Episode #591: How Garrett Salpeter and NeuFit Are Transforming Injury Recovery with Neuro-Bioelectric Technology

0:01 This is Pete Moore on Halo Talks NYC. I have the pleasure of bringing Garrett Salpeter out of Austin, Texas to our audience. We're gonna talk about Nufit and we are gonna talk about technology that is changing the landscape of injury recovery and stimulating the nervous system. I am a big advocate of workout recovery and new technologies, as everybody knows. So Garrett, welcome to your first Halo Talks. Thank you, Pete. It's a pleasure to be here. So you are a college hockey player, which, you know, is near and dear to my heart, as you know, as an avid NHL advocate. And I usually sit 20 rows behind the net, and I've done about 15 games so far. So you were a college hockey player. Tell us what happened. That kind of spurred you to dedicate your life to healing yourself and then allowing that to happen for other people?

1:02 I had this really amazing experience and part of what made it so profound for me was the contrast to all the experiences I had leading up to this moment that I'll tell you about. So, I grew up in Chicago, hence playing ice hockey, right? There aren't as many of us growing up playing ice hockey down here in Texas. I had several injuries along the way and I went through traditional physical therapy, traditional orthopedic medicine, and for a variety of reasons, I was so disappointed with that experience. It felt, I would say, disempowering, disenfranchising. And then, I had an injury towards the end of my time in college. I was already set to go to engineering graduate school and sort of had what I thought was going to be the next steps on my life path already set. And I had an injury where I tore some ligaments and I was told I likely would have to get surgery. And then, through a fortunate set of circumstances, I got introduced to a guy who's a chiropractor who was doing functional neurology. So, he was looking at how the nervous system responds to injury and how that response can support or not support the healing process. And, he used an older version, an analog more like microcurrent device that used direct current electric fields as opposed to AC or as opposed to alternating current, the more traditional electrical stimulation. And, I saw firsthand how working with the nervous system and leveraging the power of these direct current electric fields actually stimulated my ligaments to heal on their own, helped me avoid surgery. And, I was very happy and relieved as a hockey player, but as a physics major, as a pre-engineering student to find something that actually made sense

2:35 scientifically from first principles and was just such a stark contrast to the poor experiences I had before. It was just such an empowering actually made sense, wonderful experience that going through that created within me a calling to share this type of work with as many people as I possibly could. And so, it's caused me to pivot on my life path for sure. Now, when you got that treatment done, there was obviously a technology and a machine that allowed that to happen. Why did you decide, "Hey, I've got to either create something better," Or do you say, "Hey, this is an interesting market, I'm going to get into it"? So, because of that experience that I had, I actually started a clinic of my own. I came to Austin for grad school and I linked up with the guy who was the chiropractor for the UT Longhorns football team and started working out of his private practice. I had a 120-square-foot room, you know, subleased in his office. That's too big, man. That's like too big of an office. I'm just kidding. Yeah, right. Very humble beginnings for sure. Yeah, exactly. Most of us. And, I started actually working under him as a non-clinician was treating people using some of these older versions of electrical stimulation. And, because of my engineering background, I also did additional graduate work in neuroscience along the way when I really started to understand the importance of the nervous system. And, I kept seeing over about 7 or 8 years of working full-time with people in the clinic every day putting in the 10,000

4:06 hours, I kept seeing ways I wanted to improve both the technology and the methodology. And I finally got to a point where I, you know, for a whole variety of reasons, I realized that the, the next step for me was actually to create a device that would bring this category of direct current technology into the future, or at least into the present. And that, you know, I kind of joke that I, I'm glad I didn't know how, how long and how difficult and how expensive it would be to launch a medical device. Of course. No, of course. Yeah, yeah. Entrepreneurs, if there was— I was watching something on LinkedIn the other day, it's like, if If anybody knew what they were about to get into and looked back 10 years, they would say, there's no way I would do that again. That's crazy. If I knew what I had to do, it would be a much tougher decision. But that's what makes great companies and great products is the unknown of how much it's going to hurt to get there. Let me ask you a question. Just from a standpoint of there's a lot of technology out there right now. That is in the workout recovery and injury prevention and optimization and healing space. We're affiliated with a company called HigherDOSE. They've got an electromagnetic field which I lay on an hour a day. There's also companies that are doing red light therapy. They're doing different kind of intensities of the light therapy.

