Barefoot Strong: Unlock the Secrets to Movement Longevity.

Hey, if you want to get strong feet, not just strong feet, but a strong everything, a strong you. This is a good podcast. Emily Split Chow, if I can spit that one out, is a doctor who specializes in feet and she has a new book. We talk about it on today's show. It's a really good book, really short book, but a good book. One of those books that's jam packed with information that we dive into on today's show. Whenever I get an author on the show, I like to kind of go outside of what you discover. If you were to just read their book and kind of get some of the background, some of the inside story and some little tips that might not be in there. So we had fun on today's show. He's an expert in human performance and nutrition, voted America's top personal trainer and one of the globe's most influential people in health and fitness. His show provides you with everything you need to optimize physical and mental performance. He is Ben Greenfield. Power, speed, mobility, balance, whatever it is for you, that's the natural movement. Get out there. When you look at all the studies done, studies that have shown the greatest efficacy, all the information you need in one place right here, right now on the Ben Greenfield Fitness podcast. Hey folks, it's Ben Greenfield. And you know, I'm into longevity and that's a very fast growing area of medicine. This whole anti aging business, it's a 122/billion dollar industry right now. And there's researchers all over the globe dedicating their careers to finding the fountain of youth. And bored rich people all over the globe injecting themselves with fringe substances that promise to make them live longer, whether that be, you know, copper peptides or acai supplements. A lot of the anti aging industry focuses on these aspects of so called eternal youth and vitality. But my guest on today's podcast has a different approach. She actually thinks that we should be applying much of our research and our efforts into an area of anti aging medicine that she refers to as movement longevity. And she actually is a human movement specialist. Along with being a doctor of podiatry. I've had the pleasure to meet her in New York City when I spoke over there at an event. The fabulous Alchemist in New York City. And her name is Dr. Emily Splitchall. Am I pronouncing that right? Dr. Emily Splitchall?

It is not. It is Splikle.

Splikle. I was close, but far. That's okay. I'm just gonna call you Emily from here on out. Anyways, if that's cool. So we're just gonna avoid that whole awkwardness of me not knowing how to pronounce your last name. Anyways, though, you have this book, and for those of you listening in, this book is amazing. It explores the science behind barefoot training. But it's not just one of those books that says, kick your shoes off and wear some Vibrams and do some single leg squats. Like, there's a lot more in there. When it comes to unlocking the secrets to what Dr. Emily calls movement longevity. And she travels around the world teaching this stuff. She teaches what's called fun, fascial fitness and neuromuscular conditioning. She teaches how to survive the unnatural conditions of today's shod society. For those of you living under Iraq, that means people who wear shoes, I don't know why, they just don't call it shoed, but they call it shod. And how to optimize your movement patterns, from barefoot activation exercises to vitamins and supplements that protect the peripheral nerves, to a whole host of kind of outside the box thoughts when it comes to building your body and building your longevity from the ground up, literally. So Dr. Emily practices out of New York, like I mentioned, and she's written a book on all of this. It's called Barefoot Strong, simple little book. It's only, I believe it's right around 100 pages long. It's not a long read, but it's called Barefoot Unlock the Secrets to Movement Longevity. And despite it being only about 100 pages long, I've got like 25 pages folded over in it. So we have plenty to talk about the today. I'll put a link to everything that we discuss over@BenGreenfieldFitness.com BarefootBen that's BenGreenfieldFitness.com barefootben so, Dr. Emily, welcome to the show.

Thank you very much. It is a honor to be on the show and to share this concept of movement longevity with your listeners.

Yeah. Have you gone back to the Alchemist in New York City since I met you there?

I haven't. I need to. They have so many great lectures and the products they sell are great.

It's an interesting place. For those of you who don't know what I'm talking about, you go to New York City, it's called the Alchemist. I'll put a link to their website in the show notes for this episode. But the whole upper floor of the Alchemist, it's actually called the Alchemist Kitchen is the full name of it. It's like a bunch of herbalists and plants and extracts and they have like a tonic bar and a smoothie bar and. And it's this wonderful kind of. It's almost like a mad scientist laboratory of everything you can do to make your body better, from like tonics to smoothies to topicals. And then you go downstairs and it's like a biohacking lab with infrared and cold thermogenesis and cryotherapy and vitamin IVs and sound therapy. So a very cool place to visit if you happen to be in New York City. Look them up. The Alchemist's Kitchen is what that place is called. And I was speaking there on brain biohacking and. And met Dr. Emily there. I'd already read her book, so it was a pleasure to meet you there, Dr. Emily. And if you're ready, I want to delve into some of the things that you talk about in the book.

Yeah, I'm ready. Let's do it.

Okay. Movement, longevity. Obviously people talk about longevity. Not a lot of people talk about movement longevity. Fill me in on what it is and how you came to coin that term.

Yeah. So I actually have a passion for anti aging medicine. When I first started medical school, I was going to conferences through the American Academy of Anti Aging Medicine. I used to get vitamins for Christmas when I was growing up. Like, it was just something that was always part of my lifestyle, I guess, or just infiltrated into my interests. So started going to these anti aging conferences carried throughout and being in fitness and movement, I would learn these concepts on anti aging medicine, on collagen, kind of thinking much more external, you know, do the Botox so you look young, you want to have your brain young so that you can be, you know, sharp. But a lot of people really weren't taking that science and applying it to movement. That was my specialty. That's my passion. So I was like, how can I combine these two passions of what I understand in human movement, movement dysfunction with what I understand and my passion with anti aging medicine to be then really this movement longevity, and that's how I look at my patients, is not just, okay, I want to take care of your pain or your Achilles tendinitis, but I want to help you move better, keep your connective tissue young. So even though if you're doing the Botox, then the crossword puzzles and you're doing the nootropics and whatever it is for every other aspect of anti aging longevity that you can also move well, because it's not going to serve you Any good if you look young and you can think young, but all of your joints are completely arthritic and your connective tissue is old or even.

