Transcript

Most Replayed Moment: Foot Health Expert Reveals the Best Shoes for Strength and Mobility!

0:00 Uh Okay. We don't do much of that these days. It seems to have gone out of fashion with all the

0:11 Upers and The other ways to to get around and all the sedentary uh behavior that we uh do living in o uh living and working in offices. What what should we know about

0:23 walking and how important it is because I'll be honest, I don't walk that much. Yes, it's um I always say it's the most underrated Underutilized. easily accessible activity that most of us are not doing. If you think about if you look at the research on average step count.

0:42 That most people globally are taking. It's about forty five to forty nine hundred. Mm. Mm-hmm. Which means that

0:51 There's a lot of us. That are taking less than that. So when I'm working with my patients, we always look at baseline numbers. What's your baseline? So for example, if you had a person who was walking twenty five hundred steps a day. I mean, some of us would be like, Wow, that's not a lot.

1:09 Mm-hmm. But for a lot of us It is. If you were to walk an additional five hundred steps In a day. Your baseline's twenty five hundred.

1:20 You can reduce your risk. of cardiovascular mortality by seven percent. Wow. Here's the bigger well. If you

1:30 Have a thousand step increase. You can reduce your risk of all cause mortality by fifteen percent. Dying of anything. All cause mortality. Fifteen percent. That that's a big number.

1:44 For a thousand steps. Mm. So I I have a story for you. This is a patient of mine and it just You know. W warms my heart to talk about him because when I saw him

1:57 He was two years into a diagnosis of heel pain. Twenty seven years old. So he had um Gone to see a bunch of people. Yeah.

2:08 And the last doctor that he had seen Told him. To limit his step count. to twenty five hundred steps a day. Why?

2:18 To rest. To rest the foot. Now, this is chronic pain now. We're not talking acute heel pain. We are two years into this song and dance. And he's being told at twenty seven years old to take twenty five hundred steps a day. So

2:35 He comes into my office we're talking about all this and he's also a quadruplet. So it was one of the first quadruplets I think I've ever treated. So he has um Yeah, which Why I think pain is so difficult. It's so complicated because now you have this twenty seven year old who's seeing his siblings who are at twenty seven like enjoy their life and doing all these things, and he's being told he can take twenty five hundred steps a day.

3:01 So he's now living in his father's basement. And he's afraid. To go above twenty five hundred steps. And he used to tell me he's like I cry a lot.

3:15 I'm depressed. And wouldn't you be if you're not going to be able to Okay. So There wasn't any magic exercise that I was gonna give him.

3:27 Two years into this. There wasn't any magic orthotic or magic shoe. He had done all of that. Shame on me if I would have done the same thing. So we had a conversation. And I knew I needed to get him outside and I needed to get him walking. That was my goal. Forget about the heel pain. We didn't even focus, we didn't even talk about the heel pain. I knew I needed to get him outside and start loading his foot.

3:54 Two years this foot, by the way, when you're walking, four to six times your body weight. It can handle four to six times your body weight when you're walking. But you don't Loaded appropriately. In muscles atrophy. So

4:08 I told him we had a long, long conversation. And I said we're gonna slowly start to Introduce steps. And if you think about this. If we were to say

4:20 At a thousand steps a day. To some people that might not sound like a lot. But to someone who's taking twenty five hundred steps, that's almost fifty percent of what they're doing. So we introduced the concept of a microwalk. Which is

4:38 A five minute walk. So five minute walk. Is about five hundred steps. Okay. A ten minute walk.

4:48 Is about a thousand about a thousand steps. Okay. Right. So that makes it like A little more digestible, right? So you're talking to him, you're like, listen, all I need is five minutes. And so we started Five minute walks.

5:03 And for the first couple weeks it was You know, there were good days, there were bad days, and there still are, but we were starting to build his confidence in movement. We were starting to get him comfortable on his foot again. And It was

5:20 You know, it was one of those cases where I just like I I really Enjoyed working with him and watching what had happened because If you look at step counts, I knew what number I was trying to get to. Because if you look at Um depression, for example.

5:38 Five thousand steps a day. Can reduce the risk of having symptoms of depression. Is it If you get to seventy five hundred steps per day. It can reduce the prevalence

5:52 Of the diagnosis of depression. So that was in the back of my head, I'm like we just gotta skip working towards these numbers. So while we were doing that, we were strengthening his foot. I had him in different footwear.

6:07 And at the end of each week We were also talking about Three good things. Tell me three good things that happened to you this week. And in the beginning of treatment, it was it was a struggle.

6:19 Steven, it was a struggle for him to think about Good things happening in his life. And um I r I spoke with him probably about a month ago. And his email

6:34 Is like my why. He was like um On average he's walking between Five and six thousand steps a day. He still has good days, or still has bad days.

