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Feel Better, Live More with Dr Rangan Chatterjee
Why Running Isn’t Bad For Your Knees, How To Exercise Without Pain & Move Faster (Without Even Trying!) with Helen Hall (re-release) #542
02:44:00
Today I’m thrilled to welcome my dear friend, Helen Hall back to the podcast. Helen is a movement therapist, a running coach, a pain expert and one of the best coaches in any modality that I have ever come across.
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- [00:01]
A
Running per se cannot be bad for your knees. We're not so badly made that we should be injuring ourselves every time we move. So if somebody's got knee pain, I'm always wondering where their head is. On average an adult head weighs about 5 kilos and the further forward it is, there's a mass management effect going on in the rest of the body. For every inch further forward that your head would be if it was perched effortlessly with max movement potential, you add the weight of another head. So don't stop running. Find out why the knee is upset. It's the biggest joint in the body.
- [00:38]
B
Hey guys, how you doing? Hope you're having a good week so far. My name is Dr. Rangan Chatterjee and this is my podcast Feel Better Live. More Today's episode is one that I have decided to re release because of the time of year. Spring is finally here and of course this means that many people are trying to get outside more and move their bodies, but some are unable to move as much or in the way that they would like to because of pain. And I know of nobody better to help than my own movement coach, the wonderful Helen Hall. Helen is a movement therapist, running coach, pain expert and and quite simply one of the best coaches in any modality that I have ever come across. Due to her incredible results, she is often booked up in clinic for months. And so to help more people, she has created a series of online courses for professionals and for members of the public who simply want to move better without pain. Her flagship online course, a troubleshooting checklist for walkers and runners, the six most common fundamental movement patterns that seem to need help, has proved a big hit for thousands of people all over the world. And due to huge demand, she has just launched her brand new online course, Stress Incontinence, an alternative approach which explores pelvic floor functioning in a holistic way and helps people understand why what they are currently doing may not be working and what they can do immediately to start changing things. The usual cost of this course is £40, but for listeners of my podcast, Helen has agreed to give a further 40% off until the end of April 2025 using the discount codes FBLM40. You can see your details at helen-hall.co.uk. now, in today's conversation, which first came out in March 2024, we cover a wide variety of different topics, including the vital importance of our head position, why walk run strategies can be so helpful, why foot swiping could help you move with more ease, the importance of Spending more time without shoes on and the incredible benefits of. Of barefoot shoes. This really is a wonderful episode, full of optimism, inspiration and practical advice. Think about your heads, think about your feet, and don't assume that you can no longer move without pain. To start this conversation, I wanted to talk about, you know, a common myth that's out there, right. Or what I think is a myth.
- [03:47]
A
Which one?
- [03:48]
B
Which one is running bad for our knees?
- [03:53]
A
Oh, that one. Yeah. Well, of course it's in the context of how you're going about doing your running. You might be being mean to your knees, but the question is, why are you running like that, which might be mean for your knees? Running, per se, cannot be bad for your knees. I can't remember the last time I've ever. I've had people come in to see me with knee pain on both sides. But it's never symmetrical. One's always worse than the other. It can change between the knees and one has a tendency to start before the other. So given the fact that you're not hopping, you're running, and for every left stride there's going to be a right stride, it seems odd that knees get such a bad rap that the advice out there is to, oh, you got knee pain when you run or after you run, stop running, maybe, rather than say, stop running and it's bad for you, look at how you're running and even more importantly, what happens when you walk. Are you taking how your movement patterns are from your walking into your running? And running is just the tipping point of impact. So there's more impact forces when we run compared to walking. So is it just that that is the. The negative in terms of knee pain? So they're walking, but the knee isn't particularly happy when they're walking, but they're not noticing it until they're running.
- [05:36]
B
And if we zoom out for a minute.
- [05:38]
A
Yeah.
- [05:39]
B
And if we, if we assume that running is bad for your knees, just for a moment, as a thought experiment, then it would stand to reason that every runner gets knee pain. Right. If running is bad for your knees, you know, or you should say the vast majority of people running should be experiencing knee pain at some point. But, A, I don't think that's the case.
- [06:04]
A
Yeah, correct.
- [06:05]
B
B, from my understanding of talking to people who have gone and lived with hunter gatherer tribes, who have studied them, done research on them, we know that many adults in these tribes in their 60s and 70s are running regularly, quite long distances. And from what I understand, they're not complaining of knee Pain. So that's a long winded way of sort of saying many people can run without knee pain. So to me it seems it can't just be the running that's causing it. If we assume, which I don't assume, but if we did assume that running is bad for our knees, so you're quite clear, then running is not bad for our knees.
- [06:52]
A
It makes no sense to me that running is bad for your knees. I've run all my life and n equals 1 and knee pain has never been a feature. And I work with so many different types of athletes and just non athletes and it's not knee pain that they suffer from, it's maybe ankle sprains or it band syndrome or piriformis syndrome. And their evidence if every time they run their knee hurts. Running is bad for your knees, but it's generally speaking only one knee.
- [07:31]
B
So for that individual who is getting knee pain when they're running, I guess a more accurate statement for that person might be when I run in the way that I currently do, I'm experiencing pain in my knee.
- [07:48]
A
Yes. And the question is why?
- [07:49]
B
Why?
- [07:50]
A
Yeah, so it's just, it's don't stop running. Find out why the knee is upset. It's the biggest joint in the body. People think that the hip is the biggest joint in the body. The knee is enormous. And the top of, sorry, the top of the shin bone is like a big tabletop for the thigh bone to roll around on it and access all the different shapes that you need. And it's a quite stable joint. It only moves in two dimensions, or it should only move in two dimensions. And it's above a joint that only moves in one dimension, the ankle joint. But the problem is it's sandwiched between the ground, which has 33 joints articulating with it in the foot, and the hip joint, which moves quite a lot in three dimensions, which is attached to the pelvis, which moves really quite a lot in three dimensions. So you look above and below that particular joint that hurts and think, well, maybe something is happening above or below or both that is negatively affecting the way that knee can manage.
- [09:05]
B
In our first chat, Helen, one thing we spent a bit of time talking about was, was this idea that the sight of the symptom is not always the cause. And I think I drew the analogy to medicine. Like sometimes your eczema, for example, which is an issue with the skin, is actually coming from your gut. And it sounds like you're saying the reason why this myth, or one of the reasons why it has been perpetuated and it's regarded as a truth by many, is because many people actually do experience knee pain when they run. That is true. You would agree with that?
- [09:43]
A
Yes.
- [09:44]
B
But it doesn't necessarily mean that running is the cause of the knee pain. And I think what you're saying is that the knee is in between some very, very significant joints, both above and below, and often there's an issue somewhere else. But your knee is taking the strain.
- [10:03]
A
Yes, it's. Generally speaking, in my experience, it's. It's being overloaded. It is the area that is bearing the brunt of either non movement somewhere else or an overload. And you can go as far as you want. You can go all the way to the ground, to the feet, and you can go all the way up to my little soapbox area, the head. So if somebody's got knee pain, I'm always wondering where their head is. It'll be my first thought. I wonder where their head is. I wonder if they even know where their head is. Because so many people have written in since that first podcast conversation saying they solved their knee pain by paying attention to where their head was. Discovering it wasn't perched effortlessly on the top of their head. It didn't just make their running easier, it solved their knee pain. So it's their running is easier and better pain free.
- [11:03]
B
One of the things which landed the most with people during our first conversation was this idea that if your head's not on right, nothing good's gonna happen. Right?
- [11:17]
A
Yeah.
- [11:18]
B
So I want us to go into some new areas in today's conversation compared to last time. But I do think that's such an important point that we should reiterate that for people who have never heard it before. Right. So I think a lot of people are aware that for a variety of reasons, maybe our sedentary lives, maybe our smartphones and our laptops, that, you know, our necks are often, or our heads are jutting out. Right. We're no longer. I mean, if someone takes a side on view and takes a photo, for a lot of people, they'd probably be quite shocked at what their posture is doing. How does that affect movement? I'm trying to take this away from running. How does it also affect walking? You know, why is it important that your head is on? Right.
- [12:02]
A
Yeah. So it's heavy. It's really heavy. On average, an adult head weighs about five kilos on average. And the further forward it is, there's a mass management effect going on in the rest of the Body, So our entire being, from when we are born as a blob to within three months, we need to have head control. So when the baby is pulled towards the person by their arms, the baby should have control of the head and the head should come with. So it's all about this precious commodity, our sensory headquarters. And I always say, no pun intended, but I always love it, that it is sensory headquarters. It is if we are upright on two little feet, which are very mobile, 66 joints down there, a quarter of the bones in the body, they are designed to be flexible adapters and rigid levers. So they're busy down there on the ground helping us stay balanced and propelling us forward at whatever speed we want. Where our head sensory headquarters is so far away in you, a very long way away in some not quite so far away, but it's still relatively far away. So the whole process of, of our movement patterning is to get from A to B in, however, whatever speed we want to do without face planting, without falling backwards, without falling to the side. So our vestibular system, what does that mean, vestibular system? Vestibular. It's our inner ear mechanics informing us of where we are in space, our orientation.
- [13:44]
B
So it helps with balance.
- [13:46]
A
Yeah. So if you go up, I always think if we go to an extremity at one extreme, it's easy to understand everything. So the person who has no vestibular control, they think they're falling all the time, so they can be spread eagle on the ground and think that they are still falling. It's a horrendous condition because you can't move. So our vestibular system, our inner ear mechanics, help our head understand where we are in space. Our visual fields help our head understand where we are in space. And our proprioceptive, which is all the muscle spindle cells and the special cells and the tendons and the joint capsules which inform us on how our limbs are moving, how fast they are, all the forces to help us move around because we're movement animals without causing ourselves injury and without falling over. So our movement should be non injurious. And was the only thing that makes sense to me. We're not so badly made that we should be injuring ourselves every time we move. We move. And we are moving without face planting. We're moving without pain, without injury, and without face planting because of everything that's happening up here in the head. So the head is heavy. And there was an old way, which was quite fairly accurate, of understanding the effect of forward Head postures. And if the forward head has a tilt, then you've got an asymmetrical load to the left or to the right as well. So your. For every inch, this is old school. For every inch further forward that your head would be if it was perched effortlessly on its head, with maximum movement potential, you add the weight of another head.
- [15:40]
B
Hold on. For every inch forward your head is compared to what might be, you know, biomechanically optimum. Let's say you're effectively having the weight of another head. And you've already said that heads are very heavy. The average head is around five kilos. So that's a lot of weight to be adding onto your body. It's a lot of load, isn't it?
- [16:04]
A
Yeah. And then the new science coming through adds a little bit more detail. So our neck, our neck spine, it sort of returns, it has a curve inwards, but it ends up fairly upright at the end so that the head can perch nicely on top and we can move it around easily and we don't notice the weight of our head. If the end of your neck isn't returning to vertical and is leaning forward by 15 degrees, this 5 kilo weight is now its effective load through the neck spine and then through the rest of the body is now 12 kilos. You have that angle at 30 degrees and now the effective load of the head is 18 kilos. 30 degrees. I measure regularly. So people come in telling me that they've got weak glutes and weak core, and if they've got a forward head, they are epically strong, but they just don't realize how much energy they're wasting hanging onto their head.
- [17:08]
B
Yeah, there's a couple of points there for me. You have been doing this for three or four decades. People are coming to see you when they're desperate, when they've tried everything else. And as well as your clinical expertise, you've also got your machine, Doris, which we can talk about again, um, at some point, but you can very accurately measure what's going on in people's spine. And you're saying you regularly see people with a 30 degree, you know, position of the head relative to the rest of the body, and that's adding an extra 18 kilos effectively load onto that body.
- [17:47]
A
Yeah.
- [17:48]
B
Now, just for anyone who's needs another way of hearing that, just imagine you're going out for Your walk with 18 kilos in your backpack.
- [17:58]
A
Exactly.
- [17:59]
B
You would feel that.
- [18:00]
A
Yeah, that's heavy.
- [18:01]
B
Well, if you think about what is a luggage allowance typically on a Plane, Right.
- [18:06]
A
That's exactly what I mean.
- [18:07]
B
It's like 20 kilos or, you know, EasyJet allow 23 kilos as their luggage. Right?
- [18:11]
A
And look at the struggle people have lifting that up.
- [18:13]
B
One of the reasons I love your approach so much, Helen, is it's very holistic, right? It's about this idea that nothing in the body moves in isolation. The way something moves has an impact on something else. And I guess what you're saying is that whatever problems you might be having, knee, back, hip, foot, if your head is forward, before you get into the weeds, maybe it's worth looking at your head posture or your head position.
- [18:48]
A
It's often the elephant in the room. Because if any of the following appear on the list of Please can you help me with neck pain, shoulder pain, between the shoulder blades, pain, mid back pain, lower back pain, piriformis syndrome, glute pain, hip pain, knee pain, calf strain, repetitive calf strain, plantar fasciitis, knee, knee pain, any of those. I'm thinking, I wonder where their head is. So pretty much I'm wondering where people's heads are on a daily basis, which is why I talk about it so much now.
- [19:25]
B
It doesn't mean necessarily that for everyone with those symptoms, sorting out the head posture or at least improving, it is going to result in an alleviation of symptoms. But often it does.
- [19:37]
A
Often it does. If it's forward enough, it will be relevant. And it will be relevant because if it's forward enough, it has an effect on the spine. It makes the spine curve into a C. It's like imagine a Christmas tree decoration that's too heavy for its branch and it bows the branch over when our spine isn't in extension. So upright, not. Not deportment. I'm perfect with a book on my.
- [20:08]
B
Head, although I'm already starting to sit more upright. As you just said that our spinal.
- [20:14]
A
Extension offers us maximum movement potential. Upright gifts us the potential to move more in all planes of motion, where that joint has more than one plane of motion. As soon as we flex our spine, as soon as we go into the slouch position, we have that same three dimensional movement, but the range is less, so our movement potential is less. So then people get stuck in their movement patterns. They can't get out of whatever bias they have. Their head is forward enough to flex the spine, to effectively slouch the spine, to bend the spine over like a Christmas tree branch that's got this decoration that's too heavy. And now their movement range is limited, but they still Want to run faster. So they're pushing their ranges of motion with a spine that won't actually enable as soon as the spine is more extended, because it can be, then you can have automatically a bigger range of motion without trying, without pulling things, without stretching yourself into a bigger range of motion.
