EP 26 - PUT YOUR BEST FOOT FORWARD: ARE YOUR FEET THE ROOT CAUSE OF YOUR PAIN?

This week on Get Your Shit Together…

🧡 Adina reads Reel comments - trolls have feels about feet!

🧡 Why feet and footwear are an underrated foundation for movement and living a pain-free life

🧡 Mistakes you may be making with your feet and movement

🧡 Ways to love on your feet that aren’t just orthotics or outsourcing pain management

🧡 How to strengthen your foot foundation through true strength training

Resources & Good Shit

Episodes

• Ep 16 - How to Strength Train for PCOS Without Feeling Like a POS

• Ep 6 - How to Store Fat & Slow Your Metabolism

What We’re Consuming: Food

• Adina made “beefy soup” for Shabbos soup…sounds like a contender for the fall update of GYST Mini Course Cookbook!

• Diane is still loving Cook Once Dinner Fix by our recent guest Cassy Joy Garcia! She made the chicken alfredo lasagna aka grad school of dairy reintroductions. It was DELISH.

What We’re Consuming: Media

• Adina is STILL rewatching Gilmore Girls. We may need an intervention.

• Diane and everyone else are watching Squid Game (Netflix). Hot tip: watch it in Korean with “English subtitles”, not dubbed or with English CC!

• If you liked White Lotus (Hulu) queue up Nine Perfect Strangers (Hulu) featuring Nicole Kidman as a creepy shaman?

Other Good Shit

• Curious about minimalist shoes? Check out options from Vivo or Xero.

• Lacrosse or tennis balls! More on these in our episode – you don’t need a fancy schmancy Theragun ;)

💪🏼 Strength Training for Happy Hormones - now enrolling!

Are you ready to gain energy, get strong, and get out of pain? Doors are open for Strength Training for Happy Hormones (STHH), Adina’s signature functional fitness program! Self-paced and +Coaching options are available.

Adina put together 12 weeks of approachable workouts that respect your hormone health and make you feel dang good. Sound good? (You know it does)!

Get the details & enroll in Strength Training for Happy Hormones

Don’t sleep on this! Enrollments closes end of day October 16, 2021 and the program begins October 17.

Connect with Adina:

Instagram: @adinarubin_ 

Website: www.adinarubincoaching.com 

Strength Training for Happy Hormones: Click here to enroll in STHH!

Connect with Diane

Instagram: @dianeteall 

Website: www.diteawellness.com 

Root Cause Reset: www.rcrprogram.com

Transcript

Transcript was auto-generated! There may be some errors, but you get the…GYST 😜

Adina: 0:26

Oh, well, hello there friend. It's a Adina here. I just wanted to let you know that the doors to strength, training for happy hormones and strength training for happy hormones +coaching are open for enrollment if you are listening to this before October 16th, 2021. So the doors close October 16th, but they are wide open now. So if you are ready to gain energy, get strong, get out of pain. Through approachable workouts that respect your hormone health and make you feel dang good. Click the link in my bio and you'll have all the information there to get started. Alright. Let's learn about our feet.

Diane: 1:08

And we're back with another episode of G Y S T Hey, party people. How you doing?

Adina : 1:16

spicing up that

Diane: 1:17

I'm spicing it up, trying to wake myself up because we're a little sleepy here on this gloomy spooky fall morning. How are you doing over there?

Adina : 1:28

Now it's really sounding like radio show. Um, I'm also a bit sleepy. Minnie is she's going through it.

Diane: 1:37

Games. I think you said at night. And I was like, oh,

Adina : 1:41

So like for four years I was never awake in the middle of the night with this kid. And now it's just been kind of nonstop and yeah, I'm feeling

Diane: 1:51

what are her stories? Like, does she try to make up stories for why she needs to get up stuff like that? Cause I remember doing that.

Adina : 1:58

Yes. I know. And it's funny because like I was this kid, like my parents had to set up a bed for me at the end of their bed, just so like, I would not wake them up and just crawl into it. But last night she was going off about how her ear was hurting. Her and Dani is so sweet and compassionate and he kept being like, I really think she might have an ear infection. I'm like, you're going to have to keep me in check because I faked sick so much as a kid that I won't believe it. Like, I it's hard for me to anyways.

Diane: 2:30

used her six days. Doug has kind of going through not the same because he doesn't keep me up, but Doug might have something going on with this ear. So Neil used this, like micellar water and did Doug's whole skincare routine, which Doug loves his skincare routine, getting his wrinkles cleaned. But then the next morning I was like, why are your ears all wet? And I think he had, I think the other dog, he like gave him a bath. So we might have to separate that. No one he's you.

Adina : 2:57

That was gross.

Diane: 2:58

Moving on. Tell me some good things over there. What are you consuming on the food side?

Adina : 3:04

Okay. What are we consuming? We're obviously shifted into soup season and every season is soup season in my house. We actually, I didn't realize how funny this was, but when I married Dani he started laughing hysterically. The first time I said it growing up in my house, we called chicken soup, shabbos soup because we eat it every Friday night and it was just shabbos soup in my

Diane: 3:28

even through the summer, even through like those hot

Adina : 3:31

52 weeks a year,

Diane: 3:32

dang.

Adina : 3:34

even when we are sweating on my mom's bungalow porch with no air conditioning. In like those humid July days, we are eating our shabbos soup. But so I do make chicken soup 52 weeks a year, but now we're switching into that like weeknight soup season and I was pressed for time and needed dinner on the table. This is kind of a theme. We talked last week with the lovely Cassy joy Garcia all about this. And I mentioned how this is kind of how I cook in my house, where we just take a protein, we repurpose it with some other ingredients.

Diane: 4:07

call it that a leftover

Adina : 4:10

The remix, yeah. Cassie should have called her book leftover remix. Anyways, we, I had some shredded beef, just like a giant I bought in bulk, like this 10 pound beef shoulder looking thing, and I defrosted it and I just cooked it up in my instant pot. Really simple, just in chicken broth, salt and pepper for like 80 minutes.

Diane: 4:33

Okay.

Adina : 4:34

Yeah. 80 minutes or so. And then I just had. In little batches to use for different things. So I was pressed for time needed dinner on the table, threw into my instant pot, some of that beef, some crushed tomatoes, chicken broth. Um, what else went in there? Carrots, celery, the usual players potatoes, I think maybe some zucchini. Yeah, we got all the veggies that were going bad in my grocery bags and in my fridge, threw them in there and just put an instant pot for like 18 minutes, I think. And it turned into the

Diane: 5:09

Thought you said 80. And I was like, damn, or

Adina : 5:11

no, I start, I did the beef for 80 because it was a giant piece. It was 10 pounds of beef and I really needed it to get nice and soft and shredded, but that was a couple of days ago. And then I repurposed it into this soup and it just needed 18 minutes. Good to go. And then when I took the lid off and stirred in some brown rice pasta at the end, nice hearty minestrone soup, it was so good.

Diane: 5:33

beefy soup well, that sounds like something that we need to add to the gyst mini course cookbook. I have some seasonal favorites that need to go in there as well. That sounds so yummy. So speaking of our friend, Cassy last night, I made chicken Alfredo lasagna, which is not for you or for our kosher listeners, but maybe you could find some kind of nut cheese to go in there, or,

Adina : 5:55

not juices. I feel like I'll just pass on this one.

Diane: 5:59

well, I am just so excited about this because I thought of it as like the grad school of dairy re-introductions because we've got butter, we've got cream, ricotta, mozzarella Parmesan. Who else was in there? Everything it is so filling and Cassy was not joking. When she said that each serving size is Hardy. I think the macros, if you are someone who is thinking of that, I'm not, but I like to have a solid amount of protein, like 52 grams of protein per serving. So that is definitely a fall weather. Favorite. It's one of Neil's favorite childhood foods with lasagna and side note, we were doing like a prep questionnaire for a personal chef who might cook for us for like a special occasion later this month. And I was like, Neil, what are your favorite dinners? And he's like any kind of potato meat, dishes, lasagna. And it had been so long since I made a lasagna, but I found some brown rice noodles. I think it's Tinkyada brand. You can find it at a lot of grocery stores. I've seen it across different, different chains, but the texture is pretty good. So love that. And it's been really delicious. I love cooking through her book and have some other yummy things in rotation later this week to,

Adina : 7:14

I am not a lasagna person.

Diane: 7:17

well, you can't, you can't have it.

Adina : 7:19

well, we could do it without the beef or the chicken, whatever the protein would be. Like, most people will just like Mo

Diane: 7:28

lasagna.

Adina : 7:29

exactly. Like it'll just be tomatoey and cheesy. That's kind of how I've been served it in my life,

Diane: 7:35

kosher question. Could you have meat on the side or can they not even play on the plate together?

