Foot stays the most neglected part, yet the most important part of your body. Foot is not a high maintenance organ, however with age, it grows weak and do demand some care. Your feet become the foundation of your body. We do not realise their importance unless we ourselves come across foot problems or we see a crippled patient struggling to move from one place to another.
Foot comprises of nearly a quarter of total body joints and dozens of muscles which helps in maintaining balance in the posture and steady pattern of walking. Trying out different foot exercises, not only helps you with strengthening of your foot muscles, but also helps you avoid any complexities that arises in form of knee or hip joint pain. These muscles also help you with strength exercises like running and jogging and also help in bringing strength to ageing foot.
People stay confused about how you can strengthen your foot muscles and different blogs available also only made them more confused, hence we thought to bring you a compiled list of treatments and tips you can resort to keep your feet pain-free.
Read about 5 different ways to ensure your ageing feet is at its highest level of health and strength:
- Go for toe yoga.
Envision moving your toes independent for each other. A lot of yoga experts, which specialise in toe asana also recommend going for exercises like spreading the toes, working on the big toe and bending it while stretching the rest and vice versa. You can also go for toe asana while lying in bed or even while doing normal walking you can practise toe yoga by visualising how each toe is working independent of each other. - Try workouts for your feet
While seating on a chair, try wrinkling a spread towel toward you and vice versa. You may also try marble picking with your toes. You can also opt for "doming of foot," where in you need to move your arch away from the floor level, in a way that it forms a dome under your foot, while keeping the other foot flat. If this is tough you may try an easier version, by forming a dome while seating on a chair. - No compromise on footwear.
Fashion and foot health never go hand in hand. High heels cause foot complexities which are irreversible. High heels harms your calf muscles by shortening them, which gives rise to foot problems like plantar fasciitis and Achilles tendon. Wearing high heels for a longer duration also puts high pressure on your knees and hips and cause damage to joints residing there. Similarly flip-flops with hard sole are equally bad, as they do not bend and prevent your foot from walking in their natural forms. Also. Flip-flops are designed for easy wearing hence, foot has to apply additional effort to keep them stay on your feet while walking, which disturbs its natural form of walking.
Instead of high heels and flip flops, you may go soft soled footwear which allows easy movement and are comfortable too. The soft soled footwears are designed to adopt your feet’s natural shapes and do not put pressure on the joints while you walk or run. Wear different footwear daily so that the foot section gets time to dry up after every usage. Also, once in walk, you may try going barefoot, if the surrounding is clean and appropriate. - Try stretching exercises
Stand half on a step, keeping the other half in the air and now holding the stair-support tight, try touching the bottom of your feet to the ground. This helps you not only strengthen your foot muscle but also calf muscles. - Go for feet’s self-massage
We never realise that feet are the easiest part of the body, where you can perform massage by yourself. You may try deep-tissue massage by gently rubbing your palm on your feet and pressing the muscles to promote flow of blood. You may also make it spa-like, by first soaking your feet in warm water and applying oil or lotion to the arch of your feet and toe joints. You may like to add lavender or tea tree oil which helps in keeping free from bacteria and helps alleviate tiredness. Do not like touching your feet? Do not worry. You may do similar massage by rolling a tennis ball with the arch of your feet, which helps with foot inflammation and the pain of plantar fascia.
