Brendan

Co-Founder

Brendan is a former football player where he captained the Amherst Mammoths and then played professionally for the Danube Dragons in Vienna, Austria. Post football he started to compete in Brazilian Jiu Jitsu/Submission Grappling, Muay Thai, and MMA. He realized the benefits of barefoot training early on in his BJJ training and jumped at the opportunity to build help form and build Pedestal with Mike. Thousands of workouts and pairs of Pedestals later, he is even more passionate of moving naturally through functional training methodologies. When Brendan isn’t training, he is chilling with his French Bulldog Clover in Vermont and hanging with friends.

Mike

Co-Founder

After an off-season workout in high school, Mike woke up the following morning with excruciating back pain. He soon found out that his L5 had shot out a quarter inch and was diagnosed with Spondylolisthesis. He spent 7 months hobbling around and didn’t want to get back surgery at 17 years old. In searching for alternative solutions, he was introduced to barefoot training. He noticed that wearing different shoes with thick soles and little pliability would throw his back out of line and cause more pain.  From that point forward, he began to connect the dots on the impact that footwear has on posture and pain free movement.

He started Pedestal Footwear as a way to help people experience the many benefits of barefoot training. To Mike, nothing is more fulfilling than hearing customer stories of how Pedestals helped them move and feel better.