How to Train Your FOOT Muscles for Balance, Power, & Injury Prevention

Long-time viewers of this channel will know that I’m very interested in training the parts of the body that otherwise get overlooked. This can unlock aspects of our performance that have otherwise been forgotten and it’s a great way to explore what you’re truly capable of.

In some cases, this is more of a novelty. In other cases, though, it’s a matter of addressing the totality of what our bodies SHOULD be capable of. Things that we’ve started to ignore thanks to our modern lifestyles. This that have noticeable, negative impact on our health, as a result.

Foot health and training the intrinsic muscles of the feet very much fall into that latter category. Training your feet is not a gimmick: it’s something that should happen incidentally as you go about your everyday activities.

And yet it’s something most of us entirely neglect. Moreover, it’s something we actively prevent ourselves from doing. By wearing hard shoes with thick soles and elevated heels, we literally trap our feet away and allow them to atrophy.

When I was 15 I badly broke my wrist. So badly, in fact, that my arm was in a cast all the way up to my shoulder for multiple months. During this time, my bicep withered to the point I was too weak to lift my own arm. I had to pick it up with my other arm.

This is also when I learned to do no-handed kip ups, but that’s a different story…

Point is: this is exactly what you do to your feet by wearing conventional shoes.

I’ve talked about how shoes can force your calves into a shortened position. I’ve talked about how they can completely remove the proprioceptive feedback you get from the ground – that tells you precisely what kind of surface you’re standing on so that you can move accordingly.

I’ve talked about how they can actually prevent natural reflexes that allow us to walk naturally without conscious thought; such as the plantar reflex that causes the toes to flex as soon as you place pressure on the bottom of the foot.

And I’ve talked about how they squeeze your toes together, creating a smaller surface area for balance.

But today I’m talking about ACTUAL muscle. The actual muscles within the foot – called the intrinsic muscles of the foot.

I’m talking bodybuilding for feet.

Meet The Intrinsic Muscles of the Foot

So, what muscles are we talking about specifically?

Let’s break it down:

Lumbricals: Lumbricals are muscles that flex the toes. Now, most toe flexion is actually handled by extrinsic muscles located in the lower leg. For example, the flexor digitorum longus is a deep muscle that is located in the calf. This controls flexor of the small four toes. The flexor hallucis longus, meanwhile, controls flexion of the big toe. The extensor digitorum longus and extensor hallucinations longus are, meanwhile, the corresponding toe extensors located in the lower leg.

However, the lumbricals aid in flexion of the joints of the toes – the metatarsophalanegeal joints and the interphalangeal joints. During toe gripping and activities that require more toe dexterity, they contribute to positioning and control. However, there are no intrinsic muscles that handle toe extension.

Interossei: The interossei are important for spreading the toes and pulling them together. The dorsal interossei abduct, while the plantar interossei adduct. This can help provide balance when standing and they’re also important for martial artists – for creating a bladed foot for a karate sidekick, for example.

Shoes that crush your toes together are terrible for completely negating the function of these muscles. You simply wouldn’t do this to any other muscles in your body.

Abductor Hallucis: This is another intrinsic muscle of the foot that actually contributes to movement of the toes. Specifically, the abductor hallucis helps to abduct the big toe (move it away from the other toes) but also contributes to flexion.

The abductor hallucis also contributes to flexion of the foot itself – helping to curl the ball of the foot towards the heel. This is important as it helps to maintain the structure of the arch – strengthening this muscle may help some people with flat feet. It also helps with balance as you lean forward – and can improve your ability to push off of the ground.

Flexor Digitorum Brevis: This muscle flexes the middle phalanges (knuckles) of the small toes. Training this muscle can improve walking stability and toe grip strength. It can also help to ease plantar fasciitis.

Abductor Digiti Minimi: This one flexes and abducts the little toe and supports the lateral longitudinal arch. It also contributes to balance and especially when moving dynamically. Toe spreading and some balance exercises may be enough to help.

How to Train the Foot Muscles

Okay, so those are the muscles of the feet. That’s why they’re important. And that’s how we’re doing ourselves harm by keeping the feet locked rigidly inside claustrophobic shoes.

The next question is: how do you go about training them?

As you might expect, there are plenty of ways you can do this with specific exercises. A common recommendation is the short foot exercise, where you simply practice shortening the foot by moving the ball towards the heel without flexing the toes. You can also practice toe grabbing. You can wear toe spacers. You can even add resistance to your toes via bands and flex and extend them.

All this stuff is great. But the truth is that most people aren’t going to do it.

I mean, be honest with me, are you REALLY going to set aside time during your week to sit there flexing your toes? Or wearing toe spacers?

Come on, man. No, you’re not.

I get about one hour in the evening to relax. My wife and I have been playing Kaos. And I’ve been playing through Deus Ex: Invisible War on Steam Deck. I’ve been wanting to play it for years and I really don’t think it’s as much as a step down from the first one as everybody says.

Sure, I could do those things while wearing toe spacers and picking up tennis balls with my feet. But I’m not.

I mean I could also sort out the pile of paper in the kitchen. That’s not happening either.

