Therapeutic Footwork

Okay. So we're going to do a little foot class to help strengthen and work our feet so that we can have an optimal placement of our feet on the floor, which helps with balance. So when we're standing, we have to have a good spread of our feet on the floor to help us balance. So if your toes are foreshortened or if you're on the, uh, standing on the outer edge of your feet or standing too much on the inner edge of your feet, just try that a little bit. Just kind of go to the outer edge of your feet. Can you feel what happens to your knees and your hips? Yeah.

And then go on the inner edge of your feet. You see what's happening in the hip and all that. So the feet play a very important role in our leg alignment and our hips through here. Hmm. And there are conditions that people have in their feet, uh, where plantar fasciitis on the bottom of the feeds. Very painful. Okay. So there's a lot of restriction and mobility, not only in the feet, but ankles and the hips. Hmm. So when someone has that kind of condition we have, you have to look at how's the ankle moving, what is their motion of available to them? Hmm.

And what's happening in their hips to help with that. Another condition that people are concerned about is, you know, their toes starting to curl up a little bit, which then makes you walk with the arch. Very four shorten and on. It's very painful and choose of course, or not really that great to put on when your knuckles are up. So we really want to work for two aspects of the feet and that is mobility of the feet because when we place our weight on our foot, we're taking a step. The foot has to be mobile, it has to spread. Okay.

The other part of our foot that we need to do is it needs to have a spring. It needs to be able to contract in spring. Right. And that happens when we're walking and you're pushing off. The foot has to spring. So we have to have both qualities, a nice spread and a nice spring. And some of us are stuck in the spread. That means your feet are too flat. Yeah.

And some people are stuck in the spring, their feet are too rigid and very high arches. And actually they have a lot of trouble with balance because they're too rigid, their foot's too rigid and it doesn't give in to the earth. So you can kind of think about, well what do I have? Do I have too much spring or too much spread? Or maybe right in the middle, which would be ideal. Okay. So if you have too much spread, we want to be able to work and move the toes. The strength and the intrinsic muscles is what they're called and they're deep next to the bones. Into the foot itself. Yeah. And if you have too much spring, we've got to mobilize those ankles and we got to get the bones of the feed.

There's individual bones within the foot that we want to get moving so that that arch can actually be more pliable. All right. So we're gonna do is just a little series here. So this first one is called arches in and arches out. And it was something that, uh, nausea Corey who was, uh, one of the elder teachers, uh, that I worked with who had me do this for hours, you know, month after month to do this list. So I know it well. It's very simple and actually feels very good. So the components are, what we're going to do is you actually are gonna Roll your arches out. So it's called arches out.

So this is moving your hips and knees and you roll arches in. And what you're trying to do is lift the little toe side of your feet. So what you're contracting is the outside of your lower light. Can you feel that when you lift the little toe side and your hips are rolling in and now arches out? So really go out. So now you're pulling up on the inside of your lower leg. Okay?

So we're gonna do that four times. All right? Then we're gonna come back to center. And then the next part, which might be a little harder to sing is what I want you to try to do is stand here. Can you pull up your Patella? The patella is the Niqab case. You don't know, right? So here's the kneecap. There's a difference. A watch. Here's the center of my knee. I'm not talking about this. Pushed my knee back. That's not sliding the kneecap up. Hmm. That's pushing my knee back.

What I'm doing is literally this knee cap right here is pulling straight up. This quadricep is tightening in the tele, sliding up. And then can you let it go to see if you can do that. Pull the Patella up, see if you can feel that and let it go. And now if this is hard for you to feel when we sit down on the floor, you can give it a try there. It's might be easier to feel, not weightbearing, but pull him up. Can you feel what that does to your legs? Now let the Patellas drop. Pull them up.

Can you feel that one pulls up more than the other? And we all have one that likes to pull it down, let it go. Do you feel that one won't let go? Sometimes one of our patellas will actually be held up high, higher than the other. And then when you start to bend your knees, the bones not moving like it's supposed to. We get a little scraping going on there. Yeah.

So this exercise is good for that. So you're trying to, you can track, pull the Patella up and then let it release. So you're working that up and really, so we're going to do that four times, right? So here we go. The sequence goes like this. We go arches out. Arches in arches out. Arches in. Come back to center. Patel was lift and release. Patellas lift and release.

