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Dr. Emily Splichal, functional podiatrist and human movement specialist, is the mind behind Naboso. With a spirit to challenge conformity, Dr. Splichal has taken her conventional Podiatric Medical degree and combined it with years of experience and expertise in human movement and sensory science to found Naboso.

Dr. Splichal believes that our experience in this world is built around sensory stimulation and our ability to process, perceive, and integrate this information effectively. Since 2012, Dr. Splichal has been traveling the world to share her unique approach to human movement, foot function, and barefoot science. Having taught in 35 countries and to over 25,000 professionals, Dr. Splichal has quickly become a sought out leader in barefoot training and rehabilitation.

Listen to this episode of The MOVEMENT Movement with Dr. Emily Splichal about the longevity power of sensory stimulation.

Here are some of the beneficial topics covered on this week’s show:

– How natural movement and foot strength directly correlate with longevity and overall health.

– Why being hyper-aware of one’s body in space and providing necessary feedback through movement is crucial.

– How sensory insoles and mats with textured surfaces have yielded positive results, especially for individuals with neurological conditions.

– Why barefoot training on textured surfaces can enhance foot strength and overall health.

– How Naboso Technology uses tiny pyramids on insoles and mats to stimulate nerves and enhance sensory perception.

Connect with Dr. Emily Splichal:

Guest Contact Info

Instagram: @naboso_technology @thefunctionalfootdoc

Facebook: facebook.com/nabosotechnology facebook.com/dremilysplichaldpm

Links Mentioned: https://www.naboso.com/

https://www.dremilysplichal.com/

Connect with Steven:

Website

Xeroshoes.com

Jointhemovementmovement.com

Twitter@XeroShoes

Instagram@xeroshoes

Facebookfacebook.com/xeroshoes

Episode Transcript

Steven Sashen:

It’s amazing. We go to the gym or we go to the doctor or we go to the wherever to improve our bodies, and we pretty much focus on everything from the ankles up, not paying attention to what’s from the ankles down, which is the stuff that supports everything from the ankles up. Well, we’re going to be chatting about some latest evolutions and things you can do from the ankles down with a dear friend of ours, Dr. Emily Splichal.

But first, just a reminder, hey, welcome to The MOVEMENT Movement podcast, the podcast for people who want to know the truth about what it takes to have a happy, healthy, strong body starting feet first, those things at the end of your legs. We break down the propaganda, the mythology, and sometimes the flat-out lies you’ve been told about what it takes to run or walk or play or do yoga or CrossFit, whatever you like to do, and do those things enjoyably and efficiently and effectively. Did I say enjoyably? Trick question. Of course I did, because that’s the most important one. If you’re not having fun, you’re not going to keep doing whatever it is anyway, so make sure you’re having a good time. I am Steven Sashen from xeroshoes.com. I’m the co-founder and Chief Barefoot Officer over here. You try it.

We call this The MOVEMENT Movement podcast because we’re creating a movement about natural movement. The way we are creating this, that includes you, is really simple. Go to our website, www.jointhemovementmovement.com, find the previous episodes, find the places you can find us on social media. Give us a good review, thumbs ups, like, five stars, whatever it is, and spread the word. Basically, if you want to be part of the tribe, just subscribe. It’s really simple. Now let’s have some fun. Hey, Dr. Emily Splichal. How the hell are you?

Dr. Emily Splichal:

I am doing amazing. That was quite the intro.

Steven Sashen:

Yeah, yeah, I do what I can. After like 300 of these, it’s kind of a — Look, I can barely remember my middle name, but I can do that thing, not perfectly, obviously, but good enough to get from the beginning to the end without having to take a break.

Dr. Emily Splichal:

I love it. I love it. That’s how I am when I talk about the nerves in the bottom of the feet. I literally get into a recording of a speech that I’ve given many times.

Steven Sashen:

So in just a matter of 30 seconds, we just told everyone we’re a bunch of geeks.

Dr. Emily Splichal:

And we’re proud of it.

Steven Sashen:

I just don’t argue. It’s just not worth the effort. It’s as simple as that. Where do human beings find you right now, or more accurately, where are you right now and human beings don’t know where that is or whatever I’m trying to say?

Dr. Emily Splichal:

I’m currently sitting in Chandler, Arizona, in the Naboso office trying to get ready for the end of the year, wrapping up, hitting some of those key revenue goals, but also planning some big things for 2025, which is my favorite. I love designing products. That’s really where my head is at right now.

Steven Sashen:

And that is why we’re here. Do me a favor. Back up a half a step and tell people who the hell you are, what you do, and how you got to the point where we’re going to be talking about these products. FYI, for people who don’t know, I never let anyone on this podcast to talk about a product if I don’t think it’s for real. I’m going to tell the story about how we first had that fun interaction. But tell people who the hell you are if they don’t know.

Dr. Emily Splichal:

Yes, Dr. Emily, functional podiatrist, so not just a podiatrist, but functional podiatrist, human movement specialist. I’ve been traveling the world educating about feet, barefoot science for the last 12 years.

Steven Sashen:

Wow.

Dr. Emily Splichal:

Then I’m the CEO and founder of Nobosa, which is a sensory-based product line, Xero Shoes proudly resells, and we partnered on some products with Nobosa, which I’m absolutely very honored by. Then I’m an author of a book called Barefoot Strong. I’m writing my next book, and I have to talk about it so that it actually happens. But I have a book that is almost done, and we’ll be launching that soon. Jesus, that takes a long time. But, yeah, I’m everything about spreading the message. My focus, as much as it is feet, is actually movement longevity. As much as people initially think movement longevity means that you want to move well when you’re 100, I actually believe that to live to be 100 or plus you have to move. So I’m an advocate of movement, which I know you are.

Steven Sashen:

What? Look at my face. Well, look, there’s research. These are not just opinions. One of the things that gets on my nerves is people will say things to me like, “Well, you believe?” I go, “No, no, I don’t believe any of this stuff. This is a fact.” There’s research behind it, and there are now hundreds of thousands of people who have… Well, there’s actually millions of people, but just from Xero Shoes alone, we have hundreds of thousands of people who said, “Here’s what happened to me once I started moving better.” But to your point about if you want to live to fill in the blank, you need to be able to move, there are a couple very interesting bits of research about that.

One, and feel free to jump in on this, but here we go. One is there’s a direct correlation between trip-and-fall accidents, which is a very high cause of death in people, including my dad nine years ago, and foot strength. If you don’t have foot strength, then that impairs everything and makes you highly likely, not highly likely, more likely to have a trip-and-fall accident where you could break your hip and die not too long after. That’s number one.

Number two, this one’s even more interesting to me. I met a woman, she was a nurse at Duke University, who started doing this research that shows that if your natural walking gate, your walking speed is under a certain number, and sorry, I don’t remember the number off the top of my head, your likelihood of dying over the next five years has increased by 70% or 80%. Now, interestingly, of course, if you’re walking really slow, it’s mostly because your feet aren’t doing their job. They’re not strong enough to support you. They’re not getting the feedback they need. They’re not creating the stimulation your brain needs, all the things that we’re going to talk about.

So when you say something like longevity requires movement, you’re not just pulling that out of your butt. This is not just a belief. This is demonstrated, and there’s research coming out happily starting in January about this. Now that we’ve been doing this whole barefooty thing, well, we’ve been doing it 15 years, more and more people are doing more and more research to back up what we all knew anecdotally, just to demonstrate that, no, this is for real. Anyway, I just wanted to throw in these are not things that we just think and we’re trying to convince people of. This is stuff that we know is real and we’re trying to wake people up to.

Dr. Emily Splichal:

Yeah, yeah. No, absolutely. Sometimes it is looking at a research study and applying it into a real world way. That’s why I think people like you and what I do and in this space of consumers, in a sense, or the real world is taking what’s happening in a lab, and then they just publish things, and that’s cool. But they don’t know how to actually word it or spin it or package it to be real world so that everyone who’s listening can actually understand and use the powerful data that was demonstrated through a research study. That’s why I like what you’re doing here is to then help people be like, “Okay, I get it. Now I understand walking speed, but when I read it in the research article, I don’t get that. How am I supposed to?

Steven Sashen:

Let’s be clear. No one’s finding these articles on their own. It’s not the kind of thing that normal human beings are going to stumble upon unless they have insomnia and they just need some way of getting to sleep without medication.

Dr. Emily Splichal:

They’re not on Google Scholar all night reading research articles?

Steven Sashen:

You may be surprised to discover that the answer to that question is no. The average person doesn’t even know what you just referred to, nor do they know what PubMed is, nor do they know… I would say it’s actually the other way around. Because of what we all started doing 15 years ago-ish and the response that was created from that, or more accurately, what happened when people started using their feet in ways they hadn’t for ages or ever, that just piqued a lot of curiosity in the research community. The bad news is it’s not their job to market what they’ve done in a way that it gets to consumers. The worst news is that the big shoe companies will put out studies that are very badly designed.

My favorite… There’s two things lately. I don’t know if you’ve seen these that I keep seeing all the time in studies. One is a line like this one, “Despite the advances in footwear running shoe technology over the last 50 years, running-related injuries have not decreased in that time.” Now, you don’t have to be a rocket scientist to go, “If injury rates have not decreased, then there haven’t really been advances.” That’s the first one.

The second one is we took some habitually shod, a word that no one outside of the barefoot shoe world uses, people don’t use the word shod, we’ve taken people who are habitually in regular shoes, let’s just call it what it is, and wanted to test that against barefoot. So we gave the people that we were going to have in the study some time to acclimate to running barefoot by having five minutes on a treadmill. It’s like, yeah, that’s not what it takes to acclimate. You wouldn’t say that you acclimated to a new shoe in five minutes on a treadmill. So there’s these horribly designed studies that people who are on the pro giant, big, thick shoe, padded motion and all-arch support whatever thing, they will try to use to combat anything that we say because people aren’t going to discover that the studies were really poorly designed and really poorly constructed.

One last one, and I’ll stop ranting on this. There’s a guy who used to work at the University of Colorado who did a study that was trying to prove that barefoot was bad for you. He said that he took 12 accomplished barefoot runners. Over the first and last beer we had together, and I think I made him pay for it, I said, “I know all the barefoot runners in town. I’m one of them. Neither I nor anyone that I know was in your study. I know who was in your study. They’re not accomplished barefoot runners. They’re accomplished runners who do a little bit of barefoot training on the grass at the end of their workout. That’s it. So your little study is not really telling anybody anything meaningful.” But here’s the kick. Nobody would know that unless they knew this guy and they were part of this community. Otherwise, when he says, “Accomplished barefoot runners,” why would you argue? He’s got a PhD and a blah blah, blah, and whatever else. Anyway, a little rant about problems with research.

Dr. Emily Splichal:

Well, I’ve seen that with textured research because… Obviously, I’m not a minimal shoe company. I’m a sensory-based product line using texture. You see that same thing where then people will try to call bullshit on the power of texture, on foot awareness and reducing injuries and improving gait parameters, etc. But then when you actually look at the study, it’s the same thing. They’re in a pillow of a shoe with a textured insole, and then they’re saying, “Wow, texture does nothing,” and a thick sock, like a thick wool sock. I’m like, fine.

Steven Sashen:

No, no, no. Because people know that you can stack up a whole lot of mattresses, and if you put a pea under the bottom one, people can feel that. So the fact that there’s a whole bunch of cushioning and a sock and whatever, that doesn’t make a difference. We all know that. That’s irrelevant. But because you said textured and sensory, let’s just jump into that for a second. Naboso is a Czech word that means barefoot, and we’re going to get one step further down. How did you pick that word? You are not Czech.

Dr. Emily Splichal:

They think I’m Czech.

Steven Sashen:

Emily, that is cultural appropriation. That is Eastern European appropriation.

Dr. Emily Splichal:

I know, I know. Really what it was is I was designing Naboso, and this is interesting on how these things work in life. So I was concepting out Naboso, working on our first product, couldn’t think of a company name. I wanted a word that was not English directly, but had something… Do I pick something in Swahili or something? I don’t know. So I paid this company $10,000 to try to come up with a name, I know, or my company in a way that it wouldn’t put a ceiling over my head because I had no idea what this was going to become.

Anyway, that’s happening. I go to Prague to teach a workshop through my education company. They’re all there, and they’re so excited because there’s a Czech American who’s coming to Prague. I’m like, “I’m not Czech.” But there was this huge conversation around that I’m Czech. They swear I’m Czech. Anyway, Dr. Janda, who was a Czech physiatrist, is someone who really influenced my career. So I had this… I was drawn to Czech.

I’m there. Someone who’s attending my workshop has a T-shirt on that says Naboso on it, and I’m drawn to that word. No idea why. I’m like, “What does that mean? What is that?” It’s a Barefoot Shoe store in Czech Republic. They now sell Naboso. Anyway, I was like, “Oh my God, that is so perfect.” So it is trademarked in the United States, even though it’s a common word in the Czech Republic because it’s a Czech word that means barefoot. Actually, it’s a Slavic word. We argued with the patent office, the Trademark Patent Office, that there’s such few Czech speakers in the United States that I could trademark the word Naboso. So there you go. That is how we chose it.

Steven Sashen:

But you still had to pay that 10 grand to the people who gave you nothing, right?

Dr. Emily Splichal:

Yeah, but I just think it’s the irony of something that pushed me in the direction. I don’t even know.

Steven Sashen:

Oh, no, no, no. If it makes you feel any better, we spent more money with a marketing group when we started the company. When I started Xero Shoes, actually, I called it Invisible Shoes. I built a website. I needed a name. That’s what I came up with. We spent way more money than that at about two years in on a branding company. I’m going to show this on the camera, and then I’ll describe it for anyone who’s just listening, but I’m going to show you. This is the name that they came up with. Wait, there we go. Can you see?

Dr. Emily Splichal:

Okay, yep.

Steven Sashen:

I’ll spell it for people who aren’t watching, X-O-I-C-S. What’s wrong with that word?

Dr. Emily Splichal:

Xoics.

Steven Sashen:

I don’t know. Yeah, you’re doing the same thing. How do you say it? Is it Xoics? Is it Xoics? It was meaningless. They said, “Well, you could own this word.” I went, “No, no, no. People need to know how to say it and spell it. We’re going to have a website.” The next day I’m at track practice, I finished track practice, and I’m thinking, “I like that thing of starting with X, though. What can I do with that?” and I came up with Xero. So I have no problem that I paid them a stupid amount of money. Because without their bad idea, I wouldn’t have thought of a good idea.

Dr. Emily Splichal:

Yeah, it’s very similar. That’s why I am very into the world. The world guides you in these ways that you’re supposed to. You know what I mean?

Steven Sashen:

Okay, eh, all right.

Dr. Emily Splichal:

Whatever. I make stuff up to make me feel better.

Steven Sashen:

Yeah, that’s okay. Yeah, we can rationalize our way into pretty much anything. So, so, so. So that was part one in a way. Part two, I’m going to do it from my perspective, because why not, is that you reached out to me. We already knew each other, but you reached out to me and said, “Hey, I have developed this product. It does this thing about stimulating your feet and has all these benefits. I want to send it to you and see what you think.” I’m thinking, “Oh, crap. I have tried so many of these things. They never work.” How am I going to pat you on the head and go, “Thanks so much. You’re totally adorable. This is not going to happen”?

So you send me these insoles. I put them in my shoes. I walked around the office for about an hour. Then as I tend to do in the office, I kick off my shoes. I’m doing some work at the computer. About an hour later, I stand up to go probably to the bathroom, and my feet are grabbing the ground, and my calves were totally active, and I’m going, “What the hell is happening?” I called you and said, “All right, we need to talk.”

So let’s talk about that first product, and then we’re going to launch into everything that’s happened since then. For people who already are hip to what we’re going to talk about, feel free to skip ahead. But why bother? Because we’re entertaining. So talk about where this came from. Wait, I don’t remember if it happened before or after. I was at the International Foot and Ankle Biomechanics conference, and there was a company from Australia or a researcher in Australia presenting a paper that was about a similar product. I can’t remember if that was right before or right after you. But this has kind of been brewing in some little way, but you discovered it. Tell that story.

Dr. Emily Splichal:

Remember I’d mentioned there’s some textured insole research study that we had referenced. I was reading those research studies when I was traveling around teaching about barefoot science. “Let’s get people out of shoes. Let’s get into minimal shoes, but we still need to do some barefoot work, too. Then go back into minimal shoes. So let’s be calculated on both sides.” Anyway, what I would start saying is, “Okay, once you get out of your shoes, or if you’re training minimal, then you need to start asking yourself, ‘Well, what surface are we going to train on?'” Nobody is talking about surfaces. Still no one is really talking about surfaces and the best surfaces for training, especially athletically and things like that.

So I got into texture. I was like, “I wonder if I could create a barefoot training surface that when people took their shoes off that we could get even more activation and function out of the foot when it was barefoot.” Then we came into texture. So the first product was a barefoot training mat, which is now one of our mats, even though it’s slightly different. Think of a yoga mat with tiny little pyramids across the entire surface designed to stimulate the feet when you’re doing, let’s say, kettlebells or squats or lunges or whatever.

Then people started using that and saying, “Well, that’s such a limited… It’s so niched out, and my exposure is only when I’m doing kettlebells or whatever. So what if I could get that into my shoe?” which led into the insole design. That made me a little bit nervous because you had the research over here, and then you have reality over here in the sense of they weren’t using textured insoles to do insole research study. They were making random stuff and cutting materials and flipping over things, putting sandpaper in shoes. They were using random materials. But I used that to then design our insoles, which is what I sent to you and you tested. But maybe it’s just me being a doctor and I’m always scared of being sued, that I was like, “Oh my gosh, what if I give it to someone? They get a blister, it gets infected, their leg is amputated.” I’m just thinking like a malpractice thing.

So getting into it, it was actually less textured than what we have now on our products because I didn’t know how the mass consumers were going to respond to this. They responded positively. Actually, people who started using them happened to have MS, happened to have Parkinson’s or a stroke or neuropathy. So we started getting demonstrations of this huge benefit of our products within the neurological and neural rehab space that I would’ve not thought of initially, even though there is some research data around it, so it led to that, which then led to, “Oh, what if I put it on a ball like this? What if I put it on…?”

Steven Sashen:

Pause there before the “what if” part because that’s where we move into the new world, but I want to back up a half a step. If you can describe a little more, so you said it’s this pyramidal thing that was on this mat, describe a little more about the actual technology so that people who have never seen it, experienced it who are already watching, so you can show it. But there are people-

Dr. Emily Splichal:

I’m going to show it now and then describe it.

Steven Sashen:

Go ahead. Go for it.

Dr. Emily Splichal:

I’m holding up, this is our Kinesis Board.

Steven Sashen:

All I’m seeing is fuzz, because your camera has not figured out where… Okay, it’s-

Dr. Emily Splichal:

…lower it. There’s little tiny pyramids on it. Can you see the little tiny pyramids?

Steven Sashen:

Yeah, I can see them on the ball even better. So little tiny pyramids.

Dr. Emily Splichal:

Little.

Steven Sashen:

How tiny for people who are just listening?

Dr. Emily Splichal:

One and a half millimeters.

Steven Sashen:

High?

Dr. Emily Splichal:

Tall, yeah.

Steven Sashen:

One and a half millimeters high, and, again, pyramid, so four-sided pyramid.

Dr. Emily Splichal:

Yep. You have a pyramid that’s one and a half millimeters tall. Peak to peak, it’s two and a half millimeters.

Steven Sashen:

Got it. So spread out two and a half millimeters.

Dr. Emily Splichal:

They’re very close.

Steven Sashen:

Got it.

Dr. Emily Splichal:

Yep, very, very close. So the entire insole, as an example, again, it’s from a distance, but the entire insole is covered in the little pyramids.

Steven Sashen:

So talk-

Dr. Emily Splichal:

The entire sock is covered by the tiny little pyramids.

Steven Sashen:

We haven’t gotten to the sock yet. Hold back on the sock, baby.

Dr. Emily Splichal:

Sorry.

Steven Sashen:

So talk about a) how you came to that height, that spacing, etc., and what it’s actually doing.

Dr. Emily Splichal:

That shape, there is a research study that was done. There is a researcher out of Australia, her name is Hatton, H-A-T-T-O-N. Hatton, did research to look at a triangle versus more of a circle, more of an oval, so different shapes of deformation. That’s essentially what you’re doing is you are indenting the skin, which stimulates the nerve.

We happen to be stimulated in the same nerve that you stimulate when you read braille. So think of braille, go to the ATM or the next time you’re at the ATM, look at the little braille dots. They’re a certain distance or a certain height when you touch them. If you touch them and shut your eyes, your nerves are sensing the two points. That’s how you read braille.

So technically it is two-point discrimination. The pyramid will be more acute, small, finite, more acute deformation to the skin. What we also found out then is that the point of the pyramid will actually go deeper into the dermis, which is where your circulation is. So on the foot, when people use any of our products, they get little indents that stay there for a little bit. We consider that the Naboso effect, which means you essentially touch it and you’re like, “Oh, I have all these little indents on my finger, on my foot.” That is showing that that point went into the dermis.

Steven Sashen:

Got it. So-

Dr. Emily Splichal:

Then-

Steven Sashen:

Oh, sorry. Go ahead.

Dr. Emily Splichal:

I was just going to say, then when you stimulate these specific nerves, these are called mechanoceptors, you stimulate, as part of your peripheral nervous system, not to get too complicated, but stimulate your brain, which is called the somatosensory cortex. The somatosensory cortex is your brain map to essentially shape your body in space. The brain map, which creates a homunculus, you can Google the word homunculus, you will see this person with really big hands and really big feet. Anyway, it’s a funny looking person.

The most sensory, sensitive parts of the human body take up the largest area in the brain to shape how your brain sees your body in space. What I tell people is that I can only control my body as accurately as I know where the hell it is. How do I control my body or not fall or not trip over something if I don’t know where my foot is in relation to the curb or where my hip is in relation to the table I just bumped into or whatever. So that is perception. Perception is a sensory process. Touch, which is what Naboso stimulates as touch, is one of those inputs that helps your brain see itself in space.

Steven Sashen:

Perfect. Now, I think there’s one other fun part to add to this, and once I’m done clearing my throat, there’s a great book called The Brain That Changes Itself. It’s features mostly a guy named Dr. Michael Merzenich, who talks about how, if you don’t give your brain the stimulation it’s wired to get, it’s meant to get, it will literally change its shape and essentially shut down, because why waste energy if I’m not getting the information that I need? The example I like to give is if you taped your first two fingers together and left them like that for a while, your brain would literally change its shape and so that if you remove the tape, you would still act as if you only had one finger. They would move, come together, not independently, and they would feel like you really only had one weird finger. But, happily, if you then stimulate them properly, then your brain will change back and it will re-differentiate and start functioning naturally.

So people have been in a… My favorite thing to say is, “Given that you have more nerve trainings the sole of your feet than pretty much anywhere but your fingertips and lips, how much can you feel? How much feedback are you giving your brain through the shoe that you’re wearing if it has a big thick sole?” They go, “Huh? None or very little.” I said, “You know that if you stepped on a grain of sand, you could feel that normally. You’re wired to feel that, and you’re not getting that information. So what’s that doing to your brain?”

So what we’re talking about is whether people are already hanging out barefoot and walking over all over the place, or if they’re in shoes and they haven’t been doing that, is getting the brain to work properly by letting the body to give it the signals that it needs properly. This has, as we’ve seen, dramatic effects. So for the fun of it… Wait, do you want to say anything about that before we jump into how things have evolved from matte to insole to all the other things that you’re using? Because this is where things get interesting to me. Is there anything else we want to fill in about the why about this?

Dr. Emily Splichal:

Yes. If I go in a direction that you didn’t think I was going to go, I apologize. Now we have our Neuro Ball, which is a release tool. We have a Neuro Stick. So we have these recovery tools that you could put texture on to, again, wake up the nerves but also stimulate circulation. So it’s another benefit of what we advocate. Then we have our rehab category, you could say, which has our Kinesis Board, which is like a single-leg platform. We have our Sensory Sticks that are weighted. We have some Pilates equipment. We have our mats. We essentially radiate out.

Then we have our socks, which honestly is one of my proudest in the sense of my legacy I really want to be the socks and have them in hospitals where there’s a stroke rehab center or something like that where you’re thinking, this person just had a brain injury. I need to access that brain through the gateway, which I consider the bottom of the foot, the gateway into the brain is I need to be bringing neurosensory feedback from that access point because it’s so critical to movement, which we just said is critical to longevity. So that would be something that I would envision from it.

Now, what I will say real quick, and then we can divert into any direction. We got our utility patent, and our patent was granted after quite a few years of defending it and making a case that it is a unique, innovative patent to bull pattern that is helping people in a very specific way. I spent a lot of money to get that. We got our utility patent. So what I try to think about is, what can I design to continue to demonstrate the power of texture but the power of sensory stimulation on human movement and longevity?

So any product ideation really, I do that and I look at… We have the hands, so we actually have some different hand tools. We’re launching one in a couple week, a hand kit. How do I continue to push that category? Because that category is ultimately my legacy, just like your legacy is that the minimal footwear category is beyond you. It is forever a category in the footwear space. It is not a trend. Texture is not a trend. To be barefoot and access your feet is not a trend. This is like talking about breathing and saying breathing is a trend. That’s not. That’s not a trend.

Steven Sashen:

Although there are all these people who teach various breathing methods, and they would argue that what they’re doing is real and they’re creating a trend. Anyway, yeah, everyone’s going to try and carve out a thing. Yes, our goal, and I like that you said it that way, because for me… My wife asked me a while ago, “What’s different about Xero Shoes than the other companies that I’ve started and the other products that I created?” Literally, some of my previous companies/products changed certain aspects of the world. I invented some software that changed film and television writing forever. But she’s, “What’s different here?” I said, “This one’s way bigger than me.” That was my little community, and that was a fun thing to do. It was important, and it was a big deal. But this is much, much bigger. Because that was just like helping people do their job better, being a little more creative. This is literally improving people’s lives in a way that is so profound that it has to transcend me because I’m not the important person here. What we’re doing is the important thing.

Anyway, what’s interesting is the people who are in this world, you, me and our friends who are also in it, we all feel the same way. And that’s really interesting. It’s really unusual. Contrast that to the people that we’re kind of fighting against who they would claim that that’s what they really want to do, but they have no evidence they’re actually doing it. In fact, they have evidence to the contrary. Their number one goal is clearly, “How do we make money out of this? Not, “How do we help people?” Anyway, that’s a whole other whatever.

In your goal, I like that it has expanded beyond let’s just do foot stimulation to all these other things about stimulation and the value there. That sounds like where we’re making the transition to talk about these other things and what they do, who they do it for, and what things people could expect when they start exploring this whole realm of providing stimulation that they probably haven’t gotten that frankly in other parts of the world and other times were more natural, and now we’re just doing… We’re faking natural, which is a fine thing to do. I’m not trying to say that derogatorily. But if we’re not going to have it naturally, sure, we go do it. If we’re not going to build a house by carrying rocks from the river to where we’re doing it, we go to the gym. That’s cool. With that wacky little preface, please back to you for the win.

Dr. Emily Splichal:

Yes. My evolution through Naboso and just my career is I’m uniquely fascinated with sensory stimulation. That is well established. Foot as a gateway into the nervous system, that is clear being a functional podiatrist. But really where it starts to expand in the evolution of how this could make a bigger impact is I think looking at a broader category of just what is neurosensory stimulation.

I’m uniquely intrigued by resistance, like weight, weighted vests, weighted apparel. It helps people to feel their body in space. Compression, so compression sleeves, compression apparel, what is that doing to the proprioceptors? What we have found with our Sensory Sticks, which are two pounds each, is they have the texture but then the weight. If you hold them on one side, both sides, you shut your eyes and you kind of focus on how you feel, see your body, when you have a light resistance pulling on your joint capsules and all the proprioceptors of your fascia, it wakes up the brain in a different way. So that’s very unique. I said compression. Vibration is another one. I’ve been using whole body vibration for years. I absolutely love it. I’ve worked with whole body vibration companies before, but trying to bring that in and having a different type of utility of it. Then how can we combine these sensory stimuli to achieve something greater?

My heart will always go towards neuro-rehab and helping people who have had stroke, Parkinson’s, concussions and to go back to the basics of you have to be able to perceive your body. I need you to shut your eyes and see your body as it’s moving in space and have accuracy as you’re doing that. A lot of people are sensorily disconnected. I think technology is making us sensorily disconnected. People are emotionally disconnected. It’s about how to try to get back in touch with your physical body. They don’t have physical education the same anymore. People just aren’t moving the same way.

Movement is how we reestablish or how we established, when we were born, this perception of ourself, this perception of your brain. I often say that sensory and perception feeds mood, memory, and movement, and they’re very deeply incorporated. It’s your emotional regulation, your cognitive performance, so that’s the memory, and then your movement movement, movement accuracy, movement efficiency. Those are very interwoven. One is reliant on the other. One calibrates the other. Then I truly believe that sensory is really the roots of those three. And that’s my next book.

Steven Sashen:

Well done. It’s interesting, I think about people’s, in general, poor proprioceptive skill. I think back to when I was a young gymnast when we just were starting, and the compulsory floor exercise routine had two parts where you had to put your arms parallel to the ground. It took us weeks to learn what parallel was. Because when you put your arms parallel to the ground, it doesn’t look parallel. It looks like you’re pointing down. What people think is parallel is actually above horizontal.

Or when I had someone email me and say, “There’s something wrong with the rubber you’re using on your shoes because look how much I wore out the heel.” I said, “Oh, well, that means you’re over-striding and heel striking.” The guy said, “I don’t do that.” I said, “Send me a video.” So he sends me a video. I had to show him the video frame by frame, drawing lines with a protractor showing that he was landing with his foot way out in front of his body with his ankle way out in front of his knee. It took literally 20 minutes till he went, “Oh, yeah. Okay, I see that.” His next line, I swear to God, was, “Yeah, but I don’t do that.” I said, “Dude, this is a video of you that you sent to me.”

The point is simply that we aren’t… I think in general the default mode is not being hyper-aware of where our body is in space. I’m marvel at the fact… My wife and I got a dog. It’s our first dog ever. We got him two and a half years ago, a little over two and a half years ago. When I take him for a walk, it blows my mind how he doesn’t step on things that he’s not looking at. He’s just very aware of where every limb is, except when he tries to climb the stairs and it’s dark at night, and then it’s pretty entertaining.

But by and large, it blows my mind how aware of every part of his body he is 99% of the time in ways that most of us are stubbing our toe on something or dropping something because we grabbed it wrong, or watching the soon-to-be president again try to grab the door handle of a garbage truck. We really aren’t that good. To get better, to your point, requires some kind of feedback, and the stimulatory stuff that you’re doing is the easiest thing to do, frankly, because anything you would do in the wild is going to be pretty unusual, and I can’t even imagine what many of those things would be. Your video comes in and out again a bit. But happily, when your video freezes, you have not done it yet with some really insane expression on your face, so you can be happy about that.

Anyway, all that said, I love the way you framed that mostly because, like you said, physical education is disappearing from the elementary school system. We don’t have a built-in method of getting people to get that kind of stimulation, to have their brain aware of what their body is doing, to learn new movement patterns, etc. So what you’re providing is, again, I would argue, one of the simplest ways of doing that kind of faking natural in a way that’s demonstrably beneficial.

Dr. Emily Splichal:

Yeah. It’s also something that most people are not thinking about, so I’m just trying to-

Steven Sashen:

Why would you?

Dr. Emily Splichal:

Exactly, until someone falls. Like what you had said about trip and falls being a leading cause of morbidity or mortality, one of my best friends from New York, her father-in-law, this is last week, 81, so he is a little bit older, but in his kitchen, stepped on a sponge that was on the floor, something fell, hit his head on the kitchen table, and then he must have fallen back and hit it again. He passed away. They were watching a movie on a Friday night, and he was just like, “Oh, let me go grab some more popcorn.”

It gives me goosebumps to think about that, that now that family and his children are going through that where it’s just like… It was something that he, and many people, take for granted, just the simplicity of moving around the home. It’s like, no, no, we need to have spatial awareness. We have to have foot-ground awareness. It’s just the whole thing and that should not be happening.

Steven Sashen:

There are a number of things that fit into this. Strength is an important one as well. Having some facility with movement. I spent so much time as a gymnast and then doing martial arts where I don’t typically worry about falling because I’m pretty good at not landing in weird-ass ways. Granted, I’ve gone down pretty bad on the ice when the dog sees a squirrel and yanks me, and whoops. But even then, not so bad.

Again, the part that people are not paying attention to, I wanted to say aware of, which is kind of a bit of a pun in a way, is the sensory component because it’s just not something that we pay attention to, it’s funny, I just had this thought, unless you’re in a situation where there’s just something that’s bothering you. The thought that cracked me up is I’m always hypersensitive to labels in my shirts. Or when I was a kid and I had to wear a suit, I would wear my pajamas under the suit even if it was 90 degrees out because the seams were a little itchy. That’s my thing. So this is something that’s near and dear to my heart. But that’s just because I got some sort of brain deformity, I mean, bottom line.

Again, bringing this to people’s awareness, pun intended, is so important. So let’s go down the list again of the various things that you now have where people can start exploring this and finding the benefits thereof.

Dr. Emily Splichal:

We still have our mats, so the Naboso Mats. Picture a yoga mat size that is covered in these tiny little pyramids. Some people, we use them when they do yoga or workout. We have a Standing Mat, which is a two-foot by two-foot version. A lot of people will put that in their kitchen, next to their bed and their bathroom. So you could use it as really just a house mat in any sense. So that’s one.

We still have our insoles. We have our flat insoles, so three different versions that are totally flat. They’re purely a sensory insole, very thin. They’re available on the Xero Shoes website. Then we did launch one that has an arch in it, so this is a little contrary to… Don’t stop breathing, Steven. This is a little contrary with the arch. Now, the reason is that certain people, there are certain people in the world who need an arch support because they have ligament laxity. I just wanted to access all people on that. So we have that one. Or if someone is doing it because they’re standing on their feet all day like a nurse, and they’re just like, “Bleh!” I am defying physiology. How I use them is I have them in my slippers. So when I wake up in the morning, literally every aspect of my foot skin is touching something because I have a higher arch, so it’s actually touching the inside of the arch as well.

Steven Sashen:

Well, to pause on that one, once you said you built something in with an arch, that was the first thought I had is, if you do have a higher arch, to give you that additional stimulation is a great thing. The fact that it’s not super rigid is what makes it cool, even if you don’t have a super high arch. My thing about arch support is simply that if it’s too rigid and it isn’t letting the, we’re not going to get technical, the bones in that arch function properly, then anything that doesn’t let joints move makes things weaker. It makes the tissue around it weaker. We’re just trying to avoid that. But for people who do want that extra stimulation who do have a higher arch, perfect solution.

Dr. Emily Splichal:

Yeah, yeah, 100%. Steven, I’ll send you these, so can try them in your slippers.

Steven Sashen:

Hey thanks. Oh, that’s so cute you think I wear slippers.

Dr. Emily Splichal:

I know, right?

Steven Sashen:

Hold on. Are they fuzzy, or are they Hugh Hefner slippers?

Dr. Emily Splichal:

Oh, well, yeah, you want the smoking, smoker ones, what they call them?

Steven Sashen:

I’m just thinking, if I was going to buy a pair of slippers ever in my life, what would they be? I would go for something with bunny ears probably.

Dr. Emily Splichal:

Oh my gosh, so cute. All right, that’s your Christmas gift. Then outside the insoles, we have different socks. These are also available on xeroshoes.com. We have a traditional sock. We have a toe sock shape. We have with grip, without grip, so those are an incredible way to get that texture. Those are an awesome form of recovery. I wear those at night. We have our balance board, which is our Kinesis Board. We have the Neuro Ball, we have the Neuro Stick, we have toe spacers in several colors, Sensory Stick. So that would be really the main product line. Then we are launching a hand activation kit this November just to wake up the hands.

Steven Sashen:

Say more about that. That’s an interesting place to go since we typically think our hands are pretty sensitive.

Dr. Emily Splichal:

We actually have 20,000 nerves, mechanoceptors, in our hands, and this is mechanoceptors, and about a thousand or so in our feet. Meaning, there is a large difference in the sensitivity of our feet versus our hands, which makes sense because of fine motor skill, etc. But here, same thing, hands, you’re texting, swiping, whatever you’re doing. We need to focus on the hands. A lot of people will use our Neuro Ball, or they’ll use our Sensory Sticks, which are weighted. They’re for the hand. But we have our hand activation kit. I happen to have one right here.

In it, this is using a different material. It is actually compressible because there’s air in it. So you can squeeze them and compress them, so you’re actually strengthening the hand muscles, but you have the texture which is going to wake up the nerves. Also, what we have found, this is just from our own consumers demonstrating to us, we are very big in certain sports in certain countries such as baseball. We are very well known in the Asian countries. They’re very embracing to barefoot obviously, because it’s part of their culture. So a lot of the sports in Asia, baseball, basketball, etc., very much love Naboso for their hand. So we want to actually push a little bit into it.

Also, because we work so much with stroke, spinal cord injury, Parkinson’s, you start to get into hand rehab, hand OT, and we want to bring in that sensory stimulation. We also have a lot of people on the neurodivergent spectrum, wherever you are on that, and people actually finding that our products really calm the nervous system, and they’re used in certain schools.

Steven Sashen:

I think something different. I think same idea, slightly different. We have a bunch of parents who have kids with ADD, ADHD, and autism who say, “Our kids only want to wear your shoes, and they’re seemingly functionally better with them.” My contention is that the stimulation is acting the same way Ritalin works. It’s a mild stimulant, which, for people who are hypersensitive in that way, feels is calming.

My joke, when people ask me about various things that I’ve done, I joke that everything I’ve done in life is because they hadn’t invented Ritalin when I was a kid. Ritalin is a stimulant. When I was living in New York City, I noticed I could meditate better on a subway than in my apartment. Because on the subway, the noise was just loud enough to be louder than my thinking, or just about as loud as my thinking. So everything was feeling kind of calm with that not insignificant amount of noise.

So my contention for those people is that the calming thing is the effect of… Wait, this is going to sound weird. I have tinnitus or for other people, tinnitus, depending on who you are, so I’ve ringing in my ears. The theory about why that occurs for many people is that, for whatever reason, your ears are not transmitting high-frequency sounds. So your brain is recreating what it doesn’t get. My suspicion, and I’m making this up on the fly frankly, so I could be completely cranial rectal reorientation syndrome, but my suspicion is that for people who are ADD, ADHD, etc., that stimulation is providing something that was missing and the brain was being hyper-responsive and hyperactive to fill in the blanks. Once the blanks are filled in, it can chill out. That’s my current theory.

Dr. Emily Splichal:

Can I add on to that?

Steven Sashen:

Sure.

Dr. Emily Splichal:

I spent a lot of time thinking about this. All I do is think about sensory stimulation. When we picture someone, let’s just, ADD, autistic, all of that, so they are a little bit more hyperactive. Let’s say if I’m moving in a certain way, this is even me moving. Let’s say I’m a kid in school and I’m kind of doing this. Every time I do this, I’m actually stimulating the joint’s capsule, which has proprioceptors. That’s essentially what fidget toys do is you are stimulating mechanoceptors and proprioceptors from doing something, which is what you were saying-

Steven Sashen:

Right.

Dr. Emily Splichal:

… is that they don’t know a way to get it without… “I’m doing it, right?”

Steven Sashen:

Tapping yourself, rocking, yeah.

Dr. Emily Splichal:

Yeah, I’m rocking, I’m doing something. That’s why compression works really well. That’s why I love compression. Weight, so wrist weights are used for children who have this, using texture, using minimal. It’s not in the sense of it’s stimulating like a Ritalin kind of thing. The way that I want people to think of it is this goes back to your perception of self and your need to feel safe. So when I feel myself in space, maybe I got a little compression on or a little bit of weight or something, I feel where I am. I’m grounded or anchored in this space in the world, so I feel, quote/unquote, safe.

By doing that with someone who’s, let’s say, hypervigilant in a sense, and they’re kind of up here, you give them minimal shoes, feel their feet. They have compression on. They have the Naboso insoles, whatever it is. Then they recalibrate to the perception of self. They feel safe, and now they can learn. Now they hear what the teacher is saying. So that’s how I approach it when I work with OTs and stuff like that within that space. It’s very calming. Especially when you’re talking to a parent, there’s a lot of sensitivity around it. But time and time again, these children, when you give them minimal shoes, weighted products, texture, vibration, they can actually hear, listen, etc.

Steven Sashen:

Have you ever had an experience where someone describes some condition and you recognize yourself in that and you go, “Oh my God, I didn’t know I was one of those”? I just had that, and this is going to sound silly. Well, anyway, I know myself, but I never thought about some of these things personally because they’re just part of my… They just seem like something normal to me and abnormal to other people.

The example that I thought of that made me crack up and go, “Oh my God, what a moron. I haven’t realized this is who I am.” I used to get together five times a year with this group of about 14 of us. We were just trying to see what we could do to change our lives. The first instruction was always, “If there’s anything anyone needs to say or do to feel that they are present and grounded and whatever, just ready to do what we’re going to do for the next five days, just say it, do it, ask for it, whatever it is.” My thing was always, “I’m going to lie on the ground and as many of you as possible pile on.” I found that so unbelievably comforting.

Dr. Emily Splichal:

Huh?

Steven Sashen:

Some people wouldn’t do it because they were afraid or it had some other effect for them. Like, “Maybe I’m going to hurt someone.” I just put two and two together in a funny way. I’m super, super sensitive to how comforting it is to have pressure of various kinds and sensations of various kinds and hypersensitive to some.

I also just put two and two together, perhaps, I don’t know which came first, this is a chicken and egg thing, but I was a six-week preemie. I was in an incubator for four and a half weeks where, at that time, the basic treatment protocol was, “Don’t touch them. They’re fragile. Don’t touch them.”

I’ll tell you this story, an ex-girlfriend of mine, we were watching TV. It was some documentary about babies, and so it talked about preemies and how the treatment protocol changed from leave them alone to give them a lot of stimulation. Because when you give them a lot of stimulation, they grow more, they become bigger and taller, and they become smarter, etc., and then it cuts to commercial. There’s a long silence while I’m thinking about my version of that and how that was for me. My ex turns and says, “Oh, thank God they didn’t touch you.” My response was, “Yeah, I would probably be intolerable.” I’m pretty intolerable now too, but that would’ve put me over the edge.

The reason that I bring up all these things, the personal version of these is I’m realizing, and I’m hoping that it’s being transmitted in some wacky-ass way, the importance of what we’re talking about in a way that people don’t have… There’s not even a language for some of this. There’s not a context for some of this. I do hope, the same as you, that this becomes normalized and something that just seems an obvious thing to do the way that… I can’t think of what else I would think of it would be. It’s like, oh, yeah, you should eat well, lift weights, whatever it could be. Go out and get some aerobic exercise. This should be part of just a every day health protocol that we don’t even think of as a health protocol. It just makes sense as a thing that we do as human beings who are living in this world.

Yeah, holy crap.

Dr. Emily Splichal:

I am hoping, like you said, that the listeners will identify or possibly understand certain aspects of themselves that maybe they could never put words to it. Then they’re hearing this and saying, “Oh, okay, that sounds kind of like me.” I absolutely love weighted blankets. I need weight on me for me to sleep well. In hotels, if they do not have anything heavy, I will put my clothes on me to weigh it down. It sounds crazy.

Steven Sashen:

No, no, I get it.

Dr. Emily Splichal:

When I speak, especially in the beginning of my career because I would be a little bit more in my head when I would do public speaking, is I would have to take my shoes off, and it was my anchor. If I had my shoes on, I was like, “I cannot think. There’s no way I can give a lecture or presentation with my shoes on because it’s blocking my creativity and how I need to process it.” Those are two that really jump out at me of how I respond to them. Yeah, I hope the listeners just be curious about it and just realize, “I push into things like that versus I’m a freak.” It’s just like, “Hey, that’s interesting,” and understanding, let’s say weight, like people laying on you, you just have to feel your body to get connected and anchored and grounded. It is just like, “It’s go time now. I’m going to embrace it and let me push into it,” versus analyzing.

Steven Sashen:

Yeah. I can imagine there are people who are on the other side of this. They have no frame of reference for anything that I was referring to. But arguably and ironically, the point is still the same. If you don’t feel, let’s just say, comforted by some of these things, there’s still beneficial aspects to it that you may not even know until you have the experience. So it’s not that you’re trying to calm down, so I’m hyperactive or whatever, but it may be even just… Look, here’s a simple thing. Weightlifters, Olympic weightlifters, one of the things they do before they go out and grab a bar and try and throw a huge amount of weight over their head is things to stimulate other parts of their body. Basically, anything that’s waking up your brain is going to have a global effect for whatever you’re doing.

So if you’re on the other side of the things that I’m describing, there’s still a value here that you might discover that was completely unexpected. We’re literally just feeling that little bit of sensory information that you didn’t think made a difference, similar to my story of first trying on the insoles, then you’re going to go do whatever else you’re doing in the day and go, “Oh, wow, that actually did add something to it,” maybe for whatever the exact opposite reason is that I’m talking about. I wish I could think of what that would be, but I’m stuck my own private Idaho at the moment.

I’m dying to hear those stories as well for people to go, “Well, I was never sensitive to anything and I feel totally fine, but holy crap, I just did this and…” I’m sure there are those stories. I mean, I know there are. I just can’t bring one to mind at the moment. But I’m dying to hear what happens when someone who doesn’t relate to some of the things I might have said or thinks that I’m completely full of it or crazy discovers, “Oh, no, but in my world, here’s the way this works.” That’d be really fun.

Dr. Emily Splichal:

Yeah, I would be totally curious. I am just so in the deep end of sensory that it’s very hard for me to somehow put myself in the other–

Steven Sashen:

Well, here, I’ll give you a way of doing this. I just remembered this once. Back in the days, way back when, I, among other things, was teaching. I developed some weird meditation techniques and was teaching those. At one point, one of the techniques involved paying attention to sensations in your body in a certain way. This one guy said, “I just can’t do it.” I said, “What do you mean?” He goes, “Well, I don’t know what you’re talking about. I can’t figure that out.” Well, it happened to be lunchtime. I said, “Are you hungry right now?” He goes, “Yeah.” I said, How’d you know?” expecting him to say, “Oh, I feel like an emptiness in my stomach, or I’m feeling these sensations here, or whatever.” He goes, “What do you mean? I’m just hungry.” I said, “But what tells you you’re hungry?” He said, “What the hell are you talking about?”

I realized there was nothing wrong with him. He just had a completely different relationship to certain aspects of his experience, to his body in this situation, that’s completely legit, and, oh, there’s another way around that. There’s another way… not around. There’s another way that he has to enter into the conversation that was news to me. We’re all pretty narcissistic in certain ways where we think the way we do things and see things is the way other people should. The toilet paper should be over the roll, not under the roll, which by the way is true.

Dr. Emily Splichal:

It should be over the roll.

Steven Sashen:

Well, don’t tell my sister who disagrees that she is wrong. I just spent a week and a half at her house. It made me insane actually. In fact, when Lena showed up, she turned the toilet paper rolls over, and someone in that house turned them back the wrong way.

Dr. Emily Splichal:

Oh, wow.

Steven Sashen:

Anyway. There are people who are on whatever end of whatever spectrum, but this is just part of being a human being is getting sensory information and how that can impact how you’re functioning. If people want to explore that more, you mentioned we have a couple of your products. We have our Naboso Trail Sandal that we developed, a trail sandal, sports sandal which has the Naboso material already built into it. We are reselling the insoles and the socks, which are awesome. But for people who want to find other things, please tell them how they can find those things and you.

Dr. Emily Splichal:

Absolutely. The website is naboso.com, N-A-B-O-S-O.com. We are on social media, naboso_technology. Then for those that are curious about what I do, how I treat patients, how I look at movements, everything is related to thefunctionalfootdoc. That’s my Instagram. That’s my website. I see patients virtually all over the world. So if you are open to that, go to thefunctionalfootdoc.com. My first book is called Barefoot Strong. That’s available on Amazon and on the Naboso website. Then my other book is called Sensory Sapiens, coming soon within a few months.

Steven Sashen:

To a bookstore near you if you know what a bookstore is.

Dr. Emily Splichal:

Yes.

Steven Sashen:

Well, Emily, as always, a pleasure catching up and sharing all these things that are evolving. It’s wild seeing how you’ve gone from a little something idea to where Naboso has gone. It’s a pleasure to actually see that, and more, to see someone who’s thinking about these things and developing new ideas based on them, not just sticking to a thing and being content with that. It’s like continuing to explore. So I do hope people check out where you are and what you’re doing, and I want to hear more what happens for those of you who do.

For everyone else, just a reminder, first of all, thank you for being here. Go to www.jointhemovementmovement.com. There’s nothing you need to do to join. That’s just the domain we have. But you will find previous episodes of which there are hundreds with very interesting people. You will also find where to find us on social media, and you’ll find where to get the podcast if you want to get it somewhere other than where you’re currently getting it. If you have any questions or requests or suggestions, anyone you think should be on the show, or if you think I have a case of cranial rectal reorientation syndrome about everything I’m talking about, that’s cool. You can drop me an email. I’m at move, M-O-V-E@jointhemovementmovement.com. Most importantly, go out, have fun, and live life feet first.

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Nick St. Louis is the founder and Lead Foot Nerd at TFC. He obtained a Masters of Physical Therapy from Western University and his current obsession is with researching every pillar of health to discover the truths that science has to offer. He now spends less time in clinic and has devoted his days to weaving together a global tribe of people on a mission to collectively solve the health crisis by inspiring and empowering the individual to take back control of their bodies.

Listen to this episode of The MOVEMENT Movement with Nick St. Louis about the impact of modern athletic footwear marketing claims.

Here are some of the beneficial topics covered on this week’s show:

– How marketing claims in the fitness industry often lack scientific evidence, creating a challenge in discerning between legitimate research and marketing ploys.

– Why you should embrace natural movement for optimal foot health and well-being

– How many shoe designs are promoted despite lacking evidence of their effectiveness in enhancing performance or preventing injury.

– Why embracing discomfort and risk can lead to growth and resilience in pursuing goals.

– How the human body’s adaptability and resilience allow for achieving physical feats beyond evolutionary expectations.

Connect with Nick:

Guest Contact Info

Instagram@thefootcollective

Facebookfacebook.com/thefootcollective

Links Mentioned:thefootcollective.com

Connect with Steven:

Website

Xeroshoes.com

Twitter@XeroShoes

Instagram@xeroshoes

Episode Transcript

Steven Sashen:

What is the most important part of your body that you need to develop to be able to run, walk, hike, do yoga, CrossFit, whatever it is you do, and do that enjoyably and healthily? Is it your abs? Is it your hamstrings? Is it your glutes? Is it something completely different? You’re going to find out on today’s episode of the Movement Movement Podcast, the podcast for people who want to know the truth about what it takes to have a happy, healthy, strong body, typically starting feet first. And by the way, it’s not even your feet, because those things are your foundation, by the way. And we break down the propaganda, the mythology, sometimes the outright lies you’ve been told about what it does take to run, walk, hike, yoga, CrossFit, et cetera, et cetera, and to do that enjoyably, and effectively, and efficiently. And did I mention enjoyably?

I know I did, because that’s the most important thing. If you’re not having fun, please do something different till you are. I’m Steven Sashen, your host for the Movement Movement podcast and the CEO of Xeroshoes.com. And we call this the Movement Movement if you’re new to us, because we’re creating a movement about natural movement. We want to make natural movement the obvious, better, healthy choice, the way people think that natural food is right now, and we need your help to do that. So you are part of the movement about natural movement. So to be part of the movement, go to www.jointhemovementmovement.com. You’ll find previous episodes and all the different places you can interact with this podcast, and content on YouTube and Facebook, and et cetera, et cetera. And that’ll, then you can like and share, and give a thumbs up and hit the bell on YouTube, all those things that you know how to do to spread the word, and to hear about what we’re doing next.

In short, if you want to be part of the tribe, please do subscribe. So this is a recording that I’m going to put on in a second, that was done with my friend Nick from the Foot Collective, Thefootcollective.com, where frankly, we’ve just been chatting and decided to rant a little bit. And in it you’re going to learn about maybe the most important thing that you need to know, the most important part of your body you need to develop in order to, well, like I said, have a healthy, happy, strong body. So let’s dive in, shall we?

Nick St. Louis:

Welcome to the episode of, I don’t know what this is, but it’s going to be fun. I’m chatting with Steve Sashen today, who is the founder and director at Xero Shoes, one of the favorite brands that we have at TFC Shop. And we wanted to do this because Steven is always a treat to talk to, because I love that you just tell it like it is. So let’s just dive into things that we feel need to be talked about.

Steven Sashen:

Hold on, hold on. This phrase, tell it like it is, has a whole different connotation here in America, because some people like to say, “Tell it like it is,” and all they mean is that that person has no filter. Hopefully tell it like it is, means that you’re telling the truth. And I would hope that that’s what I’m doing, because I think that I am and I’m willing to be proven wrong, and then change what I’m doing, which is actually one of the things that we are going to rant about, is people who get… So let’s set the context. You and I were chatting, we were both ranting about something. I don’t know what, perhaps customer behavior, something like when people want to get your attention, they will talk about you on Facebook, but not tag you, and then complain that you didn’t respond to their post, even though there was no literal way you could find it.

Nick St. Louis:

Oh, that’s probably happening right now, but I don’t even know about it. So you know what? Joy is missing out.

Steven Sashen:

Yeah, yeah. So I like that one. My other favorite one that’s related to that is someone emails us and they use the wrong email address, and then complain that we don’t respond. I love that one too. That’s a good one.

Nick St. Louis:

Oh yeah. Yeah. I love getting PayPal disputes where people are like, “Yeah, I bought something and it didn’t get sent to me.”

And then we look and it’s like, “You didn’t even enter your correct email.”

Steven Sashen:

Oh no, sorry.

Nick St. Louis:

We’ll fix it for you and pretend like it was our mistake.

Steven Sashen:

No, no. Here’s my favorite. Why did you send the package to my childhood home address? Well, funny you should ask. It’s because for every one of the thousand plus orders we get every day, we check every one of them and do a search to find someone’s childhood address, and randomly select a customer to ship that package to the wrong place. It’s like, what? Anyway, so those were some of our customer rants. Then we have product rants and industry rants as well.

Nick St. Louis:

Yeah. Well, I wanted to talk about, okay, so I think junk science or junk that people are calling science, is something that is coloring many domains of life right now. And I would love to break that down, because I think even we can even take the subdomain of natural footwear. The question that I get, which I find hilarious is, where is the science and the research to show that wearing shoes that let your feet move feet, is better than shoes that don’t let your feet move naturally? Please show me that research. And it’s like, I don’t even know how to respond to this anymore. It’s so crazy.

Steven Sashen:

Then, I’ll tell you how I respond. I say two things, maybe three things. Thing number one, we’re not the intervention. For the thousands of years that humans have been wearing footwear, up until the early ’70s, it mostly looked like ours. In fact, if you look, there was a, archeological dig in Oregon, and they found a sandal that looks remarkably like this. This is our Genesis sandal. I mean, it’s a very similar. Now, the sole is not made of, what’s the word I’m looking for? Rubber. There was another word I couldn’t find. Compression molded rubber. It’s made out of sage bark, but same basic idea. So up until the early ’70s, this is what we doing. So the intervention is the new modern athletic shoe. So the question there is, where’s the evidence for that? And the evidence for that is injuries have not been reduced at all, and performance has not been improved, because of the shoes during that entire time.

And there’s actually hundreds of studies demonstrating that letting your feet move naturally is better than not. So Sarah Ridge at BYU showed that just walking in a pair of minimalist shoes gives you the same strength benefits or increases in strength that you would get if you did an actual foot exercise program. And on the flip side, there’s research, I don’t remember who did it, and I’m not even sure if it’s been published yet. I heard about this from Irene Davis at Harvard, showing that they took orthotics and put them in the shoes of healthy runners, and within 10 weeks they had lost up to 10% of the muscle mass in their feet. That’s not good. And then the third thing I point out-

Nick St. Louis:

So I mean, that’s not a surprise. If you use a crutch-

Steven Sashen:

Of course not.

Nick St. Louis:

… and you don’t use your leg for a month, it’s like you’re probably going to have a weak leg. I think most people would be like, “That makes sense.”

Steven Sashen:

Right, same idea. And a version of that is why is it that people think that feet are somehow horribly designed and they can’t support you? You go to Third World countries and you just don’t find podiatrists treating people or things, where they put them in arch support of any sort.

Nick St. Louis:

They’re not required.

Steven Sashen:

Well, it’s like if you went to the doctor and said, “My wrist is bothering me.”

And the doctor says, “Oh, we’re going to have to immobilize your neck for the rest of your life.”

You’d go…

Nick St. Louis:

“What? What do you say?”

Yeah, I know. But we applied different logic to a different body part for some reason. And it’s like the whole system abides by the same principles. And I remember, well, when I did a podcast with Golden from Altra, he talked about, I looked up one of his talks from 2013, and he gave stats on rates of foot problems in shod versus un-shod populations. And it was so interesting, because even the superficial stat with that much description is stunning. It’s like 78% of people in shod cultures will develop foot pain at some point. 3% of people in un-shod cultures will develop a foot issue at some point. And then if you put a little asterisk beside that 3%, it’s like by the way, those people step on a tree root or stub their toe, it hurts for a week. And then they’re like, “Yeah, my feet are fine.”

The other people are like, “My feet hurt all the time.” And big surprise, you’re wearing foot casts.

Steven Sashen:

Yeah. Look, I’ve been predominantly barefoot for the last 12, 13 years. I can’t even do the math anymore. And not that that’s math, that’s just called memory, which I don’t have anymore. I’ve had two injuries.

Nick St. Louis:

Hard drive’s out of space, right?

Steven Sashen:

Yeah. I’ve got no CPU cycles to spare. I’ve had two injuries in that time, same injury twice. I stubbed my toe. I just wasn’t paying attention. One time walking up my sister’s driveway and the garage pad was like three inches high. I didn’t know that. And I slammed into it. And then a couple of months ago, I’m taking a walk with a friend and we’re walking down the sidewalk, and there was a rock that somehow had gotten moved from being around a tree to the middle of the sidewalk. I wasn’t paying attention.

Nick St. Louis:

And it’s like a little reminder to be a bit more mindful. It’s like that’s literally, that’s what I get when I stub my toe. I’m like, okay, I got to pay attention a little bit more, or it just happens sometimes.

Steven Sashen:

Yeah, I go for that one. I don’t really care. It’s sort of like I was hanging out with a bunch of psychiatrists and physical therapists, and healers of varying kinds. They were all talking about the different diets they were on, and there’s a pause in the conversation and I said, “I’m on the, I don’t know when I’m going to get hit by a bus diet.”

Nick St. Louis:

I like that one. Give us some more details of what that diet consists of.

Steven Sashen:

Yeah, it’s pretty much what I’m in the mood to eat, and that’s about it, because I’m not going to sacrifice something that I enjoy, because I have this imagined scenario of if I eat a certain way, my body will change shape in a particular way, and then I’ll finally be happy. I don’t have that one. So not saying that I love this thing. I’ll tell you a weird personal thing. As I roll out of bed every morning I pinch a little bit of right around my abdomen area to see what my body fat feels like, as if somehow overnight I magically drop 5% body count.

Nick St. Louis:

Has that ever happened?

Steven Sashen:

No. I have had times where I’ve gone to the bathroom and had to take my belt in a notch, but that’s a whole different story. But the whole point is, I mean, I’m not someone who overindulges, I don’t binge on things, but a good piece of chocolate cake. Back in the days when I was a diehard vegan, a friend of mine said, “One of my favorite things about you is you’re a diehard vegan, but if you see a piece of chocolate cake and it’s not vegan, you will eat that cake.”

Nick St. Louis:

Yeah, there’s an exception. A little window that’s personal to everyone. Actually, out of curiosity, what made you want to be a vegan and what made you get out of being a vegan? Cole’s Notes.

Steven Sashen:

I have a genetic disorder, I found out about 10 years ago. I was at the first Paleo Conference, Paleo FX all these people talking about paleo this, paleo that. And of course it was very entertaining, because A, none of the paleo experts could agree on what paleo was or wasn’t. And B, out of the 10 sort of most famous people in that group, five of them were morbidly obese, and four of them had just gotten C-reactive protein scores that were through the roof, because they were eating so much meat.

Nick St. Louis:

Oh, great role models. Great, let’s listen to these people for sure.

Steven Sashen:

Exactly. So there is that dilemma. And besides, back to your point about the truth, the more research that comes out about our paleolithic ancestors, the more we find that what people say, what paleo people say those people ate is not true. They say they never ate grains, and there’s actually evidence they ate tons of grains. They said they never ate basically sugar. They ate tons of sugar. So anyway, whole other story.

Nick St. Louis:

Well, that’s too inconvenient to talk about, Steven. We’ve already created the brand Paleo, people are already drinking the juice, so let’s not talk about that, please.

Steven Sashen:

You’re right. I said to one of the doctors, “This idea that you each have that there’s an ideal diet for all human beings, even though you can’t agree on what that diet is, it’s kind of silly. Because,” I said, “I’m a genetic freak.”

And the guy says, “What do you mean?”

I said, “Well, I’m a sprinter and I’m a Jewish sprinter, so not a whole lot of us. In fact-”

Nick St. Louis:

Oh, interesting.

Steven Sashen:

“… you may be talking to the fastest Jew in the world, but that’s a whole other story.” That’s the issue of a world over 55. Anyway, but I said to this guy, “You guys all talk about eating a lot of meat. I’ve never liked meat since the day I was born.” I remember vividly, my mom would make pork chops. I would chew it up and stuff it in my cheek, and then make an excuse to go to the bathroom and spit it in the toilet. My dad, I couldn’t have been more than seven or eight, and my dad-

Nick St. Louis:

What turned you off from it? Was it the texture or the taste, or just weren’t a fan?

Steven Sashen:

Well, I’ll get there. So here we go. So I got to tell you this one, that one day my dad said, “You’re going to sit under the table until you finish that whatever piece of meat it was.”

And I stayed there for three hours, until he said, “Go to bed.”

So I said to this doctor, “I’ve never liked meat.”

And he says, “Well, do you like coffee?”

I said, “No.”

He says, “Do you like tea?”

I said, “If I never drank another cup, I wouldn’t miss it.”

He said, “Do you like red wine?”

I said, “No.”

And he goes down this list of foods that I either aggressively don’t like or would never miss if I never had another taste of them again.

Nick St. Louis:

He said chocolate?

Steven Sashen:

He said, “You don’t taste…”

Chocolate was a whole different game. He says, “You have a genetic disorder. You don’t taste savory flavors.”

So I look it up and I had my genome sequenced, and in fact, I have a known genetic disorder. It’s kind of rare, where I just don’t taste savory flavors, the umami flavor. And so, meat just tastes like slightly irony, slightly metallic mush.

Nick St. Louis:

Wow, that’s very interesting.

Steven Sashen:

It’s like being colorblind. I was at a dinner party, someone brought in some raised by virgins, massaged by nuns, blessed by the Dalai Lama beef. And so, I like to try things. I’m always curious. So I tried a bite and I said to this whole room full of people, and I was genuinely curious. I said, “So this has a flavor that you actually can taste and enjoy?”

And everyone looked at me like I was crazy. And my wife says, “You made everyone so self-conscious, you ruined the meal for them.”

Nick St. Louis:

Yeah, it just destroyed it. They were like, “Well, now it doesn’t taste as good anymore.”

Steven Sashen:

Yeah, yeah. It wasn’t my intention. I mean, I was genuinely curious, because I couldn’t taste it. So what made me be a vegan was just let’s just drop dairy for the fun of it and see what happens. And I didn’t notice it and didn’t miss it. And what got me out of being a vegan, this is going to sound crazy. I’m walking by, I’m walking along a sidewalk by Whole Foods. This is 15 years ago maybe. And literally the thought popped in my head, a thought that I hadn’t had in ages, and the thought was sushi. And I went, “Okay.” And so, I went in and got a little thing of sushi and that was the end of my veganness. And so, I eat some dairy. I have some kind of fishy something two or three times a week. That’s about it.

Nick St. Louis:

I like it. Yeah. I love Joel Furman’s approach of just being a nutritarian. It’s like, just eat things high in nutrients. And it turns out if you do that and you eliminate a lot of the unnatural stuff, it doesn’t really matter what you eat, how much you eat of it, you’re going to do okay.

Steven Sashen:

Takes care of most of it. I was taking a walk with a friend of mine and she said, “I wish I would just, I’m trying to listen to my body to know what I need to eat.”

And I literally fell on the ground laughing. I said, “Well, first of all, I’m laughing because I used to have thoughts like that. And what’s so funny is I can answer your question and address the question underneath your question. So your question is, I know what your body wants to eat, ice cream, french fries, chocolate cake. I mean, basically as many calories as fast as you can get. So that’s what we know. But you have this idea that you could quote, ‘listen to your body.’ I don’t know what that means. And that if you did, it would ask you to eat things that you think would change your body in such a way that you would eventually like it and be happy. But that’s just silly. If you walk around and ask a million people, do you like the way this thing looks or functions? You will not find anybody who says yes, everyone’s going to have a thing they don’t like, a thing that doesn’t work the way they want. This is just a concept that we have. And you’re making yourself crazy.”

Nick St. Louis:

Because we’re told all day that you’re not the way you should be or that you could be better, literally surrounded by messaging all day long. How could people not feel that?

Steven Sashen:

Well, this is one of my rants, is that especially in the West, we have this idea that there’s a certain collection of thoughts that we have that are personal and that need to be resolved. And most of them are just proof that we’re human beings. So I don’t like my body and I should like it. Why do you think that you should? None of us do mostly, because we never developed the skill to look in one of these and determine whether there was bacteria in it.

What we developed is the skill of taking a sip and then checking to see how it feels, and then knowing if we need to throw up as quickly as possible, if it doesn’t do it automatically. So we’ve developed this hypersensitivity to internal sensations that we now just have no reason to use them, and so we just turn it internally forever. So there’s all these things that are just proof of this is the way human beings work, and we take it as a sign of a personal problem, which is fundamentally wrong. But anyway, this a tangent from, this was a tangent about science and telling it like it is. I’m going to give you a science one. Here’s one of my science rants.

How do I want to do this one? Nike has a new shoe, new issue called the React Infinity Run. And the way they advertise it, you go to a store, if anyone remembers what stores are, you go to a store and there’s a little sign underneath the shelf with the shoe that says, “Designed to reduce injury,” which I think is hysterical.

Nick St. Louis:

I know, that is so disturbing. How does Vibram get in trouble to say, “You wear shoes with less support, your feet are going to get stronger.”

And then Nike says, “These will prevent injury,” and it’s like-

Steven Sashen:

It doesn’t say it’s better. It doesn’t say, “We’ll prevent injury.” It says, “Designed to reduce injury.” Who designed shoes to increase injury?

Nick St. Louis:

All of our other shoes are designed to increase them, but these ones aren’t.

Steven Sashen:

Right. Well, it’s like Cheerios. It says supports heart health. It’s a meaningless phrase. I mean, heart health is meaningless and supports is meaningless in that sentence. But here’s the kicker. This study-

Nick St. Louis:

Avoid any foods that make health claims. That’s a good heuristic that I share with people. It’s like, if it makes health claims, it’s probably not something that’s tremendous for you.

Steven Sashen:

I don’t know. There’s a new super food that I heard about that comes out of the Amazon, that the three guys who ate it are 3000 years old, and how can you argue with those facts?

Nick St. Louis:

I want to talk to those guys. If it’s true then. But they’re not advertising on their boxes though. That’s the difference.

Steven Sashen:

No, but if you do advertise with them, you’re exploiting tribal populations, and that’s not good either. But so, Nike does this thing. They say it’s an independent study that they designed and that they paid for, and they had a third-party perform. And in fact, the Nike, the React Infinity Run did reduce injuries by 50% compared to the other shoe that they used, which was their best-selling motion control running shoe. I don’t remember what it’s called unfortunately, in a 12-week study.

And the way they defined injuries was that whatever happens puts you out for at least three running sessions. So really it’s like a 10-week study. In that first 10 weeks, they’re looking to injury rates. Their best-selling motion control shoe, over 30% of the people got injured. In the new designed to reduce injury, only 14.5% got injured. Now, on the one hand you would go, “Hey, that’s great. It actually did reduce injury by 50%.”

On the other hand, the way I like to frame it is, I’m going to buy you dinner tonight. Which restaurant do you want to go to? The one where you’re going to get food poisoning, one out of seven meals or one out of three meals?

Nick St. Louis:

That’s a great way of putting it.

Steven Sashen:

Because that’s basically what they’re saying, you’re going to get injured. I mean, one out of seven people who wear this shoe is still going to get injured within the first 10 weeks.

Nick St. Louis:

I know. It’s crazy. So that’s the manipulation of, you’re basically just manipulating people with what you’re telling them about what you did, with no reference to the actual details, nor is the average person interested. They’re just like, “Tell me something’s good and I want to buy it. Here’s my money.” It’s crazy.

Steven Sashen:

But here’s what’s worse. It’s worse than not only is the average person not interested. The people who reprint this press release in the media, they’re not interested. They were reprinting this before the actual study was released. So Nike put out a press release saying reduces injury by 50%. It gets reprinted basically verbatim. No one looked into it. I tracked down the guy who did the study and said, “Can you show me the study?”

And amazingly, he sent it to me before it was even published. That’s how I found out the numbers, which weren’t being mentioned at all.

Nick St. Louis:

I love that.

Steven Sashen:

When Adidas came out with, and for the snobs in the room or Europeans, Adidas, when Adi came out with their boost foam. And yes, if you want to be a real snob, you call it Adi. And for people who wonder why it’s Adi Dassler, Adidas. Anyway, they took this two pound, roughly two pound steel ball, bounced it off the boost foam, showed how bouncy it was compared to the other company’s foam, which wasn’t very bouncy. Of course, no other company uses this foam ever. But more importantly-

Nick St. Louis:

You don’t tell people that, that’s fine.

Steven Sashen:

Not important. Other company. Some other company. But here’s the kicker, you’re not a two pound steel ball.

Nick St. Louis:

What, you mean those results aren’t going to accurately carry over to my body? No, that can’t be right, Steven.

Steven Sashen:

I would never say anything like that. I’m just saying you’re not a two pound steel ball.

Nick St. Louis:

Okay. We can agree on that.

Steven Sashen:

Telling it like it is. And it’s one of these things that the fact that we don’t have good science education and people aren’t good at critical thinking, makes people susceptible to admittedly brilliant marketing. I mean, look, here’s the best one ever. You go into a running shoe store and they’ll have a treadmill, and they’ll put you on that treadmill and evaluate you in some way, and then recommend a shoe. Two things. You go to different shoe stores, you’re going to recommend different shoes. So that calls it into question to begin with. Second thing is, this whole idea, I don’t know if Brooks invented it, but it’s part of their run signature program, where they put little dots on your knees too and watch you squat a few times. Then have you run, oh, in socks on the treadmill. They won’t tell you to run barefoot, because they don’t want to give you the idea that you can do that, but just get more information.

Nick St. Louis:

Cannot slip any notion that being barefoot is good for people.

Steven Sashen:

No, no, no, no, no, no, no. Definitely can’t do that. So then they have you run and then they make some diagnosis about which Brooks shoe is right for you. Well, this is based on an idea that there are different kinds of feet and different kinds of movement that correlate to certain shoes you’re supposed to wear. Well, the Army, who gets a lot of people injured when they’re training, because they’re running in these big stiff boots, but they don’t think that’s why they, decided to do a test. And they took, I think it was maybe 900 people, split them into two groups. And one group was divided into three groups. Actually it was divided into three groups, split in half, however you want to think about that. And one half of the half got the shoes that were recommended for one of those three groups they were in. Neutral shoe, a motion control shoe, whatever.

Nick St. Louis:

For their foot type.

Steven Sashen:

For their foot type. And the other group was just given a random shoe, the difference in injury rates? Zero.

Nick St. Louis:

Big donut.

Steven Sashen:

So this whole idea of-

Nick St. Louis:

I wonder who didn’t tell Brooks that?

Steven Sashen:

I’ve told the CEO of Brooks that. He knows.

Nick St. Louis:

I’m guessing not a lot was done about that, because yeah, it is marketing. The problem is marketing is being sold as science. That is the core of the problem.

Steven Sashen:

Correct. There’s another version. I was on this panel discussion at the American College of Sports Medicine, and both Brooks and Adidas, sorry, Adidas, Adi, they were both there. And when they were asked, “What’s the future of footwear?”

They both said the same thing, which is basically individual differences, accommodating what’s unique to you. So Brooks, their idea was they were going to change the outsole and maybe put something a little thicker here or a little thicker here, depending on how you ran. And for Adi, it was changing the midsole to do something similar. Well, Adi’s project for doing that has been suspended, because I asked the obvious question, “Where’s the proof that this improves in performance or reduces injury?”

To which they had no answer. Adi is currently not going on this project, because it was based on a custom-made 3D printed midsole, and they essentially found that it’s just not tenable. I don’t know what Brooks is doing, but Brooks practically admitted that they want to give you a different shoe for everything you could possibly do. One shoe for walking into the bathroom, one shoe for walking out of the bathroom, because you weigh less. I mean, just crazy stuff.

Nick St. Louis:

I wonder why. It’s almost like they make more money than more shoes they sell you.

Steven Sashen:

Yeah. We’ve had people tell us we have a 5,000-mile sole warranty on our shoes, and we’ve had business advisors say, “You need to make shoes that don’t last as long.”

And I go, “No.”

Nick St. Louis:

I love that. I love your, so the three hours under the table, that stubbornness clearly has permeated through your whole life, which is probably why you make shoes, because it seems like the craziest thing to embark on. But when no one else is doing it, it’s like, yeah, I’m just going to sit under the table for three hours. I’m just going to chew glass and go through the process of making shoes.

Steven Sashen:

I don’t think of myself as stubborn. I think of myself as committed to truth. And the truth is, I did want to swallow that chewed up stuff in my cheek. And the truth is that the benefits that my wife and I discovered when we got out of shoes were so demonstrable. And then people kept asking me to make barefoot style sandals for them, and they had the same kind of benefits. And then, while we were just in the process of doing that, we met some guys who, they’d been in footwear for like 35 years. They all started at Reebok actually, and then moved around. It’s very incestuous business. And they recently went out on their own and they said, “We believe natural movement’s the most important thing there is. We believe in you guys and what you’re doing, and we would start this business with you. But we’ve been in footwear so long that we’re not stupid enough to try and start a shoe company.”

And Lena and I said, “Yeah, we know we’re hyper optimistic and naive. That’s how things get done. So away we go.”

Nick St. Louis:

Exactly. The dreamers are the ones who make the change. And sometimes you got to learn as you go, but yeah.

Steven Sashen:

Well, it’s the people who have a very bizarre misunderstanding of risk tolerance.

Nick St. Louis:

That’s a polite way of saying naive.

Steven Sashen:

Yeah, exactly. For me, the worst thing that happens is I go broke. All right, whatever. If I have to go to Baja, California, live on the beach, I can do that. I know how to spearfish.

Nick St. Louis:

Yeah. Doesn’t sound too bad.

Steven Sashen:

No. I met somebody is a homeless woman, actually, sorry. It was a friend of mine who met this woman on Venice Beach, and she was just sitting there with her shopping cart full of stuff on this one bench. And my friend struck up a conversation with her and she said, “Yeah, I just stay here in front of this house every day.”

And my friend says, “Oh, is it to inspire you to get off the street?”

She goes, “No, that used to be my house. It’s to remind me how miserable I was when I lived in it.”

Nick St. Louis:

Wow, mic drop. That is powerful.

Steven Sashen:

It’s a stunner. I really like that one a lot.

Nick St. Louis:

That’s great.

Steven Sashen:

All right, so science masquerading. What’s happened? Look, here’s Science 101, the Vibram lawsuit.

Nick St. Louis:

We have to rescue science, by the way, because people are starting to get a really shitty perspective of science, but it’s not fair, because science is this beautiful mindset of constantly trying to prove yourself wrong, to figure out the truth. And we can’t let the word get bastardized by all these people that are messing it up. So how do we rescue science and reclaim its true essence? It’s really frustrating.

Steven Sashen:

Oh, I’m sure you and I can do that on our own. That’s a piece of cake. I think it’s a really good question actually. And I’m going to talk completely out of my butt and make things up for the next 30 seconds, because I don’t know. But thing that occurs to me is that we are no longer, or I don’t know if we ever were educating children on how to think clearly, on how to assess information accurately, how to look for counterfactuals, how to look. This is a thing that I do all the time. Wait, I’m going to find something to draw on.

Whenever someone tells me something that just has the ring of not true, I do this thing. This is like statistics 101. I didn’t know that. I just, again, if you learn to think, you start figuring these things out. So people say A, look at that, I’m writing upside down. They go, A leads to B. Here, wait, I’ll draw an arrow. That’s what I’m saying. I’m saying that A leads to B. Now, what I then say is how many times does A lead to C? Which is the opposite of B, and how many times does D maybe lead to B? And if D and C are bigger than A, A is probably not right. That’s-

Nick St. Louis:

That’s very elegant. I like that.

Steven Sashen:

It’s a really simple thing and it’s kind of an Occam’s razor thing. Look here, I’m going to step on a bunch of toes right now, pun intended. Let’s talk about grounding and earthing, shall we?

Nick St. Louis:

Oh, I would love to. And just as a side note for that, what I always come back to if we want to rescue science is improve public science literacy at a very basic level, like what you just did. And only the people who are willing to actually listen are going to be the ones you give a shit about anyway, because they’re the only ones that matter. The people who don’t care to want to learn, you almost have to wait until you get more people on your ship before you can then start to invite other people that aren’t ready.

Steven Sashen:

I think, look, kids are naturally curious, but what they’re up against is evolutionary biology. These things inside of our skulls are not wired to think critically. They’re wired to come to very quick decisions and stick to them ,because it’s not energy efficient to every time you’re in the savanna and the grass is doing this, to figure out if hiding behind the grass is something that you’re going to eat or something that wants to eat you. You need to make a snap decision and react fast. Now, you can make the wrong decision. You can decide that that’s saber-toothed lion, and it’s a saber-toothed bunny, and you run away, and you’re passing your genes on to a bunch of other scared idiots. So that’s the thing. But kids are naturally curious, and if you give them the ability to investigate things, many of them are really, really into it. I mean, there’s a reason why this is not, I’m not trying to make a gender-specific thing, but boys more than girls are super interested in watching construction projects.

Nick St. Louis:

Yes, I-

Steven Sashen:

They like seeing how things work.

Nick St. Louis:

Yep.

Steven Sashen:

A friend of mine made a bajillion dollars once he had a son, and he noticed this. He just took a camera out to construction sites and shot 30 minutes of video, and sold those videos, made millions.

Nick St. Louis:

Genius.

Steven Sashen:

Yeah. So again, we’re not wired to do this, because the energy and efficiency of it. And in fact, when you create a new belief and someone challenges it, the research is very clear. You actually use that contrary information to hold onto your belief even more firmly. And when you really challenge somebody on it, they react like you’re trying to kill them. And I think that’s a neurological phenomenon, where the way we store certain kind of beliefs is very similar to the way we store our very sense of identity. And so, they’re very tightly, tightly wound.

Nick St. Louis:

Yeah. So you got to decouple those. And I mean, I learned, I think that’s one of the biggest things you see is, people take attacks on their concept. They’re not even attacks. But trying to give someone a different perspective and challenging the one they hold is like you’re challenging their entire existence.

Steven Sashen:

Even just asking them questions. A friend of mine used to bring people that he knew to a brunch that we had every Sunday, just to get them to argue with me about things. Did we land on the moon?

Nick St. Louis:

It’s like speed chess, you’re just there. No, yes, no,

Steven Sashen:

No. What I would do, I would ask them questions about the arguments they were presenting and they wouldn’t be able to answer the questions. And I never made one comment about my position.

Nick St. Louis:

Right. You just went straight up Socratic on them.

Steven Sashen:

Yeah. When someone talked about the moon landing being fake, I said, “Do you know what kind of computers were being used at the time to display information?”

Because in the ’60s, human beings didn’t have computers. I remember the first computer that I ever saw was not something, in fact, ironically was playing Lunar Lander, the first little game on a 300 baud modem in junior high school or high school. And even that wasn’t a good simulation. So what kind of computer does it take to do a simulation that’s good enough to fool the hundred thousand people that were involved in that project, and did that computer exist at that time? And their brains would start to fry. And the answer is no. Those things didn’t exist at this time. I mean, they were doing this stuff on slide rules, figuring out how to get people to the moon. So anyway, there was a tangent about teaching people and there was something else. I don’t remember.

Nick St. Louis:

The solution to taking back science. And then we got into, yeah, I think the Socratic method of just asking people who get upset when you ask them questions, it’s very telling. And sometimes that is my deep participation in the conversation where it’s like, I just asked you a question and you got upset. I don’t know if I want to pursue more energy in it.

Steven Sashen:

Well, here’s another variation of that, and this will be a rant of mine. So I’ve been living and breathing this stuff for more than a decade. People will challenge me with their opinions about things for which they have little to no information. And when I present the data that I’ve collected over the years, not my personal opinions, but actual information, they don’t handle it very well.

Nick St. Louis:

Why do you think they don’t handle it very well?

Steven Sashen:

I have two favorites. One is someone who didn’t like that we weren’t a 100% vegan company and said, “Well, why don’t you use these other vegan leathers?”

I said, “Because there aren’t any that perform well enough for what we’re trying to do.”

And he said, “What about this pineapple leather?”

And I said, without having to look it up, because I already knew about it, “Oh, the one that explicitly says it’s not for use in footwear?”

And he said, “What about the mushroom leather at the time?”

I said, “Oh,” and again, I knew about it already. I said, “At the time, they’d only made one yard of it.” I said, “So it doesn’t exist and it’s super expensive. Now by the way, they’re using it for things and it also says not for use for footwear.”

And he says, “What about,” he mentioned one or two other things, and I knew about them already and responded already, because I’ve looked into it already. Until finally his only response to me is, “Well, what makes you such an expert?”

Nick St. Louis:

It’s your job.

Steven Sashen:

Yeah, it’s exactly what I said. It’s because I am one of the experts on the planet about this. I mean, it’s what I do all day every day. So that’s a favorite. My other favorite is humans didn’t evolve to run on hard surfaces. So this is a naturalistic fallacy that there was some Edenic time where we were all just swimming in chocolate rivers and having grapes fed to us by angels.

Nick St. Louis:

And running on trampolines, everywhere we go.

Steven Sashen:

And running on trampolines. And I say, “Well, dude, have you ever been to the places that you think we evolved in?”

I mean, it’s worse than running on any road. Hard packed mud, just like cement, but with prickly stickly things and hot things in a way that you’ve never experienced. Go down to the Copper Canyon and run with the Tarahumara. I mean, what they’re running on is like what we all ran on for thousands of years. And boy, you will pick a paved road any day of the week.

But the other interesting part is, even if we didn’t, “evolve to run on those surfaces,” that doesn’t mean we’re not able to. If we grew up on a different surface, that doesn’t mean we’re not adaptable to other things.

Nick St. Louis:

And I think some people actually make the slippery, they lose the distinguish between concrete. Maybe we weren’t supposed to run, we didn’t evolve to run on asphalt, but that doesn’t say that we’re unable, like you’re saying. But they immediately take that and then they kind of sneak in hard surfaces as a replacement for that, thinking they’re synonymous. And if you agree that okay, asphalt didn’t exist a thousand years ago, I agree with that, and we didn’t run on that, but that doesn’t mean we can’t run on hard surfaces or that we didn’t run on hard surfaces. So it’s like these little tricks that people don’t really, I’d even think notice, but they just say, and they’re like, “See, that’s the truth.”

Steven Sashen:

Well, and again, it goes back to this whole, it goes back to this thing, it goes back to counterfactuals. It’s like, okay, if you believe we didn’t evolve to run on a hard surface, can you look for an opposite case? Can you look for a case where we did run on surfaces that are hard or difficult, or dangerous in some way? And see if there’s examples. Here’s a fun example, back to Paleo. There’s a woman named Denise Minger, M-I-N-G-E-R, whom I totally adore. She’s brilliant and smart, and just absolutely wonderful, and very funny. And she became the belle of the Paleo ball, because she had been a diehard raw food vegan and then started having a bunch of health problems, and then switched to being like, “I’m just going to go kill my own cow and eat it raw,” practically.

Nick St. Louis:

Good for her.

Steven Sashen:

Yeah. So she got totally, totally into paleo things, and the paleo people loved her, because she was a former vegan. Well, she’s also a smart researcher, so she decided to research some of the things that the paleo people were saying, and look for counterfactuals. So refined carbohydrates are bad for you. Well, let’s check. And she found some tribes, some parts of the world, where people eat like 80% of their calories come from refined carbohydrates, and they do not have the health problems that the paleo community was saying that you would get if you ate refined carbohydrates.

There are other people who don’t eat refined carbohydrates, but just get the majority of their dietary calorie intake through other forms of carbohydrate, including sugar, just plain straight sugar or honey. Again, they don’t have the health problems that the paleo community suggested. What they do is they don’t eat too many calories and they’re relatively active. So the whole thing of looking for an-

Nick St. Louis:

And their lifestyle reflects what our biology is built for, even external to that. There’s so many little things that we do that are so countered to what our biology is built for. We discount all the other things sometimes.

Steven Sashen:

Well, and back to your point about what our biology is built for. Again, the idea that there’s a one size fits all is something that we all love the idea of, and sometimes it’s true, and I’ll say that about that in a second, and sometimes it’s not. So there’s this idea that there’s a diet that’s the best diet. Well, Denise, oh, she also looked at the rice diet. The rice diet was something that was done at Duke University, which is where I went, and there was a guy who took morbidly obese people and put them on a diet of basically just fruit juice and raw white sugar. Not only did they lose, I mean, they were eating as much as they could eat all day every day. Now, the challenge with this diet is he literally whipped people into eating, because it’s so unpalatable to eat like that, and he was just trying to force them to get calories in their body, and they could eat as-

Nick St. Louis:

Like with a whip, a literal physical whip?

Steven Sashen:

Literally.

Nick St. Louis:

That’s great. That seems, how did you get that one by ethical review board?

Steven Sashen:

Once they found out, the whole thing disappeared. And when I was at Duke, I knew people who delivered for Domino’s who got paid a thousand dollars a pizza to sneak pizzas in to some of the people who were on the rice diet.

Nick St. Louis:

That’s great. A thousand dollars. Wow.

Steven Sashen:

Thousand dollars.

Nick St. Louis:

Those guys hit the jackpot.

Steven Sashen:

Yeah, it was a good one. So I was like, I got to start delivering pizza. But anyway, not only did it bring their weight down to normal, it eliminated permanently their diabetes. And so again, a massive counterfactual. So the idea that there’s a single diet for everyone, so certain things about our biology are probably unique to us for various reasons. Our gut microbiome, our ancestry, a number of things, but certain things are not unique to us.

What makes efficient running? What’s the best way? Look, what’s the best way to get the most foot? Let’s just use something simple, push-ups. What’s the best way to orient your body and do push-ups? You might have some arguments about whether where you position your elbows and how wide your hands are, but there’s one thing you’re never going to disagree about. Do you do this with your fingers or do you do this with your fingers? There’s no one who’s ever going to do a push-up like this, because this is more stable, similar idea with your feet. So there’s certain things-

Nick St. Louis:

Those biomechanical principles that apply regardless of how special you think you are.

Steven Sashen:

Yeah, exactly. Moment arms are moment arms, doesn’t make a difference who you are. You might be better or worse at certain things based on your muscle belly and the length of your femur, various things, but fundamentally, it’s still going to be the same, that if you land with your foot in front of your body, you’re applying breaking forces, which you then put additional stress on the body, and then you have to reaccelerate and do that in a place where you prime movers, your glutes and hamstrings, are not being used optimally and under stress. When you’re pulling instead of pushing, that’s problematic.

Nick St. Louis:

Well, what about runner X who runs ultra marathons all the time, whereas extremely cushioned shoes, heel strikes. They do it, so it must be okay.

Steven Sashen:

Yeah, there’s a couple of things for that. One is how long are they able to continue doing that enjoyably and healthily? And some people, maybe they can because look, here’s, well, this is another thing about science. And even I will argue the minimalist community misrepresents science very frequently or misrepresents what they think of science very frequently, and so they’ll show pictures of people landing with their heel first and say, see their heel striking. That’s bad. I go, “Whoa, you don’t know how fast that person moving across the ground. For all you know, their foot’s coming in contact with the ground-”

Nick St. Louis:

Maybe they’re walking also.

Steven Sashen:

Well, they’re clearly running in this case, but they could be walking. But even still, the fact that your heel comes in contact with the ground first, the more important thing is the force application. So if you’re moving fast enough-

Nick St. Louis:

Right, the rate of loading.

Steven Sashen:

Exactly. Your heel might touch the ground first, but by the time, the split second that it takes to end up sort of flat-footed, for example, could be so fast that for all practical purposes, you’re a mid-foot lander, it just doesn’t really matter. And there are some people who are just better able to tolerate certain things than others. There are some people who, I mean for whatever reason, but you can’t use the exception to try and prove the rule in this case.

Nick St. Louis:

You can’t use one snapshot to say, do you know anything about that person’s injury history? Do you know anything about, have you tested… What about runners that don’t run that way and that run with less injuries? There’s so many variables missing, and it’s really easy to simplify it to the point where it proves what you’re trying to prove, but it doesn’t mean that it’s actually true.

Steven Sashen:

Right. Human beings, again, another things we want to do is try and simplify things as much as possible, and we usually go way too far and oversimplify things. So look, the whole barefoot thing when people say this is partly what got Vibram in trouble, is that the way the five fingers was positioned and the way barefoot running was positioned in 2009, was just take off your shoes or put on a pair of five fingers, and everything’s going to be great. It just wasn’t true, and I’m the first one to say it’s not about the footwear, it’s about the form. It’s just that certain footwear makes it easier or less easy to get enough feedback to notice your shitty form and to adapt to a better form, and it’s all about the feedback. This is why Irene Davis breaks things down in what she calls minimalist and partial minimalist shoes. I accused her of being politically correct and that if she weren’t, she would say true minimalist and fake minimalist, and the fake minimalist are the ones put out by pretty much every major shoe company. Which A, are typically-

Nick St. Louis:

They have less of the crap, but they don’t have no crap.

Steven Sashen:

Yeah, exactly. Usually they’re too narrow in the mid-foot, they’re often not wide enough in the forefoot, and they have too much padding. And it’s the padding, because then you can’t feel enough to get the information that you need, that that’s the real biggest problem.

Nick St. Louis:

It’s like Steven, you can either swallow this much mercury or we’ll give you a little bit less. What would you rather? It’s like, I don’t want any mercury. Actually, I’m good.

Steven Sashen:

Well, the mercury is the dessert they give you with that restaurant where it’s either one of the seven meals that gives you food poisoning, or one of three meals. So they have this amazing Mercury flambé just, oh man.

Nick St. Louis:

It’s to die for.

Steven Sashen:

It’s to die for.

Nick St. Louis:

Okay, two things and then we’ll wrap up, and I think we should just, I was like, oh yeah, we’ll do half an hour. It is what it is, but we’ve already gotten 45 minutes, so maybe we should just do these once a month and just have a release valve for talking about shit that we don’t talk about otherwise, maybe. Two things. Number one, I had this kind of thought in my head, when someone the other day is like, “I found a research study that I think is pretty good, that shows orthotics help reduce foot pain.”

And I was like, okay, let’s play. If someone comes up to you and says, “Steven, what color is the sky?” Let’s just go real time. Let’s just pretend this is real. Steven, what color is the sky?

Steven Sashen:

I’m going to say blue, but only because I’m giving a colloquially correct answer.

Nick St. Louis:

Okay, perfect. Well, what if I told you I have research to show that the sky’s black? What would you say about that? I have a thousand pictures. I have a lot of data, a thousand pictures that show that the sky is black, so I don’t know if the sky is blue and I’d like you to prove me otherwise, because I have research. Do you have research to show that the sky is blue?

Steven Sashen:

I don’t actually. In fact, yeah, in fact there’s some… Well, anyway, no, I don’t.

Nick St. Louis:

What I would say is, do you have eyeballs? Yes. Go outside and see what color the sky is and then we can both. Let’s just go look together and it’s like people forget that you can figure shit out yourself. Scientists don’t have to tell you everything.

Steven Sashen:

Hold on, hold on. This is going to sound paradoxical and absurd, then this next thing I’m going to say. I have a friend who’s one of the smartest people I know. That’s not the absurd part. Here it is. Who thinks the earth might be flat. Now, I have said to him exactly what you just said. There are from the flat earth model, there are comments about where the sun and the moon should be seen at certain places at certain times of the year. The best thing to do is go down to the bottom of South America and then take a look and see what you see. I said, “I will pay you to get on an airplane and go check, and see if the sun is in fact where the flat earth model says it should be,” when like the solstice for example. He won’t do it. He won’t do it. He refuses-

Nick St. Louis:

He doesn’t want to change his mind.

Steven Sashen:

Yeah, he refuses to use his own experience. Now, but here’s the problem with what you said. It’s really-

Nick St. Louis:

Well, what if you’re colorblind? That could be a problem.

Steven Sashen:

Well, what if you’re colorblind and you don’t have the ability to perceive the information correctly, and we are really not good at looking at information correctly or accurately. So there’s certain kinds of things that to measure them or to understand them requires an understanding of chemistry, biology, physics, usually physics, that if you don’t have it just doesn’t seem to make sense.

Nick St. Louis:

Right.

Steven Sashen:

I mean, look, let’s do a simple thing. Is there a divine creator being? I’m not going to take a position on this, but I will say when you just think about what a human body does, how a human body works, it is so literally unbelievably complex and amazing that I can understand why people would come to a conclusion that there is a divine creator being.

Nick St. Louis:

Yeah.

Steven Sashen:

Again, I’m not saying there is or there isn’t, but it makes sense. When you look out at this stuff-

Nick St. Louis:

But I get it.

Steven Sashen:

Yeah. When you look out at the sky at night, especially if you’re somewhere where there’s not a lot of ambient light and you just see all the stars, and you contemplate how far away they are, how vast what you can see is, knowing that you can’t, that all you need is a small telescope to see 10 times more. It’s so literally awesome and overwhelming that there’s this interesting phenomenon that I experience, of an almost innate urge to find a parental figure that makes it all seem okay, because it is literally awesome and overwhelming.

Nick St. Louis:

Right, and it’s comfortable to have an explanation that gives you a rationalization to make sense of things regardless of how actually rational that explanation is.

Steven Sashen:

Correct, and there are certain things where you can get the data really easily, but you need to know more stuff to understand-

Nick St. Louis:

To make meaning of it.

Steven Sashen:

… to what the data is really telling you. So like with the flat earth guys, there’s some really, really easy data that you can show them to prove that the earth is curved, but you need to know a couple of other things about, gosh, how light bends when it goes through different surfaces. And if you don’t want to get into that, again, it goes back to what you were saying before. There’s a, people are distrusting of anyone who knows more than them. Didn’t used to be that way. It used to be that you respected people who had spent time to learn more, but now there’s a distrust of people who seem to know more.

Nick St. Louis:

But they trust Nike, which is weird.

Steven Sashen:

Well, and that’s the thing. Over time, they do trust whatever someone… Look, say a lie, often enough people believe it’s the truth. And then believe it’s the truth often enough, and everyone starts to agree, because the person who originally said it doesn’t need to say it anymore. It becomes part of the cultural-

Nick St. Louis:

Called propaganda.

Steven Sashen:

Yeah. Parents now teach their kids they need arch support and motion control. Nike doesn’t have to say that anymore. They don’t. Now they just say, “Don’t you want to be like this genetic freak who you will never be like?”

Nick St. Louis:

Right, and know nothing about the shoes that person’s actually wearing. I spoke to a designer for Jordan brand and he’s like, the shoe that LeBron’s wearing, you might think it’s the same one you buy off the shelf that is basically a steel cast put perfectly in an orientation to think that it’s helping his foot.

Steven Sashen:

Correct.

Nick St. Louis:

Very weird.

Steven Sashen:

Correct. Yeah, it’s really funny. LeBron, wait. No, no. Kobe, obviously before he died, did a video about what he thought a perfect basketball shoe would be. First of all, it was a low top. Secondly, it looked a lot like our stuff. And then, what they actually made is-

Nick St. Louis:

Do you know where that video is? Is that out in the interwebs?

Steven Sashen:

It is. I’ll send you a link and you can post it. It’s a two part interview, because the second part you’ll see is really fun. It’s the shoe they made, which is not what he asked for.

Nick St. Louis:

Big surprise.

Steven Sashen:

Yeah. It’s like there some researchers who went to the Adi lab and they analyzed his gait, and said, “Well, you’re an overstriding heel striker, so we have to make a shoe for you that has extra cushioning in the heel.”

So if all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail. They believe that that’s a fine thing to do, that you need to accommodate for. Despite all the research showing you can’t accommodate for it. There’s no amount of cushioning that accommodates for that.

Nick St. Louis:

And like you said, if you’re not, the light bending part is knowing the intense complexity of the human body and how adaptable and resilient it is. If you don’t know that, then you need to take some sort of technology and use that to do that job. And that’s like, they’re not willing to see how good the body is a self organizing and adapting to be efficient. And that’s the problem.

Steven Sashen:

Well, here, let’s talk about what bodies naturally do. I’m a former all-American gymnast. Bodies, we did not evolve to do double twisting, double backflips.

Nick St. Louis:

Right, but we can.

Steven Sashen:

I did one. I did it.

Nick St. Louis:

There you go. Well, you just proved evolution wrong, I guess. Anyway, I think that’s a good place to leave it.

Steven Sashen:

No, no. Wait. Here. I’m going to prove something else wrong really quickly. One of my best friends became a best friend. He’s a world champion cross country runner, master’s world champion. And one day at practice, he finishes a run. He goes, “I just said a personal best on one of these runs, and I wasn’t even going to come out this morning, because I just felt like crap.”

I said, “Do you ever have races where you feel like crap and you win?”

He goes, “Yeah.”

And by the way, I’ve asked this to a couple of Olympians, and they give the exact same answers. Do you ever have races where you felt like crap and you win? Yes. Have you ever had races where you felt great and you couldn’t make it work? He goes, “Yeah.”

I said, “Well, you just disproved sports psychology.”

Nick St. Louis:

Or you just created a different realm of sports psychology, which is the total opposite of sports psychology.

Steven Sashen:

Well, no. Well, possibly, I’ve had the same experiences, where both as an athlete and as a performer, times that I felt the worst I did the best, and vice versa. But it’s not that it’s not a hundred percent correlated that way or causal that way. But suffice it to say the idea that there’s a particular way you need to think, because it’s thinking that determines who wins. It’s effortless to demonstrate that that’s not true, by just people’s actual experience, the actual data, and yet people still hold onto it. The whole 10,000-hour idea that you can become an expert, takes 10,000 hours to become an expert in things. The moment I heard that, I knew it was wrong, because as a gymnast and as a sprinter, there’s no gymnast or sprinter in history who’s ever put in 10,000 hours. You just can’t.

Nick St. Louis:

It’s not physically possible.

Steven Sashen:

Right. And the question that immediately occurred to me or that immediately hit me is the kind of person who’s willing and wants to spend 10,000 hours on something is different than the person who doesn’t. And you can’t force someone to spend 10,000 hours and turn them into, fill in the blank. Les Paul, Michelangelo, Michael Jordan, pick your favorite Michael. Doesn’t really matter.

Nick St. Louis:

I agree.

Steven Sashen:

Anyway, this all goes back to our fundamental thing of if people learn to think more clearly, their lives could be so much better in certain ways, but admittedly not in others. I mean, finding these comforting thoughts, like there is someone looking out for me. It’s a really comforting thought if you can maintain it.

Nick St. Louis:

But in the end, it’s better. Once you learn to see discomfort as not necessarily a bad thing and something that is kind of an internal signal to be like, okay, I have work to do. Guess what? The work never ends, and you have to find joy in the work instead of trying to think that everything’s rainbows, because it ends up not being the case.

Steven Sashen:

Somebody said to the physicist, Richard Feynman, “I’d hate to be you, because you just see everything as just like atoms and molecules. There’s no amazement.”

He says, “Are you kidding? I can’t look at one of these and still take a drink out of it, because it’s so unbelievably incredible.” Let’s start with a simple thing. These are solid things that you can see through. What?

Nick St. Louis:

Yeah, I know. The world is incredible and you can drive yourself crazy trying to make sense of it, or you can just embrace that it’s a form of magic, and just embrace the fact that you’re in a magical world and it’s great.

Steven Sashen:

The very fact… Look, I’m going to start crying. The very fact that we can have a conversation with another human being, whether it’s over a computer or not, I mean, this is an amazing, amazing world. Even if it didn’t have chocolate in, it would be a very amazing place.

Nick St. Louis:

I’m going to bring you some good chocolate next time I see you, because clearly I got to make sure I got the right kind, so I might have to do some research.

Steven Sashen:

As long as it doesn’t have the word milk in it, you got a good start.

Nick St. Louis:

Okay, that’s good. I can handle that. So Steven, thank you for doing this. I look forward to the next one. People listening, whether you enjoyed it or not, thanks for listening if you got to hear, and you’ll see us again at some point. And yeah, have a good week, Steven.

Steven Sashen:

Cheers. Live life feet first.

Nick St. Louis:

See you. Will do.

Steven Sashen:

I hope you enjoyed my little rant with Nick and probably to be doing more of those. Go visit Nick at www.thefootcollective.com and of course, come visit us at www.jointhemovementmovement.com. You’ll find previous episodes and ways to interact with us. As always, please like and share, and review and give us a thumbs up as appropriate, and follow us in all the various places you can, because we are creating this movement about natural movement and you are the one who makes it move. Oh, and if you have any questions or suggestions, people you think should be on the show, whatever you can think of, drop me an email, move@jointhemovementmovement.com. So until our next episode, go out. Have fun and live life feet first.

Intro/Outro:

You’ve been listening to the Movement Movement Podcast with host Steven Sashen. Remember to join the tribe and subscribe at Jointhemovementmovement.com.

View Details

Al Kavadlo began his fitness journey in 1992 at the age of 13, and a decade later, he launched his career in the fitness industry. In 2009, Al started his blog and YouTube channel, which quickly gained traction, leading to a book deal with Dragon Door Publications.

His first book with Dragon Door, Raising The Bar, was released in 2012, followed by several more titles, including Get Strong, a collaboration with his brother Danny Kavadlo. Al is also recognized for his appearance in Dragon Door’s popular Convict Conditioning series.

In addition to his work with Dragon Door, Al has self-published several titles, available at FortifyTraining.com. To date, his books and programs have sold over a million copies worldwide.

Listen to this episode of The MOVEMENT Movement with Al Kavadlo about getting fit and strong without a gym.

Here are some of the beneficial topics covered on this week’s show:

– How bodyweight training can calisthenics offer benefits in fitness programs.

– Why variations in calisthenics exercises increase engagement and creativity.

– How effective coaching involves listening, guiding, and allowing for rest.

– Why transitioning to minimalist footwear gradually improves foot health.

– How learning new movement patterns requires patience and integration time.

Connect with Al:

Guest Contact Info

Links Mentioned:alkavadlo.com Connect with Steven:

Website

Xeroshoes.com

Jointhemovementmovement.com

Twitter@XeroShoes

Instagram@xeroshoes

Facebookfacebook.com/xeroshoes

Episode Transcript

Steven Sashen:

Research is really clear for runners, walkers, hikers, getting stronger is better, and now you can’t go to the gym, but you might want to go back to the gym. I’m going to try and talk you out of that right now, so is my guest, who I’m going to introduce in just a second. But first, I’m Steven Sashen from xeroshoes.com, your host for The MOVEMENT Movement podcast, the podcast for people who want to know the truth about what it takes to have a healthy, happy, strong body. Starting with the feet first, because those things are your foundation. We’re going to break down the mythology, the propaganda, sometimes the outright lies that you’ve been told about what it takes to walk, to run, to hike, to do yoga, to do CrossFit, to do pretty much whatever you want to do and to do it enjoyably efficiently. And did I mention enjoyably? Because that’s the most important part. If you’re not having fun, do something different till you are.

We call it The MOVEMENT Movement podcast because we’re creating a movement about natural movement. We want to make natural movement or actually help people rediscover that natural movement is the obvious, better, healthy choice, the way we think of natural food. It’s a movement because that involves you spreading the word about this whole idea. What that means is go to www.jointhemovementmovement.com. You’ll find all the previous episodes, you’ll find all the places you can interact with this podcast on YouTube and Facebook and Instagram and pretty much everywhere you can think of. And, of course, like and share and give us a thumbs up and hit the bell on YouTube. You know how to do it. In fact, if you want to be part of the tribe, please subscribe. It’s a really simple message.

So, let’s get started. I am really, really thrilled and there’s a better word. I can’t believe it’s taken us this long until I’m happy to introduce Al Kavadlo. Al, hey man, how are you?

Al Kavadlo:

Hey, hey. I know. It’s been a long time coming.

Steven Sashen:

It has been.

Al Kavadlo:

I think I might be the longest running Xero Hero that there is. I’ve been a brand ambassador pretty much since day one with you guys.

Steven Sashen:

Yeah, I think for a while it felt like you were practically living with us in the very early days, so it’s been a treat. Before we jump into that though, since I gave you no introduction other than your name, tell people who the hell you are and why you’re here.

Al Kavadlo:

Well, I’ll try to be as quick and concise as possible.

Steven Sashen:

Good luck with that.

Al Kavadlo:

I’ve been a personal trainer and a fitness expert for about 20 years. And my-

Steven Sashen:

Hold on, hold on, hold on. Get rid of the air quotes, man. I would say that you have rightly earned that title and appropriately earned that title.

Al Kavadlo:

I appreciate that.

Steven Sashen:

Many people haven’t. So ignoring that, so definite fitness expert, not air quotes.

Al Kavadlo:

I don’t know how long I’ve been an expert for, but I’ve been doing it as a career-

Steven Sashen:

There you go.

Al Kavadlo:

… for about 20 years. I’ve written some books and I’ve done some things. My whole niche and message is essentially what you alluded to earlier, that you don’t really need a gym to get strong and get in shape. You can just use your own body weight and very simple equipment, like a pull-up bar or a pair of gymnastics rings or parallel bars or the floor beneath your feet, and still get a great workout. So I’ve been teaching people how to get strong using calisthenics for a long time. Looks like you mentioned also earlier, now body weight training is more viable than ever because a lot of gyms are not operating and even ones that are are at limited capacity. People are just a little bit more hesitant about going to a gym in general. And it’s been a good thing for the calisthenics community in some ways.

Steven Sashen:

Well, I know that home fitness equipment has just gone through the roof in the last couple of months. Have you seen a similar thing with people really reaching out to try to find a less expensive, more available alternative?

Al Kavadlo:

Yeah. I mean, I’ve had been doing books on body weight training since … I put out my first one in 2010.

Steven Sashen:

Wow.

Al Kavadlo:

So I’ve done eight books over the course of the decade, but I did see an uptick in sales for everything when this started because people suddenly started looking for resources about how to do body weight training. And I was kind of ahead of the game in a sense. A lot of people have said about everything that’s happened this year, that it’s just kind of made things that were inevitable happen faster.

Steven Sashen:

Right.

Al Kavadlo:

And I think that what’s going on in the fitness industry is a good example of that.

Steven Sashen:

Yeah, I love the whole idea that people are kind of taking it on as their own personal project rather than just doing something. I mean, people like simple answers, and sometimes they’ll join gyms because they think they’re going to find a simple answer, which is not the case, and it’s often just not even valid because what works for this person is not necessarily going to work for you. So I love that people are figuring it out.

Al Kavadlo:

To be clear, I don’t really have anything against gyms. I’ve trained people at gyms, especially when it’s cold out, you can’t always be in the park.

Steven Sashen:

Yeah, yeah.

Al Kavadlo:

I mean, I want gyms to be able to reopen. In New York, they’re still all shut. I have a lot of friends that are trainers and gym owners, and I want those people to be able to get back to doing what they love to do. Anything that supports someone staying on track with their fitness goals, whether they’re more motivated by going to the gym or more motivated by not going to the gym. There’s something for everybody here. I’ve been just trying to offer an alternative for a long time, and now that alternative is becoming sort of one of the only choices.

Steven Sashen:

Yeah. I guess let me phrase it or frame it a little differently. What I find really interesting is that people are recognizing there’s more to being fit or getting strong than going to a gym because … So I mean, for example, there’s a $400 piece of equipment that I’m looking to buy, and they have them in very few gyms. I found one that’s on sale. To be totally transparent, not that it’s a secret, it’s a reverse hyper machine. So I’ve got a compromised spine and I’m a sprinter, so reverse hyper is really good for (a), helping with some traction on the spine, and (b), building glute and hamstring strength. And there’s really very few things that can work that way.

But more importantly, what I’m doing around the idea of using that reverse hyper is a whole bunch of body weight stuff. I do a bunch of crazy high box jumps and one legged squats in various ways and things that are also relevant for sprinting that I don’t need a gym for. But if I were going to a gym, and if I were that kind of person, I have this arsenal of here’s the machines that make the most sense, here’s the body weight stuff that makes the most sense for what I’m doing, for who I am. That’s the part that I find really interesting, because I’m hearing people talk about that online as well.

Al Kavadlo:

There are ways to do a similar sort of movement pattern without using that exact apparatus. I’m sure you can see some of them, like back bridge variations and things like that.

Steven Sashen:

Yeah. Well, sadly, I can’t do bridge stuff because I got a compromised spine. For the fun of it, I have a grade 2 L5-S1 spondy, so anything that’s bridging makes it so that I can’t feel my legs. So that’s not good, I’m told.

Al Kavadlo:

Even like shoulders on the ground, feet flat, just like a hip up and down a little bit.

Steven Sashen:

As long as I’m not doing any lumbar hyperextension, I’m okay. So I can do glute bridges, and I do those.

Al Kavadlo:

Yeah, that’s what I’m talking about.

Steven Sashen:

But as a Masters All-American sprinter, I could do glute bridges all day long and-

Al Kavadlo:

Sure. Even on one leg, they’re probably still relatively easy for you.

Steven Sashen:

Yeah. It’s too simple. I mean, I definitely need the extra resistance. Let me back up just for the fun of it. I’m going to put you on the spot. Since this is The MOVEMENT Movement podcast, can you think of any movement thing that you would want to share with humans that they could try and experiment or feel right now, I don’t know, just for the hell of it, just for the fun of it?

Al Kavadlo:

The exercise we were just talking about is a really good one for runners who are inexperienced in that type of strength training, just to lay on your back, bend your knees, put your feet flat on the floor, a couple inches from your butt, and push your hips up into the air. All your weight will be on your feet and your shoulders, and you’re basically trying to make a straight line from your knees to your shoulders. Because you don’t want to arch your back like you were saying before.

Steven Sashen:

Right.

Al Kavadlo:

You don’t want to be sagging too low either. You want your abs engaged, you want your glutes engaged, you want your hamstrings engaged. You’ll feel your quads too, and maybe even your upper back and your spinal muscles helping get up there. And those are muscles that are so important to runners that sometimes don’t get hit as well, even if you’re doing things like squats.

Steven Sashen:

Right.

Al Kavadlo:

You might not be getting as much glute and low back activation as you can with a hip bridge like that. And then if that’s easy for you, try it with one leg in the air and try it with the other leg in the air.

Steven Sashen:

I’m trying to think for people who may be sitting down, is there a seated version, maybe something isometric or something?

Al Kavadlo:

I hope if they’re sitting down, they can get up and they got four feet of floor next to them. That’s all-

Steven Sashen:

I know.

Al Kavadlo:

You really involve a lot of equipment there, Steven. It’s just the floor.

Steven Sashen:

No, no, it’s not that. Sometimes, I mean, I don’t know how much people are driving now, but sometimes people are listening to this in a car. There’s every now and then I try to think of what can you do in a car, or I think of isometric-

Al Kavadlo:

And that you have to keep looking at the road also, so you can’t do neck things. Neck circles isn’t going to work in a car. Because that’s what I was going to say if you’re sitting at a computer, you can do some neck circles, at least open that up a little bit. That sort of thing.

Steven Sashen:

It’s a funny thing-

Al Kavadlo:

I think when you’re driving, you should be focused on driving. You maybe shouldn’t be trying to get a workout in the car.

Steven Sashen:

Come on, Al. You’re at a stoplight. You got 20 seconds to kill.

Al Kavadlo:

Well, if you’re at a stoplight and you know that it’s not going to change for a little bit, then you can maybe stretch your neck up a little bit, stretch it to the side.

Steven Sashen:

So I want to back up and talk about your history, because my memory is that body weight and calisthenics. The whole sort of calisthenics, oh boy, I got so many thoughts about this. Let me start with this one actually. The calisthenic and street fitness movement has evolved dramatically in the last five, 10 years. What have you seen? How did you get here and what have you seen? How has it evolved and changed?

Al Kavadlo:

I was a trainer at a gym at the beginning of my career, a big box gym, doing a lot of conventional workouts with people, weight training and machines and things like that. And I always did basic calisthenics, push-ups, pull-ups, body weights, squats, dips. Along with a lot of other people at the same time, just a collective unconscious thing started arising where people started getting more into esoteric calisthenics. And I started seeing things like the one-legged pistol squat or a muscle-up or human flag, and being really intrigued by these things, and little by little, wanting to learn more of them. And I found myself in my own workouts, and also with my clients, kind of gradually getting away from doing conventional workouts and getting more into esoteric body weight stuff, and finding that, like you were alluding to earlier, that stuff works as well, or in some cases, better for some people than a lot of the conventional gym workouts.

This was around the time when YouTube was starting to become somewhat of a viable thing. Somebody happened to suggest to me, “Hey, maybe throw some videos up on YouTube.” It was certainly not … Nowadays, I feel like a lot of people get into posting online with an expectation of, “Okay, I’m trying to do this to reach as many people as possible.” There’s an awareness that the internet can make you a star of sorts.

Steven Sashen:

Right.

Al Kavadlo:

When I started doing this, the internet was so new, it was just kind of like, “Let me just throw these videos up there. What the heck?” And then little by little over time, as was happening with a lot of other calisthenics people, more and more people started to see this stuff and get interested in it. And I was fortunate enough to have the opportunity to write some books and make some online programs and put a lot of stuff out there before there was quite as much saturation in the market.

Steven Sashen:

Right.

Al Kavadlo:

Just to a certain extent is true for your brand also, there’s a lot more people making barefoot shoes now than there were 10 years ago.

Steven Sashen:

Yeah.

Al Kavadlo:

You had a little bit of a head start on some of that.

Steven Sashen:

Yeah. My favorite is the people who say, “I was looking for something kind of like this and I couldn’t find it,” and then I made this thing and it’s an exact copy of something that we’ve done. And then I look in the database and saw they bought our product three years before they did that. But I’m cool with as many people doing this as possible because we’re just trying to raise awareness.

Al Kavadlo:

Absolutely. That’s exactly how I feel about bodyweight training. I don’t feel threatened in any way by anyone else in the field who’s doing this, who’s succeeding. If anything, it’s great because it pushes more of the door open for the message to reach more people.

Steven Sashen:

Well, and that’s one of the things that I alluded to before that I find really interesting, I’m curious of your thoughts, is it seems like there’s almost this split in the body weight and calisthenic community where there’s the street fitness thing, which is guys doing unbelievably insane stuff. I mean, look, I’m a former All-American gymnast from 40 years ago, and back then the number of guys who could do a planche was, you could count them on two hands. Now, if you can’t do a planche, you can’t get into the club. So there’s the crazy, crazy elite-

Al Kavadlo:

I think it’s the Planche Club at least.

Steven Sashen:

There’s definitely a Planche Club. For people who don’t know a planche, imagine doing a pushup and then having your feet off the ground. So it’s just your hands on the ground and then your body is parallel to the ground. It’s crazy. So there’s this extreme version and then there’s what normal humans could, should, would be doing. Talk about where you are in that world or what you’ve seen as well.

Al Kavadlo:

I’m somewhere more toward I guess the beginner-intermediate end of the spectrum in terms of who my target audience is, because I’m looking to inspire people who are relatively new to fitness or who are relatively new to calisthenics. Sometimes it’s nice to show somebody an advanced move, like a planche or a human flag, just so they get a glimpse of what’s possible eventually. But the programs that I write for the most part are not geared towards people who want to learn a planche or a human flag. I do have one book called Street Workout, which really is like an encyclopedia. It has everything from the basic stuff up to the really advanced stuff included in it. So that’s sort of like the catch-all book.

But my best-selling programs are the ones that are intended for people who are working towards doing better pushups, maybe doing a one-legged squat, maybe doing multiple pull-ups, maybe a muscle-up is a reach move for people. Although like you said, in the street workout, in that high-level world, of course you could do a muscle-up. You’ve got to be able to do 10 muscle-ups to even hang with some of those guys.

Steven Sashen:

Right.

Al Kavadlo:

But it’s the same thing in the world of running, right? I mean, most people who run a marathon aren’t running a two-and-half-hour marathon. They’re running a four-hour marathon, a five-hour marathon. The elites obviously are inspiring a lot more people to get into it, but those people are never going to be performing at that level. And that’s okay.

Steven Sashen:

Yeah, I was just thinking about this. Well, if we talk about, what’s the word I’m looking for, impressive strength moves, impressive bodyweight things. I mean, you mentioned the human flag. We talked about planches, one-legged squats. If you had to think of the one that people might be able to master the quickest, that’s going to be the best bang-for-the-buck-for-party trick, what would you put on that list?

Al Kavadlo:

The easiest move to do that looks the most impressive is basically what we’re-

Steven Sashen:

Yeah.

Al Kavadlo:

I don’t know. I mean, there’s really nothing that I would say is easy, that is going to impress anyone that much. But there are certainly things easier than a planche or a human flag, like an L-sit is a good intermediate skill, that I think if you can pop on the floor. That’s something that I’m sure you remember from your gymnast days. Hold yourself up and put your legs out on an L and hold that for a few seconds. I think that’s a pretty cool move that’s attainable for most people with a little bit of practice and training.

Steven Sashen:

I’m putting them in order in my mind as well.

Al Kavadlo:

Maybe an elbow lever, which looks kind like a planche but your arms are bent and you’re resting your elbows on your body. That’s certainly … To someone who doesn’t know the difference between a planche and an elbow lever, they might look equally impressive, but that’s an easier way to do it.

Steven Sashen:

Yeah, that’s a good one. That’s actually a good catch. For people who aren’t watching to visualize this, so again, imagine that you lie flat on the ground, this is not how you get there, but the hell of it, and you put your palms on the ground, your fingers are going to be pointing towards your toes, and then squeeze your arms into your body as much as you can. So basically your elbows are practically in your stomach, and then you’re going to have then be parallel to the ground. So you’re more balancing than anything else.

Al Kavadlo:

The leverage of the elbows is what supports you.

Steven Sashen:

Yeah, exactly.

Al Kavadlo:

That’s elbow lever.

Steven Sashen:

Now that I think of it, that’s actually the most impressive thing I can think of, is the easiest thing involves a partner, which is a leveraged planche. So this is one, again, I’m describing for people listening or watching, where you get in a push-up position and then your partner faces your feet and sits on your shoulders and hooks their feet under your thighs and slowly leans back. If you get it just right with the right partner, it’s not a lot of strength, it’s just a lot of balance, but it looks like you’re in Cirque du Soleil.

Al Kavadlo:

That’s the key to that stuff with the partners, is you have to really know each other and be able to counter each other. Because if one person goes too quick, then they’re going to drag the other person along the other way. But like you said, when you’re able to get the scales evenly, that’s the key to all those moves.

Steven Sashen:

Yeah, it’s a super impressive one. So after elbow lever, because I was flashing back, as gymnasts, we all learned how to do human flags, which is just super, super fun, and it doesn’t strike me as like … I’m trying to think of which was harder for me, human flag or one-legged pistol squat. But either of those, if someone’s going to try and really do good party tricks, those would be my top two for knock those out. But here’s a course.

Al Kavadlo:

The thing about a flag, there has to be something to do it on. If you don’t have a good pole or a good surface to grab.

Steven Sashen:

There’s always-

Al Kavadlo:

Whereas a pistol squat or a handstand or whatever, you got a little floor space, boom, you can do it.

Steven Sashen:

That’s true. That’s a good point. When I was in New York and I was doing some acting for a living, I had a card that I gave as kind of like a business card. That was me doing a flag, but the way the picture was taken is, it just looked like I was hanging vertically. And then you have to suddenly realize that the buildings were facing the wrong way. And then people would turn the card and go, “What the? Wait, is that a camera trick?” It’s like, “No, no.” And then I would just go do it. They’d get very impressed. That made me think of-

Al Kavadlo:

Human flag always gets attention. That’s for sure.

Steven Sashen:

It’s a good one. So there’s another thing about calisthenics. I did something during COVID, like the beginnings of COVID, where I was working really hard and just needing to just do something with my body. And I got into a push-up and a pull-up challenge. What was really interesting in both of those was learning so many variations of each exercise. I think that a lot of people, they think of push-ups as a single thing or pull-ups or chin-ups as a single thing, and not realizing there’s so many other variations that some are easier than others, some are harder than others. There are some that are way more interesting than others, more challenge. Can you just give people an intro to the width and breadth of what are seemingly simple exercises and things they might be able to try?

Al Kavadlo:

Yeah. The thing with bodyweight training that’s essentially different than weight training at the gym is that instead of changing the weight on a barbell or a kettlebell or a dumbbell and doing the exact same movement pattern, you can alter little things about the leverage of the exercise itself to make it harder or to make it less difficult. So like a push-up, for example, I think the easiest way to illustrate this point is just to think of a push-up where your feet are elevated on a surface higher than in your hands, as opposed to one where they’re both on the floor. When your feet are higher, you’re offsetting the weight, you’re putting more of it in your hands, you’re making it feel like the equivalent of doing a bench press with more weight. But you’re doing that by altering the movement slightly. And, of course, the opposite is true too. If you elevate your hands, now you’ve made the push-up less difficult, you have less weight loaded into your hands.

And then beyond that, obviously taking an arm off the ground completely and doing a one-arm push-up is going to be even harder than a feet-elevated one. And there’s steps and increments in between. And that’s true for everything. It’s true for a squat. It’s true for a pull-up. It’s true for a planche even. There’s guys out there who are doing planches on their fingertips on one hand. It’s like the spectrum of fitness is so far-reaching and feel like it keeps expanding in both directions as people keep breaking new records and getting fitter. On the other side of things, obesity is getting more out of control, and it’s just so weird that those things coexist at the same time. But here we are.

Steven Sashen:

Yeah, that’s a good point. Well, one of the things that I really appreciate about your books, some different than others obviously, and you can talk about this in a bit, is that you do give both the width and breadth or the depth and breadth, if you will, for individual exercise. So you have a bunch of push-up variations, a bunch of pull-up variations, often graded here are the easier ones, here are the harder ones. And I would just encourage people, whether they’re finding your books or finding you online, to play around with these because it really, for me, it’s been so much fun to have this bigger, more arrows in my quiver, if you will.

So like when I go out on the track on the weekends and I want to do something, just some strength training before or after, usually after, just to sit around going, “What do I want to work on today? What’s my favorite one today? Do I want to do some wide grip push-up thing? Do I want to do chin-ups? Do I want to do pull-ups? Do I want to do something?” I mean, just all these different options that frankly I just didn’t have in my brain before. And the fun part, the fun quotient is elevated by having more opportunities and more options.

Al Kavadlo:

Yeah, I mean that’s what you said at the beginning of this podcast, is if you’re not having fun doing it, then what’s the point, right? I think that that’s a big part of what’s made calisthenics popular and why I like it, is it does have that playful element to it, and that element of just, like you said, trying things out like a practice, it’s not quite as rigid as some other forms of strength training. I think for people like you and myself, we like to have a little bit more freedom to experiment and have a little more creative input into our own workouts.

Steven Sashen:

I just had a flashback to when I was in high school and was doing a lot of exercise stuff, obviously for gymnastics. In fact, so much of the body weight and calisthenics stuff is what gymnasts have been doing for ages because they don’t typically go into the weight room very much.

Al Kavadlo:

Right. Those guys are pretty darn strong.

Steven Sashen:

Yeah, absolutely. One of the push-up variations that you just reminded me of is, we used to do chair push-up so you’re three chairs, one for your feet, one for each hand, and you just get a nice wide stance, if you will, for your hands. So you’re getting really, really deep. We used to just do those all day every day. Oh, my god. Sorry, I just had the bigger memory. You’re going to love this.

My first day of junior high school, our gymnastics coach hands the six or seven of us who decided we were going to try gymnastics a sheet of 10 to the inch graph paper. He says every one of those squares is 10 push-ups. Whoever fills out the sheet front and back first wins a coke. We were a bunch of competitive 13-year-olds, and we’d come in the morning, it’s like, “How many push-ups did you do yesterday?” “200.” “Oh man, I only did 150.” And then we’d drop and do 50 more. Then the other guy would do 50, and then we would do 50. I mean, we got to the point where we were doing, not at one time, but over the course of a day, a thousand push-ups a day just to beat the other guy.

Al Kavadlo:

Wow. Was it really about the soda then at that point? Or it was more about the ego thing?

Steven Sashen:

It was all about the ego thing. It was all to see … It was the competitive thing. I actually met a young man at a high school track meet, and he said he wanted to be a college decathlete. I told him this story of we were doing a thousand push-ups a day. He goes, “I can’t do a thousand push-ups a day.” I said, “Yeah, we couldn’t either when we started.” I was just waiting to see if he was going to drop and do 50, but he just kind of got depressed. And I went, “Oh, that’s not the right attitude to have.”

Al Kavadlo:

It’s just amazing what the human body can get conditioned to. Ultra running, for example, I remember when that was a new thing, and not that long ago when I was like, “What? Somebody ran a hundred miles? That’s amazing.” And it still blows my mind because I’ve never run a distance anywhere near that much. But now, lots of people run a hundred miles. It’s not as much of a shocking thing anymore, at least if you’re aware of that community.

Steven Sashen:

Well, you know another thing that’s evolved a lot that is no longer shocking it used to be? It’s all over you.

Al Kavadlo:

Yeah, yeah, it’s true. I remember when I first saw the back of Guns N’ Roses Appetite for Destruction when I was a kid, and they had three tattoos. Oh, my god, those guys are such badass tattoos. And I have quite a few more than that myself now, as you probably noticed. So yeah, standards just change over time.

Steven Sashen:

What was your first tattoo?

Al Kavadlo:

The first one I got was this tiger right here on my shoulder.

