How to keep your feet healthy? 4 useful exercises from a ballerina

How to keep your feet healthy? 4 useful exercises from a ballerina

Regular training can help you avoid health problems.

Head of teacher training at LEVITA, an international network of ballet and stretching studios.

“In modern times, we often walk in uncomfortable shoes and lead sedentary lifestyles. In addition, foot movements are usually monotonous. Collectively, this can lead to various diseases. Reduced functionality of foot movements affects posture as well as the health of the back in general. It can provoke spasms and other unpleasant phenomena.”

Foot work is a great prevention of flat feet, valgus changes in the foot. Foot exercises can reduce swelling and decrease the risk of varicose veins.

Why is so much attention paid to the feet in ballet?

The feet provide the push off, so they directly influence the dancer’s jump, the strength of the ballerina’s movements on pointe, and the visual component in general. Without a strong tension of the foot, it is impossible to reach the other muscles of the legs, which is so necessary in ballet for safe and aesthetic execution of movements. But for amateurs, such foot training is certainly not required.

How to work the feet at home?

Relevé

The simplest, basic exercise that can be performed absolutely anywhere is the relevé. These are half-flat or toe raises.

• Starting position: put the feet together, pull the leg muscles along the entire length, clench the buttocks, the abs are tightened, the back is flat, the shoulders are lowered.
• Do it like this: slowly lift your heels off the floor as high as possible.
• Make sure that the heels are together, do not fall apart. Then also slowly and gently lower them down.
• Relevé can be performed both in a slow and active pace, do with a delay in the upper point.

Exercises with a fitness rubber band

The next exercise is the work of the feet in the parterre (lying down) with a fitness rubber band or without.

• Starting position: sitting on the floor, legs together, stretched out, back straight, hands can hold the support behind the back. If you want to include in the work of the muscles of the back and abs, then the arms can be taken out to the sides.
• In this position, pull the feet toward you, then pull the toes away from you. The exercise can be performed at a slow or active pace.
• You can also work on eversion. To do this, turn the knees to the side, heels look inward, with little fingers as if trying to smooth the floor. The movements are the same: pull the fingers in and out.
• Exercises can be performed with the use of a fitness rubber band or elastic band, which we put on the foot and add additional resistance.

In the same exercise you can work the toes separately. When the feet are contracted on themselves, start curling the toes from the little finger to the big toe, as if in a “wave”, and turn them from the big toe to the little finger.

Rolling the feet with an MFR-ball

If you do not have such a ball at hand, you can use any small ball, such as a tennis ball. Act as follows: place the ball under the foot and roll back and forth from the heel to the toes.

Lifting and holding an object with the foot

Various exercise machines are used to work out the feet. At home they can be replaced, for example, with pencils or any small objects.

• The exercise will be as follows: take a standing position, with your toes try to pick up an object, lift it from the floor and hold it.
• Of course, it will not work, but it is the process, the attempts themselves that are important here.