Uncover the secrets of optimal fitness, longevity, and peak performance as we dive into the fascinating world of fascia and movement.
In this episode of The Movement Movement, Steven Sashen speaks with Dr. Edythe Heus, Founder and Creator of Rev6 and a movement expert, who explores the importance of incorporating risk and novelty into fitness routines for optimal performance and enjoyment. From martial arts anecdotes to promoting natural movement patterns, this episode inspires listeners to embrace challenges and live life feet first.
Key Takeaways:
→ How fascia plays a crucial role in movement and overall health.
→ Activating small muscles through unstable surfaces showcases the importance of fascia in coordinating movement.
→ The interconnectedness of fascia and muscles is crucial in movement and strength training.
→ Walking barefoot on various surfaces can improve foot reflexes and aid in the development of arches in the feet.
→ An optimal fitness program should include novelty, sensory stimulation, complexity, and precise sequencing.
Dr. Edythe Heus is a chiropractor specializing in kinesiology, Stecco Fascial Manipulation, and functional neurology. With a deep passion for movement and how the body functions in harmony, she can identify dysfunctions simply by observing someone’s walk. Over the years, she developed Rev6, a movement system designed to restore coordination, enhance vitality, and improve ease of movement. To share her insights, Dr. Heus created The Essentials, a teaching tool that helps practitioners assess and correct inefficiencies and compensations in movement. Her patients, from injury survivors to elite performers, have been her greatest teachers, revealing connections that no textbook could explain. Today, Dr. Heus continues to treat patients, certify doctors and trainers in Rev6, and create new exercises to help individuals meet the physical and neurological demands of daily life. She’s always observing movement, even in her dreams.
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Episode Transcript
Steven Sashen
If your exercise program, whatever that happens to be, if it doesn’t terrify you, maybe it’s not doing what you need it to do. We’re gonna find out more about that on today’s episode of the Movement Movement, the podcast for people who wanna know the truth about what it takes to have a happy, healthy, strong body. Starting typically, you know, feet first, those things at the end of your legs that are your foundation. And also here we break down the propaganda, the mythology and sometimes the flat out lies you’ve been told about what it takes to run, walk, hike, play, do yoga, CrossFit, whatever it is you like to do and to do it enjoy effectively and efficiently. And did I say enjoyably? Trick question. I know I did. I say it every time. Because if you’re not having fun, you’re not going to stick with it. And of course we’re going to add the risk element to that in today’s conversation. So I’m Stephen Sashin, co founder, chief barefoot officer here at Xero Shoes and we call this the Movement Movement because we and that involves you are creating a movement about natural movement, letting your body do what it’s made to do instead of getting in the way with things that are being sold to you as beneficial. The way you are part of that we is really simple. Go to www.jointhemovementmovement.com. there’s nothing you need to actually do to join. That’s just the domain we got. But you can opt in to hear about upcoming and just released episodes. You can find all the previous episodes, of which there are quite a few. You can find all the different ways you can engage with us on social media. And that’s the gist of it. But most importantly to really help spread the word. So give us a great review, give us a five star something somewhere, a thumbs up, somewh hit the bell icon on YouTube when you subscribe. So you hear about the new episodes that drop, you get the gist. If you want to be part of the tribe, please subscribe. Okay, so after that fun intro about terror and risk, Edith, do me a favor, tell people who you are and what you’re doing here.
Edythe Heus
So my name is Dr. Edith Hoyce and I’m the creator and founder of Rev6, a revolution in motion. So that’s why I’m here. I’m part of the movement. Movement Rev 6 is a fascially and neurologically based movement system that was the outcome of 18 years of clinical practice that taught me about patterns in the body and how the body moves from illness to wellness. And then I wanted to see if those same patterns applied in performance, from mediocre performance to outstanding performance and longevity. So it’s designed to restore function, to optimize performance, to extend your health span and play big for the rest of your life and something that you can do your entire life. I’m also a practicing chiropractor specializing in fascial manipulation, neurology. And I use Rev6 as my assessment tool and also as my medicine. And I give patients exercises that keep the treatment going. And sometimes people don’t even need treatment once they have enough Rev6 in their system, which has reorganized things. And I’m 69. I live my system. I’ve been doing it for 27 years. And I have less pain. I feel like I’m more mobile than I was in my 20s. And I want that for everybody.