Steven Sashen:

Got it. So what inspired that?

Al Kavadlo:

You can see how much faded it is compared to this one that’s about, I don’t know, 20 years more recent, right underneath it.

Steven Sashen:

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, I am art-free and ink-free at the moment, but people who really make that kind of commitment, have you gotten anything where you’ve just gone, “Oh, no”?

Al Kavadlo:

Yeah, there’s a couple that didn’t come out as good as I was hoping they might or that maybe didn’t age as well as others, but that’s life. One of the things I like about tattoos is you have to live with them. I mean, I know people get tattoos removed, but generally they’re permanent. I feel like so much of life, people always wanted to take back things, and it’s okay to be able to change your mind, it’s good to be able to evolve, but sometimes you just have to live with having made a bad decision, and that makes you a better person. So I have a few tattoos that I feel like they did that for me.

Steven Sashen:

What? Any ex-girlfriend names?

Al Kavadlo:

Thankfully no names, thankfully no names.

Steven Sashen:

What about actually current wife and child names?

Al Kavadlo:

I do not have either of their names. Grace and I have a matching tattoo. We both got this diamond right here in the same spot for our first year wedding anniversary.

Steven Sashen:

Oh, that’s splendid.

Al Kavadlo:

That’s our tattoo for each other.

Steven Sashen:

And to let people know, so your wife Grace is also a major body weight and calisthenic fitness person. What’s it like having this in the family? And what are your thoughts about now that you have a child? I mean, we don’t have kids, but I kept thinking, boy, if I had kids, I’d be a dangerous parent because as a gymnast, I mean I did a lot of crazy, crazy crap, and there’s no way I would ever not have my child do things that made me look safe.

Al Kavadlo:

Well, I think that maybe some mainstream parents would have the impression that you were a dangerous parent, but I don’t think you would be a dangerous parent at all because I know you’re a thoughtful person who, even though you like to push boundaries, you’re aware that they exist.

Steven Sashen:

I mean dangerous, like one day we’re at a restaurant and there’s some kids jumping up and down on the bench seats of the restaurant and the parents are yelling, “Stop doing that,” and I was thinking, if it was me, I would’ve go, “Stop doing that. Springs are better on this bench. You get more altitude over here.”

Al Kavadlo:

Grace and I encourage our kid to exercise a lot. We take her to the playground pretty much every day that it’s nice out. She’s basically made a playground at the home, just climbing on everything and going up and down all the time. We want her to be physically active. We encourage that. But at the same time, when you are out at a public space and a kid is doing things that are not socially okay, you do have to sometimes-

Steven Sashen:

Well, that’s another one.

Al Kavadlo:

Because I don’t love to be a disciplinarian either. That’s definitely been a challenge for me as a parent, because I’ve always, as a trainer, part of what I think has made me unique and stand out is that I’m not a disciplinary type of trainer. A lot of people, I think especially when I got started in the business, the idea of a trainer or a coach was that they were going to be a drill sergeant. They were going to be a hard person on you. I always did the opposite and had success with that method. So I’m trying to be a gentle parent, but sometimes you got to lay the smack down.

Steven Sashen:

How have you dealt with what has become sadly a fitness mantra of no pain, no gain?

Al Kavadlo:

Well, by doing exactly what I was just alluding to a minute ago, trying to be the antithesis of that. So I’m a big believer in the old cliche to be the change you want to see. So if you feel like, “Oh, why aren’t more people doing this?” then you should be the person to do that. So that’s kind of how I fell into everything that I’ve done in my career.

Steven Sashen:

If somebody comes to you or you see that they definitely have that attitude that they’ve got to be enduring something unpleasant to get something they think they want, how do you work with them about that?

Al Kavadlo:

It depends a lot on the individual. I think something that makes for a successful coach is not necessarily having stock go-to things, but being prepared to listen to the person and hear them out. And then based on what they told you, use your experience to guide them in the direction as gently as possible. I think one of the worst things you can do as a coach or as a parent or just as someone in general who’s trying to convince anyone of anything is flat out tell them that they’re wrong. You got to listen to people and hear them out and find areas of common ground where you agree. And then and only then are you able to maybe gently make a suggestion. Even when somebody comes to you asking for your guidance, if you’re not gentle about how you deliver it, they’re not going to be receptive to it.

Steven Sashen:

It’s a tricky thing on my-

Al Kavadlo:

Unless they want a drill sergeant, like some people do. So I don’t know.

Steven Sashen:

Yeah, some people like that. It’s a tricky thing on my end of the equation because on the one hand, there’s plenty of evidence that modern athletic footwear is fundamentally wrong. So on the one hand, we want to really call it out and be somewhat confrontational.

Al Kavadlo:

And that works. People respond to that. I don’t think-

Steven Sashen:

Some people do.

Al Kavadlo:

… that they don’t. Especially in an advertising sort of setting, if you’re trying to catch someone’s attention quickly and on the web, there’s so much vying for your attention all the time. So I was referring more to if I’m actually working with somebody in person one-on-one.

Steven Sashen:

No, but my point is that what you’re saying is still true. It’s an interesting balancing act. You’re right, I mean to be confrontational and controversial has value. It also comes with the side dish of people are going to tell you you have your head up your butt and then you have to deal with that, so you’re cultivating a certain kind of relationship that is both good and bad. The flip side is, I’m thinking about, there’s a Facebook group called Running Shoe Geeks, and somebody posted a picture of one of our shoes and was raving about it, and a number of people are like, “If I ran in those, I’d break my ankles, my hamstrings would explode, my mortgage rate would go up. I’d get Ebola,” whatever it was, and finally-

Al Kavadlo:

That’s stupid hearing that since the brand began from runners, and people just don’t get it.

Steven Sashen:

But again, but the thing that was interesting with what I did is I jumped in, I said, “Look, if you want to run in the shoes that you currently have, go for it. I’m not going to tell you not to. But when you take them off at the end of the day or at the end of your run, you might want to … If you just want something for active recovery to let your feet bend and move and flex and feel and get some circulation going, or if you want to just have something comfortable to relax in or something that … There’s a study from Sarah Ridge at BYU that shows if you just walk in minimalist footwear, you can build foot strength just like doing an actual foot exercise program. If any of that sounds interesting, just try these for some casual, use when you’re not running.”

And it just ended the conversation. People had no response to that because, like you said, in that way, I was trying to meet them where they were. I mean, sometimes I half jokingly say, we’re the heroin of footwear because I know that if they start doing that, then they’re going to go, “Yeah, maybe I’ll try going for a little run and see what happens.” The next thing they know, they’ll-

Al Kavadlo:

Right. Once you have them wearing it at all, then yeah.

Steven Sashen:

Yeah, there’s no turning back. I mean, once you go from having your toes not squeezed together, you never want to go back to squeezing them together.

Al Kavadlo:

I think the other thing that happens is, people are so deconditioned that they try to do too much too quickly, and this happens a lot in strength training and calisthenics too. I hear the same type of stuff. People see me doing human play like, “Oh, if I did that, my shoulder would pop out.”

Steven Sashen:

Right.

Al Kavadlo:

It’s like, “Well, you’re probably right. It would, but if you built yourself up to it gradually, your shoulders would be so strong that they could do it and they wouldn’t pop out.” People who are used to running in something that has a tremendous amount of conditioning and have never given their feet the chance to develop, if they suddenly try to go out for a five mile or a pair of Xero Shoes on day one, it is going to jack them up.

Steven Sashen:

Which nobody-

Al Kavadlo:

But that’s not the fault of the shoe.

Steven Sashen:

Yeah. Nobody would suggest that.

Al Kavadlo:

Right.

Steven Sashen:

I mean, we hear it every now and then. Where we hear it from most is people who put on shoes like ours, and they’re so happy, they’re so comfortable. They go for a little run and they go, “This is great,” and then they just keep going. During the course of that run, they get tired and their form reverts back to something that’s not necessarily good. I always say calf pain, achilles pain, knee pain, or any kind of pain, totally optional. You don’t have to have any of it if you wear-

Al Kavadlo:

I remember when I first got into, even before I switched to wearing minimalist shoes, when I just changed my running style and started running more toward my forefoot, I couldn’t believe how sore my calves were. I had that same feeling of like, “Oh my god, I hurt myself.” And then two days later, they felt fine. I tried it again. I’m like, “Actually, this does kind of feel better.” And then they were never really that sore ever again after that.

Steven Sashen:

Yeah.

Al Kavadlo:

But I think a lot of people have that one first shock to their system. They’re like, “Whoa, I’m not doing this.” But the body just has to adapt to that.

Steven Sashen:

Yeah. There’s two things that I find really interesting, and I’m putting air quotes around interesting. I find it kind of annoying. One is what you just said, is people will do something and they do a little too much too soon. They have not the right form that allows them to not have any of these little aches and pains that will go away. And their first reaction, “Oh, see, this doesn’t work because look, I’m feeling a little sore,” when it’s just like you said, if you just slow down, chill out, let yourself build up slowly over time, it can all be fine.

The other one is, oh, forgetting that the process of learning something new, like learning to run where you’re not overstriding a heel or striking it, and instead being a four-foot lander with your feet underneath your body, that if you’re learning a new movement pattern, it’s going to take a little time. And the way it works is, at first you try it and it’s going to feel weird, and then you’re going to rest, and it’s during the resting period where your brain integrates these new patterns. So then a couple of days later, you try again and you’re a little better, but that frustration is not a sign that it’s hard, you should stop. It’s a sign that your brain is trying to lay down new neural pathways that when you rest, will actually get integrated, and people forget that process of learning for, I’m thinking about running, but I imagine it’s similar for what you do as well.

Al Kavadlo:

Yeah. I actually just had a conversation with a client of mine somewhat recently where I was kind of explaining that. This is a guy who runs a contracting business, and I was saying to him, “If you have your workers working all day and then you have them come back the next day and expect them to work all day, by the third day, they need a day off or they’re not going to be efficient anymore.” And he was somebody who had a little bit of that no pain, no game mentality. I was telling him, I was like, “You have to take some rest.”

Steven Sashen:

Yeah.

Al Kavadlo:

Because he was just wanting to train hard day after day after day and was asking me, “Oh, why am I sore? Why does my shoulder hurt?” I was like, “This is why your shoulder hurts, man.” So I think that explaining it to him in a way that related to his world helped him understand it, and hopefully he is going to find that balance a little bit more.

Steven Sashen:

Well, and you just reminded me of a thing that I’ve been very aware of of late, that I’m curious what your experience has been both personally and professionally, at 58 and change right now, the most annoying thing is how long it takes for me to recover. There’s so much that I want to do that my brain thinks I can do that my body goes, “Oh, no, no, no, you’re grossly mistaken.” And that’s been very tricky to adjust to. I mean, early on when I got back into sprinting, it took me maybe two years until I learned that when I have the thought, “Let me just do one more,” that’s when I need to stop and not do that one more.

Al Kavadlo:

It’s like drinking, right?

Steven Sashen:

Say it again?

Al Kavadlo:

It’s like drinking.

Steven Sashen:

Yeah, exactly.

Al Kavadlo:

Let me just have one more drink, then it’s all over.

Steven Sashen:

Always a bad thought, especially if a drink has an umbrella in it or it doesn’t taste like anything. I’ll never forget the first time someone gave me a Long Island iced tea and I didn’t know what it was. Holy smokes. I think I woke up in Utah. That was crazy. And I’m not even a drinker. It was just like, “Oh, this is very tasty.” Or an Alabama slammer, which is the fruit punch version of a Long Island iced tea. Those things are pure evil.

Al Kavadlo:

Yeah. To your earlier point, it’s definitely true that as you get older, you have to recover a little bit more, and it’s a hard thing to cope with when you were an athlete in your youth and you can train hard every single day, and you kind of got used to that to readjust your expectations of what your body can handle and to respect those limits, because when you’re young, you kind of do the opposite.

Steven Sashen:

Totally.

Al Kavadlo:

You keep pushing beyond when you want to stop, and your body can still recover from that sometimes.

Steven Sashen:

Oh, I have vivid memories of, we just had some big weightlifting session or something, and the next day, we’re gymnasts, we’re going to go work out, and just feeling so sore I could barely move. But the whole idea was just do a little stretching, a little whatever, just till the soreness doesn’t bother you. The idea of taking a rest didn’t exist in our minds. We just had to deal with or get over the soreness, and eventually it worked, but that is just not the way it works now. This just popped into my head. I was going to say it this way: There’s a bunch of older fitness guys that I know, I won’t mention them by name, who are very, let’s say, financially successful, who the way they have dealt with this is they’re all taking drugs and-

Al Kavadlo:

Testosterone.

Steven Sashen:

Yeah, some variation of testosterone. Some of them will say that it’s just hormone replacement therapy and that they’re getting back to “normal” or a high level of normal despite the fact that they were asymptomatic before. Have you dealt with people who are wrestling with the idea of taking some sort of hormones or performance-enhancing products?

Al Kavadlo:

I really have very, very little experience with anything related to steroids. I’ve never taken them myself. I’ve never advised anyone on how to take them. If I had clients who were taking them, it wasn’t something that we discussed as part of our training. I don’t think that I have had clients who were taking them. So I feel like that’s more of a thing on the West Coast and where you are than it is here, but maybe I’m just taking-

Steven Sashen:

I don’t know how much it’s out here. I mean, here-

Al Kavadlo:

Maybe I just thought I was aware of it.

Steven Sashen:

Well, here-

Al Kavadlo:

Yeah, I’ve heard of older the guys doing that. Frankly, I just don’t know. I don’t have an opinion one way or the other. Maybe it is okay. I mean, I could certainly sympathize with the idea of being in my 60s or 70s and being like, “Damn, I used to perform differently, and I miss that and wanting something to be able to …” So yeah, I really don’t know.

Steven Sashen:

Well, yeah, and I haven’t either, but I mean, out here around Boulder, Colorado, it’s all free-range, organic testosterone. You’ve got to make sure that it’s fair trade, organic, free-range, gluten-free. The gluten-free testosterone is-

Al Kavadlo:

There you go. That’s good for you.

Steven Sashen:

Well, it’s way more expensive too, and not as satisfying, strangely. It’s like close to testosterone, but it’s not as good as real testosterone.

Al Kavadlo:

This is definitely outside of my wheelhouse.

Steven Sashen:

Yeah, yeah. No, you and me both.

Al Kavadlo:

But to your point about recovering slower, I mean, I’m 40 now, I’ll be 41 in a few weeks, I still consider myself relatively young, and I still think I have a lot of good years ahead of me, but I’m definitely not able to do what I could 10 years ago in terms of recovery. I can still perform just about at the same level, but then I just need to rest for two or three days afterwards.

Steven Sashen:

Well, it’s one of the reasons that-

Al Kavadlo:

I have rested for two days before.

Steven Sashen:

Yeah, right. Well, it’s one of the reasons that I’m very deliberate about not going into a gymnastics gym because I know that I could throw all the moves that I was doing 40 years ago once.

Al Kavadlo:

Right. Then you’ll be hurt in the next day.

Steven Sashen:

Oh, it would be more than hurting the next day, guaranteed. It was also, actually, it’s funny, I did a standing backflip. This was two years ago, the last time I did one. Haven’t thrown one in a little while. This is going to sound hyperbolic when I say it, but I’d probably done a hundred thousand of them up until that point. There was a time where I was doing about a hundred a day, long story. But what was interesting is that when I did one this last time, I must-

Al Kavadlo:

You’re a guy who likes reputation, right?

Steven Sashen:

Well, no, it was actually-

Al Kavadlo:

You do a thousand push-ups. You’ve run thousands of miles. You do backflips.

Steven Sashen:

No, I don’t run thousand of miles.

Al Kavadlo:

Maybe over the course of your life, I’m sure you’ve run thousands, thousands of miles.

Steven Sashen:

Maybe. As a sprinting workout, a long sprinting workout, including warmups is maybe 2 or 3K, maybe.

Al Kavadlo:

Well, that’ll add up though, right? You’ve been doing it for a long time.

Steven Sashen:

But I haven’t been. I took a 30-year break. So it’s one of those like when the whole idea that 10,000 hours to master something came out, I immediately said, “Oh, that’s complete bullshit.” And my first two thoughts were, I don’t know one gymnast who’s ever put in 10,000 hours, you’d be dead by the time you did that, or one sprinter who’s ever been able to put in 10,000 hours. You just can’t do it. Your body’s not wired for that. If you do the math, I’ve done the math before, just imagine 10,000 hours over the career of a gymnast or a sprinter, which let’s say it’s 15 years.

Al Kavadlo:

Right. When they’re training at their peak intensity. We’re not counting warmups and things like that. Right?

Steven Sashen:

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, just like real training. It is like you do the math and there’s no way. Especially when you see some of these gymnasts who are in their teens, they’ve been doing it for six, seven years, there’s no way they could put in 10,000 hours in six or seven years or 10 years.

Al Kavadlo:

I never took it that literally, just the idea that you have to practice something a lot to get good at it. But yeah, the idea of trying to quantify exactly how long it takes to master something is completely absurd. And then try to make that an umbrella thing that applies to all things that you can master is even more absurd. I think the general idea that it takes a lot of time and discipline to get good at things, that I’m on board with.

Steven Sashen:

And it takes one other thing, because the kind of person who’s going to put in 10,000 hours is a different kind of person than someone who is not. They’re interested in what that thing is, maybe they have a certain competitive thing or whatever else drives them. But this takes me back to thinking about someone starting with bodyweight training and calisthenics, is that, how do I want to put it, what’s going to drive you to keep doing something is, we’ve talked about it a couple of times, is that sort of the fun component and experiencing the progress, experiencing some benefits and seeing that there’s actual movement.

So this is why I love the idea, again, of having this bigger quiver full of arrows so that you can find the parts that are fun. There’s certain exercises and certain stretches even that I’m not good at, and I just don’t do them. For a while I thought that I had to, that if I couldn’t do it … I remember going to Bikram Yoga for a while, and there were a couple of stretches, man, I was horrible at, and I felt this sort of normative pressure to get good at them. And then after a while I went, “You know what? I’m just not good at those for whatever reason.” And then-

Al Kavadlo:

Having a competitive mindset about yoga in particular, but exercise in general, isn’t necessarily the healthiest thing unless you’re just kind of competing with yourself to try to get better in sort of a motivating way.

Steven Sashen:

Yeah.

Al Kavadlo:

But yeah, I mean there’s definitely, when yoga was a thing, I don’t know if yoga classes exist anymore, but everyone is kind of looking around the room like, “Oh, Am I keeping up with them? Are they keeping up with me? What’s going on here?” I think I went to enough yoga where eventually I kind of got past that, but there’s a lot of that in the beginning, and it’s not the healthiest way to approach it. I say whatever gets in the door, I don’t know.

Steven Sashen:

There’s a comic friend of mine who does line, he says, “I’ve been doing yoga so long that I was doing it when it was called stretching.” Have you ever seen yoga competition?

Al Kavadlo:

I have. And the very idea of it fundamentally disturbs me.

Steven Sashen:

I thought the same thing.

Al Kavadlo:

It’s the ultimate hypocrisy.

Steven Sashen:

Yeah. Well, I thought the irony and paradox and contradiction of it was hysterical and crazy, but I wanted to go see what a yoga competition looked like.

Al Kavadlo:

I mean, it’s amazing what they can do. Yeah.

Steven Sashen:

I mean, the competition part I didn’t get, but you start to … What’s really funny, it’s not like an Olympic sport where if you’re watching figure skating, you can’t figure out the difference between that triple axel and someone else’s triple axel. But you’re watching people do competitive yoga and you go, “Oh, yeah, that was better. The way you got in and out of that, that was definitely better than that other guy.” I mean, again, it’s silly, but it’s also super interesting, and it hasn’t taken off as a public popular thing. I don’t think that it will, and I’m not sure that it would be good if it did. But I’m going to say to people, if you haven’t looked up yoga competition on YouTube, do that. It’ll definitely, the entertainment factor is there.

Al Kavadlo:

But it’s also very subjective because someone might be watching the same thing you just were watching where you thought, “Oh, clearly this person did it better,” and they’re, “Actually, you know what? I liked it better when the other person did it.”

Steven Sashen:

That guy had his … on his head, the other guy had his butt an inch away from his head. So clearly, it has, to be honest.

Al Kavadlo:

But maybe he had a better smile, or some other player to it.

Steven Sashen:

I think that must be part of it too. The thing I noticed about some of the yoga competitions, freakishly good-looking people.

Al Kavadlo:

It’s a beauty contest essentially. It’s like bodybuilding, which is something else. As a kid, bodybuilding was part of what inspired me to want to get into fitness. When you really know what it’s about and you meet people who have been involved in that world, then you’re like, “Oh, that’s not really what I thought it was.” Those guys are actually not very strong as they look. They can’t move very well. A lot of them are sick, or that’s really the only people I’ve ever known who were always involved in the bodybuilding. Like I said, those were not the people that I ran with the tightest, because as soon as I saw a little bit of that world, there was not a feeling in me at all.

Steven Sashen:

That’s an interesting thing. There’s some people who think that you can’t get big doing bodyweight training, and there’s some people who are afraid that just doing anything, they’re going to get big.

Al Kavadlo:

Right. Isn’t that funny? Well, the guys who think you can’t get big doing bodyweight training are men, and the people who think you’re going to get too big are generally women. And I hear this all the time. But the thing is, if you look around at most gyms, the people are lifting weights and they don’t look like bodybuilders either. So it’s like, those guys, it’s not the lifting that makes them look like that. It’s genetic steroids. And then yeah, of course, the lifting is part of it, but you or me, no matter how much we lift, we’re never going to be on the cover of FLEX Magazine unless we started juicing 25 years ago.

Steven Sashen:

No, there was one bodybuilder who said, “Yeah, we’re taking a lot of drugs, but that’s not why I looked this way. You couldn’t do what I do to look this way off of the drugs.” I mean, taking the drugs out of the equation. And talking to him, it was totally true. I mean, first of all, he was practically a monk. All the guy did was eat, sleep, work out. That’s it. Just beyond religious, beyond obsessive compulsive about each one of those things in a way that is yet again goes back to the 10,000-hour thing. You’ve got to have the right kind of personality, the right kind of whatever, to be someone interested in doing that for a decade or more, because it is-

Al Kavadlo:

Absolutely. And to be clear, I don’t mean any disrespect to the bodybuilding community.

Steven Sashen:

No, no, no.

Al Kavadlo:

Like you said, those people are tremendously disciplined, and that’s what they want. That’s their goal. It wasn’t my goal, it wasn’t what drew me to this path. There’s plenty of people who would look at what I do and be like, “That’s not for me. This guy’s an idiot. He is a tool. I don’t like him.” And that’s cool. You need to have different options in the world, something for everybody. The world is very big, and I feel like now than ever, there’s more examples out there for people to potentially find someone who they can relate to.

Steven Sashen:

Yeah.

Al Kavadlo:

I think that’s part of why your brand has done well, I think that’s part of why I’ve had success, is because we’ve reached people who maybe nobody else was really on the same wavelength as them at the time that they were receptive to that.

Steven Sashen:

I want to hit you with a question that you can feel free to answer with a plug for any and everything that you’ve ever done, and it’s a two-parter. Part one is, if you wanted to give someone the simplest way of getting started with bodyweight training, what would it be? And the subset of that is, if you wanted to do something specific for runners, since we have a lot of runners who are listening to this, what would you recommend for them?

Al Kavadlo:

Actually, I have a couple programs that I think are good for a runner or a non-runner who’s just looking to get into this, and it really depends on what format people prefer. If you want a book or an e-book, I have one that’s simply called Get Strong. I co-wrote it with my brother Danny. It’s our best-selling book between the two of us. It has a very clear, concise program in there. It lays out a lot of our philosophy behind it, talks a little bit about some other diet and lifestyle things. It’s just a really good general overview of everything that we’re about. For people who prefer more of an app or a video program, I have a program called Universal Strength. That’s a 30-day video program where I do see the exercises demonstrated actually in video rather than just reading descriptions and seeing photos in a book.

And then I also have another app that’s just called Al Kavadlo we’re working out, and it’s an animated cartoon app, and that one’s sort of more like a reference. It just has a bunch of different little animations of me showing different exercises and taking you through a couple of quick sample workouts. So that app, if you have an iPhone or an Android, there’s a free version of that. People, if they’re listening right now, they could just go download that right now. And then obviously if they like the app, there’s more content you can unlock with a premium account, which is still pretty small investment.

Steven Sashen:

So for any of these things, where would people find you and those things?

Al Kavadlo:

Well, like I said, they could just go to the app store and put my name. If you can spell K-A-V-A-D-L-O, and you Google that or put it into the App Store or Google Play or Amazon, then you’ll find my stuff.

Steven Sashen:

And for the books and other things?

Al Kavadlo:

Amazon has-

Steven Sashen:

Oh, Amazon has books.

Al Kavadlo:

Amazon has everything.

Steven Sashen:

Of course.

Al Kavadlo:

I mean, it depends on what you’re looking for. If you’re looking for a book, you can go Amazon. If you’re just looking for general information, you could Google me.

Steven Sashen:

I was going to say-

Al Kavadlo:

People can find info nowadays if they want it.

Steven Sashen:

Don’t make me force you to give out your website or your Instagram or something like that. I mean-

Al Kavadlo:

It’s all just my name. My website is just alkavadlo.com. My Instagram is @alkavadlo. So if you google me, everything on the first page is all the stuff that people would be looking for.

Steven Sashen:

Oh, see, now you’ve given me a search engine optimization mission to outrank you for your own name.

Al Kavadlo:

Then I’d be very curious what you would put on that page, and hopefully it wouldn’t be too disparaging.

Steven Sashen:

No, no, no, it wouldn’t be at all. Frankly, I wish that it would be the last time you and I got to see each other where it would just be us hanging out in Veniero’s Bakery in the East Village, because that was just delightful. No, in the early internet days, there was times, just because I was experimenting with search engine marketing, anyone who had an infomercial on TV, including Tony Robbins, I outranked them for their own name. There was no value to it because nobody was selling anything then, but it was just like an experiment to see what was possible.

Al Kavadlo:

I think that would be harder to pull off now. I’m really curious because my website has been my website for so long and it’s just alkavadlo.com, so I don’t know how anyone could trick Google into thinking that they were more the authority on that than that site is. But who knows?

Steven Sashen:

No, no. It would be a tricky one. The thing that’s fun to do is, you can rank for things like, “Al Kavadlo is the greatest bodyweight fitness guide.”

Al Kavadlo:

Right. You could get a specific term, but just my name. I think the website I have had for 11 years.

Steven Sashen:

And I’m certainly not suggesting that I would. Yeah. It’s not like I would have the reason inspiration, let alone time to even try, as somebody who has also owned a domain name since the beginning of the internet. It’s funny, one of my best friends and I, in 1991, we were sitting around my apartment saying, “I can’t believe someone’s trying to register the domain business.com. Why would you just register a generic word?” And by the way, who has $70? In fact, it was 140 because you had to register for two years. It’s like, we don’t have that kind of cash. Oops.

Al Kavadlo:

A lot has changed.

Steven Sashen:

I’m trying to think if there’s any other specific thing I want to ask. Actually, I want to ask you this. We could have gone to this. What was it that got you into the whole idea of natural movement and minimalist footwear way back when? What was the inspiration and what would you recommend?

Al Kavadlo:

I know it’s a cliche, but it was the book Born to Run.

Steven Sashen:

Oh, really? Perfect timing.

Al Kavadlo:

That’s why I was seeking out this type of footwear back in 2009 or whenever it was that we first connected, because it was right when that book had come out. I tried on a pair of the FiveFingers, and I just did not like the way they felt, and I wanted something that was, he talked about in the book, the actual huaraches. I was like, “I want that. I want what they were wearing in that book.”

Steven Sashen:

Got it.

Al Kavadlo:

And you were the first person that I found who could provide such a thing.

Steven Sashen:

Yeah. We joked way back when that Chris McDougall, the author of that book was, what’s the word, he was our inadvertent marketing department for the first two years because people were just responding to that book. There was actually a thing that I used to do. I took business cards, and every time I walked by a bookstore, I’d walk in and I’d find copies of Born to Run, I put my business card in the book as a bookmark.

Al Kavadlo:

Nice. You’re a hustler, and that’s why you are where you are now.

Steven Sashen:

Well, it was inspired by a friend of mine who self-published a book, and what he did is he would just take copies of his actual book and put it on storage.

Al Kavadlo:

Put it in storage. Right.

Steven Sashen:

So then when person would go to check out, it wouldn’t be in the computer and they’d have to find out where the book came from, and they would call him and then order books.

Al Kavadlo:

If someone actually went to buy it, which right there is a huge victory.

Steven Sashen:

Yeah. It was pretty entertaining. Well, Al, first of all, thanks. Secondly, needless to say, I love the work that you and Danny are doing. One other compliment for the two of you about your books, these books are gorgeous. The photography is spectacular, the artwork is, I mean, it’s so thoughtfully and meticulously and well done that, I mean, just as a piece of art. I mean, they’re worth taking a look at. I haven’t saw that before. Thank you.

Al Kavadlo:

That’s a very nice compliment. Yeah. We’re very involved in every aspect of the books. We’re intimately involved in selecting photographers and photos and graphic design, all of that. We love hearing exactly what you just said, and that means the world to me. Thank you. Obviously I’m a huge fan of your brand.

Steven Sashen:

Well, thanks.

Al Kavadlo:

I’ve been wearing pretty much exclusively Xero Shoes for a long time now, and spread in the word as best as I can, because like you said, that’s what we got to do. That’s part of the movement, telling everyone about it.

Steven Sashen:

Yeah. At a certain point, we’ll hit critical mass, and it’ll be the obvious thing instead of the odd thing. That’s what we’re-

Al Kavadlo:

Yeah. I’ve seen plenty of people wearing Xero Shoes out in the wild, and sometimes they see that I have them too, and there’s an acknowledgement for look. Sometimes I see people, this is the coolest thing, wearing Xero Shoes, and I look at them and they look at me and they say, “You’re Al Kavadlo. I’m wearing Xero Shoes because I saw you in the ad.”

Steven Sashen:

Oh, that’s great. I love it.

Al Kavadlo:

It has actually happened a couple times.

Steven Sashen:

My favorite thing is when someone recognizes my shoes and they don’t know it’s me.

Al Kavadlo:

Well, right. They’re not necessarily going to know your face, but they know the product.

Steven Sashen:

Yeah. Yeah. That’s my favorite. My fantasy as a business person is that someday I want to be at a dinner party where I overhear someone talking about how they were one of the people who helped start my company and they don’t know who I am. Hopefully-

Al Kavadlo:

That’ll be an odd, surreal moment if that ever happens.

Steven Sashen:

Well, it’s like here in Boulder where Crocs started, and the number of people that I’ve met who say they were one of the people who helped start Crocs, and I know the people who started Crocs, so I hope that someday we get to the point where people are misrepresenting reality for their own party favors.

Al Kavadlo:

Xero Shoes has that much cache that people want to lie, say they were a part of it at the beginning. Now, that’s how you’ll know you’ve made it.

Steven Sashen:

We’ll get there. Anyway, once again, everyone go to alkavadlo.com, A-L-K-A-V-A-D-L-O, or do a search on wherever you just said.

Al Kavadlo:

Anything, anywhere where you would search, hopefully you can find me.

Steven Sashen:

Yeah, exactly. More importantly, let us know what you experience when you just add some of this wonderful body weight and calisthenic stuff into just … We could have talked about this more, but I like to say, don’t even think about it like a workout per se. One of the things that I’ve been having a lot of fun with is just whenever I got to get out of a chair, I’ll go do something. I got my-

Al Kavadlo:

I think you made that point earlier. There’s a playful element to it.

Steven Sashen:

But I just want to emphasize that specific thing. It’s like you don’t need to do-

Al Kavadlo:

It could be spontaneous.

Steven Sashen:

Yeah. Do a set of pushups, do a set of box jumps. Do just whenever-

Al Kavadlo:

Hopefully some people who are listening actually tried that glute bridge. We were talking about that earlier. Or maybe they’ll try it now. If you made it this far in this podcast and you never did a glute bridge, do you remember what we were talking about?

Steven Sashen:

Yeah, do it. And if you want to see something fun, check out Al’s videos and look for dragon pistol squat. If you want to see something that makes you just go, “What?” Actually it’s worse. It’s one of those things where you go, “Oh, that looks cool,” and then you try it and go, “Are you out of your mind?” That is so cool.

Al Kavadlo:

Why, thank you, my friend.

Steven Sashen:

So anyway, everyone, thank you so much for being part of this. A reminder again, go to www.jointhemovementmovement.com. That’s where you can find out how to interact with everything we’re doing. You’ll find all the previous episodes. You can leave comments and questions. In fact, if you have a question or a recommendation, someone you think should be on the show, or you want to tell me you think that I have my curly head up my butt, I’m open to that conversation as well. In fact, one of my fantasies for this podcast is to get somebody on who vehemently disagrees with me, and let’s hear what that conversation turns into. Suffice it to say, like I said before, if you want to be part of the tribe, please subscribe, but most importantly, go out, have fun, live life, feet first.

Speaker 1:

You’ve been listening to The MOVEMENT Movement podcast with host Steven Sashen. Remember to join the tribe and subscribe at jointhemovementmovement.com.

View Details

David Durante is a highly accomplished gymnast and dedicated coach, co-owner of Power Monkey Fitness, and a former member of the 2008 U.S. Olympic gymnastics team. His journey in gymnastics began at Stanford University, where he became an NCAA All-American. Over the years, he claimed multiple U.S. national titles and represented the country in two World Championships. Now based in Oregon, Dave is passionate about teaching handstands and skill development, advocating consistent training and mobility work. His role as an educator at Power Monkey Camp allows him to share his expertise with athletes of all levels, from beginners to elite competitors. Known for his love of gymnastics, Durante inspires others to embrace fitness with enthusiasm and consistency, ensuring they find joy in their fitness journeys.

Listen to this episode of The MOVEMENT Movement with David Durante about the mental challenges, pressure, competition, and responsibility athletes face.

Here are some of the beneficial topics covered on this week’s show:

– How gymnastics training requires adaptability and resilience in diverse conditions.

– Why financial literacy should be a priority for young athletes who receive significant payments from NIL deals.

– How engaging in various training activities like gymnastics, weightlifting, running, and yoga improves movement skills.

– How you can improve your fitness levels and learn from experts by attending Power Monkey Camp.

– How competitive strength challenges can expand gymnastics programs at colleges by attracting more participants.

Connect with David:

Guest Contact Info

Instagram@powermonkeyfitness@powermonkeycamp

Facebookfacebook.com/PowerMonkeyFitnessfacebook.com/PowerMonkeyCamp

Links Mentioned:powermonkeyfitness.com

Powermonkeycamp.com

Connect with Steven:

Website

Xeroshoes.com

Jointhemovementmovement.com

Twitter@XeroShoes

Instagram@xeroshoes

Facebookfacebook.com/xeroshoes

Episode Transcript

Steven Sashen:

If you’re trying to get fit, a lot of people will put together a home gym, do something, find an actual gym to use. But maybe you need a kickstart. Maybe you need to go away and really commit. I don’t mean forever. I mean just have a little bit of time. And that’ll give you something you can use for the rest of your life, just that intent to do something. Well, we’re going to find out more about that, that’s an English sentence, on today’s episode of The MOVEMENT Movement, the podcast for people who want to know the truth about what it takes to have a happy, healthy, strong body, starting feet first, those things at the end of your legs that are your foundation. And we break down the propaganda, the mythology, sometimes just the flat out lies you’ve been told about what it takes to run, or walk, or hike, or do yoga, or CrossFit, or whatever it is that you want to do, and to do that effectively, and efficiently, and enjoyably.

And I’m highlighting enjoyably, because if you’re not having a good time, you’re not going to keep doing it anyway. So I’m Steven Sashen, co-founder of xeroshoes.com, and the host of the MOVEMENT Movement podcast. And we call it that, because we, that involves all of us, are creating a movement about natural movement, letting your body do what it’s made to do, not getting in the way with things that will actually cause problems. So the way that you are involved is really simple. Spread the word. Share, like, give us a thumbs up, give us a review, five stars, whatever. We can do that. Tell people about this.

In short, if you want to be part of the tribe, just subscribe. And if you want to find out more, go to www.jointhemovementmovement.com. There’s nothing you need to do to join. Just that’s where you’ll find previous episodes. All the other places, you can find us on social media. And if you want to find a different place to get the podcast, you’ll find other places there as well. Okay, let’s get started. David, tell people who the hell you are and what you’re doing here.

David Durante:

Thanks for having me on, Steven. Well, my name is Dave Durante. I was a former gymnast. Back in the day I grew up in New Jersey. I was fortunate enough to get a scholarship out to Stanford University, competed for Stanford after I graduated. I became part of Team USA. I was part of Team USA for six years. During that time I was on a few world championship teams. I was national champion a few times, and then was part of the team that went to Beijing in 2008 for the Olympic Games. After the Olympics, moved back to Stanford, and helped coach a team to a national championship in 2009.

And right around that time, I was ending my competitive career, wanted to figure out what I wanted to do next, and stumbled into the CrossFit space as someone that wanted to educate people on how to move better, and not just move faster. And so I started our current company, Power Monkey Fitness, with my partner who’s a stunt man, former gymnast, and now stunt man. And we’ve been doing educational seminars and such, which maybe we’ll get into around what we do now with Power Monkey. But essentially, we’re fitness educators now around our little niche sports, trying to help people move better and move for longer with good technique at top of mind.

Steven Sashen:

So it’s too bad that you didn’t have a successful athletic career. That’s really a shame. I don’t know. Someone must have told you. So I predate you by a long time. And sadly, my gymnastics era, there was no post collegiate opportunities, and I was two years in the wrong direction. So I was like, “Oh, well.” And I’m certainly not going to my All American stuff to everything.

David Durante:

No, I did. I heard that you had… That’s awesome. I actually wanted to chat with you about it. I don’t get to talk to many people that also had a collegiate gymnastics career. So I’m curious about yours a little bit, if you wouldn’t mind.

Steven Sashen:

Well, I’m going to skip ahead and I’m going to show you something that for those people who are only listening, they won’t see it, but I’ll show you this.

David Durante:

That’s a great tuck.

Steven Sashen:

Yeah, it was a standing back flip, for people who didn’t see. That was on my 61st birthday, so not bad. Now I’m going to tell you something funny about this. I hadn’t done a standing back in about four or five years. And the last time I did one before that one that I just showed you, I only made it hands and knees. And I didn’t know why it was the first time I ever missed one. And I’d forgotten I had abdominal surgery three days earlier, so oops. But the interesting thing about doing that one now, when I set it, I know where I am, and then I literally black out until I see my feet heading towards the ground. It’s the weirdest experience in the world. It’s like time is gone, blackout. And then I called one of my old high school gymnast best friends, and he said, “How are your hands feeling?” I went, “I know.” I did like 15. My hands were on fire.

David Durante:

Yeah, it’s so bizarre. It’s so bizarre. You see stars again, all these little things, because your mind continues to think, “I can do this. My body understands the pattern,” but the body doesn’t catch up the way that it used to.

Steven Sashen:

No, it just isn’t doing the things that it used to do. But I had probably done, and this is going to sound hyperbolic, but I did some street performing. So I was doing 20, 30 standing backs a day then.

David Durante:

Sure.

Steven Sashen:

Then when I was just training, I was doing a hundred a day, just for the fun of it. And so I’ve probably done 20,000 of them in my career. And so yeah, the muscle memory is all there. Just the circulation gets all messed up.

David Durante:

Absolutely. Absolutely.

Steven Sashen:

In a freaky, freaky way. So let’s dive into that for the fun of it. I’m going to give you a best and worst. What was the best thing about being at that level, and competing, and heading to the Olympics, and World Championships and all the rest? I’ll do three things. Best, worst, most surprising.

David Durante:

Yeah, sure. So best has always been the team component. I think everyone considers in things of gymnastics as an individual sport. I have never thought of gymnastics as an individual sport. I grew up in a boys program in New Jersey that emphasized and encouraged it being a team component. We were really lucky that we had a really big boys program, which is rare. So I grew up always wanting to say, “Okay, my performance contributes to a bigger goal.” And so going on to compete for Stanford and going on to compete for USA, it was always, “What can I do to contribute to the betterment of the team?”

And so what I miss the most, and what I get the most enjoyment out of thinking back to my memories of the sport, is what we collectively did as a team, and what the team did in Beijing, and what our collegiate teams did, and the moments where we surpass people’s expectations of what we are anticipated to do. And for me, the team aspect is absolutely the most important part of what I look back fondly around the sport. The most challenging part, this might need a podcast in and of itself, but the mental side of the sport was something that didn’t come easy for me. And it was something that I-

Steven Sashen:

Well, how are you thinking of the mental side?

David Durante:

Yeah, so around competing and performing the way that you practice. For years, I always had this separation, because I loved training. I was more of someone that was more of a gym rat. I loved being in the gym. I loved taking turns, and being in there first, and leaving last, and doing all the work that other people weren’t willing to do, because I wasn’t the most talented guy in the world. So I just appreciated the hard work that went into incrementally catching up on the others that were a little bit more talented. But then taking that, and transferring what you’re doing well in a training session, and then establishing that in a competitive setting was always really challenging for me.

And basically when the lights were turned on, I needed to learn how to perform what I knew that I could do. It didn’t come easily for me. And in fact, for years, I had trouble with this idea that if I didn’t perform my best, that I was letting everyone down. And this idea of everyone, your parents, your family, your coaches, your teammates are all on you. And if you don’t perform, you’re letting people down. And that’s not necessarily the case, but it’s the way that I went into competitions. And it was a big detriment to me being able to perform at the level that I knew I was capable of.

And so it took years and years for me to be able to understand how to mentally put myself in a place where I could treat a competition the way I did a training session. And I will tell you that it’s not easy. It’s not even easy to verbalize how to do it, because I think everyone’s journey towards finding that is slightly different in terms of what works for them. But it took for my last coach to help me figure that out for myself.

Steven Sashen:

Well, this is a small subset of this, but it might make sense. So once I got back into sprinting, it took me years to stay in my lane. It took me years not to care if there was someone right behind my shoulder or right in front of my shoulder. And in a similar vein, the thing that’s interesting about what you’re saying, especially starting with, if you think about it, the idea of gymnastics as a team sport is, you know as well as anyone else that there’s no one you’ve ever competed against in the world. Well, let me say it differently.

Anyone you’ve ever competed with or against, if they have six good routines, it’s a fluke. And even with that, it’s still hard, because when it’s not happening for you, it’s like, son of a bitch. And I don’t know about you, but part of that is what kept me going, is that reinforcement thing. And I joke again with sprinting. I finish a race and somebody says, “How’d you do?” And my answer is, “Can I give you the excuse? Or do you just want the number?” And it’s the same thing. The best floor routine I ever did, I took one small step, and that’s all I fucking remember.

David Durante:

Yeah. Sure. Absolutely. But gymnastics is about working toward perfection, but never achieving it, right?

Steven Sashen:

Yeah.

David Durante:

And I think the best gymnasts in the world are the ones that are able to improvise the best, because there’s always going to be something that’s a little different about the apparatus, about the environment, about the temperature. These are things that go into performing that are slightly different everywhere you go around the world. And the gymnasts that are able to minimize those distractions or slight changes are the ones that normally end up at the top.

Steven Sashen:

And the irony with that is, the only way you get good at that is by doing it wrong over, and over, and over, and having to deal with it. So that goes back to what you’re doing just in training and the enjoyment of training. And of course this is something that non-gymnasts don’t understand, is if you watch a bunch of gymnasts practicing, training, you’ll see the craziest, most freaky wipe outs in the world. And then you’ll see everyone else in that gym laughing hysterically.

David Durante:

I know.

Steven Sashen:

It’s like, “That guy nearly broke his neck.” It’s like, “I know. Wasn’t that a riot?”

David Durante:

Yeah.

Steven Sashen:

Yeah.

David Durante:

I don’t know if we’re just crazy, the way that we think, or if we know if the person is okay or not. You always take a moment.

Steven Sashen:

Exactly.

David Durante:

Are they okay? And then the laughter starts, as soon as you know that they’re okay.

Steven Sashen:

Yeah. Well, this is another thing you can spot a wipe out from way before it happens. This is one of those things when I would be watching gymnastics with my then girlfriend, and someone’s just about to take off and I go, “Oh, shit.” And she’s like, “What?” And then a split second later, it’s a massive wipe out, and you can spot it. So some of that is just, you’re anticipating, because you see it coming.

David Durante:

Absolutely.

Steven Sashen:

And it’s a joke with a punchline, fundamentally, but that’s the thing that people just do not understand at all.

David Durante:

Absolutely.

Steven Sashen:

And I don’t know if you went through one, and we will get back to taking a fitness vacation. I don’t know if you went through this, but certainly towards the end of high school, the sense of indestructibility and knowing what you can do with your body that no one else knows how to do, led everyone that I know to do really, really stupid shit. So my version was, we’d be driving on the highway at a hundred miles an hour, climb out one window, go across the roof, climb in another window. You can grab both sides of the car at the same time. Where’s the problem? It just seems so obvious.

David Durante:

I love it. Those stories, only gymnasts have those stories. We are daredevils in the most natural sense. We just take on risks. Most people have no idea. And we at least have a platform and an arena where we can actually show off those moves.

Steven Sashen:

Well, and that’s the thing that people don’t understand is, it changed during your era, and P.S., I used to watch you all the time. It changed during your era where they stopped giving points for, how close did you come to dying?

David Durante:

Was that the originality part of the ROVs?

Steven Sashen:

Literally, it was the risk part.

David Durante:

Yeah.

Steven Sashen:

Here, I’ll speak in code and then I’ll decipher. I was doing running 1 and 3s in 1979 on a wrestling mat. The year that I was doing that, three guys got paralyzed. And I said to my coach years later, “Why didn’t you tell me about that?” He goes, “Well, A, it would’ve freaked you out. And B, I knew you could do it.” My coach was like five time national, three time world tumbling champion, and one of the greatest gymnasts and gymnastics coaches ever. And I’d say to him things like, “Who else did you ever teach this move to?” And he went, “Nobody else. That’s the guy who could do it.” But yeah, the risk part was, you got bonus points for like, “Oh, shit.” A very, very stupid thing. So your partner is a stuntman. And this is funny, because when I was hanging out with stunt guys, we were asked to do something, and they’d map it out with a spreadsheet. And the gymnasts were like, “Let’s go do that.”

David Durante:

Yeah. Yeah.

Mindset.

David Durante:

Oh, absolutely. Yeah. He’s loving that world now. He’s a little older. He’s not the guy falling down the steps, or driving the crazy cars on fire anymore these days. He’s more on the coordination side, but it’s cool to hear, “What are you working on this week? What movie? What TV show?” He’s always doing something interesting.

Steven Sashen:

Well, and the sad part, we have one of our dear friends and someone who we help a lot is Jessie Graff, who in addition to being a Nina Warrior, Jesse’s a stunt person. And the sad thing is, she’s legally not allowed to talk about most of what she’s done, so the actors can pretend that they were doing it.

David Durante:

I know. You know what? I don’t think that stunt people get nearly enough recognition. There’s still no Oscar award for stunts, which is absurd. I watched on the plane out here, I’m in Tennessee right now. I just flew out yesterday. I watched some of that Fall Guy movie that just came out, that new Ryan Gosling movie. And that’s supposed to be showing off stunt people a little bit more, but they definitely need to get more love. What they do is absolutely insane.

Steven Sashen:

Keanu Reeves did a really great thing in an interview. Someone said, you do your own stunts? He said, I do my own action. Stuntmen do the stunts.

David Durante:

Yeah. Yeah.

Steven Sashen:

Which was very, very kind of him to say. So many people in Hollywood don’t want to admit the truth, like something like that, or yeah, I took steroids. I’m not saying any of those guys who are in their sixties who look like they’re ready to go to a bodybuilding competition have ever done anything performance enhancing. Clearly, it’s just chicken, and rice, and vegetables, and two-a-day workouts. What else could it possibly be?

David Durante:

Anybody can do it.

Steven Sashen:

That’s right. Just get the right chicken. So we had a best and worst. Do we have a surprising?

David Durante:

Surprising, let’s see. Probably a lot of surprising. Surprising now that I’m still able to do things at my age that I didn’t think I would be able to. And I think it’s kind of the path that I’ve taken to make fitness and movement such an important part of my life, that I’m still able to do things that most people who retire from the sport 16 years ago are not able to do. So surprising in the sense that I’m happy that I’m still able to do planches, and still do a underpress to handstands, and ring handstands. So for me, I’m surprised that my body is still capable of doing some of the things that I used to compete.

Steven Sashen:

I have shown my standing back flip to a number of former Olympians, some a little bit older than you, Steve McLean for example. And anytime I do, if they haven’t done what you’ve done, which is stay with it at a decent level, their response is always the same, which is, “Bite me, man.” Get out there and do it. It’s no big deal. I have the same conversation with runners or sprinters. They go, “Well, I used to sprint, but I haven’t done that for a while.” It’s like, master track and field. Just get back out there. Just go do it. What’s a big deal?

But it is an interesting point. If you really, not even don’t stop, but if you have an athletic mindset, that’s going to keep you going for a while. I’m going to do a not humblebrag along with a horrible admission. I used to have two claims to fame. One, that I’d never worn Crocs. And the other is I’d never played pickleball. And sadly, I broke the ladder this past weekend. I was at a friend’s birthday party, and everyone was playing and said, “Come out and play.” I said “All right. Whatever.” And I got a very sweet compliment from one of the coaches. He says, “Wait, let me see if I got this straight. That was the first time you’ve ever played pickleball?” I said, “I haven’t even touched a racket in 30 years.” He went, “Jesus, you should be doing this professionally.” That’s not going to happen. Jumbo ping pong? Not my thing.

David Durante:

Oh, man. We love it here. At our Power Monkey Camp, it’s become one of the hits of the off times. It becomes very competitive. We are just very competitive in everything that we do. And-

Steven Sashen:

You think?

David Durante:

Yeah. Yeah, it’s become a fun after training activity for a lot of people here.

Steven Sashen:

It is fun, but you nailed it though. It was fun, but everyone else is competitive. It’s like, oh, yeah. That’s not going to work. There’s no bonus points, no prize money, no sponsorship. I actually did watch a very funny video last night of a professional game where one of the players just got really mad, because the opposing team kept lobbing towards her, which doesn’t sound like a big deal, but what that meant was, the sun was in her eyes and she kept whiffing and missing the ball. And then she got so mad. She’s like, “You can’t keep doing that.” It’s like, this is a competition.

David Durante:

That’s part of the game.

Steven Sashen:

Yeah, exactly.

David Durante:

It’s part the game. Absolutely.

Steven Sashen:

If you don’t like it, wait until you’re on this side of the court, and you’ll do it to me. What’s the big deal? All right. That was a trip down various lanes. Actually, wait, I’ve got one more for you.

David Durante:

Sure.

Steven Sashen:

It’s related to this. When I was at the Atlanta Olympics as a spectator, not a performer, I went to every sport that I knew nothing about, which was really fun. And my favorite thing that I went to was wrestling. And it was my favorite, because it was a very small venue that you were right up against the mats. The judges were right in front of you, and there’s no space between you and the wrestlers, which is great. And everybody in the audience was either a current, former or family member of a wrestler.

So it was this incredible familial thing no matter where you were from. They all knew each other. It was a very small world. And in fact, the best part was this one Polish wrestler who was having just a great competition. And so everyone became Polish. Whenever he was there, people were freaking out. No matter where they were from, no matter who, if their own kid was up against that guy, they were still all Pole. So it was great. What was the international feeling like for you? Because that’s varied over the years.

David Durante:

The international feeling at the Olympics?

Steven Sashen:

Just between people.

David Durante:

Or just in general?

Steven Sashen:

Both, actually.

David Durante:

So I was fortunate enough to compete 17 times for USA during the course of my USA career. So I traveled all over the place, was on two Pan American Games teams, a few world championships, competed in Ukraine a bunch of times, Paris, all over the place. So we got a sense of what the atmosphere was like in a variety of different places. Some places where gymnastics is the national sport, or something close to it. Competing in Japan where gymnastics is a highlighted sport, is very different than competing in Dominican Republic, where it’s just another sport.

Steven Sashen:

Or let’s be honest, in America.

David Durante:

Exactly, exactly. But I will say that most places, the Americans were not the favorite people in the world when we stepped on the court, the mats. And it was funny. I remember one Pan American Games, we were down in Brazil, we were in Rio, and the entire crowd was against us. So essentially, they wanted anyone to win or to hit a routine outside of an American. So there were 19,000 people in the stands, and I had never heard so many cheers for a mistake. So if we had a bent knee, or if we had a big step, or God forbid, a fall, they were going crazy. In fact, they would cheer more for an American fall or a mistake, than they would even for Brazilian hit routine.

So for us, that was crazy. And I remember our coach. And I was training, one of my Stanford coaches at the time, who was preparing us for these. “Hey, when you go compete in South America, you’ve got to be prepared for anything.” So I’m doing a pommel horse routine and getting ready. And I just see a shoe come by my head, and whizz by my ear. And I come down. I was like, “What was that?” He had thrown a shoe at me. I was like, “Why are you throwing a shoe at me?” He’s like, “Hey, you never know what’s going to happen down there. They might be throwing shoes.” I was like, “Nobody’s going to throw a shoe at me while I’m competing.” He’s like, “Hey, we’re preparing for anything. You never know.” And I didn’t get a shoe thrown at me, but the atmosphere was quite hostile.

Steven Sashen:

Yeah. I can’t even imagine the feeling of that one. All right. One last one that I just thought of. This is kind of a commercial for gymnastics, since it isn’t hugely watched or as popular here as it is in other places. The best part about watching the Olympics or even World Championships, but especially the Olympics, is when people are just competing on individual events, when you’re getting the specialists who you almost never see. And those guys, for people who don’t know, if you ever get to go to the Olympics, and I highly encourage it, that’s the part you want to watch, because it’s guys who only focus on one or two things. They’re incredibly good, and they know that for them to win an individual medal, they’ve got to throw everything they’ve got. And they will be doing shit that nobody else would even think of doing, because it’s so risky, or so God knows what. And you see some of the most amazing things a human being has ever done.

David Durante:

Absolutely. I want to point out a couple of things there that I think are interesting. One, hopefully people watch gymnastics in Paris over the summer, and are still a little bit engaged from the amazingness that happened in Paris, especially on the men’s gymnastics side because the men did an incredible job, first medal in 16 years. And what came of it was an amazing story. Stephen Nedoroscik, pommel horse specialist. We’re talking about specialists. A pommel horse guy, as he’s known to the masses. And now he’s on Dancing with the Stars, and getting all the accolades and recognition that he deserves, which is awesome to see.

But I encourage exactly what you’re saying, because a lot of times in my world where we’re seeing people now being interested in handstands, and ring work, and bar work for the first time, they’re starting to work on very basic gymnastics movements, working on pullovers maybe, or some form of a kip. And in the gymnastics world, these are very low level movements, but still challenging for people as they’re learning, and especially later in life. And we’re creating this ability to create a form of comparison, which has always been lacking in the gymnastics world, where a back flip, a double back and a triple back were all the same. They were all equally difficult. Crazy, amazing. I’m in awe. I have no idea how more difficult a double is from a triple, so it all gets lost on someone.

Steven Sashen:

Yeah.

David Durante:

Now we’re able to create a little bit of a form of comparison, where I tried to get up on rings, I tried to do a muscle up and I can’t do it. And now I’m seeing someone do an iron cross. I have a form of comparison and a reference point, which is critical. But I would highly encourage, there were a few routines that really stood out to me at the Olympic Games that I would encourage people to go back and look. And there were two Chinese gymnasts, one that was on parallel bars that won the gold medal on parallel bars. His parallel bar routine is so far ahead of all of the other parallel bar routines, that it’s in a league of its own, kind of like a Simone Biles of the parallel bar world, where he’s doing a routine that shouldn’t really be possible, and executing it at a level that shouldn’t be possible.

So I would highly recommend going to watch that specific gold medal winning routine. It’s special. It’s something that stands out above the rest. And then additionally, the Chinese gymnast that won rings, his ring routine is also just powerful in terms of what he’s doing, the level, the expertise, the precision.

Steven Sashen:

It’s horrible, because he makes it look so easy, and he’s doing stuff that literally no one else even thought you could do.

David Durante:

It’s incredible. He looks like he’s in… We have an apparatus that we built within Power Monkey. It’s called a Ring Thing, which most former gymnasts would call it a dream machine, just a 50/50 device that we use as a training tool to be able to understand positions, where it takes away 50% of your body weight.

Steven Sashen:

Okay. Let me describe it, because it’s so much fun. It’s my favorite thing to play on. So basically, people can imagine the still rings. And instead of having the rings… Well, you’ve got the rings still, but what you set up is a pulley. So the pulley goes to your waist and basically your hands, so that you’re not really using rings, you’re using the other end of this pulley. And so what it does, and you can make it take over half your weight or even more. So basically, you can do all these strength moves that you can’t really do yet. So it’s a training device at best. At worst it’s like, “This is so much fun. I don’t care if I ever do this for real, because holy crap, now I can do it fake. And that’s good enough for me for now.”

David Durante:

Yeah, exactly.

Steven Sashen:

So yeah. If you can ever find one of these, you’ve got to go-

David Durante:

Yeah, we sell them. Power Monkey, we make-

Steven Sashen:

Oh, sweet.

David Durante:

Yeah, we make them. We call it the Ring Thing. And we’ve been selling it for over a decade now. It was actually the first piece of equipment that me and my partner made when we were living in New York to help the CrossFit world out, to help understand how to do strict movements correctly. And now we have them at the Olympic Training Center. We have them at all the collegiate universities. We have them everywhere. And they’re a pretty good training tool.

Steven Sashen:

Yeah. Now that I know that, you know as soon as we’re done, I’m going to buy one, because I’ve got a space. We have a deck, and underneath the deck there’s just enough room. I’ve got a couple of sets of rings, but now I’m going to replace one of those.

David Durante:

Oh, perfect. Yeah. It’ll be a fun little thing to play around with. But one thing that’s interesting, and so just a way for people who are the casual observer to the gymnastics world, something to look out for, there’s something called a false grip in the gymnastics world when you’re on rings. And it’s basically creating a crease at your wrist, where you’re setting the ring in that crease between your forearm and the palm of your hand instead of in the mid-point of your palm. And you know this already, but just to explain to your viewers and listeners. And that distance change is only a few inches in terms of where the ring sits, but it creates a significant mechanical advantage. So most gymnasts will do what’s called a false grip, to be able to hold those crazy difficult positions for the full two seconds that’s required. Now in the gymnastics world, a false grip is a deduction. So you get points taken off for doing what almost everyone does.

The top of the top, and especially in the case of this Chinese gymnast, what they’re doing at the Olympics now is opening the palm of their hand up to show the judges that there’s no false grip, and that their sitting the ring in the palm of the hand. And the Chinese gymnast does this when he’s inverted, in his inverted cross. And it’s one of the most beautiful and bad-ass things you’ll ever see. So when you’re watching, don’t just be in awe, look for these little nuance things, to be able to separate yourself and say, okay, this is the guy that stands out.

Steven Sashen:

Well, and even better, look for the guys who are even cheating that, where they’re basically doing a false grip. So when their arm is fully outstretched, parallel to the ground, the ring is basically still on their wrist instead of on their hand. They open their hand, but the ring is on their wrist and they’re hoping no one’s going to notice, which is of course ridiculous. But the first time I saw that I went, “Oh, well played.” That’s good. So okay, let’s get back to where we started this whole thing. And by the way, this what happens to me almost every time I talk to anybody is, we know where we’re going to start, or we think we know where we’re going to start. We never get there. Talk to me about where you are right now and what you’re doing.

David Durante:

Sure. So I’m out in the woods of Tennessee, middle of nowhere. The town is called Crossville. We have been running an adult fitness camp for the last 11 plus years. Power Monkey is the name of my company. And we run Power Monkey Camp. And this facility is owned by two Olympic gymnasts who you may know. They’re still very relevant in the sport. John Macready was on the ’96 team. You were there in the stands, watching John. And then John Roethlisberger, who was on three Olympic Games, ’96 being one of them, ’92, and then 2000 was his last. And the two Johns own this facility, and run it as a kid’s gymnastics camp in the summers.

And we take over with Power Monkey in the fall and the spring, and we turn it into an adult fitness camp. And so we bring in a hundred participants from around the world. We have a staff of about 50 to 70, depending on the camp, who are all experts in a variety of different spaces, from gymnastics, to weightlifting, to jump rope training, to running, to kettle bells, to rowing. We do yoga in the mornings, we do contrast therapy, we do metabolic testing, we do nutrition seminars and mental training seminars. We do programming seminars, we do adaptive training, we do sleep seminars.

It’s pretty wide-ranging in terms of the expertise that we bring to people that are just gym owners, or coaches, or just athlete enthusiasts. And we give them an opportunity to not only learn from the great minds within the space, but also in an environment that you normally don’t get a chance to do anymore. And that’s basically a camp. And if you’ve ever gone to a kid’s camp when you were growing up, and it’s a fond memory, we’re able to recreate that as an adult. You sleep in cabins. We have a chef here that does amazing meals for us all week. You train during the day, and then we have beers and s’mores at a campfire at night. We get to hang out. We have a beautiful lake, 150 acre campus, 50,000 square foot of gym space across four gyms. It’s really, really a special environment.

Steven Sashen:

So what kind of people are typically showing up?

David Durante:

It’s very wide-ranging. We’ve had about 40 different countries represented over the years. We have kids from 16, is our youngest allowable camper. If they come with a chaperone before 18, they can come at 16. And we’ve had people come all the way up to mid-eighties that participate. We’ve had people that have won the CrossFit games, and Fabian Hambüchen is part of our team now, is going to be coming to do a demo. So we have Olympic champions that are here, but it’s really meant for the beginner and intermediate level athlete, that wants to just learn how to move better, and how to maybe teach things a little bit better if they’re a coach.

And so I think sometimes people will see our promotional materials, and get intimidated when they see some of the high level athletes doing things, but it’s really not meant for them. Those are guests or some of your coaches. It really is meant for the everyday athlete that’s just looking to get a little bit better for longevity purposes.

Steven Sashen:

So how long do people come for?

David Durante:

It’s a full week long. So we got here last night. Our coaches will get here on Saturday, which is in a couple of days. Campers arrive on a Sunday, and it’s a full week long, and they leave on the following Saturday.

Steven Sashen:

How many people typically?

David Durante:

Participants, we cap it at a hundred. We normally have between 180 and 100 participants. It’s normally about 150 people total per camp.

Steven Sashen:

That’s a great number to have for a lot of reasons. Obviously you have enough coaches, people are still getting all the personal attention they need, but that community is a really big deal. And I imagine just for everyone, seeing people at different levels is very helpful as well. The people who are very new to the whole idea, feeling whatever encouragement. If it was a smaller group, and you were a real beginner, and there’s a bunch of people who are a couple steps ahead of you, it would be really depressing. But you’ve got enough people that that gets mitigated. And I imagine the people who are more advanced have the opportunity to start mentoring those other people as well.

David Durante:

Without a doubt. We set it up as a great informational week, and that’s what my thought process was. 11 years ago when we did our first one, let’s try to get great experts into a space and see if we can get an awesome informational week. And it’s turned into an experience. It’s way more than what you learn in the stations. It’s the people you meet, the bonds that you create. Creating a situation where you can get away from your cell phones, and all the craziness that’s going on in the digital world, and be present with someone in person. We don’t have enough opportunities for things like that these days. And camp has allowed for it. And I absolutely adore it.

I have two little baby girls, and I always say that camp is my third kid. And my Power Monkey kid is 11 years old right now. And I’m just so fortunate and grateful to see what it’s turned into. And the campers, I feel the same way. We have campers that have come back five, six, 10. We have one camper that’s come back 15 times. And it’s not because the information drastically changes. It’s because she feels at home here. She feels like the campers and the coaches are part of her family in the same way that we do. So for us, camp has become so much more than the information. It really is a special experience.

Steven Sashen:

I’ve said this thing for a long time. I said it’s important to get comfortable being upside down, because it’s just one of those things, when you have that in your repertoire, it just changes way you think about almost anything. And it also feels really good too. There’s that. So that was a prelude in some weird way for if somebody has never… I’m trying to think of how to ask this even. If someone doesn’t think of themselves as particularly coordinated, or maybe all they’ve ever done is gone for a run, or gone for a swim or something, but they don’t think that even just the idea of moving better, now that we’ve been talking to gymnastics for half an hour, seems a little intimidating. If somebody comes in with no experience whatsoever, what are the kind of things they’re learning over that week? What do they walk away with?

David Durante:

It’s pretty wide-ranging. So gymnastics is just three of the stations. So there is a ring station, a bar station and a handstand station. I teach the handstand station. And we always have jabs at each other, at coaches, saying that each of our stations are the best, and that’s the one that you’re going to do. But I really feel like gymnastics is such a great foundation for anything else that you want to go on to do. And I think most gymnasts will feel that way. In fact, USA Gymnastics slogan of “Begin here, go anywhere,” is something that resonates really well with me. Because I don’t hope that anyone just goes to the Olympic Games. That shouldn’t be the intention for stepping into a gymnastics gym for the first time. It should be, how can I use this as a foundation for whatever it is I want to go on to do physically?

And so I’m always promoting body awareness, and what we call creation of body shapes as a good foundation. It should be a main takeaway of what camp should be for you. Can I get my body in the shape that I need for future skill development, or how I’m going to apply it? So one of the main things that I want people to get away from this week is, okay, do I have a strong core? Or what’s limiting my core? Because I think creating good shapes is based around two things. One, a strong core, and two, a more mobile body. So we do a lot of things around saying, “What are your limitations, mobility wise? What does your core engagement look like? Everything that encompasses your midline, not just your beach muscles, not just your abs and your hip flexors and what you can see in the mirror, but rotation and lateral work, obliques as well as posterior chain. Do I have a strong core? Do I have a mobile body? Can I create good shapes?” And then go ahead and apply it to whatever these other stations you want to go ahead and do.

Steven Sashen:

I imagine you hear from people after they’ve left camp, and the things that they’re then doing that maybe they hadn’t done before or didn’t think they could do before. What are some of those stories?

David Durante:

Oh, it’s endless. It’s really endless. I always get the handstand stories, because that’s the station that I teach. So I got my first handstand hold. I was able to hold it for a minute for the first time, or I was able to walk across a floor for the first time, or I got my first press to handstand. And so we get endless stories of people succeeding incrementally in all of the different spaces. “I PR’d my snatch, or my overhead squat or whatever. I am trying to do my marathon for the first time, and I’m using the running techniques that you guys taught me,” and the pacing, and the breathing techniques that come along with what we do at our running station. And so we’ve had so many success stories that it’s really hard to pinpoint one that’s worth highlighting, but really, every one of our stations has led to someone being able to achieve something a little bit better, because of the expertise here.

Steven Sashen:

I just realized that the first time I walked into a CrossFit box, maybe just out of sheer curiosity, I don’t remember why. Their whole pitch was, “We’re going to make you a better athlete.” And I was saying, “I’m not trying to be a better athlete. I’m a sprinter. I’m trying to get that much faster. I just need tenths of a second, and that’ll change my life.” They said, “No, we’re going to make you a better at.” “I don’t think you understand. I don’t need that.” But the irony is that I would argue that what you’re doing is more foundational and valuable in terms of creating a better athlete, at whatever level you think that means for you than walking into a CrossFit box, where they’re throwing you into situations that most people aren’t ready for, in my opinion.

David Durante:

Yeah. Yeah, and I think that’s one of the things that we’re trying to alleviate within the CrossFit space, because one, there’s so many CrossFit gyms. And some of them are doing things really well, and others are doing things very poorly. And I think that that’s the crapshoot of the gym that you walk into. And also, CrossFit is meant to become fairly good at a lot of things. You’re looking to become an expert in one vertical, become a sprinter, to become incrementally better in that particular space. CrossFit isn’t really meant for that.

CrossFit is, can I lift a lot of weight? Can I become good on my hands, and do gymnastics work? And can I become an athlete that has an engine for days, and become moderately good across the board so that I can attack any type of physical environment relatively well? But again, it comes down to whose coaching you, how they’re approaching things, and you never know what you’re going to get. And so we’ve always been like, “Hey, this is amazing that millions of people around the world are now interested in our little niche sports.” Instead of saying, “Hey, you’re doing it poorly,” let’s figure out a way to help.

So we’ve always looked at it as an opportunity to say, “Hey, we want to get you guys better so that you become better at CrossFit workout. You can become better, if this is something that you really want to dive more deeply into it.” So CrossFit has been something that I’ve always gravitated towards, because the passion that I have for teaching and showing people what a cool sport gymnastics can be, and also the founder of CrossFit was a gymnast. And I know that he always envisioned gymnastics being a bigger part of people’s physical endeavors. For me, it’s just a way to help build the sport of gymnastics and men’s gymnastics, and teach people that it can be part of your longevity fitness journey. It can be something that you can do much later into life, even though you probably think now that it’s not possible.

Steven Sashen:

It is interesting that were it not for CrossFit, there wouldn’t be as many people interested in muscle-ups. And if it weren’t for when I was between 18 and 20, I did this for a while. Anyway, my first time in New York City, I moved up there for a summer to be a street performer, and would go to Central Park and find a handful of kids who were tumbling. And it was mostly kids from the boroughs, or from Harlem. It was people who were not trained gymnasts, but came out and figured it out. And we would just be doing crazy, crazy stuff in the park. It was really, really fun. And that in many ways evolved over…

My God, that was a long time ago, that was 40 something years ago. That evolved into this whole calisthenics movement as well, which also has done this interesting give and take with gymnastics, where they’re doing some insane stuff. And again, introducing people to movements and activities that you would never think about doing, because you go out to literally your local playground, and you’ve got an entire gym there. And simultaneously, they started doing moves the gymnasts started adopting that have actually made it into the code of… I can’t think right now. My brain is crushed.

David Durante:

Code of points. Yeah.

Steven Sashen:

Points. That was the word I couldn’t find. I don’t know why I couldn’t find the word, points. I got code of. I was so close. But regardless, that’s another thing where, there’s more people doing planches right now. And if people don’t know what a planche is, imagine doing a push-up, and then just lifting your feet off the ground. Easiest way to describe it. So your body’s parallel to the ground supported by your hands, which just seems insane. My God, dude, when I was doing gymnastics at 19, up until ’84, the number of people who could do a planche on rings, you could count them one hand. And now if you can’t do that in high school, you’re nothing. It’s insane how those things have evolved. So it’s kind of funny that there is this crossover, this mainstream specialist crossover, but it hasn’t really, have you seen that it’s brought more people into a gymnastics gym? Or it’s just that it’s more interesting around the more mainstream fitness-y world, or just people’s awareness and consciousness?

David Durante:

Unfortunately, I haven’t seen the effects in terms of boys entering the men’s gymnastics world quite yet. It’s something I always keep an eye on. Fortunately, the good news there is that what happened in Paris has had a positive impact in terms of-

Steven Sashen:

Always the case-

David Durante:

Signing up. It always is I think this particular year, because we’re getting a little bit of an extended push, an extended, Nedoroscik being on TV, the pommel horse guy as he’s known, getting some headlines. Post-Paris has been helpful for signing up of men’s gymnastics. And women’s gymnastics does very well, and there are no shortage of girls wanting to grow up to be the next Simone Biles. But we don’t have as many boys programs that are capable of creating high-level gymnasts. And they take up a lot of gym space. It’s expensive. The coaching is difficult. And so we’re seeing a lot of boys programs go by the wayside. And also, the NCAA side is a conversation in and of itself.

There’s only 12 programs left. If we lose one more, NCAA will probably drop men’s gymnastics altogether, which is such a shame, but I’m trying very hard to use this platform that we have within the functional fitness space to be able to say, “Hey, gymnastics is something that maybe you want to put your kid into. Go to a collegiate meet, go watch Stanford, Oklahoma, Penn State, Michigan, whoever these top teams are. If you’re in that town, go watch them compete, support them, show the NCAA that men’s gymnastics is something that actually can continue to grow.”

Steven Sashen:

It’s interesting. So we support the Olympic artistic swimming team. And one of the things I said to them, we started talking with them right before Covid actually. And in fact, during Covid, I gave them some ideas for making artistic swimming, formerly synchronized swimming, more popular. I said, “You’ve got to make it more accessible in some way. When the women are in the water, no one knows who’s who. You all basically look the same.” There’s not a there there. And it is kind of an odd sport in general. So it’s like, do something to make it so that people just want to hang out with you guys. So I gave them two ideas. I said, “One is, do a synchronized swimming thing, but it’s everybody at home in their own homes, in their bathtubs, and just do something there. Or when you can get out, do routines as you’re going down a slip and slide. And more, find one or two women on the team who just happen to be the ones who they’re the life of the party or whatever it is, where people are going to relate to them, personally.”

And women’s gymnastics has had the great gift of Simone Biles. Because beyond being one of the greatest gymnasts of all time, she has that personality. She was able to take that on. I don’t know how much of that is natural, versus just her willingness to go there. In track and field, it was Usain Bolt. It was Carl Lewis before him, and nothing in between. And men’s gymnastics, it’s funny that the person who’s bringing the most attention to gymnastics is doing the most difficult event you could possibly do, which no one’s going to show up and go, “Hey, I want to do Pommel horse.” And if they do, they’re insane, but good on him for being willing to go there and bring some attention to the sport.

And you always need someone to relate to. My God, look, when I started Xero Shoes, I explicitly didn’t want my face on camera, because I’m thinking, if we’re going to sell the company at some point, I don’t want to be attached to it. And what happened, I’d make a video. It’s like, “Hey, I’m Steven Sashen. Let me show you how to make a pair of sandals.” And then it’s 10 minutes of people looking at my feet, making a pair of sandals, which by the way, still leads to some very interesting phone calls that we get.

David Durante:

I can imagine

Steven Sashen:

“Can we get some more videos of Steven’s feet, please?” So a bunch of that happens, and I’ve only made a fortune doing that. So that’s the thing that gymnastics was lacking. It was Kurt Thomas in the day. It was really Bart. It was Kurt. That was it. So that’s one of the fundamental problems. If you’re not living in a place where wherever you’re living supports the sport in general, then you need a standout personality, even more than a standout performer. And ironically, I’m ranting just because you made me think of this, men’s gymnastics has the other problem that fundamentally every event, you have to be pretty stoic until you stick a landing. And that’s a whole new phenomenon, of celebrating the moment your feet hit the ground. So it’s an attempt to make things a little less robotic, if you will. Not really.

David Durante:

Yeah, I think you’re right. It’s not the easiest thing in the world to be able to show personality and still perform at a high level. But these athletes today are doing the best they can to elevate their personal brands, and showcase their sport in new ways, and be able to cross-perform with calisthenics and with all of these other niche sports that have a bit of a presence. I will say, I just want to mention, because I think it’s worth people understanding that maybe there is a way to help grow the sport. There are some new colleges that have been starting to incorporate men’s and women’s programs. As an example, Simpson College just a couple of years ago, started a men’s and women’s program for the first time, which we’ve been slowly chipping away at these programs.

And NCA ADs have been just saying it’s not a worthwhile budget piece to implement. So they’re just getting rid of it rather than adding. But we’ve been recognizing that there’s certain colleges in the country that are enrollment driven. And enrollment driven colleges are in a place where if we can show, if a gymnastics coach can come on board and say, “We can bring 20 kids to this school that are willing to pay to come to the school, to have an opportunity to do gymnastics,” that means that gymnastics has filled 20 seats, and has brought in tuition of 20 potential students. So this is an incredible new avenue that enrollment driven universities and colleges have been interested to bring on gymnastics programs, because there is the possibility of filling out their student roster that way. And so we’ve been in discussions with some of these schools to do something interesting next year, and to do a little bit of what you’ve been talking about, try to create this form of comparison.

So I’ve encouraged, I’ve tried to put together, it’s still in the very initial stages, but this idea of putting together a strength challenge, where instead of competing and doing pommel horse routines, these athletes against each other, colleges, will do strength challenges, and do handstand holds for time, or do max handstand pushups. Things that the everyday calisthenic athlete or CrossFit athlete are doing in their own gym, so they can see what a gymnast is able to do at the same time. So they can say, “Oh, my God. I can’t believe a gymnast held a handstand that long. I know what I’m trying to do.” And now we’re seeing them do it at a competitive level and actually compete against each other. So this is, again, an initial phase of saying, “Is there a way that we can use these collegiate gymnasts and their competitiveness, in a way that’s a little bit more attractive to someone that’s not understanding what the Code of Points is putting out there.”

Steven Sashen:

I’m going to say something that started out as an economic thought, and into something much more comical. It’s like, I think whoring out gymnastics is a great idea.

David Durante:

Whatever’s going to help grow the sport, I’m into it.

Steven Sashen:

But where the initial thought was, I think that’s a brilliant idea to present this as an economic benefit to people, rather than some moral high ground, whatever, of the importance of athletics or whatever.

David Durante:

Unfortunately, economics dictates everything.

Steven Sashen:

That’s what drives it. Yeah. That’s what drives it, so I think that’s really brilliant. And it’s something that’s somewhat ironic, thinking about, again, like my high school career, if you will. They killed the men’s gymnastics programs in the entire county that I was living in soon after I left, because they hadn’t figured out a way to monetize it. And we were taking up a lot of space, and a lot of time that other sports that have more attention, and would bring in people who are willing to pay to see that, for example. So yeah, it’s always about the cash. Look, even I went to Duke, and I didn’t compete in college. You and I talked about that, but I still worked out with the team. They had a women’s team, and I worked out with them.

And they had a losing football team for my entire four years there, and for many years before and after, but that was still the money driver, or one of the two, basketball obviously being the biggest. But football still drove revenue, even though they had never won a game, practically. So to make gymnastics something that could be a revenue driver, even at a small scale, as long as it’s you cash flow positive, that’s totally brilliant. Good luck with that.

David Durante:

Oh, yeah. Good luck is the only thing that we really have in our favor right now, because…

Steven Sashen:

And I don’t that sarcastically. I mean-

David Durante:

No, I understand.

Steven Sashen:

Yeah.

David Durante:

It’s very challenging, and in fact you brought up basketball and football. Those are really the only two revenue generating sports in the NCAA at all right now. With NIL part of the equation now, it’s upending everything. I think we’re kind of a wild west right now in terms of what’s happening, athletes being paid as employees. I don’t know if you saw this. This week, something interesting happening. University of Tennessee is starting to add in on their ticket prices for their season tickets for football. I don’t remember the wording of it, but essentially there’s a 10% increase. That’s to pay for talent. So there’s an increase that the fans of the team have to pay, to now pay for the talent, to pay for the NIL contracts for these athletes. So it’s getting put onto the viewers and the fans, because the athletic departments can’t pay what these guys are asking for anymore. So I have no idea what’s going to happen. It’s totally a wild west right now with NIL.

Steven Sashen:

Yeah, no. We’ve had some high school kids say, “I want to get 10 grand a year.” It’s like, what?

David Durante:

Yeah. Yeah.

Steven Sashen:

That’s not a thing. I can point you to some Olympians who didn’t get paid 10 grand a year from… So-

David Durante:

Amateurism is officially dead.

Steven Sashen:

Well, obviously good news, bad news about that. It is important to recognize if you are putting in the work. Congratulations, I got a qualification that I’m never going to use, and I probably didn’t even go to most classes. I’m not saying this is true for all college athletes, of course, but there are some who are definitely there on a…

It’s funny, I went back to my 40th college reunion, and was talking to my cognitive psych mentor who I’ve stayed in touch with all these years. And she had a student who was a basketball player, very, very good player, who basically was trying to decide if he was even going to stay for his senior year, because was offered so much money to go to the NBA. And he just was sitting there in class and did nothing, didn’t even lift up his hoodie. And she finally just pulled him aside and said, “What’s up?” And he goes, “Well, I’m just here to get the credit, and I don’t really get it.” And I don’t remember how she said it, but she basically spent an hour just explaining how cool what they were doing in that class was. And he just hadn’t noticed, because he wasn’t paying attention, and it lit him up.

And he stayed for his senior year, went to the NBA, was thinking, “I think when I’m done with this, I’m going to go back and get a master’s degree.” So it also takes the right person on the other end of that equation to engage athletes and have them want to be there, independent of the fact that they’re getting a free ride, or they’re getting a stipend, or whatever their NIL deal is. There’s a guy here at the University of Colorado who’s making $2 million a year already, and that’s just not right.

David Durante:

Oh, yeah. Yeah. Colorado is… In Boulder? Is that where you’re at?

Steven Sashen:

Yeah.

David Durante:

Yeah. It’s one of the marquee place right now with the Sanders Family, and obviously Dion. It is one of the main plays right now where we’re seeing the numbers. LSU with Livvy Dunne down on the gymnastics side, and some of the other, Arch Manning down in Tennessee, or in Texas. So there’s a few that are just the powerhouses right now, that are able to make seven, in some cases, eight figures, which is crazy to think about. But if it’s allowing these athletes to be able to become financially sound, and it’s something that’s allowable, then you can’t fault them for wanting to pursue those.

Steven Sashen:

No, no, no. And look, let’s be honest, for many of these sports, you’ve got a limited lifetime.

David Durante:

Yeah, it’s a window like this. It’s tiny.

Steven Sashen:

Yeah. And the only thing, actually what bugs me about the NIL stuff, and sorry for people who don’t know, it’s Name, Image, Likeness. So that means amateur athletes are getting paid so that their name, image and likeness can’t be used without compensation, or at least their permission. And the thing that makes me anxious about this, is simply that these are people who are, most of them, so young that their ability to understand the limited time window that they have, and what they need to do financially to take advantage of that in a way that they are possibly set for their life. That rarely happens, even when someone gets out of college and is starting playing professionally at 21, 22, we see it all the time. People who just don’t know what to do with all that cash, and then end up broke. This is an opportunity to do something really valuable, that I haven’t seen people really considering that in a thoughtful way, which is just a shame, because if all you’re going to do is blow it on a new Lamborghini, who gives a crap?

David Durante:

Yeah, financial literacy is definitely a component of it all. And I would just say that this conversation is one that’s important to have, but in reality, growing the sport should be the main goal. Giving more opportunities to athletes, so the next generation still has the same opportunities that this current one has, and that we had when we were coming up and competing at the collegiate level, I think that’s really important. So anything that we can do to make sure that those doors are still open, scholarship-wise or non-scholarship-wise, just having the opportunity to continue to compete, I think is important.

Steven Sashen:

Yeah, I agree. So backing up to Power Monkey and backing up to people coming to camp, if people want to find out more about doing that… And sorry, you run, we talked about a week-long program. I lost track of, are you doing multiple weeks back to back? Or is it-

David Durante:

Yes.

Steven Sashen:

Got it.

David Durante:

So just to give a quick understanding of the other things that we do. Camp is basically like our Hallmark event. We do two a year, one in the fall, one in the spring. We host other events. So we’re traveling around the world, going to gyms, and doing weekend courses, about 25 to 30 weeks a year otherwise. And then we host a couple of higher end fit vacation retreats in Europe. We’re doing actually one in South Africa for the first time this year.

Steven Sashen:

Oh, wow.

David Durante:

We’re in Crete, Greece. We we’re in Sicily, Italy last year. And so we do the higher end, smaller group type fit vacations as well, plus our digital component. We have an app where we highly recommend people checking out the Power Monkey training app. It’s in the iOS and Android store. And it’s a great way if you come to an event, as a way to supplement your training. What’s next? How do I continue working with you guys post camp retreat or course? And so those are all the pillars of what’s going on within the Power Monkey network.

Steven Sashen:

Brilliant. And not surprisingly, you’ll be found at? Give the URL.

David Durante:

powermonkeyfitness.com. And then camp itself has its own URL, powermonkeycamp.com.

Steven Sashen:

Anything else people should know about finding out more about what you’re up to? Or more importantly, what they can do with what you’re doing? Because this is interesting now that I think of it. What you’re providing, a lot of people that I’ve talked to, they’ll have a course, or they’ll have something, but it’s kind of… I’m trying to think of how to describe this. What you’ve laid out is really a change in what someone thinks they can do for their rest of their life. Maybe I’m just being a little biased. What the hell? Probably. But regardless, this is a big thing.

That’s where I’m going. Where we started, this idea of discovering the fundamentals of what your body can do, and what you can do with it is everything. And many people that I end up talking to are, let’s say one step removed from that. Even if they think they’re doing fundamentals, I would argue that it’s not often as complete as the program that you’ve described. So I hope people check it out, obviously. And I want to hear from people when they do, because this is a wonderful thing. Actually, wait. I’m going to go full circle. How did you even decide to do this?

David Durante:

Yeah. So I’ve been coming to this facility for over 20 years. I have been a special guest in the summers, helping out the kids during the kids’ gymnastics camp for years and years. And I always loved coming here. John and John are very close friends of mine, so I always enjoyed being at this location. And I used to go to a gymnastics camp when I was growing up. I used to go to the one that’s been around, probably the longest International Gymnastics Camp, IGC out in Strasburg, Pennsylvania. And so I knew how impactful going to a camp was, a week long camp, and the memories that I created, and how incredible that was when I was a kid. And I said, “Why can’t we try and do that with adults? Don’t adults want to act like kids all the time?” And create some more adult type activities and same type of atmosphere.

So I had the idea to put this on. And we took a huge swing back in 2014 to say, “Hey, does this make sense?” Or it was 2013. I can’t even remember at this point. And we put our first camp on, and there were 30 participants and 30 coaches. And nobody wanted to tell anyone around it, because they were like, “We got one-on-one attention the entire time. It’s incredible.” And so we were like, “No, please go and tell people.” And they were like, “No, we’re the only ones that can ever come back to this thing.” And it slowly grew from there. We didn’t make any money the first year, and we were like, “This could be something that’s really worth pursuing.” And it went from 30 campers, to 40, to 50, to 90, to 100, and we’ve been in a pretty good place since. So yeah, it was just because I’ve come to this location so many times over the years, and thought it could be fun for other people to experience it as well.

Steven Sashen:

Yeah, that’s great. I actually got hired to perform at a place that thought of itself as like Club Med in the Poconos. And the idea was, it was like camp for adults, but it was really just the biggest pickup spot I’ve ever seen in my life, and I was bummed.

David Durante:

That ends up happening. You get that are all fit in one location for a while, some of this stuff does happen. But if you have any of your listeners that are into fitness, which I’m sure they are and want to escape, they want to go to a location where fitness is highlighted with great people, we’re all like-minded, campus at the top of the list. It really is a special place.

Steven Sashen:

Sounds great. Well, I do hope people go. This has been an absolute, absolute pleasure, Dave. So for everyone else, just a quick reminder, when you get a chance, head over obviously to Power Monkey Fitness and powermonkeycamp.com, and also to www.jointhemovementmovement.com. Again, there’s no sign-up fees, there’s no secret handshake, there’s no song or dance that we do every morning, although that would be very entertaining. It’s just a place to find previous of which there are a couple hundred. And there are different ways you can find us on social media and other places where you can get the podcast, if you want to get it somewhere else. And if you have any requests, or comments, or feedback, complaints, if you think I’ve got a case of cranial rectal reorientation syndrome, I’m open to hearing about that. Drop me an email, move@jointhemovementmovement.com. But most importantly, until whatever’s next, go out, have fun and live life feet first.

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As a Podiatrist, Human Movement Specialist, and Global Leader in Barefoot Science and Rehabilitation, Dr. Emily Splichal has developed a keen eye for movement dysfunction and neuromuscular control during gait.

Originally trained as a surgeon through Beth Israel Medical Center in New York City and Mt Vernon Hospital in Mt Vernon, NY, in 2017 Dr. Splichal put down her scalpel and shifted her practice to one that is built around functional and regenerative medicine.

Listen to this episode of The MOVEMENT Movement with Emily Splichal about the truth about orthotics.

Here are some of the beneficial topics covered on this week’s show:

– How functional podiatry emphasizes the connection between movement and foot function while using a holistic approach to foot health.

– Why orthotics should be used for healing purposes instead of indefinitely.

– How expensive orthotics aren’t necessarily superior to off-the-shelf options, especially when treating plantar fasciitis.

– Why podiatrists face challenges in integrating natural movement into patient treatment protocols.

– How foot foundation awareness is crucial for balanced posture and gait.
Connect with Dr. Splichal:

Guest Contact Info

Instagram@thefunctionalfootdoc

FacebookFacebook.com/dremilysplichaldpm

Links Mentioned:dremilysplichal.com

Connect with Steven:

Website

Xeroshoes.com
Jointhemovementmovement.com

Twitter@XeroShoes

Instagram@xeroshoes

Facebookfacebook.com/xeroshoes

Episode Transcript

Steven Sashen:

A podiatrist that actually endorses wearing high heels. Oh yeah, we’re going to have some fun with this, on today’s episode of The MOVEMENT Movement Podcast. The podcast for people who want to know the truth about how to have a happy, healthy, strong body, starting with the feet first because that is your foundation. And on this podcast we break through the mythology, the propaganda and often the lies that people tell you about what it takes to run, to walk, to dance, to play, to do yoga, CrossFit, lift weights, whatever you do, enjoyably and more effortlessly.

I’m Steven Sashen, but you already probably know that. And on this episode, we’re talking with my dear friend, Dr. Emily Splichal. But don’t say anything, Emily, because I got to say some other things first. And that is if you are new to the podcast, welcome. And if you’re new or old, you know what you need to do is go to www.jointhemovementmovement.com to find out all the different places where you can interact with us. And of course, share, like, review, hit the bell button on YouTube to get alerted for future podcasts. Basically, if you want to be part of the tribe, please subscribe. And being part of the tribe means we are trying to create a MOVEMENT movement, making natural movement the obvious, better, healthy choice, the way natural food currently is. I like to say that Xero shoes, we’re trying to become the gluten-free of footwear, and we want your help.

So back to you, Emily, for the win. I hate doing introductions other than saying, hey, it’s wonderful to have you here, and I’m going to let you tell people who you are and then we’ll talk about this podiatrist endorsing high heels.

Dr. Emily Splichal:

I know, right? That’s the way they introduce me. But thank you so much. We will definitely address that soon. I’m Dr. Splichal, I’m a functional podiatrist and a human movement specialist out of New York City. I am in private practice. I was trained as a surgeon, and then I moved very far away from surgical practice and I promote much more functional movement, functional medicine. I do regenerative medicine as well. And in addition, I travel the world speaking about barefoot science-

Steven Sashen:

We only have 55 minutes.

Dr. Emily Splichal:

Oh my gosh. Barefoot movement. And I’m the founder of Naboso Technology. Namaste.

Steven Sashen:

So let’s back up to that first part, which you trained as a surgeon and you moved into functional podiatry. Tell people more or say more about what that means for you, and more importantly, what was your kind of awakening moment that moved you from one end of the spectrum to seemingly the other?

Dr. Emily Splichal:

Yeah, actually my entire training through podiatry school, I was fighting with what was being taught to me. It was very isolated. None of the patients were getting out of the chairs. Really it was every patient was being told the exact same thing, “You have plantar fasciitis, stretch your calf this way, do XYX.” And I was like, “I don’t know, that just doesn’t fully jive with what I think of with movement.” I actually started in fitness. I was a competitive gymnast for 13 years. So I went-

Steven Sashen:

Hold on. Wait, wait. Have we never had this conversation?

Dr. Emily Splichal:

I don’t know.

Steven Sashen:

Dude. I was an All-American gymnast.

Dr. Emily Splichal:

Really?

Steven Sashen:

Yeah.

Dr. Emily Splichal:

Oh, we have something else.

Steven Sashen:

What do you mean, “Really?” Like I’m lying about that.

Dr. Emily Splichal:

I don’t know.

Steven Sashen:

Yeah, we’ve never had that conversation. We’re going to have to do that.

Dr. Emily Splichal:

Oh, that’s awesome. Yeah, no, gymnastics is…

Steven Sashen:

We’ll put together a partner act.

Dr. Emily Splichal:

Yeah, okay. Yeah. So yeah, when I was going through my training, seeing how it was so isolated and then how it got even more surgical focused, that a patient would come in and you would just start to see pathology through the lens of a scalpel, right? “Okay, this is exactly how I could fix it surgically.” Where I was like, “Why do we have to jump to that right away?” There’s always these risks to any surgery. Even a minor surgery, there’s a risk.

So then, actually, I was in my first year of residency, surgical residency, and I left because it was just so contrasting what was in my DNA that I was like, “I don’t even know if I want to practice medicine.” So I left and I went back to school, got my master’s in human movement, and then that connected the fitness movement, gymnastics, with the medicine, and then the reality of like, “Okay, I’m a quarter million in debt. I think I need to get my license one day.” So I went back to residency and I did the surgical training. I had to, that’s only-

Steven Sashen:

Oh yeah, yeah, of course.

Dr. Emily Splichal:

Yeah. So I had to go through the motions of doing surgery. I did surgery for five years out of residency, and then I stopped doing it partly because I was just traveling the world so much teaching, but it was also just not my passion. And if you’re going to literally be putting your body in the hands of a surgeon, you want that surgeon to be crazy passionate about it, and I wasn’t passionate.

Steven Sashen:

And even that, I mean, like you said before, when all you have is a hammer all you see is nails. Same idea with the scalpel, of course. And it’s funny, the number of people that I’ve met who I’ve said, “How are you doing?” I haven’t seen them in a while, it’s like, “How are you doing?” “I’m okay, but I’m getting surgery for plantar fasciitis.” Like, “Whoa, whoa, whoa. What?” “Well, yeah, I got plantar fasciitis. I’m getting surgery.” And I do a thing with them, I’ve done this a few times. Actually, my favorite was a guy who he ran a hedge fund or a private equity firm. He said, “I love what you’re doing, but I can’t invest in you because I can’t wear your products because I have plantar fasciitis and I’m getting surgery next week.” I said, “I got a sneaking suspicion.” Because you know this probably as well as I, someone who has, “plantar fasciitis symptoms,” in giant air quotes, but you can see from a mile away they have super tight calves, and that’s really what’s going on. I spot that one.

I said, “Do me a favor. Can you just stand on your toes, just lift off of your heels and just stand on your toes?” He says, “Yeah.” And I said, does that hurt? He goes, “No.” I said, “Yeah, if you had real plantar fasciitis, you wouldn’t be able to do that. Can you just run in place just staying on your toes?” And he does it, he goes, “Yeah.” I said, “Does that hurt?” He says, “No.” I said, “Do you know why?” He says, “No.” I said, “Well, because keeping your plantar fascia in a strong position, you’re not straining anything right now. Can you just lean forward while you’re doing that up and down thing?” He leans forward and starts running and just looks back and goes, “Oh my God.” I said, “Yeah, so you don’t really have a problem if you know how to move correctly.” And he looked at me kind of crazy, and this is not the only time that I’ve had to say this. I said, “Yeah, just because I look like this doesn’t mean I don’t know what I’m talking about.” He went and had this surgery anyway, which just floored me. And I’ve seen that happen a few times. It blows me away. Because people they think the doctors know. Most of these times doctors don’t know how to diagnose. But that’s a whole sort of separate thing just about that.

But I want to back up. I’ll say something and then I’m going to ask you something. The saying something is, your story actually reminds me, I don’t know if you’ve ever asked Irene Davis how she went from teaching PTs how to make orthotics to becoming the preeminent researcher in natural movement. I said, “What was your come to Jesus moment?” And she goes, “It was actually just a process.” But one of the biggest thoughts that she described having was that when people came in to see her as a PT, for almost anything they would come in with, her goal was to get them moving as quickly as possible for every joint, except anything having to do with feet and ankles. And she’s like, “Wait a minute. That doesn’t make any sense.” So it was a similar thing of something just doesn’t jive, but I need to back up even further. Why podiatry? Because the only thing that seems weirder to people to say, “Hey, I got into this particular area of medicine,” would be if you had said proctology. So why podiatry?

Dr. Emily Splichal:

Oh my God, my reason is so ridiculous. I was in fitness and I was training. Well, one, my background is also forensics. So my bachelor’s and the original path I was going to take was going to be like CSI. Forensics. I had a free ride for a PhD in forensic science. And I moved to New York City to do that. So I was in the lab, pipetting DNA, everyone’s out, it’s gorgeous, it’s summer and I’m like, “Oh my God, I hate my life. All this with pipetting.” And then I decided to leave it and do something more like full body fitness movement because that was my original passion. So I quit, became a personal trainer, still in New York City, New York City, and then I started getting injured. So I was like, “Okay, well, I can’t use my body as my tool. I need to use a little bit more up here.” Started looking at medical schools and applied to All Allied Health as well.

But the stipulation was I need to be able to still do a little bit of fitness because that just fed my soul. And I needed to live in Manhattan because that fed my soul. And then really what that left was there’s only a handful of schools that are in New York City that I could be in Manhattan. The podiatry school here in New York is in Harlem. So I was able to still see clients, still live in the city, have that part of me and my spirit of who I am, while pursuing that degree. So it’s really not a passion.

Steven Sashen:

You have the added bonus if you’re going to school in Harlem of looking like everybody else in the neighborhood.

Dr. Emily Splichal:

There you go.

Steven Sashen:

So I went to Columbia for grad school, and same idea. And I used to love hanging out in those neighborhoods. So not only All-American gymnast, but in 1980, when I first moved to Manhattan, I was one of the handful, I think there was four of us who were white break dancers.

Dr. Emily Splichal:

Oh wow.

Steven Sashen:

That was a whole other story. This had been when break dancing was actually a thing that people did instead of fighting. So it was a blast. That was a crazy-ass time. So we led with this whole thing. You became well-known by promoting a program for women who want to wear high heels. And this was the whole thing of, “Podiatrist endorses high heels.” I will let you have free rein to clear the air so that people don’t want to come and strangle you.

Dr. Emily Splichal:

Yeah, I know, please. I know. I was like, “Oh, man, we’re going to start with that.” There’s already people who want to tear my name apart. But so, Catwalk Confidence is a program that I started in 2009, so I was just graduating podiatry school, had been in fitness for a long period.

Steven Sashen:

Wait, and let’s pause. This couldn’t have been more perfect timing because this was when the whole…

Dr. Emily Splichal:

Barefoot.

Steven Sashen:

… barefoot like kids thing.

Dr. Emily Splichal:

100%. 100%. So launch this program, but it was a workout and it was a workout for women who wear heels. The workout was barefoot.

Steven Sashen:

Yes, but you’re still endorsing heels, Emily, come on.

Dr. Emily Splichal:

I know. Honestly, the endorsement of, “Podiatrist endorses heels,” even though I wasn’t, I was just saying, “Hey, if you’re going to wear heels anyway, I’m going to give you the tools to how to strengthen your feet, strengthen your core, align your body so you don’t mess it up as much as you might kind of blindly wearing these heels every day.” And then I created a program called Stiletto Recovery, which was the recovery side of how to undo the damage. The New Yorker Magazine did a story on me and this program, and it was very much like, “Podiatrist endorses high heels.” And in the story, they were like, “Oh yeah, it’s analogous to drug users and you’re giving them needles.” I’m like, “Oh yeah, it’s exactly that.”

Steven Sashen:

Holy cow. That’s great.

Dr. Emily Splichal:

I’m like, “That’s a good analogy, thanks.” But no, I got ripped into. I had the dean of my school pulled me from several speaking engagements. I got hate email from other podiatrists saying, “You’re an embarrassment. You’re single-handedly ruining this profession.”

Steven Sashen:

Hold on. That’s ridiculous. If it weren’t for high heels, half of those people wouldn’t have been in business anyway.

Dr. Emily Splichal:

Yeah, I know. I know. But I got some serious hate mail and just shit from it. But I got on Oprah from it.

Steven Sashen:

Whoa.

Dr. Emily Splichal:

So I got that engagement and then was on The Doctors and the Today show, because of this program.

Steven Sashen:

Well, getting on Oprah, it couldn’t be more perfect for podiatrists and dorsal high heels. I have a friend who’s a big deal psychologist who’d been on Oprah a number of times. And I said to him, “So how do you prepare for being on Oprah?” And he said, “I think of the most innocuous thing that I possibly teach, and then I think of the most incendiary way I can possibly say it.” I said, “Well, give me an example.” He said, “Okay, here’s one that I did for Oprah. Having an affair can be the best thing that ever happens for your marriage.” And so that was how he’s introduced, and the audience goes insane. And his whole point was that if you have an affair, it’s clearly that there’s some glitch going on, and if you acknowledge what that really is that led to this, this could be the kind of thing that transforms your relationship. And they all go and calm down. But it’s like you’ve got to do something that’s going to be the key moment.

In fact, it’s funny you just reminded me of this. When Lena and I were on Shark Tank, when we taped the show, and actually you still see it on the show, Barbara Corcoran’s opening line to me was, “You know, I hated you from the moment you walked out here.” And what she said and what you don’t see on the show because they edited it out, she spent five minutes saying how much she hated me from the moment I walked out. And then she spends five more minutes saying to Lena, “How can you be married to him? What’s wrong with you that you’re married to him?” And all I kept thinking is, “Oh my God, this is such good television.” It didn’t end up like that.

Dr. Emily Splichal:

Bring it on. Bring it on.

Steven Sashen:

Yeah, that would be the perfect lead. It’s like, “Oh my God, I hate you.” So that was awesome. So it’s an interesting thing. I mean, look, this is kind of funny because while the podiatry community may have gotten up your butt about that, I can’t imagine it’s any less so when you’re endorsing natural movement. So you just went from frying pan to whatever the fire to frying pan or whichever way that goes.

Dr. Emily Splichal:

Yeah, no, so when I then was like, “Okay, yes, this is a barefoot workout and let me make it more applicable to the wider audience,” then I kind of switched the branding to be, “I’m a podiatrist just said endorses barefoot movement. I’m anti-orthotic. I’m anti-supportive shoe,” all of that, which is very polar as well, not as polar now in today’s age as back then. But I still had same thing. My skin was thick and I was like, “Hey, I’m the black sheep anyway from the high heel thing. Let me just go with it.” My MO is just to be the black sheep within podiatry. I got tons, tons and tons of shit when I first started speaking the natural movement and the barefoot. Same thing, people would question and say stuff about my name and whatever.

Now the younger generation or people who are just a little bit more open are now integrating or emailing me and say, “Hey Emily, how would you approach this? Can you tell me a little bit about what you do?” And they see that I’ve built a practice in Manhattan and I don’t take insurance, and my referrals are around the world. People fly in to see me because of what I’m doing. It’s not voodoo. I’m not making it up. I have great results with my patients. And they’re starting to see that now.

Steven Sashen:

There’s a guy that I met, I’m blanking on his name. His first name is Darryl, but I can’t remember his last name. He’s a podiatrist. He’s one of the sort of, let’s call it, top orthotics guys in the country, which I know is a bit of an oxymoron in the barefoot natural movement community. But point being, he’s one of the people turn to about how to do that and how to do that better than average. I mean, when I talked to him about how he actually does diagnose people and who he does and doesn’t prescribe, he’s way more rational than almost anybody that I’ve met. That said, there’s two things that were fun. One is he told me a story of a podiatrist he knew who went to Kenya in the ’50s or ’60s to study the army, who did a lot of their training barefoot because they didn’t have shoes. And his report was basically one sentence, “A podiatrist will go broke in this country.” And he was trying to make the point about the value of natural movement, which didn’t go over very well.

The other thing that was fun, this was at the International Footwear and Ankle Biomechanics Conference last year. So I put him in a pair of our Prio, floating back there, and he’s walking around and he says, “Well, what do you see?” I said, “Well, what do you feel?” He goes, “Well, these feel really good.” I said, “Well, then what I see is kind of irrelevant, but I’ll tell you what I see. Your right foot is pronating a little more than your left when you’re not wearing your orthotics in my shoe. But you haven’t noticed. So A, the problem? And B, if you want to develop strength, that’s the way you’re going to have to do it is by using your feet.” And he looked at me like I was crazy for a moment and was like, “Oh, yeah.” And then actually he goes up to Irene Davis and says, “I got these shoes and I really like them. I think I’m going to wear them with an orthotic.” And he was saying that to see if her head would explode. And her response was, “That’s cool. Just start shaving it down, shaving it down, shaving it down until you get rid of it.” And he’s like, “Huh.”

So I love the idea that this whole… It’s so crazy that we have to promote that natural movement is good. It’s just insane. And I’m curious if you have any understanding or have a historical basis, how did the podiatry community get so far opposed that to get so far into the whole posting orthotics, et cetera, where everything is somehow pathological? Because I have a friend who studied to become a physical therapist, and she would call me every day when they were doing foot and ankle going, “Did you know that this whole orthotic thing was made up by a chiropractor who had no evidence for it whatsoever?” It’s like, “Yeah.” So what’s your take on how it got where it is and what might have to happen for it to become, ironically, for podiatrists to put themselves out business mostly by realizing that for most of what they’re treating, natural movement is a better option?

Dr. Emily Splichal:

Right. So there is, sadly, when you go to podiatry conferences and within school and just kind of the whole energy within the profession is a little bit fear based. And it’s a profession that’s on the defense. And partly why they’re on the defense is that so many podiatrists have a Napoleon complex because they’re like, “Oh, I’m a DPM because I couldn’t get into MD school.” So they start to get this weird complex. And then even if they’re surgeons, they kind of feel like in the OR, “Well, I’m the foot surgeon. I’m not the…” So it’s just constantly within their own ego and their own thing.

Steven Sashen:

Fascinating.

Dr. Emily Splichal:

So having that, you kind of have to then be like, “Okay, I’m kind of in survival, so I need to think of how do I keep my patients? How do I get more out of these patients?” There’s tons of lectures around practice management and the profitability of orthotics, that it literally is every single patient should have an orthotic. If you see 20 patients a day and you can do, let’s say, five orthotics a day, what is that, 25 a week? And you get a $500 profit on each one, blah, blah, blah. You do the math. So really put in. And then the younger generation essentially is fed that garbage and then thinks, “Okay, for me to make money, I need to see this as a moneymaker. So I have to push it.” And I’ve seen that through when I was part of a larger group. Now that I don’t take insurance, I’m on my own thing, I don’t care. But they would incentivize us for every orthotic I would make, every MRI that I would order, every ultrasound that I would do. Any additional billing that I could do, I would technically… That’s probably totally illegal.

Steven Sashen:

Well, what’s incredible.

Dr. Emily Splichal:

Wrapped up in that.

Steven Sashen:

Look, I’m not a conspiracy theorist, but what you’re saying is going to feed people. Anyone who has the line, “Well, Western medicine…”

Dr. Emily Splichal:

It’s so dirty. It’s so dirty.

Steven Sashen:

You know whatever it is when they use the phrase, “Western medicine,” is never going to be good. But I mean, this is what people think happens. To hear that that’s actually what happens, holy smokes.

Dr. Emily Splichal:

Yes. What I will say is that medicine is still a business. And people don’t realize that or people don’t want to think that.

Steven Sashen:

Well, and there’s another thing. I mean, I have this conversation with people often when they criticize, quote, “Western medicine,” as if that’s an actual thing. They go, “Well, Western medicine doesn’t know how to do everything.” I say, “Well, if you go see any good doctor, they will never say that they know how to do everything.” They’re going to say, “Here’s what we’re going to do to try and figure it out.” But what most doctors are treating most of the time is that 80% of things where they can actually make a difference. And that other 20%, that outlying stuff, you can’t know everything. And these are complicated, confusing things, these crazy-ass bodies. There aren’t simple answers for a lot of this stuff. And we want simple answers, and we want someone in authority, ideally, I don’t know why a white coat means authority, to tell us something where we just know what’s happening.

It’s something I noticed about myself. I am in a way much happier if I see a medical practitioner for something where they go, “Oh yeah, you have this thing.” And it’s undeniable, you see it on the films, and it’s like, “Oh,” the sense of calmness because it’s been diagnosed and there is a treatment protocol is a real thing. I’m actually going through it now because I’ve got a compromised spine. In fact, later today, I’m going to get an injection into my lumbar spine just because I’ve got clearly all this inflammation going on. I’m relatively convinced that it’s not going to help for various reasons, but it’s what I’ve got to go through for my insurance company to pick up the tab on the things that I might need later. So now I’ve actually got the funny thing where it’s not giving me that sense of calm because I know what’s going to happen next is I don’t really know. At the same time, I’m taking the appropriate steps. So we have this weird relationship with simultaneously wanting an authority figure to give us an answer when there’s not a simple answer, and then not trusting them if they give us a simple answer.

Dr. Emily Splichal:

I know. You know, one thing with my patients is what I’ve always done from the beginning is very much go through my thought process. So when I’m evaluating, I’m trying to get to a diagnosis, especially in the beginning when I was younger, new kid on the block, I was a little like, “Ah,” just fresh out, I would go through every possible thing that it could be and why I’m ruling it out. And I would say it out loud to the patient, partly to educate them, but also want to protect my ass so they wouldn’t sue me.

Steven Sashen:

Yeah, yeah.

Dr. Emily Splichal:

So that’s the energy of medicine also is that you can be sued. That’s the reality to it. Now I do it very different, and I go through it more for the education because I’m much more confident, and obviously you just been around the block a little bit more. But then when I go through all my treatment options, I just say, “These are all of your options. These are the benefits of them. And then there is surgery down here. I have to list it as an option. And I can’t tell you which one to do. You have to make the decision for yourself. I can give you the benefits of each and the risks, but ultimately it’s your decision.”

And they totally want me to be like, “Well, what would you do if it’s your foot?” Well, you know… You have to do that to really put it in the patient’s hands. In some cases they don’t like that. And I’ve been to doctors or I’ve had patients that will be like, “Yeah, one thing I knew, and then all of a sudden I’m getting this injection.” And then they didn’t know, the process was just happening faster than they could even comprehend. And I don’t like to create that energy with my patients.

Steven Sashen:

It’s a tricky one. I just had a flashback before I went to the World Masters Track and Field Championships, this is nine, 10 years ago, I suddenly had this weird thing in my foot. I just felt like a little bump, and I didn’t know what it was. It was really painful. I went to the… I don’t know where I went. Anyway, they took some films and it literally looked like, I don’t know what the geometric term for a square rectangle, so not a tube because it’s square edges, but I mean literally it looked like square. And it was like, I don’t know, maybe two, almost two… No, no, I was going to say two centimeters, that’s not right. Almost 20 millimeters long and three millimeters kind of square. It was this crazy thing. It looked like an alien implant. And the doctor’s looking at it going, “Yeah, I have no idea what this is. I don’t know what’s causing it. I don’t know what to do. What do you think?”

Dr. Emily Splichal:

Oh my gosh.

Steven Sashen:

And I said, well, I can’t have surgery now because I’m about to leave for an international track meet. So let’s just revisit this in a little while. And I forgot to add this part. It happened in one day, it just showed up. And then a couple of weeks later, it disappeared. No idea. Absolutely no clue. And I actually sort of liked the story of it, because it was just a real conversation about, “We don’t know. We got to try and figure something out.” And it was just an honest conversation. If I had seen certain kinds of practitioners, I won’t label them by profession to protect the not necessarily innocent, they would’ve said, “Oh yeah, well, I know exactly what it is. Here’s what you do.” And then six weeks later, it might’ve gone away on its own anyway, and they would’ve claimed that it was because of that, when that could have been totally a placebo.

So Lena might kill me for telling the story, but I’m going to tell it anyway. She was seeing every sort of alternative care practitioner she possibly could because she was having just some bad period cramps for most of her life. And then finally after seeing a guy for a while and paying him a lot of money, and he just threw his hands up and said, “Well, you’re clearly not following the protocol.” And if you know Lena, if someone gives her a protocol, she is on it. She just does the plan. And she got really mad and he said, “Well, why don’t you go see this internist?” It was the first time she had seen an actual MD maybe ever. Not ever, but certainly for a long time. He does her blood work and says, “You’ve basically got no progesterone. Why don’t you just take this pill and see how that feels?” And the next day she goes, “Well, I’m fixed.”

Dr. Emily Splichal:

That was easy.

Steven Sashen:

Yeah. And just had no idea. So just the whole conversation about how medicine does work compared to how people think it should work is the part that I find so compelling, especially in a situation like yours where you’re bucking the status quo, or more accurately trying to change the status quo, which is what we’re all trying to do. And hopefully, I do think you may be right that it’s these kids today who are going to be the thing that moves it, because they’re not walking in with the same kind of preconceptions. Or they’re walking in with a kind of anti-corporate mentality that makes them open to, “Maybe what this guy’s saying, we don’t have to write off everything, but maybe we can think for ourselves and look at reality.” And obviously the natural movement story is simple. Your feet are supposed to bend and move and flex and feel, let them.

Dr. Emily Splichal:

Yeah. The other thing is that I get podiatrists who see the way that I treat, they understand the natural movement, they might even do it themselves, but they then say, “How do you integrate this into your treatment for your patients?” They can’t connect that dot or that bridge where I’m like, “I just include it in literally every patient’s protocol.” If I do give orthotics, which I do in some cases, I always then include, “Release your feet on a natural basis, use correct toes. Get into shoes that are naturally moving this way. Get sensory stimulation,” and try to have it be part of the bigger picture, which is what obviously all these other docs should be doing as well. I think physical therapists do a really good job with that.

Steven Sashen:

What’s the glitch for them? How do they not see this as something to do?

Dr. Emily Splichal:

I don’t know. They just don’t know how to integrate it. Almost-

Steven Sashen:

You know… Go ahead. Go ahead.

Dr. Emily Splichal:

I was going to say almost I do a lot of stem cells in my office. And when I was part of my other group where there were 10 of us doctors, I was the one that was doing most of the stem cells. It’s a fee-for-service injection, so it’s not covered by an insurance. It’s 750 plus per injection. And they were like, “How are you selling this?” And I was like, “Well, one, I believe in them. Two, I just include it with all of their list of treatment options. And because I believe in it, I spend time explaining it and educating the patient.” If you don’t, one, believe in it, which is what you were saying, if you don’t believe in the stem cells, you don’t believe in natural movement, then you’re going to have a harder time integrating it into the recommendations to the patient. Because I feel like the patient can tell if you’re like, “Oh, yeah, and by the way…”

Steven Sashen:

“Could do this thing.”

Dr. Emily Splichal:

I would hear some of the docs be like, “Oh yeah, and by the way, do this short foot thing.” And they’d be like, “Short foot?” And they’re like, “Yeah, Google it.”

Steven Sashen:

Right. Well, there’s a weird variation of that. Back in 2010, I was part of a panel discussion about barefoot running, and every medical practitioner on the panel had no experience, they’d never run barefoot. In fact, at one point I just said, “If you’ve run barefoot on the pavement for at least a mile, raise your hand.” And I was the only hand that was up. And these guys are giving advice, it was horrible advice, it was ridiculous advice, based on not only no experience… And I’m not suggesting that every doctor has to have the experience of what they’re telling you about. But they weren’t referencing anybody who ever had experience with this. One of the guys was saying, “Well, it’s going to take two years until you get strong enough to be able to run barefoot.” It’s like, “Well, who do you know who spent two years training for this? You’re just making this shit up.” Which I found utterly amazing. And people were nodding their head and going, “Whoa, back up.”

So the trust thing is definitely a part of it. And of course, it works the other way. People can be very confident about things that are iffy at best. I’m curious, just to take a tangent on the stem cell thing, I’m curious what your experience/the response rate has been. Because I’m just thinking of the people that I know who’ve had stem cell treatments for various things, where some of them have great results, some have had no results. I remember I had my shoulder put back together a couple of years ago, and when I did, people said, “Oh, you should have gotten stem cells.” “You should have seen the MRI of my shoulder. It was not really hanging onto the rest of my body at all. It needed to be reconstructed, not just injected.” So tell me about that. I would love to hear your experience.

Dr. Emily Splichal:

Yeah, so I had been doing stem cells. I started with PRP and now I do placental and umbilical cord stem cells. I’ve been doing them for the past five years.

Steven Sashen:

I nave neither placenta nor umbilical cord.

Dr. Emily Splichal:

You don’t need one to have that. So don’t worry.

Steven Sashen:

Can I get one on eBay?

Dr. Emily Splichal:

Donated placenta. Donated placenta. You don’t need to preserve your children’s or your newborn stem cells. You don’t have to do that. But essentially they are donated stem cells. And my success rate with them is around 90%.

Steven Sashen:

What kind of things are you treating?

Dr. Emily Splichal:

For plantar fascial tears is one of the highest.

Steven Sashen:

So I want to pause there. So for actual plantar fascial tears, which you’re diagnosing, I want to separate that from what most people will call plantar fasciitis, which often is something totally different.

Dr. Emily Splichal:

So I would have a confirmed partial tear of the plantar fascia, yes, via MRI. So it’s confirmed. That’s one of the most common pathologies that I treat. Different ligament injuries. Plantar plates is a huge one as well. So under the second toe, you can tear the ligament, which is called the plantar plate. I do a lot for that. Different ligaments in the ankle, tendons, fractures. So there’s different things. And my success rate is 90% because of the patients that I choose. So I will not do it on anyone.

Steven Sashen:

Well, what you just described in the list of things that you’re treating is mostly soft tissue damage.

Dr. Emily Splichal:

Yes, outside of a fracture, but I don’t see a lot of factors because I don’t do acute care in my practice. But yes, so it’s primarily soft tissue injuries. You can use them for knee arthritis, shoulder arthritis, foot arthritis, meaning the big toe and the ankle. They’re just slightly different joints than the rest of the body. So the success rate of those is much lower. I’ve had some patients try to have them done for their midfoot and they have midfoot arthritis. I’m like, “They’re taking your money,” is essentially what it is, because the success of that’s not going to be high.

But part of my 90% success rate is the patients that I choose. So I’m very specific. And then two, my post injection protocol is very important. So let’s say a partial tear of plantar fascia. I’ll do two injections, so one injection two weeks apart, so two injections total. And during that entire period, they are in a CAM walker. So I have to immobilize them during that period. They can do soft tissue release to the calves, but they cannot stress that area. After the four weeks, they transition into a stiff sold shoe. HOKA is what some patients will choose. It’s just an example. Doesn’t mean I like it. But it’s just a example.

Steven Sashen:

I’m just saying it’s a four-letter word. That’s all.

Dr. Emily Splichal:

It’s just an example. I totally said that because that shoe is my example. But a stiff shoe, and then we do a night splint and we slowly start to decrease them out. I will put a lot of them in a orthotic as well. And then the third month, we start to strip away the support and the control. But let’s say it was a runner, a runner that had a partial tear plantar fascia, I would say you would expect being back at your same kind of distance or stress of your foot within five, six months.

Steven Sashen:

What I love about what you just described is actually the way that people should, and by people, I mean all people, should think about orthotics or posting or anything where you’re mobilizing a foot. It’s like if you have some sort of real damage. And when you’re doing the injection, I mean basically they’re already damaged to begin with, and the injection is kind of a piece of that puzzle. It’s like you need to heal. It’s like use it for healing, then get out. And what you just described is a very obviously sensible protocol for dealing with an actual injury, actual damage, and then making the transition back by getting stronger and getting back into it. And it’s something that people just don’t get.

I don’t don’t know if you’ve ever seen it. I have a post on our site. Oh, I’m trying to remember. If you go to xeroshoes.com and search for orthotics, you’ll find it. I know I have a shortcut for it, but I can’t remember. And it’s mostly reviewing an article that was probably in the New York Times. It’s written by one of my favorite science writers from the Times because she’s A, brilliant, and B has my favorite name in the world. Her name is Gina Kolata. And Gina did this great thing about orthotics showing that they only work for about 10% of the population. No one knows which 10%, no one knows why. And a custom-made orthotic is no better than a Dr. Scholls insole.

But there were a number of people in there including probably Benno Nigg from Canada, who said, “Yeah, you’re supposed to use an orthotic to help with rehab and then get out of it and start moving again.” And most people just forget that second part. So I love the protocol you just described. People should basically apply that to almost any other situation they’re in when they have a real injury of healing, and then building up into strength again instead of pretending that you need to continue to support something over and over and over.

Dr. Emily Splichal:

Yeah, that New York Times article, I do remember it, but I will go back because I want to reference it and pull it and then share it again with my network is, I just did a presentation Monday to a group of pedorthists, so shoe prescribers, I guess if you want to… People who feel shoes.

Steven Sashen:

Yeah, they make shoes and they have a orthopedic bent to the way they do it.

Dr. Emily Splichal:

Right. Yes. So when I was speaking to them, and I was speaking to them the way that I think of footwear, but I had shared with them about orthotics and plantar fasciitis, just specifically that condition, that there’s absolutely no difference between a custom orthotic and a off the shelf prefab, yeah. And that was, one, that they’re not prescribing orthotics, but that’s interesting that you had mentioned that. And then I had seen another recent article around that, that is just like for these podiatrists that are trying to sell 500 plus dollars orthotics for plantar fasciitis, there’s no research.

Steven Sashen:

There’s no research. Well, here’s my favorite thing about even the Dr. Scholls insoles. They did something that is the most brilliant, and by brilliant, I simultaneously mean evil, marketing thing I have ever seen in my entire life. If you go into Walmart, or I think they have them at Target too. So Dr. Scholls made this kiosk where you step on a force plate and it tells you, “Here’s something about your foot,” and it’s going to prescribe one of the dozen or so insoles that they have hanging right next to the thing. Here’s the brilliant marketing thing. After you step on this thing, it says something like, “Please wait while we calculate which product is right for you.” And then there’s a ten second countdown timer. It’s a computer. It doesn’t need 10 seconds to figure it out. It just literally makes you think that it’s thinking about you and giving you some personal recommendation because you’re a unique snowflake, one of 17 snowflakes that are on the wall next to you. And it really makes you go, “Wow, it’s really thinking about me.” And of course, the joke is the ones it custom recommends are twice the price of the ones that are just hanging right around the corner on the shelf. It’s unbelievable.

Dr. Emily Splichal:

Mind you, by prefab, because I have to clarify this for any of the listeners, prefab, I do not mean Dr. Scholls. That is a four letter word to me.

Steven Sashen:

Oh I know. No, no. But just going back to the buying something off the shelf.

Dr. Emily Splichal:

But no, I will tell you the ones that are some of the best off the shelf is PowerStep.

Steven Sashen:

Oh, really? Because?

Dr. Emily Splichal:

PowerStep.

Steven Sashen:

I heard the what, I want to know why. Why you think they’re the best?

Dr. Emily Splichal:

Oh, sorry. The placement of where they put their arch and how aggressive or not aggressive they are. So they’re just kind of middle of the line with the arch height, so the correction that they’re trying to achieve, and then the materials that they use. So the control that you get, the resiliency, and then the fit for it. Where some of the other ones, Dr. Scholls uses very cheap materials and a lot of silicone-

Steven Sashen:

What a shock.

Dr. Emily Splichal:

I know. Surprise. But some of the other ones like Superfeet, and there’s just so many of these other ones. Everything has to do with the placement of where the arch is and what they consider to be their standard of control of template.

Steven Sashen:

My favorite thing just about the whole… Well, about orthotics in general. My favorite thing is it’s the same prescription for two totally different diagnoses. You have flat feet, you need an orthotic, you have high arch, you need an orthotic. It’s like, wait, wait, back up. How does that make any sense whatsoever? I mean, I can maybe come up with an argument for how it may. But I’m having a really hard time. I can’t think of any other example where you have two totally different presentations that give the exact same prescription.

Dr. Emily Splichal:

Yeah. Well, I’ve been practicing for 10 years and I’ve never written orthotics, custom orthotics for a high arched foot.

Steven Sashen:

Ooh, interesting. So considering that there’s so many people, I think people who have high arch feet, even more than flat footed people, think they need support. Why do you think that is? What the hell and why have you never done that?

Dr. Emily Splichal:

So a high arch foot is typically thought of as more rigid. So now you’re going to put a rigid insole-

Steven Sashen:

Thing on a ridge… Yeah, yeah. I know.

Dr. Emily Splichal:

Into rigid. And then most likely they’re going to go into a rigid shoe. So I was like rigid with rigid with rigid, that just makes no sense. Your goal with a high arch foot is typically more in the direction of let’s mobilize, let’s get them kind of moving-

Steven Sashen:

Oh, no, you’re preaching to the choir. But this is one where even more than someone, I just can’t figure out how they got this idea that they need to, exactly, rigid on rigid on rigid.

Dr. Emily Splichal:

Yeah. I mean, that’s why I have no idea. I’m just like, “Why would you ever…” I mean, I pull every high arched patient who has orthotics out of them, which doesn’t make sense. If you were using, let’s say, a plastazote or a kind of these softer materials and you’re saying like, “Oh, the rigid foot hurts the person because it feels like they’re walking on their knuckles, so let me cushion that foot,” that would be a valid argument.

Steven Sashen:

Oh, that’s interesting actually. It’s funny because in that situation, what you’re doing is giving some protection to the places that are getting higher impact forces. You’re not supporting the thing that’s causing that problem to begin with, which again, would make more sense, but that’s just not what people do and buy.

Dr. Emily Splichal:

Yeah, which is why I’m just like, “I have no idea why.” I’ve never ever, and I will never, because it doesn’t make sense. There’s some research around like a plantar fascial offloading technique that you can use with arch supports, but with custom orthotics with a supinated high arched foot. But I much rather go through myofascial release and soft tissue work and mobilize the hips and that way.

Steven Sashen:

I want to back up a giant step because I don’t know why I just remembered this. I heard, I don’t know if this is true, but I heard that some major chiropractic organization is sponsored by an orthotic manufacturer. And so this is partly why all these chiropractors are trying to get everyone into an orthotic, not only because they’re taught, “Here’s an additional way of making money,” but I mean it’s really indoctrinated because the overarching organization that they belong to, that’s what they believe. In a similar vein, the American College of Sports Medicine, one of their biggest sponsors is a footwear company. I shouldn’t mention their name. So it rhymes with Spladidas. And there’s a rumor that I was asked not to come back to this year’s American College Sports Medicine event because of things that I said to them last year, which was just things like, “Hey, for all those claims you’re making, do you have any proof?” Which didn’t go over well, apparently.

But I find it really funny, there’s actually an article about how to pick a running shoe from the ACSM that basically recommends getting something like what we do, getting something that lets your toes spread, that actually lets your foot move, I mean, all the things. But then there’s a few things where they kind of couch the language, I think, just to not upset their corporate overlords. So I don’t know how much influence Spladidas’ business model it has over the people who are in the ACSM. And I wonder about the orthotic thing for chiropractors. Is there anything similar like that on the podiatric side where there are-

Dr. Emily Splichal:

Mm-hmm. Yeah, of course there is.

Steven Sashen:

Oh my God.

Dr. Emily Splichal:

Remember, medicine is business.

Steven Sashen:

I remember, but I just don’t expect it to be top to bottom.

