Known as “The Health Engineer,” Garrett Salpeter has taken his training in Engineering and Neuroscience and used it to create NeuFit and the patented NEUBIE device. He trains doctors, therapists, and professional sports teams and universities in how to apply NeuFit with their patients and athletes, helping them recover faster from injury and optimize performance. He is the best-selling author of the book The NeuFit Method and host of The Undercurrent Podcast.
Listen to this episode of The MOVEMENT Movement with Garrett Salpeter about using electricity for health and recovery.
Here are some of the beneficial topics covered on this week’s show:
– How pain is a signal created by the brain to indicate a need to stop certain movements.
– Why using direct current can help the brain down-regulate its protective patterns.
– How recalibrating the nervous system can lead to increased range of motion and reduced pain.
– How NeuFit treats a wide range of conditions related to pain, strength, range of motion, and neurological function.
– How NeuFit taps into the power of neuroplasticity to improve function in various patient populations.
Connect with Garrett:
Guest Contact Info
Instagram
@neufitrfp
Facebook
facebook.com/neufitRFP
Links Mentioned:
neu.fit
Connect with Steven:
Website
Twitter
@XeroShoes
Instagram
@xeroshoes
Facebook
facebook.com/xeroshoes
Episode Transcript
Steven Sashen:
You go to see a physical therapist, they’re going to do manipulations of your joints and your muscles. They’re working on the hardware. What if you could work on the software? Okay, we’re going to find out more about that. On today’s episode of The MOVEMENT Movement, the podcast for people who want to know the truth about what it takes to have a happy, healthy, strong body. I like to say starting feet first, but now we’re going to be talking about the whole damn body. So yeah, whatever. But we also break down the propaganda, the mythology, the frankly lies you’ve been told about what it takes to have a happy, healthy, strong body and to run, work, play, do yoga, do CrossFit to work, workout, whatever it is you like to do, and to do it enjoyably efficiently, effectively. Did I say enjoyably? I know I did. It’s a trick question, because look, if you’re not having fun, you’re not going to keep it up. So find something to do that you like to do.
I’m Steven Sashen, CEO co-founder of Xero Shoes and the host of The MOVEMENT Movement podcast, which we call it that because, that was almost a sentence, because we’re creating a movement about natural movement, letting your body do what it’s made to do naturally. And when I say we, that involves everyone watching and listening. It doesn’t take any effort. You’ll find out in a second.
In fact, all you have to do, go to our website, jointhemovementmovement.com. There’s nothing you need to do to join. You can subscribe to get updates about new episodes, and you can find all the previous episodes, and you can find out where you can find us on social media and how you can engage with us there. So the gist is, if you want to help the movement part of this, like, share, give us a thumbs up, give us a great review. If you want to be part of the tribe, just subscribe. You know the gist. Okay, let’s have some fun.
Garrett, do me a favor, tell people who the hell you are and what you’re doing here.
Garrett Salpeter:
Happy to do that. Steven, thank you so much for having me on the show. I’m Garrett Salpeter, the founder of NeuFit, and I believe that the most powerful and transformative way to help people recover from pain and injury is to work directly with the nervous system. And I feel very fortunate to have found the Venn diagram where my interests overlap, my background’s in engineering and neuroscience. And also like you, have been an athlete. I’ve played ice hockey mostly growing up and in college. And I got into this field because of a few different experiences.
One is, something that happened to me when I was playing college hockey, I got injured, I was supposed to have surgery to repair some torn ligaments, and I met a doctor who was doing functional neurology and using older versions of direct current as opposed to alternating current, this niche specialty within the electrical technology realm. And working with him, functional neurology, we’re looking at not just the tissue damage, but looking at what the neurological response was and how the nervous system was or was not supporting healing both locally and globally. And then using this direct current technology, I saw firsthand how it helped me heal. And long story short, I avoided surgery and I was excited as an athlete, but as a pre-engineering student, as a physics major, I was just beside myself with joy to find something that actually made sense scientifically from first principles. Like how you describe the obvious duh reasons why you’d want to try out minimalist shoes. So to find something that made sense that that’s what really got me excited and that’s what really instilled with me with this sense of being called to share this work with as many people as I could. And that’s now 17 years ago. And during that time, I finally figured out what I want to do when I grow up and launched the NEUBIE device, which stands for Neuro-Bio-Electric, launched that about six years ago.
Steven Sashen:
So that gave me a lot to start with. And I’m trying to think of where I want to begin. So actually let me start with this. You and I met at some event, I don’t even remember which one, could’ve been some trade show you something. And I’ve had a number of shoulder issues for years because I’m a former All-American gymnast and I don’t know one gymnast who hasn’t escaped without shoulder problems. And you hooked me up to your electrical device, which we will describe in a bit, and had me go through some things that were, let’s say, awkward or difficult at best. And we’ll describe what that means as well. But after just a very short treatment, which again, we’re at a trade show, so it’s like a wham bam, thank you ma’am. Get people in and out to experience it. There was a demonstrable significant change in the range of motion that I had and the pain that I had had. And so I knew there there, that’s why we’re on this call.
So even about The MOVEMENT Movement, what we’re talking about is about what you’re doing. Again, we’ll get into more specific about that a sec, that actually facilitates movement when you have some injury or other restriction, et cetera. So that’s part one. Part two, I want you to dive in a little bit and let’s do the history of electrical current things and healing. The two things that I know and have experienced. One, I’ll do the experience first, is that a friend of mine when I was in high school, he had a chainsaw accident and cut his forearm pretty badly. And while he was trying to recover, they gave him a electro stim device to keep the nerves below where he had cut towards his hand functioning. So that while the nerves healed, they were still actually engaged. Otherwise, the nerves and the musculature was going to just atrophy. And when he wasn’t using this device, me and his other close friend, we were playing with it. So we would put it on your bicep and activate it, and your arm becomes an amazing catapult. And if you put it on your face, well, if you put it on someone else’s face while they’re talking and then you activate it, their whole face shifts a couple inches to the right or left and they can’t talk properly, which was hysterically fun.
