Parkinson's: An Athlete's Journey

Garrett Salpeter’s work began with a personal injury and a question that stayed with him: why did recovery often feel so limited?

As a hockey player and engineering student, he became interested in the nervous system, direct current stimulation, and the ways the body responds after injury. That path eventually led him to found NeuFit, where his work focuses on helping people improve movement, recovery, activation, and function by working directly with the nervous system.

His work has extended beyond sports performance into neurological conditions, including early research on how NeuFit treatments affect sleep quality in people with Parkinson's.

Garrett joins Eric to talk about neuroplasticity, recovery, performance, and direct current stimulation. They also discuss autonomic function, the nervous system's role in movement, and what it means to create enough input to maintain or rebuild capacity over time.

Key Takeaways

➡️ The nervous system sits at the center of movement.
Garrett explains how recovery, activation, coordination, and performance all depend on the signals moving between the brain and body.

➡️ Neuroplasticity depends on repeated input.
Creating change requires enough stimulation, repetition, and consistency for the nervous system to recognize which pathways are worth maintaining or rebuilding.

➡️ Recovery and performance are closely connected.
Good rehab and good performance training often share the same goals: restore movement patterns, address weak links, load tissues well, and build capacity over time.

➡️ Sleep and autonomic function matter for Parkinson’s.
Garrett and Eric discuss sleep disruption, recovery, parasympathetic function, and early research exploring NeuFit treatments and sleep quality in people with Parkinson’s.

Key Moments

00:00 Garrett’s background in hockey, injury, and recovery
04:21 Early patient work and major turning points
05:20 Spinal cord injury, neuroplasticity, and learning to walk again
08:18 The impact of helping one person
09:24 Fascia, direct current, and the nervous system
16:42 The brain-body connection goes both ways
18:40 Eric on morning symptoms, mindset, and Parkinson’s
20:34 MS, neuropathy, and neurological case work
23:01 Diabetic peripheral neuropathy and nerve function
25:46 Early Parkinson’s sleep quality research
26:43 Sleep, recovery, autophagy, and brain cleanup
28:10 Parkinson’s research, Phoenix, and Linda Denny
29:41 Neuroplasticity and how the nervous system adapts
31:36 Habits, repetition, and building new pathways
33:49 Creating enough input for the nervous system
36:28 Recovery, activation, and performance
37:24 Vagus nerve, parasympathetic function, and autonomic reset
41:11 What gives Garrett hope
44:13 Recovery and performance as overlapping worlds

Connect with Garrett

LinkedIn: Garret Salpeter
Instagram: @neufitrfp
YouTube: @Neufit
Website: www.neu.fit.com

About the Host

Eric Von Frohlich is a fitness entrepreneur, coach, and athlete living with Parkinson's who founded EVF Performance and Row House before his diagnosis in 2020. On the podcast he talks with athletes, experts, and people refusing to let a diagnosis be the end of the story.

Parkinson's: An Athlete's Journey

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Disclaimer

This podcast shares personal experience and general education, not medical advice. Always talk with a qualified healthcare professional before making changes to medication, treatment, or exercise.

What is Parkinson's: An Athlete's Journey?

Parkinson’s: An Athlete’s Journey is for athletes navigating Parkinson’s, the coaches and clinicians who train them, and anyone who wants real-world strategies for performance and longevity. Hosted by Eric Von Frohlich and Todd Vogt, the show focuses on tactical takeaways: how to train, recover, manage symptoms, and stay consistent when the rules keep changing. Expect honest conversations, tested routines, and guest experts who go deeper on what works.

Today's guest is

Garrett Salpeter,

founder of NeuFit

and creator of the

Neubie device.

Garrett's journey

into neuroscience

and recovery started

after a hockey

injury in

college led

him to functional

neurology and direct

current stimulation

and experience that

completely

changed the

trajectory of his

life and career.

Today Neufit and

Neubie devices are

helping people

improve recovery,

movement, pain,

performance,

and nervous system

function in a really

groundbreaking way.

This podcast is not

medical advice.

Talk to your

clinician before

changing training,

meds, or

supplements.

Garrett, welcome to

the show.

Eric, thank

you so much.

I appreciate you

having me on and I

love the work that

you're doing.

I think you're an

inspiration and

you're leading by

example here.

So it's an honor to

be here having this

conversation

with you.

Well, I appreciate

having you

here as well.

