Your feet can get often overlooked when we have an injury or feel something coming on that causes us pain or discomfort. Proper foot care should be focused on to reduce the lower back, hip and/or knee pain. After all, the feet are the foundations that your entire body relies on to keep you moving and standing.
Our feet are designed to enable us to move with flexibility, absorb shock, distribute the weight of the body, and to adapt to our environment when walking, running, climbing etc. They allow us to move where we want to go, constantly working to help us balance - but, we neglect the proper foot care we should (or shouldn't have to) be doing!
Most of us wear shoes that are poorly fitted, old worn out shoes, and do jobs that require more time sitting in front of a desk than standing and moving. As a result, this could be one of the main factors to what caused hip problems, lower back pain and knee pain.
Our feet need training too, especially if your not barefoot or regularly taking care of the feet and have any of the previous problems mentioned.
Strong foot muscles, along with the connective tissues, keep the bones of the feet and ankles in alignment and assist in maintaining our arches. if the soft tissues aren't working properly to keep this alignment, there's a greater chance that the joints above aren't stacked and aligned correctly either.
There are many exercises you can do each day to get your feet healthy and working for you. To help and support imbalances and postural issues and to start decreasing that pain and discomfort. Here's a few that may help.
1. Start going barefoot around the house as much as possible. But make sure your walking around to get the feet working.
You could even walk around the garden, especially as summers coming up, to feel the different surfaces and sensations that they give you.
2. Try picking up a towel from the floor. Just place a towel on the floor and use your foot to pick it up. Do sets and reps or go for time. You can also do this with other items such as marbles, socks, clothes etc.
3. Train them specifically. Train barefoot. Do squats and lunges or play a sport on the beach, on the mats, in the sea etc. You've always had the tools that require the feet to work and become the support you've needed.
A lot of the shoes and trainers we wear at the moment are designed for comfort and try to create a safe and cushioned environment for your feet when they're being used all the time. They save us from pain and discomfort but then that pain goes somewhere else such as the ankles, knees or hips because our foundations are not doing what they should be. We are forgetting that our feet are designed to be strong and functional for walking, running, throwing and playing etc.
Why invest in new, loaded up with orthotics, trainers (unless you desperately need them), when you can spend a few minutes a day in training them as you already have all you need.
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