Adina : 7:40

no, they can't even play on the plate. And most people who observe this aspect of kosher law will actually wait from the time that they eat meat until the time that they eat milk. For like the digestion to happen. So every family kind of has a different tradition on the time length. Some people wait an hour between eating meat and milk. Some people wait three hours. Some people wait five to six even, um, between eating meat and milk. So something that I have adopted because, you know, we love like an ice cream bedtime snack. I actually do “pre-ssert” in my family instead of dessert, because if I want to have ice cream in the evening, but I'm eating meat for dinner, I would have to wait after eating that meat. So I usually have the ice cream before dinner and people have seen me give my kids ice cream before a meal and their mind like explodes because we all have all these dogmas around food and like Diane and I say that ice cream is basically just a sweet omelet. Like it has way more nutrition in it than half the things most kids eat. So yeah. That's that

Diane: 8:46

yeah. I forget your upper teeth preserved. “Pre Dessert”. I'm into it. Love it. Well, what are you consuming on the media? Anything that you're watching. Are you still on your media hugs?

Adina : 8:58

Yeah, don't get mad at me, but it's still been only Gilmore girls around here. It's a stressy season. She's nodding her head. Um, it's a stressy season. I have a lot to get done on the business front, which launching the programs this month, everyone who's on the wait list is excited. I can't wait to coach up a new crop of ladies, but I just have a lot to get done. And with the holidays and everything, I can't handle a stressy show right now. And everything that Dani has in the queue is stressy. So I'm going to wait it out and I've just been enjoying. Here's the thing I want to say about Gilmore girls. Cause I feel like I didn't give it enough love last

Diane: 9:34

girls.

Adina : 9:36

Let's go sponsor me, hit me up

Diane: 9:39

Do you have your Luke's mug

Adina : 9:41

I do have a Luke's mug because one year for purim, which is basically the Jewish Halloween Dani and I dressed up as Luke and Lorelei and it was cute, but. Here's the thing, honestly, like Rory and Lorelai are kind of annoying

Diane: 9:58

Yeah. That's why I

Adina : 9:58

the main characters,

Diane: 10:00

voices

Adina : 10:01

but everything that happens around them is so worth it. Like the town as an entity, it, it feels just like any of those communities that you love to watch, like parks, for example, just like that. The people like the quirky people, you know, it all feels kind of like a Park's town hall meeting, like just, just quirk, just fun. Quirk and Melissa McCarthy. This was one of her first roles that we know her for. She

Diane: 10:31

She was in something I'm watching this week.

Adina : 10:34

Okay, good. That's the connection? Um, yeah, Melissa McCarthy plays Lorelai his best friend and like the chef of the, in that she owns. And even at those early days, it's just like the way she takes the lines off the script and into real life is so hilarious. And like, no one else could do it. You just see right away what an incredible comedian she's going to be. You know, it's just

Diane: 10:56

she's done a lot of stuff. Yeah. Melissa McCarthy love her. So she's in, I guess this isn't quite a pallet cleanser because it's kind of, is it a dark comedy? Dromedy not sure I'm finding humor in some of it, but it's nine. Perfect strangers on hulu

Adina : 11:12

yeah. That's in our

Diane: 11:13

Yes. I know I won't spoil it for anyone who hasn't watched, but if you enjoyed white Lotus, this is in a similar vein nine. Perfect strangers, the name gives it away. There are nine strangers and they are all in this situation, this retreat, this camp, uh, that is run by Nicole Kidman. And as I may have mentioned on an earlier episode, when you see her, like, you know, she's going to stress you out, but she's going to act.

Adina : 11:35

Yeah. Well, you know what? The funny thing, Nicole, Kidman an incredible actress, but I do feel like sometimes when she's doing the American accent on certain words, like her Australian accent comes through and it's just like, huh, I feel like you should be better at this.

Diane: 11:52

I will say it is refreshing that she's not for once a battered woman in this role. I feel like that was her. Go-to like that she'd be running to a script, but she saw that and I thought let's just see something a little bit different. And that's what we

Adina : 12:05

Well, I told you. My favorite role I've ever seen her win is just go with it when she acts alongside David Matthews, as

Diane: 12:13

Just go with it.

Adina : 12:14

it's the Adam Sandler comedy.

Diane: 12:16

Okay. Did you, I thought you said Dave Matthews,

Adina : 12:21

Yeah, I did. I said David Matthews.

Diane: 12:23

not the band, You called him David Matthews.

Adina : 12:26

I know for jokes

Diane: 12:27

Oh, okay. No, we got that clear. And we're back. We went down a Google hole to make sure that we know who's in the cast of these shows we're talking about, but nine perfect strangers, Nicole, Kidman's in it. Melissa McCarthy. She's an author in this one. Who else? There are a lot of people that I've recognized from other shows and then some random actors, but we're checking out and on the more stressy side, but it is so good. It's probably on your plate. Your list already is squid game on Netflix. Whew. So think of hunger games, but more graphic. And if you did watch parasite, which was what best picture last year, then highly recommend checking this out. I also hot tip if you haven't started yet. Recommend that you watch it in Korean with English subtitles, not English coat closed caption, because we started it with the dubbed English dub. And it's just horribly done as a lot of dubs are. And so they need to change the dialogue a bit to fit the actors Mo move mouth move. Well, what happened? Their mouth movements? Uh, yeah, but, um, apparently that like the Norwegian version of the show was just completely butchered and all the swears were dirt bags. So it'd be like, Hey, dirt bag of dirt bag, like just so bad. And it's more of a serious show. There is some calm, like there is some comedy elements in it, but some things were lost in translation. So if you can, you don't have a movie chore as we call them. Try watching it in Korean with English subtitles. It is, I think I might have another season, but think hunger games be liked. Parasite, definitely check this out. We just finished it last.

Adina : 14:12

Yeah, we're going to do those. So we'll chat more

Diane: 14:14

You'll need a pallet cleanser, perhaps if you're in a stressy season after that one.

Adina : 14:19

Yeah, we took a break. We, we had intended to do nine perfect strangers. And then after white Lotus, I was just like, you know, I loved white Lotus and I felt like I didn't want to do something with a similar. Plot slash structure, just cause I, I needed to separate the two.

Diane: 14:38

Yeah. They kind of

Adina : 14:39

like I wasn't going to enjoy it. Yeah.

Diane: 14:41

a beautifully done, like cinematically, just beautiful. So I can't wait to see what you think, and I'm almost done with that, let's around this out with a little segment. We like to call into it over it. Self-explanatory but Adina what are you into? What are you just over? That's a month.

Adina : 14:57

Okay. I'm into the Instagram outage, which just happened yesterday as of when we're recording and. I hopped on my Instagram to do stories in the morning. I actually thought I was going to launch my program that day. And it was kind of being Fritzy. I texted Diane and our friend Kim, and was like, what's Instagram doing today. And they said, I think it's

Diane: 15:16

Restart your router.

Adina : 15:18

I up and put my phone away and it was a great day, got a lot done. And not that I don't love connecting with all of you on there, but like we mentioned, last episode, sometimes Instagram just feels like a chore and like we're working so hard to connect our audiences and they're making it really challenging, which is why we love this podcast so much because it gives us an opportunity to make sure that we're landing in your queue. If you subscribe to the show, you'll see our episodes no matter what happens. And we get to have these really fun, long form conversations without fear of censorship or what you're seeing, what you're not seeing. So anyways, I'm into that outage. And I think I'm over Instagram. I'll still show up there, but definitely if you want to get the most out of our content, hang out with us here, get inside our programs like that is where we're Paul pouring. Most of our love right now.

Diane: 16:14

totally. It is a necessary evil. And when we run our businesses all online, that's just part of the game. Right. And they are changing things all the time. I think when we got on today before we were recording, we were saying, what were they doing yesterday? Were they updating or rolling out some at big features, but I love we can use swears. We don't have a 15 second time limit here and can just get into all the good stuff. So let's put that in mind. Let's do that. Let's get into some good stuff, some foot stuff. The things that,

Adina : 16:46

Wait, you didn't share your Intuit over it.

Diane: 16:48

oh,

Adina : 16:51

What do you want to Diane? What do you overdose?

Diane: 16:52

well this is very. On topic for today, I am over cracked feet and that happened because my feet were kind of abused in Vegas. They've been in slippers for the past year or in sneakers. And then we went to Vegas and went for long walks on the strip, just looking at all the lights, all the things in our high heels, because that's what we went with my outfit and my feet hurt. I needed to put them up. They were a little swollen and they were abused. So I'm over the cracked feet, also working on some liver support, make sure that we got all that good stuff going on and I'm into.

Adina : 17:32

that fashion over function.

Diane: 17:37

Yes, exactly.

Adina : 17:39

years have been function over fashion and whenever we have to go fashion over function, it doesn't feel good.

Diane: 17:46

But it looks good.

Adina : 17:47

It looks

Diane: 17:48

I tried on sneakers with, I mean, I do love a good sneaker moment with some dresses, but on birthday night, no, it was a heel and it's not even like a ridiculous heel, but we needed some RNR after that, but I'm really into foot files. I got one from Ulta. It's like part of my routine a couple of times per week at the end of my shower and foot cream, which I always thought like, let me just regular degular lotion fine. Now we brought out some heavy duty, put on some cozy, comfy socks because we want these feet in tiptop shape. Like only fans tip-top shape. I don't know if you can even do that. They're going to drop my Venmo here for like the random passer-by creepy person who might want to end up in my message requests.

