hello hello welcome to Jun member meet up um I didn't get any questions set in and nobody's joining me live on the call so um I'll keep it short and sweet but just kind of get into um a little bit about um some things that hiking in the Grand Canyon help figure out and refine even a little further and um that is you know to go downhill um requires that we be able to create a really good Anchor Point with the foot on the down leg that Anchor Point comes from the glute down to the foot and on the up leg comes from the foot with the yaw of the heel and works up to the hip but that point where everything has fully compressed and like locked in and and we've got that good anchor in the in the front tripod of the foot across with that first MTP joint allows us then to pull the trigger and get the freebie of the next thing for years it was explained to me like that's the point where we like load the spring and then we get the but the release of the spring doesn't just happen like we if we are not if our timing and our rhythm is off if we haven't fully compressed and we um like release that spring too soon all of those things factor in it's just not a given that all of us will d da d d da go along and we get this like loading of the spring of the tissues and then this release of the spring of the tissues we do a lot of things that actually get in the way of that freebie once we compress stuff um the freebie of the expansion and I've talked about it before in classes it's like I get the load I I you know I load it and I feel that compression and then I get the jump for free going down here and even uphill at the Grand Canyon I could feel when I was had the timing right and I had fully compressed and I did the timing of pulling the trigger um right I got the free swing of the other leg and um that made it so I mean it was still hard but what was really cool is the recovery at the end of it was like blew my mind I've never hiked that much vertical over those number of kilometers at that heat like that was definitely the hardest thing I've done physically and um the like no knee pain like no pain um my calves like would like tightened up you know Sunday night so I hiked out Sunday um woke up to pee like in the middle of the night and like thought it a bed and I was like oh those are a little tent stiff you know um but by the time I got home Monday they felt better I could tell going downstairs that my brain was like let's walk down these sideways they they didn't want to do any like decelerating or anything with the back of the calf stuff but then Tuesday um and my Tuesday they like they were fine and that's pretty miraculous because I I demanded like that hike demanded a lot um and yeah and I and I definitely felt on the hike that me being able to fully compress put Force vertically down into the ground which isn't stomping the foot we'll kind of get into it and the class I taught yesterday uh definitely teaches some of those mechanics um so you can go back and watch that the June uh 27th class strength class um but we need a downward vertical to um fully then load the system that spring and then that gives us the freebie but most of us aren't just walking around knowing how to do that um and the up and down legs definitely want to do it different so it's like feel the load do something um and then and then reap the result and that goes back to this idea of us being able to control the inputs and the when of those inputs um so that we benefit from it and I really noticed that on the down everyone else in my group was like how are you running down this and I I'm like cuz I I'm not thinking about it but I've practiced enough the the Rhythm and timing of things that my system like knew how to load get the freebie load get the freebie and I didn't get a ton of vertical translation in my movement I was able to Anchor and take that vertical into horizontal Al so I controlled um the the spin of myself downhill whereas often you watch people going downhill what happens is they can't get the vertical and then the ground Collide they collide with the ground and the ground sends them vertical and so they definitely feel like they're spending more and more time off the ground and in the air as they're going downhill and it feels completely chaotic and out of control and a pelvic floor doesn't like that I so a a neuros system doesn't like that because it feels like you're you know keming towards bad stuff so um let's look at some things and some ways um I'll kind of try to explain this a few different ways so that uh you can go and play with it and then hit me with your questions okay so I had loaned a wobble board to a a a student a client and um it just came back to me so I'm GNA start with it and playing with it and show you some stuff so often times like when we have an ankle injury um they'll use the the Wobble board and want you to like stand on it with both feet and stay on it or you know go around it like this which is like which is fine but what I'm gonna have us do is I'm gonna actually more find my Q angle here better actually a single leg stcky with the the two to get the vertical force on both legs [Music] okay okay I'm going to work it a single so this just a homemade wall board my hubby took the like null off a a railing which is like rounded and then just put a flat board on it so I'm going to put my down leg my down foot on it and I don't need my whole foot so I'm not going to go here because I I need to compress where the fulcrum's going to be as I travel over this foot which is going to be at that first MTP joint okay now I need to get vertical Force down into the ground and for some of us like that is going to be a strength issue that we start to work with that single leg balance now I also have another leg and another arm that can help me load into that leg so what I'm going to do is with that same arm I'm going to take it from my elbow from behind me to down and I'm going to lift the other foot off the ground and that gets me that vertical Force compressing creating friction into that leg this is the like pause that I get when I'm running downhill that speed checks me so this doesn't have have to be on a wobbly surface like this I'm just if you happen to have one of these this is another way that you could use it that is helpful um and this also demonstrates why we don't want to be on Squishy surfaces you know why I don't want to be on a bosu ball for this why I don't want to be on um you know I don't want to be on a a foam pad and I'm trying like balance on okay I want to be able to create that compression and load that system now once I've loaded it here I'm going to pull the trigger with thinking heel in and that keeps me going so I need to wait and feel for ha I've totally loaded this spring heel in release it and keep going it gets me the freebie I definitely felt that especially on the hike up on the other side of the Grand Canyon was that there were these kind of logs sunk into the trail that created a bit of a like step up but they were all different and what I noticed the Rhythm that I kind of fell into was that my down leg did this vertical compress thing and I loaded it and that little heel in got me the up leg swinging and coming back to me so the Step Up became very easy I that was the freebie that I got and then i' load this again freebie load this again freebie instead of like having to step up over things so I found there was just less fatigue than a year ago