Latest / The Body Pod / Strong From the Ground Up: Foot Health, Strength, Balance & Longevity for Midlife Women with Dr. Courtney Conley

Transcript

Strong From the Ground Up: Foot Health, Strength, Balance & Longevity for Midlife Women with Dr. Courtney Conley · The Body Pod

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Hi everyone.
• 0:00
  Speaker 2: My name is Haley and this is Laura, and welcome
• 0:03
  Speaker 2: to the Body Pod, doctor Courtney Conley.
• 0:15
  Speaker 3: We're so excited to have you here. This has been
• 0:19
  Speaker 3: We've been counting down for this, so we've had these
• 0:21
  Speaker 3: questions for a long time and we're just stoked that
• 0:25
  Speaker 3: it's finally time to hear from you.
• 0:27
  Speaker 1: So welcome.
• 0:28
  Speaker 3: Thank you so much so Courtney, as we were just
• 0:32
  Speaker 3: saying offline, we're both in Colorado, which I feel like
• 0:35
  Speaker 3: is the greatest state in the United States.
• 0:39
  Speaker 1: We'll see, we'll see if everyone else says that, but
• 0:42
  Speaker 1: I love it.
• 0:43
  Speaker 3: I was just mentioning I wish I could come into
• 0:47
  Speaker 3: your clinic because this is fascinating and as I've been
• 0:52
  Speaker 3: I was actually introduced to you a couple of years
• 0:54
  Speaker 3: from a mentor of mine who actually lives in Sydney,
• 0:57
  Speaker 3: and he was like, Haley, why haven't you well first
• 1:00
  Speaker 3: all her company as Gate happens and your Hayley happens.
• 1:05
  Speaker 3: What's going on here? Like, I gotta meet this lady.
• 1:09
  Speaker 3: I gotta meet this lady. So how did you what
• 1:12
  Speaker 3: sparked your passion? I'm always curious about people that work
• 1:16
  Speaker 3: with the feet or that are just interested in the feet.
• 1:19
  Speaker 1: How did you come to that?
• 1:22
  Speaker 4: Yeah, it's really I think it's really interesting because you know,
• 1:26
  Speaker 4: people think, oh, she's in defeat.
• 1:27
  Speaker 5: It's kind of weird.
• 1:28
  Speaker 4: I mean, I have, I like to say, I have
• 1:29
  Speaker 4: a healthy obsession with the foot.
• 1:31
  Speaker 5: Healthy.
• 1:34
  Speaker 4: I have always been fascinated by human movement and it's
• 1:37
  Speaker 4: been kind of a passion of mine since I've been
• 1:40
  Speaker 4: since I was very young. I was a ballet dancer,
• 1:43
  Speaker 4: and then I was a triathlete, and my biggest achilles heel,
• 1:47
  Speaker 4: if you will, had always been foot paint. I had,
• 1:50
  Speaker 4: you know, bunions and aromas and everything kind of under
• 1:53
  Speaker 4: the sun. And so I think with anything that you
• 1:56
  Speaker 4: become passionate about, it becomes this personal quest.
• 1:59
  Speaker 5: Of how can I help myself? Because I had to stay.
• 2:04
  Speaker 4: Moving, I knew that surgeries and that going down that
• 2:08
  Speaker 4: route was not going to be the way. So that's
• 2:11
  Speaker 4: kind of what got me interested in all of this.
• 2:14
  Speaker 4: I went to school and we really didn't get what
• 2:16
  Speaker 4: I was looking for. It was more of treating the
• 2:21
  Speaker 4: foot very differently than we treat the rest of the
• 2:24
  Speaker 4: human body. So for example, it was if someone's foot hurts,
• 2:28
  Speaker 4: here's a foot orthosis.
• 2:31
  Speaker 5: And if it hurts worse, here's surgery. But we don't
• 2:34
  Speaker 5: have those conversations with other parts of the body. Say
• 2:37
  Speaker 5: you're low back, the first go to.