Steven Sashen
That would be a good thing. As a 63 year old person. I appreciate that one quite a bit. All right, so there’s a lot to unpack in there. Let’s start. Since you mentioned fascia and fascial as an adjective for that twice, for people who are not hip to what that means, start there. And then I want to ask you, and I have to say these things because I’ll forget them if I don’t say them in real time about some of those patterns that you were observing and what that means in terms of your diagnosis, diagnostic process, and what you’re then having people start to experiment with and do.
Edythe Heus
Okay, so fascia is an interconnected web of connective tissue in the body. And it answered so many questions for me that I had for, you know, the first 35 years in practice because I was working from a model of muscle testing and neurology. And then when I started training professional athletes, I’m like, something is happening that’s faster here than the nervous system. And it wasn’t until I studied with the Steccos, it’s a fascial family in Italy, that everything came true for me. Like it, it held all of the answers to questions that I had. So fascic can be remodeled.
Steven Sashen
And so I’m going to interrupt you, so what were some of the questions that you had?
Edythe Heus
So when I started the training, So I had 18 years of clinical practice working with many people with neurological problems, but also Broadway performers. I was practicing in New York City. And the other thing is that everybody walks in New York. And in my, by my third month in practice, I realized that the quality of a person’s life is directly related to their feet. So I became very dedicated to knowing about the feet, treating the feet. And then once I started to apply this, the first to training, to sports training, was I developed ways of exercising the feet and the feet. It’s fascinating because the feet have such a unique fascial arrangement and so many sensory cells and endings in them, that the correlation between the environment, your feet, and your brain is profound. And we don’t take advantage of that. So what I was seeing is I would put athletes on unstable surfaces. So I pretty much pioneered barefoot and unstable training for athletes, and that was 27 years ago. And I would put them on unstable surfaces, and it would just happen so fast. It’s like the nervous system didn’t have time to really create the response. But when you think about the design of the fascia, it’s around every single cell, so it’s almost more of a mechanical. So as one cell, you know, dies or slowly shrinks, your fascia immediately changes. And then as new cells form, your fascia is constantly changing. And that’s so empowering because you can manipulate the fascia through exercise or through manual therapy.
Steven Sashen
And so, again, I’m just trying to get a question in my mind that you’re walking into that training going, um. Or even more, you clearly went to this training with some idea that there was something there for you that you hadn’t quite gotten your hands around. And I’m just really curious, like, what that is. Whenever we go for something, we’re either crossing our fingers because someone sold us something, or it’s like, you know, feeling that little sense of hold on. I have a hunch that there’s something here.
Edythe Heus
For me, I think, you know, the interconnectedness of the body, you know, and the speed with which it happened, and how when you work and exercise the feet, you have full body change. You know, even on people that have feet with neuropathy, you still get changes. So there’s more going on than nervous system. The nervous system and the fascia actually acts as, like, the synapse between the nerve and the muscle fibers. So it’s responsible for coordinating movement, in.
Steven Sashen
Fact, backing up a half a step. So when you took some of these athletes or Broadway performers, put them on an unstable surface, and I’m dying to hear what kind of services you’re talking about. What specific kinds of changes were you seeing in that rapid way?
Edythe Heus
So you get to see things really kick in. So let me give you an example. You know, I had, you know, the years of coming up with these concepts of how the body works. And then when I started working with athletes, I was gifted with some of the best athletes in the world, like prototypes that actually proved my concepts. And when you put people on unstable surfaces, you’re activating the small muscles. And for me, it’s the small muscles that are the megaphones that tell the large muscles what to do. So I developed a different concept of what the core is, and watching the athletes reinforced that I was right about what the core is. And I trusted my clinical experience more than the science, because a lot of the things that I’m playing with, there hasn’t been research done until maybe 10 years ago.
Steven Sashen
Okay. So then again, pardon me, I’m really trying to nail you down on this, because I’m trying to get an image in my mind of somebody walks in, they have a particular issue, you’re putting them on something that you were calling unstable. I’m literally closing my eyes so I can visualize this, like, as I’m describing it, and then something changes, and we’re seeing a different effect. Can you. Can you spell that one out for me? So I can really get a picture in my mind of, like, a prototypical athlete, for the sake of argument, comes in complaining about something, stepping on a something, and then you’re seeing a something.
Edythe Heus
Yes. Okay, so let’s say an athlete has a shoulder problem, okay. And they’ve been getting PT and everything for that shoulder, and it persists. I put them on an exercise ball, I put them through a move that I designed, and suddenly their shoulder range of motion is improved. So the ball, in this case, has texture, it has instability. The move itself is pushing them into a more unstable arrangement, and then the shoulder changes.
