Born to be Barefoot | From Science to Life
Sports & Recreation Podcasts
Welcome to the Born to be Barefoot podcast, where we thrive on adventure, and strive to spread knowledge in the ways of optimal movement, balance, and longevity in activity. Your guides, Stuart Gordon and Katie Tsuyuki are dedicated to taking you on a journey of wild stories, and informative tips and knowledge from other forward-thinking trail-blazers. Tune in each week as we meet with courageous guests like Olympic snowboarders, extreme runners, cross-country backpackers & people who enjoy an active lifestyle! You will hear stories of their most intense experiences from the wild. Learn industry secrets from field experts like medical pros and coaches to keep both you and your tribe safe and healthy; avoiding foot, body and gait-related pathologies along your journey. In today’s world, almost every step we take is with some kind of footwear. We start wearing shoes before we can even walk! Yet, our feet are designed to be bare. In our podcasts, we discuss this conundrum with our guests and show you how you can create the benefits of barefoot function from within almost any shoe! On this podcast, we are dedicated to helping you enhance your natural moving abilities for lifelong activity. Our goal is to keep you on your journey without inhibitions, well down your own path! In a “shoes required” world, let this podcast be your permission to live Barefoot.
www.Barefoot-Science.com
Location:
United States
Description:
Welcome to the Born to be Barefoot podcast, where we thrive on adventure, and strive to spread knowledge in the ways of optimal movement, balance, and longevity in activity. Your guides, Stuart Gordon and Katie Tsuyuki are dedicated to taking you on a journey of wild stories, and informative tips and knowledge from other forward-thinking trail-blazers. Tune in each week as we meet with courageous guests like Olympic snowboarders, extreme runners, cross-country backpackers & people who enjoy an active lifestyle! You will hear stories of their most intense experiences from the wild. Learn industry secrets from field experts like medical pros and coaches to keep both you and your tribe safe and healthy; avoiding foot, body and gait-related pathologies along your journey. In today’s world, almost every step we take is with some kind of footwear. We start wearing shoes before we can even walk! Yet, our feet are designed to be bare. In our podcasts, we discuss this conundrum with our guests and show you how you can create the benefits of barefoot function from within almost any shoe! On this podcast, we are dedicated to helping you enhance your natural moving abilities for lifelong activity. Our goal is to keep you on your journey without inhibitions, well down your own path! In a “shoes required” world, let this podcast be your permission to live Barefoot. www.Barefoot-Science.com
Language:
English
Episodes
Stories from a River Excursion | The Adventure of Bruce and Maggie Tate
4/25/2024
This week we are delighted to welcome a couple of intrepid travelers from Chattanooga, Maggie and Bruce Tate, who took 9 months off work to travel up the East Coast on something called The Great Loop. They followed this route, circling the eastern North American landmass by boat. Their decision to embark on this adventure was sparked by a book titled "From What Is to What If?" which encouraged them to embrace imagination and possibilities. Throughout their travels, they encountered challenges, forged deep connections with fellow boaters, and discovered the importance of curiosity and forbearance in fostering meaningful relationships.
“One of the things that really struck me is that if I want a better neighborhood, I need to be a better neighbor, and to carry some of that stuff that we got from all the community that we had daily on the loop, and to try to bring that back home in the regular life.” 18:35
Discount Code for 10% off: BTBBPODCAST
@currently_the_boat
www.currentlytheboat.com
Scho and Jo youtube channel
Duration:01:02:45
Journey to Wellness | Insights from Shockwave Therapist Rae Reynolds
4/10/2024
In this week’s episode Katie welcomes guest Rae Reynolds, a shockwave therapist and massage practitioner, who shares insights on her profession. Rae discusses her experiences with shockwave therapy and her journey to becoming a healer, emphasizing self-healing and empowerment. Through anecdotes and discussions on topics like cellular inflammation and childhood trauma, Rae underscores the importance of balance and self-awareness in achieving overall well-being, challenging societal norms and advocating for personal responsibility in health and healing. They discuss her book and its themes of self-discovery, healing, and empowerment. The book touches on personal experiences, childhood trauma, and the journey towards self-love. It encourages readers to start a conversation with themselves, prioritize their health, and embrace their authentic selves.
