All right, cool. We'll go with the first run at this and we'll see how this intro rolls. Perfect. All right three two and one All right I'm here with our guest chase Phelps the director of sports science at Stanford University Chase has an amazing background and I was fortunate enough to work underneath him at Stanford chase is More than versatile. He has a deep understanding in regards to human physiology But also the technology involved in monitoring athletes and performance in general so chase I'll let you take it away here and Can't talk a little bit about yourself and the journey that you took to get to where you are I personally have heard it multiple times. It's quite interesting and For those listeners out there. It's going to be a good experience to hear exactly how someone of Chase's esteem got to where he is and how the road is not always quite a straight line Hmm. Well, I appreciate you having me on I You must be getting the checks in the mail to have that type of intro Because that's way way over the top on how good I am with my job, but I appreciate it So I think for me, you know, it started I think for a lot of us being in the gym as an athlete You know kind of being one of those guys who's got to work harder to you know Catch up with the other people who are kind of naturally talented So I started off as your general meathead in the gym and high school doing all the dumb Flat bench incline bench decline bench peck deck into, you know all the flies you can do and kind of Started to figure out that I needed, you know a more scientific way I guess to train myself and started out going to a velocity sports performance and you know One of those big kind of box performance gyms and got hooked up really really lucky I hooked up with some people who at the time I didn't know we're ahead of the game But kind of started giving me the wise behind, you know, all the things I was doing in the gym and started kind of carving that path for Laying the foundation so to say so that I went to undergrad play the cross in college And did the exercise science piece started the internships to be a traditional S&C coach on the floor Did let's see Old Dominion Radford Virginia Tech IMG performance You know just kind of laying the coaching trenches laying down on the trenches and trying to kind of get myself the experience necessary to move ahead as a traditional S&C coach So I got really lucky in that I got a job at Hampton University as an assistant and within about seven months of being there the director at the time up and left and They had nobody to help out with football. I got to take over and really at an age that was way too young for me to be in that role. And So that was kind of my first, you know, probably a fire experience being 23 years old, heading up a, you know, as a one double A football program, but still division one football team where, you know, I Was pretty pretty novice at the time and while I didn't mess anything up too bad. It was Definitely I would change a lot of what I did at the time. So I I look back on experience that was extremely valuable. But From there, I actually had a stint where I was unemployed. So a little life lesson is I took somebody's word on a job without having it written out And quit my job at Hampton thinking I had this position set up and literally it fell through the guy was like, Hey, listen, it's not going to happen. I don't know what to tell you. I'm really sorry. So for seven months, I Worked at local gyms private personal training training athletes on the side, basically doing anything I needed to do to maintain coaching, but also to keep an income going. And it's kind of funny because a lot of people don't appreciate that type of setting and the personal training. You're either strength coach. It's not personal training, you know, and A lot of the stuff that I do now I still, you know, I remember picking up because I was working with the client with rheumatoid arthritis, right. So like your ability to to regress and appropriately choose exercise selections. For somebody who's 60 years old and is not very mobile translates very well to return to play in an athlete who just had maybe an ACL surgery. And so I look back on that time. It's kind of a weird one in my life, but it was extremely valuable, you know, in my experiences. So I got really lucky. And kind of the networking piece fell together and ended up working with naval social operations and kind of finding a role in the human performance branch there. Where I was there for a little over three years. I was just incredibly lucky to work with some of the people there, Mark Stevenson and a lot of other guys who are still working there. We're still there now, but they're just they're pushing the field forward, doing a lot of things behind the scenes that I think really kind of kicked off the sports science the kick in the in the US in the last, you know, six to eight years. And so I was really fortunate to kind of diversify my experiences there really start looking at performance and training. I don't want to say like that buzzword of holistic, but just how am I diversifying my ability to understand what each discipline is doing, whether it's a mental performance coach or nutritionist or psych or physical therapist. But how can I better understand those fields to then, you know, make sure that everything I'm doing is complimenting what they're doing. And so I was able to land the job at Stanford initially just to run the sports science department, but I also got a little coaching duties on the side as I work with men's soccer.  So Chase bassfully passed over his lacrosse career. Right. And how many was a multi-time all Americans that correct. I had a couple of years where I was pretty successful so. And I think that's extremely important to highlight because being an athlete you deal with all these departments firsthand. You see it from their perspective. And so one thing that Chase has really taught me is going forward, learning about how you can change to challenge yourself to put yourself into positions that other people are in. And how do you then think about your actions and what you're going to do as a sport scientist in regards to how it not only influences the athlete, but the coaches and other staff around them. And being an athlete you firsthand get to experience how it is to have someone else trying to intervene on your daily routine. And that's also mentioned that Chase is now someone who, I don't know what level of jujitsu he's in, but I know he's tough enough to beat the daylights out of me. And that's something as well he's taught me is that put yourself in situations where you have to be a beginner again. And challenge yourself to have to learn from square one. We get caught in these ruts of progress, progress, progress. You go from a beginner where you first learn how to swing a baseball bat to now you're playing higher level traveling baseball and it's part of your life or for myself basketball. But Chase has taught me is really embrace those opportunities of struggle and whatever way that comes in shape and form and put you in those positions. So you have the ability to actively learn from that. And now mentioning that Chase, in regards to being an athlete, I think there's many things that we overlook as coaches, we apply the idea of an external load, right? We give them sets and reps and weights and we write out these long workouts for the next six months of what someone is going to do. But we can't predict the internal load and being an athlete you understand how it is to not sleep, how it is to maybe stay out a little too late with some of your friends, but how that affects you in regards to an athletic setting to reach the goals that you want to reach. So I want to dive into the topic a little bit about internal versus external load. That's something that you really challenged myself to learn about when I was with you. We talked about that in regards to HRV, sleep and all the above. So I want to hear a little bit about your take on internal versus external load. What specifically is external? Try to touch on what you said as being an athlete. I think that goes, you know, it's almost like every year that you are in the field, you separate yourself from what it feels like to go through the workouts and the daily grind, so to say, right? It's really easy to write up a card and have no thought process about how somebody feels on day six of a week where they've been pulling all day school, two and a half hour, three hour practice, hour weights, and you're like, oh man, we got a great dynamic effort, lower body session, finished off with some, you know, BFR lower body squats.  Whereas we're thinking about optimizing where they may be thinking about, hey, I just need to, you know, put my head down and get through today. So I think that was a great point. But I think going on to the external load piece, obviously the U.S. in the last, you know, six, seven, eight, nine years has exploded. Trying to catch up maybe with Australia and the Europe's of the world who've been really kind of the forefront of this objective collection of needs analysis for sport, you know, whether that's an external load of what they're doing, the mechanical demands of the sport. So how far they're running? What are the physical characteristics that you see the buyer motor capabilities as in, you know, speeds with velocities? Are they typically going to run? How many times are they going to change direction? Really kind of understanding the demands of the sport versus the internal loading piece, which you're going to be, how are these individuals responding to those demands? And I think the key word there being individual, we know that certain athletes are always going to be pushed and filtered into sports that they're naturally good at, right? Like I think we all tend to favor things that we've been successful at. And as we kind of go up through our broken physical education system, we haven't done a really good job, I think, in our country of kind of diversifying and scaling appropriate levels to make sure people are developing in multiple ways.  And I think if we were to kind of cater developmental, developmentally appropriate skill acquisition techniques, and I'm stealing all this from a classmate of mine, Peter Vernon, so you'd be proud, I think. But if you do a better job of scaling, you know, developmental levels, I think you would see more athletes come out of that that would be successful instead of just being like, oh, I'm the tall guy put them under the basket. You know, you would be able to develop more skills. But back to the internal load piece and understanding that like I work with men's soccer. Max, we were talking about this maybe a year ago. I have a guy who logged 20,000 meters in a playoff game last year. You know, that's over 12 and a half miles in one game. And he had played a game two days earlier and had been practicing for four months. And it comes to the question of like, how does somebody do that? Do you train them to do that? Do they just follow the program and all of a sudden they can do that? Or did their, I guess, internal demands to the sport over time, it took years, it took decades. And in my opinion, it took that athlete to play the sport at a high level. You know, for 10 plus years to be able to get that cardiac adaptation that peripheral ability to be so efficient that they can run and change and cut and jump at that intensity. And so an athlete like that, that that internal load, you know, they're going to be very, very effective at mobilizing energy, they're going to be very good at providing blood and oxygen to the to the outside of the body. Whereas, you know, you take not to hit on the sport, but like softball, that's a completely different athlete. And so if you were to ask them to have participating similar demands, we know that internal load would be different. They're going to have an inefficiency that, you know, what I would call like a maybe a struggle to match the requirements of work or mechanical load that you're placing upon the athlete. So I think, you know, it's really important as you start to look at that internal versus external. The external is critical, I think, and a lot of sports, we're just now identifying what is necessary to be successful on the field as in what they're doing. So you can start at that, you know, backwards design and work your program to say here's ultimately what they have to be able to do. This is a worst case scenario on the field. This is how we should cater our return to play protocols so that we know we're working towards ultimately the ideal player in that sport. Interesting. Yeah.  