(lively music) ♪ Bob and Brad ♪
♪ the two most famous ♪
♪ physical therapists ♪
♪ on the internet ♪
- Hi, folks, I'm Bob Schrupp, physical therapist.
- Brad Heineck, physical therapist.
- And then we're also the most famous
physical therapists on the internet.
- In our own opinion,
of course, Bob. - It still stinks, Brad,
you're stinking up the whole place here.
- I use my odor eaters.
- Four simple tests you must do
before you transition to minimalist running.
That's forefoot or barefoot.
And by the way, I think these tests are important,
even if you aren't a runner.
- Sure.
- 'Cause this is the type of range in motion
and strength you should have in your foot.
I'm not there yet, and I'm having trouble with my balance.
- Particularly if you're 50 and older,
because your balance starts to weaken up
and this is specifically,
it can be a big part of your problem.
- By the way, if you're new
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All right, Brad, take it away.
What are these tests that we're gonna do?
- Well, Bob, we want to assess, like I said.
As therapists, there's some...
biomechanical things that can happen to your foot over time
that will either be loss of range of motion or weak muscles,
that are gonna affect your ability to be a forefoot runner
or a barefoot runner, they're very similar.
And a lot of it has to do with strength
in your muscles controlling your big toe,
range of motion of your big toe,
as well as range of motion in your ankles.
And then we're gonna test strength, too.
Four simple tests.
The first one, you don't have to have a board like this,
but we thought you could see our feet better on here.
So you get in the ninety-ninety position,
and if you're a therapist, you know that.
If not, you wanna get your knee at a 90 degrees,
and your hip at a 90 degrees.
- [Bob] So I'm a little bit below, probably on that.
- [Brad] Yeah, Bob's on a stool, so his is example of not.
You can see his knee is pretty high.
But it'll still work for this.
- Sure.
- So you wanna ideally get that ninety-ninety position.
Okay, and the first one is,
keep your foot flat on the floor.
Best to do this on a hard floor, not carpet.
And slide your hips forward on the chair until your, well--
(chair squeaks)
- Yeah, you want a plumb line.
- Yep, so, a vertical line from your toe,
you should be able to slide your knee past
that plumb line with your heel still maintaining contact.
If you do this, and you slide forward,
and by the time you get there your heel comes off,
and your heel cord and calf muscle is so tight
it does not allow you to get down,
you're gonna have to work on stretching them heel cords out,
so you gain that range of motion
before you start forefoot running.
- [Bob] Again, important, I would say even
if you're a walker, or just a regular human being,
I think its an important thing.
I work on this a lot, I'm good at that one.
- Sure.
- And I pointed that out because I'm not good
at some of these other ones, so.
- Well, that's a good point, Bob.
This is for forefoot running.
But that is one that you should work on even if you're not
gonna forefoot run. - Yeah, you wanna have
ankles that are gonna move, otherwise you're gonna
have problems even with walking.
- Right.
As life goes on, you might end up
dragging your toe... - Yeah, yeah, yeah.
- When you walk.
So, next one.
Range of motion of your big toe.
Now, the big toe is really important for balance,
and it also has to do with when you swing your foot,
your foot pulls up.
We call it dorsiflexion.
But your toes have to also dorsiflex.
So, we're gonna look.
We need 30 degrees of extension.
Now, here, we got a little baby goniometer,
and right there, it's set at 30 degrees upward.
So that means your big toe, or great toe, technically,
should extend up at least thirty degrees.
Now, both Bob and I, I can pull my toes up actively easily,
but there are some people can only
lift their toe up a little bit.
And you need to be able to get it way up,
or 30 degrees is about, you know, you should be able
to get one or two fingers underneath your toe.
- Yeah, and - to get to the ball part.
- [Bob] you are allowed to pull it up.
- [Brad] Yeah, passive range.
- And Brad and I were talking before the video.
I can go to people that have plantar fasciitis.