“I literally have [Barefoot Science products] in everything. I don’t put anything on my feet that doesn’t have Barefoot Science. I paddleboard in them, I ski in them, I do everything in them and every person that pretty much walks into my clinic, regardless of why they’re there, they’re gonna walk out with a pair of Barefoots.” 2:13
www.raereynolds.ca
Duration:00:41:14
From Diagnosis to Determination | Dani Bryant's Journey with Rheumatoid Arthritis
3/6/2024
We have an interesting guest on the podcast this week by the name of Danielle “Dani” Bryant and many may know her as the founder of MAKE IT COUNT 4 Dani Foundation. Dani was diagnosed with Rheumatoid arthritis at the age of 16, which is when life as she knew it came crashing down around her. Despite a devastating diagnosis of this disease, which dashed her dreams of continuing her athletic career, she refused to be defined by her illness. Instead, she embarked on a journey of self-discovery and resilience, confronting her disease head-on. She now dedicates herself to helping countless women around the world to deal with the same issues, and continues to live a happy and fulfilling life.
“I do try to not react back to people who do a lot of things to be unkind because I know what they’re feeling and going through, but I also don’t want people to live in that space. I want to motivate them to move out of it. Our minds and what we tell ourselves can be so powerful on how we move forward.” 32:00
@makeitcount4danimakeitcount4dani.com
Duration:00:43:01
Insights from Dr. Courtney Johnson, the Female Athlete Doctor | Pelvic Health and Pregnancy
2/28/2024
This week Katie had the privilege of meeting with Dr. Courtney Johnson, also known as the Female Athlete Doctor. She is a doctor of physical therapy who specializes in pelvic health, women’s health, particularly in general active women in all walks of life, such as women in pregnancy, postpartum, or women who are diagnosed with some sort of pelvic floor dysfunction. Courtney helps women be active again and get back on their feet, which is often where these issues usually occur or originate from.
“When you think of a sports team, a sports team has everything and a coach for everything. For every position in a football team. They have a recovery squad, an athletic trainer, they have a doctor on staff, they have a physical therapist, so we should approach pregnancy and postpartum with the same mindset. Who is on your team? I know when that time comes for me, I’m gonna have X-Y-Z all lined up and I’ll be ready to go.” 11:10
thefemaleathletedpt.com
@thefemaleathletedoc
Duration:00:26:12
Pioneering Pain-Free Performance | Insights from Dr. Britni
2/21/2024
Today we are proud to present our guest Britni, of Denver, CO. She is a doctor of physical therapy and a pain free performance strength coach. After about 3.5 years of working in the traditional outpatient clinic model Britni started to feel burnt out and began to shift outside of the traditional clinic setting. Britni started online coaching in 2022 working with active adults who are struggling to manage pain/injury. In 2023 after moving to Denver, CO, Britni also started a cash based practice which she now operates inside of two different gyms in the greater Denver area. When she's not working Britni loves being outdoors hiking, snowboarding, exploring Denver or reading a good book. Tune in this week to hear this interesting conversation.
“Would you say having a designed warmup might be more important than a designed workout?” “I think both are important, but I think if you have a poorly designed warmup, that’s essentially not setting you up for the best success that you could have in your workout, which kind of has a bigger impact, I guess you could say, than a poorly designed workout.” 17:20
@britnib.dpt
riseptconsulting.com
riseperformanceandpt.com
Duration:00:52:00
Building a Fitness Community | Insights from Highland Fitness and Wellness
2/14/2024
We have 2 lovely guests on the podcast today named Kristi Harrison and Matthew McKeown, who are co-owners of Highland Fitness and Wellness, a personal training studio and fitness community in Scarborough, Ontario. They fill us in on some great tactics of how they’ve been able to build their gym culture in the best way possible, and then we get into what to focus on when helping your clients in improving their physical health. Movement is very necessary for each day, especially for those who are working a sedentary job 8 hours a day and they give some good examples of how to do that.
“I think the hardest thing is teaching people there’s more of a mental side that this is the rest of your life. Not meaning that you have to use the rest of your life, but the goals you want to accomplish, they need to be the rest of your life, and you can’t convince them on that. You can maybe show someone that, but you have to get someone who’s pretty much there already, that they know ‘I need to make significant changes and I know this is gonna take long term.’” 17:18
www.highlandfit.com@highlandfitto
Duration:00:59:36
Return of Bronco Billy | I Can Go the Distance
1/31/2024
We have a returning guest on the podcast this week, Jeff Browning, who is a master long distance runner. Many know Jeff as “Bronco Billy” and royalty of the ultra marathon category. He has finished around 200 ultra marathons, which includes 52 one-hundred-mile-plus ultras. He has come in first place in 30 of those races, so we are so honored to be speaking with a world champion today. Jeff and Katie talk about everything from getting in the right mindset to foot care and the importance of heart rate variability.
