The Importance of Foot Strengthening Exercises

Can you easily spread your toes apart without batting an eye?

No? Chances are, your feet muscles are weak and your foot health isn't very good. But don't worry most of us North Americans are in the same boat. For most of the day, we wear shoes. And those shoes don't give our feet enough space for them to move naturally. Wearing stable, highly cushioned shoes that are supposed to protect our feet make it even worse because not using muscles results in weak muscles.

In addition to that, our toes aren't really used for anything other than walking, running, and jumping, etc., and during those activities, the only way we use our toes is to push off. Because we only use the muscles in our feet in one way, we lose function of them and now most of use even have trouble spreading our toes. Think about it and ask yourself, how easily can I spread my fingers?

You may be thinking, there's a reason we lost muscle function in our feet. We never need to use them - they aren't important. But think again. With strong feet, there's less chance of bunions and other foot deformities, less risk of plantar fasciitis, achilles tendonitis, posterior tibial tendonitis, shin splints, and practically any other injury involving the legs. How's that for something important?

 Weak feet can result in strain in parts of our body that are miles away from them, like the back. Strong feet are especially important in athletes because most likely, the sport or sports you play involve running. Each step you take when running puts an average of 300 pounds of stress on your legs. That's a lot of abuse your feet are taking and if you want them to hold up, they'd better be strong.

Weak feet can also be the root of your problems, shin splints. Feet aren't where shin splints take place but they are the foundation of your entire body and look at it this way: a house's foundation has to be strong or else the whole thing will fall apart. So if they are the cause, fix your feet and fix your shin splints.

Even if you think the problem that caused your shin splints can't be fixed, perhaps because it is something you were born with, like flat feet/fallen arches, strong feet can still help. Stronger feet are more stable and with more stable feet, overpronation can be reduced. Also, arch exercises may even lift your arches a bit. It's possible and I know because I've done it.

For those who aren't injured, foot strengthening is still extremely important because they reduce the risk of leg injuries.

Foot strengthening exercises don't take much time and aren't exhausting. They aren't even that hard but the benefits of them are beyond great. Doing them for even five minutes a day can help immensely and best of all, they can be done anywhere and most of them can be done without people noticing.

I'll be covering and explaining different feet strengthening exercises in another post.