two years ago um climbing uphill and that La last mile and a half was like was like 600 meters it was intense um and it was hot so now I'm going to do the up leg and the the way I'm going to load into that up leg we're all going to have based on the environment um oh yeah okay I'll do the that blade then I'm going to talk about orientation okay so I'll face this way so on my up leg it became more of the elbow coming back back rather than it going um forward but sometimes it did work the thing is is it's the timing of where this arm helps load the system so that I get that compression and again once I get that compression it's heel in because I have weight through that leg okay because I have weight through that leg and I'm anchored there that heel in isn't going to result in the leg turning right my weight isn't in the leg here so yes if I go heel in there's external rotation that's going to happen at the hip but when my weight is through that leg and I'm anchored there I go heel in it rotates me off that point and translates me forward okay so um with the up leg it just looks a little different this again comes with Q angle yeah it's like my up arm doesn't go down it's kind of more of an uppercut let me go forward with you see how this elbow it doesn't do the same thing as the down when I load into this it's this action actually gets me and then heel in I keep going so play for the next bit with like on your walks on your runs can you feel when you become fully compressed if I don't get onto the front tripod of my foot and stret to that first MTP joint if I'm maybe I'm more I I really like roll through my heel so I I didn't compress anywhere there so I couldn't feel the system load so I don't get the freebie out the other side which is fine but over time because I don't get the freebie it's like I'm going to hit a point where I can't do more um because the recovery becomes so much more because I'm not managing the collisions at all I'm not I'm not getting the spring the compression and the free expansion the compression and the free expansion okay which is why we want to learn how to do this because we are designed to compress and get the freebie it isn't just about um getting stronger because I could get stronger but if I still don't know or understand how to compress if if I still don't understand how the feet work if I still don't understand Q angles and then I need that ankle to set that ankle doesn't set I have to wait in until and I never get to that point where the system compresses because the joints are still folding up folding up buckling buckling buckling and so you never get that compressed expansion the freebie I call it um it's like so it it I definitely you know used it at the Grand Canyon and when I was um going up and going down another way you can kind of use it is again if I know how to get this get this compressed okay get this compressed then when I I'm going to use both heels so I'm going to get I'm see I'm go here I'm going to get that compressed both heels the junk becomes the freie but if I'm just here I haven't compressed anything now I have to I have to use a whole bunch of me and even then my brain's like you're not gonna make it like you're not gonna make it up there you're not going to be able to jump up there maybe if I but then I'm starting to compress stu okay but it it's like so pay attention to the signals the system's giving but again if I can compress the system and then do thing it's like I get the freebie the brain doesn't put the brakes on it it goes yeah go so I want you to set up some scenarios or go to a park and play with jumping off something jumping on something and notice the signal you get play with what your interpretation of what I'm saying in terms of fully compress feel it pull the trigger the way I want you to pull the trigger is I want you to think YW the heels okay why YW the heels because you'll know really quickly if you actually have compressed the system and are on created anchor at the fulcrum in the foot where we need it because if you haven't you're you know you're going to move all the way up the line you will get you will get external rotation of the leg rather than a releasing of that compression and the freebie of expansion um so we're going to yaw the heels to go up so you could also play with this on stairs stairs would be another excellent place to play with load that leg compress it use the same arm to help get more juice more compression loading of that side so that when you YW the heel you get the freebie of the other leg cycling up so that's what we're going to work with feel the load do something yaw the heel or heels um and report back to me uh do yesterday's class um I show it using the chains I also show it using the strap I'm just going to talk a little bit about um the chains and the the the difference as I'm playing with kind of both inputs and the one is is that with the chains because they don't deform much it's like I become more elastic whereas when I use a band or when I use a strap I because they deform I feel my stuff become more rigid I become less elastic um I don't recover from that deformation as much because I just like I I I use too much mechanical tension um so give it a try you know give the yoga strap a try or give a band if you've got a band and then use the chain and then I'm going to film some stuff this month that actually combines the chain with the band um because there's some interesting stuff that can help help us I think again find that more elastic um stiff kind of scense the other cool thing is like looking at the chain and the band I've always used like multiple bands to kind of like a stiffer band and a less stiff band to kind of show tendons but we really want our tendons to be really stiff and I think that's actually what the chain kind of helps us learn is a more stiffness of the tendon and a more compliance of the muscle um and so when I put the chain with a band all of a sudden you start to see that as a model right so now this is like the Achilles tendon right or say the hamstring tendon and this is the m the band is the muscle and um whereas I've always ever shown that with like two bands one stiffer than the other but really it's that like how much each of these deforms based on their stiffness and compliance and how quickly they come back and the chains I'm finding are really useful for teaching the nervous system TI some things I I don't I don't quite know I'm still like in the messy process of like feeling and learning and figuring this out I'm like a few steps ahead of you guys um so I don't have it like figured out you're along for the ride with me uh so yeah reach out with your questions hit me up with uh Curiosities cognitive dissonance where you're like this doesn't make sense I'm not getting this um the other place is the chain drill that I shared the other where I was standing on it this is uh a little bit harder but again this can become that like load it feel it because I pull up on the Chain this arm adds to that compressing that side and then get the 3D off of it so there's a few ways you can kind of play with and and figure out for your your s your system how to fully compress one side to feel it and then pull the trigger YW the heels and what's the response what's the output yeah okay I'm going to leave it there have a beautiful rest of your day and look forward to um what you notice discover grapple with and become curious about bye for now