Plantar Flexion And Some Exercise For It

Plantar flexion is a movement of your foot and ankles. It is important to learn these little things about our bodies because they have some medical conditions. With this kind of medical knowledge, you will understand the medical problems you or someone you know is facing. This way, you will also find out the better solutions and understand the course of treatment that a doctor has chosen for you.

Plantar flexion

As you know, plantar flexion is a movement of your foot. It is such a movement in which you push your feet towards the ground that makes you lift your ankles away from the ground. In simple words, the movement that lets you stand on your tippy-toes is known and plantar flexion.

Not only that, this movement helps in a lot of other things as well, and some of these things are belle dancing, pushing the gas pedal on your car, and even walking. When you are walking on the ground, you have to push your feet away from the ground to keep moving forward. So, some percent of the movement while walking is because of plantar flexion.

Conditions associated with plantar flexion

There are medical conditions that can cause a decrease in plantar flexion. Due to these conditions, you are unable to move your foot this way without experiencing pain. Plantar flexion is decreased by medical conditions like rheumatoid arthritis ad osteoarthritis. The opposite movement of plantar flexion is dorsiflexion, allowing the foot to move towards the leg.

Dorsiflexion and plantar flexion both movements are both controlled by the ankle joints in your ankle, and these joints help 40 to 70 percent in the walking movement of a person. Another condition that can cause a problem with the plantar flexion is the injury to your ankle joint. This way, you will be unable to move your foot, causing the plantar flexion to decrease. Due to that, you won’t be able to walk or perform activities in which plantar flexion plays an important role.

Exercises for plantar flexion

Belle dancers and other sports professionals whose career and entire life depends on plantar flexion. Do a few exercises to keep this movement going. Despite such conditions, your everyday life will be affected when an ankle joint or muscles injury happens, causing difficulty in plantar flexion. You will be unable to walk properly, and this can lead to restrictions in everyday activities.

With these exercises, the muscles around your ankles will develop better, causing the ankle tin be secured and your whole joint as well. This can assure that your plantar flexion movement doesn’t get disturbed by avoiding any form of injury to the joint or muscle. Following are some of the exercises to ensure plantar flexion remains smooth

Combination of dorsiflexion and plantar flexion

You have to do both these movements together to ensure you have healthy plantar flexion movement. To do this exercise, you can do the following

You can sit on the bed or the floor with your legs straight up in front of you.

Now move your foot in the dorsiflexion ad hold it there for 5 seconds.

Now move your foot away from your leg, causing plantar flexion, and hold it there again for 5 seconds.

Repeat each of the motions a few times. You can do this exercise every day.

To get the extra benefit out of it, you can also make it challenging by bending your knee a little bit and then doing these exercises.

Towels curls

As the name suggests, you will require a towel for this exercise. You can do this exercise in the following manner

• For this exercise, you have to be sitting in a chair with your feet planted on the floor.
• Place the towel right next to your feet. Now try to grab the towel with the middle of your toes and curl your feet in a way to bring it up towards you.
• Now place the towel once again on the floor and keep doing this for 5 minutes.
• To make this exercise more challenging, you can add the weight to the towel to make it difficult to be lifted.

Marble in a bowl exercise

For this exercise, you will need a bowl and marbles. First, pace some marbles right next tin you while you are sitting on a chair. Then, pick each marble up with your toes and place it in the bowl.

Keep doing this until you have added at least 20 marbles in the bowl.

When you are doing it on the plain floor, it becomes difficult because marbles keep rolling away. So, placing a mat beneath them is a good option.

Ankle range motion

This exercise is very easy and doesn’t require you to have anything with you. You can even do this exercise while watching television.

While sitting on a chair or couch, you can plant your feet on the floor. Now raise one of the feet slightly above the ground. Trace an alphabet or a number with that foot, and this will give motions to your ankle.

• Do it again with your other foot as well.
• Single leg heel raise.
• In this exercise, you have to be standing.
• You can stand near a wall for support.
• Raise one foot from the ground and sit your weight to the other leg.
• Now you can slightly lift yourself on the tip of your toe. Stay there for a while and then repeat with the other leg as well.

Conclusion

This was all you needed to know about plantar flexion and the exercises you need to do to ensure a smooth plantar flexion. These exercises will help reduce the risk of injury to the ankle or ankle muscle, causing the limitation in plantar flexion.

Many medical conditions are associated with plantar flexion so make sure you are getting your routine checkup and are taking your multivitamins to nourish your muscles and bones. Limitations in plantar flexion can lead to limitations in everyday personal as well as work life. This was everything you needed to know about plantar flexion and how to maintain healthy ankle muscles.