Get your feet talking to your glutes for stability and power.
Once you understand the relationship between the feet working properly and glute activation you can become massively more stable and powerful and this can have a big impact on your running (and all other upright activities). Even in walking you suddenly find yourself effortlessly outpacing all around you.
How come we don’t do this naturally? We fail to tap into this innate power and stability because we have been shod from an early age and are feet no longer know how to react to and engage with the ground. Also we sit for most of our lives. This and wearing shoes affects ankle mobility, produces fascial and joint stiffness and effectively deactivates the glutes.
Getting the big toe to talk to the ground, being able to spread and stiffen the soles of the feet and being able to create a good toe off, especially through the big toe are critical, as is the need for the connection between big toe and core to be functional.
Working on improving ankle mobility, ensuring the elasticity of the fascia of the feet and lower limbs and learning optimal foot position and strike patterns – all of these are key to being stable on the ground, which translates into a lot of effortless ‘free’ power or speed.
To attempt to just be strong or powerful without stability or range of motion from the ground up is usually just to develop muscular imbalances and reinforce bad positions.
This is one of the reasons why the ‘foot out’ over pronated foot we see so often is so unstable and lacking power at toe off – the big toe is not working with the ground properly.
Get the feet working as well as possible in a shod world, then connect to the core and finally to the shoulders to create a massively powerful, stable structure, then add in full range of motion and, lastly strength or speed or intensity, working from a powerful base. Then you have a powerhouse like footballer Ronaldo.
Many will not get to this point it is true, but missing out the foundations is like building a house of straw. The stronger the foundations, the greater the potential.
To learn more about getting your feet talking to your core musculature and more contact David on 07504439555 or at info@roadstofreedom.net.
ultrafit50plus 
I love the feet and totally get what you are saying. I starting working on my feet when my friend who was training to be a physio thereaphist would share her learnings with me as a way of studying, she has since passed away, but when I am unbalanced I think of where my feet are. Often people forget the value of their feet, especially their toes, until they are injured and they feel the incredible imbalance. My now physio continues to teach me to use my whole foot when I run so that my body is aligning and injuries remain at bay … Thanks for the insightful feet grounding info … :o) Cheers, Alexis.
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Pleasure Alexis. It doesn’t matter where you start in training the body, it always seems to come back to the feet. Most injuries I see can be traced back to foot function also.
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