This $15 Device Fixes What Orthotics & Braces Can’t

Added: 2026-05-31

[00:00:00]So, in my office, I've been hearing this phrase in one way or the other a lot recently, and that is, okay, you gave me an orthotic or a brace, but I don't want to have to rely on that. What if I don't wear that brace one day? Do I sprain?

[00:00:13]What if my body becomes weaker? Now, we all know that getting your body to heal itself under the most ideal circumstances is always going to be the most durable form of repair, like functional recovery. And that goes for anything like planer fasciitis, tendonitis, ankle sprains, knee pain, lower back pain, hip pain, whatever. But yet at the same time, we go around and we, you know, slap orthotics in people's shoes and just hope that or braces and hope that these devices just will be a cure all externally, giving no thought to how do we get the body to repair itself because something was going wrong in the body beforehand that led to this.

[00:00:52]And now a lot of times there are structural abnormalities that yes just need a brace, they need an orthotic, but for the most part there is something that you can do functionally to your own body for yeah, like the thumbnail said, like $15 that can solve things that an orthotic or brace just could never even come close to solving. It's very simple, easy, and like I said, it's like 15 bucks. And I realize these claims sound kind of fantastical and know this video is not sponsored by anybody. There are several options of brands you can get with these and they're all pretty inexpensive. But when you re when you start to see what this device does, you'll start to realize kind of why it it can solve or at least help solve so many different issues. And that device is, and this is very important, a two board balance board. Now, this one I got on Amazon uh a few holidays ago for $15.

[00:01:45]And you can get them even cheaper when they go on sale. And the whole principle of these two board balance boards is is that the heel and the forefoot are independent from each other. So number one, they're a balance board which helps propriception which helps your body determine where your feet are in space.

[00:02:01]That gives you better balance. But number two, it actually exercises the muscles independently in your foot.

[00:02:08]Because if you actually ever taken a look at foot anatomy, there are so many of these little muscles in the foot that are so hard to train. Now, barefoot shoes can do that as well versus this device. The problem with a barefoot shoe is is that if you have a foot deformity, they can oftentimes accentuate that deformity because there's nothing correcting, right? Whereas these devices, you can actually by where you put this Velcro strong one here. By where you put these little um wooden blocks, by where you velcro them in, you can then isolate different muscle groups. So in my opinion, these are so much more effective than barefoot shoes because whereas a barefoot shoe can actually make some of these issues worse in certain people, these can actually isolate the problem areas. Now, in terms of ankle sprainers, when training with balance boards, propriceptive exercises, intrinsic and extrinsic muscle training of the foot, it has been shown that if you're an ankle sprainer, you can reduce your risk of ankle spraining by 35%.

[00:03:09]Now, the problem with these studies that have been done on ankle sprainers is number one, they always test people that have already had an ankle sprain. So, there's not a lot of good data of, hey, I've never had an ankle sprain. Will this help reduce my risk? But you can infer that if people that have bad ligaments can reduce their risk, so can you. Now, across every single study with neuromuscular training, it has been shown that you can also reduce the severity of an ankle sprain. Now, in terms of still needing an ankle brace along with neuromuscular training for an ankle sprain, the research is pretty clear that yes, you still do need an ankle brace or a boot after an acute ankle sprain to immobilize the ankle to let the foot heal to stop further damage of those ligaments. Where the balance board training comes in, the intrinsic and exttrinsic muscle training comes in is to allow your body to internally brace itself. And that's why across all these studies, it's shown that the severity of the ankle sprains go down when using these because yes, you can still sprain your ankle. If you've got a bad ligament, no amount of muscle training is going to stop a bad ligament. It's just that's just what it is. That's why a number of people every year have to go in and have their ligaments replaced just because sometimes their ligaments flapping in the breeze and there's just nothing else they can do about it. And even some of those people will still sprain. But what it has been shown that if you're looking to recover faster from an ankle sprain, if you are a chronic ankle sprainer, or if you're someone that just maybe had one ankle sprain and is looking to never have one again, then these have been shown to significantly reduce your risk and more quote unquote bulletproof your ankle. Even though there is no such thing as bulletproofing your ankle, there's always going to be some risk.

