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Exercise Your Feet in the Office

You may not be able to pull off a full workout routine at work, but you can still get some good exercises in without leaving your desk. Regularly exercising your feet has a significant effect on your foot health and also makes you more resistant to many kinds of injury.

This article will cover some of the simplest and most effective exercises to complete while you’re at work. Over time, you’ll gradually develop better foot strength along with balance, cushioning, and more. Keep in mind that consistent activity over a long period of time is generally better than inconsistent exercise, even if it’s more intense.

Rolling

Exercise of any kind puts a substantial strain on your body, and it’s critical to help yourself recover by eating well and performing certain exercises. Rolling and other kinds of foot massages help remove tightness and prevent working out from leading to soreness.

There’s nothing wrong with makeshift options like tennis and golf balls, but you can also find dedicated rollers if you’re interested in a more targeted solution. Rolling your feet is particularly helpful if you’re dealing with pain in or around the plantar fascia.

Doming

While rolling targets the bottom of the foot and specifically the plantar fascia, doming—sometimes called short-foot exercises—is intended to increase strength and flexibility in your arch muscles, and you’ll start to notice a difference if you consistently perform this exercise at work.

To do a short-foot exercise, try to bring the ball of your foot as close as possible to the heel without curling your toes. It takes some time to get used to this kind of motion, so you may have to guide your feet with your hand until you develop more muscle memory.

Once you’ve pulled the ball and heel as close as you can, keep your foot in that position while pressing it into the ground. Hold that pressure for at least five or ten seconds, then switch feet. Depending on your work environment, you may be able to achieve greater flexibility by removing your shoes for this exercise.

Isometric Ankle Exercises

Walking around all day in comfortable sneakers on flat surfaces leads the muscles in our feet to develop unevenly, and calisthenics like isometric ankle exercises aim to build up muscles that aren’t usually under much stress.

Simply push your feet into a resistant surface like the legs of your desk or chair, then maintain as much pressure as you can for roughly fifteen seconds. Make sure to rotate a few times through each direction so that you equally exercise all four sides of each foot.

It’s tough to keep a regular workout routine when you have a busy schedule, but you can perform these exercises while multitasking at work. Just a few minutes of relatively low-impact workouts will have a substantial impact on your balance, mobility, and strength.