This Toe Trick Will Improve Your Knee Pain When Walking

Have you thought about how important your toes are for walking? Nobody ever really thinks about that. But you should be using your toes a certain way whenever you go walking in your house for exercise, and especially if you decide to go running or if you’re a runner. In today’s video, I’m going to talk to you about exactly how you should be using your toes on each foot.

Whenever you’re walking for exercise at home to do chores, if even if you’re just standing up, we’ll talk about how your foot muscles or your toes specifically, should be used. Real quick, my name is Dr. David Middaugh. And I’m a specialist physical therapist El Paso manual physical therapy.

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So let’s get to it. A lot of people don’t know this. But when you use your toes when walking, they give you better balance and support. They’ll show you really quick what I mean. Go ahead and turn this way, just take a little step towards me perfect like that. If you were to stand on one leg, so don’t use your toes, just balance on one leg to hold on to the wall. You see how the foots working hard to balance here. If I push amber here, it’s easy to knock her over.

Now go ahead and grab with your toes event perfect, just download that it’s going to be moving, that’s normal, but she’s much more sturdy here, her toes are working to grab the ground just a bit so that she could balance better. If I couldn’t stand up again, gravity chose this time.

If I pushed her this time, she’s going to be much better balance. Now this is an imbalance causes I’m going to knock her over obviously, no matter how easy I tried, she’s just going to lose your balance because I’m in an advantage over her.

But when you’re doing your normal walking, you’re only standing on one leg for a brief moment. So you have to have good balance during that time. What you need to do at home is think about this stand up on both feet 50/50. Let’s get this part down so we can get to walking. When you’re standing on both feet, your toes should be subtly grabbing the ground. So go ahead and do that just suddenly grabbed the ground.

Another way to think of it, we get close to here. You know how with your fingers when you put pressure through your fingertips, your fingertips turn white, that’s called blanching. Well, your toe tips do the same thing. If you look down at your feet, and you can see your skin if your nails are painted pretty like hers, you can see your nails turning will be a white, that’s enough, you don’t have to kill your toes here.

You don’t have to go super-duper hard just enough to blanch your toenail tips or toe tips. That’s all you need to be doing. Said another way, it’s not 100% grab, it’s about a 25% grab 50% at most. Anytime you’re putting weight through a leg, your toes should be automatically grabbing the ground slightly. Obviously, she’s barefoot here.

But this is going to happen within your shoes as well. Nobody be able to tell it, you’re doing it. And it’s going to give your ankles and your knees lots more support whenever you’re walking. So now whenever you take a step, each time you step, you should be grabbing slightly with your foot on the side that you’re stepping on. So if you start with the right foot, grab a little bit of the right toes and grab it to the left toes and so forth.

So let’s have you just stand on one leg and then alternate sides, almost like you’re walking in place and grab a bit you have to pick up a lie just get with you. You’re just standing one foot and grabbing the other foot, grab, grab, grab, grab, yep, just practice that and standing you’re just picking up your foot and barely even above the ground. Yep, just like that. And practice grabbing. Each time that you stand up on that leg.

This is how you’re going to walk as well. Smell, it’s how you face me and go back that way just a bit. So you can take some steps a little more closer to the wall. They’re perfect, just like that. So every time let’s do it in slow motion. Go back just a bit more. Now go ahead and step forward your right foot and freeze there.

Put a little more pressure on your right foot. So right now, if this is everyday walking, she’s going to put pressure on this foot, which if you check out our other video about how you should walk for knee pain. You’ll learn about the glute and how that works. When you put pressure on this right leg, glute muscles should tighten up a bit and simultaneously foot muscles should grab a bit there.

And by the way, that video about how to use your glutes during walking will be linked in the description below here. You can go check it out if you want to catch set up and catch up on that. When you step you’re going to grab with your glutes, then grab the toe muscles for just a moment. Then you’re going to switch to the other leg when you look forward and freeze there.

Put your weight on this leg. Grab a toast here just a bit 25% you saw her arch come up perfect. The left glutes should be engaged just a bit here. Then go ahead and do it again with the right toes grab right here but muscle works in the Left side. And that’s what you do when you’re walking every single time you walk, you’re grabbing, grabbing, grabbing.

So then turn around and go that way and just let’s do normal speed, swap back and forth here. Grab, grab, grab, grabs, do like two more times here, grab, grab, grab, grab one more time. That’s how you should be walking at home couldn’t stay still for just a moment here. So guys, practice this at home. Very, very important.

If you’re going up and down stairs, you should be grabbing each stair with your foot. If you’re walking out at the park, if you’re at a store, grocery shopping or shopping anywhere, you should be grabbing within your shoes, and it’s not curling your toes. She didn’t curl her toes under her foot, or just grabbing so that your toe tips turn white just a bit.

This is incredibly important for foot health foot joint health, to make sure that you work your muscles in your feet and ankles properly so that you get rid of imbalances in that area. It supports your knees properly and it works together with your hip muscles about muscles specifically to take pressures off the knee joints.

If you’re suffering from knee problems like arthritis, meniscus tears, ligament issues, degenerating cartilage problems. This foot movement recruiting your toes during the walking pattern is incredibly important to make sure that you’re healthy for the long term. Guys, I hope this video was helpful for you Please like our video if you thought so. And don’t forget to subscribe and turn on your notification bell so you don’t miss out on any of the help videos we put out every single week. Have a wonderful day guys.