And I want to hear

about your story

that led you to this

insight of

neurology and then

this new direction

with your career.

So bring me back to

college and hockey

and what life looked

like and what you

were doing

and how you

experienced this

directly.

Absolutely, yes.

Happy to do that.

Ultimately, when I

reflect back, I feel

immense gratitude,

one, for being able

to find a way

where I can channel

my academic training

and personal

interest into a

career and then two,

to really have this

personal profound

pain to purpose

experience.

Oh, it's like a lot

of P's, personal

profound

pain purpose.

Exactly.

I never said

that before.

So I grew up playing

ice hockey, ended up

playing some in

college and I

had injuries

along the way where

I was so

disappointed with

the traditional

physical therapy,

traditional

orthopedic medicine.

At one point I

thought about going

pre-med and just

really based on my

experiences there

decided that it

wasn't for me.

So I was in school,

I was a physics

major, I was set to

become an engineer,

I was going

to engineering

graduate school.

My last year in

college, I had

another injury where

I tore some

ligaments

and I was told

I likely would

need surgery.

Based on these

experiences, I was

just down in the

dumps

thinking, "Oh, yeah,

probably going to

need surgery."

And then I met

through a friend of

a friend, I met a

practitioner,

originally a

chiropractor

who was doing

functional neurology

and he was using

older versions of

direct current,

which is a unique

type of electrical

stimulation that's

different because

most of what's out

there is

alternating current.

He was using this

older analog device

with a bunch of

dials on it that had

more like

a microcurrent but

had direct current.

And so this

combination of

working with

functional

neurology, working

with the

nervous system,

looking at not just

the injured tissues

and ligaments, but

looking at

how the nervous

system responds to

that injury by

shutting down some

muscles and creating

tension and

bracing and others

and the way it has

these global

patterns of

hypervigilance.

Looking at that,

addressing that, and

then using these

electric fields to

influence the

healing process.

Long story short, it

helped me recover

without surgery,

ligaments healed on

their own.

And it was just such

a revelation.

I was relieved as an

athlete, as a hockey

player, but as a

pre-engineering

student to

find something that

made sense

scientifically from

first principles.

That was this eureka

moment, this

epiphany that was

really inspiring and

ended up creating

a calling within me

to share that type

of work with as many

people as I could.

And that's what

really sent me on

this path.

So as I was

finishing my

master's degree in

engineering, I came

down here

for grad school

at the University of

Texas in Austin,

which is how

I got here.

And I've been in

Austin ever since

for nearly 20 years.

And in my grad

school program,

probably should have

been in the

laboratory.

I was networking a

little bit in the

sports medicine

world, connected

with the guy who

was the chiropractor

for the UT Longhorns

football team.

And I ended up then

in my early 20s,

having just

completed my

master's degree in

engineering,

ended up actually

renting a room from

him, 120 square foot

room, treating

people under

his license, using

older versions of

electrical

stimulation.

And I just kept

seeing amazing

outcomes.

I kept being

inspired to

learn more.

I went back and did

an additional

graduate school

program in

neuroscience

and I kept

seeing ways I wanted

to improve the

technology

along the way.

And where I was

waiting for someone

to come out with

something better and

just open more

facilities, I

finally got to the

point over seven or

eight years and all

this experience

finally got to the

point where even

though I didn't set

out to start a

medical device

company, I realized

that what I really

had to do was create

a device.

And that was another

three years or so of

effort and prototype

development,

engineering

and compliance and

all this stuff that

I'm glad I didn't

necessarily know

what it was

going to be like

going into it.

I'm glad I had

enough naivety to

not know that.

That is the

foundation of every

great entrepreneur

is you don't realize

how

difficult the journey

is because if you

did, you'd never

begin it.

That's right.

There's a lot of

truth in that,

that's for sure.

That's pretty

incredible.

So you had a lot of

direct experience

with

patients early on.

Any stories that

kind of jump out at

you as to when you

kind of the light

bulb went off

and you're like,

this is working in a

way that other

things aren't

traditionally?

There are several

moments along the

way that jump out.

Initially, I started

off wanting to give

people like me the

tools, techniques

and strategies

that I wished I had

growing up.

So that meant

working with high

school and college

athletes, working

with athletes that

were like me that

had injuries or had

difficulty reaching

their full

performance

because they

couldn't move their

bodies in the right

way and unlocking

the nervous system

and neurological

control made a huge

difference for them.

