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7 Ways to Heal Your Feet and Improve Your Balance

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Our feet are some of the most used and abused parts of our bodies. They carry us through life, absorb shock, distribute our weight, and adapt to surface changes when walking, running, and climbing. After years of teaching yoga to thousands of people, I have noticed that most of us have incredibly weak feet, ankles, and frozen toes. Just like Acme bread turns stale on the next day, our feet become immobile and rigid wearing shoes most of our life. This immobility is widespread and unfortunately contributes to many injuries, falls, and chronic back, hip, knee pain. Lack of foot strength and flexibility contribute to fallen arches, plantar fasciitis, and many other foot conditions. While knee and hip surgeries have been skyrocketing, most doctors would agree that the only way to prevent the surgery is to keep your body stable by making your feet strong.

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Each foot is made up of 28 bones, 30 joints, and more than 100 muscles, tendons, and ligaments, all of which work together to provide support, balance, and mobility. The only way to strengthen and reclaim the mobility of our feet is to perform focused barefoot exercises and stretches regularly. The great news is that all our classes at Glow are barefoot, helping strengthen, stretch, prevent deterioration, and undo the damages the shoes cause. In the video below, Jordan shares one simple way to activate your feet and toes at home. She also mentions an interesting fact: when your pinky toes are inactive - some of your leg muscles are inactive too. Using our toes turns on the vital supportive muscles in our legs, meaning that our balance and strength completely depend on the use of all of our toes. I find it fascinating; our body is intelligent in so many ways. Please remember, that knowing about it is not enough: transformation comes from regular practice. 

7 Steps for Your Feet To Unleash Your Body's Potential:

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1. Avoid wearing any pointing shoes, and shoes with the hard inflexible sole on a daily basis. 

2. In yoga classes, please pay closer attention to your feet: stretch your toes and press all of them into the floor in every standing pose, use them! If you have any special physical conditions and can't leave your house, please join our daily livestream classes @home 

3. The best way to strengthen your feet is in one-legged poses: Half Moon, Warrior 3, Standing Splits, Tree Pose. While your standing foot is getting super strong, don't forget to flex or point your lifted foot, and stretch its toes; you can activate all 100 of your foot's muscles while it's free of shoes.

4. Add 1-2 weekly Barre classes to your routine: with careful attention paid to feet and toes, there are many opportunities to activate and strengthen.

5. Try our Yin classes to release all tension and myofascial congestion in legs and throughout your body. Long holds in Yin classes restore your posture, and release long-term stress. 

6. Join our Saturday 11:30a Tuneup + Massage Class, where we explore our body and use tools like Therapy Balls to get deeper into the tissues.

7. Create a new habit of stretching and flexing your toes for one minute after you take your shoes off.

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