00:00:05] Nick: Like you said there are a lot of people will look at it shouldn't be like, that looks flat, it may look flat, but a lot of times it's not even if it has something like a four millimeter drop, it's very, very miniscule in the grand scheme of things. But your brain is still perceiving that elevation of the heel relative to the toes.
[00:00:30] PODCAST INTRO: Welcome to “In The RACK” podcast, where we provide you with the practical framework for breaking PRs in all facets of health and wellness. We are just a couple of bros giving you the simple house in a world of complex wants. No filters, no scripts, no rules, just straight talk, talk tune. Now, let's get into the rack with your hosts, Dr. Chad and Dr. Nick.
[00:00:55] Chad: Alright, thank you everyone for joining us “In The RACK” podcast. This is our 4th episode of the “In The RACK” podcast. The last episode, we did talk a lot about feet and modern day footwear. And we did discuss in that episode that we're going to be talking a little bit more about transitioning, and how we transition pay our patients and clients to more natural footwear from the footwear that they're already using. So if all of you guys are just tuning in for the first time, I'm your host, Chad. And I got my co-host with me also our very own foot nerd, Nick. And we are excited about this one because anytime we get to talk about feet, we get all excited about it. So we're going to talk a little bit more about the transition today. And we're gonna call this episode “Bring The Feet”. And as we go on and talk about the transitions, there are certain steps involved. This is not something that is just wear a piece of footwear, and you're good to go. So, before we get into this episode, we do want to recap a little bit of last episode. I know some of the listeners, if you're just tuning in today, you might not have heard what we talked about last time, if you did, and this will be a little good recap for you. If you didn't, you should check out episode three, we call that one “Foot Fetish”. That was a good one. And we did talk a little bit more about the specifics of the modern day footwear and how it can negatively impact your feet. But why don't we kind of just recap, just really quickly about the negative impact that this modern day footwear has on our feet, just so that everybody kind of has a little background, before we get started.
[00:02:29] Nick: No problem. So the two big things that are common aspects of the modern shoe is the excessive heel to the toe drops. So that the heel is elevated, or kind of propped up relative to where the toes are? So that places you on that downward slope, dumps your center of mass forward, it shortens your calf and Achilles. So it kind of does a few different things there that almost trick your brain into thinking you're moving downhill all day. And then the brain is going to kind of pump the brakes slightly throughout the day. So you're hitting the gas pedal and the brake at the same time, the whole time you had the shoes on. And then the other big one is the narrow toe box. So the human foot should be widest from the tip of the big toe to the tip of the little toe. But most shoes are widest at the base of those toes. So you get this kind of narrowing in after the beginnings of the toes, and that crammed them together. So that limits your body's ability to absorb shock that restricts the blood flow to the plantar surface to the bottom surface of the foot. So those things aren't, aren't great. And then a couple other things that we touched upon briefly. But those first two are kind of the biggest two, but most modern, she's got a really, really rigid sole. So even though it's a lot of cushion, it's still really stiff, but it typically only has one, maybe two areas where it bends. Whereas the foot, the human foot has 33 joints, wherever there's a joint there should be some form of movement, it to some degree. So if we have 33 joints, but then she only bends in one or two places, there's some disconnect or mismatch there. And then you got with that the thickness, a lot of times of the soles and the over cushioning. And we talked a little bit more about that in the last episode. But that's going to really, really hit that mute button on those nerve endings in your feet. And it's going to make your foot act differently than it were if it were on the ground. And then a couple other things that we maybe didn't touch upon but are aspects we do want to hit upon are the heels on a lot of these shoes are really, really stiff and they don't let the heel move. And the heel kind of rolling outward into what's called pronation or E version is really what triggers that cascade of events to happen for shock absorption during walking. So that's really important if you have stiffness at that heel that that cascade can't start so that can be a big problem. Another one is the toe spring so the toes are kind of jammed up or lifted up. They curl up at the front. You can look at your shoes right now probably have them and that's going to put your toes jammer toes up into extension and that's going to limit their mobility and their ability to push off the ground. And then the other big thing with that is a lot of these shoes we're finding now have this kind of concave almost both like shape and the sole. So that pushes your second and third and even fourth metatarsal. So those bones in the middle of your foot down towards the ground more than the first and the fifth, which the foot should really be act kind of like a tripod. So we got our big pressure points at the first, the fifth so that both outsides of the foot, and then the heel, those are the three points. But this concavity of the shoe is really putting the foot in this position where those two points, those first and fifth have a hard time contacting the surface. So those are really the big things you'll find with most modern shoes, especially athletic footwear, we see it a lot. Even dress shoes tend to be really, really narrow. So you'll see a big drop in dress shoes.
