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What's going on guys? Tony Maritato here, licensed physical therapist, and in this video I want to
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share my three favorite exercise for anyone who's dealing with foot or specifically bunion problems
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because a lot of the patients that I see who have had a total knee replacement are also dealing with
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degenerative changes in the ankle, the foot, and the toes. And so a bunion is typically where that
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big toe starts to cross over, moves medially over the second or third toe, you get this big kind of
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red angry bump on the outside of that first knuckle. One of the main things to start addressing
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some of those symptoms is to rebuild the integrity of the musculature within the foot
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the intrinsics. So super simple, three exercises. They're incredibly hard to do when you first start
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to try them more from a coordination perspective. But what you'll find is that as you practice
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they become easier and they become effective and they will literally change the structure of your
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foot. So let's take a look. I'm going to set you up right here. The first one is we want that big
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toe to rise and fall on its own independently. These four toes are pressing down as the big toe
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is rising. I would repeat this 10 times, and I would do both feet at the same time
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The second exercise is the big toe stays in place, and the little toes rise and fall
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And so I using the muscles within the foot to pull these guys and dissociate the movement of the big toe relative to the little toes And then the last one is we want to spread the toes So I spread them If I looking from the top down I can see
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daylight between each of my toes. Yes, some of them will rise. Some of them will fall
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But the idea here is, sorry about that, the foot is really like your hand. And the hand has bones
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in the fingers, your foot has bones in the toes. We want those bones and muscles to be able to work
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independently. We want dexterity. We want fine motor control. We want sensitivity. Whether you're
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dealing with arthritic changes, whether you're dealing with neuropathy or neurologic changes to
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the sensation, there's never a time where it's a bad idea to try and improve the control of the
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motion in the foot and ankle, especially in a non-weight-bearing position. So my favorite advice
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in the clinic is all of us are going to the bathroom several times a day. Some of us are
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sitting down more than others. When we're in a seated position, with a shoe on or a shoe off
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it makes no difference. We want to do those exercises. Big toe up, little toes up, spread the
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toes. You do 10 of them each exercise multiple times a day. You will be amazed at how challenging
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it is right now when you first start and how quickly it improves if you just do it consistently
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So guys, I'm writing a blog post on this topic specifically. It's going to be on the website
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totaltherapysolutions.com backslash blog. If you want more information, go check out the website
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Otherwise, I'll see you on the next video
