My Biggest Professional Mistake: Inventing the One Stretch
Updated: Aug 27
Yep, you read it right.
Don’t get me wrong, the One Stretch is helping just about everybody who gets on it.
So how can a product that is selling and helping people in one stroke be a mistake, you ask?
My overriding objective for all 30 years of my professional career has been centered around three aspects of equinus, or the isolated gastrocnemius contracture:
Getting people, patients, and medical colleagues to know that it is a problem… Actually, it is basically THE PROBLEM.
That calf stretching daily can prevent most of the non-traumatic acquired foot and ankle pathology we develop as we age.
Calf stretching is, as I like to say, “Powerful medicine, definitive treatment.” And it is the definitive treatment for the great majority of my patients, not surgery. Let that settle in for a minute.
When you’ve seen thousands of patients have their quality of life negatively impacted by the same recurring problem, you want to be able to change that…
If you saw the number of patients I have seen who have struggled to commit to stretching their calves each day (aka “compliance”), you'd see the need for something that could help them start and stick with calf stretching.
And if you've seen the number of patients I see RETURN because of the same problem, you’d want a reliable method to help them stick to their habit of stretching properly so the problem stays away. In short, you too would see why I invented the One Stretch – designed to be a SIMPLE, fun, and effective way to promote and maintain the daily habit (and proper form) of calf stretching.
But in some ways, inventing the One Stretch has understandably reduced my credibility when it comes to my original mission: promoting calf stretching. Presenting and promoting the concept of equinus and how it is the cause of one’s foot and ankle problems can, arguably, bring my motives into play. That’s why, in some ways, inventing the One Stretch has impacted my larger objective – which is and has always been to educate people on the power of calf stretching.
I can see why people may think this way, but I will continue to be a patient advocate, even if that means being a dissenting voice in the medical community. You may see posts on this blog that mention why the One Stretch is your optimal way to stretch, but that doesn’t mean you still can’t simply stretch your calves each day without the One Stretch.
Comments