[00:05:49] Chad: So I think a lot of people are confused as to as to what we would consider natural footwear or “barefoot shoes or minimalist shoes”, however you want to call it. Most people could be looking at this shoe to be like, my shoes are pretty flat, there's got to be pretty natural for my foot. So let's talk a little bit about the criteria that might be involved, when we decide that a type of shoe or sneaker is more of a natural footwear, as opposed to like other shoes, like what are the things that we like look for?
[00:06:22] Nick: So big, big things are going to be that zero drop. So, like you said, a lot of people will look at their shoe and that looks flat, it may look flat. But a lot of times, it's not even if it has something like a four millimeter drop, that's very, very miniscule in the grand scheme of things. But your brain is still perceiving that elevation of the heel relative to the toes. So that could almost be worse than you being in something like a two inch high heel because your brain is consciously aware of that. But if it's a four millimeter six or most common athletic shoes are like 8 to 10. And your brain is kind of subconsciously perceiving it, but you're not registering it. So you just carry on for weeks, months, years without any kind of repercussions. So then it all this snowball rolling down the hill picks up steam, and next thing you got all these problems related to that maybe not solely caused by it, but definitely related. So zero drop is a big one for us. Another one is the wide toe box. So getting those toes some room to breathe. That's a huge one. So like I said, why this from tip of the big toe to tip a little toe you want. When you look down at your shoes, you almost at first when you wear some natural footwear, it's going to look like conscious, and it gives your toes much more room to operate. And then the other things would be like a flexible sole. Like I said before, foots got 33 joint’s for a reason, the flexible sole allows those joints to all interact with the ground, or any surface you're on. And then the thin sole is kind of the last one that we touched upon, because some people might not get there, the thin sole is primarily to allow you to feel the ground better to allow those nerve endings upwards of 200,000 in the foot to really, really operate naturally and normally, but it's one we're willing to kind of meet people halfway on, if they've gone a lifetime already. And in a lot of thickness and cushion underneath their foot, their body might not be able to tolerate that all the time. So that's when thin sole is one where we will compromise.
[00:08:24] Chad: And going down the checklist, you've got your zero drop, your wider toolbox, your flexible sole, and possibly your thin sole if it's appropriate for you. Now you're at the point where like, “I got the shoe, what do I do now?” So this is the question that we get a lot from our patients and clients and it's like, I've got the shoe. Now, what do I do about transitioning to this shoe from whatever I'm wearing, whether it's a Hoka, or a Brooks or an ASICs, or whatever type of shoe you're wearing. And can it really be just as easy as buying vivo barefoot or an ultra-running shoe? And the answer is “No”. And we say that only because we know that there's multiple steps involved, it's not as easy as just buying the shoe and just saying, we're good to go. We look at it not like a cookbook. Like, step one is you add flour. Step two is like you add water, whatever if like you're trying to make a pie and I don't know how to make pie. But if I did, I would go through the steps. And at the bottom of the cookbook, it would say, “This is how long it takes, it takes two hours”. But we know when it when it goes. When it comes to transitioning to natural footwear and kind of getting us to that point. We know that it's not as easy as saying, it's gonna take four weeks to do this or two weeks to do this or whatever. This is something that we want you to all understand that in order to gain this positive relationship with your feet, this is a lifelong journey. It's not something that just happens overnight. And we always recommend that people start small and kind of start at, there's got to be a starting point. And so I guess my question for you, Nick is like, where do we start? Because I know that everybody's thinking about it like, “Alright, great. I already know what shoe I need. Now, what do I do? Where do I start?”
