Training The Feet/Ankles for Health, Speed, and Creating Maximum Power (Part 1)
HIGHLY undertrained but critical element for athletics - How to make the feet stronger and more durable for all athletic pursuits
Contents:
Importance of the Feet + Market gimmicks
Benefits of Training the Feet
Fascia and its newfound complexity
The Foot Ankle Complex
Foot “Posture” and “grounding the feet”
Basic Strength Exercises to Incorporate Into ANY Routine
Strengthening the arch
Strengthening the ankle
Training the Soleus and tibialis
Progressing and developing elasticity in the Achilles tendon
Passive foot/ankle training & other considerations
Common solutions or gimmicks that DO NOT work
Closing Thoughts
Importance of Training the Feet in Athleticism
The feet are your contact points with the ground and without them your source of force production (the “unmovable” earth) is crippled. It seems obvious yet is it every person’s least trained body part (at least *intentionally* trained). When you produce force & movement in any direction you generate and transfer force because your feet drive into the ground first and thus the body moves and directs power upward or away from the earth. Despite having strong joints in the knee and hips or upper body, and strong/explosive musculature, a contact point with the ground that cannot support the force the body is driving into it with maximum “stiffness” will sap the power you are attempting to generate.
A Ferrari driving on flat tires isn’t going to drive with great power regardless of the rest of the capacity of the rest of the vehicle.
Just like how a powerlifter will train every body part and joint that contributes to the big three lifts (bench, squat, deadlift) so they don’t have any weak links you need to do the same thing for your own physical goals depending on what type of custom athlete you’re training to become. In the case of virtually all dynamic athletic tasks, the feet are always heavily involved and play a crucial role in the success of your dynamic actions. Thus you do not want to allow them to be a weak link as they will cripple the ability and gains you have made elsewhere in the body if they are lacking in strength, elasticity, or coordination.
However there is one thing I particularly want to note:
“foot training” like many other things has some merit but also falls into a niche topic that many market as a gimmick to make it into more than what it is. Not all “foot training” is useful or effective - not all concepts that appear unique or “sound good” are actually at all going to improve your health or performance. (In fact MOST studies on different foot training methods to improve performance have turned out to be ineffective) Unfortunately like many things I talk about, things that carry *some* value will be turned into marketing gimmicks by guru charlatans that are more focused on getting your money than getting actual results.
In this series of posts I will be covering most of my current practical knowledge that I think is worth sharing with you on the topic - and help you benefit from that which I have found to bring actual results forth thus far in my training & coaching career.
I say this because I think it behooves all of you to be aware of how much info out there is a guru gimmick with little substance and to know how to take away that which is useful and not get carried away.
I try my hardest to not let any of that take root here.
Benefits of Training the Feet
The foot is the only thing keeping your body moving and creating the outputs you want to as an athlete and thus making sure it isn’t a weak point is crucial. A strong foot will both produce force better, keep you balanced and coordinated, and prevent injuries to more than just the ankle (which will keep you out of training/improving) because every joint is essentially stacked on top of the feet relative to gravity.
More specifically, the foot being slightly “off” angle when it applies force running or jumping because it is lacking strength will also throw off the angle of coordination and force in the rest of the body. This means collapsed feet or lacking strength in the ankles/toes in a certain angle will also result in poorer movement quality, compensations, and thus loss of strength/power production or transfer.
I want to specify that “poor posture” doesn’t necessarily mean injury and pain. I am emphasizing that weak feet and compensating postures will *reduce your quality of movement to produce powerful outputs* - not that it will necessarily always lead to pain and injury. Performance is my main emphasis here.
However, it is in some cases possible that posture beginning in the feet can affect upward movement and thus creating a strong base at the foot is a no-brainer for general health and certainly for optimal physical ability in any sport/activity that requires standing. (i.e. all of them)
Another element related to the foot is that while being a “small” body part physically, it is GIGANTIC relative to the nervous system. MANY more nerves and CNS tissue/activity runs through both the feet and hands than the rest of the body. This is why your sense of touch and feeling + sensitivity to pain is greater in the foot than in your calf or knee. For this reason, it is speculated that a stronger foot can be a more activated foot (like we train the central nervous system (CNS) for the rest of the body - do the same here) and thus produce higher impulses from the brain to produce high output forces. High nervous system impulse = more power and strength.