Adina : 18:32

I'm just saying this transcript is going to flag the internet. Creepys they're going to come out the woodworks

Diane: 18:39

I mean,

Adina : 18:40

this on their SEO.

Diane: 18:41

we have some, and I mentioned this before. One of my best friends is sexologist, Megan and her message requests are just a mess every now and then I'm like, what's what kind of stuff you have in there? Anything funny. But, uh, we have some other friends that will post photos. They run their business online. Maybe it's a acute portrait, but perhaps in the summer they've got the whole beet seed show and we're like covered the merchandise. They're creepy crawlies out here. Kind of put those

Adina : 19:04

their nipples are showing, but you're like cover the merchandise on

Diane: 19:07

Yeah, I think I've like as a joke, but also not as a joke, put like dollar signs over my toes on my story, but I just like to keep my feet nice and warm and exfoliated, and also strong too, which transition we're going to talk about foot stuff and not the kind of, yeah, not that. Yeah, not the foot stuff that you find on only fans. We're going to talk about why your feet are an important foundation that we need to talk about and learn about in order to build resilience, to be better at your performance, whether that's in your workout or just your everyday life. So Adina's wheelhouse. This is at Adina's wheelhouse. And we're going to talk about all the important things you need to know with your feet, with your shoes, with your movement. So let's get into it. Adina why are we talking about feet?

Adina : 20:01

All right. Here's the thing. I think that feet are incredibly important and incredibly overlooked. That's one of the reasons, the other reasons we're talking about feet is because I posted a reel not too long ago. It actually was pretty long time ago at this point.

Diane: 20:19

but

Adina : 20:20

And this real,

Diane: 20:21

giving me

Adina : 20:22

the, the gift that keeps on giving this real hit like over 415,000 views, 415,000 people watched this thing and felt the need to tell me how they felt about it. It was a real that mentioned that. People should attempt to train barefoot. That's not even how it was worded. It was that

Diane: 20:48

I don't even know if there was a shirt in there. It was just like let's.

Adina : 20:51

no, I would never do that. I know I would never do that. The trolls come out the woodworks when you don't even do that. So I would never do that, but the audio was the audio of like, it's almost like, it's almost like that's the whole point. And the text was when I'll read aloud. When clients tell me they don't want to train barefoot because they feel more stable with their shoes on. Okay. Cute joke. It's almost like that's the whole point. Now the text was basically, can we, can we stop prescribing orthotics to everyone and teach people how to actually use their feet? We need to create stability at the base for stability up the entire change, hip problems, training. Back problems, train the feet, knee problems, train the feet, pelvic floor problems, train the feet I could go on, but I think you get the idea. That's the basic message of this real. Now this real exploded as we mentioned many, many views, but even more interesting, many, many comments, apparently people have opinions about their feet. So now we're going to do a little segment. We like to call Adina reads her troll comments on her reels. So the first one that I really just love is the ableism jumped out another one. What the fuck kind of ableism is this? And so we're really talking about ableism here. The thing is as always on the internet and more specifically in reels, this is not my dissertation about the human race.

Diane: 22:29

right, but not this all encompassing we've considered everything and every one, yes.

Adina : 22:35

This is a 15 second clip to grab your attention so that you can come and learn more about if you're a person who this fits. Maybe you're a person who your hips hurt. You have pelvic floor issues, or you were prescribed orthotics, and it didn't really make a lot of sense to you. Or you were prescribed orthotics and things didn't get better, or you were prescribed orthotics. And maybe the thing you were prescribed orthotics for got a little bit better, but then other things got way worse. You are the person this reel was for this reel was not for the people who came into this comment section to tell me that they have a rare genetic condition in which if they stand up without shoes on, they fall over. And I'm going to kill someone with this advice because the comments go on to say similar things. And my heart goes out to you if you are that person, but you can get support that isn't in my 15 second real. And perhaps even with your rare genetic condition, perhaps you might benefit from learning how to stabilize your feet. Your, your program might look a little different than say Diane's or someone else who's just coming to me with hip problems, low back pain, pelvic floor issues, and is perfectly stable on their own two feet. These are different conversations, but it's just interesting.

Diane: 23:53

Yeah, I think you've said after there, there really is like this magic number that after a hundred thousand views on a real, on a video, on a post, that is where the, the trolls come out. I don't know if they know this, but if you see something you don't like, or that isn't for you, you can scroll on. You can

Adina : 24:13

Wait, this is my favorite comment. This is my favorite comment. This is the whole comment with a period at the end of the sentence. So, you know, they were serious about this being the whole thought. This is not going to be true for everyone, period.

Diane: 24:27

no shit Sherlock. And so as

Adina : 24:31

You just summed up the internet.

Diane: 24:33

Yes, congratulations. Here's a cookie. So as with everything that we talk about here, the intention of talking about feet of anything that we talk about is to open you up to a new perspective. And as these trolls illustrated in Adina's comments, everybody is different and has different situations and symptoms and needs. And that's okay. So take what resonates from this conversation and leave what doesn't, but we want for you to consider other perspectives, things that you might want to look into, things that you can explore with whoever you are working with in person. Um, so keep that in mind and if you feel inclined to leave a grouchy comment, some things to ask yourself, first is, did I drink some water? Do I need to go for a walk or go sit outside in some sunshine? Do I need to write in my diary or see a therapist first? Those are some things that you can think about before you leave a comment on the internet. Like.

Adina : 25:33

it really, it goes on, it goes on and on and on. There was so many comments. If you're bored today, I recommend going to take a peak. There were some positive comments. Like some people commented saying things in the vein of I was prescribed. Orthotics had terrible knee pain, tried minimal issues or barefoot training. And my life changed, which is what we're trying to get after. But it is really funny.

Diane: 25:55

Yeah.

Adina : 25:56

I did the reason we thought we needed these disclaimers at the top of the episode is because that real prove to me that people care way more about this topic than I thought they did.

Diane: 26:08

Yeah. Yeah. I mean, of all the polarizing and things that we've shared in stances, we've taken that one blew up. And so we don't, we do have our disclaimer at the top and our, and our catchy theme theme music that gets me hype every time. But we do like to sprinkle some of these in here. We're not your doctor, we're not diagnosing or treating, but I know Adina especially as a movement, professional fitness, professional expert has a lot of experience and expertise. Oh my gosh, Doug it's nap time. Um, supporting clients who have had issues with their feet and in strengthening that part of their movement of their body, they see a lot of improvement elsewhere. So there's this beautiful cascade of things that can happen when you have a strong foundation. So, um, can you give us some examples of clients who have dealt with foot issues and what some of those might've been?

Adina : 27:01

Yeah, for sure. And I also just wanted to say this to two of the comments that I didn't get a chance to read were like, what kind of, I'm not a doctor bullshit is this. And the other one was, it's almost like there's an entire profession that deals with this meaning like podiatry or whatever, but the whole point of everything Diane and I are always getting after is we think about the body as a whole picture. Okay. I understand that there is a specialty that specializes in feet. My issue with that is that so often the solution is prescribing a crutch to hold your foot in a position that they want your foot to be in. And I would be all for that field of medicine. If they were referring you out to a movement expert afterwards, because I don't care what shape they put your foot into. If it doesn't translate into how well you squat, how well you pick up your baby, how well you pick up your groceries, do you then have pelvic floor issues when you do all of those things, if it doesn't translate up the chain and make you better at living your life and make everything not hurt, not just the foot thing that you came in to see them about. It's not worth it for me. Like, I need us to look at this as an entire picture, because I've had plenty of clients who were diagnosed with, oh, you have flat feet. Oh, you need these orthotics because your feet are so flat. And they come to me and tell me like, oh, I've had this back pain my whole life, but it's just because I have flat feet. You can't fix

Diane: 28:37

they might not even have connected that back pain to their feet. Right. Or other issues like we've talked about with core health and, pelvic floor

Adina : 28:47

Yeah, but, but so many people get stuck in this. I have this, like my feet are this and therefore I can't XYZ or therefore my knees hurt or therefore, you know, we just get stuck in this thinking of what shape our body makes and what that means as a diagnosis that we were given, or that we were always told this one thing, but I've had plenty of clients with flat feet. I've had plenty of clients with pelvic floor issues as a result of foot stuff, which we'll get into more today, knee pain clients who were given orthotics or prescriptive, supportive shoes. And we made that go away with properly designed barefoot strength training. And again, like we said, at the top of this may not be for everyone. And we're going to talk a little bit about like specifically competitive power lifting or power lifting shoes, weightlifting shoes, too. I have spent the last, I would say two years in a very deep dive on foot health, and it's translated into much better performance in my clients and much more pain-free living up the entire chain.

Diane: 29:55

performance and pain free. So excited about that. And maybe some of you are listening to getting into lifting and thinking about all the gear. Like there's just so much out there to think about, and maybe this is a permit. This will be a permission slip for you to skip out on some of those pricey.

Adina : 30:15

Yeah, that's the thing too, right. We, we know from my real trolls, I've been called an abelist. I've been called an exercise purist. And at the end of the day, we're always trying to lower the barrier to entry and making this more accessible to as many people as possible. Here's your permission slip to be barefoot, to own two kettlebells and to change your goddamn life.