And then when I get to college and I’m in biology and they’re going, hey, we’re going to dissect a frog hamstring and show that you can make the muscle contract by adding electricity, I’m going screw that, and I’m attaching electrodes to people’s faces. And the TAs were not happy with that, but they were entertained. So anyway, that’s one thing that I know that will lead us into what you’re doing.
The second thing is I know that for a long time people have been using electricity and magnetic fields to help with bone repair. So those are the two things that I know. Can you then dive in again, like I was asking a moment ago, to the history of using electricity as part of a healing modality and then lead that into the NEUBIE and what you’re doing?
Garrett Salpeter:
Yes. Well, first of all, I’m disappointed that I was never in your lab class in college. I think that would’ve been a lot of fun.
Steven Sashen:
Yeah, absolutely.
Garrett Salpeter:
So I think to start this, it probably is worth talking about that experience that we had at the trade show with your shoulder, and then that’ll create the context for why some of this matters. And there’s a couple of interesting points about that. When you have an injury or experienced trauma like that, there’s of course sometimes tissue damage and things that need to heal, but a lot of the reason that we experience pain and limitation is not about the original injury as much as it is how we respond to it, the neurological response to injury and trauma. And that involves a whole suite of protective patterns, including creating tension in some muscles to guard embrace the body. It involves shutting down other muscles to limit movement. It involves pain. Pain is an active signal created by the brain in order to tell you to do something or more likely to stop doing something right?
Don’t use this area, don’t do that movement, et cetera. And it’s at least partially therefore a software problem. And what we want to be able to do is find where the brain and nervous system are imposing those patterns on the body in order to be able to correct them or be able to optimize them so that we can restore movement within the realm of what’s responsible and safe if there is any tissue damage. So that of course is factored in from the beginning, but that is a really interesting path because it’s a lot different than what other people are taking.
Steven Sashen:
I want to pause there because I really want to highlight this, because it’s something that seems a little counterintuitive to most people, especially when you’re healing, but even when you just get into any motor pattern, and I’m going to highlight one that’s relevant for runners in a sec. What’s going on is mostly your brain telling your body what you can and can’t do. I don’t know about mostly, but it’s often, your brain telling your body what you can and can’t do. And this shows up actually in endurance athletes as well, where there’s the theory of this from Tim Noakes is there’s a thing called the central governor that’s a part of your brain that’s keeping you from doing something stupid, essentially, from overexerting in a way where your tendons could pull so hard on your joints or bones that they could break the bone or snap a joint.
And so I see this often where we will develop a habit and your brain goes, “Oh, okay, that’s what we’re doing now? Okay, cool.” And then you think you can’t do more than that because you do experience some pain when you try, but it’s not true. I mean, one of the ways that I see this, and this is relevant for runners, I see runners in my neighborhood and I live in a neighborhood with a lot of really good runners, who are midfoot strike, perfect form, but they’re in big, thick, high-heeled shoes. And they’ll say, “Well, I can’t use minimal shoes because it’s hurting my Achilles.” It’s like, hold on, hold on. You’ve just trained yourself not to use your Achilles fully, not to let it stretch fully with that high-heeled shoe. Your Achilles is totally fine. In fact, if you stand barefoot, are you having a problem? They go, “No.” I go, yeah. So you taught your brain that when you’re running, you can’t use your Achilles fully and you could unteach your brain that.
And this is the principle behind, I’ve mentioned it on the podcast a couple of times, Feldenkrais work, which is a bodywork style where basically there’s a whole bunch of really cool techniques to fake your brain into remembering that you have more movement possibilities than it remembers that you have. And so again, I know this can sound crazy because we do experience these limitations as if they are purely hardware, purely physical, but so much of it is literally just your brain getting acclimatized or something so that it thinks that is, those are the edges no more, no less and tells you so with pain coming from it, not from the musculature. Did I get that?
Garrett Salpeter:
Yeah, that’s very true. Very profound. Just a few different points of connection here. One is, I have sometimes in conversation described our work as electric Feldenkrais because… I’m so glad you brought up Moshé Feldenkrais and his work because that is exactly what he’s trying to do, is find where these habits, these deeply ingrained habits are imposed as patterns on the body and their limitations and being able to work through those. It doesn’t create new capacity. It allows the individual to tap into existing capacity that they already have. They’re just blocking themselves from being able to express it. And that plays into what you’re talking about with Dr. Noakes and this notion of a central governor. He talks about fatigue actually being a governor that the brain imposes because our brains are trying to get us to do less, right? Like you talked about, don’t pull muscles too hard so we don’t pull tendons off the bone.
And of course that’s a safety mechanism. It’s important. We don’t want to override that, but it’s often set way too conservatively, and so it weakens us. And likewise, our brain doesn’t want us to expend too much energy because it thinks there might be a famine tomorrow. Think about the evolutionarily we came of age in this time where famines were common and we’re not necessarily fully adapted to this modern world in which we live. So these patterns are imposed. And a lot of times the first stage of rehabilitation or training or any of these goals that people have, a lot of times the first stage is not building new capacity, but it’s just recalibrating these limitations so that we can use more of what we already have. It is like there’s a governor, just to borrow that governor metaphor. If a car is capable of going 155 miles an hour, but there’s a governor that limits it to 90, it could go a lot faster, but it’s just limited essentially by that software. Once you change that, all of a sudden, same car, you can get to 155 miles an hour instead of 90.
