Dynamic Dialogue with Danny Matranga - 370: Unlocking the Power of Your Foot with Dr. Emily Splichal

Episode Date: June 5, 2024

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Welcome in everybody to another episode of the Dynamic Dialogue podcast. As always, I'm your host, Danny Matranga. And in this episode, I'm sitting down with Dr. Emily Splickle. Dr. Splickle is a podiatrist, which means she is an expert on the foot. on the foot. Dr. Splickle specializes in integrating the foot's ability to interact with the world around us, the mobility of the toe, the strength of the arch of the foot, the differences in human feet and their different morphologies and injuries and pains. The feet and the foot is a pretty important structure in the body. And it's not one that many of us give too much love or attention to. But I am of the opinion that if you have strong, mobile, flexible feet, that will go upstream to all of your joints. So my fascination with barefoot training, developing the strength of my arch, developing the mobility of my ankle and big toe are kind of fusing with Dr. Emily's expertise for a dialogue about what you can do to improve the structure of your foot,

improve the strength of your foot and the resilience of your foot. So enjoy the discussion with myself and Dr. Emily as we discuss tools, tips, and tricks for unlocking the potential of your feet and how that will carry over to your health and athleticism. Enjoy. This episode is brought to you in part thanks to some of our amazing partners like LMNT. LMNT makes the best electrolyte product on the market. In fact, I've actually started drinking my LMNT each and every morning before I have coffee so as to optimize my circadian biology, make sure that I'm hydrated, and make sure that I'm getting ahead on my water intake throughout the day and not reliant on stimulants, but instead being somebody who's reliant on hydration and the proper balance of minerals and electrolytes. If you want to feel your best all day, mentally and physically, it's imperative that you stay hydrated. LMNT provides a balanced ratio of sodium, potassium, and magnesium to support brain and body hydration. This combination of electrolytes improves health, performance,

body and brain performance, mind you, helps to reduce cramps and soreness and get you more hydrated. There's no sugar. LMNT is sweetened with stevia. It's perfect for exercise and perfect for the sauna because the flavors are natural, tasty, delicious, and not overpowering. And if you're like me, you'll use them multiple times a day across your training sessions to get hydrated early to replenish after sauna use. And again, it's not just me. LMNT is the official sports drink of Team USA Weightlifting, and it's used by athletes in the NBA, NFL, Major League Baseball, as well as athletes like you and I looking to take your fitness to the next level. My favorite flavors are definitely the raspberry and citrus. When I put a box together, I try to

load up on raspberry and citrus. And when you put your box together, you can get a free sample pack containing all of Elements' amazing flavors like mango chili, citrus, raspberry, orange, and more. To get access to this free gift with purchase, scroll down to the show notes and check out using the special link for Dynamic Dialogue listeners. Dr. Spickle, how are you doing this afternoon? I'm doing awesome. Thank you so much for having me on. Absolutely excited to talk. For those of you guys who aren't familiar with Dr. Spickle, she is a functional podiatrist, a movement specialist, but just somebody who in general, I would say is world-class when it comes

to knowledge of the foot and ankle, which as a strength coach, as a personal trainer, is something that I didn't think was going to be as important as it ended up being when I first started my career. But having worked with tons of people, I've learned the foot is really the gateway to moving well, to feeling well, to having balance and aging with grace. And it's way more important than I think it's gotten credit for and starting to become more popular. So I'm really excited to bring you on and talk all about the foot today. Awesome. Thank you again. The foot is so fascinating and yes, you're right. It is so powerful. So that brings me to my first question, which is, you know, there's of all the avenues of medicine, what drew you to, you know, learning about the foot, treating the foot, um, and,

you know, over the course of your career in podiatry, how has that kind of passion for treating the foot grown into now optimizing the foot and helping it perform? Absolutely. So when I first started podiatry school, I didn't know that I would create the niche within medicine and performance that I have. Just because podiatry school is taught very isolated, not integrated with the rest of the body. But because I came into podiatry school, as a former gymnast, I had an appreciation for the body of movement. But then I was also in the fitness industry, very similar to how you are. And there is this appreciation for movement within fitness, you know, things are integrated. So I started questioning a lot of the stuff that I was being

taught as a podiatry student so as I got further into my education I actually took a step back went back to school got my master's in human movement and honestly that is what connected fitness podiatry the glue or the bridge is my master's in movement. And then I've just stayed curious to learn about fascia from fascial experts about the pelvic floor, about breathing and breath work. And now how I approach my patients is very integrative, even stress, emotional trauma, inflammation, diet, sleep, all of the stuff that is very trending in the wellness space, I very much appreciate with my patient care. That's cool. That's awesome. And I think a lot of people will embrace more of what you have to say, knowing that you're more holistic and

integrated in how you look at things. And I think the foot is something that ties into so many different avenues of how we live. The primary of which thing I see as a strength coach is how we move. So getting into my kind of second question here, I see a lot of general population adults in my strength and conditioning practice who have poor ankle mobility or connectedness to their feet, probably their whole body. They have clearly poor balance. Plantar fasciitis is common. Knee pain is common. And I'm wondering what we're doing in our lives that has us so disconnected from our feet.