Steven Sashen
Got it. That’s very interesting. And again, just to highlight this and kind of reiterate what you’re saying or make sure I got it. So part of what we’re talking about is that. And, you know, even when I’ve talked about fascia with a number of people, and it’s one of those things that seems so crazy because most people don’t have. And it’s really hard to have a frame of reference for a. Basically an organ that we don’t even know we have, for lack of a better way of putting it, that, you know, this is something that interpenetrates almost every part of our body, and yet it’s not something we grew up learning about. We don’t hear our doctors talking about it. We don’t understand how it does and doesn’t work. We will hear something about doing fascial release. And everyone has a different opinion about what that is. Most of which are not true. And because it’s fundamentally invisible, I mean, to us conceptually, if not physically, unless you’re doing an autopsy and like, looking at things. It’s such a tricky thing for people to wrap their brain around. Including this idea that doing something that’s impacting the fascia in the feet and ankles is having this almost immediate impact on something on the other side of the body. It’s just hard for people to wrap their brains around.
Edythe Heus
So I’m so glad that you’re bringing this up because I had a patient that had back pain for 27 years and I treated his fascia and you can feel densifications in the fascia. And he called me up two days later and he said, so that was fascia? And I said, yeah. He said, well, in my world, and he did robotic surgery, fascia is the shit that gets in the way. And yeah, isn’t that crazy?
Steven Sashen
Well, you know, there was. I wish I remember the podcast that I heard this on. There was a researcher who, he has renamed the fascia as the interstitium. And it was something that when he was processing, I think he was a pathologist, and when he was processing tissue, it was literally something that, you know, in the way and never really thought about it and then discovered something. I wish I remember how it was about, basically that this is a communication network. It’s almost a hydraulic communication network network. And because of that, it is that sort of instantaneous thing. We think about nerves having to send signals through the axons and across the nerve, the synapse, et cetera, is a very different thing than if you imagine, for lack of this, a very hyper simplistic thing. Taking a string and you pull on one end, the other end moves instantly. It doesn’t have. There’s not a spring mechanism. It’s just like this immediate thing. And that’s the kind of effect we’re talking about. And again, it seems so crazy that you do pull on the string at the bottom of your foot and the string at the in your shoulder changes in some way that creates that rather dramatic experience.
Edythe Heus
Well, let’s add a little to it, because fascia is filled with, you know, collagen fibers for structure and elastic fibers for elasticity. And I can’t explain what it feels like to people to have healthy fascia. It is truly experiential. And for 27 years I’ve asked people to explain what I do, and they are Speechless. So it took a long time for me to be able to figure out the language. But what happens? And that’s what happens with Rev6, which is why if there were a better system out there, I’d be doing it. But you get this elasticity and this rebound in your tissues. So you feel that interconnection. You feel the changes in the tension at every age. So even though as we age, we get stiffer, you don’t have to. And that’s the. It’s so rewarding for me because I teach virtual classes and I watch the participants go from, you know, segment. Segmental issues like, oh, their back’s really tight, or they can’t open their chest. And to see this lengthening and rebounding, that’s a full body experience. And it’s like you feel expanded. It translates into how you live your life. You have, you know, you’re upright, your things are effortless, you don’t have to grit things. You suddenly start thinking about all the efficient ways that you can live your life. And I just, it goes to the point of just almost like a spiritual expansion. So I know I can go down that rabbit hole very easily.
Steven Sashen
Well, that, that’s an interesting one. I’ll. I’ll describe a semi related personal experience that I’ve been having recently. So my right knee, 30, 31 years ago, something like that, I was an all American gymnast. And when I was about 32 years old. So that was. Well, yeah, yeah, 31 years ago, I landed and twisted at the same time and heard the following sound come out of my knee. I went, ooh, I think that’s the end of my career. So they removed about 30% of the meniscus on the outside, the lateral side of my knee. And frankly, when I got out of regular shoes and started doing what I’m doing here, everything’s been fine. But there’s nothing supporting that outside of my knee. So about six months ago, it started bugging me a little bit. And when I got an X ray recently, I’m kind of bone on bone on the outside. Now I’m getting to the part that’s pointing to what you’re saying, interestingly, because of all the things I’m doing to compensate for having that, that weird instability and misalignment, I was having some pain around my ankle. Ish. And I say ish because it moves like within one step, it’ll move from the inside of my leg to the outside of my leg and vice versa. But it was pretty consistent. And over the last couple weeks, as I’ve been doing certain things, it would spontaneously just disappear. And in the moment when that pain, even when it was mild, disappeared, I was just flooded with euphoric feelings. Just the bliss component from that little bit of pain just disappearing. I’d be walking the dog and I’d have to stop because it was just like waves of enjoyment and so very different method of getting there. But I don’t think people have necessarily had that experience of something changing so quickly that it literally is this massive endorphin rush.
