Athlete’s Foot - Not the Smelly Fungus

 

Many athletes will come to a trainer with a whole list of goals and expectations. Most of these goals and expectations are based on their desire to get better at their chosen sport(s). I often hear how much faster they want to be, how much higher they want to jump, or how much quicker they want to get off the line or out of the blocks. The problem is their perception is often misguided on how to get that job done and where to start.

 

Most will come in with their own idea of what their training should look like. They’ll think it should include buying the latest product off of an infomercial, doing a workout pulled out of Muscle and Fiction, and then some “magic-pill” drill they saw on U-tube. Unfortunately, as trainers and coaches, we will always have to contend with this.

 

The first thing I’ll ask the athlete to do after initial assessments is to take his/her shoes off. You do what? No, it’s not because I have some sort of weird foot-thing. It’s because 9 out of 10 times, athletes will come into a training session with a massive barrier between them and achieving their goals…their shoes! Now I realize athletes have to wear shoes during competition and skill-specific practice, but most shoes just get in the way of progress and can even do damage during training.

 

The reason their shoes are getting in the way is because the foot is one of the most sensitive and complicated parts of the body. There are 26 bones, 33 joints, 20 muscles and thousands of sensory receptors, tendons and ligaments within the human foot. Most athletes will try to constrict, bind up, and prevent the foot and ankle from doing what it’s supposed to do…move, absorb shock, and transmit force. We don’t put an inch of padding all over our bodies and lace it up to bench press or squat. So why do we do it to our feet?

 

So during that first session, after performing a Functional Movement Screen, we remove the shoes. Then we educate on the proper footwear that is acceptable during training. Once this has been done, we can start assessing foot stability and ankle mobility. If we go back to the athlete’s goals and expectations, we might be able to reach those much quicker just by addressing issues within the foot and ankle. I have personally seen this in many of my client-athletes, ranging from an 11 year old-youth softball player to a 21 year old-starting defensive tackle for a Div. 1 football team.

 

Here are a couple of drills I commonly use involving the mobilization of the ankle and the strengthening of the arch that I’ve picked up in my studies with the RKC and FMS:

 

1.       Half Kneeling Dorsi-Flexion (Ankle Mobility):

a.       Have the athlete kneel on one knee with the hips and shoulders square and the torso tall and vertical.

b.      Place a dowel rod (about 3 feet long) on the outside of the front foot’s pinky toe.

c.       Keeping the dowel vertical at all times, have the athlete push the front knee forward and to the outside of the dowel.

d.      Keep pushing the knee until any part of the heel of the front foot comes off the ground.

e.      Return to the starting position and repeat.

f.        Repeat for 15-30 reps per side.

g.       Use this drill as a warm up, assessment, or cool down.

2.       Ballerina Heel Raise (Arch Strength):

a.       Have the athlete assume an athletic stance and slowly squat down to parallel (body weight only).

                                                               i.      Beginners may use a support to grab on to for balance.

b.      Have the athlete raise both heels off the ground as high as possible in the bottom squat position.

c.       With heels raised have the athlete slowly stand up out of the squat.

d.      When standing, have the athlete slowly lower the heels beginning with the balls of the feet to the pinky toe, and finally the heels.

e.      Repeat for 5-10 reps.

f.        Use this drill as a warm up, cool down, or superset drill.

 

There will usually be some frustration on the athlete’s part when just working on foot strengthening drills and ankle mobility exercises versus doing the latest combination of drills on the quick-foot ladder or bosu ball. But as trainers/coaches, we are called to do what’s best for our clients…not what they want, but what they need. I will tell you this, when your athlete shaves off a full tenth on their 10-yard start or adds 3 inches to their vertical after one session (which has happened) of some basic foot and ankle drills, they’ll be happy to come back without their cushiony shoes.

 

The footwear industry is a multi-billion dollar industry and they’re marketing campaigns are in your face and irresistible to teenage athletes who want to be like their favorite sport figure. Trust me. I know, because I had to be like Mike too when I was that age. But had I known then what I know now, I might have saved myself a dozen or so ankle sprains, countless bouts of plantar fasciitis, and knee surgery. Now I have to own the dysfunction of my past and work to continuously improve it. Hopefully I can help some kids from making the same mistakes I did.

 

There’s not one “real” sport I can think of that doesn’t use feet. It seems only logical that we start at the ground and work our way up when assessing our athletes. It can be as easy and basic as removing the unauthorized footwear or it may take a little more digging and checking. The bottom line is feet are too important for us to ignore in our training so let’s get out there and take care of our athlete’s feet!

 

by: Jason Marshall, RKC Team Leader, CK-FMS

 

Jason Marshall is the owner of a performance-training studio in Lubbock, Texas called Lone Star Kettlebell. He is an RKC Team Leader and a Certified Kettlebell-Functional Movement Specialist (CK-FMS). He has a B.S. in Exercise and Sport Science from Texas Tech University. Jason can be reached for training and consultation via email (jason@lonestarkettlebell.com), phone (806 773-3735), or his website (www.lonestarkettlebell.com).