a person holding their ankle as if its painful

Foot Pain Stretches & Exercises

14/04/2020
Hazel Dillon
ankle pain, Chiropractic, Exercise, Exercises, Feet, foot pain, massage, Movement, pain, rehab, stabilise, Stretches, toe, toe curl, toe squeeze, toes, wellbeing
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As we are all walking around a lot more during our Coronavirus Lockdown some people will be noticing some foot pain or discomfort due to this extra activity.

Here I have put together a few exercises that you can do to stretch and strengthen your feet – helping to keep them strong and reduce any foot pain you may feel.

Ball Rolling

Rolling a ball on the sole of the foot to release tension in the plantar fascia — Rolling the plantar fascia of the foot

Rolling the ball on the sole of your foot releases tension in the plantar fascia which connects from your heel to your toes. Often people can experience pain in the bottom of their feet from excess use – standing, walking or running – especially if footwear is not ideal for these activities.

The ball rolling will massage and stretch out the plantar fascia and that reduces tension and pain in the feet. If your feet are very sore you can roll your feet with a frozen bottle of water – the cold also helps reduce any inflammation in the area which also reduces pain.

You can use as little or as much pressure as feels comfortable and the more you do it the less pain you’ll get from it. The ball I used in the picture is a spiky ball but anything that rolls is suitable to use.

Standing on tiptoes

Demonstration of how to stand on tiptoes well with straight ankles and how to do it badly with turned out ankles

Going up to standing on tiptoes is a great way to strengthen the ankles and feet. Surprisingly there is a right and a wrong way to do it as you can see from the picture. If you have very mobile ankles you don’t want to let the ankles roll out as you go higher, this does not help to strengthen them so it is very important to keep the ankles straight.

Make sure you do this somewhere you can stabilise so you don’t have to balance at the same time. Slowly go up as high as you can and then slowly go back down again, do this 10 times. As you feel stronger you can hold at the top for longer.

Toe Curl

The toe curls will get all the small intrinsic muscles in your feet activated and working to help strengthen the whole foot. Keep the toes over the edge of a large book or step and then squeeze them down as if you are trying to clench it with your toes. Curl the toes 10 times and hold the squeeze for 5 seconds each time.

Enjoy your daily walk and if you need more help or advice then you can contact us here

Notice of information:

We would like to still be able to offer our services as best we can during these times where our usual face to face appointments are not possible due to COVID-19. We are now offering online video Telehealth Chiropractic consultations (from your phone, tablet or laptop) for those who need help; providing advice, support, guidance and exercises.