As a Podiatrist, Human Movement Specialist, and Global Leader in Barefoot Science and Rehabilitation, Dr. Emily Splichal has developed a keen eye for movement dysfunction and neuromuscular control during gait.
Originally trained as a surgeon through Beth Israel Medical Center in New York City and Mt Vernon Hospital in Mt Vernon, NY, in 2017 Dr. Splichal put down her scalpel and shifted her practice to one that is built around functional and regenerative medicine.
Listen to this episode of The MOVEMENT Movement with Emily Splichal about the truth about orthotics.
Here are some of the beneficial topics covered on this week’s show:
– How functional podiatry emphasizes the connection between movement and foot function while using a holistic approach to foot health.
– Why orthotics should be used for healing purposes instead of indefinitely.
– How expensive orthotics aren’t necessarily superior to off-the-shelf options, especially when treating plantar fasciitis.
– Why podiatrists face challenges in integrating natural movement into patient treatment protocols.
– How foot foundation awareness is crucial for balanced posture and gait.
Connect with Dr. Splichal:
Guest Contact Info
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@thefunctionalfootdoc
Facebook
Facebook.com/dremilysplichaldpm
Links Mentioned:
dremilysplichal.com
Connect with Steven:
Website
Xeroshoes.com
Jointhemovementmovement.com
Twitter
@XeroShoes
Instagram
@xeroshoes
Facebook
facebook.com/xeroshoes
Episode Transcript
Steven Sashen:
A podiatrist that actually endorses wearing high heels. Oh yeah, we’re going to have some fun with this, on today’s episode of The MOVEMENT Movement Podcast. The podcast for people who want to know the truth about how to have a happy, healthy, strong body, starting with the feet first because that is your foundation. And on this podcast we break through the mythology, the propaganda and often the lies that people tell you about what it takes to run, to walk, to dance, to play, to do yoga, CrossFit, lift weights, whatever you do, enjoyably and more effortlessly.
I’m Steven Sashen, but you already probably know that. And on this episode, we’re talking with my dear friend, Dr. Emily Splichal. But don’t say anything, Emily, because I got to say some other things first. And that is if you are new to the podcast, welcome. And if you’re new or old, you know what you need to do is go to www.jointhemovementmovement.com to find out all the different places where you can interact with us. And of course, share, like, review, hit the bell button on YouTube to get alerted for future podcasts. Basically, if you want to be part of the tribe, please subscribe. And being part of the tribe means we are trying to create a MOVEMENT movement, making natural movement the obvious, better, healthy choice, the way natural food currently is. I like to say that Xero shoes, we’re trying to become the gluten-free of footwear, and we want your help.
So back to you, Emily, for the win. I hate doing introductions other than saying, hey, it’s wonderful to have you here, and I’m going to let you tell people who you are and then we’ll talk about this podiatrist endorsing high heels.
Dr. Emily Splichal:
I know, right? That’s the way they introduce me. But thank you so much. We will definitely address that soon. I’m Dr. Splichal, I’m a functional podiatrist and a human movement specialist out of New York City. I am in private practice. I was trained as a surgeon, and then I moved very far away from surgical practice and I promote much more functional movement, functional medicine. I do regenerative medicine as well. And in addition, I travel the world speaking about barefoot science-
Steven Sashen:
We only have 55 minutes.
Dr. Emily Splichal:
Oh my gosh. Barefoot movement. And I’m the founder of Naboso Technology. Namaste.
Steven Sashen:
So let’s back up to that first part, which you trained as a surgeon and you moved into functional podiatry. Tell people more or say more about what that means for you, and more importantly, what was your kind of awakening moment that moved you from one end of the spectrum to seemingly the other?
Dr. Emily Splichal:
Yeah, actually my entire training through podiatry school, I was fighting with what was being taught to me. It was very isolated. None of the patients were getting out of the chairs. Really it was every patient was being told the exact same thing, “You have plantar fasciitis, stretch your calf this way, do XYX.” And I was like, “I don’t know, that just doesn’t fully jive with what I think of with movement.” I actually started in fitness. I was a competitive gymnast for 13 years. So I went-
Steven Sashen:
Hold on. Wait, wait. Have we never had this conversation?
Dr. Emily Splichal:
I don’t know.
Steven Sashen:
Dude. I was an All-American gymnast.
Dr. Emily Splichal:
Really?
Steven Sashen:
Yeah.
Dr. Emily Splichal:
Oh, we have something else.
Steven Sashen:
What do you mean, “Really?” Like I’m lying about that.
Dr. Emily Splichal:
I don’t know.
Steven Sashen:
Yeah, we’ve never had that conversation. We’re going to have to do that.
Dr. Emily Splichal:
Oh, that’s awesome. Yeah, no, gymnastics is…
Steven Sashen:
We’ll put together a partner act.
Dr. Emily Splichal:
Yeah, okay. Yeah. So yeah, when I was going through my training, seeing how it was so isolated and then how it got even more surgical focused, that a patient would come in and you would just start to see pathology through the lens of a scalpel, right? “Okay, this is exactly how I could fix it surgically.” Where I was like, “Why do we have to jump to that right away?” There’s always these risks to any surgery. Even a minor surgery, there’s a risk.
So then, actually, I was in my first year of residency, surgical residency, and I left because it was just so contrasting what was in my DNA that I was like, “I don’t even know if I want to practice medicine.” So I left and I went back to school, got my master’s in human movement, and then that connected the fitness movement, gymnastics, with the medicine, and then the reality of like, “Okay, I’m a quarter million in debt. I think I need to get my license one day.” So I went back to residency and I did the surgical training. I had to, that’s only-
Steven Sashen:
Oh yeah, yeah, of course.
Dr. Emily Splichal:
Yeah. So I had to go through the motions of doing surgery. I did surgery for five years out of residency, and then I stopped doing it partly because I was just traveling the world so much teaching, but it was also just not my passion. And if you’re going to literally be putting your body in the hands of a surgeon, you want that surgeon to be crazy passionate about it, and I wasn’t passionate.
Steven Sashen:
And even that, I mean, like you said before, when all you have is a hammer all you see is nails. Same idea with the scalpel, of course. And it’s funny, the number of people that I’ve met who I’ve said, “How are you doing?” I haven’t seen them in a while, it’s like, “How are you doing?” “I’m okay, but I’m getting surgery for plantar fasciitis.” Like, “Whoa, whoa, whoa. What?” “Well, yeah, I got plantar fasciitis. I’m getting surgery.” And I do a thing with them, I’ve done this a few times. Actually, my favorite was a guy who he ran a hedge fund or a private equity firm. He said, “I love what you’re doing, but I can’t invest in you because I can’t wear your products because I have plantar fasciitis and I’m getting surgery next week.” I said, “I got a sneaking suspicion.” Because you know this probably as well as I, someone who has, “plantar fasciitis symptoms,” in giant air quotes, but you can see from a mile away they have super tight calves, and that’s really what’s going on. I spot that one.