Steven Sashen:
Yeah. And I would never buy that car. In fact, I took my car, which is a Subaru BRZ, and I threw a supercharger in it just to make sure it could get a little more than what they say in the book.
All right, so we’ve talked about a piece of the software component, but is this the appropriate time to move into the history of electricity and bodies and neurology?
Garrett Salpeter:
Yes, it is. And I think it’s just important because that establishes the why. So we now know, okay, the nervous system is important, how we can interact with the nervous system via technology becomes important. And this is where some of those distinctions between alternating current and direct current become really meaningful. And where some of the history now I think in context will be more interesting. So when we have alternating current devices, the signal goes back and forth positive, negative, positive, negative, and it causes muscles to contract, actually to co-contract and fight each other. So back to the car metaphor, it would be like if you were driving your car, hitting the throttle and the brake pedal at the same time, even with your Subaru turbocharger, you’re still not going to be going very fast. Some of that energy is just wasted overcoming the resistance of the brake pedal, right? So there’s limitations there.
And also, our nervous systems work naturally on direct current. And so when you use these alternating current devices, which just for reference is virtually everything that’s out there, these tens units, Russian stim, inferential, FES and NMES, anything that people have generally experienced, the generally popular brands of electrical modalities are typically alternating current because of the history that we’ll get into. But there’s these limitations. And when we use direct current, we’re able to bypass a lot of that protective co-contraction, a lot of that stress response that happens. So we can speak more powerfully, more precisely, more directly to the nervous system. To both find where these limiting patterns are being imposed, so we would do this scanning process like we did with your shoulder at the event. We’d actually take one of the electrodes and scan around on the body to find where those patterns are being imposed, and then, use the direct current to stimulate those areas. Typically also with exercise. So we accelerate that process of motor learning, but we would stimulate those areas in order to teach or recalibrate the nervous system to allow better function in those areas. So the direct current allows us to do that.
And there there’s also benefits of direct current with these electric field gradients on tissue healing. But to answer your question here about that, the history is interesting because some of these benefits of direct current were known back in the 1960s, 1970s. And you might wonder, well, okay, why are you telling me this is new and different? It’s been known for that long. Well, there was always this one important limiting factor with direct current, which is whenever you would turn it up high enough to create enough stimulus to drive adaptation within the body, it would always sting and burn the skin. Because direct current, you get these ions build up and that increases resistance, which leads to heat dissipation. So you could burn.
And the Soviets would literally, literally burn their athletes and they could do that for Mother Russia, but we are not doing that over here in the western world. So it totally fell out of favor because of that limitation, except for a few niche use cases like microcurrent, some of these things that I mentioned I’d experienced on my own injury rehabilitation journey and things like that. But it really fell out of favor.
And so in that void came all these alternating current modalities because you could get them into the body without stinging and burning the skin. You just missed out on some of these other benefits in terms of how these electric fields can influence tissue healing and some of these more powerful effects on the nervous system and how they promote improved function. And that’s why over the last several decades, all electrical modalities have somewhat fallen out of favor.
The insurance reimbursements for using electrical modalities and physical therapy has either been dramatically reduced or has been eliminated, for example, because statistically speaking, scientifically, they’ve shown to not be able to do very much.
And so there’s a lot of limitations, and I think we are now showing that we’re able to really overcome those limitations and move the field forward by going back actually and bringing direct current and doing it in a way where, as part of the special sauce here with our device for example, is being able to find ways to get that direct current into the body without stinging and burning the skin. So we get the comfort of alternating current, but with the health and rehabilitation and functional benefits of direct current.
Steven Sashen:
So let’s give people a flavor for how this would play out. Pick your injury or dysfunction of choice and describe what happens. Somebody walks in, and I mean, you mentioned it briefly about scanning and then applying the direct current in particular way, but I want to get people to imagine it in their mind or imagine they’re going through it. So walk someone through that and I might stop you just in case I think you’ve skipped a step.
Garrett Salpeter:
Well, you mentioned a little bit about your shoulder. Let’s go to the other side of the body. Let’s talk about someone who just sprained or rolled an ankle. So we’re in Texas, we got a lot of high school and college football players, it’s common, but someone out playing recreational basketball or falls off a curb and rolls their ankle, the same rules apply. So there’s a very common use case that we see all the time where an athlete will come in, they might be on crutches, or at the very least be limping because they’re really favoring the side with the freshly rolled and sprained ankle. And they will come in and oftentimes we’ll go through this process where we sometimes would map and find these areas, or sometimes we’d have them actually for the first treatment, sometimes put their foot in a bucket of warm water and put one of the electrodes in there so that it’ll be a little more global, a little less precise. But we’ll send the current through that entire foot and ankle because there’s so many nerve pathways in there. It’s so neurologically dense.
Steven Sashen:
Wait, all right, hold on. My phone just rang my apologies. So hold on. I want to back up for one second.
So the first thing you’re trying to do, explain a bit what you’re trying to find when you’re doing the scanning thing. And talk about the global version, like foot in a bucket of water, versus the more specific version. And also what the patient’s experience is that you’re using for confirmation that you’ve found what you’re looking for. It’s like what are you looking for? What’s the patient experiencing? How do you confirm that this has happened?
Garrett Salpeter:
Right. Right. So the patient is hobbling in and they’re experiencing this version of these protective patterns that we mentioned a little bit earlier where some muscles are hyper tense to guard and splint and brace, others are shut down and weak, the brain’s way of saying don’t move that area. There’s also pain mixed in as part of that whole suite of protective patterns, which again is the brain’s way of saying, don’t use, if this hurts, right, you’re not going to use that area. It motivates you to use the other leg to not load that area, to not move it, et cetera. So the person walks in experiencing all of that. And our question, essentially looking at this person is, okay, how much of this issue is a hardware issue, where it’s a true tear of that tissue or something like that? And how much of it is a software issue where it’s not as much about the physical injury as it is about that neurological response and those limitations being imposed?
