting for me to get that history because I was like oh man I've seen this so many times.
01:20:01.78 Taylor Kruse I've seen this so many times. If somebody would just take your history right? If you if somebody would just take your history and know that chronic irritation of the gut is could create sacral pain they would at least be able to say explore that avenue before we decide to make your spine immobile.
01:20:26.90 Taylor Kruse You know? So it's so misunderstood. The whole thing is so misunderstood. um And yeah it's it's important to know this stuff and consider that there are a lot of other things that could be going on if you're You're seeking you know seeking help for possible spinal issue.
01:20:48.41 Tony Fowler you know We've been calling it a two-way street but it feels more like a five-way intersection um you know between like the gut and the the organs and the midline and then you know the what can happen with the peripheral nerves and the other nerves that that go out into the extremities and then what can happen in the brain um the fact that the vestibular system could create a posture issue that could then manifest as a spinal issue.
01:20:54.58 Taylor Kruse Yes.
01:21:11.33 Taylor Kruse Yep.
01:21:18.14 Taylor Kruse Right.
01:21:18.87 Tony Fowler um Yeah you know i was I was very tempted with this episode ah to say you know if we're going to talk about spinal mobility like maybe maybe we'll talk about drills to physically mobilize the spine.
01:21:21.42 Taylor Kruse There's a lot there.
01:21:32.63 Taylor Kruse Right.
01:21:34.69 Tony Fowler And and I do wonder if that's still
01:21:34.97 Taylor Kruse Right.
01:21:37.78 Tony Fowler you know just kind of like we were talking about with the windmills just kind of like nice drilling to do to optimize spinal health. But the conversation has really more been about just how complicated and connected the spine is to so many other things.
01:21:58.93 Tony Fowler And I think that's a really interesting and and important takeaway.
01:21:59.76 Taylor Kruse Definitely.
01:22:03.13 Taylor Kruse For sure.
01:22:07.00 Tony Fowler Do you have any um do do you think it's worth talking about any drills to mobilize the spine or is that sort of missing the missing the point here?
01:22:17.37 Taylor Kruse Well i no I think i think it's like it's legit. I mean I can i can just kind of rapid fire a couple things you know and and it's ah to be honest with you it's nothing I haven't said before right?
01:22:28.94 Taylor Kruse And that's the thing like the the the tools yeah the tools the toolbox is always really the same.
01:22:32.02 Tony Fowler If only they listened to you the first time you know?
01:22:39.86 Taylor Kruse It's just you know you might make tweaks in how you apply it or select different things but you know on for example on our YouTube channel We've got a lot of mobility and motor control drills and and lots of them are targeted at the midline right?
01:22:56.47 Tony Fowler Mm-hmm.
01:22:56.76 Taylor Kruse So that means learning how to move your neck learning how to move your thoracic spine your lumbar spine even your pelvis and jaw. you know those important midline structures we have mobility drills for all of those areas.
01:23:11.64 Taylor Kruse So I encourage people to to check out the YouTube channel and find those those spinal drills because that's the kind of stuff I'm practicing very consistently.
01:23:23.42 Taylor Kruse i have been for years. I check in on that stuff all the time just for general health.
01:23:31.30 Tony Fowler Mm-hmm.
01:23:31.70 Taylor Kruse and And you want to get good at it. And what's going to happen is if you haven't done anything like that before your coordination is going to be really lousy. When you're trying to coordinate the drills that's okay. That's where it starts. And your goal is to get better at coordinating it and then kind of work harder at end range of motion. So now you can start developing some improved actual mobility and range of motion.
01:23:55.70 Taylor Kruse So it's it's kind of a combined like building your motor control but also improving some range of motion as well. All right. so So those drills are available. And then obviously the neuromechanic category of drills that our listeners probably see me sharing a lot on Instagram.
