Foot exercises & why you should do them!

In case you missed it, last Sunday I shared a post about the feet on Instagram/Facebook which generated lots of interest. (you can see it here >> Facebook Post) 

I’ve had many people asking if I could put the exercises from that post into a video.

Hence why this week’s ‘Mondays on the Mat’ episode is all about the feet! 

Lets discuss why the feet are so important…

As I explain in the video, the feet are the foundation of the body.

If they are not working well, they can cause and or contribute to back, hip and knee pain, as well as affect our balance.

I could talk for hours about the feet (in fact I’m a certified foot fitness trainer, so I specialise the feet), however in this blog I want to focus mostly about flexibility of the toes and how that effects our feet and body. 

For many of us, our feet end up cramped in shoes most of the day.

Compare this to when you were a child, running around bare foot outside. Or imagine before shoes were even invented, we would be walking around on uneven surfaces more often, over rocks or up and down inclines.

When we walk over uneven surfaces, especially without shoes, our foot muscles have to do more work, they have to activate to stabilise us.

Now we don’t use our foot muscles as much as we used to because our shoes that hold our foot steady and most of the time we walk on flat concrete sidewalks.  This can make the foot muscles lazy and even atrophy (which means to lose muscle tone). Often we lose the natural arch in the foot and for many of us our feet stiffen up.

It is important to have supple, flexible and strong supportive feet. If our feet and toes are not supple we often don’t take proper steps. Perhaps not striding through as much as we should, instead we shuffle along, or even waddle.

This effect on how we walk can mean the muscles in our legs and glutes often don’t work or fire like they should, in turn this can have an effect on our whole body and of course our back.

The toe flexibility plays bit part in how we stride though in our walk.  We need to be able to push through and push off our big toes.

If you watch in the video I show you some great stretches to do for the toes, which help with this striding though motion.

You will really feel the difference after you have done the exercises! 

Let me know how you enjoyed this session in the comments below and shoot me an email if you have any questions at all, I’d love to hear from you! 

I will be creating more foot videos for my members of my online studio, the Core Fit Club. So if you’d like to know more just send me a message to find out when the new classes will be added.

If you’d like to know more about the Core Fit Club, (which is free for 7 days) just click here >> Core Fit Club

Lots of love and see you again soon on the Mat! 

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