As we go about our day, tension can build up throughout our bodies, often manifesting in places like our neck, jaw and lower back, leaving us feeling stiff, sore and less mobile.
However, there’s one other area where tension can often build and which can have repercussions for other parts of the body if we don’t release it… and that’s our feet.
Whether you play a lot of sport and are very physically active or whether you have a job that demands you to be on your feet for a significant portion of the day, tension can quickly manifest and spread to the legs if you’re not careful, leading to calf pain, soreness, muscle weakness and stiffness.
If you don’t deal with this tension when you first start to feel it, you may find that the rest of your body overcompensates and you start to experience pain elsewhere, such as in your back, which can develop because of misaligned walking patterns.
Prioritising myofascial release and finding trigger points on your feet to get rid of all the tension can make a huge difference to your physical health.
Trigger points are knots in your muscles that are causing you pain and discomfort. This pain can often be transferred elsewhere in the body when you press down on them, so rest assured that this is entirely normal when you are massaging your feet.
There are various places you can target to help bring you relief, including the bottom surface of the foot, your achilles tendon, the muscles that control both the foot and the ankle, and your bigger calf muscles.
Going to see a massage therapist can help bring you instant relief – and it can often be difficult to press down sufficiently hard enough to resolve the problem.
However, one effective way of releasing the tension at home is to stand on a hockey ball. You can do this sitting down or standing up, whichever you find easiest.
To do it standing up, face a wall and position both hands flat against the surface, with your foot resting on the ball. Roll it around until you find a sore spot, then gradually build up pressure to help release the tension.