Or even you can't throw a football with your grandkids or you swing a tennis racket.

Yeah, exactly. So do the things that you love to do for many years onward, knowing that your musculoskeletal system ages as well. Very similar to the way that your skin on the external environment or your blood vessels age, so does your fascial system, so does your ligaments and your tendons. And how can we use that science to then do exactly what you're saying? Stay young, feel young, move with your grandchildren, et cetera.

Now, there are in the book to kind of delve straight into brass tacks here and talk about optimizing movement, longevity from the ground up. Several different foot types that people tend to have. Can you explain how somebody listening in right now could figure out what their foot type is and even why they should even care why this is important to know your foot type?

Yeah. So our feet from a neuromuscular perspective, from a fascial perspective, and then of course from a biomechanical perspective, is our body's foundation. And this means that if our foundation is not stable, again, fascially, neuromuscularly, biomechanically, the rest of your body cannot be stable. So if you have, let's say, for example, a flat foot, an overpronated foot, if those who are listening understand that your foot is collapsing in, that theoretically would be associated with an unstable, unlocked, hypermobile foot, which means the rest of your body up into your pelvis and your hips and your abs and your glutes are going to be unstable, unlocked, and unable to support really, the rest of the body during dynamic movement. So if you have a.

If you have a flat foot, a.

Flat foot, which I teach people, that flat foot actually doesn't mean anything. That's not, It's. It's such a generic term that unfortunately, media tells you and shoe companies want you to think you either have a flat foot, a high arch, or a neutral foot, and that that's it, you have three foot types. Where do you fall into? And that's. That's not really how the foot should be classified. There's a lot of subtle discrepancies in flat feet, but for the sake of this, it's probably easier to say, okay, if you have a flat foot, which means your foot is pronating, that's kind of synonymous for a layperson.

Okay, so Flat foot means that you're pronating.

Yeah, we'll say for this that that's what that means.

All right, now let me be devil's advocate here. I've noticed since I started going barefoot and I see this a lot, like when I go to Hawaii and I look at the feet of the natives there, or when I have played around a lot with like sand volleyball players and looked at their feet. And again, this happened to me as well. Wide feet, almost kind of like a. What would appear to almost be like a flatter foot, maybe a stronger, more springy arch, I suppose. But don't people's feet kind of become more flat as they walk barefoot more or, you know, toy around in the sand more or, you know, go unshod, as they say, more.

So that's why I was saying that flat foot is really the best way. So when you look at, let's say, indigenous people or I've traveled to 35 countries, have seen feet in India to Africa to Eastern Europe to different gamuts. And when I see older populations, let's say India and Africa and, you know, China and different places where it was the first humans started roaming around, you actually do see flatter feet, because flat feet really is, from an evolutionary perspective, the classical wider foot where the toes are spread and the foot has really good contact with the ground. That's kind of what you're describing right now. So I do see that pattern. Now that's very different. Then if you look at a over pronated foot that's actually internally rotating at.

The knee, over pronated foot internally rotated on the knee. So I'm standing on one foot now. Maybe if people are listening in, they could do this too. And what you're saying is the knee, if I'm standing on my right foot, my knee would kind of be collapsing inward with my weight going towards the inside of the foot.

Yeah. And if you want can really go through this to understand how the foot moves, if all of the listeners stand up on both of their feet and roll from the inside of the foot to the outside of the foot, and then just keep going back and forth that way you're rolling inside, outside, inside, outside, essentially you're moving what's called the subtalar joint of the foot. Every time you roll into the inside of the foot, you should see or feel that your knees kind of knock in. Right. So that's considered the internal rotation of the tibia or the leg. And then when you go to the outside of the foot, your knees rotate outward Anytime your foot collapses inward, which is the time when your knees go knocked, that's considered pronated, which is considered with an unlocked, unstable foot. When you go on the out, your knees roll out. That's technically considered over supinated, which is the opposite. And then that would be a more rigid foot type.

Okay, okay, got it. So essentially, you would want neither of those foot types, neither the rigid nor kind of like the collapsible foot type.

Correct. But if your foot is a little bit flatter, like a pancake foot, we'll just call it that. Pancake foot doesn't mean the same thing as overpronated. Over pronated. That's where you start to get these low back pains. You have underactive glutes. You have, you know, the things that you start to see from a sedentary lifestyle. And that's where orthotics come into place. If you just have a pancake foot and your foot is wide and it looks very, like, primal, and what you're saying with the people who go more barefoot in sand and indigenous, that's awesome. A. Okay. There's no effect biomechanically on the rest of the body.

Okay, got it now. So we've got. And I believe that you refer to this as the inverted foot and then the everted foot in the actual book. Is that correct? Is that what we're referring to? The new. Well, you have three types. The neutral foot, the inverted foot, where we're curved towards the inside of the foot, and then the everted foot, where we're curved towards the outside of the foot.

So when. When you stand and you roll inside, outside, like I was just having you do, when you collapse inside, where I said it's pronated, and your knees knock in, technically that's an everted foot.

Okay.

And then when you roll on the outside and your knees roll out, your foot becomes a little bit more rigid. That would be an inverted foot type.

Now, correct me if I'm wrong, but it seems like a lot of people are the everted foot type. They roll into the inside of the foot and the knees kind of collapse inward.