5:30 Then you've got companies a company called LightStem. Then you've got other devices. So when you talk about light and you talk about electrical and you talk about the different spectrums of both of those, could you kind of give us a little bit of a tutorial on what is going on with the body and how the body is kind of responding to light and to electrical? Maybe just like if you could give us just a little bit of a snippet on how those things operate differently. Yes. And, it's a great question because whether it's electrical energy or magnetic field or light or sound, ultrasound or shockwave, they're all similar in the sense that they're all ways of introducing external energy into the body. And, that energy is either going to pass through or it's going to be reflected or it's going to be absorbed depending on the tissues and depending on the amount of energy and the type of energy and all that. So, there's a lot of overlap in terms of these different types.

6:37 When you have light energy coming in like red light, for example, that is going to be absorbed certainly at various places in the mitochondria. There's good research on, I think it's cytochrome C, one of these mechanisms in mitochondria that can help increase the rate of ATP production. And it helps with various processes in the body in part because it increases energy production. And then, when you have, like you talked about the higher dose, which it's a PEMF mat, correct? Correct. So, what that's doing is that's emitting a magnetic field. What our device, for example, or electrical stimulation in general is doing is emitting an electric field, And, there's actually a lot of overlap because whenever you have— this is just sort of Physics 101 or maybe 102. Whenever you have an electrical field, there's always a magnetic field that's 90 degrees perpendicular to that. And, whenever you have a magnetic field, same thing is true, you have an electric field 90 degrees perpendicular to that. So, when you introduce a PEMF, which is a magnetic field, when you introduce a magnetic field into the body, you're causing electrical charges to move. Just the same as if you introduce an electric field into the body, you're causing electric charges to move.

7:51 So, the net effect is that any charged particles in the body, any ions or sodium and potassium pumps inside neurons or calcium channels or electrically charged inflammatory cells in the body, whatever it might be, they're going to move or activate under the influence of these external fields. So, when we introduce the pulsed direct current signal of the NUBI, what it's doing is it's sending these electrical impulses. And, what they do is they essentially activate anything electrically sensitive in their path. And so, what you'll do is you'll activate a lot of the same nerve sensors as if you're actually moving or loading your muscles or as if you were touching or vibrating or introducing that to your skin.

8:37 There's an initial It's like if you have a row of dominoes, right? There's a first domino and then after that, they all fall down. So, the first domino in a sensory input might be a touch sensation on my forearm or it might be an electrical signal that stimulates the same sensor as if touch was happening and it's going to trigger the same pathway. So, the brain is going to get that signal and in some way, it's going to— because that pathway is getting stimulated, it's going to interpret that as if touch is happening even though it's really this artificial external electric signal. So, you can mimic those when it's at a high enough threshold to cause sensation. When you're on this lower-level signal, like if you're using our device at more of a microcurrent setting where you turn it up so low you don't even feel it yet, or if you're using the PEMF, that lower dose that you don't really feel it at— I know it's called higher dose, but if you're using it at a lower amplitude where you don't actually feel it, you're not causing those sensory those sensors in the body to activate, but you are getting lower-level introduction of energy. So, you can be creating electric fields that do cause movement of charges within the body. The biggest effect is typically increase in blood flow and vasodilation.

9:54 So, if you have it on your— you're laying on it and it's on your legs, you're trying to help your legs recover, it's going to help increase blood flow to your muscles there and certainly can aid with recovery. So, there's a lot of overlap. The biggest difference in this example in terms of how we most commonly apply ours and how you use a mat like that is typically the dose, and they're very complementary. You could do a rehab session on ours in the clinic during the day and go home and recover and sleep on or use at other times a higher-dose mat later in the day. This is Pete Moore. I want to let you in on a little secret. There's this company called Promotion Vault, and what they do is they give out rewards from retailers that allow you to incentivize your members without having to do zero down and one month free, or giving away shakes or giving away t-shirts. What you want to do is build a rewards program that lasts, that people value, and that doesn't discount your own products and services. So here's the deal.