[00:04:52]This is going to be as close as you're going to get. And if you are going to be doing these exercises on here, the ones that I recommend to my patients are the ones that focus mostly on the paranal tendons, which are the tendons on the outside of your ankle. Now, the next use case of a two board balance board to me I think is even more exciting and that is for things like planer fasciitis, tenonitis, flat foot pain in your foot.

[00:05:14]And what they found is when doing this type of intrinsic muscle training and neuromuscular training, especially on a two-board balance board, that it helps the muscles of your foot fire more appropriately. That's the word that is used a lot is appropriate action of muscles. That's the big key there. And that's that because you can train these muscles individually more with the with the two board technique based on where you're putting the blocks, you can now isolate muscles that are not firing appropriately during your gate cycle.

[00:05:43]And thus when you do that you then start to offload the muscles that are getting overworked. And what that will do is is that will more make your foot go smoother through a gate cycle and stop overloading parts of your foot that were previously getting worked. So that's going to do things like prevent more chronic repetitive injuries like paranal teninitis, posterior tibial teninitis, shin splints. Now planer fasciitis is usually multiffactorial. There's usually a few things going on when you get planer fasciitis, but one of them a lot of times is overload, right? And you're you're walking weird and you're starting to get abnormal pressure. That planter fascia is getting taut and it's just trying to stabilize the foot. And so doing this is going to allow the muscles of your foot to more take the burden off of the planter fascia. And that's the same thing with your Achilles tendon.

[00:06:31]Your Achilles tendon along with your paranal tendons, those tendons on the outside of your ankle are the main stabilizers of your feet and legs. And so when you're overworking them because your foot may be hyper mobile or the muscles of your foot are not purchasing the ground or just not doing their jobs correctly, those muscles have to overwork and that's where you start to get things like Achilles tendonitis, you know, paranal tenonitis, shin splints, knee pain, things like that because those bigger muscles are having to do the work of these small intrinsic muscles. Now once again like ankle spraining, some people have flat feet, right? because they have ligaments that just do not want to hold the arch up.

[00:07:09]They have structural flat feet. And for those people, yes, you still need an orthotic. There is no amount of muscle training that is going to fix that. Even though in some studies, they've shown that you can increase your arch height by training the intrinsic muscles of your foot. And interestingly enough, my experience has really mirrored some of these studies in that I found the most success with people when they have orthotics as well as some intrinsic muscle training and extrinsic muscle training as well as eccentric stretching of the Achilles. Most studies have found that strength training is more effective in treating things like planer fascitis and Achilles tenitis versus stretching.

[00:07:48]In my experience, the stretching has gotten them better quicker. The more strength training has stopped the pain from coming back for longer. And working those intrinsic and extrinsic muscles of the foot has also been shown, this was really crazy, to be protective in Achilles, patella, and hamstring issues.

[00:08:09]Now, this study here, this was a three-year study. This these numbers are crazy. Just performing these foot and ankle exercises on the balance board were shown to reduce non-cont hamstring injury rates from 22.4 to 8.2 per 1,000 hours. Patellar tendinopathy from 3 to 1 per 1,000 hours and Achilles tendinopathy from 1.5 to zero per 1,000 hours. No other device that I have ever prescribed to people has had those kinds of just consistent results amongst so many different issues in the feet, lower leg, and getting up into the hip and lower back. And if you want to check out the latest in orthotic technology, I'm not going to say latest and greatest cuz some of it's not that great, check out this playlist right here with all the different kind of like viral orthotics and inserts that I've checked out recently. And if you want to see how to choose the best ankle brace for your particular needs, make sure you click into this video right here.