Are you tired of having aches and pains in your feet? Would you like to learn how to loosen up and feel literally lighter on your feet? If so, please follow along below for a few minutes or in the video above as I explain how to fix and eliminate it before it even begins!
Almost everyone has had some tightness, discomfort, pain or even swelling in your feet at one time or another. I have had this issue many times in my life from childhood playing sports and breaking my foot while playing soccer in high school to soreness from running or other physical activities over the years. Our pain tends to dissipate or become tolerable over time to a point that we learn to live with it. We become numb to these discomforts and just accept this as a fact of life until it comes back to remind us or don’t even realize how much it is effecting us without even knowing it. This does not need to be the case with this or other chronic pains you are dealing with which I will cover in future post.
If you are interested in learning how to get rid of current or future pains or eliminate it from happening all together, please follow along below and I will share some helpful tips and insights I have gained over my 16 years of working as a personal trainer to solve these common issues most of us have to face.
Reduce tightness and inflammation in your feet with these different tools & techniques
The first tool I will discuss is my favorite tool I use with clients and on myself daily and recommend purchasing or if you have one breaking it out. It is a tool that uses small, rapid mini burst of pressure on sore or tight muscle tissue to bring blood flow to muscle tissue reducing inflammation. I recommend starting the massager with a soft tip similar to a small ball at a higher setting and very gently applying it to the bottom of your arches of your feet to starters to start brining blood flow to your feet and slowly moving it around the bottom of your feet looking for any tender spots along the way. Once you find a tender or sore spot, i suggests you hangout for a 20-30 seconds until you start to either feel the area start to loosen up and maybe even start to feel warmth which is a good sign of fresh blood flowing to the area.
If you don’t have access to a massage gun, the next best thing is to grab a tennis ball or lacrosse ball and set it on the ground. Then, place your foot above the ball and gently start rolling the ball along the bottom of your foot looking for any tender or sore spots. Once you find one, then hangout here or gently roll back and forth on or around that area until you feel a relief and not more pain or discomfort before moving on to the next spot.
Frozen Water Bottle
This is a good option if you have swelling in your feet or at the end of the day to reduce any inflammation or swelling before using the above options. You do this simply by putting a small plastic water bottle in the freezer. Once frozen, take it out and lay it side ways. Then gently rolling the bottle along the bottom of your foot to both apply cold to the inflamed areas of your foot and bring blood flow to your feet using the bottle as a small cold roller on the bottom of your foot.
Use Your Fingers
If you don’t have any of the options above your can use your fingers to gently massage your feet and then apply more pressure as needed to soften up any tender or tight spots you have. Try to isolate pressure on any sore or tender spots until the pain reduces or is eliminated all together.
Preventing The Pain Before It Begins
We just covered how to loosen up and reduce any pain or tender spots in your feet. Next, we will cover some of the causes and what you can do to prevent this from happening in the first place.
Proper Support for Your Feet
This is the biggest problem I see most people have and do not know it. I myself have struggled with this often over the years from childhood having a size 14 shoe in 7th grade and even now as my shoes wear down quickly from wear and tear or walking around my house’s wood floors without slippers.
Most people wear shoes that look fun or easy to slide on, but provide little to no support. I know for some this is tough due to work requirements wearing dress shoes or work boots. No matter the case, whenever possible you should always try and protect your feet. This especially applies if you are walking on hard surfaces with bare foot like on wood or tile floors in your homes or concrete at work or outside. I suggest always trying to have both a rubber sole and padding inside your shoes, sandals or house slippers.
Check your wear pattern on the bottom of your shoes. This is always a good indicator of how you are landing on your feet and what part of the foot is taking on most of the impact. Its usually a good idea to replace your shoes once you start to see the tread on the bottom of your shoes wearing more or if you start feeling pain in your feet.
Understand this simple principle, that whenever your shoes aren’t absorbing the impact, its your feet that are paying the price and it doesn’t stop there. This has major impact on tightness up the legs, back and rest of the body.
Watch Your Gait & Posture
Your gait or moving posture whether walking or standing affects your feet all the way up the body and kinetic chain like a ripple effect. You may invert or evert your ankles, land more on the front of your foot or more towards the heal. Too much to one side or the other of the foot or front or back is not ideal. The best ways to prevent this from happening are by keeping your:
Feet Hips with Apart - If your feet are too wide or narrow, this will force your ankles and feet to move in or out.
Feet Pointing Straight - If your toes are turning out this will force your knees and hips to rotate out and the opposite when your feet turn in.
Knees Straight In Line with Your Feet and Hips - while this is not usually as easy of a fix, it is something can correct with time if you are doing 1 & 2
Head Up and Level with the Horizon - this is a big one that most people do subconsciously, but has a huge impact up and down the body all the way down to the feet.
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