“I think everything in life prepares you, I think working on your mindset all the time, and that’s being willing to embrace hard things in your life, whether that’s learning something new or figuring something out. Always having a positive attitude is important, and positive mental speak as much as possible. It’s easy to say, hard to put into practice, to really be positive daily.” 6:51
@gobroncobilly
www.giddyupultra.com
Duration:00:56:58
Veteran Advice from TOPGUN Pilot Mike Whetstone | Physical Health in the Military
11/1/2023
In this week’s episode Katie and Stuart interview Mike Whetstone, who has over 25 years of military leadership and training experience and is a former FRS and TOPGUN instructor, and owner and president of BMK Ventures, a Vetfirst certified Service Disabled Veteran Owned Small Business. A big part of his business is helping prepare the medics in the field by putting together these kits that they can acquire, which contain all the resources they may need when faced with tough or intense physical situations on the battlefield.
“It’s a young man’s game and I’ll tell you what, I creak and crack, and I pretty much blame pulling Gs on that.” 8:45 “Believe it or not, I told myself I was gonna run a marathon before I turned 40 and on my 40th birthday I hadn’t run one, so between 40 and 41 I ran 5, and then I kept running them until I messed my knee up. Now I stick mostly to the halves.” 34:27
bmkventures.com@bmkventures1
Duration:00:54:24
Understanding Muscles with a Compass | Another Conversation with David Lemke
10/25/2023
Today Katie speaks with a previous guest we’ve had named David Lemke, who we have described as a wizard in body work. He’s a technical wizard using a method of technology called Surface Electromyography (SEMG), EEG, and various other things. David grew up in a cold place, trained as a bodyworker, was injured as a young athlete, became an EMG technician and describes himself now as a body explorer with a compass who has treated, assessed, and helped tens of thousands of people from very high performance athletes to your everyday people.
“Your core is not your abs and your butt. Your core is your whole central processor and soles of the feet are just as critical, if not one of the most critical input sites to your autonomic nervous system. I like to compare wearing shoes to having your phone in airplane mode and you’re wondering why you’re not sending and receiving calls, but you’ve actually turned off a key antenna. The soles of your feet are how your whole system knows whether you’re upright or not.” 10:26
Duration:00:30:40
Wisdom of a Paralympian | Chatting with Evan Strong
10/18/2023
Katie and Stuart had Evan Strong on this episode of the podcast, who is an olympic superstar that won a Gold medal in the 2014 Sochi Olympics & a Silver medal in the year 2018 in Paralympic Snowboarding. He has done everything that involves a board including skateboarding, surfing, and even playing on chess boards. Join these 3 as they discuss human prosthetics, education, and different living conditions to improve and even help your own kids better develop.
“Nobody has ever thought of ‘Oh, let’s build a prosthetic based on natural biology and actually the natural physiology of a human,’ and they always just think of it around the shoe or the modern shoe.” 42:35
@evan_strong
pacificbirthcollective.org
Duration:00:57:21
Dealing with Injuries | The Importance of Proprioception and Brain Speed
9/20/2023
In this episode Stuart and Katie have a chat about some of the things that popped up in other episodes when talking about injuries and how those can be avoided, as well as helping people recover from those injuries. They discuss women’s health and how their cycle can affect vulnerability to injury, and then how strengthening the muscles around ligaments is a good way to prevent injury, before also getting into how to increase brain function and speed by focusing on stimulating the proprioceptive nerve. “Getting the brain tuned through stimulating that proprioceptive nerve is absolutely fundamental.”
