What Podiatrists DON’T Know Will Hurt You

– The MOVEMENT Movement with Steven Sashen Episode 136 with Alissa Kuizinas

Dr. Alissa Kuizinas is a board-certified podiatrist who takes a natural approach to foot problems. Focusing on gait analysis, movement patterns, lifestyle habits, and footwear, she creates whole body treatment programs for her patients. Her membership program, Transform Your Feet, has helped her clients regain their foot function and mobility and eliminate foot pain. Dr. Kuizinas also offers virtual consultations.

Listen to this episode of The MOVEMENT Movement with Alissa Kuizinas about why podiatrists should learn about natural movement.

Here are some of the beneficial topics covered on this week’s show:

– How there are few lessons about footwear and how it affects the feet in podiatry school.

– How people who tell you that you need support in your shoes don’t know what they’re talking about.

– Why wearing shoes with arch support leads to foot pain later.

– How people feel like they have more control over their bodies when barefoot or in minimalist shoes.

– Why some people have a hard time believing barefoot running research and why they should rethink traditional shoes.

Connect with Alissa:

Guest Contact Info
Instagram
@doctorark.dpm

Links Mentioned:
doctorark.com

Connect with Steven:

Website

Xeroshoes.com

Twitter
@XeroShoes

Instagram
@xeroshoes

Facebook
facebook.com/xeroshoes

Episode Transcript

Steven Sashen:

What happens when a podiatrist who is not learning anything necessarily about natural movement or barefoot running or minimalist shoes reads Born to Run, the evil book that started this all? We’re going to find out 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, starting with those things at the end of your legs, I think we call them feet. It’s also where we break down the propaganda, the mythology and the outright lies you’ve probably been told about what it takes to run or walk or hike or do yoga or CrossFit or power lifter, skydiver, whatever you’d like to do, and to do that enjoyably and efficiently and effectively. Did I mention enjoyably? Trick question. If you’ve been here before, you know I know I said that because look, if you’re not having fun, do something different till you are, because you’re not going to keep it up if it’s not really enjoyable.

I’m Steven Sashen CEO and co-founder of xeroshoes.com and I’m the host of this podcast. We call it The Movement Movement, because we are creating a movement, more about that in a second, about natural movement, letting your body do what it’s made to do. The movement part is simple. Go to our website, www.jointhemovementmovement.com. You don’t need to do anything to join. There’s no secret handshake. There’s no membership fees. You don’t even have to opt in if you don’t want to, but that’s where you’ll find previous episodes. You can opt in to find out about the new episodes. You can find all the places you can find the podcast and all the things you can do to encourage the movement of natural movement, which is share and like, and review and give a thumbs up, in the places you can do that and hit the bell icon on YouTube. You know what to do. Basically, if you want to be part of the tribe, please subscribe.

Let us jump in. Alissa, do me a favor, tell the people who you are and what you’re doing here.

Alissa Kuizinas:

Hi. Yeah. I am a podiatrist and basically I’m here because I have really changed the way that I practice and I’m really excited to come on here and just talk about the bare fit movement and natural movement as it sort of relates to podiatry and how it’s kind of evolved my practice.

Steven Sashen:

Well, so I started this by saying, “Hey, someone who didn’t necessarily learn about this, then read Born to Run.” Do you want to talk about what they were or weren’t teaching you in podiatry school and then how’d you even decide to read that book and what happened when you did?

Alissa Kuizinas:

Yeah. I had actually decided to read it because I had friends from college who were really into running and they were like, “This is an amazing book. You should read it,” so it really had nothing to do with podiatry. I was reading it during a summer break, I think, during my first year of school. It was completely unrelated to academics. Yeah. I read it and I loved it and I was like this is just a really cool, cool idea. I remember coming back to school in the fall and actually asking some of my professors about it. I basically just got the kind of typical podiatry response, which was like, “Barefoot shoes are the worst thing that’s ever happened to podiatry and to feet. Nobody should ever wear them. All we see are stress fractures now. This is awful and horrible.” They kind of shut it down, basically. Shut down the conversation.

Steven Sashen:

Well, so I want to pick some of that apart. I mean, it’s somewhat ironic actually to say it’s the worst thing that could happen to podiatry if they’re suddenly getting more patience.

But I’m intrigued by that. I only half joke that in the early days, in 2009, 2010, when the running shoe companies were terrified, they were literally never going to sell another running shoe, because everyone was going to go barefoot. They were putting out articles that may as well have said, “If you run barefoot, you’re going to step on hypodermic needles. You’re going to catch Ebola. Your kids won’t get into college. Your phone will stop working. Your mortgage rate will go up. Your car will run out of gas.” I mean, it was just getting crazy. Was there any more that they said to justify why they believed these things?

Alissa Kuizinas:

No, not really. There wasn’t a whole lot of justification. At the time I was, I was a bit naive because I was kind of in the early stages of podiatry school. It was a lot of just kind of didactics. We weren’t really learning about feet yet, so I didn’t have a whole lot of information to really go by. I kind of just trusted my professors and I was like, “Oh, okay. Maybe this is really bad. Maybe they didn’t really know what they’re talking about.” It kind of just made me almost like stop asking the questions. I was kind of like, “All right. Let me see what I learned in the next couple of years and maybe make my own decisions about it.”

Steven Sashen:

All right. So you had this like, “Oh my gosh, I got to share this.” You shared it, they shut it down. What happened next, because clearly it didn’t stop there.

Alissa Kuizinas:

Yeah. I mean, I would say that the interesting thing about podiatry school is that there really isn’t a lot of education around shoes at all. We actually had one lecture in my entire four years about shoes, which is really scary. I can remember it really clearly. We had a lecture and we had one slide and it was a picture of an old time dress shoe. The professor had kind of labeled the parts of the shoe. That was pretty much it. We really didn’t learn anything else about shoes. Yeah. It was pretty bizarre.

Steven Sashen:

It’s funny. I had a friend who was going through physical therapy school and when they started getting to feet, she was calling me saying, “Did you know the guy who made up the idea of orthotics made it up?” I said, “Yeah. Yeah, I did know that.” He goes, “Why don’t people know this?” I went, “Yeah. I don’t know the answer to that.”

They weren’t teaching about shoes. At some point, I assume somewhere in there somebody came in with the idea about orthotics and how to use orthotics in some way. I’m guessing they spent way more time on that.

Alissa Kuizinas:

Exactly. Yeah. That was really where the emphasis was. I think it kind of just translated into, well, orthotics are really where it’s at. Any shoe you recommend is just whatever you can really get an orthotic into. That was kind of the way people operated

Steven Sashen:

They never suggested that different kind of shoes and how shoes would wear out over time would change the effectiveness of an orthotic, if it’s effective at all?