So that was really

where I focused

initially.

And then because the

work that we were

doing was so nervous

system forward, so

neurologically

focused as the

business grew, there

were some people who

said, Hey, could you

help my friend

with this or Hey,

could you help my

mother with that?

And one of those

first people from

that neurological

category who came in

is a woman

who had 25

years before falling

off a horse, broke

her back, had a

spinal cord injury

and was paralyzed

from the waist down

for 25 years.

So friend of a

friend brought her

in and asked, you

know, do you think

you can help her?

And I said, I don't

know, but we'll try.

And that was amazing

because we started

working with her.

And initially we got

a little bit of new

sensations enough to

where in the first

few sessions,

we started to think,

Hey, maybe this is

worth trying.

And so we worked

with her and used

direct current to

create neurological

input to tap

into the power of

neuroplasticity,

which is going to be

one of the themes

that I imagine

we will talk a lot

about today.

And in tapping into

the power of

neuroplasticity, we

had her going

through the

stages of first

getting autonomic

function, like being

able to sweat, for

example, below the

level of injury.

She hadn't been able

to sweat in her

lower body and

getting more

sensation there and

then getting some

movement and

function.

And we took her

through the process

of essentially

learning to walk

again as an

infant does or

a toddler does going

through the process

of crawling and roll

rolling even

before that

crawling and then

kneeling and walking

going through those

progressions.

And it was

amazing to see.

And there was this

wonderful moment

that was sort of the

climax of the story

where we'd

been

working with her.

Granted, this was

nearly two years at

this point.

It took a while to

make progress and

she had arranged, it

was around the

holidays and she

had arranged a

gathering of her

family, a couple

dozen people there

and arranged it

so that everyone was

at the restaurant

and she came in last

and she came in

walking on

a walker and

multiple

members had no idea.

So people are just

beside themselves

and there's tears of

joy and there's all

this screaming

and it was this

amazing moment.

That would certainly

shape the direction

that you choose to

live your life in.

I mean, that's an

impactful moment to

have as a young

entrepreneur and

validation that

I would imagine you

try to replicate

with everyone you

work with

because it seems to

be no limit to what

you can tap into.

Yes, absolutely.

There's more to

learn and things to

improve and the

examples that we've

seen of multiple

people getting out

of wheelchairs,

regaining their

autonomy,

dramatically

improving quality

of life, making what

feels like

miraculous

transformations.

Having those, one,

it makes all the

struggles and

challenges feel

worthwhile

and two, it's

incredibly inspiring

to keep going and

find ways to help

more people and get

this message

out to more people.

Yeah, I never

appreciated the

comment when you

hear someone who's

had an

impactful piece

of technology or

work when they say

if it only helps one

person,

it's worth it.

And you hear stories

like that and then

you experience that

directly

where I'll get a

thank you for what

we've done with the

podcast and it

improved someone's

life in some

direction,

gave them hope or

agency to take

control of what's

affecting them.

And it really does

make you feel as if

that's the only

person that happened

for the journey

was worth it because

that has a ripple

effect that we're

unaware of, but it

certainly carries

out beyond the

person whose life

you impacted.

Yeah.

And it's so

interesting too that

you might look at

your podcast stats

and see you get

hundreds or

thousands of

downloads and maybe

the numbers

look good.

And to compare that

to actually speaking

with one person or

hearing that direct

narrative

of how it's impacted

them, at least to

me, that often feels

impactful than seeing

the number of

devices that are out

there or seeing

numbers of how many

treatments have

been done or

whatever the metric

might be.

Oh,

completely agree.

So a technology

question that I'm

kind of curious

about, and I have no

expertise in

this field, but the

word fascia seems to

come up so much that

is there a direct

impact from

direct carrying on

fascia or is it more

neuromuscular and

we're kind of

separating that out?

That is a very good

question.

So the the fascial

or fascial system is

essentially the

tissue that

encapsulates and

envelops all

of the organs of the

body,

including muscle.

And there's been

this interesting

movement where a lot

of times the fascial

system was

essentially ignored

because when medical

students are doing

their look, looking

at corpses and

going through and

looking at the body,

they essentially cut

through the fascia

and discard

it in order to see

the quote unquote

important tissues

underneath.

And there's been a

lot of work in the

past couple of

decades to show how

important that

envelope enveloping

tissue actually is

about how it's

innervated, about

how important it

is structurally for

movement, for

clearing lymph, for

circulation, for all

these things.