- [21:28]
B
For me, in our first conversation, Helen, I summarized the two main essences that I get from your approach. One, which is noticing and being and enhancing the awareness, your own awareness of what your body is doing. Okay. And the second sort of principle is about efficiency. How can we move more efficiently? Now that's relevant to every single person who is alive, right? Because it doesn't matter whether you're a runner or not. We all move. Even if it's just to move to your car, move from your car to the seat at your office, you're still moving your body. And the more efficiently you can move your body, the better. Why would you not want more efficiency? And more efficiency is usually going to result in less pain, depending on the cause of the pain. So I really like that idea of efficiency in it, and it speaks to what you're talking about with the heads. So many runners, particularly at this time of year. This is the time when, you know, people might have a marathon or the weather's starting to get lighter and they're excited about moving into spring and summer. You know, they're trying to get out there and push harder to get faster. I did talk about some of those concepts with Steven Seider a few weeks ago, the sports scientist professor from Norway. Just a wonderful conversation about how often we need to not push as much, basically. But I guess what I've experienced with you is moving quicker without trying. So you've improved my efficiency, my posture, all these things. And so I'm actually finding, oh, I feel I'm putting out the same effort, but I'm walking quicker, I'm running faster, but I'm not trying to.
- [23:21]
A
Yes. I don't know if it's because I'm innately lazy or I simply want to adventure further. So if I want to go further, I better make sure that every movement I make is as easy as possible. So people, as a for instance, they'll do an ultra, but they'll, they'll pack their poles away until they're tired. And I'll say, no, no, no, keep the poles out. Start using them right from the get go. Because with effective use of poles, whether you're walking or running, it doesn't matter. You can take 75% of the body weight off your Knees. There's a nice big clue for knees. The Finns did an amazing study quite a few decades ago, and they could get post cardiac surgery patients back to moving more quickly to help the healing, to help strengthen the. By using poles, because it became a whole body activity. Instead of their upper body being a sack of potatoes on their pelvis, instead of the upper body sagging and poorer circulation around the heart, making life, making the heart pump harder and making life harder for legs, making exercise harder, making people not want to do it with poles, the whole body starts to move, the arms start to engage that. Now the upper body is dynamic. You're not a sack of potatoes on the pelvis now you're slightly more extended, so there's more circulation around the heart. And they had massive improvements in the outcomes for the surgery. Cardiac surgery patients, and as a sort of accidental side effect of better movement patterns, a lot happier knees. Because these older patients, generally with the chronic heart disease, they. It didn't just have chronic heart disease, they had other things like arthritis of knees. So lots of people want to run, but they can't get to that next stage without things hurting. So it's not the running that's causing the pain, that they're already in trouble, even just moving around.
- [25:34]
B
I want to talk about ego, right. And you must see this a lot.
- [25:39]
A
I feel it a lot, too.
- [25:41]
B
You feel it a lot?
- [25:41]
A
Yeah.
- [25:42]
B
You're a human being, right?
- [25:43]
A
Yeah, we all suffer from ego.
- [25:45]
B
But you said that a lot of ultra runners. And first of all, perhaps for people who don't know what an ultra is, could you just expand? What is an ultra?
- [25:52]
A
Well, it's anything beyond a marathon. But the purists will have you believe that. Well, you must have hit 30 miles. It can't be. 26.3 miles would be technically an ultra.
- [26:05]
B
So a marathon's 26.2. Technically, anything above that is an ultra is an ultra. But people in the business, as it were, don't really consider an ultra till it's 30 miles.
- [26:17]
A
Yes. And more.
- [26:19]
B
So you just said that in ultras, a lot of people won't use their poles until they're tired. Now, it's really interesting because I think ego gets in the way of humans achieving their potential in all things in life. So let's take movement for a minute. That's one example. And of course, it may not just be ego, then there may be other reasons, but I'm sure for some of them, they will consider it. Well, that's cheating. You know, I'm not gonna do that until I absolutely have to. Right. There's run walk strategies.
- [26:59]
A
Oh, that's a big one.
- [27:01]
B
Right. For frankly parkrun half marathons. Marathons. But people seem to have this reluctance. They think it doesn't count unless you run the entire way. Now I've learned a lot about run walk through my work with you over the last four years now, Helen, but you still hear this stuff. You know, I'm not going to run a marathon. I'm not going to do a marathon unless I can do the whole thing. That's going to run the whole way. But if we make the evolutionary case for running and we think about humans as persistent hunters. Right. We weren't, yeah, sure, we could cover 20 miles, but we weren't running the entire way. You know, we were tracking an animal. We'd run a little bit, then we'd stop, we'd have a look. We, we'd probably hide whatever it might be. Right. So I don't know, talk to me about ego and how that gets in the way of people reaching their full movement potential. Just taking a quick break to give a shout out to AG1, one of the sponsors of today's show. AG1 has been in my own life for over five years now. It is a science driven daily health drink with over 70 essential nutrients to support your overall health. It contains vitamin C and zinc which helps support a healthy immune system, something that is really important, especially at this time of year. It also contains prebiotics and digestive enzymes that help support your gut health. And all this goodness comes in one convenient daily serving that makes it really easy to fit into your life no matter how busy you feel. It's also really tasty as well. Now the scientific team behind NG1 includes experts from a broad range of fields including longevity, preventive medicine, genetics and biochemistry. And I talk to them regularly and am really impressed with their commitment to making a top quality product. For listeners of my podcast, AG1 are giving a special exclusive offer. You can get a free one year supply of vitamin D and K2 and five free travel packs with your first order. These packs are perfect for keeping in your backpack, office or car. If you want to give them a try, just go to drinkag1.com livemore ever have one of those days when everything seems to go wrong and before you know it you've slipped back into those habits you're trying so hard to avoid? Like sugar, doom scrolling and wine. When it comes to making changes in our lives that actually last, most people think the solution is to try harder. But this is simply not the case. In my new book, Make Change that Lasts, I reveal how exactly you can break free from the habits that hold you back. What many of us don't realize is that our behaviors follow our beliefs. So when you change your beliefs, and my book will show you how to do that, you'll spend less time having to think about your habits because they'll happen automatically. Make Change that Lasts, the number one Sunday Times bestseller is available to buy now all over the world as a paperback ebook and as an audiobook, which I am narrating. And if you've not got your copy yet, what are you waiting for?
- [30:44]
A
I worked with a lovely lady who she needed to get a certain time at the London Marathon to qualify for World Championships. Okay, so a good runner, she's going.
- [30:57]
B
For the world Championships.
- [30:58]
A
Well, in her age group. So that's not to dismiss her achievements at all. She was a regular person. She wasn't an elite athlete, she's not a pro athlete. She just loved her running and she was going to be able to, for her age group, qualify for world champion of. And it wasn't in marathon running, it was just an activity, running activity. And she just needed this time. And the time was 4 hours 30 minutes, which is a reasonable time. And she was 60 years old. So it's to put in context that there's an age group and this is a reasonable time. It's not super fast and it's not.
- [31:44]
B
Slow, but 4 hours 30 is a, it's a pretty good going time, you would say, for a 60 year old.
- [31:50]
A
So for. I would be thrilled if I did a marathon in that time now. So it is. There's always context and there's always. If you Google average times, Google will put us into a very bad place when we talk about what we should be doing. Again, this is ego. So anybody who finishes a marathon is completely brilliant. Cause it's a very long way. And those that finish it in a short time, as we've said before, the party bus is at the back. The heroes are at the back because they're out for so much longer. The ones who are done and dusted in all endurance events in the shortest time, yes, they work. They work harder. Well, and it's not even. They don't work harder. They're more capable. They get the job done quicker. They may be more efficient. And actually it's the people at the back that are working hardest of all because they've got more repetitions and they're getting more and more and more fatigued so that's to caveat anybody who gets upset that 4:30 is a reasonable. For some that would be, you know, the pinnacle. But it has to be in the context of what we're talking about. So with this lady, she needed that time to qualify and she had an Achilles injury and she hadn't been able to train and the marathon was now two weeks away and she'd all but given up hope. So we looked at why she had an Achilles problem. It wasn't a difficult problem, but she hadn't done enough training. And I said, right, okay, well put this stimulus in to help the Achilles. The Achilles was. There was nothing wrong with the Achilles. She was leaning on it. So she was only leaning that way towards that side. So the other side was basically having a bit of a holiday. So we put input in to help her get to more upright viewed from the back. So she wasn't leaning forward, she was leaning to the side. And so that alleviated the load of the Achilles. And then she said, well, but I can't, you know, I can't. The furthest I run was 11 miles and that was months ago. I said, right, okay, so we walk run, don't worry about it. So do repeat that 11 miles, but let's do a walk run strategy. So every. Let's. And we worked it out with how she felt. So we experimented a bit while she was with me and I think we started with a three minute run and a one minute walk and she was golden. She went off that weekend and she completed 11 miles. She hadn't run for about three months. She completed 11 miles with amazing alacrity because she didn't feel tired at all at any point, even though she hadn't done any training and there was no Achilles pain. And I said, and she said, well, of course there's only now one weekend left. I feel as if you're going to tell me I should just relax and rest, but my brain won't let me. I will stress. And so there's always this weighing up. Yes. For some people a taper starts quite far back and you just keep them moving.
- [35:14]
B
For others, can you just explain what taper means?
- [35:16]
A
So when you've peaked for whatever event you're doing, you've done all of your training and now you're resting your body so that you start when you're on the start line fresh and you're not tired. So many people arrive on the start line and they're tired and this is overtraining and it's often the precursor to an injury. So by all logic, she should have rested. Should have. But her body would have been in such a state of nerves and anxiety because of the worry that she hadn't done enough, that for her brain space, for her mental calmness, she needed to go out the following weekend. And so I said, okay, so if you're gonna go out, go with less running and more walking. So from memory, I think she flipped it. So I think it was maybe two, one. Anyway, it was less. And she completed 17 miles.
- [36:22]
B
Two minutes running, one minute walking.
- [36:24]
A
Yeah, something like that. Yeah, something like that. It was less than before, simply because we needed to make sure that she.
- [36:30]
B
Wasn'T instantly going into overtraining, Resistant to doing walk running. Because I know you've had clients before who were very resistant. Was she resistant or.
- [36:37]
A
She was. At that point, she was willing to give anything.
- [36:39]
B
So she's open to it.
- [36:41]
A
So when people have a need to let go of ego, they will let go of ego. And then progress can often be made. So she needed to do whatever it took because there was now hope. The carrot was dangling. She'd had no pain after 11 miles. So she gave it a go. She went off and she did 17 miles. She didn't get tired, and she didn't have any Achilles issues.
- [37:09]
B
This is after a few months of not running at all.
- [37:12]
A
Not running because of an injury.
- [37:14]
B
So she does 11 miles one weekend, 17 the next weekend. Using a run walk strategy.
- [37:20]
A
Yes, yes. And then the next weekend was the marathon. So she had a strategy. Cause she'd worked it all out for her timing to be able to access this qualification. So it was like, well, okay, we'll put it all out on the table. Do everything you can and see what happens. And she had, on her back, she had a little note saying, because so many people, when you're walking and I'm used to this, you can do it. You can do it. And I'm walking and I'm thinking, I know I can. This is my strategy. And thank you. And I'm always thanking everybody.
- [37:58]
B
Yeah. Before my London marathon a couple of years ago, I did a few half marathons. And I remember, like, I think I was on a five, two or something. Five minutes running, two minutes walking. And when you're walking, people are like, go on, mate. It's all right, it's all right. You know, push through. You can do it. And it's coming from love, from those guys. Because we're conditioned as a society that, aren't we, to think that I, you know, I can't help but think this is more of a Western than an Eastern thing. Genuinely. And I say that having grown up, being exposed to both of these cultures, Indian family, background at home, born and brought up in the uk, going to school here and growing up here, that. I don't know. I don't know. It seems like you gotta push hard, you gotta work hard, you gotta leave it all out there on the table or it didn't count.
- [38:51]
A
Yes.
- [38:52]
B
And I'm moving away from that now in my life. I'm like, you know, I'm tired of that. I don't want to.
- [38:56]
A
Why?
- [38:56]
B
Why does everything need to hurt?
- [38:58]
A
Wouldn't it be amazing to live in a world where on these big events and you saw people walking, you'd be like, yes, well done. That looks like a great strategy. You look as if you know what you're doing. Bravo with the walking. That would be. I would think I've arrived in heaven if I ever saw that.
- [39:16]
B
We'll get there. We'll get there, Helen.
- [39:17]
A
Yeah, we're just going to get the message out. So this lady, oh, my goodness. She puts a sign on her T shirt of just a wonderful lady. She puts a sign on a T shirt saying, run, walk, strategy. And it was to warn the runners behind her, don't get too close, because at random moments to you, but on a strict schedule, for me, I'm going to stop running and go into a walk. So don't be right behind me, don't be clipping my heels. It's very bad form anyway to tap anybody's heels. So she had this strategy and she did five minutes run, one minute walk throughout the entire marathon. And she wrote to me. And so not only did she blast her goal time out the water, so she did it in, I think from memory it was 4 hours 19.
- [40:13]
B
So she beat the qualification time by 11 minutes easily. Had she ever done walk running before?
- [40:18]
A
No.
- [40:19]
B
No. Okay, so she does water run. Did you say five? One. Five minutes running, one minute walking. Okay.