Alissa Kuizinas:

Honestly, no. I don’t recall anybody ever talking about that, which is really just crazy. I remember getting out into practice and just being like, “I don’t really know what to recommend. I remember just thinking like, “Yeah, just go to the shoe store. Just go see a shoe specialist, because I don’t actually know this information,” which is really scary.

Steven Sashen:

All right. Going through the chronology of this again, all right. Read the book. Oh my gosh. Shut it down. Nothing about shoes, bunch about orthotics. Again, I’m just so fascinated, because let me preface it this way, it’s a rare person who is willing to question what they believe. This is why I’m so curious to see, again, what the next step was for you and how that continued to evolve.

Alissa Kuizinas:

Yeah. From a personal standpoint, I was always kind of … I kind of gravitated towards not barefoot shoes, technically, but more minimalist shoes. I always kind of liked that feeling.

Steven Sashen:

How are you defining the difference?

Alissa Kuizinas:

I would say at the time, this would be back in 2012 timeframe. I wore like Nike Free Runs, not that those are minimalist, but compared to other shoes out there they felt kind of good to me. I was like, “Okay. I like this.”

Steven Sashen:

Yeah. To give them some, some credit, but not very much, when I put on the Nike Free, it was amazing, because with the articulated sole, you felt the ground more, but still massive, elevated heel, tons of cushioning, big sole, pointy toes, the whole thing. But at the time it was somewhat revelatory. Of course, they made that shoe inspired by the Stanford running team who trained barefoot, and the idea was let’s make something that’s akin to barefoot and it’s nothing like it.

In 2012, okay. I have to figure out what date it is. You went for Nike Free. There was stuff out there. We hadn’t made shoes yet, but there were a couple brands that had at that time.

Alissa Kuizinas:

Yeah. I really wasn’t even aware or I didn’t really know at the time. I was just kind of like, “Oh. This feels good.” If I’m going to go to a regular store and get a shoe, I would typically gravitate towards just sort of more minimalist I would say. I kind of stuck with that. Even like my regular, everyday shoes, I would go with maybe Toms, like flat shoes. I could just like stuff like that. I never saw a problem with it. Then as I went throughout school and throughout my career, I started to get more and more kind of feedback from people being like, “Oh, those shoes are horrible. You should never wear flat shoes like that.” All this kind of stuff.

Nobody ever had a reason. Nobody ever had any explanation as to why. It really just seems like it’s a very ingrained dogma, I think, within podiatry that whatever the supportive shoe is that people talk about, it’s really just people tell you over and over again, “You need support. You need support. You need support.” Kind of got drilled into my head and eventually I was like, “Yeah, I need support. I should stop wearing all these flimsy shoes and get some support on me.” I sort of started to go in the other direction because I had heard this just for so long. That’s when I started to kind of run into trouble with my own feet. So, so yeah.

Steven Sashen:

What’d you switch to and then what happened?

Alissa Kuizinas:

Yeah. Probably like two years into private practice, I was like, “Okay, you know what? I should be a good example for my patients. I should probably get one of these expensive shoes and something that’s really supportive and awesome.” I ended up getting a Brooks Ghost. They felt okay. I was like, ‘Yeah. They’re comfortable. Whatever.”

Steven Sashen:

I’m sorry. I’ve got to interrupt, the irony just hit me. It’s called the Ghost because they kill your feet. Good night, ladies and gentlemen. I’ll be here all week.

Alissa Kuizinas:

I love that. Yeah, no, it was so funny. I mean everybody in my office would just wear either Brooks or Asics or New Balance, those were kind of the top three. I kind of started trending towards that. I was like, “All right, this is really good. I should wear arch support.” Then it probably was like a year later that I started to really get a pain in my left foot. I was like, “Oh my gosh, I’m starting to get hallux limitus all of a sudden.” It was really frustrating. I was like, “Man, I’m kind of doing all the things. I’m wearing these supportive shoes.” I really never wanted to wear orthotics. I was like, “I’m not going to wear orthotics.” Even though I prescribed those to patients, I just really never wanted to go that route for myself.

It kind of reached a tipping point where I did a ton of hiking one summer and all of a sudden it got really aggravated. I was like, “Oh, no. What am I going to do now?” That was literally the impetus that made me kind of like … It’s like a light bulb one off. I realized I really had to actually do some actual research and figure out what the heck was going on. Why was I even recommending these shoes to people? I really didn’t know. I had just been told so many times. I started to realize that it wasn’t actually helping my feet, so maybe it wasn’t helping my patients.

Steven Sashen:

When you started doing the research, what’d you bump into? Who’d you find, who’d you read, what’d you discover?

Alissa Kuizinas:

Yeah. I was really resistant at first, which I think is funny because now I’m like, “Wow, I can’t believe that I went this long.” I actually started just kind of looking around, even just on social media. I started seeing like different accounts and people were talking about this stuff and honestly, I was like, “No, this doesn’t make any sense. It can’t be true, ” so it took me a while.

Steven Sashen:

That’s a great bit of cognitive dissonance. I want to see what the research is, but then I see it, “No, that can’t be right.”

Alissa Kuizinas:

Exactly. Which is just like wow.

Steven Sashen:

This is people really do.

Alissa Kuizinas:

Yeah. It’s crazy.

Steven Sashen:

Again, I’m so intrigued and I love that you’re able to walk through this frame by frame, but it’s like even when you get the idea to do it, the natural inclination is to look at the information and just reject it and stick with what you believe.

Alissa Kuizinas:

Yeah, absolutely. I was looking at these accounts and I was like, “Oh no. This is so wrong,” but eventually it just … It kind of kept hitting me. I was like, “I really need to figure this out.” I did start researching, I actually found Emily Splichal and she has a lot of great information. I reached out to her and started to read research. Footwear Science has a lot of really good articles. I started looking at things like that. I looked at some of the research from Benno Nigg and different people. I was like, “Wow, this is a whole other perspective that I just had no idea, no clue.” eventually I was like, “This is really cool. This is really cool stuff.” It just kind of snowballed. Then I started to really get into everything that I could get my hands on. Finally, I decided to try some minimalist shoes myself and kind of go through that transition process. Then the rest was really history.

Steven Sashen:

Well, okay. Yeah. We can’t do the rest is history, because there’s a bunch of steps there. You got something truly minimalist, put it on and what happened?

