Build Strong Feet: Exercises To Strengthen Your Foot & Ankle

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A lot depends on the health of our feet, especially when it comes to their strength and stability. But they often get quite neglected, when it comes to maintenance. Here’s how to help your feet keep the rest of your body in good condition:

On a good footing

The foot-specific exercises recommended here include:

  1. Active toe flexion/extension: curl and extend your toes
  2. Active toe adduction/abduction: use a towel for feedback this time as you spread your toes
  3. “Short foot” exercise: create an arch by bringing the base of your big toe towards your heel
  4. Resisted big toe flexion: use resistance bands; flex your big toe while controlling the others.
  5. Standing big toe flexion (isometric): press your big toe against an inclined surface as forcefully as you can
  6. Foot bridge exercise: hold your position with the front part of your feet on an elevated surface, to strengthen the arch.
  7. Heel raises: which can be progressed from basic to more advanced variations, increasing difficulty
  8. Ankle movements: dorsiflexion, inversion, etc, to increase mobility

It’s important to also look after your general lower body strength and stability, including (for example) single-leg deadlifts, step-downs, and lunges

Balance and proprioceptive exercises are good too, such as a static or dynamic one-leg balances, progressing to doing them with your eyes closed and/or on unstable surfaces (be careful, of course, and progress to this only when confident).

For more on all of these, an explanation of the anatomy, some other exercises too, and visual demonstrations, enjoy:

Click Here If The Embedded Video Doesn’t Load Automatically!

Want to learn more?

You might also like to read:

Steps For Keeping Your Feet A Healthy Foundation

Take care!

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  • Treat Your Own Knee – by Robin McKenzie

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    First, a note about the author: he’s a physiotherapist and not a doctor, but with 40 years of practice to his name and 33 letters after his name (CNZM OBE FCSP (Hon) FNZSP (Hon) Dip MDT Dip MT), he seems to know his stuff.

    The book covers recognizing the difference between arthritis, degeneration, or normal wear and tear, before narrowing down what your actual problem is and what can be done about it.

    While there are many possible causes of knee pain (and by causes, we mean the first-level cause, such as “bad posture” or “old sports injury” or “inflammatory diet” or “repetitive strain” etc, not second-level causes that are also symptoms, like inflammation), McKenzie’s approach involves customizing his system to your body’s specific problems and needs. That’s what most of the book is about.

    The style is direct and to-the-point; there’s no sensationalization here nor a feel of being sold anything. There’s lots of science scattered throughout, but all with the intent of enabling the reader to understand what’s going on with the problems, processes, and solutions, and why/how the things that work, work. Where there are exercises offered they are clearly-described and well-illustrated.

    Bottom line: this is not a fancy book but it is an effective one. If you have knee pain, this is a very worthwhile one to read.

    Click here to check out Treat Your Own Knee, and treat your own knee!

    PS: if you have musculoskeletal problems elsewhere in your body, you might want to check out the rest of his body parts series (back, hip, neck, wrist, ankle, etc) for the one that’s tailored to your specific problem.

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  • Building & Maintaining Mobility

    10almonds is reader-supported. We may, at no cost to you, receive a portion of sales if you purchase a product through a link in this article.

    Building & Maintaining Mobility!

    This is Juliet Starrett. She’s a CrossFit co-founder, and two-time white-water rafting world champion. Oh, and she won those after battling thyroid cancer. She’s now 50 years old, and still going strong, having put aside her career as a lawyer to focus on fitness. Specifically, mobility training.

    The Ready State

    Together with her husband Kelly, Starrett co-founded The Ready State, of which she’s CEO.

    It used to be called “Mobility WOD” (the “WOD” stands for “workout of the day”) but they changed their name as other companies took up the use of the word “mobility”, something the fitness world hadn’t previously focussed on much, and “WOD”, which was also hardly copyrightable.

    True to its origins, The Ready State continues to offer many resources for building and maintaining mobility.

    Why the focus on mobility?

    When was the last time you had to bench-press anything larger than a small child? Or squat more than your partner’s bodyweight? Or do a “farmer’s walk” with anything heavier than your groceries?

    For most of us, unless our lifestyles are quite extreme, we don’t need ridiculous strength (fun as that may be).

    You know what makes a huge difference to our quality of life though? Mobility.

    Have you ever felt that moment of panic when you reach for something on a high shelf and your shoulder or back twinges (been there!)? Or worse, you actually hurt yourself and the next thing you know, you need help putting your socks on (been there, too!)?

