This article is a transcribed, edited summary of a video Bob and Brad recorded in October 2017. For the original video, watch Top 7 Exercises to Increase Blood Flow & Circulation in Legs & Feet.

Bob: Hi folks, I'm Bob Schrupp, physical therapist.

Brad: I'm Brad Heineck, physical therapist.

Bob: Together, we are the most famous physical therapists on the internet.

Brad: In our opinion, of course.

Bob: Seven best exercises to increase blood flow and circulation to your legs and feet. These are some things that are not evident to a lot of people. I don't think a lot of people realize that if they're not getting a lot of flow to their legs, you need to actually exercise in order to get more perfusion of blood to the muscles, right?

Brad: Contraction and relaxation are part of the key to getting fluid and that blood moving right.

Bob: And also stretching well. We're going to show you a bunch of things you can try. Alright, let's talk about the first one. This is the easiest one; this is the one that everybody can do. You need to incorporate some walking into your life. The more you can walk, the more you're going to get blood flowing to the extremities and the feet. For some people, it's uncomfortable because they might have what is called claudication, where they walk so far and they start getting pain in their calves because the blood's not flowing as it should. And what you want to do is walk up to that point and then try to go a little further every day because you hope that eventually you're going to get more blood flow to the muscles by exercising them.

Brad: Right, and then with these other exercises and stretches, that should help increase the ability to walk farther.

Bob: Right. The next one is very simple. You're just going to do what we call bodyweight squats. You can just do it on the back of a chair. Do you want to do them, Brad?

Brad: You bet, right here. You can hold a chair or whatever you need for balance, okay. Keep good posture, though; we like to do things with good posture. So I'm not going to squat forward like this, which is a common mistake.

Brad: We're up tall, and I'm just doing a nice, gentle squat; go down as far as you feel comfortable.

Bob: Yeah, you can do real shallow ones. I mean, you could start out here; believe me, you're getting all the muscles working even real shallow like this.

Brad: You know, if you happen to have pretty good leg strength, you're welcome to go down farther as long as you feel comfortable. You can do 10 to 15 of these. I mean, everything feels good, you know; you get the circulation going in these large muscle groups.

Bob: Try to keep the knees behind the foot; it's better on your knees if they don't go past the foot. That's one reason why we kind of like the ball on the wall, don't we? If you have one of these exercise balls, what's nice about this, especially if you have good gripping shoes, is that it's really easy to keep your knees behind the front of the foot with this. This is how I do mine. I do these almost every day; it's a good functional strengthening exercise. Your back is protected; it's just really easy to do. My wife does these every day. She wakes up in the morning, and like five seconds later she's doing these. I lay on the ground for a little bit. I roll around trying to stretch, and she's like, I'm just doing these things right away.

Brad: Oh wow.

Bob: So anyway, that's the beauty of the ball. All right, next one, Brad. This is one we often do throughout the day. If you can look at my feet, all you're going to do is raise your heels, and then you raise your toes. You should be doing these throughout the day. My fourth-grade teacher used to do these, Brad.

Brad: Really?

Bob: Yep, I remember. It just really stuck in my head. She's like, "My doctor told me I'm supposed to do these because I'm having trouble with swelling and lack of circulation in my legs." So throughout the day, she'd be teaching, and she'd be going up and down like this.

Brad: It's amazing what sticks in your head.

Bob: Yeah, it is. She was a nice teacher.

Brad: Oh, good.

Bob: Unlike my third-grade teacher. All right, next one is the foam roller. These work out really well for getting perfusion of blood into the muscles. Tom Brady, his workout, the TB12, I don't have the book here, but he uses a vibrating foam roller. Which one are you going to use today?

Brad: Well, I'm going with the pink one. Okay, I'm going to start from the ankle, and we'll work up.

Bob: Yeah, this is a good one to do because a lot of people have a lot of poor circulation in the calves, don't they.

Brad: So you're going to work that. If you want to get more aggressive, you can cross one leg over the other, and that gets pretty aggressive.

If I wasn't real tough, I'd be hollering right now, so I'm going back to having my legs uncrossed.

Bob: Yeah, you're one of the toughest guys I know in this room.

Brad: Oh yeah? Now you're right there; you might as well go right up to the hamstrings. I'm going to cross my legs on that one right away and

go like that. With one this narrow, I would just do one leg at a time because it's not quite wide enough. If I had a three-foot foam roller, then I could do both legs a little more easily, but it works just fine.

Bob: These are nice and compact. You throw it into your bag. Then I would definitely even do these for shin splints. So he's doing the front thigh, and now he's going to get a little bit in the IT band, too.

