Yoga Toes

SyzygyX

Does anyone else have experience with these? I've started dancing again (mostly to mix in with my hooping, basic barre and some contemp stuff) and it's like my toes have immediately begun bunching up on each other. Even just exercises with toe pointing leave me feeling like my toes have migrated on top of one another. I'm genetically predisposed to bunions, have a ganglion cyst from sprain on one ankle, have broken the same foot twice, and have plantar fibromas on each arch already, because why not! Apparently I'm not nice to my feet.

I have a pair of the Yoga Toes gem-shaped ones, and I've noticed some relief but no physiological improvement--but I am bad about wearing them consistently, and I'm wondering if people who've used them with more regularity have had better results. I know they can't reverse the bunion-ing or bunched up toes, but maybe they could help a little.

SyzygyX

Toe/foot/ankle stretch and workout suggestions also welcome

ajcc500

I don't know what yoga toes are but I used to do a lot of ballet. Are you straining your toes when you point? Your toes should be "long" rather than curled up. When I point, my foot is effectively in the same shape as if I were on tiptoe, I just move my toes so they are in line with my foot. There is no strain on my toes at all - I can wiggle them and still have my foot in a point.

LovelyIvy466

SyzygyX wrote: »

Toe/foot/ankle stretch and workout suggestions also welcome

I can recommend using a tennis ball or (ideally) the yoga tune up balls on the lower leg muscles. When I first started yoga, it was enormously hard on my ankles and calves. My favorite teacher ever did a class where she taught us to use the yoga tune up balls like mini foam rollers to iron out the tension and soreness in the area. Highly, highly, highly recommended. If you go to YouTube you can find videos on how to do it.

Machka9

Are your toes cramping? Is that what you mean when you say they are bunching up on each other?

JoRocka

make sure you're rolling your feet/achilles/calves.

And make sure you aren't trying to force a point with your toes- the point doesn't come from the toe- it comes from the elongation of the leg- you shouldn't be feeling tension in your toes persay- but energy shooting through them.

SyzygyX

Thanks, everyone! I definitely have a problem with curling my toes when my extensions and movements are getting tired, or sometimes when I'm rushed I start the point with my toes instead of coming through the legs and feet, so that could absolutely be part of the problem. Part of the problem is the toe bones themselves, as they've rotated more as I've gotten older, so they're already inclined to slide under each other (mainly the big toes under the second toes).

Thanks again!

GiddyupTim

I wear yoga toes and I stretch my feet a lot. I sit down in hero's pose, except the bottom of my toes are on the floor and the soles of my feet point at the wall behind; then I push back to feel the stretch through the arch of my foot and my toes. I also sit on a low stool and put the top of my toes on the floor, and then I push down on my heel to get a good stretch through the top of my foot.
I did not really have any cosmetic problems. But I definitely think it helps from an injury standpoint, etc.
Good luck

SyzygyX

I have trouble in hero's pose because of the ganglion on my ankle, but I'll try that other stretch. Thanks!