Dr. Emily Splichal:

Yes. So the shoe that is one of the biggest sponsors for the American Academy of Podiatric Sports Medicine and the APMA is New Balance. So New Balance is the recommendation, that literally when I was going through school and then through residency and rotating through different residencies, so I was still a student, but hearing more than just my circle speaking, they would be like, “Oh, yes, you need to get shoes. New Balance, New Balance, New Balance, New Balance,” every person. And I was like, “Do you know other manufacturers than New Balance? Do you like New Balance for yourself? Do you think for yourself?” And then the same frustration of you have plantar fasciitis, stretch your calf by going against a wall and you… I’m like, one, I hate that calf stretch because you don’t position the calcaneus right, you’re actually not even stretching.

Steven Sashen:

No, it’s going to be soleus if anything. Yeah.

Dr. Emily Splichal:

Yeah, you get your post tib, and then you can irritate someone’s post tib tendon. I was like, “Think, don’t just vomit out what you were taught in school.” And that’s usually what everyone does.

Steven Sashen:

This is an interesting point. So Irene Davis and Bryan Heiderscheit and Chris Powers do an event for therapists called The Science of Running Medicine, and it’s an opportunity for them to get CEUs and for them to learn about what these three people in particular are thinking about the cause and treatment of running related injuries. And Irene has a amazing protocol for diagnosing what’s going on and then treating what’s going on by doing gait retraining and various other things. And I said this to Brian, I don’t remember if I’ve told this to Irene. I said, “The challenge with what you’re doing is that you’re requiring the practitioner to have a really good understanding, have really good eyes, basically, to really be able to see what’s going on and understand what’s going on well enough to do a good diagnosis and then create a very personalized treatment plan. And those two things are either, at the very least, difficult to do, time-consuming to do, but for some people not possible because some people just don’t have good eyes, they just don’t see movement well. Or they see the effect, but they don’t understand what the possible causes could be. They don’t look further up the chain. And this is a problem. You’re asking people to be smarter than they possibly are.”

My dad was a dentist and his line, he says, “You know, the people who graduated in the lower 50% of the class were in the lower half of the class, and they still became dentists. I would never go see any of them. They’re not good practitioners, but it still says DDS after their name.” Or actually the joke is, what do you call the guy who graduated last in his med school class? Doctor. This is another interesting thing just about the whole medical profession, if you will, is that in any profession, the majority of people who are doing it are not going to be the best. They can’t statistically. And then we’re asking them to do things that not only can they maybe not do, but they probably don’t know they can’t do it.

So here’s the crazy-ass question. How do we change this? What do you see as the way to move forward? I open up every one of these episodes by talking about creating natural movement is the obvious, better, healthy choice. How do you see that happening? Because obviously, we have this goal. What’s your take on that?

Dr. Emily Splichal:

What I can say from a podiatry level is that it has to start changing within the schools the way that the next generation of podiatrists who obviously work with feet. So that’s a lot of the people who buy your shoes or purchase any footwear are getting recommendations from the internet, from movement specialists, from people who support natural movement. But then they’ll go to the doctor who will say, “No, you have this and you should never be barefoot. You should never…” So they get the conflicting information. So we need to stop the conflicting information by educating-

Steven Sashen:

Okay, so good luck on that one. But anyway.

Dr. Emily Splichal:

I know, exactly. But as much as you can, so that the 95% trend of what’s said within the podiatry community is the same old structure, you need to have a little bit of an openness to the role of natural movement, the role of barefoot stimulation.

Steven Sashen:

So that’s where I was going actually in my thinking is the only way the school is going to change is if there’s enough people who are responsible for the curriculum getting the value of what we’re talking about.

Dr. Emily Splichal:

Exactly.

Steven Sashen:

We’ve got to back up a step, yeah.

Dr. Emily Splichal:

Yes. So I approached where I went to school. Now every school is very different. And the other thing with medicine that the listener should understand is that medicine is very historical. It’s very political, and it’s very historical. So the New York School is very traditional. New York City people this it’s like a liberal city. It’s actually very, very, very conservative medically. So the way that hospitals are managed, the way that schools are run, what’s actually taught is very, very conservative. So that means that they don’t deviate outside of the box very well because it just rustles them and they shake, they get nervous. And it’s people who are 80 years old that are still running a lot of these programs, even though medicine has changed from that. It’s slowly trying to change that. I approached my school-

Steven Sashen:

Well, I find it disturbing that what you’re subliminally suggesting is we kill a whole bunch of old doctors.

Dr. Emily Splichal:

I did not say that.

Steven Sashen:

That’s what I said, subliminal.

Dr. Emily Splichal:

Right, right, right. Exactly. So what I went in speaking to them about what they need is not just a barefoot lecture, but a lecture on fascia, like the fascia lines, the integrated movement, how your feet and your pelvic floor connect to each other. Podiatrist who treats feet technically treats movement, and that’s what it actually needs to be changed. So anytime I speak at a podiatry conference, I actually start by saying, “I don’t treat feet, I treat movement.” And I have my first slide. We as podiatrists don’t treat feet. We’re not foot doctors. We treat movement. Our access point to correct movement is the foot. But you have to start changing your mindset as well and know that you have a bigger influence than, “All they treat is the nails.” And like the shitty part of the body. It’s just-

Steven Sashen:

I hate to break it, that’s called a… I just can’t think of the word. What’s someone who does your damn nails?

Dr. Emily Splichal:

Pedicurist.

Steven Sashen:

Thank you. Yeah, you’re saying to all these doctors, “You’re a glorified pedicurist.”

Dr. Emily Splichal:

Yes, or chiropody. I mean that’s what chiropody is.

Steven Sashen:

Chiropody. That’s a good word.

Dr. Emily Splichal:

Chiropody is the historical initiation, or starting point of podiatry is we were chiropodists first, which was nails and skin and calluses and all that stuff.

Steven Sashen:

Oh, that’s hysterical. I had no idea. Fascinating.

Dr. Emily Splichal:

Yeah, and then it evolved to podiatry, and then podiatry evolved to be more like podiatric surgeon.

Steven Sashen:

Interesting.

Dr. Emily Splichal:

So it’s become a wider, wider scope. But ultimately at that, even if you were still treating calluses, people get calluses and I know why they get a callus, because based off of how they’re moving. Movement.

Steven Sashen:

Yeah, exactly. Well, speaking of movement, we have to move onto something and do two things. One, I don’t want to leave before we mention the project that you and I are jointly doing. And I actually have a sample. Wait, hold on. I have to reach. I’ve got to get off camera to do something. Okay. So would you describe what you have created with the Naboso Technology, and then I will hold up the project that you and I are doing together.

Dr. Emily Splichal:

Yes. I will hold up the box here.

Steven Sashen:

The box.

Dr. Emily Splichal:

Yes. So Naboso is the first and only textured insole that is on the market. This is the texture. It uses two-point discrimination.

Steven Sashen:

So hold on, for people who are just listening, basically think flat thing with a bunch of bumps on it.

Dr. Emily Splichal:

Yeah, pyramids across the entire top of the insole. And those pyramids-

Steven Sashen:

Pyramids, you’re part of the Illuminati.

Dr. Emily Splichal:

What was that?

Steven Sashen:

I said your pyramids, that means you’re part of the Illuminati.

Dr. Emily Splichal:

Oh, yes, you know.

Steven Sashen:

More conspiracy theories.

Dr. Emily Splichal:

Exactly. Exactly. Don’t take it down that rabbit hole. But the two-point discrimination stimulates the feet to help increase your foot foundation awareness. The more that you can reconnect to your foundation, that translates to balance, posture, gait. We have a lot of people, if you’re thinking of a disconnection with your foot leads to foot fatigue, foot pain, a lot of the stuff that we were speaking about. It can be used for many reasons, but the very rewarding part that I have is when someone hasn’t reconnected to their feet in that way for years because of their shoes, or maybe they have some sort of medical condition. And to have them just light up because they can feel their feet again, that’s so powerful.

Steven Sashen:

I’m going to do a Emily to English translation.

Dr. Emily Splichal:

Sorry.

Steven Sashen:

So when you sent me these, and I’ve told this story in other places, including on our website where we talk about this product, you originally sent me this product to check out. And by the way, Naboso is a Czech word that means barefoot. And when I received it, when you told me about it, I was preparing to let you down gently and say, “I’ve tried all these various reflexology insoles and sandals and things, and they don’t really do anything for me.”

So I got them and I put them in my Prios, and I walked around for a couple of hours, and I could definitely feel that I was getting more stimulation than I would if I was just in any shoe, including our shoe, which does give you a lot of stimulation. And it was like, “Oh, that’s cool.” And then I took them off, because I spend most of my time at the office barefoot. Then I’m around and I feel like my feet are trying to grip through the damn ground, they were so activated. Everything felt like it was ready to pounce. It was amazing. I really loved it. That has toned down. I don’t walk like that all the time. But it was just so incredible feeling that there was obvious demonstrable benefits from adding this extra stimulation.

And it reminds me, I think we may have talked about this, every, I don’t know, year, year and a half, somebody comes out with some bit of research that shows the value of just basically stimulating people’s feet. They have some vibrating insoles, or the latest one was from the University of Delaware, they put a device around the ankles of people who have Parkinson’s, and it just basically vibrates their feet. And it found that they were able to walk better in these stupid, ridiculously thick, stiff shoes. And my response to that has always been, “Hey, instead of getting all those crazy things, take off your damn shoes and go for a walk.”

And my argument would be, in this case with the Naboso product, that if you are going to wear something, some footwear and you do want more stimulation for the myriad reasons you might, this is an amazing way to do it. And then just to give a segue, so we’ve been selling the insole that you just showed the box of, although our boxes are a different version, that’s the new version of the box. I like it.

Dr. Emily Splichal:

No, no, no. Your version is this one.

Steven Sashen:

Oh, that’s right. Okay.

Dr. Emily Splichal:

Yes.

Steven Sashen:

And then, so that’s great. We sell those on our website and people love them. But people have also asked, “What do I do if it’s summertime and I don’t want to be wearing shoes and want to wear sandals?” And I’m going to hold up the Naboso Trail, which for people who can’t see this, this is our Z-Trail sandal, our best-selling support sandal, with the Naboso technology as the footbed. So these are going to be out the middle, actually within about a week or so from when we’re recording this, somewhere around the middle of July. So use that as a gauge for if you’re listening to this and finding them on our website. And we are super excited to bring that out and get the results that we expect to get from people who are using that. So thank you.

I’ve got to do this quickly, because apparently there’s a meeting that’s supposed to be happening in this room soon. One thing we didn’t do before, that I usually do at the beginning of every episode, and I got totally distracted and forgot, is something movement related. So do you want to share a movement related, something that we can do in our last minute or two?

Dr. Emily Splichal:

Yes. So I told you what I was going to do, which I’m actually going to do something different, is how… Okay, sorry. I know. My movement is a simple way to stimulate your feet, core and palate connection. So I’m going to stack the domes in the body. This is a way to get stable. So what you can do is push your toes into the ground, which is technically short foot. You are going to lift your pelvic floor, which is for the sake of time, we’ll just call it a Kegel because it’s just easier. So you’re going to stop your flow of pee while you’re pushing your toes down. And then while you’re doing that, put your tongue into your palate. So your tongue will push into the top of your palate as you do all three of them. And if you do that, especially standing, you should feel like your body is stable. And essentially what I stacked, what I was stacking or lifting are either the bandhas in yoga, they call them bandhas, they’re centers of stability, or they’re the domes of the body.

Steven Sashen:

Interesting. Actually, I’m just doing it sitting, but I already feel just how it kind of lines everything up. I like that.

Dr. Emily Splichal:

Yeah. And when you put your tongue into your palate, you stimulate your brain stem, the reticular activating system in your brain stem, which turns on your brain.

Steven Sashen:

That’s a good one.

Dr. Emily Splichal:

Movement, posture, brain hack.

Steven Sashen:

That works. Well, A, thank you for that. B, thank you for all the rest of this. C, we may have to do version two because obviously we can keep this conversation going forever, which is what we tend to do. And D, if people want to get in touch with you, how do they do that?

Dr. Emily Splichal:

So I’m on all the social platforms, Dr. Emily Splichal is my website. EBFA is my education company. And then of course, Naboso Technology.

Steven Sashen:

Awesome. Well, for everyone listening, first of all, once again, thank you very much for being part of The MOVEMENT Movement. If you want to find out more, go to jointhemovementmovement.com. You’ll find previous episodes, you’ll find links to where we put all these things. If you have any questions or comments or feedback or someone you want to recommend for being on the podcast, including yourself perhaps, drop an email to me at move@jointhemovementmovement.com. Again, you can like and share and review and hit the bell and blah, blah, blah. The point is, we want you to be part of this movement helping natural movement become the obvious, better, healthy choice. So if you do want to be part of that tribe, please subscribe. And as always, live life feet first.

View Details

Jessica Lauren Graff is an American professional stunt performer and sports-focused television personality. She has had training in five other martial arts, holds a black sash in Kung Fu, and is a black belt in Taekwondo. She is a champion gymnast, a pole vaulter, and a professional stunt performer.

Listen to this episode of The MOVEMENT Movement with Jessie Graff about Ninja Warrior fitness secrets.

Here are some of the beneficial topics covered on this week’s show:

– How becoming more scientific about your training allows you to continue getting gains after years of training.

– Why persistence and practice are key when you’re trying to achieve any goal.

– How Ninja Warriors must attack each exercise with the same amount of intensity.

– Why it’s important to engage the correct muscles to breathe properly.

– How being the hardest worker might actually be preventing you from succeeding.
Connect with Jessie

Guest Contact Info

Instagram@jessiegraffpwr

Facebookfacebook.com/JESSIEgraffPWR

Connect with Steven:

Website

Xeroshoes.com

Jointhemovementmovement.com

Twitter@XeroShoes

Instagram@xeroshoes

Facebookfacebook.com/xeroshoes

Episode Transcript

Steven Sashen:

What do you want to do? If you want to become the fittest 50 year old you know? Or 40 year old? Or 60 year old? Or any year old, I don’t really care. We’re going to find out by someone who’s exploring that for herself, but is much more than that. On today’s episode of The MOVEMENT Movement, the podcast for people who want to know the truth about what it takes to have a happy, healthy, strong body starting feet first, typically. Because those things are your foundation. We break down the propaganda, the mythology, and frankly, the lies that you’re often told about what it takes to run, or walk, or play, or do yoga or Crossfit, or be a Ninja Warrior, hint, hint, wink, wink, nudge, nudge. And to do that enjoyably and effectively and efficiently. Did I mention enjoyably? It’s a trick question, don’t answer. I know I did.

Because if you’re not having fun, you’re not going to keep it up anyway. So make sure you’re having fun. I’m Stephen Sashen from XeroShoes.com, the host of The MOVEMENT Movement podcast. We call it that because we’re creating a movement around natural movement, letting your body do what it’s designed to do, not getting in the way. The way you can participate, it’s easy, it’s cheap, in fact, it’s free. Go to WWW.JoinTheMOVEMENTmovement.com. Nothing to do to join. There’s no secret handshake. hat’s just where you’re going to find all the previous episodes, all the ways you can interact with us on social media and all the ways that you can help us by leaving a review, giving us a thumbs up, a five star rating in the places you can do that. I mean you know the drill. If you want to be part of the tribe, please subscribe. So let us jump in. Jessie Graff. Hey babe, how are you?

Jessie Graff:

I’m great, but I have a quick question. Could we come up with a secret handshake that it’s not mandatory, you don’t have to do it to get in, but if you’re in, anyone who wants to be in, gets to learn it?

Steven Sashen:

You got to do this.

Jessie Graff:

But can it be a kicking thing? Like kick, kick.

Steven Sashen:

Well, we got to make it … I mean, I’m all for it as long as it’s something that humans can do who are not Ninja Warrior people.

Jessie Graff:

Yeah. Okay.

Steven Sashen:

Okay. All right.

Jessie Graff:

I’ll think about it and we’ll work on it in a couple weeks.

Steven Sashen:

Do you know the dance troupe Pilobolus?

Jessie Graff:

Yeah. Yeah. They’re awesome. Circusy stuff, right?

Steven Sashen:

Yeah. Well, I mean, my favorite thing that I say about Pilobolus is I don’t know, which I like better when I watch them perform, when I can see the physics of what they’re doing, or I can’t see the physics of what they’re doing. Because what they do is amazing. We work with them. They just made a video for us that’s really, really fun. So they’d be great people to come up with a wacky secret handshake too. Someday we’ll get you and me together with the gang from Pilobolus and do some ridiculous things.

Jessie Graff:

That sounds amazing. Where are they based?

Steven Sashen:

On the East Coast. I just remembered last night when I was going to bed, I was literally imagining something as a 60 year old, not dancer, what I could do that would be contributing to what they do. Because there’s some strength things that I can do that are still pretty crazy, like human flag kind of thing. But to do a human flag with a person is very entertaining instead of being on a pole and something. Anyway, we’ll work with Pilobolus one day. Yeah, that’d be a hoot.

Jessie Graff:

Cool.

Steven Sashen:

So, Hey Jess, for humans who don’t know who you are, because there are still some, why don’t you tell people who you are and what you do?

Jessie Graff:

Sure. I have been a stunt woman for 16 years. I work on a lot of really fun superhero shows, and of course getting beat up and killed and abused as we do in stunts. But I’ve also been competing on American Ninja Warrior for, I guess I started nine years ago or something. I’ve beaten a lot of records and placed high among the men. Ninja Warrior is the most fun thing ever.

Steven Sashen:

I am so bummed that didn’t exist when I was younger.

Jessie Graff:

Oh yeah.

Steven Sashen:

Yeah. Except, I’ll ask you this. So one of the reasons that I’m not a total Ninja Warrior kind of person, even now to the extent that I could be, is so much of the stuff that’s in there is grip strength dependent, and that ain’t my thing.

Jessie Graff:

Yet.

Steven Sashen:

So I imagine it was not originally your thing either?

Jessie Graff:

No, no. Yeah, they used to always say the rock climbers had a huge advantage because they’re the ones just, they trained grip strength all time.

Steven Sashen:

Right.

Jessie Graff:

Yeah, for me, when I started, I saw these guys doing, we call it a cliffhanger, so it’s maybe an inch and a half ledge where you’re just going along this way and you swing and do gaps. Initially I saw the cliffhanger and was like, “People can’t do that.” Then they all did it. And I was like, “Oh, okay, well that must be easier than it looks.” So I got on one and was like, “Nope. Definitely feels impossible. I’m not sure how that’s happening, but if they’re humans and they can do it, I’m made the same way, I should be able to do it too.” It’s so interesting when you discover a muscle group, even as an athlete, just a muscle group that you haven’t activated, that you haven’t taught how to fire at high levels.

So it took at least a year of really, really training that to be able to start performing at a high level and then a long-term commitment to building and now I’m trying to be more scientific about it so that I can continue getting gains after so many years of training it. But yeah, there’s so many, I think, adults who will try a certain exercise and not know how to fire the muscles and think there’s something wrong with them or that they won’t be able to do it. It’s so empowering to understand that that’s normal and that’s how that works and it’s just a kickstart process of having to teach those muscles how to fire and then they can grow dramatically and you’ll be able to do things that seem impossible initially.

Steven Sashen:

Well, there’s another part to that I find interesting, and this is going to lead into eventually our conversation about becoming the fittest 50 year old woman or a person or etc., etc., etc. Which is just the training on some new strength, whether it’s something as simple as a squat or something like the cliffhanger. I’m trying to think of how to frame this. I can’t think of how to ask the question so let me describe it this way.

Jessie Graff:

Okay.

Steven Sashen:

One of my favorite exercises, and it’s a really important one for sprinters, is the Nordic hamstring curl. And so for people who don’t know it, you’re kneeling, your feet are being held down, and you keep your body as straight as possible, a little bit of hip bend, and you just lower yourself slowly. So you’re just hinging at your knees, lowering yourself slowly.

Ideally, at first you’ll fall on your face, you’ll get to about a 10 degree angle and then fall and eventually you can get down and get back up. I worked on this for a while doing three sets of eight reps, as best as I could do, for three days a week. I just wasn’t making any progress. Then I went down to doing five sets of five reps once a week and within a month, way, way stronger. Now, some of this is because I’m a 60 year old guy, and I think I was doing this about a year or two ago, but I’m 60 now, and it seems like I just need way more recovery after the right amount of stimulation than I thought. By doing it three times a week, I just wasn’t getting enough time to recover and actually get stronger. So what did you discover for you in the early days when you were doing Ninja Warrior stuff and having to develop new kinds of strength about what worked for you and how has that changed as you’ve progressed and gotten older?

Jessie Graff:

Let’s see. Well, my initial training strategy when I decided I really wanted to start getting strong was based on giving myself a challenge. I’d test myself, let’s say pull-ups or dead hang since that’s Ninja Warrior appropriate. So I’d do as many pull-ups as I could. When I started, it was six. I would hang from a cliffhanger as long as I could. When I started, that was a couple seconds, three seconds maybe. So I would do sort of, it takes about 48 hours to recover from a really good session where you’re going to get sore. If you go overboard, it’s going to take longer. But if you find that perfect amount of, you’ve really pushed yourself but not killed yourself, you give it 48 hours, you go again. So I was on this three day cycle where I would go push day, pull day, leg day, and pull day was the big day because that’s where I’m training for Ninja.

So every set I would be going basically to failure because I’m trying to beat last session’s record. So twice a week I’m going to failure. I was able to improve really quickly that way. So at the end of that year, I’d gone from six pull-ups to, I think I was at 22 pull-ups, and my dead hang had gone to, I don’t know, well over a minute, maybe a minute 30 on this cliffhanger ledge. At the end of the year, I had all these amazing gains and then something went wrong and I got hurt. So I had to take some time off and rebuild and was able to rebuild even faster. So in two to three months of, “Okay, now I’m healthy, now I can rebuild, getting ready for Ninja,” three months, I was stronger than ever.

So building backup from zero up to 25 pull-ups and two minute dead hang and competed and then at the end of the year, something happened again, now I’m injured again. I have to take time off and I lose all the strength and had to have stem cell injections and all this stuff. But now, “Crap, I’ve only got three months to recover and get strong and be ready for next year.” So at the end of that season I built back up, I got up to, I think, 38 pull-ups that year. So it was like I kept getting stronger and I was getting strong so, so fast, but I would always get injured at the end of the year. So season 12, it just exploded. If you think it’s bad getting injured at the end of every season, well, this particular season I tore both shoulders, rotator cuff, rotator cuff plus labrum, inferior glenohumeral ligament, cartilage. That’s like everything. Not everything. And my ACL.

So the end of that year, I needed three surgeries, two shoulder surgeries, one knee surgery. That’s a point where you can’t work around it. You can’t be like, “Oh, I’m going to let my upper body recover and get really good at squats and box jumps and everything.” It’s like, “Okay, you’re just grounded. You’re going to do something else with your time.” So the first certifications I went after were nutrition and corrective exercise specialization. The corrective exercise was so amazing. I learned so much about the type of training I’d been doing and how I’m doing my push days for maintenance to make sure I don’t get unbalanced, and I’m doing my pull days to max out and be the strongest I’ve ever been. Does that sound balanced?

Steven Sashen:

Right.

Jessie Graff:

Sure, I’m doing the same number of days on each exercise, but on push days, I’m making sure I keep up with last week, on pull days I’m trying to beat myself every week. So I could do 20 pushups, which is maybe average for an athletic woman. And 38 pull-ups.

Steven Sashen:

Which is super superhuman-

Jessie Graff:

Which is really good for an athletic guy. So I was obviously unbalanced, my shoulders were coming way out of alignment. So that means my peck miner was super tight. Your lat, which pulls down, attaches to the front of your arm. So everything’s pulling here. Everything pulling back was weak because I wasn’t training it. So now my shoulders are here. Now you’re super spinatus that comes through a little tunnel here.

Steven Sashen:

Oh wait, I’m going to pause-

Jessie Graff:

When you raise-

Steven Sashen:

Yeah, so I had an issue with my dog a couple weeks ago where another dog tried to attack my dog and I’m trying to keep that dog away and I had a thought I’ve never imagined I would have, which is, “I might have to kill a dog.” While I’m simultaneously taking my 35 pound built a tank dog on his leash and trying to shove him away. So super spinatus, I know it very well because I tore the crap out of it and I’m dealing with all those things that I can’t do right now. All of this external rotation stuff.

Jessie Graff:

External rotation hurts, yeah.

Steven Sashen:

Yeah. So anyways-

Jessie Graff:

So here’s the interesting thing about the superspinatus. When you think about tearing a tendon, you think about overstretching it and it rips, right? That’s what I always thought. The super spinatus actually is when you raise your arm overhead, it’s getting shorter so it’s not stretched. But because it goes through this little tunnel, it’s getting rubbed. So every time you raise your arm, if you’re in good alignment, it just flows through that tunnel. If your shoulders are rolled forward, which so many of us are not just from doing too many pull ups, but from typing, your shoulders are raised, your pecks are getting tight, you’re texting, you’re hunched over. So now we’re out of alignment. So every time you raise your arm, you’re getting wear and tear as it rubs through this little tunnel.

Now if you’re rubbing like that and weakening this tendon, and then you’re also taking huge impacts like we do on Ninja in the wrong alignment, that’s where it shears and gets cut.

Steven Sashen:

Got it.

Jessie Graff:

So basically learning about this, learning it’s not just about being in the right alignment when I take those impacts, which is important, but it’s about doing all these exercises. It’s not just about doing enough rows to balance my pull-ups, it’s about attacking the rows with the same intensity that I do the pull-ups.

Steven Sashen:

Well I’m curious because, so I’ve had … Look, I know something else about you, you are a former gymnast, as am I. So gymnasts naturally tend to have overdeveloped pecs, internally rotated shoulders. So to a certain extent you might’ve come about that naturally. But one of the things I started playing with to help my shoulders was doing pull ups, but really focusing on just getting that pull part, really getting the back engaged before I did anything with my arms and it really helped my shoulders, so that component too. I mean it’s kind of funny that you’re thinking you have to do rows to compensate for what you’re doing with pull-ups, which is basically just a row from a different angle and if you do it from perspective. So with the … Wait, what was the term you used for what this conditioning was? You were studying nutrition and what did you call it?

Jessie Graff:

Oh, corrective exercise. It’s by NASM, National Academy of Sports Medicine.

Steven Sashen:

So I’m curious, in addition to having that realization about how you were really attacking pull days but not push days, did you discover anything else about the hip bone connected to the knee bone, connected to the whatever bone? So there was something else that wasn’t necessarily your shoulders that impacted your shoulders? Or something else where there was kind of a chain of things that you may have discovered where there was some other link in the chain?

Jessie Graff:

Yeah, yeah. I mean so many. One interesting one is I have some bulging discs in my neck from stunts over and over, of course. But the bulge is that, I think it’s C4/5 is my worst bulge, but I have it at C3/4 as well. But the nerve that innervates your diaphragm, which is your breathing muscle, basically, was the one that’s kind of getting pinched occasionally from my neck injury. Since my diaphragm was sort of atrophying, I was doing most of my breathing with my accessory breathing muscles. Now if every breath is like this now my neck muscles are tightening, which is also pulling my shoulders out of alignment. So a neck injury from 2010 slowly changed my posture, which led to a shoulder injury.

Steven Sashen:

Well I love that you said that because, and part of what made me ask that was something I discovered recently that shocked the crap out of me. So I did a podcast with, I just blanked, Erin McGuire. Definitely Erin, but I’m blanking, I’m not positive on her last name. I’m having a hard time with names lately. One of those 60 year old things. Anyway, she makes a little device, it’s a belt, it’s called the Core 360 Belt. So it’s basically just a … Wait, hold on, I’ve got it right here. I’m going to show it to you.

Jessie Graff:

Does it have tennis balls in it where you feel like your stomach out and make the cylinder.

Steven Sashen:

Yes. Thank you. So here’s the belt. The whole idea is it’s giving you some feedback. So when you’re breathing in, you’re making this cylindrical thing pushing down. What shocked me is I learned how to breathe that way and actually breathe into my back, expand my back as I was breathing. My lower back is doing that thing in between. My shoulders was opening up, my shoulders were not rounding forward, but they were doing something where the alignment changed in my shoulders where everything was just hanging better. So I love that you said this problem with your neck leading to your diaphragm and what that was doing to your breathing. Because I’ve been playing with how the way I’m changing my breathing is impacting my shoulders in a way that I never in a million years imagines. That blew me away. So that strikes me as a corrective exercise-y kind of thing.

Jessie Graff:

Yeah, my physical therapist is really into that too. She does dynamic … Whoops, I got this. She does dynamic neuromuscular stabilization and there’s a huge focus on breathing properly. So it’s a cycle too, because once you start breathing like this, now my neck muscles are getting tighter. So my scalenes were always out of control. My sternocleido mastoid, this one was super tight. You could see knots in it. There was a vein or an artery that you could see that was bunched up because everything was so bunched up in my neck, which, how do you think that felt on my actual neck injury? So I’m having constant neck pain, which more and more is pulling my shoulders out of alignment. So it was so interesting when I started trying to breathe properly, if someone says, “Relax your traps,” they’re very different from force your traps to stay down. So I had to strengthen my lower traps and my-

Steven Sashen:

Rhomboids-

Jessie Graff:

Serratus anterior and rhomboids-

Steven Sashen:

Interesting.

Jessie Graff:

But especially serratus anterior and lower traps because that’s what holds your shoulder blades down. So I couldn’t, even relaxing everything was so tight and overactive here that even if I’m relaxing them, they’re just too short to stay down. So I had to actively pull my shoulder blades down and breathe into my stomach and these muscles, I would get sharp pains on every inhale because they were so tight that they were getting stretched, actively stretched on every inhale unless I allowed my shoulders to come up. So it was a long process of actively, it’s not just relax your upper traps, it’s very actively engage your lower traps and that serratus. It was hard and I had to think about it all the time.

Steven Sashen:

Yeah, well because what’ll happen is you get into a pattern and then your brain shuts off the awareness to those things that are tight because it just gets in the loop and you don’t need to pay attention. Just building the neural connections to be able to do that, that’s one part. The other part that I love, what you’re describing, and people misunderstand this quite a bit, is the relationship between strength and flexibility. Where they think flexibility is learning to stretch a muscle rather than one important factor of being strong in the opposing direction. So they think that doing the splits is about just stretching instead of learning how … I don’t know if you ever did this when I was in gymnast mode, I’d sit on the floor with my legs straddle as much as I could and just lift my feet off the ground and just work on basically the quad part of pulling my legs up, which is what allowed me to get the split. So it wasn’t from stretching the muscles, it was from getting stronger in the direction that I was trying to go. People don’t think about that.

Jessie Graff:

At least on a split leap. When I worked on switch leaps, I had to work really actively on contracting my hamstring on the back leg because I could get my front leg up high, but when you’re going switch, switch, I wasn’t hitting a split because my back leg would just drop. So I’d get on the parallel bars and kick my legs and really feel how I had to squeeze my glute and my hamstring super dynamically to follow the momentum and snap it upwards so I could hit that split.

Steven Sashen:

I’ve never thought of this, nor have I ever thought to ask anyone about this, but I remember, so when I was getting out of gymnastics, I was doing ballet and I stopped doing ballet mostly because after a couple weeks I couldn’t find pants that fit me. My legs just blew up. So that was problematic

Jessie Graff:

Screw pants. I wear shorts all the time.

Steven Sashen:

Well I was in North Carolina, it was winter. But I remember doing switch leap and there’s something so amazingly gratifying about that move. I don’t even know how to describe it. There’s just something-

Jessie Graff:

Oh yeah. It just snaps.

Steven Sashen:

Yeah, I mean because it’s more than just jumping, you’re doing something in the air that’s like fast, and I mean if you do it well, it looks like you’re kind of levitating that. I mean, that’s a really fun one.

Jessie Graff:

Yeah, I agree. Yeah, I need to work on those again.

Steven Sashen:

Well, so backing up a giant part to our conversation. So in terms of the getting stronger and setting those goals and always trying to improve a little bit each time, which is obviously very important. What else have you discovered about, and let’s just transition into the being a fit 50 year old woman, what else have you discovered, if anything that’s changed over the years about how you train based on either injuries or just things that have changed as you’re gotten older?

Jessie Graff:

Okay, well there’s a couple important things that we might have to-

Steven Sashen:

Unpack first?

Jessie Graff:

We haven’t even talked about knee and ankle and foot stuff because there was just as much discovery there. So yeah, I think part of the issue I had with having all three of these injuries at once is the shoulders were so much more dramatic that I focused all of my attention and efforts into rehabbing my shoulders. An ACL surgery on the knee is a huge reconstruction thing that takes forever to recover. I’ve done that before and it went great and it was amazing. So this time I was all focused on the shoulders and I don’t think I gave my knee the attention that it should have gotten in rehabbing. So much of that is not just like, I mean you don’t focus that much on the knee when you’re rehabbing the knee, they usually focus mostly on hip and glute activation and teaching your knee not to turn inward, but using your glute to turn it outward so that it stays aligned with your second toe.

But in this corrective exercise class, I learned so much about the muscles in your foot and ankle and shin and hip that contribute to knee stability. It’s a very simple test, this overhead squat test where you can look at a person while they do squats with their arms straight up by their ears and based on whether their arms drop or their back arches or their knees turn out, heels come up, feet turn out, you can tell pretty quickly which muscles are overdeveloped and which ones are underdeveloped. So my natural, my feet always want it turn out when I do squats, I know how to force them to stay in line, but by forcing them to stay in line, I now can feel which muscles are tight that are making me want to turn out.

Steven Sashen:

Well let’s pause on that one because I want to give people, this is an assignment to play with. So if somebody wants to try and do this with a little self diagnostic, which is of course, but walk people through what they do, the movement, and what they want to pay attention to, to see if they’re going to find something that’s over underdeveloped or not functioning properly.

Jessie Graff:

Okay, well I would set up a camera that’s going to film you and you’re going to do squats straight on. You might as well look up the overhead squat test online so that you can see it more accurately than if you’re just listening here. But you want to set up the camera first so that you’re not just looking at yourself in the mirror as you do these things, you can look at it a few times. So facing the camera, you’ll basically just put your arms by your head and do a squat, make sure you get down so that your quads are parallel to the floor and stand back up and do this a few times. Then once you’ve done it a few times, you turn 90 degrees so you can see it from the side. Do it a few times there, go to the other side, do it there and turn your back to the camera. Do a few times there. So you want to look at this and-

Steven Sashen:

Wait, I want to pause. When you’re doing the squat, I’m thinking there’s kind of two ways of doing the squat. You’ve got your arms over your head, you can kind of drop straight down and keep your torso pretty vertical or you can really hip hinge and then it’s a different thing. Which should people be thinking about more? So hip hinge for people who don’t know, you want to think about if you’re standing in front of your toilet, you’re sitting back, so your butt is going back before you start going down versus just going sort of straight down like your torso is an elevator. So which one of these, or some variation thereof do people want to be thinking about?

Jessie Graff:

You want your torso to stay parallel to your shins. So when you’re standing vertical, if this is my torso and these are my shins, which obviously your thighs are in between, as your knees bend, your shins are going to go forward, your knees are going to lean forward, your shins are going to bend, and your upper body should relatively lean in proportion, which means your hips are bending.

Steven Sashen:

Correct. Okay, great.

Jessie Graff:

So the tricky thing in telling people how to diagnose this is I don’t want to tell them perfect form before they do it because you want to see what your natural accidental tendencies are. But if you’re self-diagnosing-

Steven Sashen:

Sorry about that.

Jessie Graff:

No, it’s just tricky. If you’re self-diagnosing, then you need to know what to look for. So do it a few times first before you start analyzing it. Then maybe film it again from all three of those directions thinking specifically about, “Are my feet hip width apart? Are my feet staying perfectly parallel, like second toe pointing, perfectly forward? Are my knees tracking over my second toe? Am I arching my back?” So if your hips are hinging a ton or if your arms are dropping down forward, you want to be keeping your arms parallel to your torso. So straight line from your hips to your fingertips. Most people, their arms are going to come forward and that’s because of tight lats usually. What else? If your heels are coming off the ground. So try to keep your heels on the ground. If you try to keep your heels on the ground and you feel your feet wanting to turn out, that’s going to be a really tight lateral calf and TFL, which is the muscle attached to the IT band. There’s a couple other things. There’s so many, and I’m restudying this chart I’ve learned.

Steven Sashen:

Yeah, I’m thinking, pick the top three to five things that somebody might notice or be on the lookout for. So arms dropping is one. What else?

Jessie Graff:

Especially if we’re focusing on lower body, the big one is, are your knees turning in?

Steven Sashen:

Yep.

Jessie Graff:

Are your feet turning out? Are your heels coming up? Especially considering this podcast, focusing on feet.

Steven Sashen:

Ok, well that’s okay-

Jessie Graff:

Those are huge ones.

Steven Sashen:

Okay. So if your knees start to turn in, your knees start to come towards each other, what’s that indicating that somebody might need to pay attention to?

Jessie Graff:

That you need to strengthen your glute medias. Your aductors may be a little too tight, so the muscles on the inside of your thighs that would pull your legs together. But weak glutes is the big one there.

Steven Sashen:

And pretty common.

Jessie Graff:

Very common. Very common. A lot of people do this and it’s a strong indicator that you’re vulnerable to knee injury.

Steven Sashen:

So there was a time I was driving to have brunch with some friends and there’s a woman running down the street who clearly was an accomplished runner. I mean you could tell that part. Except that her knees were practically banging into each other with each step because they turned in so much. All I could think was, “You’ve figured out a way to run, but you’re glutes are out of whack.” I almost wanted to stop and say, “How long until your next injury?” I mean it’s undeniable that if your knees are really coming in that way when you’re walking or running or even squatting, you’re setting yourself up. Most people have no idea because they’ve never seen the … I love that the opening, your first instruction, “Get a camera.” So many people have not the best proprioceptive skills and where they think their body is different than where it actually is. The only way you discover this is with video and some humility.

I remember a guy, he emailed me and he said, “There’s something wrong with the rubber on your shoes because I wore out the heel.” I said, “Well you’re over striding and heel striking because that’s putting friction in that spot.” He goes, “Well, I don’t do that.” I went, “Well, I mean-”

Jessie Graff:

Your shoes say otherwise.

Steven Sashen:

Yeah. So I said, “Send me a video.” So he sends me a video and it took me 20 minutes with him on Zoom or Skype or whatever we were using of me drawing on the screen until he went, “Oh yeah, okay. Yeah, that’s over striding and heel striking.” Then I swear to God, his next line was, “Yeah, but I don’t do that.” It’s like “This is a video of you made of you, made by you.” Yeah.

Jessie Graff:

Wow, interesting.

Steven Sashen:

It was just very palpable, very powerful for me to see how long it took for him to see that his body was doing something different than what he thought it was doing. That was just incompatible with his self image, which was fascinating.

Jessie Graff:

Yeah, that is interesting. The big one I’m focusing on right now that kind of caught me by surprise. A couple weeks ago I was working on some flips. I have this a layout step out and I was landing right leg first and I was kind of getting a little bit of knee pain. So I did some hops in the mirror. I had a friend actually point out to me, she was like, “Hey, you’re over pronating on your landing whenever you land on one foot.” Even if I’m just jumping off a one foot box or jumping really high and I land on one foot, I’m over pronating, which means I’m collapsing my arch or turning my foot out and collapsing my arch. So I started doing this more often and testing, and over pronating is going to basically cause your knee to turn in and put pressure on your knee.

So I’m watching this and doing hops in the mirror and if I hop really high and land on that one foot, it is so hard for me not to collapse my arch.

Steven Sashen:

Interesting.

Jessie Graff:

So even though I’m doing these static exercises, raising my arch and I’m getting pretty strong there, I haven’t been doing the dynamic training focusing on that. So I’m doing, kind of like what I do with my pull-ups where I’ll do my heaviest weighted pull up to see how strong I can get. What’s the heaviest single one where I compromise form a little to do just what’s the heaviest I can do. Then I’ll do my lighter ones with the cable machine. I do way more reps that way, focusing on perfect form, engaging the right things. So having that stuff in the middle where I’m doing all the fun flips and stuff, but not paying attention to the mechanics of my feet I’ve been putting a lot of things at risk.

So I’m kind of putting my flips, unless it’s a standing back tuck where I’m landing with two feet and it’s a very controlled environment, I’m going back to just doing hops in the mirror and just only go to the height where I can control it. I’m having to focus so hard on keeping my foot in perfect alignment. If I keep my arch up, my knee wants to turn in, if I keep my knee out, my foot wants to … It’s so interesting to see. So when I force it, I feel a stretch in my lateral calf because the tight calf is the thing that’s causing my body to want to work around that. Your body will find, anytime there’s pain, it’s going to be like, “Okay, which direction can I go to avoid this pain?” Then you’re going to have certain muscles that then are going to atrophy so the muscle that should be controlling the movement is getting weaker while something else that’s making up for that is getting stronger and pulling everything out of balance.

So just going through things slowly in the mirror, now that I’m strong in these static situations, now I have to build up into smaller dynamic things and strengthen. So for me, that’s a weak posterior tibialis I think.

Steven Sashen:

This is sort of like when people talk about getting ready for barefoot running, there’s a lot of people who try to make a name for themselves by saying, “Well here’s what you need to be able to do to be able to run barefoot.” A lot of the people who had those, “If you can’t do these 10 things, you can’t run barefoot.” I couldn’t do six of them. They were just kind of making something up. But there are a lot of people who think, “Oh, if you just walk barefoot for a while that’s going to prepare you for running.” It’s like, no, no, no, no, no. I mean there’s a value in walking that’s going to build strength for sure research shows as much as doing an exercise program. But that exercise program, like you said, is not the same as the forces you apply when you’re running or when you’re jumping or when you are doing something that’s more aggressive.

To notice those things that show up under the extreme version of what you’re doing, the far end of the bell curve, that’s where things are interesting. You reminded me, I had Dr. Bill Sands who was the head of biomechanics for the US Olympic Committee. He was given a great humor performance facility views at what’s now called Colorado Mesa University. He would film you at 500 frames a second to see what your form was looking like. I said, “Why that fast?” He goes, “Because you can’t learn anything at anything under 250.” Which I thought was ridiculous. But what happened when he was testing me is my right foot, just before it hit the ground, was turning out. You only saw it in the last frame. So if you were shooting at anything under 250 frames a second, wouldn’t have been able to see that. That was the thing, he goes, “Oh, you got a tight hamstring that at a full extension is pulling your foot that way.” So those little things in those extreme versions-

Jessie Graff:

Yeah.

Steven Sashen:

Super interesting. What’s intriguing to me thinking about this is that there’s so few people that you could go see on your own who would know how to diagnose this stuff, let alone what you could do for yourself to diagnose it for yourself. So doing the overhead squat test is a really interesting one. At some point we’ll have to-

Jessie Graff:

So interesting-

Steven Sashen:

Yeah, see what else we can find that’s for self-diagnosis.

Jessie Graff:

I’m working on, I need to put some notes together because the class explains so well, the online course, explains so well how to administer the test and then gives, “It means this is tight, this is tight and this is tight.” But I always need to see, “Okay, if you’re saying my TFL is tight and that’s pulling my feet out, show me how that connects. I want to see that pulling.” That’s a gap that I have to put the pieces together myself. I saw this great video on Instagram of basically a cadaver leg so you could see all the muscles of just at the knee and as the knee is straightening and bending. You could see the IT band where it connects and how that connects-

Steven Sashen:

Into the hip.

Jessie Graff:

You couldn’t see the hip. But I was having the hardest time understanding how a tight TFL, tensor fascial latte, the muscle that connects to the IT band. The point of the thing was like, “You can’t roll out your IT band because it’s a tendon.” Well there’s a muscle attached to the tendon. It’s just you don’t want to roll the band, you want to roll that muscle. But I was having a hard time understanding, “How is this muscle in my hip turning my foot out?” When I saw this, it doesn’t connect to your knee, it connects to your fibula. So some of your hamstrings, two of your hamstrings connect to the back of your tibia, the bicep femoris, your other hamstring connects to the other side to your fibula and the IT band connects to your fibula. So a tight bicep femoris and IT band are pulling on the fibula, which is attached to your ankle and pulls things out.

So if your two inner hamstrings are weak and your two outer hamstrings are strong, your foot’s going to turn out. Then you don’t have any support that keeps your knee from turning in. So all the pieces came together just seeing this cadaver leg.

Steven Sashen:

Well, and there’s the flip side, which is you can affect negatively or positively your hip and your glute medias in particular with what your foot is doing, which you could be doing voluntarily or habitually. So that kind of thing where goes from one end to the other and you can start on either end is really, really intriguing. So when people talk to me about having flat feet, it’s one of my favorite things to do. I go, “Stand with your feet on the ground and just tighten your butt and don’t let your feet move and watch what happens.” By tightening your butt, it tries to externally rotate everything that goes all the way down to your feet and suddenly you have a little bit of arch and everyone’s like, What the hell?” It’s like, “Yeah, your arch issue is a butt issue.”

Jessie Graff:

Yeah. Yeah. That’s a big part of it usually.

Steven Sashen:

Think it’s a new T-shirt we need to make, Your arch is your butt issue.” It’s very limited run because very few people will care. But I just like the idea of that.

Jessie Graff:

But you can arch your back too. I feel like a lot of people are going to misunderstand. Does that also work? If you’re overarching your back, that’s like a hip flexor issue more than a glute. Well, weak glutes, no. If your hip flexors are too tight-

Steven Sashen:

It could be performance also. There’s a couple things. If you’re arching too much … That’s an interesting one. That balance between your lower back and things both above it and below it, and then of course the flip side, your abs and how that works. It’s an interesting one for me because I’ve got a grade two L5, S1 spondy. So for people who don’t know, that means my lowest lumbar vertebrae is shifted forward 50% from where it’s supposed to be and there’s no disk in between. But the really fun part is the part that would hold that vertebrae in place is not attached to the vertebrae. So I have a pars defect, for medically inclined people. So there’s nothing I can do to pull that vertebrae back in place. So there’s times where a part of my back looks like it’s arched simply because I’ve got a structural issue and I’ve had all these physical therapists say, “Oh, you need to work on your ab strength.” I go, “Put me on any machine and I’ll max it out, that’s not the problem.” So there’s all the idiosyncratic stuff.

That’s crazy too. But the fundamental things, I mean, I like that, it’s as you’re doing your overhead squat test, looking to see what you’re doing with your lower back. I mean it may be for some of these things that just noticing that it’s an non-ideal movement pattern and then just having curiosity to start exploring and seeing what you might need to do to get it into the right position. Or what you’re feeling that feels like it’s a little inactive or too active or something. It may be that our little goal of going, “Oh, when this happens, go take a look at that.” There might be three or four things you need to take a look at.

Jessie Graff:

Oh yeah, very likely.

Steven Sashen:

But I like the self diagnostic aspect.

Jessie Graff:

Yeah, and the thing that’s so cool about it is there’s so much pain you can have in your body that feels like, “This is how things are now,” but it can actually be fixed with some strengthening and stretching exercises. There are so many things that can be solved, literally fixed. Or at worst can still be prevented from getting worse by strengthening construction.

Steven Sashen:

I think the strengthening one is highly overlooked. I think people are much more attuned to the idea of, “Hey, let’s stretch something.” But in my experience, I’m imagining yours as well, the strengthening has a bigger impact.

Jessie Graff:

Yeah, I think so. Yeah.

Steven Sashen:

There’s another part that’s sort of an emotional component that is interesting to me lately. I’ll share this one, I’ll get a little too personal. So I went and got a massage on Saturday and, as is often the case, my upper back and neck is tight and sometimes my upper back’s a little tight because of my lower back issue where my upper back is trying to compensate, blah blah blah. But I had an annoying flashback. There’s a guy that I was introduced to about almost 30 years ago who wanted to do research on stress. He figured, “Let’s not do the emotional part, let’s just look at physical stress.” So he developed a drug, or he modified a drug that he would inject into the muscle spindle fiber, which is the part of the muscle that actually triggers the contraction and it would deactivate the muscle spindle fiber. So you couldn’t contract the muscles around it.

He was just using this to … I mean, I don’t even know if he knew what he was doing at the time. But what he discovered is he decided to inject people in their upper back and neck, or in their traps and upper back because that’s where the muscle spindle fibers are the largest. What he found, much to his surprise-

Jessie Graff:

And overactive.

Steven Sashen:

Correct, and often very overactive. What he found is that when he did this with people and made it so they couldn’t tense their upper back or neck, is that they reported feeling lighter emotionally. Like they were angry about something and now they weren’t. He came to the conclusion that if you are feeling tension in those spots, you’re probably angry about something. The thing you need to do is figure out what that is and address that. So I’m getting this massage and this woman is talking about how tight my back is and for the first time I went, “Shit, I wonder what I’m angry about?”

I’m going to start crying thinking about it. The only thing I could think of, in addition to just the stress of running a business, but it occurred to me on a daily basis when someone is driving under the speed limit in front of me, I would like to have a weapon. What I’ve been doing in the meantime, before I had that realization, was anytime someone’s driving under the speed limit in front of me, I use that as a cue to remind myself to think of at least three things that I’m genuinely grateful for, which makes my upper back relax. So my new mission is to figure this thing out as much as I can given the situation that I’m in. But the emotional component of that is another piece that is interesting and could give some insight into what’s going on. Again, I don’t know if it’s one direction or the other, but usually that extra piece of the puzzle we don’t think about it. I didn’t think about it and I’ve been dealing with this stuff my whole life.

Jessie Graff:

I don’t think about it much either. But I definitely notice that if I get stressed or angry or irritated, my neck hurts way more. For sure.

Steven Sashen:

Yeah. So that’s a whole other component. So, “Relax and pull them down and back.” So let’s back up to the thing that I teased everybody with at the beginning, and I teased that and I said that because I think someone told me that this is one of your new goals. Do you want to describe what that is and how you are moving towards it by starting by saying, so the goal being, fittest woman at 50? Is that it?

Jessie Graff:

The age is not important. The important thing about the age is that I qualify as a little old lady. I don’t think 50 is going to do it. 70, would I be ideal. But that’s very distant still so it doesn’t register as a goal that I can aim for at the moment. But that’s my ultimate distant thing on the mountain to strive for. So the thing I realized is that I’m all about goals. I am so motivated by goals. If you give me a goal that I’m excited about and I latch onto it, everything turns on fire and I’m like, “I’m going to do this thing. I’m so excited.” I will do whatever discipline, whatever steps I have to take to move towards this goal constantly. I just thrive on every step of that, even if it’s hard.

Every goal I’ve ever had has been, even if it’s long-term, long term being four years or something, it’s always something that’s like, “You have to be the hardest worker, get there fast.” Every single year in Ninja, it’s been like, “You have three months to get as strong as you possibly can. You have a couple years to be as strong as the strongest men on this show.” It’s reaching an absurd level of strength at the expense of overall balance in my body. Yeah, try to stay balanced, try to stay healthy as you can, but it is worth sacrificing any of those things to be the strongest and the best this year. That does not encourage healthy habits, that does not encourage things that will lead to longevity. Now, longevity has never inspired me. It’s sort of like, “Yeah, I’d love to have that, but I’d rather be a world record holder.”

Steven Sashen:

Do you know the Olympic, how to describe this, I can’t think of how to describe it. I’m just going to ask it. This is a question that someone has asked Olympians for decades. If you could take a drug that would guarantee you won a gold medal, but would also guarantee that you would be dead within five years afterwards, would you take it? So before you answer, guess what percentage of people of Olympians up until very recently said yes?

Jessie Graff:

A high percentage? I don’t know.

Steven Sashen:

Like 80.

Jessie Graff:

I would’ve said yes. 80? Yeah. I think for me, looking at it now, I don’t think a gold medal would do it. It would have to be something, have a lasting impact on the world, inspire people for generations. For that, yeah, would I be willing to do that this year and die next year if I could have that kind of impact? Yeah.

Steven Sashen:

I love it.

Jessie Graff:

But one, I’m not going to do anything this year that’s going to have that kind of impact, probably not.

Steven Sashen:

Right.

Jessie Graff:

Two, having that as my goal encourages me to train in a way that is not healthy for me long term. So ever since my three big injuries in 2020, I’ve struggled to come up with a goal that would motivate me more toward balance. Yes, I want to be healthy. No, I don’t want to get injured like that again. So I’m trying to focus on balance. But having that vision of what you want to aim for, how could I have a goal that’s not a blaze of glory, but a long-term thing? Being able to do this for a long time is still just sort of like, “Yeah, that’d be cool,” but it doesn’t rival that drive to have that burst of glory. So I found the answer just a couple weeks ago looking at what my mom is doing because, “Cool, I kept up with the guys on some obstacle courses for a while, but have you ever seen a 70 year old woman doing laches in obstacle courses?” If she has a sweater on, you could look at her and be like, “Oh, let me help you down the stairs and stuff.”

Then she takes off her sweatshirt and she’s shredded and she jumps on a bar and does a lache to a cliffhanger. It’s mind blowing. It’s shocking just to look at. But it opens up my mind for, I didn’t know you could get stronger after age 60. I didn’t know you could build muscle. I didn’t know you could accomplish these things. I didn’t know you could have that freedom of movement at that age. Seeing the way she inspires people who look at her, I thought I had five years left of this at best. I didn’t know that you could keep doing this. The way it opens up possibilities for everyone who sees her is something that I want to do. I want to be like that. I want to be that person who’s 70 years old, blowing minds and inspiring the world. So having that visual image of someone that I want to be, it is in the distant future.

But if I want to be able to be that kind of person, it doesn’t mean I have to do bigger things now. It means I have to work really hard to strengthen the areas that I’m weak, that are pulling me out of balance, making me more likely to get injured. If I get hurt, my chances of being a badass 70 year old are going down and I want to be that little old lady who can do 50 pull ups. Like I can’t do 50 pull ups now, but doing 50 pull ups now isn’t going to get me to doing 50 pull ups then. Doing a balanced set of rows and engaging my lower traps and doing pull ups, even if they’re assisted pull ups with perfect form, those are the things that are going to get me to badass 70 year old.

So now that I have that image of what I want to be when I’m deciding, “Am I going to do my hard pull up sets first or my hard row sets first?” Well, I’m more excited about the pull up sets, but if I prioritize the pull up sets and then I’m too tired to do hard sets on my rows, I’m not going to take steps towards being a badass 70 year old so I guess I’ll do the rows first. So I’ll finally have goal that inspires healthier behavior all around.

Steven Sashen:

Do you find that you need to kind of chunk that down? Because how old are you now?

Jessie Graff:

38.

Steven Sashen:

Okay. So you got quite a while until you’re 70. So in my head, so do you have to start thinking about 40, 45, 50? I mean, how do you keep that in your mind? Or is that 70 year old picture enough that it keeps you going?

Jessie Graff:

I think the 70 year old picture is more dynamic. So that’s the one. But I’d love to get a pull-up related world record at 50.

Steven Sashen:

Nice.

Jessie Graff:

That would be pretty cool. I looked up some pull-up world records, and they’re not outside the realm of possibility, but they’re certainly not something that I could do this year.

Steven Sashen:

Right.

Jessie Graff:

I couldn’t just try it and be close. I’m like, “Okay, this is going to take some hard dedicated, specific work.” But if I do that and pace myself and don’t overdo it and get injured, then I think there’s a lot that’s possible that I didn’t realize was possible. So now that I have this, I’ve been doing all this extra research and studying and everything, and I think I found the key to why I have been so injury prone. I don’t like that word. But I’ve gotten a lot of injuries at the end of each season. So like I told you, I’ve been able to build strength extremely quickly and lose it and build it again extremely quickly and lose it.

So I read this book called Training for Climbing by Eric Hurst, and he talks about energy systems, which I think is utilized more often in-

Steven Sashen:

Well, running-

Jessie Graff:

Team sports and running. Yeah, a lot of running stuff. But he talks about it in terms of climbing and percentage of weight on your fingers. So your arms are not as bulky as your legs. You don’t have as much space between the muscle fibers for circulation. So with running, you’re hitting and relaxing, you’re flexing. With hanging from something, your muscles are isometrically contracted and clamping off those capillaries. So if you’re holding more than 50% of your maximum strength, all of your capillaries are so clamped off that you’re getting zero blood flow and you’re immediately anaerobic.

Steven Sashen:

Interesting.

Jessie Graff:

Immediately. So your aerobic system can do nothing to help you in that situation. You’re just accumulating hydrogen ions getting more and more acidic and that acid will just kind of sit in your muscles and weaken things. So strengthening this lactic energy system will get you really strong really fast. You’ll see your gains dramatically in, he says two to six weeks you’ll see huge gains. So training hard, I was able to get dramatic gains for two months. So that’s kind of where you max out that system. So I was scientifically, to the book, doing exactly what he said there. But I was only training that energy system. I wasn’t training … You have to go at a very low intensity to train your aerobic system for your grip. You’ve got to be at 15%-30% of your maximum strength, which for me on a cliffhanger-

Steven Sashen:

Nothing.

Jessie Graff:

Yeah, it’s very low. For pull-ups on a bar, I can do a pull-up with an extra 80 pounds. So what is that? Well, on a cable machine, I’m basically doing 12-15 pounds per arm just pulling down, keeping perfect form. It’s so light, I barely get a burn. But that’s how I know that I’m staying in the aerobic system and not getting … Because as soon as you fill up with acid, that kind of breaks down the progress you can make in building new mitochondria. So it’s hard to train your aerobic system when everything’s super acidic. If I’m doing everything to maximum burnout, I’m also not training that maximum strength. Everything is a percentage of your maximum strength. So if my maximum strength is staying at 80 pounds for a one rep max, my aerobic system can only get up to at best, maybe 35% of that. But if I’m not training aerobic system, well that’s still down at like 20%, maybe 25%.

So I’m building, I have this huge range in the lactic system, but it hits this peak. If my max strength isn’t increasing, I hit a peak. So if you work on your aerobic system and your max strength system and then you build that lactic system, you can have long-term gains. So building those too.

Steven Sashen:

There’s a guy named Steve Holman, he used to be an editor for some muscle and fitness kind of magazine. He’s a couple years older than I am. I think he’s 63 maybe?

Jessie Graff:

Wasn’t he at Tony’s Paragon?

Steven Sashen:

I don’t think so. That would freak me out. If he was, I didn’t notice. But the way he does weight training is your first set it’s like a set of 20 to 25 reps and then just wait 20 seconds, then you’re going to do a second set that’s going to be like 10-12 tops and then maybe do a third or switch to a different exercise for the same muscle group. But what’s interesting is that first set is literally just what you’re saying. It’s really, it’s slow twitch, it’s anaerobic thing that eventually does get your muscles tired. But it’s really all about blood flow. I’m also having a flashback to working with, I had one workout with a guy who’s a Xero Shoes customer, who’s a big deal fitness trainer in LA. His whole thing, he kept saying, “It’s just all about getting the blood moving. We’re not trying to …”

I made some comment, I said, I’m hanging out with him and all of his trainers, we’re having dinner. I said, “I’m not trying to get bigger. I’m just trying to get faster. I’m trying to develop the muscles I need to be faster.” He looked at all the trainers, he goes, “Did anyone understand a word of what he just said?” Because their whole thing is, it’s about getting bigger. It’s about hypertrophy, but mostly by just doing things that are just getting the blood moving, building additional mitochondria so you can do more work over time and that’s going to lead to hypertrophy. I just had no interest in hypertrophy. Which the joke for them is that made no sense because who wouldn’t? It’s not totally true because I do have an interest in that, partly for vanity and partly because as I’m getting older, having more muscle mass is helpful. So there’s that.

But I love what you described. If you want to help with your fit 70 year old goal, a thing to do is go to a master’s track meet, ideally nationals or worlds. Because I’m having a flashback to … Now, there are a couple things. Once these people get over 80 or so, they don’t look great, I will admit. But they look like someone you still want to be, it’s like they’re high jumping three feet, but you still want to be that guy or that woman. When we were in Finland there was a guy who was 101. He used his walker to get out to where he was going to do the shot-put. At 101 I think the weight of the shot was five pounds, whatever. He goes, “Ugh.” And it goes like 10 feet. The audience goes insane because we all want to be that guy.

Jessie Graff:

Yeah.

Steven Sashen:

There was a woman who showed up, she was 95. She entered one race before she got there, but then felt pretty good and said, “Can I just enter everything that I want to do?” They went, “Yeah.” She entered 10 things, won them all and everyone wanted to be that woman. I love what you said, personally, because my goal as a sprinter is not to win a world championship, it’s not to win nationals. I want to be in the quarter finals for worlds, maybe. Semi-finals for nationals someday. But I just want to hit all American Times. They bigger and bigger as you get older.

So when I was 55-60, something like that, or 55-59. There we go, English. The 60 meter indoor time to all American was 8.5. I was running 8.2, 8.3. I looked yesterday, now that I’m 60, what’s the all American time? It’s 8.9 and I’m going, “I can hit that.” I’m hoping I can still hit the one from what I was a year ago. As long as I can keep doing that, then I feel like I’ve accomplished something. My other one is going to be harder. You’ll appreciate this one. I don’t know when I’m not going to be able to do a standing back flip. I want to be able to do that as long as humanly possible.

Jessie Graff:

Yeah. What’s the record for the oldest person to do a standing back flip?

Steven Sashen:

Oh man, I have no idea. I got to look that one up.

Jessie Graff:

It’s worth looking up. Yeah.

Steven Sashen:

Well then it’s going to be you and me competing for it.

Jessie Graff:

Yeah. Yep, yep.

Steven Sashen:

All right.

Jessie Graff:

Do you know about the 96 year old gymnast?

Steven Sashen:

No.

Jessie Graff:

You’ve got to look this lady up. I found her finally on Instagram. They did this TV show, I think it was called The Night Shift. They heard about this real life old lady and then wrote a character based on her, and I got to double the character. So I had to look up the videos of this, at the time I think she was 86 years old, doing a parallel bars routine. She’s wearing a green velvet leotard, 86 years old.

Steven Sashen:

Oh, I’ve seen that.

Jessie Graff:

Yeah. Her name’s Johanna, I think.

Steven Sashen:

I think you’re right.

Jessie Graff:

But it’s not a men’s parallel bars routine, it’s her own unique thing. So I had to watch and learn her moves and stuff and do them on these physical therapy parallel bars that they used to teach people to walk. So my mom saw a video of her, she’s still doing floor routines and she’s in her 90s and it’s just so badass. I want to highlight more of these things. I’m realizing that’s something I should be using my Instagram for right now. Find videos of older people doing unbelievable things and be like, “I’m going to be like that person.”

Steven Sashen:

Well, again, back to me, me, me. Here’s the problem that I have as a sprinter at 60. 60 is an age where no one gives a shit. So if you’re under 30 and you’re super fast, everyone cares. If you’re over 80, and it doesn’t matter how fast you are, everyone cares. I’m in the age group where they just, as soon as that race starts, everyone just goes and gets a coffee. They just don’t give a shit.

Jessie Graff:

You’re training for 80.

Steven Sashen:

Yeah, I’m training for when I’m old enough that people care again. Or here’s the crazy thought, if I end up with cancer or I have some injury where I lose a leg or whatever the hell it is, if there’s some dramatic whatever thing and I have to come back, I want that one too.

Jessie Graff:

Don’t hope for that

Steven Sashen:

No, I’m not hoping for it. I’m preparing for eventualities. Basically I want to someday run a race where they applaud at the end. That’s it. It’s either because I’m old enough and I’m doing well enough, or I’ve overcome some major thing. I don’t care which. I mean, I prefer the former, but I just want to run a race where they care when I’m done. I’m a simple man.

Jessie Graff:

How can we warm people’s hearts and inspire them to push?

Steven Sashen:

Yeah. No, first of all, I think it’s a brilliant question and it’s a perfect question to wrap this up on. I had no idea where we were going to go off my little intro, but I love this idea of thinking out to some future thing. Who do you want to be 20 years from now? What’s it going to take to do that? And what are the things that are going to make it interesting along the way? Because there’s definitely those times where you just don’t want to get out of bed and go and do that workout for whatever reason. As we were talking before we started this, there’s times where the cold plunge is right next to your hot tub and you’re just not going to get in it. Even though you want to or you think it’s good for you or whatever it is.

There’s times where that cold water is just cold water. For me, I don’t know about you, for me, part of it is being okay with that too, of just not being … I always say, “If you’re not having fun, don’t do it because you’ll stop.” So for me, part of the fun is also playing that edge of, “Is this the day where I’m going to take off and enjoy myself? Or is this the day where I feel like I want to take off, but I need to go out and once I get started I’ll be fine?” Finding that balance is very interesting for me personally.

Jessie Graff:

That is hard. Yeah.

Steven Sashen:

Well, it’s kind of like, a variation on that, when I got back into sprinting, it took me probably five years. I got back into it when I was 45. It took me five years to learn that when I have the thought, “Let me just do one more.” That’s the one to not do.

Jessie Graff:

Yeah.

Steven Sashen:

That was 20 year old me.

Jessie Graff:

My best season on Ninja Warrior was season eight. I committed to myself at the beginning of the year that anytime I felt a tweak, because I have the history of pushing past, ignoring things and being like, “You’ll be fine. You said 10 sets. You’ll do 10 sets.” So I promised myself that anytime I felt a hint of a tweak, I would stop. I can’t tell you how many times I walked home from the track or the gym crying because I was like, “You’ve gotten lazy. I don’t even know who you are anymore. This isn’t you.” But it was killing my soul to quit early. That’s the year I broke the most records. That’s the year I placed second among the men at regional finals. It all worked. So I’ve realized that whatever I perceive as this is the appropriate amount to do to reach your full potential, the actual appropriate amount is somewhere between a quarter and a third of that.

Steven Sashen:

Well, did you find yourself reframing that whole thing about, I feel a little twinge of it’s good news that you know now’s the thing, now’s the time rather than, oh, I’m the wrong person that I’m not pushing?

Jessie Graff:

Yeah, yeah.

Steven Sashen:

Yeah, yeah.

Jessie Graff:

Yeah. There’s definitely a point in my life where I identified as the hardest worker. I’m the first one to practice and the last one to leave, and however much coach says to do, I’m doing double that and that’s who I am. I took great pride in that. So one of the things that changed my life was I had a friend who told me, “What’s more important to you? Do you want to be the hardest worker or do you want to succeed?” Because those were so inherently connected for me my whole life, it was like, “Well, I want to win, but if I don’t win, at least I know I’m the hardest worker.” So my perception is that they were assisting each other, but I can always have hardest worker as consolation prize.

When I realized insisting on being the hardest worker was preventing me from succeeding, I had to separate them and choose, “Okay, I want to reach my full potential more than I want to identify as the hardest worker.” So I still have those moments where I miss my old definition as the hardest worker. I don’t get to claim that anymore because sometimes I get tired and I stop.

Steven Sashen:

Well wait, I’m going to give this one to you. Your goal is to be the smartest worker.

Jessie Graff:

Yeah. It is. That’s my goal now.

Steven Sashen:

Yeah. I love it. That’s a great one. Okay, so smartest worker, what’s coming up for you?

Jessie Graff:

Well, I am having so much fun continuing to read these scientific books on how to exercise more efficiently. I’m making all my own little, I have a new Venn diagram and bar graphs and stuff to track my data. I’ve learned how to use Excel spreadsheets at a higher level so that I can compare month to month and see how each energy system is improving. I’m really enjoying embracing my inner nerd and using it and comparing those things while I work out. Last night I was doing my row sets and realizing like, “Oh, if I do one more pound on these rows, then I’ve increased from the previous cycle, but I have to get 40 reps of this weight for it to count as this energy system.” So finally feeling that that real drive on an exercise that I used to neglect because I didn’t care about it as much.

Steven Sashen:

Do you know Brad, I think, I don’t know if he’s pronounced it, Pilon or Pylon? P-I-L-O-N. Have you ever bumped into him?

Jessie Graff:

He sounds very familiar.

Steven Sashen:

He came up with a thing, I’ll have to get it to you. I can’t remember what it’s called. But it was basically this whole idea of you doing a little more each time if you’re weightlifting. There’s a certain place where it just doesn’t work in that. So if you’re going from 10 pounds to 15 pounds, that’s way too much, but 10 pounds to 11 pounds is enough. I mean, there’s like all these things where it doesn’t work. He figured out this very clever bit of math that has to do with the number of reps and the amount of weight. So by manipulating the number of reps you’re doing and the weight you’re doing, you can be making these tiny, tiny little increases that are smaller than the amount of weight you could add to add more weight or smaller than adding another rep because another rep is too much if you’re using that certain amount of weight.

It’s a very clever thing. I haven’t gotten to start playing with it in the gym lately, but it’s one that makes so much sense about how to just do these tiniest little increments by manipulating weight and reps so that the amount of work you’re doing is the smallest amount of more work than what you did last time.

Jessie Graff:

Okay.

Steven Sashen:

It’s pretty clever.

Jessie Graff:

That sounds fun and satisfying. Yeah.

Steven Sashen:

Yeah. I’ll find it. I’ll send it to you. You’ll get a kick out of it. By sending it to you, I’m not giving him $9 because I think that’s what I paid to get it or that’s what you would have to pay if you got it. But suffice to say, so that’s a good one. We’ll have to get your book list on the things that you’re reading that are compelling in that regard, that’d be a whole lot of fun. So that’s a good one. Yeah, sorry. So nerding out and finding out those things. What else? Anything where people will have to try to identify whether it’s you or an actress that they should be looking for?

Jessie Graff:

Let’s see. I think, I mean Babylon I think is coming out now.

Steven Sashen:

Yeah.

Jessie Graff:

I worked on that a little. I don’t know if you’ll be able to see me anywhere. I wasn’t doubling, I was a warrior.

Steven Sashen:

Fingers crossed. Look, my claim to fame is if you watch Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, at the very beginning there’s a scene where they’re jumping over a fence to get into somewhere and that’s me, bitches. So yeah, there’s like-

Jessie Graff:

Love that movie.

Steven Sashen:

Yeah. So there’s like four frames where if you know my profile, you could spot me if you zoom in with a microscope.

Jessie Graff:

Are you one of the background guys jumping over the fence?

Steven Sashen:

No, I wasn’t a background guy-

Jessie Graff:

Utility sense or you’re a turtle?

Steven Sashen:

No. Well, I wasn’t a turtle or a background. I can’t remember, this is like 35 years ago, 40 years ago. But suffice it to say it’s in the first couple minutes of the movie and I haven’t even looked for this in ages.

Jessie Graff:

But you’re a pedestrian guy?

Steven Sashen:

No.

Jessie Graff:

Or a robber guy?

Steven Sashen:

Something, I don’t even remember. I was either a robber guy or a turtle. I don’t even know. I literally don’t remember.

Jessie Graff:

Okay.

Steven Sashen:

So there’s-

Jessie Graff:

Someone going over a fence. Okay.

Steven Sashen:

Look at jumping over a fence. So in Babylon, if people are going to look, what were you doing?

Jessie Graff:

I’m not sure if I’m allowed to say.

Steven Sashen:

Okay-

Jessie Graff:

It’s big battle scene.

Steven Sashen:

Okay. All right. So yeah. So who are some of the people you doubled for? Just so people can go “ohh and awe” and think about that.

Jessie Graff:

I’m always nervous to say anything. I can say I got to do a lot of work on Supergirl and Wonder Woman 1984.

Steven Sashen:

Okay. Wink, wink.

Jessie Graff:

Used to do a lot of stuff on Agents of Shield.

Steven Sashen:

Fun.

Jessie Graff:

Tons of different crime shows just getting murdered. Or sometimes being a cop. I got to do a bunch of stuff on 911 last season doubling the character Lucy. Yeah, most of the stuff last year I’m just not allowed to say anything.

Steven Sashen:

All right.

Jessie Graff:

I don’t even mess with it anymore.

Steven Sashen:

Well no, I meant, look, I’m not going to mention the famous actor who claims to do all his own stunts and the guy that I know who doubles for him. There’s a lot of that going around. It’s one of the same actors who claims he’s not taking steroids where, yeah, you are. So there’s that problem. It cracks me up that people try to keep that mystique about what they’re doing, what they’re not doing, what they’re taking, what they’re not taking. I mean, come on. It’s like, yeah, I’m sorry, chicken and rice do not get you looking like that. That’s a whole other thing.

Jessie Graff:

It’s tricky because I know you don’t want to encourage kids to be taking steroids, but at the same time, you don’t want someone working out for years trying to achieve what you’ve achieved and not realizing that you’re using assistance. To have them getting down on themselves, being like, “What’s wrong with me that I can’t do that?” Well, you’re not taking the same things he’s taking.

Steven Sashen:

There’s a wonderful book called Muscle about a guy who was an Oxford Scholar kind of person who got a job in New York in publishing and felt really intimidated by New York so he decided to start working out. So the book sort of alternates chapters between his life in the publishing world and what was going on just in his mind and body. Then the next chapter would be his life in the gym and what he learned, and steroids were part of it. It was a really fascinating book because it was an insight into body building that nobody was talking about then. I mean, I have a friend who’s a former, let’s just say very, very high level bodybuilder back in the ’80s, who to this day will not tell me what he was taking to look the way he looked. He will say, “Oh, it’s all natural.”

No you weren’t. So anyway, this book, it’s saying, “Here’s what happens when you’re in the gym. Here’s what happens when you’ve been in the gym and now you’re going back to your real life and how these things intersect in ways that are both good and bad.” It was a wonderfully insightful and educational and fascinating read about exactly that. I’m sure the way that just would get amplified in Hollywood, I can’t even imagine. That’s a whole other thing. Anyway, we can go on and on for that for hours and hours, but we’ll do that in another chat. Jessie Graff, total, total pleasure as always. Literally I’m thinking of all the things that we didn’t even touch on that would be a fun to talk about so we got to do that again. If people want to A, get in touch with you or just follow what you’re doing or whatever, how would they do that?

Jessie Graff:

I keep things pretty up to date on my Instagram and Facebook. The handle is @JesseGraffPwr.

Steven Sashen:

If you don’t drop a couple vowels, you’re nobody these days.

Jessie Graff:

I wanted just Jessie Graff, but it was taken and there wasn’t enough space for the whole word power. So I thought maybe Jesse Gra Pow. But I realize that stands for Prisoner of War and that would be kind of weird. I keep checking in, someone still has Jessie Graff.

Steven Sashen:

What’s up with that? How have you not tracked her down?

Jessie Graff:

Yeah. Well her name is Jessie. I sent her a few messages and was like, “Hey, I would buy this from you.” She has a private account. She never answered me, that’s okay. I like pwr.

Steven Sashen:

No, it’s good. So JessieGraffPwr on Instagram and Facebook and do follow. What’s happening with Ninja stuff?

Jessie Graff:

The new season, I did submit an application for this year.

Steven Sashen:

You think they’re going to say no to you?

Jessie Graff:

I don’t think that. I thought it would be rude not to apply. I think it would be maybe disrespectful to just assume. I didn’t apply the past two years because I honestly did not intend to compete and was convinced to compete anyway. I feel like it was not the best choice of mine to compete through those years. But this year, because I am actually intending to compete, I did put in an application.

Steven Sashen:

When will you hear? When will that season begin?

Jessie Graff:

I think it’s a fairly safe assumption that we will start shooting it sometime in March and that it will start airing sometime in May.

Steven Sashen:

Got it.

Jessie Graff:

This year I’m not letting the pressure to compete, encourage me to push harder. I’m going at my own pace to reach my own personal goals and if that lines up well with the season, awesome.

Steven Sashen:

Well that’s good. In a related note, in terms of people tracking you, I know there are times where you show up for events whether you’re competing or teaching, and I can say as someone who has watched people teach various movement things for almost 50 years, you are a master of that. So if anybody gets a chance-

Jessie Graff:

Thank you.

Steven Sashen:

Well, you’re good at doing two things. You’re good at knowing what the sort of most important thing to know or learn or do is for some sort of skill and you’re good at figuring out what people can do and modifying things to accommodate them so they can be the best they can be. That’s what I’ve seen you do.

Jessie Graff:

Thank you. That’s sort of a new pursuit for me. I’ve always been working on my own goals and I’ve just in the past year, started training more other people now that I’m confident in my knowledge more. So it’s really exciting to hear that is working.

Steven Sashen:

It’s a real thing. So whether you have any intention of ever competing, this for other people, competing in a doing a ninja course or competing a Ninja Warrior or just want to learn some new movement thing that you never imagined that you might do or could do, check out and see where Jessie’s going to be. If you get the opportunity to train with her, it will definitely be something that you’ll remember forever and enjoy. So take advantage of that.

Jessie Graff:

Thank you. Thanks so much Steven.

Steven Sashen:

So, and for everyone else, thank you all for being here. Again, just as a reminder, go to www.jointhemovementmovement.com, find all the previous episodes, all the places you can find us. Again, leave a review and a thumbs up and hit the bell icon on YouTube, you know the drill, how to do all those things. If you have any recommendations or comments or criticism or anything, I don’t care, I’m open. You can drop me an email at move, M-O-V-E, @jointhemovementmovement.com. Most importantly, just go out, have fun and live life feet first.

View Details

Erwan Le Corre is the founder of “MovNat”, a synthesis of his long-term passion for real-world physical competency, his love of movement in nature, his extensive knowledge of Physical Education history, and his personal philosophy of life. He believes it is everyone’s universal and biological birthright to be strong, healthy, happy and free. He calls this state of being our “True Nature”.

Erwan was born on September 10th, 1971 in France. At home, the TV set had a black and white screen with no remote control and no video games, and personal computers and internet didn’t exist. Most leisure time was spent outdoors exploring the surrounding woods. He was not only free to go move outside as much as he wanted, he was actively encouraged to do so.

At a very young age, Erwan’s father would often take him outdoors to run, crawl, climb, and jump, helping him to push his physical and mental limits. That’s when his passion for movement in nature started. Until his teenage years, Erwan’s only physical education came from Judo and exploring the world around him.

Listen to this episode of The MOVEMENT Movement with Erwan Le Corre about enhancing cognition through natural movement.

Here are some of the beneficial topics covered on this week’s show:

– How adding primal movements into physical training allows people to reconnect individuals with nature and enhance physical capabilities.

– Why engaging in natural movement enhancing your memory and brain function.

– How incorporating natural movements like squatting into daily activities enhances your physical capability.

– Why people should engage in walking and sensory stimulation in natural environments to contribute to cognitive health.

– How you can reconnect with your innate physical abilities through practicing natural movements.

Connect with Erwan:

Guest Contact Info
X@MovNat

Instagram@movnat

Facebookfacebook.com/MovNat LinkedInlinkedin.com/company/movnat

Links Mentioned:monat.com
Connect with Steven:

Website

Xeroshoes.com

Twitter@XeroShoes

Instagram@xeroshoes

Facebookfacebook.com/xeroshoes

Episode Transcript

Steven Sashen:

You want to get in shape, you want to be strong, you want to be healthy, you probably joined a gym. Could that be the worst decision you have ever made? Well, we’re going to find out more about that and many other things on today’s episode of The MOVEMENT Movement podcast, the podcast for people who want to know the truth about what it takes to have a happy, healthy, strong body starting with the feet first, because that is your foundation. We’re going to debunk the myths and the propaganda and sometimes the outright lies that people tell you about what it takes to dance, to walk, to hike, to move, to lift, to whatever it is that you like to do enjoyably, effectively, and happily for now until the rest of your life, however long that happens to be anyway. I’m Steven Sashen, the host of The MOVEMENT Movement podcast and the CEO of xeroshoes.com.

You pretty much know the drill, like, share, subscribe, click the bell if you’re on YouTube, if you’re watching us, that’s cool. Come to jointhemovementmovement.com if you want to find out more about where you can interact with us and leave your comments and your questions. In fact, if you have any questions, drop me an email, move@jointhemovementmovement.com. And when I say movement movement, it’s because we are creating a movement about natural movement, and that means that you are involved. This is a grassroots groundswell thing. We’re trying to make natural movement the obvious, better, healthy choice the way natural food currently is, and that’s going to involve all of you people who are participating in this. So thanks for being here. As I like to say, if you want to be part of the tribe, please subscribe and you know how to do all of that.

Anyway, I’m here with, I’m going to say a dear friend, even though we haven’t seen each other in nine years until right now about when we met, we really hit it off. And it’s one of those crazy things where we’re just bumping into each other. And I’m not even going to do an intro for you, Erwan, because you’ll say more interesting things than I do, and everything you’ll say is going to come with that super awesome accent. So why don’t you tell people who the hell you are and why the hell you’re here? Because I can’t think of anyone more appropriate for talking about natural movement than someone who literally owns natural movement.

Erwan Le Corre:

It’s going to be challenging to be as good at expressing yourself as you are, my friend.

Steven Sashen:

It’s not a competition.

Erwan Le Corre:

All right, so for those of you who don’t know me, my name is Erwan Le Corre. That’s the way you say it in French.

Steven Sashen:

Wait, how do Americans say it with their horrible accent?

Erwan Le Corre:

Erwan Le Corre.

Steven Sashen:

Erwan Le Corre. Okay.

Erwan Le Corre:

Which is totally fine with me. I’m not an American citizen and I’ve been living in the US for 10 years happily, very happily, by the way. But I was born in France and grew up there, and then I’ve traveled. I’ve worked in China, I’ve been in Brazil, I’ve been to many countries. But about 15 years ago, I made the decision that what I had learned through a number of experiences in my life, I was going to turn it into a system that would benefit people.

And I designed a method for natural movement called MovNat, M-O-V-N-A-T. MovNat, it’s a school of real world physical capability. So basically you’re trained to be capable to use your body, to operate your body in many diverse, directly, tangibly useful ways. So that’s what I do. I live in a little village up in the mountains of New Mexico at 8,500 elevation with my beautiful wife and my beautiful three children, Feather, Eagle, and Sky, since my wife is an enrolled member of the Cherokee Nation and so are my kids. So they proudly have those names that are reminiscent of their Native Indian origins. What else can I say?

Steven Sashen:

I just love that your children have those names legitimately, that they didn’t change their name after they moved to Boulder and started doing yoga. I think that’s awesome.

Erwan Le Corre:

Hey, well, they’re free to change whatever they want about who they are when they-

Steven Sashen:

They’ll get old enough, they’re going to change their names to Scott, Michelle.

Erwan Le Corre:

No-

Steven Sashen:

They’ll all be Britneys.

Erwan Le Corre:

Look, what matters if you love your name or if you’re proud of your name. But for now, they didn’t really have a choice.

Steven Sashen:

You get them a good start.

Erwan Le Corre:

But they love their name. That’s the thing is that-

Steven Sashen:

Those are good names.

Erwan Le Corre:

-all three of them love their names, they’re proud of their names and that’s part of my name.

Steven Sashen:

My wife’s nieces and nephews are Birch, Winter, and Meadow.

Erwan Le Corre:

That’s beautiful.

Steven Sashen:

And they really fit those names. So anyway, but enough about names. So before we jump into everything, everything, I’ll always love to start with giving people some opportunity to learn something, to do something, to move in some way. Can you think of something that you would want to share with the human beings who are watching and or listening from anything you can think of, some movement, something or other? I mean, I have no boundaries on this.

Erwan Le Corre:

Well, sure, very easy. Right now, so I’m against an adobe wall because I live in a very old house, old for the United States at least, and I am leaning against the wall. So I have support for my spine. But here’s the thing, I’m in some kind of a hybrid position between a squat and sit position. Now I’m using a laptop. So right now I’m going to hold my laptop and I can change the position, which is great because most people today work from laptops. If you are watching this from home, if you have a tablet in your hands or phone or a laptop, you can then easily change that position and then you can decide to go into a squat or to go into a different sit position.

So let’s see what will happen if I show this a little. As you can see, I’m sitting here, so change your sit position. If you sit on the chair, go down to floor level. Once you’re on floor level, you have plenty of opportunities, diverse sit positions. You could also then transition to a squat and then you could also kneel if you want. So right there, challenging the static idea that you are supposed to be physically idle and physically static the moment you are looking the screen, just get some movement right there.

Steven Sashen:

I love it. What’s cracking me up is Lena and I, we work long and hard hours, and so our schedule is like roll out of bed, do some work, well, a lot of work, come home, make some dinner, sit in front of the television to relax and watch TV for a bit and then repeat. But the thing that I do most of the time I sit in front of the couch on the floor the way you’re sitting right now. Or then I’ll be cross-legged or then I’m basically just shifting all the time, even while I’m just taking some time off and resting.

And one of the things that cracks me up is every night when I do this, and I squat a lot as well when I do it, but I think when I was growing up, I didn’t know anyone who ever did this. My parents never did. I never heard of people doing this. It was no one had a relationship to the floor. And so I love this whole idea of just have a relationship to the floor and how your body can interact with the floor with all those myriad things you can do.

Erwan Le Corre:

And just for you to know, I started this lifestyle when I was 19. I was back then following a very maverick guy. So I was 19, he was 48, but he taught me a number of things and basically I followed him in his lifestyle practice, which involved no furniture in the house. When I say we, it wasn’t a commune or anything like that, everybody had their own place in their own life, but it was like a little group and we would be sharing that lifestyle, great support system. So I was sleeping on blankets, folded blankets. I didn’t have a single piece of furniture in my house or TV because none of that was necessary. I was doing a day-to-day breathing exercises. We were eating back then vegetarian, organic. We were doing all kind of trainings barefoot. We were doing cold immersions. So that’s before the internet, that’s before phone and you can post every aspect of your life on some social media account. So I was doing that already. And when I started to teach natural movement, by the way back then nobody talked, sorry, about natural movement.

It was a concept that people were asking me if it was yoga or tai chi. They had no concept whatsoever. So in the way that people understand it today, it’s because I’ve been teaching it and talking about it in numerous interviews, magazines, articles, and already when I was teaching workshops back say in Brazil or in West Virginia in 2009, and people were asking me, “So how do I implement that in my life?” I’m like, “Well, to begin with, it’s not just the training that you do say three times a week, it’s also all the movements that you do on a day-to-day basis.”

And you have so many avenues for that. You can brush your teeth in a squat position or eat in a squat position. And so I was really inspiring people to add tons of simple natural movements. Not that because you have to train because they’re technical, like jumping and landing, hanging and climbing, but those that you should be doing every day like squatting, kneeling, getting up, getting down with your hands, with no hands, all of those, they are easily ignored. And I wrote a whole book about it and they’re all in the book.

Steven Sashen:

Well, around that same time is when, and I know what your opinion is going to be about this, so I’m looking forward to asking you this question. This is about the time that “functional fitness” started to become a thing. I didn’t even ask the question, but I knew that was going to be your reaction.

Erwan Le Corre:

Oh, man.

Steven Sashen:

Say more about functional fitness, Erwan.

Erwan Le Corre:

There are so many terms. There are so many terms in that idea of living healthy or moving well and this and that. And I don’t blame people for coming up with terms that are going to become hashtags or like by hiking, rewilding, functional this and functional that. I like the idea of functional-

Steven Sashen:

Let’s back up.

Erwan Le Corre:

– mentioned it that it doesn’t mean nothing.

Steven Sashen:

My joke is it’s rarely functional. I mean, so for people who don’t know, the gist of it is that the people who came up with it were saying when you go to a gym, you’re lifting weights, you’re doing a bench press. It’s just some linear thing where you’re just pushing up and down. You’re doing curls, you’re just bending your arms. That’s not what you do on a daily basis where if you’re lifting something, it’s a different motion. If you’re climbing, it’s a different motion. And what they did is just came up with different machines mostly or different activities that are barely more functional than just what you get in the gym.

And they made arguments like that if you’re doing functional fitness, you’re working on stabilizer muscles and smaller muscles, and somehow that makes you stronger when the evidence is that completely not true. But like you said, it is an amazing marketing term that people do respond to because it does seem to make sense. And like you said, and we agree, the idea of natural movement is even better in that regard. The one thing that natural movement doesn’t have that functional fitness does is it doesn’t imply a program where you go and get some desired benefit, like losing weight.

Erwan Le Corre:

Oh, it does.

Steven Sashen:

Oh, I know that it does, but the phrase doesn’t communicate that in the same way that functional fitness-

Erwan Le Corre:

That’s not the emphasis. That’s not the emphasis.

Steven Sashen:

Right, of course.

Erwan Le Corre:

You shouldn’t be moving because you want to lose weight.

Steven Sashen:

No, no, that’s my point. My point is simply that functional fitness is a great marketing term because it does imply those things that people want from just going to the gym, but it’s not actually delivering what you are talking about, which is actually being a functioning human being who can actually do those functional things that in functional fitness training, you don’t really get.

Erwan Le Corre:

So look, functional training, it starts from the theory. My work does not stem from the theory. It stems from nature, it stems from experience and observation. It stems from the real world practical applications. Functional fitness stems from theory. So you look at a theory, you’d be like, “Okay, what are the basic universal movement patterns?” And you have pushing, pulling, twisting, lunging, and all these things. Pushing what with what? Pulling what with what? Okay, so if I do this with my finger, I’m pushing and if I do this with my finger, I’m pulling. Is that what you mean is functional fitness? That doesn’t mean anything.

Steven Sashen:

Well, no. You have to be able to do it your other fingers too.

Erwan Le Corre:

Because divorced from the original context where natural movement or movement is normally done and where it was shaped by such a long history of people moving in nature. So you can do lunging, you can do pushing. And again, pushing with your arms, pushing of your head, pushing or pulling with your feet. What do you mean exactly? It is divorced from context. What is it that you are trying to do that is actually practical? Explain to me because I have to scratch my head. Why are you pulling? Are you pulling because you’re climbing? Are you pulling because you are fighting? Grappling? What are you doing? And there’s something that is extremely confusing about doing movements that are completely divorced from the original meaning. When I have my people jump over an obstacle or balance on top of it or crawl under it, the practical reason why they’re doing this movement is instant.

Nobody has got to scratch their head why this movement is good for. While this movement is good for passing that obstacle, performing that practical task, no question asked. When you do a functional fitness drill, you still have to scratch your head as of-

Steven Sashen:

Why is this? What am I doing this work?

Erwan Le Corre:

Why, what situation, what context could that be used to? If you have to ask yourself what’s the application of any given drill movement, it’s very likely that it’s not practical in the first place. So functional, look, what does that mean? If you do bodybuilding, you are using your body functionally. You got to have function in your body to do bodybuilding, yoga, dance, whatever the movement is. So functional movement doesn’t mean anything.

Steven Sashen:

Right.

Erwan Le Corre:

It’s just like movement culture. It doesn’t mean anything because if I play ping pong, that’s movement culture. If I play badminton or if I play darts, that’s movement culture. Then if I do bodybuilding, that should be part of movement culture. Who are you to say that a bodybuilder is not doing some form of movement then using the body to do that movement? So if all I’m doing is skateboarding and I call that I’m part of a movement culture, okay, great. All you mean is that you’re having some kind of movement activity so you’re not fully physically idle on a day-to-day basis like most people today. Okay, wow, that’s enlightening. But that doesn’t take you anywhere, to me, that’s really relevant.

Steven Sashen:

I love the example you gave of dealing with an obstacle and climbing over it or jumping over it or going under or doing all the various things you could do with it. I want to come back to the thing I’m going to say now and I’m going to say it now just so I don’t forget. And that is I’d love you to give more examples of some of the things that people do and learn to do when they’re doing MovNat workshops. But here’s the question I want to ask first, and I’ll have to frame it this way. So I’m a former All-American gymnast, and as a gymnast I spend a lot of time doing things upside down or in the air or in unusual positions.

And gymnasts are the only people that I know who will say something like, “Hold on, I’ve got to get upside down for a few minutes.” There’s just something you earn from being upside down that you do or gymnast deal with obstacles in certain ways because we’ve dealt with in different ways. What I’m curious about is when people do MovNat or they work with you in some way, what have you heard about how they then literally just deal with simple physical things or how it changes their relationship with the objects they encounter in the world on a daily basis? And what does that look like?

Erwan Le Corre:

Well, that is the entire goal of at least the primary goal because there’s a difference between goals and benefits. We’re talking about weight loss. You may experience weight loss if you train physically though it’s no guarantee because there are so many other aspects of your lifestyle that are involved in losing weight or not losing weight or gaining weight, and what kind of weight, by the way? So this being said, the primary goal, we’re not talking about the other benefits of MovNat practice is to give you the real world physical capability that you’ve never developed in the first place. And how do I know that you’ve never developed it in the first place? Just because I’ve never met anybody who had that overall capability that isn’t trying a MovNat except to some extent, and I’m not saying they don’t exist, they’re just very rare.

That could be some people in the military, that can be some people that are firefighters, that can be some people who are real mavericks and who’ve trained a certain specific way, but usually people are either physically idle or they have some kind of activity that’s just one activity. So it means that they’re specialized. You go to the gym to get bigger muscles for instance or just to stay in shape to get some general strength. That’s awesome, by the way. When I was talking about functional fitness or movement culture, I was not in a way saying anything… I was talking about the terms themselves and how I don’t agree because the terms are very misleading or confusing and vague. I’m not talking about whatever a person does in their life to improve their quality of life, to be physically active, that’s beautiful regardless of what you do.

I think that’s beautiful. So I hope that nobody took it personally because some people may identify as a functional fitness expert or student-

Steven Sashen:

Agreed.

Erwan Le Corre:

And another person as part of a movement culture, and that’s beautiful. I’m just saying those terms, I don’t like them. That’s it. That’s my thing. And it’s whoever thinks different, it’s whatever. But I think that when people move in their life, it’s a beautiful thing. When we train in MovNat, what we teach people is to have practical abilities to do whatever is necessary that’s really directly useful and tangible in their lives. And that’s not just in the day-to-day situations. That could be to be prepared for situation that may never occur in your life.

Steven Sashen:

So let’s talk about a day-to-day one first. So what are some things that either you’ve seen or you’ve heard or that you’ve trained for that changes for people or their relationship to movement changes or their relationship to objects change as a result of doing the training or being introduced to the training?

Erwan Le Corre:

So much just… I’ll give you an example. I’ll give you one example. Most people can’t even deep squat, they cannot assume the position at all. They fall off balance. We’ve had support. They fall off balance. So to give a person that simple ability, simple yet so critical to health, because if you’re not… And that’s functional, right? That’s function except that function, we’re not going to recover it through functional drills. We’re going to recover it through natural movement drill. And when you hear natural, that’s simply the way that you’re supposed to behave physically on a day-to-day basis. So I’ll give you an example. I’m going to just move my laptop here and I’m going to change this. And you should be, for instance, seeing here that I’m in a sit position.

Steven Sashen:

So here I’ll describe for people. So you’re sitting with your back against the wall and now you have one leg extended, one leg up by your hips. Now you’ve got both legs up by your hips. So yeah, these are all variations of squat patterns.

Erwan Le Corre:

Okay. So if you train in MovNat, if you try natural movement, if you practice it, you may be able to cover, for instance, the ability to go like this and get back to a deep squat and then stand, come back and like that.

Steven Sashen:

So again, to go from sitting on the floor to standing, but going through a squat without having to use your hands, for example, which is what you’re pointing out, very natural thing. You go to many parts of the world, this is what people do on a daily basis.

Erwan Le Corre:

Exactly.

Steven Sashen:

In America, definitely not.

Erwan Le Corre:

Exactly.

Steven Sashen:

Like I said, I never saw adults doing anything remotely like this. My dad actually used to show off. It was one of his things that he had loved to show off that even into his 70s he could sit on the ground and then put his legs in a lotus position. He was just flexible in that way and he just loved that he could do that. He couldn’t do anything else, but he could do that one.

Erwan Le Corre:

So that’s great, but you want to have the full scope.

Steven Sashen:

Exactly.

Erwan Le Corre:

So there was a scientific study from Brazil, and not that I feel the need to constantly come up with, “Hey, there’s a study that substantiates what I do.” Fortunately, our ancestors never needed any kind of science to be actually healthy and strong and resilient and just to be able to be fit in the full sense of the word. But that study showed that people who had an ability to from standing get to the ground and back up without using their hands or elbows or knees, so clearly greater mobility and greater real function, had that natural movement ability to do that kind of get up how the significantly greater life expectancy than others.

Steven Sashen:

I’ve seen that one-

Erwan Le Corre:

We know about people in hospital has been studied made where you assess how much grip strength people have, patients have in a hospital. Those who have greater grip strength will leave the hospital much faster than those who don’t. And by the way, Millennials today have not only they can deep squat, but this is a generality because there are still some healthy people. But generally speaking, the physical state and physical abilities of young people today compared to other generations just like that, they have no grip strength. I just want to finish on that point, Steven. Why on earth would it have a great life expectancy if you’re not strong and if you have significantly lower function? You may not see yourself as or a problem deep squatting or doing that kind of no hand get up as a health issue, but actually it is a health issue. There’s something about your health that is already lowered and you want to claim that. That’s what we teach.

Steven Sashen:

There’s a woman at Duke University, I think she’s a nurse who’s been doing research that shows, and I’m paraphrasing, I met her a few years ago, that showed if your walking speed gets under a certain level, it’s a high predictor that you will die within 10 years. And it’s not obviously for people in their 30s, 40s, 50s, but something like people in their seventies where walking speed was a very strong correlative factor with longevity, with life expectancy. And of course the idea that was not specifically that you want to increase someone’s walking speed, although that does help. It’s that whatever’s going on that’s making it so they can’t walk is the problem. And if you can address that through by starting with walking speed, you’re going to address some of those other factors. But boy, you remind me of something else. This morning when I was driving to work, I drove by a local high school and I saw the kids who were doing their physical fitness part of their class.

There’s no way you’d be able to guess what they were doing. So I will tell you, they were strolling very, very slowly for about a half a mile on a sidewalk. That’s their entire physical fitness program at this high school. It was amazing. I’ve seen it before, but I mean I was literally reminded of it this morning when I saw it. That’s all they do. In fact, sometimes when I’m out on the track training, when I used to train during the week in particular, they would come out and their entire physical fitness program was walking for a half a mile around the track, two laps of the track while they’re just chatting, hanging out, strolling. That was it. It’s like, wow.

Erwan Le Corre:

I know. It’s extremely alarming.

Steven Sashen:

It is. I’m also curious about, for some reason, well again, because of my own history, but I’m also curious just about the way we interact with our environment. So when I thought about the practical, not practical applications, but practical examples of what happens when people start moving differently, I thought about how I get in and out of things like beds and couches, which is often jumping or rolling either onto them or off of them. If people haven’t had that experience, they don’t know that that’s an option, let alone how fun it is to do that. Or wait, I’m trying to remember where I was. Oh my god, I know. I was in a store like a Sears or something and they had mattresses. And so what I was doing is I was running-

Erwan Le Corre:

Sorry, finish the story.

Steven Sashen:

That’s okay. Well, I was running towards them and basically what I would do to test the mattresses is I would do a dive roll and land on the mattress and then bounce off and go to the next one. And some of the salespeople said, “Hey, you can’t do that here.” I said, “Hey, I have to test the mattress to see if it’ll work for what I do on a daily basis.”

Erwan Le Corre:

That’s hilarious. You have a youth to you that is both the mindset. And if you have the mindset, then you will have the physical behavior, the movement behavior that’s aligned-

Steven Sashen:

I think it’s a little bit of both. I think it goes both ways because if you don’t know that that movement is possible for you to do, it would never occur to you. And the movement happens to be “young or playful” or whatever it is. But I’m curious just about that. But of course the extreme version of what I’m describing is now free running in parkour.

Erwan Le Corre:

It’s a beautiful thing. It’s amazing. It’s amazing. It’s a beautiful thing. But again, usually emerging trends, that’s it. Things are changing.

Steven Sashen:

Right.

Erwan Le Corre:

No, they’re not. Emerging trends like that are exactly the sign that, generally speaking, things are going the other way. And because young people today realize that maybe they’re 15 and they’re like, “Oh my God, all I’ve been doing until this time is gaming on the couch, being on my smartphone, on my iPad, whatever it is, watching TV, being indoors. I’m going to be an adult soon.” And some of them have a wake-up call where they’re like, “I need to be capable. I need to be strong. What am I going to do if running is going to be boring? I’m not into any specific sports.” They may have all kind of… But then parkour, it’s a freedom and it looks cool and I can be popular maybe.

Steven Sashen:

Anti-corporate. Yeah.

Erwan Le Corre:

I’m going to behave like all the superheroes that I have watched in all the movies and video games that I’ve been playing with. They all do those crazy movements, but I could do it too. Look, it doesn’t matter what your motivation is, it’s great that that trend exists. A lot of people who do parkour come and train with us. And the reason is not only because we have actually a method that’s really detailed and effective, it’s a method for teaching all these movements, but we also have a more complete range of movements that we teach, that we have people practice.

Steven Sashen:

It’s interesting that… I’m trying to think of how to frame this. It’s becoming more and more popular to watch people do more and more extreme things. So I’m thinking like American Ninja Warrior where hugely popular show, watching a very small number of people doing very insane stuff. And it just makes me think about what can we do to bridge that gap to help people become more active? Not because it’s a prescription, not because we want to tell them they should because it’s good for them, but to give people the experience of the fun and pleasure of that and if you want to say the rightness of it. Again, so that there’s not this big gap between sitting on the couch and being an American Ninja Warrior.

Erwan Le Corre:

It’s an extremely important, very good and very important point that you’re making when you look at performances in any special light sports. Because for anyone to have the ability to perform at a really high level in any discipline, you’ve got to be hyperspecialized, had to do that. So you look at, say, you go on YouTube or you go on one on TV or on social media and you see amazing parkour, you see amazing acrobatics, you see amazing rock climbing, you see amazing whatever you’re into, spearfishing, amazing…

Steven Sashen:

Hula hoop.

Erwan Le Corre:

Whatever. Okay. You have movement of some sort. You have people who have both incredible innate talent because that’s a fact. People are just naturally talented. And then you also have told dedication to just being great at what they do. And so they become that. The value of this is to show you what specialization and dedication can enable some people to achieve. And it can be very inspiring to others to watch and be like, “I may never be able to do that, but I’m going to try.” But the problem with that also is that it leaves a lot of people disheartened because I can’t even do that. I won’t even try. There’s no way on earth that I’ll ever be able to do it.

This is where I position what I do. I’m an educator at heart. If some people are able of elite physical performance, beautiful, good for them. But that’s not the case of most people. And what most people need is not to be seeking an elite level performance. It’s just to have an overall physical competency and capability that is going to last a long time, that is not difficult or too difficult to acquire, that is not too difficult to maintain and that can be maintained a long time while also having fun enjoyment in doing it. That is MovNat because the movement you do from crawling to balancing to some running, jumping and landing, hanging, climbing, lifting and carrying, throwing, catching, all of that are just movement, number one, that you are designed to do.

So it comes natural to your body. What we teach is to be efficient at those movements, to be efficient technically at each of those techniques, to teach you techniques that you may not know or that you didn’t know you could do that movement that way or more efficient, number one. And then to also have an efficient practice to just not be a jackass, try to go in the woods, try out some stuff and maybe twist an ankle and come back and be like, “I’m too old. I’m already 25.”

Steven Sashen:

I’m having this fantasy thought right now that what would it be like if-

Erwan Le Corre:

What is that?

Steven Sashen:

Oh, it’s really cool. You think of something that doesn’t exist and you imagine that it does, you should try sometime. So here’s my fantasy thought. My fantasy thought, or this is just one of them, is that in the same way that we have as children go through the educational process, we expect them to develop a certain amount of competency in a number of different things, many of which they will never use again, either because they’re not practically used or because it’s not their own interest.

So for example, I had to learn some things about history. History is just not my thing, for whatever reason, that’s not where my brain goes. I don’t organize things in that way, but I understand how history works. I get how things relate to each other. Anyway, what would it be like if part of the curriculum had a… What’s the word? Some core competency with certain kinds of movements. You can’t graduate high school unless you can do a cartwheel, unless you know how to roll, unless you can… I mean if we identify what are the dozen simple movements that everyone should be able to demonstrate that they know how to do. I mean, boy, that would be incredible.

Erwan Le Corre:

Yeah, that would be incredible. But at the same time, public schools are not-

Steven Sashen:

I said it was a fantasy.

Erwan Le Corre:

They’re not designed. Okay, so I’m coming back to reality. So let’s keep the fantasy alive. In that fantasy that I’m now entering in my own mind, people would actually be exuberant with their movements. They would have some form of movement every day, and that it is-

Steven Sashen:

And you find the ones that work for you.

Erwan Le Corre:

Look, my kids don’t go to… They’re homeschooled.

Steven Sashen:

Right. Wait, hold on, hold on. Let me say this. What a shock.

Erwan Le Corre:

You should see how my kids move. No instruction, but they have example every day and they mimic that example. So one is amazing at climbing, the other one is amazing at running, the other one is amazing at jumping. Wow. Little body like five years old like massive jumps, perfect landings. I never taught him anything, but if you’ve seen me do it, kids have seen me or my wife do it better than that. They wear onto our bodies as we were doing those movements.

Steven Sashen:

Oh, interesting.

Erwan Le Corre:

We never used a stroller ever. Never owned one ever. So you can imagine you go anywhere and we’ve traveled and we go there and there. When babies are babies, you don’t have a stroller. They’re on you. They’re even on your wife or on me, on the husband. What that means is that they have imprinted the movement patterns and experienced movement patterns of other parents that it is crawling, running, climbing, jumping, have jumped with holding my kids. Not anything dangerous, of course, but just the sensation. You know when you jump, all of a sudden you feel airborne, you’re like… Like when you’re in an elevator and then you land. When a baby is held, he feels exactly the same. What is that? But you can also see, so kids could see and they could feel those movement patterns. No wonder if they want to replicate them also because it’s the example they have in front of them every day. Do you have any expectation from the public system to make my kids healthy or physically capable? Absolutely not, because they know that it’s just not happening.

It’s not happening. Programs in schools are extremely poorly designed, and this is not saying anything about the actually knowledgeable and dedicated PE teachers that there is all over the country or the world. It is to say something absolutely negative about the intentions behind the people who design the programs and they have just complete… It’s not enough that they to say that they don’t know what physical education is. They just don’t give a crap about it. They don’t care that-

Steven Sashen:

I think it’s worse.

Erwan Le Corre:

Steven, I’m just going to finish on that.

Steven Sashen:

Yeah, sorry.

Erwan Le Corre:

Those people who are in charge, it’s not only that they don’t give a crap that people are going to be healthy or not. They want them to not be healthy, otherwise there would be solutions. Yeah, that’s conspiracy theory if you want. Every year, when you hear that Google right now is diminishing the traffic by half of any alternative health website.

Steven Sashen:

I’m not sure about that.

Erwan Le Corre:

Yes, it’s happening because they’re dealing with corporations that have something to sell.

Steven Sashen:

Well, that’s a whole different thing.

Erwan Le Corre:

Just verify. Just check it out. It’s happening. So what I want to say, back to physical education, every year millions of kids leave school having acquired zero physical capability. They’re not educated with their body, all right?

Steven Sashen:

Right.

Erwan Le Corre:

So what would happen if the same millions of kids every day, every year would be to be leaving school without knowing how to read and write.

Steven Sashen:

Agreed. I totally agree. And it’s funny, I’m thinking when I was a kid, we had a thing that was called the presidential physical fitness test or something like that. And there was some number of activities, maybe 10 activities. And depending on how you did in each of these activities, you got different levels of some sort of award. And there are things about it that I totally loved. One was, I’m a sprinter by trade. I mean that’s what I do. And one of the events was a 600 yard run, and I think you had to do it in, I don’t know, two minutes something or maybe 2:30, whatever it was. It was some time that frankly was not a really fast time. I could barely make it because 400 meters is a long run for me. I don’t do it. So 600 yards, that was crazy.

There was also a woman named Joy Abramson. I hope I’m not embarrassing Joy to say this, I shouldn’t have used her name, but there it is. She was one of the women who she matured faster than anybody else. So she in sixth grade was already like an adult-sized person and couldn’t run that 600 yards either. I think with Joy, she went really, really slow and she just didn’t like it at all, it seemed, and she always had her head down. But at the end of the race, everybody would finish. And after we figured out our times, we’d all turn to Joy and go, “How much money did you find?” Because she always found money running around this particular course, which is great.

But I think about this curriculum of these fundamental movements that everyone should have to know, demonstrate that they could do. And there’s invariably going to be things that no matter what size you are, what shape you are, what weight you are, what strength you are, these are things that you can do. And some you’ll do better than others, some you’ll like more than others. And boy, I’m just enjoying this idea of to your point, what would it be like if everyone did walk out and had this core competency, and how would that change the educational system all along if we weren’t expecting people to just sit all day every day?

Erwan Le Corre:

It’s a beautiful fantasy and it’s also actually also true because for instance, a scientific study was made using two natural movements. So the people researched it said, “Hey, we’re using the MovNat method.” Some people will be climbing around a tree, like hanging, and then they will also do some balancing.

Steven Sashen:

Okay.

Erwan Le Corre:

Just balancing surface. That was first group and the other group would be doing yoga, third group would be doing nothing. And then their working memory would be tested before and after, before doing natural movement, after doing natural movement, before doing yoga, after yoga, before doing nothing, after doing nothing. What’s working memory? So working memory is actually much more important than IQ in determining, forgive my funky French accent, how you process, how fast, how well you process information. So basically people have a high IQ, maybe very smart in that way of solving very abstract problems, but not necessarily situationally.

Steven Sashen:

Okay.

Erwan Le Corre:

So with working memory, you’re much better being situational about how you process information. And I’m not a scientist in that regard. So I hope that I give a decent explanation of what working memory is. But in any case, it’s very important aspect of cognition. So the point was to determine if there was any benefit to doing nothing or doing yoga or doing natural movement. The people who did nothing as you would expect scored the same.

Steven Sashen:

Right. No difference.

Erwan Le Corre:

The people who did yoga as you may not expect scored the same.

Steven Sashen:

Interesting.

Erwan Le Corre:

The people who did natural movements scored much higher.

Steven Sashen:

I have a theory about why. Do you?

Erwan Le Corre:

Oh yeah, I know, and actually I’ve already said it before science determined it. It’s not that I’m particularly smart and it’s not that I’m a scientist, I just like to observe things. When you know that the brain, the reason for having a brain is to be able to move it’s, but not just doing any movement, because yoga is movement clearly, or tai chi, it’s for locomotion that is adaptable, adaptable to complex environments, which is natural movement in nature. So you’re going to go through, the forest surface is going to be slippery and stable and predictable. And through that, you are in one location, point A, and you look at point B, that’s where you want to be. And your brain is already a fortune-teller determine determining how are you going to navigate so you get there?

It’s extremely brilliant. Today, even robotics can’t achieve the same exactly. So that’s the number one reason why we have a brain. So if you are that little animal that has one or two neurons, I don’t remember, and you’re basically, you start as an animal, you’re moving through the ocean, and then all of a sudden you decide to settle for the mussel life, you stick on the rock and you become not a shell, you become a plant, you become seaweed. And the first thing that they do, so they’re born animal and they die vegetal. First thing they do as they switch to the vegetal life is to dissolve their mini-brain. Why? Because it has become useless. Why? Because they don’t need to navigate their body with locomotion through complex environments.

So adaptability of locomotion is the number one reason why we have a brain, not a body, but a brain. Not for abstract thinking, not for discussing the history of art and fine wines and things like that. It’s beautiful, but that’s not the primary reason. So it would make perfect sense that if you’re going to do the movements that are adaptable, that your very brain is originally designed to take care of, that is going to boost cognition, it’s going boost brain function.

And you don’t have a brain for movement and the brain for the rest of your activities. It’s the same person, it’s the same brains, the same cognition. So if you boost your cognition, regardless of why and how, and it’s going to carry over areas of recognition that have nothing to do with movement, such as abstract thinking. Yoga won’t do it. Why? Because in yoga, you do not adapt to the environment. As a matter of fact, you react it. You don’t want branches and sticks and rocky funky stuff in the way because that could destabilize you.

Because look, when you do yoga, you can close your eyes because you think, okay, I’m more mindful. Okay, that’s the point. Which of the two is more mindful? Is it to close your eyes and to do movement only on the spot, so you don’t have to adapt to anything, nothing is bothering you, right? And on top of that, you’re replicating exact same movements that you replicate all the time or would it be to actually keep your eyes and all your senses open and to be extremely sharp and alert and responsive to all the information you get from a changing environment as you move?

Tell me which one requires the more mindfulness. That’s right. It’s natural movement. And this is why you gain more benefits in working memory in so many other aspects of cognition actually that have not been proven yet if you do natural movement than if you do yoga. And this is not to say anything negative about yoga, it’s just an observation. Yoga’s beautiful, but it’s not what people think in term of benefits necessarily.

Steven Sashen:

Kirk Erickson is a researcher, I don’t know if he still is. He was at the University of Pittsburgh, this is maybe seven, eight years ago. He published a study, it was a longitudinal study that I think they did over about nine years where they looked at elderly people and they did an fMRI and checked out their brain, and then they tracked them over time. And I don’t remember if he assigned groups of people to be the groups that walked versus the groups that didn’t. But suffice it to say at the end of the study, the elderly people who had done more walking had retained more brain matter, more gray matter in their brain. And I called him and I said, “Why do you think this is?” And he said, “It was from the stimulation of being out and walking and seeing things and feeling things and hearing things.” I said, “Can you imagine what it would’ve been like if they actually were feeling the ground and they weren’t in the stupid shoes?” And he said, “Oh yeah, that would’ve been a whole different thing.”

Erwan Le Corre:

Exactly. And on uneven surface-

Steven Sashen:

Uneven surfaces, yeah, exactly.

Erwan Le Corre:

Because if you’re barefoot, but you’re barefoot on flat, it’s complete predictable. The stimulation to the feed is exactly the same all the time.

Steven Sashen:

It’s so funny, I went into Costco this morning and I love the Costco floors. I was barefoot. I love the Costco floors. They’re nice and smooth and cool, but I like it even more when I get out into the parking lot and it’s all those extra sensations, and it’s a different thing, but it’s like both of them are good. There’s times where you want to get the stimulation, there’s times you want to rest. There’s times where you want something nice and smooth and cool.

Erwan Le Corre:

Absolutely, absolutely. Look, there’s nothing… God, I love my comfort, man. Some people say, “Comfort is bad.” No, trust me, if I was to remove all and any comfort from your life, you would be screaming. Comfort is what we are naturally evolutionarily-

Steven Sashen:

Looking for.

Erwan Le Corre:

Exactly. You want comfort. Dogs want it. Dogs, you let them go on your couch and they make it their own. And if you try to get them off the couch, they’ll start to be gnarly. So comfort is great.

Steven Sashen:

Did you just call me a dog without knowing it?

Erwan Le Corre:

Did I?

Steven Sashen:

Well, yeah, I do the same thing on my couch.

Erwan Le Corre:

Big mistake. I’ll try to be respectful from now on.

Steven Sashen:

Oh, no, no, I have no problem being called a dog when it comes to being on my couch. I like my couch. Our couch, that’s a whole other story. There’s a great couch story.

Erwan Le Corre:

We don’t have a couch. But honestly, if I lay down, we have a nice bed, comfortable, and I’m able to sleep on hard surfaces because I’ve done that a lot for many years. I’m able to enjoy comfort. Comfort is not a problem. It’s how you manage comfort. If you are constantly seeking comfort, ultimately you lower your ability to handle discomfort and that makes you uncomfortable.

Steven Sashen:

There’s another aspect to it that occurred to me that’s relevant for my end on the footwear side. So the number one way that people try to sell two things, mattresses and shoes, is based on comfort. And ironically, they’re trying to tell the same story. It’s like, “Here’s all this padding. Isn’t this great?” When people go to try on shoes, they try them on in a store and they’ll say something like, “Oh, this feels really comfortable,” because they like the cushioning or the texture of the material or the whatever. But in real life, those things aren’t actually comfortable. Our product developer, Dennis, loves to say, “If I asked you to do 20 push-ups, do you want to do them on the floor or on a memory foam mattress?”

And everyone says, “Well, on the floor.” He’s, “Well, why?” It’s like, “Well, because you get more feedback, you get more response.” He said, “Well, it’s the same thing with your feet.” If you use your body, that’s actually more comfortable because you’re more efficient. If you just put yourself on the mattress, you’re going to get stuck in there and you can’t really move correctly. And eventually your body reacts badly and it gets worse and worse over time. Same thing when you’re doing the same thing in footwear, all that cushioning doesn’t actually help. It feels good temporarily, but isn’t good for you. And in the long run, it’s going to end up being bad. And people go-

Erwan Le Corre:

Question, Steven, what if you were to tell people you got to do jumping, like clapping push-ups, would they have the same answer? Because you see, when you do a push-up, your hand stays on the floor. They don’t take off.

Steven Sashen:

Even more.

Erwan Le Corre:

You basically have to land-

Steven Sashen:

Even more. In fact, I was thinking that exact same thing. If you have to jump and land, it’s the same thing. The cushioning isn’t good because it makes you unstable and puts your joints in bad positions, and that’s where you’re going to screw things up. I mean, the only way you get the feet… When I tell people how to run barefoot, I go, “Take off your shoes.” And they go, “But you sell Xero Shoes.” I went, “No, no. Take off your shoes. If you’re worried about the ground, that’s why we make Xero Shoes, next best thing to barefoot. But the important part, take off your shoes, find a nice, smooth hard surface.” And they go, “Well, don’t you want to do it on the grass first?” Like, “No, hard surface because you need to get the feedback to then develop the right movement patterns so that you find that that’s actually really, really comfortable to do, more comfortable than running on something soft because your body knows how to react to that and reacts to it better.”

And again, my favorite thing is when people say stuff like, “Yeah, but we didn’t evolve to run on concrete.” I go, “Have you ever been to the plains of Africa where the packed mud is as hard as concrete and the things that are packed into it are sticks and twigs and pointy things that are worse than any piece of concrete you will ever step on in your entire life?” The surfaces we run on now are just a dream compared to what we evolved to run on. And I’m not saying that you want to stay on the road all the time, get off and play, jump on things, climb over things, jump over things, get on a trail. But the idea that somehow we haven’t adapted to be able to run a marathon on the road is of course absurd.

Erwan Le Corre:

When I moved to the US in 2009, first workshops were in that summer 2009, and then I don’t know if you know that, but I actually moved to Boulder.

Steven Sashen:

I did not know that.

Erwan Le Corre:

So that was from say 2009 to… We didn’t know each other yet. I think I’ve left somewhere around January 2010 or something. So I just stayed there a few months. But where I was living was close to those, not the Flatirons, but the other part. Anyways, I would go up there barefoot, and that’s even before the barefoot trend started. And man, I was going up and down and people were just stunned. I guess today more people have heard of that idea of barefoot running, but they still think that to be absolutely barefoot is really radical and near impossible.

Steven Sashen:

Oh no, I hear it all the time when people… As I’m running by someone, when someone says, “You can’t do that.” It’s like, “Didn’t you notice I just did it?” Yes. It’s amazing to me that the way I describe it is… Actually, I’m going to back up and talk about Irene Davis again because she said it great at an American College of Sports Medicine conference last year. The last question for this panel discussion about footwear that I was involved in, she said to the panel, which included people from Brooks and Adidas, she was, “Look, in the ’60s, we were running in super thin-soled running shoes and playing basketball in Chuck Taylor Converse shoes. We weren’t getting the kind of injuries or the severity of injuries or the number of injuries that we’re getting now. So what problem were you trying to solve and why didn’t it work?”

And the other guys had no answer. And now, it’s been so long, it’s been 50 years plus that people have had the idea that you can’t be barefoot, that you need shoes with motion control and arch support and all the rest, that it’s no longer marketing that shoe companies have to do to convince you of this.

We teach our children, we tell them that it’s true. It’s common knowledge, it’s conventional wisdom. It’s the way it is. And part of what you and I are talking about doing is not only breaking out of that, but it’s not creating anything new. It’s just reminding people of what they knew as children, what they experienced as children, what we all did up until 50 years ago. And so on the one hand, we have a big challenge in front of us of combating hundreds of billions of dollars of corporate interests. On the other hand, we have the simple challenge of just all we’re doing is reminding people, just asking them to wake up a little bit, which is way easier than trying to teach them some new thing that requires a whole bunch of explanation that makes no sense.

Erwan Le Corre:

You just said, which I agree with you, is that we’re providing inspiration and solutions in the term of software as I do like the method for trying natural movement in term of hardware like you do with your high-quality minimal footwear. But yet you know that we are up against corporate interest, billions and billions dollars industries, all right?

Steven Sashen:

Yes.

Erwan Le Corre:

So back to that Google thing, please check it out because you wouldn’t be surprised that the number one search engine has ties with those huge corporate interest.

Steven Sashen:

Oh, no. I’m suggesting it’s simpler-

Erwan Le Corre:

To prevent some alternative.

Steven Sashen:

No, no. I’m suggesting it’s simpler. No, my contention is that Google only cares about two things. One is giving people, and not necessarily in this order, one is giving people… No, actually it is in this order. It’s giving people relevant results. And what I mean by relevant results is that when someone searches for something, they end up finding something that they’ll click somewhere and they want to click on it, or they’ll click somewhere, not find it, come back and click on something else, but they’ll find enough relevant results that eventually they get to where they want to go. But here’s the key, here’s the caveat. They want the companies who are giving the relevant results to be paying for it. So things that used to be free, you now have to pay for. So the top positions in Google are now paid ads and the side positions in Google are paid ads.

They’ve actually taken the home page and made it more about paid results than non-paid results. So it’s not that Google is consciously trying to control the dissemination of information, it’s that the information is being presented in a way based on who is able and willing to pay for those particular relevant results. So sometimes there will be corporations who are willing to pay more and they’re going to get the results. And the “alternatives” are not pushed down deliberately, but just harder to find because the paid stuff is what pays the rent for Google.

And sometimes, depending on the search, it’s the alternatives that are the ones that are providing the more money to Google and therefore getting better results. And often, I mean, the problem that we’ve seen with both Facebook and Google is what’s happened now is people realize that and they’re willing to pay more money to get in front of people with things that are patently false. I’m not talking about alternative medicine or health, although that’s one of the domains where this can happen. But basically just people know that since Google wants to make money, all you have to do is provide them a way of making money and they will promote you more. It couldn’t be simpler in certain ways. And because of that, couldn’t be more horrible.

Erwan Le Corre:

That makes sense. I still believe that there are conspiracies.

Steven Sashen:

There may be. But look, the simple thing is if Google were aggressively trying to do what you’re suggesting, there are so many conspiracies and conspiracy theories and simply things that are factually inaccurate that they would have track on a daily basis, it would require the entire population of America to do that. I mean, the simple thing is if they really cared, the flat earth movement wouldn’t exist. So they don’t care. That’s not their-

Erwan Le Corre:

Well, listen, the flat earth movement does not sell anything. The people-

Steven Sashen:

Oh, yes, it does. Oh yeah, it does. There are people-

Erwan Le Corre:

No, listen, brother, there is no flat earth billion industry business, all right? However, there is the industry just for medication, whatever it has to do with healthcare. It’s so huge.

Steven Sashen:

Absolutely.

Erwan Le Corre:

Don’t you think that there’s potentially, and again, I could be wrong, but there are ties between those interest so much to sell and so much profit to make-

Steven Sashen:

Again, not the way you think, if anything, because as someone who’s been involved in trying to market products, here’s what I can tell you, a couple things. So when we started this in late 2009 through 2010, 2011, I couldn’t advertise on Google because I couldn’t afford to because the big shoe companies who were selling things they called minimalist but weren’t really minimalist were paying huge amounts of money for every click that they got. They were just sucking the clicks out of the universe, if you will. So I couldn’t pay for them. Now, Google didn’t need to do anything for that. I mean, that was just the corporations trying to control the conversation and using these platforms to do that. Now, I don’t think that the corporations per se have a relationship with say Google in that regard. But what happens is this, the more money you spend, the more you then get access to tools and ideas and information that allows you to spend more money.

Erwan Le Corre:

Okay. So how about this aspect of conspiracy, simply commercials conspiracy is that Google won’t tell you that the result of whatever could be is biased based on pay to play.

Steven Sashen:

Again, not entirely. Not entirely. And again, I say this simply because I know guys who game the system all day long.

Erwan Le Corre:

Anybody who’s going to go and Google, and that’s pretty much everybody to search say minimal and huge expect unbiased results. And they won’t get that according to what you said, they won’t get that because some companies have paid and others have not.

Steven Sashen:

I’m just saying that the bias is a little different than what you think and the fundamental problem… And look, I’m not pro or anti-Google in this conversation. I just know some things about what they do and some things I don’t know because mostly people don’t know because they are always trying to balance these things of giving people the information they’re looking for and paying the rent. And sometimes those things definitely conflict with each other. No question.

Erwan Le Corre:

But you did affirm that search results are biased.

Steven Sashen:

Well, they have to be.

Erwan Le Corre:

Based on who pays the most.

Steven Sashen:

No, no, no, no, no.

Erwan Le Corre:

As a Google consumer.

Steven Sashen:

No, no, sorry, it’s not what I’m saying. What I’m saying-

Erwan Le Corre:

Who thinks about it?

Steven Sashen:

No, what I’m saying is what you see on the homepage is being impacted by who pays the most, but that’s not the entirety of search results. So there’s the paid results and the unpaid results. And one thing Google has played with is how to make it clear that something is a paid result versus an unpaid result, but not making it too clear. And so it’s definitely doable. The results aren’t skewed by a bias for some particular thing but-

Erwan Le Corre:

Telling you it’s a conspiracy. What’s a conspiracy? Doesn’t have to be something crazy about aliens. All it has to do is something that people do without telling you.

Steven Sashen:

Well, look, you live in New Mexico, we know that you’re already controlled by aliens because everyone’s coming to hang out by you. So that’s a given. So you don’t have furniture. It’s not that you don’t have furniture because you don’t want it. It’s because the aliens came and took it. We know that. So we didn’t talk about that in this podcast, but we know the aliens stole your furniture and took it to Area 51. That’s common knowledge. But more importantly, anyway-

Erwan Le Corre:

At least you and I are having a one-on-one conversation as that totally improvised and not planned in any way. So hopefully, your audience will be okay with that.

Steven Sashen:

I’ve never planned for a conversation. It takes too much effort.

Erwan Le Corre:

For sure. I like to say this, I’ve always fought before I even started what I do that I was up against, not a conspiracy necessarily, but at least such layers and layers and layers of conventions.

Steven Sashen:

Absolutely.

Erwan Le Corre:

What’s what I call normalcy that is not necessarily your friend. Normalcy is not your friend. The same way Terence McKenna said, “Culture is not your friend.” So today’s culture is what we call normal is actually in so many ways, beautiful and practical and just very practical.

Steven Sashen:

But not normal.

Erwan Le Corre:

At the same time, it’s in so many ways unhealthy and we want to question that. And there’s also lots of industry that just don’t want change, don’t want alternatives, and that’s what we do. So clearly it’s not easy and clearly it’s such a fight or quest in this industry.