Yeah, you see that in a lot more people. It's easier for people to understand. So when you go to any lecture, especially within movement and fitness, people are quick to capture the overpronated or the everted or the collapsed. Running shoe stores and orthotic companies love that foot type because that's where they get to push the motion controlled and the orthotics and things like that.

What's the best way to figure out.

Your foot type, I would say to either set up a camera or have someone take a picture of your foot directly from behind where you're standing with your feet shoulder width apart. Have the camera exactly perpendicular to the ground so that it's capturing your feet. Stand with both feet shoulder width apart. Take a picture, stand on one foot. Take another picture. If your foot just became more stable as soon as you shifted to stand on one leg, that's awesome. That means that your glutes are engaging and you have stability up your kinetic chain. Obviously, do the same thing on the other side. And then if you become more stable on the other side, same thing, it becomes more of a concern. When you stand two feet, say you have the Eversion, stand on one foot, still everted. Hmm. Then you start thinking, do I need to get an assessment? Do I need orthotics, etc.

Okay, got it. So that's number one. And I know I want to get into some of the things that you do to correct whichever foot type that you have later on in the show. But before we do, I want to backpedal just a second and talk a little bit more about the importance of this, because there are these small nerves. The body has small nerves and it has large nerves. And the smaller nerves can send signals a lot faster to the central nervous system, so you get faster response times. But these small nerves, according to what you're saying, have a really important role in terms of stance and upright stability. Can you go into what those small nerves are and how they would become deactivated?

Sure. So the small nerves which are found on the skin and the bottom of the foot, the palm of the hand, here we're obviously talking about feet and posture, so we'll focus on the foot. But the skin on the bottom of the foot has these small nerves that are sensitive to different stimulation. Because the skin on the foot is the only contact point between the body and the ground. From an evolution perspective, from a neurodevelopmental perspective, it plays a critical role in how your body controls static posture, dynamic posture, and then, of course, balance and coordination and movement accuracy. So some of the different stimulation that these nerves in the bottom of the foot are sensitive to, there's four things that you want to focus on. First. One is what's called two point discrimination. So two point discrimination, a good analogy for those who are listening would be braille. So if you ever, you know, ATMs have braille. So if you feel braille and you look at it, it's essentially Two points. And the distance between each of these two points is one millimeter. So I know that you're familiar with Naboso. Naboso is essentially targeting that nerve in the feet because it's a pyramid or a triangle. Two points. And the distance of each of those pyramids is one millimeter.

Now, some people might not be familiar with Naboso. I don't want to derail you, but can you highlight that for some people?

Sure. So Nabosa technology is a textured insole and a textured mat that I helped develop. I mean, I own the company, but helped develop and launched last year, January 2017. The target of it and the research behind it is completely fascinating. There's tons of research around texture, what texture does to posture, dynamic control. And to date, this is the only commercially available insole and mat that uses that research.

So actually, you know where I have it right now? I have it in my infrared sauna and I stand on it when I'm in my sauna. And I did put your inserts into one of my pair of shoes. But yeah, it's interesting. It looks like a yoga mat, but it actually stimulates these receptors on the feet and on the hands whether I'm in Down Dog or whether I'm, you know, standing on the mat to do a squat or something like that.

Yeah, yeah. So the mat, the insoles, is targeting this two point discrimination, which is one of the nerves in the bottom of the feet. The second nerve is for skin stretch. So when you're on something that's textured and it's rough, your foot, the skin gets stuck to it. Right. So when you're, you're shifting and doing dynamic movement, it's actually moving the skin underneath. And the fascia underneath, which stimulates nerves, feeds the nervous system, etc. The last two nerves in the bottom of the feet are both sensitive to vibration. Why vibration and the perception of vibration is so important is because that's the stimulus of dynamic movement. So every time your foot hits the ground, impact forces, ground reaction forces, those are perceived by your feet and your nervous system as vibrations. So being able to perceive vibration, critical to maintaining balance when you walk or you do dynamic movement, shoes, cushion shoes, block all of that vibration and all of that information coming into your nervous system through your feet. And it is a huge contributor to delayed reaction time, a loss of stability, inaccurate perception of the joints. I could keep going on about how shoes.

Yeah, I think we've kind of kicked to death. Pun intended.

Yeah.

The, the evils of shoes on previous podcasts and on shows before. And don't get me wrong, like, if I may go run on a, like, super rocky, gnarly trail, like, honestly, in some cases, give me, like, ankle braces and a good pair of hokas. Right? Like, sometimes you need unnatural means to achieve an unnatural end. I'm a total minimalist guy, but I've also gotten stress fractures and ankle sprains from being dumb about the degree of minimalism that I'll use when, say, I'm in a spartan race. That's putting me into a situation where I normally wouldn't sprint down a hill full of sharp rocks. Right? So there are some cases where you do have to gird up your body and put on some armor. But what you get into in the book, Emily, is even this idea that as soon as you put on something as simple as socks, you can block these little sensitive small nerves. Is that really true? Even socks cause an issue.

Yes, they do. So think of, like, if you put gloves on your hands and you're trying to do something immediately, you might start to get or feel a little bit inaccurate. You keep wearing the gloves, you now create a new coordination around it. So you, of course, adapt to whatever that new environment is. But when I speak to people and professionals, I try to tell them, especially if you're dealing with someone who has an injury or they're post concussion or they have an ankle sprain and now they're a little bit slower. In the nervous system, you really have to optimize what's coming into the nervous system so that you're giving it the best opportunity that you can. If I only give the nervous system 85% of the information that it needs to create a movement pattern, you know, my goal is to optimize people's movement patterns, so I want to give them as much information as possible. The other thing around why I look at barefoot from a movement longevity perspective is that sensory information precedes motor responses. So sensory has to go in before motor goes out. The way that your brain and your motor cortex sees movement is through sensory. So trying to get people that. The critical aspect of movement longevity is making sure that sufficient sensory information is coming in.