Patel is lift and release. Arches out arches in arches out arches in combatives center. Patella lift and release. You're not pushing me back. Just lifting the Batalla release. Pull it up. Release, pull it up. That amazing how much work in your legs and release a little faster out and in and out and in. Come back to center.

Lifted up and release. Pull em up and release, pull up, release up, release again and out and in and out and in and center and pull up and release up and release up. And really, so more time and out and in and out and in com. Center, pull it up and release and a lift and release. Lift and release. Relax. Are your legs feel very stimulated. It doesn't it. Okay. Very good. Okay, so now we're going to take our little ball. It's a little dog ball from the pet store. Okay.

And what we're going to do is on the bottom of our feet now you can do this seated if you don't want it doing standing or you can do it standing. Okay? And we just basically want to release the main points where some very heavy fascia attachments are. And there is some convergence of some these intrinsic muscles of the feet where they kind of converge and they all attach in a similar area. So this, these areas, um, can become very nodded up and tight. So when we press, it's like acupressure. When you press onto that point, that is this conversion point of this fashion, tendons and things. Then you stimulate a little bit of a spread at the insertion and helps release the foot. So that's when it will feel differently.

So just pay attention for one moment and feel your palms of your feet. We're going to work the right foot first. So how does your just pay 10 and say, okay, now I know how it feels. You don't have to give it a name, but just say, just be aware of how it feels. Okay, so now we're going to take the ball and we're going to release some points in the bottom of our feet, which is where they wear the Fascia and a lot of the tendons of the intrinsic muscles of the feet. Actually I have a convergence point where they attach on one another and that it gets kind of tight and can be balled up and affect the alignment of the muscles and the bones. So what we're going to do is, the first point we're going to do is going to be at the top of the heel right here. And you'll know the point because once you feel it, it's very tender. So that's point number one. Point number two is going to be at the base of each of these metatarsal bones.

I call them toe balls. Okay? So here's the top of the ball, but I want it is right behind it so that when you put pressure on it, it's going to lift the metatarsal head up any long gate your toe. That way, that's what we're trying to go for is lifting the bone any long getting the toe. It's similar to a cat. When you have a pad on the cat's par and you're gonna cut it snails and you on the cat nail and the nail comes out that way. So you kind of think of it that each of your toes like a cat.

Now don't do that yet cause you're going to affect our results. Okay? So and then notice on your own feet, take a look at your own Meta tarsals. Okay. Because we each have our own, uh, length of the bones here. So some people's Metta tarsals are in a nice straight line. And then some of us have them up and down. So for instance, in my foot, I have a big toe ball here, but my second toe is longer.

So that toe ball is position is a little higher. Yes. And then the third one is a little lower. It's coming back down right and forth. And everyone's fifth toe balls a little bit lower. So you have to adjust the ball right where your metatarsal is. Is that clear? Then the third point is going to be somewhere between the big toe and this heel and it's, it's a point in the arch, which is right about here, which is actually under a bone that we call the navicular right here. So, and again, it's one of those places that you'll know it when you feel the point.

The other point is going to be on the outer edge. So we, we've just did this arch. Now we're going to do this arch on the outer edge. And if you follow the end of this toe, the metatarsal you're going to bump into another bone is called the cuboid bone here. So we're going to be somewhere in this area in through here. So we're going to do pressure points on each of these. And then we're going to do some rolling from the big toe down to the heel. Only big toe down to the heel. We don't press it up.

We want the fluid to come up through the leg. We don't want to push it towards our toes. So pressure is big. Toe to the here, little toe pressure to the heel. All right, so we're rolling, but the pressures in the direction of the heel, we're also gonna roll in an arc along the transverse arch. All right. And then we're just going to do a little kind of friction. Random of the whole foot at the end. Okay, so take the ball, I think I'll face sideways maybe. And you want your feet parallels, you're not doing with one foot in front of yourself. Right? And then place the ball on that heel point. Okay.

Leg is straight. And then just put your weight into the ball. Just kinda like stand on it. Ooh. And then come off of it and stand on it. You get the point. Yeah. And then release and put your weight on it just three times and come off.

