Walking is something most of us do every day without thinking, but the way you move may reveal far more about your health than you realize.

 

In this episode of The MOVEMENT Movement, Steven Sashen speaks with Courtney Conley, DC, Founder and CEO of Gait Happens, who explains how walking speed, sensory input, foot strength, mobility, and the big toe can affect balance, efficiency, pain, and healthy aging. Courtney also shares practical ways to improve walking, including gradually spending more time barefoot, choosing footwear that respects the foot’s natural anatomy, strengthening the feet, and using simple cues to walk taller, faster, and softer.

 

Key Takeaways:

→ Walking speed is considered an important health indicator and may provide clues about future physical and neurological decline.

→ Brisk, intentional walking can be more efficient than the slow, guarded gait people often adopt when in pain.

→ Walking taller, faster, and more softly can help reduce overstriding and promote a smoother gait.

→ Healthy walking depends on foot strength, mobility, balance, and the feet’s ability to interact naturally with the ground.

→ Difficulty walking barefoot may reflect a deconditioned foot rather than proof that the foot permanently needs external support.

 

Dr. Courtney Conley is a nationally bestselling author, an international educator, and a leading authority on foot and gait health. She is the founder of Gait Happens, a global education company that helps people restore foot function through science-backed training, professional education, and personalized care.

 

With nearly 25 years of clinical experience, Dr. Conley has worked with professional athletes from organizations such as the Phoenix Suns, New York Yankees, Cleveland Browns, New York Giants, and San Francisco 49ers. She also serves as Head of Patient Care at Total Health Solutions and Total Health Performance in Lakewood, Colorado.

 

Her book, Walk, became a USA Today and Amazon bestseller. Dr. Conley has appeared on The Peter Attia Drive, Diary of a CEO, CBS Mornings, and Fox & Friends, where she shares her belief that strength, mobility, and long-term health begin from the ground up.

 

Connect With Courtney:

Website: https://gaithappens.com/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/gaithappens/

https://www.instagram.com/drcourtneyconley/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/gaithappens/

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/drcourtneyconley/

https://www.linkedin.com/company/gait-happens/

Connect with Steven:
Xero Shoes: https://xeroshoes.com/
X: https://x.com/XeroShoes
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/xeroshoes/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/xeroshoes

Episode Transcript

Steven Sashen
There is a probably 80% chance that you’re walking wrong. I know that sounds crazy, but I’m gonna. I’ll put money on that one. You’re probably walking wrong. 80% of you. 80% chance. Maybe that’s not 80% of you. That’s all of you have an 80% chance. You know, you get the math. Anyway, we’re gonna dive into this one and this is gonna change your life. No joke. Hey, this is the Movement Movement podcast. The podcast for people who wanna know the truth about what it takes to have a happy, healthy, strong body. Starting feet first. You know, those things at the end of your legs that are the foundation where we also break down the propaganda, the mythology, and sometimes the outright lies you’ve been told about what it takes to walk or run or play or hike or do yoga or CrossFit or high rocks or pickleball or anything else you could think of. And to do those things enjoyably and effectively and efficiently and. Did I say enjoyably? It’s Friday. I can’t think. I know I did. It’s a trick question. So. Because, look, if you’re not having fun, you’re not going to keep up, whatever it is anyway, so make sure you’re having a good time. We call this the Movement Movement. Because we. That includes you. I’ll say more about that in a second. We, we are creating a movement about natural movement, letting your body do what it’s meant to do and not getting in the way, which can mess things up badly. How can you participate? It’s really, really simple. Go to our website, www.jointhemovementmovement.com. there’s nothing you need to do to join. There’s no fee, there’s no dance. We do every morning at 7 o’. Clock. It’s just a place to find all the previous episodes of the podcast, of which there are quite a few. All the ways you can find us on social media, all the ways you can find the podcast if you didn’t like the way you found it already and just spread the word. Give us a thumbs up and star review and a like and a share and follow us on YouTube. If you’re there, hit the subscribe button on YouTube. That’s really helpful too. You get the drill. If you want to be part of the tribe, just subscribe. So. Oh, I didn’t even say. I’m Stephen Sashin, co founder and chief barefoot officer here at Xero Shoes. Alrighty, let’s start. Let’s make it really easy. Courtney Conley, do me a favor. Tell people who you are and what you are doing here.

Courtney Conley
Hi, My name is Dr. Courtney Conley. I am the founder of Gate Happens. So that is an online education company. We’ve been doing that now for, gosh, a lot. It seems like a long time. And I recently wrote a book called Walk. So I’m excited to talk to you about all that.

Steven Sashen
I wish you could have made the title more succinct. Four letters, way too many. If you could just found a way to do three. And FYI, you know, you made me realize I don’t refer to any of my doctor friends with the word doctor. And I have a fantasy every time I’m going to meet a new doctor that if I say, hey, Bob, or whatever their name is, they’re going to go, well, you know, Dr. Mitchell. And I’m going to go, okay, well, I have a master’s, so you can call me Master Session. So problem with growing up in a medical household, everyone was Bob and Mary and whatever the hell they were. You know, I’m going to start calling you doctors for the fun of it, though.

Courtney Conley
Yeah, I probably like who. Who’s he talking to?

Steven Sashen
So let’s. So let’s back up. So let’s say a bit about Gate Happens and what you’ve been doing there that led to this book. And then we’re going to dive into what I said, which is, you know, no one knows how to walk.

Courtney Conley
Yeah. You and I have had this conversation many times in our. In our combined join. Passion for feet and the health of our feet. But I’ve always.

Steven Sashen
I’m so glad you added health of our feet. Otherwise that’s. And that we met in some bizarre bar where all you see is people’s feet.

Courtney Conley
So I grew up as a dancer and a runner, and I’ve always had. I always had foot problems and, you know, kind of went down that trajectory of conventional footwear and foot orthoses and things weren’t getting better. And so I kind of did this dive into my own kind of personal quest on what I needed to do to get. To get stronger and healthier from the ground up. And that’s what kind of led me to all of this. So I’m a clinician. I’ve been doing this for 25 years. And when I was first in practice, I worked in several orthotic labs, and we were, you know, making orthotics and putting people in these really aggressive shoes, and that’s what we knew to do. Um, and I just never made sense to me, it wasn’t working for me. And so I started to peel back and said, why are. Why aren’t we treating our feet like we treat the rest of the human body, which is improving strength and improving mobility? And once I started to do that, I was like, man, I’m feeling better. Like, there’s got to be more to. To all of this.

