The Foot is Always Overlooked

The foot is arguably the most important and complex joint structure in the body (in competition with the spine), it has 26 bones (nearly 30% in your body) and over 30 muscles. The dexterity the foot has is heavily overlooked when assessing and training other components of the kinetic chain, the ankle, knee, hip, pelvis and lower back. Most foot issues can be rooted in wear shoes with too much support and narrow toe boxes. This creates a lack of demand on the foot musculature, which in turn creates atrophy, the decline of muscle tone and function. Walking barefoot and wearing barefoot shoes are a simple daily intervention that can be used to increase how much attention your foot is getting. If you're unfamiliar with barefoot shoes, be mindful of how long and often you wear them initially because they can definitely cause soreness if you are under trained it. I will also add that it's probably not a good idea to run or do anything high impact with them on because of the lack in support, I can speak on experience for this due to heel bruising I've experienced on more than one occasion; there's a time a place for every tool, so something to be mindful of if you decide to use barefoot shoes. Restoring foot function aims to bring back foot dexterity. Because of how complex the foot is, there's quite a bit of movement capability to be had. I usually start people off with "foot grabs" and "foot splaying", where we're simply just flexing the foot fully and spreading the toes as much as possible. As this is done, we should be feeling our arch shortening when flexing the foot and the lateral portions of our foot contracting when the toes are splayed. Doing this for several repetitions is good practice and with each subsequent rep you should feel like you can more intentionally move it; this is developing your afferents, the "mind-body" connection people talk about when exercising. In addition to general foot movement, we want to establish toe dexterity. Toe dexterity looks at ensuring the big toes can flex and extend, while the little toes do the opposite. When flexing the big toe (pushing it down) you should feel your arch shortening and when you extend you should feel your bridge shortening. If you feel cramping when flexing the big toe, own it and breath through it, this is likely untapped and unfamiliar territory for you and is range of motion you want to acquire. The most challenging form of toe movement that's able to be done is an "accordion", where each toe is moving independently of one another. In addition to foot and toe movement being independent from one another, we want to integrate each to increase complexity. This is done through PJI ankle CARs, positional joint isolation controlled articular rotations, essentially moving the ankle through its full range of motion, while simultaneously having the foot in a predetermined orientation; this can be doing the ankle CAR with the foot flexed, the toes splayed, the big toe flexed, and the big toe extended. Layering in these dynamics and controlling the movement will improve the function of it over time. The foots role to other commonly done exercises gets heavily overlooked, specifically in dorsiflexion of the ankle, squatting and hip hinging. For the ankle, it can’t dorsiflex if the arch can’t flat when the food pronates. Being able to flex the big toe and pronate the foot will facilitate more length on the achilles and arch, which in turn promotes more dorsiflexion. For the hips, pronation of the foot is associated with internal rotation of the foot; this is particularly hard and often inaccessible for many people. Practicing the act of hip hinging and squatting, in conjunction with big toe flexion and pronation, is a good way to reinforce better mechanics and movement patterns. The foot gets so overlooked in most training programs and assessments, partly because it’s not fun, flashy or obviously contributes to how someone looks or feels, but it does. To add to that, when was the last time you heard someone say they were going to the gym to train their foot? You haven’t, because people don’t really do that, even though they should. While lower back, hip, knee and ankle issues are often rooted in dysfunction at the joint itself or around it, in many cases those issues are an accumulation of poor movement patterns that stem from the foot. Because of this and the influence it has throughout the kinetic chain, it would be good practice to allocate time for it when training, either in the gym or at home, so we can ensure there’s no blind spot or stone that’s unturned. You can find the whole workshop, more internal training tools, programs, concept videos and access to coaching within our Skool Community, all for $25/month or $250/year, both with a 7-day free trial through the link in our bio.