Mark Bell's Power Project - Dr. Emily Splichal - Your Feet Need More Sensation, Lets Fix That || MBPP EP. 801

Episode Date: September 13, 2022

In this Podcast Episode, Dr. Emily Splichal, Mark Bell, Nsima Inyang, and Andrew Zaragoza talk about improving our feet to improve our health.  Use code POWERPROJECT at https://www.naboso.com/ Follow Emily on IG: https://www.instagram.com/thefunctionalfootdoc/ Follow Naboso: https://www.instagram.com/naboso_technology/ Join The Power Project Discord: https://discord.gg/yYzthQX5qN Subscribe to the new Power Project Clips Channel: https://youtube.com/channel/UC5Df31rlDXm0EJAcKsq1SUw Special perks for our listeners below! ➢https://thecoldplunge.com/ Code POWERPROJECT to save $150!! ➢Enlarging Pumps (This really works): https://bit.ly/powerproject1 Pumps explained: https://youtu.be/qPG9JXjlhpM ➢https://www.vivobarefoot.com/us/powerproject Code POWERPROJECT20 for 20% off Vivo Barefoot shoes! ➢https://markbellslingshot.com/ Code POWERPROJECT10 for 10% off site wide including Within You supplements! ➢https://mindbullet.com/ Code POWERPROJECT for 20% off! ➢https://eatlegendary.com Use Code POWERPROJECT for 20% off! ➢https://bubsnaturals.com Use code POWERPROJECT for 20% of your next order! ➢https://vuoriclothing.com/powerproject to automatically save 20% off your first order at Vuori! ➢https://www.eightsleep.com/powerproject to automatically save $150 off the Pod Pro at 8 Sleep! ➢https://marekhealth.com Use code POWERPROJECT10 for 10% off ALL LABS at Marek Health! Also check out the Power Project Panel: https://marekhealth.com/powerproject Use code POWERPROJECT for $101 off! ➢Piedmontese Beef: https://www.piedmontese.com/ Use Code POWER at checkout for 25% off your order plus FREE 2-Day Shipping on orders of $150 Follow Mark Bell's Power Project Podcast ➢ https://lnk.to/PowerProjectPodcast ➢ Insta: https://www.instagram.com/markbellspowerproject ➢ https://www.facebook.com/markbellspowerproject ➢ Twitter: https://twitter.com/mbpowerproject  ➢ LinkedIn:https://www.linkedin.com/in/powerproject/ ➢ YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/markbellspowerproject ➢TikTok: http://bit.ly/pptiktok  FOLLOW Mark Bell ➢ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/marksmellybell ➢https://www.tiktok.com/@marksmellybell ➢ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MarkBellSuperTraining ➢ Twitter: https://twitter.com/marksmellybell Follow Nsima Inyang ➢ https://www.breakthebar.com/learn-more ➢YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/NsimaInyang ➢Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/nsimainyang/?hl=en ➢TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@nsimayinyang?lang=en  Follow Andrew Zaragoza on all platforms ➢ https://direct.me/iamandrewz #PowerProject #Podcast #MarkBell #FitnessPodcast

Power Project family, this episode is brought to you by Vivo Barefoot Shoes. Now, we've been wearing Vivos for over a year now, and we've been loving these shoes because unlike your normal lifting shoes, Converse, etc., they have a wide toe box, because we have some wide, fat feet. But for everybody, you need to be able to spread your feet within your shoes, and you want them compacted. So they have a wide toe box, they're also thin, and they're also extremely flexible. Unlike most shoes that people wear, they don't move. You're putting your foot into a cast, which isn't good for the strength of your feet. And as athletes and lifters, our force is generated from the ground.

So we need shoes that we can express our strength through. And that's why we love Vivo. They also look f***ing amazing. They don't look like s***, Andrew. No, they don't. Not at all. These are my absolute favorite shoes. And we could talk and brag about them, but you really just got to get your awesome feet into these

amazing shoes. You guys got to head over to vivo barefoot.com slash power project. When you guys go there, you'll see a backstory on why we love these shoes so much, but when you're ready to purchase, make sure you guys use promo code power project 20 to save 20% off links to them down in the description, as well as the podcast show notes you make different levels of mats different like thicknesses yeah different uh yeah have you messed around with any of that yet well yeah so we have a mind body mat which is softer that's for our yoga pilates bar work we have a training mat that is thinner and then the standing mat is a version of our pro mat do you do some yoga yourself? Yeah. Pilates, anything like that?

Pilates. Negri. Have you heard of Negri? No. Or Legri. That's a fish. Okay. That's like sushi.

Oh, Negiri. Yeah. Is that what you got too sick? No. Actually, let's not talk. I'll tell you guys about that. Yeah. Another day.

Yeah. Seema's trying to cook something. He's trying to sous vide his fish in his trunk. People were roasting me on the last podcast we did with Jess Pryles. Seema doesn't know how to cook. I can fucking cook, but sometimes I take risks.

He's trying to build a strong immune system. Sometimes I take risks. He likes to live on the edge. When you have a gut like mine it can handle shit this is true strengthen your gut i think sometimes too if the food ferments enough you can get high off of it yeah a version of high also be sick but same shit probiotics or a thing right is that how you do it and i think pro pre pre post sounds good but lag. You know what LaGree is? It's like I just heard about it yesterday and last week. It's like

hot Pilates. They also go through the movements really fast. So it's like high intensity Pilates. Like hot workouts. That sounds like the super reformer. Like SLT. The thing I sent you this morning. Yeah, they use the reformer when they're doing that.

Oh wait, that is what it is. I've done a version of that in New York. They use the thing I sent you this morning. Yeah, they use the reformer when they're doing that. Oh, wait, that is what it is. Yeah. Yes. Yes. Okay. Yeah, I've done a version of that in New York. And these tall, itty-bitty models are doing their thing, and I'm dying. Yeah.

And I'm like, there's no way they're engaging their muscles the way that I am. I'm actually isometrically contracting. And I'm like, what? It's crazy. It gets really hot in this gym. We have hot powerlifting. You've got to come up with a name for it, though. That's what it's called. It's just hot in this gym. We have like hot power lifting. You got to come up with a name for it though. That's what it's called.

It's just hot power lifting. Yeah, it's like a bunch of hot, fat, sweaty men resting too long in between sets. Put some red light or infrared panels around it. Oh, yeah. And make it fancy, right? Yeah. Biohack it. So you sent us out some of these products from your company, Neboso, and you sent me

these like weighted sticks and i like asked you i was like well what are those for you're like i don't know you'll see like you can just like they're just like fidget sticks you just kind of like move around with them and then i didn't know what you're talking about and then like i'm on the podcast i'm sitting here and i'm like i think people think i'm gonna beat them with these things they weigh maybe two three pounds two pounds yeah i weigh about two pounds and it is fun just to kind of like move around with it just as you're standing doing the podcast. And I can also roll my feet out on it and roll my hands out on it or whatever. So it's kind of neat. What gave you some of these ideas to come up with all these different products that you have?

Well, the sensory stick is much more than just a fidget stick. That's an expensive fidget stick. more than just a fidget stick. That's an expensive fidget stick. A majority of our products were designed with a neuro rehab concept, meaning that we were trying to access the brain through the skin on the hands or the skin on the bottom of the feet. The reason the sensory stick is so powerful is because of the weight. It's actually tapping into your proprioceptive system, so holding something weighted actually wakes up the joint receptors,

your fascia, so you can connect to the somatosensory system and then stimulate the hand at the same time. It does feel good to hold it. But like I can't put it into those words, but it's definitely doing something because when you grab it, it kind of lights you up and makes you want to kind of move around more. You just want to rub it in no weird way. But like, yeah, seriously, just sitting here like while guests guests are talking just going like this yeah right i've been in many investor meetings where you know we're trying to sell them on the product like hey write us a check the whole time they're just sitting there like rubbing things and then they actually realize what they're doing and we're like we're

totally used to it yeah what got you thinking like, because as we talk about like the mats, the balls, just everything, what got you into thinking about using all the sensory feedback with all the different products? Yeah. So I actually, I started within the education space, podiatry, functional podiatry, really looking at the foot from a sensory perspective. And that's really where my passion is. I love biomechanics. We could talk about supination, pronation, dorsiflexion, the whole mechanical joint coupling. I like that. But it doesn't – it's not where the latest research and advances are within the human body and human performance.

It's really what we're doing to affect the nervous system, the brain, the timing, the perception. nervous system, the brain, the timing, the perception. So that got me into really studying the foot as this sensory gateway into the brain and into the nervous system. So I started to look at research, surface science, footwear science, really this interface between the foot and the ground and everything in between. And then that's where I started reading about texture, sort of playing around with texture. When we launched our first mat, which was a textured fitness mat, yoga mat if you want to call it, I totally did not know that we would be influencing movement in the way that we were, meaning people with strokes, spinal cord injuries, feeling their feet again, high-level performance athletes saying that this makes me sense the ground faster.

So the really subtle but powerful effects that this makes me sense the ground faster. So the really subtle but powerful effects that we can get on the nervous system, I'm even surprised. But now we've done some research and we're looking into the power of texture. A way to get like past some of the foot dysfunction that we see, I think people thought maybe a couple of years ago, they thought, let me stuff a bunch of layers underneath my foot as in like a very padded shoe. We maybe have found out that's not the best idea for a lot of people because it appears that that method is maybe making the foot weaker for some people. Oh, a hundred percent. And I think when you look at footwear, running shoes, the changes between minimal shoes, the barefoot running boom to traditional running shoes was really this

understanding that impact forces are vibration. And I want all the listeners to take that away and understand that every time your foot strikes the ground, you are experiencing vibration. Yes, impact, but the way that your brain senses impact is as vibration. So then you have to start to think of that. Okay, how do surfaces vibrate? How does cushion and shoes absorb vibration, right? What is that influence that we have? And if we need vibration to stimulate the muscles of our feet, to stimulate a coordinated motor response, to build bone density, to maintain balance, right?

You start to look at sensory very different as well as the cushion in the shoes. So traditional cushioned shoes is really absorbing all that vibration, absorbing all of your information of how the foot is striking the ground. So you are moving in what I consider a delayed, disconnected, energy inefficient, really kind of compromised movement pattern when you start to put cushion in shoes. Yeah. You know, the funny thing you mentioned there is it's like, I remember it's, it's wild because when we started making this transition into barefoot shoes, more barefoot stuff, right. And when I first started, um, shoes, more barefoot stuff, right? When I first started, when I started going and wearing the old shoes I used to wear, it was weird how it felt to walk with all of that padding. Because

as I got adapted to walking barefoot shoes and the way I was walking was different, the way I was striking the ground was different. When I was putting my shoes in my normal Nikes or whatever, I'm like, wow, I can really pound the ground. And that's not good because when you wear barefoot shoes, you realize you can't be striking the ground as hard as you were. And the way you were striking the ground is not good for the way like force produces up your body. So it's really crazy when you do make the transition. You see all the dysfunction you were having with the old shit you were doing. Yeah, 100 percent.

you were doing. Yeah, 100%. And I think a lot of people, when they first try barefoot shoes, minimal shoes, and they're like, oh, whoa, I get this pain response and I'm going to auto-correct, right? That auto-correct being pain is what a lot of people thought the success of minimal shoes was, is that you're just going to change the way that you move naturally, right? But really what it is, is you are actually getting the full information of the ground, which a lot of it is subtlety and textures, the irregularity of the surface, the vibration. And then you're using that and you realize you don't have to strike as hard. But it's not just a pain stimulus that forces people to change the way that they run or the way that they walk in minimal shoes. Do you think there's a safer transition for certain people who have more issues with their feet?

