Foot Fun for Ankles

I recently watched a presentation by Brent Anderson of Polestar Pilates on ankle function.  Ankle injuries are super common and, unfortunately, tend to reoccur.  So what do we do to improve our ankles?

The good news is that many of the exercises that help our ankles are very simple to do.  They involve our foot intrinsic muscles, which are muscles that begin and end in our feet.  These muscles make the adjustments we need to balance and react to the ground.  With my clients I use a Franklin ball, but a tennis ball will also work for the exercises that use a ball.

 

Here we go:

 

1.     Push like a gas pedal.  Place the ball under the ball of the foot.  Then, using just the ankle (not the whole leg.  The goal is not to flatten the ball, but to work the ankle), press the ball of the foot down as if accelerating in the car.  Do a set of ten.

2.     Side-to-side.  With the ball in the same position, grip it slightly with the toes and move the forefoot side to side (big toe toward the floor then little toe).  This movement should also come mostly from the ankle, not from the hip rotating in the socket.  Do ten reps.

3.     Sink into the grass.  People who have never worn high heels may not relate to this image, so imagination may be required.  This time, the ball of the foot is on the floor and the heel is on the tennis ball.  The heel presses into the ball, which is like what happens when a person wearing heels attends a summer wedding and the heel sinks into the damp grass.  Do ten reps.

4.     Arch stretch.  Place the ball under the arch of the foot.  Put some weight on it.  Go gently at first as this can be a little uncomfortable until we get used to it.  Hold as long as is comfortable.

 

Repeat all exercises with the other foot.

 

These next exercises don’t require any equipment at all!  We can do one foot at a time or both together.  At first, they may not seem possible, but with practice, we get better.

 

1.     Big toe lift.  With the foot flat on the floor, we lift just our big toes off the floor.  The ball of the foot should stay down.  Do ten.

2.     Other toes lift.  This time the big toe presses into the ground and the other four toes lift.

3.     Middle toes lift.  The big toe and the little toe both press into the ground and the middle three toes lift off the ground.

 

Don’t be discouraged if it feels impossible.  Practice helps build the motor pathways which will give eventual success.

 

Go play.

Monday Workout: Gravity

This week we continue to work on balance with a variety of relationships to gravity.  Which is to say, we are doing some standing balance work, but also doing some core work with weight bearing on our arms.  Three rounds.

plank jacks	30
renegade rows	20
pushups	10
leg kicks	30
bench press	20
1 leg squats	10
squat raise	30
flies	20
pretty princesses	10

The Amazing Stickie and Spiderman Pushups

The Amazing Stickie loves to read comics in her spare time.  But first, she likes to do Spiderman pushups.

She begins in plank position.  She lowers her upper body toward the floor, keeping her elbows in toward her sides and her shoulder blades flush against her ribcage.  Then she presses back to plank position.  She brings her right knee toward her right elbow and then returns it to its starting position.  Then she does another pushup and brings her left knee toward her left elbow.  Sets of ten are good.

Pilates Principles: Breathing

Over the next few Wednesdays, I am going to be writing about some Pilates principles.  They are, of course, central to Pilates practice, but they apply to movement generally.  The first principle is a simple one:  breathing.

We are all breathing (at least I hope so!  Reading after death is impressive…).  Becoming conscious of how and when we breathe, however, can change how we feel and how we move.

 

A lot of us think that when we breathe in, the front of our body expands.  We know our chests lift and our abdomens fill.  This is, of course, true, but it’s not the whole picture.  In fact, our whole torso, front, back, and sides, expands when we inhale.  Depending on how mobile the joints are in our spines and ribs, the expansion can be large or small.  Improving the mobility of joints gives us flexibility in our breathing.

 

That flexibility in breathing in turn facilitates our other movement.  If we have, for example, the ability to breathe into the sides of our body, side-bending movements become easier.  When we are bent forward, we can use the expansiveness of our backs to give us a way to get breath into our bodies and we can use the exhale to increase our ability to flex our spines forward.

 

Pilates offers a number of opinions on the best way to breathe for different kinds of movement.  Some options make the movements easier and some challenge us more deeply.  At first, thinking about how and when to breathe while doing new exercises can be one thing too many, so it is absolutely all right to breathe any way that works.  We can experiment and refine later.

 

It can be fun, though, to try different kinds of breathing in exercises we already know well.  For example, we can try breathing in during the lowering phase of pushups and breathing out in the raising phase.  Then we can try the other way around and see what happens.  I would love to hear what folks discover!

 

Bottom line:  keep breathing.

Water, even when it's icy

So it has been pretty darn cold this last while.  Personally, I’m over it.  I’m ready for warmer weather.  But, I am not in charge.  In the meantime, we still need to get our workouts in.

There are a variety of challenges to cold-weather workouts, starting with getting out of the nice warm bed, but one that sometimes gets forgotten is hydration.  When it’s hot out, we notice how thirsty we are and we don’t forget to drink our water.  In the cold, we are somehow not so motivated to keep drinking.

 

My solution?  Schedule it.  When we have the habit of drinking between sets, we keep on doing it.  The pickleball game finished and it’s time to switch up the teams?  Drink.  Got to the bottom of the ski slope and it’s time to wait in line?  Take some sips.

 

Hydrated people are nicer people.

Monday Workout: Favorite

Squats are my favorite exercise.  They are super practical and help us in our daily lives.  We rarely do just plain squats, but this week it was time.  Body weight is fine, or hold some dumbbells or put a weighted bar across the shoulders.  Three rounds.

 

woodchoppers	30
squats	20
Arnold press	10
kb swings	30
kb twist	20
kb 8s	10
lunge punches	30
renegade rows	20
brains	10

 

The Amazing Stickie and Single Leg Step Ups

The Amazing Stickie has amazing balance because she works on it.  Today she is working on it by doing single leg step-ups.  Because Stickie has a stick version of everything, she is stepping up on a sturdy stick box.  We can use a gym step, a sturdy bench, a step stool, or anything else that will not tip over and will support our weight.  The higher the step, the more challenging the exercise.  Stickie can also hold dumbbells in her hands to increase the difficulty if she feels like it 

She begins standing in front of the step.  She steps up with one leg, bringing the other leg to a position where her thigh is parallel to the floor.  She can hold the balance for a moment or she can return directly to the floor.  She can do all the reps with one leg and then repeat on the other side or she can choose to alternate; both ways are good.

 

Stickie likes to do sets of 30 per side.