Mark Bell's Power Project - How Shoe Companies Have Destroyed Your Health - The Foot Collective || MBPP Ep. 1069

Episode Date: May 22, 2024

In episode 1069, Andy and Jim of The Foot Collective, Mark Bell, Nsima Inyang, and Andrew Zaragoza talk about how traditional footwear could lead to several chronic pain issues and how going barefoot or wearing barefoot shoes can dramatically reverse these ailments. 👟 BEST LOOKING AND FUNCTIONING BAREFOOT SHOES 🦶 ➢https://vivobarefoot.com/powerproject   Follow The Foot Collective on IG: https://www.instagram.com/thefootcollective/   Official Power Project Website: https://powerproject.live Join The Power Project Discord: https://discord.gg/yYzthQX5qN Subscribe to the Power Project Clips Channel: https://youtube.com/channel/UC5Df31rlDXm0EJAcKsq1SUw   Special perks for our listeners below!   🍆  Natural Sexual Performance Booster 🍆 ➢https://usejoymode.com/discount/POWERPROJECT Use code: POWERPROJECT to save 20% off your order!   🚨 The Best Red Light Therapy Devices and Blue Blocking Glasses On The Market! 😎 ➢https://emr-tek.com/ Use code: POWERPROJECT to save 20% off your order!   👟 BEST LOOKING AND FUNCTIONING BAREFOOT SHOES 🦶 ➢https://vivobarefoot.com/powerproject   🥩 HIGH QUALITY PROTEIN! 🍖 ➢ https://goodlifeproteins.com/ Code POWERPROJECT to save up to 25% off your Build a Box ➢ Piedmontese Beef: https://www.CPBeef.com/ Use Code POWER at checkout for 25% off your order plus FREE 2-Day Shipping on orders of $150   🩸 Get your BLOODWORK Done! 🩸 ➢ https://marekhealth.com/PowerProject to receive 10% off our Panel, Check Up Panel or any custom panel, and use code POWERPROJECT for 10% off any lab!   Sleep Better and TAPE YOUR MOUTH (Comfortable Mouth Tape) 🤐 ➢ https://hostagetape.com/powerproject to receive a year supply of Hostage Tape and Nose Strips for less than $1 a night!   🥶 The Best Cold Plunge Money Can Buy 🥶 ➢ https://thecoldplunge.com/ Code POWERPROJECT to save $150!!   Self Explanatory 🍆 ➢ Enlarging Pumps (This really works): https://bit.ly/powerproject1 Pumps explained:      ➢ https://withinyoubrand.com/ Code POWERPROJECT to save 15% off supplements!   ➢ https://markbellslingshot.com/ Code POWERPROJECT to save 15% off all gear and apparel!   Follow Mark Bell's Power Project Podcast ➢ https://www.PowerProject.live ➢ https://lnk.to/PowerProjectPodcast ➢ Insta: https://www.instagram.com/markbellspowerproject ➢ YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/markbellspowerproject   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 ➢ UNTAPPED Program - https://shor.by/untapped ➢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 & Get Podcast Guides, Courses and More ➢ https://pursuepodcasting.com/iamandrewz   #PowerProject #Podcast #MarkBell #FitnessPodcast #markbellspowerproject

How are we in shoes that don't fit our feet? Narrow, high-heeled shoes, a lot of that is to do with going through stirrups on horses. So if you had enough money for horses and you weren't working the fields, you could wear these narrow, high-heeled shoes. If you're barefoot, you kind of look poor, dirty. For people who are on orthotics right now, how do they know if they're in a situation where they should actually start trying to work themselves out? It's maybe 0.001% of people that actually need a full-time orthotic.

What other things do you guys think people be doing so they can start getting passive benefits of their feet? The most habitual one is to change your footwear. You can go to like certain websites where you'll plug in your foot type and it'll say, here's the 10 brands that will fit your foot better. If you get to the point of wearing a minimalist shoe,

you want one that actually fits your foot. I know a lot of people are probably gonna be wondering about something they could do for plantar fasciitis. There's an issue in the plantar fascia, but what are the areas that are contributing? At the end of the day, when it comes to the musculoskeletal system, like the feet are the foundation, so they'll affect everything else. But everything else, like Andy has been talking about, can affect the feet as well. You guys, the Foot Collective here, you guys mind explaining a little bit of who you are, how you guys got into this field of feet? Sure. Yeah, well, the Foot Collective as a whole is just a global health community,

but we're obviously primarily focused on the feet, especially as a gateway to more natural movement, natural health in general. For me personally, I'm a physiotherapist and the TFC was actually started by a Canadian physio called Nick St. Louis. And my mate told me about the Instagram. I started looking at it, started resonating a lot with the whole approach and especially the play-based approach. They were doing balance beams and working the feet through play on the balance beams. And that really resonated with me, especially when I started doing it myself, I got my own balance beam made and yeah, the more I got into it, the more I wanted to spread the education. So I started an Australian version, which then we've grown into and created more products like we've got here, Soulmate, and we've taken you through a bunch of that.

And yeah, grew, grew that Australian business to now where the, like the global headquarters, yeah, grew, grew that Australian business to now where the, like the global headquarters, I suppose, in Australia, we've got a team there and yeah, that's in a nutshell for me. Andy was actually my first customer of the Australian division. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I've been a podiatrist for 25 years. Let's try to stay a little closer to the microphone. You can even push it. Thanks. Yeah. I've been a podiatrist for 25 years and maybe eight years ago um started changing the way i practice just through finding stuff for myself and um yeah saw nick's stuff from the foot collective back then and um just started doing

some work with them and that's the way i practice now just getting people to move more naturally rather than putting them in orthotics and sort of the old medical models. Wait a minute. How else did your practice change? Because 25 years you started switching things up. So what are the main things you switch? So I stopped prescribing orthotics mostly. Really?

Yeah. So do you prescribe them at all anymore? Maybe once every three months instead of three times a week. I was always an under prescriber compared to most podiatrists. Like only if I really felt it was necessary. just from what our training told us. But now I'd use them in a short term or people come to me with them and then I alter them and try and they want to get out of them. And I slowly reduce the strength of the orthotic or give them exercises to help get them stronger or more mobile. So they don't need the orthotic so much anymore,

change their footwear. I have a question for you because this is close to my heart. A doctor, podiatrist when I was a teenager said I had flat feet, put me in orthotics for years, which actually made a lot of things worse for me. When I was 21, I ended up getting a Taylor's bunion surgery on my right foot, which fucked a lot of things up. So I'm kind of angry about that. But for people who are on orthotics right now, how do they know if they're in a situation where they should actually start trying to work themselves out? Because there may be a small amount of people that might truly benefit, but like you just mentioned, it's usually a bandaid for most, right? Yeah. It's maybe 0.001% of people that actually need a full-time orthotic all the time.

And that would be for some rare genetic condition or an injury they've sustained that's created the need for it. This whole idea that a flat foot's an issue is pretty much made up, I think. Like a low arch, I should say. A true flat foot is a foot that doesn't move out of that position and that's when you might need some help. This is very rare. But I'd prefer to call a foot a low arch profile or a high arch profile or a medium arch profile. And it's like saying I've got a straight arm or a bent arm. It's a static position of rest often that someone's labelling you with.

Or you go into a shoe store, which is probably more common than even going to a podiatrist or other health professional, and they'll say, oh, you pronate. Well, I hope they do because that's a normal human movement, and pronation is what lowers your arch as long as they can get out of that position. And every step is different. You know, if I'm turning, I might be pronating more on one foot

than the other, and if I'm going uphill, I'm probably not pronating so much as if I'm going downhill because shock absorption is pronation. And so the arch is meant to be this dynamic thing, and so to say you have a flat foot, it's just saying you've got a low arch profile. There is no correlation to future injury. And so kids have a low arch profile until they're six.

And then their arch will start changing and it'll come to wherever it's meant to be. But so many kids get put in orthotics from a very young age because they've got a low arch profile. And then they're in them forever. It's bullshit. It's an industry though. It's wild. And, you know, even when someone does prescribe an orthotic, it's an interesting thing that

they're trying to do. It's my understanding that that part of your foot where you have an arch or where most people have some sort of arch is non-weight bearing. It's a non-weight bearing part of the body. And then now you're in an orthotic, which is, we can talk about this more too, is now squishing your foot into these shoe-shaped shoes that aren't foot-shaped even further. And so now you're getting like, now you're squeezed into this shoe. And also you now have a kind of a weight-bearing area that's not used to really bearing weight. Yeah, exactly. The way a custom orthotic is made, well, first,

there's very little evidence to show a custom orthotic, which is cast or scanned now because podiatrists stopped wanting to get their hands dirty, so they now scan the foot. What are those costs, too? Like, pretty pricey, right? Yeah, $500 to $1,000 for a custom. They have very – like, I don't use them. I customize an off-the-shelf item if I need to., like I just put wedges on it or just change it depending

on what I'm seeing and what I'm trying to do. So, but a cast device or a scan device is watching someone walk barefoot, deciding what they need, but they're going to go into a shoe anyway. So already there's a custom, the customization is lost because you just watched them walk barefoot. You didn't watch them walk in their shoe, a shoe that's going to change the way they move. You take a cast or a scan that is, um, that is done stationary, non-weight bearing. So this has no relevance to what's actually happening, the foot moving. And, and so then you come up with this custom device that's meant to change things and they do, they change load. They might move load around. So if something's sore, you can move the load away. And that's got a relevant thing. You know, if you broke an arm, you'd take load off it by putting it in a cast, but you wouldn't leave it there forever. If you hurt your neck, you might wear a neck brace, but you'd take the neck brace off. You would start rehabilitating mobility and then you'd start getting stronger. But with the feet, we just leave them in the cast pretty much all the time and never question the shoe. And if they do question the shoe, it's like, oh, you need more shoe generally.

We're starting to see, you know, a lot of other types of shoes pop up rather than just Nike, Adidas, Reebok, and some of the big players. And finally getting some shoes that are foot-shaped, that are kind of designed for your foot. Why do you guys think, or how did this, how did we ever even get into this mess in the first place? Like what, how are we in shoes that don't fit our feet? And also how is it possible that the public is kind of unaware? There's a lot of people walking around in shoes that like, oh, I like these a lot, but that maybe don't even really realize that they're not fitting them very well. It's a really interesting topic. And we've delved into the history of footwear and

it's helpful to think about the history of footwear to see how we've gotten here today. And if you look back, obviously we started most of our evolution without any footwear and we got around fine, but maybe, you know, a few sharps and pokes and things like that from the environment. So footwear was invented as a layer of protection, usually just like a leather moccasin or a sandal, something like that to help your feet get around with less chance of injury. Perfect, great invention, makes a lot of sense. And so obviously that started being used a lot more throughout different cultures, but then over time it became more and more a sign of status and fashion. And especially when you think about narrow, high-heeled shoes, a lot of that is to do with going through stirrups on horses.

So if you had enough money for horses and you weren't working the fields, you could wear these narrow, high-heeled shoes that completely disrupt the function of our foot. But it's also a sign that you're not out there doing physical labor because there's no way you can really do physical labor long-term with those shoes on. And so that perception of shoes being related to status and wealth has kind of bled into our modern culture, our modern perception of feet to the point that barefoot, if you're barefoot, you kind of look poor, dirty, you know, et cetera. And people have that perception. And while there is a really good function of footwear to protect

your feet, you don't want to protect them at the expense of their function, which is what most of the modern shoes do. And as it relates to athletic footwear, a lot of the design of athletic footwear is around supporting the foot to, to make the foot do less because it's already been disrupted through years and years of fashion footwear. And then that just bleeds into the kids. And so it's like, oh, well, I need a lot of support. So my kid probably needs a lot of support, but then it's make them weak from the start. Yeah, yeah, exactly. And I, the analogy I like to use is if, you know is if you think back to when the industrial school system started and all the kids are sitting in chairs all day, which is a very unnatural environment for the spine. And then the teachers start noticing, oh, they're not able to keep their spines in this perfect neutral position the whole day. And so maybe we need to give them some supportive clothing around their spine to keep them neutral. Maybe it's like a corset. The adults wear corsets. Yeah, let's put the corsets on the kids. Were they doing that? No, no, no. This is just an analogy. But they've pretty much done this with feet. And so then you get supportive clothing around the

back. The kids can still move around, but it changes the way their spinal control develops. the back, the kids can still move around, but it changes the way their spinal control develops. And then over time, they get to a teenager, you take that corset or that supportive clothing off and you look at the way their spine moves like, oh yeah, they've got really poor control there. And they're like, you know, over flexing or overextending. And the reason is because it's been supported the whole time. It's never had a chance to naturally develop. But if you just give it the chance to naturally develop through all of these different movements and capacities, then you don't need the support. So it's like this sort of negative cycle

where the more you support it, the more it creates this artificial need. So in short, culture is why we wear shoes like that. It's pretty crazy. Like even like when you think it's not, do you guys know what Jordans are, those shoes, right? Yeah, of course. When I was in elementary school, kids wore Jordans, but you don't ever crease your jordans you don't walk in a way

to let the jordans crease so you're kind of walking with this kind of like like dead foot all day long so your shoes don't get any fucking folds and then back in my day so we wore case and we would put socks so that way you didn't we put socks on top of the socks so that way it wouldn't crease and so like my feet would just be dead all day long yeah and similarly um so now they actually have something for those shoes that is like this case to stop like they put it in the toe so it won't crease it's like a it goes in there yeah yeah well that's why they make some of them so stiff yeah i never even thought about it yeah i don. Yeah, but it's actually across the top, like inside. Yeah, crazy. Yeah, it's interesting. I mean, again, I just think there's a lot of people that maybe aren't really recognizing

that their knee pain, their back pain, some of this stuff can come from the shoe. And obviously, let's make no mistake about it, if we were to show an ancestor a shoe and they didn't have shoes, they would put them on and they would run and they'd be like, oh my God, this is incredible, incredible technology. And I'm sure that you'd be able to traverse the earth a lot better than the other people that maybe don't have the shoes at that time. So while they may not fit great, we did a decent job of trying to figure out how to, I guess,

pad ourselves against some of the modern technology we have or the different surfaces that we have. But we definitely went overkill with it, overboard. Yeah, I think if you did put someone that had been habitually unshot into shoes when they were 30, so into conventional shoes, they would find it highly dysfunctional. It'd be like putting that corset on and asking them to move. They would be highly dysfunctional because they'd be so used to having a foot that's splayed. Like we don't see plantar fasciitis, bunions, neuromas, these foot injuries in habitually

unshod populations. But they might enjoy their foot not being wet and cold if the environment calls for it. And that's what a shoe should do. It should protect you from heat cold and sharp things yeah you guys seen that video of where people put shoes on a dog and it starts going yeah yeah this changes all the sensory like input into the foot into their paws and that changes the their gait patterns and they're just freaking out basically maybe they eventually they

would adjust but uh in, it's best just to leave them to do their thing without the footwear. It's a lot about the callusing that happens too. Cause like you were talking about those people that are unshoed, they also have much thicker callusing on the bottom of their feet. Whereas people like that have been wearing normal shoes all this time, their feet are soft and non-thick and they're weak. So they need, well, they shouldn't, but they feel that they need some cushion. And that callus is seen as a negative now, but really if you're a barefooter in barefoot shoes that let you feel the ground and the texture, you'll get a nice leathery callus that's

meant to be there, that we're meant to have on our palms and on our plantar surfaces. Like our skin is made to feel something there. And only when, and you know, as a podiatrist, a lot of our job is dealing with these calluses because in conventional footwear, they are getting calluses, as we spoke about earlier, Mark, on another part of their foot that's really like around in areas that aren't meant to get it. You know, they get corns and calluses and build up like that. So, yeah. Yeah.

