Throughout the years of my playing and coaching career I’ve spent countless hours working on my arm action, mobility, and strength training. I’ve had trainers prescribe me plyos, connection balls, throwing clubs, aqua bags, and various other training tools. When applied correctly, I did see a significant benefit. However, something that was rarely touched upon in my training was the connection between my feet and the ground. Oddly enough, pitching starts from the ground up, especially our first move. Yet, we oftentimes overlook the shape of our feet and the mobility in our ankles. In this blog we will address how we can improve the overall health of our feet, the benefits of it, and how we can transfer this over to training and performance.
How Can We Improve Our Foot Shape and Mobility?
1. Grounding
Grounding is a very simple concept. Walk barefoot outside. This provides us with a wide variety of benefits listed later in this blog. Specific to our feet and ankles, it can change the shape of our foot curve over time and possibly our foot strike.
2. Minimalist Shoes
Minimalist shoes allow you to experience the benefits of walking barefoot without being barefoot. Since minimalist shoes do not possess a high arch or foam padding, your foot will be able shape properly over time rather than be morphed to fit the modern-day shoe.
3. Resistance band training
Resistance bands are a great way to push end ranges of motion. Just like any other tissue, if you stretch it, it will lengthen. Your ankles and feet can be manipulated overtime just like any other body part. Don’t believe me? Check out the king of resistance band training, Dick Hartzell, try to snap his ankle on purpose and be completely fine.
The Benefits of Grounding:
According to Menigoz et. al, grounding can reduce inflammation, pain, and stress; improves blood flow, sleep, and vitality.Grounding runs much deeper than improving just our feet. It can allegedly improve our entire lifestyle. Notice all the benefits listed on the chart below. For the full article, click here.
How Can We Apply Grounding Into Our Training?
Just like any training modality, we must build up a tolerance. We recommend starting by just warming up barefoot. This will offer you more than enough grounding experience to start. According to a theory by Vivo Barefoot, your body will improve its foot strike over time. For more information, check out the article here.
Why Do We Care About Foot Strike as Baseball Players?
Foot strike is a major contributor for velocity. Swing leg retraction, see Frans Bosch link here, can be the difference in roughly 5 mph according to the Florida Baseball Armory. Although foot plant from above/swing leg retraction stems from having an efficient lower half, the mobility and stability created in barefoot training can directly transfer to a more efficient lower half.
Our Recommendations On Barefoot Training and Throwing:
Barefoot training just like anything else is a tool. Do we recommend barefoot throwing on a dirt mound at full intensity? Absolutely not. However, lifting, circuits, warmups, and general walking outside barefoot can greatly improve both your health and performance. Moderate catch play on grass can even be a beneficial practice to work on your lower half. Mike Clevinger amongst other can be seen playing catch and running through their plyo routine barefoot. It’s important to take care of your feet as they’re the building blocks of the rest of your body.
For guidance, reach out to Training@Connected-Performance.com