- All right, as a therapist
and working with people for many years, I have found,
and I think any therapist would agree,
as we age, it gets more difficult to walk.
Aches and pains, limping comes in,
and it actually leads to falls.
So this challenge is going to be faced
and we're going to show you options
to eliminate this problem with our lifestyle.
- And in this video, we're gonna show you an exercise
to help improve your walking, balance, and leg strength.
- By the end of this video,
you're not only gonna understand why to do the exercise,
but you'll be able to do the exercise
and work on that walking pattern
and become more graceful as you'd like.
(upbeat music)
- So the muscle we're gonna talk about
is called the tibialis anterior,
or, as Brad corrected me, anterior tibialis.
It means the same thing.
It's this muscle here right on the front of the shin bone.
Do you wanna talk about it a little bit, Brad?
- Sure, if you put your fingers right here
in that muscle belly
and you pull your toes up like this,
you will feel the muscle fibers contract,
and as you go down, they relax.
It's a very critical muscle.
It's a part of walking,
and that's how people oftentimes stumble or fall,
because this muscle is weak
and the toes and our forefoot is not being elevated.
- In the next section, we're gonna talk
about why it's important
to strengthen this muscle for your walking.
- And how.
- So the first reason you wanna strengthen
your tibialis anterior
is if you're the person that commonly trips
over your own feet or toes
by not lifting your foot up enough when you're walking.
If the tibialis anterior is weak,
this is commonly what causes you to fall over.
- Right, a couple examples of this
are drop foot or slap foot.
If you have a tendency to do foot slap,
in other words, when you walk,
your heel comes first as normal
and then that forefoot of the foot slaps down,
you can actually hear it with people
as they walk on a hard floor,
this is gonna help eliminate that problem as well.
- And strengthening this muscle
can help rapidly improve your balance, stability,
and your ability to move side to side
without tripping over as well.
- Right, it's amazing what one muscle can do
as far as improvement or making your balance a little off.
So one way or another, we're correcting it.
- Now, to strengthen the tibialis anterior muscle,
we have to bring your toes up towards the ground
while leaving your heels down.
We're gonna do this against the wall.
This is a little more advanced version.
If you're too weak, we will show a different version
you can do seated right after this.
So to perform this, you need an open wall space.
Get your back flat against the wall like this
and then slowly walk your feet out.
The further your feet are away from the wall,
the more challenging this is gonna become.
So to start, be closer to the wall.
- Before we go any farther, it's absolutely critical,
I just thought of this now,
make sure you have shoes on
or your feet do not slip at all
because once you bring your foot out,
that could come out
and then we'll have a problem with safety.
So make sure that is very stable
before you get started.
- So once you feel secure here,
you're gonna do toe raises
and you're gonna go up and down nice and slow.
As you can see, my knees are straight as I'm doing this.
I do not have a bent knee.
Nice posture against the wall.
And you're gonna aim to do 25 reps
and do three sets of that,
but do it throughout the day.
Now, if you're brand new to this,
maybe start with five to 10 reps the first day
because you might have some sore front shin muscles
the next day when you wake up.
- So Mike, are you saying if this was too difficult,
could we bring our feet in even closer?
- [Mike] Yep, and then make it a little bit easier.
And if I go out farther like this,
then I'm really gonna work that muscle
a little bit more.
It just kind of adds a little more resistance
without actually adding weight to yourself.
- You may wanna hold onto a stick
or be by a wall or a chair just for stability.
Mainly it can make a big difference in feeling comfortable
while you're doing this.
Look at those anterior tibs working.
- And people often don't strengthen this muscle group.
So you might feel a little bit of a burn
when you're first working it.
Most people, when you walk,
you work the other muscle group, the calves.
So this is gonna feel a little different
if you're not used to it.
- That's right. Don't overdo it.
You don't want to be sore the next day.
10 repetitions, if you haven't done it,
is probably be good for the first day.
- So now we'll show a seated variation.
- All right, now, if you have severe weakness
with your anterior tib
and you're unable to lift that foot up
even without resistance in the seated position,
this could be very likely after a stroke or an injury,
something of that nature,
or maybe you've been sedentary for a while
because of an illness
and you're elderly.
This can be extremely taxing.
So what we're going to do,
in a chair like this, a firm chair,
not a lounge chair in,
you know, the place where you sit and watch TV,
the living room.
Things are going on up here.
What you can do is take a cane
and you're gonna pull up,
actually help pull up the foot.
Get a little stretch is okay.
At this point, this is called an eccentric exercise.
We're gonna take the cane away and hold that foot there.
And you'll find if you're really weak,
and that's not unusual,
where, oh, it's even hard to hold it there.
So the first step is up.
See if you can hold it for three seconds.
One, two, three, and then let it down slow.
And it's important that you let it down slow.
That's where the eccentric comes in.
You don't need to understand that.
Just believe us
'cause it's been studied a lot and it does help.
So up, let it down slow,
and do 10 repetitions like that.
You know, do that three or four days,
and hopefully within a week or so,
you'll be able to pull that up without the cane.
You know your progress is good at that point.
And then work your 10 to 15 repetitions like that.
And then you can go over to the wall
after you get to that point.
Usually one to two weeks, you should be there.
If it's longer, it's okay,
particularly if you've had some nerve damage or a stroke,
then the progress will take longer.
Okay, after you strengthen that muscle
and you feel the difference in strength,
it's really important to monitor your walking
or we call it gait in therapy.
Actually look in a mirror if you can,
if you have a hallway
and you can look at a full-length mirror,
and watch your feet
and then think about pulling that foot up
and bringing it down.
If you watch it, that's feedback into your mind
and that will also stimulate those muscle fibers
to pull that ankle up
and get back into a normal walking pattern.
As a matter of fact,
I think some people are in such a habit,
they have no idea that they're dropping that foot
until they stumble.
But if you think about it and do the exercises,
it works out real strong
and it's a definite win-win situation.
Mike, you think anything about that?
Am I doing okay?
- I think you're doing okay,
but if you'd like to watch another video
about how to improve your walking,
we'll link one down below in the comments section
that you can watch.
- Very good.
Good luck, everyone.
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