It's funny when I put on like some, because like I still have a bunch of shoes in my car, but these are like, you know, some old Nikes that I used to use. And you just like, whenever I put these shoes on now, like this shit hurts, you know? It's wild when you start to wear these type of barefoot shoes, when your foot starts to actually function

the way it should. When you do that for a while and your foot starts changing, you put back on the shoes that you used to love and realize how bad they are. It's shocking. Well, your foot probably grew too. Yeah, it did. It did. And I wonder if it not just grew, but like also like, you know, when you're walking around in those narrow shoes all the time, your foot's like this, it's almost like you have this, you have this dead connection to your feet. But then when you start

to actually use everything, it's wild, dude. That's the same feedback you get from anyone who goes towards the barefoot thing is, or barefoot shoes or natural footwear is, I just can't wear any of my usual shoes now. And yeah, the feet are very highly adaptable. And so especially from a young age, the feet are even more adaptable and moldable at a young age. And so over time from a young age, the feet are even more adaptable and moldable at a young age. And so over time, that just gets narrower and narrower. The toes get squished, the metatarsals get squished, all the bones basically get squished. And then, so there's an aspect of you're just not as sensitive to that squish anymore because your body's adapted to it.

But also there is another cultural expectation that, oh yeah, my feet just hurt after a long day in shoes and it's just expected. Like, oh yeah, I've been in my shoes all day, so my feet hurt. And it's like, well, that actually shouldn't probably be the case if you're wearing shoes that respect your natural foot function. And it isn't the case as most people find when they switch or transition to natural footwear because your feet are working. Maybe they'll get tired if you're up on your feet all day, but they're not going to get sore. I also think the pros, they're not wearing the shoes off the shelf. You know what I mean? They're not, they're not wearing the shoes that we have access to. I think they're wearing like a custom shoe. And so this, you know,

Kobe Bryant brand or this, whatever, whatever branded shoe it is, I think that people buy it with the perception of like, oh, this is what the guy wears on game day. But again, it's probably something that is curtailed to him, custom to him a little bit more rather than it being able to fit your own foot very well. Yeah. The Nike runners that are carbon plated now are pretty much designed for one guy, Kipchoge, to run really fast in, but everyone runs in them. And we do see that like even the guy that's running park run, like five kilometers in 30 minutes, he's running faster in this shoe. But then he might also wear it to the cafe and then he might wear it shopping as well. And then suddenly he's in this highly, a shoe that's highly dysfunctional for running.

It's a carbon plate because as we push off, our foot becomes stiff and helps us to leverage against the ground. And so they've just built that into a shoe so that helps you leverage against the ground. But we shouldn't be wearing it all the time, you know, and that shoe was designed for someone who runs extremely efficiently. And so we're seeing more metatarsal stress fractures because wearing a shoe like that, you stop using your little muscles in the foot. If you're not using those muscles, the bones aren't as supported

and you're going to start getting some bony stuff going on. So, yeah, if someone's living in a shoe like that, it's a real issue. Yeah, and those guys are also running really fast. I mean, he's running like a four-minute mile pace the entire time. So he's running like 13 miles an hour or something like that. An important distinction to make is sports performance versus health. time. So he's running like 13 miles an hour or something like that. Yeah. And it's an important distinction to make is sports performance versus health. And that there is obviously there's a correlation between health and performance. You can't perform really well if you're unhealthy,

but also at, especially at the elite level, there is going to be a trade-off between some elements of your health and the way you perform your sport, especially when it comes to the stuff you put on your body. So Olympic weightlifting is a great example. You're never going to see anyone competing at a high level in Olympic weightlifting barefoot or in barefoot shoes because of the biomechanical advantage you get from wearing lifters. But that doesn't mean that the lifters are good for your feet. They're just good for the performance of that sport.

And the same kind of thing applies to cleats or, you know, basketball shoes. So, you know, it's at a certain level, you are just going to sacrifice that aspect of your health to perform. I think over time, as this becomes more, more awareness builds around this, then there will be more brands that are coming out that do respect more of the natural function. I know there's a pair of lifters now that are wider.

Aaron Horshink, Squart University. He made a pair. What are they called, Andrew? TYR. TY, yeah, the tears. Yeah. Yeah. So, you know, there'll be better and better versions,

but also it's just, I think people get confused between, okay, well, that's good for running, so I should walk in them as well, or I should do my lifting in my runners as well. It's like different shoes for different contexts and also acknowledging that trade-off between performance and health sometimes. What was like the big thing that opened your eyes to some of this stuff?

And then like, what was the, you know, after that, after you investigated a little bit, was there a moment where you were like, wow, this is a lot bigger than I thought. Like I need to partner up with other people. I need to communicate with a lot of people about this because this is like a very serious thing. It can help a lot of people. Yeah, for me, it was actually my cousin who we're staying with at the moment.

He lives in Berkeley now, but he started wearing Vibram Five Fingers back in the early days when they came out, I think around 2008. And everyone was laughing at him, especially his sister was just like scoffing. And then there was a part of me that was like, that kind of makes sense actually. And then it's interesting because people are like, those are so ugly. You're like, that's the human foot. I know. Yeah. Talk to God about it. I don't know. People like those shoes look like feet, like what's going on there. But no one bats an eye if you wear gloves that are shaped like your hand. And anyway, so that seed was planted and then I didn't really pursue it much. But then in uni, I saw another, like a mate wearing them. I was like, I'm going to get a pair of those and try them out.

And it just felt way better. Like for me, I already had pretty strong feet, so I didn't have an issue sort of switching to them straight away. By the way, why do you think you had strong feet already? I was barefoot a lot as a kid We had a big backyard and I would play with my few siblings a lot Barefoot on rocks and climbing trees and all of that So I just had a natural head start there And my parents weren't big on screen time So it was just backyard or nothing basically

And yeah, so then I didn't really pursue it much beyond just wearing the shoes and copying a few weird looks and then I started playing with some different more minimalist shoe brands Innovate I think and the big light bulb came when I was working at I was working with a neurosurgeon in Brisbane David Johnson who was running functional movement training back pain programs for people who referred to him sort of like the worst of the worst when it comes to back pain, people who haven't been fixed by all these traditional approaches for a long time. And he was getting them doing basically very scaled back CrossFit. So teaching them how to hinge and deadlift and squat and just building back some function, less of a focus on the pain specifically and more of a focus on like, hey, let's get you moving.

And there was some really amazing results in there. And a lot of them takes time and some people need different things as well. So it's not like a cure-all necessarily, but it was very impressive how many people got great results. But I did notice that almost all of them were coming in with these very thick cushioned shoes and they would be wearing orthotics if I asked them. And the hokers, it was very consistent because they've probably tried to go to someone and say, and they've said, oh, your feet probably need more support because your back's hurting and so on. Anyway, I would notice I'm trying to teach them how to hip hinge and squat, two very basic fundamental patterns. And they're just wobbling around. They've got no connection to the ground.

And around that time, I found out about the Foot Collective and I just started getting them all, just take your shoes off and learn this movement. And instantly there was this click, like they just had better stability on the ground and they could learn the movements a lot easier. So that was, that was probably a light bulb moment for me. And then another light bulb moment was when I was playing on the beam that I got made and just sort of not really thinking about anything else, not getting any coaching or anything like that. Just feeling my body self-organize because I've put it on this challenging surface of like a rounded narrow surface and my body's just figuring it out through play. I'll make an error, I get back on, make an error, get back on. And that was like this

sort of light bulb of, wow, my body knows what to do if I just keep exposing it to a challenge that gives me instant feedback. And then, yeah, that combination I think made me really want to spread the message and just realizing how weak and stiff and dysfunctional most people's feet are without them even realizing it. And just because they're tucked away in a shoe, it's like out of sight, out of mind, I guess. So we're trying to bring more sight to it, more awareness. What are some big concepts, by the way, that you guys think if someone's just starting, let's say they're starting with pretty weak feet, they buy this, they get on it, like it hurts their feet, they find single leg balancing difficult.

What type of time horizon do you think that they might be looking at for progress? And then how can they make sure that as they're making this progress, they're not doing things that'll cause stress fractures, too much pain, et cetera? Because a lot of people do too much too soon. Yeah. Personally, in the clinic, I'll be finding out how much they're barefoot at home. But I mean, to answer your question, when someone's coming into it raw, I guess I see those ones that have overdone it because I'm known for promoting this and then they have a problem. So they come and see me because they're

not going to get told to go back into an orthotic or a big shoe most of the time. And so it's really a bit intuitive. It's about tapping into what feels good, whether it hurts, backing off and and never, not overdoing it. It's a long, slow process, remembering how long you were in shoes. You know, like we put our first walkers in a minimalist shoe, but once they turned three, we put them in their little Nikes or Adidas, you know. Awesome Nike. We see what the fuck you did with those wide shoes,

trying to fucking sneak out. Oh, yeah, they made little wide shoes for kids. Yeah, they did. Yeah, they know. See, they know. Yeah. Yeah, of course they know. I'm sure they have tons of information on for kids. Yeah, they did. Yeah, they know. See, they know. Yeah. Yeah, of course they know. I'm sure they have tons of information on the feet.

Yeah. And so once they're 45 and they're not a mover, like I'll see if they're a mover as well. Like if they're not someone that's going to the gym and they're not barefoot at home, it's going to be a long, slow process. But just remembering how long you've been in this shoe for. And if you want to change, it's just going to be a long, slow process. Don't rush it.

There's just no rush. You guys are working with some really talented people and some high-level people. I think your stay here, I'm not sure if you're allowed to say it publicly, like who you're working with, but you're working with a lot of professional athletes and stuff like that, right? We have a TFC athlete program and we definitely get contacted by athletes all the time who are interested in training the feet. We're not working, the meetings we've had this week here

have been with the performance staff of some of those teams. So you're coaching some of the coaches that might relay some of this stuff. But the coaches have reached out because there's some players that are doing this stuff already and they're saying to the coaches, hey, we want to do more of this stuff. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Which is awesome. Which is really awesome. And I mean, everyone has feet or most vast majority of people have feet, I got to

say. Um, and so this approach of restoring natural foot function is really great for everyone, but yeah, it's most people find us through pain because they've tried all these things and it hasn't been, it hasn't worked. And the only thing they haven't tried is really take playing the long game of restoring that function. Um, but yeah, in terms of athlete performance, the vast majority of athletes aren't doing anything for their feet. And so they might be, they might have a really well-rounded strength and conditioning program otherwise. And they do a lot of training for their sport, a lot of sport-specific stuff, which is great. But then, one, they're affected by the shoes that they're in most of the time,

which we've talked about. And two, they're just missing whether it might be 1% or 10% of their overall picture. But because the feet are the foundation for the body, if you're not doing any direct training for them, then you're probably missing out on a lot of your potential. So we do see a really big application of our training and tools to athletes, especially because it's so simple. You know, you don't really need to, it's nothing fancy. Like you don't really need to even teach them too much. It's just like, here's a tool or here's some routines.

Go and do that every day. And simply by the fact that they're not doing anything at all for their feet, that can make a massive difference to how they perform and also how they recover from injuries. And, you know, we've had some really cool, like there's a professional basketballer that we did a podcast with who she was struggling with. She had multiple ankle sprains.

She was in a brace for 10 years in her ankle as well on top of the basketball shoes. And she'd been to multiple physios. They're like, yeah, you have to wear a brace for every game. And then she ended up developing Achilles tendinopathy as a result of the lack of range of motion and control. And then she started playing with the Soulmate for like three months, just following some simple routines.