[00:10:19] Nick: Honestly, the first place that anyone can start if they're listening, and they're like, “I want to make this change, the first place that anyone should really start is find out where you fall on the footwear or the Barefoot spectrum”. And what I mean by that is, this whole conversation we're having about transition, it's all a continuum, or a spectrum. So on one end of the continuum you have, being barefoot being able to run, jump all this kind of stuff barefoot. The other end is the moon boots, essentially, the most cushion you could think of, the most stability you could think of in your footwear. So this where you fall in the continuum could change based on the day, the hour, the activity you're doing. So depends on what activity you're doing. So if you're going for a run versus you're just going for a walk, those are two different activities. They're very similar motions. But they're two different activities in that, you might need a little bit more cushion for the running than you would for the walking. So we want to think about it in that context, but you want to find out where you fall in general on this. So if you are someone who can tolerate barefoot all the time, doesn't matter, you can walk on rocks, you can either walk on any surface, you're pretty far along the Barefoot end of the continuum, you can go ahead and probably purchase those minimal issues now. If you are someone who is like, Man, when I get home, I can't even walk in the house barefoot, I gotta I can tolerate five minutes, maybe. You're more towards that moon boot side of the continuum. So we have to start you off real, real slow, and say let's keep the cushion, let's even keep maybe even the narrow toe box and let's just work on the drop or vice versa. Let's work on the box and work on something else. So you got to find out where you fall in the continuum, we'll get deeper into that stuff where you, you kind of pick and choose. But knowing where you fall on that spectrum is what you need to start because then you can make your decisions, you can say, “I'm gonna get this shoe first and then work my way to this shoe vice versa”. So, Knowledge is power. And knowing where you are on that spectrum is going to be kind of your first step in any of this making the decision on what I'm going to buy for a shoe next. Really, how many shoes am I going to have to go through to get to this step, all that kind of stuff? So after you were to figure out where you fall on that spectrum, you really want to decide where, or what you want to do goals wise. So that's going to impact your end goal, because you want to work backwards, you want to say, what's my finish line? And how do I get there, and what's a reasonable way to get there, and what's a reasonable kind of shoe for that finish line? So in doing that, you would be able to kind of fill in the middle. You figure out where you are at the start at the beginning of the spectrum. And then you figure out where you want to be at the end, and go from there not it doesn't mean everybody has to be at barefoot. But also not everybody should be at moon boot, we should all be somewhere in the middle. And it's going to depend on the individual, where in between that we fall. So after you do all that, you definitely want to start thinking about shifting more towards the barefoot side. So you would you would then kind of determine your barefoot capacity or ability. So if you are that person who doesn't function well in the house or move around the house barefoot, “Well, let's start there”. Don't worry about the floor yet, let's start regaining some of that capacity to go barefoot. You want to rebuild the tolerance there first, just on household surfaces, maybe in the yard a little bit. Start getting those feet used to that get the nerve endings used to get the muscles built back up. And then you can start thinking about changing your footwear because if you just go into it haphazardly, changed the footwear but you don't address just natural movement in bare feet, you're likely going to run into some issues, whether it's pain or it doesn't feel right things feel stiff, tight that kind of stuff. So after you figure out where you fall on the spectrum, and then we'll go hand in hand with you figuring out your barefoot ability, those would definitely be steps one and two, for sure. And then it comes the point now you're getting into. Let's start with the footwear and let's make small changes first. So our favorite one here to start with is the heel toe drop. You can start with the narrow toe box but most shoes with a narrow toe box or zero drop. So you would want to influence your drop first. And this can be a tricky one for a lot of people because especially people like runners who have been running in these 10 millimeter drops and 10 millimeters is all of about a quarter of an inch but that makes a difference in the long term. And when you take an activity like running or something where there's a little bit more force, it's a little bit more pounding. So your body has adapted to this downward slope position of the foot, the shortened calves, shortened Achilles. So if I take that short Achilles that has really adapted into that position now and I go from 10 millimeters to 0, sometimes your body will rebel against you right away. Sometimes it'll take a couple days, sometimes a couple of weeks. So, for those people, we may drop down 5 millimeters. So for example, you have a shoe that's 10 millimeters. I didn't want to name any names, but we'll go with say “Brooks”, and it's a common running shoes.
