Muay Thai Soft Tissue Work – Foot Release & Short Foot Exercise
by Don Heatrick
@donheatrick
As promised, here’s the first area of soft tissue work that you can do at home using a tennis ball, or similar.
I’ve started at the ground, with the foot, because not only is a tennis ball the perfect implement for this part of the body…
But also the foot is critical to optimal Muay Thai performance.
A strong, stable foot enhances the amount of power you can produce from the floor, and contributes significantly to your ability to balance too.
And if the arch of your foot collapses downward, it takes your knee inward too – into valgus collapse. Buckling in, and ultimately causing injury.
This also affects the stability of your Muay Thai stance, and your ability to safely absorb low kicks as a last resort if you’re unable to block or get out of the way.
And with Muay Thai being a barefoot sport, you don’t have the advantage of correcting your flat feet with an orthotic insert in your shoe.
You must create space, and then coordinated strength in the foot.
Your feet take a pounding, and I see a lot of clients that suffer from flat feet. I’ve even seen clients go down a shoe size when they regularly started doing the exercises I’m going to show you (in the video above).
