This can be easily identified by the fascia. The fascia is connective tissue that makes up the protective coating of muscles, but it also runs as deep as our bones. A root cause of a headache can be brought back as far as the plantar fascia, which make up the arch of the foot.

I heavily value looking after the feet, as they are the guaranteed point of contact to a surface in any athletic event. Force will always be distributed through the feet, and therefore the feet are always under pressure. 

Let’s say that your plantar fascia is tight. This can result in an excessive inversion of the ankle. This simply means that an athlete will end up running on the outside of his or her foot. This increases the likelihood of spraining the lateral ligaments of the ankle. There is also an increased chance that the athlete may suffer a repetitive stress injury on the lateral chain. This includes the lateral ligaments of the knee or the hip joint.

Anytime an athlete’s walking or running gait is hindered, various joint issues can accumulate. The issues may limit themselves to the ankle, but often I’ve found that young athletes will struggle with lower back pain. All this from the simple stress of the plantar fascia!

The Barefoot Phenomenon

It’s little wonder that people have turned to going barefoot while training. The benefits are incredible.

Somatic Feedback

Skin is sensitive to its environment. It’s a core part of how we discover as a species. When we wear shoes and socks, we take away so much of our ability to sense our positioning on the floor. We can become very unaware of how we’re moving.

Over the last couple of weeks, I’ve been going for walks and keeping a pair of sandals in my back pack in case I encountered anything on the ground that could cause a cut on my feet. I noticed an issue on my first barefoot walk. I was walking toe-heel whenever I walked downhill. This isn’t a massive issue, but it does increase my chances of spraining my ankle.

If I carried on wearing shoes, I would not have noticed this and I would not have corrected my gait. I am more aware than ever of how I move on my feet. This is all because of the increased sensitivity of my feet when I take my shoes off.

Foot Strength

Most shoes have an elevated heel, which can limit ankle mobility. But personally, I feel that the bigger issue is the weakening of the arches. We have two arches per foot. The first is through the middle of the sole, and the second is the accumulation of arches created by the joints of our toes. Collectively, they make one powerful arch. When we wear shoes with an elevated heel, we often rely on momentum to take us forward as we walk, and neglect to use the strength of the muscles in our feet. Underused muscles atrophy.

Some may argue that their shoes are flat, and therefore the arches don’t weaken. But their feet are still elevated off the floor, and thus people still land too heavily on their heel. This creates momentum which stops us from using the strength of our feet. This can also stress the Achilles tendon.

I try not to wear my sandals too much. I’ve found that sandals can cause an imbalance where people overuse the muscles of the toes and create an imbalance of the muscular structure of their feet. This can result in repetitive stress injuries.

Ground Reaction Force

Ground reaction force can be heightened by not wearing shoes. Shoes are too padded. They absorb the energy that could otherwise be used to help us move more weight.

Many gyms can be funny about their members not wearing shoes. It’s a health and hygiene concern. If your gym has such an issue, I suggest wearing shoes with a solid, flat sole.

Myofascial Release

Much like using a form roller, walking on solid ground can result in myofascial release for the soles of your feet. This is pretty much the process of massaging the soft tissue to release biochemical waste. The more varied the surface, the more benefit an athlete will get. Smaller and more narrow rocks will dig right into the soft tissue of the feet to get the desired response.

Proprioception

Proprioception is the stimulation of the reflex arc that is in place to help us prevent injury. When a ligament, tendon, or muscle is stretched, a sensory receptor known as a proprioceptor will send a chemical message to the central nervous system to process the information of this stress. This results in the stretched tissue contracting via the commands brought across by a motor neuron. Going barefoot can heighten the sensitivity of proprioception and therefore reduce injury risk.

Don’t Jump In With Both Feet

When the barefoot running craze took off at the beginning of the decade, many regular Joes instantly ditched their running shoes and pounded the concrete without further thought. A short time later, they were injured and couldn’t figure out why. If you are inexperienced with barefoot exercise, consider the following before you take the plunge:

• Your movement must be top notch. As mentioned above, ground reaction force is amplified when you take your shoes off. Fortunately, this often makes athletes more conscious of their walking or running gait. However, any imperfection that could cause referring pain may be magnified. Make sure your walking gait and running gait are good before you take your shoes off.
• You must learn to walk before you can run. My first barefoot walk was only 10 minutes long. Progress slowly at the beginning to avoid the damaging the skin of your feet or creating issues from a poor gait.
• Choose your surface wisely. A grass field is often ideal for beginners, but as you continue to practice, you may wish to slowly progress to pavement. If the location you’re in is often littered with broken glass or metal cans, it is best that you avoid barefoot running.
• Always wash your feet after barefoot work. This will avoid infection and dryness.

What is Rock Rehab?

Now that you know the benefits of being a barefooted athlete, you can magnify the rewards with rock rehab. Rock rehab is the practice of walking on rocks to magnify the benefits you get from barefoot work. The variety of rocks act as progressive steps. There are three primary surfaces I use with my athletes.

1. Use larger rocks which are firmly positioned. As my rock rehab sessions take place on a beach, I wedge the rocks into the sand to stop them from moving. This allows an athlete to walk over them with less proprioceptive demands. This is the most basic stage of rock rehab in my coaching practice.
2. Use larger rocks which are not in a fixed position. This requires more proprioceptive demands as the rocks are unstable. The athlete must be more cautious walking over these objects, but he or she will benefit from enhanced ankle stability and better balance.
3. To really benefit from myofascial release, smaller rocks can be used. I would recommend rocks that are 2-4cm in diameter. The rocks must be narrow enough to push into the surface of your feet, but not so narrow that they cause a cut.