And then she got out of the brace, pretty much resolved the Achilles tendinopathy amongst some other work that she was doing. And then she's also said that her whole game has changed because she actually has the confidence to land on that foot. So yeah, it's quite cool. And we're not saying it's like a cure-all or a panacea for everyone, but the fact that pretty much no one is doing it, I wouldn't be surprised if 99% of people get a lot of benefit out of it. You need to be breathing through your nose at night for better sleep

quality because your nose humidifies the air you breathe. It filters the air you breathe. And when you're breathing through your nose, it allows you to be more parasympathetic, which allows you to be calmer. But a lot of us and myself in the past included, breathe through our mouth when we sleep. And when you're breathing through your mouth, you have a higher heart rate. You wake up with a dry mouth. It actually makes your dental issues worse and your sleep quality becomes much worse too. That's why we use and we've partnered with Hostage Tape for such a long time,

because no matter if you're using a CPAP, if you have a beard or whatever you're dealing with, if you're able to breathe through your nose and you sleep, your sleep quality will be better and everything else in life will get easier. Your fitness habits, your nutrition, et cetera, because your sleep is quality because you're breathing through your nose. So get Host tape on your mouth. And Andrew, how can they get

it? Yes, that's over at hostage tape.com slash power project, where you can receive five packs of hostage tape for the price of three. That's almost half of a year for the price of three. That's again at hostage tape.com slash power project links in the description, as well as the podcast show notes. Let me ask you this. What are some of the passive tools that you think people can do? Because when a lot of people think of normal exercise, it's, I got to go to the gym and exercise. But the cool thing about what we do here is like, you know, we got towels back here. We're doing towel curls.

We have these stoic mats where we're smashing our feet and getting them articulated in different ways. What other things do you guys think people would be doing when they're at the Kugelklaut work or when they're just going about just to see if so they can start getting passive benefits of their feet the most habitual one is to change your footwear and just to touch on what you're saying before there is many different versions of barefoot shoes some that have as much cushioning and support um as a traditional shoe but they're just wide and so a lot of people might just start there just to get their toes moving yeah um and or just going barefoot around home when it's so foreign to them, that's the

most easily habitual thing to do. And just building up maybe five minutes day one, 10 minutes after that, you know. Toe spaces, we talked about earlier, are something that can be a bit of a gateway drug in terms of getting into foot health because they're suddenly doing something about their foot. And they might be putting on a shoe for work that's squishing their toes all day and come home and put their toe spacers on. And they're doing something that's a bit counteractive to what they're wearing all the time. But then they'll start thinking, oh, maybe I shouldn't be just, maybe I wouldn't have to do this if I changed my shoes, you know? So ticking, you know, things just tick off as you go. Yeah. Yeah. And just getting more movement

into your day as much as you can. Like the footwear is the big thing because if you're moving around in foot shape footwear and gradually weaning off the, you know, the cushioning and the support and so on, then every step you take is a little bit of a challenge to the foot as you go down through that process. But I think the modern lifestyle, especially, you know, the office culture is very, very sedentary. I think standing desks have become a lot more of a thing now, which is awesome. But I think a lot of people are still sitting down and even just swapping sitting for standing isn't necessarily the best. Like you, it's still static, but we're made to be moving in lots of various ways so just getting more active

like you guys have said having these little tools, rock mats Soulmate is good there's like another company called the Movemate that I can't really describe it but that's really cool it's like a shifting channel underneath your feet if possible if you can kick your shoes off at work

if you're allowed to do that where you work, kick your shoes off and just move your feet around a bunch. We've had some guests on the show that have talked about all kinds of weird, wacky stuff. But there's a study about something called the soleus push-up, which is basically a seated calf raise. And a seated calf raise can increase your metabolic rate by like 1%. So it's just like people trying to like burn like little extra calories, but the guy was doing it like eight hours a day or something wild like that. But anyway, sitting at your desk and just moving those feet around,

maybe try to get toe socks might be a good start to the whole thing, which people might find cumbersome and they take a little longer to get on. But I think all those things are really excellent reasons on why to wear stuff like that because you are spending more time in a different position than maybe you're normally used to getting into. Normally, probably just yank your socks right on, only takes you like a half second.

But now this becomes a little bit of like an activity and you're taking like better care of your feet. And over time, that will really make a huge difference it all adds up like the it can feel a bit like oh what's that tiny amount of movement going to do but some movement compared to no movement really makes a huge difference to the function of the we weren't moving hardly at all today yeah you know what i mean like we were very stationary but we you know you're moving your hands and your eyes and your a lot of little movements yeah it's not it's low load but it brings blood flow to the area so people could be especially if they can kick their shoes off at work if in their own cubicle or or whatever and just getting you know

toe crunches moving their toes around ankle circles and just like bringing more blood flow circulation to the area and why do you guys think you see us bobbing around so much back here? Our toes are fucking doing it. Yeah. And so, you know, at a certain point to keep making progress, you're going to have to start loading the feet. You're gonna have to start training it, you know, in balance and strength and mobility and so on. But to, for the people who are just very new to it, just getting started with some very, very basic stuff frequently throughout the day is a really good way to just build that foundation that they can then keep progressing from. Our bodies are highly adaptable. So, and it's the way our feet are meant to be. So it's a quicker road back because they're like, oh, finally you've listened to, you know, what I've been trying to tell you all this time. It's a, it's a, um, a bit of a phenomenon to come home and not

take your shoes off. Cause you're like, you forget to shoes off because you forget to because you don't have sore feet. You're not thinking, oh, I've got to take my shoes off. Like a moccasin, really. Yeah, I guess I started to learn more about this stuff maybe just a couple of years ago. I think maybe Kelly's Tourette was kind of where I first started to hear about it. And then I was fortunate enough to do some work with him and Reebok and my friend Jesse Burdick. And we made a shoe together, made a powerlifting shoe that was wider.

And that really changed my feet for forever, basically, because I just used to have so much foot pain because my feet are kind of wide and it didn't matter what size shoe I got. It would still be pretty narrow. And then I even tried like dad shoes and I tried all kinds of stuff and nothing was really accommodating it because I think as you were pointing out in the gym,

those shoes still come to like a tip at the top there. So while some parts might fit, other parts don't. And then my feet were sliding around in there causing even more problems. So this has been like, this has been huge for me. Yeah, and I mean, people say we don't need to be able to use our toes like that, but nearly every muscle in the foot is attached to the toe. Like not all of them, but nearly all of them are attached to the toes.

So if we can't move our toes, then we're not going to be getting a stimulus to have those muscles healthy. So that's the non-negotiable for me, having a wide toe box to the tips of our toes. If somebody starts to get discouraged by the amount of cramping they feel when they do anything with their feet, what's your advice to them? I'd say that their foot is under-trained and deserves a bit more love and to pare it back a little and build up through a point. My feet still cramp up if I've run and then I try and do foot exercises to show someone at work. My foot cramps because I've fatigued them and then I'm trying to do more exercise on them. And I'm like, oh, this is slightly embarrassing though. You know, the

foot pro has got a cramp. It's because I'm using my feet. That's okay. Yeah. Yeah. You know, some tissue work can be helpful too, just to open things up and relax some of the muscles. Cause people's like, especially their plantar muscles can get super tense, super tight in there. And then they start trying to load anything and then it's like cramps up. So yeah, getting in and rolling the foot out. We do it a lot with these mini rollers, but you can do it with a lacrosse ball. Some people use a golf ball. Let me ask you guys something about that real quick, because it's interesting.

I agree with you. I think that's actually super beneficial. We've found a benefit from a lot of people that we know that we've given this advice to have found benefit from it. But there's a lot of people who say, oh, there's no proof to show that, you know, beating, using a ball underneath your foot and, and, and beating out that fascia is doing any type of benefit. It feels good to do it, but it doesn't really do anything. So what are your thoughts on that? Cause I've heard professionals say that I'm like, it's this whole soft tissue. Um, any soft tissue therapy therapy there's not a lot of evidence to say

that it's good but it makes people feel good it gives people a more um access to movement so therefore it's it's relevant um and especially for our feet which aren't generally moving like they're in a shoe that's stiff that's cushioned and they're not used to getting any load and the feet are designed to take load so So I just dismissed that argument because it just doesn't make any sense to me at all. Yeah. It's not necessarily doing anything structurally to the area if you're rolling it out. That's what they've figured out in the studies is like, you know, it's called myofascial release, but you're not actually affecting the structure of the fascia or the muscles, but there is neurological changes

that happen. And, you know, if you've got a restricted knee joint, for example, you might roll out your quad and then suddenly the range of motion is better. So subjectively something's changed. It's probably not because you actually released the fascia, but neurologically there's less protection going on there. So it allows you to move further. And just to add what Andy's saying with the feet, I think it's especially important with the feet because there's 33 joints in each foot and all of those joints are made to move. So obviously you've got the movements of your toes, which are a bit more obvious, but then there's all the movements of what they call the tarsal bones and there's accessory movements in the joints.

So it's more just moving like that. So if all you're on is flat level ground and in shoes all day every day, you don't get as much of that accessory movement and the deep pressure in the foot that you would usually get from rocks or logs or roots or whatever actually moves those joints as well. So it provides some passive movement into the joint and sort of supplements all the stuff that we're missing because we're not walking out in nature all the time. And our joints are heightened areas of nerves that give us a sense to where we are in space.

And so we want those joints to be able to move so that they can tell our brain this is where we are in space. And so we want those joints to be able to move so that they can tell our brain this is where we are. Yeah. I think some of the signaling gets like muddled, you know, from, you know, if your knee hurts, you know, somewhere in your body, there's some sort of nerve or some sort of response that's telling your brain that this hurts.

And I think when we do a myofascial release, we're actually probably more of just clearing things up, like making things less clutter and better communication, better circulation through those areas. That's kind of the way I look at it. It's like, this is just creating a pathway that tells me that this area, it should be okay if we can smooth out the area that's actually causing some of the static, then the body will clean itself up via this kind of circulation pathway. Yeah, it's important not to think that if you just did that, then your feet will be

strong and capable and everything. It just opens up a window of opportunity to do more with that area with probably less pain. I find it's especially helpful for people who have pain that's limiting them from doing movement. And then you get in there and, you know, quote unquote, release some stuff. And it can calm that down enough that they're like, oh, that feels good. And then it trains their nervous system to go, okay, this movement is safe now. And then it just, you progressively do that over time. It's just can't be the only thing you do. You just follow it up with movement and strengthening and mobilizing. But yeah, it's a good tool and some people don't find that it really works as well for them and that's okay. Like if it doesn't do anything for you, don't

bother. Um, I would say that probably for every part of the body except the feet, like you, I think you really do have to be doing some level of deep pressure through the feet regularly. But for me, if I'm spending heaps of time in nature, going rock hopping or even just going barefoot around, I find I really don't have to do much of that release. I guess it's more of a restorative thing, I would say, than you maintain by doing all of the other stuff. I want to add in that I think for some people,

we give people so many different things to work on. We're talking about grip and your neck and your calves and this and that. But, you know, so many things involve the feet and really what we're asking you to do is, is not that difficult. And when you have an opportunity to kick your shoes off, take the opportunity, you have the opportunity to go and walk on the beach barefoot you know rather than walking on the beach with your shoes on take your shoes off you know just these uh kind of

windows of opportunity that we have to uh just make our feet a little bit stronger give them a little bit more conditioning and then for those of you who are like i don't really want to spend a bunch of time working out my feet because i want people to look at how jacked i am well you could do calf races. You know, there's exercises that you can do where it's like, okay, you're kind of getting two for one because when you do a calf race, there's a tremendous amount of things going on with the feet. Every exercise is a foot exercise if your feet are on the ground.

You could be doing a bench press and pushing through your toes and working your feet if you're allowing your feet to move. If you're not disrupting that function. And if you do your single leg, you know, split squats or Bulgarian squats. A normal squat, a deadlift, you are using your feet and engaging your feet. But you'd be surprised at how many people aren't. Like how many people are literally working out from their ankle up because like they're getting their feet set, they're squatting and they're just thinking of, okay, knees forward, knees forward, but their feet aren't doing anything. Tons of seated exercises on machines, you know, leg extensions, leg curls, and so forth. And you actually see the feet moving around.

Like that's how you know that those toes aren't doing anything to root their feet into the ground. So you imagine how much power is actually being leaked if you're a power athlete. I like that there's people like that because they're inferior types. But I just imagine how much stronger they'd be, right? Because I made that error when I was like younger too. I'm like, fuck, I could have been so much stronger if like I knew what my feet were missing at an earlier age. And they'll be doing it in a cushioned shoe, like a running shoe.

You know, if you go to the gym and people are squatting in running shoes and their foot is just moving like crazy, their brain's going, what the hell's going on here? I'm meant to be getting some feedback from the ground if I'm going to lift this thing that's heavy, but I'm getting nothing. And so it's like, it's not great for your nervous system either. Then you're more likely to injure yourself because something else is going to go like, okay, if I can't feel my feet, I'm going to lock something down because this is a dangerous space for me. Like our brains are meant to be

getting feedback from our feet. What you got going on over there, Andrew? Yeah, I'm curious. So like once you do start like, you know, considering all these things and you start, you just start being very judgmental when you look at other people's feet this happens to me a lot i'll be at jujitsu and i'll be like yeah nose up at everybody i think in sema mistakenly did that at a jujitsu tournament that's where it happens a lot because you're you're walking around the mats barefoot and you're just like like that guy works in an office because i can see he's got like that diamond shape and you know and like this person probably never ever like even considered like taking their shoes

out of jordan's or whatever you know and um but it does make me think like is there like different foot shapes like are we supposed to have like the optimal, like club looking foot, like the, you know, caveman and that sort of thing? Or do we genuinely have like different shaped feet? Yeah, I don't get out much. So when I do, like I went to the Oz Health and Fitness Expo recently and I did a little hyperlapse video walking around looking at everyone's feet. These are all healthy people. And there were like two pairs of minimal shoes there until I went into the kettlebell corner where they were doing kettlebell stuff. And they were all wearing Vivos, which was really interesting to see. But if I say go down to the shops, which is like the mall,

I guess you would say here, which I don't do very often, maybe twice a year. Anyway, I'm just like, whoa, this is all too much for me. This is freaking me out, all these feet. But in answer your question, there's like eight different foot shapes. Some are deep, some are wide, some have got the longest, sorry, longest longest big toe some have got longest second toe there are 140 different barefoot shoe brands now um and so you can go to like certain websites where you'll like plug in your foot type and it'll say here's the 10 brands that'll fit your foot better like if you get to the point of wearing a minimalist shoe you want one that actually fits your foot properly because you know if you're going the point of wearing a minimalist shoe, you want one that actually fits your foot properly because, you know,

if you've got a high arch foot, like a deep, what we call a deep or voluminous foot, then like half the brands won't be so good for you. So you wear that and you get another issue because of that. So there are resources out there. Anya's Reviews is a really good one. She's great. We had her on the show.