Alissa Kuizinas:

Yeah. I was a little bit careful because I was like, “I don’t want to jump into it too quickly.” I ended up going kind of mid road. I went with an Ultra, a low level Ultra. It still has the decent cushion, but at least you’re getting that nice barefoot kind of shape and everything. I loved it. I was like, “This is amazing.” I basically put myself through a little transition period where I started just going barefoot as much as possible. I would start doing little set exercises around the house. I was building up my foot strength, just kind of walk on different surfaces. I was doing everything that I could and then meanwhile, using the Ultras for long walks and things like that, so I wouldn’t go too quickly.

Then basically once I felt comfortable with that, I think it took a couple months before I really was like, “Okay, I’m ready to kind of dive into to barefoot shoes.” Once I did, I was like, “Okay, there’s really no, no going back from here.” It felt really good. I mean, it did take some time and it did take a little bit of specific rehab as well, but I really, I was able to completely get rid of my foot pain that I was having, which was really cool for me to see, because I had never really had that perspective for myself.

Steven Sashen:

What was the difference? I mean the guys at Ultra are good friends of mine, so I’m not throwing them under the bus when I asked this, but it could look like I’m throwing them under the bus when I ask this. In fact, they used to say, “We think Ultra is the gateway to something like Xero Shoes.” I said, “Why don’t you put some ads for us on your boxes,” which amazingly they did not agree with you, but what’d you feel was the difference when you went from an Ultra to something truly minimalist?

Alissa Kuizinas:

It definitely felt almost like I had a little bit more control. I was like, “Okay, I’m not, I’m no longer relying on this kind of cushioning and now I can really … ” Feel for me, it was really feeling my own gait cycle. I was like, “I can feel what I’m doing now,” which I know before I just could not. I could not tell. During that kind of Ultra transition period, I was really trying to retrain my gait cycle and really focusing on getting through correctly. When I got into an actual barefoot shoe, I can really do that. It comes very naturally now, whereas before I wouldn’t really know where I was in space. I wouldn’t really know what was going on. That’s really been a huge, huge difference for me.

Steven Sashen:

How would you describe the differences in your gate, before, during, after?

Alissa Kuizinas:

Yeah. I think before everything was kind of wonky. Of course it was coming off of like … I was coming off of the Brooks.

Steven Sashen:

Hold on, is that a medical term? Wait, I had to look you to look that up.

Alissa Kuizinas:

Yeah. It’s very technical. Yeah. I kind of felt like my feet were almost all over the place. I really wasn’t propulsing properly through my big toe joints and I just really couldn’t tell where my feet were. Now, as I’m walking, I can feel right that I’m going into that like nice hiker push off. I’m going right through my big toe. For me that was important because I wanted to make sure I’m really getting big toe extension and everything, so I’m not jamming my toe. I was envisioning my future of like needing a big toe fusion and I’m like, “This is horrible. I can’t have that happen.” Now, every time I walk, I’m really just cognizant of it. Yeah. I can feel my pattern and I can feel that it’s much better. I also noticed that as soon as I got out of the cushioning, I was like, really like, “Wow, I’m very aware of my glutes now.” I’m aware of like these other muscles that I really just never felt or never thought of I was walking, which is very cool.

Steven Sashen:

It’s my favorite thing. My wife has this great story where after I made her the first pair of sandals back in 2009, she was like, “Eh, okay.” Then put them on and wore for a couple weeks. The first thing she noticed was how she was slamming her heels into the ground and walking really hard like she was a high powered Chicago attorney late for court, when we’re heading down to the farmer’s market in Boulder. Then after a couple weeks, she put on a regular “sports sandal”, a healthy “sports sandal: and her immediate thing was, I can’t feel anything anymore. That’s not okay and just tossed them away. That transition’s a big thing.

But now you’re in the more interesting position, and I should have brought this up earlier, because even deciding to research this, you are, at a certain level, risking your professional persona, if you will. Most people who are healthcare professionals, aren’t willing to look at it because if they’ve been recommending something for years to then suddenly say to their patients, and I’m going to ask you what you said to your patients, that alone would stop them from making any sort of changes. You made this shift for yourself. How did that then translate into your practice? What was the response from your patients?

Alissa Kuizinas:

Yeah. I was definitely really nervous just in general because it’s a big shift to go through and everybody kind of looks at you funny when you start to say things like this. It actually worked out pretty easily for me. I was working in a private practice so just doing very normal kind of podiatry stuff. That’s when I was really starting this, but I actually ended up leaving that job and deciding I can’t really practice in this way anymore. Now that I’ve kind of seen a little bit of this information, it just clicked, and I was like, wow. I actually really need to completely change the way that I practice. It’s not going to work to have these 10 minute visits with people and kind of be rushing patients in and out and maybe send them home with a shoe list. That was kind of the best I could do before and really try to counsel them as much as I could.

I ended up completely shifting gears and leaving private practice and starting just a virtual practice, so that I could at least be with people one on one and spend at least an hour with them and really talk them through things. It ended up working out well, because I didn’t have to necessarily go from regular to podiatry stuff and then try to convince those people to then change. Now, I’m attracting people that are a little bit more open to this. That was really helpful.

Steven Sashen:

Yeah. That’s too bad. It would’ve been much more fun if you had amazing stories about people telling you’re completely full of shit.

Alissa Kuizinas:

I know. I know. I kind of wish I could do that.

Steven Sashen:

It’s a fascinating thing. I don’t know if it’s like this in the podiatry world, but there’s something I’ve seen in the physical therapy world where certain ideas show up and they seem goofy. Sometimes they are goofy. Sometimes they’re like an infomercial product, like the Shake Weight of all things. Then five years later, every physical therapist has one and they’re using it. Yet at the same time, something like … I was actually at a physical therapist the other day and they had a copy of Born To Run on the shelf and everybody in that physical therapy office was wearing some big thick padded shoe.

Alissa Kuizinas:

Oh my gosh.

Steven Sashen:

What’d you think of that book? Oh my God, I loved it. Did it make any difference for you? What do you mean? That gap is fascinating to me.

Alissa Kuizinas:

It really is. Yeah. It’s crazy. I mean, I can’t even imagine now going back. I feel the same. I see people they’re still doing that. I’m like, “Oh, my gosh. What are you doing?” But I also know that it is really hard and does take that time to kind of conceptualize it and really take it in when you’ve been taught something else for so long.

Steven Sashen:

Given what you know now, if you had said to your professors, “Oh my gosh, you got to check this out, “and they gave you those answers that they had given you, how would you respond to them now?

Alissa Kuizinas:

Yeah. Now, I would show them some research and be like, “Well, what do you think about this?”

Steven Sashen:

Oh, you’re so naive. You think that showing them research would make a difference?