I said, “Do me a favor. Can you just stand on your toes, just lift off of your heels and just stand on your toes?” He says, “Yeah.” And I said, does that hurt? He goes, “No.” I said, “Yeah, if you had real plantar fasciitis, you wouldn’t be able to do that. Can you just run in place just staying on your toes?” And he does it, he goes, “Yeah.” I said, “Does that hurt?” He says, “No.” I said, “Do you know why?” He says, “No.” I said, “Well, because keeping your plantar fascia in a strong position, you’re not straining anything right now. Can you just lean forward while you’re doing that up and down thing?” He leans forward and starts running and just looks back and goes, “Oh my God.” I said, “Yeah, so you don’t really have a problem if you know how to move correctly.” And he looked at me kind of crazy, and this is not the only time that I’ve had to say this. I said, “Yeah, just because I look like this doesn’t mean I don’t know what I’m talking about.” He went and had this surgery anyway, which just floored me. And I’ve seen that happen a few times. It blows me away. Because people they think the doctors know. Most of these times doctors don’t know how to diagnose. But that’s a whole sort of separate thing just about that.
But I want to back up. I’ll say something and then I’m going to ask you something. The saying something is, your story actually reminds me, I don’t know if you’ve ever asked Irene Davis how she went from teaching PTs how to make orthotics to becoming the preeminent researcher in natural movement. I said, “What was your come to Jesus moment?” And she goes, “It was actually just a process.” But one of the biggest thoughts that she described having was that when people came in to see her as a PT, for almost anything they would come in with, her goal was to get them moving as quickly as possible for every joint, except anything having to do with feet and ankles. And she’s like, “Wait a minute. That doesn’t make any sense.” So it was a similar thing of something just doesn’t jive, but I need to back up even further. Why podiatry? Because the only thing that seems weirder to people to say, “Hey, I got into this particular area of medicine,” would be if you had said proctology. So why podiatry?
Dr. Emily Splichal:
Oh my God, my reason is so ridiculous. I was in fitness and I was training. Well, one, my background is also forensics. So my bachelor’s and the original path I was going to take was going to be like CSI. Forensics. I had a free ride for a PhD in forensic science. And I moved to New York City to do that. So I was in the lab, pipetting DNA, everyone’s out, it’s gorgeous, it’s summer and I’m like, “Oh my God, I hate my life. All this with pipetting.” And then I decided to leave it and do something more like full body fitness movement because that was my original passion. So I quit, became a personal trainer, still in New York City, New York City, and then I started getting injured. So I was like, “Okay, well, I can’t use my body as my tool. I need to use a little bit more up here.” Started looking at medical schools and applied to All Allied Health as well.
But the stipulation was I need to be able to still do a little bit of fitness because that just fed my soul. And I needed to live in Manhattan because that fed my soul. And then really what that left was there’s only a handful of schools that are in New York City that I could be in Manhattan. The podiatry school here in New York is in Harlem. So I was able to still see clients, still live in the city, have that part of me and my spirit of who I am, while pursuing that degree. So it’s really not a passion.
Steven Sashen:
You have the added bonus if you’re going to school in Harlem of looking like everybody else in the neighborhood.
Dr. Emily Splichal:
There you go.
Steven Sashen:
So I went to Columbia for grad school, and same idea. And I used to love hanging out in those neighborhoods. So not only All-American gymnast, but in 1980, when I first moved to Manhattan, I was one of the handful, I think there was four of us who were white break dancers.
Dr. Emily Splichal:
Oh wow.
Steven Sashen:
That was a whole other story. This had been when break dancing was actually a thing that people did instead of fighting. So it was a blast. That was a crazy-ass time. So we led with this whole thing. You became well-known by promoting a program for women who want to wear high heels. And this was the whole thing of, “Podiatrist endorses high heels.” I will let you have free rein to clear the air so that people don’t want to come and strangle you.
Dr. Emily Splichal:
Yeah, I know, please. I know. I was like, “Oh, man, we’re going to start with that.” There’s already people who want to tear my name apart. But so, Catwalk Confidence is a program that I started in 2009, so I was just graduating podiatry school, had been in fitness for a long period.
Steven Sashen:
Wait, and let’s pause. This couldn’t have been more perfect timing because this was when the whole…
Dr. Emily Splichal:
Barefoot.
Steven Sashen:
… barefoot like kids thing.
Dr. Emily Splichal:
100%. 100%. So launch this program, but it was a workout and it was a workout for women who wear heels. The workout was barefoot.
Steven Sashen:
Yes, but you’re still endorsing heels, Emily, come on.
Dr. Emily Splichal:
I know. Honestly, the endorsement of, “Podiatrist endorses heels,” even though I wasn’t, I was just saying, “Hey, if you’re going to wear heels anyway, I’m going to give you the tools to how to strengthen your feet, strengthen your core, align your body so you don’t mess it up as much as you might kind of blindly wearing these heels every day.” And then I created a program called Stiletto Recovery, which was the recovery side of how to undo the damage. The New Yorker Magazine did a story on me and this program, and it was very much like, “Podiatrist endorses high heels.” And in the story, they were like, “Oh yeah, it’s analogous to drug users and you’re giving them needles.” I’m like, “Oh yeah, it’s exactly that.”
Steven Sashen:
Holy cow. That’s great.
Dr. Emily Splichal:
I’m like, “That’s a good analogy, thanks.” But no, I got ripped into. I had the dean of my school pulled me from several speaking engagements. I got hate email from other podiatrists saying, “You’re an embarrassment. You’re single-handedly ruining this profession.”
Steven Sashen:
Hold on. That’s ridiculous. If it weren’t for high heels, half of those people wouldn’t have been in business anyway.
Dr. Emily Splichal:
Yeah, I know. I know. But I got some serious hate mail and just shit from it. But I got on Oprah from it.
Steven Sashen:
Whoa.
Dr. Emily Splichal:
So I got that engagement and then was on The Doctors and the Today show, because of this program.
Steven Sashen:
Well, getting on Oprah, it couldn’t be more perfect for podiatrists and dorsal high heels. I have a friend who’s a big deal psychologist who’d been on Oprah a number of times. And I said to him, “So how do you prepare for being on Oprah?” And he said, “I think of the most innocuous thing that I possibly teach, and then I think of the most incendiary way I can possibly say it.” I said, “Well, give me an example.” He said, “Okay, here’s one that I did for Oprah. Having an affair can be the best thing that ever happens for your marriage.” And so that was how he’s introduced, and the audience goes insane. And his whole point was that if you have an affair, it’s clearly that there’s some glitch going on, and if you acknowledge what that really is that led to this, this could be the kind of thing that transforms your relationship. And they all go and calm down. But it’s like you’ve got to do something that’s going to be the key moment.