Rock Rehab in Practice

Rock rehab can be used to supplement a standard conditioning session. This may be in the weight room or on the track. Rock rehab can also be used as a standalone session for an athlete’s recovery. Rock rehab may be done prior to a session if an athlete has poor technique. This may be incorrect positioning during a squat, or the athlete may have an inadequate running gait.

Rock rehab can be stressful. If the athlete spends too long on a rock rehab course, performance may go down during the main part of a session. An athlete should do no more than one minute per set, and no more than three sets prior to intense activity. This will ensure that the feet are not too tender before the bulk of the workout.

If the athlete wishes to use rock rehab at the end of a session, it is important to be wary. Running and weight training are exhausting, and may lower proprioceptive capacity, resulting in lower stability. If the athlete wants to perform myofascial release work on the feet, prior to a workout, smaller rocks can be used. Furthermore, the athlete may also wish to walk on the rocks until he feels the trigger points on his or her feet dissipate.

As a Standalone Session

The first thing to consider is where a full rock rehab session stands within a training program. These sessions can cause a bit of soreness in the feet, be demanding on the structure of the ankles, and require adequate recovery. Therefore, if you have a rest day planned, do a rock rehab session as your last session on the day before. 

The amount of time spent on rock rehab is also crucial. My athletes find that 20 minutes hits the spot. 20 minutes eases the trigger points, but does not cause substantial fatigue during the proprioception work.

Rock rehab partners well with many other recovery protocols. After rock rehab, an athlete may wish to participate in yoga, foam rolling, a standard sports massage, or another active release technique put in place for them by a physical therapist.

Below are two example workouts. The first is more centered around proprioception, while the second relates more to myofascial release.

Example Workout 1:

1. Ease into the process of rock rehab with larger rocks that are in a fixed position. Spend four minutes walking on these rocks.
2. Take a minute to recover. Contemplate the difficulty of the first set. If you feel that you can move up a level, initiate a four-minute set on the large but unstable rocks. If these rocks feel ideal for your capabilities, practice an additional set.
3. Finish off with a set on smaller, sharper rocks for myofascial release.
4. Now that you’ve spent 20 minutes on rock rehab, go about any rehabilitation or flexibility protocol that has been set out for you by a coach or therapist.

Example Workout 2:

1. Start off on the smaller and sharper rocks. Go for two minutes.
2. Rest for a minute, as the experience of the myofascial release may be unpleasant. After the rest, practice again for an additional two minutes.
3. Attempt a four-minute walk on the smaller and sharper rocks to finish the myofascial release section of this workout.
4. Take a minute to recover, and spend four minutes on the larger rocks to improve your proprioception. I would recommend using the fixed rocks, as your feet may be too tender for advanced proprioceptive demands.
5. As in step 4 in the first example, go about your rehabilitation or flexibility protocol that has been set out for you by a coach or therapist.

The post Wake Up Your Feet With Rock Rehab appeared first on Breaking Muscle.

I love feet. They are a truly fascinating part of the body. In the foot, there are 26 bones, 33 joints, and over 100 ligaments and muscles. The irony lies in the fact that the rest of the lower extremity only has four bones (femur, patella, tibia, fibula), four joints, and 41 muscles.

Basically, the foot dictates the rest of the movements that occur in the lower body. And I would argue that poor foot positioning could, in fact, cause someone neck pain.

The foot functions not only to absorb shock as we walk, squat, run, and jump, but also to provide a rigid surface from which we can push off and do it again. Many of the muscles that control foot movements have attachment higher in the leg, at the tibia and fibula.

The high stress placed on the feet during athletic participation can cause imbalances in these muscles, leading to biomechanical dysfunction. When dysfunction arises, it can lead to significant pain and poor movement ability for the athlete.

In this article, I’ll highlight some of the most common overuse foot conditions that I treat. Additionally, we’ll discuss appropriate ways to manage the dysfunction until you finally decide to seek out someone smarter than you.

Turf Toe

Turf toe is a condition that occurs due to repetitive hyperextension of the big toe. This is seen in people who wear light flexible shoes (minimalist shoes, like Nanos and Inov8s) or with movements that require repeated, forced hyperextension of the great toe (box jumps, double unders, triple extension in the Olympic lifts).

Symptoms are pretty cut and dried: pain and tenderness at the big toe joint, pain during pushing off, and pain with passive movement of the big toe joint. Most often, it’s a good idea to get an X-ray to rule out the possibility of a fracture. If you’re not into that, then rest and ice.

There are a couple of great taping techniques you can also do to limit the motion of the toe and provide a little support. In the long run, a stiff-soled shoe or turf toe inserts may also be a wise move.

Bunions

Bunions! AKA “Old Lady Toe.” This is probably the most common foot problem I encounter. Often, people who develop bunions over-pronate. This means that instead of using the muscles that support the arch, you are relying on ligaments and bones to support the foot with each step, allowing your arch to collapse, and push off is occurring from the great toe rather than the ball of the foot.

Symptoms include tenderness and pain at the inside of the great toe, and are worsened by wearing shoes with a narrow or pointy toe box. Over time, the angulation of the great toe in reference to the foot increases.

When this begins, you can use ice and rest to decrease inflammation, get a shoe with a wider toe box, or seek out an orthopedist who specializes in the foot. The orthopedist will likely take films to measure the degree of angulation, recommend orthotics, or (worst case scenario) repair it surgically, rendering your high heel wearing days a thing of the past.

Stress Fractures

Over the last year, I’ve seen my fair share of metatarsal stress fractures in CrossFit athletes. A stress fracture is usually the result of a combination of poor diet and overtraining. There are two groups of bone cells that are responsible for bone turnover.