Because, you know, one complaint that I've seen is some people are like, oh, God, wearing these shoes, just it's too painful for me right now. Or I can't like, you know, they have to transition back into their normal, more padded shoes. What do you think for the individual who has very deconditioned feet and that can't necessarily handle just making the big dive to barefoot shoes? How can they transition and make sure they do it in a safe way? Yeah, so shoes are broken down from traditional, let's say, which means they have traditional cushion, maybe some stiffness, maybe a shank going through it. So you can't take a shoe and rotate it or fold it.

Very traditional. Has a stack. The stack is the cushion that is under it. Then you would have actually transitional shoes that would maybe not have a counter, maybe not a shank. So there's a little bit more freedom of movement, less drop, and then less cushion. So that's so good. You can kind of downstep that way and then eventually get to a true zero drop shoe with no cushion, no support whatsoever, no drop, right? So we can do that.

But you want to look at the activity at which people are doing, right? To wear barefoot shoes doesn't mean you have to be a runner. I know Mark loves to run. I'm not a runner. I try to get her to run. I'm not a runner. I was going to give him a pull-up competition and see who could do more, but I don't run. But to do or to transition into minimal shoes could be you do your lifts, right?

So being in a gym environment is where I actually put most of my patience to first go into their minimal shoes. Start doing your lifts. Start doing your movement prep. Start doing – swing the kettlebells in the minimal shoes, right? And start to go there. And then you can go into, you know, maybe some walking, things like that, right? And then the other key component is that I know there's research that shows that wearing minimal shoes can now strengthen feet.

However, I do not use it as the technique to strengthen feet, right? It's just added benefit to wearing minimal shoes. I want people to start in a foot strengthening program first and to understand the importance of foot recovery. And a lot of that initial foot activation, can you feel your toes? Can you engage your intrinsic muscles? Can you do short foot? Can you feel your feet connect to your pelvic floor? If you can't do that, your feet are not sufficiently strong to withhold the capacity and the demands of minimal shoes. And that's really what I try to teach patients, clients, athletes, whoever I'm working with, is that strong feet need to be connected to a strong core. If your feet and your core are not connected, it doesn't matter if your feet are strong. It doesn't matter if your core

is strong. They've got to be talking to each other to then withstand the stress of minimal shoes. So I teach that as a technique as or before transitioning and then the recovery. And that recovery has to be every single day. As your stress goes up, your recovery has to increase to the same rate. And when you're strengthening the foot, you're able to do so in a controlled environment, right? So you mentioned like swinging the kettlebells. That's a really good place to start. Or maybe walking with some weights, a farmer's carry or something like that. But you're in a controlled space, a controlled environment. Hopefully you're in like a gym or

something where you understand what's on the ground. There's not anything weird in your surroundings. Because what I've learned, especially through running, is that my feet are akin to someone's shoulder for like a bench press. Like if my shoulders aren't healthy, I can't bench press. I can't train. I can't get the training in that I want to get, and so therefore I can't get the result that I want. If I do something to my feet, I'm screwed.

I can't run. And being sidelined for five days or a week or whatever it might be, from even just a mental standpoint, because I want to move, can be really frustrating. And so you have to do these things in controlled environments, and you got to be smart with the terrain that you're on. I don't have any problem throwing shoes on that have appropriate amount of padding in accordance to where I'm going or where I'm running, and also in accordance to where I feel that I'm at at the moment. I dropped weight on my foot like years and years ago, like 600 pounds and I smashed my

toes and it was lucky that everything recovered well. But from that time, I've been, you know, kind of skittish, you know, on like with anything touching my feet so my feet became like ultra sensitive because i was like i'm always going to have shoes on in the gym and things like that and so it took me a while to uh you know transition out of some of that into some of the stuff that i'm doing now but i just have learned there's no reason to try to be a tough guy about it. I don't really care about my feet being tough on a particular run. But over time, I'm hoping that I can strengthen them, make them more durable. And really what I'm after is stronger, just lower leg, ankle, foot, shin, calf, that whole complex from the knee down basically. Yeah, because that's going to affect your running, but also how you lift as well.

Right. And your day-to-day walking. So it's really the unique thing about the foot and why I think it's so underappreciated or maybe it's being more and more appreciated now because there's more programs and minimal shoes and advocates and podcasts talking about feet. But before it was like, they're disgusting. Hide them in the shoe and let's not talk about them. And they're also very complex. So a lot of medical professionals

are like, I know nothing about the foot. I'm just going to like push it over there. Right. But it's really important to then progress in a slow, safe kind of gradual way. And the other thing that I do share with people is that when I'm making recommendations of how long it's going to take or what shoes or should you go to a transitional versus just straight to minimal has to do with your foot type, your injury history. So you have an injury history, right? You drop something on your foot. I'm sure some joint to some degree was maybe affected. I don't know. And then what are the demands you're going to put the foot under? affected? I don't know. And then what are the demands you're going to put the foot under? So if you have a ligament lax, extremely pronated foot, that's going to be very different than a neutral foot transitioning into a minimal shoe, right? Or to barefoot training, history of

recurrent plantar fasciitis, very different transition than someone with no injury history, right? And then someone who wants to do running and say, I really want to run a marathon in my V-brums or in my Vivos or whatever. That's their goal, right? Whatever. That's their goal. That's a different demand than someone else saying, I love kettlebells. That's what I'm going to do, right? So you really have to factor in everything. And that's why I can't give really templated answers to everything is I really need to understand those three things of every single person. So let's because you talked about some detailed type of injuries that can happen there are like detailed factors there. Right. But let's kind of bring it up to general things that most people, most individuals who may have some deconditioned feet will have to be dealing with as they start recovering.

Because like when I started doing this, there were so many little things that were happening to my feet where I was like, oh, shit, I can't really put much weight in my big toe right now. I got to wear normal shoes for a little bit. And I had to get a little a little niggle. It would go away. I get a little niggle. And that just means a little tiny annoyance in an area. You can look at that definition. And it would just happen over and over again. But, you know, these things, they're just, they're just general things that happen, especially when you make these transitions. So what should people kind of expect to come when they start making that transition? Yeah. So these niggles are normal.

Normalize it. Normalized, yes. The body is just talking to you. And that's what I try to have my patients or whoever I'm teaching understand, that the body is just talking to you. You have to listen to it, right? If I start to feel my right heel as well the way that i transitioned to v brums i absolutely loved v brums the the five fingers and i would wear their studio shoe this is pretty much like nothing but it would be the shoe that i would love to wear in new york city it was a 15 minute walk to the subway on concrete, and then I'd spend my whole day. I would do easily 20,000 steps a day, right? Wow. So I would start to feel a niggle in my heel and be like, okay. One, that's what plantar

fasciitis, that shit hurts, right? Where I was like, okay, I feel that. It's talking to me. So guess what? Tomorrow tomorrow i'm not wearing these shoes again right i'm gonna take a break i'm gonna go back to something else i was probably wearing nike freight or something wore a different shoe with a little bit more cushion skipped 72 hours is what i generally tell people is you you have to give this 72 hour window for that you guys know doms? So just think that delayed onset muscle soreness and that acute inflammatory cycle, you need to allow that to show face, right? So if you kick your foot's ass day one, you have to wait at least 24 hours for it to show face because it

might not show face until 36 hours, 48 hours. But if you've compounded it and you kicked its ass again the next day, now you might not know that it was starting to talk to you. So I try to have this gradual stress recovery, stress recovery, stress recovery. And if you feel this niggle, you have to- What'd you say?

A niggle. I'm joking. I'm joking. You have to release. Yeah. Take a little step back, understand that that is ultimately strengthening the body. Mm-hmm.

Right? Controlled stress strengthens the body, and that includes the feet as well. And I remember Vibram, when they first came out, they got such bad press, like all the time. Every week, the New York Times is doing another article about how bad these shoes were. Like, oh, my God, know bone bone marrow edema which is just inflammation and bone yeah because you're starting to stress it but if you increase bone marrow edema back the fuck off allow it to strengthen and respond to that stress it will become stronger yeah it's just so funny you mentioned this because i see quite a bit of

comments especially as we've been starting to do this. There are people who, let's say they started going down the barefoot route, but they didn't give themselves the time every time little niggle what happened. They didn't give themselves the time to recover. So they just kept going on and they're like, it made me have all this knee pain and back pain and I had to get out of it. This is the worst thing. It's like you probably didn't do the recovery you needed to do. And the thing is, it's like when I first started, I was making those same mistakes. I was trying to barrel through it just thinking like I'll adapt. Right.

But then I was like, OK, I have to back off. I have to let my foot recover. It recovers. It gets stronger. I can do more. And that's how it has to be handled. Yeah. I think that no pain, no gain.

I don't know if that's push still. I don't know. It is still. Yeah. To some degree. Yeah. To some degree it is. Maybe I'm just old that I'm like, no, we don't do that. No pain, no gain anymore. Like you have to listen to the body. Right. But that's an important part. And once you get your first injury. Right. And you keep pushing it past that point. Like, let's say you don't listen to, you know, a part of the foot that's starting to talk to you and you just compound it, right? No pain, no gain. You push through it, your body will adapt. And then you get an actual,

you kind of cross this threshold and would have like a diagnosable, I don't know, plantar fasciitis, just make some itis, right? It is very hard to then not ever experience that again because you have this then kind of injury history or tissue stress that has passed its threshold, which can become a monkey wrench coming into the rest of your body. And I'm sure the listeners can 100% relate to this because I tweaked my knee before, right? Just something wasn't exactly the same. I tore this ligament in my shoulder, right?

Something not exactly the same. And it's like it floats around your body. And you're like, if it's not this, it's this. If it's not that, it's my hip. It's my knee. It's my foot. It's my, right? And it just literally moves around.

It ping-pongs around your body, yeah. Right? And it's just like really you should have from the beginning just not let that first thing open Pandora's box because it's really hard to get it under control. Why is this sometimes – you mentioned like a bone, like edema. Like I find the bones of the body to be really interesting. Is it for some reason sometimes somebody's foot will make like an extra bone on the back of the heel when they run a lot or jump a lot or have activity that has inflamed that area? What is that? So I think that you may be – maybe you're Google. It looks like an extra bone.

It looks like your body is trying to grow something out of the back of the ankle. So there's something that's called a Haglund's deformity. I don't know if that's what you're talking about. I don't know if there's like a way to like pull a picture up of a Haglund's deformity. But a Haglund's deformity is actually not in response to stress. It's something that is unique to your own structure. And it just sits behind the heel, kilcaneus. It's in very unique foot types.

There we go. Beautiful. That's a Haglund's deformity. Is that what you're talking about? Yeah, something to that effect. I see it a lot in some of my friends that run, and it appears to be, like from what I've seen, appears to be like an irritant. It appears to be something that was irritated.

Like they weren't really necessarily born with it, but maybe they did have this deformity the whole time. That's a great example. Okay. So what that is, so a Haglund's deformity is a bump on the heel that is just part of your anatomy. However, there is a bursa, which is a fluid-filled sac that sits on top of it. And when that gets irritated, bursas swell, right?

So that will look larger because of what's called retrocalcaneal bursitis, which is going on top of this Haglund's deformity. So that's where you'll see some of the recommendations is don't wear a stiff counter. Wear like a heel lift. You will actually wear a hole in the back of your shoes. So if the listeners are like, I think I might have that. I don't know. Then they can look at their shoe. And if they're wearing a hole on the back of the inside of the shoe, I never put a Haglund's deformity in a stiff

counter. So if you're looking at your shoes and you can't squeeze the back of the shoe, that stiff counter is going to irritate that. Now, what they could also have, which is different than this, is just spurs within the Achilles tendon. Yeah, I believe that's probably more accurate than what I might be talking about. Kelly Sturette pointed this out at some seminars years ago. He'd have some people come up and he would show people the foot and he's like, look, like this guy's foot decided to like grow another bone, you know, because of the stress or whatever it was going under.