Okay. Come to the second toe. The second place I want you to put pressure, which is under the big toe ball. So under the big toe ball, think of the cat. Now you bring your foot a little forward. Yeah. So press on that and you can look down. Can you see your metatarsal head coming up and then release.

And then this second toe, get it right under the metatarsal. Feel the toe lengthen around. Is that okay? Yup. Okay. Release. Go to the third toe, press it down. And again, you want to see the metatarsal heads come up. They should be little white. Actually. Fourth Toe.

Try to bring that transverse up. Excellent. And the fifth toe, remember that one's a little lower and put your pressure on it. Excellent. Okay. Now the ball is going to go between the big toe and the heel. It's the point number three. It's under that navicular. Ooh. Lift that bone up. See Our arches tend to fall down. Yes. Hmm. So this is kind of pushing it up.

Okay. And come off of it. Just put me up. Put a little pressure on it. Ugh. And release. It does get better. You guys. I've been doing this and it actually becomes less nauseated. Yeah, some you might get a little nauseous with some of this. Uh, one of my clients is a acupuncturist and she told me that that point, the one between the big toe and the heels, his stomach point. So there's a possibility that you might feel a little nauseous from it.

Just don't do it so hard, but it does mean you need to do it. Okay, so one more time on the outer edge. So we just finished that corner. All right, now take the ball to the big toe ball. Okay. Put some weight onto the toe and roll it back along that tailbone to the heel. Now no pressure. Come back to the big toe. Don't put any pressure on it now pressure. Roll it along that edge.

No pressure. Bring it back. Put pressure on it. Roll it back towards the heel. You're right. And come back to the big toe. Now take pressure, roll the ball along that transverse arch to the little toe and come back pressure on the big toe. Roll it along to the little toe and come back. One more time. Pressure, roll it along and come back. All right. Little Toe side, little toe side, back towards the heel.

Just roll it along that bone. For some people that's more tender than the inner. And for some it's not. It's interesting. So pay attention that cause when we do the left foot, you might find that it's a different effect. One more time. We're rolling along that outer edge bone and release. Okay. Now just with the whole leg, can you shake and release your whole leg?

So it's almost like a shivering. Can you shipper with your leg shiver and get the ball kind of, you're just warming up, right? Friction. This is great for circulation in the foot. Okay. And release. Now feel your foot. Compare it to your left foot as you're standing. What can you have?

I feel like my whole right leg is longer, you know? So there's been that factual release, even through the hip. I feel it all the way up into here, that my whole right side feels like it's a lot longer than my left. Not Amazing. Okay. So we better do the other side. So start, uh, at that point of the heel backed by the hill. Hmm. All right. Now just put a little pressure on it and release.

Now is it better or worse? Is it more tender? Yeah. Or not. I mean, some people may not. It's just interesting to know the difference between your two feet. Okay. Just three times is enough. And release. Now we go to the big toe ball. Hmm. Okay. And put pressure on the big toe. Remember the cat nails, lengthening Lincoln, that big toe and release. Go to the second.

Lengthen and release. Third. Oh, thank them. And release fourth rest and release. Very nice. Fifth, remember the fifth one is a little bit lower pressure on it and release. Okay. The point between the big toe and the heel is kind of under the navicular bone.

You know where that is, but it's kind of at the end of the big toe and now put pressure on it. Again, it's that arch trying to provide, it's gonna help lift that arch up and push down. Good. [inaudible] maybe getting nauseous on this one. Yeah, stomach point. Okay. And release. And now go to the outer edge and it's back towards the heel. Kind of midway between the little toe ball and your heel and put your weight on it and release and put your weight on it and release one more time. Yes. Good. And release. Okay. We're going to roll the ball from the big toe.

Put pressure on it as you roll it back towards the heel. Woo doggy. And now release. Come back, put pressure on it and roll it back. Trying to do this with a smile and roll it back. Excellent. Ooh, okay. Little Toe side. Well actually, sorry, the second toe roll along the toe balls, right. So go to the big toe, big toe, roll it to the little toe you're making like an arch, you know with that following that arch is a transverse are to the foot. Very good. Now, Toe Ball, a little toe all the way back to the heel.

Put pressure on it and then come back. Make sure you're on that little toe side, not just in the middle. It's not in the middle. It's a long, the little toe bone that goes all the way back to the heel. One more time. Good. Okay. Random. Just shivers. Just kind of creating friction. See if you can get your hip to release your knees to release your knee. I mean your ankle. It's kind of like a shiver, so see if you can like really shake it out. Shake, shake, shake.