In fact, it’s funny you just reminded me of this. When Lena and I were on Shark Tank, when we taped the show, and actually you still see it on the show, Barbara Corcoran’s opening line to me was, “You know, I hated you from the moment you walked out here.” And what she said and what you don’t see on the show because they edited it out, she spent five minutes saying how much she hated me from the moment I walked out. And then she spends five more minutes saying to Lena, “How can you be married to him? What’s wrong with you that you’re married to him?” And all I kept thinking is, “Oh my God, this is such good television.” It didn’t end up like that.
Dr. Emily Splichal:
Bring it on. Bring it on.
Steven Sashen:
Yeah, that would be the perfect lead. It’s like, “Oh my God, I hate you.” So that was awesome. So it’s an interesting thing. I mean, look, this is kind of funny because while the podiatry community may have gotten up your butt about that, I can’t imagine it’s any less so when you’re endorsing natural movement. So you just went from frying pan to whatever the fire to frying pan or whichever way that goes.
Dr. Emily Splichal:
Yeah, no, so when I then was like, “Okay, yes, this is a barefoot workout and let me make it more applicable to the wider audience,” then I kind of switched the branding to be, “I’m a podiatrist just said endorses barefoot movement. I’m anti-orthotic. I’m anti-supportive shoe,” all of that, which is very polar as well, not as polar now in today’s age as back then. But I still had same thing. My skin was thick and I was like, “Hey, I’m the black sheep anyway from the high heel thing. Let me just go with it.” My MO is just to be the black sheep within podiatry. I got tons, tons and tons of shit when I first started speaking the natural movement and the barefoot. Same thing, people would question and say stuff about my name and whatever.
Now the younger generation or people who are just a little bit more open are now integrating or emailing me and say, “Hey Emily, how would you approach this? Can you tell me a little bit about what you do?” And they see that I’ve built a practice in Manhattan and I don’t take insurance, and my referrals are around the world. People fly in to see me because of what I’m doing. It’s not voodoo. I’m not making it up. I have great results with my patients. And they’re starting to see that now.
Steven Sashen:
There’s a guy that I met, I’m blanking on his name. His first name is Darryl, but I can’t remember his last name. He’s a podiatrist. He’s one of the sort of, let’s call it, top orthotics guys in the country, which I know is a bit of an oxymoron in the barefoot natural movement community. But point being, he’s one of the people turn to about how to do that and how to do that better than average. I mean, when I talked to him about how he actually does diagnose people and who he does and doesn’t prescribe, he’s way more rational than almost anybody that I’ve met. That said, there’s two things that were fun. One is he told me a story of a podiatrist he knew who went to Kenya in the ’50s or ’60s to study the army, who did a lot of their training barefoot because they didn’t have shoes. And his report was basically one sentence, “A podiatrist will go broke in this country.” And he was trying to make the point about the value of natural movement, which didn’t go over very well.
The other thing that was fun, this was at the International Footwear and Ankle Biomechanics Conference last year. So I put him in a pair of our Prio, floating back there, and he’s walking around and he says, “Well, what do you see?” I said, “Well, what do you feel?” He goes, “Well, these feel really good.” I said, “Well, then what I see is kind of irrelevant, but I’ll tell you what I see. Your right foot is pronating a little more than your left when you’re not wearing your orthotics in my shoe. But you haven’t noticed. So A, the problem? And B, if you want to develop strength, that’s the way you’re going to have to do it is by using your feet.” And he looked at me like I was crazy for a moment and was like, “Oh, yeah.” And then actually he goes up to Irene Davis and says, “I got these shoes and I really like them. I think I’m going to wear them with an orthotic.” And he was saying that to see if her head would explode. And her response was, “That’s cool. Just start shaving it down, shaving it down, shaving it down until you get rid of it.” And he’s like, “Huh.”
So I love the idea that this whole… It’s so crazy that we have to promote that natural movement is good. It’s just insane. And I’m curious if you have any understanding or have a historical basis, how did the podiatry community get so far opposed that to get so far into the whole posting orthotics, et cetera, where everything is somehow pathological? Because I have a friend who studied to become a physical therapist, and she would call me every day when they were doing foot and ankle going, “Did you know that this whole orthotic thing was made up by a chiropractor who had no evidence for it whatsoever?” It’s like, “Yeah.” So what’s your take on how it got where it is and what might have to happen for it to become, ironically, for podiatrists to put themselves out business mostly by realizing that for most of what they’re treating, natural movement is a better option?
Dr. Emily Splichal:
Right. So there is, sadly, when you go to podiatry conferences and within school and just kind of the whole energy within the profession is a little bit fear based. And it’s a profession that’s on the defense. And partly why they’re on the defense is that so many podiatrists have a Napoleon complex because they’re like, “Oh, I’m a DPM because I couldn’t get into MD school.” So they start to get this weird complex. And then even if they’re surgeons, they kind of feel like in the OR, “Well, I’m the foot surgeon. I’m not the…” So it’s just constantly within their own ego and their own thing.
Steven Sashen:
Fascinating.
Dr. Emily Splichal:
So having that, you kind of have to then be like, “Okay, I’m kind of in survival, so I need to think of how do I keep my patients? How do I get more out of these patients?” There’s tons of lectures around practice management and the profitability of orthotics, that it literally is every single patient should have an orthotic. If you see 20 patients a day and you can do, let’s say, five orthotics a day, what is that, 25 a week? And you get a $500 profit on each one, blah, blah, blah. You do the math. So really put in. And then the younger generation essentially is fed that garbage and then thinks, “Okay, for me to make money, I need to see this as a moneymaker. So I have to push it.” And I’ve seen that through when I was part of a larger group. Now that I don’t take insurance, I’m on my own thing, I don’t care. But they would incentivize us for every orthotic I would make, every MRI that I would order, every ultrasound that I would do. Any additional billing that I could do, I would technically… That’s probably totally illegal.
Steven Sashen:
Well, what’s incredible.
Dr. Emily Splichal:
Wrapped up in that.
Steven Sashen:
Look, I’m not a conspiracy theorist, but what you’re saying is going to feed people. Anyone who has the line, “Well, Western medicine…”
Dr. Emily Splichal:
It’s so dirty. It’s so dirty.
Steven Sashen:
You know whatever it is when they use the phrase, “Western medicine,” is never going to be good. But I mean, this is what people think happens. To hear that that’s actually what happens, holy smokes.
Dr. Emily Splichal:
Yes. What I will say is that medicine is still a business. And people don’t realize that or people don’t want to think that.
