Taking care of your feet

For runners, the feet and the leg are under constant pressure and “torture”.  Especially when many of the runners fail to see the importance of proper warm up and cool down procedures.  The feet is the first point of contact for walking and running.  Having skin, nail and joint problems with the feet is also one common thing that long distance runners face.

When training

1.  Proper warm up for your feet:  Before you start  your run, always make sure your body is warmed up.  Do not just do only static warm ups.  Dynamic warm up which include slight cardio movements like pointing of the feet and swinging of the legs, are also important to keep your joints injury free when taking part in your sport later on.  For the feet, you can divide your toes with your fingers and turn them in circles to release the tension.  Try also rubbing and smoothing out the base of your feet to release the tension walking the whole day.

Off season

• Proper footwear: Although I am a minimalist.  When off running or walking, it is good to keep the feet warm and comfy in a pair of nice good socks.  In TCM terms, it is important to make sure that your limbs are kept warm for good blood circulation.  The foot wear you chose is also important, this is even more so for people with different types of foot problem: eg Flat foot, cracked toes etc.  Every one has a different foot structure, do make sure you wear the right type of shoes to ensure good foot health.  If you have straight toes , which means the 5 toes are almost the same length, you might not be suitable to wear pointed front shoes.  As this will squeeze your toes into an awkward position, it the long term, the last few toes might feel the strain.  Always test out the shoes properly before purchase, jump around with it.  Make sure that the size also fits you nicely.

• Foot Hygiene:  This is very important especially most of the time we only take care about our face, hair and neglect the feet.  The feet needs your tender loving care, do soak your feet in some ginger and lemon slices with warm water for about 30 minutes.  This can help to relieve the tension and the stress accumulated in the feet area.  Get a simple brush ( even tooth brush is okay), give your toes a nice brush while soaking them.  If you are into some serious cleaning up, you can even use coarse salt and rub a scrub to the feet.  This can help to disinfect the feet and also remove the dead skin in the feet and toes area.  If you have black toe nails or suffering from some skin fungal infections, its time to visit to get proper medication from the doctor for a good soak.   Fungal infections in the feet area is very common.  Even if cured, the chances for it to come back will be very common.  Therefore, do keep the feet dry and clean, if you are wearing socks and covered shoes, make sure that the socks get washed regularly and the shoes are aired properly, sun your shoes for half an hour for the sun to dry and disinfect it.  Even in cold countries, it is also good to let your feet be aired and out of footwear.  If you feel cold, you can get a towel or cloth to cover it.

• Proper Nutrition:  Many people will think, what has my diet got to do with my feet?  Were there times your feet felt water retention and very pumped up.  This might be an indication of some liver and kidney problems, which causes the water retention.  Therefore it is important that you have proper nutrition and exercise to make sure that your organs are functioning properly.  Some people also suffer from the gout condition, gout comes from too much uric acid (UA) in your body, which can form needle-like crystals in joints. A gout attack can last for days or weeks.  There are ways to Attacks can last days or weeks. You can treat it with drugs that fight inflammation (pain, redness, and swelling) or UA-lowering medication. Some diet changes help break down uric acid, too.

Every part of your body is important.  Do not neglect their well being.  In the next posts, healthobeing will share some recepies for home made scrubs and soaks for your feet, especially for the busy and lazy people.