Edythe Heus
I agree. I think an important thing in a person’s exercise system, And I know Rev6 does this, is it keeps you on the edge of flow state. So it’s very easy to drop into flow state. That sense of that euphoric feeling, the hypofrontalis, you know, you’re, you’re not thinking, you’re not self conscious, you’re just like in the moment, you know, part of all that is. So I, I want that for everybody.
Steven Sashen
Well, and we’re going to dive into that a little more. But you gave me an interesting segue to how we opened this conversation or at least how I introed it, which because I use the word terrifying because I was exaggerating for the fun of it. But you, when we talked briefly before we started this conversation, used the word risk. That if your exercise doesn’t have a risk component, so that’s problematic. And you just kind of alluded to that a little. So let’s jump into that, shall we?
Edythe Heus
So I think the thing that’s most shocking when I talk about Rev6 is my recipe for an optimal exercise program includes the perception of risk. Now I’ve seen, you know, high level athletes standing on the flat side of a Bosu ball with their eyes looking like they’re terrified, like, what’s the worst thing that’s going to happen standing on a BOSU ball? You know, and they do crazy things. So I got it that, you know, and you saw their performance amp up. They were all in. When you’ve got that perception of risk and it’s novel, we are designed, that’s in our DNA, to wake up and handle risk. So like I’ve got, I mean it’s pretty interesting when you talk to senior living facilities that want to incorporate, you know, my seated program and I’m like, perception of risk. And it’s like we’re trying to stop falls and it’s like you have to train people for falls because when you train for that you develop your like Spidey sense. I can’t tell you how many people have said because of Rev 6 I’ve been. I knew I was going, you know, that I was at risk and I could avoid it, right? Injury after injury was prevented because of all of the ingredients that are built into rev.
Steven Sashen
This is going to sound really bizarre, but way back when, when I was doing a lot of martial arts training, there was the whole thing about perception of risk gets very bizarre. Like I was living in Manhattan and there was be a time, I remember one in particular where this cab driver cut me off on my bicycle and I nearly crashed into him because he cut me off. And I yelled and he slams on the brakes, jumps out of his cab and yells at me, I’m going to kill you. And I remember thinking this will be interesting. And you know, normally, you know, it’s a little terrifying as a big guy. I’m not a big guy, but I had literally just come out of a martial arts class and all I could think was, I mean I was, had been training for risky situations in lower risks environments. And literally I just went, I kind of kicked back on one leg. I went, all right, give it a shot. He’s like, what? I’m going to kill you. I said, I know, why don’t you try it already? No, I’m going to, I’m going to kill you. Stop talking about and start doing something. He goes, if I ever see you again, then he jumps in the cab. So. And I had a couple of situations like that where I, I in a situation that otherwise would have been risky. It was just really interesting. And I didn’t know. I mean, I can’t say that I had confidence that I was going to win or defend myself or hurt this guy or whatever. I was just like really wondering what was going to happen next. And that’s apparently very disarming when someone is threatening you.
Edythe Heus
It’s perfect. What a great strategy. I think we have something, we all have something to learn from that.
Steven Sashen
Well, I also know people who are professional fighters and when people don’t know they’re professional fighters and kind of pick on them or do something to agitate them, the look on their face is so funny. It’s just bemused. They don’t get violent back, they don’t get there, but it’s like you don’t know what you’re doing. This is really a bad idea.
Edythe Heus
Do you really want to do this?
Steven Sashen
Yeah. And again, that, that thing of like just being bemused is very confusing and usually calms people down. So and but when. I do think when my mother was in an assisted living facility, it was interesting. They’re trying to protect them from everything, and the effect was just completely contrary. I mean, they became less and less mobile, less and less able to do anything because they. I mean, if for. No. The reason, then they put them in super big thick shoes where they couldn’t feel anything, they couldn’t respond to anything, and everything was basically padded and protected. And they had to kind of ease their way into everything they were doing instead of getting any feedback to let them know how to respond.
Edythe Heus
It’s sad. It is really sad how we don’t support our seniors, but the generation that’s coming up, you know, I mean, I’m older than you are, but we were active. You know, we have fun in our bodies. You know, we want to be active and healthy until we.