Steven Sashen:
Well, and there’s another thing. I mean, I have this conversation with people often when they criticize, quote, “Western medicine,” as if that’s an actual thing. They go, “Well, Western medicine doesn’t know how to do everything.” I say, “Well, if you go see any good doctor, they will never say that they know how to do everything.” They’re going to say, “Here’s what we’re going to do to try and figure it out.” But what most doctors are treating most of the time is that 80% of things where they can actually make a difference. And that other 20%, that outlying stuff, you can’t know everything. And these are complicated, confusing things, these crazy-ass bodies. There aren’t simple answers for a lot of this stuff. And we want simple answers, and we want someone in authority, ideally, I don’t know why a white coat means authority, to tell us something where we just know what’s happening.
It’s something I noticed about myself. I am in a way much happier if I see a medical practitioner for something where they go, “Oh yeah, you have this thing.” And it’s undeniable, you see it on the films, and it’s like, “Oh,” the sense of calmness because it’s been diagnosed and there is a treatment protocol is a real thing. I’m actually going through it now because I’ve got a compromised spine. In fact, later today, I’m going to get an injection into my lumbar spine just because I’ve got clearly all this inflammation going on. I’m relatively convinced that it’s not going to help for various reasons, but it’s what I’ve got to go through for my insurance company to pick up the tab on the things that I might need later. So now I’ve actually got the funny thing where it’s not giving me that sense of calm because I know what’s going to happen next is I don’t really know. At the same time, I’m taking the appropriate steps. So we have this weird relationship with simultaneously wanting an authority figure to give us an answer when there’s not a simple answer, and then not trusting them if they give us a simple answer.
Dr. Emily Splichal:
I know. You know, one thing with my patients is what I’ve always done from the beginning is very much go through my thought process. So when I’m evaluating, I’m trying to get to a diagnosis, especially in the beginning when I was younger, new kid on the block, I was a little like, “Ah,” just fresh out, I would go through every possible thing that it could be and why I’m ruling it out. And I would say it out loud to the patient, partly to educate them, but also want to protect my ass so they wouldn’t sue me.
Steven Sashen:
Yeah, yeah.
Dr. Emily Splichal:
So that’s the energy of medicine also is that you can be sued. That’s the reality to it. Now I do it very different, and I go through it more for the education because I’m much more confident, and obviously you just been around the block a little bit more. But then when I go through all my treatment options, I just say, “These are all of your options. These are the benefits of them. And then there is surgery down here. I have to list it as an option. And I can’t tell you which one to do. You have to make the decision for yourself. I can give you the benefits of each and the risks, but ultimately it’s your decision.”
And they totally want me to be like, “Well, what would you do if it’s your foot?” Well, you know… You have to do that to really put it in the patient’s hands. In some cases they don’t like that. And I’ve been to doctors or I’ve had patients that will be like, “Yeah, one thing I knew, and then all of a sudden I’m getting this injection.” And then they didn’t know, the process was just happening faster than they could even comprehend. And I don’t like to create that energy with my patients.
Steven Sashen:
It’s a tricky one. I just had a flashback before I went to the World Masters Track and Field Championships, this is nine, 10 years ago, I suddenly had this weird thing in my foot. I just felt like a little bump, and I didn’t know what it was. It was really painful. I went to the… I don’t know where I went. Anyway, they took some films and it literally looked like, I don’t know what the geometric term for a square rectangle, so not a tube because it’s square edges, but I mean literally it looked like square. And it was like, I don’t know, maybe two, almost two… No, no, I was going to say two centimeters, that’s not right. Almost 20 millimeters long and three millimeters kind of square. It was this crazy thing. It looked like an alien implant. And the doctor’s looking at it going, “Yeah, I have no idea what this is. I don’t know what’s causing it. I don’t know what to do. What do you think?”
Dr. Emily Splichal:
Oh my gosh.
Steven Sashen:
And I said, well, I can’t have surgery now because I’m about to leave for an international track meet. So let’s just revisit this in a little while. And I forgot to add this part. It happened in one day, it just showed up. And then a couple of weeks later, it disappeared. No idea. Absolutely no clue. And I actually sort of liked the story of it, because it was just a real conversation about, “We don’t know. We got to try and figure something out.” And it was just an honest conversation. If I had seen certain kinds of practitioners, I won’t label them by profession to protect the not necessarily innocent, they would’ve said, “Oh yeah, well, I know exactly what it is. Here’s what you do.” And then six weeks later, it might’ve gone away on its own anyway, and they would’ve claimed that it was because of that, when that could have been totally a placebo.
So Lena might kill me for telling the story, but I’m going to tell it anyway. She was seeing every sort of alternative care practitioner she possibly could because she was having just some bad period cramps for most of her life. And then finally after seeing a guy for a while and paying him a lot of money, and he just threw his hands up and said, “Well, you’re clearly not following the protocol.” And if you know Lena, if someone gives her a protocol, she is on it. She just does the plan. And she got really mad and he said, “Well, why don’t you go see this internist?” It was the first time she had seen an actual MD maybe ever. Not ever, but certainly for a long time. He does her blood work and says, “You’ve basically got no progesterone. Why don’t you just take this pill and see how that feels?” And the next day she goes, “Well, I’m fixed.”
Dr. Emily Splichal:
That was easy.
Steven Sashen:
Yeah. And just had no idea. So just the whole conversation about how medicine does work compared to how people think it should work is the part that I find so compelling, especially in a situation like yours where you’re bucking the status quo, or more accurately trying to change the status quo, which is what we’re all trying to do. And hopefully, I do think you may be right that it’s these kids today who are going to be the thing that moves it, because they’re not walking in with the same kind of preconceptions. Or they’re walking in with a kind of anti-corporate mentality that makes them open to, “Maybe what this guy’s saying, we don’t have to write off everything, but maybe we can think for ourselves and look at reality.” And obviously the natural movement story is simple. Your feet are supposed to bend and move and flex and feel, let them.
Dr. Emily Splichal:
Yeah. The other thing is that I get podiatrists who see the way that I treat, they understand the natural movement, they might even do it themselves, but they then say, “How do you integrate this into your treatment for your patients?” They can’t connect that dot or that bridge where I’m like, “I just include it in literally every patient’s protocol.” If I do give orthotics, which I do in some cases, I always then include, “Release your feet on a natural basis, use correct toes. Get into shoes that are naturally moving this way. Get sensory stimulation,” and try to have it be part of the bigger picture, which is what obviously all these other docs should be doing as well. I think physical therapists do a really good job with that.
Steven Sashen:
What’s the glitch for them? How do they not see this as something to do?
