Pilates Helps with Foot and Ankle Mobility for Runners

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Seasoned runners know it, and new runners NEED to know it: All of your lower-body movements require foot and ankle mobility. When you walk, squat, do stairs, or RUN, you need mobility in your misunderstood feet and ankles. Tension in the feet and ankles can contribute to other pain and injury higher up in the body, including knees, hips, even the lumbar spine. Lucky for you, Pilates WILL help you improve your ankle and foot mobility. 

The 4 Obvious Pilates Exercises for Foot and Ankle Mobility

If you have experience with Pilates, you are familiar with all of the footwork that you do; it shows up on the mat, the reformer, the wunda chair… 

  1. Pointing the feet (plantar flexion), with a focus on pushing and resisting or making contact through the balls of your feet.
  2. The domed foot, where your arches are the contact point. 
  3. Pulling your foot towards your shins (dorsi flexed feet), making contact and pushing and resisting through the heels of your feet. 
  4. Pointing and flexing of the feet in an articulating movement. With practice and time, your feet will move with increasing fluidity. I had a client years ago who could move her feet with almost as much ease as most of us can move our hands. 

“Sneaky” Pilates Exercises for your Feet and Ankles

Then there are the more “sneaky” ways that we work our feet and ankles in Pilates. If you have attended a pilates class before you may notice that there are certain exercises that the instructor cues you to point your feet and others that you instructor cues to flex. In other exercises, you may move your foot from a pointed position to a flexed position. This might just seem like a bunch of choreography, but we are actually working on foot and ankle mobility and strength.

Here are five MORE of my favourite exercises for runners. 

Ready for more? There is a new class focussed on foot position in the b.PILATES & FITNESS App (right now there is a 7-day free trial). I’m also planning another blog post about foot-specific exercises. Stay tuned!.