And I did say t the top of this feature that this wasn’t a gimmick. Doing all these funky toe exercises sure feels like a gimmick. It doesn’t mimic anything we do in our daily lives.

It can take years of doing this to see much benefit, so it’s just a non-starter unless you’re seriously committed to weird fitness. I mean I am basically the mascot of weird fitness and not even I can be bothered!

Trail Running for Foot Strength

Instead, we need to take a step back and look at the bigger picture. How are we meant to strengthen these muscles?

And the answer is simple: we should be using them to balance and grip and do all of the things we’ve been discussing.

And the way we do that is by taking off our shoes and getting active.

The most powerful, natural way to strengthen the feet is to go barefoot trail running. If you take off your shoes and go for a trail run, you’ll immediately find that your feet have to work overtime to keep you upright. You’ll land on narrow roots, small ditches and holes, stones, mounds, twigs and sticks.

The next best thing is to do the same thing wearing “minimal footwear” like today’s sponsor: Vivobarefoot. But I’ll get to that in a moment.

Then find a dirt track with interesting terrain and RUN.

As you do this, your intrinsic foot muscles will work reflexively to help provide a stable foundation. This will work in accordance with your extrinsic foot muscles, your ankles, and your hips. All of them together will allow you to keep running forward and to generate power from even the most uneven terrain.

Your toes will bend and flex to prevent you overbalancing one way or the other. The foot itself will grip onto the ground.

Training this way FEELS like a workout for the feet. After a day of trail running, I can feel DOMS in the feet – just as I would in the biceps after arm day at the gym.

I do this a lot, one way or another. I’ve built up to it slowly over years. But now I’m able to sprint on the most uneven terrain you can imagine and I don’t remember the last time I twisted or hurt my ankle.

In fact, only the other day I was working with a film crew and they had me running through the woods while being tracked by a drone. My foot landed on a large hard lump of dirt and I felt my feet and ankles work overtime to stabilise. It hurt a little, I’m not going to lie.

But without this training my foot would have tipped and I would have been in immense pain.

And I know this, because it’s something that happened to me a LOT after I got an avulsion fracture as a kid.

This training has made my balance pretty much top notch. And that not only means I don’t fall over, it also means I can leap and run from any surface.

And this isn’t just anecdotal, either. There are studies demonstrating that regular barefoot running can improve running biomechanics: decreasing ground contact times, increasing running speed and jump height, and reducing injury risk! (Study)

The best way for most people to do this, though, is with barefoot shoes. Of course, you can take your shoes off entirely. And you’ll get even better results, that way.

But again, I’m just not up from that. Apart from the fact that you’ll be getting stones and glass in your feet for a long time until your soles harden up, it’s also just… not appealing. Okay?

Again, we need to balance what’s actually practical, here.

Remember: you need to ease into this. Don’t buy yourself minimal shoes and go sprinting immediately. Get used to wearing them daily, then start to gradually do small runs on increasingly uneven ground.

Just like you wouldn’t try and bench 150kg on your first day at the gym.

Barefoot Calisthenics

Is that all you can do? Not at all!

Because you can also use minimal footwear or go completely barefoot while at the gym. I don’t recommend going fully barefoot at your local gym, especially if you’re going to be throwing extremely heavy weights around.

But if you train from home, especially if you do any kind of mobility training from home, then I recommend giving it a try. And it’s perfect for calisthenics or more controlled use of lighter weights – as long as you are confident with them.

Single leg training is fantastic for balance in general. But if you perform something like a pistol squat while fully barefoot, you’ll be able to use all your muscles to keep yourself steady.

The same goes for other movements like sissy squats.

These are brilliant exercises anyway. Do them barefoot and you’re getting all those additional benefits!

The anterior reach is a great exercise that offers a bodyweight hip-hinge, while requiring you to stabilise on one leg. Just stand on one leg then reach forward as far as you can to touch the ground without falling over. And return. Shout out to JC Santana for this one. Do this barefoot and you’ll be working those foot muscles overtime.

The leg swing is a great exercise you can use to warm up. Stand on one leg and swing the other leg back and forth, left and right. This is a great dynamic stretch before training kicks, for example. But do it barefoot and you’ll also be building foot strength. Shout out to Nsima Inyang for promoting this one recently. He also has an excellent video on foot health with LOADS of tips.

Make sure you practice walking around barefoot at home. And take every opportunity to balance on one leg. To pick things up with your feet. And to generally USE your feet. This kind of incidental training means you aren’t setting aside time to specifically “train” these weird little muscles.

Instead, you’re just placing the demand on them. You’re showing them what you need them to do. And you’re letting your body’s incredible adaptability do the rest.

References

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0966636220305749

https://trialsjournal.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s13063-021-05554-5

https://bmcsportsscimedrehabil.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s13102-024-00944-z

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One Comment

1. Army Ranger says:

   September 20, 2024 at 8:13 am

   I beat my one rep max on foot tickles. Tee hee! This sounds like the air force physical fitness program. Jokes aside, stronger everywhere is better for you, especially if your life depends on it.

   Reply