Our feet are the most essential part of our bodies! Take care of them. Here are a three simple exercises that work on the arch of your foot, ankle support, and turn out.
First one is working on the Arch of your foot. There are three key steps to take before fully extending your pointed foot.
Start off with a flexed foot, fully extend just the foot to show your arch do not point the toes yet. This is called floint, when your toes are not fully extended to a complete pointe. When you're in this position it is good to work on feeling your arch you can even use a tennis ball to put underneath your foot so you do not get a cramp.
Next extend the toes to a pointed position. I was really blessed to have a nice arch. So this is what you need to aim for. My goal is to make my toes touch the floor.
You can repeat the process backwards. Starting with a pointed foot, into a floint, and back to a fully flexed foot.
Try not to tense your legs. You're only working on your feet. Relax the rest of your body. Sitting up against a wall or on the edge of the couch are two options to help support you while completing this exercise.
Repeat this exercised 20 times, and massage your feet after with a massage ball rolling the ball on the bottom of your foot so it does not cramp. Because trust me it will and it will HURT!
Releves! Have to love releves, working on balance, and strength at the same time. This is step two for a reason; flexing and pointing your foot helps warm up the ankles and feet, getting them ready to take on more pressure during a class or stretch.
Releve means to go up! So in this exercise you will start with your foot flat on the floor make sure your weight is evenly proportioned. Begin to rise up by lifting the heel of your foot off of the floor, and finally into a full releve with just the ball of your foot and toes on the floor.
Try not to have your weight over your big toe, that will just bring your ankle inward. Keep one straight line going up your leg from your ankle to your hip.
Do this exercise 20 times to start, as you get comfortable with this exercise start adding 20 more to releves every time your complete this exercise.
Again be sure to use a tennis ball to roll on the bottom of your foot!
Going from left to right, this is a turn out exercise.
Start with your feet flexed relax your legs, fully extend your feet to a pointed position, turn out your feet from your hips, stay in that turned out position and flex your feet, bring them back to a turned in flex position and finally pointed to finish.
Now as you can see I do not have a perfect turn out, I do this exercise in the morning before I start my day. It really opens up your hips and the progress is coming along. (Patience)
Again try to sit up against a wall or the edge of your couch watching tv, and work on your turn out. I chose this exercise as the last one because it's a great cool down after releves.
I hope you enjoy these exercises, there will be videos of me doing these exercises soon on my youtube channel that you can follow along with. In the meantime if you follow these exercises tag ambdancetheatre on your social media accounts! <3