In this video, I'm gonna explain to you what exercises you can do to strengthen the muscles
in your feet that will help you to ... if you ... It's quite useful if you've got a arch that's
collapsing. It will help you rebuild your arch. It can also limit how much pronation you do. So, if
you've got a foot that rolls in excessively, these exercises can be useful. I'm going to break it up:
I'm going to first give you selective exercises that just strengthen the muscles inside the foot.
Then, the ones that control the the roll of the foot - or how much it rolls - and then
we're going to put them together and do some arch exercises in a more functional position.
Welcome! My name is Maryke, and I'm the physiotherapist at sports-injury-physio.com.
If this is your first time here and you would like to learn how to stay injury-free,
make sure to subscribe and hit the little bell so that you don't miss any of the updates. Okay,
so there are two muscle groups that's quite important for controlling the arch of your
foot. Now, the arch of the foot is this bit there, where you can see it has a rounding,
or you can get your fingers underneath that. Now, I do not have a very large arch or high arch in my
foot. Some people have really high ones where you can really see quite a lot of space underneath
it. Others, their feet may have collapsed fully and they don't really have any arch,
so they've got a flatter foot. So the muscles, the intrinsic muscles in the foot, which are the ones
right into this arch, is one group of muscles that can actually bring the arch up in that way. Then,
the second bit controls how much the foot rolls, and that's the tib post and the tib ant muscles,
which come from the calf actually - or the shin ... and the shin - are the ones that control that
roll action. So, you've got the muscles in the foot that pull the arch up, and you've got the
muscles that attach in this area and the back there that stop it from rolling in. So, let's
first look at the muscles that do that movement. Now, if you can see my arch there ... if I have
it there ... if I do ... if I push my big toe flat into the floor, can you see our arch lifts up? Or
if I pull my big toes up ... or big toe up, you can see how the plantar fascia actually lifts my
arch up for me as well. Now, a way that we can strengthen those muscles that's inside the foot
that lift the foot arch, is using a very high tech piece of equipment, which is a towel. And
you just gather the towel with your toes. This is a very good exercise to do in front of the
television because, let's face it, it is quite tedious, and it's not going to make you sweat,
but you really want to see if you can grab the towel with your toes and get it in there ...there
we go! Now, the other thing that's important is that you should be able to dissociate your toe
movements. So, check: Can you lift your big toe up but keep your other toes on the floor? Now,
can you put your big toe down and lift your other toes up? Big toe comes up, other toes to stay
on ... the floor. Big toe goes down, little ... other toes pick up or ... lift up. Other
important thing is, these toes shouldn't squish up like that when you do these exercise. So,
they should be able to stay nice and relaxed ... if you see that, you've got to try and relax them,
okay? And that. So, that's called toe yoga. So, we've got two exercises so far. We've got
gathering up the towel, okay, that gets general foot muscles going. And then we have toe yoga,
where you lift the big toe up, keep the other ones down, and big toe down, other toes there. Just to
teach you how to move separate parts of your ... your foot. Okay, so let's look at the muscles that
roll your foot in. If you have your foot there ... can you turn your foot in like that for me?
So to show you from that ... it's that movement, okay? And that movement ... so, from the side,
it's that movement. So ... there we go, and you pull it up as well. So, that movement. So,
when you want to strengthen that, you will need a thera-band, but you could first play with just
your foot, that you practice that movement, okay? And then, you can tie a thera-band around a chair.
I actually find it useful if it's on a table, to the side of you, that you can really ... but I'm
going to just shift my bottom around and see if I can do it that way ... to save time, okay? So,
remember we're practicing that movement, so, which is inversion. You place it around the front of the
foot, and I usually cross my legs over, and then I do that movement against resistance,
and slowly back out, and against resistance, turning it in and slowly back out. But you'll
notice the rest of my leg is staying still, I'm not ... you ... moving my knee to get that going,
okay? So that's a way that you can strengthen the muscles that control how much the foot rolls. So,
then, how do we put this together? So, I've got the mat here for that contrast, so that you can
see what my feet are doing, but I'm going to actually take it away in a minute when I'm
standing up. But what you want to look at is first ... and sitting, look at where your arches are.
Now, I'm going to let mine collapse or roll in, so that I can demonstrate this. What we want to
see is ... Can you see how it's making an angle at the moment in that area there? And this bit
of my foot is waaay too close to the floor. So, to show you from that ... that's where it is. There's
no space there. Where I want it to be, is where there's a little bit of space so that I've ... if
my foot is in this position, I feel all the pressure is mostly under my big toe and the
medial side or the inside of my foot. If I have it in this position, I now have pressure under
my big toe ... my little ... ball of my little toe, and my heel. So, to show you from the front:
If it's in the bad position, then I'm feeling most of the pressure along this. If I correct it,
then I've got equal pressure, but watch out - you don't want to be doing that, that you have most of
your pressure there. It's got to be equal between ball of the big toe, ball of the little toe,
and the heel. And you can see, now it's a straight line there not an angle, okay? So, straight line,
and I've got a little bit of gap there, but I'm not on the outside of my foot. Now, practice this
in sitting first, because it's much easier to do that. Then, see if you can maintain that good arch
and stand up, and what you don't want to see is that "that" happens when you stand up. So,
you've got to be able to maintain those arches when you go from sitting to standing. So what you
don't want to see is this happening. What you want to see is: correct the arch, I'm not turning my
legs out to do that, it's just my feet doing that, and coming up. Now, I'm not clawing with my toes
either. My toes are nice and relaxed. I've just got my arch in that good position, okay? So then,
from there, what you want to see is: Can you hold that position and balance on one leg,
okay? And what you don't want to see is "that" happening. You've got to be able to maintain that
arch and balance on one leg. So, to demonstrate with this leg. Say that was my arch position. I
correct my arch position so that I'm feeling the pressure equally under those two points and my
heel. Then I slowly lift one leg up, and what you don't want to have, is the arch collapsing
like that. You do not want to see the foot roll in like that. It's got to be able to stay nice in
a controlled position like that, okay? And it'll be hard at the beginning. You're allowed to use
one finger to stabilize yourself on the wall. But remember, that doesn't count. You've got
to be able to keep it in a nice straight line. Okay, let me know if you've got any questions,
and there are also some links in the description of this video to exercises that you can do to
strengthen your hips, because actually if the hips aren't strong enough, that can also make your foot
arch collapse and increase pronation. Take care! Thank you for watching! If you would like to learn
more about preventing sports injuries, make sure you hit the subscribe button. See you next time!