Dr. Emily Splichal:
I don’t know. They just don’t know how to integrate it. Almost-
Steven Sashen:
You know… Go ahead. Go ahead.
Dr. Emily Splichal:
I was going to say almost I do a lot of stem cells in my office. And when I was part of my other group where there were 10 of us doctors, I was the one that was doing most of the stem cells. It’s a fee-for-service injection, so it’s not covered by an insurance. It’s 750 plus per injection. And they were like, “How are you selling this?” And I was like, “Well, one, I believe in them. Two, I just include it with all of their list of treatment options. And because I believe in it, I spend time explaining it and educating the patient.” If you don’t, one, believe in it, which is what you were saying, if you don’t believe in the stem cells, you don’t believe in natural movement, then you’re going to have a harder time integrating it into the recommendations to the patient. Because I feel like the patient can tell if you’re like, “Oh, yeah, and by the way…”
Steven Sashen:
“Could do this thing.”
Dr. Emily Splichal:
I would hear some of the docs be like, “Oh yeah, and by the way, do this short foot thing.” And they’d be like, “Short foot?” And they’re like, “Yeah, Google it.”
Steven Sashen:
Right. Well, there’s a weird variation of that. Back in 2010, I was part of a panel discussion about barefoot running, and every medical practitioner on the panel had no experience, they’d never run barefoot. In fact, at one point I just said, “If you’ve run barefoot on the pavement for at least a mile, raise your hand.” And I was the only hand that was up. And these guys are giving advice, it was horrible advice, it was ridiculous advice, based on not only no experience… And I’m not suggesting that every doctor has to have the experience of what they’re telling you about. But they weren’t referencing anybody who ever had experience with this. One of the guys was saying, “Well, it’s going to take two years until you get strong enough to be able to run barefoot.” It’s like, “Well, who do you know who spent two years training for this? You’re just making this shit up.” Which I found utterly amazing. And people were nodding their head and going, “Whoa, back up.”
So the trust thing is definitely a part of it. And of course, it works the other way. People can be very confident about things that are iffy at best. I’m curious, just to take a tangent on the stem cell thing, I’m curious what your experience/the response rate has been. Because I’m just thinking of the people that I know who’ve had stem cell treatments for various things, where some of them have great results, some have had no results. I remember I had my shoulder put back together a couple of years ago, and when I did, people said, “Oh, you should have gotten stem cells.” “You should have seen the MRI of my shoulder. It was not really hanging onto the rest of my body at all. It needed to be reconstructed, not just injected.” So tell me about that. I would love to hear your experience.
Dr. Emily Splichal:
Yeah, so I had been doing stem cells. I started with PRP and now I do placental and umbilical cord stem cells. I’ve been doing them for the past five years.
Steven Sashen:
I nave neither placenta nor umbilical cord.
Dr. Emily Splichal:
You don’t need one to have that. So don’t worry.
Steven Sashen:
Can I get one on eBay?
Dr. Emily Splichal:
Donated placenta. Donated placenta. You don’t need to preserve your children’s or your newborn stem cells. You don’t have to do that. But essentially they are donated stem cells. And my success rate with them is around 90%.
Steven Sashen:
What kind of things are you treating?
Dr. Emily Splichal:
For plantar fascial tears is one of the highest.
Steven Sashen:
So I want to pause there. So for actual plantar fascial tears, which you’re diagnosing, I want to separate that from what most people will call plantar fasciitis, which often is something totally different.
Dr. Emily Splichal:
So I would have a confirmed partial tear of the plantar fascia, yes, via MRI. So it’s confirmed. That’s one of the most common pathologies that I treat. Different ligament injuries. Plantar plates is a huge one as well. So under the second toe, you can tear the ligament, which is called the plantar plate. I do a lot for that. Different ligaments in the ankle, tendons, fractures. So there’s different things. And my success rate is 90% because of the patients that I choose. So I will not do it on anyone.
Steven Sashen:
Well, what you just described in the list of things that you’re treating is mostly soft tissue damage.
Dr. Emily Splichal:
Yes, outside of a fracture, but I don’t see a lot of factors because I don’t do acute care in my practice. But yes, so it’s primarily soft tissue injuries. You can use them for knee arthritis, shoulder arthritis, foot arthritis, meaning the big toe and the ankle. They’re just slightly different joints than the rest of the body. So the success rate of those is much lower. I’ve had some patients try to have them done for their midfoot and they have midfoot arthritis. I’m like, “They’re taking your money,” is essentially what it is, because the success of that’s not going to be high.
But part of my 90% success rate is the patients that I choose. So I’m very specific. And then two, my post injection protocol is very important. So let’s say a partial tear of plantar fascia. I’ll do two injections, so one injection two weeks apart, so two injections total. And during that entire period, they are in a CAM walker. So I have to immobilize them during that period. They can do soft tissue release to the calves, but they cannot stress that area. After the four weeks, they transition into a stiff sold shoe. HOKA is what some patients will choose. It’s just an example. Doesn’t mean I like it. But it’s just a example.
Steven Sashen:
I’m just saying it’s a four-letter word. That’s all.
Dr. Emily Splichal:
It’s just an example. I totally said that because that shoe is my example. But a stiff shoe, and then we do a night splint and we slowly start to decrease them out. I will put a lot of them in a orthotic as well. And then the third month, we start to strip away the support and the control. But let’s say it was a runner, a runner that had a partial tear plantar fascia, I would say you would expect being back at your same kind of distance or stress of your foot within five, six months.
Steven Sashen:
What I love about what you just described is actually the way that people should, and by people, I mean all people, should think about orthotics or posting or anything where you’re mobilizing a foot. It’s like if you have some sort of real damage. And when you’re doing the injection, I mean basically they’re already damaged to begin with, and the injection is kind of a piece of that puzzle. It’s like you need to heal. It’s like use it for healing, then get out. And what you just described is a very obviously sensible protocol for dealing with an actual injury, actual damage, and then making the transition back by getting stronger and getting back into it. And it’s something that people just don’t get.
I don’t don’t know if you’ve ever seen it. I have a post on our site. Oh, I’m trying to remember. If you go to xeroshoes.com and search for orthotics, you’ll find it. I know I have a shortcut for it, but I can’t remember. And it’s mostly reviewing an article that was probably in the New York Times. It’s written by one of my favorite science writers from the Times because she’s A, brilliant, and B has my favorite name in the world. Her name is Gina Kolata. And Gina did this great thing about orthotics showing that they only work for about 10% of the population. No one knows which 10%, no one knows why. And a custom-made orthotic is no better than a Dr. Scholls insole.
But there were a number of people in there including probably Benno Nigg from Canada, who said, “Yeah, you’re supposed to use an orthotic to help with rehab and then get out of it and start moving again.” And most people just forget that second part. So I love the protocol you just described. People should basically apply that to almost any other situation they’re in when they have a real injury of healing, and then building up into strength again instead of pretending that you need to continue to support something over and over and over.
