75: The Foot-First Approach: Dr. Emily Splichal on Movement, Balance & Injury Prevention

FIT EXPO INTERVIEW SERIES: This month on Group X Appeal, we're bringing the LA Fit Expo straight to you! Kimberly and Terry hit the expo floor to interview some of the most inspiring minds shaping the future of fitness—leaders in group fitness, strength, recovery, wellness, and performance. These are the coaches, creators, and changemakers whose strategies help people move better, feel stronger, and live healthier lives. Get ready for real stories, expert insights, and game-changing approaches you won't hear anywhere else.

THIS EPISODE: What if the key to preventing injuries, improving balance, and enhancing performance has been right under your feet this whole time? Dr. Emily Splichal, founder of Naboso and leading expert in foot health and movement science, reveals why most fitness professionals are overlooking the foundation that literally supports everything else. 

Discover the critical connection between foot awareness, overall body function, and chronic pain—plus the innovative recovery techniques that could transform how you (and your clients) move.

Whether you're dealing with persistent issues, seeking injury prevention strategies, or simply want to optimize performance from the ground up, this conversation will change how you think about every single step you take.

Follow Dr. Emily in Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/dremilydpm/

Want to experience this energy live? Join us at the Fit Expo in Anaheim, August 29-30 at the Anaheim Convention Center! Click the link below for tickets.

https://thefitexpo.ticketspice.com/anaheim-2026?t=GROUPX

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Questions or topic ideas? Email us @ groupxappeal@gmail.com

Get your FREE Guide To Holistic Well-Being here: https://gxaguide.com/

Stay Connected with Kimberly:
- @kimberlyspreenglick on Instagram, Facebook and YouTube
- email: kimberly@theinspiredlifeuniversity.com
- website: www.theinspiredlifeuniversity.com

Stay Connected with Terry:
- @terryshorter on Instagram & Facebook
- email: terry@rippedplanet.com
- website: www.rippedplanet.com

Transcript

This month on Group X Appeal, we are bringing the Fit Expo straight to you. We hit the floor at the Los Angeles Fit Expo interviewing some of the most inspiring minds in our industry. Leaders in group fitness, strength, recovery, wellness, and performance. Yes, and these are the coaches, the creators, and the change makers shaping the future of fitness. And in today's episode, you're going to hear their stories, their expertise, and the real world strategies they use to help people move better, feel stronger, and live

healthier lives. if this lights you up, make sure you join us at the Fit Expo in Anaheim right here in our own backyard at the Anaheim Convention Center, August 29th and 30th. Yes, click the link below for tickets, DM us and come experience the energy, the education and community in person. Absolutely. All right, let's get into today's conversation.

kimberly/terry (01:24)
got Dr. Emily in the house. are you? Thank you so much. So, who are you? I'm Terry shorter. And as you know, we're here at the LA Fit Hexbow for this entire series. And we say the best for last today with Dr. Emily, we're going to be starting from the ground up fitness from the ground up and we have none.

other than this expert who's going to be sharing the importance of foot health when it comes to fitness and wellness. But before we get into that, we need to hear your story. Yes. I need to be barefoot. I have to take my shoes off. That's why I go for it. There you go. She's walking the walk. Now I'm authentically into my barefoot. That works. So I'm a podiatrist.

so a functional podiatrist, which is important. But I started in the fitness industry 20 years ago. And then as I went through, I did group exercise, personal training, and then I got on the education side. This was during the barefoot running boom and the five fingers, we're talking about five fingers. So in 2010, I created my education company for fitness professionals. And it was everything about feet.

and I created a barefoot training, especially the certification and really created a niche within the industry about barefoot science, but less on the group X side and more the voice of the science and then the programming, trainers, strength conditioning, traveled the world. I've been to 35 countries teaching about feet, to trains and athletic trainers. And then now that's in the BOSO.

which is a sensory based product lines to stimulate the nerves in the feet and in the hands. That's ball. Fantastic. I think we need to hear more about the Noboso. Yeah. So tell us about the products that the Noboso, like what's this all about? Yeah. So all I want to do is take off my shoes and start playing. Yes. Well, if you've never felt on me here, you can feel this texture on it. ⁓ So they all feature this texture and we actually have a patent on that texture.

it is stimulating a very specific nerve in the bottom of the feet and on the palm of the hand. It happens to be the braille nerve. So when you read braille, we are stimulating that same nerve with our products in the feet. So what that does is that builds foot awareness. Most people don't think about their feet. Most people actually just don't think about their feet. Some people shouldn't be thinking about their We don't want to go that direction in the feet.