Yeah. So Wolf's Law. It's essentially just Wolf's Law of if I pull on bone, the bone responds by putting more bone down, right? So an Achilles tendon spurring is usually because of tension, right? And it's – I actually see more of the Haglunds than the Achilles spurs. And then very similar plantar fascia. Probably hard to tell the difference unless you're a doctor. Yeah, you do an x-ray and then be able to see. And then plantar fascia spurs, where people say, I have heel spur syndrome, which means nothing. Let me see if I have it on this right foot. I

think it's like, I think I might have it a little bit. Maybe you can see. I'll come over here into the light. If you're listening on audio. He's giving her a good old calf raise until she's checking it out. Touchy filly. He has a Haglund's deformity. Yeah. Wow. We have a Haglund's deformity. Yeah.

Wow. We have a Haglund's in the room. Mark Bell, you've been running enough to get a deformity. There you go. Let's fucking go. That means you're hardcore. Dude, that's like getting another belt. You're in the club. You're in the club.

Well, the fun thing is they call this a pump bump, which means that maybe you're wearing a little bit too many high heels. Oh, yeah. I is they call this a pump bump, which means that maybe you're wearing a little bit too many high heels. Oh, yeah. I wear high heels all the time. That's perfect. Don't the ultras that you wear, are they kind of... Do they raise your heel quite a bit?

No, they're all... There should be zero drop. Yeah, they might not look that way, but they are supposed to be. Yeah, so you're a little bit more susceptible for Achilles tendonitis, right? But if your shoe has a counter, I would just avoid it. I would avoid a counter. I'm sure you don't wear a shoe with a counter. I don't know if you have a shoe in the house, a normal shoe, a sneaker in the house.

I don't know. I got my Vivos. Oh, that'll actually work. Please don't throw it at me. I'm not ready for catching right now. I get hit on the face on the show. Okay. Yeah.

So here. Oh, okay. Yeah. So if you were. And that's a soft counter. This is a soft counter, right? So if you have a stiff counter, you would take the shoe like this and you would try to squeeze and it would be stiff.

Right. They're usually made of cardboard or plastic. Do you want your shoe back? You can hang it out up there. There we go. Unless it smells bad, then you can just throw it. Sorry. No worries.

We've mentioned plantar fasciitis on the podcast quite a bit now. And in our Discord group, a lot of people that have been starting to wear Vivos or moving more, they have been talking about getting plantar fasciitis. It seems to be something that a lot of people that have been starting to wear vivos or moving more, they have been talking about getting plantar fasciitis. It seems to be something that a lot of people start to get. So what exactly is going on with it? And can it be just easily fixed? So two common causes. First has to do a little bit with the foot type, right?

Because every single condition that walks into my room or that we talk about, we have to just factor in foot type, okay? And then the second is understanding impact is vibration. So I actually consider plantar fasciitis as a vibration injury, okay? So every time we walk, we run. I don't care if you're on your midfoot, your heel, doesn't matter how you're running, right? But you're striking the care if you're on your midfoot, your heel. It doesn't matter how you're running, right? But you're striking the ground. You're experiencing these vibrations. Now, if bone vibrates, you get shin splints and you get stress fractures.

I got a few stress fractures. If tissue vibrates, you get plantar fasciitis, Achilles tendonitis. You can get IT band issues. You can get calcaneal periostitis. So you get these soft tissue injuries. Now, the way that you damp or absorb vibration as the foot is pounding the pavement is you have to stiffen your muscles. And the way that you stiffen your muscles is through isometric contractions. So short foot, I'm sure you guys have heard of short foot, which is pushing the toes down into the floor.

When you push your toes down, the intrinsics of the foot contract. They stiffen. They actually increase what's called compartment pressure. I don't want to make that confusing. But all of your muscles have to have a certain pressure around them, kind of like a splint. So, as the foot strikes, it is sufficiently stiff that the tissue and the bone cannot vibrate. You actually just absorb the vibration as potential energy for you to be this recoiling

badass that you want to be, right? So when you look at, just as a small aside, like sprinters, what makes sprinters fast when you look at kind of the neuromuscular aspect of it is it's based off of how quickly they can get off of the ground. And there's a direct correlation to contact time and foot and ankle stiffness. Foot and ankle stiffness is a myofascial response that is fed through isometric contractions. And this is really what I teach. And it's part of my whole foot to core thing is you have to be able to very rapidly anticipatorily,

which means before your foot even strikes the ground, contract and stiffen the foot and the lower leg complex so that the vibration is essentially potentiated. And that's really what it is with running. And I'm totally going on a side tangent, so I apologize. But with running, when you think about heel strike, midfoot strike, forefoot strike, the biggest difference between a heel strike, midfoot, forefoot is contact time, right? So of the three, the one that can get off of the ground the fastest, shortest contact time just based off of myofascial physics is a forefoot strike, which is what sprinters do, right? If a sprinter was doing a heel strike pattern, there's no way that they could run fast, right? You just – you can't, okay?

So understanding that, that contact time, how quickly can you stiffen, things like that. I had a mom of a high school athlete message me and she's like, my son like is so good. He loves running. He's a sprinter and he's like first out of the blocks. And then he's like, and then all of a sudden everyone passes him. And he like, he just can't win that 200-meter dash is what he was doing. And I was like, send me a video. Like, I don't know. And so she sends it to me and he's like, he is. He's first out, first 100 meters.

He's awesome. Last 100 meters, he's like losing steam. I really zone in to the way that he's contacting the ground. He was doing a heel strike. Whoa. Yeah. During a sprint? It was a sprint.

High school, remember? It's like the football coaches, the sprinting coach. Well, in the beginning of the sprint, he probably wasn't because the start, you kind of almost like, it's almost impossible. Yeah. Right. Okay. Yeah.

So, but he was starting to change and I was like, well, that's why he can't win if the second half of that 200 meters, he's doing a heel strike. Right? Right. So that goes back to contact time right contact time quick get off of the ground this is with anyone this is professional athletes is if you're doing box jumps if you're trying to be quick with your foot your foot has to be stiff and isometrically contracted if your foot is insufficiently stiff those vibrations come in

they start to stress the bone and the soft tissue. So someone wearing minimal shoes who cannot sufficiently stiffen their foot and the ankle is going to get plantar fasciitis or is going to be susceptible to it. A flat foot, which means nothing.

We can totally unpack that if you want. But a flatter foot, we'll just leave it there right now and then you can unpack it or guide me on how you want to unpack that, is typically slower. It's just the time to stabilization of a overpronated or a flat foot is going to be slower. So it's going to take them a while to stiffen the foot as they're contacting the ground. So it's like they strike the ground, feel the vibration. The muscles are like, oh, shit, right? They're trying to like stiffen and they don't have enough time.

Okay. So now with the plantar fasciitis specifically, what can people do to get rid of it over time? Are there tools? Are there things that they can do on the bottom of their feet? What can they do? This is most of the patients I see. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So there are four things. And I feel like I've just had this like huge flurry of patients. So I've just been saying the same thing over and over. Yeah. Why is this such a thing right now? Do you think?

I don't know. Like plantar fasciitis. I don't think I've ever heard of it before. Honestly, most of the patients that I see are saying okay i'm i believe in this barefoot lifestyle this minimal i want to do it i've had all these pains so they like drink the kool-aid yeah right and they're going down that route and then they start to get hurt and they don't know so they're they're a little like kind of floundering so there's four things that you need to do first one is you have to give the tissue a time out. And this is where I just like, I tell people, just hear me out. I don't know your foot type again. Maybe, maybe for a short period, I'm going to put you in art supports. Right. And like,

if some people are like, okay, I'm not going to listen to anything else that she says. Sorry, everyone. But we need a time out. Right? Maybe it's a little cushion. Maybe it's a little stiffer shoe. Maybe it's a heel toe drop, whatever it is. And I'm talking like two weeks initially, right? You need to give the tissue a timeout. Second is you have to take away the stressors. You have to stop running. So if you're running, if you're doing ballistics, if you're jumping rope, whatever it is you're doing, you have to stop doing that. And this is again, for the first two weeks that I tell patients. And then third is we want to do very targeted soft tissue release work that you're doing to the bottom of the foot and to the soleus and you're going around the tissue. So the kind of

the foot and ankle structures, but not exactly where it's painful. So we're doing that. And then fourth, again, people have different kind of responses to but you have to do something for inflammation right some people don't believe in ice there's books about how ice is ineffective but right so i will tell patient red light if you don't want to right go do red light do ice some people don't believe duple plunge right take an n-sad like cbd like i don't know i actually give a long list to patients and i will say listen it's your body your belief system you could do systemic enzymes which i love red light therapy whole body cryo i sit n-sads topical cbd i don't know, eat a bunch of pineapple. I don't know.

Do whatever you want. Get that inflammation down. But you have to do these four things, right? And be really consistent every single day for two weeks. And then I'm going to assess you. That's really what they have to do. Okay. We're putting out the fire.

Good. What are some things people can do to kind of avoid the Achilles tendon flaring up? I know some people have some issues with that as well. I mean it's very similar. Yeah. Right? One thing that I speak about with the Achilles tendon is that everyone needs to understand their own reason for limited ankle mobility. Right?

So is it you have a structurally short Achilles tendon? Could be. I've actually worked with many individuals, trainers who were, you know, former high-level sprinters, and they had a structurally short Achilles tendon, and were like, nope, it's my goal. I'm going to get good ankle dorsiflexion. I'm going to do all the stuff that I see everyone doing. And I assess them and they, one, walk with an early heel lift. So they're walking like this, right? If you're walking with an early heel lift. What does that look like?

So when you say walking with an early heel lift, I'm just curious because you. Can I walk this way? Yeah, because it's short. They're bouncing. So they'll walk like this. So they'll strike their heel like normal, come down, and then as this leg is swinging through, they're lifting their body up already, and then they come like this. That's weird. Interesting.

It's anyone that you can see their gait, right? Yeah, yeah. They're like galloping. Yeah, if anyone is bouncing in their gait, you've got an early heel lift. If someone has an early heel lift, they have a – What? What? Okay, sorry.

Go ahead. They have a structurally short Achilles tendon. So I will tell them, like you can stretch your calves until you turn purple. Yeah. That's just not increasing, right? So you have to understand that. Is that what it is? And then some people have a actually hypertonic muscle, which means it's like on the edge of spastic.

Does that make sense? So those would be athletes or individuals that I would say use a vibration-based roller, right? Because some people might be like, well, is a vibration roller better or just a traditional roller or the percussive gun like really what's better right there's a lot of options now in that space yeah so those would be ones that i would say to do a vibration-based roller for those okay and then others you know like on the calf in the bottom of the foot on the calf on the calf on the calf vibration-based okay right so then they would do the vibration it actually releases the muscles a little bit Like on the calf and the bottom of the foot? On the calf. On the calf. On the calf. Vibration-based. Okay.

Right. So then they would do the vibration. It actually releases the muscles a little bit better and then do mobility work. If you have a structurally short Achilles tendon, you know, your SOL, I don't know, right? And then is it just the soleus? Higher arches typically have tighter soleus. Flatter feet typically have tighter gastroc. Again, not always, but you can see those associations. So I try to do really targeted muscles.