Steven Sashen
Yeah.

Courtney Conley
And, you know, here we are. It’s been quite the journey. So I’ve really wanted to educate people on the importance of this because I, you know, I talk about this. This stuff all day long. Yet when I go out into the real world, like go to the airports or see what people are walking in, I’m like, man, I got some work to do.

Steven Sashen
Yeah, well, you know, it’s funny you mentioned that. And pardon me, there’s going to be pings that I can’t turn off on my computer, only because I’ve been a computer guy for 40 years, and I still can’t figure out how to turn off a couple of the pings that happen on here, even if I close the programs. And so apologies. And also, there’s a big conversation going on right now that. And people will say, well, you just close that app. I’ve closed that app already. Okay. So, yeah, I’ve had a similar experience. And it’s kind of like when people say, so what do you do? And you have to answer that question, it. Well, I’m going to. I’ll ask it as a question prior to writing your book where you could literally just say, here, go over there to the airport bookstore and buy my book. If somebody said, what do you do? How did you talk about this at all? And what kind of response did you get from people? I’ll compare what happens for you versus what happens to me.

Courtney Conley
You know, when people would come into the clinic, the first thing I would have them do is I have them take their shoes off and I have them look at their feet. And, you know, it’s always one of those. A lot of people don’t have never looked at their feet. They don’t even pay attention to their feet. And so then once we start bringing things to their attention, like, hey, do you think, you know, your foot should have bunions and hammer toes and all these structural changes to it? Like, do you think that’s what feet should look like? I think a lot of people don’t even realize what a healthy foot looks like.

Steven Sashen
Well, wait, but how did they answer? Because this is my favorite part.

Courtney Conley
How do they answer? Well, they look down and the question I ask them is, do you know what the widest part of your foot is? And they always get that wrong.

Steven Sashen
What do they say and what’s the right answer?

Courtney Conley
The ball of the foot or where the metatarsals are? Very few of them say the toes because most people, the widest part is not there and their feet is not their toes, and it should be.

Steven Sashen
And do they. I mean, yeah, my version is people say, yeah, but my, my doctor said that I’ve got this problem, and so therefore I need. I mean, they don’t even address the question. They just go straight to some argument authority about. Well, someone told me that, you know, look, your feet just. They need support. They need a thing. They do this thing that’s just. I mean, you know, my father was like this too. So it’s genetic. I mean, I get a whole bunch of things like that.

Courtney Conley
Yeah, yeah. The, the genetic conversation is, you know, my mom had bunions, my grandma had bunions, my. And I always, you know, challenge that conversation. You know, when you go to the doctor and they say, you know, they ask your family history, did your family have heart disease? Do you have a history of cancer? And then the reason they ask you that is because they’re like, okay, well, if you do, then exercise, eat better. So that’s kind of how I take that conversation. To people that have, you know, their mother has a bunion. Well, if, you know.

Steven Sashen
No, no, you missed it. You missed it. So you find one of those things where, you know, I had to do one of these the other day where it’s like, have you or anyone in your family had these? It was like a hundred things and there was no way to just select no for everything and then just check the couple that are true. But you might point out that bunions is never on that list. Yeah, Hammertoe. Not on that list. Walking with your foot, you know, with one foot pointing at 12 o’ clock and one pointing at 3 o’. Clock. Not on that list.

Courtney Conley
Not on the list.

Steven Sashen
Yeah, so that would be a really good one. Oh, man. Okay, so, so, so, so, so, you know, getting people to look at their feet is an interesting one. The thing that I find equally perplexing is the people who just get really upset about having to look at anyone’s feet. Like, this whole thing of someone taking their shoes off on an airplane is like, I don’t want to see your ugly feet. What if their feet are pretty? I mean, have you ever seen a foot that you think is good looking? I’ve never been able to ask anyone that question, because I’ve never. I’ve only heard these conversations, these arguments, but I mean, that’s such a wild one, is that I don’t know that we say that about any other part of our body. And I would argue there’s other parts of our body that look way weirder. And you can tell me which ones. I’m not going to answer that.

Courtney Conley
Yeah, I’m going to be speaking with this woman. She is a professor at Penn, and she does, like cultural taboos. And one of the things we’re going to be talking about is, like, why cultures have this, you know, this issue with feet. Like, we need to hide them or we don’t want to look at them, or we ignore them. Like, what is the underlying kind of taboo behind all of that?

Steven Sashen
Well, there’s a variation. We actually can’t help but look at them. Bring this one up. And I can tell you this from my experience, when a. If I’m walking around in bare fe, people, well, I’ll do it the other way. I’m walking. Whenever I’m wearing. Wearing zero shoes, I wear mismatched colors.

Courtney Conley
Yeah.

Steven Sashen
And so people notice that from very far away. And then they think they’re being funny when they say to me, oh, I bet you have a pair just like that at home. And I go, similar. But the other one is, if I’m in bare feet, then people notice from twice as far away, and they. I mean, they notice. Once I was actually walking into Costco. This is my favorite conversation I think I ever had. And there was a little kid who was walking near me, like maybe seven or something, and he says, mommy, that man’s not wearing shoes. And amazingly, the mother says, why don’t you ask him why? And he goes, how come you don’t have shoes on? I said, have you ever been to the beach? He says, yeah. I said, you wear shoes at the beach? He’s no. I said, do you like walking around barefoot at the beach? He goes, yeah. I said, I like to pretend this is the beach. He’s like, oh,

Courtney Conley
it’s a great response there.

Steven Sashen
Yeah, it was wonderful. It was really fun. Okay, so, um. So, you know, one of the great things about having a book is now that you have a fun way of answering, it’s like, well, I’ve written a whole book about that. So what inspired you to just do the heavy lifting of writing a book? And by the way, we will get to, you know, people walking wrong. But look, this is a herculean task, and I’m sure that I want to hear that first thought. And how long did it take till you realized you were insane?

Courtney Conley
I don’t think I realized. I. I knew what I was getting myself into, to be honest, because now I understand. You know, when people write a book, they’re like, I’m gonna go in a cabin in the woods for like six months, I’m gonna turn my phone off. And I’m sitting here going, I have two businesses and I’m a single parent. Like, what am I doing right now? It hijacked my life. And a friend of mine told me that, she’s like, are you sure you want to do this? But for two and a half years, it was, you know, every free moment. And then even like as soon as my eyes would. I’d open my eyes in the morning, I’m like, should I rew that section? Should I add this research? Should I? And it was just constant. And my editor was like, you got to stop. You gotta like, well, stop.