One group breaks bone down and the other builds it up. When that balance is disrupted, the rate of break down overrides the rate of build up and the bone becomes weakened. This is the mechanism of osteoporosis and osteopenia as well. Typically, this occurs in the second and third toes.

Symptoms include tenderness over the middle or most distal portion of the metatarsal (long foot bone) with moderate swelling on the top of the foot. Any loading or weight bearing is usually quite painful, and often athletes will have continued pain with rest.

Initial X-rays are negative because the stress fracture is so small. A good ortho will take repeat films at three to four weeks to see if the body has started to develop a callous along that stress fracture. If that isn’t visible and pain persists, a bone scan or MRI may be warranted. Stress fractures are best managed with ice, decreased loading or non-weight-bearing, and casting in severe cases.

Plantar Fasciitis

The plantar fascia also becomes a source of pain and dysfunction in athletes who over-pronate or wear flexible, minimalist shoes without the appropriate amount of strength in their foot muscles.

Plantar fasciitis is inflammation and micro-tearing of the plantar fascia. This presents as pain with first steps in the morning, tenderness along the arch and heel, and thickening of the plantar fascia.

Different from plantar fasciitis, athletes can also strain the plantar fascia. This strain usually occurs in the early stages of training and is associated with running, jumping, and other repetitive stresses.

Athletes who are overweight, have tightness in the muscles of the calf, and weakness in the supporting muscles in the foot are at highest risk. If untreated, a strain will develop into a nasty case of plantar fasciitis, taking upwards of eight months to resolve.

Take home message? Stay mobile in your lower half, wear good shoes, and be smart in your training. A good way to see if a minimalist shoe is right for you? Grab a piece of butcher paper and get your feet wet. Stand on the paper with bare, wet feet. Take a look at your footprint. Which does it look like?

If you have a normal foot or high arch, you’ll probably be okay in Nanos or something similar. If you have a flat foot, you may require something with a little bit more support. Find a good running shop in your hometown (even if you aren’t a runner).

Most independently owned shops are operated by individuals who know a thing or two about athletic shoes. When in doubt, seek out a podiatrist, orthopedist, or physical therapist. And if it keeps hurting – rest.

The post 4 Common Foot Injuries That Plague Athletes appeared first on Breaking Muscle.

Stationary support provides a solid base for your feet and the muscles, joints, and limbs above your feet to work from. In contrast, dynamic spring uses the joints of your feet as mobile, elastic, power-producing structures. Squatting and deadlifting movements from the floor need a strong base in the form of stationary support, while the more dynamic running, jumping, and skipping movements require the power and efficiency of dynamic spring.

From squats to double unders, training your feet is the first step to accessing your full athletic potential.

There are more complex movements that use both stationary support and dynamic spring. Weighted carries, for example, need a lot more stationary support from the feet than walking and running, but also need to utilise dynamic spring for forward progression. Olympic weightlifting uses stationary support in the first pull, before harnessing dynamic spring in the second pull and switching back to stationary support in the catch.

Harnessing the power of your stationary support and dynamic spring in your training will improve your performance exponentially. This article will teach you how to isolate and train these foot functions to maximise stationary support and dynamic spring for performance and injury prevention.

Stationary Support

Stationary support describes a strong, rigid foot structure that connects your body firmly and safely to the ground and gives the muscles, joints, and limbs above your feet a solid base to work from. Failure of your feet to achieve stationary support when squatting, deadlifting, pressing, or landing from a jump will result in added strain to muscles, tendons, and joints further up the body.

All thirty-three of your foot joints need to be locked tight to form a strong base for stationary support with a rigid arch. Many athletes I see try to achieve a rigid arch for stationary support by lifting their big toe joint off the ground. This is a mistake as it dramatically reduces the required stability from the foot. For stationary support, the foot arch needs to be rigid, with the big toe joint and big toe firmly pressed on the ground. It’s about having a strong arch, not a high arch.

An Active Arch for a Strong Arch

The Active Arch/Lazy Arch is the exercise I recommend for training a strong foot arch.

The Active Arch/Lazy Arch can be performed anytime during the day, and ideally should be performed more than once a day. There’s no set prescription for sets, repetitions, or time held. The Active Arch/Lazy Arch just needs to be performed often enough for your body to learn what a strong arch feels like to achieve solid stationary support for your strength-based training.

Take a look at the video below and read the instructions on how to do the Active Arch/Lazy Arch.

1. Start with your feet underneath your hips, pointing either straight ahead or at the 11 o’clock and 1 o’clock position as per the layout of numbers on a clock face.
2. Allow your foot to be relaxed and sloppy, letting them collapse right in. This is the Lazy Arch position.
3. Pull the middle of your arch up to make your foot tight, strong, and rigid. Ensure your big toe joint and big toe are still firmly on the ground. This is the Active Arch position.
4. Hold the Active Arch position for 5 seconds, then slump your foot back into Lazy Arch.
5. Repeat this process as often as possible throughout the day.

The Active Arch/Lazy Arch exercise is an essential starting point to achieve strong stationary support in your feet. If you can’t achieve a good Active Arch position comfortably with just bodyweight on your feet, don’t even think about adding load and volume to your feet in the squat rack. While your feet may survive squatting with a Lazy Arch foot position, your knees certainly won’t.

Dynamic Spring

Dynamic spring uses the joints of your foot as mobile, elastic, power-producing structural mechanisms. Harnessing dynamic spring from your feet will increase power, performance capacity, and endurance when walking, running, or taking off from a jump. Conversely, a lack of dynamic spring will leak power and efficiency and place added strain and stress on the Achilles tendon, tibialis posterior tendon, and calf and hamstring muscles. An athlete can’t afford not to have dynamic spring.