[00:15:36] Chad: Let's name the name, let's call them out.
[00:15:39] Nick: So Brooks runs, on average 10 millimeters, probably for the male's shoes, 12 for the females. So that's pretty high up there, if we're gonna go to zero. So say like an ultra, that's going to be comparable, so thickness, that might be a little aggressive, especially 12, like 10 to 12 is gonna be pretty aggressive. So we might go down to between four and six. So that brings us into HOPE, as those tend to run four to six, you got on clouds, which could be anywhere from like three to eight, even some new balance will run in that kind of six range, there's a shoe brand new in there out of Colorado, that's another one that's in like the three to five, six range. So that would be a good kind of transition option. And that transition when you're in those shoes could take anywhere from could be a week, some people could turn around be like, “I got it, my body's figured it out”. But I would say most people are going to be a couple months before they're fully out of those shoes, those transition shoes. And in that transition time, you may be doing some walking or other activities in zero drop footwear. So a lot of times we encourage people to get both and maybe so for example, say you go for a walk and say you walk three miles every day, we might say, “Look, take your transition shoes, wear those for two and then try for the last mile to change shoes”. So loop back home, switch shoes, go zero drop for the last mile. It's gonna be dependent on the individual what works for them. So those are the types of things that we'll troubleshoot together and it'll be a lot of trial and error, but keep the end goal in sight and in mind and we know that this is a lifelong process. So in order to get there, we got to take time put in the time and put in the efforts. So he also dropped first typically, just because you could do the toe box first but most of your wide toe box are going to be zero drop on the market. So the next would then be, once we kind of get down to that zero drop, now we need to address the other things. If you get a zero drop shoe, good chances are you have a wide toe box which is great, but you may need to play around with the brands. Because some brands are wider than others, some brands have a little bit more with in certain areas, even with the arch of the foot can be problematic for some people. So some of the minimalist shoes will have wider toes but still a narrow mid foot and hind foot or heel. So you may have to dive in at different brands depending on that. But then the next thing we deal with is cushion, so how much cushion are we getting get down to if someone's goal is to be barefoot as much as possible, we want to get down as close to the ground as possible. So that's gonna be your vivo barefoot, your zero shoes, your limbs, all these shoes that are popping up all over the world really, those are going to be the shoes you're looking at. Now it gets kind of dicey and cloudy when we talk about types of activities because in terms of running for the most part of people have been running for a good portion of their lives and they've been running in cushion especially in the last four or five decades. They may not be in a situation to get down to that zero drop very minimalist sole in the next month’s let alone year too. So it may not be reasonable for them, they may not want to do that. And as long as you're running in something ideally zero drop, then you can transition in and out of those minimal shoes for other activities. And where it really gets tricky is the sport shoe so I know some of these companies are starting to work on kind of sport specific shoes better for the barefoot, wider, zero drop for basketball, court sports, field sports cleats is a huge issue because they're all super now. If that's the case, if there's not something you could probably get by with say like, there might be enough grip on some of these trail shoes like a vivo barefoot trail shoe or an ultra-trail shoe to play a sport like tennis, or something else that's agility based tight spaces moving back and forth laterally rotationally forward back. But if you're talking about a sport like basketball where you gotta jump a ton volleyball or you gotta jump a ton, that type of sports, not natural ones. The human beings only been playing those sports for the last century really. So if you're going to transition into something super flat, no cushion, it might be tricky. So these companies are working on that but there's no great answers there yet. So I would encourage sport athletes, team sport athletes core field based, continue to play in the shoes that you feel comfortable in. But then you need to get out of those shoes when you're not playing. So if you're doing training in the weight room, try