Runners often spend a lot of time working on the strength of their legs, hips and even their core. Unfortunately, very often runners neglect the foundation of their running strength – their feet! It's very important to keep the muscles of your feet and your lower legs strong and flexible for good performance when walking and running. In this article, we describe several good exercises to help you keep your feet strong. Read on to learn more.
Why Is It Important to Have Strong Feet?
One reason it's very important to have strong, flexible feet is that weak, rigid feet are prone to pain and injury. Furthermore, if you neglect the strength and flexibility of your feet, you invite injury to your legs and hips. Additionally, feet that are not strong and flexible don't function in a coordinated manner. This has a negative impact on your performance as a runner.
It's Important to Understand the Structure of the Feet
There are two types of muscles in the feet and the lower legs.
The "foot core" is made up of intrinsic or local muscles. These are the muscles of the feet that perform the functions of shock absorption and maintain the shape of the arch of your foot. These are small and intricate muscles.
Larger muscles, known as global muscles, perform the functions of extending and flexing the toes and moving the ankles.
If your foot core muscles are weak, you may have an unstable arch. This problem causes poor impact absorption and may also cause faulty biomechanics. If your local muscles are not able to stabilize your foot quickly, this task has to be taken over by the global muscles.
Global muscles are not designed for this purpose, and they don't do it well. It takes longer for these larger muscles to react to instability in the arch, and this can actually make the problem worse. Weak foot core muscles can cause global muscle overuse injuries in the long run, such as plantar fasciitis or even stress fractures.
What Can You Do to Strengthen Your Foot Core?
There are a lot of exercises that strengthen both the foot core and the global muscles simultaneously. Examples include using your toes to pick up marbles and curling your toes to pull a towel into a ball. These are good exercises, but if you want to strengthen the local muscles of your foot, it's important to focus on these small muscles.
The best time to do this is before your running season begins. Whenever you have off time, you should devote a significant amount of it to strengthening your feet and your ankles.
How Do You Focus On The Foot Core?
Here are five of the best foot core exercises. Note that all of these exercises should be done barefoot.
- 1Short foot: With this exercise, you'll focus on contracting your intrinsic foot muscles as a way of raising your arches. To do this, you'll concentrate on pulling the first toe joint toward the heel bone.
Begin by sitting comfortably on a straight-backed chair. Your knees should form a 90° angle to the floor.
Place your feet flat on the floor and use the muscles of your arch to curve the center of your foot upward bringing the ball of the foot and your big toe closer to the heel the tips of the toes and the heel should remain on the floor and the arch should rise.
Hold this pose for about eight seconds. Repeat the exercise at least five times. Fifteen times should be your ultimate goal.
You'll want to do this with both feet. You can exercise one foot at a time, or you can do both feet simultaneously. Just be sure that you work both feet equally. If possible, do this several times a day throughout the day.
TIP: When this exercise is no longer challenging, try doing it standing. - 2Toe splay: Standing, spread your toes as widely apart as you possibly can. Keep your feet flat on the ground, and take care not to extend or curl your toes. Just see how much separation you can get between each toe. You should feel a good contraction in the muscles of your arches.
Hold the pose for about 8-10 seconds. Relax your feet and repeat 5-10 times. - 3Big toe press: Sitting or standing, press your big toes into the floor and raise the other four toes. Hold for eight seconds. Follow-up by pressing your four smaller toes into the floor and raising your big toes. This exercise activates and strengthens your arches and improves flexibility.
Hold for eight seconds. You should do between twelve and fifteen repetitions on each foot. - 4Controlled leg swings: These leg swings focus on the muscles of your ankles and help improve your balance and the stability of your hips. For this exercise, you use the strength of the short foot posture that you practiced in the first exercise.
Stand on one foot and curl the standing foot into the short foot posture. Swing the free leg backward and forward in a controlled manner for fifteen repetitions.
Keep in mind that you are not swinging the leg to its full extension. Keep your motion within a 12- 18 inches.
When you finish the fifteen repetitions backward and forward, swing the leg in a controlled manner (fifteen reps) from side-to-side in front of the standing leg. Remember to keep your motion small and under control.
Stretch the standing foot and then repeat with the other leg. - 5Traditional calf raise with big toe press: Stand on a raised surface (such as a stair step) on the balls of your feet. Allow your heels to drop below the level of the top of the stair.
Slowly raise your heels until you are standing on the balls of your feet. Hold the position and press your big toes into the surface of the stair.
Hold for eight seconds, release and gradually allow your heels to drop below the top of the stair again. Do 12-15 repetitions of this exercise.
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