Steven Sashen:

I agree, and I think there may be another way of playing it too. I want to back up to something you said before about, I can’t remember how, oh, about kids in the physical education program in schools. I know that some of the influence on physical education programs has happened because of insurance problems. So for example, I know that when I was in high school, again, I was a gymnast. So we had trampolines and I know that there was a number of very high profile lawsuits where people made so much money suing the school or suing coaches or suing the trampoline manufacturers and trampolines vanished from schools. Now they’re back in trampoline parks. So there’s this sort of ebb and flow, but I know that a lot of what has happened in the physical education programs of schools has been dumbed down, if you will, because the schools are worried about getting their asses sued if they do anything that could put people in…

It used to be just physically dangerous or harmful situations, now it’s emotionally harmful situations. Now they’re worried that if they have kickball, that someone who gets picked last is going to sue the school because they were excluded because of whatever the hell it is. But what this leads me to is I’m not trying to complain about this, I’m actually thinking as we move forward, the question is how can we align ourselves, and I don’t know if this is possible, how can we align ourselves with the same people who have been controlling the conversation, if you will, in a negative way to demonstrate that this opportunity that we’re presenting is actually positive, can make them more money, can save them more money, can be more efficient in various other ways? Because we know that it can, it can reduce healthcare costs, for example. Now again, there are people who have conflicting issues about healthcare costs, some people who want it to go up because they make money on it, some people who want to go down because it cost their company.

Erwan Le Corre:

People who actually own the healthcare or health insurance-

Steven Sashen:

Maybe. I mean, again, there’s a conflict. I’m not saying there’s no conflict there, but what I am saying, what I do think is, again, when I started the podcast by saying this is a grassroots groundswell kind of thing, I think that the message of natural movement is so screamingly obvious. Here, let’s back up to the other thing I say, we’re trying to make natural movement the obvious choice, the way natural food is. So clearly there are people who make a lot of money selling processed foods that are not inherently good for people.

Many of those same companies are now providing and promoting more natural food. Walmart is the number one provider of organic produce in the country. So while there are conflicts, when something becomes so obvious to a certain group of people that the movement, if you will, or the momentum is obvious to, let’s call them, the powers that be for the fun of it, then they’re going to go for the ride. Gluten-free was not a thing until big companies went, “Oh, there’s people who are actually having issues with this and there’s other people who aren’t having issues, but they’re going to want to take care of this. We can actually get behind gluten-free.” So maybe there’s a way.

Erwan Le Corre:

We can definitely change the culture, but it’s usually the small players who do that.

Steven Sashen:

Well, and here we are. I mean this is-

Erwan Le Corre:

Exactly. I agree with you. For instance, I just came back, I was at an airport recently and I just was hungry, didn’t eat the food in the plane. And so I looked at snacks and I was happily surprised to see the amount of healthy or at least not alternatives in a store in an airport. All I can think of was, okay, that has to do with the paleo, the keto movement, all of that. A number of small players are changing the industry. Well, yes, because look, you put those products on the shelves. Either people want that kind of product-

Steven Sashen:

Or not.

Erwan Le Corre:

Or they don’t. And if they do, it flies off the shelves. And when it does, then the people who manage those stores are going to order more of the same product and more of similar products. So basically it’s in the hands of the consumer. We always know that. It’s in the hands of the consumer and the consumer’s consumer relation to what they believe is the best and what they like the best, and influences that are not mainstream, at least originally, eventually may become mainstream.

Steven Sashen:

Well, look, that’s why I’m having these conversations is we’re trying to just get more people thinking about what’s natural and demanding. It’s funny, not funny ha ha, funny, annoying as crap, that when the minimalist movement started to wane, the reason that it happened was that the bigger shoe companies that were making products that they called minimalist realized that if they actually made minimalist products, it would make people, again question the rest of their product line and could really jeopardize their business. So they started pulling out of selling minimalist products to stores, but then the people who report on sales data we’re saying, “Oh look, sales of minimalist products are down. That means people don’t want them.”

It’s like, “Well, no, no, no, no, you have it backwards.” The big companies who were providing most of the products weren’t providing as much, so people couldn’t buy as much, so sales went down. It was like a totally upside down bit of logic. There was some reason that I brought that up, but I can’t remember what the hell it was. Something having to do with just, oh, the consumer behavior. The consumer is definitely controlling it to a certain extent, but there’s got to be product available. There has to be the information available so that they can act on that so that it can change the culture, it can change the conversation. It can create a new, I’m going to say, zeitgeist.

Erwan Le Corre:

They have a tremendous financial power just to stir things in the direction that is best for them and no, it’s not best for the people. They can pay… Well anyways, I’m preaching to the choir.

Steven Sashen:

No, I know, but it’s fun to do it sometimes.

Erwan Le Corre:

It’s definitely a fact. So yeah, they can totally afford to just not even commercialize any single pseudo-minimal.

Steven Sashen:

And look, well, it’s not going to happen like that. I mean, because again, this is a big ship that we’re trying to turn, but it doesn’t matter because we got to turn the ship and at a certain point there’s critical mass. The ship has turned enough that it’s now on a new course. And eventually I hope that this whole idea of natural movement takes hold during my lifetime. I would love to see it come to fruition enough that it really does become something that is so obvious and practical and simple. I don’t even know what other adjectives I’m looking for, but I’m also not naive. I mean, on the one hand, I’m a 57-year-old guy. I don’t know how many years I’ve got left in me, things like this can take time.

On the other hand, we’ve got the internet and all these other communication tools that are accelerating the dissemination of information and maybe it can happen faster. I mean, boy, that would be awesome and I don’t even care. I’m not looking for it to happen so that it’s Steven Sashen or Erwan who it’s like, “Look what we did.” If Nike and Adi and Puma and all the rest, if they started making truly minimalist footwear that actually fit human feet that were actually good for you, I would be ecstatic. If we were just the people who catalyzed the change, I would be thrilled. I don’t care if it’s me or not, I just want to see it happen because it’s the right thing.

Erwan Le Corre:

That’s why I never called my method the Le Corre method, right? I called it something else because my idea originally was I don’t care if people know me. I don’t even care they know where it all comes from. I just want them to use the tool and to harvest the benefits in their own life to have higher, greater quality of life. So it was never an ego thing. And by the way, it’s been 10 years, actually more than I do have the 10 years publicly, and I have released hundreds of thousands of videos. I haven’t done that because it was never about blasting people with my face and my voice and my persona. It was about promoting the mindset, the method, the lifestyle, all of that to benefit people.

Steven Sashen:

That’s a tricky balance.

Erwan Le Corre:

But I believe in what you say, look, I didn’t start with a business plan, all right? I started with vision and the way… By the way, are people still listening? If you do, if you do, I want you to do this. I’m going to keep talking and Steven and I are going to keep talking instead of looking at the screen, instead of looking at us, me and Steven-

Steven Sashen:

They may be listening without looking.

Erwan Le Corre:

Hopefully, you have a window with some horizon, some distance. You’re going to keep listening while looking at us as far as you can. And I’m going to do that as I’m carrying it on. And it’s a vision. And the way I see a vision is I imagine a different culture, a different society where lives would be lived much more healthily and that I would be one of the people to create that change in this time we live in. And what’s a vision? A vision is not something that you hope for. It’s not something that you wish and it’s not something that you believe in. Shocking. What do you mean? You have to believe in it. You have to hope for it.

This is the way I see it is that this is something I know it is already happening. At what scale? At what pace is it going to evolve this? I don’t know. But to have change, you need to have more than hope or wish. And even it’s belief, but it’s higher than belief. Belief in the sense when you know it’s beyond belief, right? When you say I believe in something, you may have some doubt somewhere, you may have some, whatever, some restrictions, some limitations sometimes. Is this going to happen? Is this not going to happen? When will it happen? When you know you think this way, it has already happened.

And I’m doing it, proof, and then people are doing it, proof. You are selling shoes. Okay, you are making products, for profit, beautiful. Because here’s the thing, you are selling products that you have designed with a pure intention of not just make a living for yourself, but the pure intention of equipping people with truly healthy, functional footwear. That’s the mindset. That’s what you believe in and believe in, but that’s also what you know because if your shoes are there, people aware of them, people email you say, “Just changed my life just changing my footwear.” See, that’s beautiful. It’s happening. You know it’s there.

Steven Sashen:

Absolutely.

Erwan Le Corre:

My brother, my friend, you will see it happen because you can already see it happen right now, just let’s keep on pushing.

Steven Sashen:

Lena likes to say, because she knows me very well, that the challenge for me as a human being is the gap between what’s happening today and what I see, and it’s true. And what gets me out of bed in the morning is trying to close that gap. And it’s a hell of a journey. But enough about me. If people want to find out more about you, and actually I don’t want to say it this way. Before I ask you to tell people how they can get in touch with you and experience natural movement and MovNat and you, the whole thing about it not being about you, this is a really interesting topic for me. I never wanted Xero Shoes to be about me. The first handful of videos that I made, I don’t even remember if I had my face to say hi. I think I might have, but then it’s just 10 minutes of my feet, which had some interesting repercussions, but enough about that.

But what happened from the two seconds where it was my face saying hello, people would recognize me. And something that I knew but I was really trying to resist was that human beings relate to other human beings. And so I’ve made a bunch of videos, not because I want it to be about me, but because this is something that I talk about all the time and I want to share this information and I know that people relate to human beings. Am I the best person for people to be relating to? I would never suggest that. Even if it’s true, I don’t know and I don’t care.

Erwan Le Corre:

Not for you to decide.

Steven Sashen:

Absolutely, correct, correct.

Erwan Le Corre:

You know what you decide is to put yourself out there-

Steven Sashen:

I do it because I do it.

Erwan Le Corre:

-to be in the arena by doing all these videos. Actually, I believe I’m going to start soon to do that the same-

Steven Sashen:

Well, here’s my joke for you.

Erwan Le Corre:

Guys, it’s not for us to decide if people are interested or if they like us or they don’t like us, or if they find our information, our insights relevant or resistant relevant.

Steven Sashen:

Well, I like to say I’m not personal, but here’s my joke about you. When you said I haven’t made a bunch of videos, my response is, “That’s a shame.” Because again, people like to relate to people and in terms of what you are doing and what you’re teaching, you are in fact the embodiment of that. And look, dude, you’re one of those guys, women want to be with you, guys want to be you. So you’re such a great example of living what you’re talking about that I’m going to encourage you to do more because there’s value there. I mean, there’s value. Look, people already relate to you when they come and do courses, but the value is having the information have a focal point. And I would argue that you are a very good focal point and you-

Erwan Le Corre:

Well, I appreciate that. And I must say that I’ve been bringing a lot something that I’m going to start soon in that direction because for 10 years I’ve been basically extremely busy growing my team, growing my company, having events worldwide, also having three kids and actually be a real father for them, be there changing thousands of diapers, just being there for them every day and then writing a book. My book is almost academic level in the sense of the amount of information.

Steven Sashen:

I’m looking forward to it.

Erwan Le Corre:

Also, I wanted to give some space like I give my team, my community a voice too, to just have that lifestyle and that example, that inspiration to be also not just in my hands, but to be in the hands of community. But at the same time, I realized that I founded this, I started it. Some people start to call me the godfather of natural movement. I won’t disagree with that. And I feel ready now to put me a little more on the frontline.

Steven Sashen:

Good.

Erwan Le Corre:

So that’s what I’m working on.

Steven Sashen:

Well, as you do that and people want to find out more, why don’t we wrap this up by you telling them how to do that.

Erwan Le Corre:

Okay, so number one. Well, since you were saying, “How do you experience natural movement?” So number one, experience natural movement. You’ve been actually experiencing it your whole life except you didn’t know it was natural movement. When you were a kid, you were crawling, jumping, hanging, you were doing all these movements, and then somehow along the way you were told that that was not the right way to exercise or an acceptable way to behave in public and this and that. So basically it was never the right place, never the right time. And so you’ve lost that natural movement drive that you once had in you. One way to reignite it is just to start practicing it again.

And if you want information, tips or even find people who can train you online or in-person, to find videos with examples, you just go on movnat.com, M-O-V-N-A-T, M-O-V-N-A-T.com. It goes through moving naturally and moving in nature. Because even though we train a lot of people not in nature, that’s because we got to be providing that training where people are when we find people, but we also train them in nature and we also encourage them to take the skills that they learn indoors or outdoors, but in urban environments back to nature. We want to send people back to nature with the skills that were once truly universal and that today are not anymore.

Steven Sashen:

Good. Well, I hope people do take you up on that and do come and see you and experience what you’re doing. I can’t wait to… Wait, there’s more. Hold on. You put your finger-

Erwan Le Corre:

A book. I wrote a book.

Steven Sashen:

Talk about the book. Geez, man, don’t make me queue you for everything.

Erwan Le Corre:

I mean, if you have vision and reading skills, I mean, pretty much you can open a book and educate yourself. And that book that I wrote, it’s called The Practice of Natural Movement by Victory Belt. It’s available on Amazon, but other Barnes & Noble and all. It has everything. 20% of it is the philosophy, it’s to manifest the why. It’s not how you do it. It’s why is it important to have a natural movement in your life. Why does it make sense? Because when it start to make sense and you agree with it like a truth or at least a fact, a reality that makes sense to you, you’re very much likely to seek the behavior that aligns with that, right? People do bodybuilding, they do bodybuilding because they want to be big. So if they’re going to do bodybuilding exercise, because in their head they want to be big, not to be questioned or whatever. Well, here on this planet to have a good life, to have the best life we can possibly have is the pursuit of happiness on our own terms.

To me, if you don’t have natural movement in your life or movement in your life, something is really missing. So I wrote a whole book about it. You’ll find hundreds and hundreds of techniques and tips in how to practice where it’s highly practical. There’s nothing nerdy in that book. And the best news is Amazon just dropped the price to $28 or something. Never personally ever had any control how much the book is sold for, nor does my publisher. It’s actually all Amazon who decides that. So right now on Amazon, it’s for $27, you have close to 500 pages of information.

Steven Sashen:

Awesome.

Erwan Le Corre:

That’s also an amazing starting point.

Steven Sashen:

Good, good, good. Well, A, thank you very much. B, as I expected, this is a total pleasure. We’re going to do more of this. Let me just wrap it up for everybody else, thank you all for listening and for being part of the podcast. As always, if you want to find out more, just go to www.jointhemovementmovement.com. That’s where you can leave some comments. You can find out where to find us on all the various platforms where podcasts are served. Like I say, if you want to be part of the tribe, please subscribe and like and share and all those things that you know how to do. Is there anything else? Because yes, we went to for the third time in this conversation. You know our goal, making natural movement the obvious, better healthy choice. The way natural food is you are going to be the ones who make that happen. You are the movement movement and I want to thank you for being part of that. So enjoy and live life feet first.

View Details

Dr. Brianne Showman has been a licensed physical therapist since 2006. Since that time, she has been helping active adults and athletes get back to the activities they love. As ideas and theories in rehabilitation, functional movement, and nutrition are constantly changing, she is constantly searching for the new information in order to get you back to the activities you love as quickly (but safely) as possible.

Being a CrossFitter and runner herself, she also understands the desire to want to push through the pain, not wanting to take time off, and wanting to get back to activity as soon as possible when required to take time off. She does her best to keep you active in the things you are able to do, modifying as necessary, but not taking you completely out of the gym, off the track/field, or off the road.

Listen to this episode of The MOVEMENT Movement with Dr. Brianne Showman about the myth of stretching.

Here are some of the beneficial topics covered on this week’s show:

– How box breathing is a controlled breathing pattern method used for relaxation and stress relief.

– Why addressing weaknesses in key muscle groups is essential to alleviate chronic tightness and prevent further issues.

– How improving hip stability and control during running is crucial for overall performance.

– Why grip strength is a significant factor in obstacle course racing and ninja warrior training.

– How training the body to control new range of motion gained through stretching is crucial to prevent regression.

Connect with Brianne:

Guest Contact Info

Instagram@the.ocr.doc

Facebookfacebook.com/GetYourFixPhysicalTherapy LinkedInLinkedin.com/in/brianne-showman

Links Mentioned:getyourfixpt.com

Connect with Steven:

WebsiteXeroshoes.com

Twitter@XeroShoes

Instagram@xeroshoes

Facebookfacebook.com/xeroshoes

Episode Transcript

Steven Sashen:

Stretching, icing, all that sort of massage, all that rehab stuff. Super, super important, right? Maybe it’s the worst thing you could be doing for yourself if you’re trying to be a healthier, better human being, let alone athlete. We’re going to find out more about that on today’s episode of The Movement Movement podcast. The podcast for people who want to know the truth about what it takes to have a happy, healthy, strong body starting with the feet first because those things are your foundation. We get rid of the mythology, the propaganda, sometimes the outright lies that people have been telling you for 50 years about what it takes to run or walk or hike or play or lift or do yoga or CrossFit, or just hang out with your kids and do that enjoyably and effectively. And did I mention enjoyably? Because if you’re not having fun, remember please do something different until you are. We call this The Movement Movement podcast because we’re creating a movement about natural movement.

We’re trying to make natural movement the obvious or remind people really, that natural movement is the obvious, better, healthy choice. This is the same way we currently think of natural food, and it’s a movement that means it involves you, and all that means is sharing with your friends. So like and subscribe, and give us a thumbs up and hit the bell icon on YouTube if you’re on YouTube. And come visit us at www.jointhemovementmovement.com, you’ll find previous episodes and all the other ways that you can interact with us. I don’t need to tell you how to do that. You know how to find podcasts. You’ve been here before or you’ve been somewhere before. That’s the important part. So anyway, let’s jump in and talk about whether all those things that you think you need to do for staying healthy or really bad for you. And let’s start by saying, hello, Brianna, how are you?

Brianne Showman:

I am awesome. It’s Monday, my favorite day of the week, so we’re good.

Steven Sashen:

Really? Well, people won’t be hearing this on a Monday, so now you’ve just messed them up. Of course during the last 12 months, no one knows what day it is anyway, so it’s not going to really matter.

Brianne Showman:

That’s true.

Steven Sashen:

Before we jump into why all these horrible things or these wonderful things are horrible for you, why don’t you tell people who the hell you are and what you do with your life.

Brianne Showman:

Who I am? I’m still figuring that out myself, but for what I do know, I am Brianne Showman. I am a physical therapist by trade, but what I do primarily is coaching for runners and obstacle course racers. Many years ago, I was the traditional therapist who saw the injured person in an insurance-based clinic, and I got very fed up with what insurance companies do to control us. I got very fed up with just fixing broken people constantly. So I became a coach to get people on the front end of things in order to make more resilient athletes rather than constantly fixing broken people.

Steven Sashen:

Well, I want to jump back into that in a second because I want to start with just what we… Actually, I’m going to start with something else. So, since it is The Movement Movement podcast, I’m going to put you on the spot. We have not prepared for this. This is going to be a high pressure situation, so take a deep breath, shake it out if you need to. Is there any movement anything, whether it’s physical or mental, if there’s a mental movement, if you can figure out what that means or anything that you would want to share with human beings that could give them some sort of experience, whether they’re sitting down right now or taking a walk or in their car or doing whatever they might be doing. And we’ve done things like doing short foot exercise to do an isometric foot strengthening thing. We’ve done weird things like turning your head in one direction while turning your eyes in the other direction and finding out how that can make you stretch or move better. So anything you can think of that you might want to share with humans?

Brianne Showman:

You know what, I think just because it’s such an important element but tends to be forgotten by a lot of people as stress when we’re in high stress environments is breathing, and just remembering to take those long, deep breaths in through your nose, out through your nose.

Steven Sashen:

That was easy. Let’s just do one, shall we? Actually, wait, hold on. Do you have a theory about the timing of in-breaths versus out-breaths when you’re doing things like this? Because some people do.

Brianne Showman:

Yeah, it depends on the purpose. I do a lot of box breathing myself, which is making an equal amount of time for that inhale hold, exhale hold. But then there is a lot of science behind to in order to help decrease your heart rate and bring more calm, doing a longer exhale than a longer inhale. So it kind of depends on what your purpose is for it.

Steven Sashen:

Let’s do a combo. Let’s do a four-second inhale, six second hold, eight second out. So 4, 6, 8.

Brianne Showman:

Got it.

Steven Sashen:

Four in, six hold, eight out, and we’ll do like… We’ll just do two of those. What the hell?

Brianne Showman:

Let’s do it.

Steven Sashen:

All right, ready? I’ll count it off. I’ll count and read at the same time. Here we go. That’s the out. Okay. In two, three, four, hold, two, three, four, five, six out. One, two, three, four, hold, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, repeat in… Four. Hold, two, three, four, hold, two, three, four, five, six out, two, three, four, hold, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight. Now I got to tell you, that actually was really helpful. I was surprised, even trying to count and breathe in at the same time, which is really not easy. But for me to be able to do the breath hold and the exhale, I have to make sure I get a good inhale, good belly breath in, and then also into the upper chest as well. So like a complete breath in, gives me enough air to do all of that. So, I hope people report back on what they do when they’re doing that. I do something like that to help me get to sleep sometimes, actually.

Brianne Showman:

Yeah, it’s nice. I’ve used a lot of the breathing techniques for even if I just have something on my mind that I just cannot let go of, I’ll just do some box breathing and just… Because when you focus on the numbers and counting versus anything else, it just helps everything relax and calm down.

Steven Sashen:

Yeah. And to be clear, I agree with you and nothing’s perfect, and I’m thinking that because last night I just could not get to sleep because I had these four thoughts running through my head incessantly. Basically, I was playing a negotiation out in my head. I have some people that I’m have to be going to be talking to and I’m trying to figure out the right way to frame everything we’re going to be doing, and it just was nonstop. And for me, this is going to sound weird, the only thing that works in that case is I get out of bed, I go into the other room where we have a couch and a television and I put the TV on, I put it on some YouTube thing that’s like a two-hour lecture by someone who I don’t care about and put the volume down kind of low.

And for some reason that’s very soothing for me. And I’ll wake up once or twice at night and have something going on in my dreams that’s based on what they were just saying, which is really fun. The other day I was dreaming about black holes because suddenly there was a thing. Someone talking about Stephen Hawking who I do care about, and that worked.

Brianne Showman:

That’s awesome.

Steven Sashen:

Yeah, I don’t like to be really prescriptive and assume there’s something that’s perfect for everyone all the time. So I don’t want to make it seem like, “Hey, this is the thing.” Anyway, so in the intro I said, maybe things like stretching and massage and foam rolling and all those things we do for rehab are not necessarily the things that we need to do. And I got to tell you, I want to hear this came from you, of course, and I want to hear what you think about that and why you gave me that idea to start with.

But I want to start with a story that may jumpstart this, this is maybe eight years ago or so. I happily believe there’s a guy named Dr. Bill Sands, who was at what’s now Colorado Mesa University. He was formerly head of biomechanics at the US Olympic Committee. They gave him a huge human performance lab to work in at Colorado Mesa State or Colorado Mesa University. And he would do a whole day’s worth of analysis on you for 50 bucks. There was all these Olympians who told me about him and said, “You got to go see this guy.” And so I went out there and he did all this amazing stuff, and he was using infrared things to measure where parts of your body are hot and cold and doing compression things and really, really fun stuff. And at one point I was having some issue, I can’t remember what it was at the time, and I said, “So what do I do about this?”

And he says, “Well, at the end of every workout you should ice that.” I said, “Well, that’s cool, but what do I do about it?” He said, “How old are you?” I said, “I’m 50.” He goes, “Yeah, at the end of every workout you should ice that.” And so I was like, that wasn’t the answer I was looking for because I had this idea that there was something I could do that would fix it, cure it, make it never come back, make it never happen. I hope that leads you to a jumping off point for this idea.

Brianne Showman:

Yes, yes it does. I mean, ice, I guess dulls the pain, but it doesn’t really do anything for you. But what I would’ve wanted to dive into and what I gave you. Yeah.

Steven Sashen:

But other than that one sentence debunking years and years of rest, ice compression, elevation, but the ice, whatever.

Brianne Showman:

That’s a whole other rabbit hole we can go down later.

Steven Sashen:

We can go down that rabbit hole in a bit. We’ll come back to it.

Brianne Showman:

But when it comes to stretching, like at the end of the day, stretching is not going to hurt anybody, but it’s not the end all be all that a lot of athletes think it is. A lot of times I’ll talk to people who are injured. It’s like, “What are you doing? Well, I’m stretching before I run. I’m stretching after, I’m stretching multiple times a day.” And it’s just, they’re constantly stretching. And if you’re acutely injured, it might be helpful, but it’s one of these things that if something’s continually getting tight, there’s a reason for it. And that if all you’re doing is stretching constantly, we’re just treating those symptoms, we’re not actually getting to the cause of it on what’s actually causing that tightness to be there. So it’s not that stretching is necessarily a bad thing, it’s just the thing that if that’s all you’re doing and you’re having to do that to maintain a pain-free state or be able to continue training, then there’s other answers that need to be looked into.

Steven Sashen:

And how would someone go about finding those other things that might be the real cause that’s leading them to do all this, other than someone telling them that’s what they should have been doing?

Brianne Showman:

Yeah, this is very general statement, but for the most part, a lot of the things that get tight and that chronically tight is because something is weak. The question is, what is exactly weak? But the way the body works is the deep muscles around the joint have to stabilize the joint. That’s what keeps it nice and strong. If there’s weakness there or if it’s fatiguing out faster than the demands you’re putting on it, the only way the body knows how to control itself and protect that joint is to tighten up. So this constant tight state that we’re getting in often means that something’s not strong enough to do its job.

Steven Sashen:

So that’s an interesting thing. It makes me think of reciprocal inhibition. Makes me think of two things, reciprocal inhibition one, which is ironically, if someone’s going to stretch, perhaps the better way to do it. And for people who don’t know what that is, let’s think about doing a hamstring stretch. You’re sitting on the ground like a hurdler stretch or something. And what most people will do is try and relax the hamstring or stretch into the hamstring. But if you do the opposite of trying to lift your foot off the ground by tightening your quad, then that’s going to make the hamstring stretch.

Or it’s like when you’re doing a bicep curl, your tricep relaxes. When you’re doing a tricep push-down, your bicep relaxes because these are reciprocal muscles, and so activating one reciprocally inhibits the other one, which can allow it to relax and stretch more. But I’m so glad you said that, finding the thing that’s weak because it’s one of the things that I’ve seen with a lot of runners and I hope you can talk more about it, is they’re notoriously weak in exactly the places they need to be strong.

Brianne Showman:

Absolutely. Especially, talking about like a lot of what I see is foot and ankle issues. Obviously, Xero Shoes was started because of the foot and the bare foot and needing foot strength. I’m going to go foot ankle because they’re so much of that that goes on. When we’re talking most foot and ankle issues, post-tib tendonitis, perineal issues, even shin splints, these things are tightening up. We’re getting these inflammations in that area because it’s tightening up, because they’re weak and they don’t know how to actually stabilize either the joint it’s supposed to stabilize or the entire foot itself. I see a lot of these issues too with hamstring tightness. Like everyone tends to think they have really tight hamstrings, which you might, but the question is what is weak that’s causing that hamstring to tighten up so much? A lot of times it comes down to the core. You may do sit-ups all freaking day long. You’re still probably have a weak core because that’s just a small component of things that go wrong there.

Steven Sashen:

So are you including in the core… I mean, basically how high up and how low down are you going when you use that phrase?

Brianne Showman:

Yeah, that’s a great question because different for every… Or everyone thinks differently on it. Technically, in my opinion and the way I’ve learned is the core is actually from your shoulders down to your knees, because it all is interrelated.

Steven Sashen:

I like that. And when you’re looking at foot and ankle things, how often do you see glutes, especially glute medius related to that?

Brianne Showman:

There is a lot of correlation between the glute med and the foot and ankle weakness and strength or injury just because of other torsions that are taking place there.

Steven Sashen:

Can you do me a favor, and for people who don’t know, can you help them identify what their glute medius is and then talk about that relationship and how you would work with someone?

Brianne Showman:

Yeah, absolutely. So your glute med is one of your deep glute muscles. So the biggest one on your that you can palpate when you contract is your glute max. Underlying that is your glute med, it sits a little more lateral. So it almost sits on the outside of your hips, just above what you would think what a lot of people call their hip bone. That’s primarily where that muscle sits. And then what was the rest of that question?

Steven Sashen:

The rest of the question was talk more about the relationship between that and foot and ankle and what you might do with people to experiment. I mean, if they’re on their own, they’re not seeing you or someone like you, what they might do is an experiment to see what’s going on, whether their glute medius is in fact weak, how that might be impacting their foot and ankle.

Brianne Showman:

Okay, awesome. So, there actually is a lot of co-contractions that happen. So I know on this podcast he’s talked about short foot in the past. There is a co-contraction that happens between the short foot, the glute medius, and then our deeper core muscles. Like if that, where it just-

Steven Sashen:

Let me interject. So the short foot for people who don’t know, it’s basically just an isometric thing where… Well, you’re not imagining, you’re trying to shorten the distance between… Stand up and do this, you can do it sitting, but it’s easier standing at first and try to pull the ball of your foot closer to your heel while keeping your toes as relaxed as possible. So you’re basically just engaging the arch and the longitudinal arch, the one most people think of is the arch in their foot. It doesn’t matter if you’re flat-footed or higher arched feet, and really it’s an isometric contraction because you’re not going to be moving that too much. And so what you’re saying is that contraction ripples all the way up into your hips, into your glute medius.

Brianne Showman:

Correct. Like I’m standing here right now actually going short foot with my thumbs on my glute medius, and I’m actually feeling a contraction in that glute med when I do it. So, there’s a huge correlation and just vice versa, when you activate that glute med, that foot turns on a little bit better as well. One of the big problems we have though is our bodies are great at compensating for its weaknesses. We essentially find our workarounds for any weakness. This comes into play a lot if someone’s working on squats, and the big common cue is to get the knees out. Well, rather than activating their hips or activating the foot to actually get that to happen, I see people just totally pick up the inside of their foot, go on the outside of their foot to actually get their knees out. So if we can learn how to contract that foot, contract the hip together, we just gained so much more control and stability over that leg.

Steven Sashen:

That’s interesting. The cues that people give are often cues that they were given, and sometimes those people learned how to implement that cue correctly. Often they didn’t, and then they’re just repeating it because that’s the only way they think to say it. I mean, when you said that just now, yeah, the idea that you would roll onto the outside of your feet in order to get your knees out, it’s sort of like… It reminds me one of the first times I made a pair of running sandals for someone and I said, “Let’s take a little run together.” And the woman who I was with, she’s reaching her foot way out in front of her body and then pointing her toes to land on the ground, to land on her forefoot. I said, “What are you doing?” She said, “Well, you’re supposed to land on your forefoot.”

I said, “But you’re not supposed to prance. You’re supposed to have your foot underneath your body. You’re not supposed to be just bounding and landing on your forefoot.” So similar thing with squats, I mean, the obvious and easy fix for what you just described is keep your feet flat on the ground and then like stick a band around your knees and just make sure you’re pushing the band out while you’re squatting, which would be cue. And it just reminded me, the glute medius when I was in Bill Sand’s lab for my $50 diagnostic, whatever, he said, “Yeah, you got to do glute medius stuff.” And so if someone is going to be strengthening their glute medius, I’m not going to say which thing he taught me. I want to see which you say. They discover that when they try to engage their foot, they’re not feeling their glute tighten.

Sometimes they can’t just tighten their glutes at all. I’ve done this repeatedly with some athletes where they just can’t feel their glutes and I say, “This is not personal. Stick your hand on my butt.” And then I show them what it feels like when your glute goes from relaxed to tight and they’re like, “Oh my God.” And then I said, “All right, this is not personal. I’m going to stick my hand on your butt now, you just got to do the same thing.” And then they quickly figured out, but they just didn’t have the cue. So anyway, point being, some people aren’t really hip to intended, hip to how to do this. So if someone discovers they have this disconnect, what do you recommend they do for working on glute medius?

Brianne Showman:

Yeah, that’s a great question. And the reason I have so many cues and exercise ideas is because everyone responds to a different thing. But I will say first and foremost, typically unless someone’s had… So standard, if you go to a therapist, what they’re going to do is all these laying down exercises.

For the most part, unless you’ve had a surgery and you need to start there, we function standing up, we should start training standing up, which is how I normally do it. Now, that glute med typically, or its job is to hold our pelvis and hips stable when we’re standing. So when we’re standing on a single leg, it’s going to fire more than when we’re standing on one leg.

Steven Sashen:

I get that.

Brianne Showman:

So a lot of times just to understand where it’s at. I’ll have someone just stand, have both feet on the ground, then lift one leg up, stand on it, and have their thumb in that area. So they just understand what that feels like to work with. From there, I’ll do some different isometric things as far as standing on one leg, pushing the other leg, saying next to a wall, pushing the other leg into the wall, just to start getting used to some isometric contractions there. And then from there start adding different movements to it. But that’s where I usually start is just getting someone to understand where is it, when does it fire, and how do we truly activate it in a functional position?

Steven Sashen:

I like the isometric one. I’ve never done that. So let’s break that down for people. So, you’re going to stand perpendicular to a wall. How far away from the wall? So let’s say, with your right shoulder facing the wall, so how far away do you want someone to be?

Brianne Showman:

So typically I will be, so my shoulder is on that wall itself.

Steven Sashen:

Oh, okay. I see.

Brianne Showman:

And then, the leg that is off the ground is the one that’s next to the wall.

Steven Sashen:

So you’re lifting it up just by bending your knee a little or flexing your hip a little bit?

Brianne Showman:

Correct.

Steven Sashen:

Okay. And using the other leg. So in this case, you’re left leg to try to push yourself into the wall without letting your hips drop or rise too much. Is that the idea?

Brianne Showman:

Correct.

Steven Sashen:

And then how hard is someone pushing, how many reps, how many whatever?

Brianne Showman:

Yeah, not pushing real hard. Typically, with these isometric, just learn teaching the body how to move again. It’s about a 50% contraction, so you’re not using a whole lot of force. It’s just teaching the body how to move. Usually, 10 to 15 reps is good at a time before you… Because after that, if you’re just learning how to use that muscle again, it might start fatiguing out.

Steven Sashen:

Yeah. And it occurs to me one indication, and this is going to be potentially tricky for people to self diagnose unless they get video or have someone watch them. But one of the things that I know that’s highly related to a clear indication of glute medius weakness is when someone’s running and their knees end up basically pointing in and banging into each other as they run. I saw a woman the other day and I was driving to have brunch with some friends, we’re doing socially distant outdoor picnic brunches and this woman’s running, and I almost pulled off the side of the road to yell at her like, “Stop doing that.” Because her knees were banging into each other and her feet were way, way out to the side. I mean, at first I didn’t think that this was someone who was actually meaning to run.

They realized they left their keys in the car or something. But then as I got closer, I could see this is someone who clearly spends a lot of time running. I mean, had all the gear, had everything, otherwise decent form, except her legs were completely out of whack. And I’ve seen a bunch of video from people like Irene Davis for example at Harvard showing that that’s one of the things that happens when your glute medius can’t stabilize your hips. The other is your hips just shifting up and down as you’re going from leg to leg. You just can’t maintain that stability.

Brianne Showman:

Yeah.

Steven Sashen:

So if anyone sees that in video or has someone watch you and sees that, then you really know this is definitely something to play with.

Brianne Showman:

Yeah. And one thing I want to throw in there too, when we’re talking glute med weakness, and yes, that hip drop is a huge, huge one that I see a lot with weakness in there, is it’s been found that just working on strength does not correlate with improvement in running techniques. So you can strengthen your glute med all you want, but that doesn’t mean that hip drop is going to correct itself when you’re running. So, you also have to combine some different running drills of learning how to control that hip in that position with your strengthening work in order to really get that carry over.

Steven Sashen:

So what would be an example of a drill? Because again, what we’re trying to do with the exercises is really… There’s a guy that I know, Essop Merrick, he’s a YouTuber out of the UK. He’s a former sprinter who refers to strength training as the thing you do after you’re done running to get your body back into balance because you just whacked it out from running, which I think is a fun perspective. So we’re doing these things, isometric things or whatever strengthening things we’re doing to awaken a neurological path, if you will, or keep us aware of something. But like I say, there’s no substitute for the actual thing. There’s no amount of foot strengthening exercises you can do that prepare you for running barefoot other than running barefoot. Now, that doesn’t mean don’t do them, but don’t kid yourself into thinking you can short foot your way into running a barefoot marathon. So if we’re going to do that translation into running, what do you have people become aware of or do to bring that into action?

Brianne Showman:

Yeah, my favorite drill to start with, and you can find this on my YouTube channel, it’s called falling into a wall basically. But you’re facing a wall, literally like a board falling into a wall. You’re just going to keep your body straight and fall. But just when you get to that falling point before your hands hit the wall, you’re going to pull one leg off the ground as if you were bringing that leg up into your running position. And your goal on that is to maintain that good pelvic position when that leg comes off the ground, not letting it drop.

Steven Sashen:

I’m so glad you said right before your hands hit the wall, because I could imagine some people think they’re going to catch themselves with their face. There are a couple videos of this where have you seen the trust fall videos where people don’t know how a trust fall works?

Brianne Showman:

Yeah.

Steven Sashen:

There’s someone standing behind them and they fall forward. Oh my god, it’s my favorite thing in the world. I mean, it’s not like someone skateboarding and then landing on the rail and wrecking themselves, but it’s pretty damn close. So that’s a good one, and I’m willing to bet that people will find that they’re better on one side than the other.

Brianne Showman:

Typically, one side’s going to be a little bit stronger and more coordinated than the other. Yeah.

Steven Sashen:

And I don’t know if this is true also, but I wouldn’t be surprised if there are a number of people who discovered that the side that they’re actually stronger on is the side that they think they’re weaker on?

Brianne Showman:

Probably, possibly.

Steven Sashen:

I just say that thinking there are a couple of things that I do where I think my left side is the weaker side. My left leg is undeniably stronger than my right leg and I’m right-handed and right leg and right whatever, but my left leg is definitely stronger. And so like, “What the hell?” It just makes no sense to me. It’s very confusing.

Brianne Showman:

And it’s really interesting too, when I’m looking at hip drop, it’s like half the people have the injury on their right leg. Half the people have the injury on the left leg. So there’s really no correlation necessarily between if it’s this hip, the injury is always going to be the same side or it’s always going to be opposite side. It kind of just depends how your body’s compensated over the years and how your body wants to, how your body gets injured because of that.

Steven Sashen:

Well, and to that point, if you do tighten something up as a compensatory measure over time you become numb to it and you just don’t feel it anymore. And so, you can become aware of a tightness that you didn’t have where you think it’s on the right side and it’s the left side that’s actually tightening something up and you’ve been oblivious to that, and then you discover that and that changes your whole self-image and then you have to get a new name and buy a new wardrobe. I think it works that way. Something like that.

Brianne Showman:

Pretty sure.

Steven Sashen:

That’s what somebody told me. I’m not really sure. So backing up to the very beginning of your transition from working with injured people to working with people to try to keep them from getting injured, I love that you delineated that you’re working with predominantly runners and obstacle horse racers. That is an unusual thing to specialize in.

Brianne Showman:

Yeah, it’s super fun. I’ve been a runner since high school and then I started CrossFit about nine years ago now. And a couple of years ago I was like, “Why not meld these two sports together?” So I started getting involved in the obstacle course world, fell in love with it and realized there was a very underserved population there when it comes to more of the rehab type specialist, functional movement specialist. There’s a lot of coaches, but there’s not a whole lot that really understand the intricacies of the body, whereas the CrossFit world and just the running world is very inundated with that. So, it’s just the direction that fell into my lap and I was having a lot of fun with, and I absolutely love still working with running technique and the runners, so I still have pulled the runners in, but absolutely love my racers.

Steven Sashen:

So what are the things that are potentially unique about obstacle horse racers that you don’t see with other populations?

Brianne Showman:

I think that for me, the biggest thing is training for both elements. Like a lot of runners just run, whether it’s road or trail. CrossFitters for the most part, hate running. People typically hate running, but when you’re looking at the obstacle course racers, it’s both of them combined. And the really fun thing is half of them absolutely hate running, but they do it for the obstacle part. And-

Steven Sashen:

By the way, I’m that guy.

Brianne Showman:

… the other half were runners and then they were dared to do an obstacle course race by some other friend and fell in love with it. So it’s a very unique population because there’s people who absolutely love running, but then there’s people who hate running but do it because of the joy of everything else, and it’s just really fun.

Steven Sashen:

There’s some crazy obstacle courses. I mean, I’m thinking of the one, it’s a mud run thing where isn’t there something you’re crawling on your belly, you’re crawling through the mud, there’s something electrified above you.

Brianne Showman:

That’s a Tough Mudder. And to be honest, I refuse to do that race for that one obstacle reason.

Steven Sashen:

Oh, see, that’s a shame. I was hoping you were going to say, “Those are the people I work with and I just tase them so that’s the training is that I just hit them with 50,000 volts over and over until they don’t mind.” I think that would be a good thing of open up a gym and all you do is tease people and hit them with logs and all those things that people do just fall off of things, that’d be very entertaining. I wonder if there’s a whole training thing for those Japanese TV game shows where it’s just obstacle course and they’re just getting pummeled with things and thrown into mud baths. And there’s got to be someone who does that. I mean, there’s a whole ninja training gyms now. There’ve got to be goofy ass gyms for things like that.

Brianne Showman:

Probably are, probably are.

Steven Sashen:

I would want to go there. See, I’m one of those guys not only for me, I don’t do an obstacle of course run because there’s way too much running. As a sprinter if it was things like a 50 or a hundred between obstacles, I’m all in. If it’s a half a mile to a mile between obstacles, just get me a scooter. You’re not old enough for this. When I was growing up, it was a network battle of the stars, and so it was all TV and movie stars, mostly TV stars doing tug of war. I can’t remember what all the things were, and I just remember thinking as a kid, “I want to get famous just so I could be on that,” because I think I could crush that game. It was all just sort of obstacle course level things. It would be really, really fun. It’s like the celebrity version of the Presidential Physical Fitness test or something crazy like that.

Brianne Showman:

That’s awesome.

Steven Sashen:

Yeah, it was really fun. So just for the fun of it, since you’re such a big fan of OCR stuff, if you were going to talk to someone who was thinking about or maybe wasn’t even thinking about doing their first obstacle course run, what would you suggest to them in terms of how to pick one, what to do to prepare, what to be prepared for once they do it?

Brianne Showman:

Yeah. As far as picking one, I think the biggest thing with them is obstacle course racing, even though there’s obstacles, the biggest thing is the distance factor. There’s a lot more running in than there are obstacles, so you need to be able to cover the distance. If you’ve been a runner for a while, most likely that will not be an issue. If you haven’t been running for a long time, start with the ones that are more of a 5K distance. There are a lot of races that are in that 5K range.

From there just to get like start going to the park, if the parks are open right now. Start going to the park and play on the monkey bars and just be a kid and have fun. Just getting used to. I think the biggest part with them is the hanging obstacles. Most people, it may be a little bit heavy, but most people can lift some sort of sandbag or something because we lift things in our day-to-day life, but I think most people aren’t used to the hanging things. So even if you just go to the park and hang on the monkey bars for a little bit or actually do the monkey bars and just do things like that, I think that’s where people tend to have the worst or the most difficulty.

Steven Sashen:

That’s the thing. When I look at the Ninja Warrior stuff, it’s so much about grip, which is so disappointing it’s the one thing, I don’t have. Everything else, like all the jumping, all the bounding, all the whatever else I’m all in, but I’m just not a grip guy. It makes me very upset. Because that’s my other fantasies, I want to be like the oldest Ninja Warrior guy, but I don’t stand a chance.

Brianne Showman:

You just got to start training your grip.

Steven Sashen:

I’m such a fast twitch guy. It just seems unlikely. I don’t run distance for a list of reasons, but my VO2 max is low and I’m a VO2 max non-responder. If I do VO2 max training, just nothing changes. And people don’t realize that there are some people who don’t respond to doing long slow distance. It doesn’t change things. There’s some people who when they lift weights, it doesn’t make them stronger.

It’s kind of funny, and people don’t want to believe that. They want to believe that all they have to do is train long, slow and they get better cardiovascular conditioning, all they have to do is lift weights and they’re going to get stronger. And there’s some people who just don’t respond that way, or even worse, they make it stronger, but they don’t change their body shape, and that’s the reason they wanted to do it. I had a friend growing up, he was the strongest guy I ever knew, and he was twig thin, just had no muscle mass and would go into the gym and just lift the stack on every machine. It was so annoying, but also really cool to watch because people would like, “Look at him,” and not be able to figure it out.

Brianne Showman:

Actually, I’ve known people like that too. They would eat so much in order to try to bulk up and there was just like…

Steven Sashen:

Yeah.

Brianne Showman:

And they were strong, but yeah, there was just no adding muscle mass.

Steven Sashen:

And then there’s the opposite. There’s a disease, I don’t remember what it’s called, where you don’t produce myostatin and when you don’t produce myostatin limits the amount of muscle growth that you can have. And when you don’t produce it, you just get more and more muscle growth. I know of one person who has this disease and I grew up with someone who we’re pretty sure had it. Because when we were doing gymnastics, he’d come in bigger every day and we would say, “So what’d you do to get your biceps bigger?” And he goes, “Cheerios.”

I mean, just no lifting. He never lifted. He just kept getting bigger every day. Just the tiniest bit of stimulation just made it huge.

Brianne Showman:

Oh, wow.

Steven Sashen:

Yeah, it was fascinating. We once found a jean jacket that was too small for me to wear, and this guy was… I mean, I was 5’2″ at the time. This guy was like 5’11” and I could barely get this thing on. We spent an hour squeezing him into it. It took that long to get the buttons done. He could barely breathe. And then he just did a flexing thing like he was the Hulk and literally ripped the seams and popped the rivets on a jean jacket. It was awesome. Things you do with your freaky friends.

Brianne Showman:

Right.

Steven Sashen:

So, can you think of anything else? I want to back me up to the beginning again. Anything else? We talked about stretching and how that’s not necessarily a thing and ice. Actually, do you want to talk more about any thoughts you have about why ice is doing nothing other than temporarily numbing things? Do you have any other thoughts on why ice is not all it’s cracked up to be?

Brianne Showman:

Yeah, so in order for our bodies to actually heal, we need that inflammation response to happen. When we put ice on an injury, especially in acute injury, even though you think you need to take that swelling down, the swelling actually is what brings the healing properties to the area. So if we get rid of that swelling, we try to decrease that inflammation, we actually are delaying that healing process that’s going on. If you sprain your ankle rather than going home and icing it, you’d be better to just do some active range of motion, try to keep it moving, and just let that healing response happen. If you want to ice it to numb the pain, it’s not a bad thing necessarily, but it’s going to delay that healing process.

Steven Sashen:

Interesting. I remember, I did say things with contrast. So ice and heat and ice and heat just going back and forth like a minute each. Do you think that does something different?

Brianne Showman:

The biggest thing is it helps control the swelling. So it doesn’t necessarily help the healing process at all, but sometimes that swelling can just be uncomfortable. I’ve done contrast myself when I was dealing with some injuries, so sometimes just getting that swelling out of there can help decrease the discomfort so you can sleep better or so you can concentrate for your job. So there definitely is a time and place and it’s nothing that you can’t do at any ever, but I would say if it’s an acute injury, let that swelling stay in there for a little bit and let the healing happen.

Steven Sashen:

Yeah, that’s a really interesting idea. You reminded me just backing up to the thing you just said is perhaps the key thing is just doing that active recovery, just as much movement as you can without pain to just keep things moving, keep things flowing. And it reminded me, I asked Dr. Irene Davis from Harvard, before she became the preeminent researcher in natural movement footwear, she was teaching people how to make orthotics. She was a physical therapy professor, whatever that would be at University of Delaware. And I said, “What was your aha moment about natural movement?” And she said, “One of the things was I realized people would come into our clinic and we would try to keep them moving as much as possible as whatever they could do, except suddenly we were putting their feet in orthotic that wouldn’t let their foot move and that didn’t make sense all of a sudden.”

And I say the same, I even say to people who are convinced that they need to wear thick padded motion-controlled running shoes. I go, “That’s cool. If you’re happy with those, do it.” But when you’re done, put on something like what we do so you can have that active recovery, you can keep the blood moving, keep everything flexible and let it possibly heal faster as a result. And then they go, “Oh, that’s okay.” Now what I don’t tell them is once they get used to wearing our shoes afterwards, they’re not going to be able to put on those big fit, chunky, heavy, ridiculous foot coffins, but you can’t tell people everything.

Brianne Showman:

Right. When I was in PT school, I went for a run in the morning and stepped down from a curb wrong, major ankle sprain, limped my way a mile and a half back home and went to class that day. I was like, “All right, got to keep this ankle moving as much as I can.” So I was doing ankle circles, alphabet while I was sitting there thinking I was moving my foot through a huge range of motion and I looked down and it was moving like an inch. It was so stiff and swollen. I was like, “That’s not good.”

Steven Sashen:

No, that is definitely not good. It’s so funny you say that, I actually was carrying a 50 pound box this morning out into our garage and tripped on one of the stairs and did exactly one of those things face planted after my ankle twisted. And I got up thinking, “Well, I’ll be very curious to see how this goes.” And then I just kept walking. And then until right now, and this was what, six hours ago until right now, I’d forgotten that it even happened. And so that made me feel pretty good. Wait, I’m checking down. Yeah, it moves fine.

Brianne Showman:

One thing that came to mind going back to the stretching a little bit too, is if you are… Or one of the downfalls was stretching is now say the stretching itself, but we aren’t teaching the body how to use that extra motion. So you stretch, but then you don’t train that say, we’re stretching our calves. Awesome. We loosen it up, but then you don’t actually teach the +body how to control that new range of motion, and so it’s just going to go right back to where it was. So a lot of times if you ever see me stretching on a video or in the gym, it looks like I’m stretching, but I’m actually doing more of an isometric contraction or I’m doing like a contract relax or something to actually teach the body how to be controlled in that end range.

Steven Sashen:

You just gave me a crazy flashback. I was getting PT for a calf pull from when I just got back into sprinting. So this is about 12, 13 years ago. So they were having me just facing the wall, just lean into the wall to get a calf stretch and then do that reciprocal inhibition thing, that tight and relaxed thing. So I was pushing in and then relaxing or trying to push away and then relax in. And I kept getting a deeper stretch and a deeper stretch and a deeper stretch. And I got really crazy far, and it felt really good until I couldn’t walk for the next week because I had just strained my calves so much from doing that. I had no idea.

In fact, to talk about stretching. There was a coach that I worked with when I got back into sprinting, and at the end of every workout he had everyone stretching. And one day I realized there was one other person who wasn’t doing it other than me. That person became my best friend because I said, “Why aren’t you doing any stretching at the end of the workout?” He goes, “Because it’s useless.” And I went, “I love you.” And one of my first actual sprinting coaches, same thing. Our cool down was, let’s walk around the track and talk and then get in the car. I mean, that was it. So, do you know from your either experience or research about any value to post-workout stretching or not?

Brianne Showman:

From what I’ve seen, there’s a whole lot of value, especially when it comes to endurance sports like when… I’m thinking if I do a workout that’s very hamstring heavy or triceps heavy when I’m lifting, sometimes stretching that out afterwards can delay the tightness that happens as that rebound effect, but even that’s far and few between. If you exhaust those muscles so much, they’re just going to get a little… Just that overuse tightness, not a bad thing, just an overuse tightness. When you get down to it, I don’t think most injuries are due to stretching or lack of stretching. The people who stretch all the time get injured just as much as the people who don’t stretch all the time. So if it makes you feel good to stretch afterwards, cool. But I don’t think it’s really necessary.

Steven Sashen:

Do we want to debunk the whole idea of a cool down?

Brianne Showman:

Depends what your definition of a cool down is. You’re walking around afterwards or hopping on a bike and just getting some low grade movements, I think is awesome. But as far as doing a cool down of stretching, I don’t think it’s really necessary.

Steven Sashen:

Yeah, we did not prepare this, but you and I agree. Again, it’s one of these things that’s so interesting. I’m really curious to know how this idea evolved, where it came from and how it caught on. Because it seems like so many of these things just become like, they’re almost urban myths that have become a common wisdom and I’m always dying to know how. It’s an old teaching story joke that I love that’s related to this of a couple gets married and it’s the couple’s first Christmas, and the husband is making dinner and he makes a pot roast. And he pulls out two pans and cuts the pot roast in half and puts it in two pans and puts it in the oven. And his wife’s like, “Why’d you do that?” He goes, “Well, that’s what my mom taught me how to do.” So the next year they’re at mom’s house for Christmas and she cuts the pot roast in half and puts it in new pans and the wife says… Daughter-in this case, “Why’d do that?”

She goes, “Well, my mother taught me to do that because it cooks better. It cooks more evenly, it tastes better when you do it that way.” The next year they’re at grandma’s house and now great, whatever that the wife says, “So how come you do the cutting the pot roast in half? Does it make things taste better and cook better?” She goes, “No, I just never had a pan big enough for a whole pot roast.” And I think that there’s so many training things that are like that that just have been passed down because someone thought it out for some reason

And probably just pulled it totally out of their butt to begin with. Which by the way, you need to stretch to be able to pull something out of your butt like that. You need to really have good hamstring flexibility. So, it seems to be one of the only things I’m interested in is finding those things out to debunk them if they’re not useful, if they don’t help, like even sometimes warming up. To lift weights, I’ve never found that warming up helped me lift any better other than just going down and doing one set to know that I’m doing something, but I don’t do some elaborate warmup to get my heart rate up to a million and start sweating and all those things.

Brianne Showman:

Yeah. Now that you’re bringing up the warmup conversation, I think the biggest thing with doing a warmup is I call it activation. If I’m going to be doing overhead presses, I know I’m going to do decent weight. I’ll do some lightweight bottoms up kettlebell presses in order to just activate those muscles, get those dynamic muscles kicked in. If I’m going to be doing squats, I’ll do some banded standing hip abduction, some side stepping, some short foot stuff, just some things to get the legs activated. So, that’s how I view a warmup is it should be more dynamic. It should be activating those muscles that you intend to use during that workout.

Steven Sashen:

Well, you just nailed it. I mean, to be candid, I mean, or honest about it. When I’m going out for a sprinting workout, I mean, I do an extended set of drills and warmups, but the point of them is to make everything we do has a direct application to sprinting. For people who know A skips and B skips and C skips, there’s ways of doing it where it’s just glorified hip movement and not really doing anything, or there’s ways of doing it that are actually simulating and stimulating part of what the gait cycle should be when you’re sprinting. And I learned that from a sprinter who said, “You’re warming up like a distance runner who doesn’t know anything about warming up. You’re not warming up like a sprinter.” And the difference is dramatic. Some day I’ll have to go out and shoot video showing the difference. But I think that’s a really good point is to do things that are movement specific to activate those movements, to wake up that neural pathway. And I don’t think people think about that typically when they’re doing whatever their warmup is.

Brianne Showman:

And I think you made a great point there too that I like to talk to my athletes about is so many people do, whether it’s a drill or actually part of the workout is just going through the motions, not really thinking about how their body’s moving. Are they moving in a way to be powerful or are they just moving just to move? And it’s such a difference on how the body responds when you’re moving with intention and with purpose than if we’re just moving just to do it.

Steven Sashen:

Yeah, yeah, that is a good point of just bringing intention to it. And again, to be candid, it could be challenging because you’re not doing the thing that you want to do. I know the last three or four drills that I do in my warmup, I’m just going, “Come on. Can I just get these things done?” And they’re the most important ones. They’re the ones that are the closest thing to actually running, and I just want to get like, “I’m out here to run. What the hell’s going on?”

Brianne Showman:

Absolutely.

Steven Sashen:

Well, anything else that you can think of that you would like to leave biped as we wrap this up?

Brianne Showman:

Bipeds.

Steven Sashen:

I’m okay with monopeds too.

Brianne Showman:

As long as you’re not just counting them out.

Steven Sashen:

Yeah.

Brianne Showman:

I think the biggest thing is no matter what you do, if you are stretching or if you’re doing a dynamic activation exercise or whatever it is you’re doing, know why you’re doing it. Know the purpose of it. So many times we just go onto YouTube and we find exercises for hip pain or knee pain or to make me faster or whatever it is, and we just grab five or six of them and do them without knowing the actual purpose and intent behind them. If we don’t know that purpose, if we don’t really know why we’re doing it and we’re just doing it, you might be wasting your time.

Steven Sashen:

And how might someone figure out the why, considering that when they’re looking at something, they’re assuming the person they’re seeing it from as some sort of expert knowledge?

Brianne Showman:

Yeah. I think it’s really tough to figure out that why some videos when you look on YouTube will have it, some won’t. For me personally, if someone sees one of my videos and wants to ask me why, like what it’s for or why it’s out there, I’m always happy to answer someone’s question. So I think most people who put their information out there, if you look at it, you don’t know why it’s there or what the purpose of it is, if you reach out to them, I’m sure they’d be happy to respond.

Steven Sashen:

And my guess is that if you do that a couple of times, you’ll start to be able to hear the difference between something that seems like it really makes sense and something that sounds like more mythology.

Brianne Showman:

Absolutely.

Steven Sashen:

More just repeating what someone else said to them some number of years before. Well, that’s the perfect segue to if somebody does want to find out what you’re up to and learn some of the things that we’ve been talking about them with a little more depth, how might they find you?

Brianne Showman:

Absolutely. Easiest way to find me is my website getyourfixpt.com or you can’t find me on Facebook. I’m most active in the Obstacle Course Race Health and Performance Group.

Steven Sashen:

Getyourfixpt.com. Got it.

Brianne Showman:

Getyourfixpt.com is my website. And then you can also find me, I have my own podcast it’s called Highly Functional, where I talk to all sorts of experts about everything to help someone become a highly functional human.

Steven Sashen:

That sounds delightful. Well, thank you so much for… I mean, we dove into a handful of things that maybe some people are going to be in an uproar about because it’s what they’ve been spending their life believing, and maybe we can make lives a little simpler, a little happier for people. So I really appreciate you sharing all that.

Brianne Showman:

Of course. And real quick, if you are interested, anyone who listens to this podcast, if you go to my website or you can just email me at brianne@getyourfixpt.com, I would be happy to do a free running analysis for you.

Steven Sashen:

Ooh. And your B-R-I-A-N-N-E@getyourfixpt.com.

Brianne Showman:

Correct.

Steven Sashen:

So awesome. That is a splendid offer. I appreciate you doing that.

Brianne Showman:

Of course.

Steven Sashen:

Well, let me call it a day for everyone. Thank you all for being here. If you want to find out more about what’s happening at The Movement Movement, go to www.jointhemovementmovement.com previous episodes, all the different ways you can interact with us. If you have any questions for me or recommendations for people who should be on the show or suggestions or you want to tell me, I have my head up my butt because I’m super flexible, then you can send me an email move@jointhemovementmovement.com. And as always, the most important thing, please go out, have fun and live life feet first.

View Details

Chong Xie is the author of “Secret of Athleticism”, inventor of the Hyperarch Fascia Training System and founder of the page “secret-of-athleticism.com” a website and discussion group founded to understand more about the foot, and its relationship to athleticism, as well as best training practices. Chong has a computer science degree and has been working as a technical analyst in the software industry for the last 10 years. His interest in the foot was piqued by seeing the large discrepancy in athletic performance, and Chong has spent many years on a quest to unlock the “secret” of athletic performance that is hiding beneath our shoes.

Listen to this episode of The MOVEMENT Movement with Chong Xie about the Tai Chi secret to stronger glutes.

Here are some of the beneficial topics covered on this week’s show:

– How fascia training focuses on creating a more responsive facia for improved overall body function.

– Why foot health and movement behaviors can be influenced by being barefoot.

– How training your glutes and feet together is important for optimal movement and performance.

– Why foot mechanics are affected by the type of shoes you wear.

– How fascia plays a crucial role in movement and strength, emphasizing the need for intentional stimulation and training.

Connect with Chong:

Guest Contact Info
YouTubeyoutube.com/channel/UCvadUJcVjdSKA0cUJpStQKA

Links Mentioned:secret-of-athleticism.com

Connect with Steven:

Website

Xeroshoes.com

Jointhemovementmovement.com

Twitter@XeroShoes

Instagram@xeroshoes

Facebookfacebook.com/xeroshoes

Episode Transcript

Steven Sashen:

I often talk about how feet are the most important thing, but I also talk about how glutes are the most important thing. And maybe to train your glutes, you need to train your feet, and to train your feet, you need to train your glutes. What’s the connection? We’re going to find out more about that on today’s episode of the MOVEMENT Movement podcast — the podcast for people who want to know the TRUTH about what it takes to have a happy, healthy, strong body, starting feet first and where we break down the propaganda, the mythology. Let’s see if I can say that. Sometimes the outright lies that people have told you, about what it takes to run or walk or work out, or do yoga or CrossFit or ride bikes or anything you can think of. And to do it enjoyably, efficiently, effectively. And did I mention enjoyably? I know I did, because that’s the most important part.

If you’re not having fun, do something different till you are. I’m Steven Sashen, co-host, not co-host, host of the MOVEMENT Movement podcast, co-founder of Xeroshoes.com. I got those things conflated. And we call this the MOVEMENT Movement because creating a movement that involves you, and I’ll say more about that in a second, about natural movement. We’re trying to make natural movement the obvious, better, healthy choice the way people currently think of natural food. And that’s the movement. And the movement about you is spreading the word. This only happens because people discover the fun and benefits of natural movement and tell their two friends and they tell two friends, and they tell two friends and so on.

So if you want to be part of the movement part of the MOVEMENT movement, go to www.jointhemovementmovement.com. You’ll find all the previous episodes, all the places where you can engage with our content on YouTube and Instagram and Facebook, et cetera. You’ll see where you can like and share and review and give us a thumbs up or hit the bell on YouTube. All those things you know how to do. I don’t need to tell you. The gist of it is if you want to be part of the tribe, please subscribe.

So let’s jump in with my guest for today. Now I’m going to start, before you say anything, by seeing how much I can butcher your name in Chinese. Ready?

Chong Xie:

Go ahead.

Steven Sashen:

Okay. All right. Let me see if I got it. Xie Chong. How did I do?

Chong Xie:

Very close.

Steven Sashen:

So close. All right. How would someone who can actually speak Chinese say it?

Chong Xie:

Xie Chong.

Steven Sashen:

Xie Chong. Ah, interesting. Okay, thank you. I love the correction. My Mandarin is limited to five words, which gets me in trouble when I’m in China because if I say anything, then people assume that I speak Chinese and it’s bad news after that.

Chong Xie:

Yeah, gotcha.

Steven Sashen:

So Xie Chong, I don’t remember how I found you, but I was so, so intrigued because for all the people who talk about foot strengthening, and we talk about it quite a bit, you have a very different approach. There’s a nice Venn diagram and there’s an overlap, but there’s definitely things where your approach has a whole different foundation and some of the things that you’re actually doing are a whole different game. Do you want to give people just the Reader’s Digest version, the shorter version of what you are doing?

Chong Xie:

Yeah, sure. So I want to mention something most people are probably aware of first. So for example, when people have cellulite, that’s because the fascia tissue underneath is not in the right organization. This has a direct influence to how the skin, how the body functions. People have tried the acupuncture or any type of massage before, they will tell you, “Oh, it feels good afterwards.” So these type of techniques that people have tried and experienced before has certain type of influence on the fascia system.

Steven Sashen:

I’m going to back up a little bit and paint an umbrella over this. The fundamental thing that’s interesting to me about what you’re doing is you’re focusing on the fascia rather than musculature per se. Fascia is obviously related to muscle and musculature, but your focus is on fascia. Can you tell people, what is fascia and the difference between attending to fascia versus just attending to muscles?

Chong Xie:

Sure. So I guess, when we have all these scientific studies on the human body, what the scientists used to do is when they dissect the body to study the organ, study the muscle, they remove the fascia, which is the yellowish whitish content that surrounds and permeates throughout all the organs, all the tissues itself. And they thought this is something not important. But recent research just revealed the exact opposite because they have done studies through ultrasound studies on how fascia influences muscle contraction, force generation, and now we have more understanding of how acupuncture controls the superficial fascia and in return it has a benefit to the holistic fascia chain.

And now we have people, for example, Mike Myers, we have people in Germany, Dr. Schniepp talking more about fascia health. So fascia is really this connected tissue that permeates within your body. It’s everywhere in your body. There is no place that does not have fascia. So to understand it another way, it’s like that dark matter or dark energy permeates in the universe, but we don’t know what it does, but it’s just there. So fascia, it’s sort of like that.

Steven Sashen:

And so talk about what the difference is between doing fascial training and just doing, say, muscular strength training.

Chong Xie:

When you do muscular strength training, you’re working on the muscle fiber in the eccentric way much more. So you are inducing muscle for hypertrophy and increasing blood flow. You want to create this micro tear to the muscle and get it bigger so it can generate more force, more contractile force. Fascia training, on the other hand, we’re working on creating a more holistic body. We’re working on to create more responsive fascia web strength. This is what we’re working on. And because fascia integrates muscle, so there’s three layers of fascia that permeate and intertwines your muscle tissue. When your superficial layer of muscle moves and contracts, in order for it to interface with your interior muscle, it has to go through fascia. So by understanding this, if you are training your fascia and making it really compliant and making it really responsive, you can actually generate a lot of force over time and this can be measured.

Steven Sashen:

Interesting. All right, so I want to jump into that some more and of course talk about where this came from, how you found this or developed this. But first because it is the MOVEMENT movement podcast, let’s do something movement-y. What can you share with people who are listening or watching to either diagnose something about the condition of their fascia or feel something that’s actually something exercising where they can experience what we’re starting to talk about?

Chong Xie:

Sure. Because our fascia starts from our feet. We all know about the plantar fascia, and I’m guessing a lot of people have suffered some type of pain in their plantar fascia in their life once or twice. So this plantar fascia, it needs to be stimulated just like anything else. If you don’t stimulate a healthy organ, it becomes dysfunctional and atrophies. The simple exercise or a simple assessment people can do is just by standing straight and in the heel-off position, meaning that they try to get on their ball of the foot and toes. If they feel their body start to crumble and wobbly and they have absolutely no control, and then the ankles start to shake, that tells me their fascial connection is weak.

And in this position, a lot of people who are quad dominant, meaning their quad muscle is neurologically dominant. Whatever they’re doing, they’re just using their quad, they don’t feel any glutes. Their glutes is also soft, but in a personal with good factual connection, their glutes is hard and activated in the heel-off position and they’re extremely stable. And this is what we see in Division I athletes, Division I athlete and professional athlete. All these guys functionally very sound. They don’t have to necessarily have big muscle, but their connective tibial strength is extremely high.

Steven Sashen:

So if someone’s going to stand on both feet and just elevate their heels a little bit, first of all, how high on their toes do you want them for this test and how long do they need to be able to stand stably before they get any shaking to determine that they’ve got some fascial strength, some fascial integrity?

Chong Xie:

Sure. They can stand about more than 45 degrees, more than 45 degrees, so around 45 to 55 degrees heel off the ground. And if they are only feeling their calves being taxed the most and they feel quad being taxed the most and they feel unnatural and wobbly, basically, that tells me that they need this type of training. They need training in their fascia because what that tells me is that their glutes is not working. And we know now that the muscle in the glutes, more than 75% inserts into fascia. So there is a lot of fascial content in the glutes that needs to be working in order for the person to actually use it in movement.

Steven Sashen:

I’m always amazed the number of runners that I’ve met, mostly more distance runners than sprinters. The number of runners that I’ve met who have no butts, they don’t engage their glutes at all. And I’ve been on the track, this is going to sound like I’m some sort of perv. But when we’ve done exercise, glute exercises and they can’t seem to do that, I’ll stick my finger in their glute and go, “Just try to contract that, make that harder.” And they often can’t do it. And then I do the opposite. I go, “All right, put your hand on my ass.”

Chong Xie:

I always do that too, so we’re the same. I say, “Look, feel it. This is what happens. This is what’s supposed to happen in your body.” And people feel it. They were like, “Okay, this is very different, different from mine.”

Steven Sashen:

Right. Well, it’s an interesting thing when I talk about walking properly. One of the first ways that I describe this, I said, “Just keep one foot on the ground, lift the other foot a little bit, and then contract the glute of the foot that’s on the ground, which because your glutes are hip extensors, that should make your foot go back, that’ll make you move forward and then just use your other foot to not fall on your face.” A lot of people could not figure that out because they couldn’t contract the glute first, which is what I was thinking when I was doing it.

So then I tried another cue, which was, “Okay, think about being a figure skater or being an ice skater, like a speed skater and drive your heel back.” And that one they could often do, and it started to give them the hint about using their glutes. But I think that a lot of what’s gotten people’s glutes turned off is just the style of walking, especially with big, thick padded elevated heel shoes where you just kick your foot out in front of you, land, and then try to essentially pogo stick off of it or hop over it rather than using your glutes and hamstrings as hip extensions, as prime movers. And it’s fascinating to see how people, they’ve just lost the ability to do that at all to walk like normal humans.

Chong Xie:

Absolutely. Having a very thick bottom of the shoe will change your mechanics forever. And this is on a subconscious level, you don’t realize. What it does is, first of all, you plantar fascia and shield that stimulation from the bare ground. That’s number one. That’s just coming from a neurological proprioceptive point of view. Secondly, what it does is even if you just add one inch, your body have to adapt to that one inch. So to adapt that, your foot actually have to relax even more to dorsiflex higher than necessary. You watch people who walk around, for example, in slippers or with very zero bottom shoes. They do not dorsiflex, they walk naturally. But with people who are wearing those high heels or very thick soles, they will have to dorsiflex to accommodate that type of mechanical interference. So over time, they lost the fascia tensioning in their foot, and also they have this wrong neurological pattern in their ankle. So now you have a double whammy there. And then because of lack of fascia tensioning, their glutes start to degenerate because everything’s connected.

Steven Sashen:

Well, it’s interesting you say that. I was on the track last weekend and there was someone I was… I watch people run all the time, and most of the time I just shake my head a lot. But this person in particular, I’m looking to see what his shin angle was when he was landing, where his foot was landing in relation to his body, everything fundamentally looked okay. But to your point, just as his foot was about to land, he dorsiflex, which for people who don’t know, it’s raising your toes towards your knee, just pulled his toes way up in a way that was completely unnecessary. Had he not done that, he would’ve been landing in a great stance, nice and strong, using his body correctly.

But to your point, I hadn’t really thought of it. It’s just like a habit that he’s developed of lifting his toes and again, completely unconscious. It’s a really interesting thing. So again, backing up, we’re going around a little bit. Talk to me about how you came to this. Where did you start to find this out, figure this out, put it together?

Chong Xie:

Well, I wasn’t born in the US. I was born in Beijing, China, and when I was young, I studied martial arts, and one of the things that we did was the training for martial arts, it’s horse stance or called ma bu. Basically you’ll get into a sumo squat fence and hold it there for a long period of time. And this is also known as the asymmetric fascia tensioning supposedly. And I did a lot of this. And when I came to the states, I started to play basketball and I started to play basketball with a-

Steven Sashen:

It’s required by law. You had to.

Chong Xie:

Yeah. So I am a very active person and I’m very competitive also, and I noticed that I was losing more than I’m winning, so I know that something is missing. Also, at that time, I was also brainwashed into all these shoe hypes, like, “Oh, this is a Jordans,” whatever Nike came up with. So I wear those because I saw all the stars, basketball stars wear them. Somehow it has some connection, so I wear them.

Steven Sashen:

Well, yeah, you want to be like those guys. Come on, you’re not a tall black guy, but what the hell?

Chong Xie:

Yeah, exactly. But what happened afterwards was I developed knee pain.

And of course like anyone else, at that time, I went to the doctor, I went to see what’s going on and he said, “Oh, your quad is weak. Your surrounding muscle around the knee is weak. You do this and that.” They gave some exercises. And also at that time I was young, I was around twenties and there’s a lot of fitness program out there on strength training, on vertical jump, on running, there’s lots. So I followed their programs. I was lifting weights. I was a gym rat. I was in the gym 24/7. Whenever I have free time, I was in the gym lifting. Because I’m not lazy person, I like to work to just better than myself. But then I realized over time I was relying on the muscles for all my movement and it became very different because I actually take myself and I see myself move and land. It’s very muscle-bound. It doesn’t look correct.

Then that same time, I met a very good friend, well, my best friend to this day, and his name is Peter, and I mention this a lot because he really made me see what is going on in the feet because he grew up in the mountains when he was young, and he always run barefoot. He always run barefoot, and he clearly remembers that in his memory. And this guy, I would say he was on the light build side. He’s not muscular or anything, and we used to work out and he definitely lifted much less than I did.

So I’m like, “So he doesn’t have the muscle strength, yet he’s extremely athletic and he doesn’t have any knee pain. What is going on here?” Then one day we were just watching a basketball game. I still remember, that was the game, I think it was one of the championship games, and we were at his house, and you know how in the Chinese culture, we don’t wear the shoe inside the house?

Steven Sashen:

Right.

Chong Xie:

So both of us were barefoot. So we were just having good time, and I realized that his foot has blisters on top of toes and his toes are curled and has a lot of these black tendons visible. It’s very different from mine, very different. So I asked him, “How did you get this? What’s happening?” He’s like, “I don’t know, it’s just natural.” So then I asked him to just do some movement for me and jump and land and move around, and I see it’s completely different than how I use my foot. So from there-

Steven Sashen:

Well, so wait. So what were you noticing?

Chong Xie:

Well, first of all, ankle stiffness, it’s tremendous. And also, when he was off his heels, he was extremely stable, extremely, and his glutes were hard.

Steven Sashen:

Oh, interesting.

Chong Xie:

At that time, my glutes was soft.

Steven Sashen:

Got it.

Chong Xie:

So I wanted to find out more about this. And actually at that time, I asked a lot of these gurus, fitness gurus, and I asked them, so I go, “The basic problem is that why is it when I lift weights, I cannot use glutes? If I lift weights, I cannot use glutes. That means when I run or move, I’m not going to be using glutes.” At that time, they don’t really have a good answer for this. And they told me, “Yeah, you got to do more isolation, glutes isolation exercises and stuff like that,” which I did, but I found it to be not helpful because once I get out of that isolation stance, the effect were off, you can’t use your glutes again because I’m actually standing to execute these movements versus lying down, doing the hip thrust. So then I did more research, much more research. I also studied Tai Chi. And while the Tai Chi principle is called silk reeling strength, and this strength, after I understand what it is, it’s really what described the fascia strength is.

Steven Sashen:

Silk reeling strength.

Chong Xie:

Silk reeling strength.

Steven Sashen:

Interesting. It’s an interesting metaphor.

Chong Xie:

And physically, if you look at the silk web, you look at the fascia, wow, everything just matches. So that way, I understand, “Oh, this is what they’re describing.” Also, one thing that I mentioned before is that the principle of Tai Chi is one part moves, all part move.

Meaning, anything that you do in your body, any movement you execute in your body, it should not be a segmented movement. It should be using your entire tensegrity model in your body, which is your fascia. So with this knowledge, I look into their foundational training of Tai Chi. A foundational training of Tai Chi is really the Zhan Zhuang, which means that you stand in isometric, but what, I think 90% of the masters, they don’t talk about this, or maybe even more, maybe 98% don’t talk about this, is that they require the person to grip their foot. It’s a very generic term, often missed in translation and often don’t get talked about enough. So I did the exercise, I didn’t get the benefit I was looking for, but then I did not miss about that part. So I spent a long time over 10 years trying to figure out, and I found out what exactly.

Now I break it down to six steps to show people how exactly you can activate your foot the correct way. And guess what this happens? When you actually activate your feet the right way, your foot start to generate a neurological effect and your foot starts to move physiologically, you can see your foot. For example, you measure it three weeks, take a picture in 12 weeks, take a picture again in some other timeline. You can see your foot gradually change its look. Then I went to a neurologist to measure my glutes, EMG reading, and the neurologist said that he never seen something like this before. It was off the charts just standing there. I’m not doing anything, I’m just simply putting my mind to my feet.

Steven Sashen:

Interesting. Wait, so you’re putting your mind to your feet and not trying to flex, if you will, your glutes?

Chong Xie:

I’m not trying to squeeze my glutes as well. I’m only squeezing my foot. I’m only controlling the plantar fascia, and it has a direct influence to my glutes. And it was off the charts because we also compare the EMG of me doing the hip thrust. The signaling is very different and it lasted much longer.

Steven Sashen:

Interesting. Okay, there’s a lot to unpack here. So this whole concept of gripping the foot. Now FYI, so I did Tai Chi for a number of years and one of the things that was unusual about the group that I was practicing with, the teacher was a guy who started… well, when I met him, he’d been doing Tai Chi for 22 years. He was 27. His dad was a world champion judo player, and somehow got Eric into Tai Chi. And Eric, like you, he wanted to find the… and me as well, find the truth underneath some of these things. So if Tai Chi was the fundamental fighting art, which is the way it was, he wanted to see what Tai Chi was like as a fighting art, as a real martial art, not as something that old people do to relax.

And so that was the way we treated it, is that this was a real fighting art. And so we spent a lot of time doing isometric standing, a lot of standing on one leg, and I don’t know that we were doing what we would call gripping the foot, but we were certainly paying a lot of attention to the foot and where you were feeling the contact with the foot and what you were doing with your foot. We did a lot of crazy things in that class. Actually, you’ll get a kick out of this. The way I started doing Tai Chi with Eric was we actually met doing Aikido and then someone made a comment that Eric did Tai Chi, and I went over to his house. There was like five guys living in this house in Brooklyn, and someone said, “So have you ever had Eric push you?”

I said, “No, don’t know what you’re talking about.” So Eric says, “All right, well, I want you to stand.” I’ll describe this for people. “Just stand one foot in front of the other, bend your knees, put one of your arms in front of your body parallel to the ground, bend your arm so there’s a 90 degree angle between your upper arm and your forearm just in front of your body and just relax.” And he gently puts his hands on my forearm and he’s moving it around gently. And it was really quiet in the room. Their living room had no furniture. And I look over my shoulder wondering where everyone was, and they were all standing about 10 feet behind me holding a mattress vertically. I turned back to Eric and I’m about to say, “What’s with the mattress?” And he just looks at me. He goes, “Bye-bye.”

And what it felt like was that he just tapped my forearm and then I flew and hit the mattress 10 feet behind me, and once I got off the ground, I went, “Okay, I got to learn how to do this.” So it was a very different approach to Tai Chi, but again, I don’t think we paid as much attention. We certainly didn’t pay as much attention to the foot the way you did. And I’m curious if you could say more about this whole idea of gripping the foot because obviously that’s a piece of what we’re talking about.

Chong Xie:

Yeah. So on the bottom of the foot, that’s the plantar fascia. So a lot of people who grew up barefoot who are actually today’s elite athletes, for example, Ronaldinho from Brazil, who retired as perhaps one of the best soccer players in the world today. When they were young and then they had no money, they played barefoot. And when your body learns how to play barefoot, you’re not going to have movement behaviors that will hurt your foot or heel strike.

You are going to spend majority of the time on your ball of foot, and the stimulation from the harsh environment creates neurological stimulation. When the foot tried to adapt to that, it has to adapt it in a fascia tensioning way. That means providing more tension in your tissue, more tension in your foot. And if you are raised up in this type of neurologically stimulating environment with movement integrated, you are a very good mover. Now majority of the people today, we live in the urban society, we grew up with the shoe. So how do we actually create this type of phenomena? So there is the barefoot group that choose to adapt to the harsh environment and try to create some type of neurological stimulation by going barefoot. But if they are already grown, meaning, if neurologically they’re grown, if they want to tap into more of this connection, they actually have to put a lot of intentional effort into tensing their feet, into tensing their fascial connection to make it happen.

And before, I thought, “Let me just do my barefoot exercises and try to create some of the stimulation.” Yes, it does help a lot. But after I studied the work of Hubel and Wiesel, their neurological experiment on the cat, the visual cortex, I understand that there is a developmental progression of the neurological connection. So at certain time, if you don’t have enough neurological stimulation during the developmental stages, this means when we were younger, that part of the neurologic connection is forever weakened and it will take a much bigger effort to reverse that. And this is why I think in another way answers the question why some barefoot runners, they still get injured.

Steven Sashen:

That may be hard. I’ve also seen a bunch of barefoot runners who have… How do I want to put this? They figured out a way to run… Let me try that differently. They figured out a way to be barefoot and accomplish what they’re trying to accomplish, say, run a half-marathon or run a marathon. But when you look at them from the outside, they aren’t necessarily running. So for example, and here’s a weird version of this, Dr. Irene Davis at Harvard has a force plate treadmill, and she didn’t experiment giving people some biofeedback where there’s a screen in front of the treadmill with a line on it showing some amount of force. And she said, “I want you to run and just keep the amount of force that you generate below that line.” And I said, “I can predict what happened for a lot of people.” She goes, “What’s that?” I said, “They ran or they were able to keep the force below that line by doing something that looked like a really fast kind of weird walking like Groucho Marx walking fast.”

Chong Xie:

Yes, exactly.

Steven Sashen:

Yeah, that’s exactly what happened. I said, “So they figured out how to move across the ground barefoot, but they’re certainly not doing something called running.” And similarly, when people talk to me about what exercises do I do before I run barefoot, I go, “There’s nothing you can do.” There’s things that you can do that you’re going to talk about, I’m sure, actually. “But the difference between any exercise you’re going to do and running barefoot, it’s night and day because you’re just way more forced, way more often. It’s not the same.” There’s certainly things that you want to do to get stronger, that’s helpful, but the thing that’s going to really make a difference is running barefoot. And it never occurred to me until just now that, I don’t know, certainly I may have missed that developmental cycle for using my feet properly, but I spent a lot of time running around as a kid, a lot of time barefoot. I was an All-American gymnast and doing floor and vaulting, so I spent a lot of time doing-

Chong Xie:

On your barefoot.

Steven Sashen:

Exactly. And before gymnastics I was a diver, which is also barefoot training in many ways.

Chong Xie:

Yes.

Steven Sashen:

So a good history of that in advance, which is interesting. Anyway, that was a tangent from something. I don’t remember where we were going on that. Oh, the neurological thing of just whether you got it and what it takes to then train afterwards. Now to your point though, it’s funny, when we started Xero Shoes, I got introduced to some people who make sandals that are super thick with really big arches, and I couldn’t figure out why. And they said, “Well, it’s because once you’re over the age of 40, you can’t develop arch strength.” And I remember thinking, “That’s an interesting position to take.” I started running barefoot when I was 45, and from doing that, I developed arches in my feet. So clearly I had developed arch strength, so that was clearly nonsense what they were saying. And we know that 90 year olds when they do a weightlifting program can get stronger.

Chong Xie:

Yes, because the body adapts. Mm-hmm.

Steven Sashen:

Yeah, exactly. Bodies can adapt. And it’s different for different people because there’s just idiosyncratic differences about how well you adapt to activity. But I love doing the combination of attending to the movement or the activity you want to do, say, running as an example, but then doing the supplemental work that it takes to really make that better. And knowing this is a long process. I don’t want to make it sound onerous or annoying, but just it’s a lifelong process of improvement. You can always be doing more to get a little better. I don’t know what it’s like in other parts of the world, I’ve only lived here. But it’s amazing how people just want a quick instant and when shoe companies say, “Hey, here’s our magic shoe that’s going to do that,” and it’s a big thick padded shoe with motion control and our support, which does the opposite.

Chong Xie:

Yeah, high-tag shoe, low tag foot. That’s how it is.

Steven Sashen:

Yeah. Yeah, that’s a good line. But we’ve been so conditioned to look for an external instant answer that many people aren’t comfortable just doing the ongoing, I don’t want to use the word work because that just makes it sound like it’s a pain in the butt, but just the ongoing process of helping your body work. It’s fascinating.

Chong Xie:

Changing a habit.

Steven Sashen:

I think the habit is a really interesting part, and there’s two aspects of that that occur to me. One is during COVID, I’ve been doing more exercise than I have outside of COVID, not because I had more time or whatever, but because I was just getting bored I think. And I found that running Xero Shoes has been very tiring, and so I can’t do big workouts, so I had to find things that I could do in 15 to 20 minutes because that’s all the time I’ve got at the end of the day or the beginning of the day. And so that’s been really, really helpful. And what’s been fascinating is watching something that I knew from when I was a kid is that the benefits really kick in a little bit after you feel like you need to quit because you’re not seeing the benefits. It’s like you have to get over that hump and then you start to see it.

When I was a gymnast, my best friend and I, we were lifting weights one summer, the first month felt like we were just getting used to how to lift the weights. The second month we are seeing improvement. But it was the third month where we got much bigger and much stronger. Now, here I am 40 years later, I don’t know how quickly my body’s going to change and adapt, but some of the stuff that I’ve been doing, my wife said this morning, she says, “What have you been up to? Is it just because you’ve been playing with these kettle bells?” Which is something I’ve been doing lately. I said, “No, I think it’s just the consistency of just doing things that I’ve been doing in the last eight months that’s been making a difference.” And part of it was just getting over that urge that kicks in usually around the three or four week mark of going, “Got to try something different now, getting kind of bored.” Getting past that. Then it becomes a habit and that consistency is the most important part or one of the most important parts.

You talked about the six exercises or six stages. Do you want to chat about that?

Chong Xie:

So the foot, the first part is your toes. So remember the assessment you’ve done, right? I’ve taken a look at your feet as well, and your feet does show a lot of fascia tensioning signs, where if I look at someone else or pull someone else on the street and say, “Let me look at your feet.” They probably don’t have that.

Steven Sashen:

Do you want to describe what some of those are for humans who have seen my feet?

Chong Xie:

So the first thing is that you look at how the flexor tendons on top of your toes, how they are pronounced if they do show at all. Some people, they just don’t have any. They don’t show. And this has to do with the superficial fascia. If your superficial fascia has enough fascia web strength, these tendons are more likely to show than not. And also another very important clue is your anterior tibial tendon, which is the very thick tendon in the front, and this tendon is extremely important but many people don’t know. And I also see many trainers talk about this tendon in the exact opposite way. They tell people, “Do not fire this tendon when you exercise because it’s going to make you more tired,” and stuff like that. Yeah. There are people-

Steven Sashen:

So for people, if they want to try and see what their anterior tibial tendon is, this is the thing. Well, I can think of a bunch of ways of doing it. If you want to have someone do a little self diagnostic to find where that is and see how pronounced it may be, how would you do that for them?

Chong Xie:

So it’s between their shin and their foot, and it’s right in front of their ankle. There is a very big thick tendon. You cannot miss it. Yes, exactly. That’s the one. When people have problem activating their glutes and their glutes are soft, then they can’t really engage in any way whatsoever, this tendon usually is non-existent. So when they stand there, this tendon does not get activated at all. To activate this tendon, you need to actually use what I call the hyper arc because you have to engage your feet, you have to be activating your toes, you have to be activating all these intrinsic muscles in your feet down below. So this creates tension through your tendon. It’s like you can be a master violinist, you can have all the skill in the world, but you get this violin that the string has no tension. Whenever you’re playing, the tune is out of tune. You cannot work in such environment. So the body is the same. You can have the best mind in athletics, you can be a best mover, but if your body physiologically does not give you that tool, you cannot perform.

So the foot and the barefoot shoe together will make you that master violinist that you want to become. Because a lot of times we don’t pay attention to our feet.

Steven Sashen:

So toes, anterior tendon, what else?

Chong Xie:

And your arc.

So they all have to be activated synchronously in order for your anterior tibial tendon to be pronounced and activated. At this time, then you can do your movement. Your ankle should be actually locked in this form, in this position, which is pretty much a 90 degree angle. This is why people look at the athlete and they say, “Wow, this wonderful running form is so beautiful.” They just raise their knees and then they propelled themselves. It’s so elegant and effortless. Now, if you look at the heel striker, it’s really sore in the eye. You look at them, they’re struggling, either heel striking, and then they’re like, “Oh, my knee is hurting.” And also the people who are first transitioning from those horrendous shoes that they had and then to barefoot running or minimum shoes, because there’s so many years of neurological habit built into them, like what you said, they’re not running, they’re fast working, they’re running in dorsiflexion. So that’s what’s happening because they don’t know how to run because they never had that correct neurological teaching. Their foot was never taught properly.

Steven Sashen:

I’ll tell you, the thing about seeing people run beautifully. For anyone who hasn’t had the chance to watch live an Olympic level sprinter, it’s almost indescribable. I’m a really good sprinter. I’m a master’s All-American. I’m one of the fastest guys in my age group.

Chong Xie:

I believe you. You are very high level.

Steven Sashen:

Yeah. Yeah, yeah. I’m not saying that. I’m saying, but watching me is so different than watching someone who’s a 25-year-old guy or woman who is top of their game. There’s a guy… oh gosh, I just blanked on his name and I always do, it’ll pop into my head, that I got to train with a couple of years ago. He and his wife, his wife is Mandy White, and his name is… he’s a 200 meter and 400 meter runner, and oh, it’s killing me. Anyway, watching him when he was training, his ground contact time was so short, it looked like he almost didn’t hit the ground. It looked like maybe his foot was approaching the ground and then he stepped on an IED, and then he was getting so much movement out of that, so much propulsion out of that. Again, it looked like he stepped on a bomb and it blew him forward.

It was amazing. And similarly, I happened to be in Berlin when Usain Bolt set the world record, it was him and Tyson Gay, and Asafa Powell. Watching them run, it just doesn’t look human. These are the best in the world-

Chong Xie:

Of course.

Steven Sashen:

And it looks like whole… There’s a weird combination of effortless and effortful, but it’s just inconceivable. Usain Bolt, I was at the 70-meter mark about five rows off the track, and that’s about when he hits his full speed. So this guy’s running by me at about 29 miles an hour, and when you see somebody running of their own volition fast enough to get a speeding ticket in my neighborhood, here’s what your brain does. Your brain goes, “What?” Because it’s like nothing you’ve ever seen before. It’s amazing.

Chong Xie:

Exactly. So a lot of athlete that I work with who are trying out for professional teams, we have to get their four-yard dash time from, for example, 4.7 down to 4.3 and 4.4. When we do this type of training to the foot, what we’re trying to do is create fascia tensioning in the ankle. So imagine if you have any type of slack in your joints when your foot, just like what you said, when your foot impacts the ground, if there’s any in any other joints, that force is going to leak out. That energy is going to leak out right away. But your joint is not meant to handle force, but fascia is what’s supposed to be keeping them together and acting in unison. So by doing fascia tensioning training, you can make this holistic change stronger. This is how we can get athlete from running 4.7 to 4.4.

Steven Sashen:

Love it. That’s a good transition point. Can you talk more about what the fascial training looks like? And by the way, for people who are listening, you’ve got a whole program about this. It’s not going to be a surprise. We’ll tell you about that towards the end. But can you give people just a taste of what that looks like so they get a sense of it?

Chong Xie:

Sure. So first we have to understand what fascia is response to. We know fascia is important, but how do we actually make it respond to what we want? So first I look at the acupuncture. Acupuncture, the reason why people poke a needle in you, they’re not hurting you. Or you have some type of magical spot in your body. They’re poking you to activate that magical spot. It’s not that.

Steven Sashen:

Wait, I’ve got to stop right there. I so love that you just said that because it’s one of my favorite things when people talk about acupuncture, and it’s like you go to five different acupuncturists for the same thing and they’ll poke needles in five different spots. And so to hear someone say, “Yeah, no, there’s a there there, but not for the reason that you’ve been told,” that’s my favorite thing for someone to hear. So what it doing, please continue.

Chong Xie:

Sure. So what recently people found out this is the work of Dr. Helene Langevin from Harvard Medical School. So she had a curiosity on acupuncture as well. So using the ultrasound study, what she saw was that when the needle penetrates your skin, actually what happens, your fascia try to feed it as there is a wound. So your fascia react to it by grabbing the little tiny little. So it intertwines and circles around the needle so when the practitioner actually use that little needle and twist, what it does, it creates a spiral, and that spiral pulls your entire fascia with it. And by studying on the mice, it’s not just on that point; it’s the entire body.

Steven Sashen:

Interesting.

Chong Xie:

So what that creates is a holistic effect to your fascia sliding, because also what we learned today through ultrasound study in vivo is that people who have chronic lower back pain, their fascia and muscle sliding is much less than the healthy people who have no chronic back pain. So by doing acupuncture, by putting that needle there and manipulate it, by moving the fascia physically, it creates healing. And here’s another thing, lymphatic system follows the fascia system. For those people who don’t know about lymphatic system, lymphatic system is really like a sewer system in the body. Anytime you have an injury, lymphatic system has takes care of getting rid of all the dead tissues, the dead proteins, or accumulation of proteins in any type of injury site. By having your fascia system moving, you encourage the lymphatic system to help you get rid of this waste.

Steven Sashen:

Interesting. Okay, so-

Chong Xie:

So my training, so here’s the type of my training-

Steven Sashen:

We’re not suggesting that acupuncture is part of the training, but that was a good lead in.

Chong Xie:

So my training does the exact same thing, but it does it from inside.

Steven Sashen:

Got it.

Chong Xie:

So without somebody poking you with a needle and manipulating your super layer fascia, when you introduce fascia tension into your feet, for example, you are creating a anchor for your fascia. Because what happens is that when the fascia responds to isometric tension, that’s when the fascia gets used. If you are moving away, it’s your concentric eccentric, that actually utilize much less fascia.

But the isometric state utilize your fascia the most. So this is why we developed the method of training the foot so that you are creating an anchor for your fascia. Now you have a anchor in your fascia. Basically let’s say you have a rubber band, now you hold onto to the one side of the rubber band, then the other side, whatever you’re doing, it has to go from the anchor to that point. Now you’re stretching all your fascia or your movement. As of before, if this part has no anchor is loose, whatever you’re doing, you’re using in the muscle, it’s segmented. So the fascia will be used much less and it doesn’t create that type of movement effect.

Steven Sashen:

Interesting. So can you give people an example of, I want to go for one of the more unusual fascial training exercises that you would teach. I know what my favorite is, but I want see which one you would pick that might be surprising for people to discover is useful.

Chong Xie:

To be surprising? I would probably say, well, the simplest is probably people don’t get is the Hyperarch Hop. And I see a lot of trainers on social media try to copy my work. So they say, “Look, if you do this way, it creates a fascia tension.” But they’re doing it wrong. People think, “Okay, is this just a regular jump? You’re just hopping, you’re just doing rhythmic jumps. What’s different?” There is tons of difference in the Hyperarch Hop and the regular hop.

In the regular hop, what I said before, anterior tibial tendon is not activated. So the person who has no expression of the anterior tibial tendon when they hop, every hop they do is muscle-driven, meaning their fascia is actually not doing the work and their heel will drop, and the ankle will give. So every step they’re hopping, they’re giving. This is how regular people hop. Now you go to the Hyperarch Hop, now you have to use fascia tensioning. Now you have to put a lot of tension in your fascia. You secure your ankle, your ankle is not moving. Now when you hop this way, it creates a holistic fascia chain and this whole chain is moving. And what it’s also doing is if you have anterior knee pain, that’s because there’s entangled fascia tissue there. What it will do is actually pulls, it pulls the fascia because we’re doing this exercise, it pulls the fascia and stretch it, and this stretch, it raise healing.

Steven Sashen:

Interesting. I’ll tell you, my favorite was actually your version of the depth jump, which for people who don’t know depth jump, you’re going to stand on a box of some height and just step off of it and then catch yourself, just land basically. And the way that this was typically taught by the people who brought a lot of plyometric training to America from Russia is that they want land flat-footed and sometimes land even on your heel. And the idea is just catch yourself. It’s the eccentric part of any squat motion. So you’re just slowing yourself down when you land. But your version of landing on the toes, basically, on the ball of the foot, and engaging the arch and keeping that ankle stable, a whole different game.

Chong Xie:

Yeah. Different.

Steven Sashen:

Yeah. And I love that one. I can imagine that for many people, if they’re new to this, they can try that and they won’t be able to keep their heel off the ground, their heel.

Chong Xie:

They cannot.

Steven Sashen:

Yeah. Yeah, yeah. But that’s one of the reasons that I really love that exercise is that it’s an almost instant barometer for how well you’re doing just because you can feel instantly how stable your ankle joint is when you land.

Chong Xie:

But let me tell you a very fascinating aspect of that exercise. If you ask someone who is, I’ll say before seven years old, who never had too long of this bad neurological programming from the big shoe companies, you ask a little kid to jump on land, they can do it naturally. They can do it. So what does that mean? We are basically damaging ourselves over time. You are supposed to be adult and you cannot do something that you did when you were a child. And all kids are faster movers. They don’t have muscle.

Steven Sashen:

Oh. At the beginning of COVID, they closed all the public schools around here. And so none of the tracks were open, so we couldn’t find anywhere to train. But there was this one, it’s called a charter school, semi-private school that was way east of town and where the majority of the population in that neighborhood was Hispanic. That’s relevant because when we went to that track, there was a whole bunch of people there and they were all playing soccer, many of them barefoot. And then the kids, especially the little kids were running around the track and they did two things. One thing they did was they ran with perfect form. Just impeccable form. They were mid-foot, full-foot landers. Their feet were right underneath their body. They had just the right amount of body lean.

But the other thing they did was my favorite, was they were laughing when they ran, they were smiling when they ran, they were doing it because it was what they did to play. And when they were tired, they would stop not for very long and then start again. So it was just enough to reset and away they went. And it was just so much fun to watch. And usually it was like a pack of four or five of them holding hands doing this and just running around the track for fun with, again, perfect form. It looked like they were expending no energy to do it.

Chong Xie:

It should not be. Mm-hmm.

Steven Sashen:

Ah, man. It was delightful. And then there was the older kids who did not look like that.

Chong Xie:

Yeah. I think this is why your work is very important to the next generation because if we keep letting all these shoe companies, the big shoe companies have our kids wear these big thick soles and just wire them neurologically incorrectly, we are basically destroying ourselves. And then we are spending more money on Medicare for chronic pain than anything else. We need more minimum shoes for kids really, because before, we just don’t have those.

Steven Sashen:

No, and to be candid, it’s a little tricky because manufacturing shoes for kids, the manufacturing costs about the same amount as manufacturing for adults because it’s in the labor, not the materials. And so most companies who sell shoes for kids don’t make money doing it or make very little money, or they’re selling super expensive shoes for kids. Making good shoes for kids is challenging from a business perspective. It’s something we’re looking to be doing more of.

Chong Xie:

Can I give you a suggestion?

Steven Sashen:

Yeah, please.

Chong Xie:

I think for example, the first thing is people’s awareness of how important the foot is to their neurological health and also their fascia health. But I think if you can create a subscription model, so you’re not just selling one pair of shoes, you’re selling an entire generation, a kid’s entire generation from age six to age 18, you subscribe to this model of development, then you can make money.

Steven Sashen:

Possibly. Suffice it to say, it’s a bit challenging from the business perspective and something that we’re looking to be doing more of and expand. Because obviously I agree with you and in fact, Irene Davis at Harvard has a great line. She goes, “If we just get kids wearing shoes like yours, in 20 years, we won’t be treating adults for the billions of dollars of problems that they currently present with.”

Chong Xie:

I agree.

Steven Sashen:

Yeah. And that would be a very different world. I want to wrap it up in a bit, but I want to bring one thing up that just popped in my head for the 10th time. Can you say something about flat feet and high arches? And I’ll preface this by saying that people, especially in America, have a lot of opinions about those two things that are not based on reality. So can you chat about that?

Chong Xie:

Right. Yeah. I know a lot about this and I think maybe some of the people that had different opinions about if the high arcs are better or lower arcs is better or flat arcs if it’s a defective or not really. A lot of these arc height has to do with genetics. You can have high arc functional, you can have low arc functional, you can have almost no arc functional. The key here is how much fascial connection you have to your glutes and upstream.

A lot of the NBA athletes today, they are African descendant, and they have almost no arc, and yet they’re performing the highest at the highest level. So chasing just the arc high physically from the outside, again, it’s superficial type of desire. It is not going to get you anywhere. So having, let’s say, an insole, creating some type of arc, that only helps temporarily. It also creates a bad neurological habit, and that does not create fascial connection from the feet to the glutes. So really the key here is to develop that healthy fascial connection from the feet to the glutes. Then you’ll love your body much more. You don’t blame your parents, “Why have this foot?”

So I see a lot of people that do that. They hate their body because they blame their parents. “Oh, your foot is flat. Now I’m flat, now I have pain.” But that’s no true because your parents never wear those type of bad shoes that you had when you were a child.

Steven Sashen:

Yep. Well, I’m not surprised to hear that the way you’ve presented that is almost exactly the way that I say it. I say it’s 90% genetic and arch height is not the issue. Strength and flexibility are the important things. Some people who have very high arches, they just need to get a little mobilization going because they’ve gotten just into this pattern where things are hypertonic but not being functional. And so yeah, you went exactly where I imagined you were. Although we did not prepare this in advance, and I didn’t expect that.

So if people want to discover more about what you’re doing, and I highly recommend that they do. I was putting together a list of people who are developing programs that are really valuable for foot and ankle strength and training. And there’s only about a half a dozen that I’ve seen that are in any way worth paying attention to. Yours, of course is one of them, which is why we’re having this conversation.

Chong Xie:

Thank you.

Steven Sashen:

So how can people find you and what you’re doing and get involved and discover more for themselves?

Chong Xie:

My website?

Steven Sashen:

Yeah.

Chong Xie:

Secret of Athleticism. Or you can Google my name, Chong Xie, Hyperarch. Hyperarch Fascia Training.

Steven Sashen:

Well, so wait, let’s back up. So Secrets of Athleticism, did I get it right?

Chong Xie:

Yes, that’s the website.

Steven Sashen:

Okay, so that’s one. And then Chong Xie, so it’s C-H-O-N-G X-I-E. That they can look you up that way. You’ve got a lot of stuff on YouTube.

Chong Xie:

A lot.

Steven Sashen:

Yeah, so there’s a lot to play with there. And anything else that you want people to know in terms of just finding out more?

Chong Xie:

Just keep on looking for our work in the UFC, because right now we’re two-time world champion, and we’re going to continue doing so.

Steven Sashen:

Oh, that’s a good one. I like it. Well, thank you so, so much. Again, I wish I had any idea how I first bumped into you, and I feel horrible that as long as I’ve been doing this, that it taken until now, but so be it. Here we are. And I can’t encourage people enough to just go check out your work.

So thank you, thank you, thank you. And for everybody else, thank you as well. As a reminder, just go to www.jointhemovementmovement.com. If you can’t remember the links for this, we’ll put them in the show notes so you’ll be able to find them there. And as always, if you want to find out previous episodes, et cetera, et cetera, and how to find all of our content in different places, that’s at www.jointhemovementmovement.com. If you have a request or a question or suggestion, drop me an e-mail, move@jointhemovementmovement.com.

And as always, like I say, if you want to be part of the tribe, please do subscribe and most importantly, go out, have fun and live life feet first.

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Sprinting at the Olympics is a thrilling event that showcases the pinnacle of human speed and athleticism. From the explosive starts to the photo-finish endings, sprinting captivates audiences around the world. But what goes on behind the scenes to make these races possible? Let’s dive into the world of sprinting at the Olympics.

Listen to this episode of The MOVEMENT Movement about the problem with Olympic sprinters.

Here are some of the beneficial topics covered on this week’s show:

– How the evolution of sprinting technology has transformed race outcomes, highlighting the role of innovation in athletic performance.

– Why there is an ongoing struggle between sprinters and anti-doping organizations.

– How watching unfamiliar events at the Olympics allows viewers to step out of their comfort zones and explore new events from a fresh perspective.

Connect with Steven:

Website

Xeroshoes.com

Twitter@XeroShoes

Instagram@xeroshoes

Facebookfacebook.com/xeroshoes

Episode Transcript

Steven Sashen:

What does a competitive Masters All-American sprinter, me, think about the sprinting at the Olympics? Well, Let’s find out on today’s rant on The MOVEMENT Movement, the podcast for people who want to know the truth about what it takes to have a happy, healthy, strong body starting feet first, those things at the end of your legs and where we break down the propaganda, the mythology, and sometimes the outright lies you may have been told about what it takes to run or walk or play or do yoga or CrossFit or anything you like to do, and to do those things enjoyably and efficiently and effectively. And did I say enjoyably? Of course I did. I say it every time, because that’s the most important thing. If you’re not doing something you love, you’re not going to keep doing it. So, find something you enjoy doing, maybe find a friend and make it even more enjoyable.

I’m Steven Sashen, co-founder and Chief Barefoot Officer here at zeroshoes.com and .co.uk and .eu and we call this The MOVEMENT Movement because we, and that includes you, more about that in a second, are creating a movement about natural movement, letting your body do what it is made to do, not getting in the way of doing that. And the way you can be involved is simple. Go to www.jointhemovementmovement.com, nothing you needed to join. There’s no secret handshake, no money involved. That’s just the website that we got and it’s where you can find all the places you can engage with us on social media, all the places you can download the podcast if you want to get it somewhere else from where you got it this time and of course, all the previous episodes of which there are quite a few. In short, if you want to be part of the tribe, just subscribe and then give us a thumbs up and a like hit the bell icon on YouTube and do all those things that you know how to do.

Okay, so Olympics are in full swing as of the time that I’m writing this, and just the other day, Noah Lyles won the 100 meters and people have been asking me, “What do you think?” Well, I’ve got a couple thoughts, really three. The first is I find it funny that… Maybe four, actually. I find it funny that Noah’s going around being super, super psyched about winning when he won by literally an inch, maybe less. In fact, if Omega, the people who do all the timing things for the Olympics didn’t deploy a new camera system that shoots 40,000 frames per second, there’s a decent chance this race would’ve been deemed a tie, so there’s that.

Let’s look at a second thing though. I mean, first of all, the race was amazing. A lot of people all bunched up at the end, which was great. When I was in Berlin when Usain Bolt set the world record of 9.58, which is going to be my next point, the amount of space between him and Tyson Gay and then between Tyson Gay, and I’m pretty sure Asafa Powell was so great that when I was sitting at the 70-meter mark, I thought it must’ve been a false start, because there was no way the 100 meters would be that spread out, which brings me to Usain Bolt. So, everyone’s going on and on and on about the time of this race, it was a 9.79 for Noah. It was a 9.786, I believe doesn’t really matter. Point is Usain Bolt’s world record 9.58, and no one has come anywhere close to that in the last, oh God, that was 15 years ago when he set the record, not even him. So, this is an interesting thing to ponder, what happened?

And another thing, look, I am not making any assumptions. I’m not making any statements. I’m not saying what I’m about to say is true. I’m literally just asking this as a question. Every Olympic and world champion sprinter that I’m aware of, I’ve seen this reported somewhere, and I wish I had the actual stats on this to show it to you or a link to it, has at some point tested positive. Usain Bolt hasn’t, even though everybody else on his Jamaican team has, or at least all the top guys did. So, that’s intriguing. Carl Lewis, there are some people who say that when he won in ’88 in Seoul, tested positive for a bunch of stimulants, but then said he had a head cold and they went, “Okay.” Ben Johnson in ’88 said that he tested positive for something that he didn’t like taking because he had tried it, wasn’t a big fan of it.

He also claimed that there was an American who had doped him, put something in his water. When that person, I won’t mention his name, was asked on a 30 by 30 episode on ESPN, “Did you in fact dope Ben Johnson like he claims?” The guy’s response not on camera was, “Yeah, maybe I did. Maybe I didn’t.” Which is an interesting way to respond to a question like that. Here’s the third one that I want to highlight. There are people that have analyzed Jesse Owens and looked at his joint mechanics and joint angles and speed of joint movements, et cetera, and said that if he was running on a modern track surface that he’d be second to Usain Bolt, certainly running under 10 seconds for the 100, and he was running on a crappy track surface. Bring something up. Actually, I’m going to jump in. Here’s the fourth thing that I just realized. A lot of people love to say, “Hey, what shoes were they wearing?”

Oh boy, let me just jump to point number four or actually point three is it ain’t about the shoes. Even Eliud Kipchoge, the guy who ran the sub-two-hour marathon had articles that came out about him where he was quoted in the headline as saying, “It wasn’t the shoes, it was my legs.” If you look for those articles, you’re not going to find them anymore. There may be some company that thought not a good look for them when they’re claiming it was all about the shoes. I will not mention that company’s name, but I can’t wait to ride my bikey home from work today. And last but not least, when it comes to this race and how good it was or wasn’t, frankly. In 1971, there was a guy named Delano Meriwether who is a physician. He was the first Black student admitted to Duke University Medical School.

He was the only Black student in his four years that he was there. He liked to go to the track and burn off steam because racism, and he became a world-class sprinter. In fact, in 1971, he set the world record for the 100 yard dash, and that record still stands, because after he did that, they changed everything to meters around the world. Unfortunately, he didn’t get to compete in the Olympics because he ended up having a hamstring injury, but he ran a 9.0 100 yards. Now, if you know anything about sprinting, you will know that that equates to probably about a 9.8, maybe 9.8 100 meters, which means Delano Meriwether in the shoes that he was wearing in ’71 on the bad track surface that he was running on in 1971 would’ve been, I think third in this 100 meters in the Paris Olympics.

So, what’s that saying about the evolution of technology? Let alone athletes or possibly performance enhancing substances, which could be anything from slim gyms to Pop Tarts to other things. There’s actually, if you haven’t seen the movie, Bigger, Stronger, Faster*, find it and watch it. There’s one thing in the movie that’s very interesting, in one epilogue to the movie. The interesting thing is there’s a sports scientist who said, “Just imagine if you…” Well, they’ve actually done this, but well, do this in the right order. He says, “Imagine that your livelihood…” I mean the future of your financial independence for you and your family and maybe even your village depending on where you came from, “… was dependent on you doing well in a race and you had the opportunity to do well in the race by taking some sort of drug. Would you take it?”

The answer’s probably yes. What if you knew other people were taking things? Would you then do it? The answer’s pretty much guaranteed to be yes. There’s a guy who, I think it was from the Seoul Olympics who was part of the World Anti-Doping Association, or at least part of the American version of that, kept all the samples that they took of athletes and 20 years later tested them to see if any of them were showing up positive for things that they didn’t know how to test back in ’88. And he stopped after, I think 100, because everybody tested positive. So, this is a cat and mouse game, and the cat in that equation is World Anti-Doping, the mouse or the athletes and the people working with those athletes and the cats typically are blind, deaf, dumb, and have no claws. That’s my take on those things.

So, was it really an exciting thing to watch, and was it incredible to look at what technology could show about who the winner was? Was there confusion about whether it’s about your foot crossing line or some part of your torso crossing line? All of that is all very interesting. Suffice it to say, I got to just leave it at this, it wasn’t that exciting or interesting for me to watch because I know that everyone is comparing just all the people in this race to the people in this race, and not often taking the historical context and wondering what’s really going on. So, there’s more to it than that. In fact, you can leave comments about what you think may be going on or not going on, what you thought about the race. Leave comments wherever you can leave comments, wherever you can find those.

You can do that at jointhemovementmovement.com or wherever you happen to be watching this or listening to this if they accept comments. Anyway, that’s my rant for the day. I’m going to go back to watching things that have been really exciting, like wrestling and very tense, like archery, that’s wrapping up. Watch events that you’ve never seen. That’s my only recommendation for the Olympics. I went to the Atlanta Olympics and I went to a lot of events actually, I even went to the trials, because they were held all around Colorado for the Atlanta Olympics, and I went to everything that I knew nothing about and some of the most exciting times of my life. So, go watch things nothing about and think you won’t be interested in, and maybe you’ll be surprised and happy for that suggestion.

All right, again, go to www.jointhemovementmovement.com, find previous episodes, find places you can engage with us. Give us a like and a thumbs up and a share, and a five-star review and hit the bell icon on YouTube. And again, you know the drill on that. And if you have any recommendations, suggestions, people you want to have on the podcast with me or if you just want to chat or if you think that I’ve got cranial rectal reorientation syndrome, happy to hear all of that. You can send me an email. I’m at move, M-O-V-E, @jointhemovementmovement.com. And until next time, go out, have fun and live life feet first.

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Bart Potter is the author of Jiffy Body, The 10-Minute System to Avoid Joint and Muscle Pain. Since 1995 Bart has taught people of all ages a simple approach to avoid pain and tune-up their bodies. He enjoys sharing quick tips for a healthier and happier body, brain and life.

Listen to this episode of The MOVEMENT Movement with Bart Potter about why you shouldn’t work out to change your body.

Here are some of the beneficial topics covered on this week’s show:

– How doing a variety of activities throughout the day can help build muscle fiber, increase bone density, and improve joint range of motion.

– How moving your feet in slow circles can activate important muscles and improve lower leg, ankle, and foot function.

– How improving muscle balance through varied movements can strengthen counterbalancing muscles and enhance overall body function.

– Why exploring new activities can help maintain flexibility and expand your range of motion.

– How consistency in practicing body mechanics daily can lead to significant improvements in body function.

Connect with Bart:

Guest Contact Info

Facebookfacebook.com/jiffybody

Links Mentioned:jiffybody.com

Connect with Steven:

Website

Xeroshoes.com

Twitter@XeroShoes

Instagram@xeroshoes

Facebookfacebook.com/xeroshoes

Episode Transcript

Steven Sashen:

If you are looking to improve your body in every way you can imagine, maybe working out is not the way to do it. We’re going to find out more about that on today’s episode of The MOVEMENT Movement Podcast, the podcast for people who want to know the truth about what it takes to have a happy, healthy, strong body. Usually starting with the feet first, because those things are, in fact, your foundation.

We talk about the propaganda, the mythology, sometimes the lies, flat out lies, that you’ve been told about what it takes to run or walk or play or hike or dance or do yoga or CrossFit, whatever it is you like to do, and to do it enjoyably, effectively, efficiently. Did I mention enjoyably? I know I did. Because if you’re not having fun, please do something different until you are. And we call it The MOVEMENT Movement Podcast, because we’re talking about natural movement, our goal here at Xero Shoes.

By the way, I’m Steven Sashen, host of the podcast and CEO of Xero Shoes. Our goal is to make natural movement the obvious, healthy, better choice, the way natural food currently is, and it’s a movement about doing that, which means it involves you. And all that means is like and share and review and give us a thumbs up or hit the bell on YouTube to make sure you hear about new episodes, et cetera. You know what to do. In short, if you want to be part of the tribe, please do subscribe. So we are joined today by Bart Potter. Bart, why don’t you do me a favor, tell human beings who the hell you are and why you’re here.

Bart Potter:

Hi, Steven. Thanks for having me. Yeah, first of all, I just wanted to say I’m a big fan of your shoes and I’ve been wearing them for a long time, and also, I’ve really been enjoying your podcast. Lots of useful information.

Steven Sashen:

Thank you. And one of the reasons that we’re here is that I’ve enjoyed your book, which I’m hoping, at some point, you will hold up and flash and point to get there.

Bart Potter:

I should have had a copy with me here.

Steven Sashen:

Oh, man, and I wasn’t smart enough to have a copy. In fact, I think someone may have borrowed it. We have a nice library here at the office with a whole bunch of books about barefoot running and natural movement, and things like… Obviously, what you do. But I have to check and see if it’s checked out. So let’s jump… Backing up a bit, so tell people who the hell you are and what you-

Bart Potter:

Sure thing. My name is Bart Potter and I’ve been practicing as an exercise therapist for over 20 years. Actually, before I got into exercise therapy about 25 years ago, actually, the reason I got dragged unwillingly towards this field initially at first was several years of chronic shoulder, upper, and lower back pain. So I had no choice but to try to move in a direction where I could figure out what was going on to get me back on track, and I visited experts in sports medicine, physical therapy, chiropractic, acupuncture, pain management. Just spent a crazy amount of time and money seeking out answers to get back on track, because I’d gone from someone who was relatively athletic, I played college tennis, I did lots of the things that people like to do here in Colorado, ski and hike, and all that good stuff.

And I went from being highly functional to highly dysfunctional, to the point where I couldn’t even use my shoulder very much anymore. I had to learn to write left-handed at one point.

Steven Sashen:

Wow.

Bart Potter:

Yeah, so that was initially how I got moving in the direction towards exercise therapy. Fortunately, I eventually met a mentor who was able to get me back on track with that. He was a guy who had that track record where people would come to him from all over who had been a lot of other places first, like me, and his techniques were so effective that he had that track record. He could just help one person after the next, after the next. Pretty efficiently and easily get back, move them in the right direction.

Steven Sashen:

How’d you find him to begin with, and can you mention who it is?

Bart Potter:

Yeah, just extreme luck. And for me, I guess I was a pretty complicated case. Lots of trial and error, but eventually, my mom had met this guy through a friend and she said, “Hey, I think you should meet this guy. Sounds pretty smart,” and that was it. It did take a while, it wasn’t like an overnight thing, “Bam, you’re fixed,” but he knew the techniques and he had the insights to point me in the right direction. And at first, it was just me wanting to get better and move on with my life and forget about this portion of my life, basically. But then, really, I became fascinated with how effective he was, how effective the techniques were at helping one person after the next, so pretty soon, I was like, “Hey, I want to learn how to do this and teach it to other people.”

And so, for over 20 years now, I’ve been refining and teaching the techniques I learned from my friend, Sean McCarver, and using them to help my own clients. And then, most recently, incorporating that into the book I wrote called Jiffy Body, which teaches people a 10-minute daily system where they can practice the same types of techniques and ideas that I learned from Sean.

Steven Sashen:

So just to highlight again, this is normally something we do at the end of the podcast, but I may as well do it now. So if people want to find out about the book, Jiffy Body, where do they go to do that?

Bart Potter:

Yeah, they can go to my website, it is jiffybody.com. And there’s two Fs. Yeah, yeah. There’s two Fs there, and you can find it on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, it’s pretty easy to kind of Google and look up.

Steven Sashen:

And just as a quick testimonial, I mean, it is a very simple and elegant little program. And the book is very… How do I put it? It’s like a really pleasant, comfortable, easy read. It’s engaging, it’s entertaining, it’s personal, it’s really sweet. It was well done.

Bart Potter:

Thank you, appreciate it.

Steven Sashen:

Well, so backing up, the teaser that we gave inspired by you was that you don’t need to work out to get your body functioning properly, working properly. Can you say more about that?

Bart Potter:

Yeah, absolutely. I think first part of that starts with a mindset that I’ve had even before I got into all of this, and a lot of people might think, is that no pain, no gain type situation. And that does draw people towards the gym and really aggressive heavy workouts, and that could be fine. I mean, I like to work out as well for enjoyment, but the fact is it’s not a requirement to improve body function and performance. And forgive me if I’m promoting my system a little bit, but there’s very simple tactics you can learn to improve body mechanics for your whole body. Similar to your shoes. You figured out that modern shoe companies were over-engineering footwear and restricting natural movement, and that’s created like a straight jacket for our feet, where they can’t express themselves. Similarly, because of our modern environment, because we don’t tend to move and use our bodies with variety, like our ancestors did even 100 years ago, we’ve lost that natural movement, we’ve lost the ability to express normal joint range of motion, things like that.

So what can happen for people is if, for instance, you sit eight hours a day in your office, that’s at least 2,900 hours of sitting in a year with your body like I am in this couch, in a restricted, confined position. And then, when you get up and try to use your body, maybe for something more aggressively, you might encounter problems. So A, even working out aggressively in that situation could be dangerous, but B, if you can just improve body mechanics, allow for more natural movement, you’re going to feel better and just basically want to use your body more.

So the more you can use your body with variety throughout your day, and like you say, more natural movement, do a variety of activities with your body, the whole time, you’re creating your own resistance with gravity. That’s why people who work in fields or do manual labor create their own type of resistance program that builds more muscle fiber, that increases bone density, that improves joint range of motion. You can get all of these benefits just by… Some people will really resent this when they say this, but you can improve by doing your chores around the house. That can be-

Steven Sashen:

Don’t say that too loud.

Bart Potter:

Exactly, I get some grimaces about that. But that can really improve body function, muscle mass, bone density, range of motion, flexibility, all of these great things just by moving it and using it.

Steven Sashen:

I just thought of a great new product. So we need to make a broom with a 15 or 20-pound weighted handle, I think that’d be good. Or a dust pan with a five-pound dumbbell built into it or a towel for drying the dishes, like a heavy… So Elaine and I got a weighted blanket, which we really enjoy, so now we need weighted dish towels. This is a whole new business that we’re thinking of right here. Well, before I jump in, I’ve got a couple of comments just about what you said, but before we do that, since you set this up, and I know I’m putting you on the spot when I do this, but hey, live with it. So can you think of a movement thing that you could share with people now, either to help them experience anything, whether it could be how they may have some restriction that they could alleviate or just something that they could do that feels good, instead of pointing out something problematic? Anything that you want to offer to people.

Bart Potter:

Yeah, absolutely. I could do two even, if you want. I could do one for-

Steven Sashen:

All right. Well, I only asked for one, but if you’re going to throw in a bonus, I’m not going to say no.

Bart Potter:

Yeah, two for the price of one. So the first thing is… People love this one, actually, and I’m sure you’re going to be familiar with this, because you’re so knowledgeable about foot and ankle function, and all of that, but this is one I teach my clients in the book as well. So using the couch, actually, can be very useful for beneficial practice positions. So I’ll lean back here, so hopefully you can see my foot and what I’m wearing too, by the way.

Steven Sashen:

I can see the tip of your toes.

Bart Potter:

Okay, I’m wearing my Xero Shoes. If I lift my foot, there we go.

Steven Sashen:

There it is.

Bart Potter:

So what you’re going to do is, if you draw a circle really slowly with your foot… Yeah. And the slower and more perfect circle you draw in both directions, the more you’re going to activate some muscles called your peroneus and tibialis muscles, which by the way, are also very impressive words to use on a date.

Steven Sashen:

I don’t know who you date, but okay. Whatever you say.

Bart Potter:

Yeah, exactly. So you’re practicing… A, you’re practicing joint range of motion, which is beneficial. That’s not something we do during our day a lot. But B, by activating those muscles, they’re like straps on a Roman sandal that go down your lower leg and attach to the points underneath your foot, and that’s what gives leverage to create stability as you’re walking forward. So what you want as you’re walking is like a smooth tracking pattern, so you don’t want excess lateral vibration in your foot if you’re going to walk forward smoothly. And so that’s just one of the benefits those muscles provide, so yeah.

Steven Sashen:

Well, I was just going to say what was really interesting, and I want to highlight this for people, is going as slow as you can, because then you start to… At first, you find these little glitches along the way and then they start to work themselves out, so there’s an interesting neurological thing going on there. And then, especially then, you reverse it. And then what’s fun… Wait, hold on, I got to do it. What’s entertaining… Do you recommend… I’ll ask it this way. Do you recommend people start with their dominant or non-dominant side if they’re going to do both?

Bart Potter:

The key thing is, as long as you’re practicing both, because what you mentioned there is really important, it’s self-diagnostic. Just by doing this stupidly simple practice position, you can notice where your weak point is in your range of motion. And sometimes, for people, it can be pretty dramatic. They’re like, “Whoa, that portion of the circle is not good.” And what they’ll notice, as they practice, is they can draw better circles, and that means you’re getting better lower leg, ankle, and foot function.

Steven Sashen:

The reason that I ask about dominant versus non-dominant, and you don’t have an opinion about it, nor do I at the moment, but what many people will find is, when you practice with one side, then the other side at first feels awkward, because you’ve already kind of gotten the first one in the groove, but usually improves faster than the second one. This is an idea from Feldenkrais, where it’s like, “Start with the good side and then the bad side comes along.” It’s what happened for me with my first barefoot run when I got… Or my second one, actually. But my first one, I got a blister on the ball of my left foot, so my second run, I was thinking, “Let me pay attention to the good side, the one that didn’t get a blister, and see if the, quote, ‘Bad side,’ comes along for the ride,” and it did.

It figured out, by paying attention to the good side, the bad side figured out how to change itself. And I want to emphasize, “Figured out how to change itself.” I wasn’t consciously doing anything other than paying attention to the good side. So again, doing a really slow rotation, this attention is more important than the speed or just getting around. It’s not just about-

Bart Potter:

Absolutely right.

Steven Sashen:

Yeah, yeah.

Bart Potter:

Yeah, because initially, when I show that one to people, they want to do it really fast, but that’s absolutely correct. The more they focus that mindfulness part of the practice position and really drawing a slow, really good circle, then you’re really going to feel these muscles activating a lot more of these, and they’ll be like, “That’s where they are,” because you’ll feel them.

Steven Sashen:

It’s so funny you start with that, because I don’t know how it happened. I was just… I know what it was, it was one of these people do amazing things videos that I was watching when I was trying to get to sleep the other night. And it was a guy who, on a whiteboard, drew a perfect circle, freehand drew a perfect circle. So I love that we’re doing foot circles and he draws a perfect circle, and it was in a classroom and the whole class goes crazy. It’s very energy.

Bart Potter:

Yeah, yeah.

Steven Sashen:

Okay, so you promised a bonus. Two for the price of one. What’s number two?

Bart Potter:

Absolutely, the second deals with upper body and it deals with counteracting one of the main causes of dysfunction for our bodies, and that’s sitting. As I mentioned earlier, all those hours of sitting we can do every year, myself included. And so when we’re sitting at our computers and steering wheels in our cars, and even in this couch, it’s really easy to slouch my shoulders instead of being externally rotated, I’m at my keyboard… This is an exaggeration, right? You could see my shoulders internally rotate.

Steven Sashen:

So for people who are listening, so internally rotating, the easiest way to think about that is if you outstretch your arm in front of you with your palm up and then rotate not just your arm, but rotate everything including your shoulder in. If your thumb is rotating counter… Your right thumb is rotating counterclockwise, left thumb clockwise, then really exaggerate the shoulder part of that, that’s internally rotated. And if you go the other way, your thumbs are starting to point out, so you’re rotating your right hand, clockwise, and left hand, counterclockwise. Especially if you pull your shoulders back a little, that’s going to be externally rotating your shoulder.

Bart Potter:

Yep, yep. So that’s the first part I wanted to explain. The second thing that happens when we’re sitting is these upper front muscles will tighten and shorten. So you could think of your muscles as cables that support a suspension bridge. You got your suspension bridge, let’s say the cables are tighter on one side of the bridge, that’s going to make the bridge lopsided and cause structural problems for the bridge, right? It’s not going to stand very long. And similarly, we have these muscle cables that support our body bridge, which consists of our bones and joints. So in this case, if these cables are getting tighter and tighter, because we’re always like this, hunched over our computers and in our cars, over time, these are going to shorten and the upper back are actually going to overstretch, which gets into the whole idea. Some people are like, “Well, isn’t it good to stretch everything?”

Or some people might not say that either, but what happens in this scenario is tight and short on upper front and overstretch on upper back. That’s what we’re practicing eight hours a day, 2,900 hours a year. So this is another stupidly simple position to counteract internally rotated and upper front muscles that are shortened and these are overstretched. So to describe it a little better, what you’re going to do is open-

Steven Sashen:

Wait, hold on, hold on. I just like that you made a point to talk about peroneus, but now you’re referring to the upper pec as the upper front.

