Latest / Just Fly Performance Podcast / 482: Romain Tourillon on Forefoot Training, Toe Strength, and Athletic Development

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482: Romain Tourillon on Forefoot Training, Toe Strength, and Athletic Development · Just Fly Performance Podcast

0:00
Roman, it is awesome to have you back, and I'm excited to dig into your PhD
0:04
that has now been published.
0:06
I know we were talking about it at the end of last show, but before we dig into
0:10
that, I'm curious, what does the researcher do for your own training when it
0:16
comes to the foot and ankle?
0:18
How does that go about in your own practice?
0:23
Yeah, hi, Joel. Thanks for the invitation for, I would say, the part two.
0:27
So now the job is done
0:30
I finished my PhD so I
0:33
can talk about all the results well
0:37
that's really a good question in regards to I always say the protocol that we
0:44
created for this PhD I always say that all the exercise first came from my own
0:52
training just that I really like you know,
0:56
to go much more into details around foot ankle biomechanic research.
1:03
And I have some kind of idea looking at research and say, okay,
1:08
I can try to create this one.
1:10
Or if you put the tools like that, or if you have this position, et cetera.
1:17
And one of my philosophy as a rehab coach is also, you know, to,
1:23
I would say, be able to do all the exercise that that can give to your athletes.
1:30
Also, because you understand a little bit the feeling and the intensity or the
1:37
way that you have to do it.
1:38
So, I would say that's all things,
1:42
yeah, was part of my idea
1:46
of training and many things and if
1:49
we go back to for example the foot bridge the foot
1:53
bridge and put just two bricks and put the foot here yeah came during the covid
1:58
lockdown I was uh you know at home like everyone and I was just in my garden
2:07
and I have to to kind of break from the whole world and And just,
2:12
I was barefoot and just put my foot on that.
2:18
And I remember that I was just reading a book, so not was very concentrated
2:26
on the exercise, but just do some balance on one leg and read a book on too big.
2:31
And yeah, I feel something around my arch.
2:35
And I say, oh, it could be great, et cetera. So I would say that a lot of things
2:42
come from doing research, reading research, and that gave me some idea.
2:48
And this summer, for example, I...
2:53
Profiling my calf on my own. So just evaluating many parameters from my calf, both legs.
3:02
So I would say reactive strength, capacities, and maximal strength,
3:09
both in knee flexion, knee extended position.
3:12
And I start to just build my own program in four weeks,
3:19
just two sessions and so that's also
3:23
one example that I can give to my
3:28
courses just train on my own and to
3:30
see how I can change my own you know weaknesses because this is not all your
3:36
athletes that have some weaknesses and to work also on that to understand what
3:42
it is also to train hard the car for example it was my goal during the summer and et cetera, yeah.
3:50
Yeah, I think that there's a lot of foot training potential ideas sitting in anyone's garden.
3:57
I would, like there was rocks when I moved into this house that I'm in five years ago.
4:02
I would walk around outside and I'd find like an interesting rock and stand
4:06
on it and think, oh, this feels interesting to put my foot this way on this rock.
4:11
And then the bricks is interesting as well. I know Adarian Barr,
4:16
who's been on the show many times, has been very much into bricks for training the foot.
4:21
I would usually see him using more for forefoot applications where you would
4:26
cut a brick in half and just have the front arch or the balls of the feet on
4:31
the brick and then doing different manipulations.
4:34
That's so cool that you have that midfoot application. So like the heels on
4:38
one brick and the forefoot's on another brick and you would stand on that for however long.
4:46
Yeah, and it's funny because I think now it's maybe also because everyone asks
4:54
me about, you know, how do you know how I can have U-inkling plate,
5:00
U-bricks, U-etc.
5:02
So actually, I have so many ideas of objects,
5:07
you know, that I can build because I build with my father so many little custom-made
5:16
things for foot and ankle training.
5:18
And yeah, I think it's a good idea maybe in the future it's maybe to create
5:25
a kind of company where I build all my ideas where you can have the things for the first race,
5:35
the things for the third foot, the things for the might foot,
5:38
the things for the mobility and etc so yeah I always said that's um the the
5:47
greatness of our job is that there is no good or I would say or bad exercise there is just some,
5:55
parameter that you really have to focus on but you can really have different
6:02
kind of way of targeting things.
6:05
The big thing is just that it's at the end you have the same effect.
6:12
I would say it's not that we don't care or we move from A to B,
6:16
it's just that we can have so many different things.
6:20
Also it's cool to have different kind of exercise for your athletes,
6:26
you know, kind of preference because athlete A.
6:31
Doesn't like you exercise or this exercise and prefer to do the other one and
6:36
it's also it's cool also to have a kind of you know uh variety of your own exercise
6:42
also it's not just I think one or two exercise also yeah.
6:49
Yeah the I think that's very common that like a foot exercise will come out
6:54
and everyone just thinks oh everyone this is the gold standard this one foot
6:58
exercise and everyone should be doing or this isometric and everyone should,
7:03
that should be like this standard that we all do.
7:06
But I know last time we talked about the forefoot dominance or midfoot exercises
7:12
and or intrinsic foot versus more of that calf. And I want to get into that today as well.
7:19
The one thing before I ask you about your research and the studies and the findings
7:25
there, because I really am excited to unpack that in depth today.
7:29
I think last at the end of last podcast, we might've spent three or five minutes talking about it.
7:35
And I wanted to ask you the bricks though about like the sensation,
7:39
just because I think that's something that we don't, that's one of those more
7:42
subtle things that maybe we don't talk about in more the research,
7:46
the more mathematical sense so much,
7:48
like being barefoot on bricks versus if you just had like a smooth,
7:53
I don't know, like a box, a really smooth box or something.
7:57
Do you have any thoughts on the texture of what you're standing on or like a
8:02
no slip grip where it's like that rough like sandpaper kind of type feel of
8:06
what you're standing on?
8:07
Do you have any thoughts on that with the surfaces that we train on or utilize
8:13
for anything that's barefoot in nature?
8:16
Yeah, that's a good question. I think that from a proprioceptive things,
8:24
we know that the foot and ankle really have the ability to change his biomechanics
8:32
regarding to the surface that you are in contact with,
8:37
meaning that if you have a damping surface, so something that dissipates energy but not, you know,
8:43
release it or not give you back, We know that it will increase your foot and
8:49
ankle muscle activity to perform these energetical things.
8:55
That's the same when you run or when you have some stiffness or springness of the surface.
9:03
Where we know that if it helps you, your brain will know that.
9:07
And after your foot and ankle, it's turned off a little bit.
9:10
Just to have a kind of economic things.
9:15
But when it came to exercise, I really try to be barefoot as most as I can,
9:24
just because I like to see also the engagement of the toes or the engagement of the muscle.
9:32
And I really try to do it barefoot and also between, you know,
9:39
kind of intensity of max intensity and also some discomfort.
9:44
Sometimes barefoot could be painful or could be not comfortable if it's,
9:50
you know, the brick, for example, it's too stiff or etc.
9:54
That's also the preference of the athletes.