to be in something very minimal. So your foot is strengthening as you do that, if you're out walking, try to be in something more minimalist. So you're strengthening your foot while you do that. Cool study, just came out recently, is actually using a vivo barefoot shoe that people who were, I think it was 70% of the time that they were shot in shoes, they were wearing a minimalist shoe. And I forget the timeframe of the study, but they gained 60% strengthen in the small muscles of their feet. So their foot muscles were literally strengthening just from the shoe they were wearing, doing nothing aside from the normal stuff they were doing walking, errands, all those types of things that we all have to do. Their feet were strengthening just because they wear their shoes. So talking about compliance, that's easy. I don't have to give you a Home Access Program, just wear the shoes 70% of the time, and your feet will strengthen, that's pretty cool.
[00:21:27] Chad: Interesting concept how you can gain strength when you're actually using your muscles.
[00:21:32] Nick: No, it is weird. I love how we go back and forth on that, like we go away from it and then we learn it again. And then we have to relearn it a couple years later, it's the craziest.
[00:21:40] Chad: It's wild.
[00:21:42] Nick: So those are kind of the main steps. So you'd figure out where you are on the footwear spectrum. Along with that kind of step one or step two, would be you figure out your barefoot capacity or affordability. So how well you tolerate being barefoot? And then you have your information needed to go to step three and make your decision on what changes am I going to make to the shoe first? Probably heel to toe drop first. Where am I gonna go with this step that step three, go the shoes you have. If you don't know what they are, you're like, “Oh, these look flat, just go online, search the shoe model, and just search specifications on it”. And you'll probably get some information. The funny thing is on a lot of these well-known shoes, your Nikes, ASICs, especially for first running sports, things like that. They're hard to find sometimes. Sometimes it's really hard to find the exact like heel to toe drop. So are people trying to hide stuff? Who the heck knows?
[00:22:40] Chad: I would say “Yes”.
[00:22:42] Nick: But nonetheless, it can be hard to find so but there are people out there that look at this stuff pretty closely and will write blogs and reviews and all that kind of stuff. So if you can find it, just go search. So find out the specs on your shoes, find out what heel toe drop you are, find out how much it weighs. So these are all things to know. Because when you go to be a consumer of a new shoe, if your shoe was previously just weighing 8 ounces, and now you go look at an issue and it's 12 ounces, is that four ounces is going to affect your foot and your body. Yep, probably. Will you notice it? Probably not consciously. But stuff will start happening, changes were made you might notice some differences, but you can't really pinpoint it. So those are things that you want to look at. That's a big one we do with the cushion when we drop someone down to zero drop, we try to match the stack height as best we can. So what I mean by that is we try to match the thickness of the sole. So if someone is in say it's a 10 millimeter drop shoe, say the heel is 30 millimeters from the ground and the toes are 20. So that's a 10 millimeter drop, we would go look at a zero drop shoe sustained ultra and try to match that stack height to be somewhere in the mid-20s. Because their foot is used to being at least 20 to 30 millimeters off the ground. So we would want to match that to some extent. So their body doesn't have this shock to the system of going to zero drop in the shock of being closer to the ground all the same time. So we want to do things very, very gradually. So we would say, “Let's go online together. Let's look at this shoe. And let's try to find something with a stack height of 24, 25, 26 millimeters”. So now their body only has to deal with the zero drop, the transition is zero drop first. So we're worrying more about the lengthening of the calf, lengthening of the Achilles, all these factors that would be more related to the heel toe drop. So finding out the specs on your shoes is huge when you're making these decisions. And that's all really that step three is says. If we're looking in the cookbook, it's a step three. But here it's like A, B, C, D, E, all the way down because it depends who you are, what you want to do, everything matters. So we make those decisions based on what your situation is. So when you make that first transition, you're looking at the rest of the shoe. “Okay, can I make any other transitions? Can I get a wider toe box? Can I get foot flatter