Simplified Foot & Lower Leg Approach

Helping people with their feet, Achilles and shins

I’ll jump right to the point, then explain my reasoning.

I believe if you have: 1) some form of forward and backward exercise, plus 2) some form of calf strengthening through your full range of motion, you could build and maintain above-average freedom from pain in your feet, Achilles and shins.

Along with helping people with their knees, I’ve put considerable thought, experimentation and reps into helping people with their feet, Achilles and shins.

My overarching observation from 10 years of getting results in this area:

The average person with a chronic problem in the feet and/or lower legs dramatically underestimates IMPROVING ABILITY FROM THE GROUND UP.

If you have pain in your foot, Achilles or shin:

Your DEMAND in life exceeded your ABILITY to handle it.

This is obvious once you’ve experienced it, but it’s not common knowledge for the average person.

So at the very least, if you simply strengthened your body’s ability to move forward and backward, I think you could do well with your feet and lower legs.

Forward loads the muscle on the front of your shin, and backward loads your lower, deeper calf muscles, as well as feet.

I’ve promoted and even invented more complex methods for training these areas.

But with my focus recently shifting to helping students in school, I’ve realized that my own ideal approach is simply NOT REALISTIC for schools.

By dragging and/or carrying things - including backward - you supply all sorts of strengths which are largely missing in modern exercise and modern lifestyle, while being more realistic for schools than buying expensive machines.

And as I forecasted last week, I’m working on a durable fabric “Buddy Sled” so students can partner up, no weights needed.

Further, if you’re going to do strength exercises like push-ups, pull-ups, squats and deadlifts, you’re going to build bone and muscle in your upper legs, butt, back and upper body, so I would have to include a full range of motion strength exercise for your lower legs to keep a natural balance of ability in your body.

The single-leg calf raise is accessible with a stairwell or even a wall, making it 100% accessible for schools. The wall version isn’t ideal for loading, but it can still work well if you take your time and perform enough reps until you’re challenged.

Bottom line:

I used all sorts of interventions for my feet and shins due to chronic pain.

None gave me lasting results.

Then I realized it was a matter of Demand vs. Ability.

I’ve now enjoyed year after year of NO ISSUES with my feet or lower legs, despite being able to handle even MORE demand.

But I always ensure my training regimen emphasizes my body from the ground up.

This has made my life so much more enjoyable that I’d feel like a jerk if I didn’t now help make this common knowledge.

The next aspect of this article shouldn’t really be necessary, but it is: The footwear industry profited by making shoes that are NOT SHAPED LIKE FEET.

They jam the toes inward for style.

I could’ve made that mistake.

But here we are in 2025 with HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS OF SURGERIES PER YEAR for people who have pain from their feet now being shaped like their shoes.

If you don’t have a problem, GREAT.

But this should at least be common knowledge, so I’m happy to be a part of the overall movement of making shoes shaped more like feet naturally are.

I developed an exercise shoe for ATG, and I also brought the first foot-shaped basketball shoe to the market a few years ago.

The main difference between the two is flexibility.

For exercise, I want a lot of flexibility, but on a basketball court I need the shoe to stay more firmly on my foot without slipping off.

Long-term vision:

Sneaker machines were mostly invented in the USA but were shipped away decades ago just to make an extra 10 cents per pair.

Well, our ATG exercise shoe is being worked on in a USA factory as we speak. I’m supposed to get the first sample in 2 weeks.

It’ll be the first American-made exercise shoe in many years. Once it’s rolling smoothly, we will continue on to our basketball shoe.

I can tell you from getting deep into these industries that in almost all cases, it’s simply a matter of how much money can be made at the top.

I’m no saint.

I like having money.

But my game in life is not “how much.”

I have a fantastic life, and the game of “how much” makes me nauseous.

So to keep being happy, I have to focus more on HOW I make money than on how much.

And to be clear, this isn’t a game of the USA “vs.” anyone else.

I wish for ANY country to have abundant jobs for its young people, but from manufacturing to customer service to tech, we’ve been steadily losing that in the USA for the last few decades.

Also, students today are heavily talked to about the environment.

Taking care of the planet is honorable.

But I haven’t come across a single student who was educated on how their shoes and clothes are made with lower environmental standards and thenshipped from across the ocean.

I’m not an environment expert.

But an army couldn’t rip my common sense away from me.

So:

Shoes shaped like feet.

Made in my home country.

This is the vision.

Yours in Solutions,

Ben

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