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I love feet! Not in some weird way. Feet are often an ignored part of our self care. We run, workout, do pilates or play tennis. Keeping our body fit and our heart in tip top shape, but we often don’t think about our feet. Our feet have 26 bones, 33 joints and 29 muscles in the foot (well, some start outside the foot and finish in the foot). They need working and moving like the rest of our body. So how much do you move your feet joints and muscles?

If you are wearing stiff or firm soled shoes then the joints in the foot aren’t doing a great deal and therefore the muscles aren’t being used optimally. Do you ever walk around your home bare foot?

All the little muscles and joints need to move!

Often, pain in the foot can be from lack of movement through these muscles and joints over months or years, through foot wear or training changes or activity changes. Things like plantar fasciitis develop due to lack of flexibility through the foot and it’s arches. Tight calf muscles can be a part of it, as this can restrict the flexibility of the foot. This is a very common condition which can cause an awful lot of discomfort and affect normal daily activities or exercise.

Ideally, you should be able to walk around your home bare foot, without pain (if you get pain it may be you need to get an assessment and rehab advice). Also, have a go at moving each toe individually, can you spread your toes to create space between them?

Can you raise all your toes and lower each one individually to the floor?

Can you bend and create movement through your foot?

These are all signs of good and strong foot health. You can work on these and make your feet stronger. You can start with these things:

Scrunching your toes against the floor.

‘piano’ playing with your toes.

Moving your big toe away from the second toe.

Heel raises- both feet and single foot

Use your hand to wiggle your foot in different directions.

We are right at the end of the month and January is the time of reflection and resolutions and goal setting. Have you planned a new start or resolution what sort of thing have you gone for?

Have you chosen a new life choice, a job, place to live or hobby?

Have you gone for a physical goal?

Using the new year can be useful because if you make notes or journal entries in this month and plan to look back and evaluate how you did, a year is a good amount of time to get stuff done in. There’s a famous saying about over estimating what you can achieve in 6 months and underestimating what you can do in 10 years. I think a year is nice juncture to review changes you may have implemented throughout that time at all these new begin again points, such as a new day, a new week or a new month.

Using a goal can be a great way to gauge how you have got on. There’s lots of tidy little acronyms for goal setting like SMART, OKR, BHAG and my particular favourite WOOP. Goals are useful and help us have a direction to go in. I also think the process is pretty damn important too! It is, as they say, the journey.

For example, I am intending to do an ultra marathon in October 2024 (yes, this year). The idea of ‘running’ ( I say running a bit tongue in cheek because it will be a mix of running, jogging, walking and crawling) but the time between now and October will be filled with training runs, resistance training, eating well (I hope) and reading and resting and family time. All these things will involve a mix of people, some encouraging and some probably somewhat dispiriting. The point, for me, having this as a goal is I want some of the changes I will need to make to become habitual and stick.

For me this is the important bit of a goal. As I will need to develop a standard for this process and to be successful I will need to keep to this standard. My standard will be things I need to do every day for a step by step change to be ready for October. I have a running plan worked out, including time to do resistance training and Yoga. I have roped in some accountability buddies and exercise pals to keep me going. Some of these are in person and some is just a check in to say I am doing the workout. Each week I will set a meal plan for the week. I am sure I will have little hiccups along the way but the main thing I will be trying to do is avoid injury. If I prepare, train, sleep and eat adequately I will have done what I can to keep myself in good working order and to thrive on the event itself.

Now this is where the improvement is happening!

Tag: running

Feet

Goals!