And this is where you could, for example, if you gotta be at the office and not have your stinky, hairy hobbit feet up on the desk, you would do something like put, like, a special proprioceptive enhancing insole inside the shoe to at least get some of those benefits.

Exactly. That's part of why I created the naboso Insoles is so that, hey, if you have to, maybe you wear the Hokas like you were saying, hoka's got a lot of cushion, they're zero drop, which is awesome. But there's a time that you may need to use those. So let's work within the reality of your environment, the reality of those shoes. But can I somehow enhance the sensory stimulation in that reality? Yes. Right. So I agree with what you're saying.

So when it comes to these nerve endings and those needing to proceed, any large motor movement, is that related to the pre activation response that you talk about in the book?

100%. So the preactivation, all of that is that impact forces and really the force of dynamic movement is coming in faster, then your muscles can respond, which means you have to be anticipating the impact forces or be preactive to whatever that impact force that's coming in.

Okay, talk to me about how this relates to the Cirque du Soleil, because this is a fascinating story that you tell in the book.

Yes, so I actually forgot I told that in the book. But so again, same thing. You have to be able to anticipate the impact forces before they come in. And then the loading response that you create to impact is based off of what you're anticipating. So after just, you know, two or three steps, your nervous system already starts to anticipate the surface that you're walking on, your body weight, the degree of vibration that's coming in. And then you fall into this preactive state that we're speaking about. If you have a mismatch between what you anticipate and what's actually coming in, that's where you start to see these impact related injuries. So Cirque du Soleil, which I'm sure all of the listeners know Cirque du Soleil, if they don't, in the words of the lay out of the rock, get out from under the rock that you're in and look up Cirque du Soleil. They have a very low injury rate for a reason. The way that these athletes are tuned into their body, incredible. So the Cirque du Soleil in Los Angeles got this brand new training facility, the stage was new, and all of a sudden their performers started getting shin splints, Achilles tendonitis, plantar fasciitis, which are impact related injuries. They're like, wait a minute, we do not get injuries in Cirque du Soleil. What's going on? So they brought Dr. Nieg, who's one of the researchers on all of this stuff that I'm speaking about. It's called muscle tuning theory. They brought him down to Los Angeles. He looked at the stage and he saw that every so many feet under the stage, there was a support beam. So many feet. Support beam. Which means that if the performer was tumbling and expecting or anticipating to land on the stage, not over the beam, but actually landed on the beam, there would be a mismatch in what they anticipate in vibration and would actually enter the nervous system. So what they did is they got rid of all the support beams, tested every inch of the stage, made sure that it was the exact same vibrational frequency. All of the injuries went away, which to me is fascinating. Every time I tell that story, people are like, oh, my God, that's amazing. But to support that, I try. I tell this story everywhere I go. And I was in Australia last year whenever, and one of their football league coaches was there whatnot. And he said, oh, we got this new field. And as soon as we switched to the new field, all of the players were complaining about it. Just didn't feel the same. They didn't have as much energy. It was starting to kind of affect their knees and their feet a little bit. And the difference between the old field and the new field is the new field had a parking garage under it, where Parking garage. Think massive amounts of concrete. Concrete does not vibrate, which means that there was a subtle difference that their nervous system was able to pick up on as far as a vibrational frequency from the ground, which is super cool.

Wow, that's really interesting. But shoes actually decrease this ability to pick up the vibration.

Yes.

Okay. So, and this is something that I thought was interesting. I think a lot of people might not be able to wrap their heads around because you think of a shoe, like even like the hoka that I mentioned, which I would wear really more for foot protection than to reduce impact forces. After reading your book. Because a shoe, even a high cushion shoe, can increase impact forces. How exactly does that happen? Like, how does a shoe increase the amount of force that your foot's exposed to? You'd think it'd like, bubble and cushion the foot, Right?

So when we put cushion in shoes, because again, impact forces is vibration. To understand that is. That's the step one here. So every time your foot hits the ground, vibrations are coming in. If you put cushion in shoes, the cushion actually damps or absorbs the vibration, which means now your nervous system doesn't have information to know how hard you're striking the ground. So the way that you respond is you strike the ground harder, which means now you have even more impact forces entering the body that you now have to compensate for and absorb through your neuromuscular system. So when people usually switch to a Vibram or a Vivobarefoot or any of the minimal shoes they typically like, first steps might be like, oh, whoa, I'm actually like hitting the ground really hard. And then they start to realize that and they quickly auto adjust and start to hit the ground much softer in minimal footwear. And that's because you have all of the information that you need to create a perception of how your foot is striking the ground or reacting with the ground.

Okay, got it. So basically what it comes down to is, is that these cushioned shoes with the, with the high amount of drop being like, I think it's like 12 to 14 millimeters is the average heel toe drop. Those are actually going to increase risk of either a foot injury or a knee injury or hip injury because you're striking the ground harder.

Correct. And if I may, if I may add that when, when the shoe takes the cushion all or takes all of the impact, when the cushion in the shoe takes all of the vibration impact. Now, the muscles in the feet don't have to contract to absorb the vibration. So the intrinsics or the small muscles in your feet will actually atrophy with chronic supportive footwear use. And when your intrinsics start to deactivate or atrophy, your foot becomes weaker and weaker and you become almost pseudo dependent on shoes that have cushion.

