Strong Feet, Strong Life: Why Your Foundation Matters - The Truth About Foot Pain and Modern Footwear with Podiatrist Thien Trinh

Podiatrist and Stryda founder Thien Trinh on foot pain, footwear, integrity and staying connected

TL;DR

• Walking is a skill, and most of us were never taught it. Thien says he can transform how many people walk within about five minutes in his clinic.
• Foot pain usually gets treated at the symptom, with soft cushioning or rigid orthotics, rather than at the root cause.
• Too much cushioning can destabilise your feet, while overly stiff orthotics can splint them. The answer sits somewhere in between.
• Thien's one thing for everyone: walk and talk with each other as much as you can.

Introduction

I've said it many times on this podcast: I think your true form starts with your feet. As a PT, I see what happens later in life when people don't have strong feet. It sounds simple, but when you can't walk far, or walking hurts, it limits everything you can do.

So I was excited when Thien Trinh reached out. Thien is a podiatrist with about 18 years in clinic and the founder of Stryda, the cork insole brand he took onto Shark Tank. His brother and sister are podiatrists too. He grew up in a refugee family from Vietnam. He still sees patients every Monday, and in all those years he has never charged for a follow-up appointment.

We got into why foot pain is so often treated the wrong way, what the barefoot movement gets right and wrong, why he's betting everything on a new range of shoes, and the values his dad baked into his name.

A quick note: this is general education, not medical advice. If you're dealing with ongoing foot pain, see a qualified professional.

Lesson 1: You hold most of the answer

Insight: Thien would argue he knows almost everything there is to know about feet. Yet when someone walks in with plantar fasciitis, he says, "you hold 60% of everything we need to know. I hold 40." If you give him the wrong information, the treatment goes nowhere.

That's why education sits at the centre of how he works. Patients often want a quick fix so they can get back to sport or work. Thien would rather they understand why their feet hurt, because understanding is what makes a plan stick.

Action: Before your next appointment for any niggle, jot down when it started, what makes it worse, what shoes you wear and how much time you spend on your feet.

Outcome: You give your practitioner the 60% they need, and you become an active part of fixing the problem.

Lesson 2: Walking is a skill

Insight: Nobody teaches us how to walk. We get up, our parents cheer, and we do whatever we do for the rest of our lives. But walking is a skill, so you can do it well or poorly. Thien's most viral video ever is simply "don't do these things when you walk". Within about five minutes in his clinic, he says, he can completely change how someone walks, unless there's added complexity such as past surgery or a neurological condition.

Standing tall and walking well also changes how you feel. Most of us know the research on posture and confidence. Now imagine what happens when foot pain takes that away. Thien put it bluntly: plantar fasciitis reminds you it's there before you've even started your day.

Action: Film yourself walking for 20 seconds from the front and side. Notice whether your feet point out, whether one side looks different, and how heavily you land.

Outcome: You start paying attention to something you've taken for granted your whole life.

Lesson 3: Foot pain gets treated at the symptom

Insight: As a PT, I've noticed that when someone has a sore hip or shoulder, the first question is usually what exercises they should do. With feet, it's what they should cover them with. Thien agreed. Foot pain is mostly treated at the symptom level, and by the time people react, it's often chronic, because we're very good at ignoring it until it hits a critical point.

He sees the same pattern again and again. People try the same treatments, spend the same money and get let down, and some end up considering surgery. Surgery is still the right call for some people, but Thien would rather everyone try conservative treatment that targets the root cause first. That means looking at the repetitive things you do every day: how much you train, what shoes you wear, what insoles you use and how long you're on your feet.

Action: If your feet hurt, don't just buy a softer shoe. Look at the whole picture: your daily steps, your footwear, your training load and how strong your feet are.

Outcome: You address why the pain started rather than chasing it around.

Lesson 4: Too soft or too stiff both miss the mark

Insight: This was the part that changed how I think about my own shoes. Thien explained it with basic physics. If you want to push forward to take a step, you need the ground to push back. Very soft materials force you to sink before you can propel yourself. "Let's strap two pillows under you," he said, "and see you running around without rolling an ankle." In his view, the best case with over-soft insoles is that they do nothing, and the worst case is that they destabilise you.

At the other end, many orthotics are too rigid. They're built around the idea that the foot should be held in one ideal position, which often means demonising flat feet. But every foot needs to flatten and pronate with every step. Stiff devices can splint the foot and override its natural mechanics. Thien says they also cost around $800 on average, before any follow-up.