9:58
And so, but for most of the time, I really try to be barefoot during my exercise.
10:07
So, for example, if we talk about the protocol of my PhD,
10:14
98% of the time all the athletes did the five exercises barefoot here.
10:24
But yeah, that's always the thing between what you want in terms of things and
10:32
maybe you can change because of this, yeah, painful things or discomfort here.
10:40
I prefer to have, for example, max intensity that, you know,
10:46
he push hard, for example, on the ground, etc.
10:52
Pain tree that barefoot and, you know, that's my, I would say,
11:00
philosophy around that.
11:03
And not always barefoot, but most of the time.
11:06
Yeah, so let's dig in then to that PhD research.
11:10
And I just think it was so interesting to me. I know, again,
11:13
you talked about it last time.
11:14
So could you explain, again, for those who caught the last podcast,
11:19
but re-share about the research, but then let's dig into the results and the
11:23
training implications for that.
11:27
Well, the idea was pretty simple. It's just that the foot and curl complex,
11:32
it's pretty hard and complex in terms of anatomy. so many joints, many muscles, etc.
11:42
So the idea was just to have a look in the MTP joint, so we can call it the forefoot.
11:50
So the idea of the PhD was really to, I would say, investigate the role and
11:58
the function of the forefoot flexion strength, so the strength into flexion.
12:05
So the role and the function of the strength of the
12:08
forefoot into the propulsion
12:11
kinetics and into how
12:15
we said the overall performance during three main tasks which was sprinting
12:22
cutting and jumping in athletes so for this PhD we have three big parts number
12:30
one was creating a dynamometer or
12:34
ergometer that was able to evaluate precisely and validately the strength of the MTP flexion.
12:43
Number two was a study, a cross-sectional study where we took five athletes,
12:52
healthy and highly trained athletes in five different sports.
12:58
And evaluated the strengths of their forefoot.
13:02
Also, some other foot parameters like foot morphological deformation,
13:09
foot postures, foot anchor reactive strength, and also the strength of the calves
13:15
isometrically and the quadriceps.
13:18
And after we just performed all the kinetics evaluations, so ground reaction
13:24
force during two different parts of the acceleration phase,
13:29
and cutting, horizontal cutting, vertical jump, horizontal jump,
13:36
and after 90 degrees of cutting.
13:39
So it was cross-sectional, meaning that it's just one time, or I would say two
13:45
times, so one was familiarization.
13:48
And after we wanted to know the association or the relationship between MTP
13:55
flexion strength and foot parameters in relation to some kinetics.
14:01
So the kinetics was propulsion kinetics, meaning the impulse,
14:08
and also the ratio of force.
14:12
So we also evaluate, I would say,
14:17
not just the amount of force that you can produce, but also the transmission
14:21
of force that you can put on the ground, so the direction of the resultant of the 3D forces.
14:29
And the last part was basically the same evaluation,
14:35
but was the same evaluation after a protocol of eight weeks of improving the
14:43
strength of the forefoot, where we have a control group and a training group.
14:48
And we have also, so before we have a control period, So just to have a look
14:57
into the variation and viability of our measurement.
15:02
So to make sure that when you don't train, or to make sure to see if you don't
15:08
train, you have a stable, you know.
15:12
I would say variation or change, stable change on all of your metrics.
15:19
After you have the training of eight weeks, so two sessions per week.
15:23
And after you have the post-training evaluation and after we portrayed also day-training period.
15:31
So to understand how it is or what was the effect of the day-training period
15:38
around all the parameters.
15:40
So did you have the same strengths or did you lose because you stopped the protocol?
15:48
So yeah, so part one, part two, part three was that.
15:53
So pretty straightforward PhD around very, you know, precise region of the foot.
16:02
So just the forefoot. So only exercise around the forefoot and to see if you have some effects.
16:09
So that was the goals.
16:13
Got it. And then forefoot, like use MTP joint, is that toe training more so
16:19
than calf raise based training? Or could you explain that?
16:22
Yeah, if you look at our protocols.
16:29
Basically it's all around the MTP, yes.
16:34
So meaning that we have, so for the gym session, so it was a session based in the gym.
16:42
We have a forefoot MTP flexion, so with heavy load and etc.,
16:49
and electrical stimulation in certain positions, so it was Exercise 1.
16:55
Exercise 2 was a heavy load for the first race, so it was, I would say,
17:01
an exercise focusing or targeting only the first race.
17:07
So it was a first-ray push on, I would say,
17:14
an inclined leg curl, So it's just like a soleus kind of position,
17:21
but you only push on your first and you want to elevate your heel thanks to
17:26
the flexion of your first.
17:29
So it's a navy load exercise for the first, Ray.
17:32
After we have a really
17:35
kind of inclined pogo jump
17:39
but pogo really with the forefoot I would say interaction with the ground so
17:48
really forefoot plyometrics so this was our three exercises in the gym session so we also increased,
17:57
so it was also heavy loading plyometric just meaning that.
18:02
At the end, you change the inclination, so to work on much more the lateral
18:09
part of the forefoot and the medial part of the forefoot.
18:12
And we also increase the body weight thanks to dumbbells.
18:17
And after, in regards to the home session,
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because we have two sessions per week, one was what we call a supervised optimal
18:26
session, meaning that it was the optimal things where you can have access to
18:32
materials, being a gym, etc.
18:35
And the second one was a home session where we just gave to athletes a complex
18:41
or electrical stimulators.
18:44
And so they've done 15 minutes of a footbridge on two books at home with the
18:53
electrical stimulation.
18:55
And after so mtp flexion iso
18:58
push on the wall so a maximal isometric on
19:02
the on the wall so having the mtp in dorsiflex position and just push as hard
19:08
as they can so it was basically you know uh these five exercise so yeah the
19:14
five exercise you are willing to target only a little bit for shoe, the arch,
19:21
and the might foot also, but dedicated to improving the MTP flexor.
19:29
So it was really an isolated protocol, you know.
19:34
Yes, sorry. It was really a kind of very analytically and isolated protocol on the MTP flexor.
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Yeah, I like just how focused all that was just to that forefoot,
21:01
just because we talk about, hey, you have to get stronger feet and ankles and all that.
21:05
But there's, yeah, it just highlights the different part and the very specific piece of that.
21:10
And with the toes as well, I know we'll talk about the outcomes with all the
21:14
athletic movements and acceleration and jumping and cutting.
21:18
Um I was going to ask you as well was there
21:21
is there a way you measure maximal toe strength just because
21:25
I've seen a few different ways of measuring that
21:27
maximal push I have in my basement
21:30
here it's I think his name is tom michaud he um he
21:34
invented the toe pro and he has this device that you
21:37
have your your foot's on the ground and you
21:40
put a little um it's like a little piece of plastic that
21:43
goes under the toes and then you have a person clamp their toes
21:46
down and you and it measures how much force yeah
21:49
yeah so it's that's
21:52
which I find that's an illuminating thing um and I don't think it's perfect
21:57
but someone who's very weak and someone who's very strong it's very apparent
22:01
who's who's strong and weak so that's that you know that's interesting but I
22:05
wonder if there's more of a is there more of a gold standard or how how would
22:08
you measure that specific four foot strength yeah
22:11
That's really a good question because um during my phd defense since the two big applications,
22:19
well, three big applications, but number one application of my PhD was how we
22:25
can precisely evaluate MTP flexion because we don't have any gold standard so far.