“At the end of that program their average brain speed had come down to I think it was 80 milliseconds, which meant in real terms they were seeing the ball a third of the way down the bat distance from pitcher to batter, so that gave them the other 2 thirds of the time to figure out what they were gonna do, where they were gonna hit it, and bang, off they went. They actually tested them just after wearing the insoles and even just wearing the insoles had actually given a measurable brain speed change in the first week.” 14:50
Duration:00:30:28
Mindful Movement with Brea Johnson | Unveiling the Secrets of Yoga and Body Smart Practices
8/23/2023
Mindful Movement with Brea Johnson | Unveiling the Secrets of Yoga and Body Smart Practices
Stuart and Katie had the opportunity to sit down with Brea Johnson, who has been a yoga teacher and movement educator for well over a decade. With a love for learning and studying the human body she continues her on-going education in yoga, anatomy and biomechanics and is also a certified Restorative Exercise Specialist. We discuss the importance of mobility and keeping your body moving. Brea mentions how in our culture there’s this belief that we have to get that one hour or so of movement and exercise in our day and we’ll be good, but she says that movement should be spread out throughout the day instead of just concentrated all in one session because little movement more often has more benefits.
“If you have a standing desk I think it’s great to have the option. I think we need both. Don’t expect that we should be standing for 8 hours a day just like you shouldn’t expect to be sitting for 8 hours a day. For me, I have an office at my house, I have a desktop, I have a laptop, which I often bring onto the floor, I bring it upstairs, I bring it outside. On the days that I’m on my computer all day long, I’m in different positions.” 25:32
@heartandbonesyoga
www.heartandbonesyoga.com
Duration:01:01:57
Helping You Move and Feel Better with Graham Tuttle | The Importance of Continued Activity
8/2/2023
In this episode we had the opportunity to speak to Graham Tuttle, a trainer who helps people move and feel better. His goal is to figure out this athleticism thing and how he can teach it to the people like him who missed that boat early on in life, and also work to create a more well rounded understanding of health and aging with activity. You see, as a kid starts to develop an awareness that they can control outcomes and not get hurt by not participating, they become more stiff and uncertain, while the kids who are more “Tarzan” looking can roll around and are just more loose and ready to tackle the physical challenges they face.
“A relationship with the ground is one of being able to relax and melt into a harder, flat, non-yielding surface to some extent, which we try to then soften with shoes, and orthotics, and the big pillows and mattresses and paved surfaces and carpet, and all that stuff. So it’s ironic to look at the progression in that sense, but it is a rejection of the sensation of the ground.” 34:10
grahamtuttle.com
@thebarefootsprinter
Duration:01:02:58
Mountain Running with Grayson Murphy | Developing Athletic Talent
7/19/2023
Grayson Murphy is astonishing. She is a current world champion in mountain running, which is a new sport to us, but we’re excited to talk to her about it. She got a bronze this year in the vertical climb for mountain running, and she tells us all about her experience going through the championships. She’s now training and has even recently qualified for going to the Olympics, but has also dealt with some injuries and nerve issues that prevented her from competing and it took a long process of trial and error, but eventually she was able to figure it out and continue training.
“I figured out I had choked out a nerve and so I couldn’t feel a lot of things and I couldn’t get the muscles to turn on, so that’s why it felt dead. It took 4 months of kind of trying to figure out what was wrong, and then once I figured it out it only took 4 weeks to get it up and running again, but it was a long process of trial and error.” 30:36
@racin__grayson
Duration:00:49:13
The Truth about Your Shoes with Steven Sashen | How to Improve Your Step
6/28/2023
Today we talk to Steven Sashen who is the co-founder and CEO of Xero Shoes www.XeroShoes.com. Steven and his wife, Lena Phoenix, started the company after discovering the comfort, benefits, and fun of natural movement, by getting out of thick, padded, motion-controlled shoes. Steven got back into running later in his life and was having all kinds of issues and injuries until someone suggested he try running barefoot to better understand his form in running. He was then able to see clearly that his form was wrong, which naturally corrected itself as he paid attention to this, and then he stopped getting injured and became a better runner.
“The way our product line developed is from people saying like you said, ‘I can’t wear anything else, but now I need a shoe for this thing that you don’t currently do.’ That’s how we’ve developed a product line is based on people saying ‘What am I gonna do if I have to go to work and I need a leather shoe?’ OK well we just made a leather casual shoe for you.” 27:05
@xeroshoesxeroshoes.com
Duration:01:32:58
An Honest Conversation about Running with Kelly Roberts | Let’s Take a Different Approach
6/21/2023
Katie and Stuart sit down with Kelly Roberts who is the Founder of Badass Lady Gang, a running community created by women for women. This foundation was created to help women find joy in the struggle, providing women of all athletic levels a safe space to have fun and belong. There are some crazy health fads out there and ideas that pop up and grow popular on social media, such as the one where people were pushing the idea that you don’t need much sleep and can be more productive because you’ll have more time, but people weren’t realizing the bad health consequences one can experience when neglecting sleep. Kelly explains bluntly that running is hard and often just isn’t fun, but it’s OK to acknowledge this and just keep moving forward. She has a love/hate relationship with running, but she keeps doing it because she needs it and it gives her fuel for success in her life.