So we are actually not just disconnected from our feet. We are disconnected from our entire So we are actually not just disconnected from our feet. We are disconnected from our entire body. And this is a large part of my practice. Something that I'm very passionate around bringing in awareness is we have become such a disconnected, disassociated society or beings just with the progression of technology and things like that. That I'm trying to get people to get back in touch with their physical body, that's actually called body schema. And that is your mind's mental picture of your size and shape of your body in space. And ultimately, to move well, to be an athlete performing well, to not fall, to move gracefully, however it is that you want

to interpret that, you have to have this mental picture of your size and body and shape. You have to have perception of your body. That's so true. Similar with your feet, you have to have a perception and awareness of your feet, because it is the only contact point between the body and the ground. So if you don't feel your feet, you don't have a relationship with the ground. And that's where I see a lot of disconnect happening. I would blame a lot of that disconnect on modern footwear. Yeah.

No, that makes so much sense. It makes me think back to when I was a child and anytime I had to do something athletic or challenging, I think of any time another kid would want to race or climb a tree or do something competitive, I would always say, hey, wait, I want to take my shoes off. Let me take my shoes off because I feel like I'm activated. And that was when I was younger and I spent more time barefoot. And thankfully, now as an adult, I've started wearing barefoot shoes more. I spend more time barefoot. I'm, I'm conscious of it. You have to be in our modern world, but I, when you, what you said about being aware of your body in space and how key that is athletically, and also having the same kind of perception of your foot, that is what gives elite athletes and those people who move

with incredible grace, that amazing property. And a lot of people are clearly missing that. And so I think it does come largely from the fact that we spend so much time in these modern kind of shoes. What's wrong with modern shoes? And how does that kind of rob the foot of its ability to, you know, our ability, I guess, to truly be connected with our foot, know where it is, what it presents in space? Yes, there's several characteristics around modern shoes. And all the listeners can picture either some of the shoes that they wear right now, or you could think of kind of like a Hoka, right? Which I think everyone is familiar with that brand. Yeah. Yeah. If not, you have permissions to Google that now. But Hoka is

a very stacked shoe, which means there's a lot of cushion underneath the shoe. And what cushion does is it creates a sensory damping or a pillow to all of the information that is coming from the ground. And every time your foot strikes the ground, the subtleties of the surface, all of that is being taken away by cushion. Sure. Another feature of modern footwear is also the inherent stability that is we are led to believe that we need that and some people need it but not all feet need that a majority of feet don't need it and the structure and stability of the shoe will be oftentimes a stiff shank so there's a stiff midsole that's running through the shoe and that's used to essentially lock the foot to roll forward and take a step. There's a biomechanical reason behind that.

There's also what's called a heel counter. So if the listeners were to look at their shoes and look at the back of the shoe where your heel sits, if you can squeeze the fabric of the back of the shoe, you don't have a counter. If it's stiff, that's called a counter. don't have a counter if it's stiff that's called a counter got it and these counters hug the heel bone to limit the mobility of the heel joint which is called the subtalar joint again some people who have excess uncontrolled motion of the foot they might benefit from that but most people don't and it's actually detrimental or it's more damaging than beneficial to have a counter, to have a midsole shank, to have a stack, to have cushion. And then the last thing of that is what a midsole and the counter do is that it prevents the shoe from being wrung out like a rag.

