Walk Better Instantly! The Move Every Senior Should Try

This article is a transcribed, edited summary of a video Bob and Brad recorded in February 2025. For the original video, go to https://youtu.be/IECTFrAmnrQ

Brad: Greetings! Greetings, everyone! Mike, what's the episode about today? What is the topic?

Mike: Today, we are talking about how to instantly improve your walking with one overlooked area, and it's your toes.

Brad: Yeah, and stick around because we are seriously going to show you one simple move to work on foot strength, which will improve your walking and make it effortless. Have better balance as well.

Mike: Now, the matter at hand is your feet.

Brad: Yeah.

Mike: Yeah. The irony in that sentence right there. So, without using your toes, you're only using about 80% of your foot to walk, which can inhibit your balance and make things worse, causing falls to happen more often.

Brad: Yeah, can we clarify this with the simple model or experiment we do?

Mike: Sure. We have a high-end quality model here.

Brad: Right. So, actually, what I have is an imprint of my foot. So, if you look at the second imprint, my toes are not making contact. The first imprint, we have the full imprint. So, we've got much more contact.

Brad: And the toes play such an incredible amount of influence on your balance and your gait quality. That is very critical. And the strength of those toes makes a difference. So, we're going to find out how we can make ourselves walk from this to this and become a good, quality, and safe walker. All right, a brief explanation about how and why your toes actually curl up when you're walking, taking away the contact with the floor. When your heel strikes, your toes typically pull up to help that dorsiflexion or up-pull of the ankle. And as you roll through, they still stay up, and they're still not touching. So, we just need to make sure that this happens, and we're going to show you an exercise to strengthen it and make you actually aware of it, and get your muscle memory so you walk this way without thinking about it.

Mike: Now, if you're not a heel striker, you may not have this issue because when you walk that way, you normally land with a flat or forefoot strike. Your toes will touch. But a lot of people do heel strike.

Brad: I think most people heel strike.

Mike: It's important to address this. Now, in order to strengthen your toes, what we're going to do is, I'm going to show you in a standing position. This is a little harder; Brad will show in a seated position, depending upon how much toe mobility and flexibility you have. So, for beginners, what we want to do is just stand here, and I'm going to try to curl or push my toes into the ground as hard as I possibly can, 100% effort, just to feel what a 100% percent effort feels like. And now, we're going back to about a 25% effort. So, I'm not pushing down quite as hard through my toes. Once I'm in this position, I'll hold onto something for support. And with both legs, keep contact with the ground with your toes, and we're going to actually go up on your forefoot, lifting the heels off, and we're going to do 30 repetitions total. If you need to do three sets of 10, two sets of 15, whatever you need to do, that's how you begin. And I'm pushing down with my toes as I'm doing these calf raises.

Brad: Yeah. I just want to mention one thing. If you feel like your toes cannot push down into the floor because they're so tight, you may want to spend a little bit of time stretching them into a downward position like this. Actually feels pretty good, I think you'll find if you haven't done that for a while, or maybe a really long time, or never have done it. So, that's a good thing.

Brad: And on the chair, it's working well. And I think the way to progress is from a shorter chair and then maybe to a stool, and then you can put some weight through your legs, and then eventually progress to what Mike just is doing.

Mike: Now, if you're doing a standing one and your toes are curling up like this, and you can't even get them down. Your toes are too tight. You kind of need a stretch like Brad was saying. If this feels easy for you, you can progress to doing it with one leg. And again, hold onto support, keeping your toes in contact with the ground the whole time.

Mike: You know, I do calf raises all the time, but I guess I don't pay attention to my toes. Normally, I think they kind of want to lift up when I go down.

Brad: There you go.

Mike: It's important to try to keep them in contact. So, perform these each day. If you struggle early on and your calf muscles are getting sore, maybe do it every other day. Eventually, go every day. You can also drop the repetitions down if you're really sore.

Brad: I do want to add one thing that could happen is, I almost got one here, is toe cramps. The little muscles right in here, if they cramp, you just stop and pull your toes up this way, and they'll go away real quickly. So, toe cramps can happen, especially when you're digging hard; that's a possibility.

Mike: Now, this is just a strengthening exercise. We want to actually walk while keeping about 25% of our pressure through our toes. So, it's important, even if you're a heel striker, to come down, make sure those toes are touching, pushing down. And most people, when they go to the toe off phase, my back foot is doing, you will engage your toes more. So, that's just something to keep in mind when you're walking. Try to make sure your toes are touching. If you're barefoot, obviously, vs. it's in a shoe, it's a little different feeling, but you can tell.

Brad: You know what works really well for this? If you happen to live by a beach, go for a walk on the beach. And every time you step in that sand with bare feet, think about pushing your toes in to make those toe prints.

Mike: Well, who's going to clean all the sand out of your toes?

Brad: We don't worry about that. We just walk into the ocean or the lake or whatever.

Mike: Oh, okay. And then you just scoot on your butt back, so you don't get more sand in them.

Brad: Yeah, there's about 2% of us that maybe have that, not me, I don't have an ocean in front of their house.

Mike: Now, if you're still having some issues with walking, we have another video you can check out. It's actually strengthening the opposite muscle group of what we just talked about.

Brad: Right. There's always the yin and the yang. The one muscle group has the other complementary muscle group, and must really address them all.

Mike: That video is,  "The WALKING Mistake Almost Everyone Makes."