- [40:23]
A
So her average pace was epic. And she wrote and said it wasn't just that she had qualified, it was the experience of the last six miles. She said, I had so much fun on the last six miles. Who says that in a marathon? Who says, oh, the last six miles, oh, it was so much fun. People don't say that the last six miles is generally. It's hard. You know, you've hit the 20 mile mark, there's another six miles to go. It doesn't seem like much, but when you've done 20 miles already, it's a lot. And so it's degrees of hard work verging on torture for many. And lots of people are in pain. And she enjoyed it because she wasn't tired, she wasn't in pain and she wasn't tired because she had been recovering as she went. And this is the point that the ultra distance runners, the endurance athletes, and not, not athletes, pro athletes, but just people who bumble around all day. For me, the longer it takes, the better it is. I've been out having a longer adventure, having more fun, more bang for buck, as far as I'm concerned. So I'm very happy to be out all day and as long as I'm not getting lost, which is very common, but that's beside the point. So you're out all day, you're enjoying yourself and you're recovering on the hoof. And the science has now caught up with what the endurance athletes have always known, that you think you can't take another running step, you walk for a bit and suddenly you can run again. So you walk, run. When you're off road, the terrain tends to put you into the ability or the common sense to that hill, which you would expend way too much energy running if you were to run it, when you've still got a very long way to go. So endurance athletes doing an ultra will walk sections where they know that if they ran it, it would be inefficient because they would be more tired. They can get to the top of the hill with less energy if they walk and sometimes faster than if they ran. I have overtaken uphill runners when I've been walking because. Because they're so tired, but they're wanting to. Do they run this every step?
- [42:42]
B
It doesn't count. Unless you ran it. Yeah, it's funny to think where that came from.
- [42:48]
A
So the amazing book Endure by Alex Hutchinson. The science has caught up and has told us that we are recovering. Our muscles are literally healing whilst we're walking, not when we've stopped and put our feet up and had an ice bath or a Epsom salts bath or whatever rocks your boat. You are recovering and healing whilst you are walking. So you can still be making progress within your body, making progress in the event whilst putting one foot in front of the other. So don't stop, don't stop and stretch, walk, walk it out. If something hurts, go into a walk. If you feel tired, go into a walk. The answer is always keep moving, go into a walk and see what happens.
- [43:36]
B
I mean, you've had athletes, haven't you break hours at marathons or three and a half hours, even those sort of times using run walk strategies.
- [43:42]
A
Yes.
- [43:43]
B
Which I think people who are in the running world would go really well. Really?
- [43:48]
A
Because your average pace remains high. Yeah.
- [43:50]
B
You don't get that sudden fatigue where it all starts to go downhill at.
- [43:54]
A
The end, which is less speed for more effort. The epitome of inefficiency.
- [44:00]
B
Yeah. You know, I often talk about the impact of chronic stress on the bodies. And the way I often explain it is through the lens of something I call the stress threshold. Right. So assuming that you wake up fully rested and calm and you are, you know, you're feeling good. Right. You're quite far away from your stress threshold. But throughout the day you accumulate lots of doses of stress, what I call micro stress doses. And bit by bit, they're getting you closer and closer. And at some point, the last hit of micro stress takes you to and beyond your stress threshold, which is when you shout at your partner, you snap at your kids, your back goes into spasm, your neck goes, whatever it might be. And we think it was the last thing that happened that was the problem. But it wasn't the last thing that happened. It wasn't the email you got at Friday at 4pm, it was the fact that you'd been getting closer and closer to your stress threshold. So when I hear you talk about run walk strategies for, you know, anyone frankly wants to go on a hike in the hill at the weekend or they want to do a marathon or a little adventure, whatever it might be. That's the thing, isn't it? If you think about it, through a work day, if work was really busy 9 to 11, you're accumulating stress and tension. If you were able to take a 15 minute walk around the block, at that point, you just decompress a little bit. So you're staying. You're constantly doing something that's keeping you away from your stress threshold. But if you work through work, through lunch without a break, you're gonna be much more reactive and problematic in the afternoon. It's the same kind of thing, isn't it?
- [45:41]
A
It's a great analogy. It's a really good analogy because if you keep going, if you keep running because you think that you should be running because you've gone for a run, if you keep running, you will fatigue, everybody will fatigue at some point. Even Kipchoge will fatigue at some point. But by backing off that different gait pattern where everything comes off the ground and now you have energy expenditure in shock absorption because you've got more landing forces to mass manage and you're landing on a little itsy bitsy bit of foot and propelling off that same itsy bitsy bit of foot. Whereas when you're walking, there's always one. There's always one foot in contact with the ground. You're never free of the ground. So if you keep going, you will fatigue and then you've fatigued.
- [46:41]
B
Injuries happen.
- [46:42]
A
Yeah. So now you're operating from a state of, well, I'm tired now. So now if you're keeping going, there's degrees of more tired. Whereas if you start the walk around strategy, don't wait until you're tired, don't do anything waiting, oh, I'll do that when I'm tired. Start as you mean to go on so that you don't get tired. That's the point. And it can be equal. So there's lots of one, one. And mostly people think that they should run more than they walk. But I frequently suggest to people they walk more than they run and it can be a lovely recovery set so that you walk for nine minutes and run for one. Just loosen up, but don't overly stress the system. And that's still a really great way to recover from, you know, a harder interval session, maybe on hills. So there's no rules apart from. So for me, the only rule of thumb is because it's always a heuristic, isn't it? So the rule of thumb is avoid doing it continually. Even walking every single step of the way is hard because it's the same activity. So when I walked 100km, it was much harder than run, walking the hundred kilometers because we want variety. Yes. The body switching it up and changing gears. The body enjoys because you get into this less repetitive, almost like a rsi, almost like repetitive strain. The same thing over and over again. The brain switches off, it gets tired. As soon as the brain's tired, the body is tired. So by keeping switching it up, it's easier on the body, it's easier on the brain, which is of course in control of the body. Yeah, it's a bit of a soapbox.
- [48:38]
B
Thinking about what we celebrate in society and how that cultural conditioning impacts how we think and how we operate in the world. What else do people celebrate at the end of a half marathon or a 10K or a. A marathon, it's that person who does look as though they're done, they're hunched over, they can't do it anymore, but they're sweating and they're pushing through. And we love. And I would be celebrating that and going, well done, mate. Well done, mate. You can do it. And again, I'm not saying we shouldn't celebrate that, but wouldn't it also be great if we gave the same level of celebration to that person who's still looking calm, cool, collected at the end in really good posture? I mean, as you know, I spoke to Eliud Kipchoge a couple of years ago on this podcast, one week exactly after he broke the world record at that time, and for people who don't know, he's still the only person to have run a marathon in under two hours that we know of. And that was in, you know, certain conditions. It doesn't count as an official world record, all that sort of stuff. But one thing I said to him, I'm pretty sure, and one thing I've always enjoyed about watching him is that to me, he never looks as though he's trying. Even when he was breaking his world record, right? And just over two hours to do a marathon, I'm pretty sure, because that was in Berlin. From recollection, he didn't look at the end as though he was pushing through. He had his Kipchoge smile, on, which he often does when he's in pain. But he looked. His posture was great. It looked relaxed.
- [50:24]
A
It is a point of principle, and you could argue pride, but it's the principle of if you know how to use your body well, you better make sure you're still doing it when you're tired, because if you're not using it well, when you're tired, it's harder. So as a point of principle, my goal on anything I do, I need to look the same at the end as I do at the beginning. It's easy to look great when you're fresh, and it does you no good service to allow your body, allow yourself to go along with the feeling within your body of fatigue. So allow yourself to slump, allow yourself to feel heavy, allow your legs feel heavy so you're dragging them along, but that is making life harder. I did a little skit on Insta because this comes through as questions. I'm really good until miles, so and so. And then I collapse. Okay, well, number one, walk, run strategy so that you hit that fatigue level either never or later. And number two, know what you're doing. And it is. People get closer to the ground, their knees bend, they're kind of squat running, their arms are flailing all over the place, their head Hangs forward. We already know about the weight of the head now, so they're carrying a, I don't know, 30 kilo backpack whilst they're absolutely exhausted. So it stands to reason that things are now harder. But if they could just find that small amount of mental effort. It's not physical effort. You lose the physical effort. It's the mental effort to, okay, where's my head? I want to find that lovely wibbly, wobbly place. I can do the groaningly good. So I might, as I run, press my hands on my upper chest and drag the skin down. And it's like that opposition reflex we see in dogs. You push, I push, you pull, I pull, you pull down. And so often in people, you want to push against that traction, pulling down. And instantly you're in this position of maximum movement, potential easy movement. You are less heavy on your feet and you can continue even though you are aware that you're tired, you're moving more freely within your fatigue and you are faster for less effort even though you're tired.
- [53:10]
B
I want to direct a question to somebody who is listening, because there will be absolutely someone, and I've got someone in mind who I know who listens to this podcast, who probably wouldn't consider run walking because it doesn't count. It's not running. Right. And so my question to that person, or to anyone, let's say. Cause we're coming into marathon season, so of course most of my listeners are probably not doing marathons, but there's quite a lot of them who are. I've got a question for those people. Let's say you want to do a marathon in 4 hours 30 minutes for argument's sake, and you think you have to run it. What would it look like for you if you did a run walk and you did it in 4:30 and you enjoyed the whole experience and the last half an hour was actually really good fun. You could take it all in. You weren't struggling and pushing compared to running all the way struggling in the last six miles, it being painful. Yeah. People cheering you on. What if you were to get the Same time right, 4:30, but one was done effortlessly, relatively. One was done really enjoyably, but the other one was done pushing and it was a struggle. How would that feel? And then, and I think this is a wider point over the run walk strategy and walking in general is what's the recovery for you going to be like in the aftermath of that marathon? Because you can be damn sure if you pushed hard, it's going to take you quite a few weeks to recover. But if you've run walked, your recovery is going to be a lot less. What do you say Helen? Today's episode is sponsored by vivobarefoot. So if you've been listening to my podcast for a while, you will know that I am a huge fan of barefoot shoes and believe that everyone at some point in their life should try wearing them. I myself have been wearing Vivo Barefoot shoes exclusively now for over 11 years, well before they started supporting my podcast. So why do I think you should give them a go? Well, not only are they really comfortable, many people also find that when they start wearing them, all kinds of niggles like back pain, knee pain, hip pain, even neck pain can sometimes get better. We also know from research that wearing barefoot shoes regularly helps to strengthen your foot muscles. Now this is really important. People think about strengthening their arms in the gym or other body parts, but your feet muscles are some of the most important muscles in your body. They help you walk, interact with the ground and balance. So now that spring is finally here and many of you will be trying to get outside more and move your bodies, why not give vivobarefoot shoes a try? One of my all time favorites is the Primus Trail, which come in a variety of different colors for men and women. And although I've been wearing them for many years now, I do think that the Primus Trail are a great shoe to start off with if you're new to barefoot shoes. So why not make 2025 the year you give them a go? And don't forget it is completely risk free to do so because VEVO offer a 100 day trial for new customers. So if you're not happy you can just send them back for a full refund if you go to vevobarefoot.com livemore they are giving 20% off as a one time code to all of my podcast listeners. Terms and conditions apply. To get your 20% off codes all you have to do is go to vivobarefoot.com forward slash live. More.
- [57:29]
A
All logic points me in the direction of, well, why would you punish yourself for this concept of you must run every step? I don't know where it came from. It certainly didn't come from evolution. So it came from somewhere.
- [57:49]
B
So Mother Nature didn't prescribe it?
- [57:51]
A
No. And man has man made all of these events that we sign up to and then even when we know we shouldn't, we start anyway because we said we would. And there's fear of missing out and fear of letting people down and so much fear around it instead of it just being this. Well, that's my goal. And, oh, it wasn't to be for so many reasons, because life is messy. This linear life that we all think we live in, it certainly doesn't exist in my world. I have a very messy life. My universe is a complete chaos and I enjoy every moment for what it is. So there's no every time people get a T shirt or a medal or any kind of post event pack. It isn't given to you on that. Did you rent every single step? Is it engraved on the back? Oh, well done. You did that. 4 hours 30. You ran every step. Nobody cares how you got there. You got there. That's where the applause is. You did this, you started here, you finished there. And all glory to you if you manage to finish it. All glory to you if you manage to even get to the start line, frankly. And then it's how you punished yourself, how you used your body with innate kindness. You know, some would argue that running a very long way isn't very kind.
- [59:24]
B
Depends how you do it.
- [59:25]
A
And it depends on who you are. So for some, that brings them great joy. For me, it brings me great joy. It's my most favorite thing in the world to go out for an adventure. So I don't care how long it takes me. So you. But how you approach it and how you navigate getting from A to B then has rolling ramifications that can last. It can last years.
- [59:54]
B
You mean if you push yourself beyond what you are ready and capable of doing? Yes. The human mind is very powerful. You can push through and finish the event and get the T shirt and get the medal. But you may have 6, 12, 18 months of discomfort and injury and pain afterwards if you weren't ready for it.
- [60:19]
A
Yes. So it runs the gamut from immense fatigue, irritability, unable to function with your job, enable brain fog, an extended period through injuries all the way through to chronic fatigue. So it's not that that will happen, but it does happen. And it happens with monotonous regularity. And you just think if so many people, you know, this lovely lady had a chat with one of her friends at the club and said, and who was injured and said, oh, look this, you know, remember I was in, I'm now running and I'm gonna do the marathon. And he was, what did you do? Oh my goodness, what did you do? Oh, no, I couldn't possibly do that. No, no, I couldn't possibly.
- [61:11]
B
I couldn't do.
- [61:12]
A
Run, walk, just blanket. No and so then it's not him per se. It is the world we live in that we. We are left feeling that we have this. We have somehow failed if we don't perform that. There's some kind of performance rule out there that makes no sense to me. And it doesn't really work with human bodies and how we move.
- [61:43]
B
I think it's a wider point there for me, Helen, which is this idea that so many of us have or subscribe to invisible belief systems that keep us stuck and trapped. And often I find it helpful for myself, but also the people I talk to. It's helpful to try and go more upstream and go, well, what belief must I be holding in order for this to be true? Right. So that lady who, by taking your advice, doing the run, walk strategy, she does the marathon in 4, 19, 11 minutes faster than she needed. Right. And she did it injury free. She enjoyed it. You would think, by all logic, that when she tells her buddy at the running club who's also struggling, you would think that he would be, oh, my God, that sounds amazing. Tell me more. You know, I want to learn that. So tell me what you did. How did you figure out your own, what strategy? But from what I understand, the response was, no, I couldn't do that. That's a limiting belief, right? That is a limiting belief. This applies to so many areas in life beyond movement. What limiting belief do you have? Where are you getting stuck? What must you subscribe to in order for this to be keeping you stuck? And, I mean, this is kind of what I'm writing about for my next book, which is basically, what if you go even further upstream and actually unpick that and go, well, what if I didn't believe that it only counts when I run? Well, hold on a minute. If I didn't subscribe to that belief, then there's a whole world of opportunity that is open to me.