And then really it's just a matter of, you know, do they have the rubber band effect in the tissue? So some of the Achilles tendonitis that you were asking about could be that they've lost the recoil effect of the Achilles tendon. And if anyone is like, I don't know, bored and wants to research the Achilles tendon kind of the aspect of it is look at research around kangaroos. That's where most of this Achilles tendon like, you know, what is so fascinating about the human Achilles tendon is they'll make analogies to the kangaroo and it's like how does the kangaroo jump so far on these like feet right and the power is the achilles tendon that they have it's really interesting yeah sir um so my son's gonna be two in january

and so i was just wondering like how can i make sure that he doesn't run into a lot of these foot problems you know like i'm keeping him barefoot as long as i can but it's been really really hot And so I was just wondering, like, how can I make sure that he doesn't run into a lot of these foot problems? You know, like I'm keeping him barefoot as long as I can, but it's been really, really hot. So I got him some minimalist shoes. They're just like water shoes. And so like we'll put him in those just when we go outside. But like outside of that, is there anything I can be doing to, you know, just make sure he has a good shot at this? Yes. Keep the kids barefoot as long as possible.

Any of the Neboso stuff like let him play on the standing mat my daughter's now three and she was on neboso from the moment she was born like we actually did her whole tummy time on it and had her around the texture didn't do shoes until she was a year and a half old because we had to um so it's just keeping that mobility allowing them to stay as minimal as possible but yeah, the peak window of neuroplasticity for children is age four. So you just need to like dump all that sensory onto children until the age of four. Yeah. We mentioned earlier the pelvic floor being attached to the feet.

That's really interesting. I remember you talking about that on the phone. And I know like for myself, one of my things with running at the moment, I don't really mess with sprints too often, although I have been incorporating some. And I also don't even bother to try to go 100% just yet because I don't feel like I'm all that prepared for that. So I got to work my way into it a little bit more. But my foot doesn't want to travel back behind my body very much because it just doesn't feel safe. So what have you kind of recognized in having the feet connected to the pelvic floor and the feet connected to the core? That most people's feet are not connected to the core.

How can they tell? That most people's feet are not connected to the core. How can they tell? So most of the issues that I find in patients, plantar fasciitis, Achilles, whatever we spoke about already, I start to ask them about the pelvis, pelvis function. I watch them walk. They either have restricted pelvic T-spine mobility, which completely changes the way that we walk. And that could be like a whole other 30 minutes that we talk about. But if they have SI joint stress, if they have low back pain, if they have groin pain. So I've actually had athletic pubalgia.

So I've taken a really deep dive into understanding the anterior pubic joint and all of the anatomy and the stabilizers of the pelvis for – especially with athletics and how that kind of starts to unravel. They could have a hip labrum tear. So it's really partially based off of other symptoms that they experience and then being able to test some of that strength. But the way that I teach foot to core is really based around a tensioning and I use the breath as the driver to that connection, which means that every time your toes push down, what happens or what should happen is that when you push your toes down into the floor, which is called short foot or doming, right? Foot activation, call it what you want.

Toes are into the floor. Your arch should lift and you should be able to see that, right? So toes down, okay, my arch is lifting. As I do that, I actually teach people every time the toes go down, I need you to lift your pelvic floor. And when I teach the pelvic floor, I teach it in a way that people can differentiate the anterior and the posterior. Because interestingly, it's actually your posterior pelvic floor that connects to your feet. Okay. Do you want, you're feeling things? Okay. Okay. Okay. So the, the, the posterior pelvic floor is your levator ani. Okay. So you need to, every time you push your toes down, you want to imagine stopping your poo. Yeah, I want to squeeze that booty hole.

Right? So now, but you want to make sure it's not your glutes. Yeah, yeah, not your glutes. Not your glutes, not your glutes. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So don't flex your glutes when you do this, guys. You're not doing the Hank Hill pinch to penny. No, no, no, yeah.

So don't squeeze the butt. Hank Hill from King of Dale? Oh, sorry. Okay. Yeah, sorry. Squeez Yeah. So don't squeeze the butt. Hank Hill from King of Hell? Oh, sorry. Okay. Yeah, sorry. Squeezing the butt, not squeezing the butt. Not squeeze the butt. Lift the pelvic floor, right?

Stop your poo, whatever. Sometimes you have to shut your eyes to be able to feel this a little bit more. And then you want to exhale. Okay? So you would, when I take people through it, they would inhale diaphragmatically. So they feel the belly rise. And then as the belly is starting to fall because you're exhaling. So I want you exhaling the entire time.

Exhale but not out of your butt. You don't. This is serious here. I know you're very good at this. I'm sitting over here practicing. Oh my gosh. Okay, that's what that smell was. I had to clean up your phoenix just because I knew you used it the wrong way.

Oh, gosh. Is there a different way to use it? But okay. We need to regroup. We're good. We're good. And we're back. And we're back.

Okay. Let's inhale again. Inhale. There you go. Right? So inhale. Okay. And then as you exhale, you want to start to push your toes down. And I want people exhaling the entire time.

So for like 10 seconds, you're exhaling. And then as you continue to exhale, start to lift your posterior pelvic floor. So you should feel this connection of my toes are down. My pelvic floor is lifting. I feel this kind of increase in distance between my feet and my pelvic floor and my breath is leading that entire way. And then you would inhale again and then exhale, keep exhaling, start to lift the pelvic floor, toes down, really focus on the posterior pelvic floor and then release. And you essentially would wave through this about five to eight times. Now, the other way that you can also do it is I call it toe-to-tongue.

So you can get your tongue part of it, and the tongue is a really important part of your fascial system that if you bring your tongue to your palate at the same time as pushing your toes down, you actually further activate this foot core. It's your deep front fascial line is what we're activating. So I would want toes down, pelvic floor up, but don't forget that it's your levator, ain't I? And then bring your tongue to your palate.

And then you should feel like you're stacked, right? And then I bring this into the hand. So this is where the sticks theoretically could come in is that if you're holding something, I would have you. You guys can just hold the one. If you have two sticks, you could hold two of the sticks. But I would want you to push your toes down, lift your levator ani, tongue to palate, and then you're just going to squeeze the stick in your hands, right? And you are potentiating and then you would kind of relax through it and then wave through it again.

And I do this as movement prep. It seems, you know, kind of crazy or just like, wait, what? Like this subtle little thing is going to really make a difference. But we have people that do this literally in the middle of a triathlon and they're coming off the bike and they're going to do a few of this little potentiation and then they put on their running shoes and they start running. And they're like – I remember the first time that some of the triathlon coaches would tell me and they would say, OK, my athlete would be doing this thing and everyone is

like, boom, pass and then pass. And they're like, coach, what the F am I doing? They're like, trust me. We're just doing a couple minutes, right? And then they put it on and then go, pass all those people, and then we'll break their personal record. And it just has to do with the nervous system. I call it turning on light switches. I don't know if it's like the New Yorker in me that I was like, get efficient and check as many boxes as you can.

And like, I don't know, Like I'm all about movement prep. To me, that first 15 minutes is like the most important part of a training session. If someone can envision like – I think a baseball pitcher is always a good reference point or anybody that watches the US Open watching tennis. watching tennis and the way that people are able to kind of whip their hand back behind their body, especially in the case of a pitcher, their wrist goes way back behind their elbow. Their wrist is way back behind their shoulder. Their arm is contorted in this weird, crazy motion. Their arm is up really high. Their body is twisted. And if you think about like how much core has to be synced up for that person to be able to throw the ball. And when the core is not synced up, where does the pain go to? It goes to the elbow, it goes to the shoulder. And so what you're

mentioning with something like running, it is really important. If you look at the best runners, their feet go flying way back behind their body as they're propelling themselves forward, maybe a little bit similar to the way a pitcher's arm or a tennis player's arm is swinging backward. And it's quite obvious that those things are all connected. Oh, yeah. I mean, it's all fascial, right? And there is spirals in every component of human movement, right? And it's the spiral that is really creating energy. And I'm sure you've heard the saying that power lies within the transverse plane or not. I think I heard Wex say that.

Right? So the power lies within the transverse plane, which just means that power is rotation, right? So the pitchers, like they're winding up, they're spiraling. So then they're essentially potentiating in that spiral right another thing to think about too is like if you've ever seen for all of you guys who like the real football soccer have you ever seen like somebody take a free kick or somebody just like hit a like really take a good kick the back foot comes all the way here and it's like you know the hips are spiraling forward someone's back if they don't have the conditioning to do that, right? Absolutely. Throw something out.

Hurt yourself. Hurt your knee. Hurt your hip. Yep. Yep. We actually have, of all the sports, baseball, the pitchers love Neboso because they understand that foot-core-hand connection and the ability or the need to feel the foot placement as they're releasing the ball. It's really, really interesting. to feel the foot placement as they're releasing the ball.

It's really, really interesting. Yeah, when you run, you kind of will notice some of this stuff too as you're mentioning these rotations. If you can get yourself to rotate and to just loosen up a bit, it feels effortless when you're running. And there's other times where you might be out and running and your body might be kind of stiff and not feeling great, and it's hard to get those rotations, and you'll notice that you're kind of all fucked up when you're like that.

Yeah, well, that's the part of the walking that i was talking about with kind of walking and impact and stuff like that is that walking is spiral it's a rotation moment like we're obviously moving sagittarily because we're moving forward yeah but there are this movement of the foot drives rotations up the leg, which creates rotation in the pelvis. So your pelvis actually has this motion like this. And the T-spine has to rotate at that same time as that counter-nutation of your pelvis. So there's so much as far as spiraling. Most of my gait assessments, I'm looking for that spiral. And if it's locked in one joint, all the other joints get locked.

What's up, Power Project family? It's time to stop dressing like you're a f***ing preschooler and step your game up by checking out Viore clothing. Now, I'm not one to talk. I wear a f***ing pink hat that has a dog on it. But at the end of the day, at least my shirt and shorts are popping. So head to Viore because they have great stuff for your top and your bottom. Andrew, how can they get it? Yes, you guys got to head over to Viore.com slash PowerProject.

That's V-U-O-R-I.com slash PowerProject. And you guys will automatically receive 20% off your order. Links to them down in the description as well as the podcast show notes. Let's get back to the podcast. Let's talk about walking real quick because we've talked about walking a lot on the show. Mark does a lot of walking and running. A lot of people in the audience are used to just walking every single day. It's just a habit.

It's something that we need to do. But what would your suggestion be to people for maybe how they should try to be striking the ground? And I know that there's – it's too broad of a question because everybody has their different movement inefficiencies because of maybe certain things in the gym. So maybe their feet are turned out, et cetera. But what should we ideally be looking for when we're striking the ground when we're moving forward in space? So first one is to find the rhythm. So walking is supposed to be rhythmic.

Second big thing is you have to take sufficient strides or steps. A stride is actually two steps but um sufficient step length yeah so if you do not take a sufficient step and maybe you don't because you don't have big toe range of motion that'll jack it up right but you have to be able to take a long step to force the other arm across don't do this in it right so i can get this reciprocal pattern between here if i can't take a long step there's no need for me to rotate my t-spine so that that just shot everything right um when we take long steps and we get that reciprocal swing mechanically like biomechanically that's where the spirals created but that's also how your fascia so the spiraling that Mark was just talking about with the pictures is really fascial and mechanical, right?

So then that's how you load your fascia. a huge hindrance on movement longevity and anti-aging and all of that because we just don't have the the ringing out of the fascial rag or you don't get a sufficient pump up to the brain for cerebral blood flow like there's this whole like cascade of events that happens if you don't walk the right way and at the simplest you know requirements of walking the right way is stride length or step length and the speed that is associated with that got it and how about the what do you see when people are striking the ground especially like what do you see with the big foot what do you see with the way that the foot strikes the ground what should they be trying to do uh let me talk about the push-off first.

Push-off first. Okay. So push-off, so that's when you're releasing. Can I show that again? Yeah. If you don't mind. Okay. Just get a little more in the middle.