And very often the foot that they have plantar fasciitis on,
that toe is tighter than the other side.
- Sure. - This side will go way up,
and this side might not even go up at all.
- Right.
- 'Cause that fascia goes right up into the toe,
and it's quite often tight on people.
- So if you do have a tight great toe that
doesn't come up high, you're probably more
at risk for plantar fasciitis, I would think.
- Yeah, and that's why we recommend
the stretch that we have people do.
It's, grab the forefoot like this, and pull the toes
and stretch the fascia at the same time.
- Right, yep.
It's a nice, simple little stretch.
Do it before you get out of bed.
- Right. - Okay.
Now, the next one.
This one's an interesting one.
- I found this interesting.
- I'll show with both feet, but initially, you want to have
your big toe and your heel completely flat,
and then your big toe flat.
And then lift up your other toes.
What do we call that, big toe, the pinky one,
one's going to the market?
- [Bob] Yeah, right, wee wee wee, all the way home.
- [Brad] (chuckles) Yeah, so we're gonna lift those toes up,
and then push down with your great toe,
into the floor, while these toes stay up.
If you push down and those toes have to curl down,
that means that your great toe, your big toe, is weak,
and your smaller toes are compensating by helping it,
by curl down.
Bob has a good example of this.
- [Bob] Yep, I've got, apparently, a weak toe.
Because look what my toes are doing,
they're curling right up there, like hammer toe, basically.
- [Brad] Right, yep.
- [Bob] And I think I do have a weak big toe.
- [Brad] Yeah.
- [Bob] And it affects my balance.
And that's why I'm gonna be working on this.
- [Brad] So, I'm able to keep my toes quite high up
and I'm pushing down on my great toe.
I have a little bit of flexion, but it's not like that.
You can see these tendons kinda flare out a little bit more
when you have to have to do that.
So that's very interesting to find out.
- [Bob] Yeah, this is revealing to me.
- Yep, that big toe has a lot to do with balance
and walking, as well as running.
And finally, but not leastly.
This one is the easiest one, I think, to do.
- For you it is.
- You know, you're gonna do this barefoot,
and you're gonna flatten your foot on the ground
so your heel, everything is flat.
And get a clock or your cell phone, set it for 30 seconds,
and see if you can stand one one leg for 30 seconds.
- See, look how bad I am.
- Well, he's six and a half foot tall, too, I think that has
- Yeah, and I have - something to do with it.
- high arches and I've been working.
I mean, this is worse a couple weeks ago, Brad.
- Sure.
- I mean, I was going like this.
- Yep.
- And I've been working on my arch strength,
and it's been helping, but I'm still not there.
- Now, make sure you compare both sides.
What I do when I test people, if they have to touch
with the hand or the foot, I count how many times
they have to self correct by how many touches there are,
and I write that down.
After an ankle sprain, someone might have 8 or 10 touches
to correct on their bad ankle,
and their good ankle is oftentimes, nothing.
- Right.
- So you want to make sure both sides are equal
when you do this, whether you had an injury or not.
And if there's one that's obviously weaker,
or you're wobbling all over,
you need to work on your ankle strength.
We're not gonna go through the--
- Ankle strength and, probably, arch strength.
- Yeah, right.
- 'Cause my ankles are strong, my arch is weak,
and that's why I'm going wobbly wobbly.
- And we just did a video on that arch.
- Yeah, we just did.
- That was with plantar fasciitis,
'cause all of this fits together.
It's all the same foot. - Yep, we just did a video
on strength in the arch, strength in the foot.
- So, those are your four tests.
You need to pass them to be a forefoot runner.
And not saying you can't forefoot run, you just need
to stretch out, get a little bit stronger,
work on your balance, and you're gonna be
much more successful in your transition.
Wow. - Boo-yah.
- Boo-yah.
- All right, thanks for watching.
- Say no more, Bob.
(short jingle)