Steven Sashen
I’m gonna. I mean, I get the editor’s point. And I heard a great interview Stephen Dubner from Freakonomics did with Harlan Coban, whom I didn’t really know. I knew, I knew the name. I knew that he writes books and produces TV from his books, but it was a great interview. And he said, look, when someone says, I don’t have time to write, then you’re not a writer. If you’re a writer, you make the time. You get up two hours early, before your kids get up, before you go to the gym, you put it in your two hours, then you do your life. And then if you’re still awake at the end of the day, you put in that. I mean, that’s what a writer is. You get up and you write. Now did you also. Did you have the experience of like waking up in the middle of the night going, oh, here’s a better way to do it. And then you write it all out. And then you see that you’ve basically written it exactly like that already when you.

Courtney Conley
I have my notebook right by my. By my bed.

Steven Sashen
Oh yeah, you know, so. So two and a half years of, of agony. And. And here we are. One thing that I found interesting, I remember talking to a friend of mine who’s a very successful non fiction writer, and he told me about a book that he was going to work on. He goes, I, you know, I’m going to write a book about so. And so I said, I didn’t know you knew anything about that. He goes, I don’t that’s why I want to write a book about it. I was like, what? He goes, yeah, I write the book to learn about it so that it’s in the book. So talk to me about what, where you started and what you found yourself, surprisingly perhaps learning in that two and a half year agonizing process.

Courtney Conley
Well, you know, when I was, I’ve been thinking about writing this book and I had always, you know, in the clinic I can help one person and my whole goal was like, if I can write this book, then we can really like spread this message on a much wider basis and really get this information out there. So when I had originally thought about it, I wanted to write a book, obviously, instead of called Walk called Feet. I mean, that’s, that’s what I wanted to, to do. And I was sitting at, at a wedding in Mexico with my co author who helped me and she’s like, you know, Courtney, she’s like, I don’t know if you can just write a book called Feet. And now, I mean, if I write book number two, I can tell you right now it’s going to be called Feet.

Steven Sashen
But that’s, you might, you might want to not leave certain people out. So you might want to just call it Foot.

Courtney Conley
Foot.

Steven Sashen
Yes. Yeah.

Courtney Conley
So, you know, when we talked about making the overarching theme of walking and I was like, oh, this makes so much sense just because I don’t think people realize that in a walking gait, like, it is our feet that are responsible for keeping us upright and balanced and going long distances and being efficient. And so that’s when people are like, why are you, you know, I know how to walk. Well, a lot of my patients come into my office and they say to me all the time, I feel like I forgot how to walk, or I can’t walk for long periods, or I feel like I can’t push off. And so I love all those conversations because those are all the ones that we answered.

Steven Sashen
Right? So, you know, I like when people think I know how to walk. It’s what they say, like, I know how to write too. They think they can be a writer or a screenwriter or I know how to run. When you look at them and they can’t, they don’t realize. I mean, the thing that I like to point out is look at video people from other cultures, do they walk the same way you are? So there’s lots of different ways of walking in theory, but there’s also common factors of ways that can be better than others.

Courtney Conley
There’s I always like when you watch people walk. I love it because it’s this kind of neurological window. You can really tell a lot about someone, like, are they happy, are they sad, did they get fired, did they get promoted? All in how they carry themselves. And I don’t think you want to take away that kind of unique fingerprint or footprint, if you will, from with people’s gait. But you can be efficient and we should be. Because when you look at the research of why walking is so good for us, a lot of it happens at a certain clip. You have to walk at a certain pace and you have to do that for an extended period of time. And when there is inefficiencies within the human body or the footwear is impeding some of that, then we have problems.

Steven Sashen
Did you ever have you played with just the whole idea of I don’t know how to. What to call this. I just thought of it now of let’s call it a certain tribalism around walking and gait. And what I’m thinking of is you see a family, especially when there’s a lot of kids, and especially once they’re over the age of like 7 or 8 and they all walk the same and it’s all completely messed up. I worked for two summers at an amusement park. I was performing at Busch Gardens in Williamsburg, Virginia. And I used to see like families. First of all, my favorite is. Would be a family of like seven, including the kids. And they’re all wearing I’m with stupid T shirts. And I so wanted to walk up to at least one of the parents and just said, why don’t you cross the I’m out, I’m with and just put stupid. But it used to amaze me seeing people who all. They all had the same. I mean, I wasn’t into this then. This is 40 years ago, but or 45 years ago. They all had the same dysfunctional movement patterns because that’s what fits in the family. If you did it differently, you’d stand out and look weird and know be kicked out of the tribe.

Courtney Conley
It’s like to adopt these gates. Did you ever see that? It was this kind of video going around. It went viral of this little boy walking. He was like four with his hands behind his back.

Steven Sashen
Oh, yes and no. Keep describing.

Courtney Conley
We don’t understand. Like, his mom was like, I don’t understand. Is there something wrong with him? You know, like, what’s going on? And then they realized that that’s how his grandfather walked, always with his hands behind his back. So he kind of was mimicking his grandfather.

Steven Sashen
I actually saw that video just the other day. And he even says, why are you walking that? It’s like. And he sits on the. I’m grandpa. Yeah, yeah. I mean, it was. It’s hysterical and sad at the same time.

Courtney Conley
But mostly it’s, like, really interesting, too. Did you ever see that show Sons of Anarchy?

Steven Sashen
I know of it, but I never watched it.

Courtney Conley
It’s like that. It’s like this motorcycle gang show, and the lead actor in that has this very, like, kind of macho, like, tough guy gate. And he was being interviewed on a late show, and they asked him, like, how long did it take you to, you know, learn how to walk like that? And he was like, no, no. He’s like, that’s how I actually walk. He’s like, I grew up in Ireland in, like, a really bad part of Ireland. He’s like. And you had to, like, walk around like you owned the place or you were gonna get your ass kicked, you know? So I think it’s interesting to see how people kind of adopt these certain gates based on environment and, you know, oh, genetics.

Steven Sashen
They see, you just gave me a semi embarrassing. If it weren’t that I was such a young person memory. I remember being in elementary school, probably, like, third grade, and practicing different ways of walking down the hall.

Courtney Conley
Yeah.

Steven Sashen
Like, I was just trying them out. Like, I was just really curious, so I had a big saunter or I did something less. I mean, it was like I was just. But, like, I was just curious how that worked. I don’t know where that came from, but now it led me here.