Steven Sashen
Till we die, until we make those younger people really sick of us. So they find it a little annoying, the so. But, you know, and backing up to just that perception of risk, it really is funny. So for people who don’t know what a Bosu ball is, imagine a big round fit ball and then cut it in half and put a base on it. So it’s still this inflatable half dome. And it’s funny you bring it up. I was talking to David Weck, the guy who invented it, just the other day. And so let’s. If we can give people a taste of what we’ve been talking about. Anything you can think of, just to give people a little flavor in their own body, since we’ve been chatting about it for a little bit. That’ll be dreamy. Sure.
Edythe Heus
So I start with an assessment, and I came up with a way of teaching people how to see what I see, but also checking in with your body. And I refer to them as the essentials. And there are six essentials. The first one is mind your feet, hollow your abs, lift your torso, float your head, relax your back, and then your shoulders just fall into place. This is something that people can do as a standing meditation. They can keep checking in while they’re walking, while they’re sitting, because everyone is connected to everyone else. And so sometimes if you’re sitting, it might be harder for you to access your feet or to access your abs. And I could get into great specificity about exactly where you engage your abs, but I’m not going to do that, even though it’s just such a cool fascial arrangement. So, you know, if you’re sitting, then you. You learn how to lift your torso. And all of that converts into improved posture, gait mastery over your body, and better body awareness. So from that, I will. I have built many exercise sequences. So it’s not. The exercises alone are not as significant as the. The order that you put the exercises in. So it’s like, I just use the analogy of a combination lock. You can know all the numbers, but if you don’t know the order, you’re not going to unlock the lock. So we, in. Most of my exercises involve you’re always barefooted, you’re working on an exercise ball or a gymnastics ball. You’re rolling around, you’re connecting those essentials. The whole time, we’re taking advantage of the shape of the ball, the texture of the ball, the tension, its instability factor as we roll around on it. And then I think, you know, one of the most important things is the footwork. So I was never happy with, like, oh, just curl your toes, bring a towel towards you, or do. There’s another exercise where you have to do it all the time where you try and bring your toes towards your heels. And I’m like, that’s just too boring. And so there was a slam board at a studio that I was going to in New York, and it’s just used to stretch your Achilles. And I’m like, okay, so this is a perfect angle. So I just stood on it in four different positions and. And noticed that I was activating all three arches in the feet, using the toes the right way, connecting the feet to the knees to the hips, and it connected all of the essentials. And then I had some of these, the foam rollers, and I’m like, okay, if I can do this on the slant board, foam rollers, like, perfect. So I got a cut, a foam roller in half, half stood on it with my toes in, toes out, up on the balls of your feet. And once again, I’m targeting all of the arches. But then there’s all the neurology that’s happening with it, the balance. So we incorporate that. Use the round side of the Bosu ball with those same foot positions, the flat side of the Bosu ball. And so all of the exercises are complex. Every part of the body is engaged in every exercise. I don’t like isolation. A lot of how training is is based on a lack of understanding of the connectedness and the fascia. Like, basically, you don’t have to do pec work. You just do lower ab work. And your strength of your shoulders is dependent upon the movement of your shoulder blades on your rib cage and your shoulder blades connection to your lower abs, Then you have to consider how important the lower abs are in connecting the pelvic floor to your back, to the fascia and muscles of your lumbar region, all the way up your thoracic region, but even more importantly, the tiny muscles of the spine. So does that kind of give you an idea?
Steven Sashen
It gives me an idea. And what I. And I like the idea of. I think I’m. I guarantee I’ve got a foam roller cut in half somewhere in my house. I have a. I have like, one of everything. And my collection of fitnessy things is ridiculous in no small part, because anytime I’m at a big event, people keep giving me stuff and I’m like, sure. So it is a little silly. So. Yes. So you gave me a picture. What I want to do is, for people who are watching slash listening, is see if there’s. Even though everything you just said, especially the part where these are complex things, it’s not a simple something. Like you said, not doing toe scrunches, not doing short foot, not doing a kind of isolated or even isometric isolated exercise. But is there something that you can walk people through so they can have the barest taste of what you were just saying?
Edythe Heus
Yes.
Steven Sashen
Great.