Diane: 30:39

yeah, start there. You don't need, I mean, it's nice to have, I would love a, like tricked out garage gym, but you can do so much with a lot less. So love that low barrier to entry. The Adina talks about often on our episodes. We'll link some other relevant topics that you can revisit or visit for the first time in our show notes. So let's talk about feet as a foundation. So I think this is, I know this is overlooked because in my time, on my own and my own research with lifting, even in the gym with past professionals, this wasn't. Part of the conversation at all. So how are the feet an important foundation and prerequisite for lifting?

Adina : 31:20

right. It's interesting. Like how many professionals have we worked with? How many sports have we been a part of? How many training programs have we been on where the feet are? Just never even mentioned? But if you think about it, like, would you build a house on a terrible foundation? Like when things are going wrong, we need to be talking about what's at the base. What is the foundation look like? And when I was in school for personal training, we only took people out of their shoes during our unit on balance training. Like we learned about balance that we were like, oh, okay, we'll take our shoes off for this one day. And it's so insane to me. Like our feet are everything. They're the bottom of the chain. We need to make sure that that base is stable. That it's mobile in the way we need it to be that it absorbs force. Like if you cannot absorb force at your feet, you likely can absorb force anywhere else. That's where it starts. That's where we hit the ground. That is our first point of contact when we're absorbing

Diane: 32:28

this actually brings to mind some fitness group fitness classes that I went to in the past. And if you're listening to this, maybe you've gone to some of them you do right now, but I think of yoga and that's one of the only classes that I would do in a group setting where we were barefoot and I was much better at the balance, uh, the balancing and the poses, because we were barefoot so we were barefoot doing these different poses and yoga, and I found that I was much better at those than I was in some of my other footwear, which we'll get into in a bit. I know Adina has mentioned this in a past episode, perhaps it will come up in this conversation too, is if you can't absorb that force, we shouldn't be jumping around like we do in these boot camp classes. I know when I first started some of those group fitness classes, like maybe 10 years ago, landing was a little bit shaky. We had some, we had some stressful landing. There was no clapping afterward when I finally did I, but you know, like on a plane land.

Adina : 33:21

Oh, good joke, Diane.

Diane: 33:23

Okay. Now let's edit that out anyway, back to you.

Adina : 33:29

Yeah. So I'm not going to edit, edit out any of this, let them hear it all anyways. So yeah, when, when we're talking about landing, everyone can kind of get themselves off the ground. And the biggest issue I see, and where we see pain and injury happen is because people can't absorb the force of their own body. They can't decelerate in space. This is true for the average, just run of the mill, postpartum mom, anyone, you know, any one of our clients. This is true for professional athletes too. I know that sounds crazy if you're not familiar with the movement industry, but a lot of injuries in professional sports happen because we don't absorb force well, and we need to learn how to control our own bodies in space and training. The feet is a really big part of that. If you have been struggling with pelvic floor issues, say you leak when you jump or you tried to, you didn't realize that cause you don't do anything in athletic pursuit. You don't train really well. And then. Got on a trampoline with your kid and was like, oh shit, this isn't working for me. Um, we need to take a look at the feet because if we're not letting our feet relax and absorb that force, and we'll talk a little bit more about what that looks like when we get into foot anatomy. But if our feet aren't absorbing that force for us, our pelvic floor and our pelvic organs, it's going to be like, we're jumping on concrete. Like everything just kind of crash landing into the bottom of the pelvis. And that's not a pretty picture. It doesn't feel good. And that leads to a lot of symptoms. So when we're talking about whoever we're talking about, the pelvic floor, the feet are always going to be the window into the pelvic floor, the feet, the way our feet function, the way our feet absorb or don't absorb for us is going to give us a lot of information about what's going on up the chain.

Diane: 35:19

So we can think of our feet as shock absorbers.

Adina : 35:23

Yeah. And you know, that's a whole industry, right? They're going to tell you that you need these sneakers with this special shock absorption to protect you from your pavement running. And you might feel like, oh wow. When I put these shoes on, it feels like a cloud. It feels so much better, but if we can teach our foot to do what they were designed to do, you don't need this fancy footwear. It actually

Diane: 35:48

fancy foot work, not fancy, but where

Adina : 35:53

you need fancy footwork and not fancy footwear.

Diane: 35:57

song that comes to mind. Maybe we can edit that in ask our editor. Yeah, I

Adina : 36:02

given me more work.

Diane: 36:04

yes. I actually thought of I'm like, I want those rolly shoes, the ones, little wheels. You remember those? Like in middle school, but Heelys. Yeah. Or maybe if not that something that lights up, something with some pizazz now that I won't be wearing heels, but once a year, moving on, let's learn a little bit more about the feet.

Adina : 36:25

We're going to blow your mind with this.

Diane: 36:27

bottom hands. That's what we call them.

Adina : 36:30

there are 26 bones in your feet. There are 33 joints in your feet. It's, it's kind of just like your spine. A fourth of the bones of the human body are in the foot. Okay.

Diane: 36:45

a lot.

Adina : 36:46

That's a lot. If you think about how small of a structure that is, you think about how much opportunity there is at the. For strength, mobility, proper movement, and how much that's going to translate up the chain. And something that I find extremely interesting is that there are 7,000 nerve endings in your feet. So if you think about that, our feet and our hands are the way that we are supposed to contact our environment and send information to the brain. So if you are keeping your feet numb inside giant stable, supportive shoes and not letting them touch the earth and receive that information to send to your brain, like, think about how you are limiting your movement when you are not giving all that sensory input to the brain. When you're not lighting up the central nervous system. I know. So Diane just got done doing strength, training for happy hormones, my live coaching program. So I'm sure you can tell us about like the difference that you feel when you do a proper movement prep, where your hands and feet touch the ground, where your hands grip a kettlebell, where you start to just send that sensory information into your brain. At the beginning of the workout, it really changes the entire workout. It shifts everything about your performance. When you have your central nervous system, just like lit up like that at the beginning of your movement.

Diane: 38:12

I felt much more connected. And sometimes when I was in the gym and we were doing say heavy barbell squats, sometimes with my deadlifts, I was barefoot. But when I was on my own, historically, I was like, oh, I don't want to take off my shoe. Take off my shoes. My feet are clean. They smell nice, but it just felt taboo. And I didn't really see anyone in my gym that would do that. But when I was doing strength training for happy hormones, I'm in the comfort of my own home. Big plus to this program, if you are considering it, as you can just grab some equipment and set up anywhere in your home, love that. But I felt like I could root down much easier and feel more grounded and connected, especially when we were in say like a deep squat and holding that position, our movement prep, or I felt like I wasn't lifting my toes off the ground as I might have when I was in the gym wearing some of my sneakers, which we're going to talk about footwear a little bit further, but really love being able to connect to my body and to the movement, to the ground. A lot more and side note, you've heard us talk about grounding. And so when a Dean's talking about connecting to the ground, a nice way to Sue and to take care of yourself and to connect with your environment is to put those feet on soil in the grass. If you have that open to you, as we're heading into fall winter, where that might not feel so good. That is one of my favorite things is walking around in the grass without any sandals on, without any shoes on. I love that

Adina : 39:40

Yeah. And here's why, right? Like there's so much information that gets sent to the brain when we touch the ground. And there is this energy and vibration in the grass, in the dirt. And so it's a really incredible way to just calm everything down and connect. And we get that opportunity when we actually do proper barefoot training of the foot when we put that foot on the ground. And that first thing that you feel is the floor. Like it sends a different signal to your body than when you're inside of it.

Diane: 40:08

yeah, 7,000 nerve endings. I didn't know that, but it makes sense having experienced it with both or experienced lifting with bare feet versus in my sneaks.

Adina : 40:19

Yeah, it makes a huge difference. It really changed everything for myself and for my clients, which is why we really want to share that this information with you and actually funny story. I just wanted it. I was thinking this, when you were talking about like, you don't need some fancy garage gym set up, that is, I think one of the biggest features of strength training for happy hormones, you're barefoot, you can be in your living room, you need two kettlebells and it just makes it so much more accessible. Like we've been talking about really trying to lower that barrier to entry, but it is so funny when clients video themselves for form review, like the things I see in the background, because we are just so intimate in this home space, like so many experiences of even on the live zoom calls, like people shouting like to husbands partners, like don't come down in your underwear.

Diane: 41:02

Yeah, I've had you, might've seen this in my farm review, Doug. My pug likes to put his face on top of my face. Maybe if there are any pet experts listening, is he trying to like assert his dominance or is it like a hug? It's so weird. He just rests there. Or I know there was one with Neil in the background and like a booty slap or something or just laundry every, you know, you've seen it all. I'm sure.

Adina : 41:22

I've seen it all, but it's worth it because then we can give you this accessible opportunity to just get so

Diane: 41:29

Cause for me, like I know that is a reservation of many is, oh, I have to get to the gym, especially here where we are in the Midwest. Maybe the weather is disgusting. You have a commute to the gym. But one thing I love about working virtually with Adina is the comfort of home, but also that form review. So we've talked about that a lot, a couple of times. So she's reviewing form. She can call you out virtually in zoom, like she has called my ass out, but if you're recording yourself on your own, you also get to see how you move, which you might not have been able to do when you were in a gym or just working out on your own.