I just make some clarity here in regards to internal versus external load. We talked about external load. We're talking about the amount of work someone actually does. Yes. Right. So the amount of weight being lifted, how fast someone's running, how many pages someone can read. Totally. Right. And in regards to what internal. Sorry, go ahead. It's really what is happening. What are you doing? How much of something? Something you're applying to the body. And then the internal load is the physiological changes that take place. And so the most basic concept is, hey, we're going to give you a weight program. We're going to lift X amount of weight for X amount of days with the external load intending to change the internal environment to grow muscle. And then the more muscle you grow, the more internal load you can handle.  And you increase your ability, whether it be efficiently or the magnitude and size of that bucket to handle a larger, I guess, external load in regards to having a larger internal capacity. And so what you're kind of talking about is when our buckets very specific say we're playing soccer and we change to, you know, let's say tennis or in your case softball you mentioned the softball player would struggle with soccer and the soccer player would struggle with tennis. Because those external loads are so different than the internal capabilities of that individual. Is that correct? Yeah, absolutely. I think I think the higher level you go, you definitely see that specificity of coordinated skills really kind of become, I guess, very niche. And what you typically say, and I actually kind of think it's funny, because I've said it, so I'm guilty as charged, is that you'll look at a soccer player, you know, somebody who can play at the highest level and is sprinting doing all these different, you know, athletic exercises. And then we'll be like, man, they're a bad athlete. They can't skip or look at that squat pattern. Terrible. And, you know, you kind of take a step back and you're like, what was the goal to squatter is the goal to score goals in play soccer.  And at the same time, and I think about that subconscious competence, when you put some money in a gym and a, you know, a new environment where they may not have done these things, they're very aware they're consciously incompetent.  And then you ask them to like, go out on the field and kick a ball around and they're doing these things, they're changing direction, which is basically a squat with shin angles change. They're doing these things fluently, without even thinking about it. So it's like, their ability is there, it's just not in the right context. Interesting. Yeah. So you bring up the concept of someone being consciously aware. Right. So they might be in a nervous kind of state. They're not familiar with the weight room. And that actually brings some level of anxiety, possibly that true. Yes. And that itself may make the weight room, instead of a use dresser, which is something very positive. It might be a distressor. And so they see the weight was negative. And so now they're nervous to work out. And they have to work out, which makes the internal load even larger. So it makes this environment that kind of gets magnified. In regards to that, what other factors influence your internal load? Somebody kind of mentioned was that stress. And obviously their external stressors, especially at Stanford were very intelligent students who are having to go through rigorous testing and schooling. And it's a very competitive environment, not just athletically, but kind of the education side as well. Do those stressors impact your internal load? And if it does, how does that influence the amount of external load as a coach you might provide? Yeah, absolutely. I think it's always going to be multifactorial. It's always going to be, it depends on who's the athlete, what's their background and the sport or the activity you're asking them to do.  Are they eating properly? Are they fueling for adequate activity? Are they getting enough sleep?  I think all those things obviously have an impact. There's been a ton and ton of focus placed on this type of, I guess, capturing that full athlete, whereas maybe years ago you would look at tonnage. And now people want to get tonnage and what that stress load is, what that academic load is, because, you know, research is coming out now that we know that these types of overloaded stressors and stresses, the same stress that, you know, makes you resilient can break you down. So it's really the improper dosing and inability to cope with that load and that stress that creates the problems. But, you know, you look at athletes who are in exam week. There's research talking about that people heal less efficiently. They have immune issues. So you're seeing people get sick. You're seeing that inability to adapt and cope with the demands that are placed on them being significantly altered by some other type of factor outside of a weight room or a field. And I think the fact that the collegiate environment is being more aware to that and teams are trying to, you know, push practice in the morning a little later or they're trying to manipulate schedules so that kids aren't just running straight from class, but they have a little time between to get some type of snack and to have some moment to themselves to take a couple of breaths before they go out.  I think that those types of things while are not massive are significant because they happen 10 to 20 times every day over the span of weeks and years and that's really the problems that chronic build up of a overactivated sympathetic response that may be exacerbated by an athlete's type a their personality of, hey, I'm driven, I'm a high performer, this is what I do, or maybe some of the lifestyle stuff so maybe that there's somebody who, you know, is just pumping refined sugars into their body and creating a flux and blood sugar regulation that again mobilizes cortisol sympathetic response and next thing you know you just in the span of three hours, tagged on six different things, albeit slightly different that had the same outcome on the system, so that internal response becomes very very sensitive to everything you're doing because it's that chronic build up that's really taking its toll on it. Interesting. So we bring up the idea of the sympathetic nervous system and the sympathetic nervous system being broken down. I guess being partnered with I should say, with the parasympathetic nervous system right and that makes up your autonomic nervous system. So for those of you not familiar sympathetic nervous systems your fight or flight. It mobilizes energy. It's looked at to be very important for survival. If we saw a lion during evolutionary times it would help us increase our heart rate, increase auction supply, mobilize energy so we could run away from a lion. But then we had the parasympathetic aspect that branch would help regulate rest and digest kind of the repair and rebuild process. And with that you mentioned the hyperactivity of the sympathetic nervous system.  And if so does that affect some of your endocrinology so how your body responds.  That's a great point I think the, and not to correct you I think what you're saying is absolutely right I think that the key is, is not to constantly counteract sympathetic, but is to bring the body back into a more balanced ability to appropriately turn on sympathetic into appropriately turn on parasympathetic. And what you typically see and I said it so I think you're totally right is sympathetic does become the primary driver. But it isn't all about just turning on sympathetic it's, it's having the ability to use both when you need it. And I think a lot of times the door or the window to that is to drive parasympathetic activity on so that it can kind of restore itself. And then the goal once you're kind of an ability where you have a little bit more of a stability in that is then to have access to both. So talk to me about, I don't mean interrupt Chase but this is something to remind me completely where if someone is chronically sympathetic. Let's say they're in a game situation this kind of goes back to that being stressed out. They might have hyperactivity sympathetic nervous system and correct me if I'm wrong this decentralized sorry, desensitizes the frontal cortex and reduces some individuals ability to make decisions, especially when fatigue begins to set in, because you have areas of stress coming to the body fatigue, the actual stress emotional of the situation. And then the person's internal ability to regulate that that's something you talking to me about and spoken with me about while at Stanford and I found that topic to be extremely interesting and do the fact that it's completely universal. Whether you're an athlete, or you're an individual going in for a job interview, they kind of fall under the same umbrella. Is this the case. Yes, excuse me so I think, ultimately, it's a fine line right so I think the sympathetic nervous system actually has been shown to to enhance some cognitive activities right so it does increase that acute ability to to recall some information. And at the same time, an over driven response of it can almost shut everything down. And that's where you see people kind of like getting up hyperventilating and not being able to perform and really kind of altering some type of thoughtful logical rational action. So I think it comes down to two primary things. It's a primary and secondary appraisal, and this is a psychology based concept, but I think it applies basically to everything in performance and primary that the athlete the person whoever is going to say what is happening and this is subconscious and happening in different aspects of the brain the amygdala not a hypothalamus but your body goes what's what is this. Right, so I look at the analogy of you walk into a bar. All right, you scan the bar you have a very, very fast action or I'm sorry excuse me decision about what is in that bar is it a threat.  Right, so, and then it's that same split second a secondary appraisal happens to the primary that secondary being, do I have the resources to cope with this. And that is really what dictates what type of response the NS is going to send, or the brain will send to the body to stimulate what side of the autonomic nervous system. Right, so if I walk in I say what I don't like this to I hey, I've been in the scenario before it didn't go well. That's when that sympathetic going to kick on because I got to get out of here versus I walk into that same place.  