Alissa Kuizinas:

Yeah. Not that it would, but I just think it’s funny that I cannot think of a single example of anybody that’s showed me any research to the contrary or been like, “Hey, this is why you should recommend this shoe.” People would just say, “Oh, get a New Balance. These are really good.” That’s it. That’s all people would ever say.

Steven Sashen:

Yeah. When I that’s really interesting when I’ve been on panel discussions AKA debates with other footwear companies who do “normal” looking shoes, I just ask them the same question over and over. I go, “Where’s your proof?” They just never have anything to rely on. They give amazing excuses. They say, “Well, having a study to prove that what we do improves performance and reduces injury would take a long time, be really expensive, have a lot of confounding factors.” I said to one of them, “Yeah. If you could make a shoe demonstrably better than the guy sitting next to you, it’s worth billions of dollars a year and you’re telling me you’re not doing it because it’s difficult?”

Alissa Kuizinas:

Right, exactly.

Steven Sashen:

But then of course, people ask me, “Why don’t you do it?” I go, “Well, because the study that I’m talking about would cost about 10 million.” There’s no one in the minimalist world, the barefoot world, who has that kind of cash right now, hopefully in the not too distant future. If we had the perfect study, we took a thousand people, a third of them stay in their regular shoes, a third of them switched to something minimalist, a third of them switched to something minimalist and get some instruction. We track them over the course of a year or a maybe 18 months. I’m curious what you think. My position is if that study showed unequivocally that minimalist barefoot is better, people would still ignore it.

Alissa Kuizinas:

Yeah, no, I think they would. It’s like you said earlier, it’s so ingrained in your mind and you just can’t … I think it’s really hard to accept that. Even seeing the research, it’s like, “Oh, I still don’t think so.” Yeah. I don’t know. I don’t know how people would respond to that, but …

Steven Sashen:

There’s an article on our website about orthotics and barefoot running and it was inspired by a New York Times article from a woman who has, I think my favorite name in the world, it’s Gina Colada. Gina’s just a brilliant science writer. I totally love her work. It couldn’t have been more clear to say, and even Benno Nigg chimed in and said, “Yeah, orthotics are really just for recovery and you should be doing foot strengthening along the way and then get out of them as quickly as possible.” There’s no evidence that they’re helpful. At the time there wasn’t the research showing that they actually make your feet weaker.

The New York Times article and, as far as I can tell, made no impact whatsoever. This is the part that just amazes me. Do you have any sense of what it would take for this somewhat paradoxical change of tides? I say paradoxical, because prior to 1972, 74, everything looked like what’s on the wall behind me. These things that you’re reporting as common knowledge was not common then, it wasn’t even knowledge then, it was marketing.

Also, to your point, we’ve been living with it for 50 years. Two generations by then it’s “what everyone believes.” I don’t know why I’m doing so quotes today. Do you have a sense of what it might actually take to change the current, change the tide?

Alissa Kuizinas:

Yeah. I think that education is really important, especially in the schools. I think that’s where everything kind of starts. I really think it takes getting enough people, let’s say enough podiatrists or physical therapists or whoever to really start to understand this. If that information can get into a little bit of the education it would make a huge difference. Even if students only had one lecture, anything, because we didn’t have anything. We’re supposed to go off that. I think anything would be helpful, that can kind of be in that sort of preliminary education because I think it’s just very tough when you’re trying to go against like … You’ve had four years of school that has taught you differently. Even if you were just introduced to the idea as maybe this could work or maybe this could be yeah, versus, this is awful and it’s dangerous. I think that’s kind of what we get. We get that it’s too dangerous and nobody should do it. As a practitioner, like you’re putting yourself at risk for even commending it. It’s just nuts.

Steven Sashen:

I’m so intrigued by the too dangerous thing because we’ve already got 50% of runners, 80% of marathoners getting injured every year. What are they comparing to?

Alissa Kuizinas:

Exactly. Yeah. That’s so true. I would see in my patients all the time, where they’re already in orthotics, they’re already in supportive shoes and they’re still coming in with new injuries, constantly. I was like, “This doesn’t make any sense.” They already have orthotics. Orthotics are supposed to be the treatment, so something’s wrong here. That’s not adding up.

Steven Sashen:

I’m curious and I’m not going to ask for a number, but I’m kind of asking for a number. I’m going to ask it hypothetically. If some podiatrist with a traditional practice were to stop selling orthotics today, how much money would they lose over the next year?

Alissa Kuizinas:

Yeah. It’s a huge part of the practice. It depends. I think everyone’s a little bit different, but I think for most practices, it’s one of the few things that you can consistently charge high amounts of money for and most states insurance doesn’t cover a lot of it, so you’re looking at out of pocket payments. I’m not sure about the exact number, but it would be a lot. It would definitely be a big chunk of the income, so that’s a really big factor. I think it’s going to be tough for people to wrap their mind around that and losing a big source of income and also kind of losing that idea that you’re really helping everybody by giving them these things.

Steven Sashen:

Well, that’s actually another thing. I mean, if you’re doing something where you’re giving people a solution that actually helps them and gets them out of your practice, that’s another thing, you’ve just lost a couple of appointments. That’s a fascinating thing. I mean, I think the education is one thing, but the mindset that has to go along with not just accumulating patients and up charging them for various things, boy, that’s a high bar.

Alissa Kuizinas:

Yeah. I think another big thing too, which is a huge barrier is the insurance, because when you’re in practice and you’re battling insurance companies all they want to see is a diagnosis. They don’t care what’s causing the pain, they don’t care what’s going on. They want to know the diagnosis and then they want to know what your treatment is. With a lot of these more natural movement kind of things you’re not necessarily going to be giving someone an injection or giving them a medication or giving them an orthotic, you’re going to actually be teaching them something. You can’t bill for that.

Steven Sashen:

Well, I think you just gave me another answer to my question, what do you think is going to change? On the one hand, I like the answer. On the other hand, I know that this answer is fraught with peril. My answer is, we’ve got to start at the insurance level. The fraught with peril part has a couple of pieces. One, is that we would need a body of research, which I would argue there already is, but we would need a body of research that would convince insurance companies that … Sorry. A body of research and a semi reliable protocol for people to follow.

But the fraught with peril is I have friends who are selling, for example, balanced programs for the elderly. These things demonstrably work. Insurance companies are already spending money on balanced programs for the elderly because people falling down breaking their hip and dying is really expensive which … It happened to my dad. The most incredible expense was that when he died, he had no personal assets and so the hospitals and the insurance companies and everyone just had to eat the cost of him being in hospital for 10 days on the way to dying. My friends who are developing demonstrably beneficial products and they’re going the insurance route, they’ve been doing this for years and those ships turn so slowly that on the one hand, again, it could arguably be the solution, on the other hand, we’re moving faster than they can possibly can.