And that's how I look at shoes. It's not necessarily folding it like a sandwich, but more can you twist the shoe like a rag. And that's how I look at shoes. It's not necessarily folding it like a, like a sandwich, but more, can you twist the shoe like a rag and your foot actually twists like that. Every time you take a step, we don't see it. We don't understand it oftentimes, but that's actually what's happening in your foot. And if you take that away, that causes foot issues ankle knee hip lower back and it's almost like an energy uh you're hitting a wall it's an energy block yeah in a sense no that makes a ton of sense something you something you hit on i that i see a ton is the hoka like just the fat sold very cushioned stacked shoe they're popular aesthetically right now, which to me is

interesting because I've always thought they were kind of ugly, but the chunky shoe is very popular. But with the majority of the resistance training I do, those shoes make my client's performance worse. They're so stiff and cushioned. They can't flex their big toe. They have poor proprioception on many exercises. They're actually an impediment to good resistance training. And I'm sure some people, like you said, they're very cushioned. So maybe they might help some people. But I have always heard that repeat let's say people are opting into these shoes for non-stylistic reasons a lot of times people say oh i get these because they have arch support or they're super supportive i will be totally honest i have never fully

understood the concept of arch support i've never sought that that out in a shoe, but I've had many people tell me that they need it. Is that the case or do we need a stronger arch? And where's the middle ground there when it comes to footwear? That is actually a really good question because most people don't understand the flow chart, you would say, of which feet are weak, which ones actually need this external support. And when I talk to patients about this, I will actually classify them. And let's say this, this is essentially falling under quote unquote flat feet or overpronation, where there are two main reasons that arches fall or feet go flat so one is muscle strength that's one the other one which would be the exception to a lot of kind of what we're talking

about who actually may benefit from a custom orthotic or an arch support will be a ligament lax foot gotcha okay ligament laxity is this is where people could say it's genetic yeah my i i inherited my foot from my mom from my dad from my grandma whatever it is it's really not the foot type it is the connective tissue and the integrity of the connective tissue that holds the foot up. And this is important because your foot has over a hundred ligaments. And if you have ligament laxity in these really important hundreds of ligaments, then body weight, force, acceleration, all of that that's going through your foot and ankle is really going to bottom out these ligaments. And no amount of muscular strength will override ligament laxity, which is

where you would use an external arch support to hold the foot up. Now the caveat or kind of the side comment with that is even if people do use arch supports, they still have to strengthen their feet. Yeah, no doubt for sure. That was kind of my follow-up there, which is I love strengthening important joints in the body when it comes to helping the general population move better. So I always hit the shoulders with lots of extension or the hips with lots of extension because people generally need stronger lats and lower traps and glutes and hamstrings. And when you do that, people move way better. And I've noticed the foot is similar in that if you strengthen the foot, you get outsized returns. You get really big returns in how people move and produce force

when their foot is strong. So for somebody who's interested in strengthening their body, how can they begin to look at training their foot and strengthening their foot? And maybe if they've been wearing these cushioned shoes for aesthetic reasons, or maybe because they thought they needed support? How can they start dabbling in doing more barefoot, whether it's, you know, time spent barefoot or training barefoot or wearing barefoot shoes, all of that. So the power, the power behind a strong foot really lies within the toes. And a lot of people go after the arch and think that you need to strengthen the arch, build the arch, how high is your arch, arch, arch, arch. And it's actually in your digits. So toe flexor strength is what I'm talking about. Toe flexor strength is an anchoring response of your toes when you stand, when you jump, when you run, when you push off.

Imagine kind of how your foot is going to have a relationship with the ground, right? If you're doing a vertical jump, you're going to go through this kind of plantar flexed motion. And then the last thing that leaves the ground is obviously your toes. So this anchoring mechanism is really where I try to put people's attention when they build foot strength. And there's a lot of research studies showing that the stronger your toes, the higher the vertical jump, the faster the acceleration, the more power, et cetera. If you are in thick cushion shoes, stiff shoes, things like that, obviously your digits are totally not doing that damped or taken out of the picture, which is a big reason why I like to lift barefoot so that I

can be using my digits as part of it. Or I teach people how to use their digits. Um, your toe strength is actually connected to your pelvic floor and your pelvic floor is connected to your diaphragm. So there's these deep connections between your foot muscles and your pelvic floor is connected to your diaphragm so there's these deep connections between your foot muscles and your deep core muscles which then you went to some of my favorite muscles so thinking about like the glutes right and glute strength is optimized by core stabilization like if you want strong glutes you have to have a strong core and like a stable pelvis through which your glutes contract. But really, the optimization of your lumbopelvic hip complex area is what's happening in your foot. And that would be foot strength.