You know, it's my old buddy from college, you're going to have a completely different mobilization of neurotransmitters of hormones, because of your perception of the stressor is completely different and you mentioned you stress distress. And I think that that's the case for everything because not to go on a ramp but if you if you take an athlete who loves running that stress of running is completely different than an athlete who doesn't like running. Right, so their perception of an activity, albeit the same activity will have a different psychophysiological manifestation of stress or load on the body. And so I think, as we talk about mental toughness with our athletes and all of that ultimately comes down to, have you put them in such situations to prepare them to have confidence in them. And that's what's going to dictate some of these positive body responses that you'll see, because they'll walk up to that playing go yep, done this a million times. And that is where you kind of have that mental resilience versus I don't know what's going to happen. I've never done this before if I miss it's going to be the game. And I think when we talk about all of performance and psychology and physiology. It's so intertwined you cannot separate them. We like to separate things we like to have absolutes. We like to wear a monitor on our wrist or our chest that tells us we're tired or that tells us we've been too stressed. But the reality is, is that the individual differences in perception of stress, and my ability, my body's ability to adapt to that stress, based on what type of internal environment is kind of walking around 24 hours a day is going to dictate everything. And that's why it's really tough in a team environment for us to just blast everybody and say, we're going to stress, you know, we're going to do internal load monitoring via HRV. Well, that's fantastic. And I think there's there's merit to that so I'm not saying there isn't. But you better make sure you know a lot about your athletes you better make sure you have the time to learn about their personalities how they handle things what type of family experiences what type of things go into them, making decisions about what they're experiencing. Gotcha. So that's, I couldn't agree more. Yeah, that's beautifully said. One of the things you mentioned there was the idea of HRV, but also the idea of perception. So HRV being a reflection of the autonomic nervous system. And compared to your own baseline, when your HRV numbers lower means you have less variability, which essentially is inferring a higher level of sympathetic drive. And when your HRV is higher, it infers a more balanced state or more parasympathetic state or essentially less sympathetic. Right, right. And so we start using HRV. And we talk about that as an internal tool. They also mentioned the idea of having individuals be in situations that are similar to that sport. Do you think there's a time and place for real time HRV feedback and HRV training? And would you possibly put someone in a situation where they're trying to score that goal or maybe you fatigue them with say a sled push or a prowler push. And then you have their HRV tank and they have to perform a difficult technical task in an attempt to have them auto regulate that HRV so they can perform that task successfully making training and skill development much more specific and beginning to mesh together. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, that's by a feedback one on one, right? That's, that's thought technology, heart math, all those companies out there using that with performance psychologists to see how people, A, handle the stressors implied on them, but how do they bounce back. So the military's been doing this for years and live monitoring HRV on some of the operators and then watching them perform their training going through selection and training phases where they have to handle extremely dynamic and challenging environments where they're under watch, they're being scrutinized every step of the way. And so what we've actually seen is that people who on average, you know, it's not there's anomalies of course, people who take the hit right so you'll see a drop in HRV or increase in sympathetic tone. They will actually bounce back though so having a stressor impact your, your, your body is, is normal, but the ability to rebound and kind of come back to those norms within a relatively quick period of time is what is critical for high performance. You know, they talked about having a five minute or a 300 beat average prior to that activity to get a baseline. What we found and some of the research is coming out now you can actually probably cut it down to one to three minutes. Right. So it becomes much more, I guess, logistically feasible to have guys sit around for one to three minutes, kind of collect that quote unquote baseline and then go about their day. And that's really critical to get that that daily baseline because as we talked about if you're on day six of a long week, your body is functioning and flowing and kind of repair mode it's trying to keep up with what you've been putting it through. So each day that you wake up, you are going to be slightly different than what you were before. So it's not an apples to apples. You got to look at your ability to flux and that allostatic load and your body's proactive decision making to try and match what it was doing in the prior days to that training evolution. Gotcha. So HRV itself. I refer to the check engine light because it doesn't necessarily come from one area and come from emotional and you can stub your toe you can have a lower HRV. And some of the things I've been reading about lately and talking to you about office podcast or text message and kindly enough you respond to my random texts at 930 at night with a slew of articles and 10 questions has been a nutritional slide. Right and the idea of low level systemic inflammation or inadequate nutrition. What I mean by that is that we're putting food into our body under the assumption that this is going to give us a positive effect. But really sometimes the foods that we put into our body are causing a stressor on our system because either a they're so foreign to us in regards to the way they're processed or be the simple sugars in them and I mean simple in terms of you're eating a fruit loop. Have an effect on our body that can take us down a road that necessarily isn't positive for adaptation and just like HRV is affected by your psychological perception. I've been reading a little bit about HRV is kind of a systemic monitor and how it can be influenced by nutrition. In regards to that nutritional aspect. I know we've talked a little bit about biomarkers and some of the diving deep into internal medicine and understanding that our body is very complex. It's made up of all these subsystems and how one subsystem acts might affect how another subsystem acts. As we gain these risk factors of inadequate nutrient status our overall risk profile increases and the idea that we might have an emergent pattern in terms of an illness manifests increases. So I want to hear some of your thoughts on some of the internal medicine where that's going. In regards to biomarkers for athletics human performance and just general wellness. I know you're not a physician and you're not ordering blood work and diagnosing off blood work but being a sports scientist I do think it's important to appreciate and understand some of these concepts. And you have a great in depth knowledge in this area so I'd love to hear a little more about it. Yeah no I think that's an area and by no means to mine expert right I just read a lot of things in copy what other people say so I have to always say that you know that's what we always kind of hang our hat on is that if you go through the research you're basically taking somebody else's thoughts interpreting to your own. So my experiences with this are personal and what I've seen a professional setting and I'll kind of touch on the personal piece because I think you know as we talked about being an athlete and understanding what people go through our own experiences can drive a lot of how we make decisions with their athletes or clients or whoever we're working with and that basically for 25 years of my life I've been on some form of allergy medicine allergy shot the congested Z pack to get rid of a science infection you name it I had I had it and I had multiple science infections for every year and not one time I went to your nose and throat doctors I went to you know allergy specialist not one time didn't ever anyone ever bring up what are you putting in your body and you know it took you know I went to Dr. Jim LaValle seminar last summer and it took somebody while he's very good but it took somebody to kind of like say hey man like you know it's not just isolating the symptom and giving you an antihistamine or something like that you got to think that you're in a systemic state of inadequacy your body doesn't have the ability to recognize normal nutrients as you eat things but then also it doesn't have the ability to recognize some of the I guess the things that are supposed to be normal now become pathological and it's just complete this functional cycle and so for me I literally just he said hey do me a favor stop eating dairy okay yeah I love cheese but we'll do that and I literally within three to four days every single allergy symptom I had went away I haven't had any issues for seven and a half months I haven't taken a single thing I haven't had any issues I haven't gotten sick once and it was just one thing I come to find out I have a lactose allergy and not only did it affect me like with GI distress but it affects chronic states of allergy so my body was perceiving things as the enemy and the immune system was essentially creating that inflammatory response to deal with them so I think that first and foremost I started just looking at maybe people are eating things that they may have a low grade inflammatory response to I was taking NSAIDs I was taking NSAIDs like they were handy since I was 16 years old you know being an athlete you get a home of practice your knees hurt your ankle hurts whatever happens you know you just take them so that you can you know keep on going to practice the next day I was taking ZPACs I was taking prednisone all these things basically put my body in a state of shock to a point where it couldn't actually regulate normal immune functions and so to kind of take that into my work and professional environment and we have athletes who are under that significant academic stress social stress and physical stress what we also see is they're just like me and then they were taking NSAID they were taking you know prednisone they're taking corticosteroids for asthma exercise induced asthma they were taking all these things that basically is driving the body into a state of alarm where it doesn't have a normalcy to it so we're not seeing the immune system actually do its job we're seeing a chronic sympathetic response basically to everything that's being put into the body and so with that low grade inflammation that's happening over weeks months years you get that inability to handle external loads then that's where that internal load becomes so critical but what we're once is maybe a resilient person now they're getting the sniffles every three weeks now they're they're walking around with some type of telphemeral tendonitis and I think that we so easily look at oh they landed on it funny in practice oh they they took a bumper of ruse for somebody but maybe that is exacerbated or maybe that's highly sensitive due to the fact that the body isn't able to function under normal circumstances no that's there's a lot of topics and I want to dive into I guess one of those immediate topics that's most applicable for individuals the idea of NSAIDs and how I mean when I was in middle school I must have taken maybe six four or five before a game when I was playing and it felt nothing of it I can only imagine