Building long-term strength means training all parts of your body: legs, arms, and core. But what about your feet?
Your feet are responsible for mobility and balance. Strong feet with nimble toes are important for both health and fitness, said Courtney Conley, the founder of Gait Happens, a Colorado-based online educational resource focused on foot health.
But most people first learn about the concept of leg strengthening after an injury, she said. Incorporating foot and toe exercises into your routine long before you develop shin splints or plantar fasciitis can help prevent these injuries and improve the way you walk, especially as you age.
“Toe weakness is the biggest predictor of falls as we age,” Dr. Conley said.
Why leg strength is important
In some ways, simply moving your feet through life gives them a workout, said Martin Elman, MD, an orthopedist at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota. You engage the core of the foot—a network of small muscles in your feet that create balance and provide stability—every time you stand or walk.
The leg should act as a tripod, Dr. Conley said. When standing, your weight should be distributed between the heel and the base of the big and small toes (the meaty parts), with the toes spread apart to create a solid base.
However, poor shoes often pinch the toes and stiffen the midfoot, said Jim Dunner, a physical therapist at Foot Collective, a Brisbane, Australia-based foot care company.
“The effect is almost like a cast,” he said. “Joints can’t go through their full range of motion and stiffen and weaken over time.”
If the muscles in the foot or lower leg become weak and out of balance, it can create a chain reaction of problems in the feet, ankles, knees, hips and lower back, he said. Deformities, such as bunions, can also be signs that your leg muscles need attention, Dr. Elman said.
When the toes are not straight and flat to the ground, the natural gait cycle is affected. Proper alignment is especially important for the big toe, which initiates propulsion when we walk.
And flip-flops without a back strap don’t help, Dr. Conley said. Constantly squeezing the toes to keep the sandal in place can lead to pain and deformities that bend the joints of the toes, such as hammertoes or hammertoes.
How to test the health of your feet
There are a few simple ways to assess the flexibility and strength of your toes and to gauge how evenly you are distributing the pressure on your foot.
Toe dexterity
An easy way to measure your toe dexterity: Try to lift your big toe while keeping your other toes flat on the ground and vice versa. Being able to move your toes on your own, even if they lift a little, is a sign of healthy feet, Mr. Dunner said. If you’re trained, your toes can be mobile enough to play the piano, he said.
Toe strength
In general, adults should be able to produce about 10 percent of their body weight in force with their big toes and 7 percent under their little toes, Dr. Conley said.
Toe strength is most accurately measured with a dynamometer in a doctor’s office. But at home you can use a credit card, she said. Sit in a chair and place the card under your big toe. Keep the ankle directly below the knee.
Have someone try to pull the card while you press your toe to resist. You should feel tension under the big toe, arch and bottom of the foot. A good hold is between three and five seconds, Dr. Conley said.
Repeat, but place the card under your four little fingers. This time you should feel tension in the arch of your foot. If you feel any tightness in your quads or hamstrings, it’s a sign that you’re not engaging your foot muscles.
You should be able to hold the card in place during both tests without lifting your heel or curling your toes.
Weight distribution
Your footprint is a good indication of how evenly you distribute your weight over the ‘tripod’ of your foot. Dr. Conley has his clients walk across a rubber mat that makes an impression on a piece of paper underneath. The next time you’re at the beach or pool, examine your footprint after you get out of the water, she said.
When the midfoot doesn’t leave an impression, it could be a sign that the foot is stiff and not rolling inward or pronating to absorb impact, Dr. Conley said.
Improving the health of your feet doesn’t have to take long, but it’s important for their long-term shape, especially as you age. If you spend a lot of time on your feet or like to walk and run, leg strengthening exercises are especially helpful.
Jen Murphy is a freelance writer based in Boulder, Colorado.