and the sole? Can I get a little more flexible in the sole?” Those are all things we're starting to think about next. So that would be your step four. And then really step five is continuing on reap the benefits of wearing natural footwear, but also have a variety of footwear options. Because like I said before, with this spectrum, with this continuum, you're moving up and down it and it might be in a small range, but you're moving up and down it each day, each hour. So if you wake up one day, and you notice, “Oh man, my foot hurts. I had plantar fasciitis, which is the diagnosis but had plantar fasciitis 10 years ago, is it coming back?” Well, maybe you've just had a lot going on, and you've been stressed out, you haven't been sleeping. Well, there's a lot of factors at play. But that might be a day where we add a little more cushion to the footwear, or maybe we go back, and it's something with a little bit of a drop just to offload for the day, or maybe for 48 hours. So having footwear options allows you to ebb and flow throughout this continuum. So you're not just stuck stiff in one area, I'm just on this plot on the spectrum. Now, depending on how my life is going, how stressful job is, how stressful my home life is all these kinds of things matter, with my nutrition on point right now, other injuries. So all those things affect where we are on this continuum. So we want to take all that into account and be like, “I've been having a little rough lately, let me get a little more cushion on the shoots for now, let me go back to a little bit of drop, and then we work our way back toward that higher end of the spectrum, that barefoot end of the spectrum, as we feel better”. So we don't necessarily have to say, “I'm going all minimalist right now”. That's it. Throw everything else away. Now you can have multiple footwear options, just know that if we go back to that positive ego, where I have that elevated heel, I don't want to stay there forever, because I know there's these changes that are happening to the way my body operates that I don't want to continue on long term.
[00:27:11] Chad: As you guys are all sitting there and thinking about your transition and starting to think about the shoes that you want. And I know we did talk a little bit about ultras, those tend to be our go to in terms of transition. Just to reiterate the fact that, Nick, really harps on that kitten that heel to toe drop first. And if you guys are confused about that, just let us know. He talks about the stack height, and the stack height is just too kind of go over it. Again, is the distance between the floor and the bottom of the shoe or where your foot is your sole of your shoe? So, Nick was saying that some of these shoes could, it could be 30 millimeters, stack height on the heel side, and then 20 millimeters on the toe side. And when you do basic subtraction, it comes out to 10 millimeter drops. So that's the drop between your heel and your toe. But the importance there is to go based off the stack height on the toe, because that is where your cushion is the lowest. And when you're looking for transition shoe, that's where you want to focus most of your time. So especially if you're a runner, and it's appropriate for you, and you need more of that cushion. Like Nick said, if you're more of that barefoot type that can take that barefoot type of movement, then you could probably just disregard everything I just said. But in terms of that stack height, that 20 millimeter drop will be important for you, that 20 millimeter stack height will be important for you. Because as you're looking and ultra is really good about this, you can go right on the website, and it'll literally say, stack height 23 millimeters, or 24 millimeters or whatever the stack height may be. And then you just find the one. That's the closest fit to where your shoe currently is. Now, like Nick was saying, “It's not always super easy to find these numbers”. Does Nike hide it? Does ASICs hide it? Maybe, probably, it's not always public information. Sometimes you can do a quick Google search, and you can find it based on the model number of your shoe, but not always. So just kind of keep that in mind as you're going through the transition as well. We get so many who are like, “Oh, I might as well just go to a vivo barefoot from doing that again”. Well, that was kind of like what happened 10, 15 years ago when barefoot running was a huge thing. And then I just got this bad mantra about it just because everybody went 0 to 100 and nobody knew how to transition. They just thought barefoot was the best thing because they ran it in some running magazine, and then tried to copy what this person did in the magazine that probably had been training for like 10 to 15 years like that before they even went to that.