10:55 There's something called Rewards Vault. The Rewards Vault is going to allow a member to set up their own profile. They are going to answer questions. You are gonna get those answers. You're gonna be able to target those members and you're gonna reward them inside your club, inside your spa, and outside of the club and outside of the spa to get them to become loyal, to get them to pay their monthly dues and to be rewarded properly for the actions. A lot of companies are cutting back on rewards. You shouldn't be. Promotion Vault's your answer. Trust me, this is real. When you take a look at the NUBI device and you're actually stimulating areas that you're seeking recovery, to continue on with your explanation scientifically, how is it actually creating the healing process? Or what is the stimulation? Then what's the result of that stimulation?

11:54 Best known for is the NUBI device for neuro-bioelectric. And probably, in applications for that, I think we're best known for the mapping process where we actually take one of these electrodes and scan around. So, if you're just listening, you can't see, but if you're watching, of course, you can see me dragging this electrode around on my upper body here. So, we drag this around and map the body. And, what we're doing is we're sending those same electrical impulses that we talked about that are mimicking or duplicating the same sensory signals that happen when you actually contract or stretch or activate or load or challenge those tissues. And so, what we're doing is essentially testing how your body, if you're the patient or client, we're testing how your body responds to load in that area and then this area and that muscle segment and that tissue and that portion of the connective tissue. And, wherever things are working well, you're going to see that input, your brain, your nervous system are going to see that input and they're going to say, "Oh, that's within our current capabilities. There's no problem. That's all fine.

12:56 Nothing, no cause for concern, nothing threatening." If, however, we stimulate areas that are guarding and protecting or are weaker or are not able to handle that load or challenge, you're going to fight against that and it'll feel like a hotspot or feel like a trigger point, feel a little bit more intense. So, that's how you'll know that we're on a spot. And, the interesting thing about that is that all we're doing is loading each area. So, what that tells us is you're fighting against load there. So, that means if you go to do a movement in real life, when you do a movement pattern that would normally load that muscle or that tissue, you're going to attempt to compensate around it because your body thinks that it's threatening to load that particular area, that particular tissue, that particular muscle segment, whatever it might be. So that particular area has been wounded to a point where it cannot respond to whatever action is being requested to break it down. Yeah, for sure. And it could be wounding as an impact or it could be other compensations or bad habits developed over time. But yeah, it's been limited for some reason. Exactly. So your NUBI device, You identify that, it's giving you a readout that is showing a numerical deficiency in that area? So, the biggest source of feedback is actually you, the individual, the patient or client. When we scan around, we're asking you to tell us essentially where

14:29 it hurts, where it feels more intense, where it feels more like a trigger point sort of thing. Got it. Okay. And then, from there, you're staying on that area, you're stimulating that area, and that is then actively repairing that at a more rapid rate than any other recovery tool or technique or— Technique or— Sorry. Yeah. Yeah, I think so. And, I believe actually very strongly so. And, what we're doing there is really restoring function. Yes, there is an effect on tissue healing and repair. And, when we get these immediate effects, we often have, for example, we often have situations where we'll do a first treatment on somebody and in 10 minutes of active work, they gain 60 to 90 degrees of lifting their arm up overhead range of motion or if they're doing a forward bend, they could only touch their knees and now they can get down to the ground. We'll have some of these incredible changes. And of course, in 10 minutes, no disc herniations are going back into place or torn ligaments are healing and repairing inside of 10 minutes. What's changing is function. So, we're accelerating this process of neuromuscular reeducation, which is reeducating, retraining, recalibrating how the nervous system works to control the muscles there. And so, the idea is as you were describing,