- [63:27]
A
I might get out more, I might get out more.
- [63:29]
B
I might not be injured. I might not be as moody with my partner when I get back because I haven't pushed so hard.
- [63:36]
A
And how many studies have popped out, especially since COVID that are stating the things that people who move already know, that the more you move, the better your mental health. And it's almost, why is there another study? Studies keep coming out. We absolutely know this. But there's study after study after study after study. And yet there are still more studies being done about, if you move more, you'll have better mental health. We are movement animals. To not move shuts us down on every level it is. We're not. So for me, we're not a body moving. Our entire being moves. So our mental health improves because it's our entire being that is moving. Our thoughts are moving and our body is moving, and there is no separation. They used to think that the cerebellum, which is the signal box of the brain, which is one of my favorite areas of the brain, because easy gains here. So easy. So the signal box of the brain was only for movement. Now they know it's for cognitive thought. And of course, because movement of thought, movement of body, they originated in exactly the same movement patterns when we were a blob moving through to being upright. They come from the same origin. All of our movements of thought and body originate in reflexes. All of our movements of body and movements of thought are the same thing. They're not separate. But it's too big. In order to learn, we chunk everything down, but then we forget to connect the dots back together again. And I think that if we can encourage more movement through run walk strategies. Walk run strategies. Just switch up the gears, do a couple of not even a minute, 10 trotting steps. I have done many an Ironman marathon counting my steps. Okay, I'm gonna do 50 steps of running, but it was all I could manage. So 50 steps, and then I'd walk for 100. And then I'd gradually recover and I'd be doing 50 walking steps and 100 running steps.
- [66:06]
B
So the walking helps you recover?
- [66:08]
A
Yes. You. Yes. Your energy returns not because you're not puffed out anymore. It's nothing to do with your huffing and puffiness. It's to do with the mitochondria being able to release the energy in the muscles for you to keep going. And for the muscle fibers, there are anti inflammatory cells that start the work of dealing with inflammation that's in the muscles as a result of the muscle work. So that you reduce that inflammation as you move.
- [66:38]
B
Yeah. Let's go back to head position. Okay. Some people heard our first conversation. They were able to apply that. Look in the mirror. Just think about it when they were walking and go, oh my God, I've got my head forward. If I put it back, how does this feel? And they got improvement. As you said before, sometimes their knee pain went, or their foot pain went, or their shoulder pain, whatever it might be, a lot of downstream consequences started to get better. But some people haven't contacted you to say, I don't know where my head is. So for that person, how do you help them.
- [67:13]
A
Yeah. And isn't that extraordinary? So it speaks volumes for what might not be happening within their system that they don't know where their head is. They can't find their head. So. So our body, our skin is our biggest organ. And it has all sorts of receptor cells in it to feed information to our brain. So our brain has awareness. So when people can't find their head, and there were many people, lots of success, happy stories, which was just delightful. And I hear what you're saying, but I can't find it. I've got absolutely no idea where it is. How do you do that? I don't understand. They. They didn't even actually express that they couldn't find it. They didn't compute the question. What do you mean? What do you mean? What do you mean? Where is my head? I don't understand the question.
- [68:03]
B
It's a little bit like Helen or I think it is my entire life, you know, I've always been interested in health and fitness. And I've said before, you know, When I was 13 or 14, I used to get Men's Health and read about all these exercises and do them incorrectly, probably. But I always remember whenever anyone would talk about shoulder blades, like, I almost switched off. I didn't know what they were talking about. Yes, I know, especially from medical school, I know anatomically where the shoulder blade is, what it does. I've learned all that. Right. But it didn't land with me. And I think that's become clear over the last few months, hasn't it? Because I just didn't know where my shoulder blades were. So therefore, when I'm reading it and saying, or, you know, what are your shoulder blades doing? I would say I don't really know. Like, I don't know where my shoulder blades are. And I'm pretty body aware. So for me, that was almost a dark zone. Right?
- [68:59]
A
Yeah. And it's a disconnect.
- [69:01]
B
Why?
- [69:02]
A
Yes. So if you think about it doesn't compute. And this is our most precious commodity, and you see it in the mirror every time you look at yourself.
- [69:12]
B
So the head's the most precious commodity.
- [69:14]
A
Because it houses the brain, without which we can't do anything. And they don't understand the question. So there is a disconnect within their system somewhere that enables them to even say that. So we use skin. Skin informs our being of where things are, is one of the ways. It's one of the most productive ways. So I get everybody to lie on their back. Just. Just lie on your back Put if your head needs to be on a cushion for comfort, because it's so far forward and you have no idea it's so far forward, which is why it's got so far forward, because you didn't know anything about it. So if you need to put cushions underneath your head for comfort, please do. Don't force yourself to lie flat on your back because you know, that's what we all should be able to do. If it's not comfortable, your brain is not going to be paying attention anyway. So get comfortable, lie on your back and feel your head, because it'll be touching something. Then we have the crown of the head. So I often say to people who don't know where their head is, who don't compute the question, touch the crown of your head and they'll touch the top of their head. And of course, the crown is the squirrely whirly bit of the. Your hair, if you have any, or the bald bit, if you don't have any. So when you're lying on your back, it's where the top of the head meets the back of the head. So currently it's where my locks are tied up there. And if you press down there and wiggle it around in all directions, it's why massages at the hairdressers feel so delightful. There are so many proprioceptors in there for your sense of, oh, that feels nice. But you're feeling it. The point is, you're feeling it.
- [71:13]
B
You used the word proprioception there. What does that mean for people who've never heard it?
- [71:18]
A
Well, when you're moving, proprioception is the body's awareness of itself when in motion.
- [71:23]
B
I think what we learned in medical school was it's, you know, proprioception is an awareness of where you or your limbs are in space.
- [71:32]
A
Yeah. Spatial awareness. Yes. And there's a disconnect of spatial awareness if you don't understand the question of where is your head?
- [71:40]
B
So you don't know where your head is. So the first thing for people who don't have that awareness, where there's some sort of block, is you could use skin. So you press on the crown, you squidge it around.
- [71:52]
A
Yep. Lie on it. So the back of the skull has got inflammation.
- [71:56]
B
Oh. So hold on, you're on the floor. So the floor is giving the skin at the back of your head input. That. That's where I am. Your hand is going on your crown, which is giving that part of the skin input. This is where your crown is. That is what's sending signals to the brain saying, here I am. This is where these body parts are.
- [72:14]
A
Yeah. So you're making neuronal connections to, oh, my goodness, this is my head. And then you need to start the movement. So with, you can still have your hand on the crown of your head. And you want your head to be on something slippery. So I often use a document wallet underneath. A piece of paper will do. So what you don't want is the movement of your head to be disrupted by traction between your hair, if you have any, and the surface that you're lying on. So have something slippery between your head and what you're lying on, and then just start to nod and tip your head back within comfortable ranges. And because your hand is on your head and your head is on something, you're getting all sorts of information about where your head is. Then you can start a rotation and you'll get a sense of how close your ear is to the floor, to one side versus the other. And the more you do that, the more, number one, you get awareness of head. Number two, you start to realize that the head talks to the neck spine. And as you nod, it kind of pushes the neck spine backwards down to the bed. And you don't get a double chin. Your chin tissue gets retracted so that you get like a nice clean jawline. Instead of, you know, if my head is forwards and I just drop my chin down, I'm just. For the purposes of the people listening, I now have a proper double chin going on there. But if I'm lying on the floor and I'm nodding and my neck spine is following, then I don't get a double chin. So many people in my experience don't put their head on right. Because they've told me that when they do that, they get a double chin and they don't like it, but they're only getting a double chin because the head isn't speaking to the neck, which then won't be speaking to the thoracic spine, which then would mean that we don't get spinal extension.
- [74:18]
B
So let's just back up a minute. Right. So you said if you do this regularly, you're lying on your back. And then when you're. At the same time, you're putting your hand on your crown and squidging the top of the, you know, the scalp skin around, that's also giving sensory input.
- [74:35]
A
Cause that's an enormous tendon, if you like. There's a. There's. Yes, there's a. But there's a lot of Tendon.
- [74:42]
B
But you're saying we're getting information, but we're not getting. It's not so much cognitive information, is it?
- [74:50]
A
Brilliant.
- [74:51]
B
Because this is what I've learned over the last years of working with you, that it's not always cognitive, it's. You're giving input to your brain. And again, this is where kind of with such a thought and rational, thinking based society, Right. That we want to explain everything, we want to know the reasons, but actually sometimes we just want to feel it more, we just want to be more. And I guess you're giving input to your brain. Is it fair to say it's almost. You're giving subconscious input where you no longer having to think about it.
- [75:28]
A
Yeah. So it's a fundamental element of our movement patterning that our brain knows where everything is. That would seem to be fundamental. If our brain doesn't know where our living left arm is, do we think it's going to move with us as we move? Probably not.
- [75:44]
B
And Helen, sorry to interrupt you, but just to go on that logic for one more moment. If it can't all be cognitive because you have so many joints, muscles, tendons, articulations throughout the entire body, you can't go out for a walk and with your thinking brain, be thinking, my head's here, my shoulder's here, my hip's there, my knees here. It's just simply not possible. So it has to be below the level of consciousness. On some, you know, on some level.
- [76:19]
A
I would say yes, exactly. It can't be cognitive because, number one, it's so complex we don't understand, can't be cognitive. Number two, because we are not spending enough time on the ground for our brain to be able to individualize all of the joint movements. When we're walking, we might be on the ground for say 0.7 of a second. When you're running, say, probably maximum, generally Speaking, on average, 0.3 of a second, less than half that time of walking. So you can't micromanage your body cognitively whilst you move. And we don't need to. We're so well made, all the fundamentals should be in place. That's called movement development. Unfortunately, it's also called infant development, which means it's boxed into a certain period of life and then dismissed as irrelevant. And now the science is showing us it's not irrelevant. It is relevant throughout our lives. Will Smith, in the film Concussion, he has explained the science in a movie and it's sadly real. You know, it's based on the reality of NFL concussions and the aftermaths of them. So we know that the fundamentals of movement are with us our entire lives. They're like running in a lovely software background on which we build cognitive, more complex movement patterns.
- [77:52]
B
And some of us have some of those basic building blocks of movement, slightly disorganized, which is resulting in certain movement patterns when we're older, that causing pain or discomfort, whatever it might be. Regarding this exercise, I want to make sure that people are getting this and can use it themselves. Right. You work in a very. I was going to say, unusual way.
- [78:22]
A
Simple.
- [78:23]
B
Yeah, simple way. But I guess you tend to see people, one on one, who've struggled for years. Right. So they've tried everything. And that's not to be negative to any healthcare professional at all.
- [78:35]
A
Every single modality exists because it helped someone, someone and more than someone. So, you know, more than n equals 1.
- [78:43]
B
And so many people, of course, have seen people have got better and are getting on with their lives. Right, of course. But you're seeing people who, for whatever reason, those approaches haven't worked for some reason. And you've also got this machine. So I'd like you to explain for people who don't know who Doris is or what Doris is. And then secondly, and I think this is a key, really key point about movement, what I've experienced with you, Helen, is sometimes I'm doing the most, in my head, the most unrelated movement. Right. You've got me on Doris. You're measuring everything. You're seeing how my spine's moving and there's clearly an issue, or I'm not accessing a certain movement. Then you have me on the floor, and for maybe a few minutes, I'm doing some seemingly unrelated movements, like the one you just mentioned about lying on your back and starting to give yourself input about where your head is. So you do that, and then you go back onto the treadmill and suddenly you're moving completely differently. Right. It's remarkable when you've experienced that, because when you see that, it gives you 100% confidence that I need to do that exercise five minutes, twice a day for the next four weeks. Because I know that when I do it automatically, without me thinking about posture or putting my head on right, or whatever it might be, I'm moving differently. So could you help us put that together for the listener and also maybe share some examples of maybe some clients of yours who you did that exercise with and you saw an immediate improvement.
- [80:26]
A
So Doris is. She is my teacher, and I use her as both A tool to assist my thinking and to research hypotheses. She is the most advanced gait analysis tech in the world.
- [80:43]
B
There's only four, right?
- [80:44]
A
Well, there are more now, apparently. Yes, there's more. I think that there are still less than 10, but I think the 10. I think the 10th is about to be installed in India. I think that's the 10th.
- [80:55]
B
And so it's the most advanced gait analysis in the world. So I know that there's a treadmill.
- [81:02]
A
Yes.
- [81:03]
B
But there's also lots of other tech around it. You put stickers on me. Like, what do those stickers do?
- [81:09]
A
Well, they just assist. Doris doesn't need anything for standing still. So she is more accurate than an X ray. Up to. Even Doris has her limitations. Up to 30 km an hour, nobody has ever reached anywhere near there. I had a couple of elite athletes who thought that they were going to. No, I'm going to beat Doris. And the furthest they got was 21 kilometers an hour. And even then I thought that they were gonna ping off the end. So she's more accurate than an X ray for any speed that we need to measure. And when you're standing still, she needs no stickers. She only needs the stickers when you're moving. It's a point of reference. So she just needs guidance on exactly when you're moving, where the pelvis is and where the base of the neck is.
- [81:56]
B
But what you're measuring, like what my.
- [81:58]
A
Spine is doing as I'm moving in three dimensions.
- [82:02]
B
Right.
- [82:02]
A
So the side view movement of the spine, the left to right frontal plane movement. So anything that you can see from the baseline of a tennis court and the bird's eye view, the rotational movement of the spine and the pelvis, and simultaneously, not just the forces through your feet, but the pressures of you through your feet. So you have impact forces and you have your center of mass traveling through.