Dr. Emily Splichal:
Yeah, that New York Times article, I do remember it, but I will go back because I want to reference it and pull it and then share it again with my network is, I just did a presentation Monday to a group of pedorthists, so shoe prescribers, I guess if you want to… People who feel shoes.
Steven Sashen:
Yeah, they make shoes and they have a orthopedic bent to the way they do it.
Dr. Emily Splichal:
Right. Yes. So when I was speaking to them, and I was speaking to them the way that I think of footwear, but I had shared with them about orthotics and plantar fasciitis, just specifically that condition, that there’s absolutely no difference between a custom orthotic and a off the shelf prefab, yeah. And that was, one, that they’re not prescribing orthotics, but that’s interesting that you had mentioned that. And then I had seen another recent article around that, that is just like for these podiatrists that are trying to sell 500 plus dollars orthotics for plantar fasciitis, there’s no research.
Steven Sashen:
There’s no research. Well, here’s my favorite thing about even the Dr. Scholls insoles. They did something that is the most brilliant, and by brilliant, I simultaneously mean evil, marketing thing I have ever seen in my entire life. If you go into Walmart, or I think they have them at Target too. So Dr. Scholls made this kiosk where you step on a force plate and it tells you, “Here’s something about your foot,” and it’s going to prescribe one of the dozen or so insoles that they have hanging right next to the thing. Here’s the brilliant marketing thing. After you step on this thing, it says something like, “Please wait while we calculate which product is right for you.” And then there’s a ten second countdown timer. It’s a computer. It doesn’t need 10 seconds to figure it out. It just literally makes you think that it’s thinking about you and giving you some personal recommendation because you’re a unique snowflake, one of 17 snowflakes that are on the wall next to you. And it really makes you go, “Wow, it’s really thinking about me.” And of course, the joke is the ones it custom recommends are twice the price of the ones that are just hanging right around the corner on the shelf. It’s unbelievable.
Dr. Emily Splichal:
Mind you, by prefab, because I have to clarify this for any of the listeners, prefab, I do not mean Dr. Scholls. That is a four letter word to me.
Steven Sashen:
Oh I know. No, no. But just going back to the buying something off the shelf.
Dr. Emily Splichal:
But no, I will tell you the ones that are some of the best off the shelf is PowerStep.
Steven Sashen:
Oh, really? Because?
Dr. Emily Splichal:
PowerStep.
Steven Sashen:
I heard the what, I want to know why. Why you think they’re the best?
Dr. Emily Splichal:
Oh, sorry. The placement of where they put their arch and how aggressive or not aggressive they are. So they’re just kind of middle of the line with the arch height, so the correction that they’re trying to achieve, and then the materials that they use. So the control that you get, the resiliency, and then the fit for it. Where some of the other ones, Dr. Scholls uses very cheap materials and a lot of silicone-
Steven Sashen:
What a shock.
Dr. Emily Splichal:
I know. Surprise. But some of the other ones like Superfeet, and there’s just so many of these other ones. Everything has to do with the placement of where the arch is and what they consider to be their standard of control of template.
Steven Sashen:
My favorite thing just about the whole… Well, about orthotics in general. My favorite thing is it’s the same prescription for two totally different diagnoses. You have flat feet, you need an orthotic, you have high arch, you need an orthotic. It’s like, wait, wait, back up. How does that make any sense whatsoever? I mean, I can maybe come up with an argument for how it may. But I’m having a really hard time. I can’t think of any other example where you have two totally different presentations that give the exact same prescription.
Dr. Emily Splichal:
Yeah. Well, I’ve been practicing for 10 years and I’ve never written orthotics, custom orthotics for a high arched foot.
Steven Sashen:
Ooh, interesting. So considering that there’s so many people, I think people who have high arch feet, even more than flat footed people, think they need support. Why do you think that is? What the hell and why have you never done that?
Dr. Emily Splichal:
So a high arch foot is typically thought of as more rigid. So now you’re going to put a rigid insole-
Steven Sashen:
Thing on a ridge… Yeah, yeah. I know.
Dr. Emily Splichal:
Into rigid. And then most likely they’re going to go into a rigid shoe. So I was like rigid with rigid with rigid, that just makes no sense. Your goal with a high arch foot is typically more in the direction of let’s mobilize, let’s get them kind of moving-
Steven Sashen:
Oh, no, you’re preaching to the choir. But this is one where even more than someone, I just can’t figure out how they got this idea that they need to, exactly, rigid on rigid on rigid.
Dr. Emily Splichal:
Yeah. I mean, that’s why I have no idea. I’m just like, “Why would you ever…” I mean, I pull every high arched patient who has orthotics out of them, which doesn’t make sense. If you were using, let’s say, a plastazote or a kind of these softer materials and you’re saying like, “Oh, the rigid foot hurts the person because it feels like they’re walking on their knuckles, so let me cushion that foot,” that would be a valid argument.
Steven Sashen:
Oh, that’s interesting actually. It’s funny because in that situation, what you’re doing is giving some protection to the places that are getting higher impact forces. You’re not supporting the thing that’s causing that problem to begin with, which again, would make more sense, but that’s just not what people do and buy.
Dr. Emily Splichal:
Yeah, which is why I’m just like, “I have no idea why.” I’ve never ever, and I will never, because it doesn’t make sense. There’s some research around like a plantar fascial offloading technique that you can use with arch supports, but with custom orthotics with a supinated high arched foot. But I much rather go through myofascial release and soft tissue work and mobilize the hips and that way.
Steven Sashen:
I want to back up a giant step because I don’t know why I just remembered this. I heard, I don’t know if this is true, but I heard that some major chiropractic organization is sponsored by an orthotic manufacturer. And so this is partly why all these chiropractors are trying to get everyone into an orthotic, not only because they’re taught, “Here’s an additional way of making money,” but I mean it’s really indoctrinated because the overarching organization that they belong to, that’s what they believe. In a similar vein, the American College of Sports Medicine, one of their biggest sponsors is a footwear company. I shouldn’t mention their name. So it rhymes with Spladidas. And there’s a rumor that I was asked not to come back to this year’s American College Sports Medicine event because of things that I said to them last year, which was just things like, “Hey, for all those claims you’re making, do you have any proof?” Which didn’t go over well, apparently.
But I find it really funny, there’s actually an article about how to pick a running shoe from the ACSM that basically recommends getting something like what we do, getting something that lets your toes spread, that actually lets your foot move, I mean, all the things. But then there’s a few things where they kind of couch the language, I think, just to not upset their corporate overlords. So I don’t know how much influence Spladidas’ business model it has over the people who are in the ACSM. And I wonder about the orthotic thing for chiropractors. Is there anything similar like that on the podiatric side where there are-
Dr. Emily Splichal:
Mm-hmm. Yeah, of course there is.
