Averting Flatfeet Pain During Long Island MMA Classes

By Martha Martin

Many people around the world that lack flat feet and fallen arches have no major worries, nevertheless, for others, a minor injury can be stressing. It is a major blow every time you need to do your practice. Read on to find out more about how you can overcome pain in flatfeet during Long Island MMA classes.

If you want to do your workout comfortably, you need to buy a good pair of comfortable sports shoes which will take care of fallen arches. Test out the shoes by making the toe touch the floor and then push down the heel firmly in order to find out if it is the right type of shoe to wear as you go about the workout. A shoe that curves around the middle will not give good support, and so you need to avoid it like the plague.

Once you come across a resistant and strong sport shoe, you can enhance support at the arch using special insoles. Doctors advocate for shoe inserts that are custom made since they assist realign your ankle bones as well as joints thus offering suitable relieve and support as training is being done.

If you wear the wrong shoes during the day, they weaken the arches and so wearing heels is not a good option because you will need more strength if you have flat feet. Heels press the weight of your body on your toes, and they give little or no support to the arches.

The floor of your locker room is infested with germs, and so you need to wear thongs to cover your feet but using them for a long time is not recommended. There is a high risk of contracting tendinitis when you burden the arch tendons. Using sandals which have heel cups is better than using thongs at any given time.

There are numerous warm up exercises that you can do before commencing on the major workout. This makes the arches strong and it helps in keeping injuries at bay. Placing a small towel underneath your feet and doing a pincer movement helps a lot.

If one is doing training which is not rigorous, doing the exercises barefooted is of great benefit. Most people disregard their feet while training because most exercises require one to wear shoes. The fitness of the muscles becomes affected by wearing shoes for a long time, and this makes the arches very weak. Give your feet time to breathe as it helps in rebuilding the weak arches making them healthy.

Being in tip-top shape is a very good thing, but an issue like feet pain makes a workout session a nightmare. You will not enjoy working out if your feet are paining and you will be looking forward to getting out of the gym the soonest. Never give up because if you adhere to the advice above, you will enjoy your training sessions always. Going to the gym will be an enjoyable thing to do because painful feet will be a thing of the past.

About the Author:

You can get excellent tips on how to choose a Long Island MMA instructor and more information about an experienced instructor at http://mmalongisland.com right now.

Friday Q A Yoga for Long Distance Runners

Strong Winds, Pontoise by Camille Pissarro

Q: One of my running buddies sent this article to me that suggests that speed and strength training do more for injury prevention than stretching and I don't buy it. Part of my argument is that stretching feels so good :) I'd love to know your thoughts that I can share with my running group. I think strength and speed definitely build the muscles and make them stronger, but its all yang, yang, yang!

A: The article our reader is referring to is Impact of Stretching on the Performance and Injury Risk of Long-Distance Runners, a review article from 2015 that looked at all the available research on the effect of stretching on different aspects of endurance runners. The authors of the study were interested in finding out if stretching had any positive or negative impact on performance, if it improved recovery from post running soreness, and if it decreased the risk of distance running injuries. Because most research to date has focused on static stretching, usually with holds for 30 seconds, and very little on dynamic stretching, this study focused on reviewing studies that looked at static stretching. What they found might surprise many of us who that assume stretching—from yoga or otherwise—would provide benefits in all those areas. But it turns out this was not the case.

Regarding the first question, stretching done just prior to running actually had negative effects on performance! And although stretching done at other times was not found to have any significant impact either way, the authors noted that a certain amount of stiffness in the hips and calves may actually confer better long distance running ability than being more flexible. They recommend not stretching just before running or at all. 

Many distance runners suffer from something called DOMS, or delayed onset muscular soreness, a condition of muscle soreness that can last a few days after longer runs, which can be temporarily disabling. It had been proposed that stretching may decrease the intensity and length of this condition, but the research reviewed in this study showed no effect from regular stretching on this condition. 

It has also often been proposed that regular stretching might reduce the risk of overuse injuries in long-distance runners, such as Achilles’ tendonitis, plantar fasciitis, or IT Band friction. But, again, the research showed no significant impact on injuries with regular stretching regimens. 

With three strikes against stretching, you long-distance runners out there might just give up on stretching altogether and by extension asana practices that focus more on flexibility. However, despite these three specific cases, I would propose that there are additional potential benefits to a well-rounded yoga practice for long distance runner that still includes some stretching. The investigators did make one interesting comment that is relevant: 

“As a result, unless stretching possesses other health or performance-related benefits, it appears to have little purpose in an endurance runner’ s preparation.”

If we were to assume that a certain amount of stiffness in the hips and calves gives long distance runners an advantage in performance, we can easily design yoga practices that honor that, while still stretching other areas of the body that will benefit from improved flexibility, such as the spine and upper body. And I have noticed that despite being aerobically fit, runners often have poor overall posture. So a yoga practice could focus on improving posture as another goal, which will benefit you on and off the road. (We have written about the benefits of good posture in Friday Practical Pointers: Your Posture Affects Your Breathing and  Cultivating Healthy Posture with a Simple Restorative Pose.)

And Nina has reminded me that practicing yoga for healthy aging is not the same as practicing yoga for improved performance in running. If you completely neglect flexibility practices your whole life in order to improve your running, you risk suffering from loss of agility and ability to balance (not to mention the ability to move through daily activities with ease) when you’re older. So it makes sense to balance your strength building with some flexibility practices so you don’t become super stiff with age.

Finally if we look beyond the limited focus on flexibility and stretching, there are many ways a well-rounded yoga practice can support those out there who love there 5K’s, 10K’s and beyond. The improved mental focus and internal awareness you achieve from pranayama and meditation could actually help performance—professional athletes report this regularly after adopting yoga practices. Restorative practices could improve recovery times in regards to energy and overall tissue healing. And, of course, static strengthening poses for the hips and legs could support strength and maintain the right amount of stiffness in calves and hips that competitive distance runners may want to preserve. 

—Baxter

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