Edythe Heus
All right, so we’ll go with the very fundamental everyone’s. Go to favorite exercise. You squat behind the ball, press your pubic bones into the ball, drape over the ball so that the front of your chin or your lips are on the ball and your head is just dangling. So you. Your whole spine is long and your toes, all 10 toes are in contact with the floor. So that means that your knees are automatically lining up over your second and third toe. So from that squat, where you’re also lengthening your pelvic floor, floor, you push forward with your feet. But eventually it’s more of the feet initiated. The pelvic floor rebounds, propelling you forward. And then you cushion with your hands, wrists, elbows, shoulders, and your shoulder blades glide. And then you come back. So you’ve got the weight of your head, the weight of your pelvis rocking you forward and backwards effortlessly. So it builds fascial tone and rebound. And because of the autonomic nervous system running along the spine and their connection to your cerebellum, you have dramatic changes in mood in the way the autonomic nervous system works in stress reduction. So it’s a very powerful, simple exercise, but it has to be done right.
Steven Sashen
It sounds very infant. Like in some way, I can’t even Describe why, but it does.
Edythe Heus
Kids watch. Kids give them a gymnastics ball, watch what they do with it, and you’re going to see healthy, normal movement that’s playful that we need to be doing as, as adults.
Steven Sashen
Got it. So for that. So for anyone who does not have a gymnastics ball, go get one. Go on Craigslist. People are giving me away all the time. So there’s no.
Edythe Heus
But all balls are not created equal.
Steven Sashen
No, all balls are. Well, let’s talk about that. But I do want to say if there’s, if there were ever a. An item that you could find at every yard sale in the history of yard sales in the last 10 years, that’s it. So talk about the difference between different balls then.
Edythe Heus
So I actually get balls made for me from Italy because they’re the only. I mean, I have gone through probably a hundred balls because you don’t want it so loose. Okay, this is what I say. Does your. Does the tension of your ball or the texture of your ball match up with healthy fascia? You know, like if you sit on the ball or you drape over and there’s a lot of give, is that what you want out of your tissue?
Steven Sashen
Interesting. So to be clear, this is not just a question of inflation.
Edythe Heus
No, no, because it can’t be over inflated because then that’s too tight. And so that’s a tension that doesn’t feel good in your body. So use. You know, I have a professional athlete and she said, I consider my ball my best training partner, you know, and so. And the ball has to be. So there’s this tone that is not tight and not loosey goosey. And the amount of pressure in the ball is also very precise. And people don’t know what that feels like. I try and give guidance on my website. Eventually though, when their fascia gets healthy, they may have to put like two pumps because it’s off by just like a morsel of improper tone, you know, so the more you refine that, like, I sometimes wonder, am I like creating more sensory divergent people? But, you know, you get so sensitive and aware. But I’d rather live in that world, you know, than, you know, not recognize things as they’re coming.
Steven Sashen
So I’m just imagining just an army of ball snobs who. They go to someone else’s houses and see a ball. It’s like, oh, please. It just becomes a very interesting dinner conversation. In the same way, I’m a rowing snob, so I know how to row. And anytime I’m either watching a TV show or movie or I’m in a gym and I watch people rowing incorrectly. And all that means mostly is that after they’ve pulled, then they just push the handles over their bent knees instead of straightening their knees first and then moving the. What would be the oars. And the way you think about it, if you have to push, if you have to lift up to get over your knees, you just put the oars in the water and you’ve stopped yourself. So I’m not a ball snob yet, but I’m a rowing snob. And I can imagine being. I can, I can think of a number of things that I could get even more snobby about.
Edythe Heus
I think the more tools the, or the more we know and the more like your attunement with the feet, it’s going to translate into needing precision.
Steven Sashen
It’s really true. I mean, one of my regrets, which I don’t really have regret regrets. But I wish that I had the psychic ability to have known that 16 plus years ago. I would have been doing what I’m doing now because I would have measured certain things or at least tried to measure certain things that I couldn’t measure or didn’t measure and don’t know if it was possible. So for example, when I first started walking around my home, there’s a bunch of gravel of various kinds. And when I was doing that in bare feet, it was unpleasant. I mean, I wasn’t doing it like to be masochistic, just every now and then I’d step on something, for example, and. But over time I noticed that it was not a problem. And it wasn’t because my, I built up a bunch of calluses. My feet became more responsive and reflexive and reactive. So I would just kind of bend around things where I wouldn’t put so much weight on that front foot until I was confident unconsciously that I could handle that. And I also feel like my reflex arc improved, that if I, if I did step on something unpleasant, I would step off of it more quickly, just reflexively. And I had no way of measuring that. And last but not least, I never took any sort of photos to show my unbelievably ridiculously comic flat feet compared to what they are now, where I developed an arch, in fact all three of them. And, and so those are the three things that I wish I had as a before and after in some way. And I imagine a similar thing from what we’re describing, like the before and after people had experience. If you don’t have a method, you’re reaching for something, you don’t have a method of really measuring that you might even not even notice how dramatic the change could be over time.
