Chason Hendryx, PT, DPT, is the founder and owner of Reverve Physical Therapy in Seattle, Washington. In this episode, he describes his years of experience focusing on manual therapy and how adding the Neubie has enabled him to “speak to” his patients’ nervous systems in new ways that complement his other modalities and help make the results “stickier.” He also gives us some insight into the range of patients he’s seeing, sharing some interesting stories including how he’s been able to help MS and pain patients as well as work he’s done with athletes across the entire continuum of care — from post-surgery rehab all the way through to some very interesting performance training.
Welcome back to the undercurrent Podcast. I’m joined today by Chason Hendryx, founder of reverb, physical therapy in Seattle, Washington. Jason, thank you for joining us.
[Chason Hendryx] 1:03
Eras. Thank you so much for having me this morning. It’s a pleasure.
[Garrett] 1:07
It’s great to see you again. I’m excited to dive in and get to catch up with you here and, and share your story and your experiences with everyone who’s listening. So it’s, it’s going to be a good one here today. I can feel it.
[Chason Hendryx] 1:21
Yeah, I love that the only way this could be better is if I was in Austin, soaking up some sunshine of the sun this morning. For me.
[Garrett] 1:29
We have a little bit here. It’s creeping out
[Chason Hendryx] 1:32
Dark and dreary in here, here in Seattle.
[Garrett] 1:36
Okay, we’ll get you back down for some sunshine and barbecue here. So is with. So before we talk about some of the experiences that you’ve had with the newbie, which I’m excited to share because I know there are some good ones. Can you just give us a little bit of context and let us know about your career and your early years in physical therapy and kind of what you’re doing before even before we ever connected?
[Chason Hendryx] 2:02
Yeah, sure. So I started, with a passion for manual therapy and neuron rehab. So as a physical therapist spending a lot of my time trying to hone my skills with my hands-on techniques with patients. And that was where I found a lot of really great results. But also it was where I had a lot of fun. And then kind of shifting you also into the kind of performance side of physical therapy. So you know, during my dad’s work with a patient with a neurological issue, but then later in the day, I might work with a Cross Fit athlete that was injured and trying to help both of those individual individuals kind of return to, their best function. So yeah, that’s really where I was, I was working a lot with, you know, really deep dive into manual therapy and a lot of work to kind of really work on specialized exercise to give people back to their optimum function.
[Garrett] 3:05
That’s awesome. That’s a good, good range. I know, we’ll get into some more examples along that range. And then what was the catalyst for you connecting with us in the first place?
[Chason Hendryx] 3:18
Yeah. So, you know, part of my practice and my interest, I followed the functional medicine world for a long time in optimum health. You know, a wide variety of personalities, Terry walls, have followed her story for a long time. And I was eating walls for three or four years. And I saw Tyria talk about the new fad newbie, and talking about how she was using it to serve her patients with MS to help them you know, achieve better function. And I was kind of captivated. So I went down the rabbit hole trend upward metaphor about new food. And yeah, that’s it stuck. It struck me as a new way that I was not utilizing to reach patients.
[Garrett] 4:06
And that’s it happened I kind of coincide. If I remember correctly, you had been working in another practice, and then you were going off on your own. And that was it was kind of around the same time. You came to our course that was right around the time when you were opening up your practice, right?
[Chason Hendryx] 4:24
Yeah, yeah, I came to your course just two months after I’d opened. And I was excited to help use the new Fitbit to kind of launch my new paradigm, a new way of working with patients, and also outgrew my new young clinic.
[Garrett] 4:42
Awesome. And so for those of you on the audio, you won’t see this but anyone who’s watching the video, you’ll see that he has a beautiful mural of Mount Rainier behind him and that’s not a zoom background. That’s an actual mural and that’s because he is in his practices downtown In Seattle, and it’s a lovely, lovely image there.
[Chason Hendryx] 5:06
It’s Always Sunny in 65 of Mount Rainier River. It’s great. Nice, keep us motivated.