So I will teach people how to connect those to then really harness these other muscles that you are teaching them. One of the best ways to activate your foot muscles is through what is called forward lean. And forward lean is a very easy exercise. I'm going to talk you through it. Is if the listeners were to stand, stand up nice and tall. They'll have their feet shoulder width apart. I always have people start by finding their foot tripod. So they would lift their toes, find their first met head, fifth met head heels, that's your tripod, spread your toes,

place them back down onto the ground, and then do just a little external rotation in your hip to lift your arch slightly. You'll then stay exactly like that with your feet. Stand nice and tall with your arms by your side. Imagine that you're stiff as a board. Stay nice and tall, stiff as a board. And then you will slightly lean your body forward. And you'll stay stiff as a board as you do that. And then go back vertical. So lean forward, go vertical. And you do that several times.

Every time you lean forward, you should feel your toes reflexively anchor into the ground. And it's, again, it's a reflex. You don't have to think about anything. That anchoring is the action or the sensation that I want people to do when they're standing, when they're squatting, but obviously don't lean your center of mass forward. So can you stand there and just push your toes down like the forward lean? Once you understand the concept, right? Then you build that into every time you swing a kettlebell, anchor your digits as you lift the bell. As you come out of a squat, you're going to ink your digits as you come out of the

squat. You build it into the rest of the cascade of stability you're using during an exercise. Like bracing your core almost. It's like a secondary form of preparing a tissue. It's preparation to do the lift. And the foot is such a gateway that if you have that locked down and that's your kind of base, it really ups performance. Yes. I feel that that's your kind of base, it really ups performance. Yes. I feel that that's yes. And what I tell people, I feel that that's generally true in my training too. I just see it all the time. Like I feel whenever I train barefoot and I have the luxury of doing this at

home and at my gym, the stability, the ability to produce force, the connectedness to the lifts, the actual pump I get in my glutes on things like squats and lunges is genuinely different. And it is intangible. And it's because I've learned to do some of these things, not all of these things, through having a fairly strong foot. But it's worth striving for because it makes your training better.

Anyway, continue. Yeah, I was just going to say, to kind of validate what you were saying, is the foot activation or integration is as fluid as your breath. So I'll do a lot of trainings. I'll train strength and conditioning coaches around activating the foot and foot strength. And then they kind of want the programming of where does it fit into the athlete's program and exercises, right? And what I tell them is it is literally just the lens at which you look at movement now. So if you're cueing, lift your pelvic floor, exhale your breath, that is inherently part of literally every exercise that your athlete is doing or that you're doing because that's just

the way the body works because you're on your feet. So if if you cue breath you should be cueing feet in literally every exercise yeah that makes sense and it honestly makes it more applicable then yes i only have to do this series of exercises or this but you do ultimately have to get to a place as an athlete as a lifter where your feet are responsive and you're connected to them. And I think that a term that gets thrown around a lot, I remember when I was in school learning this term proprioception. And one of the big things I remember about proprioception is how tight it is to the bottom of the foot. And I think this ties into what we talked about with cushioning. You dampen your ability to essentially communicate with your foot and the texture

of the environment beneath you, whether it's sand or grass or wood or whatever surface you're on. How can people get back in touch with that proprioception? What's the value of enriching the foot through contact with textures and surfaces? And maybe that's something we can work into our routine to improve the feedback between the brain and the bottom of the foot via proprioception. What's going on guys? Coach Danny here, taking a break from the episode to tell you about my coaching company, Core Coaching Method, and more specifically, our one-on-one fully tailored online coaching program. My online coaching program has kind of been the flagship for Core Coaching Method for a while. Of course, we do have PDF programming and we have app-based programming,

but if you want a truly tailored one-on-one experience with a coach like myself or a member coaching method for a while. Of course, we do have PDF programming and we have app-based programming. But if you want a truly tailored one-on-one experience with a coach like myself or a member of my coaching team, someone who is certified, somebody who has multiple years of experience working with clients in person, online, somebody who is licensed to provide a macro nutrition plan, somebody who is actually good at communicating with clients because they've done it for years, whether that be via phone call, email, text, right? This one-on-one coaching program is really designed to give you all the support you need with custom training designed for you, whether you're training from home, the gym, around your limitations and your goals, nothing cookie cutter here, as well as easy to follow macro nutrition programs that are non-restrictive. You'll get

customized support directly from your coach's email, or they'll text you, or they'll WhatsApp you. We'll find the communication medium that best supports your goals, as well as provides you with the accountability and the expertise you need to succeed, as well as biofeedback monitoring, baked-in accountability support, and all of the stuff that you need from your coach when you check in. We keep our rosters relatively small so that we can make sure you get the best support possible. But you can apply today by going over to corecoachingmethod.com, selecting the online coaching option. And if we have spots available, we'll definitely reach out to you to see if you're a good candidate. And if we don't put you on a waiting list, but we'll be sure to give you the best shot at the

best coaching in the industry. So head over to corecoachingmethod.com and apply for one-on-one coaching with me and my team today. Strengthening the foot, which is spoken about as one aspect of resilient feet or truly integrated feet are really harnessing the power of the foot. That's part of it. The other part is essentially what you're saying is if you get out of your shoes, if you are lifting barefoot, training barefoot, working with an athlete without shoes on, you then really want to think about and ask yourself, well, what surface am I going to stand on to get the most out of my foot and the nerves that lie within the bottom of the foot? And honestly, that was the question that led to Niposo is that I would,