Edythe Heus
I think that, and something I would like to do and am in the process of doing is measuring the result of Rev6 on kind of traditional explosiveness jumping. And I believe that it translates well. But I want to mention to you, I probably was one of those children that was neurodivergent way back when, before it had a diagnosis. Because I can still recall I did the same thing. As far as walking and running on gravel, I can still tell you the difference in the feel of the grass in all of my neighbors. And I think children, I mean, it’s so good for brain development. The more we stimulate or have access and engage, the more real estate we have in our brain. And the translation into, you know, intelligence, memory, all kinds of cognition is dramatic.
Steven Sashen
Well, you know, this is kind of one of those not rocket science sort of obvious things. When you think about it. The amount of space that your brain reserves for getting information from your feet is very large. If you’re not giving it that information, it basically shuts down because, like, why waste the energy? But it’s not like the brain is just discrete units. If you’re shutting down something, it’s impacting things across the entire spectrum. I mean, this is just screamingly obvious. And yet again, we take people of various types and put them in footwear that doesn’t let their feet bend, flex, move or feel. And we wonder why we have all sorts of fill in the blank problems. The number of times I want to be careful when I say this, the number of times someone will say to me, I put on your shoes. And within a very short period of time, I mean, literally sometimes that day my fill in the blank issue disappeared. And I’m not making a medical claim, but we hear this all of the time. And it’s. And what I say is, it’s just because we got out of the way of the thing that was causing that problem to begin with. And it, it’s. But we. The other thing our brains are really sadly good at is acclimating to things like, you’re going to keep putting me through that unpleasant thing. I’ll stop registering it because what’s the point? You’re not listening, you’re not changing it. So we’ll just shut up. And that’s of course problematic.
Edythe Heus
I am offended by the word adaptation. Adapting, you know, it’s like, no, yeah, I’m not helping you adapt. I’m Helping you restore what’s inherently in our design.
Steven Sashen
Yeah, exactly. This is the, and, and what amazes me is when this is another human thing is you say things like that to people and they will fight you. They want to argue for their limitations rather than experience something on the other side of it. It’s like it’s, there’s so much of our identity wrapped up in certain movement patterns or the way it’s been for a while or you know, I walk the same way my fill in the blank parent walks. I mean my joke is I spent, let’s see, from the time I was 12 to the time I was 18. Very, I mean that’s my all American gymnast years. So I spent that six years very actively gymnastics thing and then I spent 40 years trying to get the gymnast out of my body. That was a, that was a tough road to hoe.
Edythe Heus
Yeah.
Steven Sashen
So, so what else have we left out? I mean, I think this is a great, I mean my, my goal in this conversation. Let me rephrase that. What be emerged as my goal in this conversation is to give people a sense of curiosity about this because it is so much non. Not part of our normal conversation. Is there anything we left out in the. Let’s get people wondering about fascia and wondering about what you’re doing, etc.
Edythe Heus
Well, I, I, I think sharing with you the recipe that I think is important for an optimal fitness program or exercise system is novelty. You have to have instability, sensory stimulation, complexity, exercises that integrate the whole body, precise sequencing, dynamic loading. You have to include eccentric in that the perception of risk and you want it to be able to that everything automates and that you get to drop easily into flow state. So not many exercise programs satisfy those requirements and we need a whole paradigm shift in what to expect expect out of our exercise and how to achieve it.
Steven Sashen
I think that’s true and I think that. And correct me if I’m wrong or correct me if you think differently. I think that evolves over time in certain ways. There are certain things that at 63 I’m not doing like when I was 20, although there’s certain things that I am still doing exactly the same way. And there are certain things that are more interesting or not tolerable interesting to me now than they were then and vice versa. I mean way back when, for example, I would happily, you know, do these very long workouts that would leave me pretty wasted and the next day if I felt sore, I just kind of stretched till I felt able to go and do the next thing at this Age, I can’t do that. That said, I’m still doing my exercise stuff. I mean, I’m a competitive sprinter. The way I lift weights is very, very high intensity. But it’s sort of. But I have way more rest and it’s way shorter. It’s way. And. And frankly, it’s more fun because it’s. Even. It’s as hard as I can possibly go. Now, for me, that’s one piece. And I’m not suggesting this is the right wing, but part of. Part of what I’m doing now includes things that are just so satisfying psychologically because they match how much time I have, how much brain space I have, what I like to do with my body, the way I like to see things progressing or challenging. And so, other than, I guess where I’m going is this, it seems like. And again, let me know if you think I’m completely full of it when I say this. There’s kind of a baseline of something that we all need to have to be functional human beings as we continue to age. And then there’s going to be idiosyncratic things that are unique to your little whatever. Like, you know my line at the beginning, if you’re not having a good time, do something until you are. And there’s some people who like competing, other people do not like competing. There are some people who like lifting heavy things, other people do not like lifting heavy things. And so that’s the way I’m kind of framing it as like, here’s the stuff that keeps you able to do everything else that you might want to do that’s unique for you.
