Tag Archives: foot strength

Day 4: Top 5 Gifts for Endurance Athletes

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Ouch!

your foot hurts.

Too much. Too much to exercise. Too  much to stand on it even. A lot of us let our plantar fascia and metatarsal (foot bones) pain get really bad before we actually listen to our body and seek help. Its so bad that you really can’t do any of the standing functional exercises your body so desperately needs. Research shows that one of the best ways to train balance is to do “functional” exercises. You see, foot and ankle balance is about building coordination. Essentially its a feedback loop between what you feel with your foot on the ground, and control you are able to execute.

But when you stand, you put pressure on those painful areas and your arch collapses. This puts strain on your plantar fascia, pressure on your metatarsals, and can even compromise that unstable swollen ankle that isn’t healed yet. If you can’t yet do standing exercise yet, what do you do? rest? I’d like to think that you’ve read Anatomy for Runners – and learned that rest doesn’t help any tissue improve its resiliency. In fact, rest makes things weaker. So what do you do?

Enter the AFX: Ankle Foot maXimizer

AFX foot

note: this pic is a registered TM of AFX. 

The AFX is a one stop shop to get those foot muscles firing again. It comes with different level resistance for beginners, and more advanced athletes. It comes with a DVD full of instructional exercises, and even offers a 1-on-1 consult to help ensure that you are doing the exercise correctly (try getting that from another company trying to sell you an exercise device!)

If you read the Day 3 post, you know that all running athletes should have a rocker board as an integral part of their home gym. But like we said above, when you aren’t ready for standing exercises yet,  you need to get a leg up and get moving.  And the AFX is a great tool to have for you, or your runner struggling with foot and lower leg injuries.

Remember: your body can, and will, improve!

 

Day 3: Top 5 gifts for Endurance Athletes

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OK gang – let’s say that you are an athlete who has to stand on one leg at some point in your sport. This could be running straight ahead, cutting laterally on the soccer field, jumping up for a rebound during a game of pick up – literally any weight bearing sport! You need to learn how to properly USE your foot. So many running athletes don’t have proper coordination of muscles inside their foot. If you can’t move your foot, your foot position will fall apart when running, jumping, cutting, and anything else you do.

What’s the secret?

#1 – understand your foot. Years ago, I made this video for Running Times. The focus was on how to prepare your foot for minimal running shoes (because that was the trendy thing to talk about at the time) but let’s be 100% honest here – the criteria I point out are valid and critical for ANY running athlete. So take a look at it, and make sure you can separate out the “right way” to use your foot muscles. Yes, its hard for most of you, and yes it gets better really, really quickly if you invest a few minutes a day. If you want more, check out my interview with Ryan at MOVEMENT FIX where we talk in depth about how feet work, and how to make your work better!

#2 – buy a MOBO Board

This is a 2021 update. In the past I recommend a rocker board…..but those still let you cheat the way your foot works. I saw a problem in need of a fix, and developed, patented, and launched MOBO. Yes, I made the thing your body needs, yet you didn’t know exists. Want to become durable? Want to become BETTER? Want to improve your performance? Check out moboboard.com and see what you can do to improve your connection point to the ground – your feet!!!

Note – the rocking motion in MOBO is quite different than a “wobble” board. A rocker board pivots around 1 single axis and is great to “train” proper foot stability.  A wobble board is essentially a ball on the bottom of the board and is completely unstable in all directions. Sure, a wobble board is more unstable, but its one situation where more instability isn’t better. And the cur out for your toes take the experience to another level entirely, and doesn’t allow you to “cheat” with the muscles in your calf and cues you to use the muscles IN your feet! Get a MOBO board, and have fun improving your balance!