“You’re never going to get away from that feeling of extreme discomfort and pain, and fear when you’re trying to run as fast as you can in 26.2 miles. That’s just the way it is when you’re doing something like that, but you can change your attitude around it.” 32:17
@badassladygangwww.badassladygang.com
Duration:00:51:25
Hiking and Foot Health with Morgan Brosnihan | Helping You Prevent Injury
5/24/2023
Today we welcome our wonderful guest, Morgan Brosnihan, who has been a physical therapist for 6 years and is passionate about helping her patients make progress to keep doing what they love. She is currently living the van life, so she’s always on the move and going all over the place on adventures and half of what she does is by telehealth. We discuss many of the reasons hikers and athletes injure their feet, such as wearing the wrong size shoes and not letting your toes spread out, which can cause issues and eventually injury.
“Even flexibility is improved by full range of motion strength training, it will make you more flexible than just stretching. So if you do deep squats with weight, you’ll have more flexible hips than if you pigeon all day long.” 26:55
@blazephysio
campsite.bio/blazephysio
blazephysio.com
Duration:00:57:44
Injury Prevention and Recovery with Katie and Stuart | Athletic Performance and Healing
5/17/2023
In this episode join Katie Tsuyuki and Stuart Gordon as they chat about some of the things that have popped up in the other podcasts talking about injuries and how we can help avoid those injuries and keep people recovering from them. Katie experienced some injuries during her snowboarding career and needed some help recovering, which happened when our previous guest, Joe Vecchione, introduced her to the Barefoot insoles. We discuss the importance of brain speed and being able to process things mentally, which can really affect an athlete’s performance and how well they do.
“To me there’s this massive influence of that sensory nerve stimulus and it’s about stabilizing joints. What you have to do, obviously whatever the underlying cause of these ACL injuries are in female athletes, is you gotta get the muscles around the joints stronger to protect the ligaments.” 6:10
Duration:00:30:42
Sports Training with Joe Vecchione | Helping Athletes Avoid Injury
5/10/2023
In this episode we have the privilege of speaking with a Canadian soccer coach by the name of Joe Vecchione, who has a diverse background in conditioning from soccer to swimming. We discuss women’s sports and the idea that often there isn’t much incentive for women to keep playing beyond a certain point because of dead ends they might find there. We talk about various exercises, such as those that have to do with your groin, quads, or hamstrings, that athletes should be doing to avoid injuries. Getting stronger in a sport or technique, you also have to make sure you’re preparing with the additional issues that may arise from developing yourself in order to balance things out and be prepared to avoid injury.
“You have to remember that they’re already training a lot. They’re already training multiple times a week and have a whole sport to prepare for, so you really wanna be as effective as you can with less training…doing a little bit less, but making sure you’re recovering more.” 33:17
@joevex
Duration:01:07:36
Shredding the Halfpipe | Crispin Lipscomb's Snowboarding Journey and Mountain Adventures
3/29/2023
Today we have a wonderful guest from the Canadian snowboarding world who featured in a previous podcast episode if you want to go listen to that one. Crispin is a former Olympic snowboarder and a partner in crime for Katie, specializing in the halfpipe event. Lipscomb made his World Cup debut in December 2002 at Whistler, and made his first podium later that season, with a bronze at Serre Chevalier. Crispin tells us about his experiences in the olympics, injuries and how they have been handled, and then we discuss skiing and sledding in the mountains with a snowmobile and how to make sure you don’t end up with a stranded machine.
“You learn as you go through, they come, they go, time passes, you get fine, but the first time it happens it’s shocking and it’s connected to your self worth, and your dreams and efforts are interrupted. Your goals are—your whole world, the sky falls down. So that was a really important lesson in learning and how to manage those injuries, and learning how to work with the physios and the trainers, and sports psych to put it into proper context.” 19:33
@crispinlipscomb
Duration:01:22:02