Show your feet some loving attention

All you need is a small soft ball

Our feet carry our weight and move us around day-in and day-out. Let’s give them some attention with a sort of massage.

I am saying sort of massage because you will actually step onto the small ball with your body weight – it makes more sense when you watch the video.

I came across this exercise in a workshop many years ago but we did it with a small hard ball (not to be recommended – the hard ball). However, I simplified and shortened it and also decided that a softer ball has a much better effect.

 

What is the exercise about?

• Mainly it is about improving how you are standing on your feet – your balance and proprioception.
• You also wake up the feet.
• Since we add a ball, there will also be a lovely massage aspect to it.

 

What do I like about it?

• It is such a simple exercise which has a big effect on your feet.
• It is a great way to enhance any standing exercises you might be doing because you will stand better.
• You can even improve your balance because there is more awareness in the feet.
• Because we are massage the sole of the feet, you might feel the effect in the whole backline of your body. Try a Roll Down after this exercise and you might feel how much easier and smoother the movement is.

 

What prop do you need?

A very small squooshy soft ball with a lot of give. The ball has the size of a golf ball but is much softer. I don’t recommend doing this exercise with a golf ball – it is simply too hard.

If you don’t have such a ball, you can always roll some small socks together.

 

Where to place the prop

There a several spots which I will show in the video.

 

Which course/workshop is the exercise from?

• A Corona-friendly Friday bar in a pilates studio where we focused on the feet and hands.

 

And here is the video …

Video length: 7:56 minutes