This weekly podcast will cover in detail, people, clubs and activities here in The Villages, Florida. Each show will run 20-30 minutes. We cover topics of interest to active, vital seniors. Topics range form activites to medical topics, from Alzheimer's to Zomba and everything in between of interest to seniors.
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From Pain to Freedom: Exploring Movement with Dr. Jonathan Schutza PT
Rebuilding Foot Strength: Dr. Dr. Jonathan Schutza PT on Plantar Fasciitis Recovery and Mindset
Season eight of Village’s Vitality Life opens with host Mike Roth interviewing physical therapist Dr. Jonathan Schutza PT, who specializes in plantar fasciitis and promotes the idea that pain doesn’t mean you’re broken and aging doesn’t require losing movement. Schutza explains how his early work at a Level 1 trauma center and later social media education led him to focus on foot pain after seeing how short educational videos helped many people with outdated guidance. He shares how sobriety and faith shifted his life toward serving others through a science-based helping profession. Schutza says successful recovery depends most on believing improvement is possible and showing up consistently with grit, noting many people quit before results appear. He describes his Foot Capacity System app (launched in May) that tracks daily pain and exercises, emphasizes strengthening over rest/ice/stretching alone, typically takes 15–30 minutes per day, and offers a free seven-session trial at: RebuildMyFoot.com
00:00 Season Eight Kickoff 00:44 Meet Dr. Jonathan Schutza PT 01:14 Why Plantar Fasciitis 03:51 From Addiction to Purpose 06:09 Healing Through Movement 08:07 Mindset for Recovery 11:49 Alzheimer's Tip Break 13:18 Why Build the App 16:26 Foot Capacity System Details 19:13 Does It Come Back 20:26 Daily Time and Results 22:36 Free Trial and Website 24:51 Wrap Up and Thanks 25:07 Next Episode and Support
From Pain to Freedom: Exploring Movement with Dr. Jonathan Schutza PT
Villages Vitality Listeners, I've got some good news for you. In season 8 most new episodes will released as both audio & video versions. Videos on Apple Podcasts, Buzzsprout.com and YouTube. If you're listening via our Buzzsprout feed, you can ask questions via the Fan Mail button or leave me comments as a text or in our new feature, you can send it as a voicemail. If you'd like a response, make sure you leave your name, email address and cell phone number.
Open Forum in The Villages, Florida is Produced & Directed by Mike Roth A new episode will be released most Fridays at 9 AM Direct all questions and comments to mike@rothvoice.com
If you know a Villager who should appear on the show, please contact us at: mike@rothvoice.com
Villages Vitality Senior Life Unscripted is Produced & Directed by Mike Roth A new episode will be released most Fridays at 9 AM Direct all questions and comments to mike@rothvoice.com
If you know a someone who should appear on the show, please contact us at: mike@rothvoice.com
Villages Vitality Listeners, I've got some good news for you. In season 8 most new episodes will released as both audio & video versions. Videos on Apple Podcasts, Busssprout.com and YouTube. If you're listening via our Buzzsprout feed, you can ask questions via the Fan Mail button or leave me comments as a text or in our new feature, you can send it as a voicemail. If you'd like a response, make sure you leave your name, email address and cell phone number.
Villages Vitality Senior Life Unscripted is Produced & Directed by Mike Roth A new episode will be released most Fridays at 9 AM Direct all questions and comments to mike@rothvoice.com
If you know a someone who should appear on the show, please contact us at: mike@rothvoice.com
Nancy:
Welcome to Season eight of Village's Vitality Life, Senior's Life unscripted. In this new season, we talk to leaders of clubs and interesting folks who live in and around The Villages. We also talk to people who have information vital to seniors. You will get perspectives of what is happening in and around The Villages, Florida. In addition, we will add more information for all seniors.