And so clinicians, the physical therapists, chiropractors, athletic trainers, are going to use their skillset to determine and make sure they think it’s safe. They’re going to screen for obvious fractures or something that requires immediate attention, stuff like that. So screen for that first, but then most of the time we’re able to continue treatment. And so through either the mapping and placing electrodes more precisely or doing the footpath, what we’re trying to do is target these areas where the brain and nervous system are imposing those patterns on the body and then stimulate them, create this sensory feedback. So instead of just causing muscles to contract, like that typical alternating current technology, we’re going to be sending this sensory signal, this input in. And if you think about what it’s doing, this is the process of neuromuscular reeducation here, true neuromuscular reeducation, reeducating or reteaching, teaching the nervous system how to better control the muscles.
So we’re sending these signals that essentially mimic movement. So the person’s brain is telling them not to move that foot and ankle, not to load it. We’re going to send the signal, the same signals that would happen as if they’re moving it. And so at first their brain is going to say, “Whoa, whoa, whoa, Steven, don’t move your ankle. Remember, we’re in this state where we’re not doing that.” And it’s going to be uncomfortable. Remember, pain is the brain’s response to perceived threat. So we want to turn it up to the point where it actually does hurt a little bit. So this of course is intentional and we’re going to do it in a way that’s safe and we know we’re not creating any further damage, but by going outside the comfort zone there, we know we’re eliciting that response and giving the person an opportunity to recalibrate.
And so we do a few movements, typically not even weight-bearing movements, just moving the foot around a little bit, just doing little ankle circles or pointing and flexing the foot, et cetera. And by going through those movements, we give the brain a chance to recalibrate. The brain can evaluate this and say, okay, we’re either things are damaged and we’re not going to ease off on those protective patterns. Or what we very commonly see is the brain sees that and says, “Oh, okay, we actually can do these movements safely. We actually can allow a little bit more.” And it incrementally starts to lift off on those governors. And a majority of the time we’ll see people be able to take more on the current, be able to increase the range of motion a little bit, and after 10 or 20 minutes, they might get up and walk normally virtually pain-free. And they’re astonished at the amount of change that they’ve made in that 10 or 20 minutes.
And of course, nothing is healed. Ligaments haven’t reattached in 10 or 20 minutes. What’s happened is they’ve changed that neurological response and that helps us know that more of what they were experiencing was that functional response to injury. So it’s a little bit uncomfortable, but it’s validating for people when they have that experience of, okay, yes, we turned it up and it was uncomfortable, but as I move through it, the brain started to down-regulate, and to them it felt like it got easier to manage. Everything is relaxed. And if you repeat that a few times, it becomes this very empowering realization of, yes, I can adapt. Okay, my body’s responding. I see a light at the end of the tunnel in terms of the recovery from this particular injury.
Steven Sashen:
So A, thank you. That was really good. And B, I was going to interrupt you because I wanted to slow the film down a little bit and give people a slightly more granular visual sense of what’s going on. So I’m going to describe my experience and feel free to chime in.
So the first thing is that scanning, to identify where there might be something that is, let’s just, for lack of a better term, I’m going to call it this little neurological glitch, where your brain is doing some protective thing, for example. And what my experience when you’re finding that is it’s like, oh, that’s a little electrical current, a little electrical current. As you move this electrode around. And then you hit a spot and where it’s like, oh, geez, holy crap, holy crap, holy crap. And you go, okay, that’s a spot. And then you’re going to take an electrode and place it in a different location clearly, so that you’re going to try and be getting current moving through that area. So far, so good. Yeah? Okay.
And then you start turning up the current on that device and what that’s going to do. It’s going to create this contraction that is undeniably, let’s just say, not pleasant, it doesn’t hurt, but it’s definitely not pleasant. It’s basically like if you’ve ever had a calf cramp, it’s not that bad, but it’s that similar flavor of something’s cramping up. And then you would ask me as you have in the past, to get some range of motion, move through some spots, especially ones that have been historically painful, things where I couldn’t really make that movement. And even just trying to do those movements, move my arm in whatever way that is, I’m fighting against the contraction that the electrical current has created. And so to your point, that’s where you’re sending signals back to the brain that are different than what it’s been providing you.
But to be clear, it’s like this phenomenon where you described for flexing and pointing your toes or doing circles… Flexing your ankles or doing circles with your feet, for example, you’re going to find that there’s certain places where it’s really hard to go through that, but that’s one of the places where maybe there’s an injury, maybe it’s just been protective, and you go through that a number of times, a number of different ways, maybe move the electrode a little bit to get a different angle. And then take everything off. And aside from the relief of, hey, you’re not electrocuting me.
Which by the way, again, when I say it’s not pleasant, I’m choosing that word somewhat specifically because I like it, because there’s something about when that’s happening where it’s not enjoyable, but it feels correct. There’s something about it where it’s like, ooh, that’s a good thing. But it’s like lifting weights. Those last couple of reps are really hard, but that’s where the money is. It’s a similar feeling here, just cognitively.
And so anyway, so there’s that annoying thing of trying to find the initial spot. And then the different thing where it’s not quite as localized, but you’ve got this contraction going on that you’re moving through and against, that’s waking up your brain a bit and giving you some movement that maybe you haven’t had for quite a while for all those governor reasons. And then you stop everything current off that feels good, and then suddenly you’re like, holy crap, I’ve got more motion than I thought I had before. Or motion that I had before that was painful is either reduced or eliminated. I mean, that was my experience. Do you want to add any color to that?