22:32
So we don't have an isokinetic, it's what I say, we don't have an isokinetic for the toes.
22:37
So we don't have any gold standard. so for me there is two I would say four
22:44
big things to understand number one is that,
22:50
being able to evaluate the flexion of the two people,
22:57
have a shortcut like they say that it's the
22:59
intrinsic strength but it's not you can't I would say just evaluate the strength
23:06
of the intrinsic it's always MTP flexion is always come from the two groups
23:11
so extrinsic two flexor and intrinsic so you can't really you know.
23:18
Divided your evaluation into intrinsic and extrinsic.
23:22
So I always mention in all my manuscript on my PhD that was the MTP flexion and MTP flexor.
23:30
And we know that into these MTP flexors, the extrinsic two flexors are the strongest
23:36
because they are the biggest.
23:38
It's pretty simple here.
23:41
Number two is if you want to evaluate those muscles, you have to understand
23:46
that those muscles are pretty sensitive to angle and to dorsiflexion.
23:52
So changing the angle of the ankle, so putting your ankle into dorsiflexion
23:59
or plantar flexion, change the force-length relationships of the extrinsic to flexor.
24:06
So if you want to evaluate precisely, you have to be very aware of the position
24:12
of the ankle first and on the MTP for sure.
24:17
Because we know that the MTP flexion,
24:20
I would say, in terms of the optimal position for force production,
24:25
it's where you are between 20 and 35 degrees of MTP dosiflexion.
24:34
And when you have the ankle in neutral and some amount of dosiflexion.
24:40
So that's why you have two joints to be sensitive.
24:46
So that's why when you want really to be very precise between two sessions,
24:52
you have to put the same angulation each time because you can have so many different force productions,
25:01
not just because you are stronger, but just because you don't push at the same force lengths.
25:07
But that's, you know, and I would say the big mistake that I saw with all the
25:15
things that we can have on social media and on paper so far into MTP flexion
25:23
is that you really have to block.
25:26
When I say block, it's really block. You have to stabilize the rear foot
25:31
Because actually your brain or your triceps or your calf is share the same neural
25:41
drive than your MTP flexor.
25:43
So it's really difficult just to push as hard as you can with your toes without
25:49
having any activation of the calf.
25:51
But the big thing is it can change totally the force production on your thing.
25:58
So that's why it's always
26:02
amazed me the kind of the position where people just put a dynamometer under
26:09
the toes without any stabilization and just force on the toes is that you
26:15
have for sure a plantar flexion moment also.
26:19
So it's not really a reliable and valid thing.
26:24
So that's why blocking the rear foot, it's also very, very important for me.
26:32
It's even more the most important thing when it came to forefoot strength.
26:36
It's because it's the same nerve drive. So it's the tibia nerve.
26:43
So yeah, that's what I would say. So you can't divide it between intrinsic, extrinsic to flexor.
26:53
You have to have to be at the same angle and you have to block and stabilize
26:59
the rear foot because the calf compensation could be so big.
27:04
And even more on weak athletes that will, you know, push a little bit and have
27:10
to want to rise their heel because of compensation, etc.
27:15
So yeah, that's mainly the three things that I really try to focus on.
27:24
Hmm. That's interesting that the calf can compensate and dig in so much with the toe strength.
27:31
And I would imagine athletes who have weaker toe flexion values are probably
27:37
going to constantly be just trying to get the needed forces from up the chain.
27:41
It's funny to see because yeah on
27:44
our custom made egrometer so
27:47
we we've done so many evaluation
27:50
can't remember how many athletes and how
27:53
many trials but it's funny to see all
27:56
the firing composition that we've seen but the big
27:59
one was that that was you know uh even
28:03
more not pushing it directly in the rising like not having the connection to
28:10
perform the flexion of the toes and directly want to first plantar flex their
28:17
calf and after producing flexion of the toes.
28:22
So that's why for some even more weak athletes it's pretty we said difficult too.
28:28
And that's why also the evaluation that you mentioned just before so where you
28:36
have the toes on the ground and you have like the paper grip test it's the same.
28:42
So if your
28:43
Foot it's on the ground and you
28:47
don't have a stabilization of maybe the ankle
28:50
on the ground you can also cheat
28:54
a little bit the test by you know flexing
28:58
your toes but having also the involvement of
29:01
the soleus and yeah So that's why I really try to put the foot and ankle on
29:09
table or on a brick where I know that I can add a rigid belt or even what we
29:16
created in the lab was a snowboard fixation, you know,
29:21
on the foot to really strap usually the complexity.
29:32
Yeah. I think in the very, um,
29:36
maybe more the open chain, less clinical world, just watching an athlete do
29:39
a vertical jump is interesting because seeing how high the, or a counter movement
29:44
jump, watching how high the heel prefers to get off the ground in kind of that propulsive phase.
29:50
Um, it makes sense with what you're talking about with the angle,
29:54
like that 20 to 35 degrees. I think you said it was in there.
29:58
And that heel lifting basically to create roundabout that angle.
30:04
And it makes me wonder an athlete, an athlete with strong toes and good coordination
30:09
and body awareness is probably going to get that nice best angle naturally to
30:15
leverage whatever strength they have through the forefoot in that terminal phase,
30:19
especially people who are more elastic and bouncy and really,
30:23
really use their feet versus having more of an engine upstream.
30:28
And I feel it too. I say that too because I feel that when I do different plyometric
30:32
exercises as well where you kind of put your toes at that angle naturally and
30:37
it's like, ooh, there's a lot of spring here. I can feel this repeatedly.
30:41
One of the ones I like is called a low squat foot jumper.
30:44
You're basically in a half squat and then you're hopping up and down without
30:48
changing the half squat position and your heels are always off the ground. That's the big one.
30:53
And when that it's almost like you're always feeling that angle,
30:56
I'm making an angle for people who are just listening.
30:58
So that's why I think I just kind of feel that happening.
31:02
But I think a lot of athletes would either just mush through it a little bit,
31:06
like the heels will come down.
31:08
Or maybe like you said, maybe they get a lot of it out of the calf and their
31:12
toes are actually they're just the toes are maybe just hanging on for dear life
31:16
at the bottom. Yeah, that's right.
31:20
That could be also a lose of anteriorization of the center pressure of the force application.
31:30
And so the heel drop of the ground also because they are much more posteriorly
31:35
when they contract the ground.
31:38
So not having confidence with the toes. And what you mentioned, it's pretty right,
31:46
meaning that dorsiflexion for the MTP or range of motion of dorsiflexion, it's so important.
31:54
And that's why when you have, you know, like hallux valgus, hallux rigidus,
32:00
turf toes injury, where you can have an impairment of the motion of the toes,
32:08
you change the force lengths into less optimal things.