Mike:
This is Mike Roth on Villages Vitality, A Senior Life Unscripted. I'm here today with Jonathan Schutza. Jonathan, thanks for joining me. Jonathan Schutza is a physical therapist who believes pain doesn't mean you're broken, and age doesn't mean you have to accept losing movement. His approach helps people rebuild their bodies through progressive movement, restoring strength, confidence, and the freedom to stay active on their own terms. Jonathan , you've worked extensively in the field of plantar fasciitis. That's a a foot condition where when people step down on their heel, they get tremendous pain. How did you happen to specialize in that particular area?
Dr. Jonathan Schutza PT:
That's a funny story. Way back in twenty-nineteen I started working in physical therapy, from school, and my very first job was at a level one trauma center. And in that, environment you see everything. You see the very worst traumas of all time, right? Car wrecks, people falling through, just the, the worst things that you can imagine, if people survive it, we help rehab them. And then on the other end of the spectrum, we're fortunate enough to see just wear and tear stuff, just people would get an injury with a sport, or maybe somebody would get an overuse injury. So we saw the entire spectrum of things. Fast-forward a little bit, and that's kinda where I get my first taste of, that sort of condition, just working with anybody. really common with runners, and it's really common with people who maybe were inactive for a time and then started regaining activity and wanted to get back in shape and fitness, which a lot of people do. I got online, I started educating about just general physical therapy things, meaning back pain, shoulder pain, neck pain, hip pain. And then, I started educating about foot pain, and the thing that, that seemed to resonate with people quite a bit, and I've always been a bit of a, a nerd as far as, if I'm gonna educate, if I'm gonna learn something, I need to do a tremendously deep dive. my audience talking about foot and ankle pain, that really resonated with people in ways that I just didn't expect. I started posting about it, and I started, researching more and more about it. this is a couple of years ago now. And at that time I wasn't really sure how much effect I would get or how much benefit people would have just from this education, but I would get messages pretty constantly about how, "Hey, I've never heard it said like that before. That's really helped me out a lot. My foot feels better." and in my head, this is a thirty-second video, and I'm intrigued that the fact that just a small piece of education, can help so many people. So I just started doing a deep dive and got more involved in it and realized that there's really a lot of people with plantar fasciitis, and a lot of people are given information that may not be the most up to date or maybe even the best. So I wanted to really make that my focus moving forward.
Mike:
Yeah. What changed the direction of your life to be helping people?
Dr. Jonathan Schutza PT:
Sure. Yeah, that's a great question, too. That's a bit of a longer story, and maybe one that's more interesting, so buckle up a little bit. In 2009, I wound up, believe it or not, in a cow pasture in Rayville, Louisiana. You're like, "What's a cow pasture have to do with it?" So I started drinking and using drugs at a very young age. Fourteen years old, was experimenting, doing, going. Believe it or not, that's not conducive to a good, healthy lifestyle. And then in about 2009, it all crashed down on my head. I reached out for some help, for that process of sobriety, the number one thing that I've developed was a relationship with God. I discovered who God was. I discovered that God loves us, and Jesus Christ is my Lord and Savior, and through asking Him and the support of, the sobriety community, anything was possible. It was in that process that I discovered Life for me is better whenever I'm giving and doing for others. I didn't really realize this at the time, but before I got sober, life for me was about much can I take? It's me all the time. This wasn't something It's just the way my actions were pretty relevant or m- my actions exposed this about me, basically. If you wanna see what I value, just watch what I do. In sobriety,
Mike:
Mm-hmm.