More in the middle? Yeah. You're perfect. Here? Yeah. Okay. So an ideal push-off position is this, right? So I'm here.

This is called a high gear. This is a high gear push-off, right? I'm efficient. I'm going sagittal. All my energy is going forward, right? Think like a professional athlete, sprinter, Mark, right? Running forward here, okay? A lot of people push off like this.

This is called a low gear. So they're going around. Running forward here. A lot of people push off like this. This is called a low gear. So they're going around. She just rotated her heel inward and her toes outward on her back foot. A lot of professional athletes do this. Look at soccer and football. We'll do this because they can't flex the cleats. So they rotate around the side of the cleats. And then look what that does to my knee.

Yep. The pressure in the knee. Look what that does. If I'm doing this, look what that does to the whole inside of my foot, my post-tib. Instead, you want access to your glute, right? And you want to flick the heel more outward and push off the big toe. Is that right? Yes.

So if we talk biomechanics for a moment, when I do this, right, and I do a high gear and I dorsiflex my big toe, I supinated and locked my rear foot, which created an external rotation moment into the glute, plus I'm extending. I get maximal extension. When I do this, I actually just started to internally rotate my lower extremity.

Right? So high gear, low gear is huge. I've actually worked with – So you're trying to get like a good amount of hip extension in that movement, right? Hip extension is directly linked to the first MPJ or the big toe. If you don't have the big toe, you're not going to get the hip extension, which means you shorten your step, you become very anterior in your movements, you become very anterior

dominant. Just think of reciprocal inhibition. Do you think it's a good idea to try to actively dorsiflex your foot as you're walking or running? What do you mean? Or is that something you don't need to really think about? Pick up your foot as you swing forward or running? What do you mean? Or is that something you don't need to really think about? Pick up your foot as you swing forward. That's what you're saying. Yeah.

So like in throwing, why are we pitching our arm way back? You're doing a lot of external rotation to wind up a ton of internal rotation. Are we doing something similar when we're running?

Should you kind of try to use your foot as like a little bit of a spring, do you think? Or is that too much thinking just in walking? Yeah. So here's the other thing. So walking is very subconscious. So anytime a patient comes – I've had patients come into my office trying to be really conscious and they're walking. And I was like, can you just get in the office please? Like you cannot walk like going through every step.

We can't do that, right? But I don't think that – this is why I would be a little bit hesitant around picking the foot up is because one of the compensation patterns that I see in walkers and runners, really more so in runners where it becomes an issue, is that they enter swing too early. And if you enter swing too early, because that's what you're focusing on, that's going to lead to other stresses in the body. It might heel strike and whatnot. Yeah. Yeah. Got it. I was curious about this. When you mentioned the thing about flat foot, when I was a teenager, I was told I had flat feet.

I was given orthotics and all of that. But one thing, when we started doing all this stuff with our feet last year, I noticed that, number one, my foot striking changed. And even the imprints that I would see on my different sandals and different shoes, like I now had an arch because of all the activity that was now going on. So a lot of people are told they have flat feet and they're given orthotics. I know you mentioned sometimes orthotics are necessary, but how should those people with flat feet address their flat feet if that's even a thing? Yeah. Well, one, I'm curious. Can I see your feet? Yeah, sure. I'll take these off real quick. I'm using the Neboso.

I got the ball in half, and I'm stretching my big toe as we speak. There you go. Yes. What should I do with my feet? I just want you to stand there. Okay. Just stand. So she's kind of checking out his feet here

Analysis of the foot going on Play by play So I I would actually call that more of like a pancake foot what's a pancake foot? I love pancakes pancakes are tasty so we're winning right here

some syrup he does have syrup in his desk right here oh yeah let's cut those feet up Ms. Butterworth's sugar free that's some good stuff there pancake feet so yeah what are pancake feet? Mark's staring at you Oh, jeez. Let's cut those butterworths sugar-free. That's the good stuff there. Pancake feet.

So, yeah, what are pancake feet? I'm already staring at you. It's like the cartoons, like when they're starving and the guy turns into a hamburger. With the butter on top. Oh, boy, sorry about that. Yes, so I classify flat feet, which, again, means nothing. So when people say, oh, I classify flat feet, which again means nothing. So when people say, oh, I have flat feet, like what does that mean, right? People kind of say it as if it's a bad thing and you're just saying it maybe doesn't mean a whole lot. Yeah.

It has no – I have no context for that because there's so many different subcategories of flatter feet, let's say. of flatter feet, let's say. So what you have is no arch. Just because you don't have an arch, and when I say an arch, you do. Like if you, I was listening to one of the episodes where you were showing on your shoes your imprint and you can see it, right? So it's not like your navicular,

an entire medial plantar foot is on the floor. You have a lower arch, right? Okay, fine, right? Your navicular position is not as high as maybe mine. That's fine, right? That's your foot. But what I look for is this overpronation moment, okay? And the overpronation moment is the spiral component that we were kind of talking about, right? So do you have a shift in the direction of eversion internal rotation, which is part of pronation, okay? Now, when I see that on someone's foot, I then want to understand, is it flexible or is it rigid? Certain people's feet is over pronated with the spiral in a rigid form. That's typically like a later stage.

They have severe pain because all of the joints are arthritic. But that's like a later stage, but it's a foot that you have to understand, right? And then the opposite of that or what typically happens before that is a flexible. So that would be someone where they look at their foot and they're like, look at that arch. I got a nice, beautiful arch. And then they stand up and they go, boom. But when they collapse, they're like that. You're not doing that. If I did that, I could feel if I did that. You would feel if you did that. So you Yeah. So you have, you know, eversion, internal rotation.

There's a spiral moment to it. It's flexible though because if I just look at your foot, it's neutral. No gravity, no body weight. You stand up, boom. Right? Then you have to say, well, why is that happening in that person? Do they have a weak foot? I don't know.

Yeah. Maybe in certain cases. Or the big one is they might have an element of ligament laxity. And this is the big one that a lot of people overlook or forget, right? Ligament laxity is oftentimes genetic, right? So we all have connective tissue properties that are genetic. And in certain people, the ligaments where we have over 100 ligaments in your foot are just a little bit too flexible to support all of your body weight,

force, acceleration, gravity, all of that, that it just starts to kind of collapse in the spiral. That is very different than someone who is muscle weakness. Muscle weakness, strengthen the foot, strengthen the post-tips, strengthen the core, strengthen the glutes, and you can help to derotate them. But we're strengthening the derotators of the foot to then stabilize the foot. Now, a pancake foot, that's just my term. That's not like a medical term. Except if you go to another podiatrist and be like, I have a pancake foot, they'll be like, I don't know what you're talking about. So a pancake foot is – so this was frontal transverse, right?

Or planes. Yours is sagittal. Yours is just genetic. It's just genetic. Your bones were developed with a slight, sorry if this is confusing, a slight declination to the bone. So instead of them being inclined, this is your arch, right? They're just a little bit declinated. Yes.

Okay? That's just part of your structure. Okay? Okay. So your foot does not tolerate orthotics. I would never give a foot like yours orthotics because I know that it wouldn't work. Thanks, doc. Appreciate it. The years of fucking orthotics as a teenager.

Fuck you, bro. I'm joking. But not joking. Anyway, let's keep on. Yeah, I need a fucking strangler. Oh, boy. Not my name. If you try to put something like a hard piece of plastic, that's what orthotics are, right?

They're like a stiff, thick, hard piece of plastic trying to drive your arch up. Let me just force these bones up. But the bones are technically like parallel to the ground. That's your structure. Yeah. I can't move that shit, right? So you have to understand that. Now, could we build a little bit of intrinsic muscle

strength you've already said you've done that right yeah can i strengthen the glutes can i get my feet connected to my core absolutely right and i see tons of high level athletes with your exact same feet and really my colleagues who in school we would be like orthotics orthotics would be like how does that athlete not have injuries i'm like like, because they don't have that spiraling internal rotation, right? So that's how I start to look at quote unquote flat feet. Yeah, the arches of our feet are supposed to be non-weight bearing. But for some people, if their foot is pronated a certain way or if they don't have a super high arch, then that area of the foot is going to be weight-bearing to some extent, right?

Correct. Yes. And so therefore they might need a different kind of help than the next person, right? Yeah. So I will typically teach people how to find their passive pressure distribution and I'll just have them stand. I typically have them stand on a Nobosa mat because it will force them to feel the weight distribution. And I'll just have them stand. I typically have them stand on a nabosa mat because it'll force them to feel the weight distribution. And they'll just stand with their feet shoulder width apart with the eyes shut and just totally relaxed, right? Passive, relaxed. And just take an assessment and feel where is your body's pressure, right? Do you have more in one foot versus the other foot, maybe the front of the

feet or the back of the feet, on the inside or the outside? So you're just doing like a self-check. And then it often helps people realize, okay, if I have a standing desk or when I move, when I'm cooking, brushing my teeth, whatever, where they're standing passive, this is where my body weight wants to sit. And then I can understand the effect on the rest of the body where my default, I like to shift to the side of my feet. I have a higher arch, right? So my passive, it actually feels like I'm like this. I'm not all the way on the side of my feet, but that's where the tendency is.

That's it. So it'll be up into my IT band and then into my hips. So if I'm like, damn it, why are my hips always so tight, like my glutes? Oh, okay, because when I stand, I'm passively in this inverted supinated position. So I need to be like, okay, tripod, spread it out, find a stable centered base, and then there we go. So just because you say I have a neutral foot with an arch doesn't mean I ever need to reset my base or find my base or level out my base.

I need to do that as well because I passively shift this way, and maybe you don't see it. Yeah. What are some things we can do for the big toe? You mentioned it a bunch of times, and I know some people are a little crazy about it, and it's my understanding that if we can get some separation between the big toe and the other toes, sometimes that can help create a little bit of an arch. And it just gives us, I think, more options in how our foot

is making contact with the ground. So what are some things that we should maybe focus on with the big toe? Yeah. So the big toe, you do want to have what's called centration, like a center joint. You don't want it kind of deviating out to the side, which is a bunion, right? When you have a bunion, you actually hold the most important intrinsic muscle in your foot, which is called your abductor hallucis. Yeah. I see that a lot where the toe is – the big toe is pointed towards the other toes. Yes.

Yep. So if the first goes towards the second and it starts to angulate, part of what also shifts with it is there's these two little bones on the bottom of your foot called sesamoids. Have you ever heard of like sesamoiditis or sesamoid fractures? Sounds scary. It's like your patella. Your patella is a sesamoid bone, right? So it's just a floating bone.

But we have these little sesamoids that your muscles run through. And when you have a bunion, those shift over. And the muscle that shifts over is your arch-stabilizing muscle. So of any of the intrinsic muscles that people are like, I hate anatomy, sorry, it is your abductor hallucis, which runs along the inside. So it's here. That's your abductor hallucis, which runs along the inside. So it's here. That's your abductor hallucis. So that muscle attaches to one of your sesamoids. And when your sesamoids move, when you have a bunion, that muscle gets like shifted over here.

So what I tell people is to try to engage a muscle that is in a lengthened position. is to try to engage a muscle that is in a lengthened position. The analogy I always give, because I know you guys will get this, is you have the person at the gym and they set up like the peck deck machine. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Like way far back here and then they're like, right? You got to have like a length tension relationship. So that's what happens essentially to the abductor hallucis when someone has a bunion.

Yeah. Right? So align the joint, toe spacers. I know you like Nevozo's play. Yeah, I love those things. Yes. So toe spacers such as this play. Warm on the plane. I know.

