5 “Steps” for Lifelong Dancing Feet
A few simple things you can do to keep your feet flexible and in good health
As dancers, we put our feet through a beating on a regular basis. Though we rarely think about it in these terms, every step, balance correction, or leap puts strain on our feet. Over time these stressors can add up to some major problems unless we work to maintain or improve the health of our feet. In this article, we’ll discuss several simple self-care tactics for creating and maintaining strong and adaptable feet and ankles.
Your feet contain over 1/4 of the bones in your entire body, making them capable of a high degree of articulation. However, between shoes, uneven surfaces, and careers that often have us stationary or off our feet, our feet are prone to becoming stuck or weakened in a variety of ways. Like anything else in our bodies, feet need to be moved and stretched in all directions to truly maintain their full range of expression. The following exercises can help keep your feet moving at their full potential:
1 - Wiggle Therapy
It will help to have a picture of the bones of the foot for this exercise. The general idea is to take hold of the bones on each side of an articulating surface in the foot and then wiggle the bones back and forth against each other. Start with the first joint of the big toe, take hold of the bone on each side of the knuckle and gently wiggle the joint for 10-15 seconds. Then release and move to the next joint. You can wiggle in a variety of directions so long as you don’t try to force the joint in a particular direction.
When you get past wiggling each of the joints of the toes, move on to the bones of the arch, heel and ankle. This is where a picture of the foot will be particularly helpful. The more you do these exercises, the more it will become obvious where different bones are, but it may take some trial and error at first to find them. You can also get some motion by pushing up through the arch of the foot moving the bones slightly towards your knee, and by grabbing the entire arch and rotating it from the ankle. The heel can be loosened by grabbing the heel bone with one hand and the ankle with the other, then wiggling.
After wiggling one foot, try walking around before wiggling the other. You should find that your feet move more readily and make more contact with the ground than they did before. You may also become more aware of how your feet differ and are not completely symmetrical in their shape or motion.
This exercise helps to loosen the ligaments that hold all the bones of the foot together, allowing it to act with greater flexibility. It also benefits your nervous system by providing your body information about where it can bend and reminding your body which parts are muscle and which are bone.
2 - Kneading Carpet
The following exercise is designed to be a coordination and strengthening exercise for the toes, arches, ankles, and calves. The idea is to lay a piece of clothing or fabric on the ground, or just work with the carpet.
Start by setting your foot flat on the fabric and using your toes to pull it under your foot and towards you. Rather than thinking about contracting the bottoms of your toes, think about using the tops of your toes to scoop down into the fabric and push it from above. This will activate the flexors and extensors in your toes to work together. As you gain comfort with this, begin to work on the idea of the movement of your toes beginning near your knee. Imagine a bicycle chain running the length of your calf, with one gear near your knee, and one at the toes. As you turn the gear near your knee, if moves the chain, causing a rotation in the gear at your toes to flex them. The flexors and extentors of the toes ultimately attach to the bones of the calf near the knee, so getting the leg involved in moving the toes will not only strengthen the entire muscle, but will also provider greater benefits when using the toes to aid in balance.
When you have finished pulling the fabric in, use the same techniques in pushing it back out. Think about contacting the fabric and extending the bottom of your foot to push it back out, and use the same bicycle chain image, now turning the gears in the opposing direction.
3 - Tennis Ball Massage
An old stand-by of self-care, tennis balls can be an excellent way to do some basic self massage without wearing out your hands. You can use tennis balls as is, or you can put them in the freezer for a cooling massage to help with inflammation. You can also substitute racquet balls for a bit harder, deeper self massage.
To massage the bottoms of your feet with tennis balls, place one on the ground and put one foot on top of the ball. Step down onto the ball, letting your body weight create the pressure. You can regulate the pressure by moving more of your weight over or off of the ball. With weight on the ball, allow yourself to roll around on the ball, paying particular attention to the arch of the foot.
4 - Stretching Toes
In a normal foot, the widest width will be at the toes. However, if you look at most shoes, they are widest at the ball of the foot and begin to narrow to the toes. This tends to compress the toes together, which inhibits their ability to help us in balancing. Fortunately, stretching your toes back open is a fairly simple process.
If you have some form of the Yoga Toes product feel free to use it, but the most adaptable tool for stretching toes, is your own fingers. You can create a stretch between the toes by sticking a finger between two toes, similar to how spacers are used between the toes during a pedicure. For less of a stretch, turn your fingers so the fingerprints are facing a toe, making the spacing narrower. For a bigger stretch, turn the pad of the fingers to face the ankle, creating a bigger spacing. Hold for at least 30 seconds on each side.
It can also be helpful to gently massage the soles and tops of the feet while holding the toes open. While the toes are the most vulnerable piece to being compressed together, they typically involve the tarsal bones as well, causing more of the foot to tighten and lose flexibility.
5 - Barefoot Walking
Now that your feet are loosened up, it is always helpful to take them for a walk. For best results, go barefoot on some sort of uneven surface. Before the advent of shoes and concrete sidewalks, our feet developed to travel barefoot over all manner of different terrains. Walking barefoot over uneven surfaces helps to provide a good counter balance to our tendency to dance in studios and on stages with smooth even floors. Outdoors generally fits the bill for this best, and it can be as simple as taking a few laps around your lawn. Notice how much additional sensation you feel and information your feet can pick up about the ground you walk on when they are not cramped into shoes.
If you are not used to barefoot walking, it can be uncomfortable at first. If it is too much, work your way up to it by starting in socks or a thin soled shoe. Try different surfaces to keep feeding new sensations to your feet. The more your feet and ankles are challenged to adapt, the more your body will learn to support itself and maintain balance through different terrain.
In all of the above cases, the exercises will work best when used as a bodily exploration. Pay attention to how your body moves and reacts to each activity. Experiment with different images or find your own to figure out what works for your body and how you perform various actions with less effort or more efficient use of energy.
Jason Sager is a Certified Rolfer and owner of Raleigh Rolfing. He routinely travels the country to dance and help educate other dancers about how to better care for their bodies. To learn more visit www.raleighrolfing.com.
