Chase Armitage

Vegan inspiration Chase Armitage is recognised for a multitude of talents and refuses to be labelled or put into a box.

The professional freerunner has excelled in acting, parkour, commercials, stunts and even appeared on ITV’s Ninja Warrior but prefers to be known as a ‘student of movement’. Britain’s talent reveals some of his diet secrets, training tips and an insight into his journey.

“I’m focussing in on what I can do to wake people up and give back to issues that are more important than my career like the planet and waking people up to make conscious decisions ..”

How did you get into free running and how could newcomers find their way into the sport?

For me it started with Inspiration from Jackie Chan movies, we’re talking 15 years ago now. Yes, I saw what he did and I was like I’m going to do the same, I’m going to go out and learn how to do it, I’m going to make it a career. I basically went out and self-taught myself how to do flips, jumps and acrobatic stuff.

I never had a gymnastics background and I think it’s always nice for people to know you don’t have to come from a breed or a background of any specific sport. Yeah, I kept on training and eventually I got into video making and I started putting my videos on servers and the internet before the days of YouTube. People started seeing my work and when I was 18 I got a phone call from a stunt coordinator to work on a commercial in Spain. I left my job after coming fresh out of college. I left my job doing boring computer software stuff, I walked out and since then I have never looked back.

I have been working around the world with a professional freerunner being the main kind of vehicle, but being in front of camera a lot it made sense for me to double up with acting and compliment the freerunning work with commercials and movie stuff and then also stunts. Being a good freerunner you’re pretty much a stuntman anyway, so I started getting little opportunities from that. It all stemmed from parkour and all the rest followed.

For people that want to get into it, it’s so easy these days you’ve got gyms, we have an academy the 3Run Academy so people can learn there in a safe environment. But equally there are so many videos and tutorials online that people can watch and practice with their friends. So many parkour parks and gyms are being built around the world. It’s really gaining traction, lots of people are getting interested in it. Yeah it’s a great way of life, very positive. Very sort of motivational in your own way and it leads you into positive mind-sets for the rest of your life.

What training do you do on a daily basis?

Daily training, what does it look like for me? I love the word training because I’m all about pushing it but I also love the word just fun. Just enjoy yourself and I find I get the most results when I’m absolutely loving whatever I’m doing. Because it’s all good and well saying go to a gym and run on a treadmill. I’d much rather get out my pushbike lets say, you know do fifty or hundred miles and enjoy the journey and experience. So wherever I am, my training is very much based around what I love doing and seeing that as training. Letting them crossover into each other. I spend my morning at Fitness First, I sometimes set up jump boxes. I do a lot of jumps, I set up parkour kind obstacles, I move onto handstands, bodyweight training, monkey bars, rings, calisthenics, pull ups and move onto weighted training. I do think it’s great to do weight training, as it’s really one of the only ways you can push the resistance level that your body gets exposed too. I also use the steam room and sauna as I like to do the hot and cold training. If it’s a nice day I will go out with friends doing parkour. Sometimes you’ll go hard sometimes, you’ll have more of a conditioning session where you just repeat stuff. I like to get out and do movement. My evenings are reserved for the 3Run Academy where I will train for around two hours. I don’t always keep the same routine. I supplement my training with the rock climbing wall, I cycle a lot, I like to do stuff like that to keep my body moving, and I think that’s what it’s all about.

How long have you been vegan and what made you look into this lifestyle?

It was first off because it was a morals thing. In my early 20’s I started slowly waking up to the truth of it all. I always call it like the Matrix, choosing to take the red pill. It’s being responsible for your actions and knowing where your food comes from, what happens to it and that kind of stuff. First it was the morals and ethics side of it, so I went vegetarian. I did the transition to vegan as I realised the dairy industry was equally as bad as the meat industry. But then as I went on it became about health. I’ve always been about trying to level my life up as much as I can. I’ve always been about health and wellness and the more I looked into veganism I was like wow there’s so many benefits to it. That’s my personal journey and I’ve been doing it for three years now.

What would be your advice for those looking to go vegan?

I think it’s all about relearning your truths first, so getting rid of silly little myths. Like people that eat meat are ‘stronger’ ‘fitter‘ and ‘healthier‘..

