Now those are some yoga toes! 🙂

Did you know that by spreading your toes you activate your outer shin muscles, enlivening your legs with more strength and and awareness?

Here my foot is “flointed”. Ankle joint pointed, toes flexed and fanned. So, I have refined articulation in my ankle joint and my toes! Oh yeah baby.

But, I am not just doing this to show off my sandy feet. 🙂 There is a much bigger purpose to working our feet in all yoga poses and exercises too.

Let me break-it-down a wee bit…

Yoga Pose: Eka Pada Koundinyasana II

There is such a chain reaction of events happening here in Eka Pada Koundinyasana II. But remember, this stuff is helpful in ALL POSES.

Check it, imagine if my foot was “asleep” (limp) in this pose. My left leg would actually become heavier, more of a burden to hold up. That in turn would additionally compromise the weight bearing action on my supporting shoulder as well. Not cool.

However, with active toes and an alive flointed foot, my shins hug in, giving me stability to extend my hips open from, gifting a more effortless ability to lift and extend too. With my entire leg now active from toes to pelvis, my arms are not taking on as much weight. All of me is active this way!

How To Stretch And Enliven Your Yoga Toes

So now that you know the significance of spreading your toes, I KNOW you are inspired to go there. 🙂

If your toes have not been enlivened, you can start practicing now. Yay!

One way for a beginner to practice having alive and wild yoga toes is to use a wall. What this exercise will help you do is get more range of motion through the roots of your toes, so they bend back to create the “floint” action I have going on up in the top photo.

 

 

Yoga Therapy For Plantar Fasciitisis

Practice the above option often. It feels so good and is very therapeutic for the arches of your feet, especially so for things like plantar fascitiisis. Keep the balls of your feet on the floor, only the toes go up the wall. Hold for a few good rounds of breaths, and repeat a few times on each side. Try to do this at least 2x a day if you are using it for arch therapy.

Another option is to simply stand and lift and spread your toes numerous times through out each day.

Think of making a rainbow arch from your pinky toe to the outer heal as your spread your toes away from each other. This will really activate the outer shin muscles!

Yet one more way to really SPREAD THE TOES is to simply thread your fingers through your toes. Take your left hand, and thread your fingers through your right toes. At the same time you can bend the toes back and even massage the arch of your foot or circle your ankles.

So SPREAD ‘EM AND SMILE! 🙂

My Barefoot Feet Hike Kauai

OK, so just to out-do my sandy Eka Pada Koundinyasana II foot I have to share my hiking barefoot in the jungle photo with YOU. Isn’t this the best?!

This one was taken from one of my yoga retreat on Kauai, Hawaii a couple years back, hiking one of my favorite trails with really fun people. Wanna come spread you YOGA TOES with me on a yoga and fitness adventure Retreat On Kauai?  Check the details here!

Find out more about working with me here.