32:15
And that's also create this kind of inhibition and atrophy that we can have
32:21
in relation to dose pathology, where we know that an abductor hallucis,
32:28
for example, or the flexor hallucis longus, has really, you know,
32:33
have this ability to produce when your MTP start to dorsiflex into dose range.
32:42
And when you are fixed hallux or rigid hallux that can dorsiflex,
32:46
that impair their ability to have a production on force.
32:53
So that's a big thing. So mobility of the forefoot will dictate,
33:00
I will say, your ability to produce force.
33:03
That's the same for the dorsiflexion of the tibia, for example,
33:09
where we know that it's allow you to also perform optimally or not.
33:19
Yeah, it's that, I've thought about that a lot more in the last years,
33:25
recent years, is your ability to produce force being your ability to mobilize
33:30
and open the space prior.
33:32
But it's interesting, something like the forefoot, I think we would look at that.
33:36
It's a lot harder to think about mobility in the forefoot than something that's
33:40
big and obvious, like hip mobility.
33:42
If you have bad hip or hamstring mobility, it's pretty obvious.
33:47
What does good forefoot mobility look like? I think that's the beauty,
33:50
Yeah. I think in forced-length relationship, which is the foundation of all
33:58
every, you know, human anatomy knowledge was, you know,
34:03
force-speed curve, forced-length relationship.
34:07
And enforced lengths, we forget lengths, and lengths is dependent on range of motion.
34:13
So that's why having also not just mobility,
34:17
but having MTP joint mobility is also a parameter that for sure will dictate
34:28
your physical output here.
34:31
Is that just so, is that when you're talking MTP mobility or that forefoot,
34:37
is that toe, like the toes flexing, like your ability to put your foot on like
34:41
a slanted board and really lean forward into it and have the toes flex?
34:45
Is it something within the forefoot itself? Like if I, I'm using my hands a
34:50
lot, this is audio, but like if I had a foot,
34:53
like, and I'm manipulating the forefoot and the bones, like something,
34:56
like anything in relation to the structure inside the foot itself,
35:01
or is it mostly the toes and just the number, the flexion range that you're looking at?
35:10
Yeah, for sure. I would say if you have passive range,
35:15
if you have big passive range of motion, that doesn't mean that you will have
35:20
the same amount of active range so that you can have the dorsiflexion here.
35:26
But the first thing is, yeah, I would say, oh, you can improve this is, could be.
35:32
The third thing could be manual therapy or working on manipulating or mobilization
35:42
of the two to include things.
35:44
What I like also, it's a kind of chronic stretch or stretch where you dorsiflex the MTP,
35:54
I would say to the max amplitude that you have and you keep this position or this position here.
36:04
I like to do both, so dorsiflexion of the toes and dorsiflexion of the tibia.
36:09
So that will work a lot on flexor hallucis longus and digitorium longus flexibility so the tendons.
36:21
So yeah, you can, I would say, improve the articular or arthrokinematic thanks
36:26
to manual therapy, for example, and mobilizations.
36:30
And much more on the muscle tendon unit because it's all about the tendon of
36:38
the flexor that allow you also to have this range here.
36:43
And after for sure, it's to be sure that he has actively the ability to flex
36:50
and extend it within this, I would say,
36:54
range because you can have the passive range of motion but not the active range. Yeah.
37:01
So let's dig into the results of the research. So then we started,
37:06
I asked you about it and we were, we, I, I led on a few rabbit trails.
37:11
Let's dig into, cause that premise is so good. Like four foot strength.
37:14
We talked about the MP and MTP joint and some of the dynamics there.
37:20
So let's get into the strengthening of that joint. You talked about the exercises.
37:25
Uh, what impact did that have on, as you mentioned, sprinting, cutting and jumping?
37:31
Yeah.
37:32
So if we go back to the protocol, so eight weeks, two sessions per week.
37:40
So the first thing that we wanted to understand is, did we change MTP flexion strength?
37:51
So what we found is that we basically improved the MTP flexion on the dominant
37:59
foot and non-dominant foot by approximately 28%,
38:02
which was pretty,
38:06
very, very important because it was really highlevel or highly trained athletes.
38:14
So 28% of
38:18
improvement it's pretty impressive and
38:23
what we try to do it's not just a basic
38:26
statistical analysis and group average we try also to evaluating the rate of
38:36
responders so being a responder it's to know that your improvement is below your.
38:46
Minimal detectable change that we evaluate during your control period.
38:51
So everyone has his own variations of the time and so to be sure that your improvement
39:01
or your increment is I would say clinically.
39:06
Or can be sure we evaluate this to for every athlete here and around all protocol we have, yeah.
39:17
92% of rate of responder.
39:20
So basically every athlete improves their main TP flexion strength above the
39:29
NDC, even more the stronger one.
39:33
So we basically believe that at the beginning of the protocol,
39:39
even the guys that already have stronger toes or a really big MTP flexion strength
39:48
have an improvement that is still, you know,
39:53
valid or relevant clinically.
39:58
We also have an hypertrophy of those muscles. So we evaluate the cross-sectional
40:06
area of one intrinsic foot muscle alone and the flexor directoring lungus.
40:12
And we found also a 10% of hypertrophy after the eight weeks.
40:22
So we have a kind of neural and structural effects. So our first,
40:28
The result was to say that those muscles, so the MTP flexor,
40:35
can be trained, I would say,
40:38
heavily like any muscle and then can improve their strength from a neural aspect
40:46
and structural aspect and you can make the foot muscle bigger.
40:52
So that was the first thing. And the second thing was, does it change or did it change the kinetics?
41:00
And what we found is that around all the explosive tasks that we evaluate,
41:10
we found that for the cuttings, so the change of direction,
41:17
we have biggest rate of responder into the cutting time.
41:24
So it was the overall performance, and we can't correlate this improvement by
41:30
having our responder with a bigger medial lateral ratio of force.
41:39
So what we found is that they have the same amount of force after the protocol,
41:48
but the ratio of force, the transmission to the ground was really different.
41:54
And so in terms of cutting, so people in the training group was able to produce
42:01
more, I would say, force into the medial lateral direction.
42:06
So better, I would say, not force production, the force transmission to the
42:11
ground, so into the direction here.
42:15
And we wanted, or it was, it could be really explained by the fact that.
42:23
The strike that they used during the night during our explosive task was a forefoot strike.
42:29
So if we look at their ultimate foot contact when they turn at 90 degrees for
42:37
all of our athletes was a forefoot strike.
42:41
So for cutting which we found this, we also found things during a broad jump
42:50
or horizontal jumping, so it was a counter-movement jump horizontally.
42:56
And we found also an increase of horizontal force production to the ground,
43:01
so increase of horizontal concentric inputs and ratio of force.
43:07
And we can also explain this because
43:10
what changed between a vertical
43:13
jump and a horizontal jump is that
43:16
during the horizontal jump you have an
43:19
increased dorsiflexion moment so you have much
43:23
more bending moment at the toes because you
43:25
have a forward link of the body so
43:29
you have a center of mass that is moving
43:32
much more anteriorly and our explanation around this improvement was that after
43:39
our protocol and also because one of the exercise of our protocol was to have
43:46
a heavy load forwarding or to forwarding you know,
43:49
push with your tools and forwarding with your body. What we.