I saw the video, right? Yeah. Warm walking in the airport and stuff. It feels great to wear them and actually move around in them is what I would advise people to try to do. Right. Yeah. So when you have a bunion, a bunion is actually progressive. So every step that you take, you're essentially making your bunion worse.

Even if you're in minimal shoes and all of that, if you have a bunion and you walk on it, it is progressing with every step that you take. Yeah. Because you're just feeding the beast in a sense, right? Yeah. Because you're just feeding the beast in a sense, right? So using something like the Noboso Splay can pull it into a more centered position to restrict the muscle imbalance that's essentially driving it. Quick question about this because I have a friend actually.

He was just at my house this morning and looking at his feet, his big toe is literally points. Both his big toes are pointing towards the other toes. And you can see that he has a bunion on it, right? I know that you can't say how long things like this should take, but it will take people a while if they do have that to make this shift. How should they try? How often should they be using this? Like, should they just be using it when they're sitting at their desk, et cetera? And what kind of change can they expect to see through the years?

Yeah. Like can that toe actually come back to where it should be as an adult? Okay. So here's the thing with bunions. So our goal with bunions is that we want to push pause on them. You just don't want it to keep going in that direction. Yeah. Can we just like pause everything, right?

Don't get any worse. Don't get any worse, right? Are there going to be some mild ones that will – you'll send me a before and after and be like, oh my god, I corrected my bunion. Sure, that's mild, right? But when it starts to cross this point of perhaps what your friend has, right, or what stereotypically people think of as bunions, you're trying to push pause, right? So I tell them to use the splay 30 minutes, right? Just see how you feel, walk around your home, sit on the couch, whatever it is, just to see how you respond to it. If you like it, slowly increase that time, right? And then start to use it when walking around if you can, because again, bunions are progressive when you walk.

So we need to resist that in your shoes. So you have to wear a more minimal shoe. It's not going to wear in a traditional – or fit in a traditional shoe. But the more you can wear it, the better, especially during times of movement, walking, working out, things like that. Do you run with yours? I have. Yeah, I have done that before. It's a little bit challenging sometimes because then you need a shoe that is really wide.

Okay. So I can do it in my Shama sandals. These are Shama's, guys. I'm pretty sure our code is Power Project. So these, you can wear them with these on. They're flat. They're wide. They're fucking amazing.

Shockingly comfortable. Your feet with the toe splay while you're running feels amazing. And if someone can do it on a field, again, like do barefoot stuff on appropriate land in accordance to like where you're at in your own foot training. But for me, I've used those toe splays on a field and that felt amazing. And it felt like a lot of individual stretching for my toes, but it felt good. Like it didn't hurt. It didn't feel like I was ripping anything apart or anything. It felt comfortable. And then when I was in Hawaii recently, I ran in the sandals with the toe splays on and that felt incredible as well. Awesome. Yeah.

I mean your plantar fascia runs from your heel and then inserts into the base of your toes. So when you stretch with the toe spacers, you're actually stretching your plantar fascia. spacers, you're actually stretching your plantar fascia. So it's one of the treatments I give for plantar fasciitis is as part of this, like the four quadrants I spoke about or those four things is to also use toe spacers to stretch the plantar fascia or it's a prevention technique for plantar fasciitis. So what have you seen with improvements in terms of people doing some myofascial release on the foot? Because the ball that you gave us has a little tiny ball inside of it. There's one right behind you. That little tiny pebble thing that's in there is excruciating to roll around on.

Yeah, we have one out. Oh, you have one? Yeah. Oh, you don't want to touch mine, though. I've been, yeah. We'll just crack a new one. Yeah, the one on down here is disgusting. Yeah, so Emily made a ball that has some proprioception spikes on it.

The spikes are not anything that are going to hurt. They feel good. They do have a sensation, but they don't hurt. And then the ball splits in half, and then it has a tiny little Russian doll inside. You don't hurt if your feet are weak. I hate to be mean. I'm joking. That's what I'm not also joking.

My feet. It's just truth. I hate to be mean. I'm joking. Yes. I'm not also joking. My feet. It's just truth. I hurt. So really the power in this is that it's not, obviously it's not just the ball, is that it's splitting into the two domes. And then the point of the two domes is that we really want to emphasize pinpoint pressure release. So to roll your foot, if I made this in a ball again, space here,

if I just rolled the foot like this, I'm not getting the same release as if I sit here, place it down, and then I can actually just put full body weight, right? Release, especially like this one. Oh, my God. When it's up here in this point and I just really put my pressure and I force my met heads to like really open up. It feels insane. Like for me, I feel it go up my leg. Yeah.

Like I actually feel it like sometimes in my groin. I'm like, holy shit, what am I doing? That's what Mark and I are always doing behind the desk. That's why you like see us like moving around like this. And we look like we're going to cry. We look like we're just doing some weird shit. It's because we've been smashing our feet on this. And this little one that you're talking about, Mark.

Yeah. Oh, this is amazing. I got something weird going on in my foot on the outside of my right foot. That's where I can't move my pinky toe. So I think I need to get that to release. And then I think I'll have magical powers with that pinky toe. Yep, 100%. Next time you see me, I'll have magical pinky toes. You're going to be able to levitate.

I'm going to expect it. So with this also though, you want to do the pinpoint pressure. You don't want to roll. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Right? I mean, you can do whatever you want. Yeah. But you don't want to crush yourself. Right, but you know, the pinpoint pressure does give a much more effective release.

And then the texture that is on this is stimulating the muscles, obviously stimulating the nerves. But one of my favorite aspects is it's stimulating circulation. most underappreciated aspects of recovery and foot function and your plantar fascia and just everything just from the ground up is you have to have good microcirculation. So really all of the Neboso products increase circulation to the feet. I want to also say like the really cool aspects about like what's been going on with us using like the mat, using the ball. I haven't been able to use those socks yet, but the amazing thing that's been happening is like the mat, using the ball. I haven't been able to use those socks yet, but the amazing thing that's been happening is like the toes are just moving more now because of the proprioceptive feedback from the mats, standing on the mats. Like I noticed during podcasts, during just chilling, the toes are just always moving. I think like my toes have moved

more in a single month than they have like in a year, years ago. Just because like now, I even noticed this before using these products, when I started using barefoot shoes, I was noticing and using toe socks instead. I was noticing, oh, my toes are starting to move more than they ever have. And I'm actually paying attention to it. But now because of the sensory feedback, my toes just literally want to grab this mat when that when the ball is cut in half like when my feet are on top of it my toes are now just grabbing the ball as i'm talking it's just consistently the feet are doing shit you know so it's it's it's a big deal the sensory feedback from the mats and the products it makes a difference yeah no definitely does and that's where

i call it you know if you can check more boxes, I'm all about efficiency. I had mentioned that before, that if someone is like, ah, I use a lacrosse ball, I use a golf ball, like I'm doing the same thing, right? That you're saying that you're using a smooth or essentially an inert object, right? Like, yes, it's doing like the deep pressure release, but if you could add in the texture and the pyramids to stimulate the nerves and to just wake up and get this proprioceptive and this whole like neurological and circulatory, like why would you not if you're going to do a foot release anyway? Like that's how I look at it because again, just check more boxes, you get that additional benefit to it. And then the texture that we use, the height, shape, distance is very specific. This is not just a random texture that we made.

It kind of grabs and pulls your skin, which is another factor in myofascial release in my opinion. It has an effect on it, yes. The nerve that we're actually stimulating is the same nerve that reads braille in your hand yeah so it is so we have a nerve we have special nerves in our fingers and in our feet oh I can see what this is saying now shut the eyes and read

yes so these nerves it's actually two point discrimination so if you take you have the stick and the ball, whichever, right? And you just squeeze it and then you look at your hand and you get this little like indents, right? So those are essentially that kind of like two-point pattern, right? Braille in a sense is stimulating a very specific nerve in the hands and the feet that reads two-point discrimination. That's what we're stimulating.

It's not really texture. That's like a layman's term, right? It's two-point discrimination. It's the bumps on the sidewalk for – I think it's for people that are blind, right? The bumps on the crosswalks, near the crosswalks? On the floor? Yeah, on the ground. Yeah, I think those are – but you feel those.

You feel the discrepancy between that and the regular ground. Yes. So – and maybe that's a Sacramento thing. I don't know. Yeah. I think – well, yeah. In Phoenix, we're just like, hey, go at it. Yeah, figure it out.

Right. Good luck. But yeah, the subtlety of it is also very important. And that's where – like if people look at the products because I'm sure some people do and think of it as kind of gimmicky. Like how can something like this help someone with a stroke walk better or like our insoles, right? Like if they look at the insoles and say, there's no way that this is going to help someone who has neuropathy feel their feet again. And then they see our videos. Oh, there. Okay.

Yes. Great job with the videos, by the way, because on each product you have, there's a QR code or whatever the hell they're called, and you can put your phone to it and it links you to the website, which gives you a video. You know how to use it. Yeah. Yeah. So there's a lot of science in our products, and we're actually doing various research studies to really demonstrate it.

Neurologists who see this, like a neurologist will be like, I don't know how this works. Right. They're like, I like it seems like something that would be gimmicky, but they're like, my patients are bringing it in and my patients can actually feel their feet and they see the difference in the movement that if a neurologist is saying that i mean that's so that's why we're doing various research studies so powerful stuff just another just cool thing about that ball is that like when it's on the ground i mean things that we're doing is like you can literally use it to push your big toe down on and get a big stretch in the big toe i also use it to like get like my big toes here and my other toes on the other side. So it stretches out the toes in that way too. And you can legit stand in that way. There's, there's a lot of things that you can passively,

like number one, we always talk to people about trying to get a desk riser, right? And standing when they're working. So now when you're doing that, your feet over time, you're not thinking about things, but your feet as you're typing or you're on the phone or whatever, your feet are doing all these things. Whereas typically, your feet are usually in a shoe and they're static all day long. So just think about this action, these small little actions that your feet are taking and the feelings your feet are getting compounded week by week, month by month, year by year. And the difference that can make in a longer period of time, not just in a week. It's a big difference. Yeah. I mean, these are really like lifestyle changes.

Like that's what I try to teach people. When I give a patient a protocol, this is not like two weeks, four weeks till your pain goes away. Like I teach them things that are really intended to be for the rest of their life. Habits. Yeah. Like a healthy habit or a ritual. Call it what you want.

But that's really, that's where the change happens. Want to try something cool? Sure. Take one foot and put it on top of the other foot. Okay. And dig your heel into the top of your foot and just stretch the shit out of your skin. Okay. You feel some good, almost like myofascial type stuff going on, like a little bit of pain.

We had someone come in Gary Lama? Human Garage. They were teaching us some of that. Interesting. To try to get to that top of that foot. The top of the foot is hard to release. I actually like that.

The reason why I like that is that the top of the foot, the skin is obviously very different than the planter, right? Because this is attached. This is very thin. The nerves also sit really close to the surface. So if you were to, on the top of your foot, sit and just kind of like hit with your nail, every once in a while you'll hit a nerve and it will zing, right? So to take a mild roller, I wouldn't even take this. I probably would not take the stick and like roll the top of your foot.

Yeah, too sensitive. Yeah. Yeah, you don't want to hit the nerve. So I like that. Yeah, just pulling the skin and just kind of moving around a little bit with some light pressure. Yep, free. Oh, go ahead. Oh, no, I was just going to say free it up.

Get the circulation. You want to take it to level three real quick? All right. Put that ball under your foot. Find a certain All right. Put that ball under your foot. Find a certain point. Stick half the ball under your foot. Then take your other foot. I've been doing this since.