- [82:34]
B
The feet to me at least. Helen. Yes. Doris can do static measurements, and you've said that they're more accurate than an X ray. But then one of the problems, I would say, about X rays or CT scans or MRIs is that they're done whilst you are still, generally speaking. Right. So you're actually getting a representation of what's going on whilst you're moving.
- [82:58]
A
Yeah.
- [82:58]
B
Which is, I think, really, really key.
- [83:01]
A
I think that what's interesting about bodies is what do they do when they're standing still? Then what happens to them as they move at a variety of paces? Because wherever your frame is, when you're Standing still as you move, everything should be moving. Everything should change. Nothing should stay the same. So it's gifting us. So the importance. There is importance in anything that is measured statically because that is your frame. So it's not to negate anything. It's to say, okay, yes, that information is really useful. Then. Now we need to layer on top of that. What happens as we move? Does that all stay the same, or does it change?
- [83:50]
B
And actually, one of the things that you found with me over the past few years is that initially, at least, my body, I think, from recollection, was better running than walking.
- [84:00]
A
Yes, yes. So many.
- [84:02]
B
So many. Explain that. Why would that be the case?
- [84:05]
A
Because when you're running, you're free of the ground. So anything within the remit of contralateral movement. So opposite arm and leg twist through the system, which is our innateness as a human. So we're the only mammal that twists within the field of gravity. We don't have to bounce up and down like a kangaroo or rabbit. Neither do we have to slither like a slithery thing. So we twist in the field of gravity because we have this transverse plane twisting, rotational.
- [84:40]
B
So that's. What if someone's imagining walking? As their left foot goes forwards to keep going, they're like. Well, I don't. Their pelvis is actually orientated to the right. And as their right hand comes through. Please correct me if I'm wrong here, Helen, but what. Your chest is relatively orientated to the.
- [85:01]
A
Left, so it's easier for. If you're listening to. Just do it. You stick one arm in front of you, and that arm turns your ribcage away. You feel that?
- [85:13]
B
Yeah. Am I doing that?
- [85:14]
A
Yep. Turns it away. So it shouldn't pull you towards it, because then. Can you feel how tight that is? So if the reaching arm doesn't turn you away, how do you reach? So if you block. Conversely, if you don't let the ribcage move and stick your arm out at 90 degrees at shoulder height. Stick your arm. Can you feel that? You don't get anywhere. So forward. Stick it forward at the shoulder height, and you can't get anywhere. You can't reach or reach is limited until you allow the ribcage to rotate away from it.
- [85:50]
B
Okay. So we're the only mammal that's contralateral.
- [85:53]
A
And then the opposite leg will do the same. So the opposite. So if I've got my left arm forward, my right leg forward, my right leg is turning the pelvis away from it. Only I see plenty of Pelvises rotating into the lead leg, which is why there are so many problems. Okay, so we have this twist in the system where the opposite arm and leg are doing something at the front and the opposite arm and leg are doing something different at the back. And it is that twist through the system that when you're standing still, you might only have a rotation in one direction. The whole spine might be rotating in one direction. And then as you move, you don't go anywhere near that direction. You only go away from that direction. You only go in the opposite direction to that, and you return to it. So the point being is where you stand is part of the story, but.
- [86:58]
B
Not the whole story.
- [86:59]
A
It cannot be the whole story because we're movement animals. So it's okay. Well, and it's not necessarily what you think is going to happen. So you can look at somebody statically and think, oh, I hypothesize that so and so is gonna happen. But it often. I'm often surprised. I'm like, oh, I didn't expect that. I didn't. And I've seen, I don't know, thousands of people. I didn't expect that to happen. Oh, my goodness. Every day is a learning day. So there are so many strategies within a system. This is why we can't cognitively plan everything. We have. So many people call them compensations, and I think that's a little bit mean. Our body is so amazing. These are amazing strategies. So it stands like this, but it doesn't move like that at all. It has a strategy to do something else entirely to make movement as easy as possible for that person.
- [87:46]
B
With that context, one of the things we discussed in our first conversation was my emergency appendicectomy when I was 7 or 8 years old in India. And how our feeling was that that was still influencing my movements significantly as an adult. It was very, you know, tight, mucky, painful in there. And we could actually look at all my movements, and pretty much everything was done to avoid me closing that scar down. So I would do anything I wasn't even aware of. I'm only bringing this up because you're saying the body is amazing. My body is phenomenal because it was saying, hey, I don't really want to go and compress that area because there was a problem there. There was inflammation there, there was pus there. You had a inflamed appendix. Maybe that helped me whilst my appendix was inflamed. It sure ain't helping me now, in my 40s in terms of my movements. So it's really interesting. Is it? The body is amazing. The body will do whatever it has to do to keep you functioning and moving. And everything works. Until it doesn't.
- [88:54]
A
Yes. And the brain. Brain has so many potential connections that some brain scientists are saying that really, for anything human, the sky is the limit. So set the bar high. I would suggest to people, set the bar as high as you can. Because they haven't found the limit in human potential, which is why, of course, they have to keep rewriting the Guinness Book of Records. So this isn't just, you know, athletic prowess. This is on any subject. So if we can look at where. So somebody would come in and lots of the things that would have helped their friend. So their friend has said, oh, try stretching, because it helped them, and it helped a myriad of their friends, because stretching works for many, as does strength and conditioning, as do pain meds, as does surgery. What else is there out there? As does acupuncture, There are so many, as does meditation, as does massage. All of these modalities help many people, which is why they exist. And then when it hasn't helped. So this is in the context of, I've tried everything. But of course they haven't. They've tried what is commonplace. What is commonplace and what isn't commonplace, in my experience is looking at movement from the point of view of, well, have you got all of your fundamentals? Have you got organized movement at the level of just baseline? Does the brain, in terms of this awareness, spatial awareness, does the brain understand top, which is, of course, the head, bottom, which is the coccyx, not your feet, left, which would be all the way to the extremities of the hand and the extremities of the foot, and right again to the extremities of that side, the hand and the foot, and front and back. Does the brain have clarity, not cognitive clarity, innate fundamental spatial awareness of that organization? Because to go back to the question, why do people run better than they walk? Walking is contralateral movement, which is the front of the body is doing one thing, the back of the body is doing another. The top of the body is doing one thing, the bottom of the body is doing another, and you're doing it on a twist. So left and right are on a diago. You can't access that at any level of smooth efficiency. If the brain doesn't have fundamental spatial awareness of all of those things that I've listed already. When you're running, however, because no foot is in contact with the ground at some point the body is free. The body is. Now there's no reference point. The body is free. So. So any limitation in this fundamental movement pattern. So a common one I see is the shoulder girdle is really tight. So the shoulder girdle doesn't actually move when they're walking. And I will push the pace, and I do this so often, I will push the pace. So I'll ask them to walk, and everybody can do this. So walk freely. Just walk normally. Not as if anybody is looking at you. And you can do a selfie on a mobile phone. So you walk, and you'll just walk a few paces away from camera. So what you need to do is start walking and then appear in the camera so that you get a flow for your whole recording. Then you do the same. But now you're walking briskly, you're gonna be late, you're going to miss the train, but you're not allowed to run. So you're walking briskly. And I do that if I suspect. I'm not sure that that shoulder girdle moves. So when you're walking easily, maybe the shoulder girdle doesn't need to move. But if you're going faster, we want shoulder girdle and pelvic girdle harmony. The way we move is the shoulder girdle is arm, collarbone, shoulder blade. That's your shoulder girdle. Its movements tell the thoracic spine, the ribcage area, what to do. The pelvic girdle is the pelvis and the legs, and their movement feeds into the lumbar spine, the lower back, and then they sort of meet in the middle, and there's a little twisting action. It's a spiral, actually. So really organized, smooth, coordinated movement is the harmonious cooperation between the shoulder girdle, girdle and the pelvic girdle. The girdles are where the gold is. So I might see somebody walk, and I can clearly see the pelvic girdle is moving because they're putting one stride in front of the other. And the shoulder girdle is muted. And I'll think, oh, what's all that about? So maybe it's muted because they're not going very fast. And who needs to swing their arms if they're not going very fast? So I'll push the pace. So now their arms need to move. Otherwise, how are they moving? And what happens is the shoulders don't flex, but the elbows do. So the elbows bend. So the arm swings back, and then the shoulder comes forward as soon as the elbow is underneath the shoulder, all that happens is the elbow flexes. So they walk with their lower arms. They walk with their legs and their lower arms, not their whole arms.
- [94:59]
B
And the issue with that is what?
- [95:01]
A
So now the shoulder girdle is limiting the pelvic girdle, because there's no freedom in the shoulder girdle. There is limited. It limits the freedom in the pelvic girdle because they move in cooperation.
- [95:15]
B
So it could lead to pain. It could be the reason for your pain and discomfort.
- [95:19]
A
In my experience, it is commonly connected with hip pain.
- [95:26]
B
Yeah. So pain and protecting our joints in general is, I think, something that concerns a lot of people. You know, they want to move more. And I know we covered this right at the top about that. Running is not bad for your knees. Maybe the way you are currently running might be, but if we can change that, then it is not bad for your knees. Right?
- [95:46]
A
Yeah. And to just follow that through right now, now when you're running and you're not in contact with the ground and the arm doesn't need to swing from the shoulder anymore because you pick your arms up, then the shoulder girdle can move. So then it's a completely different picture. When they're walking, the shoulder girdle doesn't move. The upper body doesn't move, but the legs move when they're running, the shoulder girdle does move.
- [96:16]
B
So for some people like me, running is freedom. It's freedom.
- [96:20]
A
But the problem is the effect of the not moving shoulder girdle on the pelvic girdle when you walk. And now it's not the running that is causing the problem. The hip pain comes from the way that they're walking, but now there's impact because actually they're moving better when they run. It's not just it's smoother and that's why they enjoy, but it hurts every time. And they associate it with the run, when actually it's the movement patterning at a fundamental level.
- [96:52]
B
Just so that this conversation is really practically useful for people. Helen, I know after the last podcast came out, so many people booked in to see you, and not everyone, of course, can come and see you for a variety of reasons. That's why you wrote your book, isn't it? And also you created these. Is it six videos or these sort of videos on your websites, which is to basically help people go a bit deeper with this kind of stuff, to.
- [97:19]
A
Be efficient so people don't have to travel and they can help themselves if they're willing to just play along with me. So some people will read and some people will need the visuals. There are videos in the book as well. But the goal is to help as many people as possible. And some people need an extra pair of eyes. But they can ask their partner to have a look. They can have a look at and see what is meant to be going on. If they can't feel it, maybe ask a partner to film them so that then they get the visual clue. So because that's another part of the brain understanding where we are, visual fields help enormously.
- [97:58]
B
And I think in our first conversation you were talking about one of your clients, footballer from Recollection, who basically didn't know his head was forward and you thought it was the club physios that might have told him. He goes, no, no, it's my wife who noticed it. Ye. This is another thing for us that we can ask our partners. Cause they're probably seeing patterns in us that we don't see ourselves.
- [98:19]
A
I love working with couples because you don't see you, but your partner sees.
- [98:24]
B
You from all angles.
- [98:26]
A
Often. Yeah, they don't see themselves but you see them. So you get this cooperation between the two because oh yeah, he's always like that. Or she's always like, yeah, yeah, that's familiar. Because they don't know.
- [98:36]
B
Sounds like it can be dangerous as well sometimes.
- [98:39]
A
It's always interesting. It's always fun. It's always fun. So yes, all of the tools are there. Even everything that is free, everything that I can manage to squeeze into a day on social media is to help as many people as possible to be efficient.
- [98:56]
B
Let's go back to that floor exercise for a minute. For the person who doesn't know where the head is and wants to give their brain that awareness. I don't know if you have a particular client in mind, but. But I wonder if you could possibly explain, I don't know, a client who came in with pain and problems. You thought it might be their head. They didn't know where their head was. You gave them that exercise, they did it and you put them back on. Doris, does anything come to mind?
- [99:24]
A
Yes, always the most recent thing springs to mind because there are so many and my brain has to delete plenty in order to fit more in. So the problem was feet, chronic pain in feet. And everything has been tried. So I don't need to go to everything.
- [99:43]
B
Cause it's already been done.
- [99:44]
A
Yeah. So that makes. It's a joy for me because I don't have to Sift through everything that might be obvious because that's already been done.
- [99:52]
B
Someone else has already done that. Another professional has tried that approach.
- [99:55]
A
Yeah. And there was a forward head of some.
- [100:02]
B
So this person, what, middle aged? Sort of.
- [100:05]
A
Well, of course I'm old, so everybody's younger than me. So I would say. I would say young.
- [100:11]
B
Okay. So someone came in, they had chronic pain in their feet. Both feet or just one? So in both feet.
- [100:19]
A
And I hope he. If he's listening. No names, you'll know who you are. I'm sorry that I'm using you because. But you're. It's such a. What I saw was so commonly seen.
- [100:37]
B
Okay.
- [100:37]
A
That you. You just think if more people could just try, just give it a go, then they might be able to help themselves.
- [100:47]
B
So this client, you can see, has a forward head posture. Did you put the client on Doris?
- [100:53]
A
Yes.
- [100:54]
B
So. And Doris was confirming that and other information for you.
- [100:57]
A
So we've got clarity of degrees of how far the neck spine is forward. So we've got at least an 18 kilo head.
- [101:08]
B
Wow.
- [101:08]
A
Which is doing the Christmas tree decoration thing and pulling the spine over into a flexed position.
- [101:15]
B
Okay. So I'm sure you saw plenty of other abnormalities as well. But you were thinking, okay, until we get the head, better let me not worry about anything else.
- [101:24]
A
That was pretty much it.
- [101:25]
B
That was it. Okay.
- [101:26]
A
Yeah, pretty much it. The obvious thing, because we don't need to be perfect. Who even knows what that is? So if there were things, they were minor. The obvious thing was the view from the side. So we set about wondering why. And so he couldn't grasp. He had tried to stand up straight because. Because another physio had suggested that he stand up straight. So he was absolutely on the money as far as I'm concerned. Absolutely. And what was golden was he could do it, but he couldn't maintain it. So he could do it cognitively. That's the key he could figure out, okay, this is deportment. This is organized. I am. But now I can't move because it's not innate in me. I am pulling muscles around to create tension to hold myself upright. We should be upright without the tension because that's our best place for movement.