Courtney Conley
Yeah.

Steven Sashen
Sorry. What? Go. No, you win. Go.

Courtney Conley
Well, I think when you, like, see people that, you know, people always ask, well, how do I know if I’m walking right? Like, what. What should I be doing? You know? And there’s, like, little things that, you know, when I’m evaluating someone and I always try to neurologically distract them. Right. Because if someone knows you’re watching them, they just change things around.

Steven Sashen
Yeah.

Courtney Conley
Which I have a very funny story about that. Remind me to tell you. But it’s little things, like if someone’s only swinging one arm or if they’re walking slower because they’re in pain, which is often very common, that people in pain will walk slower. These are things that kind of glare out at you, and you’re like, okay, if we address these issues, we’re going to create efficiency and, in fact, less pain.

Steven Sashen
Do you watch Ted Lasso?

Courtney Conley
Yes.

Steven Sashen
So every time I see Brett Goldstein walk. I. I just want to jump in there and help him out.

Courtney Conley
I know, I know.

Steven Sashen
I gotta do something. So. Okay, so we’ve got this book. I’m gonna jump to my intro where I said, you know, either 80% of the people, or it’s an 80% chance that you’re walking wrong. How much was I exaggerating or how much was I under. Underestimating that?

Courtney Conley
You know, you know, whatever. Whatever you need to do. It’s, I always say, too, like, you know, overarching. Right. The only way to. To. To walk wrong is to not do it. Do. Can we be efficient? Yes.

Steven Sashen
Okay, so that said, actually, you know what? Before we even get to efficient, before we even talk about what that is and how people can get there, let’s talk about some of the other things. You and I brought this up very briefly, you know, before we started chatting online about what are some of the things that walking actually can indicate or things that you notice? Like, you know, the idea that you see someone’s personality is one thing. By the way, there’s a whole thing in Zen archery where they say. There’s a line that the teachers say, which is, at the moment of releasing the arrow, the archer’s true nature is revealed. And it’s because I used to do this. It’s because you see certain movement patterns that are telling. Like, is someone being aggressive? Are they afraid? Are they trying to show off? Are they. Whatever? And you see it in little things, like how somebody holds their pinky. So in walking, there’s things that we see like that, which I’d like you to talk about some things that you see. But also, we know there’s things about walking that are indicating things about the future. Hint, hint, nudge, nudge. How long will you live? So I didn’t want to make that. So can you talk about those two aspects of walking?

Courtney Conley
Yeah. So when we. When we were doing research for the book, one of the things that we came across was that walking speed has been touted as the sixth vital sign, which I thought was really interesting, because, you know, when you put walking speed in the same category as blood pressure and taking your temperature and looking at your oxygen saturation, you have to say, man, like, that this must be pretty damn important.

Steven Sashen
Yeah.

Courtney Conley
And what they found was things like being able to identify why someone is walking slower. So if someone has adopted a certain slower cadence, where their pace is slow, this can be indicative or predict things like dementia or neurodegenerative diseases. 7. And some sources will say nine years

Steven Sashen
in advance and mortality in five. So the, the researcher, Duke, the nurse at Duke who first figured this out about 17, 18 years ago, it’s like walking speed was directly correlated to mortality risk. And I don’t remember what the number was. You might know like if you’re walking under this speed habitually, then your risk of dying within the next five years is greatly increased.

Courtney Conley
When they look at, when they always talk about brisk pace walking, like in all the research, it’s around 130, 135 steps per minute. So on a treadmill, 3.5, 4.0 miles per hour. The cancer research was 4.0 miles per hour for 30 minutes.

Steven Sashen
Wait, say more about that.

Courtney Conley
So what they found was people that were walking for 30 minutes at 4.0 mph had a reduction or reduced risks of cancers. And I think it was step count two where with people were in that 7,000 step per day count, the decrease was like 11%. And we’re talking like liver cancer, anal cancers. There were five different cancers. When you increase your step count with that speed, it jumped up to 16% reduction, which I think is a really like a low hanging fruit for us. You know, we’re all, there’s so much information out there like we need to do this and we need to do that and don’t eat this and don’t eat blueberries with your bananas and whatever. And it’s like if we just look at something that we as human beings were designed and have evolved to do, and we do it consistently and we do it with a brisk pace, we can start taking care of things like cancers and dementias and cardiovascular issues and that to me, depression. I really think that we need to pay attention to something that we all have access to.

Steven Sashen
Did you bump into the research from Kirk Erickson? I think it was at University of Pittsburgh. This is from like 19, 17 years ago. 19 years ago. Somewhere in there.

Courtney Conley
Oh, I don’t know. Let me know. What is it?

Steven Sashen
It was a long term study. I think it was like a nine year longitudinal study where now I have problems with methodology that I’ll highlight. But he took elderly people and gave them FMRI and tracked them over time and looked at the reduction in gray matter in their brain. And the ones who walked the most had the lowest reduction or maybe had none, I don’t recall. I called him and I said, why do you think that is? He said, I think as a combination of just the walking and also the stimulation from walking, just when you have to pay attention and looking around, I said, do you think it would have been greater effect if they were walking barefoot and getting stimulation from that? He goes, oh, wow. Yeah. So that was another interesting thing. Now, the methodology that I have a problem with is the woman. There’s a woman named Joy Hirsch, I don’t remember. She’s still at Columbia. She used to be at Columbia. Who. She was the first person to stick someone’s head in an fmri and she will say, an FMRI is good for when you’re in the machine, you do something mentally and then you stop doing something mentally. You know, like do it for five seconds. Stop for five seconds. So this thing of, like, looking at changes over time is not necessarily the most accurate way of measuring, but nonetheless, it was an interesting point about, you know, seeing an effect. And yeah, it, it is. It’s right there all the time. Yeah.

Courtney Conley
That walking outside barefoot and you get all that sensory input, like just being outside and you have all these visual things and your vest, your auditory. I mean, you’re. It’s basically like the sensory implosion.

Steven Sashen
Yeah. Well, and, and for most people, they’re. If they’re not going to walk on, you know, sidewalks and roads, you’re going to be somewhere that’s pleasant anyway. And so then there’s the whole Japanese call it nature bathing thing. If you’re doing this in nature where it’s safe, you know, we know there’s some value there. That one’s kind of a no brainer. It’s. Oh, there was a thing that I was going to ask you about that. Oh, it’s totally fell out of my head entirely. Okay. So we’re talking about ultimately efficiency. Talk about what inefficient walking can be or indications thereof. So if somebody knows if they’re again, having some inefficient things and then talk about what the difference is about efficient, and then we’re going to kind of get into how someone can start discovering this for themselves.