Smash downward on it. Use your other foot to smash on top of your foot. That's on top of the ball. Oh, baby. Trying to make a lot of weight on there. Overpressure that bitch. Make that ball disappear under your foot. It feels amazing. So you can find

those certain points that you're like, ooh, that's a point. And, okay, I don't want anyone to do anything dangerous here, but literally all I've been doing back here has just been one foot on the ball, other foot on top of that foot, and just smashing that foot into that bitch. I've done a little too much on some of this stuff before, and all it does

is make you a little sore. You're not going to... And if something's real sketchy, as our buddy Kelly says, if it's sketchy, it's sketchy, just back off. Yeah, just back off. If something feels really weird, that's not right. You've got to move on. You just listen to your body. You're not using a weighted vest though in SEMA,

so you've got to step it up. You've got to use a weighted vest. Holding a 225 pound barbell in your hands. While squeezing a fucking gripper on the other hand. And flexing your taint. Good one. I wanted to ask you about my left foot. So for the most part, all my toes are in agreement to point about the same direction.

But my pinky toe went rogue. And so like they're all about this way right and it's like we're gonna do this and it's like uh i don't know it looks like it's maybe someone else's foot all of a sudden because it just like wants to it totally turned and it's no matter what i've done i mean it's only been not even a year right we're still very new to all isn't that the little piggy that ran all the way home? He ran home. Yeah. All the other piggies are still at the club and he ran home.

But yeah, what can I do to kind of straighten that guy out before his life is over and he starts going down the wrong path? Yes. So that is a varus rotation to your fifth. That essentially would be the diagnosis. Those are very hard to derotate. And the reason is that there's no muscle that's really opposing to pull it into that derotated position. I would say toe spacers, doing the myofascial work, do the upgraded SEMA version of pushing down if you want with the other one. But, you know, I would say the consistency of that to see if you can get a little bit of articulation into that digit. The D rotation, though, is really hard because, again, there's no muscle that pulls your fifth digit in that direction.

Is there anything in the shin to help move that around at all or not really? The fifth digit? Yeah. I don't know. Like how far up does it go? the shin to help move that around at all or not really? The fifth digit? Yeah. I don't know. Like how far up does it go? Yeah, to move the toes around. I don't know. A little control panel

that's in a... Because if you squeeze your forearm, there's shit in there that moves your fingers around, right? Yeah. I mean, you have your flexor digitorum longus, your extensor digitorum longus,

but the quinti... So you have a flexor digitorum quinti and you have an abductor digiti quinti like these are really small muscles and their job is to like move the toe out yeah yeah right that's literally all that their job is but it's a intrinsic action it's not a extrinsic action right yeah but it's something like i mean because if you in my opinion if you were to take both of my sides it's actually the better side the right side after running with mark and looking at the video i was like oh my gosh my right foot is just like it again it feels like it's someone else's like it's not even on this body but my

right side feels fine fine ish and it's the less sore side from that run so i mean should i be like too concerned about that pinky toe right now i wouldn't yeah and then also i'm not like going to be competing in anything you know it's just mainly to try to get myself out of pain is all yeah so i would i would do the spacers, releasing, kind of stay with what you're doing. See if you can start to get some connection. You can maybe do some work along here. I would say try some acupuncture if you want. Try to get in there a little bit with some needles.

Interesting. Okay. Yeah. What have you seen for helping people with their feet and the impact that it has on like knees and impact it has on hips and impact it has on low back? I mean obviously so connected both fascially and mechanically. A lot of that has to do with the foot type, the foot type and the joint coupling, right? Over pronation, internal rotation. Now you have these knees collapsing in, increased external rotation maybe into the hips. So I see a lot of pelvis-based things. Pelvises can get locked based off of foot and ankle function. I'd probably say

more so ankle than foot. So limited ankle mobility is a huge driver to the way that people stand um anyone who walks like a duck and turns their feet out or has to squat really wide or they do a lot of just show you kind of this like that like this oh like a like a smokey. Yeah, yeah. Some of y'all understand that. But they're really tight. This has to be with a lot of lindens that you see, right? They're very tight and they could

crack a coconut on their glutes. They're tight back there. But that tight glue... I'm always thinking I could put just a little tiny bit of pressure on their leg and they would just hit the ground. Yeah, because they're so stiff and tight. But that external rotation into the hip is actually locking their pelvis. So – and that's huge.

That's needed for walking. That's just for fluidity of movement is you have to have your pelvis shifting. So I see a lot of SI joint low back issues from the ankle, meaning they don't have that ankle mobility. So they're rotating out. I see that a lot. Yeah. And then I don't know if any of the listeners or you guys have had anyone kind of talking about the anterior pubic and like groin stress and stuff like that. I don't remember. about the anterior pubic and like groin stress? No.

And stuff like that? I don't remember. Like adductor longus strains and things like that. I had in 2012 – are you guys familiar with athletic pubalgia or sports hernia? Not really. We haven't had people talk about it much. Oh, okay. So a sports hernia is a – a true sports hernia is a tear in the rectus abdominis fascia. So as it's coming into its insertion in the pubic bone, you would actually tear the fascia of that rectus abdominis and the internal external obliques as they come in.

You'll see this a lot in hockey, soccer, football, cyclists, so certain sports. And I had it as I did competitive cycling. I was a gymnast, so I trained my abs in a very specific way. Maybe a little lower than like hip bone? No. So the pain is actually right at your pubic bone. Not the pubic symphysis, but there's a pubic tubercle and right above that. but there's a pubic tubercle and right above that.

And that has to do with pelvic floor, the timing of rectus abdominis obliques and adductor longus. So adductor longus, spasms, strains, they're always getting an issue in the adductor longus. A lot of that leads into this risk of athletic pubalgia. And because I started talking about it, I get tons of people, like every week I will get people that will message me and say, I heard your YouTube video. I heard your story that you had this. I need help. My doctor is not really like paying attention to me. It's an injury that's often associated with men.

So my orthopedist was like, you don't have athletic pubalgia. I was like, no, I think I do, like looking at everything. And I had to go to the top surgeon and researcher in athletic pubalgia. His name is Dr. William Myers out of Pennsylvania. He has a new special MRI scan that's just slightly angled different to pick up this injury. And then he repairs it in a very specific way that's different than other hernias. So it can't be meshed like other hernias. It has to be re-approximated.

And anyway, it is very much associated with a lot of anterior hip labral issues. And most people will actually tear their labrum and tear the rectus abdominis fascia in the same injury. And a lot of that is driven through the timing of the pelvic floor. So this is what led to me to look at the foot to the pelvic floors because I was putting so much attention on, okay, what is the function of my pelvic floor, my psoas, my adductor longus, and the order in which they were engaging to stabilize my pelvis when I was cycling or when I was running or whatever it was that I was doing.

So that's an area that I actually will see podiatrically if I have a patient with non-responding plantar fasciitis or Achilles tendonitis for years. And then I start asking them and I say, do you have groin pain, right? Do you have any issues with your adductors? And I will get patients that will say, I have these issues. I've had groin pain for years. And I mention it to, you know, this doctor, that doctor, and they don't know what the hell with the anatomy of the anterior pubic, that they just go completely undiagnosed.

And I've sent patients to Dr. Myers, had the MRI. Sure enough, they had athletic pubalgia. And I'm like, a podiatrist was like recommending them because of seeing non-responding foot pain for years. Something's feeding that beast. And it's usually something higher up in the pelvis. Okay.

So would some beneficial aspects be like just like strengthening the muscles in that area? But what do people actually do to get rid of it over time? Yeah. So from a prevention, a powerful core is one that has to be stabilized in proper sequence, which means you need the deeper stabilizers to contractm are not the first muscles to engage or stabilize or to be, you know, kind of activated, the rest of the cascade starts to shift. If your obliques engage before your pelvic floor, you're not stable. If your glutes before your pelvic floor, you're not stable, right? And that's why I'm very particular on how I cue things.

You know the monster band walk, I'm sure. Right, okay. So the monster band walk that a lot of people will use is they'll say like, oh, I have weak glutes and therefore I sprain my ankle or I have weak glutes so I have knee pain. I have weak glutes because of blah, blah, blah, right? So their physical therapist has them do monster band walks

and they're just feeding the beast, like the problem. Because unless you're doing that monster band walk and engaging your foot and lifting your pelvic floor and exhaling at a really specific moment, you're not feeding the actual neuromuscular cascade of how you actually stabilize. And that's, that is the most pivotal part. And I think what's missed in traditional physical therapy, you can't just like release, do some clam shells, do some glute bridges and like, there you go, right? It's too disconnected. Yeah, it has to be,

it has to start from the way that these muscles actually stabilize and they stabilize in gravity. So if you're not getting someone up and saying like, okay, here's the ground, here's gravity, here's my foundation and here's my center of mass, how are they all kind of connecting to each other? Yeah. Right? So I actually do treat a lot of pelvic issues because they come in with a secondary or maybe

it's probably a secondary foot issue that's in there as well. We had somebody come in and talk about the pelvic floor. Well, she wasn't specifically talking about the pelvic floor, but a lot of individuals, especially within lifting, they urinate sometimes because of some say it's just the weight they're moving, but she was mentioning that it could be a weak pelvic floor. So specifically for the pelvic floor, since you do work with so many people on this, what are some things they can start doing at home to bring a level of awareness to their pelvic floor? Because some people don't know how to activate those muscles or they don't know what they're doing. Like when we were

squeezing our booty holes, they probably squeezed their butt at the same time, right? So how can they bring some awareness there? Yeah. So I have videos on YouTube, but I typically teach people a clock and the Kegel Pugel way to do it. And the clock, I like the clock more. Some people find that hard to like shut their eyes and visualize this clock right um if you want to know the clock i can share with you the clock yeah what's the movie yeah so your your clock is i'm sorry i'm doing everything that i have to your clock is here okay okay so the clock is the base of your pelvis your pubic symphysis is 12 o'clock your Your tailbone is 6 o'clock. Your right ASIS is 3. Your left ASIS is 9. So you have 12, 6, 3, 9, right?

Yeah. That's it. You got to close your ass and do this. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So I'll typically teach people to do it on their back because it's easier to do something on the floor on the back. But whatever. We'll do it standing. So we're here. their back because it's easier to do something on the floor on the back, but whatever, we'll do it standing.

So we're here. You want to stack your rib cage in your pelvis because if you're standing with a flared rib cage or in an anterior tilt, the pelvic floor cannot contract as effectively. You would shut your eyes theoretically. I would want you to set your base or spread your toes, find your tripod, and then you start to see the clock and then you're going to draw 12 o'clock to six o'clock and then you're going to release it right and then again 12 o'clock to six o'clock and then release it and then we'll do it one more time and we'll add on so 12 to six hold it and then draw three o'clock to nine o'clock now you know that's your tva right

okay right and then release it and then we'll add in the feet just 3 o'clock to 9 o'clock. Now you know that's your TVA, right? Yeah. So your TVA. Okay. Right? And then release it and then we'll add in the feet just because we're all about foot to core. So we'll do 6 to 12, hold. 3 to 9, hold. Now push your toes into the floor and then release it. Right? So it's kind of weaving into a clock.

I do tell people to engage their pelvic floor about 20 percent. So you don't want to be maximally contracted into your pelvic floor. You can irritate your pudendal nerve, which you do not want to irritate. It's the nerve that runs through your perineum. So you do not have to show a video or a photo of that. You could if you want to get demonetized right right exactly but the pudendal nerve is it's very important because a lot of people think hey pelvic floor stronger harder more right like I need to same thing with the foot

I need to maximally contract the foot I'm like no you don't say hello to the foot relax the foot say hello to the foot relax the foot say hello to the pelvic floor something coming to your mind too are you talking about the paramedic? I can't say that. No, no, no.