01:24:15.47 Taylor Kruse that's our like nerve glides is a is a you know a short way to describe them. There's lots of different things there. Like our students will will chuckle and say yeah nerve glides but you left out all the nerve slacking drills. You left out all the nerve sliding drills. You know there's we teach a ton in the courses but basically
01:24:36.02 Taylor Kruse Those neuromechanic drills that put you know gentle tension on a peripheral nerve and then you learn how to mobilize it. I've got several tutorials at this point on YouTube that people can check out that are more long form that teach the details of them.
01:24:51.67 Taylor Kruse Those are wonderful for kind of creating more opportunity to move better in the spine. So for example starting with some of those neuromechanic drills and then going to the joint mobility drills you might feel like you can do them better.
01:25:11.10 Taylor Kruse Right? and And so they're a nice that's a nice combination. Never forget breathing. Breathing drills will improve spinal mobility. So if you're a poor breather like a shallow breather
01:25:24.30 Taylor Kruse you'll likely have rib cage restriction. You likely won't move in certain ways well with your spine. Drills like diaphragm stretch that we've talked a lot about on on previous episodes.
01:25:37.34 Taylor Kruse um Lots of different breathing drills you can you can find on our YouTube channel. they They're great for creating more targeted mobility drills for the trunk and spine.
01:25:51.32 Taylor Kruse So like we have different opener drills where you're in a specific posture. creating gentle stretch through a certain area of the trunk let's say and then at the same time you're focusing on breathing and you're trying to direct the breath into that area to create that feeling of expansion and stretch that style of breathing drill can be quite useful for improving mobility.
01:26:18.01 Taylor Kruse So those are sort of like the basics that I would say everybody should check out. And then to go further and get nerdier you have to start venturing it venturing into the eyes and the inner ear.
01:26:32.79 Taylor Kruse So for example vestibular drills can have a very large impact on how your spine is moving. So you might find that practicing some of our basic vestibular drills on the YouTube channel like VORs
01:26:46.39 Taylor Kruse And I actually have a video on YouTube that teaches a vestibular drill called the infinity walk and kind of educationally relates it back to how this ah corresponds to the midline and the the posterior chain of muscles.
01:27:05.53 Taylor Kruse So people can look for that one. That's a great exercise the infinity walk. So vestibular inputs make can make a big impact on the spine. So think consider that bit your eyes too.
01:27:18.42 Tony Fowler Mm-hmm.
01:27:19.54 Taylor Kruse And to tie it all together integrated exercises that look similar to walking running or throwing.
01:27:32.76 Taylor Kruse Okay this is like the pinnacle for me. If I'm working with somebody that has a really lousy midline. They're not moving well.
01:27:44.96 Taylor Kruse Typically what that means is if you have poor spinal mobility you're not walking well either. And there's a lot of compensatory things happening that over time can lead to other issues you know through kind of you know breakdown of of movement.
01:28:02.23 Taylor Kruse So I like to get these people moving with this kind of contralateral patterning.
01:28:09.47 Tony Fowler Mm-hmm.
01:28:09.59 Taylor Kruse that looks like walking because that's how we were intended to move with this contralateral or reciprocation of our limbs. And I love creating exercise that does that.
01:28:22.23 Taylor Kruse You can do that quite well with pulley machines. You can do that quite well with bands. And we talked at the beginning of the episode about like steel clubs and Indian clubs. I do a lot of that this kind of thing with those.
01:28:39.29 Tony Fowler I stole one of your one of your drills from ah from an Instagram reel where it's like it's almost like you're pitching a ball but with the the club.
01:28:44.70 Taylor Kruse Uh-huh.
01:28:47.03 Taylor Kruse Yeah yep.
01:28:50.30 Tony Fowler um And so you know it's like your your whole body twists you know like your back foot comes up onto the ball of the foot.
01:28:54.17 Taylor Kruse You got it.
01:28:57.01 Tony Fowler And um yeah I really like that one.
01:28:59.70 Taylor Kruse you're You're connecting.
01:29:01.41 Tony Fowler Yeah.
