Anyone who has had that real burning feeling in their heel or underneath their foot knows all about Plantar Fasciitis. It can be a very annoying and painful chronic injury that can affect daily life and limit you from playing sports and simply just walking around. Most solutions involve stretches and massage with a spikey ball to relieve the pain and maybe some calf raises. While this may be effective at managing the pain, they are merely just treating your symptoms and will not actually deal with why you got this problem in the first place. In this article I will show you some of the simple steps we have proven to work with not just plantar fasciitis, but also with other leg injuries and feet stability problems. It is important to follow the process I have laid out this article and not skip steps in order for the body to be fully prepared for each progression.
How The Sensa Mat Improves Joint Stability & Your Ability To Walk Efficiently
I have seen some amazing results in my 20 years as a rehab specialist and the past few years have been the most dramatic, as I have worked with many clients trying to learn how to walk again which has really tested my skills and knowledge. Exercises I would often use successfully to improve stability and strength with other injuries like knee pain or hip pain, had very little effect on changing a person’s ability to walk. After months of applying these strength and stability methods and getting nowhere I noticed there was one thing that all these people with severe walking impairments had in common, and that was a very stiff and rigid foot. This rigidity in the foot made it impossible for any other muscle in the leg to function correctly. Working on the foot separately provided some small gains in mobility and strength, but really had no effect as to the way they used the foot when they walked. Sometimes the best ideas come by accident or experimentation and this was one of those times. While I was helping one of our clients walk across a path I noticed how her gait changed whenever she stood on small stones. As her feet were so rigid her foot felt every little stone or bump and instantly reacted to move away from the pain. Her entire gait changed due to the pain in her foot. It was at this point I discovered the benefit of walking across uneven rocky surfaces could play a vital role in restoring motor function. The best part about this is it works almost instantly! This led me to using the Sensa Mat which is arguably the best piece of training equipment I have added to my program over the last 10 years! In this article, I will explain how this works and how you can use it in your own training.
How The BIG TOE Influences Your Functional Stability
The big toe is a very underestimated joint in providing us with the stability and strength for movement. I would be the first to tell you that I was ignorant to this for a very long time, even considering I know exactly what happens if you injure your big toe as I have broken mine before. It left me on crutches for several weeks and unable to walk or run correctly for months. It was not this however that led me to appreciate foot stability a lot more, it was more to do with my frustration at not being able to help some people with walking difficulty. Back in 2015 I started working with several tricky cases of people who had severe walking impairments from car accidents, disease, and spinal injury. Working closely with these clients several times per week our typical training was helping a lot but not providing the improvement I really wanted. I knew I was missing something and I could see that in every case there was huge problems at the feet, even though none of these people had pain at the feet. I have covered the role of Foot Stability before but today I want to share more insight into the big toe specifically for as you will soon see there is a correlation between big toe dysfunction and injury elsewhere in the body