Adina : 42:00

Yeah. Like, I know we've worked together in the past when you were in the gym. And like that recording in the gym is just a little more dicey than recording at home. You might feel more sheepish about that, but you're saying about calling your ass out on zoom. It's amazing what I've been able to see in those tiny squares, especially when we're a big group on the call. It's a totally different skill than training in

Diane: 42:19

you've called me out my breath too, which I'm like, she can't. How can she see this?

Adina : 42:23

I can see it. Um, but yeah, about those toes. If you pick up your toes during a lift, like I'm going to call you out on it. We had one woman in the group last round, too. That was kind of got into our joke about it because she was experiencing some pain and I could see, so clearly when it was starting, when those toes would come up off the ground. So getting those toes down, we're going to talk about that big toe. Like our big toe is the most underrated part of our body. It is so important. It is so important to be able to get that big toe mobility, like really get extension at that big toe

Diane: 42:58

I'm curious what that looks like. So I know this isn't a visual show you got, but what do you mean by extension and the big toe

Adina : 43:05

So being able to really pick that big toe up off the ground. And when we do that, we want our arch to shorten a little bit as we pick that big tub toe off the ground, like your arch should shift with that big toe. We want to get a really good amount of movement with that big toe off the ground. And then when we press that big toe into the ground, that is the key to our hip extension. So being able to get the most out of our glutes, being able to get those hips all the way through and to get the most power and strength out of our glutes, which are our largest muscle and we need to be using them. So go back to our butt stuff episode if you miss that. But when I see people executing a kettlebell swing in those cloud shoes and their whole foot is not on the ground, I am going to lose my shit.

Diane: 43:55

that's a big no-no.

Adina : 43:57

We're just missing out on so much. There's so much incredible power and stability in that big toe that is going to change the game for your lifts. If you learn how to use it.

Diane: 44:09

Oh, So we talked about the big toe, but what about the other little pals, the other toes? Anything that we need to know about that movement? What about the foot as a whole.

Adina : 44:20

Yeah. So like we mentioned, there's a lot of bones, a lot of joints in the foot and it can get complicated, but I want you to just think about the two major movements at the foot, which are pronation and supination, doesn't really matter. You don't need to know this. It won't be on the quiz but I'm

Diane: 44:39

We're not testing you on this.

Adina : 44:41

I know I'm hoping that there are some trainers listening to this and we're just like elevating their entire practice and every human they come into contact with. So you may recognize these two movements if you are in the movement field. But what's important to think about is basically that one of the movement is when your foot flattens and widens. And that is the part of this cycle where we absorb the four. Okay. And then the other movement super nation is when we shorten and that arch gets bigger. We pull the foot together to create that arch. And that is what propels us forward. And that is creating that force. So creating for us, absorbing force, creating force, absorbing force our foot, we'll basically cycle through that where it gets flatter and wider and the arch flattens to the ground to absorb for us. And then the propel us, the arch comes up and we push off the ground. Okay. It's not that one is better than the other many people who have been diagnosed with like a flat foot and they're given an orthotic to create the arch. They, you know, that's kind of considered like the bad version of feet, right? Like we have this story where if you have good high arches, that's great. If you have these flat feet, that's bad, that's where all your pain stems from and you need something to fix it. But the thing is that we need both desperately, we need pronation and we need supination We need that flattening and that arch raising. And so we need to be able to cycle through the two of these. And the way I'm always thinking about movement is when I'm looking at a person I'm thinking, what does this person have as far as movement goes? So maybe their foot is really flat. So they have pronation, what do they need and how can I give it to them? How can we in our program implement what they need? So we need to make sure that your foot can cycle through both of those that we can get that full flattening and that full arch to propel us forward. So, like, for example, with me, I have one super stiff arch. So with the naked, I was looking at that you would think like, oh, high arches, like great, perfect fee, like no pain there, but I have kind of done some digging and figured out that a lot of the pelvic floor stuff I was experiencing after Abe really stems from that stiff arch. And so it may look on paper, like not the bad kind of feet, but I need more of that flattening. I need my foot to be able to splay, to be able to flatten to the ground for that arch to relax into the floor, to absorb that force. So it's really interesting when we're thinking about this. Like it's not that one is good. One is bad. We need both. And if you have one, we need to give you more of the other.

Diane: 47:28

we're going to talk about how are some ways that folks try to problem solve this foot pain. So some foot solutions that maybe aren't serving you, and I'm what comes to mind to me right now, especially as you're talking about postpartum and how you felt after Abe is foot massage. Like, oh, I just need a foot massage, but there's more to it than that. And I know in the past you've talked about the motion is the lotion. So movement being the way to help get you out of pain. It sounds counterintuitive, especially if you feel uncomfortable, but I know in working with Adina and her medical exercise background, that there are a lot of different modifications for you, and we want for you to be able to strengthen your baseline and your movement patterns so you can build more resilience

Adina : 48:11

I love that you brought that up because miss a foot massage can be really helpful

Diane: 48:16

and feel so good.

Adina : 48:18

it can feel really nice. And again, like we talked about like all those nerve endings in the foot. Just getting some contact onto the foot and telling your brain, like, relax, this thing that you're holding on to for dear life. Sometimes that can be so helpful, but then we need to follow it up with the movement to make sure that that adjustment sticks. It's the same thing we're always talking about with like chiropractic and other hands-on modalities. It's like, yeah, they can be helpful to create an opportunity for us,

Diane: 48:47

Yeah to get us out of pain, like for immediate symptom relief, perhaps, it's not the only.

Adina : 48:52

even so not even just get us out of pain, but like give us the thing we didn't have. So like, if we're stuck with that flat foot, maybe some massage can help to create that arch for us or using props or whatever it is. But if we don't then go and squat and maintain that arch on our own and see, can I access it without the foot massage? Can I access it on my own when I load it up? That's where the change happens. So we really need to be able to. Take the added movement, the added mobility that we get from something like that, and then apply it to our strength work and make sure we can access it on our own in our daily life.

Diane: 49:33

Yeah, got it. Got it. Love that. That'll be on the test.

Adina : 49:38

Yeah. Another thing I wanted to mention about postpartum too, if you're listening to this conversation, if you are a person whose shoe size changed dramatically toward the end of pregnancy or postpartum, like you thought your foot got bigger, maybe in pregnancy, they were swollen. That's certainly can happen when you know, blood and fluids are pooling at the feet, but I know sounds super gross, but it's like a Dr. spaceman you know, when he's supposed to be delivering a baby and he's like everything about this is disgusting

Diane: 50:11

is whatever you want it to be.

Adina : 50:14

medicine. Isn't really a science. Oh, Dr. Spaceman. Okay. So. What was I saying, oh, about your feet growing. So it may not be that your foot grew, it may be. And most likely is that your art flattened because you lost access to that supination. So if the shifts in pregnancy like your, your center of mass is shifting forward, you might be clutching. You might be clutching other parts of the body to recenter your gravity and just things shift around. You lose access to that good breath work, that pelvic floor relaxation. And so often times the first place I start with postpartum clients is those feet. Because if we can get access back to that shortening of the arch, to creating that stable foundation again, to redistributing the weight, to being able to absorb the force sometimes that solves the pelvic floor issues and the low back pain and whatever else you may be experiencing all on its own.

Diane: 51:17

oh, isn't that nice. Working smarter, not harder, which is a continuous theme here. So we've talked about foot foundations let's get into some mistakes we're making with feet or perhaps some solutions you might have tried, or that have been suggested to you that might not be serving you as well as we'd like. So another little mini disclaimer, before we get into it, not your doctor, although your PCP doesn't know shit about your feet, but. Whatever, I'm

Adina : 51:46

not your podiatrist.

Diane: 51:49

seek one out that you trust. Hopefully a good one. Um, and go in armed with some of this information.

Adina : 51:56

Hopefully they're referring you out to a qualified movement specialist.

Diane: 52:01

so let's talk about orthotics, because I know this invariably comes up when people are thinking about how to make their feet more comfortable, how to move better in their shoes. So you have some feels about where orthodics let us hear them.

Adina : 52:14

Yes. Wait, it's like, um, that Mitch Hedberg joke. Do you know that Michelle, do you know Mitch

Diane: 52:19

I do not. I do remind me

Adina : 52:22

Comedian. His delivery is very specific, but recommend looking him up anyways. He has this one joke. That's like Dr. Scholls makes foot products and he's a doctor. So he went to school for a really long time, but it doesn't take a lot to figure out that stepping on a cushion would be more comfortable. I would buy that from a Mr. scholls

Diane: 52:53

Don't have to be a doctor.

Adina : 52:55

Yeah, it's really funny. His delivery is very specific. So obviously it's going to sound way different than that.

Diane: 53:01

We'll see if we can link it in the show notes, if you need a laugh.

Adina : 53:05

it makes me laugh every time I think about that,

Diane: 53:07

Yeah. So tell us about orthotics.

