Kinds of foot exercises for pain relief

It is fair to say that our feet take quite the hammering in our daily lives and very often that can result in foot pain which can be difficult to shake off. We spend each and every day pounding the floor with our feet, some of us walk in a way which causes damage, many of us wear incorrect footwear and over the years all of this takes its toll. Pain in the feet is not an indication of a deep lying issue, something which I found out last year.

Last year I was looking for a podiatrist Sydney has plenty of them and eventually I settled on what I thought was the best. I was initially unhappy when they said there was nothing wrong, as I was sure that there was, but they gave me some exercises to try out to alleviate the pain, and my goodness how well they worked. I want to share these with you, and I certainly recommend them for anyone with foot pain.

Toe Spread and Press

Standing up, put the weight of your body on your heels and lift your toes up and spread them out as far as you possibly can, hold for 10 seconds and rest, then repeat 5 times. This alleviates Plantar fasciitis which is an inflammation of tissue which runs along the base of your foot.

Standing Calf Raise

This exercise is almost the opposite of the previous one, stand with your feet shoulder length apart and push up keeping your toes on the ground and elevating your heels. Don’t hold the position just lift up and down 20 times, and complete 5 sets of these. This exercise relieves pain and increases arch strength.

The Alphabet

The Alphabet exercise has really helped me and it is a great exercise for relieving muscle tension. Stand or sit comfortable, keep one foot on the floor and lift the other foot up in the air, with the elevated foot you should write the alphabet in upper case in the air, before doing the same with the other foot.

Asterisk

The Asterisk exercise is a great one for increasing mobility and relaxing the muscles in your foot, it is very easy to do and very effective. Raise one foot off the ground and point it out like a ballerina would, raise the toe up and tap the floor as you move the foot in a clockwise motion across the body. Repeat this with the other foot and then start again, only this time going in a counter clockwise motion. This can be a challenging exercise and for best results do it from a standing position. If you must sit then this is fine, and it will still help you to increase mobility and ease some pain.

The key to relieving foot pain is concentrating on doing these exercises every day, at intermittent intervals during the day. Stay on top of it and you will feel the benefit.

This is a guest blog entry.