Garrett Salpeter:
Yeah, I think that’s a great way to describe it. In terms of finding the spot. I think one other little bit of color I would add would be to say that it is somewhat similar to the feeling of if you’re having body work done getting massage or something like that, where if someone’s working around and they find a trigger point, it’s like-
Steven Sashen:
Feels so good.
Garrett Salpeter:
Exactly. Yeah. It’s clearly uncomfortable, but it’s also, it’s productively uncomfortable is one of my favorite ways to say it. You know there’s something there that needs to be addressed. And even though it’s unpleasant that it’s worthwhile and you want more, you want to go through it.
Steven Sashen:
Yes, that hurts. Don’t stop.
Garrett Salpeter:
That’s right. Exactly.
Steven Sashen:
Exactly. I want to ask a number of questions, I don’t even know where to begin. Let me start with this. One of the kinds of things that you are typically treating, I mean, that’s one way of asking it. The other is, what are the kinds of effects you’re typically seeing?
Garrett Salpeter:
So the effects are certainly related to reductions in pain, improvements in strength, range of motion, and in terms of the context and the types of conditions or situations in which people would seek out this treatment would be immediately after an injury, like we talked about that acute recent ankle sprain or injury like that. Also, chronic pain, post-surgical. And then there’s this whole category of being able to work with people who have experienced stroke or spinal cord injury or have MS, and where we’re talking about, not curing MS for example, but talking about helping them restore function through that process of neuromuscular reeducation to improve quality of life.
And there are some people who over time have been able to get off of walkers or get out of wheelchairs and it takes a while, but really tap into the power of neuroplasticity to improve function. So of course, that’s a very broad range. I just shared this whole range of all these different populations. And you might think, how can you possibly be talking about elite athletes and MS patients in the same sentence? And the answer is that there’s this common thread throughout all of those populations and specifically about the issues that they’re dealing with. And that common thread is the nervous system.
Steven Sashen:
Are there any contraindications for anything where it’s like you would say if somebody walked in the door or hobbled in the door or rolled in the door, you’d ask them something and go, yeah, you’re going to have to go next door and see somebody else?
Garrett Salpeter:
If someone has a pacemaker or is currently pregnant, stuff like that. It’s those sorts of things.
Steven Sashen:
You’re suggesting that if somebody’s pregnant and they got this treatment, it would not give their babies superpowers.
Garrett Salpeter:
Well, no one’s done the research yet to know. So until we find out, we don’t do it.
Steven Sashen:
Yeah, I’m going to hold out that this is how you create the next Spider-Man. Some variation of. So that’s what I believe, and I’m sticking to it.
Garrett Salpeter:
Maybe instead of shooting spiderwebs, he’d shoot electricity out of his finger.
Steven Sashen:
Oh, nice. Electro man. There is some superhero that’s got electrical something or other, but I can’t, can’t remember who.
Garrett Salpeter:
To be clear NeuFit is not recommending that.
Steven Sashen:
Well, I don’t work for you, so I can say whatever the hell I want. All right, so the next question, I mean, you’ve been doing this for how long?
Garrett Salpeter:
Well, versions of this for about 18 years at this point.
Steven Sashen:
Now here’s of course the wacky question. How many people have learned how to use your device and do this technique, if you will? Use this modality, that’s a better way I want to say it. Sorry, I’m actually asking a different question. How come everyone doesn’t know this and have this experience?
Garrett Salpeter:
Well, when I mentioned I’ve been doing this for 17 or 18 years, the first eight to 10 of that was using older versions of the technology. I also went back for additional graduate school and neuroscience and piecing together both the methodology, and then continuing to see ways to improve upon the technology. And for a while I was just waiting for someone else to do it and finally decided, okay, I’m going to do it. And so then it was a couple of years of work.
Steven Sashen:
Wait on did you do what Lena and I did I refer to as uttering the five dangerous entrepreneurial words? How hard could this be?
Garrett Salpeter:
Basically. Basically, yes. And the answer is it was a lot harder than I thought, and I’m glad I didn’t know going into it or I don’t know if I would.
Steven Sashen:
Oh no, look, dude, when we had some guys about seven months in who had all been in footwear for 35 years, say that, “Hey, we would do this with you, because we believe in you and what you’re doing, but we’ve been in footwear so long that we’re not stupid enough to start a shoe company.” And Lana and I both said, “Yeah, we know we’re hyper optimistic and naive, but that’s the only way anything ever gets started.” So that’s just not uncommon.
And backing up to your point of I was waiting for someone else to do it, there’s nothing, nothing I like more than when I have an idea for a product or a business and someone else does it before I can, because then I can just buy it and I don’t have to go through all those entrepreneurial problems and hassles and craziness. So good on you that you got to the point of going, I better do it myself.
Garrett Salpeter:
I can relate to that. So then we ended up launching the device finally about six years ago. And it’s in this interesting point in terms of how many people are using it. Well, there’s several thousand people certified in it among physical therapists, chiropractors, athletic trainers, other professionals. And then there’s also a lot of people, listen, this have likely never heard of us before. So it’s this interesting place where I liken it to us trying to climb up Mount Everest and we’ve made it up a little bit of the way so we can look back and appreciate the view and appreciate how far we’ve come, but it’s also very humbling to look up and say, oh, we’ve got a long way left to go because I think this can help so many more people. I know this can help so many more people. And part of my job what I feel as a real responsibility to help get the word out, and that’s why I’m grateful to be on here talking to you to share this message with people.