Yeah, this weekend she's running an expo. It's called a try-on event where 2,000 people are going to come. Oh, no way. They get to try them on. To 30 different shoe brands. That's why we're over here originally to go to that for educational purposes. This thing I had you pulled up, is this bullshit or is this real? Yeah, I'm curious.

That's what I'm talking about. That's real. That's legit? Okay. The foot shapes are real, but is the origins? Yeah, that's how they're labeled. But look at them all and the widest part of those but is the uh like the origins yeah that's what that's how they're labeled but look at them all and the widest part of those feet are the tips of the toes the tips of the big toe little toe so that's um that's the key so if you're seeing anything

that is widest at the base of the toes that is an unnatural foot shape i will say something that i've noticed anecdotally because like i mean i know a lot of african people and i've noticed that black people seem to have a lot of african people and i've noticed that black people seem to have a lot seem to have slightly flatter a slightly flatter arch and i don't know if that's like i don't know if people pay attention to that but again i got when i when i realized that i got kind of pissed because i'm like i went to my podiatrist and he told me i had a flat foot i just had a black foot like like i really that's what he said like no no he's like you have flat feet here's our thoughts to bring that arch up did he said he's practice up in a neighborhood where there are a lot of

african-american people no no no but like maybe he was just like thinking there's gonna be a lot of customers here this is the thing i mean i know foot feet range but i have noticed that like a lot of black athletes have flatter arches i'm just like there's nothing there there's still high performing athletes there's nothing wrong with that arch a lot of black athletes have flatter arches. I'm just like, there's nothing, they're, they're still high performing athletes. There's nothing wrong with that arch. And a lot of Asian, Southeast Asian people as well. Yeah. And so it's, whereas Anglo people have often higher arches. Yeah, it's just, it's a norm, you know, like some people have bigger noses and some people

have smaller noses. It doesn't mean they can't all smell. Yep. Yep. I think there's actually an athlete. This is great. You wanted me to get mad at that, didn't you? No, I was going to give you props

because, well, McEwen. Yeah, he likes my big nose. He's like, I can breathe well through this. There is actually an athletic advantage to having a flatter arch because it's less time to if you've got a higher arch it takes longer to flatten then come back so when we're talking

about running sprinting jumping athletes there is actually an advantage of just getting off the ground yeah we're at a disadvantage okay so let me ask you this is there what's the advantage to because like each foot has to probably have a better uh way of doing certain things so what's the advantage of like having a higher arch does that does that a better way of doing certain things. So what's the advantage of having a higher arch? Does that make it easier to do certain things? Maybe other sports like gymnastics or something like that? Yeah, it's a stiffer foot, a higher arch, so it won't shock absorb so well. So if you're trying to think of a sport that doesn't shock absorb so well, that might be handy.

Potentially like static lifting, be able to create more stability on the ground where you're not actually having to absorb force from the ground what do you see most of those strong men are most of the strongest strong men i'm european yeah yeah yeah um so yeah the main thing is you can go between the two movements of like flattening, lifting. If you're going to be at a disadvantage if you can't do either, but, you know, where your foot rests isn't as important as whether you can do those movements. And then, yeah, maybe you do pick a sport based on your foot time or you just keep following what you love and deal with what you got.

But, yeah, just to put a pin in that, there's no natural foot shape that ends in a point, basically. It's always widest at the tips of the toes. If you look at baby's feet, they're all widest at the tips of the toes unless there's some sort of rare genetic condition. And the only reason for those toes to scrunch in is just because of the narrow shoes that they get put in.

It's kind of sickening when you start to think about it. Chinese foot binding but modern. Yeah. Exactly. And that was so that those women would be seen as not having to do work and now if you go into the city, you'll see women doing, you know, office like important jobs in shoes that are really high like that. It's just our Western version of it and we poo-hoo that

but it was really just as bad, really. Yeah. And when someone changes into a shoe that lets their foot move, their arch shape can change. Sometimes it'll lower more because they got so – like I wore orthotic for 20 years. Really? Yeah, because I was an elite junior, elite sort of 20-year-old runner

but had a lot of shin issues. And so I was at podiatry school, so of course I got into orthotics and just wore them for 20 years because I thought I still needed them. And I wear Birkenstocks as well and I still have a pair at the front door when I take the dogs out for a – Those sandals, right? Yeah, yeah. Okay.

And they've got an arch support. So when I put that shoe on now just to take the dogs out for a wee at the night before they go to bed, I'll put that Birkenstock on and the arch is really uncomfortable, which tells me my arch has probably got used to flattening a bit more. But some people notice, especially those that have a lower arch profile, they get a higher arch profile because their muscles get stronger. I noticed that too. Yeah. Most people will end up with a bigger foot or more splayed foot, but some even get smaller

because everything like gets firmer, you know? So yeah. For years on this podcast, we've been talking about the benefit of barefoot shoes. And these are the shoes I used to use back in like 2017, 2018, my old Metcons. They are flat, but they're not very wide and they're very stiff and they don't move. That's why we've been partnering with, and we've been using Vivo barefoot shoes. These are the Modus strength shoe because not only are they wide, I have wide-ass feet and so do we here on the podcast, especially as our feet have gotten stronger, but they're flexible. So when you're doing certain movements, like let's say you're doing jumping or you're doing split squats or you're doing movements where your toes need to flex and move, your feet are

able to do that and perform in this shoe, allowing them to get stronger over time. And obviously, they're flexible. So your foot's allowed to be a foot. And when you're doing all types of exercise, your feet will get stronger, improving your ability to move. Andrew, how can they get their hands on these? Yes, head to vivobarefoot.com slash powerproject and enter the code that you see on screen to save 20% off your entire order.

Again, that's at vivobarefoot.com slash powerproject. Links in the description as well as the podcast show notes yeah i'm sorry mark um i just wanted because we mentioned um kid shoes earlier and then we were talking about it now it does seem pretty easy um early on because like all the shoes are just like a circle you know like there's not really much shape to it and they have like some cool design they are extremely stiff though like they don't move at all so what i've done for my son is i just get them water shoes because they seem to be the easiest thing i want to do vivos and i want to do more expensive shoes but the thing is they're very expensive and you know again he's three years old so he'll probably probably be able to fit in them for like

two weeks and then it's like well cool 100 bucks gone so any parents out there if if you know what we're saying is resonating with you and you want to like help your your kiddo and give them a really good start just throw them in some water shoes because they're wide they're bendy and they're not going to really get into too much trouble anyways they're a brand you get on amazon or something walmart walmart walmart water shoes they're water shoes. They're nice and wide. They're just like a rubber, like bottom flimsy piece of thin, you know, sole. Nice. He loves them, yeah. I did a podcast recently with, it wasn't a podcast,

it was like a focus group on bunions because, well, it turns out that people that have pain with bunions are mostly because of the deformity and so they're worried about it and that's why they have pain more than any other reason. But it was to build some education up around bunions. And so the guy that was doing it is a university professor and he's an old friend. So he got me in because he knew I'd be doing the rehab side of it. But there were two foot surgeons and two other podiatrists there as well.

And one of the foot surgeons works in Byron Bay, which is kind of like the really beachy, like hippie vibe area in Australia. And she said that she would be out of a job if everyone just wore water shoes. So the foot surgeon knows that if everyone's just wearing water shoes, these shoes that you're talking about, they're wide, they're flat, they're flexible and people don't get bunions in them. Let me ask you this. Do you think, because again, I had a Taylor's bunion surgery when I was 19,

which like that, that made me get cut from college soccer because I couldn't sprint anymore. Chop. Taylor's Bunny surgery when I was 19, which like that, that made me get cut from college soccer because I couldn't sprint anymore. Chop part of your foot off. Yeah. If we use that, it's like right here, if he shows it, it's the pinky toe, literally they shut, they shaved the bone off, um, because that bone was causing me too much pain. Like not the actual pinky toe, but the side. The side. Right. You can describe it in more detail. Um, but I was realizing something a few weeks back because I've been doing this foot stuff for years now, right? And my feet don't hurt. I can sprint. I can do all this. When I splayed my foot out, I noticed that my pinky toe tendon here on my left foot, there is so much depth and definition. When I splayed my foot on my right side, that definition isn't there. I'm like, wow, if I just worked on this rather than getting that surgery, I would have been so much better off and my foot would probably just be better off too. So what are your thoughts there? be saying, you know, obviously you can't change your soccer boots, which is probably the big, like a lot of it. But then you were probably going into a pair of your Nike, you know,

Air Force Ones or whatever. Yeah. I love it. The rest of the time. Air Forces are clean, bro. That's right. The rest of the time. And so I'd be changing that shoe.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's hard to rehab this area because it's got muscles though. And so you can rehab it. And if it's got a muscle and a joint that can move, you can teach that movement and you can load that movement at uni. And I thought about it before when you're talking about in 2008, seeing these fingers, I was a traditional podiatrist then, and I was telling people, no, you can't train your foot muscles because that's what we were taught. I was like eight years out of uni and we were taught that. You really thought you can't train them? Yeah, you don't do exercise if you, they need support. And this is just still the same.

That does make a little bit of sense though for people that their feet are sensitive and are in a compromised position, you know, because you might say the same thing of somebody with a really bad lower back. And we know differently now, but I could see the logic of like, your back hurts, like, let's be careful. Let's figure out a way over the next couple of weeks, maybe to get exercise. We were told that the muscles are too small, so they're hard to train.

And the analogy was seeing eyeglasses, which is because your muscles around your eyes aren't able to focus well, help you focus well. My wife was, or still is an orthoptist. Their job is to train muscles, part of their job to help people focus, you know, in different ways. And there are now optometrists that are helping people focus, use the muscles. They're training these little muscles. So the analogy is even wrong now because there are people training training their eyes, yeah. Training their eyes. Without their glasses. Yeah, so that they don't need their glasses so much, yeah.

But this is what the message was then, and a lot of people were running and getting injured. But back to your point of this, I would now load you, like I would load that area and get it stronger and make sure you're wearing your toe spacers, like doing everything outside of that boot to make it right. Because boot time might be like four hours a week, maybe six. This is not long compared to all the other time.

So that's the focus. But I think it's still very rare that that's going on. I think there's still a lot of surgery happening for something like that, especially for an athlete that is probably like, I need to be back on the field, you know? So, yeah. And people sort of perceive that the worst, like the bunions can get pretty severe and there's like there's a rating system.

Four stage rating system. Yeah. I actually thought it was three, but Andy threw me with that one. But it's mild, moderate, severe, and I guess like super severe or whatever. That's right. That's exactly right.

This can be fixed a lot of times without surgery, right? Well, it depends on the severity. So the more severe, like if it's in that sort of severe or super severe range, then it's very unlikely to restore that natural alignment without surgery. Bring up some bunions, Andrew. Yeah, bring it up. Even with like years?

I'll grade them from here. I think it would be pretty individual. I would doubt that it would get that because it's not just the angle of that phalange, which is the toe. It's also the angle of the metatarsal which is the bone that comes from that's the genetic component to it there are genetic components to it but as the big toe goes in then the other one sort of angles out as well so the bump that you see is actually the head of the metatarsal is it weird that i'm getting a little hard right now. I'm joking. So anyway, the, but the research shows that the severity of the bunion is not related at all to the level of pain or disability people feel. So

you could have a very severe bunion and have no pain at all. And no, no, not really any ratings of disability, even though your foot function would probably be restricted, or you could have a very mild bunion and have high levels of pain so that kind of relates to there's a lot that goes into the experience of pain beyond just level of deformity or function and as andy was saying before a lot of it is sort of catastrophization around and see if you can find the bunion chart oh okay oh there we go extreme mild moderate severe and extreme yeah so bring that up holy Holy crap. Can you make that bigger? Extreme bunion.

So, you know, maybe walk some people through, like, if someone's, like, you know, not that severe at the moment, what are some things they can do? So you can see in the first one, the mild, if you ran down the inside of the foot and the big toe was straight, that's how that foot should naturally be. Okay. Sometimes it might never change shape,

but I would be pretty confident that like in a year's time, that big toe will be straighter if they just change their shoe. Like my wife's foot was like that and she does never an exercise I would ever prescribe her. Like she will just, like if I prescribe the exercise, she will blatantly refuse to do that exercise. She might've worn toe spaces for like two hours in the last six years and her foot is now straight big toe just from changing her shoes.

So just that habitual thing is number one thing to do. If we look at stage two or stage three, there are muscles on the inside of the foot that are like I call them the anti-bunion muscles. That's the official name. Its job, this muscle, if it contracts, its job is to pull the big toe sideways like out of a bunion and then working opposite of one muscle here and it's pulling your big toe this way. And so to balance that out, like with some soft tissue work,

strengthening work, sometimes a bunion is stiff. So we'll do some mobility work on it. Just like if you had a stiff knee or a stiff hip, you'll do some mobility work on it. Just like if you had a stiff knee or a stiff hip, you'd do some mobility work. The like kind of in between those two tendons, it controls the big toe going left or right. Yeah. There's three, there's six muscles just for the big toe. Like we stopped being able to do this with our feet so that we could stand upright and be like the dominant species because we could walk for a long time. And so we gave up the ability to do that so we could use our big toe to walk and push off from.