01:29:01.46 Taylor Kruse Yeah you're connecting the lower body to the upper body in respect to the reflexes we have for movement.
01:29:10.39 Tony Fowler Right.
01:29:10.87 Taylor Kruse Okay so and this is not like there's there's some good stuff out there people can find. You know the industry mistake right now is to make it all about fascia. That's what's happening is like so like you just described like pitching or doing a club exercise that resembles that same similar patterning.
01:29:28.28 Taylor Kruse You know right now the industry is in a place where it's all about fascial slings. Right. And so people want that to only be about fascia. Oh my gosh. If you are thinking that this is only about fascia please keep going.
01:29:42.46 Taylor Kruse There is so much more to this neurologically than the supposed fascial lines that have been shown to us in the textbook.
01:29:53.98 Taylor Kruse Like that's a cool idea. um There's something there but like keep going because you can't think only fascial lines without understanding actual pathways and reflexes that control the reciprocation.
01:30:11.13 Taylor Kruse Like there is a brain area called the mesencephalic locomotor area that we know how to activate with a variety of exercises that is for walking.
01:30:23.48 Taylor Kruse So it's there's so much more there and it is thrilling to learn about it at the brain level because then you can connect it to what you already know biomechanically.
01:30:34.65 Taylor Kruse And then you have kind of the ultimate combination where you're looking at biomechanics and studying biomechanics and then you're also considering the neurology and the reef the reflexive stuff and where that actually comes from the control centers.
01:30:51.76 Taylor Kruse And that's where it gets really fun. So anyways the the whole point there was to tie it all together after we've done maybe some work in isolation like the joint mobility the breathing the vision the vestibular exercises. We wanna start getting people moving in an integrated way with opposite hand opposite leg type patterning.
01:31:13.18 Taylor Kruse That is phenomenal for tying it all together for um improving the health of the the midline altogether and the spine.
01:31:28.12 Tony Fowler Well um an hour and a half in and I feel like there's still there's still more to talk about.
01:31:33.53 Taylor Kruse Seriously. Oh there always is. where where where Our episodes are slowly getting a little longer. um which is more work for you but I appreciate it.
01:31:47.11 Tony Fowler True true. Now of course I think the conversations deserve the time. And so insofar as you're willing to talk to everybody about it I think that's a good thing.
01:31:59.51 Taylor Kruse Yeah yeah.
01:32:02.78 Taylor Kruse So let's do let's do let's encourage people here to um there's a few things I can I can direct people to. So um number one if you are if you've been listening to the podcast and you haven't already done so as far as giving us a review we'd really appreciate that.
01:32:19.19 Taylor Kruse They it really helps. it It's uh can't stress it enough. And if you have given us a review thank you so much. And I like hearing from those of you who have reached out in the DMS and stuff to tell me you've been listening to the podcast. It's
01:32:32.32 Taylor Kruse it's It's really cool to to meet you guys and and know that you're enjoying it. And if you have not seen the free masterclass it's still available. So you can find the free masterclass through our website or through the show notes here.
01:32:47.32 Taylor Kruse If you're kind of just getting on board now and listening to these conversations and you want to start going a little deeper into neuro watch the free masterclass because that one was specifically on cranial nerves.
01:32:59.77 Taylor Kruse And it's a really neat way to get started with some of the work we do because I teach you the general assessment process that I basically teach everybody. And then
01:33:10.33 Taylor Kruse We do talk about other structures and kind of you know how the neurology of movement happens but we get to cranial nerves too and I give you some really fun drills that are really simple to learn and you can test them on yourself.
01:33:25.59 Taylor Kruse and see how they're affecting your your movement. And most people are gonna find at least one that makes a drastic impact in how they're moving and how they're feeling. So again if you're just starting to get into you know neuro make sure you watch that because it's ah it's a good resource.
01:33:44.09 Taylor Kruse Thank you all for listening. Really appreciate it and we'll be back soon.