Bart Potter:

Yeah.

Steven Sashen:

So clearly, these are two totally different dates that you’re on. One for people who think they’ll be impressed if you know muscle they don’t know about, but then-

Bart Potter:

Or someone would be like, “You’re just full of yourself, stop it. Too much.”

Steven Sashen:

So the movement is…

Bart Potter:

That’s a good point. I tried to, in the book… And sometimes I diverted from that, but I tried to make some of the ideas as simple as possible, and this was one of the upper front muscles, right?

Steven Sashen:

Upper front.

Bart Potter:

So to practice this position, what you’re going to do is you’re going to open… Like you said, open… For people who ever saw that show a long time ago, was it Happy Days? Fonzie, right? Was the thumbs out? Is that right? The thumbs are-

Steven Sashen:

Hold on, it’s a really interesting point. Yeah, when Fonzie was doing thumbs up, it wasn’t straight up, it was a little out. It was a little externally rotated.

Bart Potter:

It was a little out.

Steven Sashen:

I’d never thought about that, which is completely insane.

Bart Potter:

Yeah. So the more you turn your thumbs up and then out, so you’re kind of turning your palms directly up towards the ceiling, essentially. And then the next part of it is I’m pulling my arms straight back, so you could… During your day, let’s say you’ve been sitting for a couple hours, you could get up and do this practice position to counteract what you’ve just been practicing at your computer for two hours. And so when we’re trying to create better muscle balance, it’s really simple. All we’re trying to do, lots of times, is practice the opposite of the repetitive thing that we’ve been doing for a lot of the day. So if we’ve been this way, internally rotated shorter upper front, now we’re going to practice external rotation, stretching upper front, and actually shortening upper back. It’s the opposite.

Steven Sashen:

How do you feel about adding resistance to things like this, like using a rubber band or if a cable machine using weights in some way?

Bart Potter:

Absolutely. And so I’m definitely not against working out, I guess the only point I was trying to make earlier is that you don’t have to do it. If you improve body mechanics, you can move around and do lots of things to gain those types of benefits outside of the gym. But yeah, I like to work out, and that’s a great exercise you’re talking about to do, where you’re like… You have a cable with some weight and you’re pulling towards you and you’re squeezing essentially and tightening these upper back muscles, because these muscles up here are the counterbalance for all of your arm and shoulder movements. So every time you’re moving and using your arm, these are working to keep the shoulder stable and functional.

Steven Sashen:

It’s interesting. So I was an All-American gymnast way back when, I don’t know any gymnast who makes it out of that without bad shoulders, at least one. And when I first got diagnosed as needing a rotator cuff repaired 25 years ago, I put it off until three years ago, and I’ve had limited mobility. If I tried to put my hand behind my back, I could barely do it with my injured shoulder side, which is my right side. And then I don’t know where I got the idea, a couple of years ago, I just decided to start doing a whole bunch of chin-ups. And so I put up chin up bar… Elaine and I, we have… Our second bedroom is our TV/guest room, and then there’s a bathroom off it. So I put a chin-up bar in the doorway to the bathroom.

So obviously, I went in and out of it a dozen times a day, and every time I went in, I would do just like five chin-ups. And I really emphasized what you just said, that really working on the upper back, rather than thinking of it as a bicep exercise. And I don’t know why I thought to do this, I wasn’t thinking of it as a rehab thing. I just had the idea, “I want to do more stuff.” And what I noticed is that my upper back started getting stronger, my shoulders started moving into a different position, and I started getting more flexibility from building the strength back there, which is counterintuitive. Well, most people would think it’s counterintuitive. It makes sense, given what you just said, but it seemed odd that I was getting more flexible by getting stronger.

Bart Potter:

Yeah, that is super cool. And that speaks to just the desire and openness to try a variety of movement, too. Sometimes you could be surprised, by incorporating variety, the benefits that can create for your body. You just did it intuitively.

Steven Sashen:

Well, and to that point, I got into something about six weeks ago. I’ve owned some kettlebells for a while, I used them mostly for just doing kettlebell swings or doing single-leg deadlifts, but then I got inspired to try an actual kettlebell workout, and I’d never really done one before. And it’s a whole bunch of really unusual movement patterns that it’s not like going to the gym, by any stretch. I’m not doing bicep curls, I’m not doing tricep push downs, I’m not doing bench presses. I’m not doing any of those, quote, “Normal things.” And yet, my whole body is acting as if I have. I mean, the most interesting to me is what’s happening with my biceps. And it’s interesting, because I’m not doing any exercises with the kettlebell that involve bending and flexing my arm. In any way that’s against resistance. I mean, basically, the only time I’m bending my arm, if you’re doing…

For people who are into kettlebells, a kettlebell clean, but that’s weightless. It’s not like I’m pulling and doing resisted bicep work. Most of what’s happening is actually just trying to hold this thing, hold the kettlebell, without it flying out of your hand. And so it’s fascinating to see. I’m not doing any bench press stuff, but it’s affecting my chest. I’m not doing any… Fill in the blank. I’m not doing an exercise for that body part, and yet that body part’s being affected, or not doing the normal exercise for that body part. So the new movement pattern thing is really interesting to me lately.

Bart Potter:

And it’s fun, too, right? It feels different-

Steven Sashen:

It’s really satisfying. It’s also… Pardon me one second. It’s really satisfying, it’s also really annoying at first, because until you figure out how to do things correctly, you’re banging a giant metal ball into your forearms. But once you’ve figure out the technique, it becomes pretty effortless, which is really enjoyable.

Bart Potter:

Yeah, that sounds cool.

Steven Sashen:

When people come to see you, what are they typically coming for? How do they find you?

Bart Potter:

Clients or readers?

Steven Sashen:

Yeah. Both, actually.

Bart Potter:

Both? Yeah. One thing I do with my website that I’m really enjoying doing is I do a blog, I do a monthly email tip, and so my website’s definitely the resource, jiffybody.com.

Steven Sashen:

How do you think people are bumping into that? I mean, people like to think that the internet is an, “If you build it, they will come,” thing, which is not the case. So how are they finding you or what do you think they’re looking for when they find you?

Bart Potter:

Yeah, and you’re absolutely right. For me, it’s all through initially direct interaction, either working one-on-one with people, I also do public speaking with larger groups of people, I’ve worked with smaller companies working with employees who found, excuse me, the tactics are really useful for preventing repetitive use problems in the office. So yeah, no one’s just finding me out of the blue. It’s all initially through direct interaction. I help one person, they’re like, “Hey, you should talk to Bart.” Or I go talk to a group of people and people are like, “Hey, this is simple and it makes sense,” and that’s a cool thing I really like about what I teach, is it’s super simple, to the point that sometimes people learn this and they’re like, “Yeah, that’s just logical.” It’s not rocket science.

Steven Sashen:

Yeah, it’s funny. I like to say humans have been wearing footwear since they’ve been human beings, and what we talk about is not rocket science or, as they said 1,000 years ago, “It’s not rock science.” So I’m trying to think. So we’ve talked about the angle a bit and lower leg, we’ve talked about the upper body. What are the other things that people come to you for that you may have some insight to share that could be useful?

Bart Potter:

Absolutely. Initially, most of my clients are body issues like aches, pain, stiffness, swelling, nerve impingement, and joint problems. That’s one part of it. And then the other part, which I really enjoy working with, is people who just want better performance. So it could be an athlete who wants to improve function while they’re playing and also to prevent injuries. And it could just be people who want to keep doing their favorite activities, so it could be someone like you, you’re a sprinter, right? So you’re motivated to do things, so you can perform at a high level. So I could have an athlete like that, or it could be a grandparent who wants to be able to play with their grandkids on the floor.

Steven Sashen:

Well, this is going to sound silly perhaps to some people, but do you treat those two different groups of people differently or are they basically the same kind of thing just with different applications?

Bart Potter:

They are. We are all the same kind of thing in one sense. There’s three main principles I teach people. One is to improve muscle balance, one is to practice and improve joint range of motion if it’s lacking, and the third is to identify and improve weak points. So someone who’s really highly functional might be further ahead, right? They might have more complete, better range of motion for all their major joints and muscle groups, but the same principles benefit everyone. But yeah, you have to tailor it to the individual.

Steven Sashen:

Yeah, going back to the very beginning of our conversation and just the teaser about working out, it occurs to me that one of the problems that I see with people who do workout, whatever that looks like, whether it’s doing CrossFit or just weightlifting or even yoga, I see people who are… How do I want to put this? Either they have or they adopt bad movement patterns, because they’re just trying to get the reps in or that they just don’t even know what good form looks like. There’s subtle things. I’m going to use bench pressing as an example, where most people don’t think about… Most people, when they think about bench pressing, just think about pushing, just think about basically doing a pushup. But if you’re going to bench press really effectively, the first thing you do, and this comes back to something else we were saying, is pull your shoulders back and try to squeeze your shoulders together, because that makes your shoulders more stable, it shortens the range of motion, it makes you much stronger.

And many people, when they think about bench pressing, they imagine the bar coming up near their clavicle, and when the bar touches your chest, it should be nipple level, which seems odd, because it seems farther down. But those two little cues and then what you do with your feet, actually, is really important for bench pressing also. So there’s three little cues that, if you give people, it can make them, quote, “Instantly stronger.” And what that really means is you’re putting yourself in just a better biomechanical position. But because they don’t know that, haven’t looked at that, they have the idea that they… “Look, how hard is it to push something? I know how to push something.” So either they develop a bad pattern or they’ll do too many reps and start to get tired and just try to get that last rep out, and all hell breaks loose. Or they have some imbalance or some problematic motor pattern to begin with that just gets exacerbated by doing something that’s that kind of activity.

And people just don’t know that there’s different things. Do you find people getting resistant to the idea of… With your work, I’m going to refer to it… I’ll say it this way. It’s not accurate, but just for the fun of this part of the conversation. Do you find people have a hard time adjusting to the doing less phenomenon?

Bart Potter:

Yeah, I mean… I think there is definitely that desire, and it’s, I’m sure, more common with people who go to the gym. In that mindset, you have to work harder to improve, just work harder or hurt more. That pain being involved with it, but what you pointed out. With the upper back and how just creating a stronger back is going to make you a better bench presser is a really great solution to that. The guy I learned from actually, initially, was… He played in the NFL and he was a super heavyweight powerlifter.

Steven Sashen:

What a riot.

Bart Potter:

And unfortunately, he’s no longer living, but I remember him talking about powerlifting moves all the time. In particular, the bench press. And talking about how people neglect to train their back.

Steven Sashen:

There’s another counterintuitive weightlifting thing that I didn’t know for years, which is people who get a weightlifting belt, they think that the idea is make it really tight, and that’s somehow providing support. But the reality, just for the fun of doing this, for people who wear a weightlifting belt who don’t know, the whole point of the weightlifting belt is not to hold you in, but so that you have something to push against when you’re squatting or deadlifting, so that you’re creating a stronger core by pushing out, instead of trying to suck something in and create some support from wearing a belt. It’s really just a cue to make everything around your entire body, front and back, more solid when you’re doing something like squatting or deadlifting, because it’s something that people tend to forget. They think about the weight, they don’t think about, “What’s the most important piece that’s going to then move this?”

So weightlifting belts are… Again, people mostly use them upside down as they make it really tight, instead of pushing against it. I know I’ve said that now six times. So I love the fact that he came out of a powerlifting background, because boy, talk about a place where you need to figure out how to be the most efficient. I mean, that’s it. It’s not just strong, it’s strong in exactly the right way. Some of those guys are amazing.

Bart Potter:

Absolutely. And even things that people wouldn’t normally associate with better strength or even necessarily function. Some athletes might not do this, but if you can just train your stabilizers in your shoulder, you’re going to have a more stable ball and socket joint, which means you can drive forward better. Just like with that one with the feet, you can create a smoother tracking pattern by activating these peroneus and tibialis muscles and you can drive forward more effectively. And sometimes those are the little things that people that we’re looking, it could be an athlete that may not think on that level, “How do I create better joint stability and stabilizers?” Or it could be someone much older. Lots of times, you might think that it’s just impossible. They can’t have a better function, maybe they’re too old and they just can’t do it, but sometimes the solution can be just so simple that, once they learn it and practice it, they’re like, “Okay, this is easy.”

Steven Sashen:

You reminded me, I met these two women, they’re twins, who were in Cirque du Soleil, and they created a training program based on what they were doing with Cirque du Soleil that was all just about that upper back and just getting those shoulders back in position and working on all the stabilizer muscles, because they found, similar to what you’ve been talking about, that so many of Cirque du Soleil athletes came in and just did whatever it took to get through the move, but they didn’t have a stable structure to do it, so that’s why they were seeing really, really high injuries. And so they created this whole program to basically try to make you as bulletproof as possible for the incredibly demanding schedule and just the demands of these amazing activities that these Cirque athletes were doing.

And you would never think that these people at the top of their game are walking in, essentially, with a bad foundation to begin with. But that’s what they were seeing and then they created this whole program. I hadn’t thought about this. I met them, geez, this was 20 plus years ago. I hadn’t thought about it in quite a while.

Bart Potter:

Yeah. I found the same thing, that sometimes people are really surprised I can walk them through… It’s a really easy 10-minute system that I teach to improve body mechanics, essentially, and I can take them through roughly 17 to 20 practice positions and I can tell them what is hurt or where their injury was. They don’t have to tell me a word, I could just guide them through the system and, afterwards, I can go, “Yeah, your shoulder or your knee,” or whatever it is. Because sometimes they’re the best athletes in the world, but they might not have some of that information that could really benefit them, and it’s easy to improve.

Steven Sashen:

So give me an example of walking somebody through the program and what you see and how they respond. And of course, the magic question that I imagine people are asking is, “Can you self-diagnose this and do it on your own without you watching?”

Bart Potter:

Yeah, absolutely. So that’s the intent of the system, it’s self diagnostic. Like a 28-point inspection for a car, right? Before you race it around the track, you want to find out what the weak points are on the car, and tune it up. Similarly, with this system, people can walk through the practice positions and feel the difference. Like you were mentioning, from one side to the other, whether it was a dominant side or not. Okay, so this is one of the practice positions, another really easy one. I’m practicing rotation to activate my rotator cuff muscles that keep the shoulder stable. So this is a really simple one I’ve shown people before, it could be someone incredibly strong and they might notice they have restricted range of motion in their left shoulder. They may go, “Wow, I can’t externally rotate as well on my left side.” So already they’ve identified a weak point. They’re like, “Yeah, this is the shoulder I hurt five years ago.” It always correlates past injury to restricted range of motion.

So it’s very easy to walk through the system and go, “Okay.” Same thing with the toe circles. One ankle has restricted range of motion, that was the one I turned on a pothole however long ago. Because usually what happens when you’ve had an injury, even a minor injury, the body will compensate and gather restrict motion in that area.

Steven Sashen:

I noticed a thing that especially… I used to do a bunch of long meditation courses and I used to notice that, after a few days… My right shoulder was the one that was out of whack, but what I noticed is that most of the tension was in my upper back, on the left side, because it was trying to hold everything in place from the other side.

Bart Potter:

Yeah.

Steven Sashen:

And the first time I discovered that was shocking, that my left side was tighter than my right, when it was my right side that was the one that was all out of whack.

Bart Potter:

Yeah. That brings up the point, too, when you try… Say you were sitting like that for a couple of days.

Steven Sashen:

Yes.

Bart Potter:

Even that, it’s like a repetitive activity, trying to hold pushing your body to hold this position, which can be really hard. So that can be a beautiful thing, though, when you try different movements, you gain body knowledge, because you’ll notice, “This one part is not working as well as the other side. Why is that?”

Steven Sashen:

Well, that’s an interesting point you just made, and you alluded to it earlier. For whatever reason, we stop playing as we get older, we stop trying all these new things, and we lose a certain… I don’t mean flexibility in the, “Can you do the splits?” But just flexibility in the opportunity or the options that are available to us, because we haven’t played with them, we haven’t tried them, we haven’t used them in a while, and I’m intrigued by that. I don’t really even have a fully formed thought. I mean, I’m having a good time now learning how to do kettlebell things, sprinting a horse is a whole new game.

I got back into… There’s an archery range down the street, I went and did some target shooting, which I hadn’t done since I was, oh, my God, I don’t know, 12 or something. And just learning all these new things. I always find it really entertaining, but I also know that, even with the things that I’m doing, there’s probably a giant list of movement patterns that I’m unaware that I’m unaware of. That I haven’t done and I don’t even know that they are possibilities. And I keep thinking of… Your program opens up people to some ideas of some of those movement patterns, but I keep thinking, A, what does it take to get people to discover these and be able to use them and enjoy them? And it’s something I asked somebody a while ago. Imagine if, to graduate high school, you had to be able to do a round off back handspring or a cartwheel, or something that’s not a normal movement pattern, something…

And maybe there’s 10 different things that you could pick, but you have to demonstrate some proficiency in learning some new and unusual movement to graduate high school. So I think about what happens as we grow up, what we are presented with and aren’t presented with, and then, as we get older, how we tend to get more limited and what to do about that.

Bart Potter:

Yeah, absolutely. And it’s our modern lifestyle, too, in a way is really what starts to close us in, because it’s so… We don’t have to move for survival, so the more we sit and… Hey, this couch is great, but we spend a lot of our life sedentary and we don’t have to have variety of movement for survival, and the way it goes is, generally, the less you use variety of movement in joint range of motion, the more likely you are to lose joint range of motion. And when you lose joint range of motion, you’re more likely to have body issues like aches, pain, stiffness, swelling, nerve impingement, and joint problems. So the big problem that happens for us, even if someone suddenly decides, “Hey, I want to go do all these fun things,” they might’ve created a challenging situation with their body to be able to get out and do those things without having problems.

Steven Sashen:

Well, this is the fundamental problem, is that our brain’s idea of what our body is and can do is completely different than reality, especially as we get older. I mean, in my head, I’m still basically 25 to 32, somewhere in that range. And then I go work out or do the kettlebell thing, or whatever it is I’m doing, and find out that, no, I’m pretty solidly 58.

Bart Potter:

I was going to say, what’s cool is you’re pushing yourself or you’re pointing yourself in a direction where you’re challenging your body and you’re still doing that variety of movement and it’s really beneficial, and you might bump up against the wall here and there, but it’s super beneficial.

Steven Sashen:

Well, I have a thing. I used to have a note that I wrote on my wall that said, “Distrust symmetry.” And of course, the two words were in different fonts. I try to be hyper aware of where things get into patterns, where things get stuck or in a loop, so I noticed years ago how I put on my pants, whichever leg I used first, I don’t even remember anymore. For a while ago, I noticed which way I crossed my arms and I started practicing crossing them the other way, and I realized just now I don’t remember which one is my preferred one. And when I’m sitting, I’m constantly changing that. A lot of people, if they’re watching me changing which way I press my arms, try it, because most people can’t do it. I’m not trying to show off or anything, it’s just that we don’t do it.

I play with different ways of… I sit on the ground a lot and I play with different ways of getting up off the ground, just because I just notice, for whatever reason, when something gets too familiar… I do this with thinking as well, but with body stuff in particular, it just gets too familiar or I just get curious at some point for reasons that I don’t understand, and the learning new things is both fascinating and annoying, because we know that, when you’re going to go to learn a new thing, you’re going to be uncoordinated and feel like a moron, and we don’t like doing that, but that’s just the effect of trying to lay down new neural pathways. But it’s like, if you can get through that initial awkward phase, then it’s super fun, and I’ve been thinking about…

I can’t remember what I was thinking lately, just a handful of activities that I imagine wanting to try that are new movement patterns. And this is going to sound crazy and a lot of people… There’s some people who aren’t going to like this at all, but I’m going to say it. I’ve been totally fascinated with the idea of learning how to fire a sniper rifle, which is the opposite of a lot of moving. It’s trying to get as still as possible. I’m not looking to shoot anything or anyone, but the idea… It’s such an amazing practice. Whatever control it takes to do that, or opening up and relaxing that it takes to do that, to shoot a target that’s a mile away, that strikes me as a really interesting… It’s like the exact opposite of learning to tap dance or swing kettlebells, or whatever it is.

But just again, I get really interested in some new thing that seems completely out of whack. Maybe I got the idea after watching American Sniper, the sitting there for hours and hours and hours just waiting and trying to be alert. That does not seem at all interesting, but the idea of mastering something that precise, I mean, that’s really what that’s all about. And I guess… I just realized as I was saying this, my brain is not precise, I keep piles of things everywhere, I’m not well-organized, but all the things I like to do physically, typically, are very precise. Sprinting, very precise. Archery, target shooting, even weightlifting, very precise. So I think it’s an interesting dichotomy, that my brain does one thing, my body likes something completely different.

Bart Potter:

Right, right. Well, and the good thing is you have this motivation, you enjoy these activities, and that’s pushing you out there to use your body, essentially. That’s a key ingredient, I find, with people who are successful, who I’m teaching the system to create better body mechanics is, initially… Let’s say they just have aches and pains and they want to get rid of them, right? And they do, and they’re able to feel better. Well, that’s great, but that’s not enough motivation to keep practicing and improving body mechanics or get out there and use their body, and that’s what the key thing is long-term for dramatically better body function, is to work a little bit every day on your body mechanics, but then get out there and do fun activities like you’re doing, essentially. And that’s a really good formula for success.

Steven Sashen:

What’s been really satisfying with Xero Shoes is, of course, everything we’re saying is… What I say, applies, “Feet first,” is actually getting your body to move and feeling things and getting all those new movement patterns. And we hear over and over and over from people who, once they do that, start just getting… Not inherently, that’s not the word I’m looking for. Intrinsically motivated to just do something else. My favorite version of this actually was not even from a Xero Shoes person, but there’s a doctor in Brazil named Isabel Sacco who put minimalist footwear on a bunch of elderly women and just said, “Wear these and let’s see what happens,” basically. And what she found… One thing was their knee osteoarthritis was either eliminated or greatly improved, but a bunch of these women who had had mobility issues up until that point, who then suddenly started getting more mobility after they started using their feet, some of them got interested in running 5K races, some of them got interested…

I mean, they suddenly had this new idea, this new sense of possibility to do new things just because they got their feet moving more, which is just one of my favorites.

Bart Potter:

Yeah, that’s the perfect recipe, really. Your shoe helps improve natural movement, so then people are feeling better because they are using movement more, and then they’re like, “I want to do something fun,” and then keep doing a greater variety of movement and it just creates a ball rolling downhill kind of thing.

Steven Sashen:

Well, or whatever the effortless version of a ball rolling uphill would be. We’ll have to figure out… We have to find the right metaphor for that.

Bart Potter:

Yeah.

Steven Sashen:

Well, so Bart, is there anything else that you want to share with bipeds about just things to pay attention to or anything about what you’re doing before we pitch you again and tell people where to find out more?

Bart Potter:

Yeah. The ideas… Just this, that the body is really the genius, right? Our bodies are absolutely amazing in what we do, and to point them in the right direction doesn’t really have to be that complicated. Sometimes the simplest solutions can be the most effective, just like you were saying with your footwear. Allow the foot to do what it wants to do. Similarly, with what I teach people, it can be really simple and easy to practice this stuff. The key thing is just that consistency. If you have the motivation, the reason why, and you’re willing to just practice a little bit every day… And what I teach people is a total non-workout. You could do it in the office or at home, you could practice in your pajamas if you want to. It could be totally easy, but you can get dramatically better body function and benefit throughout your lifetime. It doesn’t have to be hard or complicated.

Steven Sashen:

Yeah, and the consistency is a really interesting piece and one of the challenges, because we do like variety. I mean, as I’m doing this kettlebell thing, I’m thinking… I’m continually reminded of the first time I did a more intensive weightlifting program, it’s when I was in high school, when I was a gymnast. The first month, which is getting used to the movements, the second month was improving, and it was the third month where I actually started seeing the real benefits. I have no idea if it’s that same three-month schedule now that I’m three times that age, or more than that, but suffice to say, I think people, they often expect certain kinds of changes more quickly than bodies and minds are actually able to change, and getting over that little hump until you start to really…

When things really start to work well, things improve exponentially, but it takes… I’m trying to think of a good analogy for this. It takes a little while for things to ramp up, but then the more they do, the more they do. So it does get a little exponential at a certain point, and it plateaus. But suffice to say, the consistency, I think, is something that I want to emphasize, because many people… And I just feel that in myself, that sometimes it’s really hard after the six to eight-week mark, I can feel my brain going, “I wonder if there’s some other thing that I could…”

Bart Potter:

Yeah, well, and that makes sense. I’ve seen that with lots of people. And like I say, sometimes people just come to me for pain issues, and once they get better, then they’re like, “I’m fixed, I don’t have to practice anything anymore.”

Steven Sashen:

Right.

Bart Potter:

“It’s gone, it’s gone. I’m good, I’m all good.”

Steven Sashen:

Yeah, and that goes back to what you’re saying about the lifestyle we have now, where we’re not engaging in all these different movements all the time. For good reasons. And that’s the other point. I made this argument against somebody who was all about natural movement things and was trying to… Created a program that was supposed to be more about the things that we did 100 or 1,000 or however many years ago. And I said, “It’s not the same as going out for 20 minutes and doing pull-ups on a tree as it is walking down to the river and bringing back bricks or rocks that you’re going to use to build a home just for hours and hours and hours for days and days and days.” We just literally can’t really simulate the way these things originally worked, because we’re just not living in that world anymore, so we are doing kind of the best we can. Of course, that goes back to the consistency point.

We used to do this stuff all day every day, because it’s what we needed to live, and now I hope people can find a thing where they recognize the value of it and keep doing that all day every day. Not all day, but every day, as if it was something you needed to do to live. But mostly now, it has to be motivated by enjoyment, because it’s not motivated by necessity.

Bart Potter:

Yeah. And those are the people I’m seeing who learn this Jiffy Body system who want to keep going. Generally, they’ll feel better really quickly, just by going through it even one or two times. And as long as there’s a payoff consistently, then that creates that motivation to keep going. Those are the people that have success and just use it for years, but there definitely has to be a payoff. Either it gets you out, so you can do what you love to do, or you feel better right away. You notice something that’s working pretty quickly.

Steven Sashen:

That’s great. Well, Bart, thank you so much for all of this. So once again, here, I’ll just do it for people who want to find you, jiffybody.com, J-I-F-F-Y-B-O-D-Y.com. Is there anywhere else that people should look for you or anything you’re doing?

Bart Potter:

That’s it, primarily. That’s where I focus on. I mean, I have a Facebook business page with the same name, but generally, I put out free information through the website. If someone wants to email me, bart@jiffybody.com, I’ll send them a free practice plan, so they can try some of this stuff out. Yeah, I have one for… It’s called Sitting Break Better Posture Practice, and it just will teach you four practice positions you can use that you could use at the office, or wherever, to create that better muscle balance, practice a little joint range of motion, and you’ll feel better right away after you’ve been sitting for a long time.

Steven Sashen:

That’s great. You surprised me with something I didn’t know you had. Well, so I hope people do take advantage of that and drop Bart an email and go to his website. Bart, once again, thank you so much. Not only for this, but also your support over the years. For everybody else, if you haven’t go over to… If you want to find out more about what we’re doing here with the podcast, go to www.jointhemovementmovement.com, and that’s where you can find previous episodes and all the different ways to interact with the content, all the different places that we’re posting. You can leave reviews, you can do all those things you know how to do. Again, like and thumbs up and hit the bell on YouTube, and like I said, leave reviews, et cetera. If you have any questions for me or any recommendations, anyone you think that should be on the show, or anyone who you think vehemently disagrees with me who should be on the show, that’d be fun, drop me an email at move@jointhemovementmovement.com. And most importantly, as always, go out, have fun, and live life feet first.

Bart Potter:

Thanks.

View Details

Brian Keane is a three-time best-selling author with The Fitness Mindset, Rewire Your Mindset and The Keane Edge: Mastering the Mindset for Real Lasting Fat Loss.

Over the past ten years, Brian has become one of the most recognised faces in the Irish health and fitness industry. He has spoken at major wellness events such as Wellfest Ireland and Mefit Dubai, was a Keynote speaker at Google HQ for their 2018 wellness event and has done corporate wellness talks for Allianz Partners, SAP and Acorn Insurance.

On top of running his own highly successful business, Brian has also completed some of the worlds most gruelling endurance challenges, such as six back to back marathons through the Sahara desert, a 230km through the Arctic and multiple ultra-marathons, including a 100 mile ultra-marathon in the desert in Nevada.

Listen to this episode of The MOVEMENT Movement with Brian Keane about the mental side of fitness and exercise.

Here are some of the beneficial topics covered on this week’s show:

– How transitioning to more holistic and mentally challenging fitness pursuits leads to personal growth and fulfillment.

– Why bodybuilding competitions are difficult and can lead to struggles with disordered eating habits.

– How setting incremental targets and following curiosity allows you to continually push boundaries in fitness.

– Why your fitness goals should be aligned with your personal values.

– How people should take a mindful approach to making decisions that nourish their personal growth and wellness.

Connect with Brian:

Guest Contact Info

Instagram@brian_keane_fitness

Facebookfacebook.com/briankeanefitness

Links Mentioned:briankeanefitness.com

Connect with Steven:

Website

Xeroshoes.com

Twitter@XeroShoes

Instagram@xeroshoes

Facebookfacebook.com/xeroshoes

Episode Transcript

Steven Sashen:

When you’re thinking about exercise, maybe the least important thing about exercising is what you actually do for exercise. What the hell does that mean? Well, you’re going to find out on today’s episode of the MOVEMENT Movement, the podcast for people who want to know the truth about what it takes to have a happy, healthy, strong body, typically starting feet first, those things at the end of your legs, they are your foundation after all. And we also break down the propaganda, the mythology, and sometimes the outright lies you’ve been told about what it takes to run, walk, hike, play, do yoga, cross whatever it is you like to do, and to do that effectively and efficiently, and probably most importantly, enjoyably, ’cause if you don’t like it, you’re not going to keep doing it anyway. So find something you like. Hey, I’m Steven Sashen, co-founder and chief barefoot officer here at xeroshoes.com, and we call this the MOVEMENT Movement because we, that includes you, more about that in a second, are creating a movement about natural movement.

What happens when you let your body do what it’s made to do instead of forcing it to do things that it shouldn’t do, in my case, by shoving it into shoes that don’t fit like the way human feet should fit or work, you get the idea. Anyway, the way that involves you is really simple. Just spread the word. Share, like, give us a thumbs up, give us a great reviews, tell people about what we’re up to. In short, if you want to be part of the tribe, please subscribe. And one way you can do that, go to www.jointhemovementmovement.com, you’ll find previous episodes, all the places you can find us on social media. If you want to get this podcast from somewhere other than where you already found it, we’ll show you the other places you can get it, et cetera, et cetera. So let us have some fun. Brian, welcome and tell people who you are, where you are, and what you’re up to and why you are here. That was four big things, but I trust you can do it.

Brian Keane:

Steven, thank you so much for having me on. I’m really excited. I’m actually vibing and feeding off the energy already, so this is going to be a great conversation. I’m Brian Keane. I’m Brian Keane, Fitness Online. I’m on all the social media channels, host of the Brian Keane podcast, one of the top health podcasts in the world, interviewing guests in health, wellness, fitness, three time bestselling author, and I am a, you could probably say a hybrid athlete. I’ve done basically everything. I played a high level sport, I competed in bodybuilding, I then went into ultramarathons, triathlon, adventure races, and I have a wide spectrum of what I’ve done and I basically spend my living now working with people, helping them get into great shape, looking at the nutrition, looking at their fitness, and documenting my journey online with all the cool stuff that I get to do.

Steven Sashen:

You might want to tell people where you are or where your voice is from.

Brian Keane:

I am in the west of Ireland where I’m born and bred. I lived in California for years, and London, so I was away for quite a while. So I’ve learned to slow it down and speak and enunciate and say all the words the way they’re supposed to be said. But I currently reside not too far from where I grew up in the west of Ireland.

Steven Sashen:

I think we might… I don’t know if you’d know this. So I was just in Dublin a little less than a month ago, hanging out with our lead programmer who we’ve been working together for 12 years, but we’d never met and my wife and I had to come over to Europe to do some business with our European office and I had an absolute blast there and it also cracked me up ’cause there were definitely stereotypical things where it was a handful of guys who at any given time of the day or night were clearly just looking for a fight.

Brian Keane:

It’s true. The cliche of fighting and drinking is so ridiculously true that anyone that comes to Ireland is like, “Why are there people just looking to fight and why are there people drinking at two o’clock in the middle of the day?” I’m like, “Yeah, we just do that sometimes.”

Steven Sashen:

Well, they’re drinking at two o’clock because they couldn’t find anything open at 10 A.M. and I’m going to pat myself on the back when I say this and you can explain what I’m about to say ’cause I… Well, let’s say, I think you’ll be able to explain what I’m about to say, and I did head over to the Forty Foot.

Brian Keane:

And how did you find it?

Steven Sashen:

Well, I loved it. Do you want to tell people what it is?

Brian Keane:

I think it’d be better explained in your words because I would imagine your experience will tell the story.

Steven Sashen:

Okay, well, let me back it up. I’ll start by saying, so I’ve been a polar bear, someone who jumps in the freezing water on plus or minus New Year’s, like chip away the ice, get in the water for a long, long time. When I first moved to Boulder, I think I did it 17 years in a row, and so the Forty Foot is this little outcropping where you can jump in the water outside of Dublin and it’s really cold and quite delightful. And this could sound funny. The water is not overly salty, overly saliney, it’s like the night before I had really good oysters and it felt like I was just having really good oysters. So I mean, it was delightful.

Brian Keane:

It’s a beautiful experience. I’m on the west coast, so the Forty Foot is on the east coast and then Black Rock is on the west coast, so people kind of alternate between the two. It’s something that I do myself more so for recovery and just for grounding. Like, you know yourself when you’re kind of that type A all up in your head, there’s nothing like just getting into the water, getting a little bit of that salt, connecting and grounding and you’re coming out feeling like a million dollars.

Steven Sashen:

Yeah, don’t leave out the coldness of the water. In fact, to your point, I had a friend call me one day, he was having some sort of emotional turmoil and he was asking for my help. I said, “Just bring a bathing suit and come on over.” This is at a time when I lived in Boulder, Colorado, right off Boulder Creek. So he comes over and he starts to tell me what’s going on. I said, “Shut up, just come with me.” So we go to Boulder Creek, we jump in and he gets out of the water and starts to try and tell me something. And I went, “Do it one more time.” Jumps in one more time. I said, “Okay, what was your problem?” He goes, “No idea.”

Brian Keane:

Yep, love that. How good is that? If you could bottle that… We won’t get into a tinfoil half western in pharmacy. If you could bottle that feeling, we’d be multi, multi-billionaires and it’s completely free. You just hop into it and you feel amazing.

Steven Sashen:

Well, what’s funny, people think that a cold plunge is a similar thing, but when it’s moving water or an ocean, whole different world entirely. Yeah, you can’t compare the two at all.

Brian Keane:

Oh, definitely not. No. The benefits that you get from being actually in nature, getting a little bit of the magnesium, as you said, the water flowing, the cold plunge, it stays so you’re able to kind of acclimatize to it.

Steven Sashen:

That’s right.

Brian Keane:

It feels it’s night and day in terms of, I would say difficulty, but also in terms of benefit.

Steven Sashen:

And there’s something I find very entertaining when you get out of that water. I mean, you stay in long enough until hey, it feels totally fine, which means you’ve stayed in a little too long and then you get out and the entertaining part is watching your body try to figure out what the temperature is internally and externally. So for a moment you’ll feel hot and then you’re just going to start shivering like crazy and it’s like everything in between. And then you have this insane thought. It’s like, “I got to do that again as soon as possible.”

Brian Keane:

It’s amazing. I remember the first time I ever had that, the after drop is what it’s called. I ran an ultra marathon in the Arctic in 2019, so I was doing a lot of cold water swimming and dives and plunges to try and condition myself for that. But the first time, Steven, I went in, I did 20 minutes and it was October, so it was cold, it was absolutely freezing. I’m not sure what the Fahrenheit equivalent was, but it was about three degrees centigrade.

Steven Sashen:

Yes.

Brian Keane:

Four degrees centigrade.

Steven Sashen:

Basically barely over freezing.

Brian Keane:

I came out feeling like a million dollars. Similar to you. When you get to a 10-minute mark, you’re shaking, shivering, and then your body just becomes acclimatized and you’re like, “Oh, I can do as long as I want.” And then I came out and I got that after drop, I was in my car. I’m not even joking, Steven, a cup of tea. I couldn’t drive the car, I had to turn the heat on full blast. I was like… For half an hour I was like, I’m late for work. I wasn’t able to drive home. And I was like, “Right, we’ll go slow and steady next time. Let’s not jump in and do 20 minutes the second time ever.” So just listen and learn, for anyone who’s listening that wants to do it, maybe start with three, four minutes and build up.

Steven Sashen:

Well, and it was funny, I was noticing I’d start shivering and my jaw doing that shivering thing where my teeth are chattering and I was with my friend Colin and I’m saying, “I can stop it. I can stop all this if I want to for only about 20 seconds, and then it just takes over. It’s uncontrollable.” You just gave me a flashback or this whole thing gave me a flashback. When I was living in New York City, I was doing Aikido with a bunch of very interesting, very crazy people who were trying to break it down and see, does this really work at all, let alone as a fighting art or a martial art or self-defense or whatever it is. And there was this one teacher, his name was Hal Lehrman. Hal was a real estate guy from Brooklyn who was just one of the best Aikido guys I’ve ever met in my life.

And all of us that hung out with in that class with him, we were really just trying to explore this whole thing. Anyway, it’s a February in New York, we finish the class, we all leave, we’re heading to the subway and it’s one of those New York biting, biting, cold days. The wind is blowing, there’s snow on the ground, it’s just a little drizzly. Everyone’s complaining about the cold. And I say something like, I like at times like this to try to just really feel the sensations without attaching a label to the experience. And then it doesn’t really feel as cold and there’s a long pause. And then Hal says, “Yeah, I did that zen shit for 40 years. It’s fucking freezing out here.”

Brian Keane:

Well, there we go. I would’ve said that there’s going to be some Buddhist zen-like response that everyone can take and I’m going to be able to take off the back of the podcast. And I’m like, “No, it’s cold. It’s just freaking cold.”

Steven Sashen:

No, that is the Zen like response. Mountains are mountains, rivers are rivers, New York in February is fucking cold. That is the zen response. But this is an interesting segue. I mean, to go from bodybuilding to triathlons, that’s a unusual path to take. Can you say a little… No, actually… Well, I want to frame this. Can you tell people what your… What’s the word? I tease this with the whole idea that when it comes to exercise, the least important thing might be exercise. Do you want to tell people why I said that? And if that fits in with your story of going into bodybuilding, what that experience was like ’cause most people have a very warped idea about that. And then the transition to what you’re doing now. It’s interesting to me, and this is all about me. So if you could do that, that would be really fun.

Brian Keane:

Yeah, that’s a great question, Steven. You said that right before we went on air and it fits perfectly because what I was attracted to when it came to things like bodybuilding and then triathlon and ultra marathons was more the kind of discipline and mental resilience that came with it as opposed to any of the physical fitness. Now, I had different reasons for going into different things, but when I talk about even fitness and the exercise being the least important thing, which is so true in a lot of cases, I always tell people it’s not the exercise program that’s important, it’s how you’re executing the program that’s important. In a lot of cases, of course there’s nuance within that, and we can go through it, but my journey was a little bit, and I have to tell a bit of a backstory because otherwise the transition into bodybuilding makes less sense.

I used to be an elementary school teacher, so I was living and working in California. I was working with UC Berkeley in Northern Cal as a soccer instructor. And when I was out there, I got a couple of health problems. I was hospitalized a few times with stomach problems and didn’t really know how to fix it. I was given a lot of medications and Western medicine of right, your medicine isn’t working up the dose, it isn’t working up the dose, it isn’t working up the dose. And it got to that point when I was 21, 22 where I thought, “This can’t be it. I can’t go and 10x how much medication I’m taking. I need to look at what’s going on here from a holistic standpoint.” So I started to look into nutrition and that’s what got me interested in that area initially. And fast-forward 18 months, I was able to heal all my gut issues, heal all my health problems with my nutrition by changing up my lifestyle.

And it got me into the space where fitness became a huge part of my life. Now, I ended up working as an elementary school teacher because I thought that was the career path. I was born in a family full of teachers. It was a very safe and secure path, and it wasn’t something that I particularly wanted to do, but it was the path that was laid out before me. And my very first teaching job, I was an elementary school teacher in a third grade in London, and I walked into a job because I was a male teacher, there was a shortage of teachers. I was into sports, so I was able to coordinate physical education in the school and again, had a handpick of jobs. And I was 30 minutes into my very first day of teaching and I thought, “This isn’t what I want to do. This isn’t what I want to do. I’ve spent four years getting a degree a year post-grad, this isn’t what I want to do.”

And I came home that Christmas a couple of months after, and the analogy I used in books and on podcasts was it felt like I spent years climbing a ladder only to realize it was up against the wrong wall. And when I got home that Christmas, my mum was having a conversation with me and I was really low and depressed and just feeling very down that, look, this is my career now and I don’t want to be doing this. This is 8, 10, 12 hours of my day Monday to Friday and I hate it. And she asked a question that I still use to this day, which is 15 years later. She asked, “What would you do for free?” And I thought about that and I was like, “Well, I would work in fitness for free.” I was like, “I love going to the gym. I love working out. I was like, “If I was cleaning the floor in a gym, I’d actually be happier than what I’m doing now.”

And fast-forward, I signed up to a fitness instructor course, personal training course, qualified as a nutritionist, certified as a nutritionist, sports nutritionist, and started working in that space with people. And one of the ways that I tried to separate myself as a personal trainer, one-to-one at the time, was competing in these bodybuilding shows because it was something that was different to what other trainers in the gyms were doing. So I ended up going into bodybuilding, doing really well. I got a pro card in November of 2014, which just means that you can compete for money. And I was traveling around the world as a fitness model doing photo shoots with magazines, things along those lines. I was really unhappy during this time. I was very calorie depleted. I had a terrible disordered eating pattern. I was very strict for six weeks, and then I would look like a Michelin man for two, three weeks when I’ve eaten Ben & Jerry’s for breakfast, lunch and dinner. So whole history and unhealthy patterns there.

Steven Sashen:

Let me make a note. Don’t eat Ben & Jerry’s breakfast, lunch and dinner. That’s going to change my… Okay.

Brian Keane:

Just lunch and dinner. Just lunch and dinner.

Steven Sashen:

Got it. Got it.

Brian Keane:

Breakfast is where the problem is.

Steven Sashen:

The intermittent fasting version of eating Ben & Jerry’s. I got it. Okay.

Brian Keane:

100%. Yeah. And you can’t go wrong with that. No, Ben & Jerry’s is amazing, don’t get me wrong. It’s not to knock on Ben & Jerry’s, it’s literally one of my favorite foods. But breakfast, lunch and dinner, not a good idea. And with bodybuilding, I was competing in that world and it’s a very, for anyone that is even slightly familiar with it, it’s exactly as you’d think. It’s oiled up, muscular dudes and girls depending on the categories, and they’re just on stage getting judged with how they look and getting marked on how big they are, how lean they are, et cetera. Basically like a dog poodle competition for people. Just you’re on stage as the person instead of twirling around doing tricks and jumping up and down.

Steven Sashen:

Wait, wait. I just like the idea of the dog competition, but especially thinking of poodles. Because with poodles, the way they get those topiary, like hairdos, that’s the closest thing to bodybuilding I can think of. So they’ve got the little puff in the bottom, there’s their forearms, they’ve got the little bicep puff, they’ve got the… I mean, oh my God, I never thought of bodybuilders and poodles, but now I won’t be able to ever get that thought out of my head.

Brian Keane:

There you go. And I feel like I’ve identified a spirit animal as a poodle maybe in my bodybuilding days, for sure. So there’s obviously a connection and a tie there somewhere. But I did that for a while and in 2015, my daughter was born, and that was kind of my life changing moment for me. I wanted to just be a better dad. I was walking around tired all the time. I felt really unhealthy, like I was calorie depleted and just brain-dead all the time. And I wrote my first book in 2016, released it in 2017, and that changed everything for me. The Fitness Mindset, spent 16 weeks on the Amazon bestseller list, and it opened up all these doors for me professionally that were previously closed for me. And I had a great 2017 with work, but I started to feel a little bit unfulfilled in other areas of my life.

And that’s how I got into ultras and that’s how I got into triathlon. I was looking for a challenge that I could choose that would give me something to train for directionally that wasn’t going to completely ruin my relationship with food and body image, et cetera. So bodybuilding was out for me. I wasn’t going back into that. And the first ever ultra marathon I signed up for… I know you had an episode with David Clark recently talking about bad water and the level 100, et cetera. Mine was Marathon de Sables which is the six back-to-back marathons through the Sahara Desert. So I signed up for that in August 2017 and started training for that and ran it, well, completed it, ran, walked hobbled the six marathons in April 2018. And that was my first ever transition into that world. And then for 2018, I did Marathon de Sables, 2019, I ran through the 230 kilometers to the Arctic.

And then in 2020 I ran my first a hundred-mile ultra marathon in Nevada at the Jackpot 100. And I’ve been kind of transitioning out now. So I’m doing more martial arts, Muay Thai, things along those lines now because I’ve kind of closed that chapter of my life. But yeah, as I mentioned, training ADHD, I literally jump around in all these different disciplines depending on what I’m curious about, something I recommend to people I work with as well as follow your curiosity, similar to what you mentioned earlier about the enjoyment, what gets you excited, what can you find enjoyment in, and then lean into that. But that’s kind of a long-winded way of how I went from bodybuilding to ultras and triathlon and adventure races.

Steven Sashen:

I like it. And I like where you landed ’cause it’s something I’ve been talking about quite a bit lately, and you’ll appreciate this, I think, I don’t know, we’ll find out. The part of find the thing that you enjoy is critical. And I think people, human beings just in general, we like to imagine what we think we need to be happy in some imagined future. And then we look for someone who seemingly has done that, and then we try to figure out what they did and we want to get a paint by number step-by-step, follow the lead, do what I did plan, but that’s not the way it works. In fact, I’m going to take it out of context into business. Someone approached me years ago and said, “Do you want to pay some ridiculous amount of money to go hang out with Richard Branson on his island?”

And I said, “Why would I want to do that?” And they’re like, “What do you mean? Imagine what you could learn from Richard Branson.” I said, “Oh, I know what I would learn. I’d learn, I’m not Richard Branson, so I can’t do what he did ’cause I don’t think and act and move, do anything like what he did.” In a similar vein, especially when I stopped doing gymnastics when I was 32, I spent the next 10, well, 13 years until I got into sprinting at 45, trying things to see what I enjoyed and what made sense ’cause there were some things that I enjoyed, but there was no value for doing them. Like, I was doing a bunch of weird circus art things that were super fun, but I wasn’t going to be in Cirque du Soleil. And so why am I doing this? Lately I’ve been working out with a trainer. We do the most intense, difficult, super short workouts I’ve ever done in my life. They’re literally the most difficult thing I’ve ever done athletically in my life.

And it’s my favorite thing that I do every week because it matches my personality so perfectly that even though it is literally at the end of 10 minutes, I can’t get off the ground, I’m ecstatic. And I am not suggesting this for everyone, ’cause it’s definitely not. But the point is to find the thing that lights you up that makes you just go, “Ooh, I want to do this again tomorrow. Not because I have to, but because I want to.” Even those days when it’s like, “Oh, I’d rather take a nap, and you still do it and after you did it, you feel good that you did it.” That’s good enough. So that mindset thing, which is why I brought you on here. So in terms of movement, moving what your mind is doing is a thing as well. Let’s jump into that. So talk to me about how you really turned that understanding that you were getting into what became that first book and what you’re doing with human beings. I mean, wherever you want to go with that, frankly.

Brian Keane:

You said something really interesting there, Steven that I want to ask first if you don’t mind, because I’m curious based on the gymnastics, the sprinting and the high intensity stuff that you’re doing now. And I’m curious if this is the same for you, because this is something, I’m 36, 37 at the end of this year, and I’ve been kind of playing around with this idea for the last few years that it’s a season of life thing. There was a time when I needed a very tangible goal, i.e., a race or a competition I was working towards. And now at 35, 36 going into 37, it’s very much an enjoyment, hence why I’m doing Muay Thai and things that I’m enjoying. Did you find that it was a season of life-based or was that always a case of it felt wrong and now that you’re doing something you enjoy, it feels right, or how did that look for you?

Steven Sashen:

I don’t think it’s a season of life thing for me because part of what I enjoy about sprinting is the competition. The reason that I didn’t do any sprint training from college till I was 45 was why, it’s hard? And there’s no good reason for doing… Now, the joke that I have about masters track and field, especially the sprints, but pretty much all the masters track and field athletes that I’ve ever met, we’re all typically at an age where we know that being this competitive is stupid. We are also old enough to realize that’s the way it is. And we’re working really hard, frankly, once you get past about 45 depending on the event you’re in. But for sprinting, once you get past about 40, it’s just a question of how slow can you slow down? ’cause you’re going to get slower, but you just want to slow down how you get slower. For me, I’m a masters All-American, all that means is I’ve hit the 60 or the hundred below a certain time, and that time changes every five years.

My goal is just to keep hitting that All-American time. My stretch goal, if you will, is to hit the All-American time for someone 5 to 10 years younger than me. And so that’s motivating for me. That gets me out of bed. And I also enjoy the training. It’s difficult. There’s something about that particular type of burst training that matches the way my brain works. And on the lifting that I’m doing now, there’s all of that, plus some of what I’m doing is explicitly for becoming a better sprinter, and some of it is for building some more muscle mass because that’s connected to longevity. And some of it is undeniably for vanity. I like it when I am changing my clothes and my wife goes, “Oh.” I like it when I’m hanging out with people and I tell them I’m 62. And they go, “Sorry, what?” And so I like it when people say, “Geez, you’re in really good shape.” And I’m thinking, “Not quite, but okay.” I’ll take it. So that’s the combination that… And some of that I would actually… I’m going to change my answer somewhat.

Some of that may be life stage, but some of it might just be the serendipity of finding all these things at this time in my life. And what I mean about the first part of that is I wasn’t working quite as hard to find a workout program beyond sprinting that really fit me that I really liked. I mean, I’ve got a great home gym. I do stuff every time I walk by it most of the time, but I never was able to put out the effort to really turn it into something that I would do. In part because for the last 15 years I’ve been running Xero Shoes and I just didn’t have the brain space to do it. So some of that fits into your cycle of life component, and we can start singing Hakuna Matata, and some of it is just the serendipity of all these things lining up at the right time.

Brian Keane:

That makes so much sense. And it’s interesting because what you mentioned there about Xero Shoes and the capacity, that’s what happened to me after I wrote the first book, was I had more money than I had been making in a very, very long time up until that point, and I had a lot of time. I had a lot of free time because the opportunities that had opened up for me were very highly leveraged. There were speaking appearances, higher ticket offers for programming and I had all this time that I thought I actually need to go and physically challenge myself. And it’s interesting you mentioned there, and it’s slightly opposite to my story when it came to what I enjoyed. I am very vocal on my podcast and channels about how much I hate running, but I do ultra marathons. I’m very vocal. I love having ran, but I hate running. The process of running. I’m not built to run. I’m five foot eight… Go on.

Steven Sashen:

I’m not a runner. I’m a sprinter.

Brian Keane:

And like you, I’m built to sprint. I’m five foot eight, a 175 pounds, about 83 kilos, 175, imagine. Someday. Someday. Fingers crossed some days. I’m built like a little hobbit. I’m not built for these long distance 100-mile ultra marathons. But what I loved about those challenges was they forced me to do things that I wasn’t good at. And it humbled me a lot and I found it made me a better person in other areas of my life. Because when you go into fitness areas where you feel like you’re running downhill for the metaphor, i.e., bodybuilding, for me, I look at a weight I put on muscle. I’m genetically gifted for that. But if I stop running for a week and I try and run a 5K, I’m out of breath. It kills me because I’m not built for that.

Steven Sashen:

Well, so here’s the part we have in common. Power athletes in general don’t have good VO2 max.

Brian Keane:

Yeah.

Steven Sashen:

But the flip side is, I would argue, even though you don’t like running, but having run, the part that you like is the finding and adopting a challenge. And so for you, it was finding a thing that I need to figure out how to get good at, even though I don’t have a propensity for it. And for me, it’s been just finding the thing that I just have the propensity for ’cause I have no interest in trying to buck the tide. And maybe that is a cycle of life thing ’cause I try to buck… I mean, I want to learn new things. I want to learn to do stuff I haven’t done before.

I just had… Wait, what the hell was it? I just had one that just happened where I went, “Ooh, I got to do that.” And now I can’t remember what the hell it was. Anyway, it’ll pop back in my head at some point. So there’s always things that I want to do, but I’m very clear that I don’t want to suffer for the sake of suffering. If I’ve got a good goal in mind, I’ll put myself through it. But if I’m doing it because the goal is this imaginary happiness at the end, not because I want to pursue the goal and see what that’s like, I’m not going to do that.

Brian Keane:

Yeah, I call it in one of the books the I’ll be happy when fallacy. I was probably the king of that I’ll be happy when fallacy. Oh my God, that is a life hack in, I know that’s been a completely bastardized term, but if ever there was a life technique or hack, it’s knowing that that’s not a real thing, that I’ll be happy when.

Steven Sashen:

Yeah. Do you know the book Stumbling on Happiness?

Brian Keane:

Yeah, great book. Dan Gilbert. Yeah.

Steven Sashen:

Yeah, yeah. I mean, for people who haven’t read it, I highly recommend it. But the premise of the book in a nutshell is that every thought we have is some version of I’ll be happy when. We’re horrible at predicting, I’ll be happy when, and being correct. We’re even worse at remembering how bad we are at predicting it. And we think we’re special ’cause we think if a million people that we interviewed got what we thought would make us happy and they’re no happier, we’d still go, “Yep. But if I got that…” And his recommendation for getting over it and I want to hear how much this was yours or what you did differently was go meet as many people as you can who’ve gotten it. And once you find out that ain’t it, when that thought arises, it’s not that it’s going to stop, but when it arises, you’re going to have a hard time believing it.

Brian Keane:

One of the stories that I think the universe sent me in my college days that I never appreciated until I was older in life was exactly as you said there. And the language I’ve used in my own dialogue was, when you speak to those people who are in the position you want to be in, you have to understand the cost they paid to be there and are you willing to pay that cost? And I remember in our twenties, and we were on what was a J1 in California at the time, we were in Berkeley University right before I got my job there a couple of years later, and we were on the night out, and I think in the states it’s called slightly different, but we were basically out on the pull, where you’d go out chatting to girls, me and my friend, and that was all we were doing. Irish guys, Irish accent going into night-clubbing-

Steven Sashen:

Oh man, you’re shooting fish in a barrel.

Brian Keane:

It was the best thing ever. Literally all you’d have to do, Steven, sometimes was ask what the time was and the accent would open the door for you. And as long as you had any sort of wit about you at all, you were fine. But his line was, and I remember we’d be chatting and we’d be looking at really attractive girls on the other side of the bar and we’d be talking to them for 5, 10 minutes and he would always ask, “Is the juice worth the squeeze?” And that was his line. And it’s basically a representation or are you willing to pay the cost for the people who are in the position of where you want to be? And I never connected with that at 2021 that I now do in my 30s, but I think it’s applicable across timelines.

Steven Sashen:

You want to hear something… This is something, I don’t think I’ve ever talked about this publicly. Not that it’s a secret, but I’ve never talked about it publicly ’cause why would I? And you’ll see what I mean in a second. I got that lesson when I was 15, maybe 14. I was at summer camp and I was sick, and so was my best friend. And there was a guy also in the infirmary who was the dishwasher who was a few years older than us. And my friend was super obsessed with sex and said, “So have you had sex?” And the guy says, “Yeah, I have.” And my friend’s like, “Oh my God, was it great?” He goes, “No.” He said, “What? What happened? Was it someone… Was she really hot?” “No.” “Wait, what?” “Well, we were friends, our parents were out of town. We thought, Hey, what the heck?” And then he started to say something and for whatever reason, I felt like my brain just opened up and I knew what he’s going to say next is going to be really, really important.

And he said, “Here’s the thing I can tell you about sex. If you have it with someone you really like, it can make you closer. If you have it with someone that you don’t really like or know, it can make you much more distant. And it’s not enjoyable to be like that.” And I was a stand-up comic for 10 years, where similarly, there was lots of opportunities. And I actually did say to one woman who was hitting on me, and I’m usually oblivious to that happening, I’ve been told that I’m a complete idiot when it comes to women being interested in me. And I said to her, I said, “Yeah, I’m not really interested in doing this thing now when we’re going to wake up tomorrow and have that awkward silence.” And so she said, “What are you talking about?” I said, “Don’t worry about it.” And then we just went to sleep. In the morning, we wake up and there’s an awkward silence, and when she meets my eyes, I went, that’s what I was talking about.

Brian Keane:

Wow. I feel there’s so many myself included in past timelines and past versions of myself that needed that message, Steven. I have a weekend plan now, and now I’m going to question everything I do and all the decisions I make ahead of that weekend based on what you just told me.

Steven Sashen:

Didn’t mean to ruin your weekend.

Brian Keane:

You made it better. You probably made it better. I feel like the higher version of myself. Well, thank you.

Steven Sashen:

Okay, good. All right, so this was a big tangent, as I tend to take people on, we talked way back when about not the what, but the how when it comes to exercise, and we’re talking about mindset things and how… Again, if you can, what was it that sort of snapped you out of believing the I’ll be happy when part and let’s feed into the work that you’ve actually been doing. What it means so people can understand what it is that you’ve figured out, if you want to call it that. That’s a hard way of phrasing it, but it’s all I’ve got and how that works when you’re working with humans.

Brian Keane:

Yeah. I remember when it happened. It was 2015, I was backstage at the WBFF World’s Fitness Model Championships, which is basically where they bring all the top fitness models in the world and it’s just a bodybuilding competition, and I was chatting to people, I had been following online for years who I thought had made it. They had millions of followers. I thought they were doing amazing, and I was chatting to them backstage and one in particular, he was miserable. He was miserable. And I’m like, “Jesus, you aren’t at all the person that I follow online. I’m like, you’re actually really unhappy.” And he was giving out about that he wasn’t making enough money. His drug bill was really high, and I didn’t realize that was a whole subsection of that world and in terms of the extremity, and I remember thinking, “I wouldn’t swap positions with you.” And that was a bit of a wake-up call for me. I did that competition. I ended up coming eight, so top 10 in the world, which worked well for marketing outside of it and all that other stuff, but I was done.

I did that show and I was out and that’s what made me question the I’ll be happy when, sometimes switching positions, and something I’ve said regularly is generally don’t take advice from people you wouldn’t switch positions with. Again, that’s 99% of the time, there’s always going to be 1% where somebody can offer really good advice and you wouldn’t switch, but 99% of the time it can be really useful as a filtering process. And that made me look at my ladder against the right wall analogy. And when I was teaching, I used the example area that I felt like I had spent years climbing a ladder, but I was up against the wrong wall. Something that I never questioned was when I’m climbing a ladder, stopping and going, “Am I enjoying this process? Am I enjoying this?” It’s the old Buddha quote, “How do you expect to be happy at a destination if you’re not happy on the journey?” And now when I’m making decisions, I’ll set the end goal and I’m all for big goals. I think people should have big goals, body composition, weight loss, sprinting, gymnastics, business relationships have big goals.

Life is for living and you should live your life, but you also have to ask the question and you enjoying this process and is this something what you really want to do? I.e., os the juice worth the squeeze? Is what you’re giving up and sacrificing worth it? ‘Cause sometimes the answer is yes, and then sometimes the answer is no. In the case of different conversations with your spouse or your loved ones or your kids, I have my daughter and you’ll have difficult conversations because I want her to show up in the world in a certain way and make sure she’s kind and respectful and has worked for herself. So sometimes there’s difficult conversations around that when she’s upset because somebody has said something externally. But checking in with that and checking in with what your values are, your junk values versus true values can be really helpful. But also giving yourself permission to change your mind.

I think confirmation bias is a big thing where people will just confirm their own best luck beliefs and they’ll say, “Well, I need to get this thing and I’ll be happy.” And you just keep going down that path. And sometimes you have to give yourself permission to change your mind. Don’t quit because something’s difficult. Sometimes you have to take a rest and persevere and go through one step back for two steps forward. But also don’t be afraid to quit if you just find your ladders up against the wrong wall.

Steven Sashen:

Yeah, you answered the question that brought up was, in terms of, if the juice isn’t worth the squeeze, don’t necessarily do it, but things are not always swimmingly simple. So I was going to say, what percentage, and it’s a silly question, but I’m going to ask it anyway, it’s like what percentage of difficulty would you endure? Not necessarily even because you’re believing this thought about I’ll be happy when, but just because that’s just comes with the territory. It reminds me there was some actor I wish I could remember who, who said, “There’s nothing better than getting paid for what I used to love.” And it’s an interesting thing line ’cause it’s a little glib and it’s not like there aren’t times where he loves what he’s doing. And when you doing it for a living, it’s different than just doing it.

Brian Keane:

It’s really deep question as well. That’s a great quote and a great line actually to search what was after-Yeah, it is. I really like that. In terms of the percentage, it’s interesting ’cause something I’ve changed my mind about going back to give yourself permission to change your mind is sometimes difficult things can be nourishing and sometimes difficult things that can be depleting. And what I mean by that is generally I factor most things in my life through asking the question, will this thing nourish me or will this thing deplete me? The job tasks I choose, the projects I work on, the people I spend time with, the people who are in my inner circle, my friends, my family, et cetera, most of those things, sometimes they can be difficult, but they’re ultimately nourishing. And a workout is a great metaphor for this. Sometimes people go into the gym, you know this from your timid workouts where you’re exhausted beforehand, you’re tired, you’re mentally tired, you’re confusing physical and mental tiredness, and you’re like, “Oh, I don’t really feel like this.”

You do your timid workout and then your energy level is skyrocket. So the thing that you were going against actually nourished you and gave you more energy. And sometimes the things in life are a little bit like that. The difficult conversations, the difficult things you do, like writing books. I’m working on my fifth book at the minute, and they are soul-destroying in the editing phase, every single time. I feel like, and again, for women listening, they’re going to hate me, but one of my ex-partners used to always tell me that when I was writing books, she used to think it was like childbirth. She’s like, every time you forget how bad it is, every single time.

Steven Sashen:

It’s just like going to Costco on Sundays.

Brian Keane:

You’re just like, “Oh, it’s fine. Yeah, Sunday’s the day to go. It’s handy.” And then you rock in and you’re like, “Never again. Never again. Why am I here on a Sunday again?”

Steven Sashen:

Exactly. Yeah.

Brian Keane:

Sorry, go on.

Steven Sashen:

No, keep going, please.

Brian Keane:

No, I was just going to say, books are a bit like that, but you know that it’s going to open doors, it’s going to give you royalties, it’s going to give you financial freedom down the line. So sometimes the initial difficulty is worth it in the long term.

Steven Sashen:

Well, let’s be clear. You know that because you now have a history that allows this to be the case. If it’s your first book, who the hell knows? If it’s your second book after the first book didn’t happen, who the hell knows? So this is one of those things where someone asked me the other day, “What’s my best business advice?” I said, “Go to a bookstore, buy every book on the shelf they have about business. If there’s more than one, buy them all. Then take them out in the parking lot and light them on fire because it’s just not going to be like that. That’s all a confirmation bias and hindsight bias.”

So point being… And the reason for that in part is if you open up all those books and read the advice one book’s going to conflict the next which will conflict the first, which will make up a third thing, which would… It’s like just again, all confirmation bias and hindsight bias. Now it’s appropriate that we are still talking philosophically, and we haven’t talked about working with humans in actual fitness things since mindset is the key, does it make sense to bridge that gap at this point?

Brian Keane:

Yeah, 100%. I think given the overarching theme and the idea can be useful as a foundation because when you’re given the practical tips, you have that underlying knowledge, that pyramid of prioritization on, right, this is the overarching idea. When it comes to actually working with humans, and I do, like, one to one with people, coaching, and you see that the problems tend to be the same, just the language is different. People tend to struggle with very similar things. It’s just they use different language first. So sabotage is a big thing. Not being able to set a realistic goal, not focusing on the mini wins, pressing what I call the fuck it button when they go off a little bit off track.

So nutrition is big where someone will go off plan on a Saturday and then they press the fuck it button and go, “Okay, I’m just going to go off plan for the rest of the weekend and I’ll start back again on Monday.” The myth of magic Monday and all these principles, and now I have confirmation bias and availability bias based on the area that I work in where but people tend to have very similar problems when it comes to the mindset, they’re just using different language to describe it.

Steven Sashen:

So do you want to break some of those down? I mean, self-sabotage is one that I find interesting because I don’t agree with that as a concept. In other words, and feel free to tell me if you think I’ve got my head up my butt about this one, but in my mind, if you… Well, it just occurred to me I have to do it in a different way. So back to your point about not setting realistic goals. If you’re not setting a realistic goal, the thing you’re doing can’t be self-sabotage, it’s actually probably smart. It’s probably some semi-conscious recognition that you were a boneheaded about the goal part. But either way, and let’s say you set a realistic goal, what seems to me to be the case is that you have some probably unexamined belief that just conflicts with something either that you’re doing or that’s happening as a result of what you’re doing.

And so you’re actually acting in what you think are your own best interests, even if they may not be. And the reason, I mean, that might sound just semantic, but I like to think it that way because the idea of self-sabotage, it’s almost like you have an evil inner twin who’s just trying to mess with you, versus you have an evil inner someone looking out for your best interest who may just be a little misinformed. Like, look, every bit of advice my father gave me was complete bullshit, but he meant well, he just didn’t know who I was. He just didn’t understand my brain. He was giving me suggestions that for him would’ve made sense and would’ve changed his life. For me, they just had no application whatsoever. And when I finally realized he’s doing the best he can to give me his best advice, then I could listen to it and just say, “No, I appreciate that. Yeah, I’m going to go do this instead.”

And it’s a bit of a shame that he died about eight years ago ’cause he would’ve been just giddy with the fact that I proved him wrong with what’s happening with business. Actually, he’d be jealous, but he’d also be giddy that he got to be jealous. So it looks like you may have to take the self-sabotage and realistic goals combine to talk about that for people to understand what you’re thinking and what the remedy is.

Brian Keane:

Yeah, it’s a great point. Steven. I think they tie really well together, and I agree with you up to a point, and this is where I feel it will slightly verge off in terms of opinion based on my experience and feel free to push back in the different direction, is with the people I work with generally and what I see, and the first book, and again, just to break it down, because the whole way I wrote that, and it’s not a plug for the book, I’m a believer some people should read books similar to what the business, what you said there. Every fitness book is going to have similar ideas, whether it’s mine or somebody else’s. So if you want to read it, read it. If you don’t, it’s fine.

Steven Sashen:

Ah, I’ll read it.

Brian Keane:

I’ll tell you what’s in it here. Like, I broke down that book into two sections. So it’s called the Fitness Mindset. The first section was fitness, so everything you need to know about basic training, movement, nutrition, sleep, alcohol, hydration. The second section was the mindset side, so setting the realistic goals, self-sabotaging, dealing with anxiety, dealing with the worry, dealing with setbacks, failure as feedback. But my clients at the time, and I was a one-to-one personal trainer in a gym. When that book came out, most of my clients knew what to do. They knew they should lift weights, they knew they should move more, knew they should eat more fruit and vegetables, good proteins, complex carrots, healthy fats, but they couldn’t stick to a plan.

They kept falling off track. And when it came to the self-sabotage, what I found there was always an underlying issue. There was either a self-worth issue, a self-confidence issue, a self-respect issue. There was something underneath it that people were struggling with, and there was normally a worthiness where they didn’t think they deserved to get it, or they just genuinely didn’t have the education on how to do it. They were doing what they thought was right, and it actually ended up being wrong, i.e., going in and going across… Go on.

Steven Sashen:

Well, no, I want to, ’cause I think we’re on the same page. I just want to do this and see where you go with this. I think that referring to something as a self-worth thing doesn’t give people any agency. What you said afterwards, like, “Oh, I believe I don’t deserve it.” That’s a thought, you can actually investigate and see why you think that, what that means, what that could do, and see if there’s any truth to it, because deserve, of course, implies there’s some external something letting you know whether it’s okay or not. So that’s an interesting one. When people call it self-worth such an amorphous concept that what do you do with that? But I have the belief that I don’t deserve to be, fill in the blank. It’s like, oh, that’s something I can work with.

Brian Keane:

That is one of the most common things I’ve seen with people is it’s belief systems. Like, fitness and nutrition aren’t overly complicated for the most part, like, eat more real food, eat less processed food, move more, sleep well and hydrate, drink water, good clean water, those four things, you’re going to get 80% of the results you want with most fitness goals, assuming you’re not trying to be a professional bodybuilder, All-American sprinter, et cetera. Unless you have an extreme high level goal, but for most people it’s going to be helpful. What isn’t is that underlying belief system of I don’t feel like I deserve to have this or emotionally eating, comfort eating are big areas that I focus on with people. A lot of people struggle with that, and that tends to come back to internal, and again, it’s woo woo terms and I hate using them sometimes, but self-love, self-worth, self-respect, that umbrella of actually how you feel about yourself. And I don’t want to go too esoteric with that, but-

Steven Sashen:

No, you’re not going esoteric. I think you’re on it, which is that those are the words that people are using, but what you said about the language of it and the beliefs, like, even the thing of emotional eating or comfort eating, it’s like, I’ll describe it this way and tell me if this resonates with you, with anyone for you or anyone you worked with. I was doing some stuff with a friend of mine who was saying he was having some problems with drinking, and I said, “So the last time you went on a little drinking binge, let’s try to play the film really slowly.” And by the way, this is not advice for anybody who’s listening. This is just a specific situation. Take it as a story. If you think I’m full of shit, I totally get it, but I’m just going to tell the story. This is what happened in this situation.

So I said, “Let’s play the film really slowly. Before you grab the bottle, what was going on?” He said, “I had a huge fight with my wife.” I went, “Okay, so between the huge fight and grabbing the bottle, what were you thinking? And play it frame by frame.” He’s like, “I was thinking, ‘I can’t stand this anymore.'” And I said, “Cool. And then you had the idea that getting the drink would do what?” He goes, “It would just calm that all down and make everything okay.” I said, “And let’s not take it too far. After you had the first however many drinks, did it seem to make it okay?” He goes, “Yeah.” I said, “Cool. Let’s back up a half a step. Now, let’s go forward half a step. Was it really okay? The effects of the drink?” He goes, “No.”

I said, “Okay, cool. Now let’s back up a half a step. You can’t take it anymore. Is that even true? I mean that you couldn’t take it.” And thinks about it for a second, he goes, “No, I mean, I’m an adult. I could take it. I just didn’t like it.” I said, “So your drinking was all based on I can’t take it anymore and now can you force yourself to believe that? Now that you’ve just looked at that thought?” He goes, “No, that was completely bullshit.” Didn’t see the guy for six months. I said, “How are you doing?” He goes, “Haven’t had a drink in six months.” I said, “Still having fights with your wife?” He goes, “Yeah, once a week.”

Brian Keane:

Steven, there’s genius in what you’ve just said there, and it’s a thought pattern interrupt and it’s nearly identical. Like what you were saying that I was nodding here for people who aren’t watching the video, because I’ve had that conversation hundreds of times over the years. It’s normally with people with food is, you’re reverse engineering. You reacted and had a reaction to this thing, fight with a loved one, your boss shouted at you, stressful day, et cetera. You had this feeling or story that was playing out as a narrative in your head, i.e., “I can’t take this, I’m fed up. I’m sick of this.” And your reaction was to use a coping mechanism, in this case with alcohol, in some of the cases I’ve used, most of them was food.

And you’re breaking that thought pattern in between, you’re just putting a stop gate in between and bringing a little bit of emotional intelligence and awareness to that feeling in that moment so that you can rewrite that story and tell a new narrative. So you’re not using that coping mechanism every time you have a fight with your loved one or you feel stress or your boss shouts at you. And it sounds like a small thing, but like your friend, it’s everything. It’s literally everything. If you can get to that and you can really get someone to check in with that and they get the… You’ll see it. It’s what I call the oh fuck moment where they go, “Oh fuck”. And when they have that, you know you have it, and then that can compound positively over time.

Steven Sashen:

I love it. And so we started with this, we kind of went back to it. So again, we’re talking about the how rather than the what, ’cause everyone knows the what. Now we can clarify that there are a lot of different what’s we already said. Basically find the what that works for you. But the how is this mindset part. So out of, I think you said there were sort of five of those things you identified, what have we not touched on?

Brian Keane:

In which respect? In which of the five?

Steven Sashen:

So self-sabotage, realistic goals, oh, mini wins. What were the… I can’t remember the other ones.

Brian Keane:

Yeah, mini wins, failure is feedback and they’re kind of the main principles. I think they all tie together. So if you’ve got your setting realistic expectations, and again, have a massive goal, but just adjust a timeline. I don’t think most goals are realistic in particularly with body composition of not everyone’s going to be an Olympic sprinter, but for body composition, building muscle weight loss, et cetera, most goals are just a timeline that needs to be adjusted.

Steven Sashen:

Wait, I’m going to pause on that one. That is so, so good. ‘Cause I hear that also when people say, “Hey, I want to run a marathon barefoot in three weeks.” Like, “Whoa, no, no, no.” But I also noticed, look at 62, I’m not putting on mass the way I did when I was 22 and I’ve basically, I didn’t have a goal about this to begin with, but lately it’s been coming up. It’s like I’m giving this a good year and a half before I have anything that I want to measure. I mean, things are changing in the interim, but slowly. So that one… I mean, this is going to sound funny.

If you talk to people about starting a business, they go, “Write out your business plan, then double the expenses and half the revenue that you’re projecting.” I think people need to start doing that for fitness. Double the amount of effort, half the results minimum. And in fact, I did a talk for the small business administration. I said, “Don’t even do the double your expenses and half the results ’cause whatever you write down, it’ll just cost twice as much and make you half as much no matter what you write down.” And if people just did that around the fitness because people think, you probably deal with this back to the having realistic expectations, people don’t realize the limitations or opportunities of their genetics. It’s like, “I want to look like that guy.” That guy is a genetic freak who doesn’t produce myostatin. You are, fill in the blank.

Brian Keane:

It’s interesting, and I agree completely because straight away I feel that question is broken when somebody goes and a hard no for me, ’cause people that I work with one-to-one they have to apply to come into a program is when somebody sends me a photo and go, “I want to look like that person.” It’s normally a hard no, but I will send a question back going, “Look, there is absolutely no way. I don’t even know what you look like now. All I can tell you is we’re not going to look, because that’s not you. You’re a different person completely.” But genetics are one of the things I tell people. Now, again, if you want to be LeBron James, NBA basketballer, Olympic sprinter, professional bodybuilder, yes, genetics play a huge role. They’re literally the thing that separate those top 1, 2% of people. But body composition, weight loss, fat loss, building muscle, genetics normally doesn’t determine the results, it determines the speed. That’s an important thing to look into.

Steven Sashen:

Okay. I mean, I would say there’s speed bumps and limiters along the way as well. I mean, look back to you and me, we’re never going to have the VO2 max to be able to just crank out a 10K and not breathe hard.

Brian Keane:

But anyone can complete a marathon-

Steven Sashen:

Correct.

Brian Keane:

… but it might take them five years to train for it.

Steven Sashen:

Right. And you’re not going to be setting a world record.

Brian Keane:

Exactly.

Steven Sashen:

When I got back into sprinting without knowing anything, I was thinking, “I can’t wait to win races.” My goal changed to, I just want to keep hitting All-American times. And when I show up at the starting line, I’m 5’5 on a tall day, and the guys that I’m racing are big buff dudes. I just want to be the guy who shows up and everyone goes, “What’s he doing here?” And then I beat them and they go, “What just happened?” So that one I can pull off most of the time. But yeah, a whole different game.

Brian Keane:

I love that. And there’s something in there that I want to pull out for people just in case they didn’t pick it up the first time, Steven, that you need to have what your version of winning looks like. Has a great line that, “You play stupid games, win stupid prizes,” and going into try and win a marathon-

Steven Sashen:

Sorry, I love that line. Okay.

Brian Keane:

It’s great. It is. I live my entire life by it. It’s a brain tattoo for me. But if you’ve never ran a marathon, you’re not going to break a world record on your first one in three months, you’re just not. But if your goal is to complete a marathon, because you can run 5K now, 10K now, and you want to run one in six months or eight months or 12 months, and the goal is completing it within four and a half hours because you have a good 5K, 10K time, that’s a really realistic target for you if you work with a structured program to it. And that means you’ve set yourself up to win, even though you technically didn’t win the marathon, but you’ve hit your goal. And I think your version of coming up to the sprint line and beating those guys who are like, “What’s he doing here?” And then wonder what happened. That’s a beautiful version of that.

Steven Sashen:

It’s a fun one. Okay, so back to the other things. Many wins, failures is feedback, what else did I miss? Let’s do those and then whatever else I forgot.

Brian Keane:

Yeah, failures is feedback I think is more of, again, an abstract idea, but I think with fitness it’s so important because as entrepreneurs, as business owners, you know this with Xero Shoes you have to use, because there’s failures. There’s no avoiding failures in business, there’s no avoiding failures in life, but there’s no avoiding failures in business. But what you can do is learn from them and you can make sure, and Charlie Munger has got great lines. I love the late Charlie Munger, Warren Buffett’s business partner, “If I just know where I’m going to die, I just won’t go there.” And that’s a good approach on the front end where he talks about doing pre-mortems on things. People do post-mortems when they’ve made mistakes, sometimes you can do a pre-mortem and a pre-mortem and fitness is really good. What are the things that if I did now and I continually do in terms of my daily habits, will stop me hitting my goal?

Well, okay, I’m having four bars of Snickers every night, or I’m having the half a bag of Oreos in front of the television and four beers, I want lose 20 pounds. That habit straight away isn’t going to help me. And I’m not saying you to cut that out completely, but you scale it back. So you’re identifying what are the things you’re doing now, but you’re also on the flip side going, “Right, what have I done in the past that didn’t support me and how can I learn from that so I don’t make the same mistake going forward?” We learn that as entrepreneurs, we learn that as business owners because if you don’t want to go out of business. It’s a survivorship bias that we mentioned earlier with the business books. The survivorship bias, the people who have written the books have survived. Sometimes there’s luck, sometimes they were genuinely, there’s good messages in them, sometimes there’s a combination of both. Fitness is similar. You are looking for the things that what can you do that are going to help you move to the goal.

When you fall off track, how can you not have that happen again or not have it happen in the same extreme and you’re constantly moving forward. It’s one step back, two steps forward, one step back, three steps forward. That’s what fitness is like. Weight loss is like that, body composition, muscle building is like that. Anything in that space, running a marathon is like that. There’ll be days when you are smashing a 20K and then you twist your ankle or you get a stress fracture and you have to scale it back and you know, right, “I can’t ramp up to 20K that fast again. Next time I do a marathon prep, I actually need to build a gradually.” I get tendinopathy ankles. I tore my Achilles in the Arctic. So that’s something that still flares up for me when I’m doing normal marathon training, if I ramp it up too quickly. So I know I can’t go from 5K to 20K, I have to go 5K to 7K, 7 to 9 over the space of several weeks.

Steven Sashen:

Or don’t run to the Arctic.

Brian Keane:

Yeah, wait, that’s a good lesson for anybody here is, don’t go into the Arctic, don’t tear your achilles up there and then drag your leg behind you for 86 kilometers. But you get good podcasts out of it, you get good stories out of it. So yeah, it wasn’t all bad.

Steven Sashen:

And many wins, which is related to that.

Brian Keane:

Many wins. The analogy I use for building confidence is like legs on a table that when you have a table with one leg in the middle of it’s very easy to knock that table. Confidence is very similar like that for people. When you set small targets for yourself and small mini wins, it’s like adding small legs to that table. And then over time you have this table that’s quite hard to knock. That’s why it’s so important at the start of a new journey to surround yourself with good people because if people are knocking you and your confidence is low, that’s when people fall off track. New business venture, new relationship, new marathon goal, new running program, new body composition goal. When people are like, “Ah, you can’t be doing that. That’s not what you do, it’s what other people do.” That can sink in early on because you have no proof, you have no evidence, you have no confidence to support…

People can say that to me. And it’s funny, I’ve had that. I remember I was sitting in the sauna about six months ago, Steven, and I was chatting, so I’m quite a big guy. I quite bodybuildery by design. I get leaner when I’m training for ultramarathons, but I’m quite big otherwise. And I was in the sauna talking to a guy and he goes, “What are you training for?” And I was like, “Oh, I’m training for an ultramarathon.” He goes, “There’s no way you’ll be able to run an ultramarathon.” He’s like, “There’s no way.” He goes, “You’re too big.” And I was like, “Okay, well, I name off the nine that I’ve done already.” And it was just that kind of… I was sitting there going, “Wow, if that was the beginning of the journey. I would’ve believed him and gone, ‘Yeah, Jesus, maybe you’re right.’ But I have enough evidence now to say that that’s not true.” And everybody is in a version of that. When they’re starting something new, sometimes you have to borrow the confidence from a trainer or from other people and it’s really important.

But you have that legs on a confidence table and you’re setting these small wins, and marathon training is a great representation of this. If you’ve never ran a marathon and you ran your first ever 5K and you nearly died, which is a very common experience for a lot of runners, And then you build up and you run 5K quite comfortably, and before you know what, you’re at 6, 7, 8, then you build up to a 10K and then you get to a half-marathon. You can’t go from 1K to 21K overnight. You can, but you’d be really sore and you’d probably do it really slowly. But if you build up to it gradually and set those little mini milestones of, okay, I want to run 5K and then I want to be able to build up to a 6K, and then 10K is my next target.

When I started training for Marathon de Sables, and I had never ran, Steven, before this. I was an athlete, so I sprinted. I was a sprinter, I sprinted in high school and I played football, Gaelic football, which is our national sport, like a mixture between American football and basketball, you might’ve seen it when you were in Dublin, and I played that sport, but I’d never ran more than 5K. And the first time I ever ran, it was two kilometers at the end of my bodybuilding workout, and I nearly got sick. I nearly spewed everywhere because I just wasn’t conditioned for that, wasn’t built for it. And I thought, “Oh my God, six marathons in the Sahara is 250 kilometers over six days.” I was like, “I’m actually getting sick after two.” I was like, “How am I going to do more than this?” But pyramid of prioritization, I said, “Right. There’s no point worrying about running six marathons if I can’t run one.” So I signed up for the Dubai Marathon in January and from August until January, all my training built up to that single marathon, and then that gave me the confidence.

I completed that and then was able to go on and do the six. Now, I’m not saying for people to do six back-to-back marathons, but it’s relative. Your goal might be a marathon, it might be a half-marathon, might be 20 pounds, 50 pounds, 100 pounds, goal is all relative. But you need to set these small wins along the way so that you’re building up that confidence in yourself so that when you end up hitting the goal, it just basically becomes another step on that journey.

Steven Sashen:

I said this to someone yesterday. It just came out of my mouth, and maybe I heard it from somebody else before. I said, “Confidence comes from competence.” And the only way you could build competence is by doing it, just like you said. In fact, when I became an All-American gymnast, I was perplexed that people were congratulating me because it was basically a plan that my coach and I set in motion two years earlier. And so all we did was we stuck to the plan with the various detours along the way and obstacles, but we hit the plan. So there was nothing to congratulate me for. We just did it, which people didn’t really understand that. But the other one is if you haven’t built up that competence yet and someone says to you, “You’re crazy, you can’t do it.” My response is, “I think that too sometimes. You may be right.”

Brian Keane:

Yeah, yeah.

Steven Sashen:

‘Cause if you’re a business person, if you’re starting a new venture, it doesn’t matter about business, for anything. If you don’t acknowledge the simple fact that you have doubts, that becomes a bit of a problem as well. And they may be true, they may not. Someone asked me about mindset for business. I said, “The only thought that you need to have is maybe. All the rest is superfluous, but maybe. And then you kind of take it from there.”

Brian Keane:

It’s really interesting as well to add on that, because I think personality type comes into play here too, because you do have, and there was times in my life I was a little bit more fiery in my twenties. I had a little bit of a more fuck you, I’ll show you attitude, which can be really useful. Again, it’s kind of like fire as an analogy. Fire is great and it can light up your house, but it can also burn the fucking thing down. So you have to be very mindful of how you use that negativity and anger and hate as fuel. But some people will gravitate towards that and it can be really helpful. Others, it will completely knock them where they’ll think, “Oh yeah, you’re right. I can’t do that.” And the right way is probably in the middle where you’re just like, “Yeah, maybe you’re right. We’ll see. We’ll keep following the path and we’ll see what happens.”

Steven Sashen:

We’ll see. Yeah, you’re completely crazy. I think that too sometimes. And typically if you respond that way, honestly, that way the other person says, “Yeah, me too.”

Brian Keane:

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, the people you’re connecting with and vibing with, they’re like, “Yeah, you’re right. I’m like that as well.”

Steven Sashen:

Yeah, when I started my thing, I thought it was going to be a failure, and then it was and then the next one wasn’t. And then the third one I thought was going to be a success and I was wrong. So yeah, I found it very… The other one I do with people who are seemingly successful is I say, “How much of your success was due to things completely out of your control?” And then they go… They can’t stop talking.

Brian Keane:

Yeah, that list is endless.

Steven Sashen:

That list is endless. And that’s one that people don’t appreciate. I mean, especially if you’ve been successful in the past, the worst thing that can happen is you get a new idea and it feels like the first one, and it’s like, “Ooh, yeah, that’s dangerous.”

Brian Keane:

Yeah. Well, that’s the thing that over confidence is a big thing. A little bit of success is like a drug, and you always have to realize, or well questioning question to myself or bring it back to myself, that you’re always starting from zero with every new venture that a lot of it doesn’t carry forward. And again, bringing humbleness to it and knowing that luck, and yes, there’s an element of the how do you work, the luckier you get for sure. But also there’s such an element of all these moving parts that you can’t control, right timing, right wording, right thing, met the right person. All of these potential doors that opened that mightn’t opened in an alternative universe. I think just bringing that back and knowing it’s the combination of both that makes most people successful in all things business, but probably fitness as well.

Steven Sashen:

Agreed. Well, that seems like a perfect sort of segue to wrapping this up. Is there anything we missed?

Brian Keane:

No, I think we got it. I think we got a lot of the mindset stuff there, so I hope that helps a lot of people.

Steven Sashen:

So you got four books out, a fifth in the works. So after the first one, what evolved or what changed in the next one so that we can basically talk people into buying the entire over?

Brian Keane:

I appreciate that, Steven. And it’s funny because my publishers hate me because I’m the first one to be like, “When I say something and you think it’ll connect, you should 100% buy the book. And if it doesn’t, you shouldn’t.” And they hate that. They’re like, “Tell everyone to buy the fucking book, Brian. What are you doing?” So I get this all the time. The first one was that Fitness Mindset. It’s where I literally wrote a book to my clients that were struggling, and it ended up doing better than I ever thought. The follow-up was Rewire Your Mindset, which is a book purely on mindset that failure is feedback. I break things into four quadrants, your health, love and fulfillment. So for people who kind of felt like they fell out of balance in particular areas of their life who struggle to feel the fear, do it anyways and move past these kinds of self-limiting beliefs, I wrote that book for that audience.

The third one then was more specific to my athletes. And then the last one was a traditionally published book with The Keane Edge: Mastering the Mindset for Real, Lasting Fat-Loss. It was for people who were going on slimming clubs, yo-yo dieting, struggling with weight loss, it was specific to them. The new one I’m working on now is Rewriting Your Story. It’s a book around those belief systems around those stories you tell yourself and learning to rewrite them and take control of that narrative and make it more supportive.

Steven Sashen:

Love it. So if people want to find that or anything else you are up to, how should they do that?

Brian Keane:

Amazing, Steven. Yeah, I’m on everything. I’m on all the channels, the Brian Keane podcast and my podcast and Brian Keane Fitness on all the social media channels and Brian Keen Fitness-

Steven Sashen:

Hold on. You’re going to have to spell things for people

Brian Keane:

Oh, yes. Brian Keane. So B-R-I-A-N, Irish spelling versus the Y. Keane is K-E-A-N-E, and then fitness on all the channels. And briankeanefitness.com is the website as well.

Steven Sashen:

Brilliant. Brian, this has been a total, total pleasure. I can’t thank you enough. I mean, I could, but it would be obsequious and annoying. So more importantly, it’s been a pleasure. Thank you so much. And people please do track Brian down and let me know what your experience is when you dive into all the mindset things and how that affects all the what’s that you’re doing and instead of… Let me do that differently. Let’s see what happens when you start paying attention to the how’s instead of the what’s. There we go. That’s what I meant to say, but I couldn’t do it.

And just a reminder, head over to www.jointhemovementmovement.com to find previous episodes, all the ways you can engage with us on social media. How you can find us, if you have any requests, comments, suggestions, advice, people you think, who should be on the show with me, especially if you know someone who thinks I have a case of cranial rectal reorientation syndrome, I want to talk to them, then you can drop me an email. Simple, send me an email at move M-O-V-E at Join the MOVEMENT Movement. And until next time, whenever that happens to be, go out, have fun and live life feet first.

View Details

Mike Fitch is an innovative fitness educator and movement coach with 20 years of experience in the fitness industry. He is the Founder/Creator of Animal Flow, a unique ground-based movement program that has certified more than 10,000 fitness professionals in 42 countries. Mike has also developed multiple other skills-based bodyweight training programs including the Bodyweight Athlete and is a highly sought-after presenter and content contributor.

Mike spent years exploring and coaching a range of techniques including Kettlebells, Olympic Lifts, Corrective Exercise, and pre/post rehabilitation. However, it wasn’t until he turned 30 years told that he decided to put down the weights and explore only bodyweight disciplines. He describes his change in training as a major turning point in his personal and professional development: “I had reached a point where I decided that I was way too young to feel so beat up all the time. There was something that I had been missing.”

Beginning with basic gymnastics, Mike found himself both incredibly challenged and inspired. Gymnastics soon lead to parkour, which lead to breakdancing and then hand balancing. A common thread that ran throughout these disciplines is the use of animal movements (locomotion) along with the emphasis of “flow.”

Mike is always the first to admit that he didn’t create animal movements. He sees his contribution to the discipline as having created a systematized program that makes the movements easy to learn and easy to coach for people of all ages and skill levels. Building upon his previous understanding of body mechanics, anatomy, and common postural issues, he developed specific ways to integrate animal patterns and other bodyweight-focused movements to elicit specific responses and results. His goal was to use these animal movements to improve the function and communication of the Human Animal.

When it came to incorporating the Flow component, Mike found the feeling of free and potentially endless movement to be incredibly empowering. He knew that others would feel the same immediate connection he did. In putting it all together, he created the Animal Flow program and its global community of inspired movers.

Today Mike remains dedicated to the various bodyweight-based disciplines, but still draws upon his accumulated knowledge to develop new training programs. You’ll see him integrating kettlebells, VIPRs and other heavy weights into his multi-disciplinary training regimes.

Listen to this episode of The MOVEMENT Movement with Mike Fitch about how Animal Flow can lead to improved movement.

Here are some of the beneficial topics covered on this week’s show:

– How Animal Flow helps people reconnect with their bodies and addresses deficits in physical attributes.

– Why you should push yourself out of your comfort zone to stimulate growth and train the body to adapt to new challenges.

– How focusing on discomfort in the learning process creates new neural pathways and improves performance over time.

– How engaging in Animal Flow movements results in significant improvements in cognitive markers and joint repositioning sense.

– How incorporating variety and variability in traditional movement patterns enhances overall motional.

Connect with Mike:

Guest Contact Info

Instagram@animalflowoffical

Facebookfacebook.com/AnimalFlow1

Links Mentioned:animalflow.com

Connect with Steven:

Website

Xeroshoes.com

Twitter@XeroShoes

Instagram@xeroshoes

Facebookfacebook.com/xeroshoes

Episode Transcript

Steven Sashen:

Whatever activity you’re doing, whether it’s yoga or running or climbing or hiking or lifting, you want to be better at it, right? Maybe not. Maybe it’ll be better if you got bad at a lot of things. But we’re going to be looking at that and much, much more on today’s episode of The MOVEMENT Movement podcast, the podcast for people who want to know the truth about what it takes to have a happy, healthy, strong body, typically starting with the feet first, because those things are your foundation. We’re going to be debunking the mythology, the propaganda, sometimes the outright lies that people have told you about what it takes to run, to walk, to hike, to dance, to lift, to do all those things you like to do, and do that enjoyably, efficiently, and effectively by using your body naturally. We call this the MOVEMENT Movement because it’s a movement about movement, more specifically about natural movement, again, about letting your body do what it’s supposed to do, and it’s a movement because it involves you.

It’s something that doesn’t happen because I’m saying it or because I’m trying to push it. It’s all the people who discover the value and benefits of natural movement who are making this happen, creating this groundswell, this grassroots movement of trying to get people to move. I think I’ve said that more than enough times. If you want to be part of this, it’s really easy. Go to www.jointhemovementmovement.com. That’s where you’ll find previous episodes, you’ll find all the different ways you can engage with us. You can find us, of course, where you always find podcasts. And of course, do me a favor and spread the word. Like, and share, and review, and give a thumbs up where that’s appropriate, and subscribe where that’s appropriate, and hit the bell on YouTube. Basically, if you want to be part of the tribe, please subscribe in all the ways that you can do that. All right, so that’s the intro. And now, I want to introduce Mike Fitch, who is here. And Mike, I don’t like to do intros for people, so you get to tell people who the hell you are and why the hell you’re here.

Mike Fitch:

Okay. Hey, I’m Mike Fitch.

Steven Sashen:

All right, we’re done.

Mike Fitch:

You may remember me from certain movies as… Hey, Steven, good to see you, man.

Steven Sashen:

Thanks. And by the way, before you even start about who you are, just to let people know about the timing of things, right before we started, I got on and I said to Mike, “Hey, how was your weekend?”, thinking that it was Monday. By the way, it is not Monday, today is Thursday. Which is even weird that I said, “How’s your weekend?” Because every day to me feels like a Saturday or that I have to work. I don’t know about you.

Mike Fitch:

Yeah. And this is not the first time that we’ve tried this.

Steven Sashen:

Well, there is that. We tried this last week and then suddenly, we realized that Zoom had crashed in some way and nothing was getting recorded. So this is our second time doing this, but our fourth time trying to do this.

Mike Fitch:

I think even more. I mean, we’ve had so many hiccups along the way just with either scheduling or the first time that we were supposed to actually do this, you had the Wi-Fi issue, so the lines were down, they’re trying to fix something, and so we had to reschedule. And then our reschedule, Zoom crashed. And then, funny story, this morning, my Wi-Fi wasn’t working.

Steven Sashen:

Oh, man.

Mike Fitch:

It wasn’t working until about an hour ago. And so I thought I was going to have to call you and say, “We’ve got to do it again. We’ve got to reschedule again.”

Steven Sashen:

I had a situation like this with somebody else where it was like fifth time’s the charm, and they said, “Well, I’m taking this as a sign that we shouldn’t do it.” I said, “That’s cool, but just remember you’re the one who painted the sign.”

Mike Fitch:

You know what’s funny? This morning, I was thinking if I said that to you, you’re going to have some comeback, I would not be able to think of something past it. So I’m glad that I wasn’t the one that said that and that someone else had previously said that to you, so you could work that out.

Steven Sashen:

Or if I was going to do it more. You are the sign maker. I mean, look, everything’s a sign if you want to really go that way.

Mike Fitch:

Yeah, for sure. But anyways, I’m Mike Fitch. I created some program called Animal Flow, another program called the Bodyweight Athlete. And yeah, I get to teach people how to get on the floor and move around. The best job ever.

Steven Sashen:

Before we jump into Animal Flow specific things, because this is The MOVEMENT Movement podcast, whenever I have someone on who is hip to movement and does movement things, I ask them this question, what movement that something can you share with our humans who are our audience, I’m assuming they’re humans, there may be others listening, but at least with the humans, that would give them a taste of something to do and also maybe a little flavor of what you do with Animal Flow?

Mike Fitch:

Yeah, for sure. Everyone’s got time at home right now, and so while they’re at home, I would like them to do two things and it’s only going to take two minutes, although-

Steven Sashen:

Watch Tiger King. Oh, sorry, different.

Mike Fitch:

Watch it as many times as possible.

Steven Sashen:

But other than that.

Mike Fitch:

Then watch the reunion show or whatever they’ve been doing since the original release.

Steven Sashen:

We haven’t watched that one yet. Last night, we watched Three Identical Strangers, which is a whole other completely unrelated thing, and it’s only an hour and a half. But anyway, those are my two biggest-

Mike Fitch:

So while you’re watching Tiger King or Three Identical Strangers, while you’re watching those high quality TV programs, set a timer for one minute. This is your goal. For one minute, start standing. Try to get up and down from the floor as many different ways as possible for one minute. Once the ringer goes off or the buzzer goes off, get on the floor and just crawl around. So it doesn’t matter how you do it, we’re not talking about form, technique, just crawl around in as many directions as you can. Try to do it for one minute. You can take rest if you can’t do it for one minute because it can add up pretty quickly. And then you can just repeat that as many times as possible, especially if you’ve been sitting down, watching Tiger King for hours or however long that show is, get on the floor. So get up and down for one minute, then crawl around for one minute and then do that as many times as you can.

Steven Sashen:

There’s a old song from the mid ’70s and it just popped into my head, and the refrain is something like…

MUSIC:

Open the door, get on the floor.

Everybody do the dinosaur.

Steven Sashen:

So open the door, get on the floor, get off the floor. So let’s talk about what you said. I just want to break it down a little bit. I mean, as simple as that sounds, it’s get up and down in as many different ways as possible. I love this. I have a fondness for doing things different ways. I cross my arms in both ways. Can you do that?

Mike Fitch:

I could try.

Steven Sashen:

Hey, there you go.

Mike Fitch:

There we go. There it is.

Steven Sashen:

Now repeat. Good.

Mike Fitch:

I think I hurt myself.

Steven Sashen:

I go through phases where I put on my pants with the other leg first. Easier to do with pants than underpants, by the way. I have gotten in the habit of putting on jackets the opposite way that I started doing it. So talk to me about this whole idea of as many ways as possible, and you may want to get someone a pointer or two, because I know with the whole idea of barefoot running or natural running, there’s some cues that you can give people that just accelerate the process of their creativity opening up. It’s like if you tell them, “Try and do X, Y, and Z.”, they would’ve discovered that on their own eventually. But by shortcutting the process, it opens up more ideas.

Mike Fitch:

Yeah. So the whole concept behind that little drill is variety and variability. And so essentially, what we’re trying to get people to do is break their traditional patterns. And so as human beings, we have a tendency to do, going back to your examples you were giving, we take the path of least resistance because it’s more efficient for our system. So if we learn to do something a particular way, we tend to lean into doing that same thing the same way every single time. And especially when we’re kind of walking around, we’re sitting down, we’re going throughout our day, our variability in our overall motion. So if we look at our spectrum of available motion and then we look at the amount of motion that we’re actually getting in, it’s usually just a slice. And so the whole concept is by us getting up and down in as many different ways as possible, we’re adding variety into that pattern of how we would typically get up and down. And variety, our body thrives on.

And so we want to make these really resilient bodies, and that means not only in how we experience them, but also how the tissue adapts. And we could go down that road, but we’re not going to yet. So we’ll just say the more that we can experience different loads. And when I say loads, that just basically means how gravity is affecting our system and as many different angles as possible, then now, we’re starting to encourage an adaptation process, which is again, being forced on by all these different angles versus us just always moving in the same planes.

So that’s the concept of getting up and down. And then a tip that you could add on top of that is exactly what you said, which is if you have a tendency to always go down to a right kneeling position when you try to make your way into the floor and try doing it from the opposite side. So start trying to identify maybe some of those patterns that you would typically lean on because they feel stronger or more coordinated. And the other thing is just allowing yourself to feel kind of goofy and to not feel coordinated and to be exposed a little bit.

Steven Sashen:

Be bad. Be bad at just getting up and down.

Mike Fitch:

That’s it, man. Be bad at it because again, that’s where the learning process takes place. And our bodies are adaptation machines. They love new challenges. They want to figure out how to be more efficient at new challenges, IE, lazy at new challenges. So the more that we can go out and experience new stimulus, the better our body will hopefully adapt to these new challenges.

Steven Sashen:

I think there’s probably a line between the interest in variety in something novel and the existing neural pathways that have us wanting to do the exact same thing over and over, because I know that when you’re trying to learn something like a really new movement pattern, something significantly different, especially I’m using barefoot running as an example, many people say, “Oh, I tried it. It was really frustrating.” It’s like, oh, no, no, let’s reframe what that means. Frustrating, with air quotes around it, is your experience of trying to lay down new neural pathways, getting out of a groove and laying down new neural pathways. And like you said about being bad, I don’t remember how you said about learning, but what people forget is that the learning happens after a bout of discomfort and feeling awkward and all the rest. And then while you’re resting, you’re getting these new neural pathways that make it a little easier the next time and a little easier and a little easier and a little easier. If people would reframe that frustration as learning, it would be a whole different thing.

Mike Fitch:

Yeah. And that’s the way our body adapts. So if the stressor… Our body adapts to stress and load all the time. And so it does it in a way by either becoming stronger, having a better cardiovascular system, becoming more resilient, becoming more efficient, but we have to give that stressor first. And the thing is, if it’s not enough, then our body is not stimulated to adapt. If it’s too much, then we may break down or we may not be able to adapt to such a high stimulus. So it has to be in that kind of sweet spot, and it’s not going to be comfortable. You’re not going to feel good when you’re doing it because it’s way outside of your comfort zone. And I think most people have a tendency to, again, go towards the things that make them feel successful, feel comfortable, feel good.

Steven Sashen:

Successful.

Mike Fitch:

Or they expect the discomfort. And so if I go in to work out, I know that hopefully, if I do my workout to the best of my ability, it’s not going to feel awesome the entire time. I’m going to be in points or phases of discomfort. And that’s part of the growth process.

Steven Sashen:

Well, there’s also, again, that balance between the discomfort part and the enjoyable, fun, opening up thing that makes you want to do it again, because obviously, if it’s just painful, you’re not going to want to do it, but there’s definitely moments of… I mean, the intermittent reinforcement part of, hey, it’s good, and hey, there’s something that’s a little tricky. That’s kind of the holy grail because we respond to intermittent reinforcement. I mean, that’s how Vegas works. Like every now and then, it works… Actually, that’s how child-rearing works. It’s 23 hours a day pulling your hair out and 60 minutes of heart opening. Hey, that’s wonderful, and that’s why we don’t eat them. So you reminded me of something that I remember seeing in high school on TV. It was during one of the PBS fundraising things where they had someone who’s teaching something and then selling a course.

I don’t remember who it was, what he was teaching, or what he was selling, but his line was he asked the audience, “What’s the fundamental purpose of thinking?” And everyone came up with all these answers. I don’t know what they were. He goes, “The fundamental purpose of thinking is to learn to stop think, sorry, learn how to stop thinking.” Can’t even say it in English. And people are like, “What?” He goes, “Thinking is the process of taking incoming information and developing a pattern, a heuristic, so that when you see something similar to that, again, you don’t need to figure it out, it just kind of goes right in and you it immediately.”

The problem is we’re really good at coming up with these patterns. We’re the sign painters. We paint signs where they don’t necessarily exist and we come up with these patterns that aren’t necessarily effective or efficient because that’s the fastest, the most efficient thing, is to come up with a pattern. Having the right pattern is not necessarily the most efficient thing. And I have a sneaking suspicion that leads into what you do with Animal Flow. Am I correct?

Mike Fitch:

Of course.

Steven Sashen:

Success. So talk about what Animal Flow is and how you got to it/developed it.

Mike Fitch:

Okay. Yeah. And just to be clear, for anyone that’s listening, when I said discomfort earlier, I didn’t mean pain. So I just want to make that clear distinction between the two. So discomfort, I just meant the sensation of this is not always going to feel awesome.

Steven Sashen:

It’s awkward.

Mike Fitch:

And so it’s awkward. It might be a little bit awkward. So anyways-

Steven Sashen:

Pardon me, just the thing of cross your arms and then switch arms on top and then switch the other side, that’s going to feel awkward. It’s not unpleasant, it’s not painful, but it’s definitely going to make your brain fritz a little bit or putting on… If you put your jacket on right arm first, then left arm behind you, then switching around, it’s going to feel weird as crap for a while.

Mike Fitch:

Yeah. And I think fritz is a really nice word. We’ll just go with that one. So let’s say make your brain fritz as much as possible all the time, because that’s where the magic is. It’s in the fritz itself.

Steven Sashen:

Some people would argue that my fondness for brain fritzing is why my hair looks like this. It’s just an expression of my brain. Yeah.

Mike Fitch:

I think you’re right.

Steven Sashen:

Yeah, I think we might be onto it.

Mike Fitch:

I need more fritzing then. Clearly, I have no fritzing.

Steven Sashen:

There’s fritzing and frizzing. Those are two, they’re very related. One was a cat and one is what soda does. That’s an obscure set of references. Well, fizzy soda is easy. Fritz the Cat, a lot of people don’t know Fritz the Cat. Are you too young to not know Fritz the Cat?

Mike Fitch:

No, I do know Fritz the Cat. I was just trying to remember where Fritz the Cat is from, it used to be… Was that a comic strip?

Steven Sashen:

Yes.

Mike Fitch:

Yes. Then yes.

Steven Sashen:

Okay, back to Animal Flow.

Mike Fitch:

So Animal Flow, okay, so let me tell you how I got into Animal Flow or what my journey was to get to Animal Flow, I should say. So I began as a personal trainer in New York City when I was 19 years old, and I did everything. So I really would get into something and really go all the way into it. So over the years that I was training, this is from the time I was 19 until I turned 30, I ran the gamut. And at that point, it was getting into Olympic lifting, getting into kettlebell training, getting into sports specific training, became a medical exercise specialist. So I worked with physios and physical therapists for pre and post rehabilitation. And then I eventually found myself where I think most guys do, who are kind of in that world of personal training, I just wanted to get jacked and I wanted to lift really heavy things. And I was about, I don’t know, maybe 30 pounds heavier than I am now, maybe 40 pounds and-

Steven Sashen:

Holy smokes.

Mike Fitch:

… I felt awful all the time. And I want to say, I want to make this very clear, I’m not saying that being big and strong is bad at all. I’m just saying that there was some message intuitively in my system that kept speaking louder and louder, which was you are only honoring one of your abilities, and that’s to be strong and to grow muscle. And so I had just turned 30 years old and I said, “You know what? I’m going to listen to that message and I’m just going to see where this takes me.” So I decided to do the exact opposite of what I was doing and decided to go be really bad at a lot of things. So I decided to put down the weights 100% and just explore bodyweight movement disciplines and so-

Steven Sashen:

Once you decided to do that, give me an example of something that you were really bad at.

Mike Fitch:

Well, all of them. All of them. But I started with gymnastics, which was… I was not only the oldest person in the class, but I was by far the worst person in the class. I thought, “Well, man, if I’m this bad at this, maybe I can be bad at other things.” So I went and I started breakdancing, super bad at that. Started parkour, I was bad at that. I got much better quickly. But anyways, I was experiencing all these different things and I was being very consistent with it and realizing, “Wow, there’s so much here that my clients could certainly benefit from, but they’re never going to go join an adult gymnastics class or join a breakdancing class. So what can I do to help bring some of these inspirations in?” And so like with parkour, that was the first time I was introduced to animal locomotion as a way of warming up the system and preparing the body to move.

And then with breakdancing, I figured out what we call, or I experienced what we call a movement window. So if my arm is here, my leg is here, that’s an opportunity for me to move through that window that I’ve created. And so there’s just a lot of inspiration that I thought, “Okay, well, how do I put this together in a way that my clients could enjoy it or could benefit from it?” And so I just started spending hours and hours and hours a day on the ground, figuring out the puzzle of how can I take these inspirations and these things that have been so pivotal in my growth at that time? And so I just started creating a program and started creating a program around it that had a language that we used that had all these rules and different technique cues, and it was just such an interesting thing.

It took me about three months to put the outline of the program together, and then I just started using it with my clients. And so I started integrating it into their one-on-one sessions, and then I also started offering classes for the other clients in the gym, and people really enjoyed it. And I was like, “Wow, there’s something here.” And so then, eventually created a certification around it, put a DVD out first. The response was really good. And so then I was like, wow, I’ll see how far I can go with this. And so created a certification around it and then spent years training other people to teach it. And we now have about 10,000 instructors globally.

Steven Sashen:

Holy smokes. That’s awesome. I want to come back to that because the whole idea of creating, I mean, look, we’re talking about creating a movement that what you just described is creating a movement, and I want to hear more about the management of that or sort of the evolution of that, because that’s the kind of thing that most people will never do and some people want to do and don’t know how to do. But either for both of those, it’s going to be kind of interesting, but I want to come back to just what Animal Flow is and what people experience from it, why they come to it, what they get from that. So let’s jump in. I mean, it’s not just trying to move like a donkey, whatever that would mean. Although if you just say to someone, “I do this thing called Animal Flow.”, what do they think that you do? Wait, hold on. You tell me and then I’ll tell you my guess.

Mike Fitch:

Sometimes we get, “So is that goat yoga?”

Steven Sashen:

I was going way past that. I was going for, “Are you an animal urologist?”

Mike Fitch:

Oh. No, I haven’t gotten that yet. So well done. That’s the first time.

Steven Sashen:

Do you help ferrets with kidney problems?

Mike Fitch:

Mm-hmm. Next life.

Steven Sashen:

But goat yoga, that’s good. And what do you say? If someone asked me that, I would have to riff on that and just pretend that the answer is yes.

Mike Fitch:

Well, here’s something funny, so I taught a workshop, the first certification I taught here in Boulder, I taught at Colorado Athletic Club, and it happened to be the same weekend they were doing a special event that had a goat yoga session in it. So imagine how confused the front desk must have been that day.

Steven Sashen:

That’s brilliant. The fact that there is a thing called goat yoga, it says more than the fact of goat yoga.

Mike Fitch:

Yes.

Steven Sashen:

Yeah, just one day, someone thought it happened and then it became an actual thing. That’s the part that’s crazy.

Mike Fitch:

Yeah. So anyways, so typically, if someone asks me what is the Animal Flow? I’ll say, “All right, well, if you were to see someone practicing it, it would look like yoga meets breakdancing meets modern dance or gymnastics.” Because again, people can associate very easily. And so at least if you give them something visual, they can start to put together a concept of what this may look like. And then that way, whenever they see someone on the ground doing it, they’re like, “Oh, okay, yeah, I can conceptualize that.”

But I also then go on usually to tell them there is some animal components to it. So there are some animal locomotive patterns that we use, but it’s not about finding your spirit animal. It’s not about acting like a donkey for an hour or roaring like a lion. It’s really about the human animal. So it’s really about improving the communication connection and function of the human animal. And one of the best ways that we found to do that, at least in Animal Flow, is by putting both hands and feet in contact with the ground and then having the participant figure out this movement puzzle of these Animal Flow moves.

And so that’s one of the main underlying concepts is get people back inside of their bodies, because with all the stimulus that we have externally now, especially with tablets, phones, stress at work, the COVID, everything that’s going on, it’s very easy for people to be thinking of everything else except for managing their own system. And so most often, people will go into the gym and then they think about moving objects from point A to point B, or I’m going to run from here to here. And so they’re still putting their focus outside of their system. But when you put someone on the floor, hands and feet in contact with the ground, and you ask them to move all of their limbs in different directions and in different ways, then now, it’s very tough for them to be thinking about the stress at work or what they’re going to do when they get home because they have to be… We’re gently forcing them inside of their body and making them accountable for how they move their vessel and navigate it it across the floor. And so that’s…

Steven Sashen:

Interesting.

Mike Fitch:

Do you want to say something?

Steven Sashen:

No, I like it. It reminds me, actually, when we were talking about the movement suggestion you gave people at the beginning, thinking about, excuse me, after getting up and down a bunch of times, crawling, the first thought I have, whenever I’m in some sort of group and there’s some instruction for doing something, where my brain goes is, okay, how are most people going to do this? And what’s the opposite of that? And so what’s immediately occurred to me is if I were crawling, which I can’t do right now, the first thing I would do for an unusual way of crawling is try to crawl along a wall. So I try and get vertical instead of just being… I’d start thinking about the vertical component and not just the horizontal component.

Mike Fitch:

Yeah. And there’s a lot of that in parkour training, and there’s a lot of, again, crawling up and then crawling across railing or a thinner wall or what it might be, whatever it might be. So yeah, so again, the inspiration certainly came from parkour definitely. But to go back to those underlying concepts, the first one is reconnecting the system, the second one is filling in the deficits. And so if we look at this kind of spectrum or line of physical attributes or abilities, if you have, let’s say a CrossFit athlete, and he or she is usually expressing their abilities to be strong, powerful, to have a good endurance in the way that they train. If you look at a yoga practitioner, they’re on this other side of the spectrum where they’re more working on their mobility, flexibility, stability.

And so we like to use Animal Flow as a bridge between those two sides of the spectrum because we believe that you can elicit all those responses for our physical attributes by using this modality. And so if you have someone who’s a CrossFit athlete, this will really allow them to use a dynamic approach to mobility, flexibility, stability. If you have someone who’s already expressing those, this is a nice bridge into more strength, power, endurance, speed. And so it kind of fills in the void. It fills in the deficits. And if you have someone who’s not doing any workouts or hobbies, it’s a nice introduction to exercising those attributes or those abilities.

Steven Sashen:

I’m reminded of a friend of mine who is one of the smartest people that I know, and he was dating someone who kept complaining that he was just in his head. And on the one hand, I said to him, “Yeah, that’s what you do. Shut up and leave her.” On the other hand, if she’s telling you that you’re wrong for being exactly what you’re amazing at, that’s a problem. But at the same time, he was really curious about finding movement things that were different than what he had done. He was a really accomplished long distance runner, but he felt like that was very linear, literally, and not really getting his whole body doing what he wanted to do. So it’s an interesting point. He was trying to find that bridge between his sort of intellectual strength, if you will, and his body flexibility, mobility, et cetera. And I don’t know what he’s doing now. I got to double check. But that’s another version of things, I imagine, for people who just aren’t familiar with what that thing is below their neck, that this might give them a way in.

Mike Fitch:

Is he still with the girl?

Steven Sashen:

No. No, no, no. Happily, that ended and he found someone who loved him for being super, super brainy.

Mike Fitch:

Perfect.

Steven Sashen:

Yeah, it was great.

Mike Fitch:

So yes, so to go with that, it invites people, again, back into their body and then lets them experience their body in all these different ways. And so it really encourages them to be strong, to be stable, to have mobility, to express their ability to be powerful and have good endurance, et cetera. And of course, coordination.

Steven Sashen:

So one thing I’m just going to prompt you for it, because I’ve remembered it from the first time that we tried this, which was really the fourth time that we tried this conversation. Talk to me about… So wait, was it ABCs or… What was the…

Mike Fitch:

Yes.

Steven Sashen:

Hold on.

Mike Fitch:

So the ABCs of animal locomotion.

Steven Sashen:

The ABCs of animal locomotion. That just sounds like a good kid’s book, other than… Except that it would involve a train that somehow transformed into a gorilla.

Mike Fitch:

I think we’re onto something here.

Steven Sashen:

That’s ABCs of animal locomotives. I was confused.

Mike Fitch:

Yeah. So with the ABCs, and again, these are the traveling forms, we call them traveling forms, they’re just one component of the overall program, but we do call them the ABCs of traveling forms. And so A stands for ape. And if you were to think about what that looks like, it’s just begins in a deep squat. So if you were to see someone deepest squat they can go, that’s our beginning position for our ape travels.

Our beast is kind of almost like a baby crawl. So it would look similar to a baby crawl except for the knees would be about an inch off the ground and the toes would be tucked under versus tops of the feet on the ground. And then also we have our C, which is our crab position. So crab would essentially, and most people would’ve done crab maybe in gym class when they were younger, but essentially, if we were to look at the side of a crab, it would be look kind of like a capital letter M except for the outside lines are slightly angled. And butt would be off the ground, fingers pointing behind us. And so those three movements are the what we call base positions in Animal Flow.

Steven Sashen:

Do you do anything upside down?

Mike Fitch:

As far as inversions go or hanging?

Steven Sashen:

Inversions. I’m thinking as a former All-American gymnast, one of the things that pops into my head on a not infrequent basis is, “Man, I got to be upside down.” And I don’t hear people doing that very often. And unless you’re familiar with that experience, it wouldn’t cross your mind for most people. Is that something that comes into Animal Flow in some way?

Mike Fitch:

So hand balancing is a big part in Animal Flow. It does play a big part in Animal Flow. So we do a lot of inversions and we typically will… So in gymnastics you would typically do hollow body handstands. So vertical handstands. In Animal Flow, we typically use what would be considered tuck balances. So basically, the knees are pulled towards the chest, and that allows us to transition through the balance a lot easier versus going all the way up into a vertical handstand then coming down. So even the beginning levels, or even as someone’s beginning their Animal Flow journey, we use variations of tuck balances to just get them comfortable with being inverted. So it doesn’t mean they’re trying to hit the tuck balance right away, but we’re just getting them comfortable with being upside down, which again, is great for so many systems in their body.

Steven Sashen:

Yeah. It always strikes me as a really interesting one, that so few people have any experience being comfortable being upside down. Or when you look at people learning gymnastics, I don’t know if this was your experience, when someone’s learning to do a standing back flip, the thing that they typically try to do is jump backwards instead of really basically jumping up. And similarly, they do the exact opposite. If they’re doing a front flip, they try to throw their body down instead of actually what you try to do, which is, again, jump up. And the only thing that’s different between a front flip and a back flip is just which direction your hips are going, because it’s the hips that drive the flip, everything else is basically vertical. But it’s such an unusual thing. It’s so counterintuitive. In people’s head, if you want to do a back flip, you got to jump backwards. Front flip, you got to initiate the movement by dropping down. And really, you want to do the exact opposite.

So same thing with getting comfortable being upside down. It’s such a weird thing. Or the other thing I’m thinking about with early gymnastics training is doing the same motion in both directions, like a cartwheel where you put your right hand down. I just said, put your right hand down first, and I have my left hand going down. A cartwheel where you put your left hand down first, then a cartwheel doing your right hand first. And one will feel normal, awkward at first, but the other will feel impossible at first. And getting used to just doing things bidirectionally is another total brain fritzer.

Mike Fitch:

Yeah. And our human balance system is pretty much made up of three subsystems. And so we have our vestibular system, which you can think about as inner ear. You have your ocular system, and so vision. And then we have our proprioceptive system, so our body’s sense and awareness of where we are in space in relation to other objects. And it’s the combination of those three subsystems which give us overall global, and when I say global, I mean, full body balance. And so by doing just what you’re saying, again, trying to go do a cartwheel with the opposite arm, or even just trying to do a cartwheel in the first place, you’ve never done one before, it really does challenge those systems. And again, it’s just if it’s a variation that you’re not going to hurt yourself at, it’s just enough stimulus to get a positive effect from. And hopefully you’re starting to get some positive adaptation by doing things just outside of how you would typically do them and challenging, again, just challenging those systems.

Steven Sashen:

I’m also thinking about how part of what you’re saying, especially using the thing about crawling and babies, it’s fascinating that we’ve lost so many of those movement patterns that we do as babies and infants and toddlers, and in a way, it seems like we think that we’ve evolved and gotten past those, and we don’t use those. I mean, I spent a lot of time sitting on the floor. Just mostly, I’ll come home from work, I’ll make some dinner, or Lena will have made some dinner, although I do it more often, and we will have dinner often in front of a television, because we have little time to chill out, and so we want to get maximum chill.

And so sometimes that involves eating in front of the TV. And I’ll do that while sitting on the floor because I don’t want to spill stuff on the couch even though it’s microfiber and would be totally fine. And if I spill on the carpet, way worse. But regardless, that’s what I do. And I think about how growing up, never saw anyone sitting on the floor for any extended period of time. I never saw anyone crawling to get somewhere just for the fun of it. And it’s all these developmental moves that we’ve just, we think it’s below us or beneath us, and they’re really fun.

Mike Fitch:

Yeah. Yeah. And you hit the nail on the head by saying, these patterns were so important to us in our developmental stages. And so whenever baby begins to learn how to roll over, press up, reptilian crawl, which is kind of like stomach crawling, and then mammalian crawling, which is usually quadrupedal, so knees and hands on the ground, and then learning how to stand holding something, get up and down. All of the squatting, all of those things, they’re huge parts of baby’s developmental processes, but not only physically. So not only creating these muscular synergies that will be so beneficial when they actually begin to be bipedal or upright human beings, but also, there’s a lot of stimulation that’s happening in the brain as well.

So just by doing these cross lateral patterns, we’re stimulating and organizing neurons in the brain that will be important for cognitive processes like comprehension, memory, all of these things, binocular vision, looking off to the distance and the back of the hands, strength and communication between left and right hemisphere of the brain. There’s a lot of stuff going on there. And like you said, as adults, we rarely return to some of these patterns that were so important to us in our developmental stages. And a couple of years back, we had a couple of guys who were Animal Flow fans, and they did a study where they took these participants through four weeks of Animal Flow. And for the study, they called it just quadrupedal movement. And they found that within four weeks, there were noticeable increases in markers of cognition-

Steven Sashen:

I was just going there.

Mike Fitch:

… and joint repositioning sense. So yeah, so stimulating the brain, again, increasing cognitive markers, and then also the repositioning sense, basically just means their awareness of where they were in space.

Steven Sashen:

That’s so interesting. There are a couple of things that pop into my mind. Kirk Erickson, the University of Pittsburgh, years ago, in fact, it was about 10 years ago when the study came out, he had done a long-term study of elderly people and walking, and just found that the ones who walked the most retained the most grey matter in their brain. And I asked him why he thought that was, and he said, “I think a lot of it is just the stimulation from walking, both the movement and what you’re seeing, and how you have to navigate.” I said, “Boy, imagine what it would’ve been like if they had been walking barefoot and got all that extra stimulation and had to really respond.” And he went, “Oh, yeah, that’s good.” But it was a nine-year study that cost a lot of money and we didn’t have time for that.

But the thing that I keep thinking of, especially when I think about people in shoes where they’re making it so their feet can’t feel the ground, they’re not stimulating all those nerve endings in the soles of their feet. I think most people think of their brain as just this kind of passive thing that I don’t know what they think it actually does. But back backing up to Kirk’s study, and the reason that aerobic exercise is so good, it’s mostly about having things circulating in your brain. Using your brain in some way creates increased blood flow, creates increased activity. And as soon as you started talking about that, I was thinking, there’s got to be… How do I want to put this? When you don’t stimulate your feet, your brain basically shuts down the part of it that is supposed to be getting that information because it’s not getting the information. So it just kind of does something else barely, if anything.

When you’re getting that stimulation, it’s not just affecting that one part of your brain, it’s affecting that part of your brain which has a global impact. So feeling good is not just a thing that happens in a couple of neurons in your brain, it’s an overarching neurotransmitter process. It’s a neurochemical phenomenon that is instigated by doing things that your body and brain like that feel good. You said it. I was just imagining that just getting an overall stimulus must have some cognitive impact. It must help in some way. I love that there was an actual study that looked into that. That’s super cool.

Mike Fitch:

Yeah, same here. And to go back to what you were saying about, because we always practice Animal Flow barefoot. And one of the reasons for that is because of that sensory information, so that sensory feedback, and we have so many sensory receptors in our feet, in our hands and our feet. Unfortunately, we talked earlier about the adaptation machine that is the body. If we turn those receptors off by putting on these super padded shoes and walking around, we’re essentially putting our feet in sensory deprivation chambers. And so that message is significantly turned down.

Steven Sashen:

Well, the difference though is when you do get in an isolation tank or a sensory deprivation chamber, it’s relaxing and you hallucinate, but when you do that with your feet, not the same.

Mike Fitch:

Well, not everyone relaxes in a deprivation chamber.

Steven Sashen:

Oh, really?

Mike Fitch:

Yeah. I mean, I certainly know a couple of friends who tried float tanks and they freaked out.

Steven Sashen:

Oh, man.

Mike Fitch:

They were not into it at all. It increased their anxiety tenfold.

Steven Sashen:

Oh, man, it’s one of my fantasies of having-

Mike Fitch:

I love them.

Steven Sashen:

Yeah, my fantasy is to have a tank in the house or actually to have a tank just outside the house, because otherwise, the entire house smells like Epsom salts, but oh, that’s interesting. Anyway, but yes, the point you were making before I interrupted with my sensory deprivation tank.

Mike Fitch:

Yeah. So anyways, I mean, the same way that we can train our feet, the same way that we can train them to be more sensitive and to send more information, it’s very easy for us to train them out of sending information.

Steven Sashen:

I think it’s actually probably easier to do that. It’s easier to make yourself stupid, excuse me, than it is to make yourself smart. Well, the simple thing, it’s use it or lose it. I mean, that’s the bottom line.

Mike Fitch:

That’s the bottom line. And that’s how the body works. If we don’t use it… I mean, and I mentioned, I kind of jokingly said that earlier, which is our body is lazy. And what I meant by that is not that we are lazy or that you are lazy or anyone else is lazy, but our body is always striving to be more efficient at any given task. And so if you’re not using a system, it can very easily start to turn down that system and/or become more efficient at it. Same way you lose the ability to squat, right?

Steven Sashen:

Right. I’m going to suggest that your body’s actually not trying to get more efficient or find the most efficient way of doing something. I think it’s probably trying to figure out what to do to get to the goal, and if it finds something, it will latch onto that even if it’s not the most efficient because it accomplished the goal. So this is the dopaminergic process or the dopamine system, where it’s about learning and accomplishing goals. People think that it’s all about reward, but it’s the reward for accomplishing something that you’ve learned to do. Because I’m just thinking of all these people who develop movement patterns. Actually, here’s the exact thought that I had. It’s someone who I know who thinks of himself as an accomplished barefoot runner because he’s able to run half-marathons and marathons barefoot. But you look at his running form and it’s like Groucho Marx moving faster.

It’s not really running, but it’s allowed him to accomplish the goal of being barefoot and covering this amount of distance. And he learned it. He figured it out on his own. No one ever taught him how to move this way. It was just like, “I’m trying to figure out a way to be able to move barefoot and cover distance.” And found this crazy way of basically walking fast like Groucho. And to get him to learn to run was a Herculean task because he had laid in not only the neural pathways of moving that way, but the idea that that was really good, that I had accomplished this, I’ve succeeded. And I imagine that when you’re dealing with people in Animal Flow, part of what’s happening is finding these patterns that they think may be effective or efficient. But when you look at them more carefully, turned out to have sort of detours in the road.

