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Last week, I opened up the new topic of foot turnout. I talked about what it is and why it is dangerous to your body’s functionality.

To quickly summarize, foot turnout is simply when your feet point outward instead of forward.

Your feet should always point forward, in every activity you do. The reason why is because it indicates that you have full range of motion all the way from the ankles to the hips and also because this position is what keeps all the leg joints in secure positions.

When your feet point outward, this all changes. The feet, ankles, and knees will collapse to some extent as foot turnout gets worse.

You will notice plenty of people suffer from this problem without realizing there’s a problem if you simply look for it around you. It is very common nowadays.

One of the major reasons why is because of a lack of hip mobility. In a menshealth.com interview, Kelly Starrett noted, 

“When your feet pass the 12-to-15 degree range, you start to lose hip function and your femur-or thigh bone-starts to externally rotate. Biomechanically, you’re putting your lower joints at risk of injury. Your knees begin to wobble and your arches collapse. Your knees and Achilles are vulnerable to tears.” 

From the same article,

“It may also be the amount of time you spend sitting. When you park your butt in a chair all day, it can shorten the major muscles around the hips – quadratus lumborum, rectus femoris, iliacus, psoas.”

Starrett explains,

“So you buy yourself some slack by turning out your feet. It unwinds the hips, and you can create more force.”

As you can see, we have a deadly relationship here between foot turnout and hip function. Each causes the other to become worse because it is the body’s way of compensating for it’s own shortcomings. 

Arguably the more important cause of foot turnout, however, is a lack of ankle mobility.

Ankle mobility comes up time and time again as a massive indicator of foot and lower leg problems. The reason why is because when you lack ankle mobility, your feet will naturally turn outward to make up for the ankle’s shortcomings.

In particular, this happens when there’s a lack of dorsiflexion that the ankle can perform. Dorsiflexion is your ankle’s ability to let your foot point back towards you.

We can all point our feet straight and away from us, which is called plantar-flexion, but many of us have a lack of dorsiflexion. Our ankles are too tight to allow our feet to point backwards enough to be considered ‘full range of motion’.

As Kelly Starrett puts it in his book, ‘Becoming a Supple Leopard‘, 

“Although the chief problem lies in the heel cords, the tightness transmits upstream. The gastroc, which is the powerful lower leg muscle that makes up your calf, is responsible for controlling your ankle. If those tissues get stiff, ankle and knee pain generally follow. Remember that you have a lot of musculature controlling your feet, and all that tissue runs through a very small space. This is why you need to prioritize some of the smashing techniques when you’re trying to deal with knee pain or improve ankle range of motion. You can’t just roll around aimlessly on a foam roller. You must smash.”

As you can see, this is a problem that unfortunately is not an easy fix. If your feet turn out like mine do, you’ll have your work cut out for you. But there are some straightforward ways to go about solving this issue and I’d recommend you start them now.

Because I believe the lack of ankle mobility is a bigger contributor to this particular problem, we’re going to start there.

Over the last couple years of working on my own feet and legs, I’ve found many myofascial release techniques that really help. Two of them are actually from Kelly Starrett and his book so let’s start with those.

1st Exercise

The first one is called the ‘Roller Calf Smash’ and it sounds worse than it actually is. It’s simply getting down into a long sit and rolling your ankles and Achilles over a foam roller.

Sit on your butt with your legs fully extended. Put the ankle you want to work on on top of a foam roller and cross your other leg over that ankle for more pressure. Roll that ankle around side to side and up and down. Focus more on spots that feel extra tight. Then, switch legs.

Try to take your butt off the ground as much as possible so more pressure is going into your ankles. This exercise should hurt a bit, but not too much. 

2nd Exercise

The other release technique of his that I like is called the ‘Bone Saw Calf Smash’ and it is meant to be more intense than the last one.

From the long sit you were just in, turn your whole body over so your chest is facing the ground and the front of your ankle is on the foam roller. With your other leg, cross it over the resting leg so it’s perpendicular to it. You’re going to use your top leg’s shin bone to massage your bottom leg’s calf.

Genius if you ask me and the results can be incredible. This is one of the few exercises I attribute to alleviating my plantar fasciitis pain from before.

The foam roller is just serving as elevation to your bottom leg here so it’s easier to massage it. You can start by working in the ankle region or calf region of your lower leg, but remember, work those tender spots a little harder because that’s where a lot of your residual tightness is coming from. The more pain you can suffer through with these, the more noticeable change you will feel.

When done well, you will feel blood rushing into your ankles and feet after doing these exercises. Your ankle mobility will also be better as soon as you stand up. These are indicators that you really needed to release some of that tension. 

Other Solutions

As for other solutions, I’ve made it no secret that footwear is a huge contributor to the lack of ankle mobility and tight, shortened calf muscles we live with today. These are a direct result of the heel elevation that almost all shoes have.

If you’re wearing shoes right now, it’s very likely that they have anywhere from 4-8 millimeters of elevation in the heel. That may not sound like much, but in relation to the length of your Achilles tendon, that is a massive amount.

Because of this, I advise that anyone looking to solve these types of problems for the rest of their lives gets into minimalist footwear at some point. Minimalist (or barefoot) shoes do not have any heel elevation, meaning your heel stays level with the ball of your foot while it’s in the shoe.

You want to make sure you see the wording ‘no heel elevation’ or ‘zero-drop’ which guarantees the heel is rightfully low. The brand I trust and wear every day is Xero Shoes as they guarantee there is no heel elevation in any of the shoes they produce as well as many other features they offer. 

Another solution is to get more natural movement into your life.

Squatting is one of the most natural and effective positions to occupy as a human being as it brings all your leg joints through full range of motion. That means when you squat correctly, your ankles, knees, and hips will all be brought to their end range while in a stable position.

This knocks out two birds with one stone as your ankles and hips will both be worked in one position. Make this practice part of your lifestyle even if it’s a couple minutes a day and you will see gradual improvement with time. 

Lastly, as the other article clearly pointed out, sitting is not the best use of our body and it slowly tightens up all of our muscles. Get out of the chair as much as you can and incorporate some more activity into your life. It doesn’t have to be anything crazy.

For example, instead of sitting in a chair while I work, I sit, kneel, or squat on the floor so I change positions often. This is much better for my ankles and hips to ensure that I don’t remain motionless for hours on end. Other options could include a standing desk or a walking desk as a way to get your body into different positions more frequently.

Programs like Don’t Just Sit There will teach you how to stay more active while you work no matter what kind of job you have. This helps you optimize the time you are using to work so you don’t have to postpone all of your daily movement until afterwards.