Train the Spring with a Hop

I like to train dynamic spring with an exercise I call Bunny Hops. Bunny Hops are effectively skipping without a rope.

Below is a video of the Bunny Hops exercise performed in slow motion. Note that you need to perform Bunny Hops as quietly as possible. You should be able to do Bunny Hops on wooden floorboards outside a sleeping baby’s bedroom and not wake the child up.

1. Do the Bunny Hops without your shoes on, as their effectiveness is dramatically reduced by the cushioning materials found in most footwear.
2. The balls of your feet and toes should come off the ground just a small amount, and your heels need to lightly contact the ground with every hop. Allowing the heels to lightly contact the ground uses the entire foot complex to load the elastic spring of the arch.
3. Once you have loaded the elastic spring of the foot arch, you can effortlessly recoil up off the ground for the next repetition.

Perform Bunny Hops as a 10 second drill, repeated regularly when you can, as much as you can. Once proficient with Bunny Hops, add a skipping rope. As your feet move your body up and down, you also have to turn the rope with your wrist, and you might find your feet thud and crash to the ground. Maintain quiet, stealth-like foot movement while having to swing the rope to train your coordination and proprioception. Do 5 seconds of Bunny Hops followed by 10 seconds of skipping, and repeat regularly until the sound of your feet is identical between the two exercises. Use a noisy surface underneath your feet for feedback. A loud contact surface effectively determines whether your feet are functioning as dynamic springs or thudding bricks.

Athletic Performance Starts with Foot Awareness

A huge element of what I do as a podiatrist is to create awareness of human feet and how they function. This awareness leads to athletes being able to make better decisions in respect to their feet. Whether you need to train stationary support, dynamic spring, or a combination of both, feet with healthy function in these two areas are an asset to your sport and life in general.

Your feet are one of the biggest resources for training gains and injury prevention. By training stationary support and dynamic spring, you’re taking the first step to tapping into that resource.

More Like This:

• It’s the 23 Hours a Day You’re Not Running That Count
• Why There’s No Such Thing as Flat Feet
• Why You Should Skip Your Jogging Warm Up
• New on Breaking Muscle

Photo courtesy of Rx’d Photography

The post 2 Essential Foot Functions to Upgrade Your Training appeared first on Breaking Muscle.

It is likely you or someone you know, be it a family member, friend, or client, has been struck down with a case of flat feet. “Flat feet” is a term used to explain anything from plantar fascia pain, Achilles injuries, shin splints, knee, hip, and back pain. In other words, almost any physical ailment between the ground and your head. So what, exactly, does flat feet mean? Is it a diagnosis? Is it terminal? And does it even exist?

In fifteen years of practice, I’ve only ever seen one case of flat feet.

True Flat Feet Are Rare

In fifteen years of assessing human feet at my podiatry clinic and at The Running Lab, I have only ever seen one true case of flat feet. Ironically, this individual had not suffered any pain in her forty-two years as a result. Her foot bones were just pancake-flat. It wasn’t a deformity. A small number of people have legitimate deformities due to major injuries or severe arthritis, but this was just how she was made. Her only reason for visiting me was she was sick of people telling her how shocking her flat feet were and that she really needed to see someone about them. Almost every other person I have worked with in my career who claimed to have flat feet have had an arch in their feet.

So why is flat feet such a commonly used term? It’s an expression used to describe feet that collapse under your bodyweight when standing, walking, jumping, or squatting. It denotes the inability of your feet to function correctly. The true diagnosis for so-called flat feet is actually weak and poorly functioning feet.

Orthotics Are Not the Solution

I don’t know of any other body part described as weak and poorly functioning that we would provide long-term artificial support for. People with weak core muscles are not walking around in a corset. Few wear a brace to stop their shoulders and neck slumping forward. In these cases, the logical and often practiced solution is to address the postural, positional, and movement-based weakness.

The longer you artificially support your arches with orthotics, the less your own muscles will be able to do it for you.

The same should be true of flat feet, yet most current treatment options provide artificial support for the foot arch through shoes and orthotics. It seems the easier option, but no artificial bracing will ever substitute the truly amazing power and efficiency of thirty-three strong, healthy, well-tuned foot joints. Think about it. There are twenty muscles within each foot, and another thirteen muscles in each leg that attach into your foot. That makes thirty-three muscles that, when strong and healthy, are designed to support your foot structure and function. Supports may prevent or reduce the collapsing of the arch, but they also interfere with the function of these joints in each foot. This in turn affects every major joint up to your neck.

Supporting weak feet only leads to further weakness. The longer you artificially support your weak collapsing arch, the less your own muscles will be able to do it for you. If flat feet are actually just weak and functioning poorly, then they need to be trained to become more strong and awesome, just like your other body parts.

2 Drills to Strengthen and Train Flat Feet

It’s time you looked at your feet in the same way you look at the rest of your body. If they are weak, strengthen them, and if they lack balance and coordination, train them. The two exercises in this video lay the framework for transforming your feet into powerful springs.

The first exercise strengthens foot posture. In the world of human movement and performance, good everyday position and posture is essential for good movement.

• Practice holding a strong foot arch position as shown in the video in as many everyday chores as possible. Put a note on your bathroom mirror to remind you to control your arch position while brushing your teeth, shaving, doing your hair, or make-up.
• Hold your arch in a strong position while talking with workmates or drinking your morning coffee.
• Eventually, you will not have to consciously think about your arch position, and it will become more natural.