But I think it’s in this interesting state where there’s somewhere between three and 4,000 people who have been certified in the use of the NEUBIE so far. And for them, many of them tell us that it’s changed the way they practice. Even physical therapists who are in practice 20 or 30 years and are extremely skilled and knowledgeable, they tell us that this is either the missing link or this gives them a new direction, this helps them train their staff, or this helps them get more enthusiasm and faster results with their patients and it changes the way they practice for the better. And so exciting and motivating to hear that. And then there’s also people who I think can and will have that experience, but they’re less of that early adopter mindset and they want to wait for the research. They need to wait until it’s closer to becoming the gold standard before they’ll even look at it.
And there’s this filtering effect of the amount of time that it takes for techniques or technology to go from basic research into randomized controlled trials into daily practice. And so it takes time to filter through there, and we have just published our first three or four legitimate scientific articles showing the validity of the NEUBIE and the benefits in different use cases. And we’ve got another one that we just completed that’s going to be published in the next several months from the time we’re recording this, which I think is going to be a real game changer showing nerve regeneration in neuropathy patients.
Steven Sashen:
Oh, wow.
Garrett Salpeter:
But in terms of the arc of this conversation here, I think that in order to get this in the hands of more people, part of it is our responsibility to meet people where they are and conduct those studies, both so that we can demonstrate the efficacy of the NEUBIE and then so we can learn how can it be better? Where does it work great, where might it not work as well? There’s a lot of stuff that we certainly don’t know everything yet, but we’re learning right alongside people, but also being able to validate and meet people where they are when they want to see that research, we want to give it to them. We have a full-time PhD neuroscientists running our research program.
Steven Sashen:
Here’s a weird question that’s related to this. I mean, first of all, in the physical therapy world, it always cracks me up when there’s some product that’s advertised as an infomercial that is fundamentally looked at as a joke. I will mention to my favorite being the shake weight, which Saturday Night Live did the best spoof commercial ever about how absurd this thing is. And now you go into physical therapy offices and they’re everywhere. And before that it was the body blade. It’s like they’re everywhere. Five years after it’s a joke infomercial product, suddenly every physical therapist is using it.
One of the latest trends or two of the latest trends in physical therapy that have really caught on everywhere, one is dry needling, the other is cupping. And for people who don’t know dry needling, I’m going to be rude just for the fun of it and call it dumb acupuncture, which is insulting to both acupuncture and dry needling, which was my intention just for the fun of, but the gist of it is, sticking needles in tight spots to get the muscles to contract basically more than they otherwise could until the chemical thing that’s making that happen stops happening. And things can relax different. Than acupuncture, which is based on a whole other theory. Let’s not get into whether it’s valid or not.
The other one cupping is where the way it was done traditionally in traditional Chinese medicine, which is just another way of saying old Chinese people, again, just trying to be rude for the fun of it, is they would take some thing that would heat up air within a, just imagine a thick light bulb, just the glass part of the light bulb. They’d heat up the air in that light bulb, light bulb-like shaped piece of glass, then stick that on your body and it would create some suction, which of course pulls blood into that area. You basically are breaking the capillaries. And that can do some things as well.
Anyway, those two things have become really popular lately. And I’m not saying they’re not efficacious. I’m not saying they don’t work, but what I’m pointing out is somehow they became the thing that every physical therapy clinic that you’ll ever find is doing one or both of those. How the hell did that happen? And I asked that obviously as a how can you, to the extent that that’s replicable, how can you try to recreate that pattern, that thing that made that happen?
Garrett Salpeter:
That’s a great question. I think they actually followed similar trajectories that most or all products that gain widespread adoption do follow. And sometimes there’s different stages of that crossing the chasm, that product adoption curve, different stages, and sometimes you can accelerate or sometimes it takes longer, different things like that. But I think there’s that early adopter stage where there’s people who just are willing to try it because the concept really lands with them, it resonates with them, or they feel it for themselves or they see someone experience it, and that experience is enough for them to say like, “Okay, yeah, I’m willing to give this a shot.” And then there’s the early majority, then the late majority, those people that need to really see it become the gold standard.
And so for dry needling, there’s the early adopter mindset, and then there’s how do you get cross the chasm to get those other people involved?
Well, it’s a blend of a couple of things. Some of it is that next stage, that next group of people needs to hear it from someone that they trust who’s in that early adopter stage, or they need to see the research or they need to hear it enough times where it starts to build this critical mass in their mind. And there’s different things that you can do to accelerate that. I mean, if there’s particularly influential and intelligent people talking about it, that can accelerate the rate at which that next phase of people is going to hear about it or the amount of them that are open to it based on what they’re hearing. And so where we’ve seen progress, it is some of that. Some it is the research that we’ve done. Some of it is the very intelligent and influential people who are using our product and talking about it to other people. So we’re seeing glimpses of that. Then of course, the question is, as a business, how can we accelerate that? And that’s the question of course we’re trying to answer right now, because we believe we have something that can help so many more people, and it’s our responsibility.
Steven Sashen:
This is a horrible bad idea. Is there anything you could do that would be creating a device that’s dumbed down that could be more of a personal use thing? I mean infomercial friendly if you will.
Garrett Salpeter:
That’s possible. We’re looking at, of course, we’re always trying to improve our product, never want to be cut flatfooted or just we know that especially with this day and age with technology advancing and things like that. So right now we’re looking at ways to miniaturize some of the components so that we can take our relatively large device and potentially do just like you’re describing, make more personal use versions and stuff like that. So at a time we’re sitting here, it’s certainly further down the road, but we did have a breakthrough in terms of being able to miniaturize some of the key components that open up some of that there. So yeah, I think something like that could be a big part of the future of our business and ways to make it more accessible and still even work with the physical therapy clinics and their practices that we’ve collaborated with so well because they could then provide it to their own patients and we can work together to get it out there too. So I think that’s a good idea, and something that is definitely we’re looking at as part of our future plan and where we might go as a company.