Okay, okay, got it. Very interesting. Now when we look at how to actually get the foot to the point where it could be ready to go barefoot, to go in Vibrams, to go in minimalist shoes, to reduce impact, et cetera, it's obviously far more complex than simply getting a stress fracture by switching from a HOKA to a Vibram. You have in the book this cascade, I think it's the one you call the foot to core activation cascade to actually teach you how to activate your feet and your core properly. And I've been standing on these naboso mats when I'm in my sauna and actually doing this foot to core activation cascade that you have in the book, from the short foot activation all the way down to the down to the deep hip activation, can you kind of take the time to walk through what it actually looks like to do a foot to core activation cascade, kind of describing that to listeners?

Sure. So my big thing of why emphasize on foot to core is that I don't want just the foot to be strong because the foot, even though it's our foundation, doesn't work isolation from the rest of the body. We always want to think of the body from a global perspective. And from a global perspective, the center of where all of our action and our power and our stability comes from is obviously our core. Right. So our center of gravity, which is where our core is, needs to be in direct communication with our foundation. Hence, what core? Now, when I focus on the core core, the part of the core that I'm referencing is the deep core. So call it the intrinsic core if you want. So then it matches the foot anatomy terms. We'll just go with it. So intrinsic core would be the pelvic floor, transverse abdominal. So kind of those deeper, deeper abs, Pilates muscles, if you want to call that. And then those muscles actually connect to your diaphragm. So the way that you engage the deep core pelvic floor with the diaphragm means that we have to be talking about breathing while we're doing this. Now, from a fascial perspective, fascial line perspective, your intrinsic foot muscles actually connect through fascial lines to your pelvic floor into your diaphragm. And I'm going to add on to it, which was not in the book, and then it goes all the way up into your tongue. So when you're doing these activations, I'm going to cue the tongue as well. So the exercise that activates the foot is short foot. And short foot from an easy way to describe it would be pushing your toes down into the ground. Now, listeners can go onto YouTube. There's tons of articles and videos around short footage, but you want to think of short foot as an isometric contraction of your foot, specifically the intrinsic muscles in the foot. So you can do it by pushing your toes into the ground.

So you stand there and you just push your toes into the ground.

Yes, all five of them. All five of them down into the ground. And when you do that, you can also put energy or focus lifting your arch while you do that.

Okay. So I'm. I'm bending my toes and kind of forcing each of the toes into the ground and trying to lift up my arch simultaneously.

Yes.

Okay.

When you do that. So the way that I take people through it as, I would get them to just get that coordination. So push the tips of the toes down into the ground, lift the arch and then release it. Push the tips of the toes down into the ground, let the arch release it. Just get that coordination For a little bit, do it on both sides. Do only one foot at a time, because this is a mind muscle connection. So just do the right foot, then do the left foot. And then what I want you to do is go back to your first foot. And now we're going to focus more on the core. So if you engage your transverse abdominals or you lift your pelvic floor, if you know how to do that, think of putting some sort of tension or isometrics back into your core. Hold that contraction. And now push your right toes down into the ground.

Okay.

You should feel some sort of connection between your feet and your core when you do it that way. And then you want to release both. And then do it again. Engage your TVA bracelet with the pelvic floor. Hold that. Push your toes down into the ground. Hold that. Feel a connection.

And then the transverse abdominals are the tva, by the way.

Yes, exactly. Yeah. So then by the way, to activate.

My pelvic floor and my transverse, when I do this, should I do, like a Kegel? When I'm. When I'm squeezing my toes into the ground, lifting the arch, I do a Kegel. Or just let the activation of the toes cause that muscle to contract.

I'm actually not a fan of Kegels.

Okay. Why not?

But I don't want to open Pandora's box, and now we're in a hole.

Open Pandora's Box. Well, you know what? Finish this up and then open Pandora's Box. I'd love to hear your thoughts on Kegels.

Okay, great. So now say we did that on both sides. So now your third layer to this is that I would want you to exhale as you're doing that. So start exhaling. So exhale, Engage your tva. Or for the sake of this, right now, do your Kegel. Keep exhaling. Now push your right toes down into the ground. Keep exhaling. And you should feel like there's a deeper activation between that connection. Release it on the next one. Now exhale. Engage your tva. Keep exhaling. Push your toes into the ground. And now push your tongue into the roof of your mouth into your palate. And then hold and see if anything happens between that connection. Feet, pelvic floor, tongue in the roof of the mouth, and then release.

It's almost like I activate my deep core more when I shove my tongue against the roof of my mouth. Why is that?

Do you do. Because it's fascially connected, so you're called a hack. You know, like, I love biohacking. So I'll do. These are biohacks to your body's posture. I don't know. But if you know that this is how your body stabilizes. This is what I get runners to do before they go running. Essentially, just get these stabilization pathways online. Boom, boom, boom. It takes one minute to do it. Now do whatever the heck you normally do. Go run, go live, go snatch, you know, climb a tree. I don't care.

Yeah, like I mentioned, I've been kind of practicing this in the sauna because I'm in there anyways, you know, doing yoga and splits and all, you know, all manner of different things. And this is an easy one to do. You can also do it. You know, obviously, I did it right now because I have a standing desk while you and I were talking. But that's interesting, too, what you have to say about the fascia. So it goes from the foot all the way up to the skull, huh?

It does, yeah. And then it's influencing the tongue. The other thing that I think your listeners would appreciate is that when you push your tongue into the roof of the mouth, your tongue ligaments actually link to your vestibular system, which links to your particular activating systems. You turn on your brain.

