What your feet are telling you?
As I'm watching a UFC fight, the fight in question is Tsarukyan vs Ismagulov. One thing I noticed is the consistent take down and lack of takedown defense. This is not me saying the only reason for the success in the takedown is foot strength, but I know it doesn't hurt. As I watch the takedown defense of Ismagulov, his toe box is very narrow in his sprawl as Tsarkyan drives through this less-than-optimal defense.
Do your knees hurt when you squat, when you run or even when you get off the couch? Why in the world would someone who trains so consistently be in pain like an elderly man/woman? Maybe it's your feet or ankles. One of the biggest issues I see with fighting/grappling athletes is poor motor control in the foot and lack of range of motion in the ankle. So what am I looking for when I'm looking at my athlete’s feet?
What does the big toe look like when we stand and perform a squat? If the big toe is pushing towards that second toe that is an issue. The toes should be the widest point of the foot. From years of wearing common shoes with a narrow toe box, you will literally reshape the way your foot is naturally shaped. Just by having a poor position of the big toe, creates what is called an ankle valgus, or pronation of the ankle, during any type of movement. What this means is the ankle is now rolling inward whenever there is a load put on it, including standing. Which can potentially travel up the chain into the knee and the hip causing issues there as well.
If you were seated, do you have the ability to open your toes so that the toes are the widest point of your foot? If not, that tells me you do not have complete motor control of your foot. When we are doing any type of movement pattern, it is important to be able to control the feet so that you can evenly distribute the weight throughout the entire movement pattern. Also, during any type of combat situation, you should be able to engage the feet whenever you need to. As mentioned before, look at the foot in the sprawl. If we are starting in a bad foot position, we are only going to have to work that much harder to compensate for the bad foot positioning. When fighting/grappling, you must have motor control of the entire body, not just the big areas like the hips.
Are your arches working? We have three arches in the foot. I'm focusing on the big one that everyone talks about getting arch support for. It is very possible to have a low arch that is very strong. What I'm looking for is when you're walking does your arch collapse? Do you have control of the arch? A narrow toe box can contribute to this but not always, sometimes it's from wearing arch support. Have your arches become weak and lazy? Imagine wearing an ankle brace every day all day long, we all can understand that the ankle will become weaker and has a higher probability to get injured when that brace is not on.
What does your ankle mobility look like? If you don't have a normative range of motion in the ankle this will hinder your ability to do anything involving knee flexion. If you shoot a blast double without a normative range of motion in the ankle you will create a super compensation elsewhere. Because of this compensation speed and power are without a doubt going to be lost. Not to mention the added stress to other parts of the leg and knee which can also put us at higher risk of injury. The same thing can be said when performing something as basic as a squat. If you're a fighter/grappler squatting is something you should never avoid.
None of this means that it cannot be fixed. But it definitely takes work. One of the biggest and easiest ways to start fixing this is by changing the shoes you wear daily. At one point in time the finger shoes were the only shoes on the market that you could find that would address these issues. BUT they were UGLY as hell unless you're a ninja but there is no such thing as ninjas so let's leave those shoes in 2009, please. Luckily today we have a very wide variety of shoes ranging from boots to casual shoes, military boots, running shoes, etc. another very basic and cheap way to address this is toe spacers wearing toe spacers during warm-ups or when you're chilling at home watching TV goes a LONG WAY!!! One more very simple way is to embrace the power of feeling. There is a mat called a rock board, standing on the rock board will give you the ability to feel the 200,000 nerve endings in your feet increasing the proprioception in your foot.
So basically never leave any stone unturned. Never neglect your feet; they are the first thing to come into contact with the ground; it's where all of your power and speed start. So don't let this be something that is slowing you down from becoming the monster you are looking to be.