15:59 Pete, is continuing to stay on those areas, stimulate those areas that we found and provide— it's essentially a form of exposure therapy. You're giving that input neurologically so the nervous system and the brain have a chance to learn that, yes, it is safe to actually allow these muscles to come back online, to begin to work again, to begin to accept and handle more load and challenge. And, that creates these breakthroughs because so many times the issue with recovery from injury or little nagging aches and pains, so many times the issue is not as much the hardware tissue damage as much as the software nervous system response. And so, based on how people respond, we can tell whether it's more of that neurological response or if they don't respond as much, it likely is more of the tissue damage and we can still help but it's going to take a little bit longer. Ben: So, what are some of the most common injuries that you say your technology kind of fast-tracks the recovery. Obviously, there's a lot of people playing pickleball and they get an ACL or they got a knee issue or they got an ankle issue. What are some of the areas that you're like, hey, I've been doing this for a long time. Here's where you get the biggest return on time related to the newbie. It's pretty broad. And I don't say that because we're trying to be everything to everybody every time. But, I do say that to emphasize the point that the common thread whether you're talking about acute injury or post-op or chronic pain or

17:30 neurodegenerative conditions, the common thread in addressing those is the nervous system. And so, there is an opportunity to help people in those. So, if we have acute injury or surgery, there's really wonderful examples of high-level athletes like Saquon Barkley talking about— he graciously recorded a video for us talking about how using the NUFIT method helped him recover after his ACL surgery because he was stalled at 5 months post-op. He was still stiff, still weak, still limited. And, he talks about how after his first session with NUFIT, he was able to feel like he could engage his quad consciously for the first time since before surgery. So, it gave him that neurological ability to begin engaging his muscles and it changed the trajectory of his recovery. And then, there's also in this sort of chronic longer lingering dysfunction realm, Joe Rogan talked on his podcast about coming into our clinic. He's also here in Austin. So, he talked about coming in and working on this longstanding low back and sciatic pain that he had for several months. And, he said he felt like he had tried everything, he had been to several different places and he came into NUFIT and started making a difference right away. And, in a few weeks, he was pain-free, had full mobility, was back at least as good if not even better than before this. And then, we have all the time here, we're in Austin, we have a lot of high school football, high school volleyball players will come in with sprained ankles and they'll be hobbling in.

18:59 And oftentimes, in a session, they leave feeling 20 to 50% better and they can put weight on their leg. They're not totally healed in one session, but it changes the overall trajectory of them their recovery, their outlook and how their recovery is going to go there. And then so let's take like a sprained ankle as an example. Somebody comes to you guys and say, okay, you know, what is the— how many times a week could they come to you where, you know, it's— it gives the body time to intake the frequency do the treatment, do you come back 2 days later? Is it a 3-week progression? Is it 2 weeks?

19:43 Is it, hey, come here for 1 or 2 times and then the rest of your body's kind of going to recover at a pace that's going to recover? It certainly can vary based on the circumstances. Most people are on a more typical 2 to 3 times per week, more standard physical therapy type of cadence. And, that is good because as you said, Pete, that allows people to come in, get that really focused targeted stimulus and then they have, let's call it, 48 hours in between to integrate, to recover, to rebuild, repair, then they can do it again. And, they create these patterns of intentional depletion and then supercompensation and really tap into the body's ability to adapt there. And then, at the extreme ends, there's people who Some of these athletes we described who, you know, a football player gets hurt under the Friday night lights and they want to, they want to get back for next week, but they've been told they're going to be out for 4 weeks. They might come in once or twice a day, every day. And we have several cases where they've been able to get back for the next game and not actually miss any games when they thought they might miss the next 3.

20:50 This is Pete Moore. Here's the last tip for you of the podcast. We are partnered up with a company called HigherDOSE, higherdose.com. They are the leader in workout recovery products, infrared technology, LED light masks, neck enhancers, and other products such as PEMF mats and sauna blankets. If you have not gotten on the workout recovery train yet, your time and your stop is now. You gotta get these products in there before these workout recovery and spas end up saturating your market, having your members walk outta the club and going into one of their locations for $200 per month where they're paying $39 to you. Let's become an expert in workout recovery if we are already an authority in workouts. HigherDOSE, check it out. There's a wholesale code and we look forward to helping you augment your products and services. To meet the demands of your members.

