Increasing ankle/calf/foot strength.

I have a lot of ankle pronation on both feet and I experiance fatigue/weakness/cramping in my feet and achilles tendon area while front-pointing and while skiing (only while making turns, not on the skin up). I feel like my foot pain and weakness is my personal physical-crux to climbing ice/mixed terrain, and I end up wasting energy needlessly.

I trail run some pretty rough terrain on a regular basis, and have never experianced pain while running - though I did severely inflame my achilles on a thru-hike this past summer. I feel like trail-running is great for strengthening this part of my body, but what other stretches/exercises do people reccomend to increase strength/wellness in this area? I'm currently doing light sets of calf-raises on my stairs - but if I push it my achilles tendon injury flames up.

What I'm kind of contemplating is almost akin to a hangboard workout, but for my feet. Get the boots crampons on, and stand on a the edge of a step with just the my frontpoints on the step, my heels low, but not too low. Add weight?

I do use superfeet in both my climbing boots and ski-boots - what's with all the pain/cramping in my feet while making turns?

Thanks for any advice!

Kevin, last year, I felt that I was somewhat limited by strength/endurance in my calves as well. Caveat is I luckily don't have Achilles so my advice might not be useful.

I'm assuming you have good-fitting boots that you can lock your heels down well in. Otherwise, that's a good place to start.

If that's not a problem, check out the workouts on the ATC website at thealpinetrainingcenter.com and pull out some of the calf stuff. That's what I did leading up to this season and I have a lot more endurance in my calves. Problem is, some of the exercises that I thought helped a lot, like reverse tire drags, require a bit of special equipment and/or a space to do them. Word of advice, though, be VERY careful with calf raise tabatas; build up very slowly. I can do them now without being crippled for a couple of days, but first time is did these (pre-ATC) on my own, the result was NOT fun.

Or talk to Dougie, he's got a nice garage gym set up in The Fort and does good workout programming.

This may not be any help, but through soccer I tweaked both ankles a lot, sprains and strains from deep cuts and all that. Anywhoo, my PT suggested slacklining as a great way to strengthen ligaments. It has helped a lot and doesn't require much equipment. Also, my calf muscles were pretty sore quite often, but that has gone away. Having strong ligaments meant less work for my calfs I guess. Good luck with the healing/training.

Thanks for the feedback guys!

climb alot of slab...that'll help!

Find a Fletcher Pilates instructor and ask them to show you some foot work. Fletcher was a dancer and so incorporated lots of exercises to keep the feet strong, supple, and healthy.

Some of the stuff my PT gave me to do after I sprained my ankle will also help. Here are a few exercises:

Dump a bowlful of marbles (40-50) on a towel and set the bowl next to them. Stand on one bare foot while you use the toes of the other foot to pick up all of the marbles and one by one put them in the bowl. Repeat with the other foot. You'll find that both the balancing and the picking-up foot will get sore and tired until you get stronger.

Get hold of a balance disk from the folks that make the fitball. Balance on it on one foot, within reach of a chair, table, or wall, so you don't deck. Depending upon the current condition of your ankles and feet, you can start out in shoes or go straight to balancing barefoot.

Put a row of balance disks on the floor, and walk across them, without touching the floor.

Any time you're hanging out barefoot (brushing your teeth, washing the dishes, cooking (who does that?!), balance on one foot. Just the act of standing there on one foot causes all of the muscles in your foot, ankle, leg, hip, back, and abs to work to constantly readjust your position and balance.

I would also suggest loosing the superfeet. I've been using them for many years and recently realized that all that support was actually weakening my ankles. In fact, recently I've been scaling back on my footwear, going from hiking boots to trail runners, wearing less supportive shoes day-to-day and walking more on the forefront of the the foot instead of the heel. I also second the "climbing the slab" suggestion.

Lots of other good suggestions here. Thanks guys! I especially like the stand one-footed whenever you can idea; it's axiomatic that to make any major change you have to incorporate it into you daily routine, and that does it.

Box jumps. Barefoot. Slow, controlled, complete.

Slacklining and balance-ball/board. Barefoot, of course.

Barefoot one-legged pistol squats ending with a full-toe point at the top. This will strengthen your entire lower body.

I've heard really good things about Vibram 5-finger shoes as well, but haven't tried them yet.

Brigette wrote:Dump a bowlful of marbles (40-50) on a towel and set the bowl next to them. Stand on one bare foot while you use the toes of the other foot to pick up all of the marbles and one by one put them in the bowl. Repeat with the other foot.

Scott McMahon wrote: You have time for this??? Jeez I barely have time to climb, let alone moving grains of sand.

Brigette wrote: Takes less than five minutes. Wanna race?

I'll be in Boulder over Christmas. That gives you a week and a half to practice. Loser buys the beers. :)

P90x plyometrics or any other version of plyometrics. Doing it barefoot or in vibram finger fingers (I have the KSO's and they are great, if you get the treksports they'd make good light descent shoes too) makes it even better. Lose the super supportive shoes they weaken your feet. After your first plyo session make sure you have a few days to recover LOL it'll be hard to get out of bed the next morning.