Instagram Physical Therapy Posts

How stiff are your calves? Try this test. 👣

The knee-to-wall test is a simple way to check your ankle mobility at home. Place your big toe 10 cm (about 4 inches) from a wall. Keeping your heel flat, bend your knee forward and try to touch the wall.

10 cm is a solid target for most adults, but a 2026 study of 899 healthy adults (“International normative values for the weight-bearing lunge test across age and sex in 899 healthy adults”) found ankle mobility naturally drops as we age. Here’s what’s typical:

→ 18-39: about 11 cm
→ 40-49: about 10-11 cm
→ 50-59: about 10 cm
→ 60-69: about 8-9 cm
→ 70-79: about 7 cm
→ 80+: about 6 cm

If you’re below the average for your age, your ankles are likely stiffer than most. Test both sides, because a big difference between them is worth noting.

Why it matters: limited ankle mobility can contribute to:
→ Calf tightness and pain
→ Foot pronation and foot pain
→ Less squat depth
→ Knee and low back pain

Stiff ankles don’t just stay in the ankle.

Couldn’t hit your number? Follow me for more ankle mobility posts. 👇 Tell me how far you got and your age group.

#kneetowalltest #anklemobility #footpain #anklepain #physicaltherapy ...

Plantar fasciitis? Rolling it out might not be the fix. 👣

Most people roll a ball under their foot or stretch their toes, trying to loosen a “tight” fascia. But for most people, it’s not tight — it’s overstretched from pronation and weak foot intrinsics.

Think bow and string: your foot intrinsics are the bow, holding the arch up. Your plantar fascia is the string. Weak intrinsics = collapsed arch = the string carrying load it was never meant to.

That’s also why orthotics help — they hold the arch up mechanically. But they’re often not enough on their own, because they compensate instead of fixing the weakness underneath.

The lasting fix: strengthen what’s under your arch, not just stretch the fascia that’s already overstrained.

One note: heel/arch pain can also come from things like tarsal tunnel, a stress fracture, nerve entrapment, or a worn-down fat pad, sciatica, etc. — not just plantar fasciitis. Get it properly diagnosed before assuming this is your fix.

Have you been told to just “stretch it out”? Let me know below. 👇

#anchoragealaska #plantarfasciitis #footstrength #heelpain #physicaltherapist ...

After treating hundreds of patients with flat feet, this is the exercise I keep coming back to. 👣

Band around the ankles, squat — but the real work isn’t the squat itself. It’s resisting the band trying to pull your ankles inward the entire time.

Here’s what to focus on:
→ Hold your arch up
→ Push your big toe down into the floor
→ Keep your ankle lifted, not caved in
→ Don’t drift to the outside edge of your feet either — you’re staying centered, not overcorrecting

This teaches your feet to resist collapse under real load, which is exactly what walking, running, and standing all day actually demand from them.

It’s harder than it looks — most people feel their arch and big toe working within the first few reps.

Try a set and tell me: could you feel your arch staying engaged, or did your ankles want to cave in? Drop a 🔥 if you want me to post the next progression of this one.

#anchoragealaska #resistancebandexercises #footstrength #flatfeet #anklestrength ...

Stop judging your feet by arch height alone. 👣

Most people think foot type = arch height. High arch, flat arch, done. But that’s not how a PT actually looks at it — we check the rearfoot and ankle from behind.

Pronation: ankle caves in, heel tilts in, forefoot turns out.
Supination: heel tilts out, foot rolls to the outside edge.
Neutral: heel and forefoot stay straight and stacked.

Here’s the part most people miss — your foot moves in three planes at once (triplanar motion), not just up and down. That’s why two people with similar arches can have totally different alignment underneath.

Why it matters: your foot posture is what actually determines which exercises help you and which shoes work with you instead of against you.

Look at your own heels from behind — cave in, tilt out, or stay straight?

#anchoragealaska #pronation #supination #footrehab #footexercises ...

Fixing a big toe that caves inward— start here 👣

If your big toe caves inward toward your other toes, it’s not just cosmetic — it changes how your whole foot loads, often showing up as poor balance and increased pronation (your arch collapsing inward).

The muscle responsible for correcting this is the abductor hallucis — its job is literally to pull your big toe back out and help stabilize your arch. For most people, this muscle has been switched off for years, so don’t be surprised if you can’t feel it working right away. It often takes several honest attempts before that connection clicks — that’s normal, not a sign you’re doing it wrong.

One important note: if your big toe has been caved in for years, some of that change may be structural (bony changes) at the joint, not just muscular — and that part may not fully reverse. That’s okay. Even a small amount of correction you can achieve pain-free can meaningfully improve your balance and reduce pronation. You don’t need a perfect fix to get a real benefit.

Stay in a pain-free range the entire time. If something hurts, back off.

Start here, be patient with it, and give it time. This muscle didn’t go quiet overnight, and it won’t wake back up overnight either.

#footexercises #balanceexercise #bunion #balance #physiotherapy ...

Level 2 Foot Strengthening

You mastered the basics in my previous reel— this is how you level up!

Here’s what most people don’t realize: single-leg stance and single-leg RDLs can absolutely be done without your foot intrinsics doing any real work. Your hip and ankle can compensate the whole time, and you’ll never build the foot strength you’re after.

The difference is foot doming (or short foot). Add that in — actively shortening and lifting your arch while you balance or move — and the same exercise now demands real work from the muscles under your foot.

Progression to try:
→ Foot doming / short foot (build the base skill)
→ Single-leg stance with short foot (test it under balance)
→ Single-leg RDL with short foot (test it under dynamic balance)

If you skip the doming, you’re missing essential foot strengthening. Add it, and you’re actually training the foundation.

Let me know in the comments if you were able to feel your foot work harder with this technique or if I should post another reel on how to do the short foot exercise in more detail.

#anchoragealaska #physicaltherapy #balancetraining #footstrength #footandankle ...

Beginner foot strength exercises — start here. 👣

After the last video, so many of you asked how to strengthen your foot muscles. If you’ve spent years in supportive shoes, the brain-to-foot neural connection can get rusty. Totally normal — the majority of the time it comes back with honest practice, reps, and not giving up!

4 to start with:
→ Toe yoga (isolate big toe from the other four)
→ Toe splaying (spread all 5 toes apart)
→ Short foot exercise (shorten the foot without curling toes)
→ Resisted big toe flexion (press down against resistance)

Keep it clean: heel and ball of foot stay flat the whole time — no rocking side to side to force the big toe down. Keep your foot neutral, not rolled in (pronated) or rolled out (supinated). Work towards not curling your toes and keeping them flat. You may need to use your hands at first to help your toes get the idea of the movement.

The one rule that matters most: you should feel the muscles on the bottom of your feet working. If you don’t feel them, you’re likely compensating with something else instead. Slow down and find the correct feeling and foot posture before adding reps.

If you can dissociate your toes right away — great, most people can’t at first, and that’s okay. It just takes honest reps to rebuild the connection.

Did you feel your foot muscles working? Tell me below — and let me know if you want the next level of foot strengthening with some single-leg progressions.

#anchoragealaska #footstrength #physicaltherapy #plantarfasciitis #balancetraining ...