How to solve bunions in 3 steps

hey everyone it's Andrew here from  freestyle feet and i'm here with Jo   who's got a bunion as you can see here  and what i'm going to do today is show you   how we would address this and how we can actually  resolve this problem so come in and take a look   at what is happening here at Jo's big toe so as we  can see there's some deviation here at this great   toe and this has been slowly building up over  time, but really importantly we can correct this   angulation and we can straighten these toes up so  all's not lost what we need to do is get this toe   sitting straighter and i'm going to show you  how to do that in three really simple steps so   step one when things have been like this for a  while, we need to unlock things so step one is   unlock and there's lots of different ways of  doing this as a physio i will work through the   joints the stiff joints in here and we will do  some massage and we'll loosen off these things   that have been tight for some time but Jo will be  able to do this herself using some simple tools   so this little massage ball is ideal for  unlocking underneath the foot. So at home, if we get Jo to roll this ball backwards and  forwards you do this in a sitting position   or a standing position all around underneath here  that'll loosen everything off it does help free up   the joints and mobilize underneath and i'll loosen  off the tight muscles often some of the muscles on   the inside here haven't been working so well so  they're really tight as well so getting in those   is helpful. So massaging under there one to two  minutes worth of that is a great place to start   with a mobilizing ball the next thing we use is  this little guy, a foot mobilizer and you'll see   the little knobs on there are there for a specific  reason and what we want to use these for is to get   in between the metatarsals in here because  when we get an angulation here what's hidden   is some issues up in here where the bones  have moved in a little closer back up here   so we need to get into these very narrow spots  between the metatarsals and loosen off the tight   tissues in here so we hold on to this and we get  up into here and we loosen them off all the way   down through those metatarsals you might even  find in between here as some between the second   and the third has also got some tight spots and  then on the underside of the foot once again   we will try and loosen off any tight areas  underneath there and some of these spots are   quite painful and that's normal that's okay you're  not doing damage you're just loosening off things   that have been tight for a long period of time so  again a couple of minutes with that one as well so   that's step one that's unlocking everything step  two we need to realign things we need to get these   toes across here and again you can do this in  a variety of ways the most simple thing without   equipment is to grab the toe and stretch it across  and we want to hold that for 30 to 60 seconds I'm   not using a lot of force but I'm just stretching  him back across that's a good place to start   taking that one step further because things  will quickly bounce back again you can get night   splints which is a splint that is worn overnight  that holds the toe like that overnight so that's   the next best option an even better option  than that is these guys here the Flamingo Feet   and you'll see in a moment what this is going  to do so these are silicon toe spreaders that   go in between the toes and they stay on whilst  you're moving and that's really important because   if we hold the toes in good alignment whilst  exercising and moving them around then that   works into part three which is strengthening  the muscles to keep the toes in good alignment   so you can see what's happening here whilst that's  not a full correction of that toe we've reduced   the angle immediately and unlike some other  toe silicone toe spreaders that just sit in   this space in here these separate all the toes  which gets all the muscles in the feet working   and we know that all the muscles in the feet work  together to maintain optimal alignment you can see   how much better that forefoot looks already and so  we're reducing the strain on that joint so ideally   Jo will be wearing these for a couple of  hours a day gradually building that up   and you can wear them in wide shoes or bare feet  and that works really well for a lining but also   strengthening right so speaking of strengthening  that's step three so these will go a long way to   turning on those muscles but we also need  to make it much much stronger than just a   bare minimum level so what I'm going to show  you now is a simple strengthening exercise   that Jo can do at home and my favorite one is  this. We're going to get you on the floor for   this one so we'll lower the bed down I'm going to  swing your legs around the side for me and have   your feet resting flat on the ground perfect okay  now ideally the muscle that runs along here called   abductor hallucis or abductor hallucis ideally  that muscle is strong enough to maintain that   alignment there so what I'll get Jo to try and do  is see if she can move the toe on her own across   and that's actually pretty good if it's if that  was impossible and for those watching at home   there'll be quite a lot of you that just cannot  get that moving if that's the case use your own   fingers to help it across into good alignment and  then gently push that big toe down into the ground   good maintaining contact here and you can't see  this but i can feel underneath here and Jo might   be able to feel as well that some of the muscles  in here start to turn on and they're the ones   that are going to keep that alignment so when we  take the Flamingo Feet off things will maintain   on their own so if you relax that foot and we let  that go so you see it spring back again so once   again repeat that 10 times take it across pressing  down into it and we're turning on the muscles here   and that alignment looks really quite nice so over  time as these muscles start to take over in our   three-step process of unlocking aligning and then  strengthening eventually these toes will start to   stay in a straighter position will it correct all  the way to there we're not sure but we've had some   amazingly good results in a really short space  of time so it's worth having a go and that's   in three simple ways uh three simple steps  to get your bunion working a little better

Channel: Freestylefeet

Views: 3,423,839

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Id: uwl-m6ymsRc

Length: 7min 4sec (424 seconds)

Published: Thu Mar 24 2022