With the summer holidays over, a lot of us may have done quite a bit of walking over the past month or so. As a result, you may be noticing some foot pain or discomfort due to this extra activity.
I have put together some exercises that you can do to stretch and strengthen your feet. These will help to keep them strong and reduce any foot pain you may be feeling.
Ball Rolling
Rolling a ball on the sole of your foot releases tension in the plantar fascia. The plantar fascia connects from your heel to your toes. Often people can experience pain in the bottom of their feet from excess use. This can include standing, walking or running, especially if footwear is not ideal for these activities.
Ball rolling will massage and stretch out the plantar fascia. That reduces tension and pain in the feet. If your feet are very sore, you can roll your feet with a frozen bottle of water. The cold also helps reduce any inflammation in the area, which also reduces pain.
You can use as little or as much pressure as feels comfortable. The more you do the exercise, the less pain you’ll get from it.
Standing on Tiptoes
Going up to standing on tiptoes is a great way to strengthen the ankles and feet. Surprisingly, there is a right and a wrong way to do it. If you have very mobile ankles, you don’t want to let the ankles roll out as you go higher. It is very important to keep the ankles straight whilst doing this stretch.
Make sure you do this somewhere you can stabilise, so you don’t have to balance at the same time. Slowly go up as high as you can and then slowly go back down again. Do this 10 times. As you feel stronger you can hold at the top for longer.
Toe Curl
The toe curls will get all the small intrinsic muscles in your feet activated. The stretch will work to help strengthen the whole foot. Keep the toes over the edge of a large book or step. Then squeeze them down as if you are trying to clench it with your toes. Curl the toes 10 times and hold for 5 seconds each time.
Big Toe Stretch
Keeping a wide range of motion in the big toe is important. The following exercise has three stages and is designed to stretch and relieve pain in the toes from wearing tight shoes.
To do this exercise:
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- Sit up straight in a chair, with the feet flat on the floor.
- Bring the left foot to rest on the right thigh.
- Using the fingers, gently stretch the big toe up, down, and to the side.
- Keep the big toe in each position for 5 seconds.
- Repeat this 10 times before switching to the other foot.
If you need more help or advice, please get in contact.