Dr. Jonathan Schutza PT:
it was about others and trying to be selfless and giving and doing, and I wasn't… By the way, I wasn't a physical therapist at this time yet. I was pretty aimless as far as what I was doing in life. But after sobriety and learning, who God is, and then learning I get a lot of value out of life by giving to others, I wanted to go into a profession that could help me help others the best way that I could. a bit of a nerd, so going into the sciences was, it was a no-brainer. And whenever I was in high school, I was a pretty good athlete. Believe it or not, I ran track, played basketball. And so the being a bit of a nerd and being a bit of an athlete, the, the pairing was good with as far as physical therapy goes. And it's the best thing I've ever done professionally, for sure. The joys of taking somebody from… So pain is a depressive thing, mind you. If you're in pain every day, typically what that does is that, that separates you from life. And I mean that in the way of let's just use foot pain as an example. If you're walking 7 to 10,000 steps per day, you're reminded, 3,500 to 5,000 times per day that your heel hurts every time you take a step. And that typically you don't leave the house as much. You're not out seeing your friends as much. You're not doing your activities as much. For, for your population, you're not chasing your grandkids as much. Maybe you're sitting in the chair. Maybe you're getting a little bit heavier. Maybe you're… So pain is a thief , if you will. one of my great joys today is helping people get confident enough to where they can get back in the game and get back at life. And I tell my older population, age with grace, right? Because nobody wants to lose their independence. Nobody wants to lose their livelihood. Nobody wants to lose their social life, right? Just because we're hurting a little bit, just because we're a little bit older. So one of my great
Mike:
Yeah
Dr. Jonathan Schutza PT:
Being able to kinda give back to that and I've been able to do that lately, and it's been fantastic
Mike:
Mm-hmm. So how long have you been in the physical therapy occupation?
Dr. Jonathan Schutza PT:
I graduated from Louisiana State University in Shreveport, the Health Science Center, the School of Allied Health in 2019. So I've been doing it for, seven years now, which, I'll be 40 this year, so that's not a really long time for somebody my age. But if you go back to early life, I wasn't exactly, knocking it out of the park at that point in time, and I took the long way around, if you will. So the fact that I've gotten here, it's a testament to, what God can do for you, right? It's pretty incredible who God uses to kinda serve his mission.
Mike:
It's good to hear that you got on the right path, and there are others who really need that kind of help.
Dr. Jonathan Schutza PT:
Oh, sure.
Mike:
So Jonathan my next question is what do you believe makes the difference between a successful recovery and, and people that fall short in terms of dealing with pain?
Dr. Jonathan Schutza PT:
So that's a wonderful question, and l-let me just say this: it's not one thing. But I will tell you there's one thing that most people that have really tremendous recoveries have in common. Most people that get better through aches and pains or whatever, they, number one, they believe that they can. Mindset is this hugely important thing and they show up consistently. They almost have a level of grit with trying to get through their recovery. I would work with people that had, once again, back at LSU, the trauma center that I worked at, I would have people with complicated surgeries from traumas from, car accidents, bones that literally exploded that surgeons would screw back together, and stuff that you just… It's unreal. And these people, in some cases, believed that they could get better, and they believed that it was worth it for them for these long rehabs to get better, and most of them did. It's just all there is to it. The belief that you can heal and the understanding that you need to put in the effort, that grit that I was talking about the, mindset of, "It doesn't matter what it takes, I'm just going to put the work in each and every day, the very best way that I can," and letting the results just be what they are, but my effort won't ever be questioned. Th-those are the really big things that, that matter most in my opinion with recovery. I think most physical therapists and most rehab professionals, they can probably… It's almost… I'm not suggesting the exercises don't matter, and I'm not suggesting that the tools don't matter. Those things do matter, and I'm not suggesting that you can't get better if you don't have that mindset. But the most successful rehabs that I've seen and especially from the most complicated cases and the ones that you're just not sure is ever really gonna kinda break through, those people are really persistent really persistent, and it's inspiring to see. I've got people, I've got a program right now that , I have online for plantar fasciitis, and I'll see people in that program that are… Their pain levels, and this isn't everybody, this is just specific cases, their pain level's unchanged from, when they started, they were a seven. Now, for this month, they may be a four, but they're a four out of 10 the entire month, but they don't miss a day, right? And then the next month rolls over, and all of a sudden it's a three, and they're there for a couple of weeks, and they just keep hammering it, right? And then the next couple of weeks. People, unfortunately, I think some of the time- They're expecting their results faster than they come, and they may stop the process before the, the really good stuff happens. that's usually , The really big thing in successful recoveries and not successful recoveries is they-- is people maybe don't have an understanding of what's required, which is maybe on us as therapists, as, as re-rehab professionals "Hey, this is gonna take time, and you're gonna do stuff, and you're not-- you may not see results for a while, and that's okay."