And so there are six muscles just for the big toe. The three that are closest, like that only within the foot, are helping us push off really powerfully and creating stability around there. So one's on the inside, one's on the outside with two heads and one's right underneath. And so it's a balance between them as to what's going on here. So if they do surgery, I'm not like in Australia, podiatrists aren't surgeons first and foremost compared to here in the States. But generally there's something called a first, second metatarsal angle.

And so to have this, the genetic predisposition to having a bunion will be a wider first, second metatarsal angle. And so to have this, the genetic predisposition to having a bunion will be a wider first, second metatarsal angle like this. And so if your mum had a bunion than you do, you probably both have this wider first metatarsal. Another genetic predisposition is joint mobility. So more mobility in the joint, it's more likely to take on the effect of the shoe, but the environment, the shoe is going to swing that big toe sideways. And so this muscle gets weak, this one gets strong. So in surgery, they change the shape of this bone, like they swing it in, they tighten this muscle and they release this muscle. So in rehab, we change the shoe so that we can still have that wide first, second metatarsal, strengthen the inside, release the outside.

We've talked about this a bunch on the show, but taking a pencil eraser is like kind of the perfect thing. And you just jab it down in between. Would that help someone with a bunion? This muscle that's the tight one is tight because shoes have been pulling it into that position for so long. It's under four layers of muscles. Like we've got a lot of muscles in the feet.

And so it's hard to get to even with a ball under this way. So those that have a bunion have a wide space. It's almost like welcoming you to put your finger in there or a pencil to try and release that muscle. Yeah. You'd be people listening. You'd be shocked. Everyone will be sore there. Yeah. How crazy that can feel. Yeah. It feels nuts. Feels like your foot's going to cramp too. In Eastern medicine, it's a, it's an acupressure point because, which I'm not over, but as in, I don't understand, but, um, it's a pretty powerful thing going on there. So, um, but bunions can also be because someone laterally ankles sprained their ankle 10 years ago and the timing of the way their foot, the way their foot's landing is not ideal, or they might've, you know, had a cesarean 10 years ago. And so they've lost some core control and hip stability because of major

abdominal surgery. You know, there's many factors and generally we should be looking at those, like looking up the stream as well. And there's specific rehab, but just changing the shoe is number one. And then, you know, I guess what the Foot Collective are doing is that we're trying to get people moving more, creating tools that help people move more, bring some awareness to their feet. Because you don't, like I do specific stuff because someone comes to see me specifically, but generally there are a lot of people

having huge changes to their feet just by changing their shoes and doing some basic foot stuff. So maybe a paloova might be a really good idea because it's kind of like a walking toe spacer. Yeah, paloova, depending on theacer. Yeah, palooza are. Depending on the severity. Yeah.

And you got to be careful with how long you wear these things and stuff like that because it might be too much for you at first. Yeah. Mark reached out to me early on to help him work on that shoe and all those shoes. I think if we go back to those eight different types of feet, a toe shoe won't always fit those eight different sizes. Some people have webbed feet. Yeah.

Some people do have webbed feet. It's called syndactyly where like second and third. And so, and so, and I like that he's put some cushioning in because it's a gate for people like to go without the cushioning into, in a minimalist shoe is the biggest step for anyone. Like that's the hardest bit. And so some cushioning into in a minimal shoe is the biggest step for anyone like that's the hardest bit and so some cushioning is good um i think athletically our foot's meant to um compress and splay more and so i wonder what it is like to be always splayed um i run in them and i quite enjoy running in them um so you know it's if it's very gentle splaying yeah it's a

gentle splay yeah that's right yeah yeah, they're a good shoe. They're good in, if you can get over the look of the toe thing, which is if you're trying to start minimalist shoes, that can sometimes be a bit of a stretch because that's like the ultimate minimalist shoe to have your toes separate. But that's also the biggest change for someone to change what they look down on. Yeah. But they're a good shoe. Yeah. What are your thoughts on just, you know, people playing around with some of the ways that they walk? Because naturally if you're, if you've been wearing normal shoes for a long time, your gate's going to slowly start to change.

Uh, but I know sometimes like when I'm walking, I'll mess around with like keeping my toes splayed while walking, just keeping them splayed and just like, uh, walking gently. And then, um, I'll walk on the sides of my feet. I'll just try to walk in different ways so I can pressurize my feet in different ways. What are your guys' thoughts on that? Jim, do you want to talk about your, like, yeah. The weird walks. Yeah. Yeah. I'm a big fan. I think, you know, people can get caught up in this sort of, this is the way to walk and all of the research will sort of show, okay, this is the most efficient way to walk, for example. But all of that research is done on flat level ground, like likely on a treadmill. So that

already it's kind of, yeah, not necessarily how we would walk in nature when we're talking about different surfaces, different textures. It's not all flat levels. Sometimes it's sharp, sometimes it's angular. So that ability to walk in a way that's adaptable to the surface like sure heel toe heel to toe strike might be efficient on flat level ground but if it's sharp then you're going to be going forefoot to heel because otherwise you're not going to able to absorb the force of that sharp and no one's going to want to drive their heel into a sharp thing so having i, I think, just practicing that, even if you're not having to go on sharp things,

just practicing walking on your forefoot or going forefoot to heel, heel to forefoot, outside edge, inside edge, all of these things is great for increasing the adaptability of the foot. Not that that's how you should get around all the time, but it gives you the options. So it's like, I think the, where the research is heading and where the clinical practice is heading is away from good movements and bad movements and just options that you can explore based on what the context demands basically. Yeah. And then, and then clinically often,

if someone's been in a heeled cushion shoe, there'll be a heavy heel strike, strike, and not just running, but even walking, putting in a heeled cushioned shoe, there'll be a heavy heel strike, and not just running, but even walking, putting their leg out in front of them, possibly why so many people are having knee replacements when they're 60, because of a heel with a cushion that they're just jamming their leg out in front of them and getting heel pain from that as well. And so clinically, if someone's – and then when their toes are squished,

they're mostly not using their big toe to push off from, so they're pushing off through their lesser metatarsals, which is called low gear toe off. It's not as efficient. And so I use cues, gait cues to piece together the rehab. Like if I'm doing some rehab on their feet, if I'm doing some rehab on their ankle and their knee and their hip, and then you want to piece it together with gait. And so we use cues that are usually not foot focused. If you focus on the foot, then it becomes very, um, stiff. And so it might be a postural cue that lets the foot do its job a bit better without someone

thinking about their sore feet more. When we're walking, um, we most likely, I realize everyone's built so differently. That's maybe not a great way to say like, this is the way to walk. Yeah. But is there some common things that people should be thinking about? Like is there any reason for someone who normally walks with their feet out for them to walk with their feet straighter or to just – I guess it's kind of similar to Nseema's question of just sort of walking differently. Like maybe – and maybe someone that, maybe pigeon-toed, maybe they should walk with their feet pointed out a little bit

just to kind of get that diversity. One of my favorite simple cues with that is just focusing on walking quieter because it's like a really simple one and it's very obvious if you actually tune into the way you're walking. The same goes for running because our feet are supposed to absorb the force from the ground. And so the cue you get if you're not absorbing force well is a loud footstep. And so it's much easier to do that, like Andy said, in a cushioned heeled shoe because you don't get the feedback from the ground. As soon as you go barefoot, you'll immediately get the

feedback of how hard you're stepping. But if you're not going barefoot, you're just in shoes, just hear the sound. So that might be the heel striking the ground. It also might be the second, as you go from heel to forefoot, if you're getting that sort of slap, then you're not actually getting an efficient roll through there and you're not absorbing the force. It's just coming down like that.

So again, I think that pattern or that loud footsteps is created by the shoes that we or that loud footsteps is created by the shoes that we wear that block the input through the feet. But a good way to tune in is just listening. Yeah. And generally in walking, we should be landing on a heel. It's got a massive fatty pad there. This is designed for taking load. It's got a round bone. That's one of the rockers of the foot that helps us load. And so we should be landing on a heel, but with probably a bit of a soft landing that rolls through using those rockers.

It might be dependent on the surface and so forth. A hundred percent. Like walking uphill, you're going to be on your toes more downhill. And it's the same with running. If our posture is better or if we're more focused on our posture, then our foot will just do its thing. It's like our body's the car, our legs are the suspension, and our feet are the wheels.

The wheels are just doing what they're told by these other things, and the surface. So the surface is dictating what the foot's doing with good control further up the chain. Have you met some people that are proponents of forefoot walking? Yeah. And I don't agree, but what are your thoughts? Mostly I've met them when they're bombing my Instagram.

Okay. Because I agree with you. But their whole thing is like, oh, yeah. I think that the ground wasn't always concrete and flat like this. And we used to walk through terrain. And when we're walking through that terrain, we're not landing on our heels. And so that's some of the things they say.

So what are your thoughts on the forefoot, pure forefoot walk? Yeah. I think walk, walking or running when it's dictated, um, in terms of technique by foot strike, it's,

it's just an, um, straight away. I'm just like, well, that's not true really. Because, um, like I just said,

if our body's moving well, our foot will strike depending on the environment. And so, you know, I'm just like, well, that's not true really. Because like I just said, if our body's moving well, our foot will strike depending on the environment. And so, you know, I'll be down at the local footy oval and there's someone running around in minimalist shoes, which is really rare to start with. And they're up on their toes because they've read something that says you should be running on your toes. This is a recipe. This is why people end up with stress fractures in their forefoot when five fingers first came out like 15 years ago because everyone went running 50ks in their nikes and assics and stuff to changing their technique in a shoe that didn't that loaded their foot that wasn't ready for it and they so as soon as it's never black and white unfortunately yeah like black and white

sells black and white gets you lots of followers. But unfortunately, this is something that is definitely not black and white. If everything is perfect, as in your speed is constant, the ground is constant, like not uphill or downhill. So you're not accelerating, decelerating. And you're running at a, again, if you're running really fast, it would change. If you're running really slow, it would change. But at a pace, then there might be an argument for what I would call a mid-foot strike where your foot is doing this spring-like thing. Yeah, and you're kind of getting into the big toe. Yeah, for running.

For running. Not for walking. For walking, yeah. But if you walk really – if you run slowly, you're going to get back onto your heel a bit more. If you run faster or accelerate, you're going to go up onto your forefoot more depending on the terrain. One foot will do something different to the next foot because the terrain is different from one to the

other. You know, like if I'm running over the road, there'll be a gutter that I put my forefoot on because it would be awful to land on my heel. But then I, you know, there's so many different variables that if, as soon as you say it must be this way, you're just going to cause issues, I think. And, and unfortunately it's, it is nuanced. Yeah. And so with walking, sorry, Jim, and slow running, it's probably a heel strike, less jogging that we spoke about earlier in the gym and with walking nearly always heel strike and less is terrain variable as well. Yeah.

Yeah, like it comes back to the context, you know, if it's sharp or if I'm trying to sneak up behind someone, then I'm going to go four foot walking just like they prescribe. Um, but, and I want to have that option and I want to have the resilience through my forefoot to be able to do that. But it's not something that you'd go around doing every time because, because, you know, just cause it fits that context in nature or in certain environments, obviously only certain environments in nature are like that just cause if it's that context doesn't mean you should be doing it in certain environments. Obviously, only certain environments in nature are like that. Just because it fits that context doesn't mean you should be doing it in every context.

And it just comes back to, yeah, adaptability, resilience. If you build up the options in your foot to go through that, like that's what we were saying before with the weird walks, it's just walk weirdly so that you build the adaptability and then draw on that. Well, you don't even have to consciously draw on it. Your body will just draw on those options depending on what the context is. Yeah. Yeah. I find that after, you know, quite a bit of running, wearing the Palooza shoes, and then also I sort of will

force myself to walk a particular way because sometimes when I get fatigued from running, even if it's the next day, I'll find myself just kind of walking maybe like too relaxed if there's such a thing. But my feet are kind of pointed out and it's just, and my gait is very short. So on my off days, what I've been doing for the last couple of years is walking with a little bit longer of a stride and also really trying to be conscious of pointing my feet forward almost to the point where the heel is almost outward a little bit. And what I found for myself is that that's been like almost decompressive for me. It feels like it's almost eliminating some of the soreness and some of the residual that I got from running. Because as I was mentioning, when I'm running, sometimes I get fatigued during the run and my technique and form starts to change, which happens quite a bit.

I'm not always pushing myself like crazy when I'm running. I would say the effort is probably somewhere in the 65% to 75% range, kind of zone two type stuff. 75% range, kind of zone two type stuff. But as runners know, you get excited and maybe like the last, you know, 15 minutes or 10 minutes, you want to push a little harder. So I kind of find myself in some of those predicaments here and there. And so I found it useful to decompress by kind of walking with straighter feet and by using toe spacers and stuff like that. Yeah.

So fatigue is definitely a factor. Like if I deadlift, the next day I'm walking my dogs and I'm feeling my heel hit the ground. Or even, yeah, when you wake up in the morning. Yeah. I'm like, wow, I don't have that control from further up. And so what you're speaking of, I think, is fatigue in your legs, creating this gait that is less efficient maybe. And then when you're striding out, ideally we stride out behind us. So we're pushing off through our big toe and getting into good hip extension. Yeah, that's not what I'm great at. That's what I try to focus on.

Get in good hip extension, and then our other foot will naturally land closer to under us rather than storing our leg out in front of us. And so stride length doesn't matter so much as long as it's more behind us, I think. And then I guess it comes down to when you talk about decompressing, it's like a moving sort of like active recovery. That's a good word. Like you're actively getting the blood moving and that's why it starts feeling good, I'd say. Yeah. You mentioned the alignment point about feet going out and versus straight. And again, it's not really any right or wrong necessarily,

or anything that's going to be in the research at least obviously correlated with pain. So, you know, whether performance efficiency, you know, if you're going to be walking for optimal performance or running, then generally a straighter foot alignment will allow better extension through the toe. that foot alignment will allow better extension through the toe. Because if your feet are pointed out, you're more likely to roll across the toe, which points it into that abduction rather than actually pushing off in through extension. But in terms of people actually changing that, like if you look down and notice that you do walk out like that, if all you do is just consciously try and bring your feet in, you might end up setting yourself up for issues because your body is used to, it's compensated to that. It's used to doing that. And that might be, you know, I often see ballet dancers walk around. Well, I assume they're ballet dancers. I kind of just guess they are because they're sort of walking out in that plie kind of position.