So that's really interesting. So would this be. There's the book Anatomy Trains by Thomas Myers, and he talks about these fascial lines and these, like, there's a posterior fascia line and the lateral fascia line. Is this part of that fascial line, like one of the fascial lines that he refers to in that book?

Yes, this is the deep front line.

The deep front line is what would connect that when you press the tongue against the roof of the mouth to the activation of the foot proprioception.

Yes.

Fascinating. This is really cool. How often do you, like, when you're working with a patient or with a client, how often are they doing short foot? Is this a daily. Is this like once a week you do a big short foot workout or how does it work exactly?

Yeah. No. So I recommend doing short foot. Depends on your condition. But if you technically do it the way that I'm explaining it, it's also waking up your brain, so it's getting everything online. So I have patients or clients do it first thing in the morning. You're brushing your teeth, you go through your little routine. I always start with releasing the feet as well. But morning, boom. Do it whenever you work out, whether it's a run, it's a lift, whatever that workout may be. Do five minutes of foot Activation, foot to core activation before that workout. And then I recommend two to three times a week of 20 to 30 minutes of very focused barefoot foot core activation. So barefoot to me is a lifestyle. That doesn't mean I walk barefoot on the street. That's not that lifestyle. But to activate my feet is just a belief that I have. It ties into my longevity. Not just movement longevity, but brain longevity. And then when I do a workout, if I'm swinging a kettlebell using short foot in every repetition, when I do pull ups and rings and things like that, I do aerials.

Wait, how are you doing short foot when you're doing kettle? I mean, isn't kettlebell, you know, kettlebell swing? How are you doing a swing and activating short foot simultaneously?

So picture single arm or double arm kettlebell swing. When you are, let's say the bell's back on the negative phase of it. So it's kind of between the legs swinging down. And you're about to initiate the positive phase of the swing. Push your toes down into the ground. Lift your pelvic floor, exhale.

Okay, I gotcha. Wow. You got to make that pretty subconscious for it to occur that quickly.

Oh, yeah. No, no. Yeah. That's why I started very. You know, I'm a big believer in body weight training. And when you do neuro resets and kind of this stuff that we're speaking of, you have to do it several times a day. When you start pushing it a little bit more, you cannot add resistance until. I mean this. You're right. This has to be very subconsciously programmed in your nervous system. But it's super cool that when you understand these little hacks. Try it. Next time you do pull ups is engage your feet. So don't, don't disregard the feet. But can you point your toes, get your intrinsics? What does that do to your pelvic floor? What does that do to your grip strength? And now you're doing pull ups much easier.

Yeah, I like it. Speaking of hacks, by the way, you've got some. You know, I know a lot of people who are interested in hacks, take supplements like nootropics and multivitamins and stuff. And you have, for example, a host of nutrients that actually help with things like epidermal nerve fiber density and the plantar cutaneous nerves. Like, you've got a whole host of things like L methylfolate is one that you recommend as being a substance you could take to enhance nerve health. Acetyl L carnitine. You have a recommended dosage in there. I've taken 500 milligrams of that a couple of times a day. I know that's one that's been studied quite a bit for nerve pain. Alpha lipoic acid, you have that one in there as well. So I like how you kind of move into some of the things you can do even from a nutrient standpoint for the nerves. Are there any things that people consume, assume from either a supplement or a food standpoint that you would say are the most damaging to nerve endings, whether it be a perceived healthy food or maybe a supplement that could get overused, that would cause nerve issues?

I mean, the first thing that comes to mind is sugar.

Really? Sugar is just not vegetable oils, huh? I mean, the reason I ask is just playing devil's advocate. You can metabolize sugar, right? You go and do a bunch of kettlebell swings and burn it off.

True, true. But I mean, I focus and not just my experience of treating a lot of diabetics who have nerve issues, because that's just on the forefront with sugar, but the sugar and what it does from the glycation perspective, that's just where I see so much of it. And you know, the, the glycation and the inflammation, what it does to the peripheral nerves is, is massive and just a lack of stimulation. So you have to, like the neuroplasticity, you have to push those nerves, which does mean get out of your shoes. But think of, you know, the diet that you're, you're eating from a peripheral nerve perspective, not just a brain perspective. A lot of those supplements that you're talking about, people probably think of from a brain central nervous system health perspective. But it also applies to the peripheral nervous system as well, right?

Yeah. Interestingly, some of these nootropics, like Modafinil, for example, have been studied. And in higher doses, long term, there does appear to be oxidative damage to specific brain regions and specific areas of the central nervous system. So that'd be an example where I would imagine some people who are popping Adderall or Modafinil or Provigil or whatever on a long term basis could potentially damage the nerves. I mean, that's one that I can think of. That's where I get the most concerned is overuse of nootropics and psychedelic microdosing as potentially harmful to the nerves. I even myself, when I've used some of those substances found disturbing, like paresthesia and tingling and elements that make me wonder how healthy some of those things would be for the nerves.

So, yeah, Those, those nootropics, the one that, you know, has probably the strongest research that is easiest to implement is choline. Do you take choline derivative?

Yeah, I do. That's in the, that's in the qualia. I take something called qualia about three or four times a week. And that has some, some pretty significant sources of choline in it.

Okay. Yeah, yeah, quality is great.

The other one that I use is lion's mane. And I'll occasionally just dump a packet of, for example, like the four Sigmatic lion's mane into a cup of coffee. And I know that one stimulates nerve growth factor in the brain. I don't know if it's been studied when it comes to nerve endings such as in the foot, but there's some interesting data on lion's mane and its ability to promote neuronal regrowth. And I think in rodent models who they induce nerve damage on, like they sacrifice certain nerves, they were actually able to walk again after they got lion's mane extract in their water.