- [102:27]
B
And without trying.
- [102:28]
A
And without trying. So what has gone? What is missing? What is a bit of a mess for upright to be? Not upright.
- [102:36]
B
Okay, so you identified the head forward posture, which another healthcare professional had also identified and tried to help him with, but for whatever reason and wasn't able to. So then you did what an Exercise like the one we've talked about.
- [102:48]
A
So lying on back for him to feel. So when you're lying on your back, even just your back is, I think the stats are 15 times the surface area of your feet. So a shed load. More information is coming into the brain about what's happening on the back in terms of pressures left to right and pressures along the spine. And of course, this is the whole spine, isn't it? You're lying on your back. And we started with. Okay, can you find your inner meerkat? One of my favorites. So a meerkat, we can all imagine and visualize a meerkat. A meerkat is on alert. So the eyes are level, the ears are level, the jaws are level, they're ready, everything is okay, stand down and you can relax. So are our inner meerkat. There's amazing video of fetuses in the womb performing what I call their meerkat, which is a trunk extension. It's your heels are digging into the ground, the heels of your hands. So you're standing up, the heels of the hands are pushing down, the heels of the feet are pushing down, and that sort of pushing downwards pushes the rest of the body up and flexes your neck. So you end up in this spinal extension position. In the book, it's sagittal cog, but that's a cognitive spinal extension. This is an innate within us. It's an innate fundamental, I call it.
- [104:25]
B
So he was doing this on the.
- [104:26]
A
Floor, he was doing it lying down, and his spine wasn't moving. So his heels of his hands and his heels of his feet were doing exactly the right thing, but his head wasn't moving and his spine wasn't moving. So then it's okay. Is it the head that doesn't know where it is? Is it the ribcage? Is it the pelvis? And it was the head and the pelvis. The ribcage actually knew, even though it was flexed and bowed over, it knew exactly what to do. It was just getting not the right information from the head or from the pelvis, which actually was quite sweet because heads and pelvis cooperate hugely in our movement patterns. So we just got the head nod going, which got the pelvis nod going, because wherever your pubic bows, wherever your nose goes, your pubic wants to go to. So if your nose is heading towards, towards your toes, your pubic bone can head off towards your toes too and offer that meerkat look. So all we did was played with spinal extension lying down in the manner of pushing the Crown of the head away and allowing the pelvis to follow in the same direction. And then he stood up and felt somewhat taller. And we measured him standing still and walking. So there was no. Don't stand still and be anything. Just be.
- [105:57]
B
You just stand however you want to stand.
- [105:59]
A
Just stand. And the difference in the flexion of the spine was extraordinary. He had probably lost a good half of the load he was carrying with his forward head.
- [106:14]
B
So not all of it, but maybe 50% effect.
- [106:17]
A
Yes. Yes. Yeah. And it followed through into movement. So without trying to move perfectly, without trying to walk perfectly upright, he was able to move better upright.
- [106:31]
B
The thing I get, the thing I've really learned from all the work I've done with you, Helen, is that when you teach the brain, you remind the brain, let's say, where different body parts are, what they should be doing optimally. You start to naturally do them.
- [106:52]
A
It's in your DNA.
- [106:54]
B
You do it without thinking, oh, I'm gonna do this with my wrist. I'm gonna do this with my shoulder, or whatever it might be. It just starts to happen because it's in.
- [107:02]
A
It's how we're made.
- [107:03]
B
And what about his foot pain?
- [107:05]
A
Well, we don't know yet. It is, because it comes on after 30 minutes. So we have to wait. We have to wait and see. There's gonna be plenty of work to do. But before, Before. Before we can judge anything, we have to deal with the elephant in the room, which is the posture overloading the soles of the feet. Okay, so, you know, not every. I don't wave magic once. Plenty of people have got plenty of work to do before they get to where they wanna be. But we unpick it from the point of view of, have you got everything you need in your body, innate in your body for you to create the shapes that you want to create? Because it might be that you've got your tennis backhand is just really, no matter how hard you try, your tennis backhand just doesn't work. But do you, at a fundamental level, does your body, without you having to think about it, understand rotation in that direction? Because it might not.
- [108:12]
B
Yeah. This is another point. It's just so huge. Like, many people have a passion for sports. Right. We can get sidetracked with running or walking or skiing or your tennis backhand. Right. And it's not to say coaching in those areas is. Isn't helpful. Of course it is. But sometimes we just don't have innately the movement that that coach is asking us to do. It's Just not within us. So it's how do you move? You know, I often say that good health, you know, 99% of health, frankly more than that occurs outside the doctor's surgery. It's the same thing with movement. Right. 99% of good movement is happening outside your sport.
- [109:03]
A
Yeah, you bring all of you to the sport. And so at a fundamental level, of all the fundamental movement patterns that we have, say by the time we're 10 of all of those, how many are organized and you will then use them in your sport. You don't do these movements for your sport. You have the movements to enable the sport. An easy example is the rower who rows on a side of the boat. I don't know the words, I won't even attempt to. So he is a rower on one side of the boat and his spine is showing that he side flexed towards that side and his shoulder girdle is leaning towards that side and all of the good stuff and he's injured. And they're saying it's because of the rowing, which can't be incorrect. But it doesn't come about because of the rowing, it comes about because of the shape he's making, which put him on that side of the boat. And his coach knows that if the guy on the other side of the boat was sick, he couldn't put this guy in his place because that guy doesn't have the movement pattern available to be on that side of the boat. We are good at what we start to do because we're good at that already because we have those movement patterns. And if we can just get our head around that and realize that we didn't get good because we did more, we'd get better at it and maybe more skilled at it. But we're good at it. We were good at it right from the get go. But we should all have the fundamentals, fundamental movement patterns. And this is what pains me with, with children at school, oh, you're no good at sport, so you're just left in the library instead of, oh, you, you don't want to move much. Well, I wonder why that's a bit odd. Because we're movement animals. Let's just, let's go and organize a few messy pieces, I call them pieces of Lego. They're just fundamental movement patterns. Let's go and organize them so that you can enjoy movement and you know, in the future save the nhs, maybe a fortune because you, you discovered movement. It's. Do you have what you need in you to move well, because you can't cognitively think good movement every single moment of the day. You can't. It's not possible.
- [111:32]
B
Helen, one of the themes of today, one of the things we've covered, is that you can give your body and your brain input through the scale skin. Okay. And you've explained that one way to do that is lying on the floor and, you know, allowing the skull to touch the floor. That's giving input to your. The skin on your. The back of your skull touching the crown of your head and massaging it around. That's giving input. Okay? So that's one way I want to talk about feet. Okay. I mean, we could spend two hours just on feet. I was gonna say, specifically, I want to talk about foot wiping and ticklish feet. Okay. And maybe we can just do a quick summary of it. We can go deeper next time you come back on the show. But what's interesting to me, and I've done this in your clinic, is, and I used to have very, very ticklish feet, and they're less ticklish now through all this work. Right. And in my kitchen, as you know, so we have a doormat. So we're a bare thought household. No one wears shoes in our house, but there is a doormat in our kitchen. And the doormat is not there for people to wipe their feet on. It's there for me and hopefully the kids, if I can keep gently reminding them each morning, is to do foot wiping for about a minute. Explain, if you can, why is foot wiping important? And what have you seen? Cause I think you have measured this, and you've seen it pretty much on every occasion. What happens when you put people back on Doris after they've wiped their feet for one or two minutes?
- [113:19]
A
Okay. It's so big. The skin is full of skin receptor cells that give the brain information, and we feed it in from the extremities. And the most sensory input is found in palms of hands, soles of feet, and tongue. And these form the extremities, of course, feeding into the system. The tongue is an extremity because it's the only part of the human body that can be outside the human body and not be called a prolapse. And it's a very core muscle because it never gets tired, ergo, me talking all day and getting sidetracked. And it's attached to the hyoid bone, which is a very cool bone because it's the only bone in the human body not attached to another bone. And the tongue is cool because it's only attached at One end. It's the only muscle attached only at one end to a bone. So we have all this sensory input coming in to our system to feed information to the brain about what is going on as you move around through space. And. And initially we have receptive fields which are hypersensitive. So you can replace ticklish feet, which is just. I like easy terms. They're hypersensitive. These people struggle. To walk on a pebbly beach would be horrific for them. They would need to put shoes on. They don't even the slightest bit of gravel. It's like Princess and the Pea. Their feet don't like being in contact with the ground. I call them squeamish soles.
- [115:01]
B
Is that normal or should I say, is that optimal?
- [115:04]
A
It's not. It's suboptimal. It's common, but it doesn't mean it's right. So we have these sensitivities in our feet when we're born, because nobody is born with any arches. Nobody's born with bunions. People have told me that they were born with their bunions. Nobody's born with a bunion. The bunion is as a result of the movement patterns that you utilize and the foot trying its best to help you out there. There are pathologies in feet, of course, but we're not talking about pathologies and feet. We're talking about human development. And initially, there are receptive fields in the soles of the feet, which when triggered either through a stroke in a certain place and a certain direction, or traction, so lengthening of tissue, it fires off a reaction, a reflexive reaction. Now, a reflex travels at 180 to 270 miles an hour. It's super fast. It's happened to you. You didn't choose it. It's already happened. It's a stereotypical response to a stimulus. And we need it because we're a blob at the beginning. So we need all these receptive fields and sensory input to create the response of movement for our body to start to move, to get us repetitively muscle strengthening. It's like strength and conditioning for babies to get us upright in the field of gravity. I am simplifying this hugely. It's a huge chunk of brain science. I made a little animated video, 17 minutes long, in my attempt to try and excite people about the subject, because so often the answer is here.
- [116:46]
B
Where is that video?
- [116:48]
A
YouTube.
- [116:48]
B
It's on YouTube, on your YouTube channel. We'll put a link to it.
- [116:51]
A
It's free. And because if nothing else has worked Check in just. If you watch the video, pennies, people tell me that they suddenly thought, oh my goodness. So maybe when I couldn't do, I went to ballet class and I was great on everything except plie. And I couldn't find my heels. So they were a toe walker, couldn't find their heels. This is to say as a human, a grown up human, I can't find my heels. This is nonsensical, isn't it? Of course you can find your heels, but at a fundamental root level within your DNA, the heel thing isn't going on. So they walk on their toes. Brilliant at sprinting. Really good equestrians because all the information is coming through the forefoot and, and yes, they're pushing their heel down, but it's touching nothing. So there's all this. Anyway, so watch the video because it may just. Pennies dropping from heaven happen, in my experience. So the receptive fields create this reaction. Toes pinging up all over the place. Movement of the foot bones to create the arches on which we need to walk to create the strength in the four layers of muscle underneath the bones of the feet. People think we need cushioning. We've got four layers of mus. They should be busy cushioning us. We shouldn't need to have shoes. We enjoy shoes. We're bright. Humans are developed. Our feet get cold, so we'll protect our feet. Our feet get too hot from the burning sun, so we might have a layer of material to protect us from the hot ground, but we don't need cushioning because we have it and we have give in our feet from the development of the arches. This all starts before we've even got onto our feet. And the problem is, and this is an opinion, dare I say it, baby grow should be banned because the foot. Can you imagine if the baby's foot is wafting in the sky and the baby sees it, doesn't realize it belongs to them, grabs it, sticks it in his mouth. Because everything is explored through mouth. I've got a puppy. Everything goes in his mouth, so it's explored in the mouth. And the tongue on the foot triggers all this movement which gives the baby great joy. So they keep doing it. So we have all this movement. Can you imagine putting a cloth, a dry cloth in your mouth? Do you think it's going to stay there very long? It's not fruitful. It doesn't give any kind of reward. So that's not going to happen again. So it is only an opinion, but. But we are finding instead of injury rates going down they're going up, they're going up and up and up and up. And I am seeing people do lots of footwork. Lots and lots and lots and lots of footwork. And still the problem remains. And when I test the soles of the feet, they are hypersensitive. Hypersensitive. These feet don't want to be in contact with the ground.
- [119:59]
B
These feet don't want to be in contact with the ground.
- [120:02]
A
It's mad, isn't it?
- [120:03]
B
If we just zoom out and go, well, hold on. To get around in life, to walk around our house or our flats, to go to the shops, to walk, your feet need to be in contact with the ground. And you're saying for some people, their feet at a core level, don't actually want to be in contact with the ground. That is pretty crazy.
- [120:23]
A
Their feet find every way to avoid those still active receptive fields, those hypersensitivities. And they will. When I check them, I'll do the stroke. Traction is your body weight rolling through them. So when you're on them, you are triggering that response because it didn't ever get organized or it got organized and you had a concussion and then it wasn't organized again. But this is fundamental feet freedom. We've got 33 joints down there to do exciting things. If your feet are squeamish, if they're hypersensitive, if they don't like being touched, if you thought of a pedicure, fills you with horror. If you have to put socks on all the time, if you have to have something protecting them all the time, if you have pain in your body, my go to. So it's almost like topping and tailing. Okay, check your head. Yes, for sure. And go down to your feet. See are they ticklish? And I'm using. For the people listening, I'm doing the old rabbit seers, apostrophes. So the ticklish. Just people think, oh, well, everybody's ticklish. Well, no, actually they're not. And it is simply a simple term to describe hypersensitivity. And we can't have it that the soles of our feet, which are there to give us all that sensory information, pressure, temperature, vibration, danger, all of that, all that sensory input needs to be coming through to the brain, not you trying to hide your foot from the ground or stamping hard on a tickle, which makes the foot rigid. It. The. The only people who actually have a little bit of freedom are those whose central nervous system has organized themselves around these. These tickles. And they just allow the Toes to ping up all over the place. And these people will hold their socks. So the big toe will go through their socks within no time at all. And I've even seen it that they've gone through leather uppers. So they hold their leather uppers. The strength of the reflexive, messy still there, receptive field action is creating such strength in that big toe that it holds their leather shoes.
- [122:57]
B
So if you have ticklish feet, and this is just how low tech the solution can be for you, right?
- [123:06]
A
Yes, yes.