His approach sits in between. Stryda's cork insoles feel firm in the hand but give under bodyweight, bringing ground contact up to the foot. I can vouch for that: I'd been dealing with plantar fasciitis for a couple of months, typical guy, and the pain settled within about a day of wearing them.

Action: Look at the shoes you wear most often. Are they very soft and squishy, or stiff and controlling? Consider whether something in the middle might suit your feet better.

Outcome: Your feet get support without losing their ability to feel and push off the ground.

Lesson 5: Barefoot is the right direction, with a modern twist

Insight: I'm a big fan of barefoot shoes. After CrossFit shoes left me with tight Achilles and tight feet for about 12 months, switching to barefoot shoes cleared it all up. These days I wear something with a bit more support and Thien's insoles, and go barefoot as often as I can.

Thien says that if he had to choose between modern overengineered footwear and the barefoot philosophy, he'd choose barefoot every day. But he doesn't sit with the purists, because we no longer walk on dirt and grass. We walk on concrete, tiles and floorboards for decades. His goal is to help your feet feel natural, "but not too natural", on modern surfaces.

He also flagged heel height. Most everyday shoes have a raised heel, not just high heels. Wear even a one-centimetre offset for long enough, he says, and your calf and Achilles adapt to that shortened position. That's why some people feel like they'll fall backwards without shoes.

Action: Spend some time barefoot at home each day. If you're moving into barefoot shoes, transition gradually and give your calves and feet time to adapt.

Outcome: You build stronger, more adaptable feet that can handle both nature and the footpath.

Lesson 6: Get the basics right before blaming the product

Insight: Thien was refreshingly honest that no insole works for everyone. When Stryda's insoles don't help, it usually comes down to one of three things:

• Shoe size. People with wide or muscular feet often go up in length to get the width they need, so the insole ends up too long for their actual foot.
• Footwear. Pair a good insole with a shoe that's too tight in the toe box and it may make things worse.
• Diagnosis. Sometimes the pain isn't plantar fasciitis at all.

Beyond that, lifestyle matters. Some people have to be on their feet for 20,000 steps and 12 hours a day to put food on the table. There's only so much any product or practitioner can do until life allows a change.

Action: Check that your shoes fit your foot's width and length, give your toes room to spread, and confirm what you're actually dealing with before you try to fix it.

Outcome: Whatever support you choose gets a fair chance to work.

Lesson 7: Integrity and a simple plan

Insight: Thien's legal name includes Duc, which leans towards integrity in Vietnamese. His dad wanted all his kids to do everything with integrity and trust that the rest would fall into place. For Thien, integrity means service and faith. It's why he doesn't charge for follow-ups and why he still reads and replies to every review himself.

It also shaped his business. Before Shark Tank, his business plan was overcomplicated and numbers-driven. Now he can sum it up in one sentence: help the person with foot pain. Everything else gets reverse-engineered from there. And the camera, which he once avoided for two months, became easier once he stopped worrying about how he looked and focused on who he could help. His first two TikTok videos are now sitting on about 8 million views.

For anyone with a passion they want to take further, Thien points to the serenity prayer his father put beside his bed as a child: accept the things you cannot change, find the courage to change the things you can, and have the wisdom to know the difference.

Action: Write your work or passion project down as one sentence about who you help and how. Use it to decide what to focus on this week.

Outcome: You get clearer, braver and less distracted by what doesn't matter.

Quick wins

• Film yourself walking and notice one thing you'd like to improve.
• Spend 20 minutes barefoot at home today.
• Check the heel height and toe box of your everyday shoes.
• Write down your foot pain history before your next appointment.
• Call a friend and go for a walk together.

Closing insight

When I asked Thien what one thing he'd get everyone on the planet to do, he didn't say buy better shoes. He said walk and talk with each other as much as you can.

Over 18 years, he noticed older patients coming back to the clinic with nothing wrong with their feet. They were lonely. Walking and talking covers so much at once: movement, connection and mental health. And as Thien pointed out, if you don't have functional feet, it's much harder to get out and stay connected at all.

Your feet carry you through everything. Look after them, teach them to move well, and then use them to get out and spend time with people you care about.

Connect with Thien

Learn more about Stryda at stryda.com.au, follow Stryda Movement on Instagram, or visit the clinic in Rosanna, Melbourne.

Listen to the full episode

The full conversation is on Spotify, Apple Podcasts and YouTube, or press play at the top of this page.

Related episodes: Barefoot Shoes and Foot Strength with Helen Halkias and From Pain to Performance with Tom Swales