Courtney Conley
Yeah. So overarching, kind of big party, pun intended. Yes. Is, do you. When I watch someone walk, I’m like, does it look like they could walk for long distances? Are they not, you know, are they not going into Zone 5? Are they not hyperventilating with just this walking gait? Does it look comfortable? You know, and that’s kind of the first thing that we take a look at. And then you’re like, okay, what can we break down? Where does it look like there’s something that is slowing them down? We already talked about speed. And just to go a little bit deeper into that there is a lot of research on people with low back pain, chronic low back pain, that walking fast is the antidote to. That is the way to help with low back pain. And I call it the difference between like museum walking or like grocery store walking and like intentional walking.

Steven Sashen
Right?

Courtney Conley
When you’re in pain and your foot’s on the ground, you have longer contact time. So you’re walking slower because there’s this fear, there’s this hesitancy of like, oh, something’s going to hurt, something’s going to hurt. So I’m going to walk slower. What people don’t realize is that makes you very inefficient. It’s actually a lot harder to slow down your momentum and just have your foot on the ground for long periods of time. You don’t get to take advantage of kinetic energy. You don’t get to take advantage of, you know, your fascia contributing to your efficiency, things like that. So one of the easiest and first things we’ll do with people is just say, hey, I want you to pick up the pace a little bit. I want your foot off of the ground faster. We’ll have them listen to a metronome, you know, and always their arms start swinging and things start to look more slow, smooth. And then they can create this efficiency and they’re like, man, my back feels better. I’m like, yeah, because you’re not standing still, you’re not slowing things down. And it really can make such a

Steven Sashen
difference in my brain. They’re also, especially because you, you’re doing, picking up the cadence a little. They can’t over stride and heel strike as much, so they’re not sending a spike of force somewhere. And for them it’s landing in their back. For other people, their knees, for other people, their hip, et cetera. But I’m. I’d be willing to bet that if you were looking at video, you’d see that they’re not over striding either at all or as much when they pick it up.

Courtney Conley
It’s such a good point. Like in, in the book, we have this walking signature chapter. And so, you know, people are always asking me, what cues can I do? Like, should I be pushing off my big toe? Should I be squeezing my glute? And I’m like, no, I don’t want you doing any of that. Because then what? They end up like the bit, the pushing off the big toe is a big one, right? Because in a gait we roll through the foot and you do propel through one and two, through your first toe and second toe. But when people try to do that, they come in the next day and they’re like, man, the inside of my knee hurts. And I’m like, yeah, that’s not what I want you to do. So the cues that we chose in the book were simple for people to do to understand, but I get what I need biomechanically. So for example, if I say to someone, I want you to walk taller, I want you to walk faster, I want you to walk softer. Everything you said about that over striding, that it gets taken away. That over stride, heavy slapping gait with that heel strike that’s all the way out in front of them starts to go away when you implement those three cues because you just can’t do those three things with an over striding heavy gait. And then obviously the conversation of feel. You know, our heel was beautifully designed to absorb shock, right? You know, the bone itself, the calcaneal fat pad. I mean that thing is meant to feel. So when we block that, now I have this foot that’s over striding. I can land very hot and heavy and people don’t even feel it. And so then they say to me, yeah, well I, I, I feel like I can’t feel anything. I’m like, you’re correct.

Steven Sashen
Well, the point that I’ve made is when people say, when I talk about landing midfoot or landing flat footed or whatever, they go, but you’re, you’re supposed to, when you’re walking, you’re supposed to land on heel, right? I go, yeah, but there’s two ways of landing on your heel. If you’re way over striding, you’re landing basically on the back of your heel, which is not protected. If you’re not over striding, you’re landing on, you’re landing with your heel on the part that is protected. And so they, people love to argue for their limitations or misunderstandings, which I find just utterly incredible. But you know, but yeah, I mean, you may know I’ve done a video that is the opposite of what you just said to a certain extent where I do guide people to how to use their glutes and push backwards like they’re skating and not over stride by just leaving the front foot kind of hanging. Because not that I want them to, not that I’m certainly not disagreeing with anything you’re saying, but I found so many people, they don’t know that they’re over striding and, and they don’t know and actually they’re just not using their glutes or hamstrings at all. Anyway. And so this has been something that’s been. And. And also just building glute strength is also protective for your back as well. So I’m not trying to justify it. I’m. We’re not really talking about different things. We’re coming at it from different.

Courtney Conley
Yep.

Steven Sashen
Directions of your butt. So. But it’s. But those are really the best thing I can say or anything I can say. Those are perfect book use because the thing that I’m showing people, you can’t do it without a video. It’s just next to impossible. So that’s a really good one. So when. So backing up a half a step. Not well. Boy. There’s two directions I want to go. A, not being able to walk comfortably for some amount of distance. Oh, my God. Or wait, let me ask you this one. God, I got too many. I’m going to have to give you all three. You’re going to have to address them because otherwise I’ll lose them. One is, what other cues might there be other than like not being able to walk for a distance or having certain kinds of discomfort that could suggest people are being inefficient? I’ve had people say to me when I ask them about walking barefoot, they go, I can’t walk barefoot in my house. I have wooden floors. You got to talk about that. And then the third thing is something that I forgot when I was saying the first two because I couldn’t keep all three in my head.

Courtney Conley
We’ll go with the walking barefoot at home. Because I always think this is such an interesting conversation, you know, after Covid and there, all of a sudden you started seeing all of these articles, don’t walk barefoot at home because everybody’s getting foot pain. You have to have your shoes on. You have to have. You know, and I’m. I’m reading all this and I’m going, they’re getting it wrong here.

Steven Sashen
Right?

Courtney Conley
It’s not that walking barefooted home is the problem. It’s that for years people are in shoes that are restricting the function of their foot. They’re not paying attention to the strength of their foot. And now they’re home, and now they take their shoes off and they want to go 0 to 100. It’s not that the shoe was, you know, you have to wear shoes. It’s the fact that we had a. We have a deconditioned foot. And so walking around barefoot is not the problem. It’s the deconditioned foot. So that’s more of the conversation that I think we need to have rather than saying you can never be barefoot at home.

Steven Sashen
Well, and the way you, you know, it’s user to lose it. The way you condition your feet is by using them. You just. Again, like I say, if you haven’t been to the gym for a year, you don’t go in and just squat 300.