Edythe Heus
I love it. I mean, my goal is to help people be able to do what they love, doing better. And once you have a healthier, more mobile system, sometimes you make different choices.
Steven Sashen
Yeah.
Edythe Heus
And I can’t tell you how many young athletes, you know, like mid-30s is kind of when pros kind of get kicked off the team if they’re injured or whatever. Said, I wish I knew you sooner. I wish I had this work sooner. And that’s sad because I would love to see young people have it, but they think that they can get to where they are with natural talent and grit, and you can’t. You lose that.
Steven Sashen
I have watched. I won’t name names. I have watched certain track coaches where their entire strategy is beating up their athletes and seeing who survives. And I’ve watched how some of those athletes who do not survive clearly could have had incredible professional careers, but they were beaten to a pulp and lost the ability to do that. And I find that. And the annoying part is these coaches, because they’ve had success, AKA people who’ve come out of that firestorm and lived, they get the cream of the crop. And so they keep getting the opportunity to work with all these amazing athletes and destroy a big percentage of them. Even a little thing. When I was in college, there were these two sisters who were on the gymnastics team who had been coached by their parents up until they went to college, and they only worked out three days a week. They were national champions. They came to college and they were working out five, six days a week. Injury, injury, injury, end of their career.
Edythe Heus
That’s not unusual.
Steven Sashen
Yeah.
Edythe Heus
You know, I feel as though the training that most athletes go through destroys our best athletes. So then it’s survival of the fittest.
Steven Sashen
So.
Edythe Heus
Because a lot of the best athletes have this very sensitive, refined nervous system that actually will improve the fun of the game with their, you know, if you’ve got players lasting longer, they figure out new strategies. And that’s going to. For me, I think that that would turn things into. I’m sorry about that. Turn our sport from, you know, you know, like a muscling sport to really like a chess game on the fields. And I would love to see that.
Steven Sashen
And, and, and you know, it could be a chess game with some really big, strong, fast people, depending on the sport.
Edythe Heus
Yeah, yeah, yeah. You can be big, strong and fast, quick and dynamic.
Steven Sashen
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, I want, I would love to see that as well. Speaking as a guy who had both shoulders and biceps put back together after a gymnastics career, I’ve never, I haven’t met a gymnast who has survived with shoulders. Mostly because when we’re young, we don’t have the strength to support ourselves through the things that we’re doing to the rest of our body and putting strain on our shoulders. But that’s a whole other.
Edythe Heus
Yeah. Something or other.
Steven Sashen
So if people want to find out more about what you are doing with Rev6, how can they find you and it and where? What are their next steps?
Edythe Heus
Okay, so if you go to Rev6fit, it has all of my social listed on there. I have a school community that you can join. I teach virtual classes and I’ve got a huge on demand library of probably five or six hundred sequences. Really nicely organized. You also can sign up for, you know, a posture and gait analysis with me and I can give you five exercises that you do and there’s all the information on sizing the ball and a bunch of free stuff. On the website and on YouTube.
Steven Sashen
Awesome. Well, I hope people do take advantage of that. And then I want to hear what their experience is and I want to hear what your experience is with their experience. So everyone please go see what you find and have fun. And in the meantime, just a reminder, head over to www.jointhemovementmovement.com Again, nothing to join. There’s no fee. There’s no dance we do every morning before we get to work. It’s just that’s the domain that I got where you’ll find all the previous episodes all the way. You can engage with us on social media if you want to find the podcast somewhere other than where you found it, where you can do that. And of course, if you want to reach out and pass any info over to me, questions, comments, recommendations of people who should be on the podcast, I’m still waiting for someone to get me. Someone who thinks I have a case of cranial rectal reorientation syndrome. I think that’ll be a fun conversation. Just drop an email to move M O V e. Join the movement. Movement.com and again, spread the word. Share all of what you’ve learned here. Pass people over to the website. That’s not an English sentence. But I’m running out of English sentences right now. Like I said before, if you want to be part of the tribe, just subscribe. And while you’re doing that, go out, have fun, and live life feet first.