[00:29:42] Nick: It was the Borna run when that book came out. There was a huge barefoot movement and Vibram FiveFingers shoes were huge and everyone was just ditching their running shoes and jumping right to those and the Vibram had all these civil lawsuits against them because everyone was like “Oh man, you said it was gonna make me a better runner, a healthier runner, whatever the claims were, or the verbiage was.” But anyway, people just went 0 to 100. They just jumped right into it going from 10 millimeter jobs, super cushy, shoe, narrow toe box. And now they just threw all these changes at it all at once. So people getting hurt. And that's the absolute wrong way to go about this, we're not saying go that route. Do it progressively. One little piece at a time trial and error, let your body adapt to it. It will adapt, you just have to give it the right stimulus and give it the time to do so. So it will change. One more point I wanted to touch upon, don't let the outside of the shoe trick you. And what I mean by that is a lot of times, these shoes come out looking so pretty. They look like all these little components are going to help you do this, do that, jump higher, run faster, all this kind of stuff. And sometimes it can look like it's zero drop in the outside, but the outside isn't always what is happening on the inside. Like I mentioned before, where there's this concave sole that is like a boat on the inside, it actually makes you the middle of your foot drop down more. But that's a lot of times not what the outside of the shoe looks like. So what's happening on the inside might not be the same as what's happening on the outside. So go look up the specs. So you can actually see what the dimensions and all that kind of stuff on the shoe are. Take the sole out, look at the sole examine the sole. So open it up, take the laces out, look at the inside, look at all these parts really, really, really examine the shoe if you can. And the other thing I'd say about the width is the most expensive part of the shoe to make is the sole. So a lot of times to save money, the manufacturers, when they make an extra wide shoe. So it's the 2E, 2D whatever. When they make that they don't actually make it wider, they make a deeper. So when you put your foot in it, you feel like there's more space, but it's north to south where you have more space, not east to west. Because it's really easy to add material to the upper, the top part of the shoe, instead of making the sole actually wider. So all that does is just give you more space up and down, which could help a lot of people but it's not helping those toes play anymore. Your toes are still jammed in medial and laterally. So keep that in mind too. If you're looking at a shoe and you have to select the wider option, there's a good chance it's not actually that much wider, it might be slightly just because the upper will have a little bit more room to be flexible on the sides. But chances are it's not as wide as you think it is.
[00:32:47] Chad: Well, I know we're kind of going a little over on time. But I think it's worth the talk because you just talked about toe space, and a lot of our patients and we do offer the toe spacers. But I think it's probably worth the talk just to kind of talk about toe spacers a little bit because I know some people either use them or have used them or have heard of them. But how do we normally transition these pants probably a step three ‘B’ or whatever ‘C’, ‘D’, ‘E’, ‘F’ whatever it may be. But as people are getting more used to these shoes with wider toe boxes, is it important to go to a toe space or to get a better toe spacer to take advantage of those wide toe boxes?