Adina : 53:10

orthotics. They are intended to take your foot from the position it is in and put them in a different position, right? Like we said, if you have that flat spread out foot orthotics are designed to create an arch for you. Right? And so in my mind with that intervention, we are acknowledging that you need more super nation. You need to be able to create that arch, but instead of teaching you how to create that arch and how to access that flattening and that arching in that cycle of your movement, we're just putting you in the opposite position of the one that you were in. So again, we're not speaking to every medical condition, we're not speaking to every specific situation,

Diane: 54:02

medical advice.

Adina : 54:04

not medical advice, but even if you have a very specific medical condition or a very specific genetic disorder, You still might benefit from this training. You still might benefit from gaining strength, gaining control over the movement at your foot. And yes, it might look very different than the way that my program is laid out. For the average person. You might look to working one-on-one with someone who has this knowledge and this specialty, and really understands how to stabilize you at the feet. Again, when we're talking about ableism. Yes. The information that I put out on the internet and the program that I create for the average person is not going to take into account every specific medical situation or every single person's specific

Diane: 54:54

yeah, that's much more appropriate for a one-on-one setting, not group programs.

Adina : 54:59

If you're a person who sees my real and your reaction is distraught because you feel like this information does not apply to you or to people that, you know, You or those people are a great fit for one-on-one,

Diane: 55:15

yes. And there are some amazing people who can help you. One-on-one I don't think you're doing that right now. Right.

Adina : 55:21

no, but my friends at reload, physical therapy in New York are great resource. If that's you. And you might find out that you are a lot more capable than somebody told you. You were

Diane: 55:31

and how cool is that? I mean, pause on that. You might find out that you're more capable than you were told you weren't than you thought you were. And that's a beautiful thing.

Adina : 55:41

yeah, I love that so much. And it's something I focus on a lot in my work. So again, orthotics might be for some, but if we go ahead and prescribe them to everyone with foot pain, to everyone, with flat feet, it's a bandaid it's over prescribed and we're limiting movement at the foot. We just talked about how important it is to take the foot through that whole range of motion, to absorb all that force and to propel you forward and create force if we just lock you into the other position. So you were flat and now we just lock you into an arch. Think about how much we're missing out on at that foot. And it's going to carry up the whole way up the chain.

Diane: 56:21

yes. And this one is perhaps just as prevalent in the online. Fitness space or just as commonly recommended. And that is weightlifting shoes. So maybe you have been lifting for a while now. Maybe these are in your closet and your rotation, weightlifting shoes, powerlifting shoes, CrossFit shoes. Are those all the same thing? I don't know either way. It seems like they're increasingly popular for that space. So what are some considerations here? As I say yes, this is a no, sometimes

Adina : 56:52

So I'm guilty of wearing weightlifting shoes, telling clients to wear weightlifting shoes. And again, this is a band-aid to access a certain stability and a certain range of motion. So I used to wear lifting shoes with a big heel because I had what I thought was a limited ankle range of motion. And if I wanted to get full depth on my squat and get really powerful out of the bottom, I needed my foot in a slightly lifted position to be able to really access the bottom of that

Diane: 57:24

is this why some people won't do squats with their heels on maybe a little plate or something?

Adina : 57:30

Yeah, and, and that can be a great intervention. If someone is struggling to get into a certain position in the squad, like I'll prescribe that again for my postpartum women. If we're struggling to get the ribs stacked over the pelvis, you know, I challenge people to get a little more upright in their squats now and to really access that position, a lot of us will either need to start with our heels elevated. And I, my goal would be to transition them away from that, you know, lower and lower elevation until we can get them on the floor with that full range of motion and still get that bottom picture of the squat that I'm looking for, you know, with that intervention. But with a weightlifting shoe, it's gonna create a lot of stability. Like if you've only ever trained with a weightlifting shoe, and then you go ahead and take your feet off and try to squat. You might have like 60% of your

Diane: 58:23

now, what did these look like? I know we don't have a visual and for those who don't know, what does a weight lifting or power lifting shoe look like?

Adina : 58:32

so it can be different, but mostly what you're seeing is a very stiff shoe. Like the whole body of the shoe is very, very stiff and there's going to be a slight elevation in the heel to put you almost on a little bit of an angle.

Diane: 58:44

so they're not flat. They have a slight lift.

Adina : 58:47

yeah, there will be some versions that are flat. I think we see that more in the CrossFit space because CrossFit and paleo overlapped for a little bit. So some people did sort of try to access more of a paleolithic ancestral movement patterns and switch to more of those barefoot shoes. So like Nike Metcons, for example, those are a flatter shoe, but they still are. They still are a little stiff, um, for my liking for all the time training. And when it comes down to it, it really depends on your goal. If you're just the average person who wants to get stronger, who wants to move better, who wants to feel pain-free in their everyday life, maybe your postpartum, maybe you've had other injury histories in the past that have led to certain pain. I would probably want you training barefoot because I really want to teach you how your feet work and how much we can get out of that stable base. If you're a person who wants to compete in power lifting, I'd probably have you trained in a shoe. I'd probably cycle in some barefoot training to make sure that we can really connect to the ground and get the most out of that. But at the end of the day, your goal is just, I want to lift the most that I can possibly lift on that platform in these three specific movement patterns that are necessary for that sport. And so with those considerations, a shoe is important. You know, getting that extra lift, getting that extra stability on the platform can be really. But if you're a person who is a powerlifter, but say also has like all these pelvic floor issues that

Diane: 1:00:25

pain, pelvic floor.

Adina : 1:00:28

Then it's like, which of your goals do you care more about? And what do we prioritize? So it's not that weightlifting shoes are a hard, no, but you need to consider what you're chasing and what you're leaving behind. When you do use an intervention like that,

Diane: 1:00:47

Yeah, that makes sense. And I'm thinking, so you said for your average everyday person, their goal is to be stronger everyday life. It wouldn't make sense to just train in a shoe because we want to be better outside of that workout and feel free of that pain. Um, and lack of mobility mobility outside of the gym and the workout,

Adina : 1:01:05

right? Like what are you going to do if all you've ever done is trained in a shoe and then your barefoot in your kitchen and your toddler climbed up on the counter and is falling off and you have. Make a quick sudden move and catch them. And you

Diane: 1:01:19

little side lunge.

Adina : 1:01:21

yeah. Like if you need to absorb force barefoot and we've only ever trained it with your shoes on, you might face an injury, you might be really surprised to learn that you don't have access to certain skills. You thought you had

Diane: 1:01:33

I don't roll that ankle. Like go, Ooh,

Adina : 1:01:36

Yeah. One of my favorite things to do before I even knew all this was again, like we had learned this balance training in personal training school and it was like, oh, take someone's shoes off and let them see how poor their balances now. So when we teach people like, oh, wait a minute, here's all this stuff happening at the foot. And I actually need that to be my best self. It makes a really big shift in what those priorities are. So again, I'm not saying weightlifting shoes are bad. I'm not saying that wrong for everyone, but we do want to consider what your goals are. And I do think there is just so much value in getting people's shoes off that it wasn't. Yeah, take those shoes off. It wouldn't be my go-to for every single person in every single situation.

Diane: 1:02:17

Yeah, I hear you. Speaking of some lift in those shoes, we can't talk about feet and footwear and things that might be behind your pain without talking about high heels. Now I talked to the top of this episode about how I abused my feet, but sometimes you might need to wear a cute outfit and wear some heels, right. So how can we still make that happen? But also what are some other considerations we might want to think about with heels?

Adina : 1:02:47

yeah. That's important to consider. Like sometimes you just want to wear the heels. If we were living in a world where I didn't care at all about that, and I just cared about optimal function for every single person and their pelvic floors. Like I probably wouldn't wear heels ever. But like we said, at the top of this episode, sometimes you want to go fashion over function and you just want to look good and heels are cute. We can't get around that. Like, Do I want to move to the woods and just be barefoot all the time sometimes, but sometimes dressing up is really fun. And so I love my heels and I'm pickier about them now than I was in the past. I like, I'm really hoping that the platform heel is here to stay

Diane: 1:03:35

was going to say, I think I've seen you with platforms sneaks where it's a completely flat platform, but I've also seen these with heels or sandals that are super cute. So there are some options out there.

Adina : 1:03:47

And again, doesn't mean never wear high heels. We just need to think about what's the thing we do most of the time. What is the movement we have access to? What's the movement we don't have access to. How can we give you access? To the movement that we don't have access to. So if you are a person who really likes to wear heels, just make sure you're giving yourself that extra foot love. If you're a person who loves to wear heels and you have hip pain, back pain, pelvic floor issues, and you never really thought about the connection that might be there. It's not to say stop wearing heels and all your problems will be solved, but maybe spend less time in heels. Maybe address through barefoot training foot stuff. Some of the other training modalities that we'll get into at the end of this episode. Just think about how we can show those feet. Some love. If you do like to wear high heels.