The second exercise is a great way to train foot and ankle stability, balance, and coordination.

• Hold the top position of a calf raise for five seconds before lowering slowly and smoothly for a count of five seconds. The true power of this exercise is dramatically reduced if you are not barefoot.
• Perform five good quality reps, once per day initially, increasing to five reps twice per day as the exercise becomes easier.
• It is absolutely essential the big toe joint (first metatarsal-phalangeal joint) maintains complete control throughout the whole movement. Failure of the big toe leads to a cascade of dysfunction further up the leg and body.

There’s No Shortcut to Strong Feet

Flat feet are a symptom of postural and movement-based dysfunction and weakness, not a diagnosis. Feet respond to training principles in the same way the rest of the body does: too much load or volume too soon will result in injury. Gradual overload with well structured drills and exercise progressions like those above will turn weak, dysfunctional feet into powerful, high octane machines. Remember, there’s no express pass to strong feet. It takes a lot of commitment today, but the rewards are for life.

More Like This:

• Feet Are Our Foundation: 5 Ways to Strengthen Them
• Building on Quicksand: How and Why to Strengthen Your Feet
• Causes and Treatment for Fallen Arches
• New on Breaking Muscle

Photo 1 courtesy of Tim Bransdon.

Photo 2 courtesy of Shutterstock.

The post Why There’s No Such Thing as Flat Feet appeared first on Breaking Muscle.

The next step is to apply what I’ve taught you and start to train your body to be able to absorb and damp down impact forces effectively. To do this, you need to train barefoot. As I mentioned before, this doesn’t mean you have to do everything barefoot, it simply means incorporating some strategic and deliberate barefoot exercises in your training session before you throw on your shoes, if you choose to train in shoes.

Introducing Short Foot

The following exercises were taught to me by Dr. Emily Splichal, one of the smartest presenters I have seen. She teaches all of these exercises in short foot, so first let’s talk about what short foot is.

The purpose of short foot is to strengthen and activate the intrinsic muscles of the foot and leg, especially one called the abductor hallucis (a muscle of your big toe). You can do this exercise with two feet on the ground or both. Obviously it will be more of a challenge if you’re only in a single leg stance.

To perform the short foot exercise:

1. Spread your toes and firmly place them on the ground.
2. Draw the ball of your big toe toward your heel without letting it or your heel come off the ground. Make sure you’re not curling your toes, flexing them in to the floor, or trying to grip the floor with your toes though. Toes should all be flat, while you perform this drawing motion.
3. Hold isometrically for ten seconds. This will start to activate those intrinsic muscles.

Dr. Splichal encourages this exercise to be done 5-8 times per foot. This short foot exercise is not only the first activation exercise you should do while training barefoot, but it is also what you should do while completing the following exercises.

Short Foot Exercises

Single Leg Short Foot

This exercise is straightforward. Stand on one leg. Make sure you have a slight bend in your knee and hip and that you are actively squeezing your glutes. Do the short foot exercise, holding for ten seconds each leg.

Single Leg Deadlift in Short Foot

Progressing from the single leg short foot, in this exercise you will simply hinge forward at the hips (remember your knee and hips should be bent) to perform a bodyweight single leg deadlift while maintaining short foot. Aim for 5-10 reps per side, stopping if you get any foot cramping.

Single Leg Squat

Same as above, but this time you will simply perform a body weight single leg squat while maintaining short foot. Again, aiming for 5-10 reps per leg and stop for any cramping.

Simple, But Challenging

These exercises may seem simple. You may say, “I do single leg deadlifts and squats all of the time and have no problem!” But by incorporating short foot and actively engaging your glutes, you will really feel those small muscles in your foot working. This is why I warn of potential cramping. These muscles aren’t used to working so hard, so they may fatigue quickly. If this happens, grab a golf ball and do some myofascial release (roll out the bottom of your feet) for 2-3 minutes per side.

The Towel Exercise

This is sometimes called the towel scrunch. It looks easy, but can be surprisingly difficult, especially for those who have never trained barefoot. To do this exercise, simply place a towel on the ground and use your toes to curl it in to you. Check out this video for a full description:

In Closing

I hope this series on impact forces and lower leg injuries has shown you just how important barefoot training is. And do realize that it is a process. You cannot go straight from wearing shoes or orthotics to barefoot training.

If you realize the benefits of training barefoot and you want to walk that path, then these exercises are exactly what you need to do to build up strength and endurance in your muscles. Enjoy the process!

More Like This:

• Impact Forces, Shoes, and Lower Leg Injuries: Part 1
• Impact Forces: How to Avoid Achilles, Shin, and Foot Injury: Part 2
• 5 Foot Strengthening Exercises to Improve Speed, Power, and Balance
• New On Breaking Muscle Today

The post Impact Forces: Simple Exercises to Strengthen Your Feet, Part 3 appeared first on Breaking Muscle.

Stop wearing them.

I know you probably don’t want to hear what I’m telling you, and perhaps you’re even silently cursing right now. But the plain and simple truth is that high heels are awful for your body and lead to more injuries than you might think.

When it comes to staying strong and healthy, consider whether or not fashion is more important than function.

High Heels and Performance

I know what you’re thinking, you train hard, you work out every day, you do your mobility work, so the high heels really can’t be all that bad. It won’t matter so much for you. Well, unfortunately, that’s just not true. In fact, going from high heels to flat shoes and doing explosive movements is going to put you at an even further increased risk of injury.

So, what’s the deal, how can heels be so damaging? In a nutshell: high heels force your body to work in a manner that is completely and entirely backward from your normal mechanics.