My mind. My mind. Yep, it was. Okay. Your mind. Oh, boy. Okay. Okay.

But yes, so that's the clock. The Kegel Pugel, we did the Pugel. That was lifting your levator and I stopping your poo, right? That whole one. But I want people to feel the difference between the anterior pelvic floor, the posterior pelvic floor. Because if I'm doing like a back squat, right? Then, I'm sorry, I have to move again. I'm going to be like a video nightmare or an Eddie.

No, it's fine. But if I'm here and I'm doing a back squat right some people even will lift their toes you step a little bit um there you go okay here if they do that that's okay but we'll just keep them down for here if i'm down here right and i'm about to like push up i want to be here drive my toe as soon as i did that my levator ani just like drove up yeah right yeah so i'm here i got the weight lifted my levator ani i'm going to grip the bar harder my toes are pushing down and then i'm going to go up like this right so i'm just stacking through this fascia line having that connection between really what feeds the stabilizers between your foundation center mass and that i mean i need my glute to engage right your posterior pelvic floor is actually

blended into your glutes so stronger glutes get through your pelvic floor your posterior pelvic floor yeah right um so that's a way that the listeners can kind of play with the pelvic floor last thing i will add is your pelvic floor is an anti-gravity muscle, which means that when you contract it, you have to feel it lift. It's not a fist. You're not squeezing the fist, right? You are lifting, right? Very good. And if I actually engage my pelvic floor just standing here, I feel less pressure on my feet.

I see what you're saying. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. on my feet i see what you're saying yeah yeah yeah uh when i was younger like when i was like 22 23 i downloaded this kegel app because uh because i was just like so it that that got me tuned into the pelvic floor because i was like am i doing this right then i youtubed and butchered i was like oh wow makes a difference so just some fun but the the kegel is very different yeah yeah the kegel is kind of like a fist the other one for like the lady listeners would be like vagina weights

yep what are those balls thing called the the um i just know benoit balls okay yeah yeah those are the weights do you know i don't know but but that's, I mean, it makes sense. Yeah. What are you taught? And I'm scared. You know what dead wall balls are. Yeah. Yeah.

I got some in right now. Do you think that, like, if we stayed connected to movement from the time we were young and we didn't potentially fuck ourselves up in the gym, do you think we would need to really practice hardly any of this stuff or would it just kind of be there? Like you mentioned like engaging the glutes. It's like I don't think there's much thought about engaging the glutes when you're sprinting or running a hill,

especially if you, again, stay connected to movement from the time you're young. Yeah, I mean that's where i think that injury and certain compensation patterns maybe inactivity whatever it is does lead to this disconnection or this lack of connection to the sensation of that muscle contracting maybe you picked a weird sport and you've been on a bike cycling you know for the last 10 years and you're in a certain position. Habitual patterns, right? That really fed into that. Yeah. So I do think and I can always tell and I know with lifting, so I'd be curious with you, is people who did maybe more like a bodyweight sport and then they start lifting weights heavy and then they're like, ah, like I just can't find that same fascial movement.

And I can always tell and I know a lot of the people on like Instagram that kind of demonstrate a lot of like certain levels of joint mobility. They've probably always had a certain level of fascial flexibility within their body that they didn't unravel through like lifting weights or something like that. That is a conjecture I've had for a long time is that I've seen people make a lot of improvements in a lot of things. But mobility-wise, people – I know they do make improvements, but it's probably just access they already had to something that they did when they were younger. Correct. It's like rare to see somebody like really just go from being somebody that was kind of, quote-unquote, born stiff or turned stiff through their environment, get themselves unstuck.

Right, right. There was this guy, Dan Edwards. Do you know what parkour is? Yeah, absolutely. So he's like one of the founder of Parkour Generations, which is a UK-based parkour company. And we used to likeouched down here and jumped like like all the way across the room and i was like oh my god like one my knees would not like tolerate that and i i was like i have to ask you like is this how you always moved like did you

ever have a stint where you did like bodybuilding or lifting really heavy weights? And he was like, no, this is like always how I've moved. And even with myself, what I found and it's interesting that you say about kind of tapping back into your mobility is I was a gymnast for 13 years. And then when I retired, gymnast retire, we don't quit. We retire from the sport. because gymnasts retire. We don't quit. We retire from the sport.

Then I got into traditional fitness and started doing some of like the figure modeling and lifting really heavy and completely different style, right? Very hypertrophy based and things like that. I lost a lot of my prior flexibility and connection to my body and then that's why I stopped doing that and the last seven years all i've been doing was more aerials i got back into like body weight stuff

and i've been able to tap into different types of strength totally leaned out in a completely different way but i still feel like some of the stress that i did on my body during that like heavy lifting hypertrophy period put some damage on the body that I'm like, I don't know if that will ever go away. So it's just kind of interesting that I don't know if you experienced that on yourself as well. Yeah, I've experienced the same thing. I just don't think it's respective of what the human body does and the incorporation of all the internal external rotation that happens most of the time in sport and also the reflex and reaction that happens. Like you don't really get that in the gym.

I'm sure you can like make it up, but it's kind of a hard thing to figure out in a gym. Yeah, and that's why I got really into kettlebells because I feel like that you can train this level of strength that's obviously weighted. But then there's this component of momentum, multidireality depends on how you're you're dealing with the weight swinging in a particular way and you got to figure out like it's probably best to swing with it than to resist it right those kinds of things yeah that and the steel mace steel maces are cool you know what you're saying there like i'm curious specifically what kind of damage you think is still there because with lifting, I feel as if people – because a lot of people want to put a lot of muscle on. Guys want to put a lot of muscle on. Women also do too.

And not have it damage your movement if you have something you do that's respective of movement outside the lifting or if it's incorporated into your lifting, like you're talking about kettlebells, or if you're actually also doing some body weight work where everything can work together as you stack all this tissue on. Because there's this guy. I had Andrew find his Instagram. His name is Andrew. We're actually going to be having him on the podcast. His Instagram handle is at the shirtless dude. Now, yesterday we went to this place, Asha Urban Baths, and he's 230 pounds, like 6'4".

When he played soccer in high school, apparently he was like 160, 170 pounds. He was hyper mobile. So he's doing wild shit. Like his shoulder, he can... This shit's wild, dude. Also, at 230 pounds, he can literally...'s wild like also at 230 pounds he can literally you know how ballerinas will walk on top of their toes he can stack all his toes underneath him and just walk

normally like that 230 pounds at six foot four because he's maintained this hypermobility while stacking muscle onto his body and even myself like, my movement and mobility has improved over the years. I had to work on that. But even though I'm muscular working on that, hasn't like, it's only, I would still say that he's probably born with it though, right?

No, no. Okay. So he's an example of someone who was hypermobile, right? But I wasn't hypermobile. I am. I wasn't hypermobile when I played soccer.

I had to work on my mobility and by working on my mobile mobility through the years, I've been able to become very, very mobile. So I think it's yeah, he was bored with it and he maintained it. But were you stiff? Was I stiff? I was stiffer than most. I was stiffer than

most. But that's like, if you see when I started doing mobility shit, I couldn't squat to depth before I read Kelly Sturette's Supple Leopard. I couldn't squat to depth. And then I started working on's Supple Leopard. I couldn't squat to depth. And then I started working on mobility to be able to squat to depth. So it's like those are things that like had to work on, but it took years to build that level of mobility. I just brought him up because he's someone who was born with it.

Yeah. And he's stacked muscle on it. It's just the shit he does is wild. Like a flex wheeler or someone like that. Like he was born really mobile. And then even when he was jacked or Kai Greene, right see him was able to still access even ronnie coleman yeah ronnie coleman was pretty mobile i mean really that would be the best way is right if people are doing you know lifting traditional weights maybe you know planar movements things like that

do a little bit of more like sled pushing or kettlebells or mace or something and then still add in the body weight, you know, maybe still yoga. I don't know. Yeah. Something. But hit all planes. Playing a sport. Yeah.

Play a sport, run. Did he do it? I think he did it. This motherfucker. Wow. I was trying to get this and he did it. Yeah. He's super fucking mobile. Okay. Now I have to get this and he did it yeah he's super fucking mobile okay now I have to get this this week

this guy we had Alang Galani came on the podcast and did it he's a one championship fighter and looks like fucking Andrew did it too fuck I'm so angry oh he did it back the other way he did it back the other way

this whore oh man now I'm just joshing He did it back the other way. He did it back the other way. This whore. Oh, man. No, I'm just joshing. I got such a cramp in my hip just watching. Yeah, right? My glutes. Look at his control, though.

Like this guy, hopefully he'll come in, Stacey, so you can see. He's literally just a specimen. It's wild. I hate people like that. He would be a good aerialist you probably would yeah yeah i'm telling you like i do these aerial my back is not talking about like silks like that's why i'm so jealous yeah i do i trained in silks initially and then now i do straps which is i don't know if you know straps it's you're essentially locked into it it's like two seat belts essentially coming down and it's more strength moves yeah into it. It's like two seatbelts essentially coming down. And it's more strength moves.

Yeah. But it's a lot of like shoulder back flexibilities. You're hanging all your body weight kind of like this. I'm sure there's a way to pull up some like cool straps and stuff like that. But yeah, my back is – because again, from lifting weights and even though I did gymnastics, my back was never really highly flexible as a gymnast. But I was very strong, kind of in that like L-sit position, like strong hollow. Great hollow this way. You get me doing anything kind of in that plane.

Yeah. Gotcha. But yeah. Have you always been kind of explosive? Because some people that gravitate towards gymnastics, sometimes when they're younger, they find that they're – or at least the reason why they stick with it is because they are pretty explosive and they're fairly strong for their strength to weight ratio is really good. Yes. Yeah. So I like anything explosive. When I did competitive cycling, I actually did track cycling.

I like anything explosive. When I did competitive cycling, I actually did track cycling. So I did very specific type of cycling versus long, long, long distances. When I did track, I did triple jump and hurdle. That's why I made your quads go nuts, right? Yeah. Your quads probably blew up, right? Oh, very – yeah. Yeah.

So when people see me stand, I'm still in a gymnast than a cyclist posture. I am in like a – I'm ready to go or like this but um yeah so very very strong anterior so it makes sense why i got a sports hernia then right very very anterior dominant yeah and you want to take us out of here absolutely thank you everybody for checking out today's episode sincerely appreciate it please drop some comments down below and make sure you guys like and subscribe before you guys head out. Please follow the podcast at MBPowerProject on Instagram, TikTok, and Twitter. My Instagram, TikTok, and Twitter is at IamAndrewZNC.

Where are you at? By the way, guys, as far as Nobelso stuff is concerned, I think we may have a code by the time this episode comes out. So just if you want to go check any of that stuff out, the code will probably the power project or just power project yeah just check the uh check the description and they give you all the info there you go at and see my in your instagram youtube and see me on tiktok and twitter join the discord it's going to talk about all this shit because there's a lot to talk about here um dr emily where do you find you uh instagram is the functional foot. I am on YouTube as well. And then Noboso is Noboso underscore technology. And the website is N-A-B-O-S-O dot com. Where did that name come from, by the way?

It is a Czech word that means barefoot. Oh, wow. I am not Czech. Everyone is probably going to say that. Are you Czech? Some Czech people in the chat are like, that is not barefoot. I know. I was in Prague when we came up with the name.

Sick. Yeah. That's cool. Awesome. Thank you for your time. Prague when we came up with the name. Sick. Yeah. That's cool. Awesome. Thank you for your time today. I really appreciate it and love the products. There's not a lot of products I use every day, but I use your products every day and appreciate it.

Thank you. Thank you. I'm at Mark Smelly Bell. Strength is never weakness. Weakness is never strength. Catch you guys later. Bye.