Well, you know, if listeners are concerned of taking supplements and nootropics and things like that, totally valid of a concern. You can look at whole body vibration is. That's a non. Obviously that's not an invasive approach. And whole body vibration is great in the sense that it improves perfect perfusion and it stimulates insulin like growth factor. So you do see a great effect to the tendons and to the peripheral circulation. Or you can also do earthing and just stand barefoot on the ground. And there's great research around improved circulation, skin perfusion, decreased blood viscosity by doing earthing. So those are other non invasive techniques that I integrate with my patients and in my practice.

Yeah, the other one that I like for that is simply bouncing up and down barefoot on a trampoline. I keep one outside the door of my office and step out into the sunshine sometimes in between recording podcasts or when I'm doing, you know, consults with clients, etc. And just bounce up and down for a little while. And I feel as though I get, you know, of course you get lymph, fluid, circulation, but also a bit of proprioception on that. I do also have one of those, those power plates in my living room. My kids like to stand on it and vibrate, but I also will hop on there every once in a while. And same thing, you get a huge amount of tingling and definitely enhanced proprioception when you stand on those things. So, yeah, a lot of ways that you can do this now before I let it slide and I let you get away with dropping that Kegel bomb and not following up on it. Why aren't you a fan of Kegel exercises? Let's open that can of worms.

Okay, so the way that I view Kegel and the way that I feel that it's often construed is that contracting the pelvic floor through a Kegel way is a very. You're in one place kind of squeezing the muscles where the way that I try to get patients and professionals to think of the pelvic floor is that it's an anti gravity muscle. So. And it's a fascial. So think of it as very fascial based. So it's a tension based and it's anti gravity. So there has to be a lift element to it. The pelvic floor also has an anterior and a posterior division. So when you do a classic Kegel like stop your pee, that's very much focused on the anterior pelvic floor and it doesn't create the sensation of lift. So instead of a Kegel, I try to get patients and professionals to think of the pelvic floor like a clock. And if you think of, I'll just take you through the whole thing. The your pubic symphysis is 12 o', clock, your tailbone is 6 o', clock, your right ASIS is 3 o', clock, your left ASIS is 9 o'. Clock. So you're picturing that on the base of your pelvis. And then you want to start to draw 6 o' clock to 12 o'. Clock. So they're drawing towards each other and they're going to meet in the middle. And as you engage them, they're going to meet and kind of lift as well. Then you're going to hold that and you're going to start to draw 3 o' clock to 9 o', clock, almost like two book ends coming to each other. Then that's going to be a more proper using the entire pelvic floor way of engaging the pelvic floor. Other reason why I emphasize this is that it's your posterior pelvic floor that's actually connected to your feet. So you want to make sure that if you're doing just a Kegel way of engaging your pelvic floor and you forget the levator ani, which is the posterior, you might be missing this foot core cascade that we were just talking about.

So could you say, to simplify things for people, don't do a Kegel unless you're simultaneously Activating your glutes.

Okay, so the glutes, when you engage your pelvic floor, you don't want to squeeze your butt because. Because now you just went into a very strong dominant muscle. I try to teach people to engage the pelvic floor while exhaling. Hold it. You should feel nice and relaxed. And now let's say if you're doing a push up or something now add in your glutes. Boom. Now you're even more stable. And let's execute that push up. Then when you're on the top of the push up, could you possibly let go your glutes again, keep the pelvic floor, add them in again, do your next rep. So I'm trying to. I'm trying to get, you know, movers and athletes or patients to feel the difference between deeper core and how you could add in these really strong superficial muscles. But they can only be part of the party if your deep stabilizers are engaged. So it's more of like a coordination. I mean, this is what I specialize in my office of the patients that I treat are usually they've lost the coordination of the way that their muscles are firing. Most of them have very dominant glutes and under active pelvic floors. So now I have to retrain their whole nervous system to record, coordinate.

Interesting. Do you have any blog posts about retraining the nervous system for the pelvic floor? Because I don't think you get into this and I don't remember seeing it much in your book.

Yeah, I probably did not mention it in the book. My blog is barefoot strongblog.com and I speak quite a bit because everything that I speak about is foot core. That's kind of my. That's why I would travel and speak, you know, at a conference or whatnot. It's just kind of my unique angle of looking at the human body. And then on my YouTube channel, I have many different videos and I even go into different webinars that become more educational. So it's not just a exercise. I go into the science behind why that exercise is done that way and that I can send you that. YouTube.com EBFA Fitness yeah, send me.

Send me that. I mean, it sounds to me like the ultimate takeaway from the Kegels is that not every muscle kind of works in a vacuum and is supposed to work in tandem with other muscles such as the, the deep abdominal floor, the transverse abdominis, et cetera. And you shouldn't just kind of like squeeze to stop the flow of urine without being able to activate some of those other muscles.

Correct. I mean, I've honestly, for the listeners who know your pudendal nerve, I mean, I've had patients that Kegel their way to entrapping and irritating their pudendal nerve, which means now they cannot sit. Imagine not being able to sit because you have severe nerve pain in your perineum. I mean, you don't want to Kegel your way to that.