You need to get to terms with that’s not the facts. Exchange like for like, just try and understand that it can be the exact same and start with alternatives. You can get vegan cheese made from soy, you can get vegan burgers, vegan turkey slices. People need to find out what their reason is to go vegan, because ultimately anything in life is about motivation. My motivation was the ethical side and I just absolutely despised what was going on in the industry like the pain and suffering that animals go through. The realisation of, ‘yeah I love animals’ but why was I happy to watch them get tortured and end up on my plate and that be a different thing, so waking up was a massive thing for me.

So I think if people start off knowing what their reason is, so if their reason is health they’re going to find that easy because health and veganism are…

well the facts are there if you go vegan you’re going to reduce your chances of cancer, diseases, illnesses, improve your performance. So really for people wanting to go vegan, it’s easy just swap like for like, that’s what I did and then as I went down that journey, deeper down the rabbit hole I started going okay then how can I clean up the healthiness of this vegan diet because we all know you can be a vegan and eat absolute shit and put on weight. So then you have to start to refine your choice, maybe cutting out biscuits, chocolate, still vegan but you may want a health level up with a little more raw foods and cleaner ingredients. I’ve been looking into cleanses like certain types of fasting and fruit and juice cleanses for eight to ten days. We need to rebuild our body from the bottom up because even though I’ve been doing this clean lifestyle for three years, I’m like a pyramid. The bottom blocks might have been built on some pretty shit foundations, so I’m trying to rebuild from the bottom up so I’m built on strong foundations with longevity to it. A testimonial from me would be, I’ve been doing it for three years and I’ve never felt better and I feel better than I did in my early 20 years. Less injuries, more energy, clearer mind, more clarity spirituality, more connectivity, it’s a super life level up and that’s why I want to get it out there to the world.

What’s your favourite vegan food?

Food wise, An average day for me…

Breakfast-

Would be a soya linseed bread, each slice is a 10 gram protein hit which is pretty good. I have two of those with mashed avocado and sundried tomatoes fried in the pan with coconut oil and mushrooms. Also with herbs and some balsamic which is really nice. If I’m feeling like something different then I will have quinoa oatmeal which is actually one of my favourites, it’s kind of like porridge but done with quinoa then with some coconut milk, cinnamon, goji berries and a little dash of maple syrup and sometimes I will throw in blueberries or sliced banana. I compliment that with a big smoothie with bananas, dates and loads of superfoods like pine pollen, maca powder, protein powder, just mix it up really

I have so many exotic superfoods. My favourite company is Revfoods that are mostly organic and completely vegan.

Lunch-

We eat a lot of Indian lentils, coconut yoghurt and white rice which is one of our favourites. One of my favourite foods is vegan sushi, my wife makes epic sushi like you wouldn’t believe! You know the full works, avocado mushrooms, all kinds of veggies and then she will do a mock chicken one.

Dinner-

Jack fruit curry is one of my favourites. It tastes like pulled pork and is incredible. Thai Green curry, one of my favourite standard thai dishes, you can get that at most places. Burritos, you can have them just like you used to have them with soy cheese, rice, refried beans, grilled veggies and if you really want to you could add chopped up vegan burgers. And finally a classic a vegan burger with sweet potato fries, who doesn’t love sweet potato fries!

Find more of the meals that Chase enjoys with both his and his wife’s vegan recipe page. 

What are your future career plans?

I feel like I still haven’t even scratched the surface which is nice. I got into doing quite a few nice acting roles and my jobs taken me around the world doing a lot of cool projects in front of the camera and behind.

I want to get in front of the camera more, this year I’ve done a quite lot of commercials. I’m trying to get into more movies and equally behind the camera, this year I’ve done a lot of shooting and producing. This project I’m doing with the BBC is really cool, its kind of edgy and it’s going to be like the blue planet, human planet style production, so it’s very high end and I’m involved in the production side/coordination side. It’s really exciting; things are really popping off for me. That’s my career side, but I’m focussing in on what I can do to wake people up and give back to issues that are more important than my career like the planet and waking people up to make conscious decisions to move us all forward in the right direction.

Connect With Chase Armitage

Website: http://www.chasearmitage.com/

Instagram: @chase_armitage

Twitter: chase_armitage

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