Wellness for the feet: tips and exercises for healthy and pain-free walking and running

The compact guide “ Little Foot School ” by Béatrice Drach-Schauer contains simple, tailor-made and everyday exercises to keep the foot muscles fit, prevent injuries or incorrect loading and effectively and fundamentally counteract common misalignments such as hallux valgus, flat feet or splay feet.

Masterful foundation

Our feet are highly complex masterpieces - with 60 muscles, 200 tendons and 100 ligaments, 32 joints and 26 bones, they are the basic requirement for our body's statics. The feet carry, support and balance people - no matter how heavy they are - and absorb the body's weight. The feet provide cushioning, help us walk upright through life and let us dance the night away for joy. At the same time, they are masters of fine motor skills. But it is only when the feet burn, itch, become flat or the toes spread out inappropriately that we realize how important the foundation is.

"I want to encourage people to take their feet seriously and take them into their own hands," writes running coach and sports science consultant Béatrice Drach-Schauer in her compact guide "Little Foot School". Based on the anatomically and functionally based movement concept of Spiral Dynamics ^® , she shows how you can do your feet good in everyday life. In addition to numerous tips and exercises for preventing foot problems, there are also descriptions of typical misalignments and symptoms.

Feet – the foundation of the body

Without our feet, nothing would work in the truest sense of the word: they carry us through life and keep us grounded. If we assume that we take around 8,000 to 10,000 steps a day, then we spend around 25 to 50 percent of our lives on our feet, walking around the globe three times. The development into bipedalism is characterized by the ability to stand upright in space, move on two legs, and the central alignment of our pelvis.

As bipeds, humans have screwed feet and five toe rays. Our feet connect us to the ground with every step. There is a high density of skin sensory receptors on the soles of the feet and on the toes. A quarter of all bones are in the feet, and compared to other regions of our body, the skin layer on our feet is the thickest.

In traditional Chinese medicine (TCM), the feet are also of crucial importance, as a large proportion of the meridians end at the sole of the foot. Efficient "functioning" of our feet is essential for healthy movement. Foot health is ultimately important in order to be able to walk upright through life and avoid discomfort.

Training for healthy feet

Foot pain is not only annoying, it can seriously limit your quality of life. Just like the rest of our body, the multitude of large and small foot muscles require training stimuli in order to remain reliably flexible and resilient.

After we "lock" our feet in sturdy shoes for most of the day, the foot muscles often atrophy. The human foot can only really train all of its muscles and ligaments sufficiently when walking barefoot. But just a few minutes of training per day can have a big effect. And foot training is always a training ground for the brain, as we can target some very small muscle groups in a very targeted way.

You don't need a gym to train or relax your foot muscles. Foot exercises can be easily incorporated into your daily routine, take little time and don't require any expensive equipment. In addition to the muscles and bones, joints and ligaments also ensure that the ankles are stabilized. If these are too weak, this can lead to twisting. This twisting, especially on the outside of the foot, is very common not only in sports and leads to unpleasant ankle injuries. Correct training can not only reduce pain, but sometimes also prevent surgery.

Book tip:
Béatrice Drach-Schauer: Little foot school - the most effective exercises for healthy and pain-free walking and running. Compact guide . Mankau Verlag 2021, paperback, full color, 11.5 x 16.5 cm, 158 pages, 12.00 euros (D) / 12.40 euros (A), ISBN 978-3-86374-617-9.

Link recommendations:
More information about the book “Little Foot School”
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More about the author Béatrice Drach-Schauer
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