[00:33:27] Nick: I do think so. I think, would you? Is it necessary? Probably not. But it will take your body longer to regain that efficient and optimal toe space. So the toe spaces can help speed that process up, which is fantastic. Let's do it then. And it's very little skin off your back. Like you throw them on and you move around with them. So the way we usually go about toe spacer is starting the house. So put them on in the morning, start with increments of most people can tolerate 15 minutes and move around with them. So people always ask us, “Well, can I just sit on the couch, you can, but you're probably not going to get the most out of them”. Because now your toes are just playing at rest. And they're just going to kind of get achy as you sit down on the couch. It's going to make sit on the couch not as fun. No one wants that. So where are them as you move around the house first thing in the morning is great because you're making your coffee, , maybe you're putting away the dishes, things like that. So you're moving around, so put them on 15 minutes. 15 minutes goes by “Oh, it still feels really good. Try another five, try another five”. So, say you start out and you can't take any more than 15 minutes, that's your benchmark to start with. And we gradually try to increase that that timeframe that you can tolerate. And then once you get to the point where you can tolerate a minimal issue that has a really wide toolbox, you can wear them in your shoes if you want. So you now kind of optimize that splay inside the shoe because what you'll notice when you first put on a more natural piece of footwear is that it will feel too big. Because your toes aren't using all the space, you'll be like, “I'm normally size 12. But I guess, I need to go smaller. Now you don't”. Stick with the shoe, you just need to give your foot time your body time to regain that natural toe space so you can use that space.
[00:35:16] Chad: Good point. So if any of you guys have any questions on the toe spacers, just let us know. That pretty much covers it for toe spacers. So we use the foot collective ones, we find that those are pretty good. We've also used the correct toes in the past, correct toes tend to be a little bit more on the rigid side, they're a little bit more bulky too. So it's hard to wear in the shoes, as opposed to the wide toes ones which are a lot thinner. And they tend to be a little bit more flexible and forgiving.
[00:35:42] Nick: Wide toes definitely fit in the shoe really well. And if you want to just go on Amazon and search toe spacers, you can literally get the cheapest ones. And they're probably going to add some space in between the toes, which it's not going to hurt. You might not feel great at first, but it's not gonna hurt you for sure.
[00:35:59] Chad: So that's good on transitions. We'll probably cover a little bit more of this in the future as well. But for those of you that are more interested in transition of footwear, we are actually going to be having a workshop at ProForm next Friday 23rd from 3:30 to 4:30. And obviously if you're not local, what we are going to do is we're going to live stream it on IGTV. So we will have it live streamed and I'll see if I can somehow record it. I'm sure I can do that. I'll have to figure it out. I know I can do it. And then I'll put it up there so that you guys can see it just in case you guys missed it. So if there's anything there that we might have missed in the podcast, we'll definitely cover it within that workshop as well. So what do we got? What's coming up for next episode? We talked about feet, we talked a little bit about what we are about. And I think it's probably time for story time. We get stories every day from patients. Some of them are good, some of them are ridiculous and some of them are just outrageous. So I think we're going to probably spend the next one, we might just kind of sprinkle this in to you and just kind of talk about the stories that we hear from our patients and clients every day. And we're going to go into detail on these stories. And we're either going to agree or disagree, but I have a feeling that we're going to probably agree to disagree most of the time some of these stories are pretty damn good. And the good news about the stories is you might find that this story might be just like your story. So if it's like your story, then listen to what we have to say. Because we might be able to call bullshit on the story. Or you might be like, “Oh, maybe it's not bullshit”. I don't know. But tune in next week. So we're definitely gonna hit that up. And if you've got a cray, cray story that you would like to talk about, then let us know. So you can either DM us or email us or if you want to call us call us and tell us. I don't care what, we'd love to listen to the stories. So, anything else that we missed there, Nick?
[00:38:02] Nick: I think we're good.
[00:38:04] Chad: So I think we'd like to end the podcast with the moral of the story. So I think the moral of story here is, “Let's just create a positive relationship with your feet. It's a lifelong journey. It's not an overnight thing. So let's start by freeing those feet”. And while we're at it, let's read Britney too. Come on, it's Britney bitch.
[00:38:27] PODCAST OUTRO: Thank you for joining us “In The RACK” this week. Make sure to subscribe so you don't miss out on any future episodes. You can also find us online at proformptma.com, or on social media at ProForm PTMA. And remember;
“If you train inside the rack, you better be thinking outside the rack”.