These abnormal mechanics happen to both prevent your face from meeting the concrete when you are walking (to keep you balanced) and to compensate for a lack of mobility at the ankle and foot. This then causes a cascade of changes throughout the entire kinetic chain.

There are a number of postural issues that tend to coincide when a person frequently wears high heels.

Foot Mechanics

When you wear heels, your heel is higher than your toes (in some cases, significantly higher). This position doesn’t allow for your ankle to bend upward, which makes striking the ground with your heel difficult to near impossible.

What does this mean? Your foot is stuck in a toe-point position and your calf muscles are shortened for extended periods of time. Because of this, we must find mobility elsewhere in order to be able to walk and propel ourselves forward.

“High heels change your body mechanics and your movement patterns and contribute to numerous injuries to the lower extremity and spine.” 

Normally when we walk, our knee is straight when our heel makes contact with the ground. But since we don’t actually have a heel strike when wearing high heels, we have to rely on a bent knee instead to help drive us forward (this bent knee also helps to bring our center of mass back so we don’t fall face forward to the ground). Our hips then become fixed in a constant flexed position and don’t go through their full range of motion, leading to the overuse and shortening of our hip flexors.

This continues to affect things higher up in the body. Our pelvis rotates forward and our lower back becomes excessively forward flexed. This causes changes all the way up to our upper back and neck, since these areas must compensate by extending back in order to keep us from toppling forward.

Compromised Movement and Mobility

And, in case you are wondering, these changes are not good. They will lead to injuries like shortened and tight muscles, joint damage, muscle imbalances, pinched nerves, muscle spasms, uneven wear on the discs and joints of our spine, corns, bunions, muscle strains – and this is just naming a few.

Especially if you are an athlete, consider swapping your heels for footwear that allows for more natural movement.

I hope at this point you are starting to reconsider those forty-hour workweeks in your heels. If I haven’t convinced you yet, there is another point I want to share with you. People who wear high heels on a regular basis are much more likely to suffer from an injury like a muscle strain, even when they are not wearing their heels. In other words, when they are out playing tennis or other sports, going for a run, or just walking around their backyard.

When you walk normally (in flats or barefoot), the muscles and tendons of the leg both stretch and contract like springs. Throw a pair of high heels in the mix, though, and our calf and hip flexor muscles become shortened, putting more mechanical strain on the muscles and providing less ability for the muscles and tendons to stretch. This translates into wearers walking much less efficiently, requiring more energy to cover the same amount of ground, and leading to increased muscle fatigue and an increased likelihood of strains. But get this – this muscle inefficiency continues to occur even once the heels come off. So, even without the heels, you’re more likely to injure yourself if you are a habitual high heel wearer. 

Find a New Shoe

As you can see, wearing high heels isn’t good for you. And I’ve barely scratched the surface on the effects of them. We haven’t even touched the foot injuries and deformities that can occur from putting so much pressure on such a small surface of your foot (bunions, corns, nerve impingement, and more) or the mere lack of stability the heels offer, which can lead to falls and rolled ankles. But that could be a whole other article in itself.

“In fact, going from high heels to flat shoes and doing explosive movements is going to put you at an even further increased risk of injury.”

The take-home is this: high heels cause your body to work in a completely backward pattern than it is supposed to. High heels change your body mechanics and your movement patterns and contribute to numerous injuries to the lower extremity and spine. So please, if you’re a regular high heel wearer, try to cut down (as in, just cut them out!), and try to incorporate some flats into your wardrobe. Trust me – your body will thank you!

Check out these related articles:

• Lems Shoes (Product Review)
• 4 Common Foot Injuries in the Athlete
• 3 Ways to Prevent and Heal Foot Injuries
• What’s New On Breaking Muscle Today

Photos courtesy of Shutterstock.

The post The Dangers of Wearing High Heels (for Athletes) appeared first on Breaking Muscle.

• What are some common foot issues in athletes?
• How do your feet impact the rest of your body?
• How do you strengthen your feet and prevent injuries?

Common Foot Injuries in Athletes

If your feet aren’t well cared for, bad things happen. In athletes, problems most frequently arise from overuse. Physical therapist Meghan Rovig outlined four of the most common overuse issues she sees in athletic populations:

• Turf toe: A common condition caused by repeated hyperextension of the big toe. It is most common in people who wear lightweight shoes or who hyperextend their big toe frequently during repeated actions.
• Bunions: Often associated with over-pronation. This condition is also known as “Old Lady Toe,” and is characterized by angulation of the big toe towards the other toes. You may experience tenderness, pain, and inflammation.
• Stress fractures: Tend to occur in the second and third toes, and are characterized by swelling and pain on the top of the foot. Poor diet combined with overtraining is one of the most common causes of stress fractures.
• Plantar fasciitis: Inflammation and micro-tearing of the fascia. Plantar fasciitis may be caused by repeated stresses like running and jumping. Tight calf muscles and weak supporting musculature in the foot can put you at higher risk.

READ THE ARTICLE: 4 Common Foot Injuries in the Athlete

The problems that result from foot neglect aren’t limited to the plantar region. Just as an unstable foundation affects the entire structure of the building it supports, problems with our feet replicate in other parts of our bodies. Chiropractor Lindsey Mathews explained this relationship between the feet and the rest of the body:

When a person is having foot and ankle issues, observing their gait along with applying a little bit of foot palpation usually reveals the answers. If any joint in the foot and ankle is not operating optimally, then the load is transferred elsewhere and the foot must compensate. This compensation pattern affects everything from the knee, to the hip, and even the lumbar spine.