Diane: 1:04:44

yeah. Use them in moderation. And I am sure you saw this all over the city when you were in New York, but, but maybe that's bringing. An alternate shoe or your commuter shoe instead of wearing those heels from the time you step out your front door through the whole office day. I know when I worked in an office, I had a little collection under my desk, especially when the winter was sludge nasty and we're not trying to break our ankles on the ice in the parking garage, but I would have some underneath my desk. I really love that there are more casual sneakers. It's not just like the dad shoe. That's having a big trend right now. It's not for me, but if that's for you, that's cool. Um, yeah, I like that there are platform heels, some other alternatives. I also noticed though, as I started to learn about this information from you from, um, someone I used to work with in the past, and that was. Uh, almost every shoe seems to have a heel, even the ones that are flats, like your sneakers, your sandals. I think even if like my Birkenstocks, there's a slight lift in the heel. So I know we're going to talk next about how to love on your feet, but before we get there, it's how can we look at our shoes and see where we can find something that's more flat, more closer to the ground across the whole way, right?

Adina : 1:06:07

And just gives your foot the opportunity to like, do what feet are supposed to do. If there's so much support in that shoe and it's putting your foot into a certain position. You have to consider what kind of toll that is going to take over time. So not to say don't ever do it, but especially like now that I have this awareness and we've had this conversation too, like if I do spend a night in heels, I'm super conscious of the next day. Making sure. I spend the time to mobilize my feet, get back into that movement, that barefoot movement connecting to the ground, getting into some positions that I know will relieve some of that tightness. Some of that tension that builds up, especially for me. Cause I do have those tight arches. I don't know if I ever told you this story. I think I did,

Diane: 1:06:52

about your arches.

Adina : 1:06:53

Yeah, my classic, my classic story about my arches. Um, there was one weekend when Donny was away for a bachelor party and I was home with the kids, which is like I'm home with the kids all the time, not a scary thing at all, but I was walking down the stairs and my kids love to do this. Both my kids. It's just like a joke that started a while ago to the tune of baby shark, where I just sing both my kids do, do to do. And I like carry them both down the stairs. Cause I'm strong enough to do that all the time. But I was coming down the stairs and I was really stressed out like a variety of things had happened that week. That just kind of piled up and I took a step down and my leg like buckled out from under me. I thought I was going to fall down the stairs, holding both my children.

Diane: 1:07:41

Oh, no.

Adina : 1:07:42

I had a moment where I was just like, Oh, my God, this is terrifying. Is this a week? People feel like all the time, like it was scary. And so what happened was something was feeling super unstable in my hip. I don't need to get into the exact mechanics of it, but I did what, I didn't know how to do best and right when that happened. When I put my kids down for a nap, I had some time to myself. I got right into a loaded mobility movement. Prep tried to play around with the hip and figure out what was going on down the chain. And it gave me a lot of relief throughout the day. There was some pain, more like inner groin pain that I was kind of experiencing. The craziest thing is that I woke up the next morning. Clearly something was still going on there. I woke up the next morning and the arch on that foot of the hip that buckled under me was so stiff. I got up to pee and I had to limp to the bathroom. I like couldn't absorb forced to put my foot down on the ground. I talked to my clients about this all the time. Like when we're trying to protect one joint, a lot of times we will compromise in another joint like the classic of like you have low back pain. And then all of a sudden you have hip pain because you're trying so hard not to move your back. So I must've been doing something to try to protect that hip all day. The foot on that side of my body just seized up. And my arch was so super tight that next morning, I can't even explain to you how crazy it was. I swung my legs out of bed and went to put my foot down. And there was no injury that led to that feeling, but I literally had to limp to the bathroom. And so obviously I spent a large majority of that next day, really focusing on that foot work. And then I felt totally fine, but

Diane: 1:09:25

but yeah, that mindful fancy footwork. Yeah. Not something that you would, the civilian would think you'd connect it to that problem with the.

Adina : 1:09:35

Yeah. So again, now that I know what goes on with that arch and how I still haven't made the progress, I want to make there. If I do choose to spend a night in heels. You bet your booty that next day, I am really focusing on mobilizing that arch, getting those feet back on the ground, getting the ankle, moving the way I want it to getting everything moving. Underload the way that I need it to.

Diane: 1:10:00

Yeah. I mean, I think of what we do after a night out so that after care, making sure that we are hydrated, even if you're not hung over, she'd still be replenishing. Right. But how can we bring that same attention to. Feet our body and maximizing that movement too. So you touched on how you love on yourself after a night and heels here or there, but what about just for a night on the town? Let's dive a little deeper into how we can love on our feet, whether we wear heels or not, maybe we just want to give our feet and our body, some TLC.

Adina : 1:10:37

All right. So step one. And again, did not know how controversial this would be, but take off your damn shoes. Take your shoes off. That is step one, spend some time barefoot. If you can't find your slippers one morning and all of a sudden you feel your feet under you feel the ground under your feet, and it's terrifying to you and you think you're going to have back pain standing in your kitchen barefoot. Let's investigate that let's slowly try to spend some more time barefoot and see how that feels for you. See if we can start to connect to the ground a little bit more and play around with what movement does my foot do?

Diane: 1:11:15

oh, I do have a, what does that foot do? I do have a question about that. We have hard tile in our kitchen. I think of like folks who work in restaurants or who are on their feet all the time, thinking about healthcare workers too. Um, I'll feel some back pain just from being in the kitchen for a long period of time. So maybe that's where. Softer rug or something under foot. Could that be helpful too? In addition to getting your feet connected to the.

Adina : 1:11:40

Yeah, totally. So like we said, it's what you do most of the time. Um, if I was just going into the kitchen for a quick little cooking sesh, I have the resilience and the stability in my body to be able to do that barefoot on my hard tile without pain. But if you are standing there for extended periods of time, Inevitably we compensate when we're standing on our feet for a long time. So you might shift into some old patterns. You might shift into the place where it's easiest for your body to hang out. So maybe for a postpartum woman, that's like a sway back posture where their hips come forward and they clench their butt. Trying to protect that low back. So if you're standing for a long time, there are going to be some things that show up. I would, if you have the availability, obviously, if you're a healthcare worker and you're on your feet all day in a hospital, this might not be available to you. But if it's I'm at home doing marathon cooking and cleaning in the kitchen, Break that up, break that up with some Turkish get-ups with some, you know, goblet squats with some swings, like get your feet moving in a way that feels different to try to get out of some of those compensatory patterns. Again, a squishy surface on the floor can totally be helpful if it's a long period of time that you're standing there and those things aren't available to you, but I would still encourage you to. Train barefoot and keep trying to make the progress towards more comfort for longer duration in that standing.

Diane: 1:13:08

Yeah. So during your training, outside of retraining, take off your shoes. Train barefoot is the next one. We talked about this throughout the episode, but what might that look like? Do you just throw off your shoes and walk right into the gym floor?

Adina : 1:13:24

Yeah. So for some of us, we might need some transition time if you've never trained with your shoes off, but what we want to be looking for is what does it feel like to be barefoot? Like I wouldn't, for example, if you can squat 200 pounds with a weightlifting shoe on and you're like, oh, I just found out I'm supposed to train barefoot. I wouldn't go load the bar with your map. And take your shoes off and be like, let's try this barefoot for 200 pounds. I would slowly work up to training barefoot if that's something that you want to do. So that would start with just doing your movement prep barefoot, trying to get into those feet and increasing that duration over time that you spend barefoot in increasing the complexity of the movements that you execute barefoot. I know this was a big trend a while ago. A few years ago. I remember. People finding out that barefoot could be helpful and all these people switching to barefoot shoes for running.

Diane: 1:14:24

those look so

Adina : 1:14:25

Yeah. The tow ones. Oh my God. And yes, running barefoot is a thing that can be really great for your body and is the way we used to run and is the ideal pattern for your feet to be moving. But if you go from clocking miles in a really squishy. To doing no prep and just taking off your shoes and running for those same miles, you are going to get very hurt.

Diane: 1:14:54

Your body's going to be like, whoa, what are we doing?

Adina : 1:14:57

When you used to have this shoe absorbing the force for you and your body, doesn't yet know how to absorb that force. Well, and then you're just going to take off your shoes and start running my. That's not going to work out. You have to titrate up slowly, start spending more and more time barefoot. And for most of the women who come into my program, this isn't really a problem because again, I always am looking at the minimum effective dose in my training. We start out barefoot. Overloading that system. We're not asking for too many reps, we're not starting with sprinting and jumping. We are creating a really solid foundation with those feet on the ground with increasing load with low raps high rest. So I'm not really worried about that toll that that's going to take on the body. And we have a lot of tools at our disposal. If it doesn't feel right for someone, how can we adjust this? So something I love is just getting some sensory input to the foot. So something like rolling your foot around on top of a lacrosse ball. That

Diane: 1:16:01

So good. Oh my gosh. Especially after heals.

Adina : 1:16:05

That can make the difference for someone like if they didn't have the ability to contact the floor with their foot, they couldn't get that pronation or they couldn't get that super nation and you roll out their feet. Sometimes that's enough sensory input sending all those nerve endings. That's this message that like, oh, I need you to actually relax this and not be so stiff. So I love to start out a movement prep with that. If someone has some issues getting movement at the foot,

Diane: 1:16:30

So would that be you're massaging the ball or are you on your foot or are you standing on it? What does that.

Adina : 1:16:36

Anything, both everything, just getting some feeling under there, sending some information to the bottom of that foot. Like I need you to relax to move, uh, and that can really, really be helpful.