43:54
Explain to those results is that after the
43:57
protocol we're much more able you know
44:00
to I would say forward lean a bit
44:03
more with your trunk and your body and to have a much
44:06
more optimal angulation for your
44:09
jump um here and um
44:13
the last things that we found but on small
44:17
amount of athletes also because not every athlete
44:21
did the really big maxima sprint because
44:25
for some sport it was not so for
44:29
example a handball or basketball athlete
44:32
was not relevant to do a 30
44:36
meter sprint so it was just rugby soccer and
44:39
track and field athletes so on the training
44:43
group into maximal speed so
44:46
it was maximal or kinetic during maximal speed we found that we increased the
44:57
vertical or the effective vertical inputs so producing much more vertical force to the ground which.
45:07
Are one of the key things when it came to, I will say,
45:15
be performant during maximal speed is your ability, you know,
45:19
also to have vertical springness to the ground and vertical force production
45:25
to order you to have flight time and etc.
45:28
So we know that the vertical vector increase or your performance of your sprint is,
45:39
important when it came to maximal speed and when it came to the vertical force production.
45:45
So that's the three big things.
45:51
That we, I will say, found. And we didn't find any, you know,
45:59
explanation around what we had some responder,
46:04
what this guy wasn't a responder, because basically for the most thing,
46:13
it was not correlated with some demographics on some sport.
46:18
So it was not because of the sport or because of the training volume or even
46:23
more because of the MTP flexion strength at the beginning.
46:30
So what we found sometimes is that you have the same amount of increment of
46:39
your MTP flexion and the same amount of improvement in your kinetics for some
46:45
responders but not for some.
46:48
So it was very individual things and actually we can't really explain why I
46:57
would say you are this particular responder or not.
47:01
So I think that one of the three big explanations for me is that having a stronger
47:09
forefoot allows you maybe three big things.
47:13
Number one is to produce much more mechanical work within the forefoot region.
47:21
So it's what I call having a greater forefoot producer.
47:28
Or having a stronger forefoot allow you to store and release much more mechanical
47:37
energy thanks to your MTP flexor.
47:39
So we know they have long tendons and we know that they can also,
47:43
you know, having this, I would say, stretch and shortening cycle action.
47:51
So it was improving the forefoot spring or the stretch and shortening cycle
47:58
from the MTP flexor tunnel units.
48:02
And number three, it's that having a stronger forefoot, a lower U-calf,
48:10
to have a much better forefoot transmitter or have a stable foundation.
48:17
And we know that having a stronger forefoot can, you know,
48:22
put your sump force of application in much more entirely to the ground,
48:29
and so it's increased the anchor gear ratio.
48:33
So that's the three maybe biomechanical explanations around our results.
48:38
It's a fore-foot producer, fore-foot transmitter, or fore-foot recycler, or fore-foot spring.
48:49
And so I think that the new area or the new knowledge or the new study or the further study,
48:57
it's really to maybe use the same protocol,
49:04
but really to perform a 3D biomechanical evaluation on all the joints on the
49:15
foot to understand what you change from a really kinetic perspective,
49:22
meaning your ankle joint work or ankle joint power,
49:25
your forefoot joint work or forefoot power,
49:29
to understand really what will change precisely inside the foot after this protocol
49:37
because our evaluation or our study,
49:42
it's not global but an overall aspect of force production.
49:52
So, ground reaction force, you don't know when you increase your ground reaction
50:00
force, you don't know where it's come from.
50:04
For us, it was maybe from the calf, from the forefoot on my foot,
50:08
but maybe you increase something else, I don't know, the knee or maybe the hip.
50:15
So, the hip has better, you know, joint to transmit its force.
50:21
So that for me will be the new area of understanding around this now.
50:34
Yeah. A few things I took from you,
50:38
Romain, as you were talking and explaining the cuts and the broad jump,
50:44
especially, is it made me think about giving athletes more options.
50:50
So if you have a stronger forefoot and toes that you may have options to different
50:57
angles of motion you wouldn't have before like you mentioned that broad jump
51:00
like you could lean forward more was that correct?
51:04
Like if you had stronger toes you could actually get a more forward lean but
51:08
that to me that would strike me as not just being great for a broad jump test
51:12
which is more just a combine thing in many cases or the 1900 Olympics when it
51:18
was an actual event in track
51:20
But it's, there's so many cuts and, or cuts too, but like acceleration situations,
51:26
little leaps forward, all sorts of motions in sport where you have to really fall forward more.
51:33
And if you have a stronger, more functional forefoot, you could get into positions
51:38
that maybe you couldn't if you didn't have that.
51:40
So I think that, and even the cutting I was thinking about, you mentioned with
51:45
the forefoot, like the moment of change of direction, and of course the improved rate of force ratio.
51:53
But it makes me think as well, in cutting, what if those toes strength gives
51:58
you access to a better foot position in that turn that you wouldn't have otherwise
52:03
had the potential access to?
52:05
And it gives you more options. And so, yeah, I think that's,
52:11
to me, that's kind of what I was getting out of it as you were talking is because, like you said,
52:16
Way back in this show, you could also get strength from the calf to do the job.
52:21
But the forefoot almost like that's what gives you the options to be more precise
52:26
with what's actually happening on the ground. And that's probably part of the
52:30
reason why, like you said, it is so individual because there's a lot of different
52:33
ways to solve athletic problems.
52:36
Yeah, I think you...
52:38
That's brilliant, yeah, this kind of individual option that you can use.
52:46
That's a new option, or that's a new skill that you have.
52:51
And to come back to the cutting, what we know, and it could be related to, for example.
53:01
Ankle sprain or chronic ankle instability, where we know that during a cutting moment,
53:08
movement we know that the forefoot it's biomechanically
53:13
linked with the rear foot meaning that we know particularly
53:16
thanks to now a really precise
53:19
biomechanical study that the flexion
53:23
of your hallux so the ability of your hallux to flex on the ground is correlated
53:30
related to your inversion of your rear foot that just means that if I push on
53:36
the ground with my forefoot and my hallux stay on the ground,
53:40
that will reduce the ability of my rear foot to invert.
53:46
So that's mean, and that could be also related to injury of mechanism during
53:51
lateral ankle sprain, where you have a forefoot strike and your hallux, you know,
53:57
totally deviated and I would say doesn't escape the ground after you have an
54:05
inversion moment that is traumatic.
54:07
So I always now think when it came, you know, for example, to ankle or rear
54:16
foot stability is that, yeah,
54:19
when it came to forefoot strike actions, your ability really to your MTP to
54:24
stay on the ground will offer you, as you mentioned.
54:28
Also stability to put more force on the ground.
54:35
That, I would say, before the protocol could lead to traumatic things.
