Are your feet fit enough?
How many of you train week in week out trying to improve your performance?
How many of you have had injury problems along the way stopping you achieving that goal?
More often than not, achieving your goal is done by: increasing your mileage; adding variably paced sessions and increasing your consistency. Less of you will add in strength and conditioning, which is great for injury prevention and improving performance. However, I wonder how many of you would ever consider targeted strengthening of your feet?
So, why is this important? With 26 bones, 20 intrinsic and 9 extrinsic muscles, 108 ligaments and 30 different joints, your foot is a complex structure and all of these need to work in unison to enable you move efficiently.
Your feet need to be:
STRONG enough to absorb daily stresses COMPLIANT enough to adapt to varying surfaces STIFF enough to provide a stable platform Provide a STABLE lever to enable you to propel yourself forward and/or upwards ABSORB, dissipate and return the energy produced during running and jumping GENERATE power and torque
Failure in any of these aspects through weakness or dysfunction can lead to increased pronation, deformation, reduced performance and injury.
A recent study has shown that simple foot exercises, even before injury, can:
REDUCE the incidence of injury in sport and the general population including elderly people REDUCE impact overload, accumulated load and fatigue IMPROVE force transmission during running and jumping INCREASE foot stiffness IMPROVE performance and efficiency IMPROVE jump height and distance IMPROVE balance
Though these may seem like small gains, they can be very useful in preventing injury not just to your feet, but also higher up the body including your knees, hips and lower back.
If you would like to discuss an individually tailored programme to help improve your performance or reduce your risk of injury, drop me a message or book online.