Evolutionary Athletics

Improving Foot Function for Sports Performance

I want to start my saying that I am not a foot expert I am a sports performance coach. Much of the information presented in this article has been gleaned from Dr. Shawn Allen, Dr. Ivo Waerlop, speed coach Chris Korfist, and our own experimentation with our athletes. Needless to say we have seen tremendous improvements in sport performance when addressing foot deficiencies.

Why is the foot important?

This is a very simple question with a fairly simple answer. Your foot is where your body interacts with the ground. It is the start of your kinematic chain. A poorly functioning foot will limit your hip extension power production, can cause excessive anterior pelvic tilt leading to back pain, cause medial and lateral anterior knee pain, shoulder problems, neck issues, and a whole host of maladies. You may be thinking “how does a bad foot cause neck problems?” Simple. If your foot doesn’t function properly it throws off your knee alignment, which works its way up into bad hip/pelvis alignment, causing bad lumbar alignment and slowly works its way up to your neck. So you may visit your Dr. who will treat your neck and prescribe PT. The PT may be familiar with Grey Cook and Mike Boyle’s joint by joint approach and address the joints above and below the pain which will help a bit but, I guarantee you, neither the PT or the Dr. will look at your foot as a potential cause of your neck pain. In essence, they will be treating symptoms and not the root cause. Enough with the injury talk. This is a sports performance article so lets talk sports performance.  Your foot IS where the rubber meets the road!

The Foot Tripod and Sports Performance

Your foot is designed to function like a tripod. The three points in contact with the ground are the heel, the big knuckle at the base of the big toe and the same joint at the base of the little toe. When the three points are bearing load your foot is in it’s most stable position. If one of the points in the tripod is not bearing load your CNS will sense that instability and turn off/inhibit some of the muscles responsible for whichever action you are trying to produce. If you are walking you will see reduced glute activation. So step 1 in improving foot function for sports performance is finding your foot tripod.

You may be thinking “Alex we sprint on our toes so why are we wasting time talking about our heels” and you would be correct BUT when people have trouble finding their tripod the heel is rarely the issue. Most people have trouble loading either point on the forefoot (big knuckle of the big and little toe). So we must begin at the beginning and first establish a solid tripod before we can work into a solid forefoot  bipod for sprinting. As an aside, begin at the beginning is one of my favorite sayings. Too many athletes try to start in the middle or at the end. As another aside, it has been our experience that the movements used to establish a solid foot tripod do an excellent job strengthening and rebuilding the arch so these exercises serve a dual purpose. This is because the toe extensors also serve to support the arch.

How do we go about finding and strengthening our tripod? I like the following progression:

*Note for all exercises hold the contraction for 20-30 seconds and do 10 reps 3x/day

1. Isometric non loaded seated toe extension holds – while seated dorsiflex your toes pulling them towards your face. While you are holding play around with foot position until you are able to get all three of the tripod contact points in touch with the ground. Keep your foot pointed straight ahead.

2. Isometric non loaded seated toe extension- This is just like the previous exercise but now shift some of your body weight onto the foot.

3. Isometric non loaded seated arch supports- Begin this movement with your toes extended. Slowly let your toes come to the ground while maintaining arch elevation. Do not let your arch collapse when the toes come to the ground.

4. Isometric loaded seated arch supports- Again this is just like the last movement but now you are going to be shifting some of your body weight onto your foot and still not letting your arch collapse to the ground.

The next 4 are just like their seated counterparts only you do them standing. For non loaded versions or to partially load a movement where you are not strong enough to fully load the foot use 1 leg as a support leg and slowly load the non support foot.

1. Isometric non loaded standing toe extension holds.

2. Isometric non loaded standing toe extension.

3. Isometric non loaded standing arch supports.

4. Isometric loaded standing arch supports.

I realize that some of the more advanced foot people may be thinking “What about short extensor strength?” I do acknowledge that short extensor strength is important but it is my opinion that in a large group setting coaching short extensor strength will be near impossible.  For those interested you could include the following 2 short extensor strength drills in between steps 2 and 3 in both series.

1. Isometric non loaded seated/standing short toe extensor holds.

2. Isometric non loaded seated/standing short toe extensor holds.

To activate the short toe extensors pull your toes towards your face.  Next relax your toes so that the first knuckle from the tip of the toe relaxes but you stay dorsiflexed at the big knuckles at the base of the toes. Your foot should look sort of like a claw. If you choose to add these in to the progression each progression becomes 6 steps long with the short extensor holds becoming steps 3 and 4.

Finding your foot tripod is step 1 in developing a functional foot. Our next article on foot function and sports performance will look at the all important ankle rocker function.

Enjoy!

Alex