So I think it's

impossible to affect

the neuromuscular

system without

impacting the

fascial

system as well.

And I am confident

that we're

affecting it.

I think there's some

emerging work

showing just how

neurologically dense

and how electrically

sensitive and

electrically active

that tissue is.

And so I think there

are ways that we're

affecting it that at

least I don't fully

understand

yet.

So for example, one

thing that we do as

part of the new fit

method is we will

often scan

around on the body

with this direct

current signal to

identify where the

nervous system

is guarding or

inhibiting and

limiting and

protecting the body

and

stimulate those areas

to accelerate the

process of what's

called neuromuscular

education to attempt

to restore

neuromuscular

function in

that area.

And I do think that

part of what we're

picking up could be

some sort of

electrical

disruption

related to perhaps

scar tissue or

inflammatory cells

that are

electrically

charged that are

in certain layers of

the fascia.

So I do think

there's

something there.

I don't want to

overstate it because

I don't necessarily

have the specific

evidence on that

yet, but there is an

exciting body of

research that is

very robust on the

importance of that

tissue and on the

electrical

nature of it.

So I think it's

definitely, there's

definitely something

there and it is an

area for further

exploration.

I know we're

affecting it at

least in some ways.

Yeah, it seems like

it would be

impossible not to,

but to your eloquent

summary there,

it seems to not get

as much credit as it

deserves or

traditionally

deserved in

impacting stability

and muscular

movement and maybe

it's actually what's

causing more of the

problem than the

brain muscle

connection because

it seems to be an

autonomic system the

way fascia relates

to stability and

movement

in the body.

And if I may also,

there's a slight

tangent alert here.

There's a fabulous

book that was very

influential on me in

the years leading up

to creating

the new fit device

and methodology.

And even still that

we talk about and

think about as a

team and in our

greater community

of practitioners,

there's a book

called The Body

Electric that came

out, I want to say

in the late 80s,

approximately that

time, back

in the 1900s.

And it talks a lot

about the

peri-neural system,

which is part

of the fascia.

It's basically the

scaffolding

around nerves.

So we often

conceptualize nerves

as these cable-like

structures that send

action potentials

that's more of a

binary discrete

on-off, on-off

signal being sent

type of

communication

pathway.

And then around that

is this scaffolding

called the

peri-neural system,

which is part of the

fascial system.

And that has slower

varying, more analog

than digital

electric fields that

influence, that

sort of bias the

ability to send

electrical

information through

what we

think of as a

nervous system.

And also creates

these electric

fields that

influence things

like sleep and

wakefulness

and alertness and

influence the

healing process.

And these electric

fields are super

relevant in the

healing process

after

injury, because

that's actually what

signals the body to

send inflammatory

cells there to

clear out the

debris to kind of

chew up and clear

out damage

from tissue.

And then to call the

next phase of cells

in to start

rebuilding and

repairing.

And it's very

relevant.

So those are things

that, of course,

using electricity, I

believe we are

impacting, at

least in some way.

And it was a

fascinating

description of one

of the ways that

this system is

vitally important

for health and some

of these underlying

processes that we

sometimes take for

granted and that

we also still don't

always even fully

understand

scientifically.

It's amazing how the

more you learn, the

more you realize

there's still so

much left to

learn and still so

many things that are

seemingly miraculous

and amazing

and so complex.

Yeah, it's not

necessarily a

new concept.

I mean, Tesla talked

about if we look

into healing, we

need to look at

frequency.

And this has been a

concept that's been

out there for

quite a while.

I don't think anyone

has been able to

fully encapsulate it

in a 30-second

elevator pitch,

but there definitely

is a history of

looking at the body

as an electrical

system and dialing

in to whatever

frequency

heals the best.

And so you seem to

be tapped into that,

whether it was

intentionally

or not.

It seems as if it's

a part of your

story as well.

It certainly is.

And it's interesting

because we have a

lot of

well-established

protocols

that work in

physical therapy, in

sports medicine, in

orthopedic, and then

also in neurological

settings,

neurodegenerative

conditions.

And as I think about

what's ahead and

what more can we do,

this is one of the

areas that

I keep coming back

to in terms of

thinking that there

are ways to tap into

in more powerful

ways these

underlying processes

in the body that are

guided by

electric fields.

I think we may have

seen some glimpses

of it in a recent

study we did on

diabetic peripheral

neuropathy where we

saw some healing and

regenerative changes

in peripheral

nerves, which was

exciting.