Okay, got it. Maybe after the interview. Yeah, definitely. Shoot me a link if you've got some good videos or resources, even if it's something you didn't write or you, you know something from somebody else. And I will post that in the show notes for people over@BenGreenfieldFitness.com BarefootBen that's BenGreenfieldFitness.com BareFootBen now, speaking of the hips, Emily, you also talk about why it's important to release the hips. On page 88, you talk about myofascially releasing the hips and how when doing myofascial release work, you like to do cross friction massage and what you recommend to the inverted foot type to do myofascial release to the piriformis and glute medius.

So for releasing the hip, that kind of carries off of the pelvic floor that we were speaking about. So the Kegel comment was actually a perfect segue. So when I have people release their hips, why it is is because they're probably globally dominant. Globally means the superficial muscles. So the part of the hip that I typically focus on releasing is the tfl, the tensor fasciae latae on the front outside anterolateral aspect of the pelvis and the piriformis, which is another instigator, very dominant muscle, and then going into anterior glute medius, kind of all the muscles that hug around the, the iliac crest. So why I want those released is if you're trying to do this reset of the foot core, which are intrinsic muscles, you have to first make sure that any of the superficial muscles that are very active get out of the way first. So once those are out of the way, now you can get the quieter intrinsic muscles to activate, and then you can get those global, more superficial muscles to be part of the party. TFL is one of the, you know, most dominant instigators when it comes to movement dysfunction, knee pain, hip pain, foot pain, ankle sprains, et cetera, et cetera. And if your TFL is very dominant, it's actually not going to allow the PSOAs to engage when it should, and then that creates a lot of instability.

Okay, gotcha. So when you're saying to do a myofascial release, if you tend to be like. And a lot of people are, including me, especially this type with the everted foot type, where we're kind of. Or, I'm sorry, the. The. Is it the inverted or the everted foot type? The. I think it's the inverted foot type where you're. Where your knee goes kind of towards the inside.

That's everted.

Okay.

That's when your knee goes towards the inside.

Okay. So which, which foot type is going to benefit most from doing this type of myofascial release?

So typically, you can assume this, that if your feet are rigid or you have tight ankles, you have tight hips. I mean, it's just, you can associate one with the other. So if there's a listener who has very high arches and feels like they always have limited ankle dorsiflexion or tight ankles, right. When they squat and things like that, then mobilizing the hip is also really important because they're so interconnected. Focusing on the hip, you would want to do all of the external rotators, which means the piriformis, the glutes, anterior glute medius, all of those guys which insert onto your IT band. So I would then also include.

Okay. And I see, by the way, on page 89, next to page 88, where you give instructions and a link to a video on how to do this myofascial release of the hip, which feels really good, by the way. I've got like a little. I just use like a little yoga ball to do this. You've got the full instructions on how to do that. 6 o', clock, 12 o', clock, 3 o', clock, 9 o', clock, full pelvic floor muscle drawing in action. So if people want. I guess you do mention it in the book. I. I hadn't remembered seeing it in there, but I'm seeing it now. You actually do kind of have instructions for how to do, you know, a quasi Kegel exercise properly. So it is in there. There we go. I just saw it.

Perfect. I'll also send you additional links.

Okay, perfect, perfect. And I'll put those links, by the way, for everybody listening over@BenGreenfieldFitness.com Barefoot Ben. That's BenGreenfieldFitness.com barefootben and like Emily mentioned, this naboso mat, which I became aware of after reading her book, is also something that she developed as a way to stimulate the foot and the hand proprioceptors. So I will put a link to that technology as well. I actually have her insoles and I have this mat. It's even something you could take to a unit yoga class if you wanted to use that as your mat in yoga rather than a standard yoga mat. And I like it. It gets a little stinky. I gotta clean it off once a week because I sweat on it so much because it just sits in my sauna. But it's a really good surface. I've found to do these short foot exercises and many of the other things that Emily's talked about as far as ways to activate the feet. And then the book, like I mentioned, it's like 100 pages long. So you've got no excuse. Excuses. Just get it. Because we scratched the surface. We didn't scratch the surface. We took a deep dive into some of this stuff. But ultimately, there is a lot in this book that we really didn't get a chance to talk about. So I recommend picking it up. And then if you have questions for Emily or I, you could just leave them over@BenGreenfieldFitness.com BarefootBen and in many cases, myself or my guests or both, we do a pretty good job at getting in and replying to your questions. So I know you might have some, and you can throw them in there if you would like. So, Dr. Emily, thanks for coming on the show. We're gonna have to have a alchemized juice sometime back at the Alchemist Kitchen in New York City the next time I'm over there.

Yeah. Are you coming back to New York soon?

I avoid New York City and LA until a whole bunch of appointments pile up and then I just pull the trigger and go. But I think I am going to spend speak at another one of Dr. David Boulay's fantastic dinners at some point. I think we're looking at maybe like November for me to come over there. And of course, I'll. I'll put it on the calendar and put it out in the weekly roundup in my newsletter and everything for those of you listening in. But, yeah, I would say. I would say November. Ish, Emily. Something like that.

Oh, okay. Yeah, I'll make sure I stop by when you do another lecture.

There we go. Amazing. All right, well, thanks for coming on the show.

Yeah, thank you very much. I hope that this piques some curiosity for the listeners. And again, it honestly is the tip of the iceberg. It goes so much deeper. But it's very powerful and it's easy to implement into your lifestyle.

I love it. All right. Well, folks, again, BenGreenfieldFitness.com BarefootBen for the show notes. And until next time, I'm Ben Greenfield along with Dr. Emily. I'm not going to try to pronounce her last name. Signing out from BenGreenfieldFitness.com have an amazing week. You've been listening to the Ben Greenfield Fitness podcast. Go to BenGreenfieldFitness.com for even more cutting edge fitness and performance advice.

Sam.