They're turned out and they're just used to doing that. And a lot of the time that's just hip external rotation that they've been in for so long without balancing out with hip internal rotation. But there's also like a tibial rotation at the knee component where if your tibia is really externally rotated, you know, changing your hip may not really do much to that tibial external rotation. So it depends on each person. But I think as a general rule, it's a good idea. Like if you struggle to get into that

feet straight position, it's probably a good idea to figure out what's making you struggle at that. And can you address that? Yeah, not necessarily as a pain prevention thing, but a lot of people who do experience issues just by getting more variability into their movement can make a big difference because their patterns can change the load patterns change i want to say anecdotally that did make a big difference for me like i used to walk in that slight pattern especially when lifting was the main thing when i started working on a lot of this stuff now my now my feet naturally i'm moving in that direction i added some movement variability things to my training. I strengthened my feet and now it's the way it should be. So it also seems like a, like I was saying, it seems like a good recovery tool, but I can also tell how unrecovered I am by the way that

I'm walking. You know, I'm just thinking of like when I first wake up in the morning, if I lifted pretty heavy and ran pretty well, um, that is a, uh, just a waddle, you know, waddle to the bathroom with the feet pointed out. But when I'm managing that better, I don't have to walk that way. Yeah. There's genetic predisposition to the way someone might walk, but then we can give the body options and change, you know, there are changes as well. We're getting old. I'm the same age. A lot of people, I'd say most people get into trouble with their movement when they only load in one way because they don't have the option of loading in the other way.

It's like one of my favorite analogies when it comes to movement is I got from Katie Bowman who's a biomechanist and she uses the – She's a runner, right? No? I don't actually know if she's a runner. I've heard of her before. Yeah, she's wrote a book. She's wrote a few books um main one is move your dna and that really changed my whole perspective on

movement or really deepened it i suppose anyway the analogy being that movement is like nutrition for our bodies and like like food and that's kind of an easy example is if you go on bed rest or you go out of space and you change all of the gravitational load on your body then your muscle mass and your bone density will decrease regardless of how much protein you're eating or calcium or minerals and so on and so the movement and the load acts like a nutrient for the muscles and bones so it's pretty obvious because that's the muscle yeah it's like a it acts like a nutrient that then, uh, it's called mechanotransduction. So the mechanical forces get transferred into biochemical processes in the cell. Same thing goes for pretty much every

system in our body because our genes expect us to be moving frequently. But she talks about how if you, you know, oranges might be good, but if all you have is oranges then you're probably going to end up deficient in something so you need the right quantity of movement but also quality and variability matter a lot as well especially variability because yeah the more you load in one way and that goes for you know on a macro level like if all you do is one sport you're going to be loading in a certain way over and over again. But then on a micro level, if a joint can only access external rotation and not internal rotation, then that can overload certain structures simply because you're just not exploring the other aspects of that joint.

What do you guys think of this David Weck guy, this head over foot guy? You guys are going to see him coming up, right? Yeah. I mean, my introduction to his stuff was through Pablo at winding ropes. He's, he's based in Melbourne and I started doing the rope flow and I'm like a big play guy. I like to just sort of get in the zone and explore something, especially like something skill-based that is challenging at first. I whack myself with the rope and I'm like, Oh, but you're lifting though. I saw those legs when you're doing your squats. Yeah. Yeah. I like, I like the variability. I

was born with these quads. Um, just make everybody hate you. Um, but yeah, I mean, I personally am very interested to delve deeper into it with him, uh, in person because I think that, I think there's a lot going on in his mind that I would like to, to sort of really ask him about, but from listening to him on podcasts and just from exploring the ropes myself, it's an experiential thing with the ropes and his kind of movement. It's getting rotation into movement. Like how anything athletic involves rotation through the whole body. Like if you're thinking about throwing, boxing, like punching, kicking, it's all based on rotation and it goes from your foot all the way through whichever limb you're using. So a punch isn't powerful because you've got strong arms.

It's powerful because you're moving your feet, twisting at the hips and rotating through your thoracic spine. So I think anything like that, where, you know, the ropes as the thing that I've had the most experience with that cues your body and teaches your body how to do that without someone having to cue it for you. It's the same kind of principle that we use with the soulmates and the beam. It's like the tool becomes the teacher and you just explore, explore. And over time your body goes, ah, that's how I do that. It learns how to be efficient. And then you get to really explore that in a fun way. And yeah, I think there's a lot of good stuff and I'm super keen to, to meet him and dig into it. And you can do it anywhere. It's It's like, there are light ropes,

there are heavier ropes. You can literally go out at work and do this and start with the simplest patterns. But when your brain downloads these patterns, bro, and then when you actually go do something athletic, you feel it. You feel that difference. Exactly.

Because you're working right and left sides, whereas if you're a grappler and you favor one side and it's always the right side, that left side feels awkward. But the rope, you work both sides, you go back and grapple and you favor one side and it's always the right side, that left side feels awkward. But the rope, you work both sides, you go back and grapple, you feel both sides. It's a fucking great tool. Yeah. And like I said, it's the same principle with the balance training.

The play-based balance training puts you in positions that you would never otherwise get in if you're lifting. You'd only really get in there if you're jumping and landing from, you know, some kind of, yeah, a header in soccer or a catch or whatever. Um, but it gives you the chance to be exposed to that position and stabilize in that position before you actually are in that more high stakes environment like sports or whatever. Um, and you can do it at high velocity and you can add complexity of different elements of coordination or cognitive dual tasking. And you can do it at high velocity and you can add complexity of different elements of coordination or cognitive dual tasking.

And it just gets, it actually, those kinds of things actually promote neuroplasticity in the brain. So you just get more and more adaptable. Like the more you play, the better you get at playing and the better you get at playing, the more you'll learn skills. And you just, like you said, you get that feel for it and you're like, oh, that feels right. And that is like our body is literally programmed to feel when something is right. And you don't

know that it's wrong until you have a tool like that, or you get an experience where you're like, wow, something's clearly missing. And let's just make this simple real quick. Do what you did as a kid or do what you see kids doing that are having fun when they're out in the jungle gym going and hanging off bars literally jumping around running around and falling all this shit is just doing kid shit and the funny thing is i think all of us have realized as we started doing more of this kid stuff we start feeling better like kids jump on trampolines that's plyometric ability man that strengthens your feet and it's fun as fuck. Just, it's simple. And yeah, that's why, why do we play like that?

Why do kids naturally do that? Why? Oh, thanks for asking. Yeah, so the research behind play is really interesting and I'm sort of drawing on Todd Hargrove. He wrote a book called Playing With Movement and I've been inspired a lot by Rafe Kelly, who talks really well about this. But if you think about a group of kids in nature, you just leave them to their own devices without any actual like

screen devices, obviously. And then you just let them be. They'll naturally start doing the jumping, the throwing, the chasing each other, the climbing trees, the building forts, all of these things are like almost hardwired into them as fun. But it's like, why is that fun? The fun is the reward for doing the activities that actually build adaptability and resilience to then be like a functioning member, adult member of the tribe. Because if you can't run and jump, if the first time you practice running and chasing is if you if the first time you practice running and chasing is when you're trying to chase an animal or escape a predator you're in big trouble so you need to practice all of that stuff in low stakes environments first you need

to practice wrestling you need to practice throwing over and over again like kids start throwing my little 16 month old she's been throwing for already like six months just picks up something and just chucks it gotta clear the whole table the whole fucking table yeah anything by chance yeah it's built in and what are you doing are you crazy yeah because they have to be able to to survive and that's just all genetically programmed but that is the beauty of play it's like it's kind of seen as frivolous i think in today's society everyone's sort of work-based um but i mean jujitsu is another awesome example of play it's like relatively low stakes it's probably higher than balancing on a soulmate but it's um you know you you know there's a spirit of play where you're

tapping hands and you know that if that person gets you, they're not actually going to kill you. So that's pretty good to know. And it allows you to explore things in a way where you're not actually fighting for your life, but part of you kind of feels like you are fighting for your life. And, you know, there's no really right or wrong way to do jiu-jitsu. It's just an array of tools. The more tools you have,

the more you can change what you're using, depending on what the other person's doing. So it's like, yeah, it's the same concept, but our brains have this natural reward system for doing those things. And that's why people get addicted to jujitsu. And that's why sports are so huge and so on, is because we actually need that mentally and physically to be adaptable and to thrive. You're probably wondering why am I wearing these glasses? Well, it's because I'm being bathed in blue light and blue light isn't necessarily bad.

There's blue light in the sun. But if you're in your office, if you're indoors, if you're in front of a screen during the daytime, it's not a great idea to have your eyes being bathed by blue light all day long. That's why EMR Tech, a company that we've partnered with, has blue light daytime glasses and blue light blocking evening glasses. These glasses right here are meant for you to wear during the daytime when you're in front of screens, et cetera. But if you're outside, take the glasses off and get the natural sunlight. And if you're at home in the evening when sun sets and you need to be in front of the TV or you need to be in front of your computer or on your phone, these glasses are

the ones to get. They also have the best red light therapy devices on the market. If you stand in front of any of EMR Tech's red light therapy devices, you will actually feel how much stronger the output of the red light is on those devices versus any of the competitors. They also have some of their smaller red light devices like their Fire Wave, Fire Dragon, and Fire Storm. And then if you want to get some of their bigger panels, they have their Fire Hawk, which is their biggest panel, and the Inferno panel. These are literally the best red light therapy devices on the market. And if you want to save on them, Andrew, how can they do that? Yes, you got to head over to emrtech.com. That's emr-tech.com. And check out Enter Promo Code

Power Project to save 20% off your entire order. Again, that's emrtech.com, Promo Code Power Project. Links in the description as well as the podcast show notes. I think if you see an adult run and they're not actually like necessarily running, they're just like running to do something, to do a sport or something like that. I think you can kind of speculate that that person's probably not in hardly any pain. I saw a guy a couple of days ago, hop out of his truck and he ran, he just like jogged. I just happened to be walking by, he just jogged. And then he ran up a flight of stairs to like an ATM machine. I was just thinking like, that's awesome. Like that guy's probably not in any pain.

He was probably, you know, maybe in his fifties or something like that. But I think that we don't really realize how much of this stuff that we are missing and how much of this stuff that we're not doing anymore. We're not throwing stuff. We're not jumping. And I think, again, we keep adding stuff to people's plate. We're talking about diet and we're talking about but a lot of these things are not really that hard to there there are more things that you can

integrate into your life rather than things that you have to you don't necessarily have to spend like two hours a day or an hour a day on some of these things these are things you can just implement and just start thinking like oh yeah i haven't thrown anything in like a long time next time i see one of my friends i'm'm going to chuck a football around with them. I'm going to bring a football or baseball or soccer ball to the gym. These are things that are like, to me, they seem like really easy to incorporate somewhere in your life. Definitely.

And everyone's busy. Everyone's time poor these days. And if you give people all these things that they should do, it does get overwhelming. It's like, I should do this, I should do that. And then they've got a list of like 50 should dos and they can only fit in five. Anxiety. But in terms of like bang for buck,

then just getting out and moving and playing in nature is pretty huge. Obviously, you might have to do some restorative work to be able to do that pain-free. But also, it's self-sustaining because it's enjoyable. So people sort of, I should go to the gym. It's like a chore. They do their boring treadmill and a few weights or machines workout. And yeah, it's good for me, so I should do it. But once you start enjoying something, you just find ways to input it into your life. You're not actually fighting against the lack of time. It's just like, oh, I'm prioritizing this. And then you get more energy for everything else. There's a really good book, Power of Fun, that again has deepened my perspective on the power of fun. And yeah, she talks about how when you get true fun in your life,

it actually is one of the most health-giving things simply by the fact that it improves your mood so much, it improves your energy. You have just more clarity and just more pizzazz for life, more spice for life. And then you can fit more stuff in and, you know, the hard things don't seem as hard because you've got this outlet for fun and connection. But yeah, she talks about the three elements of true fun being playfulness,

flow and connection. And so, yeah, it's deep, doesn't it? You've got to sprinkle me some more books. You said playing with movement, power of fun. What others are like around this play stuff because this is good shit around play well there is actually a book called i believe it's just called play by stewart brown and that's more of a broad look at play that isn't as related to like the physical aspect i suppose um but that's really good other other book oh exuberant Animal by Frank Forensich. That's like another one of my favorites. Bit of an older one, but it's like a classic.

He's got another book, New Old Way, which is a bit deeper on more of like holistic health, I suppose. Really good one. Another one of my favorites. Where did you learn that idea of anxiety and boredom that you were explaining to me? Yeah, so that book's called Flow by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi. It took me a while to figure out the pronunciation of that one.

