A very good day to you. I hope you are doing well. And your body. And your feet.
On this note - how much do you think about your feet?
Well, perhaps a little bit if they get tired if you've been on all feet all day. Or if you have a blister, corn or a verruca. Perhaps more when you've had a sprain or hit that sensitive little toe on a table leg super hard and it's gone black and blue.
But outside of that, do we pay feet much attention apart from briefly observing them as we shove them into a pair of shoes to hide them away for the day?
Probably not.
And I would like to change this a little bit today, especially if you have pelvis or pelvic floor trouble. Here is a snippet of information that we work through in a lot more detail at my workshop on 18 and 25 July in Colehill, Wimborne called "Feet Connections"
There is still a space! Hurry before the second event sells out, too - booking link here:
So, in my humble opinion as a movement therapist, thinking about your feet, or more precisely, thinking about how they MOVE, and DOING something about the way they move to optimise things, should really be quite a bit higher up on our agendas.
We see this so often - we have pelvis trouble (lower back pain, uneven or painful hips, pain in the centre of the buttock, you name it...), practitioners often go for the site of the discomfort and POKE AROUND, or give us general core stability exercises.
And some of these help (not always), but let's imagine they do. We typically do floor exercises, right? Maybe glute bridges for sleepy buttocks. Or clam shell exercises to strengthen side hips.
And then you are back on your feet, and ... sometimes, it's not much better at all. Ah, yes, not enough glute bridges, of course. (That was sarcasm, by the way).
You see, we are neglecting one super important fact. The way the feet move, or do NOT move, has a direct impact on the pelvis and pelvic floor.
Feet are amazingly adaptive, mobile and with lots of internal strength and stability thrown in. As we walk, feet go through an incredible adaptation - undergoing a certain amount of ROTATION in the bones, starting from the heel bone, which changes the shape of the foot as we walk.
But even more importantly than that, this rotation goes up into the lower leg, and then the thigh, and then the pelvis and spine, because there are connected chains of muscles that switch on (and off) as we walk without our conscious awareness. That's the magic of our walk pattern.
And all this movement literally exercises your pelvis and pelvic floor muscles better than a gazillion glute bridges or Kegels would. But only when done with your feet doing what they SHOULD be doing. The rest, I would argue, is not very productive spend of your precious time, unless we spend the rest of our lives lying on our backs doing glute bridges for a living.
More on that - in Part 2.
To join my "Feet Connections" workshop on 25 July, 11:30am, in Colehill, Wimborne BH21 7AB, book via
To your health,
Kaye