54:43
It was funny to see in some athletes that had some incur injury to see that
54:51
they were much more comfortable to put much more medial lateral force on the
54:58
ground on a forefoot strike,
55:03
than before maybe because of fear or maybe because they know that if you put
55:11
too much force mediolaterally maybe you will have a traumatic thing so that's also,
55:19
all the sling that we can maybe create between your forefoot and your rear foot
55:26
and also as you mentioned maybe your car, that is your big motor, but yeah.
55:35
Yeah. I like, um, I think we talked about this exercise last time you were on,
55:40
and I know you've posted videos on this kind of thing with, um,
55:44
like if the feet are on a slant board and you're lifting the heel up,
55:48
the toes are staying pressed against that board. So they're being flexed under load.
55:53
Um, one of the, one of my favorite exercises is doing like single leg hinge
55:59
type motions with that front foot or the main foot on that reverse slant board
56:06
just to get those toes to have to lengthen under load.
56:10
And it's interesting, I hadn't put that together with the ankle sprain,
56:14
where if you can really get the toes on the ground as a function of time,
56:20
it gives you more time on the ground and you are more firmly rooted on the ground through the forefoot,
56:26
then you don't have to just, you're less likely to, yeah, have that inversion
56:32
ankle sprain where you roll to the outside.
56:36
I hadn't, so then that's what you're linking, right? Where if you have more
56:39
flexion through the toes, you can really get into those positions,
56:43
you're going to be less likely to turn the ankle over on the other side.
56:46
Yeah, your first ray flexion related to your inversion of your rear foot.
56:55
That means that if your first ray stay on the ground, you will have less inversion of your rear foot.
57:03
So that's a neuromuscular and biomechanical link between those two regions and those two movements.
57:13
So flexion for the first ray and inversion for the rear foot.
57:17
So that makes sense, really.
57:23
So yeah, if you first race stay on the ground, you will reduce your inversion
57:28
moment of your ankle that will maybe turn into a traumatic event.
57:33
So that's why also, as you mentioned, a board or inking plate that you'll,
57:40
you know, work on 3d kind
57:44
of exercise when you have frontal and sagittal
57:48
different movement it's it's powerful
57:52
and it's really important also when it came to foot ankle you know robustness
57:57
and and training where you have to focus on on the 3d because the your foot
58:03
is deformed in the the force that encounter with the gram in 3D is pretty big,
58:10
it's not just sagittal it's not just pronation it's not just supination,
58:15
etc it's about many, many things also, yeah,
58:21
yeah.
58:23
Yeah. Um, I want to talk a little bit about, um, four foot, very fore foot specific strength.
58:30
Like, as you mentioned, three exercises, I had them written down there,
58:33
the, the toe flexion or the MTP flexion, the big toe training and that incline
58:37
pogo, which I was going to say to you that incline pogo, that's,
58:41
I've seen that a lot in the, um,
58:43
I guess you could call it the Marinovich style training system here in the States.
58:47
It's like guys on a super cat, like a jump machine, and they would incline the board.
58:52
So you're literally just hopping on this machine with like a repeat,
58:55
like fore foot no flexion type thing.
58:58
And I've talked to coaches who think that's a great thing.
59:01
I've also talked to coaches who don't like it because they think it's maybe
59:05
too much stress on the Achilles or something like that.
59:08
Uh, which I think if you're not used to it, it could be.
59:11
Um, but I, I, when you said that, I was like, Oh yeah, I, I've seen a lot of
59:16
that in that kind of training situation.
59:18
And the Marinovich and then Sports Science Lab is an offshoot of that that also does a lot of that.
59:25
And they get athletes a lot of times there who do a lot more of the traditional
59:30
weightlifting background, and then they'll start training the foot in that in
59:34
all sorts of different ways. And they do increase their jumping and athleticism
59:37
and injury prevention a lot. That's the thing out of that system.
59:40
It's injury prevention is a big one.
59:42
Um, anyways, all this to say, um, where I was headed and I don't want to trip
59:47
myself up in my own thought patterns, but, uh, forefoot training,
59:51
so more toe specific versus not that it is always a versus,
59:56
but versus like just calf raises or, uh, isometric ankle, like a,
1:00:01
like a max iso push or, um,
1:00:04
like a spring ankle where you're, you're just doing the, the isometric and focusing
1:00:08
more on the ankle joint than the toes.
1:00:11
Is there benefits or what would the main benefits to toe training versus more
1:00:18
of that global foot ankle training be?
1:00:21
What situations would you like to do more of one than the other, essentially?
1:00:28
You need to do more of one than the other, I should say.
1:00:32
Yeah, that's a good question. If we just look at the link between your calf
1:00:39
and your forefoot, so I told you that they share the same nerve drive,
1:00:46
so it's the tibial nerve.
1:00:48
So that just means that your MTP flexion or your MTP joint is really related to your calf.
1:00:59
And so that's why I always say that you can be strong on one,
1:01:06
so MTP flexion, but weak on your calf.
1:01:09
You can be strong on both, etc.
1:01:13
So I like to use both kind of exercise, meaning that you can really...
1:01:23
Focus on the calf without trying to targeting the MTP flexion.
1:01:28
So for example, it could be a paraphrase where you have your toes outside the ground.
1:01:38
So that would be an exercise where you want to, in your heel rises exercise
1:01:44
or your calf raise moment, you really want to increase the contribution just come from your calf.
1:01:51
But on the other side, if you do a calf raise in an incline plate or incline surface,
1:01:59
so where you have really a dorsiflexion of your MTP and you do a calf raise,
1:02:04
You know that in this exercise.
1:02:08
You increase the MTP joint moment and the mindful joint moment,
1:02:12
so you can really target in most, I would say, increase the contribution on the MTP flexion.
1:02:21
So I like to, I would say, try to evaluate analytically the calf and the MTP to understand,
1:02:32
do I have to just focus on the calf itself?
1:02:38
And I know that he has a standard or a stronger forefoot or a good strong forefoot.
1:02:48
So maybe I would say performing calf or calf exercise will be relevant for this athlete.
1:02:59
Sometimes he's weak on the two regions and I have to find exercise where you
1:03:08
can isolate those things or work them together.
1:03:11
So this exercise in calf raise with endosiflexion of the MDP, it's pretty relevant.
1:03:18
Or sometimes it's really just the forefoot that is weak, as I told you.
1:03:25
And that's, you really make sense to totally get to the forefootexercise here.
1:03:36
Also, I think because maybe you have some synergy between these stats,
1:03:43
what we found in the PhD is that all of our exercise didn't lead to calf strength improvement.
1:03:55
So even doing some pogo during eight weeks or doing some mid foot bridge or
1:04:02
MTP flexion on the wall and etc.
1:04:07
Even this where we know that the calf was
1:04:10
activated during our exercise because as I told you it's pretty difficult to
1:04:14
walk on the forefoot without you know having no activation at all so even those
1:04:21
exercises didn't lead to calf improvement so that's just say to me that.