what that's doing to my internal you know my stomach and my gastric system and how much chewed up there's actually been a lot of information that's come out regarding tendon healing and the adaptations of it you've talked you were I think the first one to bring this to my attention and some of the detriment of NSAID itself and some of the alternatives we could possibly have such as curcumin and things that don't necessarily tear our system up if you have any thoughts on that and how that might play a role then okay we have this functional medicine world now how do we apply that into you know physical therapy and if we're trying to have tendon adaptations in regards to isometrics we might be doing them to increase longevity and reduce tenonopathy or for filling someone up with NSAIDs are we really getting the bang for the buck that I want to get or are we just causing more harm than good yeah absolutely I think you know you said it right there and that are you taking that risk reward on using that I guess short term you know that pill to is it overriding what you truly want in the long term okay so we talked about adaptation you mentioned it well we've seen that NSAIDs actually have a destruction of satellite cells so when you're normally building muscle and you're having some of these repair cells come in to help stimulate regeneration NSAIDs will actually blunt that response to COX one and two being the primary enzymes associated with that will actually get shut down and when they do you're literally stopping your body from adapting and growing so I talked to my my soccer team all the time about I'm like guys you guys you want you're wearing the sleepless shirts you want to fill those things out let's not take away from what already isn't there you know and I think you know when we start looking at as you mentioned it healing in their early stage return to play and now I'm never going to say hey you know you shouldn't do that that's always up to the doctors and the medical professionals but I think that there's lack of thought for long term maladaptation so you mentioned it do we alter collagen proliferation for the expense of just taking down some swelling and irritation. Maybe that pain first pain response can be better handled by Tylenol or whatever else somebody thinks because I think it's critical especially you know you see the two different primary types of collagen type one and type three. They've seen that there is a blunted response and how that tendon regenerates.  But does this athlete need that or is there something else we can do that's going to make sure that when I am doing BFR or whatever BFR isos to maximize tendon thickness or tendon restructuring or whatever I'm doing. Are we going to throw baby out with the bathwater are we going to hurt something you know for the expense of you know what's easy and what we know from a western medical model. Yeah that's very interesting and one of the things by the way I want to clarify for those not familiar with terminology and said they're not sorry chase I'll let you go ahead they interrupt you real quick and said they're things like ibuprofen and Advil. Non-stereoidal anti-inflammatory.  Things like ibuprofen and Advil I used to take like six Advils before I played basketball because when it came out. I knew no better. It made my knee feel better and take more the merrier but again it's coming out that we're really tearing up our system. But what's interesting is we look at some of the inflammation studies. You look at older adults. It brings up the idea that as we age we get in such an inflammatory state for taking things like NSAIDs which are known to possibly reduce adaptations and individuals who are healthy. It actually increases muscle growth. And some of those older adults because their level of inflammation is so high systemically that taking something as like an NSAID or Advil which we think is bad actually increases adaptation. And they just show I just read a paper probably 30 minutes before this that showed curcumin has a potential effects to do the same which might be a healthier alternative to NSAIDs. In regards to reducing inflammation. And one topic I want to get on to that you mentioned it up and you opened the can of worms on this so I blame you is blood flow restriction training. You called it BFR. And for anyone listening, Chase is the one of the most well versed individuals in this area. I learned from him probably weekly on it. And I get studies from him. It used to be daily probably a little less consistent now because he's probably realizing that I can't read that fast. But I'm going to chase to talk a little bit about some of the protocols that you use BFR and how you can use it for not just athletic development for individuals who might just be seeking an alternative way to work out whether it be older protocols, people who travel on the road, and what it does physiologically for not only muscle growth, but the tendon thickness like you said, and some of the other other protocols such as cellular swelling protocols. Yeah. Yeah, I think, you know, the one thing I would say about our previous conversation with NSAIDs thing is I'm not telling people not to take them out like running around saying that that's the devil and all that so I like I make sure that I'm not like one of the most zealots about that stuff it's it's just hey do you need it you know like this that thought process is critical is this necessary not let me just pop them because I'm sore today right I think that's the caveat I want people to walk away with is that everything is necessary if it's necessary and if it's not is there a better alternative or is it just part of life is that part of being a division one athlete or you know somebody who's recreationally fit is you're going to feel a little sore and tired is it necessary to take that pill that may negatively affect you. So I think that's one thing I want to say but kind of moving on to the you're not a zealot I will vouch for it. Yeah, it's an interesting topic to talk about, and I give you credit for being open minded on both ends. Yeah, everyone was concerned. Yeah. Yeah, I wanted to throw that out there. But I think with the BFR stuff. It's so I've learned a lot from a man, Dr. Ed Lucera. He works with the smart tools company which they're just absolutely revolutionizing how available and the education that's available for restrictions so I, you know, I, I'm going to kind of pass on that credit and say that they're really pushing the field forward and I'm not affiliated with the company I just think what they're doing is it's fantastic work because what what for restriction obviously has been around for a long time it's not new. You know, we're not pretending it's new but you know it's really the availability of cuffs for affordable affordable prices is made it seem, you know, refreshed and kind of a new life to it. Started in the late 90s, you know, Japan really doing a lot of the early research on it. A lot of people started with tying off with different straps and, and bands that they're just wrapping around their arms and looking for, you know, in a partial conclusion and some cases probably dangerously at full ischemia. But I think you saw it in most recent years with some of the Owens recovery and the Delphis, which come at a pretty high price tag and, as I mentioned, smart tools has come out they have much more affordable I think it's, you know, attended the price. And so now you're able to put these types of, you know, tool and everybody's hands and I think it's changing the landscape as far as a modality that has multiple uses and that's one thing when we talk sport science we talk technology. You know, everything has a time and place. But when I look and evaluate and vet out technology or whatever we're going to bring on as a new resource. I always look forward to have multiple uses does it have a bang for your buck. And I think the blood flow restriction does it's versatile it can be used in rehab it can be used to build muscle can be used for strength. It can be used as an activity potentiator so you can use it potentially increase your subsequent performance with an acute time window. You can use it as a recovery tool. So I think that the, the utilization of it is still we're learning about it there's still no definitive here's how this happens in this sequence. And that's with everything right the human body we're learning so much about it, but the science that's there has proven that low load with blood flow restriction where we were including 100% Venus return, but partially including arterial inflow. There's no blood flow going into the muscles and the periphery, but there is no blood flow returning. And so it creates a pooling effect, or essentially you're going to limit the availability of oxygen, you're going to decrease the pH and more acidic. Deplete phosphor creating stores, you're essentially going to run through the size principle and use up small slow twitch fibers and skip essentially right to fast twitch fibers with a low load, or even a non loaded exercise. So I think when you talk about somebody who's got limitations, maybe they just had surgery they can't run they can't have the impulse of the impact that you would need or you would want to see to kind of develop the musculature as they come back. Blood flow restriction is a great way because it takes a low load exercise and use utilizes that restricted pooling and you get a subsequent fast twitch adaptation so you're stimulating the big boys the ones that move us the ones that make us jump and run faster. And I think you're seeing time windows of adaptation that are a sixth of the time faster you're getting strength and I purchased the adaptation in two weeks, whereas in traditional resistance training it was taking eight to 12.  I need to make sure that the muscles around the knees and the hamstrings the PMOV all this critical drivers and sport aren't just wasting away so we would have athletes. Obviously in the rehab setting doing protocols to develop muscle but also just sitting the act of just sitting with the conclusion passively not doing anything has been shown to cut atrophy by 50%.  