I would travel around and speak about this. And people would ask and say, well, Emily, what surface do I stand on? What should I do with my athlete? So I got really deep in the woods or down the rabbit hole of surface science and harder surfaces, harder surfaces in general, like a hardwood floor will always stimulate the nervous system more than a softer surface. So let's say like a wrestling mat and some of these things will make sense. So try to think of a harder surface versus softer surface. If I had to choose, I would want to lift on a hardwood floor, almost like an Olympic lifting platform. That's literally the perfect example. Yeah. Versus the rubber flooring on the concrete of a gym, right?

Get onto the wood Olympic lifting platforms. And that's honestly all that I lift on when I'm at the gym is those platforms. So that's an example. Other one, bottom of the foot is very sensitive to texture, as you had said. And that's part of why I developed our Neboso products and the Neboso mats, which have tiny little pyramids on them. So I would say, okay, could you lift on a Neboso mat barefoot and put the mat on the wood of the Olympic lifting platform? Boom. Got it. Okay.

Another one could be vibration. The nerves in the bottom of the feet are very sensitive to vibration. So could you do some stuff on a vibration platform barefoot and then go and do the rest of your lifts or the rest of your workout. So those are some of the big ones that I would do. You could walk across pebble paths. That's a little bit more acupressure than mechanoceptives. It's a different mechanism. Releasing the feet with like the neural ball or golf balls, really good. They all kind of play within the same space. Acupressure mats where they have the hard plastic pieces, if you've ever seen that,

that is different than some of the others. It's acupressure, waking up the nervous system, stimulating circulation, very good for movement prep or for movement recovery. So you can kind of play in these different areas to get even more out of the foot. Makes sense. What about ankle mobility? That's something that I get a lot of questions about because I have a squat that's fairly deep in large part for three reasons. One, I've squatted for many years too. I'm not that long femur. So it's pretty easy for me to get into the bottom of a squat and I have good ankle mobility.

And some of that is genetic and people see my squat and they go, how do I squat deep like that? And I think the one addressable feature is the ankles. Like I can't make you short and I can't give you years of squatting experience, but you can probably improve your ankle mobility. And when I see clients come in who have a hard time with lifting, squatting, lunging, deadlifting, it's usually because they have this terrible dorsiflexion. because they have this terrible dorsiflexion. How can people improve the mobility specifically of their ankle for better squats and lunges? Because that's something that I am prescribing fairly often. And I'd love to add to that arsenal.

Limited ankle mobility is not just tight calves. So that's important for listeners to note that it's not just foam roll your calf stretch your calf you'll get ankle mobility some of it could be do you have a structurally short achilles tendon and that's something to think about that is structural right it's a structurally short achilles tendon so it is understanding your unique anatomy and then maybe you're the person who has to use a little lift when you're squatting yeah and if you understand the role of the heel lift or a slight drop it doesn't have to be the extreme squat wedges that you see that are out there um Honestly, research around squat wedges and squat blocks and things like that is really around like one and a quarter inches.

So it's not this crazy, you know, five inch squat block that is where the research shows efficacy. So a slight lift, maybe for someone with a structurally short Achilles tendon. Second one that I would mention is what is your foot type? And is your rear foot just unlocked because of pronation?

Now, I don't know the reason for pronation. Is it muscle strength or ligament laxity? Listen, 10 minutes earlier when we spoke about that. And then learn how to put your foot in neutral. And you can do that. An orthotic doesn't have to do that. You could do that. If you don't know how to put your foot in neutral and you can do that. And orthotic doesn't have to do that. You could do that. If you don't know how to control that, do you want to use wedges?