Diane: 1:16:49

Yeah, that's a pretty easy to find an accessible tool. You don't need to have a thera gun or fancy massage gun. I love lacrosse balls for that. For putting it behind me and my shoulder sometimes when I need that relief and can't quite reach it. And I just roll around on the wall. I've done it in the gym too. And it just looks like I'm shimmying in the corner by myself. It feels good.

Adina : 1:17:12

Yeah, that can be really helpful. Yeah. So another thing that I would implement is, again, trying to get that heel off the ground, trying to really get into that arch and get into that big toe. So a couple of things I really love for. People to try out as they're starting to implement, this is like a standing calf raise. So standing against the wall, hands on the wall, just practice marching, even without lifting that heel, but really just marching getting that foot to the ground and off the ground. And then you can make that a little more dynamic, but just getting those heels off the ground, holding that whole body up on those toes with those calves and playing around with like, is this, does this feel impossible to you? Maybe we need to take a look at those feet and. That's another one I love. And then, you know, I love to get people on all fours crawling around. So if you're on all fours, tucking those toes under leaning back into those toes, letting those toes push you forward, just playing around with, if you take a little bit of gravity out of the equation, by being on all fours, instead of standing, can we allow our foot to absorb some force and to create some force just like that, running through the full range of motion of your foot.

Diane: 1:18:20

it seems so simple. I'm thinking when you talked about being on all fours and that tabletop position of the dynamic warmups that you have programmed for us in strength training for happy hormones and your pro all your programs. I love it. I remember thinking, okay, this is so simple. I want to move on. But later it became one of my favorite parts and it reminded me of. Baby's move, which I know you've mentioned this and you've maybe showed it. You've shown it on your story, but for before with minnie and little Abe. So how can, what can we learn about movement by watching K.

Adina : 1:18:52

Yeah. So it's interesting kids. Like we should follow the same progressions that they follow. And I've talked about this before on the show. Certainly when I'm programming for a postpartum woman and starting from the ground up, I am programming in the same sequence that babies learn to move. And when we're thinking about people who don't really have access to their feet, babies have crazy mobility like their feet move in ways that we can never imagine. I have so

Diane: 1:19:17

And there are deep squats, too. Like those nice hinges they have.

Adina : 1:19:21

Yeah. And their joints are just a little different than ours. So like it's not going to look exactly the same. Like I have videos of Abe climbing up things where he looks like a monkey, the way his feet bend. And you're just like, how does your ankle do that? But it's crazy what they have access to that movement. They have access to, um, they don't quite have the stability, but that doesn't matter. They don't need it. And so we want to think about that, but certainly with kids and their feet, like we've talked about this before. Kids should be barefoot. And I really like to let my kids be barefoot. My mom has some opinions about it, but when you take a kid that walks beautifully barefoot and you put them in a shoe, all of a sudden they are a clunky mess and they like fall on their face and they can't

Diane: 1:20:08

baby heal. And these were not talking about actual heals for little toddlers, but even though Nike is have a little lift to them, just look at shoes, your, your kid's shoes, your shoes next time. And you'll realize that they aren't as flat, close to the crown. As you might think that they would

Adina : 1:20:24

And as they don't have as much room for our foot to do what it needs to do. Like it's very fashionable to have very narrow shoes, but we actually really need a wide toe box for our feet to be able to absorb force, create forests in that pronation supination pattern that we talked about. So for that, I love barefoot shoes, like the brand zero or. vivo barefoot. Those are really great options where they're actually going to have the flexibility in the soul. So you can do your own foot movement. They're going to have that wide enough toe box for your foot to be able to do what it does. And again, Fashion over function is gonna come up sometimes. But if you want to shoe to be able to go on long walks with do your everyday stuff and continue to feel your best and have access to the magic that happens when your foot can touch the ground and do what it needs to do. I highly recommend a barefoot shoe when I first switched to a barefoot shoe and I really liked the because. Up cycle and it's, there's some really great options on there. And I have ones that are just like white canvas. Like they look like any white canvas sneaker. They just feel a little better on the, on the toes there. The first time I pushed my kids in a double stroller, up a hill wearing my barefoot shoes. I felt my entire posterior chain, like my glutes and hamstrings and like my calves in a way that I haven't ever outside of training. And I was just like, oh my, my legs are doing what they're supposed to be doing now.

Diane: 1:22:04

oh, this is what it's supposed to feel like. Yeah. We'll have to link some examples, uh, in the show notes, if you are interested in getting into that, but also if you are someone who loves or putting down here, you want to go deeper. I mean, we only scratched the surface here, FYI. Strength training for happy hormones plus coaching and the self-paced are both available. They're back now. Maybe you're already on the wait list you already got in there. It's hot and ready for you. So tell us a little bit more about how folks can work with you in the next few weeks.

Adina : 1:22:37

Yes. So we're launching October 17th. That's going to be our start date. Like Diane said, if you are picking up what we're putting down, if you like these conversations, if you feel like this is what has been missing from your life, if you want to learn how to move in a way that feels really good inside your body, if you want to learn how to actually use your feet so that they show up for you and they support your entire body, they help with that pelvic floor stuff. That hip stuff, that low back stuff, we are going to get those joints feeling juice.

Diane: 1:23:10

Get those joints choosy that booty juicy.

Adina : 1:23:14

juicy we are going to get the most is with the least is as Marty Gallagher says we do as few reps as we need to, to keep moving the needle forward for you. So it's really, really approachable. It's accessible. It is something you can do in the comfort of your home. With your pajamas on with two kettlebells, it's not a big setup. You don't need much, and you will learn more than you ever have about your body. About the way it moves, about how to get strong in a way that is super sustainable for your life. And also like it's going to keep growing this program is going to be a hero product of mine, and I'm going to be constantly adding helpful resources. I've said that. I want to make that self paced experience as similar to the plus coaching experience as possible. So while there is nothing quite like being with me on these live coaching calls, they're so much fun. The women who joined the program are all incredible. I have just fallen in love with every single one of my clients. So it's a really fun community and the live

Diane: 1:24:21

It's worth noting too, that it's. Fantastic for beginners and intermediate advanced folks. Like you might have been lifting on your own for several years. That's definitely the camp I fell in there or someone else in there. I think we might have a personal training background and she's been lifting, but I think it was working through an injury and Adina has so many different modifications. There are people in all seasons of life in the program, women who are postmenopausal, some who just recently. We're post partum. So there are so many modifications available to you. Don't feel like you need to have some experience with lifting as prerequisite to this. In fact, I wonder if it's almost easier for you to have not had much instruction.

Adina : 1:25:07

Yeah, it's so funny. I think this last round was such a good mix of people who were completely new to lifting and people who had competitive Olympic lifting backgrounds and just couldn't get out of pain because. At the end of the day, we're always going to take it back to the foundations. And so whether you are beginner or advanced, you are going to learn so much inside the program. And the difference will just be what weight kettlebell. You have to progress to next. You know, someone who has a history of pressing things over their head might be able to jump more quickly from that 12 kg bell to something heavier. There is always room to grow and beginner or advanced alike, you will learn so much and you will feel so damn good in your body.

Diane: 1:25:56

I went through it. I absolutely loved it. I wanted to do it again. So that's why I'm doing your membership next. But I learned so much about how my body works. And if you're someone who has foot pain, back pain, pelvic floor pain, other pain, you thought, okay, maybe this is just where I need to be and hang out. I just can't. I don't have this movement accessible to me. Chances are, there's probably something that you can work through here with Adina and. Regained that resilience and that strength in your body, and it just makes your, the rest of your life so much easier. So I've really loved that. I love that the workouts fit into my day so easily. I'm not taking like two plus hours to get a workout done. So I love that.

Adina : 1:26:37

Yeah. And we're not demanding a lot of days of the week, right? It's three days a week and it can be one or two. If that's all you have time for it, like you will still get stronger and you will still have incredible results in the program. As long as you show up and stay consistent throughout the weeks. One to two times a week is still going to move the needle, which is really different for a lot of people who are used to feeling like if I

Diane: 1:26:59

Like splits.

Adina : 1:27:00

I can't get my six days in I'm off the wagon, like enough with that nonsense. But yeah, like Diane said, we just want to continue lowering the barrier to entry, teaching you about how your body works, working from the ground up. So. To the tip of your head, we're going to talk about it all and make sure that you are getting the most out of this program and feeling really, really good week to week. And when you look back on the first week of the program to the last week of the program, you will be shocked by how much you have learned about your body and how much strength and power you have gained.

Diane: 1:27:34

Yes, we like it. We love it. So where can people get on the wait list or get their booties inside?

Adina : 1:27:42

Get those booties inside the program. Just click the link in my bio, in my Instagram bio. And it's all in there. It'll be the top little bullet on there, said strength, training for happy hormones, click on through, and you can purchase. If you have any questions, feel free to DM me. I'm always happy to answer those in the DMs and help you figure out which version of the program is right for you. Any questions you may have, which kettlebells are right for you.

So hit me up and let us get you strong and juicy.

Diane: 1:28:11

Do it to it until next week. Folks, we love you and we like you.

Adina : 1:28:18

bye!