• 2:38
  Speaker 4: Isn't well wear this brace and then if it doesn't work, worse,
• 2:42
  Speaker 4: go get surgery. It's how can we make you stronger?
• 2:45
  Speaker 4: How can we make you more resilient as a human being?
• 2:48
  Speaker 4: And that's what I really wanted to do from a
• 2:50
  Speaker 4: foot perspective.
• 2:52
  Speaker 3: Okay, I love that because the only the only people
• 2:56
  Speaker 3: I've ever had to block on Instagram are people that
• 2:58
  Speaker 3: are ubsess.
• 3:01
  Speaker 1: When I'm all, you want.
• 3:04
  Speaker 4: The messages that we get, you might that number that
• 3:07
  Speaker 4: count might be higher.
• 3:09
  Speaker 1: You don't understand. I don't understand it.
• 3:11
  Speaker 3: I understand what you just said about the foot and
• 3:15
  Speaker 3: being interested in it, but that that's a whole other topic.
• 3:17
  Speaker 1: I just think it's funny because I'm like, where did
• 3:20
  Speaker 1: these people come? Where do they come from? Where do
• 3:22
  Speaker 1: they come from?
• 3:23
  Speaker 4: But anyway, if you were to look at the homunculus,
• 3:26
  Speaker 4: which is like the mapping of the brain, yeah, the
• 3:30
  Speaker 4: foot area and the genitalia area.
• 3:33
  Speaker 5: Are right next to it.
• 3:34
  Speaker 2: Is that why people have these sexual foot fetishes.
• 3:39
  Speaker 4: So they can it's a very close close real estate
• 3:44
  Speaker 4: in the brain. So when people say they have a
• 3:46
  Speaker 4: foot fetish, there.
• 3:48
  Speaker 5: Is some science behind some of that.
• 3:50
  Speaker 1: Okay, You're like, wow, She's.
• 3:54
  Speaker 5: Like, we're done. That's enough. That's all I need you.
• 3:58
  Speaker 3: I could be making a lot of money if I
• 4:00
  Speaker 3: didn't block these rules, if I wanted to share my feet.
• 4:03
  Speaker 1: But I'm like, this is funny, Okay.
• 4:06
  Speaker 3: So I have so many questions and what we really
• 4:09
  Speaker 3: want to focus on today is obviously midlife women, so
• 4:12
  Speaker 3: that's our whole demographic.
• 4:15
  Speaker 1: And from the.
• 4:17
  Speaker 3: Strength if we start from the strength world, because this
• 4:21
  Speaker 3: has been something that I've seen from the get go
• 4:25
  Speaker 3: in strength training, is this you know again, my mentor
• 4:31
  Speaker 3: was really big into training the foot stabilizers and working
• 4:34
  Speaker 3: out barefoot or in socks or you know, a minimal issue.
• 4:38
  Speaker 1: So that.
• 4:40
  Speaker 3: When I see women in this thirty five forty plus
• 4:45
  Speaker 3: an older age range, the lack of ankle mobility and
• 4:52
  Speaker 3: you know, the weak solius muscle. It's always the solius
• 4:56
  Speaker 3: and the anterior tip. It's these two exercises that nobody
• 4:59
  Speaker 3: has wants to do amongst others. But from women wearing
• 5:05
  Speaker 3: high hills. Most women coming in are like everyone's worn
• 5:08
  Speaker 3: high hills.
• 5:09
  Speaker 1: And they it's really mess them up.
• 5:12
  Speaker 3: So I see that in like the back squat where
• 5:16
  Speaker 3: there's just no movement at all. But if I put
• 5:19
  Speaker 3: them in say like a hack squat or a pendulum, like,
• 5:21
  Speaker 3: they can get all the way down into that. So
• 5:24
  Speaker 3: why is is that for you know, women and men?
• 5:28
  Speaker 3: Is it more common in women? Does it creep up
• 5:31
  Speaker 3: in midlife?
• 5:32
  Speaker 4: I think I'm turning fifteen next year, so I'm kind
• 5:36
  Speaker 4: of right in this kind of yes. And I do
• 5:40
  Speaker 4: feel better now than I did, well, well better.