So at Nibosa, we sell wedges where you could just post the heel into neutral. So you better centrate the ankle and now you could squat with better range of motion. That could be another one that people aren't thinking about. The third one that I want to mention that I see a lot is a loss of the talus centered position. So a loss of centration, meaning that the talus, which is the bone that sits on top of your heel bone between your leg, that's the bone that's sandwiched in there. It can shift forward. And when it shifts forward, you get a bony block in your ankle joints, and that could contribute to it. So I teach people how to do a banded mobilization

to try to posteriorly move the talus to recenterate the ankle, and then they get better range of motion. That makes sense. I have seen that, I believe that technique done. better range of motion. That makes sense. I have seen that. I believe that technique done. And I like what you said about the wedges, because for me, my job, and this is true for most people who are just training, these long-term changes in mobility, let's say the non-structural stuff, to your point, you're not going to be able to modify the length of your Achilles tendon. If it is a Achilles tendon stiffness issue, then that's probably going to stick around and you can work on your ankle mobility all you want, but you still have to train. The wedges are really nice. And we've been, I've used the shorter foam wedges. And now I use the Nebosa wedges with clients and they are pretty much,

they pretty much remedy the issue for the session at hand. If you have a hard time getting, getting like depth on squats and lunges, that is, let's say you can get greater depth out of your hip than your ankles allow. Wedges are such an amazing tool to end up adding the extra range. But I like the individual wedges a little more than the set wedges. And you're right. Some of them are so large and aggressively tilted

and they're very ramped, but small, they're actually not practical at all. Um, but those are really the only two things I could imagine you could do is address the addressable tissue, which would be like the talus and maybe the calf and then use wedges. Cause I don't know, outside of that, what else you could do to really increase your ankle mobility other than squatting deeper over time. Yeah. Yeah. And that's, that is really good for the listeners to hear. And whenever I see people use squat wedges or to have the foot elevated in any way, if you have your logic or your justification and you know why you're doing it, then to me, it totally makes sense versus just it's trendy to squat on wedges. We want to have a reason behind what we're doing

because my goal would ultimately be to correct the range of motion of the ankle to get a natural movement pattern. But as you had said, if you can't achieve that, you still need to execute the squat for maybe your athletic performance or your hypertrophy goals and stuff like that. Yeah. For that day, right? Which is huge for a lot of people is being able to not have to ditch a lift like a squat because they have these limitations that are going to take long-term addressing. And I like the wedges more than squat shoes because I can have like four wedges and use them with the whole gym instead of having to tell my clients to get a very specialized shoe that I would only really recommend for just the squat.

And frankly, I don't know how good even that would be if you could do the same lift in a barefoot shoe, which kind of leads me to my next tract of thought, which is the barefoot kind of minimalist footwear trend. Low cushion, large toe box. Vivo makes these shoes. Xero makes these shoes. A lot of companies are starting to make these kinds of shoes. What would people gain in switching to a minimalist shoe from a highly cushioned shoe like the one we were talking about earlier? What would they get back? I would say that they would get a freedom of natural movement. Now, can you control that

natural movement? That's obviously the question. Do you have the strength to control that new mobility that maybe it unlocks, but that mobility theoretically is more natural, right? You get the spreading of your digits, you get the splay of your metatarsal. So the ball of your foot is actually designed to widen when you move. And you need a shoe that allows that widening of the forefoot. Obviously, they're typically flatter, so there's no toe rocker in them. So you can really engage the digits. That's awesome. They won't have a heel counter, they won't have the heel toe drop so you have to have your full ankle mobility you will get a lot more sensory stimulation coming in

you'll get in a lot more vibration from the ground research has actually shown that if you wear minimal shoes such as the ones that you mentioned that you can actually strengthen your foot intrinsics and there's research studies now showing that so it is a form of foot strengthening that you could say and that that's good for some of the i work with a lot of strength coaches and trainers who then try to tell their clients and they need like the research to defend the shoe so here's the articles to defend what you're telling them and to maybe open the client's eyes to the potential of these shoes. So there is a lot that you can gain from wearing minimal shoes. I agree. I noticed a lot of trepidation.

People think they need a lot of cushion and maybe somebody they know switched to a barefoot shoe and had an issue. But to any coaches and trainers who are listening, one thing you can do to go with what Dr. Splickle said about, you can provide them some research. You can also offer them the opportunity to train barefoot if your gym will allow it or if you own the studio. And you'll find that people go like, wow, I feel more connected. I felt these lifts feel better. I feel more stable. I've had so many clients when a lift just feels bad. I'm like, hey, just try it again. Just take

your shoes off. And it feels a little better. And then if you were to conceptually switch to a barefoot shoe, more of the movement you did throughout the day would be in that same environment and you're getting that enrichment. And if nothing else, if you can just do a little barefoot exercise, I think that could be beneficial. But the shoes almost give you the ability to be in that mode all the time, which would be ideal if the foot could handle it, in my opinion. Yeah, no, I agree 100%. In that transition, obviously be smart about it. That's why I'm an advocate of doing daily foot releasing so that you're going to inherently stress the foot more when you're in minimal shoes.