Mike Fitch:

Sure. When we’re teaching the workshops or we’re doing the certifications, we call those strategies. And so we’ll say, well, when we’re observing someone and… So let’s say we set someone up and we’re taking them through what we call our activation process, and we set up an activation in beast or crab, so the B or the C of our ABCs. And while in that position, we start to look at them region by region. So maybe I’m just going to look at someone’s shoulder blades and how they articulate with their upper spine or their thoracic spine. And so we’re looking at one, can they even find their shoulder blades? Two, do they know when they’re apart and do they know when they’re together? And then start looking at what else is the body recruiting to try to make just that motion happen? And so you may see where someone does something really funny, they start twitching their big toe when they try to do that, or they start shifting towards one arm when they try to do that.

And so again, I can’t say, “Oh, well, that’s your body’s strategy of recruiting the right psoas and your left external oblique.” All we’re saying is, “Oh, that’s interesting. Look at that.” Look at the strategy that the body just came up with to complete that motor task or that goal that I’ve given them. And so we’re watching those strategies and seeing, okay, does that look like good fluid motion or does that look chunky? Does that look like it’s really hard for them to either access it or it looks very muscularly driven? So it looks like they’re putting a lot of effort into making that happen, or does it just look effortless and fluid? And so looking for those strategies is really fun, man, because the body is so infinitely complex and cool. And just observing those, it’s like, man, everybody really does have a different body, and each body is a storybook of the experiences they’ve had through a lifetime.

Steven Sashen:

Can you think of one where you saw someone doing something and the thought that popped through your head was, “Wow, I would’ve never thought of that in a million years.”?

Mike Fitch:

Sometimes people do weird things with their tongue or their jaw or their eyes.

Steven Sashen:

Oh, really?

Mike Fitch:

Yeah.

Steven Sashen:

Like what?

Mike Fitch:

Yeah, so if you ask them, you put them in a position, you ask them to lift, let’s say, their left foot and their right hand. And then you see them start to think really hard about it and then they’re trying to think, first of all, what’s my left and my right? And then during that process, you may see them start to anchor in somewhere. So maybe they start to move their jaw around or maybe they put their tongue out of the side of their mouth or they close one eye and they keep one open. And then you ask them to do something else, and then that changes. So their strategies change, their anchors change. It’s just a cool thing to watch.

Steven Sashen:

That’s really interesting. One of the things that’s fascinating to me is watching as people in any sport in particular, as they get better at it, how the motions do become more efficient, and how there aren’t those extra things like what you do with your tongue or whatever. Basically, if you were playing poker, it’s a tell. And one of the things that first clued me onto this was when I was doing gymnastics, our gymnastics coach’s ex-wife married a guy who was a professional boxer, and he used to come in and he was a really cool guy, and he would do the thing, he’d say, “I’m going to put a nickel on your head and I want you to try and keep me from grabbing the nickel. You can start your hands right up by your face, just I’m going to try and grab the nickel. You just try to stop me.” And you couldn’t. And what’s interesting is he wasn’t moving quickly. He was doing two things. He was moving super efficiently. There was nothing extraneous, and he wasn’t telegraphing the movement in advance.

So there wasn’t some subtle movement that you would pick up unconsciously that told you the big movement was about to happen. So because it only takes a quarter of a second for him to reach out and come back, and it takes longer to process the visual information of the cue that he’s about to do this move, those things didn’t work together and there was no way you could block him. It was both frustrating as hell and fascinating. And I just love seeing as people get really… I don’t play golf, but you can spot a good golf swing from a bad golf swing, not perfectly, but you can see when something looks just elegant, even if you don’t… There may be something where it could be a little better or whatever, but I just love seeing that kind of like you said before where it just doesn’t have any glitches. It’s just like, man, just smooth. It’s so wonderful to watch.

Mike Fitch:

So that reminds me of two people that I’ve worked with over the years. One of them is the strength coach for an NFL team, and I went in to work with some of his players. And the first thing he told me, he was like, “Look, these guys are elite athletes. They’re the top in their field. They’re in the NFL.” And he goes, “It basically means they’re really, really good at three patterns. And the three things that they need to be in that position at their level. And everything else, they fall apart.” And again, that’s a big generalization, but it was just funny to hear someone say these guys are considered the best of the best, and it’s because they’re really good at three things each. And of course, those things are going to be different. And then the other thing-

Steven Sashen:

Go ahead. Sorry.

Mike Fitch:

Sorry. No, and the second person was Dr. Spina who has a system called Functional Range System. He’s a buddy of mine. And he always says in his lectures, “The better you get at sport, the worse you get at being human.”

Steven Sashen:

I totally get it. It’s like the first time I walked into a CrossFit box they were trying to sell me on, it’s like, “We’re going to make you a better athlete.” I said, “Yeah, I don’t want to be a better athlete.” They’re like, “What?” I said, “I’m a competitive sprinter. I want to get that much faster in 100 meters. I want to take one step off of my 100 meters. That’s all I want to do.” “But we’re going to make you a better athlete.” I went, “Don’t care. All I’m trying to do is beat that guy who’s next to me by that much.” And I know that it’s a weird, goofy thing, but it’s like even when I’m working out for sprinting, there’s a bunch of things that I probably could or should be doing to be a more well-rounded, whatever. But at this time in my life, I don’t care. I’m just trying to get that little bit faster before I get old enough where it’s just never coming back.

Because that’s what happens for sprinters, once you get past about 60, plus or minus, and I’m going to be 58 soon, it just starts falling off a cliff. And I was at the senior games talking to a bunch of 60-year-olds, this is when I just turned 50, and they said, “Yeah, it gets really bad once you get over 60.” And at that point, a couple 80-year-olds walk up and went, “Yeah, you have no idea what you’re talking about. Just wait.” So that story with the NFL guys, that raises the question that popped into my head. If people are runners or they are engaged in some particular thing, what benefits have you seen Animal Flow delivering for them for the activities that they’re trying to do other than just becoming a better human being? What are you seeing as the, what’s the word I’m looking for, the translation or the transference of what they get from Animal Flow into other things?

Mike Fitch:

Yeah, so that kind of goes back to some of those concepts I was talking about earlier, those two main concepts, which is one, making people more aware of how their body moves through space. And so just bringing more awareness into their system makes them more accountable, or we’ve seen anecdotally, make them more accountable for how they move through the rest of their life. And so how they move through their other sports, how they move through their other hobbies, how they move through their house as they’re cleaning or taking care of their kids or whatever it might be. So it’s, again, bringing the awareness back into their system. There’s a huge translation there. And then also filling in those gaps. So if you have someone who is a long distance runner, they’re, again, mostly linear in the way in which they run. And then also, they’re experiencing one plane of motion. And then also, they’re expressing their ability to have great endurance.

And so that’s, again, this little sliver of the spectrum that they’re expressing. And so if we get them to express motion or experience motion in different planes of motion, so let’s say not in just one direction, but all directions and not at just the joints that they work during running in that direction, but also working those same joints in every direction. So now we’re making not only their joints, but also their soft tissues, more pliable, more resilient, have better communication with all of the other joints, have better communication with the nervous system.

And so that was kind of the concept behind cross-training, which is a lot of kids, sorry, if you’re in the athletic training world, so let’s say you’re working for a high school team, or you’re working with a high school team, or you’re working with the college team. That’s the big thing as of recently, which is stay away from specialization. And so make the kids do everything. So it’s not just when they’re in season for football, they do football and then nothing else. It’s make them do all the things so that they can build these resilient bodies that don’t break down so quickly from over repetition.

Steven Sashen:

I remember seeing an infographic somewhere where it was showing Olympic athletes from the ’30s through the ’60s and then beyond that, and in the early time in the Olympics, most of the athletes, they all looked about the same. They were 5’10-ish, 180-ish. They were well-rounded athletes of all sorts who just picked a thing that they specialized in for some reason, but they all looked kind of similar. And then specialization kicked in, and now you have 4’2″ female gymnasts and 7’10” basketball players where if there was a media where that hit the Olympic stadium, and then many thousands of years later, someone did an archeological dig, they would assume it was a collection of different species, that was some sort of weird meat market, but it definitely was not a collection of human beings that all came out of the same universe.

So I like that. That’s a really interesting thing. I want to move on, because we don’t have a whole lot of time left. About something that I’m just curious about. I’m always fascinated with businesses that I’ve never done that I can’t even conceive what it would be like to do them. And the idea of creating a program where you then train trainers to propagate the program is one that I’ve thought about that’s fascinating. That and probably something I will never do. So talk to me about what that was like. I mean, I’m just curious when you realized you wanted to do that, and I’m assuming you hadn’t done it before, what happened in your brain? What were you thinking? And then the technical part of doing it.

Mike Fitch:

Yeah. So once we had put out instructional DVD and we got such a great response from it, I realized that if I want to reach more people, one of the best ways to reach more people is to reach the people who affect those people. And so I kept thinking, all right, well, yes, we can continue to go kind of… And I hate to use this term, but direct to consumer, we can think about the people who are at home that might want to use this or the, what are they called? Not fit pros. Anyways, people who want to educate themselves on different training strategies, but they’re not necessarily professionals.

So that was one idea from the beginning. But then I realized, well, you know what? I’m having so much fun teaching this. The classes are going really well. I’m integrating into my personal training sessions, and people are loving it. Why not go after the people that affect more people? And so we started really gearing towards personal trainers, physical therapists, chiropractors, body workers, anyone who was in the field of health and wellness. And so when we first put up the workshop, I think I had one person at the first workshop.

Steven Sashen:

Nice.

Mike Fitch:

And then after that, it just continued to build and build. And then we’d have people that would actually fly in to take the workshop, which was super weird for me at the time. And then I think we did a year-

Steven Sashen:

Well, wait, I want to pause there. I mean, when you have the idea, okay, I want to build this out, and then one person shows up, I’m imagining, it’s kind of like, okay, all right. That’s not what I was hoping for. And then at the flip side, when people start flying in, it’s like, okay, now I feel a certain sense of responsibility that I didn’t know I was going to feel. I mean, that’s what I’m imagining. Was it anything like that?

Mike Fitch:

Well, I can tell you I was stoked to have one person.

I was like, “Yes, one person came.” And at the time, we weren’t spending anything. This was 10 years ago. So 10 years ago. As far as the digital age goes, that’s a long time ago. And so at the time, there was basically YouTube and Facebook was kind of being used, but wasn’t really super popular yet, at least in my experience. So there wasn’t Instagram, I don’t even think Twitter had come out at that point. And so we were mostly working with YouTube, and so we were putting out these different videos and then put out the Animal Flow video. And so I was still trying to figure out what is this digital space that we’re starting to play in? And then looking at, wow, there are so many possibilities of reaching different people.

And so just to have one person was great. And then after that, we started getting a little bit smarter with how we were marketing the workshops and the DVDs. And Karen was a big part of that who… So Karen’s my business partner, and Karen is crazy smart in all the things that I’m super stupid at. So it makes a good team, and I think everyone needs that person. Everyone needs a Karen.

Steven Sashen:

Oh, if I weren’t married to Lena, Xero Shoes wouldn’t have happened because she is the operations, finance, trying to figure out everything that could possibly go wrong, and let’s make sure that doesn’t happen person. And I’m the vision, product, creative marketing guy who’s always trying to think of the million things that we could do next. And so my job is to build a car. Hers is to make sure there’s gas and tires.

Mike Fitch:

Mm-hmm. Yeah. Same thing. Same exact thing. So if it weren’t for her, I mean, I certainly would not be where I am now with Animal Flow, that’s for sure. So yeah. And luckily, she has her doctorate in sociology. So she worked for a nonprofit in Miami for many, many years. But also, she had a degree in film, which that was crucial for us at the time, we could shoot all of our own content, we could shoot our own videos, we could put out videos that we produced, we’d edited, et cetera. So the cost was very low, the cost was very low. And we always had a grassroots approach, trying to figure out ways that we could reach more people without putting a lot of money into advertising because we just didn’t have a lot of money to drop into advertising at the time. We both had regular jobs. So she had the job at the nonprofit, and then I was still working as a session trainer.

So as we began to build the company Animal Flow, and at the time we were working, we also had a company called Global Bodyweight Training, it was just figure it out, play business. We always say that we were playing business. We were just kind of stumbling along this path of let’s just figure it out as we go and work with people that we like. That was our number one rule. Don’t work with shitty people. And we just started to see it snowball. And then at one point, so I used to work for a company called Equinox gyms. So Equinox, I give them a lot of credit for my education as a trainer. And they really push, they really put a lot of resources into educating their trainers and making sure that they go through different certifications.

And so this is many years later, after I’ve left Equinox and I went back to them with Animal Flow, and we ended up working with them exclusively for a year. So they gave me the opportunity to go around to all the Equinox gyms and teach the program. And so essentially, what they gave me the opportunity to do was to learn my own program and learn how to become a better teacher.

Steven Sashen:

Love it.

Mike Fitch:

Yeah. So I spent a year doing a couple workshops a week for almost an entire year, and just working with trainers and figuring out how to become more effective with the way that I coached. And I communicated to them and then figured out how to help them take these tools and apply them right away with their clientele.

Steven Sashen:

At what point did you find yourself walking around the house or when no one had shown up yet for the workshop? I don’t mean because no one’s there. Because it was either before or after an actual workshop session that you… Did you find yourself going, “Huh, check this out. This is an actual thing.”?

Mike Fitch:

Man, I still do that.

Steven Sashen:

Yeah, yeah. But I’m just saying, when was the… I mean, same thing. When was the first time where you just really took a moment and went, “Holy crap.”?

Mike Fitch:

You know when it was? I had seen someone post a video of themselves performing Animal Flow in Australia, and they were on a beach in Australia, in Sydney, in Bondi, where I was at in my young ’20s. But anyways, it was just to see someone do this thing that you put together and see them do it on the other side of the world, and just think about all those connections or what had to happen for that person to get the video. And then once they got it, they actually took time to learn this methodology and then apply it and then video it. And then I was like, “Wow, yeah, this is a real thing. We can affect people.”

Steven Sashen:

I mean, I’ve had a number of these, but I had one just recently, and it was a COVID related thing. I went into Whole Foods very quickly just to pick up some bread and go. And I was wearing a Xero Shoes t-shirt and there’s a couple standing at the same counter. I was six feet away. And the woman turns to me and says, “Oh, do you work for Xero Shoes?” And I didn’t give the most accurate answer I could have. I just said, “In fact, I do.” She goes, “Oh, my God. They’re my favorite shoes.” And she goes on and on and on about how much she loves her Xero Shoes. And she had no idea who I was. And I love it.

Mike Fitch:

That’s awesome.

Steven Sashen:

Because I mean, my face has become so identified with the brand. I mean, Lena and I put ourselves out there. And like you, when we started this, I was just making videos and putting them on YouTube about how to make barefoot sandals and how to run, et cetera. So when it’s someone who’s come to it who has no relationship at all to me, it makes me extremely happy.

Mike Fitch:

Man, same here. And sometimes same thing, if I’m wearing a shirt and someone’s like, “Oh, I like Animal Flow.” or “I’ve done Animal Flow.” or “I’ve heard of it.”, I will quite often not tell them that I created it or whatever. I’ll just like, “That’s great. Have you tried a class yet?”

Steven Sashen:

My fantasy is to be at a dinner party sometime in the future and have someone come up to me and tell me how he helped start Xero Shoes and it was someone who had nothing to do with it. That’s my fantasy.

Mike Fitch:

And then just let them play with it. Just go with, “Oh, cool. Tell me more about that.”

Steven Sashen:

Yeah. “How’d you do that? Where’d you get the original idea? God, that’s so neat. Weren’t there some other people involved in the early days? I don’t remember their names.” That would be really cool.

Mike Fitch:

Nope, just you. Huh? Amazing.

Steven Sashen:

Well, I’ve met so many people who claim to be the first investors in Crocs, and I know who the first investors in Crocs were, and it was not these people. And so it’s basically, I want to have that happen at some point. I think that’d be a lot of fun.

Mike Fitch:

That would be great.

Steven Sashen:

It would. All right. Well, wrapping things up, if people want to experience this, and I imagine they will and recommend that they do, how would you recommend that they take that first animal-ish step into Animal Flow?

Mike Fitch:

I think the best way would be to go to www.animalflow.com, and from there, they can figure out what the experiences that they want. So from there, they can find out about our on-demand channel. So we do have an on-demand channel and corresponding app where you can do the classes, do tutorials, do flows. We have all of our live workshops that are mostly for fitness professionals. However, we do allow people who want to come in and just learn more about Animal Flow. We’re doing those now, streaming of course, because live workshops are not a thing at the moment. So we’ll have our first one this weekend, which I’m looking forward to. And then we have there, they can find our Instagram or they can find more ways or options that they can maybe work with one of our instructors remotely. So yeah, I think animalflow.com would be the best way.

Steven Sashen:

Not surprising in this dotcom world we live in. Cool. Well, Mike, this has been not surprisingly a total pleasure, because it is every time we chat. And so I do hope people find out more. And let me know what happens. And of course, I still have some Xero Shoes sitting for you in boxes right back there, that when we can get within six feet of each other, you’re going to be getting your hands on and your feet.

Mike Fitch:

I can’t wait to get them, man.

Steven Sashen:

Yeah, we’ll make that happen. And in the interim, once again, thank you and let me just do a quick sign-off. For everyone else, thank you for being here. Again, go to www.jointhemovementmovement.com. For previous episodes to find out all the different ways that you can engage with this content, find our Facebook page and our Instagram and et cetera, et cetera. And like I said, we’re creating a movement movement. You are the people who make the movement move. So if you want to be part of the tribe, please do subscribe. If you have any questions, drop me an email, move@jointhemovementmovement.com or any recommendations, anyone you think should be on the show, whatever it is that you want to do, just drop me a line. I’m happy to respond. And I’m usually pretty fast at doing that as well. That’s all I can think of. So until next time, have fun, be well. Live life feet first.

View Details

Jim Klopman is a lifelong innovator who has always been one of those people who thinks differently. He believes balance training has sharpened his ability to make new neural connections and see the possibilities and pathways that others miss.

Listen to this episode of The MOVEMENT Movement with Jim Klopman about your real sixth sense, balance.

Here are some of the beneficial topics covered on this week’s show:

– How engaging the big toe while walking or running is important for balance and preventing falls.

– How balance training enhances athletic performance and coordination in athletes.

– Why instability training methods may be more effective for balance improvement than traditional weightlifting.

– How balance work must be distinct from weightlifting to fully reap it’s benefits.

– How balance is crucial for your overall performance and coordination.

Connect with Jim:

Guest Contact Info
Twitter@SlackBow

Instagram@slackbow_balance

Facebookfacebook.com/SlackBow

Links Mentioned:slackbow.com

Connect with Steven:

Website

Xeroshoes.com

Twitter@XeroShoes

Instagram@xeroshoes

Facebookfacebook.com/xeroshoes

Episode Transcript

Steven Sashen:

You think you have five senses. I’m not even going to list them because I can’t remember what the hell they are. But maybe you have a sixth sense, and I don’t mean ESP, that if you don’t master and develop and practice could really impact your life in a very, very negative way. And we’re going to find out more about that on today’s episode of The MOVEMENT Movement, the podcast for people who want to know the truth about what it takes to have a happy, healthy, strong body starting from the feet first, because those are your foundation. We’re going to break through the mythology, the propaganda, and often the outright lies that people have told you about what it takes to run, walk, hike, dance, play, workout, do yoga, whatever it is you like to do more enjoyably and more effortlessly.

I’m Steven Sashen from xeroshoes.com, your host for The MOVEMENT Movement Podcast, where, look, our goal you may know is to make natural movement the obvious, better, healthy choice the way natural food currently is. And we need your help for that, which is why we like to say we are creating a movement movement, and we would like you to be part of that. In fact, if you want to be part of the tribe, please subscribe. You know how to do that. Go to jointhemovementmovement.com, you’ll find all the places you can interact with us on YouTube, on iTunes, on the Google Play, wherever it is, and make sure you share and review and like. And if you’re on YouTube, hit the bell, et cetera.

If you’re watching on YouTube, by the way, my apologies for not having shaved today, deal with it, and you know how it goes. So anyway, why don’t we jump in. I’m trying to think if there’s anything. Oh, if you have any questions, feel free to drop them to me via email. Send an email to move@jointhemovementmovement.com. And let’s do this, shall we? So first of all, I want to say hello and welcome my dear friend, Jim Klopman. Jim, hello, dude.

Jim Klopman:

Hey, man. Where did you go to radio school?

Steven Sashen:

I never went to radio school, but I did when I was living in Manhattan, which was from ’83 to ’93, I did make a good amount of money doing voiceover stuff.

Jim Klopman:

There you go.

Steven Sashen:

I’ll show you the entire recording session that I did that made me $15,000 one year. You ready? Here we go. Ready? I’ll do the entire session right now. Fire. Okay, that was it. So it was a commercial, radio commercial for the army. And what they used to do is they would get actors to do the radio commercials, and if the radio ones went well, then they would bring in actual people from the military to do the TV commercials. So there was times where I was doing standup comedy for a living. There’s times where I’d be at some gig and I’d hear the setup for the commercial. I was like, “Oh, just wait for it, wait for it. Fire. That’s me.” And everyone would go, “Yeah, right.” I was like, “Yeah, that’s me.”

Jim Klopman:

Nice. Better be lucky than good.

Steven Sashen:

It’s a really good gig. The voiceover world, you can make a lot of money doing a very small amount of work.

Jim Klopman:

Yeah, apparently.

Steven Sashen:

Five guys who do most of it, and they have a pretty cushy gig, but enough about that. So Jim, why don’t you tell human beings where you’re from and what you do, and then we’re going to give people a movement to do based on that conversation.

Jim Klopman:

Yeah. I’m based in Park City, Utah, now, and what I do is I’ve developed methods and systems and patents and equipment to improve athletic balance. And athletic balance is something far beyond what you get at physical therapy. Most balance training stops at physical therapy a little bit beyond, but we take you all the way up to the Cirque du Soleil level, and we find that there’s a direct correlation to balance, athletic performance, coordination, agility. And we’re pretty convinced now that as you improve your balance, you’ll also improve your vision as well.

Steven Sashen:

Well, so let me back up and just say for people who are listening or watching that while you use the word athletic repeatedly, that doesn’t mean this is for athletes, far from it. Would you like to address that point?

Jim Klopman:

Yeah. So another way of saying it it’s dynamic balance. So it’s movement. The world is built for people who have not so good balance because the American Disabilities Act, everything’s flat, everything’s perfectly staged. So the world is set up for people who need canes and walkers, and we end up being stuck in that place as humans. And so the fact is you do go outside, you challenge yourself, whether on the slope, the tennis court, sprinting, running, going up and down trails, all those areas have higher needs of balance that we don’t recognize that we don’t have.

Steven Sashen:

So let me start with, since I like to give people a movement to do, you and I talked about this right before we got started. Do you want to walk people through it, or do you want me to do it?

Jim Klopman:

Well, one of our core balance challenges is a balance challenge in an athletic position. So if you go to your physical therapist or the doctor they have you stand and kick one leg in front, and you have a straight leg that’s into the ground and one leg pointed out in front. And basically that’s teaching you how to balance on your heel with a straight knee, a position you’re never in real life. Actually, it’s a position you’re in just before you fall on your ass. So we like to change that up and say that first of all, and this dovetails into, the big toe is sort of the core of all balance on the foot. So you have to engage the big toe. So we have you stand on one foot.

Steven Sashen:

Well, so let’s just actually walk people through it. So keep in mind some people are not in a place where they can actually do this. So be it, you’ll get the hint. So walk them through and give them an actual-

Jim Klopman:

So you can do it next to your desk. You just stand on, let’s say your left foot.

Steven Sashen:

Some people are in a car.

Jim Klopman:

Well, don’t do it in your car.

Steven Sashen:

Look, if you do it, open the sunroof first.

Jim Klopman:

Exactly. Stand on your left foot, and then you bend your knee so your weight is over your big toe.

Steven Sashen:

I’m going to do it. Hold on.

Jim Klopman:

You stick your ass out a little bit.

Steven Sashen:

All right. I got to bend down. Wait, here, I’ll change this. Okay. All right. I’m doing it.

Jim Klopman:

And then you just balance and have that other leg behind it, so it’s not in front or to the side, it’s actually behind it. So you’re in a deep, nice athletic position.

Steven Sashen:

Yeah.

Jim Klopman:

Right.

Steven Sashen:

Yeah. So I just bent my knee, so my heel is behind me. All right, mostly on my toe.

Jim Klopman:

And your knee is actually behind you too, so off the ground foot, the knee is behind you as well. And you just do that actually… I mean, if you do it 30 seconds to a minute on each side, it has a massive ability to clear your brain and kind of reset your brain and get out of that chatty conscious brain. It takes you in your subconscious more.

Steven Sashen:

Can we do the advanced one right now?

Jim Klopman:

Sure.

Steven Sashen:

Close your eyes.

Jim Klopman:

No, we never close our eyes.

Steven Sashen:

Oh, really? I love doing this one. How come-

Jim Klopman:

When you close your eyes, what you’re doing is you’ve just play into my hands beautifully.

Steven Sashen:

So how come?

Jim Klopman:

Well, first of all, you train yourself to be a well-balanced blind person.

Steven Sashen:

Hey, there are some blind people listening.

Jim Klopman:

Not, But blind people actually take their visual cortex-

Steven Sashen:

… with cars, you have an issue with…

Jim Klopman:

They’ll take their visual cortex and they’ll change the application visual, so other senses.

Steven Sashen:

True.

Jim Klopman:

So what happens when you close your eyes is we see there’s probably five different systems that are involved in your balance system, ones that aren’t even talked about in science yet. Eyes, vestibular, tongue, which is pretty well researched, palm of the hands, your mapping system. You have a position in your brain… you have in your brain, a map of every position your body can be in, your vestibular system, the 100,000 to 200,000 sensors on the bottom of your feet, the muscles on the bottom of your feet. All these are separate systems that are all engaged in the balance system. Why on God’s earth would you take one system and shut it off?

So you can think you’re isolating the other system, when in fact, when we teach people to balance, we improve their eyesight dramatically. They see better, they have better field awareness, they can shoot the basketball better, they can hit the golf ball better, they can put better all because the balance system is engaged along with the eyes. What’s missing is that when you look at the eyes and you see my hand, that’s only 5% of the data that’s going into your eyes. 95% of the data is going to your subconscious mind.

Now there’s a large chunk of it that goes to faces. So if I destroyed your visual cortex and all you saw was black, you don’t see my hand at all, you go, “Oh, that’s a happy face. That’s a sad face.” By the same token, if you had a destroyed visual cortex, you could walk down a hallway with obstacles even though all you saw was black because your visual cortex is destroyed. And there’s research that proves this. So our point is huge amount of data comes in through the eyes, and we think shutting off the eyes is something that helps the balance and it doesn’t.

Steven Sashen:

I’m not suggesting that it helps it at all. In fact, let me back up a little bit.

Jim Klopman:

It actually hurts it to close your eyes.

Steven Sashen:

Well, hold that thought.

Jim Klopman:

It will hurt your balance to close your eyes.

Steven Sashen:

No, of course. But two things. First things first, let me back up to the intro that I gave for this, which was the idea that we could arguably say that balance is a sixth sense that people do not pay attention to, they don’t develop, they often lose it for reasons that we’ll no doubt get into, so that sort of thing.

And let me back up also about what you said during the intro. So I would normally, at this point, well, not normally, I would hold up a copy of your book if I had it with me, but it’s at home and not the office. So I just want to say right now a lot of what we’re going to talk about is in your book. I don’t know why you’re laughing. Come on.

Jim Klopman:

Well, I don’t have a copy of the book myself.

Steven Sashen:

Perfect. So tell people what the name is.

Jim Klopman:

The name of the book is Balance is Power.

Steven Sashen:

Yeah. So I’m holding it up, it says balance.

Jim Klopman:

And that’s one of our core products called the SlackBlock…

Steven Sashen:

Yes, I’m holding…

Jim Klopman:

… which is sold through Xero Shoes.

Steven Sashen:

… balance training device. We’ll talk about this, but I hold that up mostly because it says balance equals power similar to the title of your book. So yeah, no, I’m not suggesting that closing your eyes is good for your balance. Clearly as soon as you close them, it’s like for most people, all hell breaks loose.

Jim Klopman:

No, it’s not good for training your balance, it inhibits your training.

Steven Sashen:

Got it. I have to tell you a funny story about that. There was a situation recently, I won’t mention why because I don’t want to… Well, because, and anyway, they had me stand on one leg and then close my eyes, and then two minutes later said, “All right, I guess you can stop now.” So I was totally fine. And then they put you through a workout, and then have you come back and do the balance drill again where the idea is after you’ve done this workout, your balance has improved. And it’s similar to when you’ve seen people with the hologram watches or any other something else where once you do it once, the next time, you’re usually going to be better regardless of what happens in between, because it is amazing to me how quickly people do respond to balance training.

Jim Klopman:

Yeah, so we see that too, which is not always a great business model because we can’t hook them in for a year’s worth of training like they do…

Steven Sashen:

Good. Well, I say that for a couple of reasons.

Jim Klopman:

No, I know.

Steven Sashen:

Look, I’m not a big… It’s kind of like chiropractic treatment. I have a good friend who’s a chiropractor who hates chiropractors, consult chiropractors when I say that. But unless you can demonstrate that you can make people graduate from what you’re doing then I’m iffy about what you’re doing.

Jim Klopman:

Right, right. So it comes down to… First of all, anybody says they know everything about the balance system doesn’t know what they’re talking about. It’s one of the most highly researched parts of the nervous system. It’s 40,000 neuroscientists in the world, and they still haven’t figured this shit out. I mean, they just recently found out that information you get from the bottom of your feet doesn’t even go to your brain. It goes to brain tissue in your lower spine.

Steven Sashen:

Oh, interesting.

Jim Klopman:

If you look at the whole balance system and you look at the data flows, it’s like a computer network. The data flows are generally closer to the processing center, so the vestibular systems where right next to a huge processing center. So you get a lot of data from the bottom of your feet. So rather than spending all the time going up to your brain with the data and then back down again, they have a special mini computer that’s in between your brain and your feet to do the work for you.

Steven Sashen:

I have so many punchlines in my head right now about the computer between my brain and my feet. I’m not going to get into that.

Jim Klopman:

To us it’s a software system. So you’re not using it, and we’ll have people come in, let’s say they train at a level, they leave our session at a level two. Well, they’ll come back the next session and be at a level four. And so the system’s like firing back up, and it’s like we’ve unplugged it and plugged it back in the wall again and it starts coming back. And of course, different age groups, different athletes have different levels of progression, but it’s truly, it’s mind-blowing how quick it regenerates and comes back.

Steven Sashen:

Well, let me back up again because I think you know this story, but I’m not sure that you do. I have a personal interest in this, and it’s one of the reasons that I’ve been very excited about what we’re doing at Xero Shoes and the response and reports we get from people who wear these shoes and what they say, because it was a little over four years ago, my dad, who was little 80 and a half at the time, and he had always just been in big thick shoes and he kind of shuffled where he walked and he didn’t have very good balance obviously. And he tripped on a ledge in a hallway at a business that was maybe half an inch, three-quarters of an inch and fell down and broke his hip and was dead two weeks later. And so-

Jim Klopman:

Really? Wow.

Steven Sashen:

Yeah, it was… I mean, I’ll tell you, it was crazy. I got a call that he had done this. He was in the hospital, had a hip replacement. I talked to him two days after that. He was totally fine, ready to sue the people who had the thing in the hallway. And then three days later, I got a call from the hospital, it’s like, “Your dad just coded, you better get out here. We just paddled him back,” and maybe four or five days later, that was the end.

Jim Klopman:

Yeah. Well, it’s oftentimes a broken hip is a death knell, but usually it takes longer. But the numbers are staggering. So if you’re over the age of 45 and you go to the emergency room, there’s over 50% chance you’re there for a fall.

Steven Sashen:

Oh, really?

Jim Klopman:

Overall, half of all emergency room visits over the age of 45 are for falls. And those are just the ones that are bad enough that need an ER…

Steven Sashen:

They are going to go to the emergency room.

Jim Klopman:

… so imagine how many more there are. Over the age of 65, it’s the number one cause of accidental death. Over age 65, it’s the number one cause of accidental injury. And the interesting thing is where deaths from all these other diseases are going down as medicine and drugs get better, the deaths from these falls are going up. So you’d think with the ADA rules and the fitness programs and all the healthy things we’re doing that these number of falls is per 100,000, and this is not a gross number, continues to go up. So it’s not a huge number. So the deaths are about the number of those, let’s say, of strokes. But it’s still…

Steven Sashen:

Preventable.

Jim Klopman:

Oh, my God, hugely preventable, and it’s the number one cause of industrial death. So it’s just massive. And what people also don’t realize, this is mind-blowing fact too, is it’s a number one cause of concussions. So it’s not Johnny on the soccer field or the baseball field or the football field, it’s people falling. So let’s say falls are a $30 billion a year problem, and concussions are a 60 to $90 billion a year problem. So you’re talking over $100 billion a year that’s costing us because of falls that are totally and easily preventable.

Steven Sashen:

Well, so before we talk about the prevention, I mean, obviously I have theories about some of the causes in general and the increase, but I don’t want to say it. Let me hear what you think.

Jim Klopman:

Well, I think there’s several. We have four listed in the book, and here they are. One, I’ll start with, you, shoes.

Steven Sashen:

But enough about me, talk about my shoes.

Jim Klopman:

So first of all, the shoes today, you have an elevated heel. We could rename our company big toe balance because we just think the big toe is a huge component to any balance challenge. So when you look at the running shoes nowadays, which most people don’t run in, you have your toes virtually off the ground and your heels up. They say a four millimeter lift is a flat shoe, but it’s from four to 12 millimeters up tilted.

The second part of it is the foam in the shoe sort of inoculates your foot from all sensation. When we balance train somebody, they will come in and oftentimes with elastic shoes on for the first visit, and they’ll say, “Can I keep my shoes on?” And we say, “Yeah, sure, keep them on.” And because taking them to the maximum balance limit, about a minute or two minutes in, they go, “My feet are really hurting. Why are my feet hurting?”

And what’s happening is because we’ve taken them to the balance limit, that foot is going, “I got to get involved in this shit, and I can’t, what’s going on?” And it’s trying to push through that foam to get involved. And we say, “Okay, take off your shoes.” And then we put them on their flat board with no shoes on, no socks too, because that’s another level of friction we don’t want in there. And they’re like, “That’s amazing.” Within five seconds, foot pain goes away.

So number one cause, you say shoes. Number two is… I’ll go through the four. Number two is what we’re doing now. So I just gave you a discussion on the peripheral vision. As I’m engaging you here, I’m doing what’s called peripheral denial. I’m shutting off this system around me. And the more I do that, the more I damage my balance system. Third thing is bifocals or these lenses that are multi vision. So if I have lenses that are readers on the bottom or bifocals on the bottom, I’m cutting off the data that’s coming in from the bottom. And there’s a huge amount of data that comes in from the bottom of the eyes. And these come in through your rods, not the cones in your eyes, and they don’t need vision correction. And then-

Steven Sashen:

Well, I want to pause on that one. As a guy who typically wears progressives, I’m not wearing them right now, which I mean, if I don’t wear them, I can’t function, because I got progressives because basically computer screen distance, I’m totally fine. Anything closer or anything further, I’m screwed. So talk to me about that.

Jim Klopman:

Well, if you’re doing your sport and you don’t have to have any closeup vision…

Steven Sashen:

Oh, yeah, no, I take them off for that.

Jim Klopman:

… you do single vision. If you go into the Walmart-

Steven Sashen:

Actually I just take them off. I mean, I’m on a track, I can see the lines.

Jim Klopman:

Right. If you go to the Walmart, you need both, because you’re in Walmart, I got to see where I’m going and I got to read the labels. I understand that. But if you’re doing anything athletically, and we’ll take people that’ll come in, they’ll go… they’ll have their dual vision glasses on and we take them off and suddenly they’re balancing better. And they say, “I can’t see.”

Steven Sashen:

Oh, interesting.

Jim Klopman:

And I go, “You can’t see because that’s not the data we’re looking for. I don’t give a shit about that data that you say I can see.” Listen, if you take somebody who has macular degeneration, and this is particularly the young person who has some sort of… I forget the name of disease, macular degeneration, which is the central part of the vision gets clouded or disappears, and you put in front of them a cup, a glass, and a plate, and you say, “What position is the cup in?” They go, “I don’t know.” “What position is the plate in?” “I don’t know.” They can’t tell you. And they go, “Grab the cup. Grab the plate. Grab the glass.” See the two different systems in play there?

Steven Sashen:

Interesting.

Jim Klopman:

That’s the system we want. That’s the system we work with. So when we work with that system and we have tons of different methods of training that system, and it’s different than what anybody else is doing. I don’t even want to talk about it here because it’s just what we consider to be a trade secret. But learning how to use that system improves the athletic ability of the individual, improves their balance.

So back to this periphery thing. So you have peripheral denial because of this, you have the glasses that take it away, you have the shoes. And finally the fourth thing is that we talked about here is you’re moving about in modern spaces, in a constantly degrading situation. So we say that you need a walker. We have 0 to 100 scales. You need a walker, let’s say, or cane at level 20. The world is built for level 20. So you’ve degraded your system to level 20. So it’s just like you’re never going to learn how to lift a hundred pounds if you lift five pounds every day.

Steven Sashen:

Right.

Jim Klopman:

So you’re lifting five pounds every day with your balance system. Then one day you come along and you stumble, you’re dead, and we don’t stop… This is interesting. We don’t stop people from falling, we cause you to catch your balance, lose your balance, catch your balance, lose your balance, so when you hit the ground, there’s no velocity. It’s people that have bad balance.

Steven Sashen:

Yeah, they topple like a two by four.

Jim Klopman:

Very high velocity. So this system, this world we live in with flat floors, perfectly perpendicular walls. I mean, we have this level system built in, so we are totally detuned, so then one day we come along and we get a level 30 or 40 balance challenge, and we’re shit out of luck. And you can be totally healthy. I’ve had really healthy people come in and say, “Yeah, I’ve had that fall.” And they look healthy, they’re fit, but they don’t have good balance. So the fourth problem is the world we live in. And going back to the crazy numbers I was telling you about before, and it might relate to your dad, amongst those falls for people over the age of 65, you know what the number one cause is for those falls?

Steven Sashen:

I’m trying to guess. I’m guessing it has nothing to do with whether you’re tall enough to get on that ride. No, I don’t know.

Jim Klopman:

Can I get on that pony? No, it’s a curb.

Steven Sashen:

Oh, oh, interesting.

Jim Klopman:

So here’s the deal. When you see a step, every step by every building code, and every city in this…

Steven Sashen:

Same height.

Jim Klopman:

… country has to be… it can’t be an 8th or a 16th of an inch off, has to be exactly the same. But we see curbs all the time, but they’re always different heights.

Steven Sashen:

Interesting.

Jim Klopman:

And there are different heights within the same street. So it’s something that will cause you, if you don’t have this vision working and you don’t have good balance, you’ll catch your toe on it and go down.

Steven Sashen:

That’s interesting. I’m just having flashbacks to when I was in Nepal, this was 30 years ago, and have you ever been there?

Jim Klopman:

Mm-mm.

Steven Sashen:

So the way a lot of Nepali houses are built, they’ll start with a room, then they need to add on another room and they just put it wherever the hell they can. And then they build whatever they need to build to get from one room to the other. They’re rarely at the same level, you have to build a third and a fourth. It’s like a weird three-dimensional maze where none of the stairs match, none of the heights are the same to get from one room to the other. It’s totally crazy, and it really is, it’s like a very cool entertaining game that you’re playing 24/7 just to get around.

Jim Klopman:

Well, so if you go… I used to live in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, and there’s a little town right next to it. I’m trying to remember the name of it, but the houses are 1670s. And you go in there, every doorframe is like this, every wall is like this, every floor. So here’s the thing I don’t understand is that you look at Google, they spend so much money trying to make their offices interesting, and they got rounds spheres here and triangles there and cushy things here, walls that go like this and floors that are dead straight. Now to me, I understand you got to have, again, for ADA, you got to have flat floors for those who are in wheelchairs, walkers, and canes. Why the fuck not have like this, cobblestones, things that go like this, things that go like this, none of that?

And so I just don’t understand. I don’t know. I just don’t get why we get so stuck into this world. Now here’s the other thing that happens is when you’re in this area and you’re in these perfectly… and we talk about this a lot in the book, you’re in these perfectly perpendicular places in your office, nobody ever has ever, ever said, we need to spend more time in the office.

Steven Sashen:

True.

Jim Klopman:

What do you do on weekends? You leave the office, you ski, hike, run, trail run, sprint, play hockey, play tennis, play golf. Everything you’re doing is what, challenging your balance, riding a motorcycle. You can go to an art museum and challenge your balance because nowhere in art museum other than the frames, there’s a straight line.

So you come out, and on Monday you feel great, Sunday night you go to work and you get debilitated for a whole week, dunka-dunka-dunka-dunka-dunka-dunk. You feel like crap on Friday, got to go back out and recover again by balance challenges. So it’s a horribly debilitating environment. Apple knows it. So Apple knows that I got this box in front of me and it’s totally rectangular, but look at Apple’s screensavers, what are they all of? Totally fractal nature, mountains, trees, all sorts of nature type things. And even their little pink light that goes around drawing lines, nothing is square, nothing is straight.

Steven Sashen:

That’s so cute that you think that’s an Apple thing. Those were screensavers from DOS computers, and then Windows computers. There’s a whole lot of those wacky little things. But the thing about screens for me, and maybe it goes back to your peripheral… Was it peripheral blindness? What was the phrase?

Jim Klopman:

Yeah, it’s peripheral denial.

Steven Sashen:

Peripheral denial.

Jim Klopman:

So have you ever heard of amblyopia?

Steven Sashen:

No.

Jim Klopman:

Little kids that have wandering eye?

Steven Sashen:

Oh, yeah, yeah.

Jim Klopman:

So what happens is that it’s not that the eye is getting plenty of data, it’s a weak muscle thing, but you have to put a patch over the strong eye to make the weak eye start to work.

Steven Sashen:

Got it.

Jim Klopman:

If you don’t do it before age eight, it’s incorrectable, not because the eye can’t see, it’s because the brain has said, I’ve had enough of this and shut it off. So when you have now… And I’ve spoken to optometrists now who say they see it, kids coming in like this all day long and they test the kid, and their peripheral vision test is nothing like ours. It’s only right here, they go, “This kid’s got peripheral vision denial.”

Steven Sashen:

Oh, interesting.

Jim Klopman:

Because he’s starting to shut off that part of his brain.

Steven Sashen:

Well, my thing to peripheral vision denial is… And I’ve said this since, when did I get my first computer, 1983 is it’s difficult for me to deal with computers because I just don’t think in a 14 inch or 16, 17, or 23 inch thing. I don’t even think in one thing. I mean, when you come into my office, there’s piles of stuff in various places. The only way I know where anything is, is through that three-dimensional model. It is so difficult for me.

It’s funny, there’s certain kinds of activities that I can’t even do in my regular office. So I’m in our conference room right now. If I’m doing video editing, it’s easier for me to do it here than it is in my office. And I had an office at one point where it wasn’t working for me because the ceiling was too low. I’m hypersensitive to where space is around me.

Jim Klopman:

So if you look at it this way, and we have a presentation we did on this for management consultant years ago, is that go to some corporate office set up and who has the big window view? So it’s always the top people, the CEOs, the tops, and what do they do when they have some deep thought to do? When you see photos of any CEO in deep thought…

Steven Sashen:

Yeah, I don’t really know.

Jim Klopman:

… is he sitting on his desk like this? No, he’s looking out at his big view, because what that does too, and as we’ve talked about this in terms of athletic being in the zone, when you have that big view and I’m pulling in as much data as I can, your conscious brain shuts off. Everybody that’s in the audience right now, if you just turn to wherever you are and don’t look at one spot, but try to see everything you possibly can, you won’t have any conscious thought at all.

Steven Sashen:

It’s funny, I just had a flashback. I was with some people, a bunch of marketing things that we were doing, we are in a restaurant and we are sitting in a corner booth and I’m working on a problem and I said, “Wait, wait, I can’t do this. I have to get out of the booth to do it,” because the booth, the ceiling was like…

Jim Klopman:

Exactly.

Steven Sashen:

And the restaurant was like 15-foot ceilings. I had to get more space around my head.

Jim Klopman:

Exactly. And so you’re sensitive to it. But now imagine every person in every job in this country that’s in those spaces, it’s a total shutdown mode.

Steven Sashen:

God, that’s really fascinating. I’m also thinking it’s like the amount of work that I’ve done sitting in a hot tub late at night. I mean, the first few years of this company, we lived in a house, we were renting a house that had a hot tub, and I would just spend hours every night just sitting out there because that’s how I could get my best thinking done. So I want to back up. This is a thing I say often in these podcasts. Why you? How the hell did this happen? How did you get into this? Who are you? What are you doing here?

Jim Klopman:

Well, it’s been really a myth, what is it, myth of Sisyphus, whatever type of project. So when I was 50, I spent a day skiing with Stein Eriksen, just he and I, and he was 74. And I asked him, “How do you ski so well?” I could ski better than he could at that age, but still I didn’t that day because I didn’t want to embarrass him. But it was amazing. And we just had the most fun. I had more fun talking with him than skiing with him. But he said… Well, first of all he called me Jimmy, which was interesting because my only people who call me Jimmy are the people that knew me when I was like eight years old.

But he said, “Jimmy,” he said, “I ski every day.” Okay, I can’t do that. So I asked him about some of his gymnastic work, and he said, “Yeah, I used to do gymnastics when I raced.” And he said, “I still do some of it.” I think it’s interesting that we see a lot of athletes age out who have great physiques and great muscles because fitness has gotten so great. And of course you can buy really good vision, so they’re not aging out.

Steven Sashen:

Sorry, I thought you were going to say you could buy really good muscles, you could buy…

Jim Klopman:

Well, you can that too, but so why was an athlete aging out? And I thought maybe it’s a balance system. So I messed around. I looked for all sorts of balanced challenges in the industry, and there was nothing in the fitness industry that was a challenge. I discovered slacklining, but when I got on the slackline, walking didn’t make sense to me because putting one foot in front of the other is nothing that you do athletically. So you just never in that position.

Steven Sashen:

True.

Jim Klopman:

So I started doing some one foot work, and I was ridiculously fast as a skier at 50. Well, age 51, I was faster. So I’m like, “Wow, something’s happened here.” So long story short, I engaged a local university, their engineering department, they designed a frame for me. We built the frame, we patented the frame, I built a protocol that we patented, and we tested it on different athletes.

Steven Sashen:

So wait, wait, so was this for the SlackBow?

Jim Klopman:

Yeah.

Steven Sashen:

Okay. So basically just to describe it here, I’ll let you describe it for… I’ve been on one, so I know, but I will let you describe that for people.

Jim Klopman:

Yeah, it’s basically a two-inch line adjustable frame that’s like a slackline. But what makes it different for us is it’s infinitely controllable, and we have on what’s called a slack plate.

Steven Sashen:

So wait, I’m going to pause and do Jim to English translation. So what’s SlackBow? A SlackBow is, it’s a suspension system for a slackline. So basically it’s portable. Just imagine… Actually if you imagine a bow and arrow and you take the wooden part, the bow and put that on the ground so the string is parallel to the ground, that’s the gist of it. The string is the slackline, the bow is the thing that holds it and gives it whatever tension you need. And the plate you’re talking about is just a piece of wood essentially that’s about, what, a foot by three inches roughly?

Jim Klopman:

Yeah, a foot by three and a half. Yeah.

Steven Sashen:

Ah, that’s pretty good. I was guessing. That fits on top of the slack line. So rather than just having the webbing that you’re standing on, you have this block that you can stand on as well. Did I get that right?

Jim Klopman:

Yeah, you did a great job. And we do everything one foot because we determined that all athletic balance is on one foot or the other. You’re either transitioning to one foot or the other or you’re on one foot or the other. So this whole thing of balancing with both feet, and we do some two foot balance, but on a specific type of equipment, but a lot of times, not a lot of times, but all balance and athletic movements are on one foot or the other.

So anyways, back to my story. So then I try… There’s no real test of coordination. There’s the, what is it, 5-10-5 in the NFL and this vertical leap, which they say is a fairly good measure of coordination. So we did a vertical leap test on… it was only like 10, 12 athletes, and we had them do 10 sessions of the patented 12-minute routine. And every athlete except for one increased the vertical leap by over 10%. No changes in anything else.

And also what I found fascinating is when you watch some pre-intervention, they jumped and did their test. And then when you watch them after they did the 10 sessions, their kinetic chain and fluidity was just totally different. They were just graceful. They were ballet-like when they went up and touched. The one guy that didn’t do it, he was 5’11”, I think he had a 37-inch vertical to begin with, and he went to 41. So he increased by 8%. But he was insanely good to begin with, which was also a valuable test because here was somebody who had insanely good balance and vertical leap and we improved it.

So what we find too is that when your balance improves, your whole kinetic chain improves. And it took me years to figure this out, but what I determined was it’s a very simple premise is if you define the balance system as an autonomic system, which is not clearly defined as such. An autonomic system is supposed to be a system that the human body or human has that’s automatic and protective.

So first of all, falling hurts. So I’m pretty sure that stopping falling, we don’t think about it, is protective. So when you take something like hitting a golf ball, you can’t swing any harder than what your balance system allows because you’ll fall over. Now if you’re under the age of 12, you can do it, because kids under the age of 12 fall all the time because they’re still engaging in defining their balance system. If you’re drunk, you can do it, because you’ve shut the balance system off, you’ve detuned it, but you cannot swing so hard that you’ll fall.

Steven Sashen:

As an adult. Yeah.

Jim Klopman:

So this is true with baseball. It’s true if you were running and cutting. It’s true with long distance runners. It’s true with any of the…

Steven Sashen:

Hold on, you’re going to love this.

Jim Klopman:

… you cannot run any faster than your balance system allows.

Steven Sashen:

You’re going to love this. I think you will. So when I teach people… We’ll find out. Maybe you won’t. I don’t give a shit. So it’s one of the reasons that we get along. One of the things that I do when I’m teaching people how to run naturally, doesn’t have to be barefoot, but I’ll usually do it barefoot, we’ll be out in a park somewhere. And this is not about running per se because I’m not a fan of teaching someone to run on grass, because that’s like taking the padding from your shoe and just taking it to the ground, and you don’t don’t know what the hell’s under there anyway.

But what I have them do, I go, “Pretend you’re a kid. Watch what kids do when they’re goofing around and playing. So keep your arms by your sides. Don’t try to use your arms, and basically just lean your head until you’re about to fall over. And then just do the barest thing that you can to keep yourself from falling on your face, and just keep moving your head in these wacky different directions to let your head guide you.” And it takes people a while, so you can see that they’re constantly just on the edge of falling, but not letting themself. And then they start having so much fun. It’s such a great goofy thing to do. You’re just letting yourself fall and catching and fall and catching. It’s a blast.

Jim Klopman:

Well, and all balance challenges are fun. I recently stopped training anybody under the age of 15 years old.

Steven Sashen:

Because?

Jim Klopman:

Because they come and they have too damn much fun, nobody’s listening to me. I got specific protocols they’re supposed to be doing, the kids are screwing around. I was like, “Stop.” And they won’t listen to me because they’re having too much fun. So I need somebody who’s just a little more serious. My wife Janet’s much better at handling that kind of stuff. I can’t do it.

But anyways, yeah, that’s a good thing to do. And that leaning to the side, there’s a famous basketball player. Kyrie Irving had a video, someone did a video of him warming up, and he did that leaning to the side, and he’s truly one of the most athletic people in the NBA. That leaning to the side looked like he was doing it with CGI. It was incredible…

Steven Sashen:

Wow, cool.

Jim Klopman:

… how far over he was. So yeah, that kind of stuff is good. All that’s good to challenge your balance. Now the only problem we have with that is when you lean to the left, you end up putting the weight on the outside of your foot and there’s nothing functionally balance-wise on the outside of your foot.

Steven Sashen:

That is true. Here’s a question-

Jim Klopman:

But keep doing it, Steve because I know it makes you feel good.

Steven Sashen:

Well, yeah. I just do it for the fun of it. That’s all I care about. Let me ask you this while I scratch my eye. So what’s your take…? And I not surprisingly have an opinion about this, but I’m going to ask you as if I don’t, what’s your take on the whole trend in the fitness world about instability training, doing things while you’re on a Bosu ball or on a stability ball?

Jim Klopman:

Well, some of the things you’re seeing now, they’re using my methods that I’ve developed years ago, but we-

Steven Sashen:

Bastards.

Jim Klopman:

I had a website recently asked me to write an article because someone had just written an article reviewing all the unstable surface training research that was out there, which proves unequivocally that unstable surface training doesn’t work. And I’ve looked at all this research, and the protocols suck on every one of them. There’s one bit of research that was just done in Spain a year ago that used my methods that proves it does work.

Steven Sashen:

So to the extent that you’re able slash willing slash whatever, define somehow a difference between what they’re doing and what one of your methods might be.

Jim Klopman:

Well, one of the things they’re doing is, A, they don’t allow progressions.

Steven Sashen:

What do you mean?

Jim Klopman:

Well, it’s like, “Hey, Steve, we’re going to prove that lifting weights is going to make you stronger,” so I’m going to give you the protocol. “Here’s five pounds, lift it three times a day for the next six weeks and we’ll come back and test you.”

Steven Sashen:

Got it. Versus increasing the weight over time.

Jim Klopman:

Yeah. Secondly, what happens is what are you testing at the end? So there’s a real tendency in the… Look, it’s called strength and conditioning. And I’ll tell you a story about why it should be renamed strength conditioning and control. So everything with balance, and you see all these people doing is balance work and lifting weights at the same time. It’s like, why not brush your teeth and comb your hair at the same time? It just doesn’t make sense to do them both at the same time. Either build strength or improve your balance system.

And it is the core of all athletic movement, but it gets just a modicum of attention. It only gets like three minutes a day. Weightlifting, movement patterns, skill building patterns, those are all more important than building up the balance system. And what we say, and we’re working on a device now to measure athletic balances, do you know how good your balance is? You don’t. You know how good your heart rate is? All these other things.

So I come back to that’s one reason why. And then what you’re seeing too is the video of Alvin Kamara. They buy our equipment down there, and he’s standing on a medicine ball, and he’s catching sticks, the HECOstix, which are good things to do. We do it differently. We don’t put people on medicine balls, even though Alvin Kamara is doing it right, he’s engaging the front part of his feet. Most people are like this on a medicine ball, like that, the legs are bowed. Again, outside of the foot, nothing happens there. Secondly, when you look at-

Steven Sashen:

Most people when they try and balance, they basically try to put their feet on the outside and squeeze in rather standing on top and using their feet.

Jim Klopman:

Exactly. And the great thing… And I complimented the guy, he and I emailed back and forth, and I just can’t remember his name now. Sharif was his last name. If you look at that video that went viral of Alvin Kamara, he’s got the area cleared. There’s nothing for him to fall and break his neck on. Secondly, I mean, there was strength and conditioning coach, one after the other just peed all over this guy for doing it. And ,”Oh, it’s dangerous. Oh, how does it affect you on the football field?” All these criticisms.

A, I think the most important thing we know in our science is our progression. We’ll put something… I have a golfer on a medicine ball on our social media stuff we did a few weeks ago, but this kid’s been training with me for six years. He’s progressed to that. If you put somebody on a medicine ball that hasn’t been progressed to it, they’re going to fall and break… they’re going to fall and break their neck. So there is that kind of unstable service train.

Now there’s other unstable service train that we call earthquake equipment. And I’ve gone to the biggest, fanciest medical balance training centers in the world… in the country, excuse me. And they have these plates that are moved by servos underneath you. They’re going like this. It’s an earthquake.

Steven Sashen:

Miniature version of a mechanical bull.

Jim Klopman:

Right. Well, but my balance challenge is, A, I’m standing on a piece of something flat right now and it’s solid, but I’m still moving the challenge. So if I get on an unstable surface that’s generated by me, it’s that same thing and it’s exacerbated 100%. We take golfers through their movement patterns on solid ground, and then we put them on our own designed unstable surface and they find all the flaws in the golf swing right off the bat. And I say to them, “It’s minuscule when you’re on solid ground, it’s magnified when you’re on the unstable surface.”

But when you get back to the earthquake machines, I don’t know where that stuff’s coming from. I suck at it. Going back to your vision thing, it’s in the book. I have pictures of… I have a lot of brain damage in the back of my head, so my cerebellum has a lot of brain damage, and I probably… There’s nobody in my age in this country has balance as good as I do. But if I close my eyes and I stand on one foot…

Steven Sashen:

Gone.

Jim Klopman:

… it’s scary. How bad.

Steven Sashen:

Yeah, yeah. It’s funny, I’ve never looked for videos about professional bull riders on mechanical bulls, but I would be willing to bet that they’re not a whole lot better than people who just hang out on mechanical bulls, because there’s no doubt that they’re getting a whole lot of information about just some natural thing that you start to figure out from being an actual bull.

Jim Klopman:

I mean, we see two different types of balance. There’s foot base balance that comes from the ground, and then there’s balance. So if you’re a mountain biker, horseback rider, we’ve trained horseback riders, and their balance improves dramatically. And then the horse says, oh, I’m feeling more comfortable, because they don’t want to hurt the person on their back because they get in trouble. So they’ll move quicker and gracefully and better because the person on the back has better mounts. But that’s ass balance.

So this took me a while to figure out too, I bought a couple of unicycles. I was going to learn how to ride a unicycle. I get on the unicycle and it took me nearly two years to figure out the unicycle is ass balance. So how well can I sit on my ass and not have much pressure on my feet? Now when I ride my mountain bike, it’s pedal balance.

Steven Sashen:

Totally different.

Jim Klopman:

I’m going around turns, I’m on my pedal. But a bull rider’s got ass balance. A horseback rider’s got ass balance. A mountain biker… I mean, a cyclist has ass balance. So those are different balances than balancing through your feet.

Steven Sashen:

How old were you when you wanted to learn to ride the unicycle?

Jim Klopman:

64.

Steven Sashen:

Okay. Our realtor, actually, our commercial realtor, he rides a unicycle all over the place, and he’s been doing it since he was in… I don’t know how long he’s been doing it, but let’s just say his children have a very hard time with the fact that that’s what he does.

Jim Klopman:

Yeah, well, it’s good for you. And once you get it, it’s good. I just haven’t put the time in.

Steven Sashen:

Well, it’s so funny because actually, boy, one of my first… I don’t know how to describe this. I learned a moonwalk from a guy who’s a very famous bass player, and we were at Busch Gardens in Williamsburg, Virginia, together. He and his brothers were in a band. I was doing magic comedy things. Anyway, he taught me to moonwalk. I taught him to do a standing back flip. Then a whole bunch of us all bought unicycles. And the thing that’s so funny about ass balance, it’s 90% relaxation, it’s 90% just sinking.

So I ride a recumbent bike, because I’m a dork, and I’ve been doing that for, Jesus, 30 years. And when I put people on a recumbent, they’re all freaking out. I go, “Look, I’m just going to push you. You don’t do anything. You just hang out and just learn to sit and do nothing. Don’t pedal. Just learn to… We’ll get you down this little hill. Just relax.” And eventually you figure that out, but it’s obviously it’s a very different thing on your feet.

Jim Klopman:

Yep, absolutely.

Steven Sashen:

So, so, so, so, what you’re pointing to, which I think is really interesting, is two pieces of the puzzle. One is that there isn’t an awareness of… Let’s call balance our sixth sense. There isn’t this awareness that this is an actual thing that is important independent of this instability training stuff, which I agree is just kind of silly. And then there isn’t yet… And I know that where I’m going with this is something that you’re trying to do. There isn’t yet a program that has been, not developed obviously, but caught on to give people something that they can do where it is a progressive program where they experience the combination of satisfaction of progressing and demonstrable benefits thereof.

And I find this kind of amazing because I’m remembering in the last couple of years, I’ve been in various hospitals for surgery or whatever, and almost every one of them, actually, not even hospitals, doctor’s offices as well, where almost every one of them has a flyer from the hospital about some balance thing for the elderly. And when I look into the program, there’s no there there to it.

Jim Klopman:

Well, there’s two things that go on there. Again, I mean, I like to focus on the athletic balance. So we have our equipment’s being used at the University of Michigan, and I met with them last week, and they said, “Well, okay, but can you give us a set of gradations? And so you’re level one through nine.” And we gave them that. And so that’s part of what’s missing. But what’s also missing is we don’t realize our balance is bad till it’s acute, till we’ve fallen. So we have a golfer, let’s say, who comes in and he’s an eight handicap. I look at his balance, I go, “Do you know your balance could be improved?” “Yes.” And I said, “Well, if I improve your balance, will you believe that I’ll lower your handicap by 40%?” He go, “No.” We improve his balance-

Steven Sashen:

Yeah. Let me highlight that. So for whatever reason, people by and large, and perhaps probably people who are listening or watching this, by and large, don’t have the frame of reference to conclude or believe that balance may be the fundamental or a fundamental problem underlying many of the other issues they’re dealing with.

Jim Klopman:

Right.

Steven Sashen:

I should have opened with that.

Jim Klopman:

So there’s dissonance and disconnect. So we’ve had golfers that come in, we improve their handicap by 40% within 8 to 10 hours, and then come back, and you go, “How’s it going?” “Oh, I was a six, now I’m a three.” “Oh, great, cool, the balance training worked.” “Well, no, I bought a new driver, I got a new coach, blah, blah, blah.” And I go, “Baloney, that’s just not true. You’ve been on a plateau for five years. You come and spend time with us, now it changes.” And so there’s this incredible dissonance.

And secondly, there’s a huge dissonance because nobody wants to admit, “I have been busting my ass for seven years to lower my handicap, and you’re telling me I just did this for eight hours and I’ve lowered my handicap? No, I’m an American. Nothing comes easy to me. I work hard. I buy a better game. I hire the best coach. That’s how it works. Don’t tell me it’s that easy.” And so I have this problem all the time.

So again, we come back to here’s the thing, there are balanced measurement devices, there are static measurement devices, nobody understands the balance system we do in the movement patterns that we know. So we’re working on developing a system where you can say, “Oh, I’m a 45. I’m going to balance train,” four weeks later, “I’m a 75, and look at this, I’m faster on my mile, I’m faster on my 100 meters. Things are going better.” Or, “My injury’s gotten better.”

So you can start correlating your balance system to other parts of your life. “Oh, I feel like crap. I’m going to go going to balance train for 20 minutes and come back. Oh look, it’s gone up. I feel great. I’m thinking better.” I mean, there’s all sorts of things you can correlate it to.

Steven Sashen:

It’s really interesting. One of the things that I’m amazed people don’t… Well, let me say it differently. People especially in the West, I think, I don’t know why I said it that way, we think of things as being very disparate and we don’t realize the interplay of certain features, certain functions. So for example, the point that you made early on, we have all these nerve endings in the soles of our feet. And people, for amazing reasons, don’t correlate or connect that to the vestibular system.

It’s like, “Oh, my feet hurt,” or, “My feet are doing whatever.” But it doesn’t occur to them that all that information is part of what contributes to your balance. And more, if people do think about how you need to have your feet aware of what’s going on underneath you, it doesn’t occur to them that if your brain is doing its job correctly just in the vestibular system, that that is not just a single isolated thing, that that has more global impact on your neurology. Not across the board.

Jim Klopman:

Well, you had Emily… I can’t pronounce her last name.

Steven Sashen:

Spiegle.

Jim Klopman:

Yeah. So she has that mat with the little knobbies in it. For years, we’ve had people who have neuropathy, and they say, “What do I do?” And I said, “By a doormat that’s made out of AstroTurf, and take off your shoes and just stand, activate the bottom of your feet.” Well, it turns out Harvard’s got a thing that somebody developed at Harvard that you stick inside the foot. I mean, like Emily’s footpad.

Steven Sashen:

Vibrating thing.

Jim Klopman:

And it has little tiny electrical currency go into it, and immediately your balanced.

Steven Sashen:

Well, I know. Well, look, it happens every about once a year where someone has developed some kind of magic vibrating whatever for your feet or your ankles. The most recent one was the University of Delaware got $440,000 from the Michael J. Fox Foundation for a vibrating thing. I don’t remember what it’s called. You put it on your ankle and it vibrates your ankle.

Jim Klopman:

Oh, sure, sure, sure. It tells you when you’re off balance. I’ve seen it.

Steven Sashen:

Well, it doesn’t even do that. It just vibrates.

Jim Klopman:

Right. It makes-

Steven Sashen:

They show video of some of the people using this who had Parkinson’s, and it was helping improve their Parkinson’s syndrome symptoms, and what you see is people in these big, thick, stiff shoes, and it’s like a vibrator. And I’ve written repeatedly every time one of these studies come out, you don’t need the magic vibrating thing. Take off your damn shoes, go outside and walk on some gravel. I mean, my God.

And now with Emily’s stuff, yeah, we actually just developed a sandal with Emily using that material. And it just amazes me that… And I actually contacted the Michael J. Fox Foundation and said, yeah, “I’m glad you spent 440 grand. How about spending 50 grand to show you don’t need that, and all you needed to do is walk around and let your feet feel the ground?”

Jim Klopman:

I’ll tell you a secret, we’ll find out how many people watch your podcast.

Steven Sashen:

What are you implying, Jim? Geez, man, that was rude.

Jim Klopman:

When we see competitive balance type products and we see people on fat shoes with turned up toes, we know they don’t know shit about balance.

Steven Sashen:

Yeah, absolutely, absolutely. No, I’m just sort of fascinated by the question. Look, fitness trends or fitness fads have these interesting life cycles. Look, you remember when the Shake Weight came out and it was a joke, and they made jokes about it on a Saturday Night Live, and everyone thought it was going to crash and burn because it’s the silliest product ever? And then it’s survived. I mean, they’ve sold millions of them. What’s the thing called?

Jim Klopman:

It’s the little vibrating pole. Yeah, flex.

Steven Sashen:

Yeah, vibrating… Yeah, yeah, yeah. Same thing, those came out, it was an infomercial product, and then within a few years, now they’re using it in physical therapy offices. And so I just keep thinking about this phenomenon of what it takes to make people aware of balance as a fundamental issue for almost anything that we’ve been talking about. And then have, again, something where consumers can wrap their brain around, here’s what I need to do to make that work better. It’s something that’s easy for them to grasp, something that’s easier for people to understand.

And I’m not saying that it doesn’t really exist. Look, the SlackBlock I’m holding it up again, great tool. We have them in the office, we sell them on our website. Every time somebody walks in here, they hop on it. And we’ve sold a lot of them as a result. And I just keep… This is one of those things that gets me frustrated that there’s something that is so fundamental and so beneficial.

Jim Klopman:

But you see it in your industry. And I’ll give you an example.

Steven Sashen:

Here’s the difference. Here’s the difference with us. With us, we’re fighting $100 billion behemoth of people who have been doing the opposite of natural movement footwear. For you, it’s about breaking through to some kind of awareness.

Jim Klopman:

Oh, that’s true, yeah, yeah. Well, but still for us, we’re competing against the fitness people. We’re competing… Listen, I had a guy recently from a division one football team, strength and conditioning coach buy a bunch of the SlackBlocks from us, and he had seen them at Michigan. So we were talking, and I said… he said, “What are some of the results?” And I said, “Well, we’ve heard that it reduces ankle injuries almost to zero, because the stabilizers go, and you can see it.” You’ve seen it. Somebody gets on a block and is wiggling too much around the ankle, they got weak stabilizers. Over time, it gets better.

So he starts going on, and I have perfectly not learned the Latin word for any muscle except for maybe glute, because I don’t want to have that conversation with anybody. So he starts going through, “Oh, we’re going to train this muscle and that muscle around the ankle, and we’re going to do this, we’re going to prevent…” And I said, “You’re a strength and conditioning guy, and I don’t want to hurt your feelings, but everything to you is about building up a muscle, and you’re building up these really big strong muscles in these young people’s legs, and you’re not putting in a commiserate control system. And because you’re not,” and they’re doing it in the NBA too, and it’s all through basketball now. It was a big article on ESPN about this recently, there’s catastrophic breaks, tib-fib breaks, the foot’s up around the calf. It should never happen. And so he says to me, he goes, there was a pause, he goes, “At my last job, we had four tib-fib breaks in one year.”

Steven Sashen:

Wow.

Jim Klopman:

Right. So the thing about… And when I watched the NBA playoffs this year, when you watch Kevin Durant get hurt, he had a sprained calf muscle that went into a torn achilles because somebody was strength training him, put that whole thing out of balance, didn’t put a controls in place, and he balance strains. He didn’t do any balance training after he strained his calf muscle.

And then you watch Klay Thompson, who’s one of the best athletes in the league, had injured some muscle like a few weeks before. I don’t know what they were doing with him, but he’s so athletic, he should never have torn his ACL from a jump and landing like that. So that strength and conditioning is just a lousy name. It should be strength, conditioning, and control, and nobody’s working on control.

Steven Sashen:

Yeah. Well, look, even the strength and conditioning is arguable. And then of course, backing up to my domain, the footwear side, Irene Davis at Harvard at a panel discussion at the American College of Sports Medicine National Conference last year, she said to the panel, it was me, Tony Post from Topo Athletic, and then guys from Brooks and guys from Adidas. She said something along the lines of, “In the ’60s, we were wearing thin soled running shoes. We were playing basketball in Chuck Taylors. We weren’t seeing the kind of injuries or severity of injuries or the number of injuries we’re seeing now. So what problem were you trying to solve and why didn’t it work?” And they had no answer.

And you look at… I don’t have one here. We’ve got some basketball shoes that we bought just to see them. They’re stiff as a brick. Like you said, giant elevated heel. The only places they bend is somewhere the foot doesn’t naturally bend. Big flared soles that as soon as you get over one edge, you’re over. If you look at Zion Williamson from Duke, when he blew out of his Nike shoe, that wasn’t the interesting part. The interesting part was why he blew out of that shoe was he got slightly over the edge on the right shoe and he just fell over and just tried to stop himself with his left foot. I mean, he could have had metal shoes that wouldn’t have mattered. He would’ve blown out of them at that point.

Jim Klopman:

But here’s what they’re doing now. And this is the big secret. Roger Federer, the shoes he plays in are closer to your shoes than anything Roger Federer sells through Nike. And so when you start looking around on the golf course…

Steven Sashen:

Yeah, same thing.

Jim Klopman:

… some of these guys are in tune to this. Secondly, and these are decisions made by Roger Federer, not by Nike.

Steven Sashen:

Absolutely.

Jim Klopman:

When I was at Russell, we developed the first wicking technology in the world, and we were four years head of Under Armour, but the company was 100 years old and wasn’t into it. But I would go and left with the company to sell wicking technology to Nike, and I visited them 30 times, and they’d tell me, “No, no, no. It’s never going to work. Never worked. No one’s ever going to wear polyester.” Then they developed their whole system, but they don’t care about the athletes. Even today, you’ll see Nadal out there wearing a wicking T-shirt.

If you have true wicking material like we had, your shirt will never get wet. The moisture hits the shirt and dissipates so quickly, never gets wet. Now, Roger Federer, when he played for Nike, I’ll guarantee you, he was not using Nike fabric. He was developing the best fabric manufacturers in the world are in Switzerland. He had a Swiss fabric that he was making up his Nike shirts into. So this whole thing about them caring anything about the athletes is bull. They don’t care about the athletes. They want the cheapest sexiest thing that they can put on you and be done with it. In terms of performance, they don’t really care.

Steven Sashen:

It’s one of those things that I do find endlessly frustrating is when some athlete does something in some shoe and people go, “Ooh, I want that shoe.” It’s like, you’re not getting that shoe.

Jim Klopman:

Exactly. Oh, that’s the truth. Yeah, yeah.

Steven Sashen:

Yeah. So, all right, we got a couple moments left before we wrap it up, so I’m trying to think. I don’t have some pithy, something to close on.

Jim Klopman:

That’s shocking.

Steven Sashen:

Yeah, yeah. There’s a comedian, unfortunately, he’s no longer alive, a comic named Ronnie Shakes, and if you can find video of him, Ronnie Shakes, he was a one-liner comic well before Steven Wright, and his closing line is, “You know, they say it’s important to have a really good closing bit. Well, let’s just hope that next guy has a good opening bit.” So that’s kind how I feel right now.

Jim Klopman:

Exactly.

Steven Sashen:

So I’m trying to think of a thing. This is a question that a friend of mine was asked. He’s a psychologist, which was, “If you had to sum up everything you know in one sentence, what would it be?” And his line was, “No one’s ever upset for the reason they think they are,” which I thought was brilliant. Yeah, that’s a good one. So we could close on that. But if you’re in an elevator, it’s about to fall, you’ve got 20 seconds worth of free fall, and someone next to you says, “All right, I’m just curious. I want to be prepared for my next life. If you had to give me one sentence for something that was the most important thing I need to know based on what you’ve done, what would you say?”

Jim Klopman:

Well, I’d say jump just before the elevator hits the bottom. But…

Steven Sashen:

It doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter.

Jim Klopman:

Oh, I mean, in 20 seconds is…you got to answer this, these two provocations, do you know how good your balance is and do you know all the things it affects in your life? It’s the biggest neural system you’ve got. So when you’re standing, just standing, you’ve got hundreds of muscles that are being fired all the time. So why… Let’s take a sport like football, and I know 20 seconds is almost over. Let’s take football, the number one objective is to knock the other guy off balance, either by hitting him or juking him. Why doesn’t every football team know exactly how good the balance is on every player and why don’t they spend all their time training them how to do balance? That’s all football’s about.

Steven Sashen:

That’s great.

Jim Klopman:

Or I’m going to knock you over, all balance.

Steven Sashen:

That’s great. I used to have fantasies, like at five foot five, I don’t have a lot of football fantasies, but every now and then, I would imagine one, because I was doing Aikido for a while, and I just love the idea of someone coming at me and being able to do some sort of nice Aikido move, which is all about people’s balance. A friend of mine… Well, I had Aikido.

Jim Klopman:

There’s a guy named Sproles who’s like 5’6″, and he’s amazing. He does that.

Steven Sashen:

I love that. There’s an Aikido teacher, friend of mine, a guy from Brooklyn who during one class that he was leading, he taught all these different moves and someone said to him one day, “How many different Aikido moves do you know?” And he just thought about it, thought about it, thought about it, thought about it, thought about it. He goes, “One.”

Jim Klopman:

Absolutely. Yeah, one.

Steven Sashen:

It’s pretty much, hey, here’s this hole that you’re about to lose your balance and fall into.

Jim Klopman:

Exactly, right.

Steven Sashen:

And that was a good one. So, all right, Jim, if people want to find out more about you and what you’re up to and how they can improve their balance, how would they do that?

Jim Klopman:

Well, everything is SlackBow, S-L-A-C-K-B-O-W, whether social media or websites, slackbow.com, that’s everything we do. And plus, I got to say that Xero Shoes is the only other company online that sells our product, and they do a wonderful job selling the SlackBlock. So we appreciate that. We really do.

Steven Sashen:

Oh, no, it’s our pleasure and we’re happy to be helpful for you as well. So go check out Jim at slackbow.com and find out more. We couldn’t recommend them enough, and want to thank you for being part of this. Thank you, Jim, and thank you, everyone else for being part of this episode of The MOVEMENT Movement Podcast again.

Jim Klopman:

Thank you.

Steven Sashen:

If you want to find out more about what we’re up to and check out previous episodes, et cetera, go to jointhemovementmovement.com. You’ll find all the places you can interact with all of our materials on YouTube and Facebook and iTunes and Google Play, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.

Remember, we are here because of you. We are trying to make natural movement the obvious, better, healthy choice the way natural food is. If it weren’t for you, that wouldn’t happen, because it’s going to take a groundswell to overcome the hundreds of millions of dollars of advertising telling you that there’s something wrong with your body and you can’t use it the way it’s designed to be used, which blows me away.

So again, if you want to be part of the tribe, please subscribe, like, share, hit the bell, tell your friends, leave reviews, do everything that it takes. If you have any questions, hit me up, or questions or suggestions, or anybody you think should be on the show, just drop an email to move@jointhemovementmovement.com. I’m sure there’s other things I’m supposed to say, but I can’t think of them. So Jim, thank you again. It’s been a total treat.

Jim Klopman:

Thank you. I enjoyed it too. See you then. Bye

Steven Sashen:

Everybody and everyone else, cheers and live life feet first.

View Details

Dani Almeyda has worked in the health and fitness industry for the last 12 years. Throughout her whole life, health and wellness have had a major influence on her life. Whether it was from her experience as collegiate athlete, as a Director of Campus Recreation, or as a Fitness Professional, her experiences and formal education have provided her with a unique perspective and skillset.

Dani is a co-owner of OS Institute in North Carolina and OSi Online, and has a Master’s Degree in Exercise Science. She brings an abundance of energy, passion, and an incredible drive to help the world regain its Original Strength. Almeyda, a mother of two, and wife to a firefighter, is dedicated to serving her family and community.

Tim Anderson has been a personal trainer for over 20 years. He is an accomplished author and speaker and is known for streamlining complex ideas into simple and applicable information. He is passionate about helping people realize they were created to be strong and healthy.

Tim has written and co-written many books on this subject including The Becoming Bulletproof Project, Habitual Strength, Pressing RESET, and Original Strength Performance. When it comes down to it, his message is simple yet powerful: We were created to feel good and be strong throughout life.

Listen to this episode of The MOVEMENT Movement with Tim Anderson and Dani Almeyda about getting more gains by exercising less.

Here are some of the beneficial topics covered on this week’s show:

– How rocking exercises help with relaxation, deep breathing, and alleviating back pain.

– Why using natural movement helps reset the nervous system unlocking hidden strength and potential.

– How crawling can improve walking and running abilities by strengthening the nervous system and promoting overall body health.

– How transitioning to minimalist shoes can enhance movement patterns and foot strength for improved performance.

– Why more research is needed to explore the benefits of natural movement and barefoot running.

Connect with Tim and Dani:

Guest Contact Info
X@OS_Resets

Instagram@original_strength

Facebookfacebook.com/originalstrength

Links Mentioned:originalstrength.net

Connect with Steven:

Website

Xeroshoes.com

Twitter@XeroShoes

Instagram@xeroshoes

Facebookfacebook.com/xeroshoes

Episode Transcript

Steven Sashen:

Could the secret to getting stronger and fitter be doing less than you ever thought was realistic or possible, or made any sense whatsoever? Maybe. We’re going to find out today. On this episode of The MOVEMENT Movement, the podcast for people who want to know the truth about what it takes to have a happy, healthy, strong body starting with the feet first usually because those things are your foundation.

We’re going to break down the mythology, the propaganda, and often the lies that you’ve been told about what it takes to run, to walk, to hike, to dance, to play, to lift, or anything else that you do with your body to do it enjoyably healthily as you get older. I was going to say older or younger, but getting younger, that’s a tricky one to do so far. That’s going to be a future episode of this podcast. Not really.

I’m Steven Sashen from xeroshoes.com, your host of The MOVEMENT Movement podcast. If you want to be part of what we’re doing, it’s really simple. Go to www.jointhemovementmovement and you’ll find all the previous episodes. You’ll find out how to engage with us. And when you go to wherever you go, whether it’s iTunes or YouTube or Facebook, like and share and review and do all those things that you know how to do to tell people about what we’re doing.

We are creating a MOVEMENT movement, making natural movement the obvious, better, healthy choice the way natural food currently is. And because it’s a movement, that means you are involved. So, in short, if you want to be part of the tribe, please subscribe and let’s just jump in, shall we? Hello, Tim and Dani. How are you?

Tim Anderson:

Great. How are you?

Steven Sashen:

I’m good. I have elected not to try to do my Clark Kent impersonation today. I’m glad that you have taken on the mantle of doing that one. So, do you have a pair of glasses?

Dani Almeyda:

Yeah, wear your glasses.

Tim Anderson:

I do.

Steven Sashen:

Oh, man, this is brilliant. No, definitely. Go find it. Okay.

Dani Almeyda:

He’s going for it.

Steven Sashen:

And Tim and Dani are from originalstrength.net. Tim’s got his Original Strength shirt on. You can’t see the rest of that. We’ll talk about that in a bit.

Tim Anderson:

My Clark Kent.

Steven Sashen:

There we go. All right, put on the glasses. Do the Clark Kent part. I don’t even recognize you. Take them off for your Superman part.

Tim Anderson:

Who is that?

Steven Sashen:

Yeah, where’d you go? Could you get Tim back on here, please?

Tim Anderson:

Sorry, sorry.

Steven Sashen:

It’s funny, I watched something the other night. Kate McKinnon was on Jimmy Fallon and she said that she likes to wear glasses that are not prescription glasses. She doesn’t need glasses because she just likes the look and it confuses people. And when I was living in New York years ago, I found a pair of glasses that I started wearing that I didn’t need glasses, but it was even better because they were just the top half. They didn’t have the bottom part at all. So, it’s just whatever that style of lens is called.

So, I’d be wearing these things that were just the top half, no lenses. And there was times where I’d be talking to people for an hour until they’d look at me and go, “What the? You know there’s no lenses in those.” “No,” I would go, “yeah, I don’t need glasses.” They found that very confusing. So, Tim Anderson, Dani Almeyda, do me a favor, tell people who the hell you are and why you’re here.

Dani Almeyda:

Oh, all right, all right. Well, we are with Original Strength and we are all about helping people move better and feel better and understand the truth that they were created to be resilient for a lifetime and not meant to feel fragile, broken, weak or injured as many of us do feel.

Steven Sashen:

That’s easy. Now, of course, it’s easy to say that when you were young, attractive, fit human beings. Talk to me about how you work with people of all ages. I’m assuming that you do, I mean I know that you do, but I’m going to say it like I don’t know.

Dani Almeyda:

Go for it.

Tim Anderson:

Well, we teach people of all ages that they are still young, attractive and fit human beings on the inside, and we help them return to those same movements they did when they were younger to actually help them restore their youth.

Steven Sashen:

All right, that’s a good setup and we’ll be diving into how you do that in just a bit. But first, since it is The MOVEMENT Movement podcast, do you have a movementy thing that you do as part of what you do with Original Strength that you would like to share with human beings so that they could get a little taste of what it means for what natural movement means from your perspective?

Tim Anderson:

Sure. So, we encourage people to do something that they’ve all done before called rocking, where they get on their hands and knees and rock back and forth. Most children do this right before they learn how to crawl. And that movement is phenomenal for what it does for your nervous system and how it teaches your body that it is one whole body and not a collection of parts.

Steven Sashen:

So, let’s just break. I mean, I know that sounds super simple and you just said it in less than a sentence. Okay, so literally on your hands and knees, hands under your shoulders, toes pointed or toes engaged?

Tim Anderson:

Yes. So, either one, because your feet are designed to be very mobile and those joints articulate in every direction, you can do toes down or on the balls of your feet, plantarflexion or dorsiflexion.

Steven Sashen:

Try either of those. And when you say rocking back and forth, you’re literally, you’re not moving anything. Your hands are planted. Your knees are planted. Your toes are doing what your toes are doing. And it’s just find a way to move back and forth. I mean, I’ve done this.

Tim Anderson:

Yes, so you’re transferring weight over your hands and then back over your hips. And the wonderful thing about it is it teaches all your joints how to dance together, your ankles, your knees, your hips, your wrists, your shoulders, your spine. It sets your posture, the curves in your spine. It’s great.

Steven Sashen:

So, do you want people to just to be going back and forth linearly or do you want people to make other motions a little like horizontal, lateral, figure eights, et cetera?

Tim Anderson:

So, yes, linear is where we start.

Steven Sashen:

Wait, I’m going to have to stop doing that, ask questions where you’re going to have to give me a straight answer and not a yes answer.

Tim Anderson:

So, we start them with linear back and forth because that’s pretty fairly easy to get to. And then if they’re getting adventurous, we have them rocking circles. Or if they’re really, really feeling frisky, we do try to do infinity symbols or figure eights.

Steven Sashen:

Now, let me just start with the sort of obvious thing. Some people when they hear this are going to drop down and do it, and some people are going to think, “Well, they’re in a place where they can’t,” and some people are just going to think, “Well, that seems silly or stupid or really basic.” I mean, what I love about what you guys are doing is really, and the reason why talking about natural movement, it’s like what do babies do? What are these movement patterns that we start doing just naturally and organically and how does that affect us as we move forward?

So, for people who think that this is either silly or inconsequential or might be embarrassing or have any resistance to this because doing some things that seem “infantile”, it does bring stuff up for people where they have very strange … I’ve experienced where people have some very strange response to it. A thing that I do when I’m teaching people about barefoot running, where we’ll be out in a field and I’ll say, “Look at how tiny little kids run when they first start running, basically they lead with their head, which is oversized and excessively heavy, and then they just try to keep up with their head.”

And so, it’s like let your head go back and forth and just try to keep up. And it takes people sometimes like 15 minutes till they’re willing to even do it because it looks silly. It feels great, it’s really fun, but there’s just this incredible resistance to doing these babylike or childlike things. That’s what I’ve seen. What’s been your experience with that?

Tim Anderson:

Very similar. People do feel silly getting down on the floor and acting like children or moving like children, but usually if we can convince them that if you could restore your body and have all the mobility and strength that you wanted to have, isn’t it worth being just a little bit silly to get that?

Dani Almeyda:

Yeah, I was going to say, so we have a few shirts to say it’s crazy enough to work. You know what? It is a little bit crazy and that’s okay, it might seem crazy, but when people try it and have an experience and they actually see and feel the difference that it makes on their body immediately, then they’re usually like, “Oh, yeah, I got to do that.” And then you see other people around you and they’re doing that. So, I challenge those people to be a trendsetter and go ahead and just try it.

Steven Sashen:

The thing that I noticed the first time I tried just rocking forward and backward is that at a certain point, at first it feels weird and you’re going like, “Well, I don’t know why I’m doing this.” And then things happen, you find yourself just taking a big deep breath, something just lets go, something starts to relax and it’s surprising. That was one of my favorite things.

Tim Anderson:

Yeah. Even here in our studio, we’ll have people that I guess people deal with issues that they don’t tell you about because it’s their norm. We’ve had people come after they’ve been here a while, say, “You know what? My back doesn’t hurt anymore.” And it’s because they’re rocking back and forth and they’re like, “I’ve been doing this at home.” So, not only did they do it here, they do it at home and we don’t necessarily know they’re doing it until they discover that they feel great and then they tell us what they’re doing.

Steven Sashen:

There’s a thing I think about almost every day when Lana and I get home from work, one of us, usually me, makes some dinner, which I’m okay with. I really like doing it. Makes some dinner and then we go upstairs where we have, technically it’s our second bedroom, but it’s actually the one place where we have a television and a big couch.

And when I’m eating, I will be sitting on the ground. And the thing that I think every time I do this is growing up, I never saw anyone do this. I mean, my parents never did. My dad did every now and then, if he was trying to turn a television stand into a bookshelf or something, he never read the instructions and God knows what would, there was always leftover screws.

But in terms of just daily living, no one ever modeled being on the ground, crawling, sitting, hanging out, lying down. I don’t know how to even ask this. Have people come in to work with you where they have any kind of relationship with that, again, any reluctance or reticence? Or is it more just when they do it, there’s this, once they get hip to it, it just feels good because it’s fun, because it’s natural, because it’s et cetera. Do you know where I’m going with this? Because I don’t.

Dani Almeyda:

Maybe, a little bit. So, there’s two paths we can go down. In one, I think it really depends on the age of the individual. So, sometimes as we see an older individual, they are much more reluctant to get down on the ground. It’s usually almost a fear relationship. We’re afraid to be on the floor because we don’t know if we can get back up.

And we don’t want to think about when we have to be on the floor because a lot of times, people associate it as you get older with falling. And so, you see that from one standpoint. So, getting people comfortable with being on the floor is really important to us and helping them be able to have the strengths to get back up and down.

But then on the other hand, you’ve got individuals that are fairly, very capable of getting up and down and you get them on the floor and they might feel like, “Oh, this feels silly,” the whole kind of conversation we’re having. But it’s part of our culture here, so everybody’s on the floor. That’s just kind of the way that we do things.

Then once they see that, okay, one, it feels good, two, they’re getting stronger, and three, we really hammer in that this is where we start. This is the basics. This is how we build a strong foundation. I think that that’s a really easy way to help get them more comfortable if we do see that. But honestly, since everybody does it here, it’s not as big here.

Steven Sashen:

Yeah, no, but you actually hit the points exactly. I want to back up a giant step. I’m going to ask you to do two things. One, describe a little more if you can, about the fundamental things that people are doing if they’re going to come to Original Strength and work with you or take a course or however they might learn about it. And the second thing is, how did you come to this? How did you find, discover this, develop this?

Tim Anderson:

So, we’ll go backwards. The second thing-

Steven Sashen:

And you were on Krypton.

Tim Anderson:

Yes. So, what had happened was … So, that’s actually a good segue though, because my favorite superhero is Superman, and I was foolish when I was younger and still am. But I would train to the point where I would injure myself, but I wouldn’t stop because it was some weird badge of honor that I just got to keep training. So, I would never let my body recover.

And one day I was frustrated because I wasn’t feeling like Superman at all. And honestly, I asked God to show me how to train to become bulletproof again. I was thinking about Superman one night and I wasn’t there. And within a couple of weeks, I picked up a book on learning disorders in children and how movement can strengthen their brain and tie their brain together and strengthen their nervous system.

And within a couple of weeks, I learned that all the movements we made as a child is what knits our body together in our nervous system and physically ties us together. So, it was just like God kind of connected the dots and I started rolling around and crawling around on the floor.

Steven Sashen:

So, there’s going to be a transition from you personally rolling and crawling on the floor to what you now have. Talk about that.

Tim Anderson:

Yes. So, a friend of mine encouraged me to write a book about what I was learning. So, I wrote a book about, basically it was about the developmental sequence, what children go through to get strong so that they can walk around on two feet and explore their world. And if we return to those same movements, then the same thing happens for us again. It’s like hitting a reset button on the body.

So, I wrote this book and a few people bought it, and eventually we did a workshop about it. A lot of people came and then word of mouth spread, and it just kind of organically grew from that too to where we have a facility called the Original Strength Institute, where we help people remember how their body is designed to move.

Steven Sashen:

Love it. Dani, do you want to add anything to that or talk about your experience?

Dani Almeyda:

Oh.

Tim Anderson:

I met her when she was just a baby.

Dani Almeyda:

No. He learned from me as I was rolling around on the floor. No, I was kidding. No, no. Yeah. I came in, I had moved to the area. I was looking for a place to train and met Tim, saw this crazy guy rolling around, crawling outside, pulling chains, thinking, “Oh, my gosh, he’s crazy.” And he’s like, “Let me show you some things.” And also, I remember at that point him saying, “People want to learn about this.” He had just written the book and, “People want to learn about this.”

So, he shows me and shows me some of the resets, took me through some things, started practicing, and I had struggled. I’m super hypermobile, so my body moves way more than it’s supposed to move. And I struggled with instability for most of my life as a collegiate athlete, a lot of injuries. And so, he showed me the resets, helped me basically retime my body back together. And I was like, “Oh, this is pretty good stuff.” So, I started using it with all of my clients and we continue to work together. And here we are.

Steven Sashen:

I just want to again back up a little bit. Tim, are you telling me that an effective pickup line is, “Let me show you some moves”?

Tim Anderson:

Yes.

Steven Sashen:

Wow.

Tim Anderson:

Yes.

Steven Sashen:

That’s pretty impressive.

Tim Anderson:

Watch me crawl.

Steven Sashen:

Let me show you some things. Usually that elicits a whole different reaction. So, both of you actually mentioned resets. Can you say more about what that is?

Tim Anderson:

So, the body, so your nervous system, if you can strengthen it, your nervous system wants to feel safe. And if you can do movements or make it feel safe, it will let go and allow you to move. So, when we say pressing reset, it is as if we’re pressing a reset on the body’s operating system and then all the programs on top of it run well. So, it’s like resetting a Nintendo or something like that.

But all it is is tapping back into the very original movements we made as a child. And those are preprogrammed in our nervous system to help us grow and develop. And if we revisit breathing, activating a vestibular system, we’re basically moving our head and our eyes, rolling around on the floor, rocking back and forth and crawling or our gait pattern. If we do those things, it’s like pressing reset on the nervous system, allowing it to feel safe, and it allows us in turn to move and express our strength.

Steven Sashen:

We talked, I mean, the intro to this episode was saying how basically you could get stronger and healthier by doing less than you ever thought. Talk about that if you would, because that was our brief pre-podcast chat. It lasted about five seconds. You hinted that. I said, “Yeah, that’s perfect. Let’s go.”

Tim Anderson:

It was. So, traditionally, I think it’s pretty common to think that if you want to get stronger, you need to lift weights or you got to work out. And most people think, “Well, you got to do that for an hour or two hours at a time regularly.” What I discovered is our design is so amazing that if your nervous system is strong, your body has unlimited strength and potential to allow you to do anything you want to do, mostly within reason.

But an easy example is, and I’ve lifted weights all my life and I quit for about, I don’t know, months and just crawled across fields, dragging chains and stuff like that, but just crawling like a kid does. And my body got a lot stronger than it was in the gym. And I know that because I came back to the gym and I was able to pick up much heavier stuff than I was picking up than when I left the gym. And I had been gone for months. So, I wasn’t training to get stronger in the gym, but I was able to express more strength in the gym.

Steven Sashen:

Well, that’s an interesting point. Do you think that you got actually stronger or do you think that with the lifts that you were doing, there was something else like better alignment or just better movement patterns?

Tim Anderson:

Actually, stronger and better movement patterns. So, again, I was tied together better so I could express more strength potential that I had. So, most people are walking around with enough strength to crush their own bones if all their muscles were to contract, well, everybody can. Everybody do that, but nobody is able to express that because their nervous system will not let them tap into that. But if your nervous system feels safe and you’re tied together very well, then strength is almost effortless and so is mobility.

Steven Sashen:

It’s interesting when you said that, I just remembered seeing something on maybe a show, I Shouldn’t Be Alive or I don’t know what’s called, or something like that, and maybe if that’s what it’s called, the show is no longer on the air, which I’m so glad about because I used to watch it addictively and it was just basically for an hour, it’s a story of someone who shouldn’t have been alive because of whatever happened to them. But every 10 or 15 minutes, it was the kind of thing where you’re going, “Oh, my god, that’s the worst thing I could ever imagine.” And then it got worse.

But one of the episodes was a guy who had been hiking and a giant, I don’t even know what to call it, piece of rock, like 10-feet wide, 10-feet long, a couple feet thick, slipped off the edge of the cliff that he was on and pinned him. And so, he’s lying underneath it, face up with this multi-thousand pound rock on him and just freaked out and pushed it off his body and ended up basically tearing every muscle and ligament in his body.

Tim Anderson:

Yeah. That’s unbridled strength. Yeah.

Steven Sashen:

Yeah.

Tim Anderson:

And it saved his life.

Steven Sashen:

Right. Got it off, got down. And then I realized that I had broken bones and ripped almost every tendon. I mean, it was just like, holy smokes. So, it’s like our brain is telling us, like you’re saying, our central nervous system, including our brain, is telling us to limit things to a certain extent because you could hurt yourself otherwise.

And it’s actually something I was talking about yesterday with someone about running. Actually, you know what it was? It was about the sub-2 hour marathon, and oh, it was even better. It was about the new Nike shoe. And people were saying, “Well, all these people are setting new personal bests.” I went, “Well, there’s this whole idea in running and for exercise in general and movement in general, the central governor theory. Basically your brain is telling you, ‘Here’s when you should put the brakes on because it’s going to hurt you otherwise.'”

And what many endurance athletes find in particular empower athletes as well is that your brain is telling you to chill out well before you really need to. And so, people are learning how to listen to when they get those signals saying, “I need to stop.” And then just they keep going past those initial signals. They eventually stop even. Eventually the signals get so loud they stop.

But my argument would be that a lot of what’s happening for people if they’re setting personal vests in some magic new shoe that no one knows why it’s producing magic effects is that basically, it’s essentially placebo effect. And what’s happening is they’re getting those central governor messages and just either ignoring them or reframing. So, yeah, anyway, that’s a tangent from this whole thing about how bodies can be super strong if they’re allowed to, if you will.

Tim Anderson:

Yes.

Steven Sashen:

Both of you have mentioned the phrase, “crawling in chains” a few times. Would you please elaborate?

Dani Almeyda:

I think that’s totally you. I’m sorry. He’s going to talk about the chain crawling here.

Steven Sashen:

Because I was imagining when you said “crawling with chains through a field”, I’m thinking that someone’s got you hooked up to a plow.

Dani Almeyda:

I mean basically.

Tim Anderson:

Similar, similar.

Steven Sashen:

Well, because if not, they were missing out on an opportunity. So, we’ve gone from rocking and we’ve talked about crawling. So, let’s talk about these progressions and then talk about adding change to the mix, too.

Tim Anderson:

So, rocking teaches your body where all your joints are. And it teaches your muscles, your stabilizers, how to stabilize your joints so that your prime movers can move your joints. Basically, it really sets your body free to move. And then crawling coordinates the opposing limb pattern and ties your body together so that you can generate … Well, so, one, that you can move from A to B efficiently, but it also helps tie your body together so you can generate speed and power and fluidity.

So, once you’re tied together well and you move well, you can add load or resistance to the movement patterns to strengthen your body and those patterns so that you can exude or demonstrate more strength. So, what I used to do in our old studio, we had a big grass field behind the studio, and I would go out back and I would crawl. It was an 80-yard field, and I would crawl 80 yards with chains tied to my body. So, I was creating resistance or drag.

Steven Sashen:

But just additional weight. I mean, you could have done this with a weighted vest if you weren’t such a dork.

Tim Anderson:

But it looks so much cooler with a chain.

Dani Almeyda:

Yes, it’s cool.

Steven Sashen:

Yes. You just proved my point.

Tim Anderson:

And the sound. The sound’s amazing. But so really though, the chain though, depending on the surface like grass or sand, it accumulates a certain amount of friction though the longer the chain is, so it’s surface area too. Whereas a weight vest pushes straight down on the body. When you’re dragging a chain, you’ve got resistance pulling in the line against the line of direction you’re trying to go.

Steven Sashen:

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Tim Anderson:

So, it’s just a fun way to train.

Steven Sashen:

Oh, man, I just blanked on the name of this device. I’ve done a review of it. I have it in my car. Why can’t I remember the name of this? This is going to make me crazy. We use this on the track at least once a month.

Tim Anderson:

Like a bungee?

Steven Sashen:

Huh?

Tim Anderson:

Does it have a bungee behind it or?

Steven Sashen:

No, it’s like a spindle. So, it’s got a rope that goes through, it’s like a tube. It’s about 10 inches long. Basically, it’s got a spindle on the inside. And so, the rope goes around the spindle. You turn the inside spindle, it makes the rope loop around the spindle, which creates more resistance. Oh, my god. As I’ve gotten older, I can’t do names, and then apparently, I can’t remember. Oh, EXER-GENIE, there it is. So, the EXER-GENIE, it was a device that some guy invented in the ’70s, disappeared, someone brought it back a little while ago. It’s awesome.

So, instead of chains, same idea. And yes, it’s got a 40-meter-long rope. And so, just having that rope on the ground creates the extra friction. You feel it once you get past the halfway point, you’ve passed the other end of the rope, it starts getting easier, because there’s less rope on the ground creating the friction. But basically, you can create as much resistance as you want without all that extra weight. It’s a really fun device. You’ll have to look it up. I think you would totally get a kick out of it.

Tim Anderson:

Oh, I’m definitely going to Google that now. And I’m not going to forget the name, EXER-GENIE.

Steven Sashen:

EXER-GENIE.

Tim Anderson:

Yeah, sounds fun. Like you want to rub it and something pops out of the bottle. That’s great.

Steven Sashen:

It’s kind of like that, but not at all like that.

Tim Anderson:

Okay. No.

Steven Sashen:

By kind of, I mean, not even close. But it’s super, super cool. And we use it for either kind of resisted running, so just we’ll set it to an amount of resistance that gives you just a little bit as you’re running to the kind of thing where it’s so much resistance that you’re just trying to walk and you basically have to be at an angle, you’re leaning forward, it’s pulling you back, you’re leaning forward, your nose is almost on the ground because that’s the only angle where you can get enough force to make yourself move. It’s a blast.

Tim Anderson:

I am intrigued.

Steven Sashen:

Yes. You have to let me know if you get one. It’s a good time. I think I have a link on my website, but be that as it may. Okay. Anyway, I don’t know where I wanted to go after that. So, what are the other things other than sticking chains on your body and crawling across a field much to the amusement of your neighbors?

Tim Anderson:

Well, that does amuse the neighbors. Actually, it gets you in trouble with your spouse a lot also.

Steven Sashen:

Wait, hold on. You can’t just leave there. See, my wife is so used to the insane things that I do that I don’t think anything would get me in trouble with her. What kind of trouble do you get in crawling around in chains? That seems normal to me.

Tim Anderson:

No, so my wife’s pretty proper and well, she doesn’t like me … Well, so what it was was, is I was crawling through one of our neighbor’s yard in their grass, because they had a nice lawn and they were asleep. So, I wasn’t harming anyone. But somebody drove by and called my neighbors and told them that somebody was crawling in their yard. And this somehow got back to my wife and I was heavily reprimanded and told I will never do that again. So, that’s what had happened.

Steven Sashen:

Well, so, I’ve got to ask one question. Why were you crawling in your neighbor’s yard?

Tim Anderson:

They had really nice grass. Texture’s everything. You should know this. You know when you run barefooted, man. It’s all about the texture.

Steven Sashen:

Yeah, that’s true. Well, wait, did the neighbors complain or was it all your wife?

Tim Anderson:

No, so they thought it was funny, but they told my wife and stuff like that is, I wouldn’t say mortified, but she didn’t like it.

Steven Sashen:

So, now, the important question then is, did you stop or did you just make sure that she was never going to find out about it when you did it again?

Tim Anderson:

No, I just do it down the street where she can’t see me, like in other neighbor’s yard, people that I don’t know’s yard. I do it in a complete stranger’s yard.

Steven Sashen:

See, now I just want to be the neighbors who come home and see a guy crawling through their backyard in chains. I think that’ll be awesome.

Tim Anderson:

So, listen, no, I’ve upped my game. So, what I do now, I don’t know if you’ve seen those Hyperwear sandbags, but they’re just disc filled with sand?

Steven Sashen:

No, no, I haven’t.

Tim Anderson:

Well, so I’ve got one that weighs 50 pounds and I would put it on my head and march in the neighborhood. So, I’m the guy in the neighborhood with the big sombrero.

Steven Sashen:

Do you know Nick Nilsson?

Tim Anderson:

No.

Steven Sashen:

Nick Nelson. He calls himself the mad scientist of muscle. Nick is famous for just coming up with these crazy exercise variations. He’s a big fan of Xero Shoes. It’s N-I-L-S-S-O-N. If you look him up on YouTube, you can find videos. A lot of them he’s wearing either the Prio or the Speed Force, or actually sometimes he wears the … Well, all of the shoes that he has in different videos. But he will do things like just, I think he lives on a cul-de-sac, but he’ll walk back and forth while carrying 500 pounds on this yoke that he invented or doing other similarly insane shit that the two of you I think would get along quite swimmingly.

Tim Anderson:

I’ve got a really good friend that is very much trains like that as well. John Brookfield.

Steven Sashen:

Oh, I know John.

Tim Anderson:

He’s the inventor of the Battling Ropes.

Steven Sashen:

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, I’m going to have to do an intro to you guys, I think.

Tim Anderson:

All right. I’m in.

Steven Sashen:

So, we talked a bit about getting stronger, doing less, but we then diverged a bit just to talk about you trespassing and not getting arrested. What else do you want to share just about the work that you’re doing or what you’re seeing with people? Let me back up to this. Why do people come to see you to begin with? What are the things that you hear people are interested in or complaining about or suffering from?

Dani Almeyda:

Yeah, so, Original Strength, which is a company that … So, we do certifications for fitness professionals and chiropractors, physical therapists, things like that. So, we certify professionals on how to help their clients and patients. But then we also have a gym here where we tend to bring in people that are feeling broken in tons of different ways, whether it’s they injured themselves years ago and they just now are getting around to the fact that it’s bothering them. They can’t play soccer with their kids.

They did some crazy workout at another gym and injured themselves and they are afraid to go back until they can figure out how to do it right, whatever it is. So, lots of different types of injuries and pain, but more of just a feeling of, “I know I don’t feel well. I’m hurting. I don’t want to feel fragile and weak anymore. I know I want to be able to do things.”

Whether it’s a doctor told them like, “Hey, you’re just not going to be able to do that anymore.” Or them thinking, “I just can’t do this anymore.” We kind of open the doors to them. So, we kind of plant this little seed of hope, like “Yes, you can.” And we show them how with really simple movement like we were talking about before. So, we start with the basics of just teaching them how to press reset and then helping them move their body as it’s naturally supposed to move, focusing on squatting and hinging and pushing and pulling and doing all sort sorts of fun stuff.

Tim Anderson:

So, if you give the body what it needs, it knows how to heal itself. And so, movement is so nice, you say it twice, movement, movement. And what your body really wants and needs is movement. And with the right movement, it can heal itself.

Steven Sashen:

So, you just hinted at some of the other things. We have squatting. We have hip hinging. We have pulling. We have pushing. Anything else that we’re missing. There’s got to be a twisting thing in there somewhere.

Tim Anderson:

Dan John, he calls it getting up from the ground. Getting up, it creates rotation. But then gait pattern also creates rotation and twisting. So, gait pattern to me would be the big one if you’re going to add a fifth one in there.

Steven Sashen:

So, you want to kind of touch on each of those?

Tim Anderson:

Sure.

Steven Sashen:

Why not? We got time to kill. What the hell?

Tim Anderson:

So, I’ve got a really wise friend who just looks at the body and how it’s designed to move. And he says the body’s designed to do, and his name is Dan John, by the way, super famous, nice guy. But he says, the body’s designed to do five things, push, pull, hinge, squat, and carry. And if we honor those five things and we do them regularly, your body will always be strong and able to do what you want to do as you go through life.

Steven Sashen:

Right before we started this, a friend of mine sent me a video. It’s a woman, I wish I remember her name. And it’s not that I forgot it, I never knew it, so I’m giving myself that clarification. I could look it up. But I skipped into the video after where they told her name. She weighs 120 pounds. She just squatted 495. It was really amazing. Now again, that’s a big weightlifting thing.

So, when we talk about some of these activities, hinging, squatting, pushing, pulling. Again, most people think of that either from weightlifting or the body weight analog of that, of doing pushups and pullups and whatever. I’m imagining that you have a different take on many if not all of those.

Tim Anderson:

Yeah. So, we can cover squatting and hinging with the rocking motion and even pushing, because we’re pushing our bodies away from the ground. Crawling definitely is pushing away from the ground in the legs and the feet. But it also, if you look at the pattern that the legs go through when you crawl, we’re still working on hinging.

And now squatting in itself is a sitting and resting position that we should actually have even when we’re 99 years old. It shouldn’t be what we call a third world squad. It should be an everyday I can just squat because I’m made to kind of squat. And then carrying things, well, that’s how we were designed to pick things up and we walk from one place to another. And the way we get them there is we carry them.

So, I guess our take could be different, but if you love to lift weights, the developmental sequence or the movements that you were preprogrammed with, if you engage in those regularly, it will allow you to lift weights so much easier and so much better. You’ll enjoy it better.

Steven Sashen:

And when we move that into the gait pattern, since a lot of people came to this from running and either barefoot running or minimalist running or natural running, however you want to frame that. Can you talk about what you’ve seen and what you’ve done with people, whether it’s walking or running?

Tim Anderson:

For improving their gait pattern?

Steven Sashen:

Yeah. Or frankly, or anything you want to talk about just as we talk about moving and gait.

Tim Anderson:

Yeah, so it’s really interesting. Obviously, and you know this, but people can walk, or you see them walking in a store or down the mall or whatever, but they’re really going from one place to another, but they’re not truly, truly walking with their appropriate gait pattern. So, if you watch someone-

Steven Sashen:

So, wait. For people who didn’t see, Dani didn’t move, she got behind you and was texting.

Dani Almeyda:

Texting.

Tim Anderson:

Yeah. So, we’ve learned how to walk just using our legs, but our foundational gait pattern is where all four limbs are moving. So, if I’m crawling on the floor, if I’m just moving my legs, I’m not crawling. I need my arms and my legs to dance together to crawl. But that’s the foundational gait pattern. So, when I’m walking or when I’m running, I want my arms and legs to dance together because that’s what strengthens my nervous system and keeps my body healthy and resilient as the years go by.

So, if we help an adult remember how to crawl, they will walk better and they will run better and they will produce and transfer force and energies better that their body comes into contact with.

Steven Sashen:

So, are you doing anything explicitly about walking or running or doing something about that transfer or are you just-

Tim Anderson:

It’s a transfer. So, if we make the very beginning gait pattern solid and very fluid, then the gait patterns that are built on top of that become more fluid and better as well.

Steven Sashen:

Got it. I imagine people walk into your place wearing big, thick, heavy motion controlled, padded shoes. Yes?

Tim Anderson:

Yes, yes.

Steven Sashen:

What happens when that happens?

Tim Anderson:

Well, so we have two rules and they’re very important rules because they deal with the nervous system. The first one is don’t move into pain. And the second one is don’t move into fear. So, we have to meet people where they’re at because if we move them into fear, their nervous system is going to guard and protect them anyway. And they’re not going to move nearly the way that we want them to be able to move so that they can experience how powerful movements.

So, what we do is we politely and gently encourage people, you can take off your shoes if you want. And then as they get more into the crazy stuff that we teach, we can have a deeper conversation about footwear and things like that.

Steven Sashen:

Interesting. Well, I found that in different parts of the country, there’s different attitudes and opinions about the whole barefoot thing. I was in a store recently and it’s winter here in Colorado in barefeet, and someone made some comment about it, not derogatory, but just like, “Oh, my god, you’re not wearing shoes?” And I said, “Imagine, what would it be like if we were at the beach where you just wouldn’t even think about that? It would be a common thing. It’s just that it’s winter and it’s Colorado, it strikes you as unusual.” So, there’s a location thing.

There’s also having spent time in the south, there’s also the cultural component of that as well. How have you had to deal with that?

Dani Almeyda:

Sorry, I’m just laughing because he’ll take his shoes off and walk down the street, as we’re going to the coffee shop all the time.

Steven Sashen:

Oh, I was in Costco recently and they stopped me, some of the employees, very, very upset. And they said, “Are you okay?” I said, “Yeah, why?” They said, “You’re wearing shoes.”

Tim Anderson:

Wow. I haven’t had that. So, here, there used to be signs on the stores that said, no shirt, no shoes, no service.

Steven Sashen:

Right.

Tim Anderson:

That was very big here, and I’m so tired of putting on a shirt every time I walked into a store.

Steven Sashen:

No, the thing is you walk in with a shirt and shoes and no pants, it didn’t seem well.

Tim Anderson:

Exactly. They don’t care if you wear pants or not.

Steven Sashen:

That’s right.

Tim Anderson:

I was always confused about that. So, really, I have to ask you again, what was the question? Because now my brain is somewhere.

Steven Sashen:

Well, I’m just intrigued by, because see, Colorado, especially around the whole barefoot thing, it’s kind of a hippie town where I am. So, it’s not insane, insane. But in some parts of the country and the south, more than others, not trying to … Or the south, if you’re not by the beach or by the water, it’s definitely let’s say less-

Dani Almeyda:

More conservative.

Steven Sashen:

What’d you say?

Dani Almeyda:

I can say conservative. We can say it.

Steven Sashen:

Okay. Conservative. I was just going to say, just going around barefoot is the kind of thing that you definitely get more looks than you would in other places. I mean, New York City, you get a lot of looks. People are freaking out if you do that. Very fun to do, by the way. A lot of the roads are super smooth and the sidewalks are … I mean, it’s awesome and wash your feet at the end of the day. It’s not a big deal. But anyway, I’m just kind of curious what it’s dealing the people that are local and giving them that gentle invitation to go barefoot, but what happens after that?

Tim Anderson:

So, here, like Dani mentioned earlier, we just create a culture of where it’s the norm. So, if you want to wear your shoes or they’re really thick, you’re almost going to be the outlier where that may get your attention. And maybe you want to fit in and see what everybody else is, what the fuss is about, why are they barefoot or why are they wearing the Xero Shoes? So, really, we don’t have that much of a issue here because we set the expectations.

And really we just tell them upfront, “Hey, your body is amazingly, wonderfully made and this is how it’s designed. And if you want to optimize that design or your function, then you stick as close to the design as possible.”

Steven Sashen:

And have you gotten feedback from people when they’ve started to spend more time barefoot?

Dani Almeyda:

A couple. I think they’re majorly switching over shoes. We’ve had a lot of people switch from wearing the big thick, chunky shoes to wearing minimalist shoes because they know that it feels better and they move better. They can feel the floor better. They’re better at their movement patterns that we have them do.

Tim Anderson:

And we have a lot of, I’ll call them compromisers, where they feel okay being in their socks without shoes, but they don’t want to take their socks off on the floor and walk around because to them, “Oh, it’s icky that somebody else is walking barefoot on the floor,” and that’s just-

Steven Sashen:

Oh, that’s fascinating.

Tim Anderson:

But people have their own issues, but they are coming out of their shoes and wearing socks. So, it’s still good. Now, they’re not getting the full benefit of all the different textures, but it’s a good place to be.

Steven Sashen:

I’m just so curious. This sounds silly. I mean, I’ve been running Xero Shoes for 10 years with my wife. I’ve been barefoot for a few years before that. I never really sat to think, why is it that people have such a thing about feet and barefeet and walking on something where we know it’s totally safe, it’s not going to be an issue. And of course in other places in the world, it’s not an issue. What is it? What are they thinking that makes them say something like, “I don’t want to do this because”?

Dani Almeyda:

I think people are afraid of germs.

Tim Anderson:

Germs.

Dani Almeyda:

I think it’s germs.

Tim Anderson:

There’s hand sanitizer stuff everywhere you go and people are always like, “Where’s your stuff?”

Dani Almeyda:

And there’s that whole connotation of some people having stinky feet or sweaty feet, maybe they’re just real self-conscious.

Tim Anderson:

But you know what makes them that way is shoes though, isn’t that?

Steven Sashen:

Yeah, I know. Yeah, exactly. That’s the irony. Yeah, it’s just such a fascinating thing because of course, we get more germs and transmit more diseases by shaking someone’s hand or being in a room where someone is ill and then rubbing our eyes. I mean, the feet are so less likely to be a cause of something, unless you’re walking through poop or doing something where obviously that’s a problem, but A why would you do that?

It’s one of my favorite things when I talk about walking and running barefoot. They go, “Aren’t you afraid of stepping in dog poop?” I go, “When’s the last time you stepped in dog poop?” They go, “I don’t know, 20 years ago.” It’s like, “Well, why would you start now if you took off your shoes?”

Tim Anderson:

Yeah. Typically, wearing shoes or barefoot, I try not to do that.

Steven Sashen:

Well, exactly. I make an effort to not do that. Of course, it’s not really difficult. I don’t know. Have you used these things called eyes? Have you ever tried using those when you’re walking? They’re amazing. You can see things with them and then adapt how you’re moving. It’s crazy.

Dani Almeyda:

But we’re like this, so.

Steven Sashen:

Oh, that’s what it is.

Tim Anderson:

But you probably know this, too. Even if your eyes can’t catch something, if you spend a lot of time walking barefoot, your feet will catch stuff, but your eyes can’t.

Steven Sashen:

Oh, yeah. There are a number of things that I regret from, I wish I could go back in time. One is I wish I had a picture of what my footprint looked like when I got out of the hot tub because it just looked like an oval with dots and now it looks like a footprint. And the other is I wish there was a way of testing my reflex arc and the flexibility and strength in my foot. I wish I’d done all of those things so I could compare now.

Because in addition to getting more flexible and stronger, it feels like I’m just reflexively faster. If I start to step on something that it’s not going to feel good, I’m off it more quickly. And I don’t have any way of proving that, unfortunately. I wish that I’d had that kind of foresight.

Tim Anderson:

Man, that would be amazing information to have. If you could find somebody that you were warming up to to transition from regular shoes to your shoes, that would be the great place to test.

Steven Sashen:

That’s a really interesting one. The challenge with doing any of these things where you want to study someone doing something like that over a period of time, because that’s going to be a six-month to multiyear process. You probably have a, for many people, there’ll be a kind of quick learning at first and then it’s going to slow down, but continue improving.

Anything like that, the cost for doing that kind of study is super, super high. And it’s one of the things Lana and I have on our to-do list is raising some capital, raising some money so that we can support some studies like that just to see what happens. Of course, the challenge there is that if they prove the obvious thing that using your feet is better than not using your feet and has all these value adds, people will say, “Yeah, but you guys paid for the study.”

Tim Anderson:

Wow.

Steven Sashen:

What are you going to do? This is something I talked to Sarah Ridge on a previous podcast episode. I called it something like the stupidest, stupidest research ever done. Well, Sarah had done some research showing that if you walk in a pair of minimalist shoes, your feet get stronger in the same way that they would if you did in a explicit foot strengthening exercise program.

And I said, “Isn’t it amazingly stupid that we have to demonstrate that using your feet is better than not using your feet.” When the shoe companies have never demonstrated anything showing the value of what they’re doing, the natural movement people have to prove that natural is better than not. Crazy.

Tim Anderson:

Well, whenever you’re going against a grain, everybody wants proof.

Steven Sashen:

Well, right, and even that, that’s the thing that’s so funny is we are not going against the grain. I know human beings have been wearing footwear for a long, long time. And the advent of the modern motion control padded shoes just the last 50 years. So, for 99.995% of human history, we’ve been wearing minimalist shoes or going barefoot or something like that. Something just a little protection for your foot, something to hold that protection onto your foot. That’s it. So, we’re not the intervention. The intervention is all the new stuff. The intervention is the Nike Vaporfly and the HOKA and everything really.

I did a panel discussion at the American College of Sports Medicine a year and a half ago, and there was a guy from Brooks and a guy from Adidas who made a comment about, “We’re trying to improve performance and reduce injury, but we can’t prove that we can do that because that would be really expensive and cost a lot of, and take a lot of time and have a lot of confounding factors.”

And all I could think was, “Dude, if either one of you could make a shoe demonstrably better than the guy sitting next to you, that’s worth billions of dollars a year, and you’re telling me you’re not doing it because difficult and expensive?” Ludicrous. But the fact that they had no evidence. And just then in one of my slides, I pulled up 20 studies from PubMed showing how natural movement is better.

So, Isabel Sacco in Brazil showing how it can get rid of knee osteoarthritis and Sarah’s research about foot strengthening and it goes on and on and on. But that research gets no attention because there aren’t multibillion-dollar companies promoting the research. So, anyway, he says ranting,

Tim Anderson:

We get it.

Dani Almeyda:

Yeah. And I think what you just said as far as you’re not going against the grain is a really cool way to look at it. However, unfortunately, the rest of society doesn’t know that.

Steven Sashen:

I know.

Dani Almeyda:

And we go with the same thing, too. Everyone wants the complex, the sexy, the new, the next best thing.

Steven Sashen:

Yeah, I mean, if all you have to offer is crawling around in chains, I mean, where’s the fun of that?

Tim Anderson:

So, the good news is you don’t even have to use the chains, just crawling.

Steven Sashen:

Well, wait-

Tim Anderson:

That’s all you need to do.

Steven Sashen:

Although look, the gadget geek that I am, in fact, I’ll tell this story. So, being that it is that present giving season, and my mother-in-law sent me some money, which is very kind and completely stupid and ridiculous, but she does it all the time anyway. And all I can do is say thank you. But there’s just no need to give a 57-year-old man a Christmas present.

Regardless, I was thinking, I want to spend a little money. There’s a toy that I’ve wanting to get for a while. And then I got a letter two days later from the surgeons who did my shoulder surgery three years ago saying, “Hey, we’re auditing our numbers and you apparently overpaid.” And they sent me a check for $1,500.

Tim Anderson:

What?

Dani Almeyda:

What?

Steven Sashen:

Exactly. That’s the first thing I said. And then second thing was maybe they made a mistake. And the third thing is, “I don’t care. I’m cashing this thing.” So, I bought a toy. It’s a Nordic hamstring curl machine, basically just as a sprinter, eccentric hamstring strength is usually important. So, I got a thing to do that. It makes me very happy. I love this thing. So, anyway, that’s my new toy. But other than chains, so that’s my way of saying I like toys. So, other than chains, what other toys might I play with if I were hanging out with you?

Dani Almeyda:

Well, I’m going to just throw this in there. Your own body for sure. Best thing.

Steven Sashen:

I know. Come on.

Dani Almeyda:

All right. All right. What do you-

Tim Anderson:

Toys?

Dani Almeyda:

Yeah, toys. I don’t know. We have so many toys. Well, we’re really big fans of the Hyperwear sand belts and also the Hyperwear weighted vests. Those are both great pieces of equipment that you can use for a lot of different types of training.

Tim Anderson:

We like sleds, pushing and pulling sleds.

Steven Sashen:

Yeah, dude, you are just going to so love the EXER-GENIE.

Tim Anderson:

Yeah? All right, I’m in.

Steven Sashen:

All the fun of a sled without a sled.

Tim Anderson:

And that’s what I need because I travel.

Steven Sashen:

Yeah, yeah.

Tim Anderson:

But yeah, we love sleds, slam balls or soft, I call them soft atlas stones, where you can just pick them up and maneuver them and stuff like that of different weights.

Steven Sashen:

There’s a guy that I met, he’s here in town, who actually, when I met him, we were at an event. It was a lunch for physical product CEOs, and I’m sitting next to him. I said, “So, what do you do?” He goes, “Oh, I make an adjustable weight medicine ball.” I said, “Oh, cool. How does that work?” He goes, “Well, I can’t tell you that. It’s technology.” And I said, “Yeah, because what I’m going to do is I’m going to drop my multimillion-dollar company and steal your stupid idea.”

Dani Almeyda:

Did you say that to him?

Steven Sashen:

I did. And about 10 minutes later, he walks back up to me, he goes, “My apologies. Here’s how it works.” So, anyway, it’s crazy expensive, but I saw them recently and it’s really fun. It’s basically just a medicine ball, where it’s got kind of like a screw on cap, if you will. And you can put different weights on the inside of it, very clever and kind of expensive. But for travel and for convenience, that works out well. But I love things that you can throw and slam and hit walls with and stuff like that.

Tim Anderson:

Yeah. And then the other thing, for all of those things you could do, we have ropes. Imagine that. We’ve got ropes and chains.

Steven Sashen:

Ropes and chains.

Tim Anderson:

All kinds of fun things.

Steven Sashen:

Yeah. You might want to clarify that. I wouldn’t open with that. “Yeah, come on over. We have a lot of ropes and chains. Come here, let me show you something.”

Tim Anderson:

But that’s how-

Dani Almeyda:

You know what, it might work. I don’t know. Crazy enough to work.

Steven Sashen:

Of course, you do.

Tim Anderson:

Guess I’m curious enough, I want to come in the door.

Steven Sashen:

“I’ve got ropes and chants. Come on, let show you something.”

Dani Almeyda:

I’m not going to lie, Steven. I’ve had phone calls, people calling in and being like, “Yeah, I saw this guy walking around in my neighborhood with a thing on his head and walking with sticks.” He uses Indian clubs, “And I hear he owns this place. Can I come work out here?” So, people-

Steven Sashen:

Nice.

Dani Almeyda:

People like it.

Tim Anderson:

Curiosity.

Steven Sashen:

Yeah, yeah, yeah. That’s good. Cool. Those are all good toys. But the thing that I like about them is that they all do have one thing in common, which is what you hinted at before. It’s basically giving you a way of, I don’t want to use the word “exaggerating”, but just adding some added element to this natural movement pattern.

Tim Anderson:

Yes.

Steven Sashen:

Yeah.

Tim Anderson:

And so, the way we explain it to people is once we teach them how to press reset and tie their body together, then we put them through natural movement and really we teach them how to be farmers, moving things.

Steven Sashen:

Yeah, yeah. It’s funny you say that. I was at the first Paleo FX conference. I was on a panel discussion about natural movement things. And at one point I said, “Look, let’s just cut to the chase. Everything we’re doing here is fake natural movement, really, because no one is walking down to the river and picking up stones and bringing them back to build a house. No one is running to catch their food or running away so they don’t become food. And the difference in that one is so noticeable. Because I don’t care how fast you run and how much you’re doing high intensity intervals.”

When I go out and train, I run as hard as I can. Maybe I’m a little sore the next day. When I am at a track meet and I run one fast race, I can’t move for the next four days. The whole hormonal thing that goes on when you’re in competition mode, and that’s not even the same as being chased by or chasing something, but it’s the closest that we can get in a controlled circumstance in a whole different game. So, we’re doing these things to do the best we can to imitate what it would be if we were living in a very different world.

Tim Anderson:

Yeah. And basically, we do them here, too. Because outside of here, people still have a life they want to live. And we’re in a rural place where people do yard work, they shovel mulch, they plant trees, and they work. So, just being able to do that stuff easier, we’re improving quality of life.

Steven Sashen:

Yeah, yeah. No, that’s great. Well, is there anything else that we want to jump into, tackle, talk about? Anything that I missed?

Tim Anderson:

I don’t know. I’ve learned that if I rub the EXER-GENIE, Will Smith will not pop out.

Steven Sashen:

That was pretty much the subliminal message I’ve been trying to communicate the whole time.

Tim Anderson:

We covered that.

Steven Sashen:

Glad you picked it up. Yeah. My shirt doesn’t say Xero Shoes. It says EXER-GENIE Will Smith, do not rub.

Tim Anderson:

I do have a question for you. So, your new Speed Force shoe, do you run sprints in it?

Steven Sashen:

Yeah. Yeah, I’m wearing it right now. I’ll tell you, when I come to the office, I normally just kick off my shoes right away. I mean, I’m normally barefoot most of the time. And the only reason that I wear shoes even in the winter around here is because in the parking lot of our office, for some reason that no one has ever been able to explain, it’s always muddy. And I just am lazy. Sometimes I can jump over it, but basically, I put on shoes so I don’t have to deal with the mud in the parking lot, and then I’d come in here and kick them off. I keep wearing these. I keep forgetting that I have them on.