So, lots of lots of utility for it. Interesting. So, for those not familiar blood flow restriction training, the way it works you got a cuff. Hopefully a cuff not just an elastic band you're tying on but that's how it started originally for katsu training out in Japan so it's a cuff that attaches proximally on the limb, typically up by the shoulder, or up along the thigh, and it includes the amount of blood so reduces the amount of blood. Go go into the muscle, which then allows these series of physiological effects that chase alluded to. Now there's a difference between Venus and arterial occlusion and chase in regards to that. One of the specifics are for people who aren't as familiar with blood flow, you rattle off a bunch of stuff regarding blood flow and some of the adaptations of it but people who aren't familiar with it you measure the occlusion through Doppler. I believe smart tools uses a remote Doppler that you're attached to on a distal limb and and when using this what percentages do you use how do you know what is it too much occlusion is it too tight, is it not tight enough. These protocols that you use once you have the right occlusion for that limb to increase some of these hypertrophy some muscle growing activities, or you know just sitting there, playing on your phone activities that reduces hypertrophy for your athletes. So what you're doing is you're actually going to take an external Doppler or something that's going to allow you to magnify the sound of the pulse right so if you take radio pulse, you know right here, you would place the Doppler on it you would actually be able to hear the heartbeat. As it pumps through and up top they're wearing the cuff, you're going to slowly start to inflate it, it gets tighter tighter tighter, and you will eventually get to a point where that that pulse will start to fade of this. And it comes to a point where you it's not existent. And so that's when you know that there's been full arterial occlusion. That's their 100%. There is no blood flow into that arm there's no blood flow out it is occluded. The research has shown that basically anywhere from 30% to 90% you're going to have the same amount of occlusion so if I was to explain that a little bit more detail is, so I'm going to take that 100% occlusion number so if you've ever done your blood pressure and the typical one of perfect blood pressure is 120 over 80. And that's the same device we're going to use I mean it's it's a pigment monomometer, the tough one to say, and you're going to get a number up there like let's just say 250. Alright, so that's your 100% occlusion. What, again, research has shown is that in 30% of 250 all the way up to 90% of 250. And that's the sweet spot for occluding arterial that actually doesn't improve occlusion as the higher you go so we stick to 50%. So, you know 50% of 250 is 125. You're going to have just as much as if you did it at 90%. And really the difference is pain perception because if you start getting up to 100% inclusion and telling somebody to exercise. They're not going to like it it's not going to feel good so it's a nice sweet spot of saying hey we have the occluded arterial, but not fully restricted but we have restricted Venus, but we can still move and be active. And so with that, what you're really looking to do there's a 30 15 15 15 protocol that's seen pretty commonly, but ultimately you just need to fatigue the muscles you need to have a low load exercise that's done for high volume, typically 15 plus reps for multiple sets with a minimal rest period. So what we're trying to do is we're trying to allow for blood to be flow pumped into the muscle, you're going to actively, you know, contract over time it's going to stimulate fast twitch fibers. You're going to rest for a very short period, more blood flow is going to go to the area it's going to keep getting more acidic it's going to keep activating more fast twitch, and you're going to just repeat that and so. I mean it really really magnifies the response of typically a weight or resistance that would be almost no impact on you at all you would have no performance benefit from using a weight that light. So you can really use it as you know in a rehab setting with an athlete who has very little capability to handle load, or you can use it as a finisher in your body builder and you want to stimulate a muscle group that's lagging and you really want to build it up. And it's the fantastic thing I think about it is it's a minimally damaging activity. And what I mean by that is that you're going to have a dramatic reduction and creating stores of CK levels, my globe and you're not going to get the same mechanical breakdown that you see with typical resistance training. So now you start talking about internal load and HRV. If you were to substitute an in season lift with BFR, you're still going to get strengthened and hypertrophy adaptation without the potential systemic load that maybe a typical resistance training session does. So now you start talking about minimizing internal responses, but it's still getting adaptation. So, it's pretty, pretty amazing. Yeah, that's, that's something so I've seen personally as well.  So when we're talking about occlusion we're talking about reducing the amount of arterial occlusion, but not the amount of venous occlusion so you're allowing blood to pool to an extent. So in large amounts of dilation, you increase the amount of capillaries in that area. But you're also not breaking down the muscle in the same way that you would otherwise. So when you're lifting a heavy load you have the fibers themselves begin to essentially tear apart and your body has to rebuild these. But now we're increasing hypertrophy. So growing the muscle without having to have this breakdown response in the muscle itself. So being said, the loads that you're using are also 20% of your one rat max. So a very, very light load. You're using to fatigue. How does that affect the tendon itself because one thing I've noticed personally, and this is not I'm not saying you should do this.  But when I started doing BFR low level plyometrics, when I started inducing some of those shearing forces on the tendon to increase adaptation that area that otherwise might not be there with a low load. I started to see much better results in my knee, compared to some of the tempo work. Now do you do anything specifically with BFR that might target the tendon outside of the traditional 30 wraps 15 wraps 15 wraps 15 wraps with a low load. Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. I think, you know, some of the isometrics that we talked about when you were working in Stanford and having that analgesic effect so having the ability to have pain mitigation and acute windows of what 15 to 45 minutes. But also the collagen proliferation so you're getting an increase in human growth hormone that is like 170% times greater after a workout which we know HGH doesn't necessarily build bigger muscles, but it does stimulate collagen growth. So when you're having somebody who is maybe coming back from a rupture to Achilles or another, you know, it is erosis issue. You know, it's a great way to help promote an environment and maybe an abascular area, and it kind of forces nutrients and a hormonal shift that may promote a more healing environment. I think, you know, we talked about briefly the training piece. I think, you know, the more that you can start to get people into. I'm not overly dramatic sports specific person but I think the more you can get people into activities that are going to be replicated on the field. You know, whether it's sled pushes and walks or whether it's, you know, having some type of, you know, activity if you're a pitcher where you're getting your arm through these ranges of motions that are going to be necessary while using the inclusion is actually going to promote a lot of ongoing benefit I think to rehabilitate the area in a functional manner and develop not only the musculature but also promote the properties around that specific tissue that needs to be healed. So I think there's there's some really cool things that are just now kind of being played with just because we can actually dial in the proper conclusions we can actually dial in what we want to see happen with you, whether it's some of the salesful protocols that we're doing or these scheming preconditioning protocols where we're having athletes sit for extended period of time passively with their occlusion set and then they're going to reproduce we're going to allow blood flow back in and we're going to do that repeated intervals prior to activity and see potential for increased power output, oxygen kinetics. The research is pretty amazing with some of the schema preconditioning and that they're seeing increased time to exhaustion decrease time trial performances, but they don't really know why you know there isn't like a clear mechanism for performance gain. So that's been totally identified just yet. There has been stuff where it's shown to attenuate lactate levels. So you obviously know cellular respiration is enhanced because you're not getting that amount of hydrogen present in the blood so you may be potentially a more efficient energy user using more, more fat and oxygen so that's great there. But I think, you know, as the research starts catching up that piece is that's one thing that I'm looking at doing for my my research focus for school is that I'm going to have a more efficient piece. If I'm already going to be sitting around before a game or if I'm going to have time between events like a track and field event or, you know, full event. And I know I can sit here passively not use energy, provide a stimulus to the body that's going to potentially open up neural pathways or physiological mechanisms to increase contractability of the muscles. And maybe get that extra 10th of a second I'm going to throw an extra, you know, couple feet on the javelin I'm going to do whatever I need to do, potentially at a higher level and I think that's really as we're pushing towards performance.  And I think this is going to add one more little layer to it that from an investment piece is minimally invasive is minimally changing to their to their schedule. They don't have to do anything crazy. They feel good I think that's the biggest thing is the anecdotal feedback on it is man I feel great I feel like I have to. I don't have to do a full warm up I feel like I can just kind of get out there move around we still have them do stuff but they just feel like they've warmed up faster and I think that piece is going to be really cool to see if we can demonstrate some empirical evidence on it. Yeah, though that I'm excited to see the research and I know you're working hard on it. It's kind of a great topic you brought the kind of really brings this full circle because you look at BFR. It increases the acid in the area and lactate production and increases autonomic nervous system arousal, which has been shown both to increase cognitive abilities neuroplasticity and ability to enhance memory. And so while you're doing this it's also not only priming the body for the upcoming activity, but you're also priming the body as a whole in regards to its mental capacity and not just the muscular area. And so when you start looking at that, you know, full system of the human body and how we kind of talked about a little bit here some dynamical systems where, you know, the body is really complex and what happens in one area affects another.  And so you have feedback up and feedback back down. And that's just a great, you know, highlight you brought up because now it's really inclusive where we're so often thinking this isolated manner. Oh, if we bench this or if we run this this will happen. But we don't think about it in this recursive loop manner, where what I do to my muscle, right our muscle releases these myotines I go talk to our brain which then go back and talk to our muscle and we have the endocrine system working together to orchestrate this all. And just the whole idea of BFR before game it's not just right the muscles and the ischemic preconditioning, but it's also the fact that you put in the person in a state that's more conducive to performance itself because so often, and this isn't to go on a rant and I apologize and this is something I talked about, right, we're not avoiding the sympathetic state. Right, we don't want to be sitting there before game, doing deep belly breathing, because we need to be ready to roll. There's a reason why you get excited in these situations, and it's a really excellent full loop example of how it all kind of comes together there.  And so with that to your point of it's all connected is you have an athlete who potentially is going to get a benefit from that. But we're also, you know, and they'll never watch this so I'll say it. In planting that placebo.  