    And we say to ourselves “I’m not going to let that happen to me again”

    But how? How do we keep our mobility strong?

    First, know your weaknesses

    Starrett is a big fan of mobility tests to pinpoint areas that need more work.

    Most of her resources for this aren’t free, and we’re drawing heavily from her book here, so for your convenience, we’ll link to some third party sources for this:

    Next, eliminate those weaknesses

    Do mobility exercises in any weak areas, until they’re not weak:

    Want to train the full body in one session?

    Try out The Ready State’s 10-Minute Morning Mobility Routine

    Want to learn more?

    You might enjoy her book that we reviewed previously:

    Built to Move: The Ten Essential Habits to Help You Move Freely and Live Fully

    You might also enjoy The Ready State App, available for iOS and for Android:

    The Ready State Virtual Mobility Coach

    Enjoy!

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  • Swordfish vs Tuna – Which is Healthier?

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    Our Verdict

    When comparing swordfish to tuna, we picked the tuna.

    Why?

    Today in “that which is more expensive is not necessarily the healthier”…

    Considering the macros first, swordfish has more than 8x more total fat, about 9x more saturated fat, and yes, more cholesterol. On the other hand, tuna has more protein. An easy win for tuna.

    In terms of vitamins, swordfish has more of vitamins A, B5, D, and E, while tuna has more of vitamins B1, B2, B3, B6, and B12. A marginal win for tuna, unless you want to weight the other vitamins more heavily, in which case, more likely a tie, or maybe even an argument for swordfish if you have a particular vitamin deficiency on that side.

    When it comes to minerals, swordfish has more calcium and zinc, while tuna has more iron, magnesium, manganese, phosphorus, potassium, and selenium. A clear win for tuna.

    One other thing: they’re both very rich in mercury, and while tuna is bad for that, swordfish has nearly 3x as much.

    In short, both have a good spread of vitamins and minerals, and both are quite tainted with mercury, but in relative terms, there’s a clear winner even before considering the very different macros, and the winner is tuna.

    Want to learn more?

    You might like to read:

    Farmed Fish vs Wild Caught: Important Differences

    Take care!

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  • Ridged Nails: What Are They Telling You?
  • Clean – by Dr. James Hamblin

    10almonds is reader-supported. We may, at no cost to you, receive a portion of sales if you purchase a product through a link in this article.

    Our skin is our largest organ, and it’s easy to forget that, and how much it does for us. All things considered, it’s good to take good care of it! But what if we sometimes take too much “care” of it?

    Dr. James Hamblin, a medical doctor-turned-writer, has explored this a lot both personally and in research. Through such, he has come to the conclusion there’s definitely a “sweet spot” of personal hygiene:

    • Too little, and the Bubonic plague sweeps through Europe, or other plagues sweep through other places when European invaders came.
    • Too much, and we strip our skin of one of its greatest qualities: the ability to protect us.

    Dr. Hamblin asks (and answers) such questions as:

    • What is good hygiene, and what is neurotically doing ourselves multiple levels of harm because advertising companies shamed us into doing so?
    • Is it good or bad to use a series of products, each to undo the problem caused by the previous?
    • What the difference between a 5-step skincare routine, and a series of gratuitous iatrogenic damage?
    • Which products clean us most helpfully, and which clean us most harmfully?
    • How often should we bathe/shower, really?

    If the book has a weak point, it’s that it’s written mostly with his body in mind. That makes a difference when it comes to hairwashing, for example. He’s a white guy with short hair. If you’re black and/or have long hair, for example, your haircare needs will be quite different. Similarly, many women engage in shaving/depilation in places that most men don’t, and the consequences of that choice (and implications for any extra washing needs/harms) aren’t covered.

    Bottom line: notwithstanding the aforementioned blind-spots, this book will help readers reduce the amount of harm we are doing to our bodies with our washing routines, without sacrificing actual hygiene.

    Click here to check out Clean and help your skin to help you!

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  • ‘Emergency’ or Not, Covid Is Still Killing People. Here’s What Doctors Advise to Stay Safe.

    10almonds is reader-supported. We may, at no cost to you, receive a portion of sales if you purchase a product through a link in this article.

    With around 20,000 people dying of covid in the United States since the start of October, and tens of thousands more abroad, the covid pandemic clearly isn’t over. However, the crisis response is, since the World Health Organization and the Biden administration ended their declared health emergencies last year.