Alissa Kuizinas:

Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. It’s very tough. I don’t think a lot changes very quickly when it comes to insurance. Yeah. Unfortunately, that really does dictate what physicians or any practitioners can do. If you’re in a traditional setting it’s tough. I think it’s very logistically difficult, even if you’re starting to really embrace this.

Steven Sashen:

I just realized, as I said, that someone that I know his family was in the insurance business, his father started insurance company. His dad ran it for years and fortunately he retired. It would be interesting to talk to him or to get through to his dad and say, “How could we do this?” I’m sure he would just say, “Yeah. Okay. Good luck.”

Alissa Kuizinas:

Good luck. Absolutely.

Steven Sashen:

I’m literally going to have to reach out and have that conversation. It never occurred to me.

Alissa Kuizinas:

Yeah, no. It’d be fascinating to hear.

Steven Sashen:

Because in my mind, doing it in the court of public opinion is sort of the best thing to do. These aren’t mutually exclusive. A top down and bottom up approach is more likely to be valuable. I did a pitch to some potential investors a little while ago. I said, “Look, I’m going to tell you why almost everything you believe about footwear is wrong. There’s science behind everything I’m going to say, but you’re probably still going to doubt me. I want you to A, wonder where your beliefs came from, because they probably started, if you track it back far enough, from a shoe company that told some guy who was selling shoes, how to sell the shoes and was promoting features that I’m about to show you demonstrably don’t work. But more importantly if you have doubts, that’s cool because our almost million customers, they all had doubts too until they tried the shoe on and then that changed everything because the experience is what sells it. ” So I said, “So your doubt is really a market opportunity.”

Alissa Kuizinas:

Right? Exactly.

Steven Sashen:

A certain point, as this idea grows, we will hit a critical mass where there’s enough people wearing barefoot shoes that leave the doubters go, “Eh, may as well try it.”

Alissa Kuizinas:

Yeah. A lot of patients get to that point where they’re like, “I have tried every shoe in the shoe store and there is nothing left.” So they might just get to that point and the next step is to try barefoot and that’s what works.

Steven Sashen:

I’m writing that down. Seriously. Because one thing people, people don’t realize is that the biggest … Well, most people don’t know this is an option because it hasn’t been an option for the majority of the last 50 years. I never thought to really suggest if you tried everything else, why wouldn’t you try this?

Alissa Kuizinas:

Right. You have nothing to lose at that point. Yeah. That’s really interesting. I was doing a little bit of research on walking shoes cause I was contributing to an article that was asking about them and I was like what are walking shoes? I did some research and I found this article from, I think it was from 1978 maybe, something around there. It was so funny. It was basically, running shoe sales were down and so the shoe companies were trying to figure out how they could market walking as a sport because they’re like, “You know what we need to, we need to sell walking shoes. Not enough people were buying walking shoes.” They started this program to make walking a cool sport. Then that’s how they started selling walking shoes. I was like, “Wow, this is really crazy.”

Steven Sashen:

Oh my God. It was a similar thing that happened with aerobic shoes. In fact our product designer was part of the company that really kicked that off. They had a very simple marketing plan, they just gave away shoes to everyone teaching aerobics.

Alissa Kuizinas:

Oh, wow.

Steven Sashen:

The people teaching didn’t have to say anything, it was just everybody wanted to be that person.

Alissa Kuizinas:

Yeah. Right. The early influencers.

Steven Sashen:

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. They were the original influencers, but that’s incredible. It’s like, we’re not selling enough running shoes so let’s make walking a category. This came up in a conversation actually with our product team because walking shoes it’s a popular category. They said, “We need to make a walking shoe.” I said, “Every shoe we make is a walking shoe.”

Alissa Kuizinas:

Every shoe. Exactly. I mean, walking is not a sport. You walk every day, you walk everywhere. Why would you need a shoe for that? It doesn’t make any sense.

Steven Sashen:

Yeah. I’ll tell you even better one. It was a guy named Simon Bartold, I think when he was working with Asics, do you know what he recommended for Asics?

Alissa Kuizinas:

No.

Steven Sashen:

It’s even better than walking shoes. Different shoes that women had to wear when they were on their period versus not on their period.

Alissa Kuizinas:

Oh my God.

Steven Sashen:

Swear to God.

Alissa Kuizinas:

That’s so crazy.

Steven Sashen:

Yeah.

Alissa Kuizinas:

Wow. I did not know that one.

Steven Sashen:

That one blew me away when I heard that.

Alissa Kuizinas:

It’s ridiculous.

Steven Sashen:

That’s my joke, is some of these companies they want to make … They really do. They want to give you a shoe for every possible thing you’re doing. Here’s a shoe for when you’re walking into the bathroom, and one when you’re leaving the bathroom, because now you don’t weigh as much.

Alissa Kuizinas:

Oh my gosh. That’s crazy.

Steven Sashen:

I mean, I get it because, fundamentally, you don’t really need much. We’ve got what, 25 shoes behind me, but that’s evolved because of special use case. Things like, I need a winter boot. I need something for work that looks fancy. What am I looking at? Hiking boots, a trail running shoe, but we’re not doing anything that’s based on something ridiculous. Like a shoe for when you’re on your period or a shoe for when it’s the third Thursday of the month.

Alissa Kuizinas:

Yeah. It’s honestly just really about the sole.

Steven Sashen:

That’s a brilliant idea. I got to write that one down, actually. Third Thursday shoe.

Alissa Kuizinas:

Third Thursday. It’s a very important day.

Steven Sashen:

That’s the TTS shoe. People what’s that mean? Third Thursday. Holy crap. Because, well, we saw that on the third Thursday, the moon is in a different space and so the tides are different and your body’s made of mostly water, so that’s just … I mean, this will be so easy to do.

Alissa Kuizinas:

It’s going to be awesome. This is going to take off.

Steven Sashen:

I’ve got to do a spoof ad like that.

Alissa Kuizinas:

You totally should.

Steven Sashen:

I’ve got to. Thank you. My next April Fool’s ad is going to be something just like that. The shoe you have to wear when it’s a full moon, because the tides have changed and the water in your body has moved.

Now that you have this virtual practice, how are people … Are people coming to you because they know you’re hip to the natural movement idea or are they coming to you and discovering that? What’s your experience with the clientele that you have now?

