NO 1 WORK YOUR CORE
WE’VE LONG KNOWN the importance of a strong core, working on our abdominal and back muscles to help stability and efficiency on the run. But the foot, too, has a core – and the latest scientific thinking is that working on it could reap huge rewards. A research paper published in the British Journal of
Sports Medicine a few years ago declared it was time for the ‘decade of the foot’, but the memo doesn’t seem to have reached runners.
‘Research is increasingly highlighting the importance of muscles acting within the foot for generating healthy foot mechanics,’ says Dr Dominic Farris, a senior lecturer in Sport and Health Sciences at the University of Exeter, who has researched the foot muscles in depth. ‘So, if runners are not thinking about foot muscles during their training, they should be.’
The muscles of the foot are divided into two groups – intrinsic and extrinsic. Just as your abdominal and back muscles form your core and provide stability, so the intrinsic foot muscles are vital for maintaining the shape of your arch and absorbing shock when you run. These muscles are also responsible for the movement of individual toes; until recently, their importance in running has been underplayed. The extrinsic muscles power the bigger movements. They run from the calf through the ankle and into the foot, and generate motion, particularly rolling your foot – outwards, inwards, bringing toes up and raising foot towards shin.
‘Fine-wire electromyography techniques [inserting tiny wires into the muscles] have allowed us to measure when, and how much, the nervous system is turning on individual intrinsic foot muscles,’ says Dr Farris. ‘We combined this with measurements of how different parts of the foot move, and the forces experienced by the foot. The evidence implies that the intrinsic foot muscles play an important role in how our feet can manage the forces it experiences, and how we increase the output from our feet.’
‘The key concept is that muscles are actively turned on and off, and to different levels of contraction, by the nervous system,’ continues Dr Farris. ‘This means that we can use intrinsic foot muscles to tune foot mechanics “on-the-fly”, in response to the different requirements of the situation, or to different loads; for example, changing speed, going uphill or adjusting to uneven terrain. These each require different foot mechanics, and intrinsic foot muscles allow us to adapt in a way that passive ligaments and bones don’t.’
Working on these muscles can not only make you a better runner, but can reduce your chance of picking up an injury, too. ‘The contraction of the intrinsic foot muscles also influences stresses and strains experienced by bones that can lead to injuries,’ says Dr Farris.
If it sounds rather technical, the good news is that there are highly effective and very simple exercises that target the intrinsic muscles. Evidence has shown that four weeks of doing the ‘short foot’ exercise, for example, brings about a significant improvement not only in arch strength, but in balance, too. They can also benefit the extrinsic muscles, but since most of them are in your lower leg, they’ll be better served by strength and conditioning programmes.