• 5:43
  Speaker 5: Now than I did in my thirties.
• 5:44
  Speaker 4: And I truly attribute a lot of that to the
• 5:48
  Speaker 4: strength training that I have done so much more recently,
• 5:52
  Speaker 4: but also getting stronger from the ground up, the foundation
• 5:56
  Speaker 4: that you build yourself on. It's like building a house
• 5:59
  Speaker 4: on sand. If you're foot in angle or weak, you
• 6:02
  Speaker 4: can't create significant power. Yeah, you're unstable on your foot,
• 6:09
  Speaker 4: and therefore the amount of loads that you can actually
• 6:12
  Speaker 4: lift decrease.
• 6:13
  Speaker 5: So I think it's very very important you bring up a.
• 6:16
  Speaker 4: Lot of good points there, especially when we look at
• 6:19
  Speaker 4: the gym, like strength training. In the gym, I see
• 6:22
  Speaker 4: people all the time and I have to keep my
• 6:24
  Speaker 4: mouth shut because it's hard but if I was going
• 6:29
  Speaker 4: to squat, if I was going to do a back
• 6:31
  Speaker 4: squat with two hundred pounds, would it make sense to
• 6:35
  Speaker 4: do that on a strong, stable platform or on a pillow?
• 6:41
  Speaker 5: Yeah, it's not a trick question, right.
• 6:43
  Speaker 4: So if I'm on a highly cushioned shoe, for example,
• 6:49
  Speaker 4: trying to lift something heavy, it's going to make it
• 6:53
  Speaker 4: more difficult.
• 6:54
  Speaker 1: When you stand that way, it's like a no brainer.
• 6:57
  Speaker 1: It's like why are we.
• 7:01
  Speaker 5: Yes?
• 7:02
  Speaker 4: And you know people will be like, well, I can't.
• 7:04
  Speaker 4: You know, I work in an environment where I'm standing
• 7:07
  Speaker 4: on concrete. There's a different shoe for each task. We're
• 7:10
  Speaker 4: talking about strength training here, So when I'm carrying heavy
• 7:14
  Speaker 4: loads or I'm trying to lift or push something heavy,
• 7:17
  Speaker 4: your foot has to feel. That's what's so beautiful about
• 7:21
  Speaker 4: the foot.
• 7:21
  Speaker 5: I'm going to introduce Eddie.
• 7:23
  Speaker 1: Yes, we love Eddie.
• 7:25
  Speaker 4: Eddie.
• 7:25
  Speaker 1: Hi.
• 7:27
  Speaker 4: There's thousands of receptors on the bottoms of our feet,
• 7:30
  Speaker 4: and they basically give us information on how we should
• 7:35
  Speaker 4: be moving, how stable are we, where is our balance,
• 7:39
  Speaker 4: where is our center of pressure. So when we start
• 7:43
  Speaker 4: interfering with that by putting a bunch of cushion underneath
• 7:47
  Speaker 4: the foot, you're really making it harder on yourself and
• 7:50
  Speaker 4: you're really changing the loads that are going through the
• 7:53
  Speaker 4: rest of the system. I really think it's a it's
• 7:56
  Speaker 4: a no brainer conversation. And if we want to start
• 7:59
  Speaker 4: with anything, your foot on the ground when you're in the.
• 8:01
  Speaker 1: Gym, so you're a big fan of no shoes, then.
• 8:05
  Speaker 3: So no, some shoes and some shoes or just no shoes.
• 8:10
  Speaker 4: You no, it depends on what kind of gym you're
• 8:12
  Speaker 4: work in. But you know, if you have a minimal
• 8:15
  Speaker 4: if you can't take your shoes off, having a minimal shoe,
• 8:21
  Speaker 4: and the research is kind of iffy on that, so
• 8:23
  Speaker 4: I always say, if.
• 8:23
  Speaker 5: You can get something below like
• 8:25
  Speaker 4: Fourteen millimeters, which is thin and flexible, you're gonna have
• 8:30
  Speaker 4: better sense.