Alissa Kuizinas:

Well, it’s a combination. Some people are very already keen to that and they’ve already maybe exhausted some sort of traditional podiatry situations and they’re looking for someone that has a different perspective. Then some people are really just coming to me and don’t really know that much about it. Or maybe they’re just a little bit interested in it and they kind of want to learn more. I’d say it’s definitely a mix of types of people, which is great. But the common denominator, I think, is that everybody who I see is very motivated. I’m not tending to see people who are like … Because it’s virtual, I’m not going to be offering people really quick fixes. I’m not going to say, “Hey, I can give you a shot. I can give you this,” because I can’t do that through the computer. It tends to naturally bring people that are willing to do something different and willing to do some work on their body to make it better, which is really cool.

Steven Sashen:

Well, let’s start with the fun thing. You’re doing virtual podiatry. Are people just sitting there with their phone pointed at their feet?

Alissa Kuizinas:

Yeah. That’s a little tricky. Basically, what I’ll have people do before their visit is I’ll have them do … We’ll do a couple gait videos. We’ll have them basically videotape themselves walking. Then we’ll get some photos so we can see some nice still pictures. Then during the session we’ll go through and do some assessments. I’ll kind of make people move their computer around everywhere and tilt their screen down and get up on their toes and stuff like that. Yeah, it works out okay. I thought it would be really hard. I never thought this would possible, but I figured out a process that works pretty nicely. Yeah. It’s cool.

Steven Sashen:

Do you have some explicit instruction you give people for something as simple as walking?

Alissa Kuizinas:

No. It depends. I think some people definitely, I’ll watch their gait video and there’s really obvious stuff that I can just queue them into. Either, sort of the way that they’re walking, the speed, maybe just the cadence, things like that they can just easily start to use. But most of the time it’s more like we’ll start with exercises to wake stuff up. Because most people come to me and their feet are squished together. They can’t even move their toes. Their hip are really stiff. Kind of like the first thing I’ll do is really start to work on those areas, get things mobilized, just get them moving a little bit. Then we’ll start with really more integrated movements and then retraining those, those neural pathways and getting into the gait movements so that they can actually learn what that feels like. Okay, now I can kind of integrate this into my gait cycle, which is really cool.

The other crazy thing about podiatry that just maybe think of it is that … This is another barrier, I think, a little bit to the more natural movement is that we’re feet only. When you’re in school, you are responsible for the feet up to right above the ankle. That’s your zone.

Steven Sashen:

Wow.

Alissa Kuizinas:

So, you just kind of miss like the whole rest of the body.

Steven Sashen:

I mean, it’s amazing. I’m going back to what you said earlier is that when you switch to a truly minimalist show you started feeling other things working, including your glutes, which obviously for people who don’t know, are a major controller of your feet and vice versa. The fact that you would not get that information in a four year postgraduate educational program is … I don’t know if people aren’t necessarily watching this. The number of times you’ve said something and my chin is at the table is high. It just never occurred to me that you wouldn’t get a more, I hate to use the word holistic, I don’t want to make that sound new agey, but a more comprehensive approach.

Alissa Kuizinas:

Right, right. Yeah. Absolutely. Yeah. It’s very frustrating. I used to feel very limited by that when I was in practice, because I would think like, “I don’t really know. I’m not really looking at their hips and their pelvis and what kind of movement is going on there.” Now that I actually do look at that and I do help people with that, I’m like, “Wow.” I’m just thinking about the number of people that just kind of got stuck with orthotics and kind of told to go home. Maybe all I needed to do was some realignment higher up their body. They may not even had a foot problem, they just kind of have maybe a hip problem or more like a pelvic issue. I think all those people are just kind of flying under the radar, because they’re just coming in for their foot and maybe their foot that hurts, their hip might hurt. It doesn’t really matter where the pain is. It’s always coming from something else.

Steven Sashen:

Right. I don’t know if this is true or not, but someone apparently asked Freud if he had to sum up everything he knew in a sentence as he was dying. There was, I think two lines, one was, secrets made you sick. The other was, no one’s upset for the reason they think they are. That one’s relevant here for pain. It’s rarely the thing itself. I’m imagining in a clinical session in school, someone comes in and they’ve got let’s say flat feet, warrior quotes. Then the whole conversation goes to prescribing orthotics, et cetera. If you were there and said to someone, “Yeah. Can you just squeeze your glutes and watch what happens to your feet where they revert and they don’t so that builds an arch in your foot,” and you would watch people’s heads explode.

Alissa Kuizinas:

Absolutely. Yeah. Totally. There was just never any discussion about that, which is just so funny. I don’t know. I think even when I was a student, I had a little bit of an aversion to orthotics. I never really got it. I was kind of like, “Ah. This is a weird concept.” It always bothered me. So I never really loved to use them. Even when I was in practice, I did prescribe them, but I could never fully get behind it, even though it was all we really learned. Yeah. I always felt like there was just something missing and I didn’t know exactly what it was, but now I’m like, “Wow.”

Steven Sashen:

Again, it’s like you said, all you have to do is look at the research and look at the information. There’s no evidence that a custom made, $1,500, orthotic is any better than a $20 Dr. Schultz thing you get a Target.

Alissa Kuizinas:

Totally.

Steven Sashen:

They have the same outcomes. That alone should make people go, “Huh? Something is awry here.” But the other one that cracks me up, and you’ll love this, I saw … I got a free chiropractic session. Anyway, we don’t need to go into my thoughts about most chiropractors. I was having a bunch of injuries when I got back into sprinting 15 years ago. He says, “Well. You need a three quarter orthotic.” I said, “But when I’m sprinting, the only part of my foot that actually hits the ground is everything ahead of that orthotic. So what’s it going to do?” He said, “Well, when you’re slowing down or walking … ” I said, “Are you out of your mind? What’s it going to do?” There’s no way he could get to saying, “Oh yeah. I was mistaken. That won’t work for you.”

Alissa Kuizinas:

That’s funny. Yeah. That is really interesting because I don’t think most people really do know. I don’t really know how robotics work. I don’t think anybody really knows. We kind of think we do, but, I don’t know, when you read the research, it’s like, “Well, it’s actually not doing that.” It’s not doing what we think it’s doing.

Steven Sashen:

Give me something different than what people think.

Alissa Kuizinas:

Yeah.

Steven Sashen:

If somebody’s getting a benefit from it, I’m not going to say, “No,” but I will say if you’re putting your foot in a position where it’s not moving, you want to do, like you did, get out of it and move your foot, use your foot as much as possible when you’re not doing whatever it is you think you need that shoe and that orthotic for. Oh, wait. You’ll like this one too. I was at the International Foot and Ankle Biomechanics Conference. There was a guy there, who will remain nameless to protect the guilty, who was one of the top researchers about orthotics in the world. He put on a pair of our shoes, the Prio, in fact, behind me.