[Garrett] 5:14
So can you talk a little bit about how, how having a newbie and implementing a new fit has influenced or changed? How do you practice?
[Chason Hendryx] 5:26
Yeah, sure. So, you know, when I tell people all the time about my, my using the new fit, newbie, whether I’m talking to potential patients, or I’m talking to my patients that I am working with, or talking to friends and family, I talk about how the newbie has helped me have a new avenue to talk to the nervous system of my patients, where before, as a manual therapist, I work on different techniques to try to modulate pain, try to make the pain better, trying to make a range of motion better, you know and then trying to up-regulate muscle activation patterns.
[Chason Hendryx] 6:07
Those are all things that manual therapists try to do. But the newbie has given me a new way to insert myself into that process. And for the right patient, it has just it accelerates the process in a way that my manual skills where it’s just it’s, it’s, it’s a very collaborative process like I can do some manual therapy, but then I insert the newbie, and I feel like I get results faster. And sometimes results that are better and stickier last better for the patient. And that’s, that’s why I’ve been excited about it. And I talk to it. I think my friends and family or, you know, if we were having dinner parties, there’s chasing again, talking about the new fit.
[Garrett] 6:57
I love that description. And, you know, I, of course, you’re right, you don’t have to throw out your manual therapy skills or the other knowledge and tools that you have they I think, you know, just like you said, they can work very complementary, work very well together, and they seem to help make each other stick here. I like that word. Like those, the benefits just kind of stick around and last longer. That’s a great, beautiful description. In terms of some of those benefits that you’ve seen. Are there any particular cases or patients or circumstances that stand out where you feel like, using new font has allowed you to make an impact?
[Chason Hendryx] 7:42
Yeah, I was thinking about that before our call. And I thought I’d talk about maybe three examples. One example, you know, kind of we were talking about Terry walls and treating individuals with MS. I have one woman with MS, we’ve been using the new fit newbie, and B before coming to me she was having a lot of trouble with stairs, trouble with walking trouble with balance, sometimes difficulties with rolling in bed and standing up out from a chair. And you know, we went through the new third process.
[Chason Hendryx] 8:17
So the scan, identifying hotspots operate, doing some muscle activation work, and then learning on the new fed during treatment, and then also some good old fashioned strength work. And she thinks the system has been phenomenal for stairs are easier, her balance is better, she falls less, and she’s able to get up better. So for her, she thinks it’s been life-changing. And you know, like I tell all my patients, I had never discharged anyone when you come to riverboats relationship for life, and so she’s going to keep on coming back. And we just keep on working on her trying to be the most mobile and the strongest she can be for as long as possible. That’s awesome.
[Garrett] 9:03
How long with her? How long was it until you start starting to see her move the needle in terms of function and improvements? I know some of those patients sometimes. It can be a few days, sometimes a few months. I mean, where was your timeline? Like?
[Chason Hendryx] 9:19
Yeah, she said Ms for quite a while. And so it was probably about three months and 1015 sessions where she felt like she was getting some really good traction and she felt interesting things right off the bat able to lift a leg easier with the kind of like inhibition of hamstring tone and increase in hip flexor strength but really to get those lasting gains. It’s the same thing for some of these individuals as some of my patients are going to the gym, you just need that you need the repetitions to allow your body to accommodate and get strong.
[Garrett] 9:58
Yeah, I think because that’s something that is just a kind of valuable perspective that just like going to the gym, and that’s a wonderful metaphor, you know, you’re the nervous system, if we’re talking about neuromuscular re-education. Just like if you go to the gym and you work on your muscles, your muscles adapt, they get bigger, they get stronger. You know, if you train your nervous system, your nervous system can adapt just like a muscle, it can get better, stronger since it goes faster. But it does, it does take time.
