How About Strengthening Your Feet?
Posted by BEEJ on November 11, 1998 at 16:45:03:
I posted the following on the Delphi site but wanted people here to see it also since I have not seen this advice here before.
I went to an orthopedic surgeon yesterday for the first time and learned something new which I cannot remember having read here or the old site before. He says that the pf is caused by weak muscles in the feet and that if you strengthen these muscles you will get cured and you will not have recurrence of this injury. He also said the cure could be about six months away given the weakness in my feet. I was particularly impressed that he had pf for three years before he figured this out and found it worked. He gave me a set of three exercises to strengthen the feet.
1. Stand and hold the edge of a table or back of a chair. Stand on one foot and raise up onto the toes 30 times, alternating for 3 times each foot. If you can't do the full count right away you can partially support yourself with the other foot at any time. Do this 4 or 5 times a day.
2. Sitting in a chair hold your foot out in front and point the toes. Then curl the toes tight and bend the ankle pointing the toes in. Hold this tight for 30 seconds. If (when) you feel the foot cramp, don't relax all the way, try to pull out a little until the cramp goes away and try to tighten again as much as possible. Do this 5 times both feet, 4 or 5 times a day. This strengthens the muscles which support the arch.
3. Calf stretches--we all do these already.
I know I will not be able to do these 4 or 5 times a day given my schedule and the other exercises I must do so will at least do them twice a day. He said my feet were very weak and I can't even curl my toes. I'll let you know if I get improvement.
He also said the orthotics prescribed by my podiatrist were useless and totally wrong because they should not be hard. He is not giving me orthotics yet--wants to see what the exercises do. He also never prescribes cortisone shots because of the damage they do to the heel pad. I will return to visit him in 6 weeks. Hope it works! I gave him the material on the OssaTron trials from the Healtronics website and he has not heard of these tests but kept the material and seemed quite interested--but still believes the secret is strong foot muscles!
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