Like, I'm implanting that sense of this is going to work because placebo effect works we know it does. So there's a little bit of, you know, mix of art and science and how we implied these technologies and saying, hey, like, hey Logan just so you know you wear this before that game your ankle will feel better you're going to feel looser you're going to feel faster, and just letting them roll with that. And don't need to tell them anything else. And I think that to your point of it's all connected can then is whatever intervention you want to then increase performance. Yeah, and I'll avoid a rant here. I'll keep it short I promise, but what you hit on is perfect, especially in the sense that look at some of the studies regarding attendance, they'll look at it and see that the tenant itself is healthy yet they feel pain. And they've done law studies where they're saying an external stimulus. So something like a metronome in the background and you're focused on the stimulus, instead of the pain. And you'd now begin to de associate your knee with pain, because the stimulus and regards to the tempo that's going on the background, you're doing it while you do an exercise. So now because you're focused on this external stimulus while during exercise you begin to disassociate pain with your, you know, knee or tendon during that movement, and just really shows how coupled the system is, and how our brain talks to our body body. And if we perceive that we're healthy, right, you said, Oh, mixing the art and the science, well, you're mixing the science and the science right you're, you understand that perception is reality. And it's not necessarily we like to call it art because there's no number to put behind it. But really it's, you know, the science that our body is deeply interconnected.  And regardless of what external load we put in no matter how hard you want to work, if your internal system isn't able to handle the stimulus you're going to put on it. In terms of the load you're going to give, then what we're doing is, it's really falling short of what we're actually trying to accomplish, because we're essentially using external load to infer what's going on. There's so many things that go on inside the body, outside of external load that we're only using one system to monitor the internal system. We're kind of, I don't say falling short but not maybe doing all that we can do. I think the, you know, not to rant myself, but that's one of the biggest mistakes that we as S&C practitioners make is the assumption with general adaptation syndrome theory that you're getting people and that they're adapting at the rate into the dose that you think is appropriate that we're making that assumption as to where they're at. And we say, oh, they're at homeostasis and we're going to imply two weeks of a loading scheme and then we're going to unload and then we're going to push it higher because they're going to super compensate.  I think that we want that to be the case because we want to feel justified and feel good at what we do. But in many cases, you really have to dial in all the factors associated with overreaching all the factors associated with performance and mix them and have checks and balances to see truly if somebody is where you think they are and if you got them to where they are. And if not, what was the reason why? Was there an energy insufficiency? Was there a micronutrient problem? Was there associated stress damaging the functioning the HPA axis? All those things have, you know, they come into play, but we are so rigid and a lot of our thinking, me included, I'm totally guilty of this. We work in four to six week blocks. Oh yeah, my, you know, my unload is going to be at week three. Well, maybe your own unload should be at week nine. You know, like, how do you know that they're not ready for more and more and more, you know, so that I think that assumption of not necessarily taking into consideration that connectedness between all these systems can get us into trouble. It can make us have false positives, I think. I think we really can grasp onto stuff that's not there. No, that's, that's, that's couldn't be said better because we like to make it simple because we can understand simple. And when we make it complex, we realize we don't really understand that much. But the more we appreciate that's complex, the more we can appreciate how applying something simple like we think a load 10 pushups really isn't as simple as it may be. And that at times can cause paralysis by analysis where you have so many things going on at once and to consider. I'm not saying that we need to sit there and measure every single subsystem and I know you're not either. But the idea that we need to appreciate that and see where can we maybe refer to turn to that isn't just in the lane of how much weight do we lift and how much load we give someone. But what other factors could be involved in that athlete's life that's not giving the results that we think this external load should be leading to. And it's a great check engine light because now we have this external load. Hey, I expected to be here in three months and you're not there. That's okay. Because who knows who's fault is no ones. But the idea is that now we can turn different people because we didn't see the expected results. We can dive a little deeper. And that's allowing us to utilize our resources, whether it's a friend you know a doctor you know another practitioner and you know to help arm us with the information to be the best that we can be. Yeah, I think that's where the external load comes in right. You got to know if they're not meeting the expectations or the desired outcomes.  Are they typically being asked to do something that isn't looking normal that would then we can kind of backtrack and see how they were doing it, what the factors associated with that internal load were. And again, we don't, we don't monitor everything we don't think it's necessary. We try and find what's appropriate for each team and scenario, but I think, again, if you're mindful, and you know your athletes and you know the scenario of what you're trying to put them in. You can then kind of use your coaching eye to say okay, what are the things that I think may be influencing or providing maladaptation, you know, towards the desired stimuli or desired outcome. Now, what are we doing to them that we should be seeing or think we should be seeing. And if I know them, what is potentially a confounding variable to that. You know, that's perfect, you don't assess everything a because you can't and be no one has time, but you assess what's pertinent, and you're aware of what's pertinent, and you act as a check engine light and facilitate where you can. That's, that's well said, because I think both ends we say oh let's be so simple and just do this or let's only do this aspect over here. But when you take in consideration all of it, you allow yourself to be the best you can be in your position that you're in, because you're not trying to solve everything, you're just trying to facilitate where you can. That's perfect well chase I don't want to hold you up too long. And I really appreciate you being here. I want to wrap it up but before we finish it up here I got, I guess, two questions for you. And I didn't send them to you ahead of time. So there I can. If you don't have a quick answer that's fine. The first one is it's pretty simple. I don't mean resources in terms of oh go to PubMed, or go to this paper, but are there any individuals out there that you can possibly listen to or find that you have found to be very informative and not just in terms of all that's good information, but something that's changed the way you think about how you do your job. I'm talking to you right now. Challenge a lot of my my thoughts and, you know, how I address, you know, some of the biomechanics and physics of what we're doing, you know, it's definitely not an area that I'm strong in and I think you've done a great job of putting information out there for the public to, to, you know, be able to digest an easy manner. You know, a public resource, you know, this may sound kind of cheesy and maybe a little bit of bro sciencey but I still retination and go to like all those, you know, you know, Jim Wendler sites and read all the West Side stuff and, you know, I think you can't isolate science and say oh it's just data or oh it's just, you know, pumping out research out of a lab or oh it's physiology or it's technology I think each practitioner is going to have their own flavor and what they like and what they bring to the table. And I think that we need to cater to that each person should say hey this is what I'm good at these are my skills. I want to learn more about X and if X so happens to be baseball and throwing and overhead athletes then, you know, you're going to find the Mike Reinholds the air crassies and really dive into that and if you want to know about traditional periodization schemes and force plates you're going to look at the stone stuff you're going to look at half you're going to look at people who are you know early pioneers in it. So I think, you know, I don't have a necessarily a one person go follow but it's more of a question to the question is, what do you want to know about what do you like what's something that's really really, you know, kind of hits the button for you, and then just start Google and stuff start you know type in these these keywords in and people will start popping up and I think that's my development has come has jumped the greatest I guess leaves is when I started diving into these rabbit holes of what do I want to learn about right now and just saying for the next two weeks. I'm going all in on, you know, let's see, saturation loss muscle oxygen SMO to know I'm just going to learn everything I can about my globin and hemoglobin and hematocritin and all that stuff. So it's really more about finding what you want to know at that time and just doing a deep dive, and then finding something else and doing a deep dive.  And my last question for you chase and this might be a tough one for you to answer, be that you are the ghost of social media. The king of the king of trolling my page. Yes, people are interested. The people are interested in following up on what you're doing. Where can they find more information about yourself. What links or handles either Twitter, Instagram, would you advise them to look up into and keep a tab on yourself. You know, the only thing I'm using as I have an Instagram and at underscore chase felt so it's it's simple it's I like to, I like to troll you and, and fight in every now and then but that's basically what I got I got a couple posts up there but maybe maybe if I get a little help we'll see how it how it grows. I highly advise you guys following him, because we can need to push him to post more stuff. I shouldn't be the only one privileged to get his text messages at obscure hours, highlighting some interesting topics. I would love for it to be shared publicly. So I'm not being the third party siphon off his knowledge and posting it. Yeah. Well, thank you chase. I really appreciate you hanging in here and being able to be our first guest. You're the reason why I wanted you on first you quite a bit, but a big role in my development and continue to, and we all wish the best for you. It really was great to have you here and thank you. All right man I appreciate it was a lot of fun. All right awesome. Well thank you guys for listening. Again, my handle here is strong. Sorry at strong underscore by science. I did that all wrong. It's at strong underscore by underscore science. I should know my own handle by now by use Instagram. I think my Twitter's handles at strong underscore science who knows we'll make a link to it. We'll be sharing this podcast here shortly with different clips as well for those of you who don't have the attention span to listen to an hour 20 minute podcast. We'll dice some of this up. So thank you guys for listening really appreciate it. Take care.


