Fit Feet For Couch Sloths

Before I begin, I want to make it clear to the Vast Viewing Audience (5 visits and counting!) that my body-image doesn't include clown feet and scrawny legs.  Boat-size metatarsals and miniscule biceps.  Yes, I'm focusing on the foot.  But Forged Steel, mind you, is strong everywhere.  As Steel Cut Oats, I steer toward uniformity the Steel Cut Tribe, conducting a symphonic network of cells, and insist on being thorough prior to "moving up."  Tone feet may not turn heads.  No one's going to sidle up to you at a party and say they admire your abductor hallucis.  But, remember, the bailiwick of Fitness is.... function.  Strengthen your feet now--Now and Forever!--and avoid the non-function many accept.

Think I'm joking?  Consider this nightmare: After graduating in '95, I signed-up to work as a "traveling therapist."  My first job, right out of school, landed me as the ONLY therapist at a War Veterans Home in rural Louisiana.  Whether I was qualified for the job is neither here nor there---I HAD it....  I also had: enthusiastic naivety, optimistic idealism, and a tepid interest in retired share-croppers who once shot flak at flaming kamikazes loyal to the banner of the Rising Sun.  I left on a Friday, drove 2500 miles, from Oregon to Louisiana, in two days, and moved into an apartment (Roach Haven), prior to starting on a sweltering Monday morn.  In school, I'd been exposed to multiple scenarios, both in hospital and out-patient settings, but school is not reality---at least not rural Louisiana Back-Country Reality.  A "case-load" consisting of Medicare re-treads and decrepit old-timer's, wheeled in, one-after-the-other, was mine to manage sans net.  I saw patients from Vietnam and Korea, but the majority were veterans of World War II, bedeviled by age, a questionable diet, and the Sedentary Blues.  In addition to my L.W.V.H. duties, I also made "house calls" on the edge of the swamp.  In this varied exposure to preceding generations, it came to my attention that a correlation existed between foot status (strong/weak) and ambulatory vigor.  I noticed, for example, that elderly patients whose ability to walk separated them from peers, could flex and fan their toes.  Those with impaired mobility, without exception, lacked neuro-muscular pathways (the Quarterback Brain "threw" to Feet deaf and dumb) indicating that "use it or lose it" is sound.  Having observed hale "old-timers," as well as the nursing crowd, I can say, years later, that the observation holds true.  Strong, active feet, with hard-wired connections to the brain's "motion center," preserve our ability to waltz throughout life.

The Exercises: 

1) Flex-Fan: Scrunch (flex) your toes tightly, then, in reverse, spread them apart.  Flex-fan.... Flex-fan...  This exercise strengthens neural connectivity, lubricates joints, and trains muscles beyond their "normal" range.

2) Toe-Scissors: This, too, is a "flex-fan" exercise, but instead of moving your toes together, you move the Big Toe (or hallucis) opposite the others.  Remember, go for the maximum possible range, back and forth, while concentrating on recruitment of compromised neural paths.

3) Scrunches: Begin with your feet on the floor, then, without toe-flexing, arch the mid-foot as high as you can. Arch-flatten....  Arch-flatten....  This trains the intrinsic muscles of the feet, and can be performed almost anywhere (with or without shoes, sitting or standing, in public or private), without breaking a sweat.

4) Massage: Muscles get grumpy.  How'd you like to bear hundreds of pounds of pressure all day only to be ignored? Get in there.  The foot is easy to noodle and probe.  Run your thumb from the base of the heel to the ball of Mr. Big.  Squeeze the base of each toe, maneuver each joint.  The connective tissue, or fascia, that covers the bottom of feet is more pliable (less prone to injury and inflammation), if it knows you care and feels your touch.

That's a wrap.  Do the exercises in bed, while watching TV, or at the dentist....  They're easy, no shower.  Still, every ingredient to a recipe counts, and, in this case, the casserole is called Steel Cut.

Makten, S.C.O.