He says, “Take a look and tell me what you notice when I’m walking with my orthotics or without.” I said, “Well, what’d you notice?” He goes, “Well, nothing.” They feel really good. I said, “Okay, well here’s what I saw. Your right foot was pronating a little more because you’ve got a lot of weakness, because you haven’t been using your feet, but here’s the kicker A, you didn’t even notice it. And B, if you actually used your feet, that would probably go away.” He walks up to Irene Davis, the grandmother, if I’d said that to her face, she’d shoot me. The most important person in barefoot research. He came up to her and said, “I really like these shoes and I’m going to put my orthotic in it.” He thought he was just going to rib her. And she goes that’s normal but then after a couple weeks, shave it down some, and then after a couple more weeks, shave it down some more. Then after a couple more weeks, throw it away. He was like, “Oh.”

Alissa Kuizinas:

That makes sense.

Steven Sashen:

Pardon me for giving you all these. But there’re very few people who will get these stories with the same impact. I was in the lab with Dr. Bill Sands. He was the former head of biomechanics and engineering for the US Olympic Committee. I’m watching what he would do when people would come into his lab, is he would have them try on every different pair of shoe that they had and put them on a high speed, giant treadmill and film it at 500 frames a second. What he saw is that for almost everybody, except for elite runners, who mostly land on the ball of their foot or the midfoot, that changes what I’m about to say, their gait changed with every shoe. When he showed me this, I just looked at him and I said, “Oh my God, that means orthotics are ridiculous.” He starts to laugh. He goes, “Why do you say that?” I said, “Well, because they would need a different orthotic for every shoe based on their gait.”

Alissa Kuizinas:

Oh gosh. Yeah.

Steven Sashen:

Without altering gait. He just started laughing.

Alissa Kuizinas:

Wow. That’s so funny.

Steven Sashen:

I said, “You would need to measure the orthotic based on how they’re running in that shoe or moving in that shoe. You’d have to get a new one every time the foam started to break down or something started changing all the geometry of the shoe. You had five different pairs of shoes over the lifetime of those shoes, you would need a hundred orthotics.”

Alissa Kuizinas:

There’s a good business model right there.

Steven Sashen:

That was exactly what I said next. I said, “If anyone figured that out, they’d make a fortune by selling people things they don’t need.”

Alissa Kuizinas:

I think the Good Feet store has maybe done something like that. Bose they have a three tier system of orthotics that they sell people. I think it’s like $1,200 and they give them three different pairs. I don’t know what you’re supposed to wear them for, but it’s different activities and … It’s very bizarre. Yeah.

Steven Sashen:

You can make a lot of money convincing people that they’re special little snowflakes. Here’s something just for you. In fact, at one of those panel discussions I was on, guys from Brooks and guys from Adidas, one of the last questions, what’s next in footwear. The guys from Brooks said, “Because everyone’s a special little snowflake,” they didn’t say it that way, “Because everyone has a unique movement pattern,” which is not really true, “Then we need to make shoes with, with special outsoles to adjust for their movement pattern.” The guys from Adidas said, “Well, because everyone’s a special little snowflake and has a unique movement pattern we are going to make special, custom-made midsoles for them.” Again, my question to both of them was, “Where’s your proof that that’s going to be, in any way, beneficial?” They had no response.

Alissa Kuizinas:

I mean, that’s crazy, but people would totally go for that.

Steven Sashen:

Absolutely.

Alissa Kuizinas:

Because I would have people coming in and they’re like, “This orthotic, I’m looking at my foot and it’s not molded here perfectly.” People want it to be like an actual imprint of their foot. That’s what they want. Yeah. That would sell really well. They’ll do well with that.

Steven Sashen:

Well, it’s kind of funny. There are a number of companies that have made products that’s like here’s a thing that’s based on the imprint of your foot. One guy was trying to make, sell a business. It was a sandal product where they had a template, a block of foam, multi density foam, and they would scan your foot and then it would use a computer controlled cutting machine, router basically, to make something that was just the shape of your foot. Then you put a strap on it. I said, :Are they actually more comfortable or not?” He was like, “What do you mean? It’s made for your foot.” I went, “Well, that doesn’t mean anything.” You might not want something that’s made like your foot, especially with that much foam. As you’re walking, the shape of the thing is changing to not the shape of your foot.

Alissa Kuizinas:

Exactly.

Steven Sashen:

What do you do about that? Again, his head exploded.

Alissa Kuizinas:

A lot of explosions going on.

Steven Sashen:

Well, I think there have to be, given what we’ve been talking about, how much people just believe these things that are patently false.

Alissa Kuizinas:

Yeah. Yeah. It’s become such a catch phrase too. People just use these terms, like supportive shoes and arch support and it doesn’t really mean anything. It’s just what people hear and they think that’s what they need. I’ve seen so many articles where people are like, “What are the best supportive shoes? What kind of art support should you look for?” Usually, I write into those articles and tell them they don’t need any support and then people get really confused.

Steven Sashen:

You can also say, “By the way, I’m now selling supportive gloves.”

Alissa Kuizinas:

Yeah. Yeah. Right. Didn’t you know that your palm really needs support? You shouldn’t be putting it directly on things.

Steven Sashen:

We have this great supportive hat that we’re starting. It’s going to support you having better thinking. Here’s the risky joke, if you know where this joke goes. I’m at the age where I think I need supportive pants. I don’t even know what that means, but it could sound like you take it that way.

Alissa Kuizinas:

Support just sounds good. Everybody wants support.

Steven Sashen:

Well, everybody wants support, and they want to be special.

Alissa Kuizinas:

Yeah. Yeah. Exactly.

Steven Sashen:

We all want the thing that’s made for me, despite the fact that we all fundamentally have the same kind of human body.

Alissa Kuizinas:

Right.

Steven Sashen:

Here’s a weird variation on that. When the Berlin Wall fell and when the Soviet Union fell as well. When these communist countries who had very few options suddenly were able to travel and saw these myriad options, they were overwhelmed to the point of paralysis, practically. In fact there’s a thing called the paralysis or paradox of choice. Too many choices.

Alissa Kuizinas:

Yeah. Yes.

Steven Sashen:

Unfortunately, we are so attached to this thing of having all these choices, the freedom to get the thing that’s right for us, that most people don’t realize that you’d be fine if it was just the one right thing or maybe totally three or four, right things at things.

Alissa Kuizinas:

Totally. Absolutely. Yeah. That’s so true. There’s just so much, people just don’t even know what to do.