    Let’s not confuse the terms “pandemic” and “emergency.” As Abraar Karan, an infectious disease physician and researcher at Stanford University, said, “The pandemic is over until you are scrunched in bed, feeling terrible.”

    Pandemics are defined by neither time nor severity, but rather by large numbers of ongoing infections worldwide. Emergencies are acute and declared to trigger an urgent response. Ending the official emergency shifted the responsibility for curbing covid from leaders to the public. In the United States, it meant, for example, that the government largely stopped covering the cost of covid tests and vaccines.

    But the virus is still infecting people; indeed, it is surging right now.

    With changes in the nature of the pandemic and the response, KFF Health News spoke with doctors and researchers about how to best handle covid, influenza, and other respiratory ailments spreading this season.

    A holiday wave of sickness has ensued as expected. Covid infections have escalated nationwide in the past few weeks, with analyses of virus traces in wastewater suggesting infection rates as high as last year’s. More than 73,000 people died of covid in the U.S. in 2023, meaning the virus remains deadlier than car accidents and influenza. Still, compared with last year’s seasonal surge, this winter’s wave of covid hospitalizations has been lower and death rates less than half.

    “We’re seeing outbreaks in homeless shelters and in nursing homes, but hospitals aren’t overwhelmed like they have been in the past,” said Salvador Sandoval, a doctor and health officer at the Merced County public health department in California. He attributes that welcome fact to vaccination, covid treatments like Paxlovid, and a degree of immunity from prior infections.

    While a new coronavirus variant, JN.1, has spread around the world, the current vaccines and covid tests remain effective.

    Other seasonal illnesses are surging, too, but rates are consistent with those of previous years. Between 9,400 and 28,000 people died from influenza from Oct. 1 to Jan. 6, estimates the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and millions felt so ill from the flu that they sought medical care. Cases of pneumonia — a serious condition marked by inflamed lungs that can be triggered by the flu, covid, or other infections — also predictably rose as winter set in. Researchers are now less concerned about flare-ups of pneumonia in China, Denmark, and France in November and December, because they fit cyclical patterns of the pneumonia-causing bacteria Mycoplasma pneumoniae rather than outbreaks of a dangerous new bug.

    Public health researchers recommend following the CDC guidance on getting the latest covid and influenza vaccines to ward off hospitalization and death from the diseases and reduce chances of getting sick. A recent review of studies that included 614,000 people found that those who received two covid vaccines were also less likely to develop long covid; often involving fatigue, cognitive dysfunction, and joint pain, the condition is marked by the development or continuation of symptoms a few months after an infection and has been debilitating for millions of people. Another analysis found that people who had three doses of covid vaccines were much less likely to have long covid than those who were unvaccinated. (A caveat, however, is that those with three doses might have taken additional measures to avoid infections than those who chose to go without.)

    It’s not too late for an influenza vaccine, either, said Helen Chu, a doctor and epidemiologist at the University of Washington in Seattle. Influenza continues to rise into the new year, especially in Southern states and California. Last season’s shot appeared to reduce adults’ risk of visits to the emergency room and urgent care by almost half and hospitalization by more than a third. Meanwhile, another seasonal illness with a fresh set of vaccines released last year, respiratory syncytial virus, appears to be waning this month.

    Another powerful way to prevent covid, influenza, common colds, and other airborne infections is by wearing an N95 mask. Many researchers say they’ve returned to socializing without one but opt for the masks in crowded, indoor places when wearing one would not be particularly burdensome. Karan, for example, wears his favorite N95 masks on airplanes. And don’t forget good, old-fashioned hand-washing, which helps prevent infections as well.

    If you do all that and still feel sick? Researchers say they reach for rapid covid tests. While they’ve never been perfect, they’re often quite helpful in guiding a person’s next steps.

    When President Joe Biden declared the end of the public health emergency last year, many federally funded testing sites that sent samples to laboratories shut their doors. As a result, people now mainly turn to home covid tests that signal an infection within 15 minutes and cost around $6 to $8 each at many pharmacies. The trick is to use these tests correctly by taking more than one when there’s reason for concern. They miss early infections more often than tests processed in a lab, because higher levels of the coronavirus are required for detection — and the virus takes time to multiply in the body. For this reason, Karan considers other information. “If I ran into someone who turned out to be sick, and then I get symptoms a few days later,” he said, “the chance is high that I have whatever they had, even if a test is negative.”