Fascia (a Short Rundown)
Further - there is a “fascial web” that lines all of our muscles and ties them together. Fascia is a “web” of collagen that surrounds and encases every tissue in the body. It is more specifically made of 3 types. Superficial fascia connects our skin to muscle. “Deep Fascia” connects our bones, nerves, arteries etc in and out of our musculature. And visceral fascia wraps our organs. Fascia gives our tissue its shape and encases it so it doesn’t fall apart as a blob of organic tissue. It essentially provides a very important operation in giving our body and its pieces shape or “form”.
As “form follows function”, this fascia is actually currently being discovered to serve far more in terms of function to our movement and musculature than previously realized. Deep Fascia in particular is what we have found to be useful in terms of physical performance. While research is still ongoing there are several trainers that have experimented with trying to elevate the quality of our fascia to improve athlete’s capacity - myself included. It is experimental at the moment, but I am convinced there are layers of efficacy. I also believe it is hard to measure fascial developments as parts of it may actually simply be improvements from other qualities like the CNS & tendon elasticity. However - improvement is improvement and therefore perform the exercises we recommended trying in this post and see where they take you. Fascia in detail will be covered more in the future along with more posts on the ankles and feet for reasons you will see when the posts are delivered.
For now - understand that training the foot to operate and be strong in relation to the ankle + leg will help develop a tighter connection in the fascia of the whole body and improve your ability to coordinate strong movements together.
Foot Ankle Complex
The foot itself is best trained in tandem with the ankle joint. What this means is that the foot operates in most functions by pairing with the calf and tibialis muscles. This means that while there are exercises that we will suggest that specifically target the toes, arch of the foot, and many of the small but crucial muscles around your metatarsals – many of our foot exercises will also cooperate with lower leg training of the calf and tibialis as well.
I prefer not to give deep anatomy lessons in these posts as most people are bored by them but the areas/qualities we specifically want to strengthen are the muscles in the arch of the foot, the strength and the coordination of the toes, your active and resting posture of the foot and ankle, the strength of the various Calf (calf is more than one muscle that get trained/used differently) and Tibialis muscles as well as the tendons strength and elasticity in them, and then finally we will talk about tapping into the deep fascia of the lower body.
Because these are small areas of the body, they adapt in smaller absolute levels than larger body parts do (10% increase on back squat can equal 20 to 50 pounds - but a 10% increase in the strength of the foot is a much smaller total increase in force) and therefore to extract full benefit to make this worthwhile it is important that we use multiple exercises to train the entire foot–ankle complex and not only invest in a single movement despite it being beneficial.
By strengthening the foot ankle complex holistically we will leave no stone unturned and no weak points so that you can extract maximum benefit from investing in training your body’s “true base”.
Note: Substack only allows me to make posts a certain length in emails - So these pieces will be addressed in multiple part posts. This post will focus on foot muscle strengthening, basic foot posture, and developing elastic capacity of the Achilles tendon.
“Grounding the Feet” / Foot posture
This video will cover “grounding the feet”. This is about being able to place the foot in its strongest base relative to the ground and allowing your skeleton to “stack” on top of that base in its most secure position possible. By having a well rooted base on the ground the foot can stack and maximally transfer force to every joint above it without leaking power or compromising the integrity of your joints (especially the knee). This isn’t to say your feet must be in this position at all times - but it is important that you can “ground” your foot like that in terms of coordination.
Try to learn and feel this position and get conscious of your feet and their “posture” - you can quickly discover a lot about yourself and perhaps some postural/movement issues once you try to ground your feet properly and perhaps realize you cannot.
The foundation of our body’s locomotive movement is our ability to apply force off the ground through our big toe & “outside corner” of the foot. This is how you establish that basic relationship with the ground.
Note: This section is not meant to actually say that a “flat foot” or anything outside of this position is going to lead to harm or is a problem (will elaborate more in next few posts) but it is to try to develop your ability to *control* and coordinate your foot. You do not need to constantly flex and stay in the position below - but simply BE ABLE to stack your feet like that - many will lack the coordination & connection to the feet to do so. Being ABLE to ground your foot like that is the key more so than expecting your foot to constantly sit in that position.