But put pressure, random, random, random. Should feel a lot of friction. Warmth in the bottom of your foot. Okay. And then release and bring your foot out. Oh, pelvis feels lighter, doesn't it? Yeah. Isn't that nice? That didn't take very long. So it's really good work for that. Okay, so for this next part you can either sit or stand. All right.

And we're to do some toe exercises. So I'm going to sit down. All right. Actually I can can't sit on the, well, sitting on the floor is not optimal. It'd be best if you could sit up on something, but try it on the floor. You guys are flexible, but it is best if you could sit in a chair or up on a ball. There's a ball right there. If you want, you could sit on the reformer, sit on a box. That's good. You can try it on the floor.

But for people at home, it's best if you don't sit on the floor. Okay. All right. So we've already established that tripod of the big toe ball, right? The little toe ball and that center of the heel. So what I want you to do is keep your toes relaxed and spread on the floor.

And what we're gonna do is like a, I always think of like a backpacking tent, you know where it has the three and it kind of puffs up, you know the whole tent goes like that. So imagine you have the Poles on these three points and what I want you to do is raise up your arch. So raise up. We try to minimize the toes grabbing. If you have to use your toes a little bit. It's okay. We need to try to raise up the arch between the big toe. Keep the big toe down, keep the little toe down, right. And then relax.

So you're just trying to create like a tent. Alright, so lift the arch again. This is called doming. So we want to try to do only arch lift. So I almost feel like the big toe ball and the little toe ball are moving towards the heel and the heel is moving towards those three points, right? Can you feel that and feel the work in the leg muscles and release one more time. Don't mean the feet. So these are called doming. So lift, it's a great things to do. Uh, if you're on an airplane, especially these little exercises. And I do travel with the ball cause it helps with swelling. It helps us, you know, get the venous return at of your legs so your feet don't swell from the airplane. Okay. And release.

Now we're going to do is take the dome and we're going to do a little inchworm forward. So creates the term. Now, what I want you to do is not move your toe balls here and here, but scoot your heels towards and then release. Now just keep trying. It takes a little practice. You want to spread the transverse arch. You want to create the dome a much better. Am I right for them, my left foot and then scoot the heel towards the toes. We want to minimize shortening the toes or gripping in the toes. Okay.

There's going to be pressure. I don't want the toes lifted. Okay. There's going to be a little pressure of your tips of your toes into the floor, but try not to retract them. Hmm. Really try to get the inchworm happening an inchworm and try to get him to move forward. And if it's too much to do on, um, if you feel that your right foot and your left foot a really different, you could do it on just one foot and then practice the other foot. Yeah. Okay. Now let's try to reverse it. So create the Dome and now leave your heels where they are.

Move the toe balls back to the heel and then move the heel back two inch warming back in, tournament back. Hmm. We tried to do it without shortening the toes. Really trying to work from the toe balls. Yeah. Okay. We do it one more time. Forward. Ready, dome and forward and two and three and four.

And let's go backward. Backward, backward, little harder. Huh? Backward, backward asked. Okay. All right. Now there's different muscles that attach to the big toe. Then the little toes. Okay, so let's push the big toe down into the floor. That's usually a very weak muscle and lift the other four toes. Can you do that? No. If you can't do that, reach down and hold your toe down and lift these up.

Okay. And Try to get that little toe to come up. Okay. The little toe has its own little abductor, so it tends to go out to the side and that's okay. But we want to try to lift that up. The little t, then the big toes down. Okay. Now try not to roll into the, don't be on the arch. Hmm. You just pushing the toe down and left. You should still have your dumb.

There you go. Okay, now put your toes down. Now can you do the opposite? Can you push the four toes down and lift the big toe? And if he can't bend down and go like this and push that down and lift it. Okay. Tastes like. You know what? This is like a brain. This is good for your brain.

You know people do math and all of that for their brain exercises. Actually working your toes is a great for your brain right now. Switch. Switch, switch, switch, switch. There you go. Switch. Switch, switch. Got It. Oh, rest your toes. Very nice. Okay. Right foot. Ready. Now this will mess with your brain. Push your right big toe down. Lift your right. Four toes out. Yeah.

