Can fixing issues with your feet help issues with your shoulder and posture?

The answer is an absolute yes.

I’ve realised through years of training and years of training people how important feet are in the world of strength and fitness.

That doesn’t even start to cover how important they are for your health. I have a client who I have worked with, using foot balances and hip flexor stretches to help her with tight shoulders.

And here comes the important connection of the feet with your shoulder and posture. I remember meeting a doctor and told him I’m on a journey to master posturology, the art, and science of helping others be healthy fit, and strong through posture.

Back then, I thought it was doing upper back strength that would lift the sternum and retract the shoulders back.

The upper back only deals with 1/4 of the body. The doctor asked me to rock up and down on my feet with my eyes closed and was testing my posture.

Through the years since that discovery, I realised that in powerlifting body-building that gripping your hands hard on the handle and your feet into the floor makes you significantly stronger.

That grip strength is a greater indicator of health than anything else. How many people even think of gripping their feet into the floor and pushing them hard into the floor when doing deadlifts, bench press, prone rows, even push-ups or planks?

It’s a foreign concept to so many clients and trainers and people I generally meet. It’s impossible to do a strong step up without engaging your feet because when the heel pushes back and down in the floor gripping and pushing.

The glutes fore up and get activated. Without doing this, the glutes do not activate. So, the glutes are extremely powerful posturally, and performance-wise, as they are the largest muscle in the body.

Most people I see do not or have never engaged their glutes and this will include people doing 100 squats a day challenges, supermodels, and trainers in general.

Point one, the feet connect to the glutes and activate them.

Point two, the glutes support the core and lower back which support the upper body.

Great movements to help people with glutes, the ankle, and the shoulders. are step-ups and lunges.

Most people do lunges incorrectly. Both knees move together their body tends to hunch forward, not addressing posture and because there isn’t a particularly deep knee bend of either the front leg or back, leg mobility posture and performance do not really get affected.

The best benefit will be some shape and a good sweat. This is great, but not as outstanding or as beneficial if you did a split squat where the back knee bends down towards, or to the floor with a straight upright torso and upper body, or alternatively, the front leg does a deep knee bend forwards.

These combined with foot balances, step-ups, and additional lifestyle or performance exercises will massively enhance weak ankles, poor posture, and spinal pain.

The body will get way stronger allowing it to look and be and feel way better, slimmer, leaner, and stronger.

Contact me for a free consultation and we can discuss the changes you need and guide you along the way to a healthier tomorrow.

Happy Training,

Adam