But I love whipping it out now that I know it. But yeah, so. Whipping it out. That might mean something different in Australia. Yeah, sure. So yeah, he's a psychologist and he did all this research on happiness. Basically he wanted to know who the happiest people in the world are. And, and he would, he basically found through this research and talks about in this book that the

happiest people in the world are the people who spend the most amount of time in flow, which is like a state of presence and mastery, and you're just fully focused on the task at hand. So that could be through sports or through career or through any of that stuff. And didn't really matter about socioeconomic status or anything else, but generally the people who spend the most amount of time in flow are the happiest. So yeah, flow is that and play playfulness. Oh yeah. Sorry. The flow trigger, um, the flow channel. So yeah, it's basically if you're, when you get into flow, it's when you're in that balance between too easy and too hard, the Goldilocks zone. So too easy is going to be boring and it's just like,

it's not, it's not enjoyable. You're not actually having to focus because it's so easy. Um, and then too hard is like anxiety inducing. So you could think of like a surfer at first, your flow channel is going to be on like the lowest way, like the smallest wave. Um, and even that is going to be hard, but it's just hard enough that you, you have to be fully focused. And then that flow, you get better and better, your skills get better and better. And so your flow channel changes and shifts. But if you put a surf, a new surfer on like a big wave, then that's way too anxiety inducing and they will fail and they'll probably get turned off it.

So you kind of want to stick within that just, just right, not too easy, not too hard. And that will be the trigger of flow. Yeah. What is, I'm not sure if you've researched this, but what does nature do for us? It seems like nature does so much more for us than maybe we even understand at the moment. There does seem to be some research popping up

that it can help us even on the cellular level in terms of like mitochondria and stuff. What are some things that you guys have found? Yeah. I mean, if we stick to feet for now, then the variability of surfaces is probably the big thing. Like it's very unnatural to have hard, flat, level ground everywhere. And so we have talked about this a fair bit, but literally that texture, I think Katie Bowman called it vitamin T. Like it is actually a very important movement nutrient to the foot. And so that variability, I think as well, the actual variability of the surface and going barefoot

especially brings you into that flow state or that full presence. Because if you're not present, in fact, people always ask me like, don't you step on like glass or needles and stuff like that if I go barefoot? Perfect. And I have stepped in glass. I don't know where people are walking or running, but they're always asking about needles. Heroin needles. Jesus Christ. Actually, we have seen a needle on the ground once. San Francisco? No, it was in Adelaide in Australia.

I've seen them before too, but they were in my shoulder. But the only time I've stepped in glass out of all my years of barefoot walking is when I was on my phone and I was like checking something and I stepped in glass. I was like, that's the sign. That's the slap in the face of like, hey, be present and focus where you're walking. If you're actually present and focusing where you're walking,

there's pretty much no chance you're going to step in glass. But people aren't present anymore. So I think, I think probably the biggest thing with nature is from my point of view, obviously relates to feet, but everything else is just deeper presence. And, um, Frank Forensic, who wrote those books that I mentioned, he talks about the importance of awe, like actually having a feeling of awe being awe inspired and for me nature is one of the is probably the thing that gives me the most awe like it doesn't really matter if it's a tree or a sunset or like a squirrel i love the squirrels over here i think it's a part of the reason why you can't really take a picture of it you know i mean you can

you know but it's just does not the same right especially the moon yeah i've never seen like a really good picture of the moon but it always looks real nice i mean yeah they exist but like what's but but to to both of their points though like i can take the most amazing picture of the moon and you'd be like that looks great and you'd look out that looks better yeah it just it will never ever compare yeah very true yeah and you'd be like that looks great and you'd look up that looks better yeah it just it will never ever compare yeah very true yeah yeah that'd be the big thing thing for me i like what you're saying about the ground because uh you know the body's our body's a computer like you mentioned what was going on with the dogs once they put the thing on there where they put

the shoes on the dog the dog started to kind of like lose the way that it would normally run around and i think it must be interesting for our brain who the hell knows what's going on in there but to see the outside surfaces or see the outside conditions and and you're like oh we're going to be fine meanwhile you're seeing like really sharp rocks or slippery slimy rocks if you're in like a you know you're on a nature walk or something like that and those things would normally uh send off some signals in our brain of like this is going to be a little this might be difficult to traverse this area i got to think about this more but not if you have you know waterproof uh boots and so on you got all the technology that we have today you don't have to really think about it yeah um there's a dr Dr. Olivia Lesler. She's a regular doctor in Australia,

but has a very holistic view of things. And she has an analogy there, or she thinks it's a big cause of lower back pain, this epidemic of lower back pain, because our brains are seeing the environment, like our eyes are seeing the environment, we're hearing things where all our senses are getting all this information and then our feet aren't get aren't matching that picture and so around our hips and our lower back there's like this tension constant tension because our brain's like what the hell's going on down there i can't feel it because of cushioned shoes and and and then when you take the shoes off you're uh hypersensitive yeah everything yeah and to to hard flat surfaces we are highly adaptable i mean we it's not it's not that long ago that an olympic marathon was run and won in bare, in bare feet. And that would have been on hard

flat surface, well, you know, like 50 or 60 years ago, but that's not that long ago, really. And so, and those things still happen because those people took time to adapt and maybe their biomechanics are a little better than the next person's and they built their body. So the hard flat surface argument is probably the biggest one against um shoes that don't have cushioning but i just think it um if we give our body time to adapt then it's less of an issue yeah i do want to add in real quick on the texture bit if you are in an office or if you are have a standing desk just go on amazon get yourself a fucking turf grass mat because it's not real grass. But the texture beneath my feet,

like the passive things that are happening, like my toes are always doing stuff because of this texture beneath my feet. Whereas when I just stand on the normal carpet here, there's literally not as much non-active movement. I'm like, I'm not trying to move, but because there's something there, my feet want to grab, my feet want to move.

They want to do that. So turf textured mat on Amazon is like 40, 50 bucks. That's easy. And then there's this right here. Yeah, we got these guys. I always forget what this is called. It's the Stoic mat from Wild Gym. He doesn't have the panels anymore, but he sells those things separately.

So you can get those too. Smash your feet on. It's like a little Nobosu ball. Just has a little texture to it. And those are on Amazon also. Yeah. You see the Shakti mats as well. There's like spiky mats.

I want one of those. Yeah. Yeah. So that feels like nothing to me anymore. But when I first started, I was like, Ooh, that's sharp. And so you start with like, you could start with socks on

and you get a little bit of cushioning between there. And then you go bare feet on with two feet and then bare feet with one foot and then you mess around with that and that can help you just take away some of the fear of like, oh, I'm walking barefoot in nature, it's going to be sharp. It's like suddenly the sharp starts to feel good. How do you spell it? S-H-A-K-T-I? Yeah, I'm not sure if that's a brand name or if that's like

just the general name of them. Something like that. Yeah. There's lots of different types, but yeah. In the clinic, I have a board with some real rocks on it and some of the rocks are facing like up ways and sharp. And so I'll stand on that instead of having a coffee in the morning. Sometimes it's like, oh, you know, it's just when I'm doing my notes.

And then I've got my older clients that are coming for like regular podiatry, been in shoes the whole time. And they'll see the one with the, they'll ask about it because it's there, you know, it's a good inn. And I'll get them the one with the rocks flat. They're like river rocks, you know, and really smooth. And their feet are so used to having protection, they cannot feel that. It's like a carpenter's hands.

They're thick and strong and our feet should be like that as well. Big pads, like if you don't use it, you lose it basically. So yeah, as you age, you lose this padding on the sole of your foot and that texture gives you. I think I'd just add to your point about nature. At the end of the day, pretty much all of our modern ailments, all diseases, chronic diseases, persistent pain, which is like extremely, a really incredible percentage of the population are having these issues. It really just does come down to our disconnection from nature. We're living in a zoo of a kind.

And it starts with the shoes. The shoes are like the ultimate disconnect. Exactly. Like padding on your feet too, so you can't make contact with the earth. Yeah. And the shoes are the perfect representation of that disconnection. But yeah, if you look at zoo animals, they do end up with a lot of physical and mental defects that they just don't get in nature. And it's just because their environment isn't

enriched as nature is. Even if you try and simulate it, it's not exactly the same. But there's also a lot of benefits to not living in nature in terms of your risk of being eaten by an animal or infections. And it's not like we are saying that everyone has to go and live in nature and be a caveman, but it's just acknowledging that your genes, your body expects certain things from its environment and from your behaviors. And if it doesn't get that, then you end up with issues. So a lot of the time, obviously there's a role for medicine, there's a role for surgeries, there's a role for all of this traditional stuff. But at the end of the day, you do need to be looking at things that your body needs from a physiological level and finding ways to give it more natural inputs,

if you want to put it like that. So yeah, it can start with the feet and that actually is our hope. We are, I guess, the foot guys and the foot collective. But like I said at the start, it's really a gateway or a window into more of like a natural health, an approach to natural health, natural movement that a lot of people get to from foot pain they're like and then you go yeah you should also think about your sleep also think about your light environment also think about your food because all of these things will affect your experience of pain as well has there been anything that stands

out that's really shocking that you guys been able to help some people with or is there a common theme that you hear people uh talk about like i'm sure at this point like some people are coming to you with like actual like like foot issues you know but i'm also assuming that there's other people that are probably just coming to you just because they're in pain and then are you guys able to solve like uh for some hip and shoulder and some other ailments that people might have? Yeah, we get a lot of people. I don't see people clinically anymore. Most of my focus is on just the training and education around the products.

And we do a lot of stuff without the products as well, all on the YouTube. But we do get a lot of people giving us reviews. So they've used the product or they've used the training and they're like, oh, I got my feet right and now my back is not painful anymore. And some of the reviews that come through kind of makes you pinch yourself. Like this looks like someone's just like... Got mum to do it.

Yeah, yeah. It looks like we got mum to do it basically. But yeah, it could be 20 years of pain. I have had clients in the past who have been 20 years of like dealing with plantar fasciitis as an example, and they've been put in orthotics and supportive shoes, and they've not once been told to do any foot exercises or any balance training or anything like that. And it makes me quite like very sad. It's just so sad that, and that's just a tiny percentage of the population who have reached out to us.

There's still all of these people out there. But at the end of the day, when it comes to the musculoskeletal system, like the feet are the foundation, so they'll affect everything else. But everything else, like Andy has been talking about, can affect the feet as well. And so it's sort of chicken or the egg kind of thing. But if you just build that foundation of movement capacity in general, and you're not just isolating areas, um, like we do with the soulmate,

it's like not just about training the feet. It's about integrating the feet with the rest of the body. Uh, it's, it is incredible what can change even long, long-term pain. Yeah. And the mindset as well. I think that's the biggest thing is the traditional approach is very disempowering. It's like you need stuff done to you to make you feel better. And when people change that mindset to, okay, I need to do something for myself to improve my function. It just goes from victim mindset to growth mindset or fixed mindset to growth mindset. It's like, that's another book by Carol Dweck. I like that one. Yeah, we know that one. Yeah. And that's like fundamental to pretty much everything in life, but especially when it comes

to pain and dysfunction, switching that mindset to, you know, maybe this pain is happening to me and I'm a victim of it to this pain is happening for me so that I can grow. Um, yeah, that was a long explanation to that, a long answer, but yeah, it is, it is amazing what can happen, not just from the physical aspect, but from that sort of mental aspect, I suppose, that mindset. Yeah. Lots of books, man. I love it.

I'm a book guy. Yeah. Clinically, it's a bit of a wait to see me now these days because there's not many podiatrists with this type of practice. And so I don't see someone that just sprained their ankle last weekend or have got an acute injury. I see people like three months after they reached out and they've had foot pain for a long time. So it's often a long, slow grind in terms of the rehab. But I even like that because our bodies, as much as they want to adapt, it can be a slow adaptation. And so it's good to set that expectation that it's going to be a long, slow thing. Generally,

just changing people's footwear, people say, where have these shoes been my whole life? Like I see a lot of people that have wide feet because they're more affected by conventional footwear. And just to show people a shoe that's going to fit their foot, they're just like amazing changes with just changing footwear. So, yeah. And that's not just at the feet, just throughout their bodies, they just feel better because of that. Yeah.

I think men's shoes in particular are just narrow. I don't even know how wide our feet really are. I think my foot is kind of wide, but I think a lot of people that don't really have a really wide foot, their foot still doesn't fit in their shoe very well. So I think it's important that people find something that's really going to fit and work well for them. Especially your shoes for the forefoot, bunions, neuromas, especially neuromas, most podiatrists hate having to treat them because they don't question the shoe.

I love treating them. Go to a flat shoe. So you're not loading the forefoot with a heel, go to a wide shoe, and then there's not that load on the neuroma. So I have clients that have seen three podiatrists, they've tried everything and, and, and then we just change their shoe and it's amazingly how, how quick it changes. And describe it in your aroma. Sorry, a neuroma is the nerves, these yellow bits, through the metatarsal heads, they go to the toes. And so a neuroma is like some scar tissue or some nerve tissue around that. Yeah. And then the forefoot, so it sends shooting pain,

like debilitating shooting pain. If you see a runner on the side of the road with their shoe off and like trying to like wrench their foot a bit, they're trying to free up their neuroma, which kind of like releases it. They put their shoe back on, run a bit further than they do it again. But by getting back to natural walking and natural foot movement, you can get rid of those. You know, I don't know, like no one ever scans to see if the neuroma is still there. It's just not being aggravated anymore. Yeah. Yeah. This is the thing. That's actually a really important thing as well, that the traditional model is very structural focus. So it's like, okay, there's this neuroma

there. It's a thickening around the nerve and we can't get rid of that without surgery, but that doesn't mean that someone can't get pain-free. So it's like, oh yeah, you can't fix the neuroma without surgery is what those people get told. And so then they come to us and they're like, I was told it's not going to go away without surgery. It's like, you might not get rid of the thickening, but you can very, very likely get rid of the symptoms. And the same goes for, you know, there might be bone spurs. That's another question we get a lot is like, I've got bone spurs in my feet, which is like on imaging, it looks like this little sharp thing of bone. And it's like, that's why I'm in pain. But then when they look at the research,

like this little sharp thing of bone and it's like that's why i'm in pain but then when they look at the research when they study this there's a very high percentage of people with bone spurs and no pain so they're not actually a cause of pain necessarily they can be contributing but often it's related to the function of the foot and how it's integrating with everything else as opposed to um the actual structure itself because if you're structurally focused and if that is the reason I'm in pain, same thing goes for any part of the body, like lower back, like bulging discs is another classic example. Someone's in pain, they go to a doctor, they get an MRI. It's like, you've got bulging discs, that's why you're in pain. And then they have identified and with that, I've got bulging discs, my back is in pain and there's like

essentially nothing they can really do about that. Even if they're then told to do exercises, their thought process or their subconscious belief is I'm in pain because of the bulging discs. And so they'd kind of need to see the bulging go away for them to really get out of pain. So that's a big mindset shift as well. Got something there, Andrew? No, just that's exactly what happened to me. I went to the doctor because I had low back pain for a very long time, even at this point. And they're like, oh yeah, you have a herniated disc, you need surgery. And I'm like, dude, I'm getting the heck out of here. There's no way. But you're right. I had that thought in my head for many, many years where I'm like,

I can't do the thing I love to do i can't exercise anymore because this low back thing because i have this uh herniated disc right and like even the sound of that is like oh like it like it's almost like i'm worse than like a broken bone it's because it's like i i can't ever fix this it's gone it's done and so i always had that mentally like in my head and it just always rocked me and i mean i don't know fast forward like six years at this point now and it's like way better like yeah and it's a lot of it recently especially with like a lot of myofascial release but no i mean the people are um they're being steered in such a wrong direction and it comes

from an authoritative figure and then we're yep, that's what the doctor told me. So I'm going to just go with that. And these foot guys or whoever, these power project guys, my story is a little bit different. My doctor already told me it's over. It's like, nah, man, it's not even close. It hasn't even started. That heel spur thing is quite interesting.