I think Europeans in some agreement, which is unusual. Unusual, they're greedy. Mark of the Heriot match will start, and then Marino, then Nick Ashford of the London Times, Tom Keelinger of the Belt. We have time. You mean if I filibuster on the first question, I don't have the time? That's right. That's right. As long as I'm the guy that will take eventually. Do you think so? Yes. Well, Mr. President, Mr. Mitterrand is the first French president with a socialist president in France. He invites his fellow heads of state and government into King's Palace. How do you feel about all that? Well, having been a visitor at Versailles myself once before, some years ago, I'm looking forward to it, to seeing all that beauty again. Well, it seems to me that it wasn't Louis XIV known as the Sun King. Maybe we'll all go there for enlightenment. And how close you are with Mr. Mitterrand and what kind of relationship, how often do you communicate with him and how do you feel? Well, I don't know what the schedule has been for previous presidents, but in this year and a half or so that I've been here, I have met several times, more than once, with all the leaders that I will be meeting with in a very open relationship in the meetings that we've had in Ottawa and in Cancun, here in Washington. And I think it's been a most helpful thing. I think we have a closer relationship, perhaps, than has existed before. And I mean all the leaders of the Northern American Alliance will be summit meeting that will be there in Versailles. But in between the meetings, do you communicate and how with the language barrier and all that? Well, we have to resort to interpreters and I've learned to get along with that. Some of the others, I speak some English. I had a couple of years of schoolboy French many, many years ago because it was compulsory in the school that I attended, but I couldn't rely on it myself now and I shouldn't be taking up all this time. But I told the president about an experience that I had with having to use French the first time that I ever went to France. I went with a couple from England, been in London for the winter and we went across the channel in the spring to go down to the south of France. I didn't know that they had never crossed the channel before and they knew not one word of French and we were going to drive in their car. And I realized that if there was any communication it was going to be up to me and we were coming to a town where we were going to have lunch. And I was thinking and trying to dredge up all the words that I could remember as to how to find the best café. And as words began to come back to me I sort of patted my part. And we did arrive in a little town there was a gendarme on the street we pulled up the siding and by this time I was ready. I said, pardon me, je suis grand fan, who will am I a café? But with six Western European head of states and government you'll all be having a meeting again together and again this may sound unusual perhaps to some. What have you accomplished since then? Not only in a personal level but also in terms of politics. What have you accomplished collectively? For instance that you could not accomplish separately. Well I've always believed that a lot of problems are resolved if you are talking to each other instead of about each other. And I think that there have been tensions in the past that have affected us as allies and friends. We all share a great many mutual problems. We're all having economic problems, unemployment is a problem for us. And I think that the bond, the personal bond that we've established has created a relationship that is very close and that makes us able to discuss openly and freely those things that are of mutual interest to us. Those problems where maybe we can solve them better together than we can by going our own way. Last year you heard some complaints from Europeans on the high rates of interest in the United States and you told them that the United States was suffering from those high rates as well. Certainly your assertion looks a little bit more credible now. And now the Europeans are complaining about unemployment which does great damage to the social and economic fabric of Europe, of Western Europe. What will you tell them now, given the fact again that unemployment is also a problem in this country, it's low recovery, what will you be discussing with them in concrete ways to face this problem? I think that the answer has to be a correction. You can't correct unemployment unless you correct the problems that have caused a virtually worldwide recession and these have to do with trade. These have to do with important export and I think all the things that we can put on the table that may be restricting the free flow of trade, things that could stimulate markets are essential to that. When they had the feeling about the high interest rates, I believe there was an honest misunderstanding that they thought these were somehow a part of our policy, of our economic policy that we were using high interest rates because of our double digit inflation. They weren't and I think they've begun to realize that we have here in the Federal Reserve system an autonomous body that is not subject to pressure of any kind from those of us who hold office but that in addition the interest rates are set somewhat very much by the marketplace itself, the money market here and we believe that in our case the high interest rates were the result of inflation. Well now we have brought inflation down. The Doomcriers were saying a year ago that it would take ten years to get a handle on the inflation problem. Well last month inflation actually disappeared for a month in America and we had deflation and now this last month or the month after that well it came up just a fraction of a percentage point above the level. We're down to where for the last six months inflation has been around the 3% mark and when these, I think that we're going to see even more improvement as we go on through the year on an annualized basis is down to that point. We think this is a big factor and that if we in our Congress now can get the savings that we're asking for in the budget for 1983 we think it will send a signal to the money markets that will bring interest rates down further. We don't believe that we were the cause of Europe's problems we could point to Italy's own interest rates which are twice and three times the interest rates of Germany and Japan and they I don't think it had any effect on those countries but I think that they now understand that this was not a deliberate part of an economic policy this was a problem that we're trying to leg. If I could follow up on that point Mr. President while inflation has come down most of the other economic indicators are still fairly grim I talk about the rate of corporation failures savings that haven't really picked up and unemployment of course is at almost record levels and then one's also got this record budget deficit as well. At Ottawa last year you linked the question of interest rates to a revitalization of the US economy but this revitalization doesn't seem to have started yet. What has gone wrong from this end and when will you be able to assure the European leaders that happy days are here? I don't believe that anything has gone wrong. I think that many people confuse the adoption by Congress of the first phase of our plan with the plan being an operation. You have to realize we asked for we believe very much in the incentive tax package that we passed the reducing of taxes but that's to be spread over a three year period. We had asked for originally three ten percent cuts in the income tax we got one five percent cut and then the other two were ten percent but they have not yet gone into effect. We had also asked those tax cuts to be retroactive to January 1st, 1981 and we in the compromise that goes on in a parliament or a congress we had to take the best that we could get. The five percent cut, not ten, went into effect not until October, last October. We did see an immediate increase in personal savings rates after that had happened because of some features of the tax program but if there is an incentive to those tax cuts as we believe there is we have to wait until people are actually getting those cuts and having that extra money in their pockets. So the next cut, the ten percent cut will go into effect July 1st and then the next one a year from then in July of 1983. So I think that what we have to wait and see is when the program is actually in operation when the effects are felt not just the fact that you could point to a piece of legislation and say well it has been passed into law wait until it takes effect but I think there have been when you stop to think that in the last six months of 1980 during the campaign the increase in our money supply the flooding of paper money was the highest it has ever been in our history at a 13 percent rate and with it came the interest rates the skyrocketed to 21.5 percent and we had two years back to back of double digit inflation and when I took office inflation was 12.4 percent. Now they pulled the string on the money market at about that same time way down to below normal needs and so we had a problem the interest rates they hung on for a while but from the very first in getting our cuts in government spending billions of dollars in reductions the rate of increase in spending was 17 percent in 1980 the annual rate of increase we cut that in half in the first year that we were here now with that the interest rates did come down about 20 percent not enough but they did come down but the inflation the unemployment I mean the recession the unemployment had begun in 1979 we had what was called a recession in 1980 with all these other things going on and it did continue and we've had this market dislocation this inflation well inflation increases government costs quite considerably I mean unemployment increases them quite considerably we feel that the evidence of history that unemployment is the last thing that recovers when you're coming out of a recession but we think the indices are all there that we are in the trough and are bottomed out in that recession and we from the very first said that we could not hope for recovery until the last half of this year and we think in the last half we are going to see that recovery how far is that recovery dependent on you breaking the budget still do you think you would have that still ended by the time we go to that I think it is very important I think the money market is waiting to see if the Congress will since we don't dominate or have the majority in both houses if the Congress will stay with its old-fashioned policies of artificial stimulation of the market and quick fixes to cure things which all they ever did was temporarily reduce the fever and then a couple of years later we had even worse recession each time but if they see that Congress will do what it did last year and stay with us on our plan and make the further reductions that we are asking for in spending stay with our tax program I think that this will be the signal that will bring interest rates down there have been signs scattered signs in the money market that they want them down also the signs being various areas our automobile industry which is hard hit mainly because of the interest rates our people buy the cars as I'm sure they do elsewhere on the installment plan they have to pay interest on the mortgage that will be such as on our house and this has hurt the automobile market well here and there in the country groups of bankers, local bankers have gotten together and put up sums of money specified for automobile loans at a rate of interest about four points below the market and as long as that money lasted they would lend it at that lower interest rate for those who wanted to buy automobiles and the upsurge in automobile buying was instant well now this shows and indicates to us we've seen some