Steven Sashen:
Oh my God.
Dr. Emily Splichal:
Remember, medicine is business.
Steven Sashen:
I remember, but I just don’t expect it to be top to bottom.
Dr. Emily Splichal:
Yes. So the shoe that is one of the biggest sponsors for the American Academy of Podiatric Sports Medicine and the APMA is New Balance. So New Balance is the recommendation, that literally when I was going through school and then through residency and rotating through different residencies, so I was still a student, but hearing more than just my circle speaking, they would be like, “Oh, yes, you need to get shoes. New Balance, New Balance, New Balance, New Balance,” every person. And I was like, “Do you know other manufacturers than New Balance? Do you like New Balance for yourself? Do you think for yourself?” And then the same frustration of you have plantar fasciitis, stretch your calf by going against a wall and you… I’m like, one, I hate that calf stretch because you don’t position the calcaneus right, you’re actually not even stretching.
Steven Sashen:
No, it’s going to be soleus if anything. Yeah.
Dr. Emily Splichal:
Yeah, you get your post tib, and then you can irritate someone’s post tib tendon. I was like, “Think, don’t just vomit out what you were taught in school.” And that’s usually what everyone does.
Steven Sashen:
This is an interesting point. So Irene Davis and Bryan Heiderscheit and Chris Powers do an event for therapists called The Science of Running Medicine, and it’s an opportunity for them to get CEUs and for them to learn about what these three people in particular are thinking about the cause and treatment of running related injuries. And Irene has a amazing protocol for diagnosing what’s going on and then treating what’s going on by doing gait retraining and various other things. And I said this to Brian, I don’t remember if I’ve told this to Irene. I said, “The challenge with what you’re doing is that you’re requiring the practitioner to have a really good understanding, have really good eyes, basically, to really be able to see what’s going on and understand what’s going on well enough to do a good diagnosis and then create a very personalized treatment plan. And those two things are either, at the very least, difficult to do, time-consuming to do, but for some people not possible because some people just don’t have good eyes, they just don’t see movement well. Or they see the effect, but they don’t understand what the possible causes could be. They don’t look further up the chain. And this is a problem. You’re asking people to be smarter than they possibly are.”
My dad was a dentist and his line, he says, “You know, the people who graduated in the lower 50% of the class were in the lower half of the class, and they still became dentists. I would never go see any of them. They’re not good practitioners, but it still says DDS after their name.” Or actually the joke is, what do you call the guy who graduated last in his med school class? Doctor. This is another interesting thing just about the whole medical profession, if you will, is that in any profession, the majority of people who are doing it are not going to be the best. They can’t statistically. And then we’re asking them to do things that not only can they maybe not do, but they probably don’t know they can’t do it.
So here’s the crazy-ass question. How do we change this? What do you see as the way to move forward? I open up every one of these episodes by talking about creating natural movement is the obvious, better, healthy choice. How do you see that happening? Because obviously, we have this goal. What’s your take on that?
Dr. Emily Splichal:
What I can say from a podiatry level is that it has to start changing within the schools the way that the next generation of podiatrists who obviously work with feet. So that’s a lot of the people who buy your shoes or purchase any footwear are getting recommendations from the internet, from movement specialists, from people who support natural movement. But then they’ll go to the doctor who will say, “No, you have this and you should never be barefoot. You should never…” So they get the conflicting information. So we need to stop the conflicting information by educating-
Steven Sashen:
Okay, so good luck on that one. But anyway.
Dr. Emily Splichal:
I know, exactly. But as much as you can, so that the 95% trend of what’s said within the podiatry community is the same old structure, you need to have a little bit of an openness to the role of natural movement, the role of barefoot stimulation.
Steven Sashen:
So that’s where I was going actually in my thinking is the only way the school is going to change is if there’s enough people who are responsible for the curriculum getting the value of what we’re talking about.
Dr. Emily Splichal:
Exactly.
Steven Sashen:
We’ve got to back up a step, yeah.
Dr. Emily Splichal:
Yes. So I approached where I went to school. Now every school is very different. And the other thing with medicine that the listener should understand is that medicine is very historical. It’s very political, and it’s very historical. So the New York School is very traditional. New York City people this it’s like a liberal city. It’s actually very, very, very conservative medically. So the way that hospitals are managed, the way that schools are run, what’s actually taught is very, very conservative. So that means that they don’t deviate outside of the box very well because it just rustles them and they shake, they get nervous. And it’s people who are 80 years old that are still running a lot of these programs, even though medicine has changed from that. It’s slowly trying to change that. I approached my school-
Steven Sashen:
Well, I find it disturbing that what you’re subliminally suggesting is we kill a whole bunch of old doctors.
Dr. Emily Splichal:
I did not say that.
Steven Sashen:
That’s what I said, subliminal.
Dr. Emily Splichal:
Right, right, right. Exactly. So what I went in speaking to them about what they need is not just a barefoot lecture, but a lecture on fascia, like the fascia lines, the integrated movement, how your feet and your pelvic floor connect to each other. Podiatrist who treats feet technically treats movement, and that’s what it actually needs to be changed. So anytime I speak at a podiatry conference, I actually start by saying, “I don’t treat feet, I treat movement.” And I have my first slide. We as podiatrists don’t treat feet. We’re not foot doctors. We treat movement. Our access point to correct movement is the foot. But you have to start changing your mindset as well and know that you have a bigger influence than, “All they treat is the nails.” And like the shitty part of the body. It’s just-
Steven Sashen:
I hate to break it, that’s called a… I just can’t think of the word. What’s someone who does your damn nails?
Dr. Emily Splichal:
Pedicurist.
Steven Sashen:
Thank you. Yeah, you’re saying to all these doctors, “You’re a glorified pedicurist.”
Dr. Emily Splichal:
Yes, or chiropody. I mean that’s what chiropody is.
Steven Sashen:
Chiropody. That’s a good word.
Dr. Emily Splichal:
Chiropody is the historical initiation, or starting point of podiatry is we were chiropodists first, which was nails and skin and calluses and all that stuff.
Steven Sashen:
Oh, that’s hysterical. I had no idea. Fascinating.
Dr. Emily Splichal:
Yeah, and then it evolved to podiatry, and then podiatry evolved to be more like podiatric surgeon.
Steven Sashen:
Interesting.
Dr. Emily Splichal:
So it’s become a wider, wider scope. But ultimately at that, even if you were still treating calluses, people get calluses and I know why they get a callus, because based off of how they’re moving. Movement.