Of course. Work the foot more when you're in minimal shoes, of course, work the foot more. So then you have to do daily foot recovery, use your toe spacers, whatever it is that you do to give a little TLC to the foot. But you just have to do that just like everywhere else in your body. Yeah. Let me ask you this question. Do you think it would be harder to make that transition if you were overweight? Or do you think, because I think a lot of times when we're making prescriptions or people are making generalizations about a type of footwear, like, oh, I can't, you know, those shoes don't have support. It's like, well, yeah, because, you know, they don't have enough support for somebody who's carrying excess body fat.

But that's, I think, a big reason why some people struggle to make the transition. But I find most people who try it don't have too many problems, even if they are a little overweight. So maybe this statistic will help the listeners. So when we walk and you strike your heel on the ground, every time your foot strikes the ground, you actually experience one and a half times your body weight in impact. Okay. So take someone who's 300 pounds, that's 450 pounds of force, right? So that can sometimes help the perspective of it.

And then the other part of foot structure is called arch compression. And arch compression is when you stand and roll through the gait cycle, you're doing squats, whatever it is, you will actually compress the arch as the word says. And as you do that, you lengthen and potentiate your fascial structures, including your plantar fascia. So if more load because of your body weight, or even more load from doing a back squat or any of these Olympic style lifts, you are essentially potentiating the elasticity of those fascial structures. So yes, you could definitely get more foot pain, plantar fasciitis, et cetera, going to minimal shoes where your arch compression is more because

there's nothing blocking it by being overweight. Yes, 100%. But just in the same context, just for the listeners, because it's kind of in the fitness space, is I have had patients that really push the weight on their Olympic lifting and they reach a point that I actually need them in an arch support because they're so loaded just from the weight that they're just hitting a fatigue point of the connective tissue. So it's just an interesting thought for the listeners. Yeah, I know.

I think you see that too in a lot of track and field athletes. Like you have to have a certain degree of stiffness in the 100 meter track because the force production through the foot is so absurd. Just like it would be for an Olympic lifter who's lifting absurdly heavy weights. There's only so much a barefoot can reasonably do. barefoot can reasonably do. Our ancestors didn't know how to clean 400 pounds. They didn't run the 100 meters in like 9.8 seconds. So they didn't need it. But for most mortals, that kind of footwear I think provides a unique opportunity to expose your foot to a lot of what it's otherwise lacking. Here's a question. I work with a lot of older adults and falls are of particular concern for people who are older, especially women, because of the associative risk of fracture with falls. What can people do to improve their balance and stability when it comes to the foot and ankle? That's something that I hear I get a lot from clients. They're like, I want to work on my balance. And I'm like, okay, all right. I can attempt to do that by making you stronger. That's

my best option. But what can we do specifically with our foot and ankle to improve balance? And if nothing else, just like confidence and reactivity on, on our feet. Yeah. So the, to prevent falls from a, from the ground up foot specific approach, first one would be, do they even feel their feet? They have neuropathy or something like that we need to help them navigate on how they could feel their feet more so you have the awareness it's the first level second would be the toe flexor strength that we had focused on before that i had mentioned and so toe position if the individual has a bunion, has hammer toes, contraction of the digits, any sort of deviation of the digits or shortening of the digits,

theoretically is increasing a fall risk, obviously decreasing toe flexor strength, finding a neutral position. When you train the ankle, so let's say from an ankle stability, most people train the ankle from a fall reduction perspective on like a wobble board, an Eric's pad, a BOSU. They're going on something unstable.