6:47 More good days than bad days. But he said to me he's like I haven't cr I can't tell you the last time I cried. He's going to church. He's spending time with his dad.

6:58 You know, and It's not It's not the step count. It's the person behind the step count. And that's why I think this stuff is so powerful. I saw it change my life. I saw what it does to my patients. I mean, it has the capacity.

7:15 To improve not just your physical health, but how you interact with the world. Yeah, has a completely different meaning when you understand the real sort of human consequences it can have on someone's life, for better or for worse. Um And it's and it's not often until we have some kind of injury or issue that we

7:37 Yes. Realised that our feet and ankles were were there. Yes. And that's certainly been the case in my life. It wasn't until I got pantomficiitis that I was like, Oh my God, I should have been doing something about this sooner. And then as I told you before we started recording, I've currently got a high ankle sprain. So I've pulled some ligaments in my the top of my ankle. training for this game called Soccerade. So I'm now going through the whole process once again of like figuring out what I did wrong and what where what I should have been doing as a preventative measure to try and strengthen my feet. One of the things I think most of us get wrong is Our footwear choices. Yes. What do you think of the issues? These are

8:10 Women's heels, but listen, anyone can wear them. It's twenty twenty five. Um what do you think of the issues? Well It doesn't look like a foot. Your foot in that position is not the position it is supposed to be in. Now with that being said.

8:25 There is a time and a place. You know, I don't think I'm going to win the battle of, you know, you need to wear, you know, functional footwear twenty four hours a day, seven days a week. Time in those shoes should be limited. Just like with you know Other things it's

8:45 Moderation. Do you see a lot of women Getting injuries because they spend too long wearing heels. I don't know if

8:54 Acute injury? But Crum but a weakening of tissue? Yes. Because you know, I live in Colorado now, so i I don't have that uh there's not too many women in Colorado that are wearing heels. However, when I go to New York City, it's a different conversation, different environment.

9:11 Mm-hmm. You know, I have to say I have to use the That is not the position that you want to keep your foot in. It's changing the structure of your tissues, changing the pressures in the foot. Not to mention That those are I don't I don't care what anybody says, that's not comfortable to walk around in. People will be like, Oh, I'm really comfortable in heels. I'm like, Are you really though?

9:34 Links we go to to look good though, right? Okay, so let's talk about some good shoes then. Yeah. I've got two pairs of shoes here. One of them is Vivo Barefoot, who are actually a sponsor of mine. Ever since I sort of started talking about feet.

9:50 Um and then I don't know this brand. What is this brand? That is Ultra Running. So Let's talk about um The things you want to look for in a functional shoe. My non negotiable is the wide tailbox.

10:05 The toes have to be able to splay. When you think of all the diagnoses that we talked about bunions, neuromas, hammer toast When the forefoot can splay. The foot's going to function better. So that's number one. Number two is having the heel and the toe.

10:21 In the same plane. In number three is having a shoe. That is thin and flexible. When you wear this type of footwear. I call this a workhorse shoe.

10:37 Because there is more loads. Going through All of your tissues. Through your bones, through your ligaments, through your tendons, through your muscles. So your foot gets stronger when you wear this type of footwear. There's research on that.

10:54 Now. You have to earn your right. This is the You can't go from wearing a

11:04 Um, aggressive high cushion shoe. Like this one here. With I yes. With an insert, for example, and say, Oh, this stuff makes sense. I'm gonna go take that off and I'm gonna go wear this twenty four hours a day. You won't like me.

11:19 Why? Because you'll say, Hey, my heel's hurting. Because you haven't done the work. It's hey, let's do these foot exercises. Let's wear this for ten minutes a day. And then people are like, Wow, that does feel better.

11:32 And then it's a transition. Into wearing this more often. Now when you have patients that have had a a a very weak foot or clients that have had a very weak foot with different diagnoses.

11:47 This is a hard You know, shoe to walk around in for extended periods of time. So that's when we'll talk about footwear. That still puts the foot in a wide Position wide toe box.

12:00 I love this show. And I also like the mesh upper because you can the toes can expand in here. I still have zero drop. Right, where the heel and the toe sit in the same plane. But you'll notice the difference between the two shoes is the amount of stack height or the amount of cushion.

12:21 There's more stuff. Yeah. So on this On this shoe, the It does look

12:28 Like the you call it a plane. Looks level. Yes. Okay. And it's got a good Toe box. Yes. You can see from this side that the Toe boxes wide so you can splay. But it is elevated. It's elevated off the ground. Yeah. But the heel and toe are in the same plane.

12:44 Okay. Yeah. But it can it's it's still elevated though. They're still like quite a thick. Yes. That's not too much of a problem because It depends on what your goals are.