Can you pass me your Nike, please? Yes. There's something to be said, you are not your scan. Like if we scan any foot, that's six, this one, if you, if you, if you scan any foot, there'll be spurs, there'll be neuromas, bursas, tendonitis, but they may not be symptomatic. If you scan any 60, sorry, I should have said 60 year old, 60 year old knee, there'll be meniscal issues. There'll be, you know, labral tears. There'll be so much going on. It doesn't mean that's what's painful, you know.

So you've got to be careful even sending people for scans because it's going to tell them a whole lot of stuff that then will be possibly an issue. If most shoes have got this thing called toe spring here, and so the plantar fascia and the muscles that are under it are constantly on pull. They're like up like this. And so a spur, which we have all over our body, wherever there's tendons pulling regularly, is often in this part of the bone there. And so if these are constantly on,

it's because this plantar fascia is pulling constantly. All those muscles that are attaching in there are pulling constantly and the bone is reacting and laying down more bone. And this is your body's way of reacting to that tightness. The plantar fascia and those muscles should be like on, off, on, off, on, off with every step. In a shoe like this, they're just on the whole time. But still the spur is hardly ever why it's sore. It's mostly like some other issue with the plantar fascia or the muscles in those areas. Yeah. Yeah. These shoes are legit evil, doc like honestly it's it's so wild to me that for so long so many of us including myself have just been walking around in this shit for such a long time and it's causing so many damn issues without us realizing it it's fucked up it's so i genuinely hope that in 50 years we'll look back at this

time and it'll be just like the smoking thing. Like doctors used to recommend smoking cigarettes because it was good for your lungs, it helped to relax you and so on. And then over time, the awareness grew and then nowadays it would be absolute malpractice. Obviously, it's super negligent and like highly unethical and illegal for a doctor to recommend someone smoke or to start smoking, obviously.

However you need to quit, weaning down, et cetera. But, you know, in 50 years, we'll look back, I hope, that and just go, wow, what, how, just the same way we look back at Chinese foot binding and go, that is barbaric. Like, that's ridiculous. Pull it up. There's a sexual underlying reason for doing that as well is it like they found that more attractive to or what's the other thing should be like this and then they do this to the foot creating something that they might really yeah i never knew that part of it yeah wow you gotta bind them up pretty good then, I guess. Yeah. Yeah, it's super gnarly to look at.

But then you look at all the hammertoes. That one in the very middle. Let's have a look at that one in the very middle. Yeah, that one or the next one to the right, my right. Yeah. Oh. Yeah. Whoa, it looks like a high heel.

Yeah. So they pull from like a four-year-old girl pull her for her um her toes back to her forefoot oh my god yeah jesus and it's always it's always the way with humans like we we always think whatever we're doing right now must be the right thing but then 50 to 100 years later you look back and you're like that's ridiculous How are they doing that? And, you know, coffee every morning anyway. And yeah, it's just, it's one of those cultural shifts that really needs to happen for the health of everyone. And like where we work a lot on restoring people's function and getting them out of pain, which is awesome, but let's stop messing up the future generations like ASAP so that they don't

have to deal with that. Nike's sparing the way for our kids. Very generous of them. I know a lot of people are probably going to be wondering about something they could do for plantar fasciitis. Can you guys kind of leave us with two main tips? I know I recognize like it's a whole, you guys have a whole system of training and if people follow a lot of that and a lot of the stuff we mentioned just get out of your shoes type thing but what are kind of two main things to think about when someone has plantar fasciitis um well can we both have two

i would say gradually restore capacity in the area to the plantar fascia. So improve strength, function, mobility through the foot. And then- Maybe what is it to? What is it to? Oh, what is it? Yeah, you can answer that one. So the plantar fascia is this fascia on the sole of the foot that if we looked at a 14 year old,

that'd still be attached to the fascia on the back. So it wraps around the heel still, but maybe by the time 16 or 18, it's become its own fascia there with bone. And so it's that like tight posterior chain type of thing can still be going on. And so if we scan it, ultrasound it, the fascia is thicker. So that's how it's diagnosed. It's not an itis, it's a thickening of the plantar fascia. There are some inflammatory markers to it. Like when you first stand up on it

in the morning, it will be sore because it hasn't been moving around. It's worse after some activities, it warms up pretty well. So they're the itis types of, itis meaning inflammation, but the actual thing is a thickening there. And again, who knows if that thickening goes away because once it's stopped being sore, no one goes to get it scanned to see if it's not thickened anymore. But that's what plantar fasciitis or they call it fasciosis or fasciopathy now, like a pathology of the plantar fascia. Nearly everyone has weak feet and weak calves or are overweight. They're the three massive factors.

Yeah. Yeah. And so a big part of the problem is basically an overload issue. So the foot is being overloaded. And we were talking before we started recording earlier, just about how you could overload something simply by doing too much too soon. So if you're just, you know, someone who's just been on the couch and then you just decide, I want to start running and you go out and do a 5k, it's just way too much too soon, probably regardless of what shoes you're wearing.

But, you know, the question is, well, why did the plantar fascia get hurt rather than, say, something else? Usually it's an accumulative effect. And often the load distribution isn't working right. So there's some areas of dysfunction. And most people have many areas of dysfunction just based on our movement behaviors and our environment. We're just not getting all of the natural movement that we need to maintain all of our

joint health and strength and so on. So it's very likely that there's other areas upstream in terms of hip stability, hip mobility, big toe extension mobility is a big one. And that's a big part of how the plantar fascia works through movement is that big toe extension, yeah, contributing to the windlass mechanism. And so you'd be wanting to look at, you know, obviously there's an issue in the plantar fascia, but what are the areas that are contributing and find the areas that are most likely to contribute

and work on those as well while you're restoring, I guess, capacity in the foot itself. So that would be, I guess that's two. Yeah. So restore capacity in the foot and also figure out how to redistribute loads better and look at the technique of whatever it is you're doing. Running is a big one, but yeah. So generally I'll educate as to why it's happening, that if we look at any research 12 months down the

track, that it's probably gone no matter what you did. Maybe whatever you're doing in the meantime is what I call a do something-ism. You know, you go and see a health professional, they give you shockwave, cortisone, orthotic. But you know, 12 months later, it was probably going to be better anyway. So then, but you know, someone's come to see me, we need to do something. Generally, like I mentioned, it's going to be a weaker foot or a weak calf or they're not moving well or they're not generally healthy. Like it could, it can flare up because you've got a highly inflammatory diet or not sleeping well.

There's all these factors. So it's bringing awareness to this education around it. And when you take, when you equip someone with that education, then straight away, their foot is going to be less sore because they understand what's going on. That's not that fear based around it. So they're not catastrophizing. They're going to have pain in their foot for the rest of their lives. So education, first and foremost, if it's really sore, we need to calm it down.

So like I might use heat, use that ball rolling. Don't poke the sore spot. It's like picking a scab. It's not going to heal if you keep poking it. Things to help mobility, you know, calm it down and then build it up. So that's exercises for your feet, which we've talked about, calf raises, like just being active. Don't forget the tibs.

There you go. All those things, yeah. So generally calm it down, build it up after educating them as to why we're bothering to do those things. Do you, by the way, actually do anything for the tibialis? Do you have people work that much or not? Sometimes, but usually like if someone's coming to see me, I'm giving them three or four of the biggest main things they can do. And that would be a foot exercise and ankle exercise, something at the hip and footwear. Okay. And so, um, if I, so if I think the calves are super strong, maybe a T-band would fit the

ankle exercise version there. Or if I'm seeing a foot that's pronating too rapidly with poor control and they've got strong calves and they've got good hip control, then I might put a T-band there because maybe that's what's going to help slow down. So it's quite prescriptive when I'm seeing someone right in front of me and testing and assessing them. And I could give 10 exercises to everyone, but people just won't do them. So I'd rather they do three really well and change their shoes. Let's assess again in six to eight weeks' time.

Maybe we'll add a T-band thing in there once they've built up some capacity elsewhere. But, yeah, long wait times in between takes away expectation they'll feel better next week, gives them time to make some habitual change, things like that. Yeah. Anybody who's running just do a lot of myofascial release on the calves and the shins, I think kind of digging through some of those areas is really helpful. Yeah. From a symptom management point of view for especially Achilles tendinopathy, plantar fasciopathy, some of that release work,

like we were talking about earlier, can make a massive difference to the symptoms, which can then allow you to load the area more. Yeah. Yeah. Where can people find you guys? Where can they get some of the products and so forth? It's pretty much all just the Foot Collective, the Foot Collective on Instagram. We're very active and we're also now very active on our YouTube channel, um, at the foot collective and then the foot collective.com, um, is where you can find all of the products, but you'll also get a pop-up that will give you, uh, a, an email with our ebook, which is a guide to foot freedom. It's all free. That gives you a really good overview of how to approach this whole transition. Cause it is a journey.

It's not something that you can just jump right into. So yeah, we're constantly updating it, but it's like our, yeah, I'm not going to call it our Bible, but it's our step-by-step guide to navigating this journey with or without tools. The tools are really awesome in my personal point of view, but they're also not 100% necessary. In our YouTube channel especially, we offer a lot of ways to get similar results without the tools. But it's like a screwdriver.

If you've got a screw and you've got the right tool with a screwdriver, it can make the job a lot easier. And it also can make it a lot more fun as well. Do you want to speak of the community? Yeah, yeah, that's true. So we also have a community of people where Andy and I are in there amongst a bunch of other professionals for practitioners. So if anyone listening is a health and movement practitioner who wants to, I guess, be a part of this mission, they can join the TFC pro community. And then we also just have a community of, um, everyday people who are wanting to improve foot health, get out of pain, et cetera. And we've got more guided programs and we do live calls and yeah, it's just, I think

it really helps to not feel alone in the journey. And if you've got other people in your network or your family and friends who are also on that journey, that's great. But for most people, it's like can be a bit of a lonely journey. So that's what we're trying to do with that explorer community that we call it the explorer community is just guiding people to that foot, that sort of destination of foot freedom, whatever that means to them with other people sort of witnessing their journey. Yeah. that means to them with other people sort of witnessing their journey. And yeah, in the TFC Pro, there's a directory, so I kind of head that up, where other professionals that align with what we're talking about here can then get referrals. You know, like people look up the Foot Collective are having an issue, are struggling to get

through it themselves. They need someone to help. And so that's a really good in that way. And on Instagram, I'm just Andy Bryant podiatrist, just doing my own thing on that and sharing Foot Collective stuff. And yeah. Before we leave, can you guys tell me your favorite shoe? For me, my favorite shoe that I'm most comfortable in

and that I wear the most would be the Vibram Five Fingers. Yeah. Yeah. I've taken to going to work barefoot all the time. So that is my favorite shoe. That's not an answer. I would have said that too. But the thing I wear the most is a sandal from Indonesia called Piyop Fledge. Piyop is the sound of a raindrop in the forest. P-Y-O-P-P. Yeah. And this is a nice little story to finish on. A husband and wife, mum and dad of I think maybe a two-year-old got told to have orthotics because she had flat feet. This is in Indonesia.

Thought this is something up. There's something up about this. I need to research. And so they started finding barefoot shoes, you know, people like the Foot Collective and myself, and so started their own company because there was nothing in Indonesia. It's called Piyop. And then they started making adult shoes called Piyop Fledge. That's the Piyop flying. And so they are my favorite shoes. Yeah. That's what I would choose to wear if I could wear, if I had to wear a shoe all the time.

I think that's what you wore in here today, right? Yeah. Yeah. They've got some artistic collabs that they get some Indonesian artists. So I've got my artistic collab. I can vouch for them as well. I wear them a lot. Well, I'm all through Europe and on a lot of my trips when I don't want to be in shoes. Sometimes sandals are what you want. Yeah. You wouldn't think a sandal would be so great, but we love the Shama sandals. I'm super keen to try them. And every time the guy would talk about it and stuff, and I think in SEMA I might have started to wear them first. I was like, I don't know about this.

Like, this doesn't seem like it's going to work great. But I was completely, I was wrong. I'm lucky I've got a foot that fits a lot of different barefoot shoes. But I must warn people, if you start this, you will probably never go back to other shoes. If you start wearing toe socks, you'll never go back to normal socks. It's highly addictive and your feet will just love it. Strength is never a weakness. Weakness is never strength.

Catch you guys later. Bye.