Mike:
Okay. So that's all about setting expectations, and here in America we've learned that instant gratification is normal. You know? Three-day delivery of Amazon wasn't good enough. Two-day delivery wasn't good enough. Now it's gonna be same-day delivery in three hours via drone. That is good. Then I don't have to go over to Lowe's to get that little part. It'll come from Amazon fast, and we will, we will want that. And we're gonna talk more about your program in a moment, but we're gonna take a short break now and listen to Dr. Craig Curtis talk about an Alzheimer's tip.
Dr. Craig Curtis (2):
We now know that Alzheimer's disease starts about 20 years before the symptoms with the buildup of a toxic protein called amyloid. And so scientists have been on a quest to remove amyloid to see how it affects the disease. The medicine that was recently FDA approved to slow down symptoms in people with Alzheimer's disease memory problems. Works by removing this substance called amyloid out of the brain. And now we're attempting to use those medicines to actually remove amyloid before someone develops symptoms of Alzheimer's disease, such as memory loss and forgetfulness. So that's in that 20 year period before the disease is obvious. That's right. Scientists now call it Alzheimer's Pathologic change versus Alzheimer's disease. We're saving the term Alzheimer's disease for when someone is actually experiencing symptoms due to Alzheimer's disease. With over 20 years of experience studying brain health, Dr. Curtis's goal is to educate The Villages community on how to live a longer, healthier life.
Warren:
To learn more, visit his website, CraigCurtisMD.com, or call 3 5 2 5 0 0 5 2 5 2 to attend a free seminar.
Mike:
Thank you, Dr. Curtis. I'm back with Jonathan Shutza. And Jonathan let's talk about your, online program for a moment. Why did `you decide to go beyond the clinic and go to all the trouble to have an application written for iPhone or an Android that can help people with plantar fasciitis?
Dr. Jonathan Schutza PT:
Yeah. So once again, great question. When I work in a clinic, I can see one person at a time. In some places you might see two people at a time or three, but I can see one person at a time. So whenever I got online and I started educating on social media I would make a piece of content, a single piece of content, and I would have several people tell me that helped them. And then people kept asking like, "Hey, I've got this problem. Do you have a solution for me?" I was like, "I don't know that I'm gonna do anything online." I'm a little bit old school in the way that whenever I work with somebody, I really like hands-on. I really like being in person with somebody. So this online thing was something that I was like, "Eh, I don't know. It doesn't-- I don't know that I'll actually be able to help somebody in the way that I'm used to." And then, but people kept asking, they kept asking, and I was like, "Okay." And the fact that people were messaging me, telling me that my 30-second video helped them, I was like maybe if I structure something, it can be helpful." So people kept asking, so I kept doing. And we built it and one of the great benefits of this is instead of helping one person at a time, I can help hundreds of thousands of people at any instant, so my ability to be helpful is not just in Bossier City, Louisiana. It's not in the Shreveport-Bossier area, the region.
Mike:
Yeah, so you created all these YouTube videos first before you created the app?
Dr. Jonathan Schutza PT:
Yeah. So I'll tell you exactly the story. So I started working at a rehab facility where people, they get three hours of intense therapy per day. But one of the great things about this job is I get
off at about 3:
00 every day, and it allows me to be home with my family. But it allowed me for extra time to build my own practice where I was seeing people one-on-one. And then I created the online presence primarily through Instagram and Facebook. That's where my biggest accounts are. And, I started doing that because I just wanted to educate the best way that I could. And the way that I educate, it resonates with people, apparently. And I wasn't sure it would, but got 170,000 people following my Instagram account, and I've got somewhere north of 240,000 following my Facebook account. So definitely people are, finding what I… how I educate and the way that I present, and they're, they seem to like it. And whenever I started doing that, once again, it kinda goes back to people were asking for it. I wasn't looking to do it. I was simply looking to value whatever Instagram was gonna allow. So that's, free, just me going in there and educating because I thought people needed good education, and I thought I
Mike:
Mm-hmm
Dr. Jonathan Schutza PT:
be helpful and provide that for them. And then
Mike:
Mm-hmm. So
Dr. Jonathan Schutza PT:
a little bit more, and people were asking for the program, and that's kinda how that happened
Mike:
So how long ago did your Foot Capacity System go online?