Tim Anderson:

I’m sorry. Go ahead.

Steven Sashen:

To answer your question though, so yeah, when I’m on the track, and so for people who don’t know, I’m a competitive sprinter. I will do all my warmups barefoot and drills barefoot. And then when I’ve got to go for speed, I’ll put on my Speed Force now. I was wearing the Prio before and now I’m wearing the Speed Force. I feel like they give me as much grip as my sprinting spikes do, and partly because I’m able to move my foot more than I can in my spikes because they squeeze your toes together and don’t let your foot move. But also, they’re crazy grippy and they’re really lightweight.

I mean, it’s my favorite shoe to run in, and all of my training partners are doing the same now. And some of them were just like, “Yeah, I like the Prio, but I can’t really run in it. It’s a little too heavy for me.” And then the Speed force is what they’re wearing now. I’m actually working on a sprinting spike. I’ve got a kind of skunkworks project. It has no spikes and it doesn’t squeeze your toes together. It’s super, super cool. But hopefully, that’s about a year away. Anyway, so yes, I do. But you had a followup question it sounded like.

Tim Anderson:

Yeah, well, no, I was going to say that’s my biggest complaint about the Speed Force is that typically before I had my pair, I would come in around and I’d walk around and here barefoot or without shoes. I wear these things all the time.

Steven Sashen:

I know, it’s crazy.

Tim Anderson:

I don’t take them off and I’ve worn them every single day.

Steven Sashen:

I know, I know. And look, I’m not sure exactly when this episode’s going to air, but I’ll hint at something. We’ve got another shoe coming out called the HFS, which stands for holy something, something. It’s a tiny bit heavier. The upper is a little bit lighter, and the tread is a little more road friendly, if you will. I’m going to show it really quick. It’s a teaser for you.

Tim Anderson:

It’s pretty.

Dani Almeyda:

That’s awesome.

Tim Anderson:

That’s cool.

Steven Sashen:

Yeah, it’s super, super cool. And similarly, we got a few samples here in the office just to make sure the production run is going correctly and people who’ve been wearing the Speed Force, now they’re gone, “I don’t know which to wear. I’m going back and forth.” So, we’re really committed to doing this. We have a couple other shoes that we’ve developed for 2020 in particular, where the people who are testing were going, “I keep forgetting that I’m wearing them.” Now, we’ve been hearing that since day one. But even more with some of these, because they’re even lighter, they’re even more flexible. They breathe even more.

And yeah, it is pretty wacky having the same experience you are. It’s very weird that I find myself wearing shoes the majority of the day because I just forget. I mean, I just don’t even notice it.

Tim Anderson:

So, my wife’s yelling at me at home, always telling me to take my shoes off now, because she doesn’t want me wearing them on the carpet. And I just-

Steven Sashen:

She off, “Don’t crawl through the neighbor’s yards.” Man, this woman, she’s a ballbuster. Jesus.

Tim Anderson:

Well, she runs a tight ship. She does. She’s not going to watch this, so I’m sick.

Steven Sashen:

Oh, man. I wonder if Lana is embarrassed by all the things that I do or not. I’ve never asked her. She’s never said anything, so I’m assuming she’s totally fine with it or just walks further away so people don’t know that we’re attached to each other. That’s probably what it is.

Tim Anderson:

I’m sure she’s used to it. I’m hoping my wife is.

Steven Sashen:

Yeah, she’s definitely used to it. But I’m sure there’s things that every now and then, she’s got to be rolling her eyes. My parents very early on, so I come from a, let’s call it nominally Jewish family. We went to synagogue on the high holidays and that’s it. That was really it. But my parents used to say to me, my mom in particular, actually, my dad in particular, “We want you to marry a nice Jewish girl.” And I said, “You have no idea how hard it is to put up with me. If I can find anyone who can do that, end of story.”

And then they met Lana and I said, “So, are you okay with the fact that she’s not Jewish?” And they said, “Look, we’ve just seen that in your previous relationships, you started out happy and then got less happy. And in this one, you started out happy and have gotten happier, and that’s all we care about.” And I said, “Okay, where’d you put my real parents?”

And it’s been true. So, I’m an incredibly lucky human being. In fact, my mom who has Alzheimer’s, after she had long ago forgotten who I was, would spontaneously say, “Lana is the best thing that ever happened to Steven.” And she’s totally correct. So, that’s a good one.

So, yeah, my apologies for now creating this additional strife in your relationship where your wife now complains that you’re wearing shoes. I will do my best to make that worse for her.

Tim Anderson:

Thank you.

Steven Sashen:

By giving you additional options where you do the same thing. There’s actually a funny one going on right now. I can’t wait to see how it pans out. Peter Attia, I don’t know if you know Peter. He’s a doctor and very interesting health and fitness guy. And he’s been wearing the Prio and the Speed Force, and his wife is totally not crazy about the Prio. I think she’s iffy about the Speed Force. I’m hoping that I find something that he likes, that she likes as well. That’s my new challenge.

And sometimes we get the other way around. Sometimes we’ll have it is polarizing. There’s times where people wear our sandals and the spouse will complain about how they look. And then we get them another sandal and they go, “Oh, I actually like that one.” So, it’s a very funny thing. We’ve had people make a comment about the exact same shoe. One saying, “That’s too masculine,” and then the next breath, someone’s saying, “That’s too feminine.” It’s like, “Okay, then you’re clearly both right.”

Tim Anderson:

Yes.

Steven Sashen:

Anyway. All right. Anything else before we call it a wonderful day?

Dani Almeyda:

Well, I would just love to point out if anyone wants to learn more about Original-

Steven Sashen:

I was just about to do that, but go ahead.

Dani Almeyda:

Okay, okay.

Steven Sashen:

Go ahead. I was going to say, if people want to learn more, where do they go? So, you preempted it, but please continue.

Dani Almeyda:

All right. Well, I was going to say, if anyone wants to learn more about Original Strength-

Steven Sashen:

So, wait, wait, hold on. Not if, when.

Dani Almeyda:

When. So, Tim has written several books. They are fabulous. You want to check out Pressing Reset: Reloaded. It’s on Amazon or on our website at originalstrength.net. We’ve got tons of free content on YouTube, blogs every week, videos, just tons of content out there. And we also have an online platform for anyone looking for some coaching specifically at osionline.com. And you can get lots of cool programming and other information and even random recipes that we like.

Steven Sashen:

Oh, that’s a good one. And then certification for people who are fitness professionals who are looking to integrate this.

Dani Almeyda:

Yes. Yes. So, any fitness professionals looking to help simplify movement and help change the industry and get people moving better, faster, check out originalstrength.net. We’ve got certifications happening all over the world and something coming up here. And we would love to meet you and see you and help you help people better.

Steven Sashen:

Well, first of all, thank you, thank you both. Secondly, I hope everyone does come and check it out. Third, I want to say something I’ve been trying to avoid saying this entire time, and for people who aren’t seeing this, you’ll have to find the video to see it. I just want to let everyone know that no cows were harmed in the making of Dani’s earrings.

Dani Almeyda:

No, but they’re pretty legit, right?

Steven Sashen:

They’re awesome.

Tim Anderson:

Those are Holstein, Holstein earrings right there.

Dani Almeyda:

Looks like Dalmatians.

Steven Sashen:

Oh, that’s right. No cows or dalmatians were harmed in the making of your earrings. They’re great. Okay. Well, anyway, thank you, thank you, thank you. It’s been a total pleasure and thank you for the support you’ve given us over the years. I mean, it’s been a real treat. And watching how you guys have grown this has been really, really a blast. So, kudos to you.

Anyway, that’s beyond that. For everyone else, thank you. Again, go to www.jointhemovementmovement.com, where you can find previous episodes and how to find us in all the different places where you can find podcasts and videos and places to interact. If you have any feedback or have anyone you think should be on the show, drop me an email. Just move@jointhemovementmovement.com. By the way, that is move at, not just move at. So, move@jointhemovementmovement.com and most importantly, go out, have fun and live life feet first. Take care.

Tim Anderson:

Thank you.

View Details

Dr. Artour Rakhimov is a health practitioner and the author of books on yoga, cystic fibrosis, cancer, breathing techniques, and many other topics. He teaches and promotes methods and lifestyle changes that increase brain and body oxygenation: how to unblock a nose, fall asleep fast, stop coughing, relieve constipation, get rid of cramps, and deal with chronic diseases that are based on low body O2 content. Dr. Rakhimov is also a Buteyko breathing teacher (since 2002 up to now) and trainer, and the inventor of the Amazing DIY Breathing Device. He is the author of the largest world’s website devoted to breathing retraining for higher body O2.

Listen to this episode of The MOVEMENT Movement with Dr. Artour Rakhimov about breathing better to achieve better health.

Here are some of the beneficial topics covered on this week’s show:

– How retraining your breathing is crucial for addressing health issues and achieving optimal breathing patterns.

– How the Buteyko method focuses on reducing breathing to increase oxygen levels in the body.

– Why proper breathing techniques are essential for optimizing oxygen intake for overall well-being.

– How physical exercise plays a key role in maintaining good health and is important for long-term health maintenance.

– How nose breathing during physical exercise can lead to health benefits by impacting CO2 levels and nitric oxide production.

Connect with Artour:

Guest Contact Info

Links Mentioned:normalbreathing.com

Connect with Steven:

Website

Xeroshoes.com

Twitter@XeroShoes

Instagram@xeroshoes

Facebookfacebook.com/xeroshoes

Episode Transcript

Steven Sashen:

Could the way you breathe be hurting not only your health, but even your performance? Do you breathe in then out, or you do breathe out then in? Whichever one you do could make a difference. Kidding, that has nothing to do with it. But you’re going to find out more on this episode of The Movement Movement, the podcast for people who want to know the truth about what it takes to have a happy, healthy, strong body. Typically starting with the feet first because those things are your foundation, but now we’re going to get into your lungs, which are in a way also your foundation. Without your lungs working, feet don’t really matter too much. So, this is the podcast for you all who want to know what it takes to run, to walk, to hike, to do yoga, CrossFit, you name it. Enjoyably, healthily, efficiently… And if you’re already part of what we’re doing, thanks for being here.

If you don’t know what we’re doing, we’re creating a movement movement. We’re trying to make natural movement the obvious, better, healthy choice the way natural food is. And we call it a movement movement because, well, the first part is about movement, the second part is that it’s about you creating this movement. So, if you want to be part of the tribe, please subscribe. Go to www.jointhemovementmovement.com to find previous episodes, to find out all the different places that you can engage with this on YouTube and Facebook and Spotify and iTunes and everywhere that you get your podcast. You know how to do that. And leave reviews, and tell your friends, and hit the bell on YouTube so you find out about new episodes. You know how to do all this stuff, I don’t need to tell you.

So, I think that’s all the announcements. This is part two on breathing, but this one’s going to be a whole different game. And so, let me introduce our guest for today. Or actually, Artour, I’m going to ask you to introduce yourself so it sounds less boring than if I tried to just read some of your resume.

Artour Rakhmov:

Okay. Thank you, Steven. Yeah, I’m a breathing teacher, trainer and author of 10 books on Amazon and I have been teaching breathing training and the Buteyko method for about 20 years now.

Steven Sashen:

And more importantly, you have a website. You may as well tell people where that is right now before we forget.

Artour Rakhmov:

Normalbreathing.com. So what we teach here actually in order to be healthy… And actually I know by now that we can solve virtually any health problem, even the most difficult ones, if a person is able to retrain their breath. And all they need to achieve is just to achieve the medical norm for breathing. Very simple.

Steven Sashen:

So this is an interesting idea. So it’s normalbreathing.org, and I think that the idea of normal breathing is intriguing. So why don’t we start with the simple thing. What do you see people doing with their breathing that is not “normal”? And then we’ll talk about normal and what they can do about that.

Artour Rakhmov:

Yeah, excellent. Of course common question. What I mean by norm, there is a medical norm that was established about 100 years ago. And since then, you can find it in many medical textbooks, although I can see that during the last probably two/three decades, some medical textbooks started to change this norm in a way to adjust it to modern population. Why I’m saying that? Well, because the norm that was established 100 years ago, let’s say we can talk about only one parameter right now, such as minute ventilation. So how many liters of air we require in one minute, and this is for a 70 kilogram person at rest sitting. That would be kind of the standard situation. And the norm that was established about 100 years ago when respiratory science started, first textbooks appeared, was six liters per minute.

Steven Sashen:

So six liters per minute for 150/155 pound individual just sitting at rest. And they’re measuring that with a respirometer or some other device?

Artour Rakhmov:

Well, we use some devices you need to collect. We try to develop now techniques when we do it without invasion, non-invasive techniques as well. But I don’t know yet. It may appear quite soon because technology is progressing fast. But going back to your question, actually I did not finish another part. So we have a medical norm, six liters per minute. And that means that this number was common 100 years ago just for ordinary people. And there are indeed a lot of studies. So very, very long time ago. But if we look at modern people, we know by now that a typical average number for a current person, for a contemporary person, is about 12 liters of air.

Steven Sashen:

Yeah. Well, before I ask you the question of what changed, I need to back up and do something I should have done at the beginning and say two things. First, I just want to comment that the reason that we even got together for this conversation is because someone who listened to the podcast suggested that we chat. So I’m saying that just as a plug for anyone who’s listening or watching, if there’s anyone you think should be part of The Movement Movement Podcast, drop me a note at move@jointhemovementmovement.com. Secondly, just for people who haven’t put two and two together, clearly from your accent, you’re from, I’m guessing, Alabama or-

Artour Rakhmov:

No. From my second name, Rakhimov, so I grew up in Russia in Soviet Union, and I studied in the Moscow State University. I came to Canada old 25 and a half years ago.

Steven Sashen:

Got it. Yes, I can hear that Canadian accent. Just say A with a Russian accent, that’ll make the difference. All right, so backing up to twice as many liters per minute for a normal person now. What changed that “normal” is now 12 liters per minute?

Artour Rakhmov:

Well, it’s a very right and very long question of course because generally, of course, lifestyle factors we changed a lot. And we can kind of approach this very important question hundreds of times probably from students and during lecture talks. People ask why we now breathe about twice more than 100 years ago. So we can consider this question from two viewpoints. We can consider why modern people breathe much more. And for many people, there are many lifestyle factors. I can list maybe 7/10 different factors. Such factors as, for example, modern people have tendency to sleep on the back a lot. Very unhealthy factor. There are plenty of medical research, up to probably 26/27 studies. Actually, any study which I found — and I found around 26/27 of them — which compare the different sleep position like horizontal positions of course I’m talking about now, we all found that supine sleep was the worst sleep position in terms of reducing negative health attacks like for asthma, heart disease, diabetes, bruxismal snoring, sleep apnea, you name it. Whatever conditions we tested, all studies found-

Steven Sashen:

I mean, I can imagine why sleeping on your back would be problematic for snoring or for sleep apnea, but for things like asthma, what’s the mechanism that’s causing these problems?

Artour Rakhmov:

Well, basically what happens when we sleep on our back, our breath is not restricted. So we can breathe more because once you sleep on the chest left or right side, you kind of suppress your breath. So you are not able to breathe as heavily. And this is exactly what you would see in hospitals. If you go to hospitals, you go through the wards in a hospital, you’ll see that sick people, 99% of them, will be sleeping on the back. And healthy people, it’s true. In the past, of course, it was extremely uncommon for people to sleep on the back, but that’s only one of the factor.

I started with this one because when I start to work with students, this is what I start to talk to them first about sleep because sleep factors are extremely influential. We spend an average seven and a half, eight hours for sleep. This is how much we spend. And therefore you can imagine that the effects of sleep is actually very strong. And when people don’t know how to sleep well and we can lot of fruits, not only sleeping, barefoot walking would be one of them of course. And eating and level of physical exercise, sleeping on the back, mouth breathing extremely common for modern people, especially during sleep. And if a person wakes up and feels that mouth is dry, that’s very, very strong indication that they actually were mouth breathing during sleep.

Steven Sashen:

Well, so backing up, what is it about breathing more, getting more liters per minute worth of airflow that causes problems from your perspective?

Artour Rakhmov:

Yeah, that’s another very important question. Doctors call it hyperventilation. And I spoke with, again, thousands of people that I know from my experience, and I was an example myself, let’s say, 20 years ago when I started all this research and looking into the topic, I also thought the more you breathe, the more oxygen you get. And you can hear take a deep breath assuming that you’re supposed to get more oxygen when you take a deep breath. So in medicine, they call it hyperventilation and there are hundreds and hundreds of studies dating as back as 150 years ago, which proved and show that the more you breathe, the less oxygen you get in a state of rest or sitting or lying or without doing any physical activity.

Steven Sashen:

So it’s so funny you say this. I was thinking about this last night completely independent of our pending conversation that when people talk about breathing and getting more oxygen, I love to point out that 80% of what you’re breathing is nitrogen and then oxygen is a small piece of that. So you’re not going to be getting a whole lot more. But I mean typically when I think of hyperventilation, it’s literally breathing so quickly that you’re increasing carbon dioxide in the body and you’re becoming hypoxic. So at a certain level, you’re definitely having less oxygen because you’re blowing off more carbon dioxide, which sets off a whole metabolic chain of events.

But for just going from, say — I’m going to make up a number — from X number of breaths per minute to 2X, that doesn’t necessarily move you into that same hyperventilated state where carbon dioxide is… You’re just basically blowing off carbon dioxide like crazy when you do that. So is there a line where a little bit more is okay, then you’re going over that threshold where suddenly you’re blowing off CO2? Got it. Yes. I was at some point going to point out that we need to talk about that chart behind you.

Artour Rakhmov:

So people actually can kill themselves. And these experiments were done also 140/150 years ago.

Steven Sashen:

Hold on, I got to pause right there. So this is going to sound totally creepy to many, many people. So let me preface this by saying I don’t have any issues about death and dying. When people have a terminal illness, I’m not someone who goes, “Oh, my God.” I’m typically someone who says, “Wow, this could be very exciting.” I had a conversation. I bumped into an old friend. I said, “How are you doing?” She kind of pulls me aside in Whole Foods. She pulls me aside and she goes, “Well, I have ovarian cancer at stage four.” And literally the first thing out of my mouth was, “Wow, that must be very exciting.” And then she looks around somewhat conspiratorially and she goes, “Actually, it is because I’m only doing things that I like. I’m only hanging out with people who support me. It’s really been an amazing time.”

Now that’s the preface for this weird statement. I have a video of my father 12 hours before he died. He had coded, they paddled him back. He really wasn’t doing very well. And that last 12 hours, when I went in to see him 12 hours before he died… Actually, wait. I take it back. I took this video just a couple hours before he died. He’s lying on his back and he’s breathing totally into his chest at about 20 breaths per minute. And I turned to a nurse and I said, “If he keeps doing this, he’s going to be dead within a couple hours.” And he was. So anyway, back to your chart. I had to interject with my personal experience of that.

Artour Rakhmov:

This is actually how Dr. Buteyko started his journey in terms of exploration of breath. His first discovery was actually when people die, they die because of hyperventilation. And actually nurses and other doctors in the hospital where he worked because he was practicing just before getting his medical license after five years of study, three years of extra study, he got some PhD research and so on. But when he was already almost ready to go doctor, he was described by nurses and other doctors as shaman or voodoo doctor who could predict how soon people were going to die just because he observed their breath. He realized that with approaching death, people breathed more and more. Often we show it actually in movies. If you watch old movies, there are relatives around and goes… And last breath and we pass out.

And this is true. I found several medical studies as well on cancer, metastatic cancer, people dying from cancer, people dying from HIV, from cystic fibrosis. And in cancer studies, we actually have studies where we show exactly the same parameters which are predicted by the Buteyko Table of Health where we see that cancer patients have very high chances to die if the respiratory frequency is more than 30. This is RF, respiratory frequency. If pulse gets higher and higher, more than 100, and their breath holding time becomes five seconds or less. So it’s very, very short.

Steven Sashen:

My father wasn’t holding his breath at all. It’s just in and out. It’s super fast.

Artour Rakhmov:

Absolutely. And this looks like total paradox, but this is exactly true that if somebody breathes heavy and you ask them to hold breath, and in a way you can assume that it probably would relate to how much oxygen we have. So if you are not able to hold breath, if it’s five seconds or less, that means they have critically low level of oxygen. And this is what, again, many studies show that severely sick people, heart disease, HIV, cancer, diabetes, you name it, asthma.

Steven Sashen:

So backing up a little bit. So it looks like looking at that chart, there is a place where a certain amount of additional breathing is not problematic, but then you go over into what we most likely think of as hyperventilation, where you’re blowing off so much CO2, that’s the thing that’s causing a problem?

Artour Rakhmov:

It’s a stepwise process. So the medical norm, if we look at this table, would be exactly on this health level five. So this is health level five. And so the respiratory frequency medical norm 12 means 12 breaths a minute. This is what medical textbooks would say.

Steven Sashen:

Wow, they think that a full breath in five seconds is normal?

Artour Rakhmov:

In and out in five seconds, yeah.

Steven Sashen:

Wow, that seems ridiculous.

Artour Rakhmov:

Well, it was again common 100 years ago. So we can say whatever we like, but you are right. Ordinary people these days would have about 15. So we would be somewhere here. And the breath holding time would be about twice less, about 20 seconds. How we do it, we breathe more frequently and we also take a little bit more air for one breath. So instead of normal 500 milliliters, so half liter let’s say medical normal… Well, you can imagine a small bottle, plastic bottle, they take about 8 to 900 milliliters. So about 50% more.

Steven Sashen:

So I’m imagining that people right now might be thinking, all right… Before we get into what we would need to do to affect this, people might be wondering two things. One, how do I determine where I am? And it seems like the simple version is just sit down and rest and… This is a very hard thing to do, is to try and count your breaths without altering how you’re breathing. So you might want to have a partner just watch you while you’re doing it.

Artour Rakhmov:

Yeah. That’s absolutely true. Yeah, exactly. Once people start to count beyond breathing, they often can get numbers about, let’s say, twice less than the real respiratory frequency or breathing rate. But what Dr. Buteyko found, and I believe this is absolutely true, there’s a simple, we call it body oxygen test or control pause test, which is highlighted here in gray, which actually gives more accurate results in comparison with respiratory frequency because some people may breathe a little bit faster, but they have smaller volume for breath. And some people may breathe maybe less frequently and they have bigger volumes. So they would end up with a similar amount of carbon dioxide. So physiologically, they would be similar from the just CO2 viewpoint.

Steven Sashen:

Got it. And so what’s that column talking about then?

Artour Rakhmov:

The control pause — we also call it the body oxygen test or body oxygen measurement — allows us to evaluate very easily anytime for virtually, I could say, probably 97 or 99% of people would not get any problems because this test is done without any stress. So what you do, sit down, rest for five minutes, calm down, your heart rate would calm down, so your breathing would become regular.

Steven Sashen:

I’m relaxing now. Okay.

Artour Rakhmov:

Now you exhale. Ordinary exhalation or just ordinary exhale, pinch the nose and count how many seconds you can hold your breath without stress. So if you start-

Steven Sashen:

After exhaling?

Artour Rakhmov:

After exhalation, yeah. This is hard test because you need to have ordinary usual exhalation. That means about 2 to 2.2 liters of air left in the lungs — of course lungs are never empty. And then you count stress free. Stress free means you do it without stress. As soon as stress appears, release the nose and watch how you breathe after the test because if you overdo the test, you’ll take deeper breath. So you would notice if you’re 2, 3, 5 seconds long because once stress appears, it starts to grow. More and more stress, you can push yourself twice… Most people can do it twice longer, but we don’t want it. We want to have totally stress free tests. And this number actually, if we look again at many, many medical studies, they would tell you that 100 years ago, it was common to have about 40 up to 50 seconds. There are many studies published. 40 to 50 seconds.

Now these days, I done this test probably with thousands of people, lectures and so on and students as well, if you’re relatively healthy people, it’s around 20/25. Rarely 30/35 like maybe some other kind of really healthy people. But for sick people, it’s always below 20 seconds. So it’s less than 20 seconds. Asthma, heart disease, diabetes, cancer, any lifestyle disease.

Steven Sashen:

So first of all, some people are listening to this and not watching. I should have described this. There’s a chart that you’re standing in front of that’s the Buteyko… Wait, what does it say behind? Buteyko Table of Health Zones. So there’s a number of things on this chart that start with super health at the top, then a normal health and then disease health. And one of the things that we talked about was the number of breaths per minute. If you’re super healthy, it’s a lower number than if you’re diseased. Your pulse is lower if you’re super healthy than if you’re diseased. The amount of CO2 that you have is higher actually than if you’re diseased because if you’re diseased, you’re hyperventilating and blowing off CO2.

And what we were just talking about is this body oxygen level, which at the top starts at 180 seconds, three minutes, and goes all the way down to five seconds. Five seconds being diseased, 180 being super healthy. But what you’re describing and what it’s showing for normal is about a 60 seconds. So you’re relaxed, you breathe out comfortably, you hold your nose and see how long you can comfortably hold your non breath, if you will. And it says 60 seconds. But what you’re saying is that you’re seeing healthy people now are in the 20 to 30 second range?

Artour Rakhmov:

About 20/25 I would say if we take ordinary people who do not have major diseases or symptoms or complaints. So relatively healthy people. Really healthy people are extremely rare these days. And that’s what Dr. Buteyko found long time ago what he discovered as well, going back to the very first question that you asked, why people were healthy 100 years ago. I spoke about why we’re sicker because we sleep on the back, we mouth breathe, we have environment like food. Our food may be not so healthy. We have a lot of processed foods and so on. Let’s say we have too little amount of physical exercise.

But if we ask question why people in the past were much healthier, of course all these factors were different, but we can also say that they initially had much large amount of physical exercise. So to have a day as much as, let’s say, six, eight or 10 hours of some labor, which is equivalent to walking or maybe even high metabolism was required, was extremely common because people would do all type of jobs moving all the time around, no cell phones, no computers, no cars. And that of course made lifestyle very different. And according to Dr Buteyko, what he discovered that actually people are able to keep good health, be it 60 or we can say about medical norm 40, only if they have sufficient amount of physical exercise. And I found this is the key long term factor of maintaining good health according to Dr. Buteyko is physical exercise. And this is what makes this system kind of totally different from any medical views on health. So the Dr. Buteyko actually suggested that physical exercise is long-term key for health.

Steven Sashen:

And there’s a lot of information backing that up, even just walking. And one of the theories about the benefits of walking is just increasing circulation, which is increasing oxygenation in the brain and helping with cognition as well. There was a study that was done by Kirk Erickson at the University of Pittsburgh — this is maybe eight or nine years ago. It was actually soon after we started Xero Shoes — that showed elderly people who walk more retain more gray matter in their brain than those who didn’t. I asked him why he thought that was the case. He goes, “Well, when they’re walking more, one thing that’s going on is they’re getting more stimulation in their body from moving. So a lot of internal experience and also just what they’re seeing and feeling and what they have to do to deal with the environment.”

And I said, “Can you imagine how much better that would’ve been if they were walking barefoot and they were actually using their body correctly?” And he says, “Yeah, that’s a really good point.” Now the problem is this was a nine year longitudinal study. It cost a lot of money. And so it wasn’t something they could reproduce right away. There’s no question that physical activity is a big thing. Now I have a joke about that. My joke is that I want to do a video where it’s some guy in a suit and tie walking through a typical office and he says, “Do you like sitting under fluorescent lights staring at computers all day and not moving from your seat for 12 hours at a time? If so, you’re a perfect candidate for a job in the outdoor industry.” And so those of us who started out as highly active people and then start businesses about being highly active, we tend not to be as active as we used to.

But anyway, be that as it may, I want to ask you two questions. The second one, so don’t answer this one yet, is going to be what are you doing with people to get them into normal breathing, healthy breathing? But the first one, given what we talked about of just this simple exercise of exhaling naturally and holding your breath, if you will, while you’re doing that, I know I’m not going to be the first person who brings this up, but this is a big part of what Wim Hof is doing with his breathing where he is actually hyperventilating, having people breathe in and out very quickly. And then after some period of time, exhaling and holding their breath for as long as they can and working on extended times that they can do that. So what are your thoughts about that in relation to what you are doing? And then of course, I want to hear what you’re doing because everyone else is going to want to hear how to be breathing more normally and healthily.

Artour Rakhmov:

Well, in relation to Wim Hof method, we made a review of Wim Hof method and the purpose of Wim Hof method is not actually breathing retraining. He never mentioned that the person should breathe this or this way. So he uses hyperventilation as a way, as he believes, and it’s very possible that this is true, as a way to release in addition to all other positive effects or breath holding that he does to release certain hormones, and hormonal growth. So it seems to be there is research, but probably of course much more could be done in future.

So therefore what happens with Wim Hof, if we think about him asking to do usually 40/50 deep breaths and hold breath and better if you go on the cold water for that as well. So very, very cold water and hold breath maybe two, three minutes. That’s kind of he considers a standard at least for younger, for healthy people to achieve. I believe this is extremely healthy long term because after hyperventilation, you lose CO2, but you hold breath so you get all your CO2 back because of the release of hormones and some additional effects. In my view, you’re going to reduce your breath as a total result or net result of this Wim Hof method. They can use different techniques like the Stanislav Grof technique and I know some other methods as well where they use temporary hyperventilation.

Steven Sashen:

Yeah. Well, the Stanislav Grof technique and rebirthing and other things that came out of the ’60s and ’70s in breath holding, that was a very different thing where it was just ongoing hyperventilation where… And I did this 30 years ago, actually 20 something years ago. Oh, wait, how long? Yeah, 30 years ago. The difference there is you are just hyperventilating, hyperventilating. And it’s not uncommon that at a certain point, whether you’ve just breathed, breathed in or out, you’ll see people just stop breathing for minutes at a time just totally relaxed and then just start again very naturally as well. So it’s a different emphasis, but similar idea. Obviously in yoga with pranayama, people have been playing with breath for a long time. So in fact, let me ask that question before I ask you how you work with people. How do you look at those different breath related practices in the context of the Buteyko work?

Artour Rakhmov:

Well, our purpose is again to retrain our automatic or unconscious breathing. So this is what this table is about. And what Dr. Buteyko found that I know this is true from my experience with students, that actually is the worst result for this test completely coincides with the exact time when people have highest chances of acute attacks or exacerbations, asthma attack, seizures, heart attack, epilepsy attack. You name it basically. I found 11 or 12 medical studies, epidemiological studies, which found the time of the day when people have, again, highest mortality and highest chances of attacks. And all studies came to the same conclusion regardless of the name of disease and totally different teams of doctors and so on.

We all found that the worst time for the person is, again, we’re going back to sleep — four to seven o’clock in the morning, highest mortality. The so-called early morning hours. And during this time, if you do this test, when you wake up the first thing you open your eyes in the morning, you’re still in horizontal position, you exhale, you pinch the nose. Well, since you’re in horizontal position, you require less oxygen, you produce less CO2, you have less metabolism. Your breath holding time is supposed to be longer because you in addition had hours of rest. But in reality, people actually die most likely during the early morning hours. Doctors and nurses, we know it.

Steven Sashen:

So what you’re suggesting really is that we should all sleep until noon?

Artour Rakhmov:

Well, what Dr. Buteyko found, and I found it on our advanced students that I trained, trained as practitioners many of them, that once we get to CP of 60 seconds, and this is Dr. Buteyko norm, which is a bit harder. Medical norm is 40 seconds, Dr. Buteyko norm is 60 seconds. At this level, people normally start to sleep about four hours naturally.

Steven Sashen:

Fascinating. Well, I’m also curious how this may relate to heart rate variability because, for people who don’t know, when you breathe in, your heart rate is supposed to go up a little bit. When you breathe out, it’s supposed to go down a little bit. A friend of mine actually was one of the first people to be able to study heart rate variability in real time. He was the CEO of a company that developed a neoprene vest that just measured everything in real time, heart rate, respiration, et cetera. And in fact, one of the people, if I’m remembering correctly, it was one of the people who was in his company that they’d put the vest on and tested and he had no heart rate variability. And they said, “Get to the hospital right now.”

He got to the hospital and they put him on an EKG. And then he was in surgery for triple bypass 20 minutes later. And so this is also a thing for endurance athletes. There’s some people who use heart rate variability to determine whether or not you’ve recovered from an endurance event because when you’re stressed out, your heart rate variability decreases. The difference between your inhaling heart rate and exhaling heart rate decreases. And so they wait until you’re back to normal, if you will. And this of course relates to breathing. Have you looked into this relationship between HRV and breathing?

Artour Rakhmov:

Well, yeah. HRV probably also correlates with the state of the balance between sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous systems.

Steven Sashen:

That makes sense.

Artour Rakhmov:

And now what happens here is that sympathetic nervous system is responsible for activation of muscles and therefore it’s also responsible for inhalation. When we take this is sympathetic. Parasympathetic nervous system is responsible for relaxation. And when we are healthy, we exhale without any efforts. We do it naturally. What happens if we look at the motion of the diaphragm, because diaphragm according to medical resources should take about each 90% of work of breathing. So work of breathing not is done by chest, by the diaphragm, each 90%. And it’s dome shaped muscles. So what happens when we inhale, we constrict the muscle so it becomes more flat. And in order to exhale, we just let it go so it goes back like a spring. So we pull out the spring like cylinder in a car to get oxygen in the whole lungs. And then we release and it comes back into its original position. Now when we look at respiratory frequency, we already have a short look at this table. So we see what happens here when people have relatively heavy breathing, we don’t have automatic pause.

Steven Sashen:

So what’s that?

Artour Rakhmov:

AP, automatic pause.

Steven Sashen:

Okay.

Artour Rakhmov:

Automatic pause means you inhale, you exhale. Then if you are healthy, for two seconds, you don’t breathe. Nothing happens. Just for two seconds, total rest. If you get healthier, Buteyko norm is four seconds. If you become yoga master, you breathe three breaths a minute, Dr. Buteyko himself was an example, you have 60 seconds doing nothing. Wow. This is of course really heavy dominance of the parasympathetic nervous system responsible for relaxation. So I would expect we did not do measurements like how it relates to HRV numbers, but for this table… For me, it would make sense that of course the heavier we breathe, and we talked about when people die, pulse is 100, respiratory frequency 30. And that means we would have of course very poor results for HRV measurements as well.

Steven Sashen:

Okay. So let’s jump into the part that by now people must be twitching about, which is talk about the training of going back to normal breathing of doing what Dr. Buteyko was teaching and what you’re doing with people.

Artour Rakhmov:

Yeah. This is what I started with. This is the method which allows us to solve daily chronic disease. But I also found that this is, in my experience, among all health therapies and techniques that I know, this is the healthiest one. To change your own automatic or unconscious breathing, this is the most challenging therapy because people need to address virtually anything and whatever is wrong in their particular lifestyle is going to prevent them from progress. It can relate to sleep, diet, physical exercise and many, many other factors. Because anything what is abnormal, and this is what Dr. Buteyko discovered, makes breathing heavy. If you over eat, you notice you go upstairs and your breath is heavy. You sleep too much, would be similar if you don’t do physical exercise. This is what Dr. Buteyko discovered and we already discussed it a little bit. I mentioned that to get, for example, Buteyko norm, people need somewhere around let’s say for young people it would be probably about three hours of intensive exercise and that’s really tough.

Steven Sashen:

Three hours of intense exercise per week?

Artour Rakhmov:

Per day.

Steven Sashen:

Per month, per year. And right now of course intensive exercise is trying to get toilet paper at Costco, but that’s a whole other story. So three hours per day of intensive exercise.

Artour Rakhmov:

For young people. Yeah.

Steven Sashen:

Now granted, I’m sitting here thinking about that. So back when I was a young people, I was an All American gymnast and I was a sprinter, so that was pretty normal for me, three hours plus. Now of course the amount… But boy, to try and do that now at almost 58, I would be able to do that for a day and then not again because I wouldn’t be able to move for about a week.

Artour Rakhmov:

Oh, yeah. That’s another. I can maybe quickly review those things that you mentioned. First of all, what Dr. Buteyko discovered in order for physical exercise to be safe and effective, it should be done 100% through the nose in an out like let’s say-

Steven Sashen:

Let’s pause there. That’s really interesting for two reasons. So one reason that I find it interesting is that some people have been claiming that if you’re doing intensive exercise and still breathing through your nose, it’s increasing the production of nitric oxide, which has a bunch of benefits of relaxing blood vessels, et cetera. And there’s a guy who actually teaches that you should sprint and breathe through your nose. And I said, “Look, as a competitive sprinter, it’s all I can do to get air in my body at all when I’m done with a race. So the idea that I could breathe through my nose, big as it may be, and be able to get any oxygen back, it’s just not possible.”

Now most people, when they run as fast as they can, they may call it sprinting because they’re running as fast as they can, but it’s a very different process. For a real sprinter, it’s an anaerobic process. While you’re running the 50 or 100 or 200 meters, it’s no big deal in terms of breathing. But then five seconds after you’re done, you’re on the ground barely able to get in enough oxygen. So talk about just exercise intensity and the ability to continue breathing through your nose because, again, sort of like hyperventilating, you get to a certain point and you just can’t do it.

Artour Rakhmov:

That is true.

Steven Sashen:

Yeah. Wait, hold on. Wait, you cut out again. So you said that is true and then I didn’t hear what you said after that.

Artour Rakhmov:

Dependent on where are you, what is your health level, and I can explain how it works. Let’s say your health level is three and this is typical modern person with 20 seconds for this body oxygen test that we already described. Now these people breathe, as we discussed, about twice more than norm, which is 12 liters a minute.

Steven Sashen:

Okay.

Artour Rakhmov:

12 liters a minute. Now if this person starts relatively intense exercise, quite heavy exercise, metabolism is 10 times high. That means we need 10 times more energy, 10 times more CO2 is produced. Their breathing will be actually very accurately about 10 times more than at rest. So instead of 12, would make it 120 liters. Now what is 120 per minute? Well, if I ask an average person to breathe as heavy as possible, as much as possible, just for a short period of time, you’ll do it of course through the mouth because nose gives more resistance. So then you’re going to get 150 liters a minute. So 120, 150, you can imagine the difference is very small and that means you basically will not be able to maintain this breath with nose breathing.

Steven Sashen:

Got it.

Artour Rakhmov:

And CO2 actually controls breath during physical exercise. This is a fact from medical textbooks, respiratory textbooks and respiratory physiology would tell that this is very true. A lot of measurements were done. But what happens here is that if you breathe through the nose during exercise, your CO2 will be a little bit higher. And if you breathe through the mouth, it’ll be a little bit lower plus nitric oxide plus about 20 other negative effects of mouth breathing of air, warming up of air, many, many other effects were discovered. So therefore 12 make 120. Now if we think about a person who, according to Dr. Buteyko has a medical norm, 60 seconds was a body oxygen test, these people breathe four liters a minute. So a bit less than the medical norm. If you’re asked to do the same exercise 10 times high metabolism, it makes it 40 liters a minute.

Steven Sashen:

Interesting.

Artour Rakhmov:

So 40 liters, I can show… That’s 40 liters a minute. So it’s not too heavy. Not like-

Steven Sashen:

Yes, slightly different thing. If I’m running at a slow pace, which I almost never do, then I can breathe through my nose for most of that time. But again, I run 100 meters, I can breathe through my nose while I’m running it. And then literally I finish the race, I can practically set my watch, five seconds later I’m on the ground. Or I’m just walking with my hands over my head just trying to suck in enough air to deal with the oxygen debt that I’ve created by doing that.

Artour Rakhmov:

Why? Because at the start of the race, you already had lower rate oxygen level?

Steven Sashen:

Well, much lower. In fact, it’s funny you say that because the two things before a race, one is I find myself yawning a lot because I actually get very relaxed right before I race. My heart rate’s up, but I’m a little more relaxed. The most relaxed I ever get is when I’ve inhaled and I’m holding my breath. And that’s between set and the gun going off. In that moment when they say set, hips come up, I’m in the blocks and I’m just holding my breath, just waiting. It’s the quietest my mind ever gets and it’s my favorite experience in the world is that moment right before the gun goes off. And it’s a very different thing going on metabolically than I think anyone’s ever looked at.

Artour Rakhmov:

Yeah. But going back to exercise, that’s according to Dr. Buteyko and I found the same that… I can give you another kind of factor from my experience with students that if people have very little exercise, and I met a lot of people in Canada, in the United States who were my students who would have, let’s say, 20, 30, maybe 40, 50 minutes a day of total physical exercise such as walking, shopping, going to car garage, whatever, bus stop if we don’t have a car and whatever. But what happens here is if we have that amount of physical exercise, the best result that they can achieve in terms of the health level would be somewhere about health level three. 20 seconds.

At this stage, if they have exactly 20 or higher, they probably would not develop… They may develop a little bit blood pressure or some other health problems, digestive imbalance, for example. But below 20 seconds, we know that this is where actually a lot of negative things starts to take place. People can develop cancer easily. So there would be progression… Basically, whatever genetic predisposition they have to certain conditions like parents genes, it can start to pop up. I very recently was looking like there are now literally thousands and thousands of studies where we say actually hypoxia induced genes for many, many diseases you can find just in titles of very modern research like last 20/30 years.

Steven Sashen:

Interesting.

Artour Rakhmov:

A lot of research.

Steven Sashen:

So other than the obvious prescription of getting more intense physical exercise while you’re still able to breathe through your nose, what else do you have people do to move up the scale, if you will?

Artour Rakhmov:

In total, probably I can name more than 100 of such factors and that can include, for example, like having cavities or caries in teeth, any nutritional deficiency would make person to hyperventilate. Could it be magnesium, you can be low in magnesium, in zinc, iodine can be low and some vitamins, vitamin D, for example, some other vitamin. And in relation to sleep, we already discussed couple of factors. And sleep really important because, again, when our students do the test, and this is how I also explain when I teach a course that we actually see when students progress, I ask them to measure morning results for the body oxygen test.

And so this actually should relate to the morning result because when somebody has right now 20 seconds, it’s very likely that the same person likely would have probably around 12, 15 seconds in the morning for exactly the same test. And that’s why we have highest chances of stroke, heart attacks, seizures. All type of health problems get worse during the early morning hours because the results, breathing is heaviest during the early morning hours and that makes it possible to develop whatever genetically we have predisposed plus of course environmental influences. So that’s about sleep. Maybe people can get overheated. Maybe we need grounding during sleep. Many people found when we experiment with themselves that earthing, or grounding, for sleep makes the sleep quality better and it also helps to improve or slow down the breathing as well. That’s about sleep.

Diet, we already discussed. In relation to diet, it would be the whole topic. I have the whole book how to normalize diet. And what I found long time ago, probably about 15 years ago, that when students achieve health level seven Buteyko norm, we have many, especially younger students, because of the large level of physical exercise, I discovered that if I asked them do you require toilet paper? Very interesting question. And they would say at this level, because I found that it’s actually very common that they don’t need any toilet paper. They go to toilet and it’s totally clean. I call it no soiling effect. No soiling means you don’t soil yourself.

I started to reason and to look into the medical research and already a long time ago — it was decades already — it’s known that when people have a little bit even abnormal digestive health, they form biofilms. So a film layer of pathogens living on the surface of small and design, which is not supposed to present there. And this is actually exactly the same greasy sticky type of bacteria which makes us to soil ourselves, so when we go to the toilet. And of course everybody knows when they get some food poisoning, some digestive infection, they need much more toilet paper. And when they get recovered, it’s less, less and less.

But still I’m certain that probably 99% or even much more of modern population will require toilet paper. And that also relates to another factor, which recent discoveries of doctors from cancer after immune conditions like really Crohn disease. Very severe conditions, even Buteyko method, with original Buteyko method that Dr. Buteyko suggested when people need to slow down their breath, he was not able to deal with these very heavy and very difficult health problems. But with diet, it happens to be possible. But diet would be another factor.

Plus of course, let’s say, thermal regulation during day. If you’re able to do Wim Hof, we know that when people are having more than 20 seconds, we’re able to do actually cold stimulation. Cold even to use ice packs, ice cold water and it’s extremely healthy. Having good posture during the day, using the diaphragm, teaching yourself how to breathe using the diaphragm. At the same time, I know that actually in yoga, very advanced yoga teachers, yoga gurus, often spend years to train a student to use a diaphragm automatically day and night because diaphragm actually is supposed to be used day and night. What I found from our students when they achieve 30 seconds for the body oxygen test in the morning, they automatically switch to diaphragmatic breathing day and night.

Steven Sashen:

Interesting. Good news, bad news. Let’s just do the bad news. Actually no, I’ll do the good news. So the good news is you’ve clearly mapped out, you and Dr. Buteyko, have mapped out strategies for improving things. The bad news is it sounds like what people need to do is really look at their whole lifestyle and clearly, as you know, people really are looking for a quick fix. Give me a gadget, give me a pill, give me one exercise, give me something. So how would you respond to that? Or even better, if you had to give people one to three things to really focus on so it doesn’t feel overwhelming, what would you say?

Artour Rakhmov:

Well, again, when I get a student and I have the questionnaire with somewhere around 70 or more questions, I immediately have kind of in my mind the profile of the student where I see that, this and these things require attention. But if we take many, many students, these things would be very, very different and that makes it… Again, like I mentioned, a couple of factors which are very common for severely sick and this is sleeping on the back and mouth breathing during sleep.

Steven Sashen:

Got it.

Artour Rakhmov:

These are very initial factors that always if I have a lecture or I have a group of students and I start work with students, I start with this factor. What I discovered after these years of teaching, I call it the law of two or three factors that if we consider any person, a student, we can change hundreds of different lifestyle factors in this person. But what I found that there are probably only two or three of them, which if we change them, that the person is going to notice that symptoms are reduced, medications also could be reduced as well and they feel they have more energy.

Answering to your another question, which appeared somewhere in the middle but I did not have the time to respond, you asked how you can make people to exercise more. It’s a very, very interesting and important question. What we found here is following: when people have less than 20 seconds, they’re so hypoxic in the cells of the body, heart and muscles, that exercise is very difficult for them and all they can do is walking.

So they are able to walk. And in fact, when they try to run and jog, they open their mouth. We cannot go running when we have less than 20 — with rare exceptions. I know very, very few students would be able to do it with, let’s say, 15 seconds or 18 seconds — with less 20 we’re not able to run. And according to Dr. Buteyko, and this also what I teach too our students, just do walking. If you’re able to do three, four hours of walking a day, that would heal many, many health problems. This is very hard as well, but this is what Dr. Buteyko was saying as long as 1960s. He was saying four or five hours of walking per day can cure nearly any disease. This is what he thought about that.

Now once people get more than 20 seconds, they’re able to start jogging. And when they’re already somewhere, let’s say, 30 seconds, they not only can start jogging, but they can do also breath holds while jogging. Maybe let’s say as short as five seconds. We hold breath five seconds, but they continue running. And so you can do physical exercise. We also split more exercise on several sections because, let’s say, if somebody does running, it’s extremely stressful for joints. Ligaments and joints. And from my rank, when I was 20/30 years ago, 40 years ago, I also was running a lot. Really a lot often up to two and a half or three hours a day running, skiing. But if you divide it on shorter sessions throughout the day, this is what we do now, let’s say, 40 minutes, 50 minutes, then it’s much easier. You can run three times a day and your body would adapt much easier rather than going, let’s say, for two hours running, which would be very exhaustive as well.

So the 30 seconds people are able to start breath hold. But what Dr. Buteyko found, and this is the hardest, hardest challenge in breathing, is to break through 40 seconds. When people break through 40 seconds, this is when sleep duration drops dramatically to four or five hours. And that means you don’t lose much during sleep. Hyperventilation during sleep would not be a problem any longer. But probably one of the most amazing changes that takes place at this health levels, people are able actually to enjoy physical exercise. And a lot of them know that… The same person starts to crave physical exercise and I see it all the time in students. When they get 60 seconds, they just have so much energy, it’s so natural for them. If they don’t do running or jogging, it makes the days worthless or they just don’t feel normal.

That’s really fascinating part of the Buteyko methods that with better and better health levels, people start to go running. And Dr. Buteyko, he was already in about positive effects of barefoot running as well barefoot walking, although his explanation was very different because at this time, nobody knew about earthing were not known. 1960s long time ago. So he talked about effects of walking on nerve stimulation on our feet and this makes some additional positive effects on our health.

Steven Sashen:

Well, to be candid, I would argue that that’s a better explanation than “grounding and earthing”, the physics of which are not good let’s say. But I say something really, really simple. So your feet are supposed to bend and move and flex and feel. We have more nerve endings in your soles than anywhere with your fingertips in your lips. Human beings right now, we think of sensory input as just the ability to perceive something rather than the effects that perceiving has. So basically perceiving something is something that’s happening as a combination of what your senses are doing and your brain responding to that. And since your feet are so important for balance and agility and effective motion, your brain is really wired to get all that information. And if you’re not getting that information, then your brain essentially shuts down. Not just that section looking for that information, but many things related to it.

So I would argue that, let’s call it the reflexology explanation if you will, is probably more likely than the bad physics version of what some people have been talking about lately. And there’s one other parts, there’s two actually other parts. So one is that I like to point out to people, I say sugar doesn’t taste good. And they go, “What?” I go, “Well, we evolved to the taste of sugar because it provided the calories that we needed when calories were hard to find. And then we started doing things to put more calories into food.”

I don’t even mean processed food, I mean bananas as an example. A banana before it was hybridized tasted bad and wasn’t sweet at all and we developed that. In the same vein, being barefoot in general feels good because you’re using your feet naturally to do what you’re supposed to do. And to barefoot running, most of the times if you’re going to go running barefoot, you’re going to do it somewhere that’s pleasant to be in. And we know from other studies, literally just being in nature for reasons that no one’s been able to give a great explanation for, has incredible health benefits in part because most likely because we evolved that way. And so there’s things that happened that we can’t actually necessarily identify. So I always go for the simpler explanations and the simplest one is being barefoot as much as you can — hold on, here we go. That’s where I’m now — as much as you can is just a more natural thing and more natural is most often going to be more better.

So anyway, we’re running out of time. So I want to kind of wrap it up with the simple thing. You brought up a lot of really interesting points. And if somebody wants to explore more with the Buteyko method and find out how they can change their breathing to what we’re calling normal breathing and see what the effects are, what do you recommend they do first?

Artour Rakhmov:

Well, normalbreathing.org, the website has more than 500 web pages.

Steven Sashen:

Okay. 500 is too many. So what’s the first thing that-

Artour Rakhmov:

Well, kind of the explanations related to what carbon dioxide does for expanding our airways for… It’s most powerful dilator of arteries and arterioles, our blood vessels which create major resistance to our heart function. So plus calming agent, extremely sedative and calmative agent. Nerve cells for the brain cells as well. Extremely important factor as well. So it provides more oxygen. Of course we already talked about oxygen before. And we have again on this site, many pages related to carbon dioxide. Many pages related to different diseases because what Dr. Buteyko found that although disease may look similar, and this is what I actually do, I teach only one disease.

This is what Dr. Buteyko did. We do not have, let’s say, 200 or more diseases of lifestyle or diseases of civilization. According to Dr. Buteyko, we have only one disease and we need to solve one disease, which is called over-breathing or hyperventilation. And when people breathe two or even three times the norm, we actually never notice it. We don’t pay attention. We can breathe, again, two or three times the norm and so we don’t know it. And, yes, for what happens here is that to slow down breath, I have probably around 30 lifestyle models on the website where people can go using DIY approach, but sometimes it works.

I know a lot of people and sometimes even students would achieve phenomenal results like to get up to 60 seconds, four hours of sleep, a lot of energy. Many, many other positive effects. But occasionally, people can get stumbled. And commonly, I would say when people are having more symptoms, take more medication, have more health problems, it’s more difficult for them to progress on their own. This Dr. Buteyko also found long time ago, people who are hospitalized, multiple medication and so on would require more-

Steven Sashen:

In those situations for people who are going to do more than the DIY approach, what are the options?

Artour Rakhmov:

Well, I may suggest that you may try to find Buteyko practitioners. At the same time, I can add that the way Buteyko method is generally taught on the West is very different from the original technique and from what a lot of medical doctors still teach right now in Russia. So what is different is, let’s say, I can mention clinical trials. There are many clinical trials right now, randomized, controlled clinical trials done on the West. And we found, for example, that they were able to reduce medication by more than 90% for all these trials. These are Western published results of course, but if we look at the results, what we found that let’s say average asthmatic have about 15 seconds for this. 15 seconds of oxygen, quite low, less than 20 as I already discussed, mild asthma. And what we did in this trial, we got up to 25 after 3, 4, 5, 6 months of practicing breathing exercises at the level of about one hour per day. So this is what we did and increasing a little bit physical exercise with nose breathing.

Now what I’m talking about here is of course you can imagine from 15 to 25, it would be right here. And I’m talking about going here and we have now people who get even up to here as well. With here, a lot of other things take place. It seems to be that people develop extra sensory perception. We are able to activate the pineal gland virtually in all cases if they get up to health level 10. Sleep gets down to three hours, digestion gets insanely strong because Dr. Buteyko himself wrote that at this level, people are able to digest nails. This is what he wrote.

Steven Sashen:

Hold on. The more important question is how did he determine that? Who was the first person who said, “You know, that nail looks like something that’s good. I’m going to have a salad with some on it right now”?

Artour Rakhmov:

What I believe myself that actually, and it seems to be that through with each level, there are literally hundreds of chemical reaction that become normalized, improved or even reappear as it’s supposed to be in very healthy people. With each step, but to make each step, again, it’s depends on the person. Sometimes people young, they actively do a lot of physical exercise. And occasionally, let’s say, it may take them two to three months. I have quite many students, young students, young guys, exercising, going to gym and doing whatever, and they get up to 60 seconds in two to three months. But if somebody is sick, what another… Maybe I can mention another interesting effect. I mentioned that in clinical trials we take light asthmatics and we gave them from here just one step from 15 to 25 and they already reduced medication by 90% a lot of them.

Now, what we found that actually these people, they are busy, they have jobs and they don’t have time to do physical exercise and to do breathing exercise. To get here, my requirement is at least for a person to have at least two hours of devoted physical exercise, plus two hours of breathing exercises every day until they get up here. Once they get up here, they can start reducing with breathing exercise because it’s not the most natural way to maintain your health. But physical exercise then becomes the key factor that allows them to stay at this health level. If they continue, let’s say have normal regular diet, stop exercise, they go immediately down here in a few days.

Steven Sashen:

Interesting.

Artour Rakhmov:

This is the kind of unforgiving conclusion of this table, but at the same time, this is how nature designed us: to exercise.

Steven Sashen:

Yeah. It’s funny you say that. Nine, 10 years ago I was at the first Paleo f(x) conference and then I was on a panel discussion about natural movement. There were a number of people talking about the things they were doing to try and get people to move naturally. I said, “Look, let’s not mince words. What we evolved to do is not what we’re doing now and no one will ever do it now. No one is currently running to catch their food or running away from someone who thinks that we’re food. We’re not walking down to the river and picking up rocks and carrying them back for miles to build homes. Right now we’re faking it.”

But I said, “Especially let’s go to the thing of running to catch food or running away from being food.” I said, “Look, as a competitive sprinter, I can tell you if I go have a really hard workout this weekend, which I will do, I’ll be a little sore the next day. But if I go race this weekend, which I won’t be doing because they’ve canceled all the races, but if I were going to race, I’d be doing even less work because I’d just be warming up and then doing one race indoors for eight seconds, outdoors for a little over 12 seconds, that’s it. But then I’ll be sore and tired for three or four days.” So the biochemical process, when the adrenaline is pumping and when it seems like life is on the line, very different thing than if you’re climbing a tree or doing whatever else you think people used to do. So I say there’s certain things you just can’t fake and these are things that used to be part of our daily life.

So I got to wrap it up. First of all, I want to say thanks. Secondly, I’m really interested in what you’re saying. I’ll be candid. How do I want to put it? I’m the first one to try some new something because I’m always very curious about improving human performance. And as we’ve been having this conversation, in the times where I wasn’t speaking, I was testing my very casual breath holding and I’m in the 18 to 20 range pretty consistently, which is very annoying. I was really hoping I’d be much higher than that. So I’m looking forward to getting back on the website, which I’ve spent some time on, but not as much as I would like to. And finding out more, I’ll probably pick up… If you were going to recommend the first book for someone to get started with, since you’ve written 10, which is the first one you’d recommend?

Artour Rakhmov:

Well, if you are already engaged and willing to try the Buteyko breathing exercises, my most popular book is called Advanced Buteyko Breathing Exercises where I explain the whole system how reduce breathing, what is a maximum pause, absolute maximum pause, super long breath holes, what you can achieve with them, how you can practice and how you can do informal breath work, how we can practice reduce breathing during physical exercise, how you can do steps. You go walking and you hold breath and you count how many steps you make, then you recover and again, breath hold and you repeat it many times. These type of exercises are there in the book. And this probably also most popular, I know when other people train new practitioners, Buteyko practitioners, they buy this book and just give it to new practitioners so that they can start learning about the Buteyko method.

Steven Sashen:

Got it. Awesome. Well, once again, thank you very much. And again, a reminder normalbreathing.org. And if people have any other questions, can they find you through the website?

Artour Rakhmov:

Well, yeah. I give Skype classes, but because I’m very busy, it’s a bit probably quite expensive. So in any case, thank you for the opportunity. I was thrilled to share this amazing technique of breathing retraining. I can maybe mention the last thing that Dr. Buteyko made two great discoveries and one of them is that health relates to how people breathe. This discovery makes it so that actually people are able to defeat virtually any chronic disease provided that they’re able to retrain their breath. Why? Because severely sick, sometimes I have very few people who would just not able to retrain their breath even with just breath and diet and other things.

Now in addition, Dr. Buteyko developed the method, how to go from step to step. And this is from one level to another level going easy and easy, slower breathing, more oxygen in the body. And this we also tried to develop. During last 20 years, we did a lot of innovations. So the Buteyko method, I believe, is growing, developing. So this is what I’m doing. And if you decide to try that… Again, the therapy is, in my view, the most difficult, the most challenging one. But if you imagine that, again, this therapy suggests that you can fix any health problem and I know it works this way, it works the way that… Just it’s very difficult and physical exercise and other factors.

Steven Sashen:

Love it. Well, once again, thank you very much. To sign off, let me just say to everybody else, thank you for being on the podcast and sharing what we’re doing. If you enjoyed what you heard, obviously pass it on. If you’re not sure where to find us, it’s pretty simple. Everywhere that podcasts that are… Everywhere podcasts are, there we go, you can find us at Join The Movement or just The Movement Movement Podcast. You can go to www.jointhemovementmovement.com. That’ll find all the previous episodes and all the different places you can interact with us. Remember to like and share and thumbs up and hit the heart or the bell button on YouTube and all those things that you know how to do. As I like to say, we’re creating this movement around movement. You are the movement. So if you want to be part of the tribe, please subscribe. If you have any questions, drop me an email, move@jointhemovementmovement.com and that kind of covers it. So until next time, thank you all for being here. Live life feet first. Have fun.

View Details

From the age of 45 Keith Bateman’s running times improved dramatically, culminating in a host of State, National and World age-group records. The records that he set in the 55-age-group were faster than the records he set in the 45-age-group! At the time of writing, he has broken, and still holds, 38 age-group State Records, 15 Australian age-group records and five 55-age-group World Records: 1500m (4:12.35), 1 mile (4:35.04), 3000m (8:56.80), 5000m (15:29.7) and 10000m (31:51.86).

Keith’s technique-change lessons combine with Heidi’s Strengthening and Rehabilitation programs to form the core of this book. Keith also provides a chapter for coaches who want to introduce technique change for their runners.

Listen to this episode of The MOVEMENT Movement with Keith Bateman about how to grow older, not slower.

Here are some of the beneficial topics covered on this week’s show:

– How balanced landing aligned vertically can utilize the body’s spring effect for more efficient running.

– Why body movement and muscle development are crucial for efficient running and injury prevention.

– How foot pressure and body position play a significant role in achieving a balanced landing while running.

– Why technique change can lead to substantial improvement in running times and overall performance.

– How community-building is essential to challenge conventional footwear practies and promote natural movement.

Connect with Keith:

Guest Contact Info

Instagram@batemankeith

Links Mentioned:olderyetfaster.com

Connect with Steven:

Website

Xeroshoes.com

Jointhemovementmovement.com

Twitter@XeroShoes

Instagram@xeroshoes

Facebookfacebook.com/xeroshoes

Episode Transcript

Steven Sashen:

When you get older, you get slower, or do you? That’s what we’re going to find out on today’s episode of The MOVEMENT Movement, the podcast for people who want to know the truth about how to have a happy, healthy, strong body, starting with the feet first because feet are your foundation. Where we get rid of the mythology, the propaganda, and sometimes the lies about what it takes to walk, to run, to hike, to do yoga, to CrossFit, whatever it is you like to do, enjoyably. I’m Stephen Sashen the host for The MOVEMENT Movement Podcast.

And you may already know how to find us, just go to www.jointhemovementmovement.com, that’s where you can find all the places that you can interact with us, and that’s where you can find out where you can of course share, and subscribe, and like, and review, and all those things that you know how to do. I’m not going to tell you all about that. We like to get started… Actually, before we get started, I’m going to introduce our guest, and then we’re going to do something that I’m going to have him participate in. So our guest is Keith Bateman. And Keith, I’m not going to give an intro about who you are and what you do, because I will never do it as well or as interestingly as you. So why don’t you tell human beings, who the hell are you? What are you doing here?

Keith Bateman:

Okay, well, I’m a technique coach these days, I transform people’s technique. Usually people who…

Steven Sashen:

Certain things that they’re doing that you’re coaching technique on, as in running.

Keith Bateman:

No, basically a complete change, a complete rebuild for most people.

Steven Sashen:

They change their technique.

Keith Bateman:

That’s right, yes, I’m trying to change it to what it should be for any human with two legs on the planet. If you notice that all the top runners in the past all look the same, Steve Ovett, Zola Budd, Mo Farah, they all basically have the same running action. And that’s what we’re heading for, the most efficient running action for each individual.

Steven Sashen:

Beautiful. And so for those of you listening or watching, you might notice that Keith has a distinctive accent. Clearly from New Jersey or New York, I’m guessing, correct?

Keith Bateman:

Okay, so I’m a bit of a mongrel. I was born in Watford, which is near London, obviously in England. I was there for 21 years, then I was in Scotland for 20 years, and now I’ve been in Australia for 19, but I’m not moving from here.

Steven Sashen:

Well, I have a friend who is Brit, who when he got to Australia for the first time was going through customs, and they ask the standard questions. They say, “Why are you here?” He says, “I’m here on business.” “Where are you going?” He says where they’re going. And one of the questions is, “Do you have a criminal record?” And he says, “Ah, shit, do you still need one to get in?”

Keith Bateman:

Exactly, yes.

Steven Sashen:

Exactly. So before we jump into just our conversation, one of the things that I like to do at the beginning of the podcast is a movement, since this is The MOVEMENT movement. And this is going to be a really simple one, for those of you who are listening and watching. One of the most important things that you can do is have arch strength, and one of the easiest ways of building arch strength is just by using them with a little isometric contraction that you can do anywhere. I do this when I’m cooking, or doing the dishes, or when I’m sitting at a desk, usually I’m standing at a desk. Actually I do it pretty often when I’m standing at a desk too. And it couldn’t be easier, just take your feet, and just trying to relax every toe you have as much as you can except your big toe, and press your big toe into the ground.

And if you do this really strong, you’ll probably get a cramp in your arch. So don’t do that, back off a little bit. But just get that big toe pressed in, and see if you can relax the other toes. So you’re really just engaging the arch isometric thing, do it for like three to four seconds, and then relax, and then do it again. Just kind of a little press with your big toe into the ground to engage that arch. And really it’s the other way around, if you engage your arch, you are pressing your toe into the ground. So you want to think about it from that angle. And again, just relax, and do this once or twice more. One more, just press that big toe into the ground, and relax. Great way just to do a little isometric thing that you can do anywhere you go, everywhere you are, to build some strength in your foot. So back to Keith for the win.

Keith Bateman:

I have to say I haven’t done that one before, it’s very good.

Steven Sashen:

Thanks. Yeah, it’s really easy, and literally you can do it pretty much everywhere.

Keith Bateman:

Yeah. Very, very simple, yes. We may adopt that one, we’ll have to… Yeah.

Steven Sashen:

So at the top of the podcast I said, “When you get older, you get slower.” And I said, “Maybe not.” And that is because Keith, you are the author of a book called Older Yet Faster. And this is now the second version, second edition?

Keith Bateman:

Second edition, yes. I have to say it’s Heidi Jones, my wife as well. So we must…

Steven Sashen:

I was just about to say that. And sadly, Heidi is not joining us because she’s not feeling well today, otherwise we’d have her in on this as well. So Heidi and Keith are responsible for this book, which it’s not just for older athletes and not just about getting faster… Or not getting… Tell more about how you frame the book.

Keith Bateman:

It’s for people who are a year older this year than they were last year.

Steven Sashen:

Fascinating. There are some people, my mother for a while never got older year after year. It was fascinating, she kind of hovered right around 39 for a while, then she got 10 years older, and she hovered at 49 for a while. Now she has Alzheimer’s, so she thinks she’s 30 again, it’s awesome.

Keith Bateman:

Well, I think I’m still 26, but still. So the subtitle of the book, obviously I have a copy here, is The Secret to Running Fast and Injury-Free, which obviously you’ve got to be injury-free first. And so Heidi has a big input here. Most people have weakened feet, as you’ll know, because they’ve had chunky shoes on and they’re just not using them. So the first thing we try to do is spend six weeks if possible on doing a foot program that Heidi used in her podiatry business. And that’s all on video as well. So you really want to get your feet strong first if you haven’t been walking around bare feet.

And then we have a very simple set of lessons that I’ve put together over the last 10 or 12 years to basically really re-educate the brain, make you think differently about how you run so that you can perform a different action. And once you start performing that different action, you build up the muscles to support it, which generally tend to be new muscles like calf muscles, glutes, the lower back and the core muscles. And it’s a very quick change to change your action basically, and then it takes time for the muscles, tendons and ligaments to catch up.

Steven Sashen:

So you started with something that has been an argument that I’ve had with Irene Davis. Not really an argument, but Irene Davis is a researcher at Harvard and she’s really one of the biggest promoters of research about natural movement. And Irene similarly, when you work with her, you start with a foot strengthening program for a number of weeks, and then a bunch of walking before you get into running. And I say argument with big air quotes. I mean, we just get along swimmingly, and this is just a fun debate we have. I say that in lieu of doing foot strengthening, which is fine, but there’s no amount of strengthening or walking that you can do that is actually the same as running. It’s always helpful…

Keith Bateman:

No, it’s very specific, that’s right.

Steven Sashen:

Which is why I say take a really, really short run, like 20 seconds, and then when that feels comfortable, you can add it to there. And I think fundamentally it’s really the same idea just from a different angle. And if you can do both so much the better.

Keith Bateman:

Yeah, we work exactly the same. My clients really start off with maybe two kilometers at the most. They might have been running 20 or 30, but now they go down to two, and then they wait and see what it’s like the day after. If it’s sore, they stop, they stop for two days maybe. It’s very slow at the beginning, but then it rapidly increases after they get to about five or six kilometers.

Steven Sashen:

Yeah, for some of these people, I literally… 2K would be way too far. I mean, I’m talking like 200 meters. I want to see people… Because there’s some people who they’ve been over striding and heel striking for so long that frankly at the end of 200 meters they know that something is awry, and they’re going to have to wait until the next day to figure that one out or a day after to figure that one out, which is not uncommon.

I’ve also seen one, this one amazed me, and I’m curious what your thought is. I’ve been on tracks where I see someone training or warming up. This happened a couple of years ago, a guy in a pair of five fingers, and I’m watching him warm up really slowly. And his form looked great, was nice and quiet on the track, everything was nice. And then he started going up to speed, and I could tell he was going up to speed because I could hear him just like slam, slap, slam, slap. I’m just curious what you’ve seen when you’ve got people who are coming to what you’re doing in that same regard, or if you’ve seen something similar.

Keith Bateman:

Well, it’s basically the same for everybody whether they’re a runner, I’ve had some customers who are running 30 minutes to 10K already. And I do exactly the same thing with them all, because the movements are the same it’s just a matter of refinement. So that slapping noise, I’ve never known it not to be somebody just touching with the heel first and then the foot slapping down, that’s really… So they are lifting or trying to place their foot, or somehow they are advancing their foot, lifting the knee or lifting the foot and trying to place it. If you lift your foot, you’re not lifting your body, the two work against each other.

Steven Sashen:

Wait, say more about that, describe what you mean when you say lifting the foot.

Keith Bateman:

If you lift your foot… Basically a good runner wants to lift the body, they want the whole body to come off the ground. Two ways of doing that. One is to push off your toes, which would be an acceleration. The other way is to try to land as near as possible to vertically aligned, and then your body becomes a spring, and it springs you off the ground, so you get free energy almost off the ground. So a good runner will have a lot of the spring effect and very little of the push effect.

Steven Sashen:

Yeah. You and I have actually gotten into also not arguments as well, where I described something like that, where you want to initiate your foot coming off the ground from your hip rather than your calf. In other words, you’re not pushing off the ground with your foot. But think about the image that I like to give, I say, “Imagine that you stepped on a bee, you wouldn’t want to get off the bee by pushing down harder with your foot because that would drive the stinger further in. You want to lift your foot off the ground, it’s almost a reflexive thing for getting off the ground.” Which if you’re a good spring, that actually has an effect.

Keith Bateman:

Yeah. That’s the only place where we don’t totally agree, because we deliberately say to people, “Do not lift your feet at all.” Because a good runner doesn’t lift their feet, in the same way as they don’t engage their core or engage their glutes, they’re not actually thinking about it. What’s happening is they’re getting a natural bounce off the ground, and the hips go off the ground and the feet follow. But if you try and lift the foot behind you, then if you stand there and lift… Oh, sorry. Okay, but if you lift your foot behind you, your head goes forward, so you lose that springy position and become more bent. If you lift your foot in front of you, then you sit back and you lose that beautiful upright position. So we find with thousands of clients that we actually… Just something simple like, “Leave your foot on the ground a bit longer and go past it, and it’ll come off the ground on its own, do its own thing.”

Steven Sashen:

Well, I don’t think we’re actually saying… I think if we looked at people who were doing what each of us is describing, it would not only look the same, but an EMG would show that the muscle activation is the same.

Keith Bateman:

Yes, it’s very difficult to be totally precise and let everybody interpret what you’re saying in the same way.

Steven Sashen:

Somebody asked me, they said, “Can you make an app where it just gives us the right cue?” I went, “No, because sometimes you give the same cue to someone, on day one it has no meaning, and on day two it’s the perfect cue.”

Keith Bateman:

Yeah. So what we’ve done actually, in the book, we’ve got lessons one, two, and three, which start you moving. Lesson four is a separate drill, I’ll come to that in a minute, that’s get everything moving. Lesson five is how to start a run. So it’s actually lessons one, two, and three together, and you start moving. And then there are a couple of cues in there that you can try. One of them is just a 360 degree spin, and if you do that successfully and you come out of it running, you’re near vertical when you land and you’re aligned when you take off. So that’s a good one.

Steven Sashen:

So you mean just jump up and rotate 360?

Keith Bateman:

Yeah, don’t even jump up, just run along and keep… Don’t slow down, just keep your momentum going. It’s obviously a slow speed, and you just do a spin. And then four or five paces after that, and then a spin the other way. Now, if you can’t do it smoothly, it means you’re throwing your leg or something like an ice skater out in front of you, so it’s a very simple self-check.

Steven Sashen:

And do you have videos of this one?

Keith Bateman:

Yes, all on video. Everything’s on video, yeah.

Steven Sashen:

Because people are definitely going to want to see that. And I’m sure that you discover that even people who can do it, they’ll spin better one way than the other.

Keith Bateman:

Everybody does, yes, that’s right. So you have to alternate, if you’re doing a series of them, you alternate it so you don’t get dizzy.

Steven Sashen:

Well, there’s the dizzy thing, but I always find it really funny watching just the difference between doing something one way versus the other. I did something I think maybe on the podcast last week, I can’t remember, where it was just cross your arms and then cross the other way.

Keith Bateman:

Yeah, it’s hard, isn’t it?

Steven Sashen:

Well, I’ve gotten the point where I can’t remember which one is the way that I normally do it, but it took quite a while for that.

Keith Bateman:

Yeah. On that note, we say in the book, “Asymmetry is normal.” So everybody has different length legs, different size hands, feet, so let’s not try to make it perfect, let’s just go with what we’ve got.

Steven Sashen:

I have a sign that I wrote, that I kept that I’ve kept on my bulletin board now for probably 35 years, says, “Distrust symmetry.”

Keith Bateman:

Yes, very good, see we do think very much alike. Just one thing I missed out there, then we’d go on to… We’ve got a strengthening program, we’ve actually got a rehab program as well for people who come injured or do get injured. You can if you do too much get calf muscle problems or even tendon problems. But as far as the technique is concerned, and going back to your point about different things work for different people, we’ve got about 10 different tricks on the run tricks. And you only need one of them, but we get people to try them all and see which one works best. So it’s a matter of give it a go, if that one works, great, stick with it, that’s all you need. So yeah, on your point about different things work for different people.

Steven Sashen:

At different times.

Keith Bateman:

At different times, yeah.

Steven Sashen:

Or the same person different… Yeah. And can you give a couple examples of what those are?

Keith Bateman:

Okay. Well, the first one we called the pendulum. And it’s basically hopefully done barefoot, while you are running along you deliberately lean back. So you start to land maybe on your… You feel the pressure on the heel, then you deliberately tilt… You want to maintain some speed when you do that. Then you deliberately tilt the body forward so that you feel the pressure on the forefoot, and you will accelerate. And then you very gradually, only gradually, come to find the middle balance position. Then you repeat it, and this time you lean back a little bit less than before, and a little bit less forwards than before and upright. And you keep repeating it until the person running next to you can hardly see you moving, and all you are feeling is the pressure towards the heel, towards ball of foot, and then on both.

So the focus of the book is to get a balanced landing. That sounds a bit vague, but if your foot is pressing on the ground behind you, you are accelerating. Or you could possibly be falling over, but you’ll be accelerating. If your foot’s pressing on the ground in front of you, which it has to at some degree, then you are breaking. And what you’re looking for at constant speed running is as near as possible in the middle. We’re not being prescriptive exactly what angle it is, it’s feel not formula.

Steven Sashen:

There’s a guy, Chris Powers, I think he’s at USC or UCLA, I can’t remember, somewhere in southern California. He’s got a whole idea about the body leaning forward just a little bit so you’re getting a little bit of a hip angle, which engages the glutes a little bit more. But that’s sort of independent, it makes a small difference. Sometimes I see people who are running very… It’s interesting what you’re saying because… Actually I’ll give a better example, or one that I think is more relevant.

There’s times where I’m working with people where they’re way overstriding, their just putting on the brakes with every step, and they just can’t feel that. And one thing I’ll do with them is I’ll have them stand upright and I put my hands on their shoulders, lean into my hands, and then I’ll run backwards as they’re running forwards where their feet can’t catch up with them, and then at some point I just get out of the way. And they stumble for a bit, but then they… Because what you’re describing, it’s something I love of just exaggerating a little bit, so you get the feedback so you know what you’re doing.

Keith Bateman:

Exactly, it’s all about feel, yeah.

Steven Sashen:

Yeah. Because we’re so used to what we’re doing, it feels normal, and a little change will feel like you’re making a big change when you’re probably not even getting where you need to go yet.

Keith Bateman:

That’s right. Heidi states in her section for podiatrists about… I think she’s got a podiatry section at the back of the book, which is controversial of course. But she says about your perception of upright is different if you wear shoes, if people wear shoes.

Steven Sashen:

Oh, absolutely. I don’t know if I’ve told you about this. So I did undergraduate research on cognitive aspects of motor skill acquisition. In part from that, I developed this idea. I like to say the simplest instructions for running barefoot is find a nice smooth hard surface, take off your shoes, go for a very short run, and if it hurts, do something different till your having a good time. Some people, their brain map is so de-differentiated, their brain just literally doesn’t know they have feet at the end of their legs for all practical purposes, because they haven’t been giving the brain stimulation for so long, they can’t tell if it hurts. Some people they can tell if it hurts, but they have, like you were describing, bad proprioceptive skills, they think vertical is something different than it is. And they need video feedback, because they just won’t believe you until you show them what reality is versus the way they think it is, because they’re so used to it.

And then the next group of people, they have good proprioceptive skills, they just need a good cue to shorten the learning cycle. And then the last group, they’re naturals, and the problem they have is they have so much fun that they get tired because they do too much and revert to one of those previous levels. So you made me think of a question that I’m really curious about. I’m going to Europe next week, and there’s a really interesting difference between Europe and America. In America people will walk up to me and go, “Oh, is this about barefoot or minimalist?” With a kind of scowl on their face, because they have the idea that there’s something inherently wrong with it. In Europe, they walk up the other way around, it’s like, “Oh, my God, are your shoes minimalist or barefoot?” Because they believe in this idea of natural movement. Where does Australia fit into that spectrum?

Keith Bateman:

Yeah, probably somewhere between the two I suggest. When I walk around here, we live by the beach, but when I walk around here with shoes on, people stop me in the street and say, “Oh, you’ve got shoes on today.”

Steven Sashen:

I have the same.

Keith Bateman:

Every time, every time. And I’m only 800 meters, 800 yards from the shops.

Steven Sashen:

I had that in a Costco, where they stopped me and said, “Is everything okay?” And I said, “Why?” They said, “You’re wearing shoes.” I’m normally in restaurants, and gas stations, and everywhere barefoot.

Keith Bateman:

But yeah, certainly it makes people think. I mean, if I go and do one of the local… We have park runs here. I know you have a few now in America, but the 5K a week ones. And a lot of people out running, but you turn up and you don’t put your shoes on. I did that when I was in Swansea in Wales with Heidi last year, the year before. And Heidi was sitting somewhere back in the field in the middle there, and I was out the front, and I was doing some strides. And somebody said, “You see that white haired guy out the front with no shoes on? Crazy, crazy.” Well, I ran that one in 17:12 and… So that’s a redeeming factor.

Steven Sashen:

It’s one of the lines I have in the video I made, it was a shit runner say to barefoot runners. And so it’s the guy saying, “Hey, you can’t really run like that. Hey, wait, hey, wait, wait, wait up.”

Keith Bateman:

Yes, that’s exactly right. Yes, that’s the way to do it.

Steven Sashen:

I even get it just warming up on the track. I mean, I do. So I’m a sprinter, so all my warm-ups are barefoot, and pretty much anything up to… Well, if I’m on the infield, I can go full speed barefoot. On a Mondotrack surface, I can go anything up to about 60% of full speed. And people look at me like I’m crazy, and I’m going, “But I’m doing it.” I mean, you can’t argue with reality that’s right in front of your face. But you would say that the general perception just among normal human beings is not either necessarily very pro or very anti, they don’t come in with some big preconception?

Keith Bateman:

Oh, some people do, some people do. We’ve got a friend who was in orthotics for 35 years, and now we’ve rebuilt him because he was injured for decades. And we’ve rebuilt him, and Heidi’s been really good at that too. It’s taken three years, but he is running like a professional 800 meter, 1500 meter runner, he is looking superb. He’s being very cautious at the moment, but once he gets back racing, he’s going to be round about 32 for 10K maybe, he’s really good. But his coach or his previous coach phoned him up and said, “Oh, don’t start that bloody stupid barefoot running, that won’t help you at all.” Which fortunately he ignored that.

Steven Sashen:

What’s so ironic about this, is I know Australia and New Zealand are two different countries. But of course Arthur Lydiard, one of the most famous running coaches of all time, most successful coaches of all time, he had people running mostly barefoot or in shoes that he made that were super thin-soled shoes. They were actually a lot like ours, which is why we have a lot of Lydiard runners who like what we’re doing. But I mean, it’s incredible that there was that influence, and people just, it’s seemingly gone from their minds, they just have no memory of what he did, what the impact was.

Keith Bateman:

Yeah, that’s right. I do all mine barefoot or in the thinnest of thin shoes.

Steven Sashen:

Yeah. So you alluded to something a minute ago that I’d love for you to say more about, which is just how Heidi, who’s a podiatrist, how what you guys are doing is received by the podiatry community. I’d love for you to say more.

Keith Bateman:

Well, we don’t really know because they tend to ignore. I think Heidi did send a book to somebody at one of the local universities who lectures there, and then she met her later on, and she said, “Oh, I gave that to my daughter to read, and she said it was quite controversial.” And that was it. So Heidi’s just keeping out of it basically. She does quite a lot, she has to have professional development points. And she does a lot now on video sessions, podcasts type things. And some of them are just absolute rubbish. There’s the occasional one from a surgeon or somebody who it’s really interesting, but as far as running concerns, it’s just ridiculous what’s being taught.

Steven Sashen:

Well, all the people that I’ve ever heard that are medical professionals who come down against natural movement have never tried it.

Keith Bateman:

Yes, absolutely.

Steven Sashen:

It’s as simple as that. I was at a conference very early on, this is nine years ago, and there was a bunch of medical people saying, “Well, if you’re going to make the transition, it’s going to take you years till you could possibly do anything. And you definitely want to stay on grass, you don’t want to get on concrete.” I said, “How many people other than me have run at least a mile barefoot on concrete?” And no other hands went up. I know yours would. But it was incredible, they were all just making up these theories based on zero experience whatsoever. In fact, the whole thing of it’s going to take you years till you can do it, that cracked me up because they literally didn’t know anyone who had spent years trying. The whole idea was so brand new that they had a data set of zero for that idea. Which occurs to me, I never thought to ask this screamingly obvious question, how did you get into the whole natural barefoot thing?

Keith Bateman:

I was training with a very good squad in 2003 with my coach Sean Williams, and it was his elite squad. And actually three of the members have been in the Olympics since, it was a really good running squad. And a lot of them, probably 50% or maybe even more, didn’t have their shoes on on the grass training. So I tried that, and I’ve just carried on from there. And now if I go out for a run around town now, I don’t have shoes on, I’ll do 10K. The first 10K of my Sunday run, I’ll go out barefoot, and then I’ll join some others for maybe 8 or 10K on the grass at the end.

Steven Sashen:

How many times have you met someone who says they’re a barefoot runner, and when you ask, it turns out they’ve never had their bare feet on the ground?

Keith Bateman:

No, I don’t actually. Well, you mean wearing minimalist shoes? That happens. Yes, that happens a lot, yeah.

Steven Sashen:

And look, obviously I’m not against minimalist footwear, but I always say to people, “It’s not the same. I mean, get your feet on the ground, it’s a wonderful experience.” And footwear is for when that’s just not the appropriate thing to do for whatever reason that may be.

Keith Bateman:

Exactly right. I coach for a local school here, I’m technically the head coach for the cross-country team and also for the middle distance. I wish I could get them to have their shoes off, it’s a nightmare, I just can’t do it.

Steven Sashen:

How come?

Keith Bateman:

Safety issue.

Steven Sashen:

What safety issues?

Keith Bateman:

Yeah, I know, I know. But the interesting thing though is I’m trying to get the boys to actually wear some spikeless cross-country or something like that. All before the season starts, I try to get this information out to get them… And they go to the local Athlete’s Foot and buy something that’s about 15 millimeters thick, and this thick, and that’s the thinnest they had. But this last week actually, I’ve had three parents speak to me and say, “Oh, those flat shoes you’ve got James or whatever into, it’s fixed all his problems.” I said, “Well, there you go.” One of the fathers, he said, “I was really skeptical about what you were saying, but I’ve got a pair of Xeros now, and they’re great.” So actually through the boys I’m getting through. But the big problem is I’ll say something to the boys, and they’ll relay it to the parents, and the parents will just dismiss it and go to their podiatrist who gives them orthotics or whatever.

Steven Sashen:

It’s amazing. You just reminded me, Lena’s niece was a cross-country runner in high school and was just wearing our sandals, and she had to sign all this paperwork that she was absolving them of any responsibility if she got injured. And of course she had no problems and everyone else was getting injured.

Keith Bateman:

Yes.

Steven Sashen:

Well, hey, I want to back up to…

Keith Bateman:

That’s right. Yes, I’ve had officials stop me at the start of cross-country, “Mind out, there are tree roots there on the course.” And I think, yeah, that’s all right.

Steven Sashen:

Yeah. Well, I was in a Whole Foods barefoot, and they said, “You can’t be in here barefoot.” I said, “Why?” They said, “It’s dangerous.” I said, “How?” They said, “Well, you could step on something.” I said, “I could actually look before I step on things.” And they said, “Oh.” I said, “Well, you let dogs in here, why can the dogs be in here? Aren’t you worried about them stepping on something?” That was very confusing to them. So I want to back up to Older Yet Faster, because your implication was that it’s not just for old people. So I’d love for you to talk about just the differences in what you’re seeing with let’s call them younger people versus older people, and just what you notice.

And actually if you want to say just something about what your experience has been as an older athlete. And I’m kind of thinking about… How do I want to put this? When I go to Master’s track meets, there is a demonstrable difference in terms of speed between the older distance… Or how do I say this? There’s a demonstrable difference between how much less the distance runners have gotten slower versus the sprinters. I’m at a Master’s track meet, or actually the Senior Games, and a bunch of the 60-year-old guys are saying to me, “Man, when you become 60 it just falls off a cliff.” And the 80-year-old guys who walk up to them went, “You don’t know what you’re talking about, just wait.” So sprinting is a whole different thing than running. But I’d love for you to talk about just what you’re doing obviously is not just applicable to people who are over some particular age, but I’m curious about what you see for people who do get older, whatever that age is, or older than whatever that age is.

Keith Bateman:

Right. Well, it’s obviously all about progress, the individual’s progress. But we get results from everybody, basically if you’re more efficient, you’re going to go faster with the same effort. It takes longer for the muscles, tendons and ligaments to adapt with older people, that’s the main thing. But the increases in speed can be phenomenal. Well, in my case, when I was 47, 48, my best 10K time was 36 and a half, and that was from when I was 40 I think. But by the time 55, it was 31:50, and that was basically technique change. And all my times, all except for the marathon, which I didn’t really run, were massively improved. And it’s just the technique change, and then being able to train more because you’re not getting injured, and building up the strength in the right places.

Steven Sashen:

How do you respond to…

Keith Bateman:

You don’t have to have a target time, all you have to know is that if you get your technique right, your body will build strong with that technique in the right places and you will go faster. How much faster you go, well, that depends on a number of factors.

Steven Sashen:

It’s funny, you’re reminding me of all these things. When I was at the World Masters Track and Field Championships, this was about 10 years ago or so in Finland, I hung out with all the guys who were 85 plus. And actually just 80 plus, because there was very few that were 85 plus, they were very entertaining. But all the 80 plus guys, I said, “How much of what you’re doing is nature versus nurture?” And they all had the exact same answer, they said, “The fact that I’m here is all genetic, but the fact that I’m winning is all training.” So how do you respond to people when they ask you, “How long is it going to take for me to adapt, or learn, or make this transition?”

Keith Bateman:

Well, number one, it will take as long as it takes. But the change in your running action is almost immediate, quite a big change immediate. Then it’s impossible to refine it immediately, it’ll be a gradual process while your muscles, tendons and ligaments build up. So if you take the gluteus medius, which is usually weak in most people, you are not going to be able to hold yourself up for long if you are weak there and hold the form. So you have to get as near as possible to good form, wait till your muscles build up, then you’ll be able to do it longer so that you get better at it, so you get stronger. That becomes a vicious circle, and that’s why towards the end of transition you are making more rapid progress. A vicious circle, yes, of benefits.

Steven Sashen:

A virtuous circle. It’s funny, Irene Davis does an event with Brian Heiderscheit and the guy that I mentioned earlier whose name just fell completely out of my head. God, that’s a good one. Powers, Chris Powers, wow. And what was interesting, they each have different ideas about what causes running injuries, and what you want to do to address them, but they all notice that one of the biggest, most common things is weakness in the glute medius.

Keith Bateman:

Yes. We don’t think that weak glutes or weak cores are the cause of the injury, I think the cause of the injury is the action you’re making. And the glutes and the core don’t get strong because you’re not landing in the right position. And we’ve got one little… We were probably on the same wavelength there, are we?

Steven Sashen:

Yeah, I think they would ultimately agree. I think the slight difference is sort of the difference in opinion about whether you should do strengthening first or just make the running change first and let the strengthening happen. It was a sort of similar thing from them. So some of them were really suggesting aggressively, or not aggressively actively, working on glute medius and glute maximus strengthening while you’re making these form changes. Some were doing the form changes first, which would activate the glutes, and then let that just kind of take over.

Keith Bateman:

Yeah, Heidi is very much into… Somebody who’s had a big heel strike, overstride for instance, is going to have big quads and very weak glutes, the gluteus medius anyway. So she has an exercise in the book for building up the glute strength, because if you can’t hold yourself up and your femur’s rotating inwards, then you’re going to get injured. So there has to be a certain strength. Yeah, I’m on the same wavelength with both of those. You have to have a certain strength to start, but then if you’re not doing too much, you’re going to build it up as you go. There’s nothing like the running action to be strong for the running action.

Steven Sashen:

Agreed. What’s the exercise that she recommends?

Keith Bateman:

She calls it quarter knee squat.

Steven Sashen:

A what?

Keith Bateman:

So you are actually just dropping down your hips about seven centimeters, about this much. I don’t know what that is in inches. So it’s basically you’re standing on one leg, your torso is upright, and you are just putting your knee over your middle toe down and up again. And if you don’t feel your gluteus medius working, you’re probably bending over too much, so you just let your body tilt backwards a bit until you feel it working. And she does sets of 30 of those I think. So that’s the nearest that we can get to the running action. That’s why we don’t squat all the way down to, it’s just the sort of distance you’ll get when you’re getting a rebound when you’re running.

Steven Sashen:

I’ve been reading a lot lately about strength training for running, and how much does or doesn’t transfer to actual running. So like you were saying, squats or deadlifts and how that transfers, and how much general strength conditioning can apply. It’s tricky, because like you were saying, there’s no substitute for running, or if you’re walking or hiking, whatever it is. The actual action that you’re doing is going to be the thing that’s going to be the best for you. And general strength and conditioning can be useful if you really need that, but by and large just doing it and doing it injury-free and safely is going to be your best bang for the buck.

Keith Bateman:

Yeah, I would definitely agree on that. I feel that all this strength work that people do is for people who aren’t running technically well, and they’re preventing injury because they’re stronger and supporting the parts of their body with strength, the parts that are getting overused. So I think yes, it does prevent injury, but you don’t need it if you’re running well.

Steven Sashen:

So I’m going to see how you respond to some of these other things that I hear on a daily basis. When people say, “I need arch support.” What do you say?

Keith Bateman:

That’ll make your feet weak.

Steven Sashen:

I wish this wasn’t just like talking to a mirror, but it is. And when people say, “I have high arches or flat feet.” What do you say?

Keith Bateman:

It doesn’t matter. A lot of Africans, Asians have flat feet, it’s not a problem. Flat feet are fine, weak feet are bad, that’s from…

Steven Sashen:

Okay, but that’s for flat feet, what do you say when people say, “I have high arches.”

Keith Bateman:

High arches, I don’t think that’s generally a problem. Is it a problem with anyone?

Steven Sashen:

Well, the thing that I hear from people when they talk about high arches, is usually the arch is just a little stiff. Or they think they need support, because I don’t know why. My answer is the same for flat feet, I used to have flat feet until I started doing this, it’s about strength. And for people with high arches, I’ll often say, “You might need to work on a little flexibility, just kind of a little mobility because you haven’t been using them or they’re hypertonic.” So they’re just a little continually flexing in ways they don’t have to. But the same thing, it’s let them move naturally, let them get stronger.

Keith Bateman:

Yeah, that’s probably a question for Heidi

Steven Sashen:

Oh, yeah. I’m trying to think if there’s anything else. So let me do this fun thing. Tell people where they can get a copy of the book obviously, and how they can find out more about how they can do what you’re doing. And even more I guess the better question is, what recommendations you have or how would you talk to people who obviously aren’t going to come in contact with you personally, or they don’t happen to live in Australia for some strange reason?

Keith Bateman:

Well, most of our sales are the UK and America, the book. But if you go to our website, which is olderyetfaster.com, then you’ll see all the places where you can buy the book. Most people get it through Amazon. We’ve got a color edition, we’ve got one which is the standard black and white internal pages, and we have the electronic versions as well. But if you go to amazon.com if you’re in America or wherever you are, that’s fine. If you can’t get a copy, then you’ll see on the website we’ve got some printed in India and they post them, and they’re actually a bit cheaper in India, and so with the postage it’s probably about the same price. And next week we’ll have Booktopia, it’ll be on Booktopia as well worldwide. So we’re getting out there.

Steven Sashen:

For people who think that if they’re going to make these changes and adapt a natural form that they need a coach, they need someone local, what do you say about the best way for someone to learn how to do this when they’re dealing with books and videos etc, and not seeing you or someone personal?

Keith Bateman:

Well, we have started a very active Facebook group, of which you’re a member I believe.

Steven Sashen:

And it is very active.

Keith Bateman:

So if you just go to Facebook and look up Older Yet Faster, you’ll find the group, come and join. There are many, many people there who have been or going through the system, I think we’re 550 members at the moment. Two of the contributors, James in the UK has actually started coaching some friends and doing a fantastic job, so we’ve been communicating on that. And Sam who works at Google, has been putting on some sessions for Google employees. And we’ve been talking about those before. So that’s sort of unofficial coaching. But people on the forum put up videos of where they’re at, and Heidi and I really have to do nothing because the people on the forum have learned so well they come up with all the right answers, and we help people that way. It’s fantastic, really.

Steven Sashen:

Yeah, that’s a very satisfying thing, when you go to answer the question and you see that someone beat you to it.

Keith Bateman:

Yeah, brilliant. And the other thing I did last week was I asked people if they wanted their icons and their name placed on a map where they live. So we’ve just done that. So far about 70 members… Poor Pragresh in India is 1,770 kilometers from the nearest person who’s on another continent. But there are some people around New York who’ve met up because of that, and we’re trying to get little groups going of people so they can work together, which is good. We do have a little group here that we run in Sydney in Australia, but not many people can come across for that. We are going to have a gathering next year though, we are putting…

Steven Sashen:

I was just going to ask that.

Keith Bateman:

Yes, we decided, we just set aside two weeks next March I think it is, and said, “Anybody who wants to come, come.” And we’ll just run together and talk, and coffee, and swim in the ocean, and things like that.

Steven Sashen:

Oh, that’s great. Is there anything that we didn’t chat about that you want to chat about? This is just sort of rambling and off we went.

Keith Bateman:

Yeah. Well, the difficulty is, we’re in agreement on just about everything.

Steven Sashen:

I think that’s a fine thing, I think it’s important. I mean, I don’t have a problem with that. Look, if somebody wants to come in and totally disagree with me, I have no problem with that as well. But I think it’s important for people to hear the same or similar messages from different people in different angles, because to a certain extent we are fighting… Actually, right before we started this, I made a little video, just to remind myself of something that I wanted to say. And it goes like this, I say, “Do your feet feel better at the end of the day than they did at the beginning of the day? And if not, you’re not alone. And it’s probably because big shoe has been lying to you about what makes comfortable footwear and healthy, strong, happy feet.” And I know that sounds like a conspiracy theory, but when you hear things like this, you find yourself going, “Yeah, that makes sense, using your feet is better than not using your feet.” Which flies in the face of what people have been telling you for decades.

And so I think hearing it from different angles and with slightly different even accents is important, because otherwise it seems like I’m the only crazy person out there. And it takes a certain critical mass until what we’re talking about really takes hold. And we thought it was going to happen after things got popular in 2009, 2010, but there was a lot of deliberate efforts on the part of big shoe companies to make that not happen. So having this conversation is important, whether it’s people agreeing with each other or disagreeing with each other. Because frankly when I’m talking to someone who disagrees with me, the other person sounds insane because I say things like, “Using your feet is better than not using your feet.” And they say, “Everybody needs arch support.” It’s like, “What did people do prior to arch support coming about in the late sixties?” “Oh, well, what happens in Third World countries where they don’t have arch support? How come they don’t have problems?” So I think all of that’s really important.

Keith Bateman:

Yeah, definitely. I think you’d make a good barrister.

Steven Sashen:

I’m really glad that I’m not, I think it would probably bring out the worst aspects of my personality.

Keith Bateman:

On that note, Heidi’s patients come in very skeptical. They’ve spent thousands on orthotics, and they come in and they’re uncomfortable. And then Heidi suggests, “Let’s get rid of those and just do one session. And do my foot program, you can have it on video, and you just do that, and keep in touch. And that’s all you’re going to have to do.” But they say, “Oh, that sounds really sensible, that’s logical, yes.” Once she explains it to them, and she does it very well, “Yeah, that’s very sensible.” Because…

Steven Sashen:

This is the thing that amazes me, and I say this with a genuine kind of admiration as a marketer, that when I see what shoe companies have done in the last 50 years by convincing people of things that are just frankly complete bullshit, it’s utterly amazing. And what we’re doing now is trying to just wake people up to what they already knew. I mean, Irene Davis, again, points it out really well, she says, “We know that humans have been making footwear for 10,000 years, because that’s the oldest piece of footwear we found. In the first 9,950 of those years, it was just as little as you could get away with to give you some protection and something to hold that on your foot, and then it changed.” And when people hear that, it’s like, “Hey, wait a minute.” So everything we’re saying is logical, it does make sense.

One of the things I like to point out is when you put padding under your heel, you end up landing on your heel, not because you necessarily want to use the padding, but because you end up hitting it. It just lands on the ground first before you have a chance, because it gets in the way. And your heel is a ball, and so a ball is unstable, so then they added motion control. And when you do that slapping thing that we talked about at the beginning of the call, when you land your heel and your foot slaps down, your arch is in a place where it’s weak when it needs to be strong. So then the arch support so you don’t need to use it. I mean, everything that we know about modern footwear was developed after the problem that it created. And now we just think it’s normal because everyone does it that way because the footwear industry is just a bunch of copycats, whatever’s selling best they do.

Keith Bateman:

And generations.

Steven Sashen:

Yes, and that’s the other part, now that we’re two generations in, it’s parents teaching their children instead of the companies have to do it, they’re doing the work for the shoe companies. So I’m hoping that this doesn’t take longer than another generation until it changes, because I’d like to live to see it, But I don’t think it needs to take that long with what’s happening with social media, what we’re all doing, I think that it can change much faster. Because again, we’re not trying to convince people of something that’s bullshit, we’re just reminding them of what they already knew. So I’m hoping that this whole idea of making natural movement the obvious, better, healthy choice, the way natural food is, happens way, way faster. And frankly, what we’re trying to do as a company is first of all support other companies and people that are doing this, and secondly, get the resources that we need to tell this story on a much bigger scale, because that’s what it’s going to take. And I’m looking forward to it, it gets me very excited, and antsy.

Keith Bateman:

If you see Irene Davis, by the way, she has a copy of our book. I don’t know if she’s read it yet, but Heidi sent her a copy because she admires what she does. I don’t know if she’s read it, but if you see her say, “Have you read it?”

Steven Sashen:

We don’t have plans in the immediate future, but there are a couple of events that we’re doing coming up, where we’ll definitely bump into each other. And so I will definitely mention that. And by the way, it is a wonderful book. I have a stack of books about this high that I’m perusing. It’s been really fun actually, so you and Mark Cucuzzella has his book Run for Your Life, and there are a couple of others that have come out recently that people have sent me. And actually on sprinting training there’s a great book, it’s a very expensive book from Joel Smith. And so there’s all these… And there’s one or two that I’m forgetting right now, it’s making me crazy again. I can’t do names any longer, I don’t know what’s wrong with that.

And I find it very disturbing when the name pops into my head when I’m not paying attention, everyone says, “That’s just your subconscious working on it.” It’s like, “Yeah, let’s just parse that. There’s a part of me that’s working behind the scenes, and I should just be okay with that? That’s freaky but harmless.” Oh, John Beverly, his book as well. So there’s a lot of people who are starting to have these conversations, and unfortunately I can’t get through all the books as quickly as I want to. So I just go to the parts that I like, and all the parts that I’ve gotten through on yours I’ve just adored, which is why we’re having this conversation.

Keith Bateman:

Oh, great. Well, it took us four years of very, very hard work to get it into the form it is. And we used a number of editors. Well, I had somebody who worked with me who’s extremely pedantic. I was editing in a cafe one day, and he lived in the same block as me. And he walked in and said, “Oh, what are you doing?” And I said, “I’m doing a book.” And he pointed to an A4 sheet of paper and said, “Oh, there are two Us in that word.” I said, “What?” “Vastus medialis obliquus.” And he spotted that from a distance. And so I said, “Come and help.”

So for the next three years, we spent two or three days a week sitting three or four hours at a time getting the detail of it right. And then we put it to an editor who rearranged it for us, and we did the same again. And then we put it to another editor, first one was a runner, and the second one was government type scientific editor. So it’s gone through I think $20,000 worth of editing as well as their own work. So yes, and also after the first edition, we kept in touch with readers, and we saw the problems and the misinterpretations that they made, things they did wrong. And each time we made a note of that, and we built it in so that hopefully people wouldn’t make the same thing again.

Steven Sashen:

Yeah, there’s nothing more fun than putting out something like a book or a video, and then a couple of years later hearing someone claiming to be quoting you and saying the exact opposite of what you believe.

Keith Bateman:

That’s exactly right, and we tried to get that message out in the book. And we still have to… Now even people say things, and we say, “Be careful, that’s not really what we meant. Don’t focus on this.” But we’ve got I think 15 or 16 Amazon reviews, and they’re all five star except for one three star. But we’re going to ignore that one, because it’s very vague. So we know we’re doing the right thing.

Steven Sashen:

No, it’s great. I mean, I’m a huge fan, obviously. The other one that I love is that you’ll have multiple professional editors go through something, and there will still be a typo or something that happens. And people act like you’re an idiot when that happens, like, “No, I don’t think you get it, man. We had a lot of smart people look at this, this just happens. You don’t…”

Keith Bateman:

I’m going to put my head on a block and say there are no errors in the book now.

Steven Sashen:

Wow, that is ballsy.

Keith Bateman:

No typos, no typos at all.

Steven Sashen:

What gets me is on our website, when someone emails me and says, “Hey, I found a typo.” And it’s a page that’s eight years old, it’s like, “How did no one tell me this before?” Either they didn’t notice or they just didn’t tell me. And they’re all apologetic, it’s like, “No, I’m thrilled. I don’t have a problem being wrong, I just want to correct it.” So I always appreciate that. And I also know that my personality, I try to get things out of my head quickly, and while we have multiple people in the office who will proofread things…

Keith Bateman:

I know, we went through all this process, thought it was 100%. And then Heidi’s mother picked the book up, on page 72 she said, “There’s a word missing there.” And then even she didn’t spot. And then it was about six months later that there’s one little spelling mistake on the back cover with an I missing out of availability or something. But we’ve corrected those two now, and that’s the joy of print on demand, you can actually update.

Steven Sashen:

Brilliant, brilliant. Well, Keith, two things. First of all, thank you very much. For human beings, I hope you go check out olderyetfaster.com, and check out the book, and check out all the videos. And we are of course dying to hear what you experience. Please say hello to Heidi for me, and let her know…

Keith Bateman:

I will do.

Steven Sashen:

That we will have this probably exact same conversation, but with her. Because she has her own perspective from the podiatry standpoint, which I’m really looking forward to sharing with people because…

Keith Bateman:

Yes, well, we’ll arrange that.

Steven Sashen:

Well, and it’s another thing, people will say to me, “Well, where’s the science behind what you’re doing?” It’s like, “Whoa, back up. We’re not the intervention, the intervention is footwear companies, ask them for the science for what they’re doing, it doesn’t exist.” And that’s the one where they should… I had a guy in fact, it occurs to me, when I was on this panel discussion with the American College of Sports Medicine. The guy from Adidas at one point says, “We want to prove that we’re reducing injury and improving performance, but to do a study that demonstrates that would take a long time, and be very expensive, and have a lot of confounding factors.” And all I could think was, dude, if you could make a shoe that scientifically demonstrably better than the guy sitting next to you, that’s worth billions of dollars a year, and you’re telling me you’re not doing it because it’s difficult. Okay, good answer. So anyway, so yes, we will continue all of this. And for people listening and watching, do let us know what you experience, and we love to hear your feedback.

On that note, make sure you go to jointhemovementmovement.com and find out all the places you can experience and interact with what we’re doing on Facebook, on YouTube, on Twitter, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. If you have any questions, please send them to move@jointhemovementmovement.com, or of course you can post them in comments to everything we’re doing here. If there’s anyone that you want to be on this show or you want to be on, then let us know about that as well. I know there’s other things that I like to say other than…

Oh, obviously the simple thing, if you want to be part of the tribe, please subscribe because this is a movement. When we say the MOVEMENT Movement, it’s because it’s obviously about natural movement, but it’s about building this community of people who understand this and share this with other people. So we can create that groundswell, that critical mass where this just becomes the obvious thing, and what people have been doing for 50 years looks completely absurd, and just we are all delusional for some short period of time. And on that note, Keith, once again, thank you and everybody else, live life feet first.

Keith Bateman:

Thank you.

View Details

Steve Hamoen is the CEO and Principal Broker of Real Approved Inc and the Founder of the OP3M Coaching System and has been featured in several national magazines and business and real estate conferences. Steve has inspired tens of thousands of people to buy over 500 million dollars in real estate over the past two decades. He is passionate about empowering his clients to achieve their real estate dreams, and has developed tailored training systems and customized Financial Options to help them break through limiting beliefs and achieve their goals. Through belief, action, and a unique approach to real estate, Steve has helped countless clients move from a place of uncertainty and doubt to owning one or multiple properties, connecting the impossible to the possible.

Steve is on a mission to inspire 500,000 people to increase their income by $100 billion and invest $1 trillion in real estate by 2033.

Listen to this episode of The MOVEMENT Movement with Steve Hamoen about how to make your business move.

Here are some of the beneficial topics covered on this week’s show:

– How finding creative talent, including copywriters, graphic designers, videographers, and photographers can be difficult.

– How private equity investment provides necessary capital to grow your business.

– Why strategic decision-making, leadership styles, and leveraging expertise are vital for business growth.

– How taking massive action instead of trying to plan the perfect business is a key part of moving your business forward.

– Why the financial responsibility of providing livelihoods for employees can serve as a powerful motivator for driving business success.

Connect with Steve:

Guest Contact Info
X@SteveHamoen

Instagram@stevehamoen

Facebookfacebook.com/steve.hamoen LinkedInlinkedin.com/in/stvehamoen

Links Mentioned:stevehamoen.com

Connect with Steven:

Website

Xeroshoes.com

Twitter@XeroShoes

Instagram@xeroshoes

Facebookfacebook.com/xeroshoes

Episode Transcript

Steven Sashen:

People often ask Lena, my wife and co-founder, and I how Xero Shoes happened. And on The MOVEMENT Movement Podcast, I can do that, we normally are talking about all these movement things, but moving a business is a thing. And a lot of people have asked about that, so we’re going to talk about that today on today’s episode of The MOVEMENT Movement Podcast. The podcast where we tell the truth about what it takes to have a happy, healthy, strong body, starting feet first, but also maybe a happy, healthy, strong business starting wherever that starts.

And we break down the propaganda, the mythology, the sometimes outright lies you’ve heard about what it takes to run, walk, hike, play, to yoga, CrossFit, et cetera, and run a business because there’s a lot of things in there. I talk about them all the time, but I haven’t done it on the podcast, so I’m thrilled we’ll be able to. Anyway, I’m Steven Sashen, co-founder and now Chief Barefoot Officer at XeroShoes.com, and we call this The MOVEMENT Movement because we are creating a movement.

We involves you, more about that in a second, about natural movement, sharing the benefits of natural movement with the world. And what you can do to be involved in that movement is just spread the word. So share, like, give us a thumbs up, give us a good review, hit the bell icon on YouTube so you hear about future episodes. Go to www.jointhemovementmovement.com. You’ll find all the previous episodes of which there are a bunch. You’ll find the different ways you can find the podcast if you don’t like the way you found yours.

You can subscribe to hear about upcoming ones, and you can find out how to follow us on social media and engage in conversations there. Oh look, this short verb is this. If you want the short form… Man, I can’t talk today. The short form is if you want to be part of the tribe, just subscribe and let’s have some fun. Okay, Steve, do me a favor, tell people who you are and what you’re doing here.

Steve Hamoen:

Well, I’m the host of The Money Mindset Mentoring Podcast, and I’m here really to talk about the idea that you actually can have it all. A lot of people, what they do is they say, “I want to focus on my health,” so then they take some time off their business. “I want to focus on my business,” then they take time off of their health. And they’re always trading things. And I think the most impactful word that needs to be removed is the word or.

And I think the most impactful word to put in your vocabulary is the word and. And if you can focus on that when you’re looking at setting all of your goals and your vision board for what you’re going to hit for that year, use the word and and just see. Instead of saying, “I can’t do it,” say, “how can I do it,” and start from there.

Steven Sashen:

Cool. I’m going to argue with you from day one then.

Steve Hamoen:

Beautiful.

Steven Sashen:

There was a guy who wrote a bunch of books about work-life balance back in the ’90s, and they sold bajillions of copies. And then in the early 2000s, he wrote a book that I don’t remember what it was called, but it may as well have been called I was completely full of shit. I’ve become a big fan of Scott Galloway’s lately, because he and I agree about a lot of things. And one of them is sometimes things take precedence.

And for example, my wife and I are taking perhaps our first real vacation in 14 and a half years starting on Friday. And it’s because this has been an all-encompassing thing. So when people ask me what my life is like, I go to work. Well, I roll out of bed. I go to the bathroom. I walk the dog. Not necessarily in that order. Usually getting out of bed first, but the dog and the bathroom can alternate hopefully forever. And then have some breakfast, get to work, come home, make dinner, watch some TV.

Lather, rinse, and repeat. Actually with a couple of times in there where I’ve got a crazy intense workout that I do with the trainer that only takes 10 minutes but wipes me out and is the most wonderful thing I’ve ever done. So that’s three times a week, and then I’m on the track one or two days a week, and that’s only for an hour. If I was trying to do any more, my brain would blow up. So how do you want to riddle that one, Riddler?

Steve Hamoen:

Well, the way that I first do is I look at Home Depot as a model for success when I’m looking at time management, and I look at my slots of the times that from when I open my eyes to when I close my eyes as shelf space at the Home Depot store.

Steven Sashen:

Well, keep in mind though, at the Home Depot store, you can never find anyone to help you.

Steve Hamoen:

Well, that’s true. That’s true. I’m self-serving on this. I might even be running that in a virtual online store.

Steven Sashen:

I see, okay.

Steve Hamoen:

But the idea is is I’m looking at each of those slots and I’m saying, how do I make those slots the most effective? Because Home Depot, if that shelf space is taken up by something that’s not selling, they’re going to find something else. They’re going to pull it off and put something else in. So all I do is I assess what is my total available space. And based on my total available space, then I say, what are the biggest things that I need to focus on? Put those things in first. And so the first thing that I do is I believe in health.

Health is the base for everything. So I do Brazilian, Jiu-Jitsu. I’ll train anywhere from 10 to 20 hours a week of Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, mixed with a little bit of Muay Thai and MMA. And so that’s my first thing that I put in. Because if I’m not healthy, I can’t look after anybody else. The second thing that I do is I make sure that I put in my time slots for my family. If I’m traveling, it throws a little bit of a mix, but I’ll do it virtually. I always want to say goodnight to my kids every night. That’s extremely important for me to do.

And then I look after the next things and I say, okay, what about my business? My business supports everything. I got my health. I got my family. Now it’s my business. What can I do in my business that’s the most impactful thing to my business? Because I think a lot of times we find ourselves doing things in our business that could be either insourced or outsourced. And that usually comes down to the thing that I think is so fundamental in business is focusing on revenue because people don’t focus on that.

I think when they’re first starting a lot at the beginning and they do so many things themselves, whereas if they would just grow a little bit, give a little bit more room in their vision, they can fit more people in their business so they can get more things done through leverage.

Steven Sashen:

We had a really interesting let’s call it problem early on, and this is going to sound weird. One, of course, is that we had no money. So we started the company on credit cards by accident really. I mean, I don’t remember how long it was until Lena and I took a salary, but certainly it was a stretch for us to bring in someone to handle fulfillment just because that was taking up a bunch of time, and then a stretch to bring in someone who’s handling customer service because that was taking up not a bunch of time.

But frankly, I’m the wrong person to do that because whenever someone’s calling with a problem, I just want to solve the problem as quickly as possible, which means I’m not interested in hearing someone’s story about the problem. I just want to alleviate my own anxiety and solve the problem, which is not the best bedside manner necessarily. But those were difficult.

And then for the kind of people that we needed to run a footwear brand, we were unbelievably lucky, I mean, to the point of incomprehensibility, that we met someone who had been in footwear for 35 years and had just retired and loved what we were doing and it changed his life, because there was literally no way we could afford any of the people that we would need in a footwear business for years, because those people are racy.

And in fact, I’ve seen a lot of footwear companies start and disappear because of exactly that. The second way, there was another part that went along with that. Oh, but the other problem, and I mean this seriously, is that I’ve been an internet marketer now for 32 years, so 14 years ago, whatever the hell that was. And I’m really, really good at a whole bunch of product marketing things. My wife is a brilliant finance operations person.

So the challenge in terms of outsourcing or insourcing anything was finding people who were up to snuff. And that’s a tricky one. So I mean, I literally say that it’s a problem that we were really smart and knew what we were doing and still is, frankly. I will confess, part of my moving to Chief Barefoot Officer is because people said to me, “You’re giving us too many ideas. You got to slow down,” because I just move way faster than the average bear.

So I agree with you is the best thing I can say, and it’s one of those things where there are weird circumstances. It’s a really tricky one when you know could do it better, faster than whomever you’re paying. I guess I’m going to throw it out this way. We’ve had to do some split testing to see if my versions of things are demonstrably better than other people’s versions of things. And then I have to decide, am I okay with 90%, 80%, 50%, whatever the number may be in a specific situation. And it’s a tricky dance.

Steve Hamoen:

Oh, absolutely it is. If you hired somebody who is say even 50% of what you are, it’s going to feel like a huge drop.

Steven Sashen:

And it might actually be. I mean, that’s the thing.

Steve Hamoen:

Yeah, well, it could be. But then if you hire four people, that’s a 100% increase.

Steven Sashen:

Dude, if I could find four people who could write copy 50% as well as I could, I’d be a bajillionaire. But I’ve been writing copy for 44 years and finding good copywriters. This is actually another interesting thing that I’m curious about your take on it is that… How do I put this? Creative talent is very, very tricky. There are a lot of people who think they have it because they’ve typically been overpaid by people who didn’t know any better.

But there are very few people who have it. I called a friend of mine not too long ago and said about one particular creative talent. I’m not going to mention what it is. It would give away a punchline that I don’t want to give away. But I said, “Do you think the ability for someone to do this is nature or nurture?” Let’s use comedy as an example. So that was my day job for a dozen years.

Steve Hamoen:

Sorry, comedy was your day job? That’s usually most people’s night job.

Steven Sashen:

Well, it was a night job. But since I rolled out a bed around 1:00, you can call it whatever you want. We go to bed around 3:00 or 4:00, roll out of bed around 1:00 or 7:00, and then have fun, and then start all over again. But the gist is if you ask any comedian, is it nature or nurture, are comedians born or made, they’ll all say the same thing. Comedians are born. If you weren’t the funniest kid in school, you can get funnier, but you’re never going to be the funniest kid at the comic strip or at Catch a Rising Star or wherever you happen to be if you started out not funny.

You can get technically okay. You can rip other people off and imitate them, but that’s got a limited lifespan. But a lot of the creative stuff, whether it’s copywriting or graphic design or video editing or even shooting. We had a photographer who was married to a videographer. I will throw them under the bus. The photographer was actually great, except she was trying to be a really good photographer. And what I mean is she’d edit everything in the camera. The shot looked perfect.

But what you needed to make it work for a catalog or online was you had to back up like five feet, so there was just more stuff around the frame so you had room to edit. Her husband, the videographer, didn’t know how to edit to save his life. The first version of the 45-second video he gave me was three minutes long. And after I screamed and ran around like a crazy person, my wife said, “Just walk away, come back a day later, and look at it.” And what I did is I took all of his raw footage and I just recut the entire thing.

Oh, I have a master’s in film, so I forgot about that. But cutting is one of those things. You need to feel the rhythm like comedy or like music, which I can’t do at all. I’m musically completely incompetent. So again, I’m going to agree with you in principle, but I’m going to argue with you in practice. It took me a year and a half to find a really good copywriter. We went through a bunch who thought they were good and looked like they were good on day one. And by day 10 it was like, oh yeah.

And we are still looking after that first, that second, third, and fourth person in a number of the creative jobs. So if they’re technical things… Look, even software coding. My God, we’ve gone through dozens of programmers who think they’re good and seem good until they get a difficult problem. So anyway, we have to park…

Steve Hamoen:

I think a lot of the times when you look at the recruiting process, I think you got to look at where you are and where you want to go. And this is why I love the whole 10X culture and 10X mindset is that if you’re looking for today, it’s going to be a problem, because you’re never going to have enough resources for the thing that you need today.

But if you’re looking to say, if I 10X what I look at doing and I’m trying to hire to the 10X result today, then you’re going, okay, well, how do I get to that point? In other words, pull the future into the present. And so basically what it’s going to do is allow you to think bigger and hire bigger, recruit bigger, and build a bigger bench.

Steven Sashen:

Again, pardon me for being argumentative about it.

Steve Hamoen:

No, it’s good.

Steven Sashen:

There’s no one who has a bigger vision for our company than I. In fact, the biggest problem that I’ve had is people have told me that I’ve been completely full of shit for 15 years. The real problem is actually that I’ve done everything that I said I was going to do. It may have taken a little bit longer, but the secondary problem after that is a quote Peter… I think it was Peter Attia who brought this quote up.

I misquoted it, and then I looked it up. It’s a Nietzsche quote, and the quote is, and I think you’ll like this, when a person has to change their mind about someone, he will hold the inconvenience he causes very much against him. In other words, all these people who told me I was full of shit and I’ve proven that they were wrong and I was right, they have not given me the time of day because they don’t like that.

So the vision is one thing, but I’m just going to go to the practical thing. A competent CFO, a really good CFO for a business the size that we were would have required us to pay them a quarter of what we’re making that year. I mean, look, even our product guy, before we hired him for $30,000 a year, his previous job a week earlier was paying him $300,000 a year.

That was the level of talent we needed. We couldn’t afford that. I don’t care how much our vision was, we just didn’t have that. This was our second year in business. We had made 400 grand, 500 grand, And this guy, his normal job would’ve been 300,000 of that 400. He only worked with us because he had just retired and loved what we were doing, and we eventually gave him options that ended up being worth a lot of money. But that was a rare situation.

Literally because we were self-funding our inventory, which the requirements were doubling every year for many years, we just didn’t have the cash to find the kind of talent that we even… I’m trying to think of how to describe this. Let’s say at year two, the talent we would’ve needed by year five, we couldn’t afford that. At year five, the talent we needed at year seven, we couldn’t afford that.

I mean, we literally only got to the point where we could afford the kind of talent we needed for the indeterminate future a year and a half ago after 13 years in the biz. So again, I like what you’re saying. I hope that it’s provocative for people to think about that, but I’m going to say at least in our situation, we never had that luxury. In fact, here’s a funny, weird version of that.

One of our employees was friends with Madonna, the musical one, not the Jesus one. Just in case. He was bragging to her one day about how well we’re doing and that we were profitable even at our smaller size then. And she said, “Oh, well then you’re not marketing hard enough.” To which I said, “We need the money for inventory next year. We don’t have as much money as you have in your wallet right now to buy inventory. We have to be profitable.”

In other words, I’m trying to do two things. Well, I’m going to turn it back to you. Some ideas sound really good and may work for certain people in certain situations similar to work-life balance. Look, if I had a family, if we had kids, this would’ve been a whole different conversation about that part. But since we don’t have kids, we didn’t have to prioritize that.

And Lena and I often say, had we had children, there’s no way we could have done this. Absolutely not. I mean, the first five years I was doing 17, 18-hour days, not because I wanted to, but because shit would blow up on a regular basis and I was the guy who knew how to fix it.

Steve Hamoen:

And work-life balance, what I’m saying is is the word balance doesn’t have to exist in that sentence either. There’s no such thing as balance. You’re going full tilt on this pillar and then you’re going to go full tilt on this pillar, and then you’re going to go full. There is no balance. I love when people say, “I’m going to go be self-employed and be my own boss. It’s going to be great,” and I’d laugh at that.

I’m like, you’re going to fail so miserably because you’re thinking this is going to be some walk in the park, and it never is. And what you’re describing over your 13 years or 14 years or whatever, that is a very practical case of building success. The only question that I have is around the one big thing that’s happening in Canada, for example, is Canada right now is having this, that’s where I live, is having this mass exodus of talent and of resources because of just what’s going on.

And this one person said it very perfectly. They said, all this risk capital is leaving. And it was a beautiful way of saying it because then I thought about it. I was like, investors is risk capital. And so the question is, is if you had more risk capital injected into the business earlier on, would it have changed the trajectory of where you are today?

Steven Sashen:

I’ll say yes and a qualified yes. It definitely would, because in fact in December of 2020, we did take on some private equity money in a minority position, and that helped us have the cash to hire the people we needed moving forward. The problem we ran into is back to the point of everyone thinking I was full of shit, no one was willing to invest in us ever up until practically then…

In fact, we used, again, credit cards for a lot of this. I had a lot of high limit credit cards that I was just shuffling around. I did that in my first business too. I was shuffling around like a couple hundred grand a month. I never had to pay any interest because of the way that all worked, which was fun. Collected a lot of freaking flyer points, didn’t pay any interest. So it would’ve definitely helped-ish, and the ish is that it’s easy…

It depends on how much money we would’ve gotten, but again, nobody was willing to give us anything. We met some people somewhat early on who gave us some debt financing, and we had to pull teeth to get $100,000 line of credit. Now, over time, because we kept growing and we kept paying it off, they ramped it up and ramped it up and ramped it up.

We had to fight to get a SBA loan that was barely enough to do anything. One of the hardest times I’ve ever laughed in my life was for the SBA loan, I had to sign something that on the first line that said that I personally guarantee that I’ll repay this two point something million dollars. And I’m thinking, we own nothing. We don’t own our house. I mean, the only thing we own arguably is a cat.

Steve Hamoen:

The cat was collateral.

Steven Sashen:

I wanted to, or we could have. I mean, we each had cars that we owned, or maybe we only had one car at that time, and we had no assets. So that was just comical. But the yes-ish is that I’ve seen, A, people do the wrong things with money because they don’t know what they really need, especially if they get a lot of money. I mean, those valley companies who get huge amounts of capital and then throw $100,000 party or a million dollar party, it’s like, hey, moron.

I had a friend who had to convince us that if we did get something like an investment of any sort, that we should go buy ourselves dinner. It’s like, eh, I don’t know, man. That’s an extra 100 bucks. He says, “You got to celebrate that. Go do it.” And the other thing I’m thinking about the ish part is had we gotten money earlier, I don’t think we knew what we needed, because we were in a business we knew nothing about.

So we were pretty naive. So it probably could have helped in some ways. It would’ve helped with the inventory or what we call the February problem where we have to pay to get our inventory in December. It shows up in late January, early February, but we can’t sell it until March. We’re sitting on a bunch of inventory that we just paid for without the capital to handle everything else we need.

So it could have solved the February problem, which would’ve been really, really handy. But in terms of growing the business, the amount of… Again, maybe is the best thing I can say. I’m just thinking of all the people that I know who did get funding. Actually, let me back it up. The other part of the ish is it depends on what the terms are for that capital. So to call it risk capital, I’m going to argue that the only person who’s taking the risk is the person who got the money.

And I say that because now that we have private equity money, and I’ve talked to hundreds of people who’ve gotten private equity and venture capital money, in the financial world, there’s one truism that no one is willing to say in their outside voice. And that is, got me man, to guess. You can evaluate a business and a business model and a business plan and the people involved and everything you want, but it’s a guess.

I used to say you could have the greatest business plan in the world for a Middle Eastern tourist agency, and then September 11th happened. But if that same day you opened your duct tape and plastic sheeting store, you’re going to be a millionaire. So it’s just a gamble. And unfortunately, what the venture capital and private equity people do, not all of them, almost all of the venture capital, most of the private equity, what they do is they build in rules and financial structures that actually hamstring the companies they’re using to try to make money.

Steve Hamoen:

Oh, for sure, for sure.

Steven Sashen:

Because they’re entering different masters. They have their own business that they have to run and all the people, if they have bosses, which they almost all do, those people, and most of those people, many people don’t know this, most private equity companies, and even venture capital too actually, the fund that they’re using to give the company’s money is actually being funded by limited partners, by other people and other companies.

So they have to answer to their limited partners before they answer to the company, and they will throw the company on a fire to make the limited partners happy because that’s how they get paid.

Steve Hamoen:

Absolutely. I love what you said, by the way, is that when you inject capital to a new company, it’s like putting kerosene on a fire. The question is, is the fire you want to burn or is it the fire you don’t want to burn? And that to me is something that’s really important. And then when that money comes in, does that money come in as what I like to call dumb money?

In other words, it’s capital that’s just working capital. In other words, you use it’s discretionary to you. Or does it come in with a series of rules and restrictions? Or if you take it to the positive side, does it come with advice and people who’ve done it before?

Steven Sashen:

And that’s what you hope. That’s ultimately what you hope. And I think even in those situations, there are a couple of things. One is early on, I remember Lena saying to me, she was upset, she said, “I don’t feel like I know what I’m doing.” I said, “Well, no one knows what we’re doing. We don’t know what we’re doing. We’ve never done…”

Steve Hamoen:

Have kids and you definitely don’t know what you’re doing.

Steven Sashen:

Yeah, no one’s ever done this before this way. And even if they had done it before, the world has changed since when they did it. So I’ve seen people get what they think is smart money, but not so smart. When we took our private equity money, one of the things that we do when we launch new products every spring and every fall is we have a sale for the brand new products because we want to get them out the door.

And the people that were involved in our company investing in us thought that was incredibly stupid. They come from a long background in retail. It’s like, why are you putting it on sale the day that you launch it? And they didn’t understand that. The first time they got the hint because we made enough money to pay off the entire inventory bill. And they went, “Oh, okay,” but it took them literally years to go, “Okay, that’s a good idea.”