- [123:07]
B
You just rub your feet. I think it's almost as if you're putting out a cigarette stub.
- [123:13]
A
Yeah. So there's a receptive field where the toes meet the foot. So to access that area, it's as if you're stubbing out a cigarette.
- [123:21]
B
Right. So you're doing that for, let's say, a minute or two.
- [123:24]
A
Yeah.
- [123:26]
B
What have you seen on Doris when people with a variety of different symptoms, you found that their feet are hypersensitive? They rub their feet, you get them back on Doris. I think last time we exchanged messages about this, you said you've never not seen a difference.
- [123:42]
A
Yes. So on this subject, actually, this and tongues. If I didn't have Doris, nobody would believe me. They would think I was some quirky something. But because I have the data, I have 8 terabytes of data to support everything I do. Because I'm curious, I'm thinking, well, what does it do? What does it do? Oh, my goodness. And I had a group of guinea pigs who did a little. I did a little pocket research. And the common themes are. So what you're doing is it's almost like the receptive field didn't get used up. I don't know if that's brain science exact, but it's a sense within me. Or maybe it just didn't get used up, you know, and we need to use it up, because what we're doing is using it up. We're not desensitizing because we don't want unsensitive feet. We just don't want hypersensitive feet. We want all that information coming through with clarity without any noise. So we are vigorously scrubbing every single millimeter. Imagine you have got treacle or something sticky on every single millimeter of your sole and you're trying to get it off. So you need to go into the inside arch. And I've had people pulling faces, oh, I don't like it. I don't like it. And if they just stick with it, I always say, like, you Say, attach a habit to another habit. So if you've got an electric toothbrush, you can let the toothbrush do the brushing up here whilst you wipe your feet for the two minutes it takes to do your teeth cleaning. And if you do that twice a day, great things happen. I'll tell you a story in a moment. And what I measure is consistently. So the person reports, well, I think I'm probably making it up, but I do feel a bit better back balanced. And everybody second guesses themselves. Or I feel, oh, I, I can, I feel more ground, I can feel more ground. I feel better, I feel more stable somehow I feel more grounded. Oh, my goodness. I can feel my toes. Because their toes were pinging up, out. They didn't want to know. And you can see it when you, when you stub out the cigarette. They're doing it and I have to make videos for them. Nobody should need a video for foot wiping. Right. You're just wiping your feet. But you do, because people will start to pad their feet, not wiping, they'll avoid it.
- [125:59]
B
The body's very clever.
- [126:00]
A
Oh, my goodness, the body is so clever. Or they'll lift their toes, the tip of their toes up out of the way so that that skin underneath the toes and where the toes meet the foot don't make contact with that prickly doormat at all. They'll find a way. And so they're expressing what they're feeling as they're walking. And I'm seeing in real time the foot pressures change on Doris. So where there was excess pressure, there is less. So where all the strategies were being put in place to avoid or pin down or just not roll, not stretch the foot. So they'll just walk hard and flat footed, they'll just land because then there's no stretch and they're kind of pinning down the reaction. So what I measure is more balance pressures. It tracks all the way up. I measure it tracking all the way up to the shoulder girdle. It changes the movement. Not just pelvic girdle, but that changes the shoulder girdle. So if I've changed in feet, then I should be able to measure all the way up to the shoulder girdle. Unless there's something in the way to stop it getting there.
- [127:03]
B
Because the whole body's connected.
- [127:05]
A
Yes. And that's the clue. That's the gold. It's like, okay, oh, it's reached the shoulder girdle. Great. Oh, it didn't. Okay, what's in the way? So then that's my next Train of thought. But I will measure weight shift, become more effective. So the ability to get the weight from one leg to the other, taking your mass above it in an organized fashion. With it, I will see better timing through the feet, just better use of feet. And they almost certainly will have a longer stride. So for the same speed, they are.
- [127:38]
B
Traveling further, they're becoming effortlessly faster, they're becoming more efficient. They're not thinking about it. All you've done, for want of a better term, is wake up a certain part of the body or a certain connection in the body, and naturally the body's starting to move better.
- [127:59]
A
Yes. I had a lady who loved her marathons. She loved them. Five and a half hour marathon. Loved them. Just trotted along. But she just couldn't understand, after eight years, why wasn't she getting any faster? Why? Because, you know, surely she should be faster. She wasn't bothered about time. She loved her marathon marathons. Five and a half hours. So she had insanely ticklish feet. So eight years of five and a half hour marathons. Loving them. Wiping her feet for three months. Five hours.
- [128:28]
B
Hold on. Okay, okay, okay, okay. The amount of competitive athletes who listen to this podcast, there's a whole variety, but there's definitely competitive runners out there who listen. You have just said that. Someone who can constantly do a five and a half hour marathon. So for them, that's their limit. That's what they can do without changing anything. Just foot wiping. Just foot wiping, what, a few minutes a day?
- [128:55]
A
Two minutes when cleaning teeth. She was good.
- [128:57]
B
Okay, so four minutes a day she did. And then she knocks off 30 minutes of her marathon time, which. Which anyone who runs knows that that's a ridiculous level of improvement.
- [129:09]
A
Yes, because with no extra training, no nothing, her life was too busy.
- [129:16]
B
Yeah, because you're changing the innateness. You're changing it at a core level so you're naturally starting to move more efficiently.
- [129:24]
A
Her feet worked better.
- [129:27]
B
This is real root cause stuff, which is what I love about it. Helen. Look, we had planned to talk about all kinds of important things like stressing continence in women and how quickly sometimes you can help them fix it.
- [129:42]
A
Yes.
- [129:43]
B
Asymmetries, plantar fasciitis, how the brain dictates your movement. Jaws. I don't think we're gonna get to it in this conversation, but if you're up for it, Helen, let's get you back on soon because those are important topics that are affecting a lot of people. So first of all, are you up for that?
- [130:01]
A
Oh, it's My favorite subject to talk about all things body and movement.
- [130:06]
B
So we'll do that to wrap this one up. One topic we haven't spoken about yet, and we just need to briefly cover this at the end, I think is it's minimalist shoes or barefoot shoes. And the reason I think it's worth bringing that up here. You mentioned that you're not a big fan of baby grows.
- [130:27]
A
Yes. So when the baby has. It's not easy to whip her for the good reason you could. If it's warm enough, you can just whip their socks off and give their feet freedom for feet to go in mouths. You can't. It's not easy to whip a baby grow off.
- [130:43]
B
Yeah. So just to make sure we're being really clear here, I don't want any mother who currently has their child in a baby grow to be getting upset or to be thinking that they're doing something wrong.
- [130:55]
A
The context here is how much time is spent in a baby grow. Because if it's all the time, then the baby won't have the opportunity to explore the foot in mouth. It'll explore hand in mouth, but it won't have the opportunity to explore foot in mouth. And so the baby won't be getting as much input. It'll have whatever input it is able to access through on tummy, when on the tummy with pushing with the big toes. And that's another subject. So it's in the to frame it. To any young mum, it would be just notice, just notice how often you put the baby grow on and can you perhaps just chop the feet off the baby grow and put socks on so that they can go on and off according to temperature and that's it.
- [131:50]
B
Yeah, because we have to be able to have these conversations, Helen, because as you say, movement problems are getting worse. The amount of people in pain is going up. The amount of people who aren't moving as much as they would like to, because they also see the science and the studies, they know they feel better when they move. But injury restriction pain is often stopping them. And sometimes that is coming at a core level where some of these innate movements that we would always have done in the past are not fully being explored because of how we often live.
- [132:27]
A
These days and life happens and stress gets in the way and that which was organized can become disorganized. So, you know, if we keep checking in with our bodies and noticing, oh, my feet seem more sensitive than they were when this summer. Last summer I was able to walk barefoot everywhere. This summer I. And so the answer is immediately just go and check. Check. Yeah. Did anything happen in the previous year? Was there some kind of either physical or emotional trauma which would be enough to upset the system and then go back in again and just reorganize. Just give the brain the information it needs to reorganize. I have no idea what is happening in the brain when we are wiping feet, but we are just taking the foot away from being hypersensitive to being more functional.
- [133:18]
B
Yeah, just finishing off there maybe 10, 15 minutes ago you mentioned that we've got these four layers of cushioning there in the feet. We shouldn't need cushions. My philosophy is very much that, you know, people say, make the case for minimalist shoes. I said, well, hold on, when did they make the case for cushion shoes?
- [133:40]
A
I was about to say the same thing.
- [133:42]
B
You know, for most of our evolution, we ain't been wearing them and we've been running pretty damn well. We've been moving pretty well. Like, who made the case for cushioned shoes? That's the first thing. But the second thing is I believe that if we kept children barefoot for longer, I believe if we didn't put them into thick cushioned soles and we kept them, if you have to wear shoes for school or to protect your feet when you're out, whatever it might be, if they were barefoot, minimalist type shoes without soles, without a heel to toe drop, I believe that we would stop or reduce so many downstream problems later on in life. Back pain, hip pain, knee, whatever it might be. What's your perspective on everything I've just said?
- [134:30]
A
So the science is already there. We don't even have to hypothesize. A dear friend of mine was invited to present some of his work in India and they said, oh, just let us know what you want to talk about and then we'll do all of the promo. And he was like, oh, what shall I talk about? And he was passionate about feet. He is passionate about feet. And so he said, oh, let's do Planta fashion. And the email came back, yeah, mate. Well, we, I think that's, that's your problem over there. We don't, we don't have this. It doesn't really exist here. Think of something else. So there are so many cultures around the world that don't have these problems. Problems and don't wear cushioned shoes and some don't wear any shoes. And in some cultures, children don't wear shoes for Sport until they're 14. So that certainly happened in South Africa and New Zealand. When I lived in Africa, that was the state. Now, you know, I've been back from Africa 30 odd years. So I don't know if it's changed since then, but at that time, children did not wear shoes. They were not allowed to wear shoes for sport. So they needed to be moving on their little growing feet without any restriction. And it's not just the shoes, it's the socks. Socks are so tight and people don't even realize that the, you know, the elastic is. People tend to wash a lot and you know, one wear must go in the washing machine. But every time these, these fibers get washed, these elastic fibers get washed, they, they lose a little bit of their elasticity until we all know that nice, comfortable, stretchy, lovely sock that was lovely when you first put it on is now tight and not very comfortable. But we're gonna put it on anyway, cause it hasn't got any holes in it yet. And so we'll just keep going with it. So. Which is fair enough. And yeah, and it's not, it's a bit mean on your feet because the feet bones need to move, the joints need to move to activate the musculature of which there is plenty.
- [136:58]
B
So do you think. I think, you know, we're gonna have to park certain parts of this discussion for next time, Helen, but as a general rule. Are you a fan of minimalist shoes?
- [137:11]
A
I don't personally like cushioned footwear. I can't, I can't feel the ground. It doesn't do it for me. I want to feel, I want to be connected with the ground. Nothing pleases me more than as little as possible on my feet. But my feet get cold. So in winter I don't like cold wet feet. So waterproof socks go on. And minimalist footwear because I don't possess anything else.
- [137:38]
B
Yeah, well, me too. So I also have experienced the benefits of minimalist shoes. And like for some people, minimalist shoes I think helps them feel the ground more and it helps them switch on all kinds of things. We know from certain research that their foot strength can improve massively within a few months of wearing them. I'm not talking about running in them, just wearing them. But sometimes you need more than that. You still need to wake up the feet with foot wiping, for example, I think, although I don't know this. Are you saying that in an ideal world? You mentioned the example in India where they wrote back to your friends, say, hey look, we don't really have much plantar fasciitis here. Talk about Something else. And I know, and many people know that there's a lot more barefoot living. Of course, things are changing. It's a huge growing middle class there who are buying cushion soles, et cetera, et cetera. But it's interesting that. So would you say across society it's better for children to not put on cushion shoes in the first place, all things being equal?
- [138:48]
A
Equal, I would say my children had. So one of my children, one of my sons was born in Africa and we were all barefoot pretty much all the time. And I would say that their, their feet, both of their feet became less fabulous coming back to the UK and wearing school shoes. And so people would say, well, you know, school shoes, they're well fitted and all of these things. It's a very sticky subject, but if you, if you think about the human spine or the human body from top to toe as a pole, they know, and the science was done a very, very long time. If you. It's a long time ago. If you lift this, so the pole has got a foot and then the pole, if you lift the heel more than 5 millimeters above the foot end at the toe end, then the pole will start to teeter forwards. So as a human, because we're dynamic, we can accommodate this. Because we can accommodate all sorts of landing on uneven ground with the heel higher than the ball of the foot, we can accommodate heel lower than the ball of the foot. So it's not ground actually needs to be uneven. And maybe that's why our feet are so massively jointed, so that we can accommodate all of this unevenness, not for the softness of the ground. Most of the ground on this earth is baked hard, so it's nothing to do with cushioning against hard ground. It is the ball. The heel can be wherever it needs to be according to the ground relative to the forefoot. But if it's permanently X amount of millimeters above the ball of the foot, then the body has to do something to accommodate it. The foot has to do something. And to stop you face planting, the rest of the body does. So the famous story with very high heels is all about the society we live in, where if a woman's heel is lifted hugely, it plumps up the rear of her body from the calf up to the glutes and tends to push up the front of her body to offer aesthetic pleasure for people who are looking at her. So the. The origins of heels as fashion items, because we have adorned ourselves to attract the opposite sex or attract the person that we want to be attracted to forever because that's how we are made.
- [142:02]
B
But there's a consequence. What's interesting to me, and this is a whole nother rabbit hole that maybe we'll go down next time about where high heels came from and what is it about this culture and societal pressure for women of a certain class and whatever it might have been in the past to wear heels, and you've explained some of the rationale there, but essentially what fits the theme of this entire conversation, Helen, is that there's a consequence to everything, right? So your foot can adapt to going uphill, to going downhill. So heel lower than toe, toe lower than heel. Uneven ground, great. But when you permanently put your foot in a place, let's say with a heeled shoe, not even just a high heel, where your heel is above your toe, and that's how you go about your life every single day, there's going to be a compensation in other parts of your body to adapt to that.