Courtney Conley
Right.

Steven Sashen
Though you do an embarrassingly small amount of weight for one or two reps. And then you come back with your tail between your legs and build it up slowly. So I remember the third thing, but we haven’t done the first thing, which was other ways to identify you might be inefficient. But I’m going to do the third thing before I forget, because this will play into it since you. It came. Came into the equation. Talk about. Because this impacts speed as well. Talk about people wearing super thick, super shoe, hoka level, you know, crazy amounts of cushioning. Yeah, Demon cushioning.

Courtney Conley
Okay, so for that question, this is a kind of a perfect example. My father, he’s going to be 80 or he is 80 now. And he said to me, he goes, you know, Courtney, he’s like, I feel like when I’m walking that I can’t push through my foot, right? Like, he can’t push through the ball of the foot. And so he goes to this store and he comes back with this shoe, right? We know these shoes, the rockered shoes, the very heavily cushioned shoes. And he calls me later and he goes, oh. I said, how’s. How’s it going, dad? He’s like, well, I feel like I’m walking better because, you know, I have this shoe and I feel better. And I said, can I see that thing? And you’ve seen people like, I was in. I’m always looking at this, like in the grocery store. It literally looks almost like they, like I. I feel like there’s a motor in the shoe because it, it literally looks like it’s pushing them forward. And I said, dad, I understand that this might feel like things are easier for you, but just like you said, if you don’t use it, you’re going to lose it. And he was losing power. He was losing power. We know we lose power before strength as we age. I don’t want my father to lose power at his foot and ankle. That is not a recipe for success. That’s a problem. Getting up and down stairs. That’s a problem. Making reactive movements when he’s outside or he’s golfing and he can’t, like catch himself after a trip. So the shoe, if it feels like it’s doing too much for you, more than likely it is. And I don’t think that is the solution. So we had to have a, you know, mother, father, daughter conversation about why that was not going to work for us.

Steven Sashen
Well, and to the point you made before, and I’m just. And kind of made it now, but I want to highlight it, is that also when you’re that high off the ground, you’re unstable, and you put those together and people start walking slower with less effort. And so, and as we’ve already said, that is a whole leads a whole cascading set of effects that, that are not good for your livelihood.

Courtney Conley
Well, this is another great example of that too. I had a guy telling he has very stiff arches and he has a lot of pain in his feet. And when he. He has very. He was wearing very heavily cushioned shoes. And so when he’s walking, he’s looking down all the time because he can’t find. Feel anything from the ground up. Now, when you look down. Talk about being inefficient. Yeah, this is one of those things. When I see people looking down and they’re like trying to figure out where to put their foot in there, you’re tensing your nervous system. And I, you know, if I could go back to school to, to do research on this. I firmly believe that you. When you see those feet that are very stiff and rigid, it’s not just a structural variant. I think it’s a nervous system that has been under chronic stress and the nervous system is being reflected in the feet. And so it’s this very rigid, stiff. I’m afraid to relax. And the foot does not function like that.

Steven Sashen
Do you know, I forgot his first name, Dr. Sarno, who got famous about his back pain treatment, which was all psychological. No, the gist of it is if you’re having back pain, it’s because you have some unexpressed anger and you’ve got. I mean, I might be paraphrasing or getting a little wrong, but if you can find that, then that’ll take care of it. I would argue it’s. And there are a lot of people who’ve had tremendous success with this, and I would contend it’s a similar thing with feet. I mean, if you’ve got. And I’m not saying it’s necessarily anger, but if you have something that’s holding, that’s going to show up somewhere in your body and could become habitual. Because our brain is Designed to start ignoring things that we’re just doing habitually. It’s like, oh, you’re going to do that all the time? Well, that’s not worth paying attention to. So it acclimates to things like that, which I’m curious also, since we touched on it. You know, one of the other things about your foot moving that we’re, we’re dancing around a little bit is 200, 000 nerve endings roughly in the sole of each foot. What did you learn or what do you have to throw into the conversation about just that neurological component and the feedbacky component and et cetera, et cetera, about having all that in like all that info that you’re supposed to be getting somehow?

Courtney Conley
I mean, it’s. The feet are a sensory organ. We grab information from the ground. It keeps us upright and balanced. And here’s where we need to pay attention. When you turn 50 years old, the receptors on the bottoms of Those feet require 25% more pressure to be stimulated. So we start to lose the ability to feel things, right? So it takes 25% more pressure to stimulate these receptors. When you turn 80, that number jumps up to 75%. So there’s a rapid loss of sensation at our feet. We also know sarcopenia happens not just in our bodies, the sexy muscles that happens in our feet. So we lose strength and we lose sensitivity. And here’s the good news though. Exercise, Here we go. Increases circulation, it increases blood flow, increases nerve fiber branching. So we can actually take those numbers and be like, all right, well, I’m exercising my foot. I still feel things. I can strengthen my foot, but if you don’t, it is a very, very rapid decline of what happens from the ground up.

Steven Sashen
I was the first time I was at the senior games for athletes, masters athletes over 50. I’m hanging out with a bunch of the 60 year olds and they all said to me, dude, you have no idea how bad it gets when you turn 60. And standing behind them was a bunch of 80 year olds who said, you people have no idea what you’re talking about. So they said it a little more colorfully than that, but I chose not to. So I’m glad you highlighted that. You know, there, this is not a. Or at least you can look as a master’s sprinter. The line we have is I’m just trying to slow down, slowing down. So it’s not that you’re going to be able to stay at some level that you were at your 40s, but you can slow down, slowing down. In fact, I had. I logged on to Facebook the other day, and it showed me a Facebook memory from 12 years ago, and that was the most annoying thing I’ve ever seen in my life. Like, geez, that was really depressing, those memories.

Courtney Conley
Yep.

Steven Sashen
Yeah, that was depressing. So. Okay.

Courtney Conley
But I think that’s an encouraging conversation, right?

Steven Sashen
Like, absolutely.

Courtney Conley
You know, you don’t want to. You know, it’s funny. I’ve done a lot of these podcasts since the book came out, and sometimes they’ll take, like, they’ll be like, if you don’t do this, you’re going to die. And I’m like, I didn’t say that. Like, I’ve never said that. It’s like, I get it. But the point is, is it’s a hopeful conversation if you just pay attention, you know, and we do little things that we can implement, like taking our shoes off and strengthening our feet and wearing the right footwear. It’s a. It’s a. It’s an easier ride. It is an easier ride.