READ THE ARTICLE: Understanding and Caring for Your Feet

By caring for our feet, we are also caring for the whole chain they affect. So how do we do that? Here are three ways to give your feet some love and prevent injuries:

Strengthening

Coach David Weck described several ways to strengthen your feet in his article, 5 Foot Strengthening Exercises to Improve Speed, Power, and Balance. He suggested the following exercises using bands, boards, and balance trainers to build strength.

Bands: Take a resistance band (flat bands work best), fasten it to a secure point, and place the other end of the band around the top of your foot right below your toes. From a seated position, with legs extended straight on the floor, create tension on the band and pull your foot to your shin. You can perform reps by flexing and extending your foot, or for more of a challenge, move your body back while maintaining a dorsiflexed position to create more tension.

Boards: Take a slant board, or if you don’t have one use a flat board placed on something to create an angle (a rolled towel or a yoga block can work well). Position the slant board near a wall or doorframe so you can lean slightly forward and place your feet on the board with your toes facing up. With a slight lean forward perform calf raises, holding the top position to create maximum extension of your toes and mindfully engage the bottoms of your feet.

Balance Trainer: Use a BOSU ball or a BOSU Elite, if you have one. The Elite has a very firm dome that loads the feet with increased resistance. Position your feet back on the dome of the BOSU ball so your toes are higher than your heels. From this position (dorsiflexion with inversion) perform squats, weight shifts, running in place, and jumps.

Movement

Moving your feet on a regular basis can prevent overuse injuries. If you sit at a desk for eight hours and then go to the gym to do box jumps, you’re setting your poor feet up for failure.

Toe exercises are some of my favorite ways to get my feet moving in different ways. You can do these exercises anywhere, and it’s challenging and oddly enjoyable to try to locate each individual toe. Yoga instructor Rachel Hector detailed a simple exercise for your toes and explained why you might have a hard time doing it:

Stand with your feet a comfortable distance apart. Try to lift just the big toe on both feet, keeping the other toes down. Then try to do the exact opposite: lift all the toes but the big toes. Keep switching back and forth.

If this movement doesn’t come right away, don’t lose hope. It took a while for your feet to be the way they are and it might take a while to change them. As you get better at this, try it in different standing yoga poses and notice the effects. Most people who pronate, or roll to the inner arch, have a hard time lifting the big toes and most people who supinate, or roll on to the outer edges of the foot, have a hard time lifting the other toes.

READ THE ARTICLE: Feet Are Our Foundation: 5 Ways to Strengthen Them

Exposure

Controversial as minimalist running may be, a little barefoot time here and there is definitely healthy. In his article, Barefoot Basics: How to Regain Your Footing, MovNat trainer Steve Gangemi explained the benefits of baring your feet during your training:

By training barefoot, you are improving the strength, mobility, and proprioception of your feet. Proprioception refers to the knowledge of the position and movement of the body, and the ability to react accordingly.

When you wear shoes you lose this proprioceptive input. This means if something unexpected happens – you hit a piece of uneven ground or you make a quick cut while playing sports – your body won’t be able to perceive this change and react accordingly to protect itself from injury.

Steve shared the following drills to get started in barefoot training, demonstrated by MovNat founder Erwan Le Corre:

Strengthening, mobilizing, and exposing your feet will go a long way in preventing new injuries and healing damage that has already been done. I would also add my personal favorite to the list: a nightly foot massage. Feet need rest and recovery, too.

Photos 1 and 2 courtesy of Shutterstock.

The post 3 Ways to Prevent and Heal Foot Injuries appeared first on Breaking Muscle.

4 Common Foot Injuries in the Athlete (Meghan Rovig)

In this article, I’ll highlight some of the most common overuse foot conditions that I treat. Additionally, we’ll discuss appropriate ways to manage the dysfunction.

Dear Willow: Should I Set My Feet Free and Go Barefoot? (Willow Ryan)

I need help with my feet when I run. I am wearing minimalist shoes, but my knees still ache. What does it mean to have active feet? What else can I do to strengthen and heal my feet and knees?

Causes and Treatment for Fallen Arches (Valerie Worthington)

Take good care of your feet! What does it even mean to have flat feet? Learn more about the condition, also known as fallen arches.

Product Review: YogaToes (Becca Borawski Jenkins)

They might look a little crazy, but YogaToes actually provide a very gratifying experience for your feet! Let your toes free from your shoes and give them a little yoga.

Dear Willow: How Do I Stretch and Strengthen My Feet? (Willow Ryan)

A lot of students ask me how to stretch and strengthen their feet because their job requires them to stand all day long. Learn a series of exercise you can do to release your feet

Plantar Fasciitis – Prevention and Treatment (Becca Borawski Jenkins)

Do you know where your plantar fascia is? Chances are you don’t unless you have injured it and developed plantar fasciitis (inflammation of the plantar fascia).

Photos courtesy of Shutterstock.

The post Walk This Way: 8 Articles on Looking After Your Feet appeared first on Breaking Muscle.

Our feet are the most overused, disrespected, and misunderstood parts of our bodies. Our feet are the first shock absorbers, whether we are walking, running, or jumping, and they must convey power to the rest of the body.

The foot must be rigid enough to withstand propulsion, but also pliable enough to conform to numerous spatial arrangements. You know your feet are important, but do you know how they actually work and how to keep them healthy?

Anatomy of the Foot

By no means is this a complete anatomy lesson for our feet and ankles, but rather an overview to help you understand how complex the ankle and foot are in reality.

Our feet are broken into three parts: the rearfoot, the midfoot, and the forefoot. The rearfoot consists of the calcaneus and the talus. The midfoot consists of the navicular, cuboid, and cuneiforms.

The forefoot consists of all the metatarsals and phalanges. There are a number of joints in our feet, as well as muscles, ligaments, and fat pads and bursas.

Movement of the Foot

In addition to understanding the anatomy of our foot, we should also understand its movements. Terms such as dorsiflexion and plantarflexion, adduction and abduction, and inversion and eversion are all used to describe ankle and foot movement depending on which axis of rotation is involved.

The subtalar and talocrural joint make up what many of us know as the ankle joint. Both joints involve the talus bone. The talocrural joint involves the talus, the tibia, and the fibula. The subtalar joint involves the talus and the calcaneus.

These particular ankle joints operate around an oblique axis and this is where you’ll hear terms such as supination (rolling to the outside) and pronation (rolling to the inside).

Supination involves inversion, adduction, and plantarflexion. Pronation involves eversion, abduction, and dorsiflexion.

The talus rolls and slides nicely under the end of the tibia during movement. Basically, during plantar flexion (point the foot) the talus rolls backward and slides forward.

The opposite happens during dorsiflexion (pulling the toes toward the shin) – it rolls forward and slides backward. During dorsiflexion, the Achilles tendon and calf musculature are pulled tight. So, person with chronic calf and Achilles issues will have a talus that is slightly fixated anteriorly.

When a person pronates and supinates while walking (weight bearing), the calcaneus is fixed to the ground. Therefore, the subtalar joint and the tarsal joints work together to support the foot and dissipate shock, adapting to uneven surfaces such as rocks or sand.

We are designed to walk on uneven surfaces. We are designed to pronate and supinate over uneven surfaces.

Our feet are phenomenal at orienting us in space and providing stability. Pronation or supination is only a “bad thing” when some area of our lower extremity doesn’t function properly, putting stress elsewhere and resulting in issues such as over-pronation.

Arches of the Foot

There are two arches in the foot that need to be discussed: the medial longitudinal arch, which is a huge shock absorber in the foot, and the transverse arch, which evens out bodyweight across all the metatarsal heads.

More times then not, when a practitioner treats someone with “dropped arches” they provide orthotics that support the medial longitudinal arch but do not address the transverse arch. This results in major fixations in the rearfoot, with the midfoot and forefoot compensating.

When a person is told to wear an insert for arch support, it may fix the pain right away, but the original cause of the problem was never addressed.

When a person is having foot and ankle issues, observing their gait along with applying a little bit of foot palpation usually reveals the answers.

If any joint in the foot and ankle is not operating optimally, then the load is transferred elsewhere and the foot must compensate. This compensation pattern affects everything from the knee, to the hip, and even the lumbar spine.

Tips for maintaining healthy ankles and feet:

1. Run correctly. If you do not know how to run correctly, then don’t run. If you have had chronic IT band issues, chronic calf issues, or chronic anything, chances are you do not run correctly. It kills me when I see people heel striking or running while one leg is externally rotated or they are breaking at the hips, and yet, they still continue to train for the LA Marathon.

2. Strengthen your ankles and feet. This includes muscles and proprioception. If you’ve had an ankle or foot injury, then you need to have ankle stability exercises in your warm up at least three times a week:

• Run or walk on soft sand once a week. This activates all the intrinsic foot musculatures.
• Balance on a couch cushion on one leg for 60 seconds. Then, do it again with eyes closed.
• Include ankle hops in your dynamic warm up. This is where you jump by only dorsi- and plantarflexing your ankles.

3. Mobilize your ankles and feet. Like I said earlier, your feet need to be strong and flexible. Here are some ways to mobilize:

• Towel curls help to maintain the transverse arch.
• Talus mobilization especially if you have Achilles issues is key.
• Establishing a short foot is great training. This can be done while standing with foot on ground or with foot on Indo Board or couch cushion to train proprioception even more.
• Walk on your inverted and everted ankles. We used to do this to warm up in gymnastics, and now I continue to do it every time I work out. You will look silly and it will feel weird, but it is a great ankle warm up.

By all means, this is no comprehensive anatomy lesson of the foot and ankle. Nor it is a complete rehab guide.

However, my purpose is to open your eyes a bit as to how complex and uniquely designed that each of our ankles and feet are.

Now that you have this information perhaps you can better take care of them and keep them performing.

Photos courtesy of Shutterstock.

The post Understanding and Caring for Your Feet appeared first on Breaking Muscle.

Most human feet have arches much like the ones in some bridges and other architectural structures. And much like these man-made structures, our bipedal arch turns out to be a useful engineering phenomenon. “The arches distribute weight evenly across the feet and up the legs, and can affect walking. A well-developed arch is balanced between rigidity (for stability and flexibility (for adapting to surfaces)”¹

What, then, are the implications of fallen arches, otherwise known as flat feet, where no or little foot arch exists and the instep of the foot touches the ground? There are two types of flat feet. A person with flexible flat feet has some arch, especially when standing on the toes. A person with rigid flat feet has no arch whatsoever. Infants usually have flat feet, with the arch developing in childhood.

Flat feet can be caused by injury, aging, and weight gain. They can cause pain in the feet and may lead to pain in other parts of the body such as the ankles, knees, or hips. For this reason, it behooves us to treat fallen arches. The question becomes how to do so.

Traditionally, running shoes have contained extra padding to support the feet in general and fallen arches in particular. Orthopedists may prescribe orthotics for people with flat feet.³ More recently, however, the argument has arisen for shoes that provide a more minimal amount of padding and support for the feet. The idea here is that the feet will strengthen themselves. Since there are multiple options, anyone with flat feet or fallen arches would do well to explore them all.

The post Causes and Treatment for Fallen Arches appeared first on Breaking Muscle.