[Chason Hendryx] 10:27
When I try to reset people’s expectations, expectations all the time, I think traditional rehab has had a dosage problem and people don’t understand often, the work it takes to make a change and then have those changes, change your trajectory over time. But that’s another way that the newbie is helped as I feel like accelerates some of the some of those changes and helps motivate people because they do start to feel different, which is important.
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[Garrett] 11:31
I love that I just want to highlight that I think that’s important and such a good insight that so many of the issues in rehabilitation are dosage problems that we don’t give people enough of the right kind of therapy. If Exercise and Movement are like a drug, you need to have the right drug and the right dose. And both are important and a lot of times that we don’t do enough with people. So sorry, I know I took us a little off track when we’re into the end of the first, first such example if there’s one more than Ms. I know you said you had a couple of others. So I’ll let you get back on track. Yeah,
[Chason Hendryx] 12:08
Well, no worries. It’s great. Yeah. So you know, another way that the newbie has helped is some more what I would say traditional orthopaedic rehab for physical therapy, I’ve had two individuals with kind of after having a disc problem in their spine, that clamped down, and when the nerves that went out into their arm and causing nerve problems. So one woman, for example, had a numb thumb that was weak for about two years after she had had a problem with a disc in her spine. And she had just kind of learned to live with it.
[Chason Hendryx] 12:46
And she was referred to me by her trainer came in, and probably I would say for her in about six sessions, the sensation came back into her thumb and full strength. And so that was an instance where she had tried a lot of other things, but nothing else had worked. And it was one of those as a practitioner, one of those great instances where it feels like the newbie is, you know, in quotation marks magic, it was the right thing for the right person at the right time. And so she tells all her friends about her story, which is great as a practitioner and great as a patient.
[Garrett] 13:26
She sends people in to see you. Yes, yeah. Nice, good. Fabulous.
[Chason Hendryx] 13:31
So those are the patients that are always fun to have the ones that the key fits the lock perfectly. So yeah, and then, you know, so that’s talking about neurological rehab, talking about a kind of classic orthopedic case. But then also on the performance side of things. One of my passions is to help performance-minded athletes and recreational athletes and weekend warriors tried to up their game and trying make themselves a little bit more bulletproof for injury, or take them from an injury that they have had and get them back to their sport performing at the same or better level. And that’s been a really fun aspect of using the new fit system so I’ve, I had a javelin thrower, Masters Jonathan Javelin for John with pivot sports.
[Chason Hendryx] 14:23
And he came to me after anterior shoulder dislocation and probably had to head a long time of having some rotator cuff dysfunction. And we’ve taken the new footwork from in the acute phase on the table doing some traditional rehab of trying to have his shoulder girdle musculature turned back on because he was so freaked out after he was injured Ray is the rotator cuff and a lot of the anterior musculature versus triceps is deltoid. Everything had just decided to go to sleep to protect him.
[Chason Hendryx] 15:00
Right and then so the first day is trying to get all those muscles to turn back on to re-stabilize the shoulder, then through a middle phase of trying to repeater movements, overhead, lifting, throwing motion, that kind of thing and tried to up-regulate and strengthen his rotator cuff in those motions. But then finally, what’s been exciting, probably the last six months to eight months, we’ve been doing, we’ve been pushing the envelope and seeing what he can take and seeing what the newbie can give us. But doing medium intensity and high-intensity interval training, with the new fit running, so for other practitioners out there running it at 50 to 60%, on 35 hertz for eight to 15 minutes through us through circuit training.
[Chason Hendryx] 15:51
And John is a beast being able to take that kind of load for that amount of time. But what we’ve seen on the other end is, that we’ve been able to watch his training load through the first beat chest strap that he won’t he wears. So it’s been fascinating to watch what the new fit does to the training load. And then we think of it as you’re trying to work as hard as you can during a session during high-intensity interval training. But then you add on the load of the new fit and the load of the new V while it’s running during the session, and you’re just increasing the amount of work that you’re getting done within that amount of time to a level higher than what your nervous system would have let you do otherwise. And as long as the athlete is willing to work within that and learn how to how that feels and be able to go with the flow if you will. On the other end. I think John feels like he’s gotten really strong from that word.