If you are moving, standing, exercising, everything that we're advocating, you have to be able to feel your foundation. If you want to move well, you have to feel your base. And that's what a lot of the Novosel products are doing is so you feel your feet, because then you can strengthen your feet if you feel them. And then we have a component that's built into recovery. Okay. So if someone, this sparks an interest in.

and they're into fitness, but they've never thought about their being. They just buy shoes they think are comfortable and go do their thing. Or just look cute. Or just look cute. Let's guess. What do you tell them to do? It's like their first step if they wanted to delve into understanding more. Yeah, so some of the easiest ways to get into foot health in fitness. I'd say that. Foot health in fitness is to get out of your shoes.

So take off the supportive shoes, get your socks off as well, because socks are not accessing all of the nerves. And then just initially move. Feel what it feels like to spread, sway, move your foot, open up the toes and engage. Then you can start to get into some of the products. Wake up the nerves, release the feet, walk across the pebble path.

Go on to a vibration platform, like a power blade, vibration rollers, right? So all of these things, you're waking up the nervous system. Then you ultimately want to strengthen your foot. And the best way to strengthen your feet, there's an exercise called short foot. Short foot is like literally Google short foot. You will see all of the things how to strengthen the foot. It's just pushing your toes into the ground. That's all that it's doing. Like grounding. In the similar way like grounding, anchoring, doming.

but you wanna actually integrate it. So I teach people and professionals how to incorporate their feet to their core muscles, to their diaphragm, and it connects to your tongue. So if you were doing squats, you want to engage your foot while coming out of the squat. You want to engage your foot as you're doing a bicep curl, and guess what? You're actually stronger. So teaching that, the really simple hack.

And then you would incorporate recovery talk about minimal shoes you can go down all these different paths but it's really about just start to get your shoes and socks off and just feel your feet sensory awareness first Yeah, so So there's a system in place that people should follow a protocol that they should follow once they go through the sensor awareness Patterns then they go into strength and then from there what would be like the next thing you said balance and then you said

Yeah, so there I have four pillars to healthy feet, which supports movement, longevity. And those four pillars are awareness, right? So do you feel your feet? We spoke about that. The second one is strength. And when I say foot strength, mean, integrated foot strength. Third is balance. So we have to be able to do a 10 second balance that is a predictor of balls. But so I'm very much an advocate of single leg stability.

And then fourth is recovery. So those are your four pillars of healthy feet. Let's say you want to go next level. That now becomes ballistic. So how do you get really quick? How do you get quick feet, not just strong feet, but quick feet? That's why I started talking to like athletes and things like that. ⁓ That's again, a next level of how you could get into it. So the super pillars. The super pillars, yes.

So where would mobility fall in? Would that be like when you're, when you're working on the strength, would it be like strength and mobility, just the ability to, you know, move and spread the toes and things like that. I've always heard. Yeah. So where I incorporate foot mobility is really in the activation side. So if you're thinking again, would like the neuro ball. So this, actually splits into two pieces. I'd have to stand up to do that, but it's, it's wasn't the two pieces.

So that part of mobilizing the fascia and the muscles in the bottom of the foot, the stick can be used for the calves, like the soleus, to get ankle mobility. I'm a huge advocate of pelvic floor releases because your pelvic floor connects to your feet. So the more you can mobilize your pelvis, your foot and ankle just follow. So that would really be kind of in that awareness activation burst pillar. And now let's strengthen the foot.

Now let's focus on balance at the end of the workout, end of the day. Let's do recovery. love it. So what are some of your favorites ways or suggestions you would give for good recovery? So one, I would say, I said we got the no ball, the no ball. Not even the no ball. It's so easy and it's really effective. Very accessible. Very accessible. that is good. Um, it could be.

other forms of massage. ⁓ It could be active recovery. Movement is one of the best ways to support recovery actually. Like you want to actually keep moving because that's how you support circulation and circulation is recovery. That's a big part that I try to advocate because in our feet, we have itty bitty blood vessels. So the only way that you get good circulation to your feet is you have to move. Yeah. I love vibration. I'm obsessed with the whole body vibration. ⁓

bringing them up, but I love whole body vibration platforms. Super effective for circulation, for muscle recovery. And then rest. was it? Fatic drainage, stabilization. Yes, all of that. All that. I don't think enough people know about vibration therapy. I know. I know. I... It's the best kept secret, but it should not be secret. Yes. And it's not a massage. I love at the gym where they're just like, how's the massage? I'm like, no, it's doing so much So much more. Yes.

