Like the rest of your body, your feet need exercise to stay in great shape.Your feet are like the wheels of your car, if they go wrong, whether you have a BMW engine or a Honda engine, its useless. So why not spend just 5 – 10 mins of your day, strengthening your feet. You really don’t have to dedicate special time, rather you can do it at your workplace anytime.

While working, while reading, sitting in a meeting, or at lunch.

And the below exercises are just those which you can do at work, without any prop or easily available prop. There are more foot strengthening exercises, but you need to get into awkward positions, which your colleagues might find funny :).

1) Toe Curls / Toe Pick Ups – Strengthens the foot, Improves flexibility, Improves push off power, protects against Plantar Fasciitis and shin splints. 

If at home, you can use a towel, put it on the floor, and start collecting the towel using your toes. Use one foot at a time. 

However you really do not need a towel. I do it without the towel, at work.

Toe-pick ups are similar, imagine you are picking up a dice on the ground with your toe, and putting it aside.

2) Toe twisters – Now what I do with the foot is. Keep it flat on the ground, and twist it to one side, without swaying your leg much. Do the same on the other side.

3) Ankle Pump-up – This exercise helps strengthens the muscles in the front of your lower leg (shin). Keep your feet on the ground, and start by pulling your foot up like you are trying to touch your toes to the front of your shin. Hold this position for 10 seconds, and relax down.

[You cannot do Ankle Pump-down, which is the reverse motion of the pump-up, because you need your legs in the air, might be a little weird if you are doing it at work 🙂 ]

4) Plantar Fascia Massage – Lets say you need to read something at work, so this exercise can be done then. Sit down and cross your leg over your knee. With one hand, pull your toes back toward your nose. With the other hand, massage the area on the bottom of your foot just in front of your heel.

5) Ice Bottle Massage – Fill a bottle with water and freeze it, if your workplace has a refrigerator, then great. I label my bottle, so that nobody else can use it, and won’t throw it when the fridge gets cleaned.

Roll your foot on the bottle for 10 minutes three times per day. This reduces any inflammation on your sore foot, caused from running, long-walks. Its a must do I believe.

6) Using foosball– I also use a foosball and start rolling it under my foot. It helps to relieve of any foot pain, and gives a great massage. Being hard and small, it spots the pain areas.

Also don’t forget to check out these everyday leg workout in 5 minutes.