Steven Sashen:
Are there any issues about insurance covering this treatment?
Garrett Salpeter:
The treatments are, so there’s a few different things. For any practitioners listening they’ll know, they’ll likely have experienced what I alluded to earlier where reimbursements for traditional electrical stimulation have either gone away or have been so limited, they’re not even worth pursuing. But these treatments, because they’re active, there’s a real methodology to it. It’s not just put the pads on and leave someone there. So these are often billed, when clinicians choose to bill insurance when it’s appropriate to do so, they bill them using codes like neuromuscular reeducation, therapeutic activities, sometimes manual therapy. We can hook up the electrodes to a glove and do some manual therapy there. So billing where it’s appropriate. And then some practices are hybrid and they’re out of network, and so they’re charging cash to their patients and for them, they really like having something that creates that sense of value and enthusiasm. So people are willing to invest. They’re willing to pay out of pocket. That’s the real differentiator.
Steven Sashen:
That’s Interesting. Yeah, it’s like if insurance is picking up the tab, it’s a different thing than you putting your money down and committing to it.
Garrett Salpeter:
Yeah.
Steven Sashen:
A friend of mine is one of the guys who I don’t know, he didn’t invent prolotherapy, but he’s like the expert and taught almost everybody how to do prolotherapy. Which for people who don’t know, if you know platelet-rich plasma therapy, PRP, PRP is the insurance coverable, sometimes, version of prolo where they’re injecting, in the case of PRP, injecting platelets that they’ve spun out of your blood into ligaments and tendons typically to initiate a healing response. The platelet part is possibly a little hand waving, but the thing that’s doing the heavy lifting is this selective injury.
And I asked my friend, Tom, “So what about the research on prolotherapy?” And he says, “I don’t need research.” I said, “Why is that?” He goes, “Well, because what I do is extremely painful and extremely expensive, and people come back over and over and tell their friends about it.” He says, “That’s all the research I need.” I was like, “Point well taken.”
There was one other thing. Oh, so how often are people just anxious about the whole idea of electricity at all? I mean, how much are you affected with just what people have in their mind, pun-intended or appropriate metaphor intended, with electro stem or electroshock therapy, what most people are familiar with when it comes to electricity in your body?
Garrett Salpeter:
So that definitely is a little sense of reservation for some people when they come in, but in our experience, it’s very easy to overcome that just by putting the pads on someone turning it up slowly, letting them ease into it and feeling like, okay, this is actually pleasant. Especially at lower power levels. And explaining to them, this is a medical device. In our clinic we can say we’ve literally treated thousands of people with this and have an excellent safety record. Different things that we can say. But letting people ease into it so that they can let their guard down.
Because even if they understand intellectually that it won’t hurt them, there’s still, we talk about these parts of the brain outside of conscious control that are limiting our movement, creating pain. Those parts of the brain can still be in an alarm mode on high alert thinking, oh my gosh, this is threatening. So helping them, letting them feel it so that those parts of the brain even can start to really understand that this isn’t going to hurt them. And sometimes, the first session is just about acclimating to the sensation and you might not do as much work or maybe just a little more gentle and conservative in that first session and wait until wait to do a little bit more meaningful work or increase the power a little bit more in the second session until someone’s acclimated to the sensations.
Steven Sashen:
It is funny how your brain will have ideas about some phenomenon and then protect you from this imagined phenomenon. The example that just popped in my mind, there’s a trail right outside our backyard, and there’s a horse farm and they have an electric fence. Now I’ve touched an electric fence. Painful is not the right word, and I don’t want to say shocking, because too on the nose, but it is like one of these, it’s not what you expect it to be, and it really is this primal kind of holy crap. The joke is they have an electric fence and I come nowhere near it, even though I know it isn’t turned on. I’m hyper aware, but I know that it’s not doing anything which cracks me up.
So is there anything we missed about just giving people a good introduction to what we’re talking about and what you’re doing?
Garrett Salpeter:
Well, there’s one thing just to call out there, that does speak to… Even though intellectually it’s not turned on, you have that fear response from having touched that before, and that speaks to how difficult it can be to talk with rationally those subconscious parts of ourselves. And so I think there’s a whole lesson in there regarding psychology and helping people with trauma and stuff like that. But also, why body-based work, what we’re talking about here, can be so useful because you can, without language and rational thinking, communicate more directly with some of these subconscious areas of brain and nervous system control. So I think that’s a really powerful example. I like that. I may actually borrow that.
Steven Sashen:
You’re welcome.
Garrett Salpeter:
I can tell myself the electric fence isn’t turned on, but I still am sweaty and don’t really want to touch it.
Steven Sashen:
No, it’s funny. I mean, you could show me that the battery’s not connected and part of my brain is still going to go, I don’t know. It’s a riot. And I think of myself as a rational person, but there are some of these things where… And look, if I saw the battery was disconnected and someone else grabbed it, I’d be the first one to do it or the second one to do it. But if I’m the first one, it’s like maybe there’s something supposed to discharge. I mean, it’s so fascinating.
And of course we’re dealing with a similar thing, which is just when people have any belief, getting people to unbelief something, whether it’s just for a moment in an immediate treatment or something more, this is the challenge. I actually just got an email from Dan Lieberman, Dr. Lieberman from Harvard, who helped create the whole barefoot movement thing, and he has sent a couple of new papers and he said, “I’m just trying to bust a bunch of myths.” And I sent him a video back saying, “Yeah, that’s not the way it’s going to work. If people have a belief, you can’t just tell them they’re wrong and bust the myth. They’re going to pick it apart and find some reason to hold onto what they still believe, because what we do, us humans.”