    A negative result with a rapid test might mean simply that an infection hasn’t progressed enough to be detected, that the test had expired, or that it was conducted wrong. To be sure the culprit behind symptoms like a sore throat isn’t covid, researchers suggest testing again in a day or two. It often takes about three days after symptoms start for a test to register as positive, said Karan, adding that such time estimates are based on averages and that individuals may deviate from the norm.

    If a person feels healthy and wants to know their status because they were around someone with covid, Karan recommends testing two to four days after the exposure. To protect others during those uncertain days, the person can wear an N95 mask that blocks the spread of the virus. If tests remain negative five days after an exposure and the person still feels fine, Chu said, they’re unlikely to be infected — and, if they are, viral levels would be so low that they would be unlikely to pass the disease to others.

    Positive tests, on the other hand, reliably flag an infection. In this case, people can ask a doctor whether they qualify for the antiviral drug Paxlovid. The pills work best when taken immediately after symptoms begin so that they slash levels of the virus before it damages the body. Some studies suggest the medicine reduces a person’s risk of long covid, too, but the evidence is mixed. Another note on tests: Don’t worry if they continue to turn out positive for longer than symptoms last; the virus may linger even if it’s no longer replicating. After roughly a week since a positive test or symptoms, studies suggest, a person is unlikely to pass the virus to others.

    If covid is ruled out, Karan recommends tests for influenza because they can guide doctors on whether to prescribe an antiviral to fight it — or if instead it’s a bacterial infection, in which case antibiotics may be in order. (One new home test diagnoses covid and influenza at the same time.) Whereas antivirals and antibiotics target the source of the ailment, over-the-counter medications may soothe congestion, coughs, fevers, and other symptoms. That said, the FDA recently determined that a main ingredient in versions of Sudafed, NyQuil, and other decongestants, called phenylephrine, is ineffective.

    Jobs complicate a personal approach to staying healthy. Emergency-era business closures have ended, and mandates on vaccination and wearing masks have receded across the country. Some managers take precautions to protect their staff. Chu, for example, keeps air-purifying devices around her lab, and she asks researchers to stay home when they feel sick and to test themselves for covid before returning to work after a trip.

    However, occupational safety experts note that many employees face risks they cannot control because decisions on if and how to protect against outbreaks, such as through ventilation, testing, and masking, are left to employers. Notably, people with low-wage and part-time jobs — occupations disproportionately held by people of color — are often least able to control their workplace environments.

    Jessica Martinez, co-executive director of the National Council for Occupational Safety and Health, said the lack of national occupational standards around airborne disease protection represents a fatal flaw in the Biden administration’s decision to relinquish its control of the pandemic.

    “Every workplace needs to have a plan for reducing the threat of infectious disease,” she said. “If you only focus on the individual, you fail workers.”

    KFF Health News is a national newsroom that produces in-depth journalism about health issues and is one of the core operating programs at KFF—an independent source of health policy research, polling, and journalism. Learn more about KFF.

    Subscribe to KFF Health News’ free Morning Briefing.

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  • The Best Mobility Exercises For Each Joint

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    Stiff joints and tight muscles limit movement, performance, and daily activities. They also increase the risk of injury, and increase recovery time if the injury happens. So, it’s pretty important to take care of that!

    Here’s how

    Key to joint health involves understanding mobility, flexibility, and stability:

    • Mobility: active joint movement through a range of motion.
    • Flexibility: muscle lengthening passively through a range of motion.
    • Stability: body’s ability to return to position after disturbance.

    Different body parts have different needs when it comes to prioritizing mobility, flexibility, and stability exercises. So, with that in mind, here’s what to do for your…

    • Wrists: flexibility and stability (e.g., wrist circles, loaded flexions/extensions).
    • Elbows: Stability is key; exercises like wrist and shoulder movements benefit elbows indirectly.
    • Shoulders: mobility and stability; exercises include prone arm circles, passive hangs, active prone raises, easy bridges, and stick-supported movements.
    • Spine: mobility and stability; recommended exercises include cat-cow and quadruped reach.
    • Hips: mobility and flexibility through deep squat hip rotations; beginners can use hands for support.
    • Knees: stability; exercises include elevated pistols, Bulgarian split squats, lunges, and single-leg balancing.
    • Ankles: flexibility and stability; exercises include lunges, prying goblet squats, and deep squats with support if necessary.

    For more on all of these, plus visual demonstrations, enjoy:

    Click Here If The Embedded Video Doesn’t Load Automatically!

    Want to learn more?

    You might also like to read:

    Building & Maintaining Mobility

    Take care!

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