Okay. Now do the opposite on the other foot. Lift the big toe. Push the other down. Okay. Don't think about it. Yeah, switch. Switch. Ah, see I can't do it on that switch. Switch. Huh? Left toe is retarded. Yeah. Switch. So that's, I haven't practiced this in awhile and it's amazing how, how much your brain, you know, shifts with that. So Lyft, the left, there we go, lift. There we go. Lift left, left. See my hands are helping left. That's that right brain, you know, connection.

It's really interesting to see how that works. Okay, so now we're going to do is um, we're going to sit down on the mat with the legs straight. Okay. You're going to have your band nearby. Okay. All right. So you could actually, you could be sitting up right if you'd like, but it's for some people it's hard to sit upright, so you can actually go ahead and slouch back if you want. And like I have the, this is actually even more comfortable. I do this in bed in the morning when I first wake up, stretch my legs out in bed, I sit up. Okay. So what I want you to do with the right foot is create that dome and pull your toes back like this and then through the arch that way.

So it's like a wave. You're going to curl the toes and then press through the ball of your foot and then curl your toes. Really get the tips of the toes down. Good and yeah, and curl. Good and rich. So this is good for your ankle to somebody clicking there and rich. Yes. Let's do the other foot. Pull it back and reach. Good. Pull back and rich. Good. Should feel good.

It's a nice stretch for the top of your foot. Reach and, but okay. The other foot started. Flex curl, arch curl. So you get a lead with the tops of your toes down. Up, down, up. Okay. Other foot. Start up. Toes down. Huh? Curl up. Tips of the toes down. Up, down, up.

Okay. Right foot, forward, left foot. Ah. [inaudible] like a cat needing. All right, good. So Annie, kind of playing with your feet. It's great. You could do the alphabet with your feet, you know, that's good for your ankle and your feet, but any kind of thing. But it's good to go both directions and doming curling this way and going this way. Okay. Alright. A little band. Okay.

So we're now going to add not only the, the showing the alignment of the leg, but this connection between the big toe. This is called abduction. When your toe goes this way, up, this inner line to the fastest media hours, which is this part of your quadricep here, all the way up into your pelvic floor, you're gonna activate that whole line. [inaudible] so we're gonna take this band and we're going to make it, and these are just little bands and gives you a grocery store that's wrapped around the Kale and Broccoli and you turn it so you make a little, uh, figure eight and put it on your toes. Here we go. It's a little cross, a little figure eight. Okay. So you can sit up, but we can actually be a little curled back so that we're kind of lifting through here. Hm. To be supported in your back. All right, so we're not slouching, you know, just right. So at first from here, feel your whole legs and press the band. Stretch the band. Can you feel the muscles out in the outer hip here? Right?

And then release and press the whole leg out. Isn't that amazing? A little broccoli band giving us great hip exercise. Feel that in here. Great. And release. One more time. Push out. Good and release. Now we want a little tension on the band. Not a lot, just enough to engage. So it's just a light engagement there. And what we're going to do is you're going to push through the big toe ball here this way, and you got to start to bend the knee.

The knee is going to go straight up to the ceiling. You're going to drag your heel back, you're dragging your heel should feel your hamstring. Drag your heel, push through. Stretch the band on the diagonal. Watch the knee. Okay, and now reach the heel away. Pull up that Patella. Here we go. You got to pull up that Patella. Keep the stretch on the band. Reached through the right heel. Drag the left heel. If you drag it, you should feel. Can you feel the back of your leg?

The hamstring pulling is pulling your heel. Yes. Now dig your heel down. Push away. Keep that tension on the band. Don't release the band ready and we're gonna do a little quicker now. Pull. So it's like a push, pull, feeling. Feel your hips and stretch and Spragg the heel and push through the other heel and drag the heel poor.

So it's like you're pedaling and keep the tension on the band and reach for the hips. Reach to the leg. Good. And reach breach. Breach. I haven't really pressed that tie down. Nice. One more time. And rest. Sweet Little Legwork, isn't it? Yeah. Okay. How do your feet feel with stand up? One more time. Yeah. Legs feel good? Yeah. Walk around. Feel the sway. Good work you guys. Thanks.

Okay. That's it. We're done. Thank you.