Dr. Jonathan Schutza PT:
Yeah, so the Foot Capacity System is what we call the, the plantar fasciitis program,
Mike:
Cadiz, Lisbon
Dr. Jonathan Schutza PT:
and we launched May so a little over three months ago three and a half months, I think, probably right now. And it's been it's been incredible
Mike:
Mm-hmm. Incredible means
Dr. Jonathan Schutza PT:
Sure.
Mike:
How many people have gotten
Dr. Jonathan Schutza PT:
Oh, so over 125 people are in the program now, and I would say over half of those have lifetime access. So you get into the program, there's a subscription-based entry, and then there's a one-time fee-based entry. And basically, if you want lifetime access, if you want any update that'll ever happen in the future, if you want anything that we create within the Foot Capacity system as far as plantar fasciitis, you'll have access to it. So let's say you go through the program, you get better, and then life happens again, and then in a year or two you get the same issue, you don't have to go rebuy anything. You don't have to go seek out the solution. You already know what the solution is, and you kinda have this in your back pocket. And I think the thing that differentiates us from others-- So programs that I've seen, and I haven't seen all the programs, so I don't know what everybody can do, and I can't say that we're the only ones that do this, but I think we might be. monitor everybody's progress. Basically, we track pain daily. We track exercises daily, so we track trends. So I'm, I basically, I have this dashboard where I feel like I'm in starship command, and I'm just looking at everybody's data. if somebody's doing really well, they might get a message from me saying, "Hey, awesome job. You're on the right track." If somebody needs to make a change, we problem solve that right there on the spot. And it's not me doing anything that's extraordinary. It's saying, "Hey, it looks like you ramped up on this specific exercise, and that correlates to your pain going up. Maybe you should make some changes." And then we do that regularly, and it allows for progress to be made, really quickly. And the reason I know that it's as good as it is we're getting tons of unsolicited testimonials, and also I'll get messages in the app all the time where people are telling me their stories, and they're telling me how much they've benefited from strengthening their foot. Because if you get online, the thing the, the solution for plantar fasciitis is rest it, ice it, stretch it, massage it, get a new shoe. of those things actually rebuild the foot, and none of those things actually strengthen the foot, and none of those things actually prepare the foot for life the pickleball, the chasing the grandkids, the tennis, the any of those things. if you just kinda put a Band-Aid on it, the thing underneath it won't heal
Mike:
Right. So is plantar fasciitis something that, that heals completely and never comes back in your lifetime or is it something that comes back?
Dr. Jonathan Schutza PT:
Yeah, so that's a good question. For a lot of people it can heal and it can resolve long term, if they continue to strengthen. So we can never completely prevent things from reoccurring. The research indicates that the biggest predictor of something happening is if it's happened before in the past, right? So if I've had plantar fasciitis, the opportunity for that to come back again in the future it's greater than if you've never had it in the first place. So plantar fasciitis is characterized by doing something that your foot is not prepared for. So if I, say I'm out of shape and I go run 10 miles, right? I could have some aches and pains, and I could develop something like plantar fasciitis, and I'm just using the extreme example just for, sake of illustration. But if you, let's say you've had plantar fasciitis and it goes away. If you stop doing the things that got you better in the first place, and then you go do something again that's physically demanding, you could potentially get it again. But if you continue the strengthening process and you continue the building process, that protects you against it coming back in the future
Mike:
Mm-hmm. So in using your system, how many minutes per day would someone be doing these exercises?