1:04:28
You can't that doesn't mean
1:04:31
by because you walk on the toes that your
1:04:34
calf will improve and etc I think that you really
1:04:37
have to maybe have
1:04:41
some kind of goals during your session when you say
1:04:44
I'm much more into the calf here and
1:04:47
or I'm much more into the forefoot or I'm much more
1:04:50
into both or I will try to have both this but I would say I don't I don't know
1:04:58
what is the best between these options
1:05:03
or just the calf guys or just the forefoot guys because at the end,
1:05:08
what basically we know is that you can be strong on one region but lose some
1:05:18
of this energy within the other one.
1:05:22
We know that the big motor within the foot anchor,
1:05:27
it's really the triceps but that doesn't mean but because you are a big calf
1:05:34
also that you will have a good ankle gear ratio so I like the idea to say that
1:05:40
the ankle gear ratio so your ability of your calves to have a good labor.
1:05:47
It's also really improvement but if I know that it's weak on the calf I would say that,
1:05:57
Even to think about the labor, just to build your account first and after we
1:06:03
will work to improve also your labor or your leverage, foot leverage.
1:06:11
Yeah, that's... I would say my exercise selection always tried to come from
1:06:21
assessment and evaluation.
1:06:24
Sometimes about what is the feeling of my athletes during the exercise because
1:06:33
sometimes it's funny to believe that he will feel this muscle during,
1:06:41
for example, a calf exercise, but he will tell you that he feels his arch.
1:06:45
Or you give a kind of forefoot and arch exercise and he will tell you that he feels his calf.
1:06:51
And so that's always what I
1:06:55
mentioned your ability to change the
1:06:59
exercise or have different variety of things to targeting the right muscles
1:07:06
so it's always that's why just the basic question where do you feel the muscle
1:07:14
tension or the tension is one of the,
1:07:17
most important questions when it came to coaching you know.
1:07:23
Yeah for sure I I find I always
1:07:27
want athletes to be able to why I
1:07:30
should say this I always want to find an exercise that
1:07:33
lets an athlete feel it in their arch especially somebody
1:07:36
has really weak toes that to me is always uh of course I want them to feel in
1:07:41
their calf as well but to me it seems like that uh more athletes well tell me
1:07:47
what you think about this Romain is do you feel and more athletes would have
1:07:51
a weak foot intrinsic versus those who have weak just calves.
1:07:56
Is that true? Or is it kind of, you know, there's some people with strong feet and weak.
1:08:01
But like you said, you can't get the intrinsic, the feet, without getting the
1:08:04
calf too. So I would imagine there's more people with weak feet than calf structures.
1:08:10
Yeah, that's a really good question because that's one of the,
1:08:16
I would say most questions that people ask me is, Romain, do you have any exercise
1:08:22
where you can have a feeling under the arch because all of my exercise you know, doesn't,
1:08:31
give this feeling to my athletes and so I will say that,
1:08:39
Most of the athletes sometimes doesn't feel the burn under the arch,
1:08:45
but maybe it's because it's much more easy to feel burn into all the lower limb muscles.
1:08:56
So if you want to feel burn around quadriceps, you have maybe much more exercise or even more,
1:09:04
I would say, basic stuff to feel your quadriceps or even your calf or your hips
1:09:09
or your back or your abdominals,
1:09:13
any muscles.
1:09:14
So maybe that's why that having or they believe that they will have the same
1:09:20
feeling under the arch. Maybe that's the first thing.
1:09:23
I would say one of the big things around arch feeling, it's, yeah.
1:09:32
Try really to, that's why, sorry, to the electrical stimulation under the arch, it's so intensive,
1:09:42
meaning that all of my students that work with me on the PhD,
1:09:50
so they just did one session to fill, I would say, the protocol.
1:09:58
They performed just one session and just one of the exercises with the electrical stimulation.
1:10:03
And just after one session, during all the week, they have some doms under
1:10:12
the arch and for them it was the first time.
1:10:15
So just 10 minutes of electrical stimulation under the arch at max intensity,
1:10:20
you will have a kind of titanic contraction that you never had before and that
1:10:28
could be brutal and that for them being the first time that, oh, okay,
1:10:33
now I understand what it is to feel you know the arch burning so electrical
1:10:40
stimulation helps to feel things for me but also to use electrical stimulation
1:10:48
in certain position on all the muscle that you want that your athlete feels.
1:10:55
And footbridge, I think footbridge, when you load your body and you do a forward
1:11:01
lean, footbridge is also a good exercise to feel it.
1:11:06
And I think that the better one is being in a footbridge position,
1:11:14
but having the toes in dorsiflex position.
1:11:18
So that's maybe the biggest of the exercise where you will have much more,
1:11:30
also some kind of, around the plantar fascia also around the plantar fascia some you know.
1:11:40
Strain like a strain effect and you will feel also or feeling around the arch.
1:11:49
So footbridge, but not having the toes on the ground, but having all the toes
1:11:56
in dorsiflex position and having the unloading position of the midfoot,
1:12:03
it's one of my great or best exercise as well,
1:12:11
I really want athletes to feel the arch or to really activate all the foot muscles,
1:12:19
intrinsic foot muscles and MTP flexor, yeah.
1:12:24
Yeah. Um, I want to finish up with talking about, well, something you said about,
1:12:30
um, like if you, again, if you get the toes and forefoot, you're going to get the calf too.
1:12:35
And it reminds me of something, uh, Rafe Kelly, um, is, is very much a coach
1:12:42
into play, uh, movement training.
1:12:44
And he, one of, uh, quote that he said a long time ago is always tried to train
1:12:48
at the highest level of complexity that's available. And to me,
1:12:51
it would seem that if I could train something that's a little more complex,
1:12:55
like think of it like a tree, like you got the root, the trunk, and then the branches.
1:12:59
And as you get out from the trunk, it gets more complex.
1:13:01
And I think of the body that way a little bit, like the training,
1:13:05
the forefoot, like you just said, getting the burn in the forefoot,
1:13:08
the branches is harder than the trunk, the quad.
1:13:11
That's very, pretty much, you know, do enough squats and ride a bike or whatever.
1:13:15
You're going to get that.
1:13:17
But it's a little more complex.
1:13:19
It should you know hopefully as simple as possible but
1:13:22
complex to get feeling in the the
1:13:25
branches but if you can train that and
1:13:28
get the knock-on effect or the effect all the way down the
1:13:31
body it would make sense to focus most of
1:13:34
your efforts there for the sake of efficiency or essentialism like if I could
1:13:38
only do two lower leg exercises and with my training group it would make sense
1:13:43
to probably do things that would focus on that MTP flexion versus maybe just
1:13:49
doing calf raises and tibialis raises or something.
1:13:52
I mean, not that those are bad exercises, but then I was also thinking about just in having options.
1:13:59
Like if the toes are strong, you have more options, it's probably going to help
1:14:02
you with injury prevention versus if I just wanted performance outcomes,
1:14:06
like just vertical jump, max vertical jump height or something,
1:14:09
maybe it's fine to just then do calf raises.
1:14:12
But it would just make sense that if I want to have an essentialist view that
1:14:17
to do the thing that gets everything else anyways, which is toe strength or
1:14:21
toe based, toe based strength.
1:14:24
And like you said, that nerve innervates both, which I think is really fascinating.
