We spend a whole lot of time working the muscles around our hips and knees with lunges, squats, deadlifts, and more. And then we usually skip any work on the foundation that provides support and alignment for these joints – our feet. Here’s how strong feet can help you…
Strong Feet
- Positively affect the alignment of your knees and hips.
- Help you navigate uneven terrain.
- Are responsive and supportive to every move you make as you stand, walk, and change direction.
Continue reading for more or skip down to the video if you’d like to get straight to the exercises.
Why Your Feet are Weak
The primary way we address foot and ankle position is through our shoes. Whether we spend a lot of time and money on them or not, we use shoes to get our feet and ankles in alignment. And yes, shoes do work. But they have their limitations.
You can’t expect any shoe – no matter how great – to do all the work. You have to do some strengthening and make it a regular part of your exercise program.
The closest most of us get to regular foot strength work is with calf raises or balance work. While these are helpful, you can get even better results by adding some focused foot strengthening.
The Goal of Foot Strengthening
The ultimate goal of foot strengthening is to help your feet maintain a neutral position. A neutral position in standing looks something like this:
- When viewed from the rear, the achilles tendon is perpendicular to the ground.
- You can feel your body weight pressing down through the center of the heel.
- You can feel even pressure under the entire width of the ball of the foot – from the base of the big toe to the base of the little toe.
- While you may not have a high arch, your foot should not sag inward. If you tend to have ‘flat’ feet, you can look at the ankle bones on the insides of your ankles. These two bones should not be bulging towards each other when compared to the outer ankle bones.
- All toes should be flat on the floor.
The goal of foot strengthening is to help the foot easily achieve this neutral position. When you do standing activities, you want your foot to maintain neutral.
You Can’t Always Maintain Neutral
When you walk, run, or do other traveling movements, you need to understand that your foot will move in and out of this neutral position. That’s normal. Your strengthening work gives your foot a stable ‘home base’ to move in and out of.
This home base or neutral position will help you avoid foot and ankle pain. It will help you maintain alignment in the knees and hips. And you’ll see better biomechanics for performance and translation of power from the foot to forward motion with walking, running, weighted tasks, and day to day activities.
Follow along with this video for some introductory foot strengthening exercises and more on how strong feet can help you.
Stay fit!
Related posts:
How to Reboot/Refresh Your Feet
Four Foot Exercises to Do Before You Work Out
The information in this post and linked accounts is provided for education only and is not intended to replace the advice of a physician or an assessment by other wellness professionals.