[Garrett] 16:53
That’s awesome. And so you mentioned that first beat system and how you’re able to quantify the training load. Can you tell us a little more about like, what, you know what exactly you observe, you know, what it tells you and what you’ve observed in terms of specific, you say that you know that adding in the newbie can intensify, help them get more work done in the same amount of time or something to that effect and just drill down on that a little deeper? I’m, I’m interested to hear more.
[Chason Hendryx] 17:20
Yeah, so the first beat system tracks, Andrew’s anaerobic load, and aerobic load. And so I think what we’ve noticed is that running the new fit system, we see that his aerobic load is higher, and then it does push him into the redline, kind of anaerobic training level to a higher degree than might be otherwise necessary. I mean, athletes that have been performing at a high level for a long time, like if they’re given collegian or pro or worked hard as an amateur, they, they, they know how to push themselves. But once you learn to work with a newbie, it helps you keep that high workload for a long time during the session. And so we’ve, we’ve seen that his lactate levels, we can push his lactate levels higher if we’re going for high-intensity work. And we can see for the same amount of work that the newbie elevates the difficult nature of the work and was just his heart rate higher for longer.
[Garrett] 18:36
That’s cool. I love being able to use some of these new technologies like that to quantify and assess what’s happening within these various sessions. So that’s, that’s cool. Thank you so much for sharing that.
[Chason Hendryx] 18:50
Yeah. And we’re trying to think about, you know, electrode placement, the density of the placement has a lot to do with it. If things are more spread out, it’s a more generalized workout, if it’s more specific, we talked about having more density. And then also, once you go over about 40 to 50, it seems like the effect of the electricity on the joint becomes a lot different than when you’re working at you know, 35 ish. And so how that affects the work is a lot of different things a lot of getting used to as the athlete.
[Garrett] 19:25
Yeah, for sure. For sure. So it is as if there’s extra resistance or tension, right, and you have to move through that.
[Chason Hendryx] 19:32
Right. And you’ll learn how to do it. Yeah.
[Garrett] 19:36
And just like if you’re in the gym doing traditional exercise, you have to select the right weight you learn to use it in the right way. You also have to select the right intensity with the newbie and yeah, that’s, that’s good. It’s awesome. You guys are figuring out the right recipe, you know, for John in this circumstance, and I love what you’re doing. So if anyone, if anyone’s in the Seattle area and wants to come see you or, or just, is hearing this podcast and you know wants to check in on your practice. What’s the best way to find you, Jason?
[Chason Hendryx] 20:08
Yeah. The easiest way to find me is on the web, reverb bt.com, Instagram, and reverb underscore revolution. And then on my website, you’ll find my email, just drop me a line, I love to talk to him on the phone if you’re interested in either a new fit newbie or coming in to find out what it’s about the degree.
[Garrett] 20:30
Awesome, awesome. I will put that in the notes here the underneath this episode. And I just want to close by saying thank you, it’s been a pleasure to get to work with you over the last year plus and to see, you know, you start to implement new fit and grow your business, and just want to express my gratitude to you for coming on the show and sharing that and acknowledge the excellent work that you’re doing.
[Chason Hendryx] 20:57
Well, and thank you, Garrett. I so appreciate your mission and new Fitz mission to change rehab and training and give us some not just the newbie, but your package, trying to bring to the forefront some excellent techniques that are changing lives. Appreciate everything you’re doing.
[Garrett] 21:19
Thank you and let’s keep doing it. Let’s keep changing the world.
[Chason Hendryx] 21:23
Yeah, cheers. Let’s do it. Have a great day, man.
[Garrett] 21:27
You too. Thank you. Thank you so much for listening to the undercurrent podcast. If you enjoyed this episode, please consider leaving a review and be sure to subscribe to stay up to date as we release future episodes.
