“What about ankles? My friend has old ankle injuries and has had little luck fixing them via surgery. I know alignment and muscle use can make a huge difference. Would it help him? Where should he start? “
Yes alignment and muscle balance can make a difference. Sometimes when there is an injury, you need to look above or below the problem. For instance, knocked-knees (valgus) usually puts the weight on the inside of the ankle. The ankle, knee and hips have to organize around this disfunction.
I have a Pilates client who has a pin in her ankle from a terrible fall. Because of the pin, she no longer has much range of motion in the ankle. I still train her feet, legs and work on alignment. Her gaining strength has made a big difference in her posture. When the foundation is weak, the entire body compensates.
A lot of bunion surgery is unsuccessful. What was not addressed is the movement patterns that caused the bunions. I highly recommend training like Pilates, yoga especially the standing poses to help build strength in the legs and torso to help with standing and walking. A good teacher can work with the limitations of an injury and help a client gain the necessary support for better function. Of course, certain injuries, such as my client with the ankle pin, will never return back to normal function. By improving overall tone, alignment and flexibility, my client has made incredible changes in function.
Some great reading about foot strengthening are:
The Wharton Stretch Book by Jim & Phil Wharton
See the section on the foot
“One of the dirty secrets of the fitness world is that for all the talk about the importance of stretching, many athletes and other fit people don’t bother with it. It’s hard to gauge the benefits, and it seems as if the time could be better spent running, lifting weights, or perfecting sports skills. This sentiment is expressed by Dr. Bob Arnot in the foreword to “The Whartons’ Stretch Book,” and he says that the Whartons changed his mind. He went to them with a stiffened hip that he thought needed surgery, but after a regimen using the active-isolated stretching technique, his flexibility in that hip had increased 40 percent.
Active-isolated stretching is very different from what your high-school gym teacher made you do. Rather than holding a stretch for a half-minute, you hold it for just two seconds. This prevents the muscle from activating an instinctual braking device to keep itself from overstretching. Traditional stretching forces that braking to occur, and the Whartons think that’s not only counterproductive, but dangerous. If you force too deep a stretch while the muscle is doing all it can to keep itself from being stretched, something’s got to give. And a torn muscle will repair itself with scar tissue, ultimately making that muscle less flexible.”
Conditioning for Dance by Eric Franklin
This book has a great section on the foot. Even though it is written for dancers, there is great information how the foot works and how to train it.
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I wanted to add that in our work with the ankles we always take a whole body approach. What’s happening with the arches of the feet, the foreleg, the knee, the hip, etc. And in BodyMind Centering we also relate to other physiological systems. The ankles relate through a reflexology or a chakral perspective to the lower pelvic glands. When we focus on balancing the glands we also work with glands below and above it and hence the related joints above and below it. This is unique but powerful work that can help lighten the quality of the person’s movement and therefore the pressure on the joints.