- [142:56]
A
Yes, the, the body will strategize to maintain whatever it is that you are wanting to do. It will find a way and which is a double edged sword. So I think, in short, the question about children's shoes is fraught with. Because everybody, all parents are trying to do their best for their children, for sure. And there is a big factor because I've seen it in many a comment that, well, it's all very well, but these are growing feet and minimalist shoes aren't cheap and we need to have growing room. And you know, they're swimming around in these shoes that don't fit. But somehow or other with normal shoes, normal school shoes, normal children's shoes, they can have growing room and somehow get the foot in and pin it in so that it doesn't flop out, as with the growing room still there. So this is a fraught subject because of people's sensibilities because they're trying to do the right thing with maybe limited resources. And children have this blooming habit of just keeping growing and costing more and more money. And wouldn't it be pure joy if we could just dispense with all of that and just have the. Just throw the shoes off and be barefoot and just be barefoot so they can have some kind of something to get them to school. Then they can all take their shoes off. Cause they're inside. They're inside all day. Why are they wearing shoes?
- [144:28]
B
Being inside all day has its own issues for sure. But just to finish off on that point, Helen, I think it's such an important one and People often get unhappy at the minimalist shoe companies. But I think it's misplaced personally, because there's lots of them now burgeoning everywhere across the world. And there's all kinds of different price points. Yes, some of them are expensive and so I understand why parents go, I can't afford that. That's the cost of living crisis. People are struggling. But it's not. The minimalist shoes, I would say are not the issue. The issue is that we've never made the case for cushion shoes. All the big shoe companies are now correct rating cushioned shoes at scale. So of course they're cheaper. It's a bit like, you know, big food, may I say it, you know, where the cheap, tasty, easy to afford food, generally speaking, not of course, all the time, but a lot of the time is the ultra processed foods because it's made mass and at scale. Whereas companies who were trying to come on board and actually go, actually, no, we think this is better for the health of our children. And if they're trying to do things the right way, sometimes they are more expensive. So I get that. But what's the take home? The take home is if you can't afford it, well, there's plenty you can do. Like when your child's at home, be barefoot more. Encourage the shoes off, do foot wiping so that even when they're wearing cushioned.
- [146:00]
A
Shoes, even with their shoes off.
- [146:01]
B
Right. As the name of your book, the feet are working better. You know, anything you'd add to that, would you disagree with anything there?
- [146:08]
A
No, not at. I agree with everything. And let's just. If you flip it like you did earlier, it's the minimalist movement is in the dock. And as you say, nobody put fashion footwear in the dock. It just happened. It just is because it's there and it's omnipresent. Nobody questions it because it's always been there. It's always been like that. When I was teaching bike fitting, I would ask and people would come from all over Europe. Cause we taught the Europe, we were the teachers for Europe, for the bike fitting. And I got the people who couldn't speak English to the people who could speak English to translate to their partners if they couldn't speak English. Because there's this story that it's always been the end result is it's always been like that. So nobody is questioning the norm because it's always been like that. So the norm, everybody has grown up with whatever they have grown up with in whatever country they're in. So the standard footwear. So we get normalized to what actually doesn't make any sense. So if you flip it. Okay, does this norm make any sense? Because we are taking the foot away from the ground. We're elevating the heel to varying degrees. We're filling it full of stuff to make it feel not like the ground. And we're asking bodies to move upon this 33 jointed quarter of the bones in the body with all that sensory information. 200,000 nerve endings or something absolutely quite extraordinary. We're asking them to move. Well. Well, where is that? Where is the logic there? So then you just. Well, can I have less or can I have less time in that?
- [148:05]
B
Yeah.
- [148:05]
A
So can I have less shoe or less time? And let's pay attention to socks, please. Please pay attention to socks, everybody, because you can have the loosest shoe in the world. You know, the teenagers not doing their laces up. I applaud you. You just. I am a fan of loose laces. As anybody who knows my Instagram, I bang on about laces. And if you've got a tight sock on inside your. Even if it's a loose shoe, then still you're restricting. So if we just pare back so that there is less restriction, give less restriction, give more freedom to our movement on as many levels as you can possibly Think. Think.
- [148:50]
B
What belief do you subscribe to that's keeping you trapped?
- [148:56]
A
Yes.
- [148:57]
B
Yeah.
- [148:58]
A
You know, and it just might be just standardization.
- [149:02]
B
Yeah. What's the belief? Where did you take on the belief that you had to wear cushioned shoes? What happens if you don't believe that? What happens if you just go, well, wait a minute. How might my life be if I didn't subscribe to that view? If I understood that for 99.9% of human evolution, we didn't have cushions on, and we did pretty well in terms of our movement? It's remarkable to me that we need to make the case for it. But, Helen, we're going to park that there for another conversation. We've covered a lot. We've gone off topic, which is what I love doing.
- [149:40]
A
Who needs lists?
- [149:42]
B
Who needs lists to finish off? Helen, let's take this away from marathon runners or triathletes or Ironman or half marathoners, right? Let's just talk to the person who's frustrated because they can't go round the block in the way that they want to. They keep hearing me or anyone else, or you talk about movement's great, but they're like, hey, I get it. I Hear what you're saying, But I can't move. Whenever I go for a walk, my knee hurts, my foot hurts, my shoulder hurts. Yes, of course. Go and see your healthcare professionals. There may be something there that they can help you with. But with all your years of experience, I would love to know, at the end of this conversation, Helen, what would you say to that individual?
- [150:44]
A
Okay, so you want to go around the block and things hurt somewhere hurts. And we can finish where we started with knees. So I worked with a footballer who'd had two surgeries on his knee, and still there was no solution. And nobody. Because I said, okay, so, you know, everybody would have done everything that is the. They would have crossed the T's and dotted their eyes within the remit of standard knee rehab post surgery. And I said, well. And I looked at. He took his. Everybody gave. Gets assessed with their socks off, standing, still, walking. And then if they run with shoes on, obviously we measure with running with shoes on, whatever they want to run in. And he took his socks off, and it was. I nearly fell over. He had the most rigid feet I think I'd probably ever seen. The highest arches, toe extensor tendons. So the little tendons that come on the top of your foot from your toe to. To your foot, which lift the toe up, they were like guitar strings. They were so taut. Everything was taut. And I said, well, has anybody looked at your feet? No. So we looked at his feet. They couldn't move. They couldn't move because they were hypersensitive. And then we reduced the hypersensitivity through the very technical art of foot wiping. And his feet could then move. And then we could make progress with the knee function, which requires. Knee function, requires the shin bone to rotate, but if the feet are locked, the shin bone cannot rotate in either direction. It's just stuck. So then we were able to make ground. So you can keep it as simple as. As lying on the floor. Where's my head? Is it even comfortable to have my head aligned with the rest of my body? So the progression is then to take it up against the wall. You know, is it comfortable for my head to be more or less above the ribcage, above the pelvis, against the wall, and then maybe rub the scalp a little bit to give the brain awareness, maybe engage in your inner meerkat? I should do an. I've actually got quite a few insta posts on that one. And the other thing is, so you can physically check top to bottom, and then you can help yourself with the superpower that's above your nose, your eyes. So if that person can see, they can use their eyes to change just about, dare I say, everything. So your visual field informs your spinal activity. Your spinal activity to a degree, inform to a degree the other way around. But it's much more the visual field which informs our spine. So we need peripheral vision when we're upright. Our central nervous system feels safety because we only have eyes in the front of our head, unlike other animals that have eyes on the sides of their heads. So our sense of general alert is by having a field of view that goes to the left and the right as well as ahead. So when we access that peripheral field of view, we and I measure this so consistently it's ridiculous. It's such an easy way in your spine extends. I had a guy, he didn't run because he couldn't run, but he wanted to. And he was, he showed me his walking and he was looking down and he said, well, I wanna run but you know, I can't run and I'm embarrassed to show you my running. And I said, please, please, please don't be embarrassed. It's just you and me. Just show me what you have been doing. And he ran looking down like a bull in a china shop. He was just so far forward leaning. It was like a bull in a china shop. Three minutes later he. I've got video of this. It's. I wish I, I should ask him if I could show people because it's. He went from somebody who could absolutely couldn't run, couldn't. He struggled to move. He changed his visual field. He came and looked at the screen, he went, I look like a runner. And I went, you, you totally look glorious. Just his visual field stood him up. You don't even need to try. We have. It can be, be careful. Same with the minimalist footwear. When you start to do, you know, when you start to pare down and maybe have less on your feet for longer, just do it gradually because the muscles aren't used to it. Just a heads up, don't just throw everything in the bag bin. Give your body a chance. So when you start to pay attention to your visual field, don't do too much in one go because eyes get tired, but they are moved by muscles just like everything else. So you can have this. And the easiest thing, you go around the block with having maybe rubbed your feet a little bit. And there is hypo as well. So there's hypersensitive soles of feet and hypo and These people can stomp around, they can walk on anything. They go, you know, my feet aren't sensitive, but actually hypo is just the end, the other end of the same thing. It's the spectrum. So if you can, you know, stand on spiky stones and walk across glass and it doesn't affect you at all, maybe scrub your feet a little bit to make them a little bit more responsive because these feet are hyposensitive and they're still not feeding the information up through the system. So you maybe have woken the skin of the feet up a little bit, made some clarity to the brain, maybe you've found a better place for your head to be. And then you walk around the block and you see ahead of you, but you're not looking at anything, you're not trying to do anything, you're just seeing ahead and you're seeing the houses on either side of street. So you have this field of view and see what happens in your system. I measure it every time. I've never not measured improvement just by changing the visual field. And I get people, I say, please don't believe anything I say, go and experiment. Take your visual field to where it was. How does that feel? Switch it back. And of course it's not just down, down. You can have your head forward and looking down, but you're looking over there somewhere. It's nothing to do with anything apart from you're looking at something or you're seeing everything. When I say looking at something, I'm bringing my two fingers together because I've got laser vision, focus. And when you're all seeing, you're not looking at anything, you're seeing everything. Nothing is in focus, but you can see where you're going. We don't need to look at the ground right in front of our feet. Our eyes have already seen that 10 paces prior. With our scanning ahead of where we're going to, we're scanning where we're going to. And with that, because it's peripheral vision, our system relaxes. Our autonomic nervous system senses there's no danger. I can see everything, Everything. It relaxes, it relaxes to its innateness, which is upright, not bolt upright posture, you know, deportment, not that upright, functionally upright. And when you go to looking at something, you will feel yourself cave. You will feel, I call it the button. The base of the sternum is like a little button there. It just kind of sinks and falls in, in and everything feels a bit harder. Don't believe me? Play it's the contrast with this, with that, with this, with that. Get your own empirical evidence. And if you engage and if you wear glasses, so if you wear glasses and you have contact lenses, please put your contact lenses on. If you don't have contact lenses, then have the least irritating frame so that you can allow the field of view. It won't be in focus because you're not looking at anything. It doesn't need to be in focus. And just allow the visual field to spread as much as is comfortable is the key. You will find better with peripheral vision. The superpower is above your nose.
- [160:13]
B
I mean, I've experienced that myself, you know, since I learned that when you have that soft gaze, that peripheral vision, I feel more rotation, it just feels more fluid. I mean, that really, Helen, I think, is a little teaser for our next conversation because we didn't really go into vision properly today, as I was hoping to. I guess your message really is one of hope for people. It is. Don't assume that you can no longer move, move without pain, start paying attention, think about your head, think about your feet and then see where you're at.
- [160:52]
A
And if you can't find anything, lie on it. So you just give yourself the information. If you think, well, I don't know where anything is, lie on it. If you don't know where your left arm is, lie on it. If you don't know where your head is, lie on it and give your brain that information. Give your brain the information, Let your brain find it for you.
- [161:10]
B
Helen, honestly, I think you're just doing such incredible work. I know some of the incredible case studies of people who have tried everything. They've gone to see you and suddenly they're moving well again, they're out of pain. It's truly remarkable. I think you've dropped loads of wisdom in this conversation. Loads in the first conversation. If people want more, I guess they can go to your book, they can go to your website because you've got all these videos there that you've made for people. There's also the course, of course, for healthcare professionals and physios and running coaches and people who want to learn more about the whole philosophy. What's the website?
- [161:49]
A
Helen-hall.co.uk. thank you.
- [161:53]
B
Anywhere else you'd point them to, apart from your Instagram, of course.
- [161:55]
A
Well, I'm trying to do better on the Instagram. I've been laxed just recently, but I'm going to get back on top of it. I've moved house, so I will be back on it. So yes, I just want to help as many people as humanly possible and so often when the complex hasn't worked, maybe the simple is being missed.
- [162:15]
B
Helen, I always love chatting to you. Thanks for coming back on the show.
- [162:18]
A
Thank you for having me.
- [162:24]
B
Really hope you enjoyed that conversation. Do think about one thing that you can take away and apply into your own life and also have a think about one thing from this conversation that you can teach to somebody else. Remember, when you teach someone, it not only helps them, it also helps you learn and retain the information. Now, before you go, just wanted to let you know about Friday 5. It's my free weekly email containing five simple ideas to improve your health and happiness. In that email I share exclusive insights that I do not share anywhere else, including health advice, how to manage your time better, interesting articles or videos that I've been consuming, and quotes that have caused me to stop and reflect. And I have to say, in a world of endless emails, it really is delightful that many of you tell me it is one of the only weekly emails that you actively look forward to receiving. So if that sounds like something you would like to receive each and every Friday, you can sign up for free@drchatterjee. Now. If you are new to my podcast, you may be interested to know that I have written five books that have been bestsellers all over the world covering all kinds of different topics, Happiness, food, stress, sleep, behavior change and movement, weight loss and so much more. So please do take a moment to check them out. They are all available as paperbacks, ebooks and apps has audiobooks which I am narrating. If you enjoyed today's episode, it is always appreciated if you can take a moment to share the podcast with your friends and family or leave a review on Apple Podcasts. Thank you so much for listening. Have a wonderful week. And please note that if you want to listen to this show without any adverts at all, that option is now available for a small monthly fee on Apple and on Android. All you have to do is click the link in the episode notes in your podcast app and always remember you are the architect of your own health. Making lifestyle change is always worth it because when you feel better, you live more.