Use Yoga to Solve Marathoner Problems: Sleepy Feet + Stiff Calves

PROBLEM: SLEEPY FEET + STIFF CALVES

Until you have plantar fasciitis or achilles tendonitis, how often do you love on your feet and lower legs? Everyone looks down. We get it. Your feet, while being your entire foundation and hitting the ground 80 to 100 times per minute on average when you run, are incredibly easy to ignore. Until they’re not.

Your instinct post-workout might be to focus on more obvious areas of imbalance, like hips or hammies, but your foundation is equally important and ignoring it will increase your injury risk.

Time to balance your foundation!

SELF-TEST: WHERE’S YOUR WEIGHT

Use this self-test to gain clarity about how you’re standing, remembering that your foot alignment has a profound affect on your entire system.

SOLUTION: FIX YOUR FEET + PUMP YOUR CALVES

Use the Lower Legs: Balance Your Foundation videos to:

  • Become aware of and activate your foot muscles so you can use them to full advantage

  • Maintain circulation through your calf musculature to facilitate fluidity in the lower legs

  • Mitigate the affects of wearing shoes all the time

  • Help prevent lower leg and foot strain and compensation injuries

USE IT DAILY

Use Lily’s Lower Leg + Hip Warm Up as a non-negotiable warm up before every run — it gets the job done in less than 10 minutes. Use Preventative Medicine for Lower Leg + Feet (a quick 13 minute sesh) as your post-run go to as often as possible.

And hit Stephanie Howe’s flow (one of our fave ways to start the day) and the pair of 5-minute Resets as often as you can to add variety to your Resets!

PRE-RUN

LILY’S LOWER LEG + HIP WARM UP

Be sure to check out the other marathoner problems and solutions including weak glutes, tight hamstrings, and hip imbalances here!

Next week we’re getting real about being time poor, and how to use yoga to full advantage. Keep sharing how you’re using yoga with #athletesforyoga! We’re always available for personal Reset recommendations — DM us!