building companies construction companies that evidently were able to liquidate their inventory of newly built houses by themselves pulling down the interest rate and again the same thing was happening and we think that this indicates that the money market is ready and wants to do it but they have to be sure that we have inflation down for good that it isn't going to go zooming back up Mr President if I may go beyond the summit in Versailles for my question there's another summit looming that is the NATO summit it's almost like an alpine assault you scale one summit up another and as you talk about NATO nowadays immediately you are into this crisis talk we've had the year behind us where things didn't all go smoothly and the relations between America and the European allies were somewhat strained indeed there are cries right now in congress for a withdrawal of American troops to show the Europeans how upset you are how satisfied with their performance how much do you think it's true about this crisis talk do you view the alliance in a similar way and if so where would you say one can improve the performance of these two? I think we have preferred I think it has improved and I think the recent meaning of ministers in Luxembourg indicates this I think when we came into office this administration there were some strains in the alliance and there was some ill feeling both sides we set out to resolve that and I think we've done it the I believe in the North Atlantic Alliance Treaty and I think the fact that we've had 37 years of peace there in Europe is the greatest proof of its effectiveness we have no intention of withdrawing troops we recognize our responsibility there we recognize that this is not those troops aren't there as some have said in congressional debate that that is something that we're generously doing for someone else our own security is involved we're there because that NATO line is our first line of defense as well and I think the relationship now I don't think there's any crisis at all I think that NATO is on a better footing than it has been for some several years and we're where there could be and has been some problems of the southern flank of NATO we are working on those and I think have come to some better agreements there you think about Greek and Greek and Italian on this subject follow-up question I suppose, can you visit a likely scenario or a constellation of political crisis where America would have to look beyond NATO because it had global commitments and where the importance for you of NATO would be diminished and would have to go back to your NATO allies and say they'll have to pick up more for their own defenses because you have global commitments that require a greater deployment of American forces in spite of the economic problems that will be such Europe as well as the United States I think that their spending level has has been consistent and I have no quarrel with it at all with regard to the part of your question about other areas when incidentally has evidence of the improved situation could I point out that we've had cooperation from our NATO allies with regard to the multiple force in the Sinai and yet when we came here a year ago we hadn't been able to find a single country that wanted to participate in that now they have I think that a subject for discussion with NATO would be that NATO that we all together look at the Persian Gulf the Middle East as an area of concern because of our energy dependence on a particular area that would be a new subject for NATO to discuss but the no I think the the allies are holding up therein very well and as I say I think there is a better sounder relationship than we've had in the past part of the question of how well NATO is doing seems to be tied into the question of east-west relations in general and we have heard that you now favour a summit meeting with your Soviet counterpart you're used to tie this to the condition that such summit meetings should have a tangible outcome or result do you feel the time is coming where such a meeting could have accomplished something concrete I would hope so because I think that the Soviet Union also has some very real problems and maybe it's time for someone to point out to them that their their attitude of hostility their worldwide aggression their denial of human rights whatever it's based on whether it is a concern that they are threatened by the western world or whether it is just determination to pursue the Marxist Lenin theory of world domination maybe someone should point out to them that the road to peace giving up of that aggressive intent might be helpful to them with their own economic problems the Soviet Union if there is any truth to the belief of some that they are motivated by fear of the west that they think the west is going to threaten them I don't think there is anyone in the west who believes that for one minute they could have a guarantee of peace tomorrow if they themselves would follow the teachings or the words of Demosthenes 2000 years ago in the Athenian marketplace they said what sane man would let another man's words rather than his deeds tell him who is at peace and who is at war with him and so far it is the west that has to feel the Soviet Union is at war with us on the basis of their great military buildup I don't think they can point to anything from our side that indicates that some years ago after World War II when our country was the only one with the nuclear weapon and really the only one left undamaged by war in a position to do as we did to go to the aid of our allies and even our former enemies what if the situation had been reversed the Soviet Union had had that bomb and not anyone in the west if we had an aggressive intent wouldn't we have acted then when we could have done it so easily I think it's the greatest guarantee that it isn't the west that threatens the world with war May I ask you a question about the essence of the presidency because on paper you are the most powerful man on earth in practice I keep telling my wife that in practice you have at least some difficult days with every interest rates even avoiding a war on the folklands which in your view is the limits of the presidency what can you really achieve sometimes I ask myself that question there are limits of course great limits on the presidency because the very nature of our government and our constitution has prescribed them to an extent beyond anything I think known in any other country many countries have constitutions but most of them say we the government they say in their constitution we the government grant you the people these things our constitution says we the people we the government to do only these things that we permit in the constitution and that's reflected in this supposed power of the presidency the president can't dismiss a congress and a unlike the parliamentary system you do not automatically have a majority in what constitutes our parliament our congress here in one of the two houses I have a majority of the opposition party in the other house the senate I have a bare majority of our party and that's the first time that's been true for a republican president in 25 years Mr. President in a few days you will be visiting the four major european partners of the united states and the Atlantic Alliance three of these West Germany, Britain and Italy to go ahead and modernize the nuclear weapons of NATO in the decision that was taken December 79 in fact my country has already started work on our cruise missile base how do you assess the contribution of Italy and generally the prospect for productive negotiations in the area of intermedia nuclear forces I must tell you we're very grateful to Italy with regard to the fourth rightness with which Italy stepped forward with regard to the basing of those intermediate missiles we know why the missiles have been requested of us because there are 900 warheads on 300 SS-20 missiles in the Soviet targeted on all of Europe and nothing to counter them and so the request came for Pershing missiles and cruise missiles as a deterrent to prevent them from ever having that or continuing that monopoly and I know that politically in Europe this was a great problem in a number of countries because of the peace movement and all and some people they couldn't some people can't quite see that unilateral disarmament is not the road to peace but Italy was very as I say forthright and coming forth and saying yes we appreciated very much at the same time finally by the very fact that countries of Europe and Italy virtually in the lead were willing to say yes base these missiles deploy them here and we were willing to provide them that's why the Soviets I think agreed to go to Geneva and meet us when I proposed why don't we negotiate a total elimination of such weapons in Europe we won't put in the Pershings and cruise missiles if they'll do away with the SS 20s and I don't think they would have ever come to negotiate I had it not been for the evidence of that proposal the fact that we are all going forward I would hope that before all those missiles are in place on our side we would have negotiated an agreement in which they'll be unnecessary and the Soviets will remove theirs and you sang when about the prospect of this negotiation so can they be achieved say apart and before perhaps a larger start agreement well then well of course we are now we've completed our arrangements and proposals here to go forward with the start which has to do with the intercontinental missiles and again I believe that we're getting the evidence of willingness from the Soviet Union to at least negotiate to talk because we are going forward with the rebuilding of our own military and because our allies have shown their own determination with these intermediate weapons in recent years when we were letting our defenses crumble and we're virtually unilaterally disarming there was no incentive for the Soviet Union to meet us in any kind of arms reduction talk because they were engaged in the most massive buildup the world has ever seen at the same time that we were apparently not willing to even try and keep pace and so I think that it is well I think it was explained in a cartoon in one of our papers recently it was Brezhnev speaking to a Russian general and I liked the arms race better when we were the only ones in it President your speech at Eureka on strategic arms your administration's previous commitment to the concept of linkage the concept whereby you link arms control negotiations east-west trade some other trade with the Soviet Union with political progress by the Soviet Union on things like Poland and Afghanistan this was conspicuous by its absence does this mean that you've abandoned the principle? No, not at all and let me point out that in many times that I have spoken of that I had never particularly linked that to a thing as specific as an arms reduction talk but it was done in the context of the many summit meetings that have taken place with regard to trade with regard to features of detente and so forth and I thought of it in that context but that doesn't rule it out even for arms reduction talks but I could answer it very briefly just with this I think that much of what is concerned in that linkage some of the very subjects you talked about are not things that you headline in the paper the fact that you did not proclaim it or put it up there in the newspaper does not mean that it can't be brought up when you're sitting at a table I think sometimes that politically to publicly discuss things of that kind makes it politically impossible to get them where maybe in what I've called quiet diplomacy you can secure them very briefly I may just to get you to ask to expand a little bit on what you said Luxembourg