Modern… Ankles?

“The first program you’re releasing is… feet and ankles?” Cue double eyebrow raise from every person I mentioned the program to.

 Yep, my first foray into teaching the general population about how to take care of the ship is a foot and ankle program.  Because it won’t just help your feet, but it’ll also help your knees, hips, and pelvic floor—and that’s just the direct connection. 

Think about all of these factors.  Our feet are among the most sensitive places on our body, thousands and thousands of nerve endings that constantly pick up information about our environment, which then relay that information to the brain, which in turn tells the body what needs to move.  But we’ve essentially put earmuffs over our feet via ultra-cushiony, ultra-blocky shoes that prevent our feet from “hearing” the ground and gathering important information.  So our brain moves us differently and our muscles have to adapt to this environment.  We don’t *use* our feet anymore.  They aren’t strong, we don’t distribute weight properly, and they lose significant mobility—they lose the “springiness” that they were designed to have. 

Or maybe you, like myself, sacrificed function for form and wore pinchy flats, or heels that made your legs look great but your feet were ready to break. Almost all of the women I train who are over 50years old have bunions because heels at work was daily wear.  I have immense respect for all the women who worked before me, eventually trailblazing by wearing the once head-turning tennis shoes + skirt combo. While it’s much better than the daily flamingo heel walk, those bunions changed the architecture of the foot, sacrificing stability, and likely impacting the already vulnerable female hips and pelvic floor (this is not exclusively an heel-wearer’s issue, I have worked with men who have never worn heels who also have bunions from improper footwear).

It's important to know, then, that when we start loading our feet improperly, weight getting shifted due to changed architecture or constantly wearing pillows under the feet, it’s going to start distributing weight up the chain differently.  We have to adjust or we’d fall over. Some of us may emphasize the medial, or inside, portion of the legs, while others will favor the outside.   Some of us will accrue very rigid feet, sending bludgeoning force up the chain, while others have little ability to generate tension, sending pinball-like bouncing force ricocheting through the body.  Pick your poison.  Or pick better footwear. Because the muscles on the inside of our feet are directly connected to the muscles of the pelvic floor.

Think about it:  when you reeeally need to use the restroom, maybe to the point of fearing you might not make it- what do you instinctively do? Squeeze your legs together, right? Because that contraction helps contract the pelvic floor harder.  When we recruit more muscle tension (and this goes for anywhere in the body), we can apply a stronger force.  It’s hard to maximally contract your fist without using your forearm and even bicep too.  Same goes for the pelvic floor.  And a poorly functioning pelvic floor means leaking, pain during sex or tampon insertion, or trapped air getting expelled without warning (the horror!).  The pelvic floor is also the jewel of the core- it’s where your core begins.  So it can be incredibly challenging to have optimal core function without a properly functioning pelvic floor.

Or let’s say you’ve been pregnant.  Weight gets distributed differently through the hips and then the feet.  Even after pregnancy, it seems to be common to hear women talk about leaking when laughing.  But remember:  common doesn’t mean normal.  There were changes to the pelvic floor—and it absolutely can—and should—be given attention. 

When your feet don’t absorb force well, because they’re either too rigid or too lax, that force WILL be absorbed somewhere.  That’s why poor foot and ankle mobility leads to serious injury in people who work out a lot.  So think of foot and ankle mobility as a high dose of preventative mobility medicine.  The improvements provide a big bang for the buck—and not only will your feet feel different—you’ll notice the rest of the body moves differently as well. 

So get your feet wet understanding some proper care and conditioning, let the toes taste the turf, so you can hit the ground running (or jumping, or walking, or cycling) anytime you please, without fear of leaking as you lap.

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