And it's one of

those things that I

definitely keep

coming back to.

It's one of the, I'd

say, fundamental or

foundational pieces

for me in my

understanding

of this

field and some of

the potential

directions of where

it can evolve.

So how important is

the brain-body

connection?

Is it something that

you guys think about

directly or is it

more it's an

autonomic system

that we're

working with?

I mean, it seems as

if you're tapping it

on every

level you can.

I think about that

on a daily or

perhaps hourly or

minute-by-minute

basis, the

brain-body

connection.

That is really

everything.

And of course, you

listening to this

likely know that the

brain sends

signals down to

control the body.

One part of the

brain-body

connection that I

think is perhaps not

as well understood

or overlooked is the

opposite direction,

is how much movement

of the body

actually affects

the brain.

There's all these

studies, for

example, that show

how exercising the

body can impact the

brain's ability to

learn and can affect

the psychology.

And exercise can

release naturally

chemicals within the

brain that can be as

effective

as anti-anxiety or

antidepressant

medications.

So we can be our own

pharmacy and the

body has a

profound impact.

And also on this

topic, one of the

things that I like

to think about as a

thought experiment

is to imagine you

wake up on a

pleasant morning,

you hear birds

chirping,

everything seems

like it should be

good, and your brain

is coming online and

taking

inventory, and it's

thinking, "Okay,

this is good,

that's good."

And then all of a

sudden, it gets a

signal from the body

of tension in the

diaphragm,

not because it may

happen that morning,

just because you're

already

carrying that.

So the brain's going

through, taking

inventory, good,

good, good, it sees

that and says, "Oh,

there must be

something

happening."

And so even though

nothing is really

happening in the

immediate

environment, the

brain sees

that signal from the

body and thinks,

"Oh, there must be

some reason to be

hypervigilant

or tense."

And that can

actually create a

baseline level of

stress just

launching

into a day that

otherwise shouldn't

or wouldn't

necessarily have to

be there.

Yeah, if I can't get

my gratitude

straightened out

while I'm still in

bed and I go through

an exercise of what

am I thankful for

and what I want my

day to look

like and project

out that imagery as

early as possible.

If I can't get that

going, it seems to

move sideways until

I get that

orientated.

So any sort of

tightness, or last

night I had some

neck discomfort,

which my wife never

refers to as neck

discomfort, she

refers to it as

central nervous

system

disorder because

the neck is the

conduit from the

brain to the body.

And it's definitely

something that I'm

conscious of when

it's not working.

I love the analogy

of waking up to the

birds and everything

that's kind of

right in life

and just trying to

build off of that.

But there's

definitely those

hurdles, and

particularly with

Parkinson's, you

never know

what symptoms are

going to pop up.

Are you going to

deal with stiffness

trying to

get out of bed?

Do you have

leg cramps?

Do you, are you

moving slowly?

Do you have

brain fog?

There's a host of

common experiences

that people seem to,

on any given

day, seem to

have to interact

with as a result of

the Parkinson's.

But if you can get

your frame of mind

in order and kind of

do a checklist on

the rest of

your body, it

certainly gives you

an inventory of

what's working and

what's not working.

And you can go about

and take agency and

do something

proactive to whether

it's exercise

or stretching or

hydration or some

sort of activity to

kind of offset the

direct result

of the symptomology.

Have you worked with

people with MS or

dementia or any of

the other more

common brain

neuroproblems?

We have, we've

worked with people

who have certainly

MS, some dementia,

Parkinson's also.

We have, in terms of

published studies,

our most robust is

the one I

alluded to earlier

on peripheral

neuropathy.

And that, of course,

is a different

mechanism, different

type of injury.

And we saw some

really powerful

improvements in

nervous system

function and

perhaps even

healing and

structure because we

saw increased EMG

amplitude, increased

electrical activity

and nerve conduction

velocity.

So it indicates

there may be some

sort of healing

process

happening as well.

And some of those

mechanisms translate

across

diagnoses as well.

We have a published

case series on

functional recovery

in MS patients,

looking at increased

in timed up and go

testing and muscle

strength and reduced

spasticity and

walking speeds

and things

like that.

So the disability

scores reducing,

meaning reduced

disability.

So very, very

promising.

They've done

a lot of work.

There's several

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What is Parkinson's: An Athlete's Journey?