Steven Sashen:
Yeah, exactly. Well, speaking of movement, we have to move onto something and do two things. One, I don’t want to leave before we mention the project that you and I are jointly doing. And I actually have a sample. Wait, hold on. I have to reach. I’ve got to get off camera to do something. Okay. So would you describe what you have created with the Naboso Technology, and then I will hold up the project that you and I are doing together.
Dr. Emily Splichal:
Yes. I will hold up the box here.
Steven Sashen:
The box.
Dr. Emily Splichal:
Yes. So Naboso is the first and only textured insole that is on the market. This is the texture. It uses two-point discrimination.
Steven Sashen:
So hold on, for people who are just listening, basically think flat thing with a bunch of bumps on it.
Dr. Emily Splichal:
Yeah, pyramids across the entire top of the insole. And those pyramids-
Steven Sashen:
Pyramids, you’re part of the Illuminati.
Dr. Emily Splichal:
What was that?
Steven Sashen:
I said your pyramids, that means you’re part of the Illuminati.
Dr. Emily Splichal:
Oh, yes, you know.
Steven Sashen:
More conspiracy theories.
Dr. Emily Splichal:
Exactly. Exactly. Don’t take it down that rabbit hole. But the two-point discrimination stimulates the feet to help increase your foot foundation awareness. The more that you can reconnect to your foundation, that translates to balance, posture, gait. We have a lot of people, if you’re thinking of a disconnection with your foot leads to foot fatigue, foot pain, a lot of the stuff that we were speaking about. It can be used for many reasons, but the very rewarding part that I have is when someone hasn’t reconnected to their feet in that way for years because of their shoes, or maybe they have some sort of medical condition. And to have them just light up because they can feel their feet again, that’s so powerful.
Steven Sashen:
I’m going to do a Emily to English translation.
Dr. Emily Splichal:
Sorry.
Steven Sashen:
So when you sent me these, and I’ve told this story in other places, including on our website where we talk about this product, you originally sent me this product to check out. And by the way, Naboso is a Czech word that means barefoot. And when I received it, when you told me about it, I was preparing to let you down gently and say, “I’ve tried all these various reflexology insoles and sandals and things, and they don’t really do anything for me.”
So I got them and I put them in my Prios, and I walked around for a couple of hours, and I could definitely feel that I was getting more stimulation than I would if I was just in any shoe, including our shoe, which does give you a lot of stimulation. And it was like, “Oh, that’s cool.” And then I took them off, because I spend most of my time at the office barefoot. Then I’m around and I feel like my feet are trying to grip through the damn ground, they were so activated. Everything felt like it was ready to pounce. It was amazing. I really loved it. That has toned down. I don’t walk like that all the time. But it was just so incredible feeling that there was obvious demonstrable benefits from adding this extra stimulation.
And it reminds me, I think we may have talked about this, every, I don’t know, year, year and a half, somebody comes out with some bit of research that shows the value of just basically stimulating people’s feet. They have some vibrating insoles, or the latest one was from the University of Delaware, they put a device around the ankles of people who have Parkinson’s, and it just basically vibrates their feet. And it found that they were able to walk better in these stupid, ridiculously thick, stiff shoes. And my response to that has always been, “Hey, instead of getting all those crazy things, take off your damn shoes and go for a walk.”
And my argument would be, in this case with the Naboso product, that if you are going to wear something, some footwear and you do want more stimulation for the myriad reasons you might, this is an amazing way to do it. And then just to give a segue, so we’ve been selling the insole that you just showed the box of, although our boxes are a different version, that’s the new version of the box. I like it.
Dr. Emily Splichal:
No, no, no. Your version is this one.
Steven Sashen:
Oh, that’s right. Okay.
Dr. Emily Splichal:
Yes.
Steven Sashen:
And then, so that’s great. We sell those on our website and people love them. But people have also asked, “What do I do if it’s summertime and I don’t want to be wearing shoes and want to wear sandals?” And I’m going to hold up the Naboso Trail, which for people who can’t see this, this is our Z-Trail sandal, our best-selling support sandal, with the Naboso technology as the footbed. So these are going to be out the middle, actually within about a week or so from when we’re recording this, somewhere around the middle of July. So use that as a gauge for if you’re listening to this and finding them on our website. And we are super excited to bring that out and get the results that we expect to get from people who are using that. So thank you.
I’ve got to do this quickly, because apparently there’s a meeting that’s supposed to be happening in this room soon. One thing we didn’t do before, that I usually do at the beginning of every episode, and I got totally distracted and forgot, is something movement related. So do you want to share a movement related, something that we can do in our last minute or two?
Dr. Emily Splichal:
Yes. So I told you what I was going to do, which I’m actually going to do something different, is how… Okay, sorry. I know. My movement is a simple way to stimulate your feet, core and palate connection. So I’m going to stack the domes in the body. This is a way to get stable. So what you can do is push your toes into the ground, which is technically short foot. You are going to lift your pelvic floor, which is for the sake of time, we’ll just call it a Kegel because it’s just easier. So you’re going to stop your flow of pee while you’re pushing your toes down. And then while you’re doing that, put your tongue into your palate. So your tongue will push into the top of your palate as you do all three of them. And if you do that, especially standing, you should feel like your body is stable. And essentially what I stacked, what I was stacking or lifting are either the bandhas in yoga, they call them bandhas, they’re centers of stability, or they’re the domes of the body.
Steven Sashen:
Interesting. Actually, I’m just doing it sitting, but I already feel just how it kind of lines everything up. I like that.
Dr. Emily Splichal:
Yeah. And when you put your tongue into your palate, you stimulate your brain stem, the reticular activating system in your brain stem, which turns on your brain.
Steven Sashen:
That’s a good one.
Dr. Emily Splichal:
Movement, posture, brain hack.
Steven Sashen:
That works. Well, A, thank you for that. B, thank you for all the rest of this. C, we may have to do version two because obviously we can keep this conversation going forever, which is what we tend to do. And D, if people want to get in touch with you, how do they do that?
Dr. Emily Splichal:
So I’m on all the social platforms, Dr. Emily Splichal is my website. EBFA is my education company. And then of course, Naboso Technology.
Steven Sashen:
Awesome. Well, for everyone listening, first of all, once again, thank you very much for being part of The MOVEMENT Movement. If you want to find out more, go to jointhemovementmovement.com. You’ll find previous episodes, you’ll find links to where we put all these things. If you have any questions or comments or feedback or someone you want to recommend for being on the podcast, including yourself perhaps, drop an email to me at [email protected]. Again, you can like and share and review and hit the bell and blah, blah, blah. The point is, we want you to be part of this movement helping natural movement become the obvious, better, healthy choice. So if you do want to be part of that tribe, please subscribe. And as always, live life feet first.