Steven Sashen:

Yeah. Oh. We’re heading towards our time. What else have you discovered since you made this transition and have this virtual practice that you really never imagined or expected? What’s a big surprise for you?

Alissa Kuizinas:

Yeah. I mean, so many things. I would say probably the biggest surprise is really just from my own learning. I feel like since I’ve kind of started down this route, I’ve almost gone through my own fellowship or something, just kind of relearning. Kind of like you were saying, everybody looks really different when you just look at one thing and when you’re really focused on maybe their feet, you might say like, “Yeah. Everyone’s really different. We have these movement patterns.” But when you really break it down, kind of like you were saying, people have very similar patterns. Even when people make compensations, those compensations end up being kind of similar and you can kind of track these things. It does kind of make it so that you can actually fix people.

Not fix people, but you know what I mean. I actually kind of was groomed to believe that you actually couldn’t fix these things. Oh, if someone comes into your office and let’s say their back is fully extended and they’re kind of hobbling in. I would probably look at that person and say like, “Oh my gosh. There’s nothing you can do about that. There’s nothing that can fix it, so just brace it.” That’s kind of like the real theme, I think for a lot of medical specialties. That was the biggest eye opener for me is, holy cow, there’s actually easy ways that we can fix a lot of these problems. I really just didn’t know that was possible.

Steven Sashen:

One of the things that gets us all out, be out of bed in the morning here is that we hear from people all day every day saying, “Oh my God, this changed my life.” I have to keep pointing out, “No, no, no. We just got out of the way so your life could go back to normal.” I’ve been meaning to do a little podcast rant when people say something like, “Well, this minimalist shoe hurt me.” It’s like, “No. What hurt you was getting in the shoe that screwed you up.”

Alissa Kuizinas:

Yeah. Everything you were for the last 50 years is really what’s bad.

Steven Sashen:

Allowed you to do what normal humans in other parts of the world that don’t have those stupid shoes can do. You’re not different than those people. They don’t get it. Here’s a weird question, given that you have this non-normal approach to your practice, how do you answer the question and talk about what you do when you’re somewhere, assuming that people that go out and see other human beings that they’ve never met before post COVID? How do you answer the what do you do question?

Alissa Kuizinas:

Yeah. It’s definitely a little bit different. I mean, I will typically still lead with the, “I’m a podiatrist,” but I’ll usually start to talk about it a little bit more. I’ll usually tell people that I have a virtual practice, because the first question people ask is, “Well, where do you work?” That usually blows people’s minds that’s even possible. Then I kind of have to go and explain to them what it is that I do. Then I’ll kind of go through, hey, well this is actually the sort of method and techniques that I use and so all of that can actually be done virtually or the vast majority of it. Then it kind of gets people’s mind spinning and they get really confused, but it at least gets them thinking about it.

A lot of people have been very receptive. Pretty much everywhere you go, if you’re a podiatrist, people will ask you for shoe advice. If you just tell everybody that asks you know, “Hey, this is what you should try to do,” some people will listen, not everybody, but you’ll get some people that will be interested enough to kind of try that. Then it kind of gets people in the door. Yeah. People are receptive, which is cool.

Steven Sashen:

Yeah. In my mind, it really is just a matter of time and enough people to have the experience that it just becomes something where people can’t ignore it. To be totally candid, I literally hope that it happens in my lifetime. Not because of any personal benefit, but because I think it’s so important and I would like to see it happen. I’d like to see the effect I’d like to see what happens when that happens. Somebody said to me, “Well, what would happen if one of the big companies ripped you off?” I went, “Then we won.”

Alissa Kuizinas:

Absolutely. Yeah. That’s so true. I love that. Yeah. I mean, one of the cool things that I saw happen is that we have a shoe store one town over for me, that’s kind of an orthopedic shoe store, that I used to send a lot of patients to. Last year it got purchased by a new owner. I went in there and they had Xero shoes. I was like, “Oh my gosh. What is going on?” It was really cool. I was like, “Oh, wow, something’s going on here.” Because the whole rest of the store is selling sports shoes and stuff. But just even seeing that is just like, “Wow, that’s very cool.” That just gets people interested, just seeing stuff.

Steven Sashen:

Agreed. I mean, we had some people send us pictures from REI stores where there’s just our sandals and our shoes are just taking up a giant chunk of wall. They’re selling not because we’re pushing it and not even because they’re pushing it, frankly, because a lot of their people on the footwear floor don’t really know what to do about our shoes yet, but people just try them on and go, “Oh, my God.” That’s what’s making it work. I’m just hoping that we can do more just to make more of that happen just to give more people the experience. Because again, that’s the number one thing. You can believe whatever you believe, but then if you have an experience that argues with that, it’s really hard to keep that belief going.

Alissa Kuizinas:

Yeah. Absolutely.

Steven Sashen:

Well, this has been a total, total pleasure. If people want to get in touch with you and find out more about what you are doing or find out how you might be able to help them, will you please tell them how to do that?

Alissa Kuizinas:

Yes, absolutely. You can find me on my website, which is doctorark.com. And then on Instagram @doctorark.dpm.

Steven Sashen:

Beautiful. I really look forward to people taking advantage of that. I want you to tell me what happens when they do.

Alissa Kuizinas:

Absolutely.

Steven Sashen:

Back to the whole idea of sort of that critical mass thing. I think part of that critical mass is people who have traditional medical training starting to wake up as well. At some point I’m going to put this bug in your head, although I imagine it’s already been there, you have got to find a way to be lecturing at podiatry schools.

Alissa Kuizinas:

I know. Yeah. I think that’d be really cool. That’s definitely a goal that I have. Especially since there’s only that one lecture. I think it would be kind of easy to sneak in maybe a half hour lecture after that, at least.

Steven Sashen:

Just a 20 second something. Give me an infomercial. Let’s just open the door a little bit and see what happens. I have my fingers crossed. Once again, thank you.

Alissa Kuizinas:

Thank you so much.

Steven Sashen:

Again, pleasure. By the way, a quick reminder, if you want to find out more, other than finding Alissa Kuizinas, then you can find out more about the other episodes we’ve done in The Movement Movement podcast. There’re a bunch of them. Goo to www.jointhe movementmovement.com and you’ll find all of those. If you have any questions or some suggestions, people you think should be on the show, people who might argue with me and think I have my head completely in my butt, because I have a case of cranial rectal reorientation syndrome, happy to have that conversation. It’ll be very entertaining. You can send me an email. I at move M-O-V-E @jointhemovementmovement.com. Until then, most importantly, just go out, have some fun and live life feet first.

 

 

 

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