Steven Sashen
Yeah. God, I’ve had this one thought that came up, like, three times and keeps losing it. This is making me crazy. Okay, so since I can’t find that for the third time, I should write this stuff down, but I’m. I don’t. Okay, so you just highlight it. Said a couple things that are, like, the critical things. The taking your shoes off, that’s a piece of cake. And we know there’s research from Sarah Ridge that shows just walking barefoot builds foot strength as much as doing an exercise program for your feet. So walking barefoot is one thing. Strengthening is another sensation another. So what can people do? We still haven’t talked about things that they might notice that are dysfunctional, but, hell, screw it. Let’s go to the part that’s, you know, keeping things better. So talk about the strengthening thing. Talk about proper footwear. You mentioned that. Or anything else in terms as. As part of the positive conversation of these little things, these daily things that make this huge, huge difference moving forward.

Courtney Conley
Yeah, I mean, I think first and foremost is having footwear that respects the anatomy of your foot. There is a lot of research coming out right now on the importance of the big toe. I’m like, oh, great. Yeah, we’re there. That, that. That big toe, that first ray, is very, very important from a small stability perspective and from a propulsion perspective. The muscle that straightens the big toe, which can be strengthened, by the way, is very important in postural stability. It is slow twitch fibers. So your abductor hallucis. So that guy is really active all day long to help us balance and ambulate and be efficient. So doing things like wearing the right footwear, where that toe can stay in alignment, doing exercises to strengthen the big toe. And that’s outside of, you know, when we start with patients initially, it’s like, can you just move your big toe? Can you do banded big toe exercises? But think about how you would load the rest of your body. I mean, sled pushes, farmers carries, putting a rack on your back and doing a, you know, forward calf raise, where you’re putting a lot of load through that big toe. I mean, your feet are designed to handle lots of loads. And so it’s that conversation. Well, does my foot need arch support? It most certainly does not. Because when your foot is strong, it handles multiple times your body weight when you’re running and even, excuse me, when you’re walking and even more when you’re running. So really paying attention, I think, to that big toe is an important first step for a lot of people.

Steven Sashen
Some people will make arguments about flat feet versus high arches. Do you want to say anything about that?

Courtney Conley
Yes. It’s how the foot functions. You know, just because you see a flat foot does not mean you go to the store and you need to put an orthotic underneath there. And you need. That is not the conversation. There is a lot of variation to the structure of the foot, the subtalar joint, which is the joint that we pronate and supinate through. Lots of just variations amongst people. So people’s feet are going to look very different. In fact, if you were to look at people just standing in front of you, most people stand in a position of mild to moderate, what we would say in pronation. So it’s not like, sound the fire alarms, you know, like, we need to put something underneath this foot. It’s how does it function?

Steven Sashen
Right.

Courtney Conley
You know, do you have strength? Do you have mobility? Can you produce capacity? Can you jump? Like, that’s one of the things I’m working with a lot of. My. My mom just is 76 and we’re working on, like, you know, how to jumping, like, getting her off the ground. I don’t think that that conversation of training power should be, you know, restricted to athletes.

Steven Sashen
Yeah.

Courtney Conley
You know, I want my mom training for power. And that comes from your feet.

Steven Sashen
Yeah. Those things at the end of your legs. Who knew?

Courtney Conley
Yeah.

Steven Sashen
So I’m working on the assumption that there’s much, much more that people will find in the book, both about what inefficient and efficient walking look like and some of the strengthening issues that we’ve talked about, et cetera. Anything else you want to add about that piece of the puzzle?

Courtney Conley
I mean, I think when you go for a walk, you should enjoy it. It should be one of those things where you’re like, I enjoy being outside. It shouldn’t be, gosh, do I have to park my car closer to the front door so that I don’t have to walk? You know, or maybe you should drop me off or, you know, we hear this all the time. I’m going to Europe, and I’m really concerned that I’m not going to be able to, you know, enjoy my trip because I can’t walk. Those little things should be subjective kind of, you know, questions you should ask yourself, like, should I really be saying those things?

Steven Sashen
Well, should you be accepting that as the way it is? I’ll never forget, there was a guy, not only did he tell me that he couldn’t wear zero shoes because, you know, he’s had. What do you say? He’s had plantar fasciitis for 21 years. To which I said, you can’t have an inflammation for 21 years. That’s not the way that works. And then he said, you know, it’s actually funny. It went away out of nowhere for like a year and a half. I went, yeah, then you didn’t have plantar fasciitis. I can tell you what you probably had was tight calves that for some reason, for a year and a half, just loosened up and then came back. But you don’t have tight casings. When he was the one who said, I can’t walk, you know, to the bathroom in bare feet. And I said, dude, you think that’s normal? I mean, I can show you some exercises you could do while you’re watching tv, and in six weeks, you could walk to your bathroom. And in six months, if you wanted to, I could have you running a 5K barefoot. Why do you. He was only, like, 51 at the time. It’s like, why do you think this is your. This is your destiny? It’s like, it’s. You would never say that about if. If your. If your arm was in a cast and it came out all week, you’d never say, well, I guess I’m never using this again.

Courtney Conley
Right? Right. I think the reason why people that, you know, in our circle are so passionate about this is because we see what happens on a daily basis when people implement this stuff. It’s like, I see it in my Clinic every single day. There’s not a person that I work with that once we start getting their foot on the ground, that’s like, wow, this was worse, right? It really. It really doesn’t.

Steven Sashen
No, you’re right. There’s. I mean, you know, there’s two things that make this incredibly satisfying. One is helping people do things they haven’t done in years or maybe haven’t done. And the other, I will confess, is being right. It’s really fun.

Courtney Conley
How did I know you were going to say that?

Steven Sashen
I don’t know, but, I mean. But, you know, it’s like, I’m on panel discussions against guys from Brooks and Adidas and Nike, and I destroy them because I just say things that are true. And I remember one person, I made a comment that, you know, I used to have, like, crazy, crazy flat feet until I. And. And a question from the audience. Well, you know, what’d you do to treat your flat feet? And I just went, used them.

Courtney Conley
Yeah.

Steven Sashen
And there’s, like, dead silence after that. Or. Or a guy from Brooks said, we’re trying to make a shoe that gives you a comfortable ride that propels you forward. And I said, can I take the microphone for a second and say something? He goes, yeah, sure. And I take the microphone. I go, the only thing that propels you forward is your legs. You can’t violate the laws of physics. And I hand the microphone back to him. He goes, okay, we’re not trying to violate the laws of physics. Took the microphone. Stop saying it.