Dr. Jonathan Schutza PT:
Yeah. So on average, it's about 15 to 30 minutes, and the reason it's such a big discrepancy is some people have it in both feet, so they're doing it with both feet. So if it's one foot, it's about 15 minutes. If they're doing it with both feet, it takes about 30 minutes a day. And it doesn't take a ton of time when you consider if you were to go into a clinic, your drive time looking like just going to the clinic? And then you're gonna spend at least an hour there, and then you're in the waiting room. So you consider that, I know a lot of people, they go,"30 minutes a day that's a hard thing." if you're doing traditional therapy, time, your time is much greater, especially if it's rush hour traffic
Mike:
I had some physical therapy and, you know, i- if I'm gonna spend an hour with a therapist it was a two-hour allocation out of my day on that particular day, two or three times a week to get the condition worked on. With your system, people are using their cell phone and they can work on it for 15 minutes a day and get the same result. That's a wonderful savings of time
Dr. Jonathan Schutza PT:
Yeah it's a-- really is again, I'm a traditionalist, so coming back to me from whenever I started, I was very much the best thing that I can do for somebody is give them hands-on care, right? That was what I thought was the… And for some people, that probably is still the solution. Some people really need that one-on-one, hands-on extra modalities, maybe massage associated with it that you can't get in a program like this. So I'm not saying this, this program is perfect for everybody. But I would say for, 90% of people that, that have regular plantar fasciitis, this gets you at least 90% as good versus coming to see me in clinic. So if I can provide something that's, relatively inexpensive for monetary cost, for time constraints, anything like that, and I can get you at least 90% of the, the benefit versus coming to see me in the clinic, I'm super fired up about that.
Mike:
Jonathan, if people want to try a seven-day or seven-session trial of the Foot Capacity System on their iPhone or their Android phone, what website do they go to?
Dr. Jonathan Schutza PT:
It's ReBuildMyFoot.com And what we offer right now is we don't want anybody to get into a program that they're not sure is the right thing for them. Some people do want one-on-one care, and some people think online just isn't good enough. So we're really confident in our program and we know it works, and we know it's awesome. So because of that, we wanted people to experience seven recovery sessions free. Basically, you wanna log in and do it seven times for free without doing anything at all, no credit card required, none of that. You just, you get to experience the full app without any, interruptions, anything like that at rebuildmyfoot.com
Mike:
I find that when people do something like that, they really have a product or a service that works.
Dr. Jonathan Schutza PT:
I, believe in it. We started building this thing back in, or I started building it back in November, and then, I got a couple guys to help me with kind of building everything out in March. So this has been, it's been a long process, but blood, sweat, and tears, everything, long nights, sleepless nights have been put into this thing and I'm extremely happy with the thing that I've put out and I'll stand by it. Mike: I've seen it and a workable program for someone who has foot pain specifically plantar fasciitis. And, and I can tell you that from personal experience that that can be crippling pain. You just don't wanna get up and walk, and people will put on weight Yeah. Oh, 100%. It's the, once again, it's the thief that takes you out of life. It's the thief that, that removes you from, quality and socialization and all those things, and I agree completely.
Mike:
Great. And you know, make sure you tell your, your listeners, your s- followers on Instagram and Facebook about it. Jonathan, did I fail to ask you any questions that, that you wanted to include in this podcast?
Dr. Jonathan Schutza PT:
No I think we're good. I'm-- Mike, I'm easy. It-- we could have just riffed and it would've been fine. I think we did a great job here. I'm happy with how things went. Yeah. I appreciate it, Mike
Dolores:
Remember, our next episode will be released
next Friday at 9:
00 AM. Should you wanna become a major supporter of the show or have questions, please contact us at mike@rothvoice.com. This is a shout out for supporters, Tweet Coleman, Ed Williams, Duane Roemmich Paul Sorgen, and Dr. Craig Curtis at K 2 in The Villages. We'll be hearing more from Dr. Curtis with short Alzheimer's tips each week. If you know someone who should be on the show. Contact us at mike@rothvoice.com. The way our show grows is with your help. Text your friends about this show. If you enjoyed listening, use the fan mail button on our homepage, VillagesVitality.Life To leave comments, be sure to include your name, email, and phone number. We thank everyone for listening. The content of the show is copyrighted by Roth Voice 2026, all rights reserved.