Brad: Yeah, you're not going to go on the shin bone, but on the anterior tibialis.

Bob: You're a little bit on the side. I started doing these. I did it this morning. I did the calf, and I did the shin because I was getting a little bit of shin splints. It seems like it's really helped.

Brad: Now I have a lot of weight through my other leg. I'm not putting all my body weight down there because that would be a little uncomfortable for me. It all depends on the individual.

Bob: Yeah, foam rollers, you'd be surprised at how pliable they make the muscles and how quickly you can move things along.

Brad: Get that circulation moving.

Bob: All right, the next one is the leg wedge, Brad. I'm actually going to have you lie down because you fit better on it. What's nice about the leg wedge is that it's just a good way to get your feet up a little bit elevated.

Bob: It's going to help prevent the swelling from happening in the feet. Then, when you're in this position, it's a great position to go ahead and do the ankle, foot flexion, dorsiflexion, and plantarflexion, and then add circles to them.

Brad: Now, there's something about this leg wedge; the contact it makes here really provides comfort for that low back.

Bob: Yeah, we've said this many times; it's just a weird sensation. I didn't believe it until Brad showed me this, that it just feels really good on your back for some reason. So this is a great way to take a nap, or if you're trying to relax after a hard day of being on your feet, to get your feet up.

Brad: I've had one patient who had swelling problems. He liked it, but he also added a pillow on the end, right under his calf, to elevate a little bit more.

Bob: Sure. All right, the next one, Brad, is a machine that we use in all five of our clinics, actually six clinics. What we do is we actually put a 2x4 underneath the front we don't need to do that right now Brad, but it just puts it at a little bit better angle. It's an elliptical machine.

Brad: Yeah.

Bob: Anyway, it was designed to use standing up, but we use it with all of our patients sitting down, and it's just a really smooth glide, right? You can see I'm getting my ankles going up and down, flipping up and down, so it's just a great one for getting a little more circulation into your legs and feet, plus getting a little cardio, a little exercise.

Brad: It gets the ankles, the knees, and a little bit of the hips.

Bob: Yeah, and there's a resistance knob on there if you want to make it a little bit tougher. I got one of these for my mom, and she just puts it in front of the TV and just watches TV. The girl that works for us, Rosie, she just had a knee replacement, and she does the same thing; she just sits in front of the TV and uses it.

Brad: Now, you know, if the person has stiff ankles, and particularly with an elderly person, that's when, like Bob was talking about, you put one or two two-by-fours under here to elevate it, and it just makes it easier for someone who's weak or has some tight joints to get it around.

Bob: Brad actually fabricated wooden fixtures or stands for all of ours. Anyway, it just works out really well, and these are very durable. We're using them like six hours a day, and they go on for years.

Brad: For home use, you're never going to have a problem.

Bob: Alright, the last one, Brad, is that you can actually stretch the muscles if you want. You can do that just manually, or a lot of times we recommend this stretch-out strap. This is a yoga strap. What's nice about this is you can start stretching the calf muscles, and again, you've got the strap, so it's really easy to do. You can just put your hands through the loops like this, and now I'm stretching. Especially if you have maybe a little arthritis in your hands and you can't grab on. You can use your wrists and pull.

Bob: You can go right from this into a hamstring stretch.

Brad: Sure.

Bob: My hamstrings are a little shaky.

Brad: This is the kind of thing you could do getting out of bed in the morning. Maybe you could start doing this because you're kind of sleepy; maybe you could pull this strap out.

Bob: Yeah, it could be my transition out of bed; you can lie on your side. I'm going to stretch the front of my thigh.

Brad: So he's getting the quadriceps.

Bob: So I'm taking one of the loops here. I'm going to go back.

Brad: Lie on your stomach, Bob, so they can see what's going on. That works as well.

Bob: Good stretch that way. Any other ones we want to do with the strap?

Brad: No, that pretty much covers most of it as far as the legs.

Bob: You've got the major muscles there. So give it a try and see which ones you like. You don't need to do all these by any means; just pick out the ones that work for you. Start with maybe just the walking and the bodyweight squats and maybe the heels and toes, and then, if you like, move on to some of the other ones.

Brad: Right, they're all going to be effective, but again, everyone's got their own particulars.

Bob: Thanks, everybody, for watching.

Medical Disclaimer: All information, content, and material on this website are for informational purposes only and are not intended to serve as a substitute for the consultation, diagnosis, and/or medical treatment of a qualified physician or healthcare provider.

Affiliate Disclaimer: Keep in mind that we may receive commissions when you click our links and make purchases. However, this does not impact our reviews and comparisons. We are highly selective in our products and try our best to keep things fair and balanced to help you make the best choice for you.