And I heard that I was supposed to have an extra massage added to my pedicure. That's what I think I heard you say. Yes. Yes. Yes, I did. I hear things. That's all right. That's a good thing to hear. That's a great thing to hear. And so with these, these are two products. Are there several others that you that you have as well in your line? Yes. So we have actually over 40 products. Yes.

So, and they all incorporate the same texture. We have five patents. So we have three utility patents around the texture and the benefit of our texture. And then we have several design patents for some of the different products, but we have, these are recovery tools. We have socks. So we have where you could slide on the sock and that texture is on the inside of the sock. So you walk on the texture, feels amazing. We have balance tools.

We have weighted sticks. So these fall under kind of our exercise equipment or fitness equipment. We have some Pilates equipment like a foot bar wraps. We have different mats. We have flooring. We have insoles. We have four different insoles. So yeah, there's over 40 products. Wow. So people have zero excuses.

not to get the proper foot health that they need. Yes. Right. Not the same one foot what they need. Absolutely. So and where can where can people our listeners, our viewers, where can they find a Noboso products exactly? So our website is Noboso.com and I'll spell that so N-A-B-O-S-O.com. Does Noboso mean anything? It does. I'm just going to say I'm going to say this helps you remember it. So people like think like Noboso.

is it is a Czech word that means a barefoot. Okay. But it is also a Korean word that means look at me. ⁓ give me a look at me. No, no means look at me in Korean. That's great. So now both so that call no both so that how about on social media can they follow you can they follow in a blow so both

Yep. So my handle on Instagram is dr Emily DPM. So Dr. Emily DPM. And then no both. is no both. underscore technology. And do you have a book also? I have two books. Okay. So Dr. Emily has two books. Each book I'm sure you can find on the website. You can probably find on Amazon.com as well. the first book is called Barefoot Strong. Of course. Easy. And that I wrote 10 years ago.

So again, kind of in the height of this barefoot running boom. And then the second is called sensory sapiens. And that one really is an extension of my passion that we are sensory beings. So we have evolved to be, really we shape our interaction with ourselves and with the external world based off of.

the perception of self. So the way that you feel grounded, emotionally safe, the way that you move well, you move efficiently is based off of feeling your body. And I feel that a lot of people are disconnected from their physical body. They don't know where they are in space. So I'm trying to push and advocate connecting to yourself and like feeling. very much into somatics again, that's a whole other conversation. But I truly believe like to move well, you have to feel.

to like heal, you have to feel, to be connected, you have to feel. Everything's made out of feelings. I'm just obsessed with sensory. ⁓ There's that saying, you don't experience the world as it is, you experience the world as you are. very much so. Love that. I love that too. That's a cool look at you. Right? I love sensory sapiens. Sensory sapiens. remember that. Yeah. Good.

Thank you so much. Anything else that you want to share with regards to like what's coming next or? ⁓ I mean in this space of like group fitness. What I would say is I think that foot recovery is one of the most underappreciated aspects. But if you think of like dance fitness or step, I never did step. It's like not the best one is step.

You're thinking of these repetitive movements, right? In this group exercise, maybe it's different surfaces. We just need to think about ourselves also. It's not just about the member who is in the class. It's about us, the one who's leading the class that we have to prioritize our health. So I'm a huge, huge advocate of just like prioritizing yourself and empowering people to just take ownership of their health. Start with your feet.

Not with your feet, but take ownership of your health and then when it comes to the foot, from the ground up. Yes. And I often say ⁓ recovering your feet, so a foot recovery a day, right? So it takes two minutes with the neuro ball, keeps the podiatrist away. That's true. We don't want to keep you away. I mean. That's right. If you want more of Dr. Emily.

She gave you all the handles and website nebosa.com you have full access to her two books. So much good information. So many products. didn't even know there was that many. Yeah, I just love making products. guess. Thank you for contributing so much based on your passion for the strength of feet and just a somatic experience overall. Yeah, no, you're welcome. Absolutely. So be sure to follow her. We appreciate you tuning in to GroupX appeal and we're looking forward to

See you at the next event. Make sure you follow along with that. If you haven't been just replay one of the old episodes. We'll share those, right? So again, I'm Terry Shorter. I'm Kimberly Springwood. And as always, we encourage you to make it a great day and why? Because it's a great day to have. Yes, it is. Much love.