12:54 From running. That is that is a I think a great shoe to run on. to run with, right? If you're running on concrete, if you're running on asphalt, you want a little something underneath the foot. What about The

13:11 Nike alpha flies, which is my start sweating. Really? Uh This is my current running shoe and I bought it because it looks great. Yes. I mean, you know. It it it's I have torn the the ligaments in my in my ankle. But I looked it. Here's the super shoe, right? So here's this shoe. Right, and here's your super shoe over here.

13:32 Yeah. Okay. When you look at that shoe. There's certain characteristics to that shoe that you definitely do not see in this shoe. One of them being the toe spring. So see how it kind of

13:44 Lips on the front of the shoe. Okay. This part yeah yeah. Yes. So if I had that shoe on this table and I went like this to the front of the shoe It would literally rocker for me. Mm-hmm. So it facilitates the rocker of the foot. Sounds great. You put that on, you're like, Man, this is great. I can fly.

14:01 If you don't use it You're gonna lose it. So there is research that shows when you put your foot in a position with toe spring, you will weaken the intrinsic muscles of the foot. So I'm not saying

14:16 Don't have race day and wear that shoe, right? You get the research will tell you two to four percent running economy. People run faster because the shoe has the technology to facilitate gait. But if you train in that. All the time. And you never let your foot

14:34 Get stronger. It's just a matter of time. You're gonna say, My hamstring, my foot, my this, my that and it's like We that's why the conversation has to happen is This is the shoe that you're gonna get stronger in.

14:48 Spend time in your training shoe and then that's your speed day. That's your race day. So it's having the shoe spectrum, knowing when to dance along the spectrum. I feel like I can bounce in these. I mean, you probably can. I literally when I put it on, I was like, Wow, I can bounce. That's right. I think it has like a piece of metal going through the middle of it. You know what another fun fact is, though.

15:14 Certain pliometrics. So pliometric is training the spring of the body. So think like jumping. There's research that will show you that plyometrics also Increase capacity and running by two to four percent. So my conversation I have with my patients is listen

15:32 What if we stacked therapies? Right? What if you did plymetric work? Which is uh jumping. Yeah. You know, once or twice a week. And we worked on your strength.

15:44 And I had you in these shoes the majority of the time. And then On race day. You wanna throw that shoe on? It's like you're you're a running you're like a running ferry. You're like running and things look beautiful and everything is

15:58 You know, because you have a strong body On top of the shoe. But if you put a weak body in a weak foot In that shoe. You gotta earn your right.

16:09 Should we be standing more often? Because most of us work and live in offices now, and we sit at desks and I I you know I do this podcast sat down. Do you think much about standing desks or how often we should spend Bipedlow. I think that it's more about movement. I don't know if standing in one place is any better than sitting in one place. Other than when you're standing you can actually like You know.

16:35 Move around and You know, make it more active standing. But it is a matter of taking Movement breaks. Like that's I call them you know, movement snacks.

16:46 All of us spend a lot of time either sitting all day long or you know standing at our desks. If we were to take micro walks. A five minute walk. A couple times a day. The system stays moving, you're staying active and you're slowly

17:03 You know, inching up that step count that we know is so important for not only physical health, but emotional and mental health. That's what I like about it. I think he mentioned there was a s an association with movement, walking and dementia. All time is risk. What what does the science say there?

17:20 You know. When you look at step counts, if that was going to be our baseline. Ninety eight hundred Steps per day. Can reduce the risks of dementia. But what I think is the cool part with that is thirty eight hundred.

17:38 Steps. You get fifty percent of the maximum benefit. So If you were to let's just call it four thousand. Shoot for four thousand steps.

17:54 you're going to get a benefit. A fifty percent. benefit. In some of my favorite research on looking at that population.

18:05 With walking is relationship walking. There's really cool studies um looking at Walking in groups for the elderly population and how that has a social connection and it improves their emotional health and it combats loneliness and feelings of isolation. And that is

18:26 The beauty of a walk. Burn clubs are getting incredibly popular at the moment, aren't they? All around the world. Are you seeing more and more people come to you as a result of that? Yes. I think also, um I mean, it was interesting. I was working at the running event in Austin, Texas.

18:41 And I was teaching there and so a lot of the shoe stores were there. And one of the bigger shoe stores had said that the majority of There are clients now. Are actually walkers and not runners. And I thought that was pretty interesting. And I'm thinking to myself

19:00 I wonder why that is. Like are more people Reverting to walking because they're getting injured when they're running. Are they you know, I'm making all these conclusions in my head. I'm like well Is it because we're going in the wrong direction with footwear?

19:16 because we're creating the shoe that is basically doing the work for us and it feels so good and you know People aren't putting the work in anymore? I don't know. But I'm certainly gonna do my best to change that. What you just listened to was a most replayed moment from a previous episode. If you want to listen to that full episode, I've linked it down below. Check the description. Thank you.

19:39 Uh