Courtney Conley
It’s like. Well, I always think of my dad with that, because it’s like a medical. It’s like a disservice to him, you know, like, that would have been had we not had that conversation. I just went to his 80th surprise party in Pittsburgh, and he. There was about 75 people there. And, of course, being the proud father, he, like, passed my book out to everyone, you know, and so all his golf buddies and, I mean, everybody was coming up to me, like, they’re buying different shoes and they’re paying attention to their feet. In my heart, I was so, like, it’s great. I’m like, this is my. Why? You know, because to keep that as we age, to stay healthy like that and feel good, I mean, it’s so important.

Steven Sashen
It’s my favorite thing when someone tells me they got a pair of zero shoes and then their parents got a pair. Yeah, that’s my. And we had a guy working for us. He’d been here for quite a while, and his dad Switched our shoes pretty quickly. His mom was like a three year holdout. And the. And the first time she put on a pair of shoes, literally she grabbed her camera and immediately sent me a video that said, why didn’t you tell me?

Courtney Conley
Yeah, well, this is a funny story. When my mom first got into a pair, she. I’ve been talking about this stuff, Stephen, for years.

Steven Sashen
Yeah.

Courtney Conley
You know, and she calls me, she’s like, I have to tell you something. I said, what? She’s like, could my balance be better because I’ve been wearing these shoes? And I’m like, mom, dude.

Steven Sashen
Research sponsored by the cdc, done by Aaron Frutrell is a year long study with elderly people. And I hate to say that the definition of elderly started when people 10 months older than I am now, but went way past there, showed that over the course of a year with a very slow transition to wearing our shoes, improve their foot strength, improve their balance, and reduce their fall risk by an amount that is the greatest intervention for longevity that has ever been seen in longevity research. And you know, you got. I’m so close to the point that you made before that I was right there. Oh, man. Oh, I got it. The thing that you said, I think that I, I really want people to think about because this is so, so profound. Is your foot being a sense organ. Eyes, ears, nose, mouth, whatever the other one is. And feet. Feet. I mean, if people just thought like that, that it’s not. But it’s even more, it’s more than a sense organ because I mean, all of most of our sense organs do make minor changes about how they’re interacting with the world, but this one is a dramatic amount of change for interacting and being a sense organ at the same time. And that is. That thought is really, really. That’s a biggie. Oh, wait, we only have five. That’s in. In the US or West, we think five in. In some Eastern traditions. The additional sense is thinking that my mind is another sense, but that’s a whole other story. So. Okay, so if people would like to find out more about this, obviously pitch the book. And if people want to find out more about working with people at GATE Happens because they feel like they need some personal attention, please talk about that, what they can get and how they can do that as well.

Courtney Conley
Thank you. Yeah, GATE Happens. Our website, we have and sorry.

Steven Sashen
G A I T G A I T. You should register if you can’t, if you haven’t already.

Courtney Conley
What do G A T E too.

Steven Sashen
Yeah, get the typo, Buy the typo. Do it fast. Do it fast before someone hears this podcast.

Courtney Conley
But we have educational courses for everyone, whether it’s the clinician or the layperson. But there’s also virtual consultations on there because we get a lot of education. Especially since the book has come out. There’s a lot of people with foot pain. One out of three. And I really want to change that because it doesn’t need to be like that. So there is personal, you know, ways that you can help on a one on one basis. The book is also sold on the website. You can also get it on Amazon kind of anywhere where you. Barnes and Noble. That was also. That was pretty cool. Like the first airport that I went into and I was like, walking by and I was like, oh, oh, my gosh, there’s the book. It’s very surreal experience.

Steven Sashen
So it’s great. Congrats.

Courtney Conley
Yeah.

Steven Sashen
Well, Doctor, it’s been a pleasure.

Courtney Conley
You’re making me. I’ll start sweating if you do that. Don’t do that.

Steven Sashen
No, it’s. It’s. It’s delightful. Yeah. I mean, you know, it’s been. It’s been a total pleasure. I hope people got a lot out of this. I know, I know. Really, it’s going to open up a lot of questions as well, because this is. It is surprising how. How broad and vast this topic is and how little people really understand about it and how much mythology and propaganda there is that is keeping people from really discovering what’s true for themselves. I don’t like true for themselves. What’s actually true and how to apply it for themselves. That’s the better way of saying it. I’m not a big fan of the phrase my truth. It’s like, that’s just what you want to say, but it’s often a way of you being obnoxious and trying to couch it in something that sounds New Agey. But regardless, if you don’t do this,

Courtney Conley
you’re going to die.

Steven Sashen
Exactly. 80% of you are doing it wrong. I did that quite deliberately. But anyway, I mean, this has been. It’s a mission for both of us. I know. When people ask me, what are your goals? With zero issues, I go, nothing major. I just want to change the world. And I say, I know that sounds hyperbolic, but what I really mean is that I want this whole idea of natural movement to become so obvious that it is a. At the very least, a viable option where there’s not a. There’s not a fake controversy about it where people recognize this is for real, and then it’s a question of how you apply it, when you want to apply it, and you know, what specifically you’re applying and, and, and all we’re doing is getting out of the way for what you’re talking about. So. And my other hope after that is I’d like to live long enough to see that happen. So, so fingerprint, thank you so much.

Courtney Conley
You’ve been a mentor from the beginning and I appreciate everything.

Steven Sashen
Oh well, if anything I’ve ever said has been useful, you definitely misunderstood me. So. So on that note, thank you all for being on, for listening to the podcast. If you want to find out more. Like I said, first of all, you got all of Courtney’s info, sorry, Dr. Connolly’s info. So please take advantage of that. It’ll be well worth your time and reminder for us. Go to www.jointhemovementmovement.com. you can opt in to hear about upcoming episodes of the podcast, find all the previous ones. Find us on social media at. You know, or you can find all the places to find us on social media if you want to throw some message to me about something that you, I don’t know, anything you want to hear about on the podcast. Anyone who you think should be on the podcast. If you or anyone you know thinks I have a case of cranial rectal reorientation syndrome, I’m happy to hear about that as well. I have been dying for years to get someone who thinks I’m completely full of it on this with me to have the conversation. Because you know, if I’m wrong about something, I’m the first one who’s going to want to find out about it and see what I can discover. And because I’m not interested in doing anything other than telling people what’s true and helpful so you can find. You can drop me an email move M O V E join the movement movement.com and until whatever is next, go out, have fun, and live life feet first.