This is what’s fascinating to me. One of the things that’s fascinating to me about what you’re doing from a practical standpoint is just again, what does it take to wake people up or introduce people or give people the experience of something unusual/new that’s demonstrably valuable, because that’s what we’re both fundamentally doing. And it’s an intellectually interesting process, but for those of us running the businesses, sometimes you want to beat your head against the wall.
And as my wife always says, “This would be so interesting if it wasn’t about us.” If we were just reading it in a book, it’d be really interesting. But the fact that we’re having to deal with it, that’s a whole different game.
Garrett Salpeter:
That’s right. The whole emotional, of course, you being a founder, I know we’re on that same emotional rollercoaster ride of something bad happens and then we have those same subconscious traps. Our brains extrapolate out, oh my gosh, does this mean that we’re in trouble and the business is failing? Does this mean-
Steven Sashen:
Oh, see, no, no, no. That’s why I have my wife. So I don’t do that. I’m always seeing what could be happening. That’s all good. She’s always seeing what’s happening now and extrapolating to how it could be wrong, which is perfect. We’re a great combo that way. I mean, she says, “You have the fun job of thinking all the cool shit that could happen, and I have the difficult job of protecting ourself from what could also happen and also telling you, we don’t have the money to do what you want.” So there is that.
But yeah, I don’t do that wacky extrapolation. For better or worse. It means that Lena does a lot of planning and she doesn’t tell me about it because I’m just oblivious. I just show up and she tells me what to do. When we take a vacation, she’s done all the planning. I just go for the ride.
Garrett Salpeter:
That’s a perfect division of responsibility there.
Steven Sashen:
I would agree with that. And I mean, again, her job is way less fun than mine, but it’s really important to have both of those things in play. Otherwise, it’s a real mess. Because people do the opposite too. They see things going well and they extrapolate and think, oh, it’s just going to keep getting better. It’s like, whoa, put the brakes on that one. This is not what you think it is. So just because Kim Kardashian promoted your thing, that doesn’t mean you’re going to have a business in two years. And so that’s a whole other story. Anyway, we don’t need to talk about entrepreneurial angst.
Most importantly, Garrett, if people want to find out about NeuFit and have someone treat them with a NEUBIE, how will they find out more about you and then find someone where they can experience what we’ve been talking about for the last however many minutes?
Garrett Salpeter:
Two best places to do that would be our website, which is www.neu.fit. That’s N-E-U, like neurological, N-E-U.F-I-T. And then also on social media, we’re most active on Instagram. Our handle is @NeuFitRFP for rehab, fitness and performance. And we’re most active on there and interact with direct messages and stuff like that. But on our website, there’s a link. If you click the for patients, there’s a link to find a provider and it’ll take you to a map or if you’re on your computer, it’ll be a map on your phone. It’ll just be a little widget where you can search for people in your state or region. And there’s many hundreds of locations listed on there, and certainly more by the week. And there’s also, if there isn’t anyone near you, please reach out to our team. We can talk about ways to work remotely with us or different options like that.
Steven Sashen:
That’s very interesting. There was some thought I had about that that fell out of my head. Oh, just the idea of what you’re doing on Instagram. I haven’t looked at your Instagram, so that’s going to be fun to take a look. And I imagine you’re showing people getting treated and showing the before and after of that, et cetera, as well as information about the device and the technology behind it. So am I incorrect about that?
Garrett Salpeter:
Trying to mix in a little bit of fun along the way too?
Steven Sashen:
Oh, thank God.
Garrett Salpeter:
Yeah, that’s right.
Steven Sashen:
That’s the part where we’re creating the person who can shoot lightning bolts out of their hands.
Garrett Salpeter:
That’s right.
Steven Sashen:
I think, look, frankly, that’s going to be the thing that’s going to sell this product. Once you got one baby who comes out shooting lightning bolts, it’s all over. You got it made. So that’s what I’m aiming for.
Garrett Salpeter:
We’re going to talk to our FDA consultants about trying to set up a trial on that one.
Steven Sashen:
Once again, not my concern. So first of all, for everyone listening and or watching, I’m frankly hoping you’re not currently injured, but if you are, definitely check out what Garrett’s doing with NeuFit. And keep this in the back of your head for when and if something does happen. And if you’re not going to remember NeuFit, N-E-U.F-I-T, just remember, “Hey, it was on the podcast.” And you can come go over it to www.jointhemovementemovement.com. Geez, man, I cannot think today, and you’ll find this episode. So that’s all you need is a reminder is just go check out our website.
And when you’re there again, find the previous episodes, find the ways you can find us in social media, find the places you can leave a review and a thumbs up and a like hit the bell icon on YouTube to get notified of when we have new episodes. And if you want to reach out and drop me an email with requests or questions or suggestions for people to have on the show. And if you’ve listened to this before, I’m dying to have a conversation with someone who thinks I have a case of cranial rectal reorientation syndrome. And if you’re that person, that’s cool. I want to hear about it. I’m open to the conversation. And if someone ever proves me wrong, I’m happy to adjust and find either something different or something new. I’m more attached to the truth than I am to my opinions about things, which is I’ve been told by some of my friends an annoying trait. Anyway, that’s a whole other story. Anyway, bottom line, you can drop me an email, just send me an email at move, M-O-V-E,@jointhemovementmovement.com.
But most importantly, oh, actually second most important, if you want the most comfortable pair of shoes, they let your feet do its natural and let your body do what its job is… So when your feet do their job, your body can do its job. That was almost English in my head until it came out of my face. Then go to xeroshoes.com and find, we have casual and performance shoes, boots and sandals for everything you can think of that you might want to do. But the most important part, go out, have fun, and live life feet first.