'Tiptoe pikes'

[Milos]

First off, as this is my first post: Massive thanks to Coach Sommer and everyone here for this wonderful and helpful site.

While playing around recently, I 'discovered' a possibly useful exercise for lower leg strength and stability and coordination. Of course, undoubtedly someone else has thought of it before and possibly it's even well-known to gymnasts or in ballet, but certainly I've never come across it before.

1. From standing raise into a 'tiptoe' position, i.e. weight supported by toes and the balls of the feet. The ankle/Achilles tendon area should be working hard enough to feel tension. The exercise can be made harder at this point by shifting the weight further forward (i.e. arbitrarily close to literally on tiptoes).

2. Simultaneously raise the arms overhead, palms facing the sky. Try to simultaneously finish raising the arms to vertical and the feet off the floor.

3. While maintaining the tension throughout the leg, ankle and foot (it will probably be necessary to let the foot dip a little to maintain balance, but maintain the muscular contraction), begin to pike. It will probably be necessary to decrease the angle between the arms and the torso below 180 degrees while piking. Finish piking when the palms of the hands are about to touch the floor. Try to coincide the palms reaching the bottom of their descent with the end of the piking. DO NOT rest the hands on the floor as this will greatly decrease the benefit of the exercise.

4. Reverse the pike back to the straight body position. This constitutes one repetition, OR:

5. Optionally, you can lower your feet to just above the floor and raise back up to tiptoes to increase the difficulty of the exercise. (This is effectively a partial ROM calf raise.)

If you lose balance and therefore the midfoot, heel or any other part of the foot which should not be on the floor drop to the floor, or if you have to rest your hands on the floor, count this as a failed repetition.

I would recommend working towards two or three sets of ten repetitions, performed twice a week. (Perhaps less for those already working the targeted areas.)

Possible modifications might include ankle weights and/or a weight vest for added difficulty. (I have not tried this.)

[Blairbob]

Do you mean just having the foot in "releve" position?

If you start in a seated tuck and then raise your butt having your arms take off some of the weight, you can get a real good stretch for in the tops of your feet.

[Milos]

I had been doing these standing with the feet parallel, facing forward, about half a shoulder width apart. But changing up the angle of the feet is a good idea.

Can you elaborate on the stretch you mentioned?