By Elizabeth Towe
We ask a lot of our feet on a daily basis, and we need to give them a fighting chance to keep up with our demands. The foot can be trained and developed like any body part. Proper footwear is important, but if you strengthen your feet you may have more choices of footwear. Stand strong on your own two feet!
We use these exercises to develop the intrinsic foot muscles for stable balance, agility and injury prevention.
Foot Yoga: Stand barefoot, feet wider than shoulders.
Slightly squat in knees and hips.
Lift and spread all the toes, then place the toes down, holding them as wide as you can.
Shift your weight to evenly distribute it heel to toe. Keeping the ball of the foot down, lift only the big toes.
Place the big toes down, then lift the other four toes. Alternate the toe lifts.
Short Arch: Start in the same stance as above.
Grip the ground with your feet, and then lift your arch, pulling the ball of the foot toward the heel while keeping the toes wide and flat on the ground.
Pull the legs slightly toward each other to bring the engagement from the arch up the inside of the legs and into the groin. Pull in the lower abdominals and pull up the pelvic floor to connect the arch to the core.
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Elizabeth Towe is a runner and a cyclist and the owner of Balanced Movement Studio in Carrboro. She graduated from East Carolina with a degree in exercise and sports science and has been personal training for over 20 years. Her ultimate goal for all of her clients is to help them realize and achieve the optimal quality in their life – and to remember to have fun doing it.