What they're training is what's called perineal reaction time, which is, as the name says, a reaction to an awareness of a shift in a joint. So what I do is I go back and say, okay, is the problem, the strength of the muscle is the problem, the perception of the trigger fast enough, that's usually what it is, it's a perception problem. Yeah. So I like to then use kinesiology tape when I do unstable training, I try to do other things to kind of hack into the nervous system. You can pre-stimulate the joint capsules with a vibration platform. So I would actually have whole body vibration to wake up the proprioceptors, then K-tape, and then do something unstable. So you're kind of sequencing it in a way to help them tune in faster to the perturbation

and that's that's really how i look at it and then the last one is that your feet have to be connected to your center of mass because ultimately a fall is coming from either a shift in your foot ground relationship or it's coming from a shift in your center of mass? It's one of the two, right? Like what's essentially triggering the nervous system? Is it the ground or is it your center of mass shifting? And the center of mass is really tied into your thoracolumbar fascia and how you feel and perceive that. So all the way in the beginning when I spoke about body schema and perception,

that's where people need to strengthen their schema. And as we age, we get a fast shift in morphology where your muscle mass goes down, your adipose goes up, which changes your composition, which changes your perception of your center of mass. And I just feel that we are, again, just a very disconnected society, like being right now. We need to feel our body. This is why I love dancing, yoga, something that is very mind-body connected, because it's so important to movement and to fault reduction and to athletic performance.

I agree. I'm really big on just prescribing disorganized play. I tell a lot of my clients who are parents, if you ever have the opportunity to play with your kids when they're between three and 10 and they're making up games in the backyard, barefoot, just playing. If you can get down on their level and tolerate playing with them barefoot, just moving in a way that is free and disorganized. And it could also be free and play and childish and just the enriching element of

the kind of less structured exercise, whether it's dance or yoga or just play and how good that is for people's balance. I think when you look at what people stop doing and when they age, it's reactive exercise, play, games, dance. Maybe they go to the gym, but it's insanely structured, very rigid. And that's great for so many things, but not for feeling athletic and maintaining stability and balance. I think you make a really good point there about having to enrich and be active and mindful and incorporating more of those things in that kind of movement. Absolutely. Let me ask you this question to finish then. If somebody wanted three daily habits they could do to take care of their foot and the health of their foot,

the way they might think of their core or their lower back or their shoulder. What are those three things? So I already mentioned these, but these will be my key takeaways. First one is to release your feet every day. You knew that I was going to say that one. So at least a couple minutes in the morning, a couple minutes in the evening, when you brush your teeth, release your feet. This is literally, this is going to go on my tombstone. When you release your feet, brush your teeth, release your feet. The Neboso Neural Ball, which is a ball that splits into two pieces, two halves.

They don't roll around. I literally tell people, put that in front of your bathroom sink and do not ever move it. Unless if you're going on vacation, then put it in your luggage and put it in your hotel room. And then make sure that it just kind of follows you and it becomes part of your lifestyle. First one. Second one is going to be that foot activation. So if you do forward lean, I have people do five to eight repetitions of the forward lean. This is super easy. Honestly, I tell people who stand on their feet for work to do a forward lean every 30 minutes or every hour just to reactivate those postural slings.

That's a great one. And then the third one is going to be doing your balancing. So the marker for single leg stability is a 10 second balance. So can all of the listeners stand on one leg for 10 seconds? If you cannot, that is actually a predictor of fall risk. So how I have people tie this in is that they will activate their digits like the forward lean, but again, don't forward lean. So just push your toes down, shift and stand on one leg for 10 seconds, then relax,

shift onto the other leg, toes down, stand for 10 seconds, do three rounds on each side. That's literally a minute. That's it. Of single leg exercises, but you were building in single leg or balanced training every day, one minute. Trust me, it is these little tiny sprinkled daily habits that has the compounded effect on movement, longevity, health and wellness, prosperity, all of these things. I agree. The products you mentioned, we have them at the studio.

When it comes to how do I get my clients to do these things in the limited time I have? And just to speak to the value of like one minute really can make a difference. Sometimes we take out the balance board and split the ball in half and are able to get two of those three things done just during rest periods while you're resting. Hey, do it while you're resting and it gets it done. And I think if you find a minute, two minutes to do those three things, you'll find your feet are much healthier and your whole body and athletic potential is enhanced. Dr. Splickle, where can people find your work and your things and continue to learn from you about the importance of the foot? Yes, so definitely check me out on social media.

I'm the functional foot doc on Instagram. My podiatry practice where I see patients virtually is also in Arizona. So in person in Arizona or virtually is my name. So dr.emilysplickel.com spelled out. I have a book called Barefoot Strong, which is on Amazon. It is a very fast read, but it is like a cliff note to everything you need to know about really what we discussed. And then all of the Noboso products is Noboso.com, N-A-B-O-S-O.com. And then on social media, Noboso underscore technology. Awesome. I'll link to all the Noboso products we use in the studio, as well as all of Dr. Emily's stuff in the show notes. Be sure to give her a follow. Dr. Emily, thanks again for coming on. Of course. Thank you.