21:50 And hey, let's get people happy, healthy, and sweating. And the recovery should be just as good as the workout. So the proof obviously is in the athletes that come in there and get back on the field and can show the results. Do you still have, you know, either traditional doctors or surgeons or other groups of people that are kind of trying to protect their traditional treatments as naysayers anymore, or they've become somewhat like collaborators?

22:33 That's a really interesting question. There is certainly a range there also. A vast majority of surgeons now have come to understand how important rehabilitation is afterwards. There was, even in the time of my own career in the last 15 to 18 years, I think there was a time when the surgeons, many surgeons had the mindset of, I did the important part, the surgery's done, what you do after that doesn't really matter. It's sort of gonna be the same no matter what you do. It's gonna be 6 months, whether you really hit the rehab hard or don't do very much, not really gonna make a difference. And now, I think the pendulum has swung back into or swung to a much more appropriate understanding of, hey, the rehab that you do afterwards has a huge impact on the overall outcome and the ability to reduce the risk of reinjury and get back to higher levels of perform— or similar levels of performance and all that.

23:32 So, there is a lot of sentiment there and we have team surgeons from many Major League Baseball, NHL, NFL teams that we interact with that are very supportive of this. We have one I think is actually we're starting for the first time to put together an advisory board this year, part of one of these kind of fun things that I never really thought about in the, in the beginning, but we're doing later on here. So, and actually a team surgeon is going to be one of the members of that. So, Great. So, so last question. Obviously, we've got a lot of listeners here that either have rehab centers, have med spas, or are doing different types of workout recovery.

24:18 Give us a little background. You got 400 clinics that you're in right now. Is it a purchasing the equipment? Is it a leasing of it? How does the, how does the business model work? The clinics or facilities that acquire the NUBI device? Yes, they can purchase it and own it. So, there's no required ongoing expenses. There's options for additional education and training beyond what comes with it, but the certification comes with it. And then, there's also very minimal expenses of electrodes and the consumables and stuff like that. And, the 450 to 500 clinics as of the time that we're talking here, there's physical therapy, chiropractic, and then there's some gyms, med spa type of places that have— as long as there's an appropriate medical oversight, someone clinical there who can at least direct even if they're not doing the hands-on treatment themselves, then it's a great fit. And, the offer there or I think the value proposition there is that every day or every week, you're going to see these stories of people coming in and in their first session having breakthroughs that make them feel inspired and motivated to want to be a customer of yours to continue on, it creates a tremendous amount of buy-in. And then, there's many clinics that see patients through their plan of care and they're so happy and they build these

25:48 relationships and then they elect to continue on and continue to use the NUFIT Method and the NUBI device for fitness and maintenance and nervous system recovery, like a vagus nerve stimulation protocol for the parasympathetic nervous system. So there's all these different applications. Awesome. All right, man, well, I'm sorry you got hurt back in college, but I think it was a good thing for thousands of athletes. So thanks for that and coming on, and, you know, keep pushing. Um, I'm a big advocate of this, as we are in the entire Halo sector, of making sure new technologies get introduced and become mainstream. So Congrats on what you built and look forward to watching your success and, you know, use the device as needed because I'm still an athlete and I might trip up a couple things along the way. So I'll see you in the clinic as well. Thank you so much. I appreciate you having me on.

26:41 This is Pete Moore on Halo Talks. Captain speaking. I am the founder and managing partner at Integrity Square. We've been around now for 15 and a half years. We have been helping people like yourselves get capital, do mergers and acquisitions, consulting, strategic advice in the health, active lifestyle, and outdoor halo sector, trying to help as many entrepreneurs as possible get to the next level, take that inflection point to be the force behind your growth. We are helping companies that are— have at least $3 million of EBITDA, around $10 million of revenue, and we are positioned to help you get institutional growth capital or to negotiate deals with strategic partners. If you go to IntegritySQ.com/ISQ, you can see our capabilities deck. Happy to set up a consultation at any time.

27:39 That of charge, and we look forward to helping solve obesity, loneliness, and diabetes. Go Halo! Mm-hmm.