FEET : How to Take Care of Them!

Roll your foot on a ball: 

Use any ball you have. Tennis, bocce, lacrosse, golf, soft ball... they all work, roll back and forth on your foot to increase the length of your plantar fascia and decrease the muscle tone under your foot.

 Spread your toes : 

Easy... go to the dollar store an get a pair of toe spreaders... it will be 1$. it should be in the isle with the nail polish and foot care products. Start by watching t.v. with them in for 10 to 15 minutes. Once this is comfortable, you can start walking around your house with them. keep them in for 30 minutes to 90, build up don't try spreading your toes for 2 hrs the first time you try them on, your body will not appreciate your effort. The stretch will  stretch your lumbricals, and enable your toes to work independently, decreasing the stress on your bones.

Scrunch a towel: 

Now we need to retrain the muscles to work appropriately. First start just spreading your toes apart ( you might need to manually help your toes, especially the baby toe) once all open, then scrunch up the towel. one you get the movement then you can try performing the same action with the toe spreaders. REMEMBER : your toes have not worked this much in a very long time, or ever, be kind to your feet. Try the exercise, then let your feet rest. Rome was not build in a day, patience and consistency will get you there. 

Knuckles up:

Last but not least, I put this exercise last, purely because its hard to achieve with tight lumbircals or a lack of foot control. so don't be hard on yourself it you don't get it on the first try. 

You will need a block, I use a yoga block, but anything which you can hang your toes off of would work fine.  First take the yoga block and place the ball of your toes as a straight line off of the edge of the block. Then curl your toes around the corner of the block, pointing them as far towards the ground as you can. The goal is to see the 2 middle 'knuckles' in your feet pop up. If they are up, it means that your front transverse arch is functional(=happy feet). You will need to practice to get the proper arch. Once you achieve this arch, maintain it as you, pick up your foot off the block and place it onto the ground. Just stay there and appreciate your newly found arch. Now you can go back and repeat all of the previous feet exercises with your active transverse arch, it will be challenging!

Last but not least watch this yoga video to open up your feet, best way to spend 11 minutes of your life. It will decrease tension in your muscles and to improve flexibility, if an 84 year old can do it you can too. check out this link:  Michelle Yoga Foot Openers

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Prevent. Perform. Recover.

Equinox Health Clinic