How to strengthen the muscles of your feet can improve how you move your whole body (and 3 easy exercises to achieve it)

The good news: with some changes in habits and simple exercises, your feet can gain strength and control quickly.

Next, what they do, how they connect with the rest of the body, what happens inside them, what paper plays footwear and three practical exercises so you can start strengthening them today.

A healthy foot is a rigid and flexible foot at the same time.

“It is a triangle that must be rigid to propel in the march and, at the same time, that it must be able to flexible to cushion,” Tuscan explained.

This movement occurs every time we take a step: when we raise the fingers of the feet – especially the fat man – the arc of the foot rises in what is known as the mechanism windlass-, creating tension and generating efficiency to detach from the floor. When they fall, the arch gives enough to cushion the impact.

In that architecture, the plantar fascia acts as a strong rope that connects the vertices of the triangle (big todo – Dedo meñique -talón).

“That fascia determines that the foot is elastic, that absorbs impacts and that we can maintain balance,” Garcia said.

When the fascia loses tone or the arc sinks, the system begins to distribute the charges and the rest of the joints have to go to compensate.

The foot also has the function of stabilizing.

The more stable the support is, the better everything that is put on it: ankles, knees, hips and column, said Toscano.

That is why a foot that cushions well and that has the ability to get rigid when it takes not only makes you walk more fluid, but also prevents discomfort in the back.

As if that were not enough, the foot is also a sensory organ.

“The nerve endings of the foot connect with the brain and give it information to position us; with your eyes closed they depend only on that signal,” Garcia recalls.

It is what is known as the proprioception: the system that anticipates the adjustments that your body has to do to prevent you from falling. In people with proprioception problems, silly stumbles end up in serious falls.

For Garcia, there is a simple test that can be done to know the health status of our feet: “” There is an exercise that I work hard every day: the stability in a single support. It is basically to put on one foot, raise the other leg and stay at least 30 seconds or 1 minute. “

“If you are not able to keep you a single leg, for 30 seconds or 1 minute, and it also costs you a huge effort, then we have to work much more those feet.”

The feet are the first step of the kinetic chain of the movement.

To explain this role, Tuscan divides foot muscles into two types: the intrinsic musculature, which is born and inserted into the foot, and the extrinsic, which originate in the leg and reach the foot.

“The intrinsic holds the plantar vault; the extrinsic gives much of the stability of the ankle and helps to raise the arch. They work coordinated,” he says.

That makes when a part of the foot is not doing its job, another has to enter to replace it.

“If today a structure does not work, 'he asks' another to do his job; he will do it as he can, but in the medium term the surusion injury appears,” Toscano said.

In practice, a foot in overpronation (it falls in excess inward) pushes the knee inward, and generates what is known as a dynamic valge, which can end up generating pain in the knee or hip.

“We see a lot of knee pathology whose origin is not in the knee, but in the lack of functionality and stability of the foot,” he says.

For Garcia, these types of pathologies are everyday in many of the runners with whom he trains: many have a waist force up, but their lower limbs do not.

“I put them at a single support and do not support the balance. Then the sprains, tendinopathies, condromalacia, lumbar discomforts come … everything starts with the foot.”

It is not necessary to injure to realize that there is something that is not working well.

Toscano says that signs such as having a bad balance, frequent ankle sprains or feeling exaggerated fatigue in the legs, could suggest that the foot is not tolerating the loads well.

For Garcia, in addition, there is a disconnection with our bodies that has a cultural element: “We do not move our fingers; we are not even aware that they have movement. Recovering that consciousness and the way of walking.”

Knowing that the feet are so important, we are then formed: what types of shoes should we use to maintain the health of our feet?

It depends on the person, and the possible conditions that may have on their feet, although Toscano says that there is evidence that footwear with too much damping can cause healthy feet problems.

“Footwear with excess cushioning, drop High and soft materials can isolate your foot from the ground, subtract propioception and turn your unstable foot, “says Tuscan.

But this cushioning can be an ideal tool for people who already have weaknesses: “However, in hyperinable feet or with certain pathologies, having more damping can be an ally. You have to differentiate profiles and contexts.”

For Garcia, it is important to pay attention to the last one of the shoe, which is not very tight: “Footwear is one of the problems that weakens the foot. If you work barefoot but then put it in a narrow tip, you use the musculature.”

The coach suggests making a homemade test with the shoes we already have: drawing the template and comparing the template width with the barefoot; If the foot does not fit, that last is pushing your fingers inwards, and can take you to the bun.

In cases of high shoes such as heels, Garcia says that everything depends on the use: “By wearing heels a couple of days do not end with your feet '. The problem is the dose and that your whole week is rigid, narrow and tall shoes.”

Toscana says that it adopted many movement practices barefoot –Barefoot-, (flat, flexible and wide shoes) to improve the proprioception of the foot, but adds that they are not the only alternative.

“Not everyone needs the same; in some cases a minimalist model works, in others it is convenient.”

The golden rule of both: choose footwear that allows expanding the forefoot, respecting the fingers and admitting that the same foot may require different options according to activity and state.

The experts agree that to start strengthening the feet, there are some basic exercises, which you can do at any time and can begin to make differences in your day to day.

1. Fascia massage with ball (or frozen bottle)

Standing or sitting, put a hard ball (tennis/golf type) under the barefoot.

Wheel from the base of the fingers to the heel for 1 minute, looking for sensitive points and breathing.

If you want a challenge that brings better effects, use a small bottle with frozen water to add the effect of cold and relieve tension.

“If it hurts more at one point, stay there for a few seconds: it is telling you where there is tension,” Garcia suggests.

2. “Claw” with towel to activate fingers and arc

Put a small towel on the ground and rest the foot on top.

Open your fingers and, as if the foot were a claw, wrinkle the towel inward; Then stretch it again and repeat 10 times by foot.

The key is to feel how, when flexing the fingers, the arc is created in the inner part of the foot. “It costs at the beginning because we don't move our fingers, but the connection returns fast,” says Garcia.

3. Walking of tips and heel elevations

Garcia says that one of the simplest exercises – and even “returns you to childhood” – is walking in tips. “Walking on tiptoe, barefoot, it's essential,” he explains. The idea is to do it slowly, with the heels very high, traveling a few meters and keeping the balance in each step. If you go slowly, each foot has to sustain your weight for a few seconds and the work of strength and stability multiplies.

When that gesture is comfortable, you can transform it into a progression: use the edge of a step and make heel elevations, going up and down in a controlled way. Toscano summarizes it like this:

“If you had to do a single foot exercise, it would be to put on tiptoe on a step.” You can start with short series, leaning on a railing if necessary, and concentrate on getting calm and lowering even more slowly.

Both variants train the same thing you need to move better: strength in the calf, arch and balance activation. A couple of minutes a day make a difference; The key is constancy and care for the technique before increasing the amount.

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