How are your big toe functioning these days? Are they stiff and achy?
You may not think much about your big toe until it starts hurting. Then all the sudden that’s all you can think about, because it keeps you off your feet. Ouch.
We’d better keep the big toes bendy, because when we walk, they need to be able to extend and bear more than 50% of our body weight.
Since Pilates is performed bare footed, I see all kinds of feet all day, every day.
Most feet are shoe shaped, meaning that the toes are too close together, often overlapping and the big toes are shifted toward the lesser toes. That is a telltale sign of some stiff and weak toes.
Good foot and toe mobility is a really big deal because our toes need to bend when we walk, so we can push off of the big toe joint in order to propel ourselves forward.
If your toes don’t bend, then you’re walking with a different technique, which will cause problems higher up in the kinetic chain. That’s how you develop a mysterious knee, hip or lower back pain.
If your big toes are stiff, watch this video and do these exercises diligently. They will loosen up and you can finally start integrating them into your everyday activities, for example walking.
Walking is a basic, primal movement, so you need to be sure you do it the right way. So from now on try walking with a heel strike, then push off from the big toes. I promise, it will be life changing!
[embedyt] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fiQK9zAZ-Fw[/embedyt]