And there are various other things like that where if someone’s not in your business day to day, they’re probably not as smart as they think they are, unless what you’re dealing with day to day is frankly just not that complicated. So I have seen that where someone can be…

Steve Hamoen:

There can be some universal complications that exist that you could find in a shoe business as well as a plumbing company. And that could be just how you leverage employees, or that could be a leadership style. That could be a mindset shift. Those are complicated issues that can exist outside of an industry specific vertical.

Steven Sashen:

Oh, well, I would agree. They’ll exist everywhere, all of those, but they’re so idiosyncratic. Again, my problem, and I say this seriously, I’m not patting myself on the back when I say it, my skillset is coming up with a lot of ideas. And my skillset is even when I go into something that I know very little about on the granular level, I’m pretty good at figuring it out on the macro level.

So I can’t write a line of code, but I can help my programmers write code because I’m just seeing it conceptually and they’re in the details. What was the point of the thing? There are things that I’m bringing to the table that are hard for people to understand, and there’s things like prioritization, I just can’t do it. My brain doesn’t do that. My wife asked me to give me my top five things that I want to be able to do, and I gave her a list of 20.

I said, “I can’t do five. I mean, here’s the top 20.” And even then I can’t prioritize them. So I would say, yes, you’re right and to find someone clever enough to help you optimize the ones you’re good at and get out of your hair the things for which you’re not.

Steve Hamoen:

Well, absolutely. And that’s where you and I are very different. You have hair and I don’t, so it makes it very..

Steven Sashen:

Oh, that explains it. Yeah, yeah, yeah, okay. I have a hard time getting things out of my hair.

Steve Hamoen:

You got to just give it.

Steven Sashen:

FYI. For April Fools a couple of years ago, we did a Photoshop thing with me bald and half the comments were no, and the other half were, hey, that looks good.

Steve Hamoen:

You know what? You’ve got a head that would work for being bald, but your hair looks like it’ll never leave.

Steven Sashen:

I’m not sure. It’s thinning out as I’ve gotten older. But you know when you see someone who’s got some really messed up scalp and you realize that they shaved their head to get that way? It’s like, how bad was your hair?

Steve Hamoen:

I had this most amazing comment on one of my YouTube videos where this guy said, “I’d love to pay attention to what you’re saying, but I can’t see past your huge forehead.” And I was like, man, that was the best. And I pinned it to the top of the comments because that was my favorite statement.

Steven Sashen:

That’s hysterical. Well, I get a lot of people who tell me who they think I look like just because of the hair. Every now and then I get, “Oh, Kenny G,” and I’m insulted. Because if you don’t know the difference between curls and ringlets, that’s just not okay with me.

Steve Hamoen:

That’s a big difference.

Steven Sashen:

I got curls. He’s got ringlets.

Steve Hamoen:

The only one I would put you closer to would be that guy on… What is his name? He looks like the guy from Guns N’ Roses almost esque. He’s had a show for years.

Steven Sashen:

I don’t know.

Steve Hamoen:

I’d have to think about him. I’ll get back to you on that one, but there is somebody you definitely look like.

Steven Sashen:

Everybody looks like somebody from the right angle. I get Gene Wilder every now and then.

Steve Hamoen:

Oh, I could see that. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I could definitely see. A very young Gene Wilder though, not like when he’s older.

Steven Sashen:

That is so close to all Jews look alike, which is arguably true. Jeff Ross, The RoastMaster General, was doing a thing where he would go to people’s offices and roast them in real time, and he goes to Jimmy Kimmel’s office. I think it was Jimmy Kimmel. And in his office, he shared an office with a writer. And Jeff Ross says, “Oh, great, another Jewish comedy writer,” and Kimmel says, “How’d you know he was Jewish?” And Jeff Ross says, “I looked at him.”

Steve Hamoen:

I loved the Tom Brady roast. That was just so good. Nikki Glaser.

Steven Sashen:

Nikki Glaser was a miracle. Nikki Glaser, Sam J, Tony Hinchcliffe. Wait, there’s one another that I really, really like. Oh, Andrew Schultz. The four of them were phenomenal.

Steve Hamoen:

But Nikki just took it home. Nikki, she was just on another level.

Steven Sashen:

Nikki owned it. That was so much fun. I’m thrilled to see that. Anyway, back to other things. So by the way, in the early days when people would bump into Lena and me and they’d say, “Oh, you have your own business, that must be really fun,” we would just go, “You’ve never done this before, have you?” And look, I’m going to throw this one out for you. Our naivete knows no bounds.

We met guys who had been in the business for 35 years when we had just gotten started who said actually, “We would do this with you think natural movement is the most important thing and no one’s doing it. And we believe in you guys as well, and we would start the company with you, but we’ve been a footwear so long that we’re not stupid enough to try and start a shoe company.”

And we literally said, “We know we’re hyper-optimistic and naive, but that’s just how stuff gets done.” But we didn’t know how naive we were. We literally thought we’d be able to run this for a few years, sell it. We live modestly. We knew how much money we would need and never have to work again, and it wasn’t very much. Nobody would ever say yes, because we didn’t know how buying and selling business work and how people invested and worked.

We just assumed if we had something that was growing like crazy, people would be into it. And in fact, at one point, someone we were talking say, “Well, we can’t invest in any company doing less than $5 million in sales.” We were at two and a half at the time. And Lena said, “Why?” And he said, “Well, our limited partners require that.” And she said, “How come?”

And he said, “Well, it’s a proxy for sophistication being at $5 million.” And I said, “You’ve looked at our company. Is there anybody in your portfolio who’s more sophisticated than we are as a company?” And he said no. I said, “Well, then why do we have the $5 million limitation?” He said, “Because I couldn’t talk my limited partners into thinking about something different than what they just mandated.

So again, it’s such a weird thing. But backing up, so yes, so you are correct. There are categories of things that you’re going to have to deal with no matter what you’re doing, no matter what the business. The particulars are where rubber meets the road as it were.

Steve Hamoen:

Yeah, I think you’ve got your trade focused issues, and that’d be whether you’re a plumber, whether you’re an accountant, or whether you make shoes. And then you have your strategy focused or your principles focused elements, which are universal that you could find in each of those businesses. And one doesn’t necessarily mean that there’s a hierarchy to that. It Just means that they’re very different and they both have to be addressed.

Steven Sashen:

Well, one of the things, there’s a guy who’s a marketer that I met 30 years ago. He had a great line. He says, “Making money is easy. Figure out where the money is flowing and get in the way of it.” And what that means for many people is get into the services business, get into advertising or something where you’re providing services for businesses that they need. There are not a lot of products… Well, that’s not true. There are a lot of products where people need those as well.

Sometimes getting into those is much more difficult. Because if the need has been identified, there’s already people handling it. What you going to do that’s better or more efficient or more whatever? But I want to move this in a different direction for the fun of it. What’s the most counterintuitive thing that you can think of that’s important for people to understand about growing a business?

And maybe it’s just a myth that people have because they’ve read it in business books that are complete bullshit, or it’s something that people just walk in believing for some reason that maybe they’re 180 off base.

Steve Hamoen:

Well, I think one of the biggest things that people make a big mistake on is they spend way too much time in the planning phase. And they work too hard in the planning phase. I believe that massive action beats perfect planning every day. And because I think once you get into the action phase, you can expose yourself to things that you wouldn’t have seen in the planning phase.

Steven Sashen:

In a million years. I remember I did a talk at the Small Business Administration in New York, this is, geez, 35 years ago or so, and I said… It was all these people who were building out a business plan for something that hadn’t started. And I said, “How many of you heard the idea that you should in your business plan just double your expenses and half your revenue because that’ll be closer to reality when you get going,” and they all raise their hands. And I said, “Yeah, don’t do that.” And they said, “Why not?”

I said, “Because whatever you write down, you’ll make half as much and it’ll cost you twice as much as whatever you write. I’m going to tell you right now, one day you’re going to have $100,000 legal bill and you’re going to tell me that I’m insane. And I promise you, it’ll happen to every one of you.” Early on with the people that we met who said they wouldn’t start the company with us, they were talking about their $5,000 a month FedEx bill, and we thought, that is insane. I would kill for a $5,000 a month FedEx bill now.

Steve Hamoen:

Well, for my business, I would think that’d be a little bit much because most of our stuff is digital, so we don’t really ship a lot on the FedEx, but for you it must be enormous.

Steven Sashen:

So what do you see people doing when they’re planning, planning, planning rather than just getting the ball rolling? And what do you think the best way to get the ball rolling instead of planning would be?

Steve Hamoen:

Well, I think, and you could apply this to business or any aspects such as a physical endeavor, is people… The first thing people always do is when they want to get to do something, they feel like they need to be inspired. So they grab their phone and they doom scroll for all of that fun little short thing that gives them the dopamine dump to say, “I’m so motivated.” But the thing is is when people actually get stuff done, motivation has nothing to do with it.

Steven Sashen:

Absolutely not.

Steve Hamoen:

My belief is when they get into the moment of discipline, which is actually systems and models of moving forward, then they can actually start to see that. But the challenge with discipline is discipline also needs to be fed. And so discipline happens as a system, as a model, is something that you commit to, because discipline shows up when motivation doesn’t. And then you get into that process of doing, but you need to start celebrating successes immediately.

And I don’t care how big or how small the successes are, whatever you’re doing, you need to start to celebrate the one thing or the two things that happen every day. I believe start the day with a celebration and end the day with celebration. Even if it’s like the day that I received a multi-million dollar lawsuit for my one construction business long ago, I just celebrate the fact that it was the birthday for one of my staff, because I had to find something that I could be happy about that day because that one just didn’t feel so good.

And so the idea is always get into that celebration moment because success fuels your willpower. Your willpower fuels your discipline. And if you pepper in a little bit of motivation here and there just as a little kerosene, there’s not a bad thing to do that. But those are the things I think that are the ways to get into action and getting to getting things done.

Steven Sashen:

I would add to that, knowing that you got to pay the bills is a big motivator. One day in my first company, I realized that there was only 20 people in our company, but we were responsible for the livelihoods of 200 people. And the day that I did that math and realized that, I was like, holy crap, that gets a fire under your butt.

Steve Hamoen:

You’re paying a lot of mortgages.

Steven Sashen:

We’re paying a lot of mortgages. We’re making differences in a lot of lives. And what we’re doing now, even bigger. Pardon me, I’m going to mute myself for a second and clear my throat.

Steve Hamoen:

Well, one of the things when you look at paying a bunch of mortgages and the people that you take on, what you’ve done is you’ve elevated the lid of your business. You’ve elevated the vision of your business to include those people, and that is hugely motivation because your motivation is external about the people that you support, not internal about the things that you desire.

Steven Sashen:

Oh, for us, it’s always been that. I mean, when we started the company, we thought this would be a little car payment kind of lifestyle business. Actually, a couple of years in, I said to Lena, “Wouldn’t it be nice to have a little business that takes two, three hours a day online, makes us a couple hundred grand a year?” She goes, “That’s what we have.” I’m like, “Yeah, but it can’t stay that way for a lot of reasons.”

The biggest was that we’d be too vulnerable. But the other one was we’re just hearing from too many people saying, “Oh my God, you’re changing my life.” I’m going to use this word positively. The positive burden of hearing people say that is what gets us out of bed in the morning and what gets people working for our company. It’s something I feel an incredible responsibility for and incredibly grateful for and incredibly lucky that we fell into this.

And something that I say to almost anybody, especially people who are freelancing and doing creative work, I go, ideally, you want to work for a company that’s able to do two things: tell the truth and change people’s lives. There are very few companies that are legitimately doing that. But when you can do both of those, it’s like having a superpower.

Steve Hamoen:

Absolutely. Well, number one, you attract the right talent. Number two, you attract the right client in that base, because you’re really making an authentic connection with your market because it’s not something that’s bamboozled. And I think a lot of times when people think about growth, it’s almost like they have a negative relationship with success or a negative relationship with money, because they look at success and money in the wrong way.

To me, if your product or your service is the best thing that’s out there and it needs to get out to the world, if you continue to think small and do small things, you’re actually robbing the world of something that’s amazing. So you’re actually punishing the world by your small thing. So if you look at it, it’s actually greedy to stay small than it is to grow big.

Steven Sashen:

And the irony in there is that… How do I want to put it? Again, I have this very, very big vision for the company. When one of our investors was courting us and he said to us, “Do you think this is going to be a billion-dollar company in 10 years?” I said, “Oh God, no. Seven.” And is it going to happen? I can’t promise that. Can I paint the picture in a way that makes sense? Absolutely. Do I take it in any way personally? No. Do I think it’s going to make me happier? Absolutely not.

It’s so much bigger than I am. I feel a responsibility to it. And it’s a weird way of framing it, but that’s the way it feels in my brain. I’m like the guy who’s walking down in New York City Street and somebody yelled, “Baby,” and I put up my arms and caught a baby that fell off the roof. And so I’ve got a responsibility for that baby. Not even my baby, that’s a whole different… Somebody asked me, they said, “Hey, is your company for sale?” I said, “No, unless the price is right.”

And he said, “What’s the right price?” I said, “Well, I’m going to pretend you asked me and I’m the 1980s Supreme Court and you asked me to define porn. Their answer is my answer. I’ll know it when I see it.” So someone said, “Well, what would you do if we wrote you a big check?” I said, “Well, it depends. If you want me to stick around and do what I like and what I’m good at and it’s not taking all of my time, I’m happy to do it. But otherwise, if you’re going to give me a big check, come visit me on the island I bought with your money.”

And they laughed and said, “That’s a really good answer.” I said, “What do idiots say?” And they said, “It’s my baby. I got a vision.” I go, “No, no. It’s my baby. I have a vision. I have a side hustle selling vision impaired babies.” I know how the game is played. But the bottom line is our goal is we don’t have some goal of making some amount of money or selling the company at or when or whatever. Our goal is to do the right thing for the brand every day and whatever that looks like.

And it can look like a bunch of weird things, but that’s the motivator. It’s funny, when I get interviewed a lot, people do ask, what do you do to stay motivated? I go, what are you talking about? Just waking up in the morning is more than enough. In fact, I can often not sleep enough because I got so many things that I’m thinking about that we have to do.

Steve Hamoen:

Well, that makes me think of Les Brown. I mean, Les Brown says this is, if you do things in life that are easy, your life will be hard. If you do things that are hard, your life is going to be easy. And by saying that, yeah, this is a noble task. You’re looking after the mortgages of all these people, and you’re building this brand. And this brand is while you’re a part of it, you used to be it, but now you’re a part of the brand because as it grows, you diminish in value to the brand value. And so as you’re building that out, it’s a noble test and it’s a hard thing, but it’s so easy to do it because…

Steven Sashen:

I mean, easy is obviously a misnomer. It’s that there’s just no real choice. And so you don’t argue about that. There’s no deliberations like, “Oh, got to do this.”

Steve Hamoen:

One of my favorite quotes from Grant Cardone is success is my duty, my obligation, my responsibility. And I really identify with that because in the sense of what you’re saying is I have no choice, it’s because you’re saying it’s my duty, it’s my responsibility and my obligation.

Steven Sashen:

Except I don’t use the word success because I have no frame of reference for what that means. People use that word for various things, often related to however much money they have in the bank, which makes no sense to me. That’s another one. It’s funny, I actually was nominated for some business leadership award and I refused to take it.

I said, “Whatever you think I’m doing is not what I’m doing. I can’t stand there with a smile on my face and thank you for giving me this thing that I don’t know that I had anything to do with what you think I’m doing.” It’s a weird one.

Steve Hamoen:

Well, I think it’s a verbal play on the word success, because success has a personal meaning for everybody. And some people, you’re right, it’s money. Other people, it’s impact. To me, I think when I look at people’s relationship with money, money is just a currency for impact. I mean, if I have a billion dollars sitting in my bank account, I have a billion dollars worth of just parked impact that I can be using. And when you sell something, you get paid in a commission.

The commission comes in the form of money, but it can come in the form of other commissions. When I train Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, I don’t get paid to do it. I never want to get paid to do it ever, because I get paid so much in so many other ways to coach people and watch them go to a tournament and win, to watch people change their personal opinions about themselves or their physical stature, whatever else it is. That pays me in so many commissions that money is so irrelevant.

Steven Sashen:

I think it was an actor, but I don’t remember who said, it’s such a treat to get paid for what I used to love.

Steve Hamoen:

It sounds like a Will Ferrell thing.

Steven Sashen:

It wasn’t a Will Ferrell thing, but it’s so true. It’s like whenever I hear someone waxing on about how they just love everything they do, I know they’re lying. Maybe they love the moments they get to do the thing, but the before, after, and in-between is not so much. The negative reviews, not so good.

The few people who somehow maybe have pulled off that they are only doing what they love and they are getting paid at whatever they want for doing that, they’re such outliers that to use them as a whatever goal just seems is statistically absurd. But they do. I want to back up to the planning versus getting going. And maybe you answered this and my brain turned off.

If somebody’s stuck in the planning phase and you to were going to give them some suggestion on what to do instead, or it doesn’t have to be one suggestion, what would you say? What would you do?

Steve Hamoen:

I’d first address the idea of fear and consequence, because a lot of times what people do is it’s a fear of something or something that they can see or something that they can’t see that’s holding them back into getting into action. And that’s why they keep on going back into preparatory work because they want to make sure that it’s perfect as they go out the door.

The easiest thing is is I always tell people, we help people start podcasts. So I always tell people, go to my first episode of my podcast and see how terrible I was. And you can see no problem. The very first time you do something, it is going to be terrible. Just expect that. So if you expect the outcome to be terrible, anything that’s slightly greater than terrible is going to feel pretty good. But expect terrible first.

And then once you can get past that and say, “No problem. It’s terrible,” and I also tell people really at the end of the day, especially if you’re doing videos, for example, like your first YouTube channel video, no one’s really going to watch it anyways. It’s going to be you and your Uncle Louie in your alt account watching that video. So nobody’s going to watch it anyway. Just get the practice in.

The very first video that I had, I had so many ums and ahs and you knows and rights and all this stuff. It’s terrible. I had a great guest, but I was the awful host on my podcast. But now a lot of that stuff has been cleansed out and I cleansed it out in me not using AIs because I think that’s a cheap way, a cheap trick in getting things done. And so I get it from me. So then when I show I can authentically be myself no matter I’m in person, on stage, or on a podcast. And so the idea is just get into that action.

Steven Sashen:

Well, um, like, you know, um. I think there’s a book called… I think it might be called Um. it’s all about those little verbal fillers. It’s really fun. Years ago I had a volley with the guy who wrote that. It was a blast. I think that’s a great idea. In comedy, almost every comic, not everyone, many many comics have one, the unfortunate story that their first set went really well.

Steve Hamoen:

And the second one goes horrible.

Steven Sashen:

Oh, really, really bad. It takes years until you got off the cycle of a good show followed by a shitty show, followed by a good show. It’s like where there’s just no control and no rhyme or reason. But yeah, this first couple of years where it’s like… I actually did a set at Catch a Rising Star in New York for a television show, crushed. The next night in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, same set, could not buy a laugh with a million dollars. And it’s like that’s the way it goes sometimes.

Steve Hamoen:

Well, I think it goes back to your idea of when I said success is my duty, my obligation, my responsibility, and you had the response to success. So what I might say is failure is my duty, my responsibility, my obligation. Because if I get addicted to failure, it means I’m always pushing to a limit that I’ve never achieved before.

Steven Sashen:

As a marketer, I say to people all the time, I’ve been doing this for 32, 33 years, which means I have a lot of ideas and a lot of opinions, but it means I don’t give a crap what any of them are. I just want to test them and see what works and what doesn’t work. And I want to see if something doesn’t work as fast and cheap as possible. And there’s nothing I like more than finding out some idea that I had that I thought was really good was complete crap, because then I know not to go down that road anymore.

And it’s like, okay, it’s no big deal. It was John Wanamaker, for those of you who live in and around Philadelphia, you know Wanamaker’s Department Store, who back in the ’20s maybe said, or I don’t know when it was, made some comment about, I know that only half of my advertising works, but I just don’t know which 50%.

Steve Hamoen:

I mean, when I talk with a lot of heavy marketers, they say the same thing as well. You never know what’s going to hit. And just constantly testing, constantly being in the testing mode is going to let you know. I mean, you think this one video that you crush it on the hook, you crush it on the video shifts, you crush it on the music, you crush it on everything, and then it hits 250,000 views and you’re like, what the heck just went wrong?

And then you put this other one that’s just you sitting in the park like eating a Cheeto, and all of a sudden that gets 3 million views. And so the idea is views is your outcome. I’m just using that as an example. That is, you never really know what’s going to hit. And the same thing happened with our business with as we’re iterating the podcasting business, what we thought originally was the direction we were going to go, six months later, it’s completely different.

Steven Sashen:

Oh, absolutely.

Steve Hamoen:

And it’s super exciting.

Steven Sashen:

Yeah, I do like to say if every six months, which can be every day, if every six months you look back and everything that you were doing six months ago made sense, something is very wrong.

Steve Hamoen:

Yep, yep, absolutely.

Steven Sashen:

In part because of you, in part because of the world changing. I mean, the things that have changed in our world, not even just in the footwear world, I mean all of our worlds, with social media, with politics, with a whole bunch of stuff, there was no one who predicted that six months earlier, and it’s had far-reaching in global impact on all of us in various ways, even some that are invisible. It is pretty fascinating to see that. If you don’t think you were a bonehead six months ago, then you’re a bonehead now.

Steve Hamoen:

If you’re looking around trying to look for the dumbest person in the room, you might need to look at the mirror.

Steven Sashen:

When we did Shark Tank, they take you in a van to go tape with typically three other companies, and that’s the joke. If you can’t figure out who’s going to be chum, it’s you. And happily, when we get in the van, we spotted who it was. It’s like, that’s not an idea.

Steve Hamoen:

That’s good television. That’s not an investment.

Steven Sashen:

Exactly. It’s good television. It’s not a good idea. And sometimes those bad ideas ask good television made deals and they didn’t pan out. To your point, it’s like, yeah, you don’t know what’s going to hit, but you can get a pretty good sense of what’s going to fail. That’s the thing that people don’t seem to get. You can look at something and go, “Ooh, that’s really not good.” They go, “That’s an opinion.” “No, no, no, that’s really not good. You want to put it to the test, I’m happy to…”

I actually did this once with one company. They were doing really work that I thought was really bad. I said, “Look, I’ll spend $1,000 to prove it to you.” They’re like, what? I go, “Why don’t we run this ad? I’ll spend $1,000 on it and you’ll see that it generates no sales, just so you can find out that you don’t know what you’re doing and we need to reframe this.” So I spent a grand and it made no sales. And I went, “See?” And they didn’t know what to do with themselves.

Because to the point we made before, the Nietzsche quote, it’s like when someone has to change their mind about you, they will hold the inconvenience you caused very much against you. I think to your point, many people don’t ever develop the skill, and it is a developable skill, to take criticism as a benefit, or at the very least as a… How do I want to phrase this? If you say something bad about me, “Steven, you are a,” there’s nothing you can say that I probably won’t agree with.

And if I agree with it, I might not like it. I might not like that thing about myself. I may have been trying to hide it from you and other people. But if you call me on it and it’s in my brain, then we agree. So why would I argue with you? You say, “Hey, you’re arrogant.” Oh my God, you have no idea how bad it is in certain contexts. In other contexts, I’m completely naive and I feel like an idiot. But in some, I definitely think I’m the smartest guy in the room. And if that comes across unpleasantly, what suggestions do you have?

Because I’m obviously not trying to people off. I would prefer they all like me. But if that’s getting in the way, what do you got? And that’s literally a skill of just recognizing that pretty much anything… If you make a list of every bad thing somebody could say about you and ask yourself, do I think that sometimes, and you go, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, then why argue with someone who says it to your face?

Steve Hamoen:

Absolutely. The guy who talked about my forehead, I’m like, you’re right, my forehead is massive.

Steven Sashen:

Someone asked Jeff Garlin, who’s on Curb Your Enthusiasm and co-producer, they said, “Does it get you upset when Susie in the show calls you a fat fuck?” And he goes, “I’m fat. Where’s the confusion?”

Steve Hamoen:

Yeah, that’s right. Thank you for slating the blatantly obvious tips. As we wrap up, as we wrap up, what I want to do is really thank you so much for the conversation today, because I think you have such a very interesting opinion on so many items on running a business. And I’m so glad we did this movement discussion around business, around family, around mindset. And I think it’s amazing to have that conversation with you, especially because you’ve achieved so much with the business that you’re running.

Steven Sashen:

Well, A, thank you. B, I hope that people got the throughline of what it takes to move something, and it doesn’t have to be your body, because that’s where it was in my head. And B, I’ll say thank you, even though I… This is a tricky one. I have a very difficult time looking at what we’ve done with a sense of accomplishment because of how much is in front of me with a sense of possibility. And also because I was an All-American gymnast way back when. And the meet that I qualified and became an All-American, everyone came up and congratulated me.

And I remember being confused because it was something my coach and I had deliberately planned for and mapped out for two years. So we just executed the process and it was successful for many reasons that were out of my control. My grandfather was a gymnast. I did not know that until I was in my 40s. My coach, who was our junior high gym teacher, was a I think three-time world and five-time national tumbling champion and one of the greatest teachers of any kind ever.

And that just so happened that he was teaching at the junior high and then coaching at the high school that I was at because of where I happen to live. Again, so much of it was luck that I have a very hard time taking it personally. I can look at the business and say, “Wow, that’s a pretty outrageous thing.” There’s nothing like this that has ever existed. No business has ever been like this one, even in the footwear world. And there’s so many other people involved that I don’t take it particularly personally.

I’m happy to be part of it. Perhaps this is something that I need to work on, but I don’t think about accomplishment in the same way I don’t think about success. It’s just all a process and something will happen, could be good, could be bad, could fall apart at any day, could blow up at any day. I’m along for the ride, and I do enjoy certain parts of the ride and other parts of the ride. Let’s just say on any given Friday, it’s not uncommon for me to call one of my best friends and go, “Do you want to own a shoe company for $9.37?”

Steve Hamoen:

Well, I mean, but that’s part of the moment when you look at success. And that’s why I say you need to celebrate those small moments of success, and that happen every moment because you never know what tomorrow’s going to throw at you. Like you said, if you haven’t spent a hundred grand in legal bills, it’s coming. You just don’t know when. And so you just got to be prepared for that fact.

Steven Sashen:

Well, I think the celebrating success, I realized something last year. To make a very medium length story very short, I had a life and death health thing. Happily, it’s all seemingly resolved, except that eventually I’m going to die. Just not of that. And I realized that I have had a habit in my life of postponing enjoyment. So I’m going to take your celebrate something every day, beginning and end of day, even like a little one.

I’ll tell you, the one that popped into my mind is I don’t know what the longest time you’ve ever had a song stuck in your head has been, but I’m now going on a week of having the Moody Blues’ The Voice stuck in my head, and I love that song so much that I am going to be in celebration mode. At the very least, if I can crank that song on my radio and enjoy that, that’ll be part of my daily celebration.

Steve Hamoen:

I love it. I love it.

Steven Sashen:

Yeah, it’s a good one. Steve, if people want to get in touch with you and find out what you’re up to, do me a favor, tell them how to do that.

Steve Hamoen:

Yeah, it would go to The Money, The Mindset and Mentoring Podcast is the easiest way to find me. I’m on Spotify. You can look me up on YouTube, which is Steve Hamoen, H-A-M-O-E-N. Easy way to find me that way too. I post everything there. Or you can just go to SteveHamoen.com and that’s the easiest way to find me. Those are the three ways.

Steven Sashen:

Awesome. Well, much, much appreciated. This has been a lot of fun, and I want to also appreciate you. There are very few people who when we get into a conversation like this and we have places where the Venn diagram overlaps and the chunks where it doesn’t, who are able and willing to have that conversation instead of just scream and yell and hang up the phone and whatever it is. So that is a testament to your interest and willingness to explore things and grow and help people, and I think that’s delightful.

Steve Hamoen:

It’s been an amazing conversation, and I love having difference of opinions and finding middle grounds and finding where we’re Stoic. And I think that’s perfect. That’s a sign of a good conversation.

Steven Sashen:

It’s the one conversation that is completely lacking from public discourse right now.

Steve Hamoen:

100% agree with that.

Steven Sashen:

Just really makes me want to cry. Okay. Well, before I burst into tears, I want to thank everybody else for being part of this conversation. A reminder, go to www.jointhemovementmovement.com. There’s nothing you need to do to join. That’s just the domain that I got, but you can by subscribing, giving us a review somewhere, thumbs up wherever it is, five star something.

Like I said, if you want to be part of the tribe, please subscribe. If you have any questions or comments or feedback or recommendations of people who should be on the show, ideally, if you know someone who thinks I have a case of craniorectal reorientation syndrome, I want to talk that person because that’ll be fun. Let’s see if they can have the same civil conversation Steve and I just did, or if I can.

You can drop an email to me at move, M-O-V-E, @jointhemovementmovement.com. But most importantly, between now and whenever is next, go out, have fun, and live life feet first.

Steve Hamoen:

Love it. Love it.

View Details

A former 320-pound drug, alcohol and fast-food addict, David Clark turned his life around through running, nutrition, sobriety, Buddhism and an insatiable desire to help others. As an ultrarunner, David made the rounds with finishes in races like the Badwater 135, Rocky Raccoon 100, Javelina Jundred and 6 trips across the Leadville Trail 100 course, which was hands down his favorite. He passed away in May of 2020.

Listen to this episode of The MOVEMENT Movement with David Clark about going from 320 pounds to running record-setting ultra-marathons.

Here are some of the beneficial topics covered on this week’s show:

– How true happiness cannot be found in material possessions,

– Why it’s important to have the right mindset and believe it’s possible to achieve true happiness.

– How training barefoot can improve foot mechanics and performance.

– Why redefining the perspective of your foot can lead to healthier choices in your life.

– How embracing challenges and finding joy in movement can lead to personal growth.

Connect with Steven:

Website

Xeroshoes.com

Twitter@XeroShoes

Instagram@xeroshoes

Facebookfacebook.com/xeroshoes

Episode Transcript

Steven Sashen:

Do you think losing weight is about exercise or diet or both? Or maybe none of the above? Well, I’m sitting with someone who’s going to answer that question in a way that you’ve probably never imagined. Welcome to the MOVEMENT Movement podcast. The podcast for people who want to know the truth about how to have a happy, healthy, strong body. We cut through the mythology, the propaganda, sometimes the outright lies about what it takes to run, jump, hike, do CrossFit, yoga, whatever it is that you like to do, enjoyably, healthily, and betterly. That’s my word of the day.

David Clark:

I like it.

Steven Sashen:

For those of you who’ve been part of the podcast, you might not recognize where we are because I am at the home of my friend David Clark. We have a poster of what you can see of his legs and what’s going on. Oh, no, that’s just like a tag that you’re on. It looked like you had some sort of weird…

David Clark:

That’s the middle of the Leadville 100, man. That’s a top of the iconic Hope pass.

Steven Sashen:

Oh, sweet. Here, wait. I’ll lift this up so you can see. There he is.

David Clark:

Ah, beautiful. Book plug. I love it. Cool. On Amazon.

Steven Sashen:

Don’t start pitching already. My god. We’ll get to the pitching part in a second.

David Clark:

Well, I’m relieved. I got to tell you because I thought you said this was going to be about the bowel movement.

Steven Sashen:

No, no, no. That’s a whole different MOVEMENT Movement. So before we jump in, just a reminder, if you’re into what we’re doing, obviously come to www.jointhemovementmovement.com. That’s where you’ll get pointers to everywhere You can find us and follow us and share and friend and request or review and blah, blah, blah. You know the drill. I’m not going to bore you with that because you get it. So I’m here with David Clark. David and I, just FYI, we’re in his house because we just recorded an episode of his podcast, which is called?

David Clark:

The We Are Superman podcast.

Steven Sashen:

That they can find where?

David Clark:

Stitcher or SoundCloud, iTunes, anywhere you list podcasts or my website, wearesuperman.com.

Steven Sashen:

Perfect. And David has an incredible story, which is what we’re going to tell in just a sec. But first we’re going to do a movement. Now, one of the things that David is known for is fighting. Just randomly picks strangers and just beats them up. Why do you do that, man?

David Clark:

It started on Black Friday. No, I’m just kidding.

Steven Sashen:

I was at Walmart and I wanted that television.

David Clark:

Cabbage patch doll.

Steven Sashen:

So… Oh my god.

David Clark:

Did I beat myself?

Steven Sashen:

Well, no, I heard comedian Dom Irrera doing a thing about Cabbage Patch dolls that I can’t repeat, but if you look up Dom Irrera, that is the Cabbage Patch, but that’s not what Dom does when it comes to the Cabbage Patch.

David Clark:

We’d fight for that.

Steven Sashen:

It’s a good idea. So we like to start with the movement, and I asked David if he had a movement he wanted to share, and what is the movement that you wanted to share?

David Clark:

I said punching.

Steven Sashen:

Now let’s talk about punching from a perspective that isn’t about the thing that most people think of, which is violence, et cetera, because I know that’s not the way you think of it. So talk about how you think of it and let’s have people do a thing that you want to share with them.

David Clark:

Well, yeah, obviously punching can have all kinds of different intentions. It can be just from keeping somebody away or inflicting damage or just competition, which is what I do it, but there is a science behind it, obviously. It’s not as simple as just throwing your fist in someone else’s direction. In fact, that’s usually the best way to get punched in the face yourself is just to start blindly.

Steven Sashen:

Well, I think someone said, you know it’s a bar fight if someone starts with a overhand right.

David Clark:

Yeah. And those guys, they’re not going to hurt each other.

Steven Sashen:

No, no. It’ll end up on the ground. It’ll get messy and very homoerotic. So why don’t you do the world’s fastest punching something, and punching is actually, I think it’s very interesting because it really does activate pretty much every muscle you can think of from your navel up in ways that are not your feet. Well, if you’re actually fighting, fighting starts at the feet and goes through your hips, and that’s the end result. But it is a really powerful thing just to be doing in general, which I find really interesting. So why don’t you do the world’s fastest little punching something that people can do even if they’re maybe in their car, which is where a lot of these things happen.

David Clark:

Yeah. I think the thing that you’d want to just connect without getting to a whole mechanics of a punch, which usually starts, like I said, from the feet up, is to just make sure that your body’s connected to your punching. So when you start with your hands up protecting your jaw, you’re going to rotate into it. And then as this one pulls back, the other one goes forward and actually a little nuance pro-tip that your fist starts out in a straight motion and actually rolls over at the point of contact. This is the hardest part of your body right here is connected here to the elbow, to the shoulder, full extension. So those punches are just coming out.

Steven Sashen:

It’s a really satisfying thing for people who aren’t into the “violence” part of it. It’s just a really satisfying motion because it is one of those full body motions.

David Clark:

It is.

Steven Sashen:

All those things.

David Clark:

Even the people that train at the gym where I train on it, 99% of them are never going to get into a cage. They’re never even going to spar, much less actually fight. But there is something very satisfying about the movement. It’s a flowy movement. It feels good. We listen to hip hop or heavy metal.

Steven Sashen:

Well, wait, we have a punching bag in our office that we got, because I asked people what they wanted.

David Clark:

What’s his name?

Steven Sashen:

No, no. We have an actual punching bag. And one of our employees that did say, if I’d known we were going to have a punching bag, you could have got me to work here for free. So there’s just something satisfying about that motion and making contact. And again, it’s not even the violent thing. There’s something about just contact that I think resonates with us.

David Clark:

I think that flows through our whole message is that it connects us to something deep within our evolution. Even running does, you might compete with running. You might be running away from a predator or to hunt. Fighting’s the same thing. Its programmed. We have to protect our families. We have to fend off our tribe so even if you’re not actually fighting, there’s something that connects.

Steven Sashen:

You’ve never been in a fight. I have gotten punched in the face once.

David Clark:

You didn’t do well?

Steven Sashen:

No, actually I did really well. I kind of saw it happening. It was a really weird situation. I’ll tell the story at another point, but I just had this weird feeling if I just let this guy do his thing, it would all be over very quickly. And as he punches me in the face and as I’m going down, all I can think was that was louder than I thought it was going to be. And then I got up and it was all over. It just felt like this weird karmic something. It just had to get itself resolved and we’d all be fine. But, oh, there was something you just said that reminded me. Oh man, I had a funny thing that popped into my head and then it fell out. Maybe it’ll come back.

Anyway, let’s chat about why we’re here. So why we’re here is that David has one of the more amazing stories that I’ve ever heard. I’m not going to try and tell it because I couldn’t do it justice. And when you hear this, I guarantee I’m going to keep, by the way, moving towards the camera because I didn’t bring power for my computer. I’m going to keep doing that to make sure it stays on. It’s one of these stories that if you see David now, you frankly probably won’t believe it. So let’s start with how would they see the before picture and then tell them what the going through and after story is?

David Clark:

Yeah, it’s a long journey. I started in many ways my real life, current iteration of life started August 5th, 2005. I woke up 320 pounds.

Steven Sashen:

You probably went to bed 320 pounds.

David Clark:

I have no idea.

Steven Sashen:

You went to bed. It’s not like you suddenly…

David Clark:

I had about 25 pounds of food in me.

Steven Sashen:

But it’s not like you weighed 150, then you woke up 320. It’s not like a Freaky Friday deal.

David Clark:

That would be kind of cool.

Steven Sashen:

That would be very Freaky Friday.

David Clark:

I woke up like I did every morning.

Steven Sashen:

That’s what I was going for.

David Clark:

At, like I said, 320 pounds.

Steven Sashen:

How tall are you?

David Clark:

I’m six feet tall.

Steven Sashen:

Yeah, that’s a lot of David.

David Clark:

Literally half now. 160 pounds. And there’s a host of other problems too that were contributing to that. I was addicted to fast food and drugs and alcohol, and I had just bottomed out in every possible way, man. I lost everything I had. It was a very successful company at one time. I thought that was going to make me happy. It didn’t. And I had wife and kids and love in my life thought that would make me happy and it didn’t. So I had all of these great things that I was thankful for, but yet there was still something missing. And I said in my book out there that I finally came to this conclusion that I wasn’t a 320 pound alcoholic by accident. In all of these times I was trying to find the right diet plan, the right motivational book or workout plan or something to get leverage on myself. But that moment was when I realized it was my thinking that needed to change. I always joke that you only have to change one thing, everything.

Steven Sashen:

Yeah. So when you say it was your thinking, what specifically, or can you identify some, if you had to boil that down, what was it? That was the thing that was leading to all of that.

David Clark:

Yeah. I had to stop searching for happiness with my eyes open because I kept thinking it was out here. It was on the lot. I could drive it off. I could buy the house. I could open up another retail store. Something was going to make me happy. My bank account was growing and my happiness was shrinking, and I realized that wasn’t by mistake.

Steven Sashen:

It’s funny, it’s not an uncommon story that people have what seems like great outward success, and then suddenly it hits them. It’s like, oh, this is not what I thought it was going to be. Why do you think you were struck with that realization, or why didn’t you recognize it along the way?

David Clark:

Because that really is the problem. Success. There’s nothing wrong with success. There’s nothing wrong with having nice houses and cars and all these things. But the problem was that I placed my value on that. I grew up in some tough circumstances, hard times fell on my family. I spent a lot of years homeless, living in the back of my father’s truck, kind of disenfranchised, disconnected from reality. And I always thought someday I was going to do this thing. And I started, I went to college, I had to get a GED, go to college, did well in college, was selling mattresses part-time. I got it. I know what I’m going to do. I’m going to buy this company that’s failing and I’m going to turn it around.

But all of these things are, if I had a house, if I had a car, those were going to make me feel complete. And that’s the danger. It’s not having the houses in the cars, it’s thinking that that was going to be the solution and it wasn’t. I used to stay awake late at night and wonder towards the end, what is the secret of life that all these people seem to know that I don’t know because maybe it’s not the secret of life, but it’s definitely the secret to not drinking yourself to death.

Steven Sashen:

But see, that’s the thing that’s so funny is that if you ask any of those people who you thought had the secret of life, if they thought they did, none of them would say they did. And many of them would say the same thing. It’s not working for me. I thought it would make me happy. I like to say that success is four times worse than failure. Because if you get there and you’re not happy, you’re not happy. If you expected to be happy, then your hopes were dashed. There’s nowhere to go but down and no one likes to hear a successful person whine.

David Clark:

That’s true.

Steven Sashen:

Thank you. Goodnight.

David Clark:

Yes.

Steven Sashen:

Great. Now I’m going to do the camera thing again.

David Clark:

No, and that’s it, man. So I bottomed out, and that’s the beauty of rock bottom is that I had a tremendous amount of ego driving me too, the old kind of ironic egomaniac with an inferiority complex. All of this is going to prove that I’m worth something when deep inside I know I’m not, or I think I not.

Steven Sashen:

It’s not even ironic. That’s the math. It’s like when you think that’s the problem, the only real option is to try to prove the opposite unless you investigate and discover that there’s no there there for it and the whole thing falls apart. But let’s move into the movement side of things.

David Clark:

Yeah, absolutely.

Steven Sashen:

So you had this wake up call, and then once that happened, then what happened?

David Clark:

So I needed something to connect me to something deeper than all of this external stuff. I wondered who’s the David Clark? That’s not a business owner. He’s not a father even. He’s not a son. He’s just a raw human being. And I figured that I might have a good chance at finding a little bit of that if I did something with my body physical and something that had a big emotional attachment to it, something where the stakes were high, the emotional stakes were high. And so for me, I have no idea why, but it popped in my mind to run a marathon.

Steven Sashen:

Which is such a common thing for someone who weighs 320 pounds to think.

David Clark:

I didn’t even know how far a marathon was. I had no idea. In fact, it’s funny, I thought when I’d researched it and found out it was 26.2 miles, I figured no one else knew this information. This is surely lost to the ages.

Steven Sashen:

That’s how they get you.

David Clark:

So I got a little silicone bracelets made up that said 26.2, and no one will know what this is. This’ll be my own little thing. Obviously I had a tenuous relationship with reality. And this was before the days of Biggest Loser and stuff, where now you see that a little bit, but I didn’t know. I assumed I went to, my first race was the Turkey Trot at CU on Thanksgiving Day, and I assumed everyone there was going to be 145 pound elite athlete. And that certainly I was going to be the only one. I think I’d lost some weight to 270 or something at that time, but obviously I was wrong.

Steven Sashen:

There are a lot of people who were there for the turkey.

David Clark:

Yes.

Steven Sashen:

I’m totally serious actually.

David Clark:

The turkey that I brought.

Steven Sashen:

Now, here’s my favorite story about that. My friend Lorraine Mueller, who was a world champion marathoner, she won the bronze in the Atlanta marathon. She went to one of the Turkey Trot races because she needed the Turkey and because she was an Olympian, they put her the front of the line and right before the start, she looks to her left and her right and there’s four other Olympians who all were there because they wanted the turkey.

David Clark:

Boulder. It’s Boulder, man. It’s Boulder.

Steven Sashen:

So how’d that race go?

David Clark:

The Turkey Trot?

Steven Sashen:

Yeah.

David Clark:

It was one of the most amazing days of my life.

Steven Sashen:

Oh, really?

David Clark:

I ran every step of it. It hurt, which is kind of funny to me now having run 40 plus hundred milers, but I’d never put myself in a situation like that before where I was moving my body, physically using my body to create an experience that I felt was missing from my life. And I ran every step of it. It occurred to me that I probably would’ve been faster had I done run walk. But to me, I wanted to run every step. It was 40 minutes or 38 minutes or something, but I felt like a runner. I felt like a runner.

Steven Sashen:

And then how did the running evolve from there? So actually I’ve got to ask this obvious question. What were you running in?

David Clark:

I was running in ASICS GEL-Nimbus.

Steven Sashen:

Ah.

David Clark:

Yes.

Steven Sashen:

Big thick padded motion control thing. So I’m going to cut to the end of the story ish and say, this is not where David ended. So what was the evolution and how did your running evolve and what happened to your body as you were doing this and jump into that part if you would.

David Clark:

So I had to obviously address the way I was eating too. So in that process, I started eating whole foods and eventually that led me to being a plant-based guy. But so I was feeding myself well. I eventually got to the marathon and did that. It was the inaugural year of the Denver Marathon. I’d lost 140 pounds over that 15 months I think it was getting there. And I did that. And that finish line was kind of a starting line of a whole new way of living. I eventually did an Ironman and then I got hurt, then I got hurt, I had two herniated discs in my back, which had probably been there for a while just from being overweight. And the running made it worse because I was running very poorly.

Steven Sashen:

And how would you define poorly?

David Clark:

Slamming my heels into the earth and just being disconnected from the ground and not really knowing that I was floppy the clown out there. I had no idea.

Steven Sashen:

Was your basic idea when you first started just get to the end and you weren’t paying attention to how you were doing it?

David Clark:

It was all about managing the pain and the stress of running. It was like I never thought about running smoother. It was just like, can I be fit enough to move my body? It was very mechanical and push yourself hard, which I was. I was working on the gym and I would do intervals on the treadmill and just trying to work my body to burn calories and lose the weight I wanted to lose.

But anyway, when I got hurt and I had to have spinal surgery eventually, that’s when I was like, something clicked. The stakes were really changed for me. I was like, okay, I can walk away from this. I could go back to my old life and all these things, or if I want to do this, I’ve got to treat it like it’s something I need to get good at. And I’ve played guitar and I did well in my business until I screwed it up with drugs and alcohol but I did well. Whenever I apply myself to something I did well at it. So I kind of became a student of it for lack of a better description.

Steven Sashen:

Literally a student or just an internal, figure it out on your own? What you do?

David Clark:

First thing I started do is reading everything I would find. I read Chi Running and I read every book I could find by Galloway and Hal Higdon and marathon training plans, running form. The internet was around, I think, but pretty new. But you could search, you could find books. So I just bought books and just read. And that was part of the process for me too.

Steven Sashen:

So what did you get from the books, or how much were you able to apply what you learned from the books?

David Clark:

Yeah, I think Chi Running actually did give me a picture. There was some descriptive terms in there. Eventually I found Born to Run too, which helped me tremendously. I think the first stages, if you will, of my through 2008 when I was just recovering from my back surgery. And then 2009 when I started to apply everything I’ve read and try to make it translate to moving my body, I was still using running shoes, “Nike”, whatever. And so Born To Run actually gave me the picture of actually what would it be like if there was no shoe.

Steven Sashen:

What’s the name of that book? I’m going to write that down.

David Clark:

It’s probably Doug McChristopher, or no.

Steven Sashen:

It’s actually, I’m going to put in a quick plug for people who don’t know the book and there are people who don’t. It’s an amazing book by Chris McDougall. And even if you’re not a runner, it’s just an incredible story.

David Clark:

It really is.

Steven Sashen:

It’s a great adventure story. There’s a great science story woven into it. My wife, Lana, who is not a runner, I eventually talked to her into reading it and she like everyone, just couldn’t put it down. So if you haven’t yet, please do. You will not regret it.

David Clark:

And that book created that picture for me. What do you move like as a human machine without anything? And that was life changing. So I did start switching to running in very minimal footwear, but I had a sufficient amount of fear still built up. I didn’t buy the whole thing yet so I had to stick a little toe in. And so I started running once a week in minimal shoes, and I spent a good year stretching that out.

Steven Sashen:

That’s actually not a bad transition plan. When people ask, how do I make the transition? First, it’s how to get started. And then if I’ve already got a running program, what do I do? And I go, yeah, just inject a little something and then expand that slowly. Start at the beginning of your run in something barefoot or like Xero Shoes and then add a little more time or pick one day and then extend that. So there’s a lot of ways of doing it, but whether that was intuitive or just figuring out that was the only way you could do it, that was a good way to do it.

David Clark:

Yeah, I’d read enough to know that people get injured doing it. People go too soon. They go from wherever they are and run a marathons and all of a sudden, I’m just going to buy a pair of Vibrams and just go run on the concrete as nature intended me to run.

Steven Sashen:

Wait, hold on. Hold on. This is one of those things people say, we didn’t evolve to run on concrete. It’s like, if you ever go to the places where human beings evolved.

David Clark:

Into Moab.

Steven Sashen:

Exactly. It’s like a lot of that hard packed dirt is practically concrete. We evolved to run on anything.

David Clark:

People were out there hurting themselves because they were trying to do too much too soon.

Steven Sashen:

Yeah. They were just trying to make the switch immediately from doing 10 miles a day in big thick padded shoes to 10 miles a day, essentially barefoot. And some people are able to do that, and that’s the problem. There were a few people who had perfect form. They were really great, and they were able to do that, and they ruined it for the people who needed to learn a new pattern of running a new gate style, which does take a little bit of time to do that. So anyway.

David Clark:

And I was operating off of the database that I just created. It took me a while to get to a marathon, so it’s going to take me a while to get to running barefoot or minimal.

Steven Sashen:

The flip side, I was on a panel discussion when the barefoot thing was just taking off, and there was a bunch of physical therapists who were all saying, well, it could take you three years to develop the ability. And I finally said, how many people in this room have run at least a mile barefoot on concrete or a road? And I raised my hand and no one else did. I said, you guys, you’re making up a story that based on no information whatsoever. You haven’t even been doing this thing long enough. The whole barefoot thing hasn’t been around long enough for you to have had anybody come through your clinic for two years or three years. So it’s just this idea that they had come up with. I’ve never met anyone who couldn’t make a successful transition to at least being comfortable running barefoot or in something truly minimalist much, much quicker. And then it can take time. It takes time to develop, but it’s not like you’re not going to be able to do it for two years.

David Clark:

Right. You have to learn to run differently. And I think a lot of people missed that somehow. They changed shoes and still kept running the same.

Steven Sashen:

Well, annoyingly in the very early days of the minimalist movement, that was the way it was positioned by companies like Vibram even where people thought, well, let me say it differently. The big shoe companies have basically trained people to think that it’s all about the shoes. You get this new magic shoe and everything’s going to be great, even though that’s what we said three years ago, and it wasn’t true then. No shoe company has ever said, remember when we told you that that shoe that we did three years ago was going to change your life? Sorry, we pulled that totally out of our butts. This one though, this one’s the real deal.

David Clark:

Believe me this time.

Steven Sashen:

Yeah. So we’re all kind of programmed for that. So it’s not surprising that that’s the way people took the whole minimalist thing.

David Clark:

For sure. And I was actually told that the correct way to run was to hit on your heel and then roll forward, and then push off. I was told that by people in the running industry, the running shoe industry, whatever. But so I still had that in my brain.

Steven Sashen:

The running industrial complex.

David Clark:

I love it. But I’ve actually always been one of these people that’s very willing to dispense with the common ideas of things, the general emotions. But I don’t want to do it from a place of ignorance. I’m willing to let go, but I want to know what I’m letting go of. And so I felt it was somewhere in between. I didn’t know what it was, but it was like, it’s somewhere in between, so I’m just going to take it easy, be smart. And it was amazing. The way I felt. It didn’t take me very long, I did spend that one year, but before I started transitioning onto the trails too, and the first time I put on a pair of minimal shoes in Ran Sanitas.

Steven Sashen:

Which is a trail up a mountain, right up in Boulder.

David Clark:

Technical sharp rocks. I was kind of like, I don’t know if I should do this, but I felt like an animal in a good way, a primal. I was like, I never want to run anything else again. So I felt like I thought I was running before, but now I really started doing it.

Steven Sashen:

This is the thing. It’s funny. I always joke that you can always spot a barefoot runner from a mile away because they’re smiling because there’s something just so satisfying about feeling things. And I went up Sanitas with a friend of mine, a woman named Jesse, who does everything barefoot, and we’re running up Sanitas barefoot, and people were looking at us like we’re crazy, but we are the ones having fun.

David Clark:

Right. Yeah. And it’s actually funny because as my running evolved and eventually I went on to do Leadville and 40 different hundred milers.

Steven Sashen:

Okay, so here’s the point to brag. So say more about that and things you’ve done.

David Clark:

Yeah, so like I said, I’ve done Leadville, I think eight times, Hard Rock, Bad Water, some of the toughest races on the planet. I wanted to challenge myself, and I started moving from the back to the front of the pack and managed to pull down some wins, not against Scott Jurich or Rob Car, but some regional wins and some said a couple American records on treadmills of all like 12 hour treadmill runs. And I even ran 48 hours on a treadmill. But anyway.

Steven Sashen:

I’m just going to pause there. Yeah. Oh my god. I’m trying to think of something that I would enjoy less than doing 48 miles on a treadmill.

David Clark:

There’s nothing. But nevertheless, you would enjoy it in some way.

Steven Sashen:

Oh, yeah. I would enjoy stopping.

David Clark:

But this crazy thing happened though, as I got faster…

Steven Sashen:

Wait, hold on, hold on. Wait. I want to back up. What made you even think to do a 48 mile or 40 hour treadmill thing?

David Clark:

You’ve known me long enough to know that this thing is not connected to anything really solid.

Steven Sashen:

I’m like, seriously? Because there had to have been a moment where you thought of this idea and thought, yeah, that could be interesting. And then you told someone and they had a response that’s the way normal people would respond and you justified it.

David Clark:

Well, honestly, there was a part of me seeking out the things that my other, because we live in Boulder, Colorado, you rubbing elbows with Olympians and ultra running royalty, and I kind of sought out the things no one wanted to do.

Steven Sashen:

Got it.

David Clark:

People didn’t want to do Bad Water, so they would go, Bad Water, it’s on the roads, it’s 130 degrees, so okay, I’ll do that. People are like, ah, I can’t run on the treadmill. But I lost all the weight running on a treadmill. So the treadmills there, I’m like, oh, you don’t want to run on the treadmill? I’m going to do it for 24 hours. So in 2015, my 10th year of sobriety, I wanted to do 10 epic events to celebrate that year. And at the very end, I didn’t have a 10th event and I didn’t know what to do. I’d run the Boston Marathon four times in one day, I’d done Bad Water. I ran 343 laps around a high school track here. And so I had no idea what to do, and I was sitting out there on the couch, and literally I thought I could run 40 hours on a treadmill. Oh, shit.

Steven Sashen:

Now I’ve got to do 48 miles on a treadmill.

David Clark:

I was mad at myself for thinking it.

Steven Sashen:

I love it.

David Clark:

But what I was going to say, honestly, as I started moving up the front of the pack, this great thing happened. People would recognize me a little bit and they’d go, so there’s this expectation and you can’t run through an aid station like this when people are expecting you not to. So I would notice as I’m suffering, you’re 80 miles in whatever, and you’re coming up on an aid station. So I’d straighten up and I start running because of the other people that instantly my body changed. I felt better. I felt better. I was running, it was taking less energy to run faster. So it was just more and more reinforcement that helped me go to the next level is that I wasn’t letting my body break down. Your body is going to break down, but it didn’t mean my form had to, or at least I could mitigate that somehow.

Steven Sashen:

It’s interesting. I hadn’t thought about this until you said that, but I watched a video of some guy who’s run every day for the last 60 years or something, and his form has gone to not good, let’s say, and the people around him were running similarly. And when you do look at people running ultra marathons, a lot of them it looks like, yeah, there couldn’t be having less of a good time. And I can imagine there is this unconscious thing where you get the idea that that’s the way it’s supposed to be.

David Clark:

Yes. You just accept it for no reason.

Steven Sashen:

And then to question that I imagine is a revelatory phenomenon.

David Clark:

The best compliment I’ve ever got. I ran across the country in 2016 with five friends who are all ultra runners. We did this together for mental health awareness, which is ironic. And I was running with all these very accomplished athletes and runners, ultra runners, and I don’t think there’s a single person who didn’t mention you don’t run like an ultra runner.

Steven Sashen:

Yep. Interesting.

David Clark:

That is the best compliment I’ve ever got.

Steven Sashen:

Very interesting. Yeah, it is a fascinating thing. Another thing that I’ve seen people do is when they get into barefoot, I’m going to do that, the camera thing again, they get into barefoot or minimalist, and they have the idea, one idea they get is I’m supposed to land on my forefoot. And so what they do is they still reach out as if they’re in shoes. So they’re going to overstride, but then point their toes. So they land on their forefoot way in front of their body, but they also have the idea that it’s supposed to be less stress, so they bend their knees a little more. So then they ended up running kind of like Groucho Marx walking fast, and they’re able to do this. It works in that they’re able to continue moving, but it’s not running. And the first time I saw someone do that, I went, how did you think to do that?

They go, well, you’re supposed to land in your forefoot. I went, yeah, but not like that. I don’t know what that is. Irene Davis saw this in her lab. She set up a force plate on a treadmill and said, try and keep the force under this line. She had basically a monitor, keep the force under this line. And she found quite a few people would do the kind of Groucho Marx thing to try and catch the ground rather than actually use your springs the way they’re supposed to be used and apply less force by absorbing that with the muscles, ligaments, and tendons that are designed for that, not by doing things like this with your body. Yeah, interesting.

David Clark:

It’s like tension before punch.

Steven Sashen:

Oh, yeah. Oh, that’s a really interesting point.

David Clark:

You got to roll with a punch.

Steven Sashen:

Yeah. You don’t want to get tense in advance. On the one hand, you have to be aware of it, but you also don’t want to anticipate and take more than is actually being thrown at you, which you see all the time. So it’s like you’re ready to go when it wasn’t even that hard of a punch. Yeah, I’ve seen that in fights. Interesting.

David Clark:

And interestingly, when I made the switch, I kind of took a step back from ultra running a couple years ago and started doing some boxing and MMA, and I would do everything in the boxing gym and the floor and in the ring barefoot.

Steven Sashen:

Well, I was just going to say, talk about that connection and it is about connection between running and fighting, let’s say in this case, and just the whole phenomenon of using your feet.

David Clark:

Well, so I’m really very fortunate that I’ve got to meet some really cool people. And my first fighting MMA lesson was with a world champion, five time UFC champion Pat Miletich. I’ll give him a shout-out, and they just drill it to me over and over again, how punching and striking starts in the feet and it’s just screwing your feet into the ground. You don’t come up. You come down. And so as I’m hearing footwork, footwork, footwork, I think I want my foot to be doing the work. You know what I mean? These boxing shoes they have where you tie all the way up to the knee. I don’t want to look like a sexy school girl. I kind of do, but not in the boxing ring. That’s a bad idea.

Steven Sashen:

Hold on. Just to be clear, if you want to do sexy school girl, you got to really rethink the facial hair.

David Clark:

Yeah. Well, I don’t know.

Steven Sashen:

I’m not saying get rid of it. I’m just saying it’s a different kind of sexy school girl.

David Clark:

But yeah, that’s good point. Good advice. Saved you guys. So I just started doing that and not sparring, I wouldn’t because people step on your feet and stuff like that, but most of my training I do barefoot, including the conditioning drills and all that kind of stuff. And it just made me feel more connected. If my feet are doing the work, I’m feeling it.

Steven Sashen:

Did that affect the way you were running as well? Were you doing any running?

David Clark:

No, I was still running what I call recreational. 40, 50 miles a week.

Steven Sashen:

You were running. I met Dean Karnazes. Yeah, Dean’s famous for doing 50 marathons in 50 days, and he’s famous, most importantly actually for ordering a pizza while he was running and having them deliver it to him, while he was running, rolling it up like a burrito and eating it. And when I met Dean, I said, I’m the anti Dean Karnazes. He said, what do you mean? Actually, it was fun. I went to introduce myself. He goes, I’m know who you are. So that was very sweet. But then I said, I’m the anti Dean Karnazes. He goes, why? I said, well, when I say I’m going to go for a fun run, I’m going to go do 50-meter repeats. And when you say, I’m going to go for a fun run, it’s like, I wonder where I’ll be in three days.

David Clark:

I’m going to do 50 state repeats.

Steven Sashen:

It’s like a whole different world.

David Clark:

Yeah, absolutely. Now he’s a good dude.

Steven Sashen:

He’s a very interesting cat.

David Clark:

And he introduced the world to ultra running in a real way. In a real way, I think.

Steven Sashen:

Yeah. He’s very interesting cat. I get a lot of emails from people who say, well, can I run barefoot or minimalist or can I run in Xero Shoes because I weigh, fill in the blank? And usually their number is way less than where you started out. What would you say to them?

David Clark:

Yeah, I would say to trust your body. Fear isn’t always correct, and in fact, most of the time it’s not. Most of the time, I think we mistake fear and common sense. I’m not afraid to run out into traffic at rush hour. That’s just common sense. But I’m afraid to trust my body. I’m afraid to move. I’m afraid to do these things that I might get injured, but this machine is so powerful, and so okay, well just trust it a little bit. So you evolved over all of this time, millions of years, hundreds of thousands of years, whatever you want to call it. So trust that it’s going to work for you. Doesn’t mean you have to go crazy and whether you’re running in shoes or not, you don’t want to try to do too much too soon.

So trust your body, keep it small, you can do it. You’ve been moving. Okay, so I’ll back up for one second. People used to say to me, or people say to me now, aren’t you worried about hurting your knees? All that running you’re doing? Aren’t you going to hurt your knees? I’m like, you know when my knees are in the biggest jeopardy is when I was 320 pounds standing in line for my third Big Mac. That was a lot of stress on my knees. So if you’re carrying around extra weight, your body’s kind of grown strong to carry that weight around.

Steven Sashen:

It’s funny you say that. I have a friend who lost a lot of weight, and one of the things she said is, I miss being strong. She had a lot of fat mass, but she also had more muscle mass. And she just says, I miss being strong.

David Clark:

But you can keep that muscle that’s activating and moving you around, and you start activating using your running muscles and other things, and it’ll do you well. I think running is like anything else. It’s like a piano. It’s like tennis, golf, whatever. The better you get at it, the more you’re going to enjoy it. So learn to do it right.

Steven Sashen:

The thing I like to say about what I love about barefoot is that for me, and for many people that I’ve heard of, the whole thing about minimalist or barefoot running, or more, actually, let’s say it in a different way. The whole thing about running where you can actually feel the ground and get the feedback that your body is wired to receive is that if you take the time, you learn to listen to and respond to that feedback. And so your feet become a coach. Actually, Lana says this, we’re not selling anything magical. We’re selling shoes that become a coach for you. If you’re hearing too much noise, if you’re getting too much friction, which means assault’s wearing down too quickly, all of these are your coach telling you what you should do next, what you should try next. And we’re so wired to listen to something external and have someone try and tell you what to do rather than feel it internally.

In fact, the fastest way to change a movement pattern is to do two things. First, to get real time feedback. So you’re either watching in a mirror, so you can do this in a treadmill, watch a mirror if your knees are caving in, try and just point them out, put a mirror in front of your treadmill, move your knees so they’re out. Or if you’re landing in some strange way, just give you something so you can actually see it in real time. And then after you get used to doing that, then just get rid of some of the feedback. So put a curtain in front of the mirror for a few minutes, and then just extend the amount of time that you have no feedback from the external situation so that you’re starting to feel what was going on internally. So you just switch the, let’s see, the external does this while the internal does this. And that’s the simple key to doing it, because it’s all about getting that information and knowing what to do with it.

David Clark:

It’s like we joked about you can work with your coaches all the time and they’ll tell you to keep your hands up, move your head. You go sparring one time, start getting punched in the face. That problem is going to take care of itself one way or the other. You being knocked out, or you’re going to remember to keep your hands up.

Steven Sashen:

Oh, you mean, oh, up. I thought you meant up. Oh, up.

David Clark:

Yeah. Right. Oh, yeah. I think it’s interesting the way my internal definitions of things have changed and rearranged, because when I think of running now, it’s so tied to minimal running. That’s what running is to me. Running is spiritual for one for me, and it involves minimal movement. Just like food. When I used to think of food, I would think of, oh, there’s bad food. There’s good food. There’s foods I have to stay away from. Food has changed for me now. I have food, which is healthy, whole food plant-based food, and then I have junk and crap that I either don’t eat or it has a different category, I won’t eat it or I won’t think of it as food. And when I talk to weight loss groups, I actually say that. I say, there’s no such thing as food addiction. You just have a two broad definition of food, just the food. You’ve allowed all these things to exist under the umbrella of food, and they’re not. No one’s addicted to broccoli and chicken breasts.

Steven Sashen:

No. No, not so much. I was in Costco yesterday. They had little mini pretzels covered in dark chocolate with caramel, and I bought a bag.

David Clark:

That’s a dopamine delivery mechanism.

Steven Sashen:

It’s not food.

David Clark:

But it’s okay.

Steven Sashen:

Yeah, I have two a day. It makes me extraordinary happy.

David Clark:

Two bags?

Steven Sashen:

No, I’m not that guy. You look in my freezer, there’s the thing of Ben and Jerry’s ice cream that’s been there for three years.

David Clark:

It’s been in there so long, it’s just Ben, it was before Jerry came. Ben’s ice cream.

Steven Sashen:

It has so much freezer burn that it’s all freezer burn. But I just want a taste of something every now and then, because that’s something very pleasant. But it’s not something where I find myself mindlessly doing because I don’t find that enjoyable. I’ll go through a phase where for three weeks in a row, I’ll be thinking I could really use the right piece of cake, and I never can find it. It never shows up. And then either the whole thing goes away, or on week three, I go, oh, I know where to get that. And then I go have a piece of cake and I feel extremely happy, and then that’s it.

David Clark:

Whereas for me, there was no such thing as the wrong cake.

Steven Sashen:

No, I got to tell you, wait, here’s my favorite cake story. When I was living in New York City…

David Clark:

How many do you have?

Steven Sashen:

At least two that I can think of. No, three actually off the top of my head, but this is my favorite. So when I was living in New York City, I was doing standup comedy for a living. I’d be coming home 1, 2, 3 in the morning, and I was always looking for just a piece of chocolate cake in part because I was on my bicycle for 20, 30 miles a day, just getting around town, and I just needed calories. So I was eating donuts and cake because I just needed calories. So I finally found this one corner deli place two blocks away from where I lived. And right by the counter, they had these little things of cake that were wrapped up in Saran Wrap, and they were a dollar a piece.

And I went, oh, what the hell? I’ll try one. And it was just my favorite. It was incredible. And one day they didn’t have any. And I said to the guy behind the counter, where’s the cake? He goes, oh, he’s over there. And I went and looked and I went, I’m not seeing it. He goes, yeah, right there over there. And I’m looking, I walked back, I said, I don’t see this. Right there, over there. And I go looking, and I don’t know why he spoke with that accent. He was from New York. No, it’s not true.

David Clark:

It’s a Jewish girl.

Steven Sashen:

Exactly. So he’s pointing me over there, and I’m standing there and I’m going, I don’t know what you’re talking about. The only thing here is a bunch of boxes of Entenmann’s chocolate. Oh my god. You’re cutting up an Entenmann’s chocolate cake into eight pieces and re wrapping them and selling it for a dollar piece. It’s a $3 cake. And I thought I didn’t like Entenmann’s chocolate cake. So of course I started buying the entire cake. But the joke is…

David Clark:

Discount.

Steven Sashen:

That’s right. And the joke is it lasted longer because I didn’t need that much. I needed half that much. So it was best deal ever, which is the perfect kind of thing for a Jewish deli to find is a good deal on chocolate cake.

David Clark:

So you can have your cake and you don’t have to eat it either. Something like that.

Steven Sashen:

I saw that you started that and it was going to peter out quickly. It’s like, I don’t know where this is going to go. So any other thoughts that you want to share just about what you’ve… Here’s a crazy one. For someone who’s thinking about doing an ultra for the first time, what advice would you give them?

David Clark:

First of all, you have to come to grips with the fact that if you’re thinking about it, you’ve already decided to do it. Surrendering acceptance.

Steven Sashen:

I’ve thought about it, but the thought is, I don’t want to do that.

David Clark:

So you haven’t thought about doing it. You’ve thought about not doing it.

Steven Sashen:

That’s correct. I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about not doing distance.

David Clark:

Hey, why the hell not? Do it. Do it. Life’s too short, if you’re thinking about it, if that sounds appealing to you.

Steven Sashen:

No. If life’s too short, you should be a sprinter. I get my running done in a much shorter period of time.

David Clark:

Running is life. Whether you do it for small increments of life or long increments.

Steven Sashen:

I’m okay with that. Somebody asked me, I was interviewed for a documentary, they said, what are you going to do when you can’t run? And I literally sat here like this for about 30 minutes going, wow, that is the most depressing thing I’ve ever thought of. And actually, right now I’m having some trouble because I’m having spinal issues, so I can only get a little bit in before one of my legs goes wonky because of my spine. But in fact, my training partner said to me today, she says, I can’t believe you still come out every week. I have to. I’ll do as much as I can because what else would I do? So I really enjoy that. And the fact that it’s a mild tweak in my spinal cord’s, like, all right, whatever.

David Clark:

I have kind of a different take, man. I just think that in inevitably, I won’t be able to run. I’m very aware of that. So I enjoy it. I really take the time. Every time I go up Bear Peak, which is my favorite run here in Boulder, I touch the little marker and I go, it’s not today.

Steven Sashen:

Nice.

David Clark:

Because I just came off of a really bad injury too, with tearing my Achilles, and it made it peaceful to get through that because I was so present in all the times I could go up there that it’s hard to retroactively be grateful.

Steven Sashen:

That’s true.

David Clark:

If you do it in the moment, it’s a lot easier. So I was like, oh, I can do other things. I can find happiness in moving my body. I can go to the gym, I can swim. I can do other things.

Steven Sashen:

No, exactly. In fact, I have been thinking about it because there’s a high probability that I’m going to have to get my spine fused at some point. And so I won’t be able to run for a couple of years. And I’m thinking, what am I going to do? And I’ve actually started getting back into some things that I really enjoy. Other kinds of movement, I’ve gotten back into archery, which I find terribly entertaining because it’s all about intermittent reinforcement. It works great for a moment.

David Clark:

I could be the vegan archer.

Steven Sashen:

You could be the vegan archer. I have to tell you, when I go to the archery range, you would not be the only one.

David Clark:

It’s Boulder.

Steven Sashen:

I got to tell you. No, no. Actually, I go to the range in Broomfield, and I have to tell you, it’s one of my favorite places to go because the range of human beings that you see in an archery range, pun intended, is incredible. There’s goth chicks and crazy hunters. And not that all hunters are crazy, but these guys are crazy. And everything in between, little kids, old people. It’s the most eclectic group of human beings I’ve ever seen in this area. And I love.

David Clark:

Natalie Portman and Ted Nugent.

Steven Sashen:

That’s really what it’s like. That is really what it’s like. It’s so much fun. So I do think about that. There are a couple guys that I know who are paraplegic, who are wheelchair racers, and it’s like, can I get in your chair? Because that looks like that would be really fun, frankly.

David Clark:

And they’re like, screw you.

Steven Sashen:

No. They’re like, yeah, I’m in. So they’re all into it. If somebody’s in a wheelchair, like an electric wheelchair, I’m the guy who walks up and go, how fast can that thing go?

David Clark:

So I had Gabriel Cordell, not to go off on a tangent on my podcast. He’s a guy. He rolled his wheelchair across the country. Unmodified wheelchair. Just a regular.

Steven Sashen:

That’s sweet. Crazy. That is really outrageous. There are a couple of times going down the Tetons where that could have been a little hairy.

David Clark:

Yes. There’s a documentary on Netflix called Roll With Me.

Steven Sashen:

Oh, really?

David Clark:

Yeah.

Steven Sashen:

Oh, okay. I’m going to have to look through that. Oh, that’s a blast. Anyway, so advice. So if you’re thinking about doing it, you’ve already decided to do it.

David Clark:

Do it. Yeah. I think just do it, man. What are you waiting for? We’re so, so strong. We’re so capable. We just got to believe in ourselves. A tiny little belief can turn into something unimaginably beautiful.

Steven Sashen:

I’m flashing back. I was at a talk that Tony Krupicka did about ultra running, and some guys said, I’ve run a 50-mile race and I want to run a 100-mile race. What do I need to do to train? And Tony said, nothing. It’s all in your head.

David Clark:

Absolutely.

Steven Sashen:

Yeah. Sweet.

David Clark:

That’s it, man.

Steven Sashen:

All right. Anything else you want to leave our friends with?

David Clark:

No, that’s it, man.

Steven Sashen:

That was easy.

David Clark:

You know how to find me. We are Superman on all social media, Twitter, Instagram, my website, wearesuperman.com. It’s not me, it’s you. We.

Steven Sashen:

That’s sweet. So thank you for being part of the MOVEMENT Movement podcast and being part of the movement because we are creating a movement for people who understand that natural movement should be as obvious a thing as natural food is right now. So join us at jointhemovementmovement.com where you can find links to all the other places you can find us. And if you have anything you want to share, anybody you think you should want to have on the podcast, or if you want to be on the podcast, send an email to move@jointhemovementmovement.com. And as I love to say, if you want to be part of the tribe, please subscribe and live life feet first.

David Clark:

Swing and miss this.

View Details

Bryan Heiderscheit, PT, PhD is a UW Health physical therapist with a doctorate in bioimechanics and advanced expertise in orthopedics and rehabilitation. Bryan is also a professor and vice chair for research in the Department of Orthopedics and Rehabilitation at the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health as well as the director of UW Badger Athletic Performance.

Bryan has advanced expertise in treating sports and running-related injuries in athletes of all ages and activity levels. He diagnoses and treats knee and joint pain, bone stress injuries and overuse injuries, such as Achilles tendinopathy, which causes swelling and pain in tendons and muscles.

Educating people and involving them in their care are high priorities for Bryan. He gives athletes the knowledge, guidance and motivation they need to play an active role in their recovery.

In addition to clinical practice and teaching, Bryan directs research that helps improve how clinicians manage orthopedic conditions. Bryan’s research team works to better understand and prevent certain types of sports injuries such as hamstring strains and bone stress injuries. They also develop rehabilitation strategies for a successful recovery and return to full activity after surgery.

Listen to this episode of The MOVEMENT Movement with Dr. Brian Heiderscheit about the science of running.

Here are some of the beneficial topics covered on this week’s show:

– How biomechanics and injury risk research is about analyzing movement patterns to identify how they influence injury risk.

– Why different shoes can significantly affect a runner’s gait, leading to changes in foot strike patterns and landing mechanics.

– How cadence and step rate are important factors in running mechanics.

– Why the relationship between cadence and impact forces during running emphasizes the implications of foot positioning and muscle utilization in mitigating loading forces.

– How the impact of shoe selection on running mechanics is evident, with different types of shoes affecting gait patterns and performance.

Connect with Bryan:

Guest Contact InfoLinkedInlinkedin.com/in/bryan-heiderscheit-a82a37217

Connect with Steven:

Website

Xeroshoes.com

Twitter@XeroShoes

Instagram@xeroshoes

Facebookfacebook.com/xeroshoes

Episode Transcript

Steven Sashen:

I’m Steven Sashen from The Movement Movement podcast. You can find us at jointhemovementmovement.com or all the various places where you can think of where you’d find Join The Movement Movement. Actually, if you go to jointhemovementmovement.com, you’ll see Twitter and Facebook and YouTube and iTunes and everywhere else. And this is a podcast for people who want to learn the truth about how to move healthily, happily, strong, have healthy, happy, strong bodies, and to cut through the mythology that people have been propagating that might keep you from doing that.

If you’ve been listening to the podcast, you know that typically it’s just me doing a lot of ranting. Well, I’m happy that that’s not the case this time. I have my friend, Dr. Brian Heiderscheit. We will be exploring something interesting. One of the many things we’ll be exploring, could you improve your running and get rid of your injuries by moving faster without running faster? I know that sounds crazy, but we’ll jump in and find out how that works.

So first of all, Brian, hello.

Dr. Brian Heiderscheit:

Hi, Steve. Thanks for having me on. Appreciate it.

Steven Sashen:

Yeah, that’s really kind of you not for saying, “Hey, thanks for doing this again, because the recording didn’t work the last time.” So that’s what happened. Here we are again. So I’m going to ask you a question that I asked before, maybe you have a better answer now. You’re a PhD, which means you have a doctorate of philosophy technically, so say something philosophical.

Dr. Brian Heiderscheit:

No, no improvements at all. You know that it’s going to be the same. I have nothing impressive to say.

Steven Sashen:

That’s actually very zen you. There’s no improvements at all. Okay. I’m just going to stick with that one. I’ll stick with, “After zen, mountains are mountains and rivers were rivers.”

Dr. Brian Heiderscheit:

I suppose that would be true.

Steven Sashen:

Okay, so we started this conversation originally 20 minutes ago, and I asked you how you got to where you got to, and you were talking about how originally you were doing research on footwear, shoe companies were selling you stuff. If you had to sum up what you discovered from that in an elevator pitch, elevator sentence, what would you say that you discovered?

Dr. Brian Heiderscheit:

One of the challenges definitely is that when we tried to do the testing on the different shoes, on the material properties of the shoe, that they did not well represent what would happen when people ran.

Steven Sashen:

That’s interesting. So what happens in the lab does not equal what happens in real life.

Dr. Brian Heiderscheit:

Exactly. And that wasn’t our intent of testing the shoes was actually to give information about the shoes themselves, not to interpret five, six, seven miles down the road and say what they actually would do in terms of injurious performance, but of course, that’s many times how that information is extracted.

Steven Sashen:

So wait, you’re saying that you did not give information that showed that shoes improved performance or reduced injury, but the shoe companies then would take your data and say that that’s what they did?

Dr. Brian Heiderscheit:

Yes, correct. We did not do that. Whether the shoe companies or others who interpreted it incorrectly, yes, we did not do that.

Steven Sashen:

It’s funny, there are some researchers who will remain nameless, but if they’re listening, they will know who they are, who are especially trying to prove that minimalist and barefoot running is frankly bullshit. They have studied VO2 max, which is basically how well your body uses oxygen, for people who don’t know, and what they showed in a small study that has not been replicated, that involved people who claimed to be proficient barefoot runners, even though I know none of the people that were in that study, and I know all the local barefoot runners, and the conclusion was that the barefoot runners, their VO2 max was lower than the people who were running in regular running shoes. By the way, the regular running shoes were sponsored by the company that sponsors this entire lab.

My argument was, hey, who cares? Because what your VO2 max is in the lab doesn’t say anything about how you’re going to perform in real life. And luckily, the same lab is now saying, “Well, we’re still seeing VO2 max improvements with the so-and-so.” I won’t mention the brand by name, but it rhymes with Fike, Vaporfly, but we don’t know why and we’re not saying that it’s going to change the way you perform in real life. And I actually had someone say, “Well, how come so many people are setting personal best in that shoe?” I said, “For the same reason other people are setting personal bests in other shoes.” It’s like, it’s not what people say.

So anyway, so that’s the short version of what you discovered then, and now, what’s got your interest now? What are you doing both either in research and/or clinically?

Dr. Brian Heiderscheit:

Yeah, so in both environments, we’re truly trying to look at how people are moving and if we think that their movement could be influencing their injury risk. And if we do think so, then what changes can we make and how?

Steven Sashen:

So we’ll jump into that in a second, but I realized that since we skipped and did our intro a second time, I didn’t give you the luxury of saying where you are and what you do.

Dr. Brian Heiderscheit:

Oh, sure.

Steven Sashen:

Dinner party.

Dr. Brian Heiderscheit:

A professor.

Steven Sashen:

Dinner party, dinner party. Hey man, what do you do?

Dr. Brian Heiderscheit:

I work at the University of Wisconsin Madison. I’m a professor in the Department of Orthopedics and Rehab, as well as the physical therapy program. I direct the University of Wisconsin Health Runners Clinic and have a clinic within UW Athletics to help with the major athletes.

Steven Sashen:

Cool. And to let people know, Brian and I met through an event that he puts on with Dr. Irene Davis from Harvard and Dr. Chris Powers at USC called The Science of Running Medicine, which you can find at scienceofrunning.net. If you’re a physical therapist, you’re going to want to go to one of these events. This is where the three of them, let’s just say, argue to some extent about the best way to evaluate and treat runners and running injuries, and we will jump into that in just a bit in fact.

So when you’re analyzing movement now and trying to find ways for people to run better, healthier, et cetera, what’s the thing that you’re focusing on primarily?

Dr. Brian Heiderscheit:

So we try to come up with standards that can be done in just about any sort of clinical setting. So we’ve done a number of high-tech research studies that have shown us some relationship between movement patterns and potential biomechanical loads and injury risk. But the challenge is that most clinicians don’t have access to that sort of technology, or at least can’t afford a lot of the technology. And so we’ve tried to make other measures or other movement measurements that they can do in a clinic setting.

Steven Sashen:

So some of the stuff that you’re talking about involves force plate data and just looking at kinematics, basically how joints are moving and joint angles and various things like that?

Dr. Brian Heiderscheit:

Yeah, so when we’re doing the research studies, we’ve got our optic motion capture system, eight cameras all synchronized with force plate platform data, some muscle EMG pattern recordings, all being fed back into a single computer. We can recreate that individual movement as best we can using some of our models.

Steven Sashen:

When you say this, it reminds me, so the panel discussion that I was on at the American College of Sports Medicine last year, there were some guys from Adidas who had their motion capture stuff and they were all really proud of it, and they showed two things that I didn’t have the time to go, “Are you kidding me?” But the two things were the first was showing a runner from the side and how when the runner’s foot hit the ground, it’s like, “Look, we can actually see the impact forces when they hit the ground. Isn’t that cool?” But what they showed was this massive spike of force that was heading in the opposite direction the person was running, so they’re slamming on the brakes while they’re landing on their heel.

And they were going, “Isn’t that amazing we can study this?” No, no, no, no, no. You’re missing the big thing here. They just put on the brakes. Let’s not even talk about what it means to send that force spike through your body. There’s some arguments about that. I think they’re bad arguments. I think it’s pretty obvious you don’t want that. As much as you can reduce it, you want to reduce it, but regardless, even if you think that it’s totally fine, it makes no sense to be having that much force going in the opposite direction you’re trying to run.

The second thing, they showed a runner from behind just when their foot hit the ground and they showed the direction and the amount of force that was going in different directions, and so what they showed, the runner’s foot first hits the ground and there’s a force vector pointing at like 45 degrees out. I don’t remember it was in or out, frankly. But then it almost immediately switches to 45 degrees in the other direction, then to like 30 and then to 20, and then it finally gets straight up and down when the runner hits mid-stance.

And all I could think is, “Dudes, this is in the motion-controlled shoe that you’ve spent 50 years developing. Really? That’s the best you can do?” And they were looking at it again like it was super cool that you could capture this. And I’m looking at it like, “Wow, that’s super cool. You just proved that what you do doesn’t work.”

Dr. Brian Heiderscheit:

Yeah, that’s some truth to that for sure.

Steven Sashen:

So when you simplify things to give clinicians something that they can work with, what have you landed on, pun intended?

Dr. Brian Heiderscheit:

Well, the main thing is that most clinicians are going to have access to what they see, but of course, your human eyes, the eyes are not going to be able to capture the level of detail that you need to look at some of the running mechanics pieces. So we provide a way that they can utilize just a simple high-speed camera that most of us have available to us through our phones or something else that allows us to slow down the movement pattern and look at very particular aspects of the movement pattern that can give us insights into biomechanical loads.

Steven Sashen:

Can you be a little more vague, please?

Dr. Brian Heiderscheit:

Yes, I can absolutely be more vague. That’s the big picture. The specific things that we look for in terms of flaws in movement is how much the person moves up and down, how much their center of mass, if you want to call it that, their-

Steven Sashen:

How bouncy they are.

Dr. Brian Heiderscheit:

Their head, you could use their shoulder, how much they bounce.

Steven Sashen:

Oh, actually, hold on, I want to pause there. That’s an interesting thing, because a lot of runners that I see, they collapse in their midsection. They basically run and they look like a spring.

Dr. Brian Heiderscheit:

Totally. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Steven Sashen:

Yeah, yeah. So if you only watch their head move, their head may stay straight while their body’s just collapsing left and right, or the other way around where people get super stiff and then they get really bouncy. And I think about Glen Mills, who’s Usain Bolt’s coach, Glen says that before Usain became an actual a hundred meter runner, they spent a year just working on his core strength because he had been really collapsey and they had to tighten that up. So that’s an interesting thing to consider. It’s like watching how bouncy someone is, but if they’re not bouncy, it could be that they’re not necessarily doing the right thing still. So that’s intriguing.

Dr. Brian Heiderscheit:

Yeah. Yeah. I mean, ideally you’d be tracking it at their hip, right, and you see how much that’s moving up and down, but you’re absolutely right. We do see the same thing where their trunk tends to extend or flex and extend and flex as they’re moving, and so therefore their head does this thing, so exactly what you described.

Steven Sashen:

Yeah. Okay. So we’re checking to see how bouncy they are, and what else?

Dr. Brian Heiderscheit:

Yep, see how much they bounce. The second thing we look for is what we think of as being an overstrider. And overstriding is one that a lot of people are like, “How do you even define that?” Overstriding does not mean a long stride length. Obviously as you run faster, you have to have a longer stride length. Stride length should increase. Overstriding really is what we’re talking about is that instant of landing where that foot is positioned relative to your center of mass.

Steven Sashen:

And so what would you call bad versus good?

Dr. Brian Heiderscheit:

In terms of distance, that’s the hard part because that’s the hard thing about any sort of movement mechanics, that almost all of it scales with speed to some extent. So if we try to put a value on and say, “Oh, you should land 10 centimeters ahead of your center of mass,” well, that only works if I’m running at a certain speed.

Steven Sashen:

Certain speed. Well, and this is something that I’ve pointed out to people is they’ll watch video of somebody running and they’ll talk about them overstriding or not and have no sense of what speed is. And the real effect of speed is if you’re moving across the ground much faster, your foot can touch the ground further in front of your body, but it’s not getting weighted until your body’s over it because your body’s moving that fast.

And so really, that’s where a force plate comes in handy because you can see where the force happens in relation to the center of mass, but in lieu of that, so when you’re giving people guidance about what they want to look for, what’s good or bad in terms of overstriding, what do you tell people if they don’t have access to a force plate and they’re just looking at video and trying to maybe factor in speed?

Dr. Brian Heiderscheit:

So what we try to do is there’s a couple of other surrogate measures such as looking at the knee angle, how flexed your knee is at initial contact, and then also looking at your shank or the lower leg, the tibial, and how far off of vertical that is. You want to get that closer toward the road.

Steven Sashen:

So ideally then you’re looking for more of your lower leg, your tibia to be more vertical, and the knee to be-

Dr. Brian Heiderscheit:

20, 25 degrees roughly.

Steven Sashen:

Yeah. So basically, with that small knee angle and a vertical tibia, that basically means you’re trying to get your foot underneath your body. I mean, that’s a short version of that.

Dr. Brian Heiderscheit:

Yeah.

Steven Sashen:

Do you care or do you have any thoughts about where your foot is sitting the ground in that situation?

Dr. Brian Heiderscheit:

In terms of a foot strike angle, foot inclination?

Steven Sashen:

Yeah, foot angle or basically the obvious heel strike midfoot, forefoot.

Dr. Brian Heiderscheit:

So our big approach with that is that I’m less concerned about the exact angle they hit the ground in or if they use a forefoot midfoot or rear foot strike pattern. But I usually define it four ways. So you’ve got a forefoot, midfoot, rear foot and then heel strike. I consider heel strike to be this bigger category because when you think about the potential angles that your foot can get in, you can go into 40 degrees of an angle and still be towards your rear foot, whereas forefoot strikers are going to be in a much, much smaller range. You don’t see a 40 degree forefoot strike.

Steven Sashen:

No, but the thing also though is obviously footwear is going to make a difference, because if you put a big heel underneath someone, then you’re more likely to hit that in advance and have it hit ahead of your body or more accurately, or another way of saying that is if you actually have that small knee angle and vertical shin angle, it’s actually harder to land on your heel because it’s basically already kind of behind you. So those factors I assume play into it as well, especially… Do you test people both in and out of shoes to see what that looks like?

Dr. Brian Heiderscheit:

We don’t do too much out of shoes, but what we do, for example, with our athletes who run collegiately, most of them are wearing the exact same shoes or very, very similar shoes, and we test them at a whole range of running speeds so we’re able to make comparisons and look at, do individuals with different shoes land in different distances ahead of themselves or the same shoe at different speeds, how does that factor in? And interestingly enough, even when they’re wearing similar shoes, they can have a whole range of overstriding risk.

Steven Sashen:

When I was spending time in Bill Sands’ lab, who’s a former head of biomechanics for the US Olympic committee, he was at Colorado, mesa University is what they’ve, I think, since renamed themselves to, what he saw is every different shoe changed people’s gait unless they were internationally ranked, typically middle distance runners and lower, like anyone running the 1500 or lower. You could put bricks on their feet and nothing changed. But anybody north of that or anyone who’s not that skilled, every shoe made a difference. And same thing, if they were jogging, it was sometimes different than if they were at full speed.

I also saw things… We took some habitual or people who were well-trained barefoot runners and then put them in a pair of Five Fingers and they went from barefoot running with a midfoot or forefoot strike to heel striking and overstriding in their Five Fingers. And here’s the kicker, they didn’t know they were doing it, so it was fascinating to see.

Now, the one thing that Bill would do, he’d put you on the treadmill and it was like five feet wide, 10 feet long. He puts you in a Mission Impossible harness, so in case you hovering, you don’t land on your face and go flying off the back of the treadmill and make an America’s Funniest Home video video, but he would put you in your favorite shoes and watch you filming it 500 frames a second, then he’d have you run barefoot.

And we saw that maybe 90, 95% tops when they went barefoot, their gait changed into something that was way closer to what you described without any instruction. And I found when I was in his lab, if I gave people who were still overstriding and heel striking, like 30 seconds of instruction, it would change. So we were seeing dramatic differences with just that simple intervention. Now, whether that would stick when they put on shoes or not, it’s a different story, but it was incredible to see how quickly people would adapt.

Dr. Brian Heiderscheit:

Yeah, I agree. People can change their heel, like you said, whether it’s an external trigger that does it such as the shoes or terrain or gradient or whatever it might be, or if you try to use some sort of a verbal cue.

Steven Sashen:

Yeah. The verbal cues, I found people doing two things that really surprised me when I first started seeing it, but it made sense after I saw it. The first was people who would overstride, they’d have their foot way out in front of them, and then they’d plantar flex. They’d point their toe to the ground, so they’re prancing when they ran.

Dr. Brian Heiderscheit:

Exactly.

Steven Sashen:

Why are you doing that? They said, “Well, I’m supposed to land on my forefoot.” It’s like, “But not like that.”

Dr. Brian Heiderscheit:

Exactly. I’ve seen quite a few people, not just for forefoot strikers, but those who have read something and decide that they’re going to adopt that running style and they adopt it in a way that you’re like, “Wait a second, time out. That’s not what we were after at all,” whether it’s some other cue or change that they’ve run about.

Steven Sashen:

Right. Well, the other one that I found is people who run, they look like Groucho Marx, so they bend their legs a whole lot and they’d still overstride, but they’re kind of catching their foot on the ground and then pulling it below them, so they’re not applying a lot of force, but it looks like-

Dr. Brian Heiderscheit:

Looks like they’re skiing.

Steven Sashen:

Yeah, kind of like cross-country skiing.

Dr. Brian Heiderscheit:

That’s exactly right. Yep. We see that same thing.

Steven Sashen:

Yeah. And again, it’s like-

Dr. Brian Heiderscheit:

It’s just exhausting.

Steven Sashen:

Right. I know. It’s like, “How did you think to do that?” And then I realized, oh, you’re supposed to put less force in the ground. You’re supposed to bend your knees. They came up with those cues and they found a way that works with them. I’ve talked to some people who refer to themselves as accomplished barefoot runners because they’ve run half marathons and marathons, and then they run like that. I mean, it’s allowed them to do it, but I wouldn’t call it necessarily the best choice for the future.

Dr. Brian Heiderscheit:

Yeah, absolutely. I cannot imagine trying to run faster.

Steven Sashen:

No, you’ve definitely got a limit. And that’s the thing is one of the things that I’ve seen, especially if they’re barefoot runners doing that, when they put on something like one of our products, which allows them to run faster, suddenly they discover form cues or form problems that they didn’t know they had because they form changes and they say, “Hey, this shoe is making a bunch of noise.” Like, “No, no, you’re making noise because you’re slapping the shoe down because it’s just the variation that you’ve made from your Groucho Marx thing to being able to have more form or better form, but you haven’t adapted to that yet.”

It’s really fascinating. Lana likes to call our shoes a coach because they’re giving you information you can use, but I’ve seen some people have interesting relationships with their coaches.

Dr. Brian Heiderscheit:

Oh yeah, for sure.

Steven Sashen:

I know, and partly what inspired this conversation, is that one of the things that you focus on in the Science of Running Medicine events is cadence. I know that’s another thing that you look at, and this is full of mythology.

Dr. Brian Heiderscheit:

Oh my goodness, is it ever.

Steven Sashen:

So please jump in.

Dr. Brian Heiderscheit:

The reason we went toward cadence and step rate is not because it was the solution, but because it was something that people could understand and could utilize as a cue to trigger some of the changes we were after mechanically. And that’s what’s been the challenge is people forget about the rest of what I just said and they focus on, “Step rate is the answer and the solution,” and therefore we got all these issues that we’re trying to correct now.

Steven Sashen:

Well, so let’s talk about what is valuable in cadence and define it for humans who don’t know it, and then let’s talk about the part that gets lost where people think it’s a one size fits all panacea for all running problems.

Dr. Brian Heiderscheit:

Yeah. So step rate is the number of foot strikes that occur per minute. If you count how many times your foot hits the ground or both feet hit the ground, now you have the number of steps per minute.

Steven Sashen:

I want to jump in here because I want you to highlight something that cracks me up. When people talk about, especially barefoot running, in general, the phrase that gets used a lot is, “Shorten your stride.” And when I hear that, my head wants to pop off my shoulders and then spin around and then explode or just explode, either way, because people don’t realize that stride length is just the distance from when your foot hits to when your foot hits. And you can have an appropriate short stride, barefoot stride and have a long stride length because you’re running fast, applying a lot of force into the ground when you do that. But for many people, that is the cue that makes sense because they can’t see behind themselves, they don’t realize that their stride is actually the same length, it’s just that it’s happening in what’s referred to as backside mechanics instead of frontside mechanics.

Dr. Brian Heiderscheit:

Exactly. Well, and whether it’s backside mechanics or whether it’s float mechanics, because most of your increase in stride length as you run faster and better occurs in the air.

Steven Sashen:

Correct, correct. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay. So anyway, back to cadence.

Dr. Brian Heiderscheit:

Yeah, so you’re right. When you think about running speed, let’s just say you’re running an eight-minute mile and you have your number of steps per minute and you’ve got the length of each step, and so you put those two together, now you have speed. And so what you’ve said is if you increase your number of steps per minute, that means you have to decrease the stride length. And while there is some element-

Steven Sashen:

If you’re keeping the same speed.

Dr. Brian Heiderscheit:

But there also is a way you can do so without compromising the advantages of stride length because in order to run faster, you have to have a decent stride length.

Steven Sashen:

So just to clarify, if you’re staying at the same speed and you have longer stride length, you have to have faster turnover, faster cadence. But obviously if you’re just increasing, if you’re increasing cadence and stride length stays the same, that’s the same thing I just said, then that’s going to make you run faster.

Dr. Brian Heiderscheit:

Yeah.

Steven Sashen:

So what is it about cadence that is both interesting to you clinically and from an intellectual perspective? And talk about just how it’s become this magic holy grail in the minimalist running world.

Dr. Brian Heiderscheit:

So the reason we got into it was because of what I mentioned before about the flaws of running, which is excessive bounce and over-striding. And when you increase somebody’s cadence, you will reduce their bounce and you can reduce how far they hit the ground ahead of their center mass. They will reduce their over-stride. And so what we do is we utilize those cues at a higher step rate so we can force them to feel what we want them to feel.

And then without necessarily saying, “Oh, what we’ve done is now we’ve taken you from 158 steps per minute to 168 steps per minute,” that means from now on you are 168 step per minute runner. That’s what you were born with. And really, if you look under your scalp, you’ll see tattooed on your forehead 168 because that’s what you were prescribed when you were born. And that’s completely false, right? Obviously if you run faster, that number has to change if you’re running uphill.

Steven Sashen:

So wait, are you suggesting that this idea that most people have that you’re supposed to run at 180 steps per minute might not be true?

Dr. Brian Heiderscheit:

Right, and so then-

Steven Sashen:

You heretic. You heretic.

Dr. Brian Heiderscheit:

Yeah. 180 comes into play and says that that is optimum for all, which just flies in the face of common sense, right, when you think of how different we are in terms of our body size and shape and fitness levels and that we’re all supposed to get up and run at exactly the same step rate makes no sense regardless of what speed we run.

Steven Sashen:

So then two questions come to mind. One is, talk to me about how you work with someone, and obviously they’re doing this on a treadmill at first, they have to get out in the wild and find it differently, but talk to me about how you work with someone to find what is, let’s call it an optimal range, given conditions changing, and also talk about what the value of doing that is. What’s happening when people, other than the fact that by increasing their cadence while not running faster, you’re more likely to end up with that knee angle and shin angle, so vertical shin angle, slight knee angle, foot underneath your body basically, but what else happens and how do you guide people to finding what’s right for them?

Dr. Brian Heiderscheit:

Yeah, great point. So the first one that we want to make sure on is that it’s always relative to where they’re starting from. So we’re not making a guesstimate looking at them and measuring their body height and their body mass and their running speed and putting it into an equation and coming up with, “This is your optimum step rate.” Those don’t exist. Unfortunately, those-

Steven Sashen:

You haven’t done that because you don’t want to be rich.

Dr. Brian Heiderscheit:

Yeah. Well, unfortunately, I think people have tried to do that back in the ’70s and ’80s and it failed pretty miserably. So it’s really not something that we’re able to be able to pick up in any sort of predictive way other than what we do is we look at their mechanics, and like I said before, if their knee flexion angle, if their tibial angle, if their bounce is too much, whatever step rate they’re running at when they’re showing those flawed mechanics, then we want to adjust that step rate. It could be as little as four steps per minute. It could be as many as 14 steps per minute to a point where we see improvements in those flaws.

And then the idea is we use the metronome to guide that change initially, and why do we use the metronome? Because even before we started using step rate, we would just do verbal cueing like you described before, “Hey, bend your knee a little bit more. Bring your foot more under your center mass. Don’t bounce as much. Bring your tibia more,” and number one, the people didn’t necessarily understand what we were asking them to do. And number two, there was too many verbal cues for them to even conceptually understand and figure out the solution to.

So we tried to take a lot of that initial thinking away and say, “Here, follow this rhythm,” and then once we think we got the rhythm there a little bit, then we’ll supplement with verbal cues in a sense of saying, “What feels different? Do you feel like you’re bouncing less? Do you feel like your knee is softer? Do you feel like you’re more under your center of mass off your heel?”

Steven Sashen:

I have three thoughts and I’m going to have to give them to you all at once or I’ll lose them. One is how would you guide people to play with this on their own? Two is do you… I lost the third already. Oh, two is what does it take for people to get used to that new cadence? Because we do the one we do because we’re used to it and something new will feel weird. And the third is in that process, once it looks better to you, do you try to move them over that so they can pendulum swing towards where you think might be ideal? It’s something I do with people where… I’m trying to think of the specific thing that I have them do. Oh, it’s about lean or various things where I have them try to exaggerate something-

Dr. Brian Heiderscheit:

Exactly.

Steven Sashen:

… just because otherwise what’s correct feels weird, and if you exaggerate it, then coming back feels more normal. So again, for people who aren’t going to go into a clinic necessarily want to experiment with this, the process of getting more comfortable with that cadence and then going further and coming back to just however you might use that in the lab.

Dr. Brian Heiderscheit:

I’m going to take those out of order, the second one first, being that how do we get people to get more comfortable with it, how long does it take even? Comfort is a hard one because that tends to vary quite a bit between people. People can reproduce what we’re asking nearly immediately within one or two sessions and bring them back a month later and say, “I want you to run the way I showed you to run before,” they can reproduce that spot on. That doesn’t mean that they were doing it the whole time, but they’ve recalled enough where they can reproduce that rhythm.

Comfort element is something that I think we struggle with and that is that there’s always this… If you take a runner and put them in a very distracted environment, even after undergoing very good gait retraining, that distracted environment, many times you’ll see their old pattern start to push itself out. So it’s always there. It’s just being masked and pushed down pretty heavily, which means that again, for a while there, running is going to take some thought and some cognitive override to make it happen. So comfort becomes challenging because of that.

And related to that, in terms of somebody being able to do it on their own, I’m actually very hesitant about doing any gait changes on people outside of the clinic for what we said before, which is many times, they’ll adopt a pattern that you’re like, “Whoa, that is not what I was after,” and that’s actually very injury risk increasing, such as that Groucho run pattern you described. That is a huge issue for hip flexor over-utilization and all the problems that go with that type of running.

So when we utilize gait retraining in my clinic, it is strictly for injured runners, runners who have had injuries, chronic injuries, trying to get back from an injury, then we would utilize this as a solution. I think where I struggle with, and this is an area that we’ve explored briefly, which is do we ever try to change gait in people who are not injured, or from a performance standpoint, we’ve tweaked performance issues a little bit or gait performance issues a little bit, but the idea of trying to preventing running injuries through gait change, that is a really tough one. And the science is way behind on that.

Steven Sashen:

Yeah. I mean, it’s one of the things when people ask me about running in Xero shoes for example. I go, “Well, there’s three reasons I can think of you wouldn’t want to do it.” One is if you don’t want to just spend some time to get used to it, which is kind of silly. It’s like saying, “Hey, my arm came out of a cast, but I’m never going to use my arm again,” so it’s going to take some time to get stronger.

The second is… Oh crap, I don’t remember what the second is. I’m having trouble with lists of three right now. I get three in my head and then one disappears. But the biggest one is if you are a competitive athlete, don’t do it. If your livelihood depends on what you’re doing, don’t mess with it for now. Now if you get injured, that’s a different story. Think if there’s other reasons you may in the off-season want to start experimenting, but don’t be a bonehead. And it’s a really interesting point.

Now, the idea that of people putting themselves in a dangerous situation by experimenting with cadence, I will of course say, “Look, it’s not rocket science. Play with it and see what happens.”

Dr. Brian Heiderscheit:

That’s exactly right.

Steven Sashen:

Use your body as a guide. If something feels wrong, maybe it is. If something feels awkward, that’s a slightly different story because you’re not used to it. But definitely if you can get video feedback, that would be really helpful because then you can watch and just see where your foot’s landing, see what the shin angle is, and these are things that many people can see relatively simply.

And I’m going to come back to that point in a second, but there’s another thing about cadence that’s interesting and I’d love for you to comment on it. I don’t know whose study it was, maybe it was coming out of your lab for all I know, about cadence and force. And I’d made a U-shaped curve because it seemed that with increased cadence, the amount of impact loading forces were lower up to a certain point and then they started getting higher. And of course, speaking as a sprinter, sprinters are trying to get the maximum impact force because that’s what makes you run faster, mass specific force, but distance runners by and large are looking to decrease force within a window. So can you tell me about that aspect and what you’ve noticed there?

Dr. Brian Heiderscheit:

I’m not actually familiar with that particular-

Steven Sashen:

What?

Dr. Brian Heiderscheit:

… relationship, so no, I understand VO2 in cadence and loading rate and foot inclination angles. We see some of those relationships, but impact force gets lower and then higher.

Steven Sashen:

Well, I mean, I think the basic idea is that if you are landing in the way we’re describing, which is basically foot under your body rather than way out in front of your body, you’re just not going to get that massive spike of force initially. And actually, if you’re landing the way that we’re talking about, you’re going to be using your muscles, ligaments, and tendons as the springs and shock absorbers they’re supposed to be more than using your joints to try to absorb that or the shoe, which will never do it to try to absorb that.

So I think that’s the gist is that increasing cadence is another cue that just leads to that form change that can lead to reduced loading forces, but then you get to a certain point, and again, as you start becoming a sprinter, you’re putting more force in the ground, that’s the only way you can do that. So I thought you were going to know that when we were going to have a-

Dr. Brian Heiderscheit:

No, I’m sorry. I should probably should know that one.

Steven Sashen:

Man, I’ll have to look, if I can find it. It’s something that I remember seeing seven, eight years ago. If I can find it, I’ll track it down and send it to you.

Dr. Brian Heiderscheit:

Yeah, that’d be good, because you’re absolutely right. I think when you’re talking about any of these metrics, even in terms of how much you bounce up and down-

Steven Sashen:

Oh yeah.

Dr. Brian Heiderscheit:

It doesn’t mean you want to bounce less and less and less to zero. If you don’t bounce at all, you are very inefficient as well.

Steven Sashen:

It’s interesting you say that. Yeah, there’s some runners that you see that look like they’re just skating on ice and it looks so cool because their head just doesn’t move at all, and some of them are really fast. But yeah, it’s not that that’s ideal. And I’ve played with that and it’s like, I can’t do that one. I don’t bounce very much, but I can’t do that skating on ice thing. It looks super cool.

Dr. Brian Heiderscheit:

But I think the other thing too is a lot of the examples you’re describing also are in the sprinting realm, and again, going from distance running speeds to sprinting, it’s not just a linear change with–

Steven Sashen:

No, no, no, whole different world.

Dr. Brian Heiderscheit:

… but the mechanics change in much different ways.

Steven Sashen:

Yeah. Well, there are certain mechanical changes that are very different and some that are exactly the same. So the basic idea of where you want your foot to land is basically the same. The gist of how you’re applying force is basically the same, but there’s just extremes in sprinting that you don’t see in distance running. But if you look at a good distance runner and a good sprinter and you look at it in super slow motion, some of those differences are really hard to see unless you’re staring at someone at 500 frames a second in super slow-mo. It has to do with how well your knee extends as you’re entering the swing phase. I mean, there’s all these really weird things that when you know them, they’re really obvious, but if you don’t know, it just looks like someone sprinting is just running faster than someone who’s a distance runner, which is not the case at all.

Dr. Brian Heiderscheit:

Not the case at all.

Steven Sashen:

Yeah. So here’s where I want to get into something fun. So back to the Science of Running medicine Events, you and Chris and Irene, you kind of argue about a number of points and you agree on a certain number of points. And I have a theory about… I’m going to say it this way, and I’ll say something and I want to ask you to comment on it.

I said to Irene, who does this amazing presentation about her research, which essentially shows how regular running shoes can be the cause of problems and getting out of those and into something truly minimalist and under truly minimalist… She does what she calls minimalist and partial minimalist, I call it true minimalist and fake minimalist. And so in the true minimalist category, there’s Xero shoes and Vivo Barefoot and some Five Finger shoes and one Innovate shoe that’s no longer made.

But anyway, she shows, “Here’s why running shoes can cause these problems. Here’s why natural movement in a truly minimalist shoe can get rid of those.” And it’s a very well-thought-out linear presentation. And I said, “It’s almost ridiculous that at the end of your presentation, people don’t come running to my booth and tackle me and steal my shoes,” but they don’t. Typically, about half the people in the room will come up to get more information and then about half of them will end up trying what we’re doing and seeing what’s going on.

And I have two theories about why that doesn’t happen. But actually first, I want to stop there and just have you comment on just what Irene has shown and how that does and doesn’t relate to what you’re doing and what your thoughts are.

Dr. Brian Heiderscheit:

Yeah, so you’re right. We do argue quite a bit, and Irene is a fantastic presenter and has a wealth of knowledge and studies that she’s put out over the last several decades that’s really informed her approach to it. I think that there are some extrapolations in their data, not not suggesting that, but to take it to the level of saying that this will reduce injuries and this will enable you to run faster, perform better, those are elements that are still big gaps. And then we all have gaps.

Steven Sashen:

Well, I’m going to interrupt there to say, because I don’t think that she ever says this will make you run faster or perform better.

Dr. Brian Heiderscheit:

No, I think you’re right. I think that’s true, which actually I think is a gap, right?

Steven Sashen:

Well, it’s funny. It’s funny, Phil Maffetone, he wrote a book called 159 and his prediction is the first person to run a real marathon sub two hours will be barefoot or in our shoes, something that’s as light as possible, but just giving you something to protect you from the ground, but basically as light as possible, but to determine whether… And we have people who claim they’re setting, and they are, setting PRs all day every day. We hear about people. I’m not saying that we do that. There’s more to it than that.

But yeah, the long-term study on injury prevention and improved performance, that’s an interesting one and a tricky one and an expensive one and a time-consuming one. So that doesn’t exist right now in large part because the people on my side, the truly minimalist camp, we don’t have the cash to put out the money for that research. And what a shock, the big shoe companies, they’re not going to do it because the last thing they want to find out is that we’re right. And I know a number of them suspect that we are right because that’s… Well, anyway, they’ve looked at the research, they’ve experimented on their own, they have that.

So ignoring the performance injury part or the injury prevention part, although she does talk about that and does have some ideas about how making these changes would be preventative, but regardless, okay, so that was an interruption just about what she’s saying and where you’re going from there.

Dr. Brian Heiderscheit:

Well, I was just going to say that, so a lot of her data are based on loading rate information, what we know about how people run and loading rates. And loading rates, as it changes, as it goes down, that’s a good thing. There’s always potential advantages for it. And that’s the hard part, where again, I think the three of us argue on, and that is the importance of loading rate from a ground reaction force measurement, vertical ground reaction force loading rate. It obviously has relevance and meaning and has been shown to have some relevance towards certain types of injuries. It’s just the extrapolation of, is this the one size fits all solution.

Steven Sashen:

Well, it’s interesting you say it that way because I’m going to toss out one argument and then another theory about why people don’t rush and tackle me after her presentation. The other thing she talks about is more than just loading rate is loading patterns and styles. So for example, if you have a shoe with a flared sole, the flared sole is going to hit the ground first. It’s going to create a fulcrum that actually causes your foot and lower leg and all of your body to move in unnatural patterns that then you have to compensate for.

And then of course, like we talked about before, if a shoe breaks down, then that’s going to cause problems as well. If wearing a higher heeled shoe tends to make you be a heel striker, and I like to point out… Here, wait, I can reach and grab this. I can point out that your heel is a ball and if you land on a ball that’s unstable and suddenly you need all these other things to combat that. So there’s other pieces to what she’s doing other than that.

But I’m going to tell you the argument that I made to her about why people don’t rush the stage and then I’m going to say something about you. Here’s the argument I made to her. I said, the people who are in that room think they’ve made the decision about what they have on their feet through a rational process. They think they have concluded by whatever analysis and whoever they listen to that they’re wearing those shoes for a specific good reason.

And if they think what they’ve done is rational, you can’t argue them out of that with data. You can’t give them other rational things that are going to make them… In fact, they’ll look for the tiniest little chink in the armor and go, “Oh, see, that’s got to be all crap because I don’t believe in that and that’s why I’m wearing these shoes that are five inches high and look like stilts and only people in Ringling Brothers wear them when they’re going out on the clown circus.”

So that’s one thing, and I think there’s a way around that. I mean, what I like to say is just look at what’s natural. A quarter of the bones and joints are in our feet and ankles, a quarter of the bones and joints of your whole body, and more nerve endings in your soles than anywhere but your fingertips and your lips. Clearly you’re supposed to use these things and they’re supposed to give you certain kinds of information and do certain things. Do your shoes let you do that? Do your feet feel better at the end of the day than they did at the beginning of the day? Do you feel better taking off your shoes than you did putting on your shoes?

So there’s ways of having the conversation that isn’t just about data, but here’s the other one, and this goes to both you and Chris. And actually, it’s interesting with what you said about how you’ve changed the way you are working with clinicians. Irene presents a very detailed and let’s say complicated argument, but even more, it’s something that most clinicians aren’t going to either have the equipment to implement or the skill to implement or the desire to implement.

It’s like a whole process for analyzing what’s going on, coming up with the right intervention and presenting that to the client, the injured runner so that they can make these changes and monitoring that over time. It’s a very involved thing that I’m willing to bet some of those people in the audience just go, “Oh, wow, I just can’t do that,” and some of them may be right. You know that different people have different skill sets about how to look at something and analyze it and know what a common factor is versus an extraneous factor, various things.

Then you come out, and Chris even more than you, you come out with something really simple and you go, “Hey, let’s just take a look at cadence. Let’s take a look at bounce and just let’s look at those two things,” and they go, “Oh, thank God. I can do that.” And so I’m not saying that you are right or wrong. I’m saying that what you’re presenting is a simpler story for people to latch onto, and I’m intrigued by that because I’m intrigued by the stories that we tell and how that leads to different behaviors. I would argue that you guys actually agree on many more things than you disagree on, but when you’re able to present a story that’s as simple as, “Let’s play with cadence and balance,” then it just seems like it’s easier to wrap your hands around.

And then Chris’s story, arguably, is even simpler, which for people who don’t know, it really has to do with just the angle of your torso when you’re running, and that’s even simpler for people to go because they can just look at that and show other people. The simpler stories seem to, not always, but can win. And I’m concerned about that because I’m not saying, again, that the simple story is incorrect, but I would argue that it’s probably incomplete. And if we give people something they can latch onto that is simple, then they’re not going to want to pick up something more complicated. Human beings try to avoid doing shit that’s hard.

And so this is my fundamental concern, and I’ll stop ranting in a second. My simple story in a way is take off your shoes, find a nice smooth hard surface, go for a really short run, 20 seconds, see how you feel the next day. If you feel good, try to add 30 seconds. If you feel sore, wait until you feel better, then do it again until you don’t feel sore. If you feel hurt, then you want to change something, and here’s a few cues until you’re having fun. That’s the guide. And then start increasing the time.

In a way, that’s a simple story as well, and it overcomes a lot of these things because some of the things that I say is the intervention., Pick up your cadence, check where your foot is, see where your body is, all of those little things, but they’re secondary to go do a short run, see if you’re having fun. If you’re not, come back until you can, and then things to play with. So anyway, but that was my half criticism of what happens in that event in your conversation. I’m curious what your thoughts are.

Dr. Brian Heiderscheit:

Yeah. Well, I would start by saying I think you oversimplified my solution.

Steven Sashen:

Good.

Dr. Brian Heiderscheit:

You’re guilty of that. I hope that I don’t just simply manipulate cadence and because I think there’s a big element to it, because that would be akin to me saying, really, Irene’s solution is just land on your forefoot and that’ll take care of everything else, because that is a big element of what she describes.

Steven Sashen:

It’s true. It’s true. Okay, so then-

Dr. Brian Heiderscheit:

That’s the nugget take home.

Steven Sashen:

Yeah, yeah. Okay. So then for clarification-

Dr. Brian Heiderscheit:

But the elements behind it, the justification for it is much bigger.

Steven Sashen:

Okay, but then, so to make sure that people don’t walk away thinking it’s just about bounce and cadence, get a little more specific. But I would like you to address just the phenomenon, if you will, of how these conversations happen and what people do with them with the goal, of course, is to make people have a better time, be healthy, happy, fun, strong bodies.

Dr. Brian Heiderscheit:

Yeah. But I think it goes back to what you said before, which is that we each approach what we’re hearing with our own biases that we’re coming into the conversation with. I think you have obviously a bias toward Irene’s approach given what you’ve explored on your own and where you’re at now. I’m not saying that you are close-minded to other options. I’m saying that you have… You may be more open to what Irene says.

Steven Sashen:

I would actually contend, I’m not going to disagree, but I would contend that my approach is consistent with both, definitely with you, with Chris, maybe a little less so because I don’t think what he’s saying is as important. I don’t think it’s going to create the effects necessarily that are as important. I’m not saying that I dismiss it, I just diminish the value of it a little more, and I’m happy to talk to him about that, because I don’t know what he’s done in a clinical setting to see how that works, but I’m kind of open to it because what I’m more interested in is just what’s the thing that’s going to basically lead to people having a happy, healthy, good time using their bodies naturally, and that includes what you’re doing.

Again, I’m exploring this because I want to know what the best story is to tell so that people can explore and experiment and discover what does work that is true, that ideally is based on actual research and data, not just anecdotal. I mean, granted, look, we have what, 15,000 reviews and God knows how many emails and phone calls. So while I don’t think that a preponderance of anecdotes equals data, when you have this much anecdotal information, you can’t dismiss it.

Dr. Brian Heiderscheit:

I hear where you’re coming from. And I think the other element that clinically where we’ve evolved to, because this is not where we started. We started my clinical practice 20 years ago, 25 years ago. It wasn’t like, “Hey, I’m going to do step rate because I love it.” It was more about… It’s one thing that led after the next. And part of it is I think where the clinicians, and again, I’m speaking to the audience who comes to the Science of Running Medicine and where they may gravitate toward, a lot of it has to do with what they’re hearing from their patients and what they think their patients will actually follow through on and adhere to, because obviously patient adherence and compliance is enormous.

Steven Sashen:

That’s interesting.

Dr. Brian Heiderscheit:

And insurance companies getting involved and payer systems. Irene’s system is unique. She does have insurance involved with it, but a lot of it’s cash pay as well. Chris’s is cash pay. Ours is completely insurance-based. If people are out of network, then they may pay cash. They have the option for that. So you’ve got a lot of other barriers and constraints.

Steven Sashen:

That’s really interesting.

Dr. Brian Heiderscheit:

So when you do take on Irene’s approach, which she will admit right off the bat, it’s more involved, right? Like you said, it’s a little more complex in terms of how she goes through this retraining, how many sessions. If you are going to more of a forefoot landing and the shift to the Achilles and the calf, you’ve got to prepare all that. You’ve got to have a patient group who is committed-

Steven Sashen:

Committed to that.

Dr. Brian Heiderscheit:

… to that time. And frankly, if we’re dealing with some high school students in the area in the middle of season, it’s not going to work. If we’re dealing with our collegiate athletes, it’s not going to work, not in the middle of season anyway, unless they’re broken down.

Steven Sashen:

Well, yeah, in the middle of the season. You don’t want to mess with things in the middle of season anyway. But backing up, I don’t want to lose your accusation that I oversimplified things, so if you want to clarify. Wouldn’t be the first time. So if you want to clarify or add in the points that I overlooked or dismissed or discounted so that people really get what you can give them, that would be great.

Dr. Brian Heiderscheit:

Well, to get into those little details, you’ll have to listen to the whole course and the whole talk. So again, the idea of looking at all interacting elements of the movement mechanics, the cadence was one of those first steps to bring out a lot of the pieces into play. They don’t always work. It doesn’t always work. Like you mentioned, people can create some sort of solution that you’re not totally after, similar to overstriding. I think that’s a key element, but how do you do that at different speeds and how do you really train that properly and how much is too much? That’s where it comes into a lot of different elements as well, so it gets more complex. And if you just assign a particular step rate of 180-

Steven Sashen:

No, no, and I wasn’t suggesting you step rate because I don’t say that. I have written a number of articles and done a number of things about how the whole mythology of 180 steps per minute is complete mythology. But I do say experiment with that, and I do say play with that. And I do recommend video. I mean, I have a whole theory, a neurological theory about what it takes to make changes in movement patterns, in part because I did research when I was at Duke on cognitive aspects of motor scale acquisition, and one of the things that I notice is some people, they just have no relationship to what’s below their neck. You say, “Are you hungry?” They go, “Yeah.” I go, “How do you know?”, expecting them to say, “Well, I feel this hole in the pit of my stomach,” and they go, “What do you mean? I’m hungry.”

They literally don’t have a relationship to feelings in their body, and they need a whole different kind of intervention than people who can feel things, but they don’t have good proprioceptive skills. You ask them to put your arm parallel to the ground and it looks like it’s Nazi Germany because they don’t know what parallel is. So they need a lot of video feedback because they have a disconnect between what they think they’re doing and what they’re doing.

Some people, they can feel things, they’ve got good proprioceptive skills, they just need cues to speed up the process because they’ll figure it out on their own, but you can accelerate the learning process. Some people are just naturals. And the problem is they have so much fun doing something new, they get tired and they revert to one of those previous steps.

And then there’s the phenomenon that we forget that the process of learning is by nature frustrating because the feeling of frustration is the feeling of laying down new neural pathways and trying to get out of an existing groove, and we forget that we’re supposed to feel frustrated when we try it and then we rest and it migrates a little and then we come back and it’s a little better until we can’t remember how to do the old way, and that is a process.

Irene and I are kind of competing on something. We have some theories about how to do what describing to improve adherence and to make this data available so that people can learn it better on their own or at least keep it better when they leave a clinic. And we are not surprisingly thinking very much the same way for a number of reasons. I don’t really care who wins this contest because I want people to be able to move, whether they’re running, walking, hiking, I don’t give any special magic to running, but it’s just movement in general.

And I do think there are ways to give people information in a way that works for them, that allows them to learn these new patterns and integrate them. And integrating means getting to the point where they’re in the back of your brain and you’re not thinking of them anymore. You just do them. And we know it’s possible because if it weren’t, no one could do a double twist and double back flip. So we know it’s possible to learn highly complex things that we’re not wired to learn. It just takes certain kinds of information presented in a certain way to do it, and no one has done that yet. I think we’re on the brink of that.

Dr. Brian Heiderscheit:

That’s very well-said. And I think there’s, like you said, a lot of commonality between the three of our approaches. And we’ll also admit that we utilize all three of the approaches depending on the patient that’s in front of us at the time and what their needs are. But figuring out how to teach every person who walks in the clinic, that’s the challenge because there is no one teaching solution for every person that’s the same. It has to be robust enough to be able to adjust itself depending on who that listener is.

Steven Sashen:

It’s interesting. Someone asked me once about if you could make an app that just gave people the right cue. I go, “You can’t do that.”

Dr. Brian Heiderscheit:

That’s right. Right. Cue is what changes.

Steven Sashen:

Well, and sometimes it’s the right cue at the wrong time, sometimes it’s the wrong cue at the right time. I just thought of something that totally unrelated to this. When Lana, my wife and I, before we were a couple, I was visiting her and I don’t know what I did or said, something that got her very upset. And after a little while of the silent treatment, I went in and said or did something else that made it even worse. And she said, “Did you think that was going to be helpful?” And I said, “Of course I did.” And either I was wrong or on your deathbed, you look back and you go, “Yeah, hat was pretty good.”

Dr. Brian Heiderscheit:

Right. There you go.

Steven Sashen:

And I don’t don’t know which, and my apologies. I was trying to be helpful. I get it if it wasn’t. Sorry about that. So to be mindful of time, that is both yours and the fact that I got an appointment happening soon, what are you looking at for the future? What are you seeing as what’s upcoming that has you interested and excited?

Dr. Brian Heiderscheit:

Yeah, so what we’re trying to do now is recognizing that running injuries are way more than just movement mechanics, that that’s a part of it, but there’s a whole lot more going on there. We’re in the middle of a prospective observation study where we’ve been collecting data on a fairly high level runners for the last three years from training volume and training habits to sleep habits to nutrition habits to bone density measures to running mechanics to changes in speed and running mechanics over time, on and on and on, and eventually start to sift through all of those factors.

Steven Sashen:

I want to ask you a weird question. Given the fact that we are, as the book title and best-selling album from two unrelated people says, Born to Run, as soon as we start walking, we start running, since this is something that is just part of our DNA, if you will, how do we match that phenomenon that it really is just something that we start doing and we start doing well when we start doing it with the seeming added complexity of trying to address it in the ways that you’re describing?

Dr. Brian Heiderscheit:

Well, I think so much of it is to do with, it is innate in the sense that we know how to do it. That doesn’t mean we know how to do it well, in the sense that you see some really unbelievably bad runners or they just can’t figure it out, or what they’ve done is they’ve taken walking and just walked faster, to a point where there’s just barely a flight phase and it’s really still walking. It’s like walking with a little hop, walking with a little leap, or the fact that people may have run very well when they were kids and playing around on the playground and whatnot, and then they stop at the age of 12 or 14, and then in their mid-30s, after they’ve had a couple of kids of their own and their bodies have completely changed and it’s 20 years later, they now decide that they want to pick up running as an activity or as a hobby, and remembering how to do that and recognizing that you’re not the same person as you were then, movement patterns better change or you got problems.

Steven Sashen:

When I got back into sprinting at 45 after a 30-year break and was injured pretty much constantly for about the next two years, the biggest lesson that I learned, and it took me literally two years to learn this, is when I have the thought, “Let me just do one more,” that’s when I should stop. In my brain, I’m still 18. It’s like, “I could totally do another four or five,” and it’s like, “Just cut it out.” And you know that extra day, no, I can’t do that either.

And watching sprinters get older, watching what changes in sprinting biomechanics is very interesting. You just aren’t as strong as you get. I was at the senior games. I had just turned 50 I guess, so I just qualified. And all the 60-year-old guys are hanging out with me saying, “Oh God, when you get to be 60, it just goes over a cliff.” And the 80-year-old guys walked up and went, “You guys have no idea what you’re talking about.”

But it’s true. And you watch what changes when muscles atrophy. I mean, sarcopenia is a real thing. You just can’t keep the same muscle mass and the same strength as you get older, and then you have to make changes. And the changes are relatively similar that these guys have, and you just hope that you can figure it out in real time because you can’t do it in advance. If you try to make those changes in advance, it doesn’t work. And interestingly, you know what the biggest change turns into? Cadence.

Dr. Brian Heiderscheit:

Oh yeah, yeah.

Steven Sashen:

They just try to get more steps in the ground instead of covering more distance. Yeah, it’s really interesting to see. And some of these guys are still crazy fast. It’s both hopeful, inspiring and annoying. I just don’t see it. So one last question I was going to… Well, here, if people want to find out more about what you’re up to and get information about that, where would you direct them?

Dr. Brian Heiderscheit:

Right. I mean, for the general public, certainly check us out at University of Wisconsin’s website, University of Wisconsin Madison website, and the Department of Orthopedics and Rehab. They can see all of our research that we have going on. For the clinicians in the audience, physical therapists, physicians, other healthcare professionals across the board, if you’re interested in running medicine, check us out at scienceofrunning.net for our annual Science of Running Medicine conference. We go on once a year. Next year we’re looking to, most likely, go be at Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota.

Steven Sashen:

Oh, that’d be fun. But I know also, there’s other events. What’s the one coming up? People might be-

Dr. Brian Heiderscheit:

The one coming up, so we also have the Running Summit that we host in partnership with Mountainland Physical Therapy based out of Utah. So we will be in Park City Utah in middle of September in 2019. Yeah. This will be our fourth annual event. It’s really a fun time. The agenda and itinerary changes every single conference. We have new speakers internationally that are brought in, physicians, physical therapists and conditioning coaches, a number of pharmacists, sleep medicine experts come in and speak on various running related topics, but again, it’s focused on a healthcare provider audience.

Steven Sashen:

Yeah, it’s going to be fun. I actually just signed up to be a sponsor.

Dr. Brian Heiderscheit:

Fantastic. Yeah. Exciting. Well, I’d love to have you out there.

Steven Sashen:

Yeah, no, I’m really looking forward to it. Well, it’s just over the mountain for me, so it’s a pretty easy trip. And then I go right down the hill into Salt Lake City and go to the Red Iguana for dinner. It’s the best Mexican food I’ve ever had, so that was really the inspiration. I don’t care about you running.

Dr. Brian Heiderscheit:

Well, you know what? There’s a reason why we chose Park City Utah in September.

Steven Sashen: