“When do you ever find time to actually treat patients in your clinic?”
I was asked this by a colleague in an Uber this weekend after attending the ICAK meeting in Auckland.
She had a point… between teaching and learning, my travel schedule is pretty hectic at the moment. Next week I’ll be in Puerto Rico for a UAC event.
It can be tiring… but it’s also fun. There’s just so much to learn! There’s never been a more exciting time to be a practitioner… we’re literally swimming in a sea of information, with new discoveries occurring at a breakneck pace.
However, it’s not really about how much you know… it’s about how much you implement.
The most successful people I know aren’t always the smartest, or the busiest…
They’re the best implementers.
So that’s our focus for today.
(By the way, I am in clinic this week. In fact, I’ve already implemented a bunch of things I learned over the weekend with patients yesterday… with great results. Thanks Dr. Steve and Dr Michael.)
The ICAK event was titled “Unlocking the Secrets of Elite Athletes.”
The main presenter was a good friend of mine, Dr. Stephen Sassinis Shashyan. He’s highly sought after around the world as an expert in optimising athletic performance, and has worked with 11 Grand-Slam tennis champions, as well as NBA stars, footballers, boxers, cricketers and many other professional sportspeople.
Many of his patients are household names worldwide.
While Steve has a vast amount of advanced knowledge and clinical skills, one thing that really struck me about his presentation was his focus on simply doing the basics… correctly and consistently.
I was also struck, once again, by how the material shared by each presenter (including myself) overlapped and complimented each other, despite none of us having seen each other’s slides previously.
I shared in [Issue #10] how I had the same experience in Aspen recently. It’s fascinating to me that so many of us are exploring the same ideas, but coming at them through the lens of our own unique perspectives, backgrounds and experience.
It means that every time we meet, we’re filling in missing pieces and building on each other’s work. It’s a big part of what makes all the travel worthwhile.
One consistent theme that keeps coming up as I talk with some of the best docs and researchers around the world is this…
If you get the top and the bottom of the body right, almost everything in between naturally falls into place.
Said another way, most dysfunction either occurs from the top down, or the bottom up… nearly everything in between is a compensation pattern.
This doesn’t mean we should ignore everything else…
It just means if you get the top and bottom of the system right (in other words, the feet, head and neck…)
Everything else you do works faster, better and lasts longer.
This was one of the reasons why Dr. Stephen always begins his patient assessment standing in a gait position.
Like me, he’s found that if you just assess your patients lying on a table, you’re missing vital information about how the body operates under gravity (ie. In the real world.)
After gait, the next thing Dr. Stephen addressed was the importance of fascia, and in particular the Deep Front Line (DFL.) This is one of the key top-to-bottom connecters- it starts on the feet and ends on the head, influencing almost everything in between.
Dr. Michael Hooker’s presentation was also focused on improving DFL function.
(We covered fascia and the DFL in detail in [Issue #4] and [Issue #10] if you need a refresher, or want more detail on this critically important structure.)
My patients yesterday benefited from what I learned from both of them.
Other major areas of focus over the weekend included the vital importance Sleep and Breathing (See [Issue #8] and [Issue #10].
These are the fundamentals of great health (and high-level sporting performance.)
We all know this stuff… but some of the data Steve presented still surprised me with just how great the impact is.
For example:
- Studies show that even a single all-nighter can reduce reaction time by more than 300%.
- Tennis players who were sleep deprived saw serving accuracy decrease by 31%.
- A University of California study concluded that injury rates in young athletes increased following a single night of less than 6 hours sleep- sleep hours was the strongest predictor of injury, even more than hours of practice.
- One night of sleep restriction (4 hrs) produced a 70% drop in natural killer cell activity.
- The link between a lack of sleep and cancer is so strong the WHO has classified any form of night time shift work as a probable carcinogen.
- Short sleep predicts all-cause mortality.
Dr. Stephen also described how much time he spends with his world-class athletes (and regular patients) dialling in their diet and their breathing habits.
He explained how breathing is being used as a weapon in the highest-stakes tennis matches in the world- for example the exact breathing patterns he teaches his athletes to prepare to return a serve (coming at them at over 100km per hour) vs when they’ve just lost a set and need to reset their sympathetic/parasympathetic balance in the brief minute they have before the next set.
Remember, optimal breathing function, and optimal vagus nerve (parasympathetic) function, both rely on our DFL… which is directly impacted by our feet [Issue #10][Issue #11].
He also shared how he addresses tibial nerve entrapments and gait reflexes to ensure optimal foot function.
As health practitioners we know these health basics matter… yet we often neglect their importance.
And so do our patients.
We’ve all heard it before… and there are so many more exciting things to focus on. Social media and the internet bombard us with them every day. As I said, we are swimming in a constant sea of information and over-stimulation.
This means that as both patients and practitioners we are more susceptible than ever to “Shiny Object Syndrome”…
Chasing the newest, coolest hack…
That might give us an extra 1% improvement…
While neglecting the boring basics (that could easily double or triple our health and performance.)
Do the basics!
And keep doing them!
Even when it’s boring!
They work!
This is the low hanging fruit, both in your health, and in your practice. It’s where the biggest bang-for-your-buck improvements live.
Dr. Stephen also covered the importance of using Objective Testing.
(In case you’re wondering, his top 5 recommended tests were: Functional Genetic Testing, Microbiome Testing, Organic Acid Testing (OAT), Hormone Testing (DUTCH) and Mycotoxin Testing.)
We also covered this idea of using objective testing and data in [Issue #12].
You might be wondering why I keep pointing out all these links between Dr. Stephen’s presentation on treating high level athletes and recent Issues of The Foot-Brain Connection.
It’s because these are the basic fundamentals of health.
And the function of your feet directly influences so many of them.
That’s a statement I never thought I’d make…
In fact, if you said that to me a few years ago, I’d have called bullshit on it.
But it’s a fact.
If you’ve been following this newsletter, and read the issues I referenced above, then you’ve seen the evidence. How feet affect breathing. How they affect digestion. How they affect sleep.
Correct foot functioning is one of the basic fundamentals of health.
And if you regularly wear shoes and walk on flat, unnatural surfaces, it is more or less impossible to maintain correct foot function.
That’s why Better Balance Orthotics matter so much.
They’re not optional for great health and sports performance.
They’re essential.
And they’re easy.
Getting to bed on time, avoiding alcohol and late meals makes a huge difference to my sleep… which in turn makes a huge difference to my health and performance. I know it.
But it’s not easy. It takes work.
So does maintaining a good diet. And a regular workout routine. I’m committed to these health basics because I know how important they are… but they require daily discipline.
Wearing Better Balance Orthotics on the other hand… that’s easy. I just chuck them in my shoes and forget about them (actually to make it even easier, I just keep a pair in all my shoes.)
That’s one of the things patients love about them too… they’re super-low effort. No discipline required.
Whilst I wouldn’t consider their health impact to be as critical as a healthy diet and regular exercise, they’re in the same category. Basic health fundamentals.
But this isn’t common knowledge. Everyone knows diet and exercise are important… but almost no one recognises the multiple ways foot function impacts health (including most health professionals.)
Our patients certainly don’t know… unless we’re educating them. And giving them a chance to experience all the benefits we just discussed.
This is where the implementation piece I mentioned earlier applies.
Sometimes we know something… but how consistently are we actually doing it?
At the ICAK event I asked how many people in the room were currently using BBO… and many hands went up (which is awesome.)
But then I asked how many people were using them with every patient…
And nearly every hand went down.
Sometimes we know… but for a whole variety of reasons, we don’t always do.
I read a fascinating paper on this recently- it was about how consuming self-improvement content can actually keep people stuck. It turns out that reading about improving something fires our dopamine reward system… even though we haven’t actually implemented the thing!
That little dopamine squirt feels great… so it reinforces the pattern. That’s exactly what dopamine is for.
So we do it again. We go and read more about improving. We watch videos, listen to podcasts, attend seminars…
All of which is easier than actually implementing… (but strangely, feels just as rewarding!)
It’s an addictive loop, where our brain’s primitive survival and reward programming is literally wired to sabotage us.
It’s incredibly common… more so than ever in today’s information-saturated environment.
We consume content about fitness- we study the latest exercise routines, supplements, diets, workout hacks, follow fitness influencers on Instagram…
Rather than just going and working out.
We read business books and follow our favourite entrepreneurs… but don’t actually improve our business.
We become addicted to the process, to the thought of implementing… but because we have such an abundance of dopamine-inducing content available at the tips of our fingers….
Our reward system becomes so satiated that we become paradoxically less likely to actually implement what we’re learning.
And we don’t even realise what’s happening… because it feels good to our primitive brain that is hardwired to seek reward and avoid discomfort.
It’s an incredibly sneaky trap.
Does this sound like anyone you know?
Understanding the brain science was a revelation for me… I’ve been guilty of this so many times!
It’s helped me not only recognise the behaviour…
It’s helped me change it for the better.
The impact has been massive across multiple areas of my life. Not just in terms of actually achieving what I want… but also in less energy wasted beating myself up about what I “should” be doing.
So when it comes to prescribing Better Balance Orthotics to your patients…
This isn’t a judgement.
But it is a huge opportunity.
An opportunity to achieve better, faster, more consistent results with your patients.
To help them hold their adjustments better.
To reduce the fatigue, wear-and-tear and joint degeneration they experience daily.
And to improve all the other health basics we’ve covered that are tied to foot function, such as Sleep, Breathing, Digestion and Movement Longevity.
It’s also an opportunity to build a more sustainable, profitable practice, in an ethical way that serves your patients at the highest level.
Years ago, Dr. Steven Franson taught me that one of his key metrics for judging how well someone understood chiropractic was whether or not their children got regularly adjusted.
When you understand the benefits, and the negative implications of not looking after your spine and nervous system… it’s a no brainer. That’s why my kids get regularly adjusted… whether they feel like they “need to” that day or not.
The same metric applies to Better Balance Orthotics.
I find that when someone really understands the benefits…
They’re wearing them, their kids are wearing them… and all their patients are wearing them too.
There are simply too many benefits… and too many drawbacks to not wearing them.
So my challenge to you today is to level up your game when it comes to implementing what you know. Get Better Balance Orthotics on someone’s feet this week.
There’s nothing wrong with consuming useful content… obviously I write this every week in the hope that it’s adding value to your life.
But don’t fall into the dopamine addiction trap.
Please turn it into action in the real world… that way you’re adding real value to your patients and practice too.
And that’s what it’s really all about.
Cheers,
PS. I shared with you a few weeks ago about Dr. Gary Sanchez and his process for Uncovering Your Why- the hidden blueprint that determines how you operate in the world (and how you can do it better.) We’ve just hired our newest team member based on his recommendations and it’s amazing how precisely it allowed us to dial in and attract the perfect person to fill a gap in our team that we didn’t even realise we had.
Dr. Gary offered Foot-Brain Connection readers a 20% discount to experience his process for yourself, but I’m not sure how much longer it’ll be valid for. It only takes 8 minutes and it’s well worth doing… if you like to check it out I’d get onto it this week. You can find it here: FIND YOUR WHY