1:14:28
So if you, I'll ask you this, that was a little bit of me rambling my own thoughts
1:14:34
off, apologize, but let me ask you this to close is, is rehab versus a healthy
1:14:39
team that let's just say they don't have any issues.
1:14:41
So you're rehabbing someone versus it's the strength coach and I'm giving some
1:14:46
general exercises to a team.
1:14:48
What are your thoughts on that athletic performance coach just giving general
1:14:52
exercises for the foot and calf and without like a specific injury or a specific
1:14:58
pattern that you're chasing?
1:14:59
Do you have any thoughts with that when it's more of a general performance and
1:15:04
injury prevention setup?
1:15:09
Well, I would say that the big thing around, you know,
1:15:15
kind of want to improve your foot ankle care or foot ankle athletic development
1:15:23
is that the foot ankle is pretty so complex.
1:15:30
And also you have maybe so many muscles that you can target.
1:15:36
So if I if we talk about the knee you know
1:15:39
you can say okay we will do quadriceps oriented
1:15:42
exercise hamstring oriented exercise but for
1:15:46
the foot and ankle that you can have so many options so that's why when I talk
1:15:53
with teams and etc I say and when it came to athletic development I said that
1:16:00
the basic biomechanical function of the ankle is a kind of three-phasic action.
1:16:06
So the first thing is you have absorber foot ankle muscle where you have much
1:16:14
more eccentric and isometric actions after you have the propulsion action where
1:16:21
you have propulsing muscles.
1:16:26
That have a greatest role in run that here.
1:16:30
And if we talk about also the foot and ankle, particularly is especially is
1:16:38
that they are built for spring.
1:16:41
So if you look at the anatomy of the foot and ankle muscles,
1:16:46
any, so intrinsic, extrinsic, and the calf.
1:16:51
Is that they are built for springness, meaning that they have a short fiber
1:16:55
length, muscle fiber length, and always long-tenden to store and release mechanical energy.
1:17:02
So that's why I say to them that if you want to improve the athletic thing,
1:17:11
around the foot and ankle, you have
1:17:14
to find exercise where it's
1:17:18
much more absorbing oriented exercise and
1:17:22
on absorbing oriented exercise you are you can
1:17:25
have an isolated and analytical
1:17:30
approach so you just focus on
1:17:33
the muscle that are the biggest role in the absorption within the foot ankle
1:17:38
complex or you can have what I can call a coupling approach where you take the
1:17:45
foot and ankle complex as a whole and you work on absorbing exercise.
1:17:52
So for example, it could be a mid foot landing exercise, for example.
1:18:00
The same for the propulsing-oriented exercise and the same for the spring-oriented exercise.
1:18:07
And for me, that's the best or the order ofthing to improve the athletic development.
1:18:16
What it changed between the athletic development into a team and me as a rehab
1:18:23
coach is that when I rehab someone, is that I have just one guy.
1:18:28
I have the time maybe to evaluate those three
1:18:31
aspects and to say okay with this
1:18:34
guy it's much more into improving this because this is because of that that
1:18:40
this is injury came or he injured this muscle so his absorption will be impaired
1:18:48
or is already impaired and we will improve this and etc.
1:18:53
The big thing when it came to teams and athletic development is that you can't
1:19:01
perform this holistic evaluation that I created thanks to my PhD.
1:19:09
But maybe I have this focusing on, okay, maybe we do a misocycle of just absorbing
1:19:17
or foot anchor oriented exercise.
1:19:21
For example I don't know during two months
1:19:24
uh that doesn't mean
1:19:27
that during two months you you will have many
1:19:31
many sessions because I really believe that foot
1:19:34
ankle muscle have a super
1:19:38
power to improve very quickly and even
1:19:41
more that other muscle for
1:19:45
just the reason that we
1:19:48
already talk about is that the it's
1:19:52
it's less conditioning or it's it's it's really less conditioning
1:19:55
because it it it was or it's usually
1:19:59
never really work uh in how
1:20:03
you know uh um athlete careers um yeah and so that's why I always say to them
1:20:10
when I talk about absorption propulsion spring I said That doesn't mean that
1:20:15
you have to have a protocol with, you know,
1:20:19
putting six hour weeks working just a full angle.
1:20:23
That means that you focus on this during two years three months,
1:20:28
for example, with specific exercise here.
1:20:31
And you will see that this is the kind of region that can improve very quickly and rapidly.
1:20:37
And that's what we found in our PhD in MTP flexion is that we already could
1:20:45
have stopped our protocol at five weeks, for example.
1:20:50
So we did eight weeks. But what we found is that at six weeks, week six...
1:20:57
The improvement was at the highest and after it doesn't change from six to eight
1:21:04
and it doesn't change for eight to day training periods.
1:21:08
So I think you can improve very quickly and rapidly if you put the right things.
1:21:14
And I really believe that after, even if you stop, you know.
1:21:21
It's always funny to when
1:21:24
I talk with some physio or
1:21:27
SNC that they are afraid of losing the
1:21:30
strength that they have gained like meaning that
1:21:33
I give you 20% of quadriceps strength and they believe that after 2 weeks it
1:21:43
will disappear you know if you stop the protocol but actually if you play your
1:21:48
sport actively and you engage in your sport, the strength that,
1:21:54
you earned after the protocol, basically it will stay a bit the same.
1:22:02
It will disappear here. It will maybe disappear or decrease after an injury
1:22:08
or after an immobilization or after a lockdown period, for example,
1:22:13
where you reduce your activity.
1:22:15
But that's why If you go back, yeah, focusing on the triphasic action of the
1:22:23
ankle, using exercise on mesocycle and microcycle with this.
1:22:30
And you can do a full season foot ankle program with absorption,
1:22:38
propulsion, and spring.
1:22:39
Or you can say, okay, we will work on those three aspects during our week.
1:22:46
Also that after a selection that it's up to you teams and you context but yeah that's always my.
1:22:58
Brainstorming and I will say idea for for teams that I work with or consult with.
1:23:12
It's like the branches on the tree, those small branches on the end can get
1:23:16
up to speed or needed level pretty quick. I think about rock climbing.
1:23:21
I rock climb in the winter and the first week my fingers are just so, so weak.
1:23:26
But by week two or three in, they're getting pretty close to how,
1:23:31
I mean, they're not as strong as they are after three months,
1:23:34
but the curve of improvement is very rapid.
1:23:38
That first week on the wall is always terrible. It's always terrible.
1:23:42
That's funny, the difference between end muscle for rock climbing,
1:23:51
where we want our end muscle to be strong.
1:23:56
And on the other side, and so the end muscle are dedicated to find precision
1:24:02
and coordination, but they are not really built for force production.
1:24:07
But when you do rock climbing, you want to have, yes, the precision of the finger,
1:24:13
but, you know, a strong also and muscles to be able to grasp things.
1:24:19
And the other side, I really see that your foot muscles are dedicated when you
1:24:26
see their mechanical property to force production,
1:24:29
but people want them to be able to grasp or to do some sometimes very complex
1:24:37
coordination things and etc.
1:24:39
And so the very dichotomy between end muscle for rock climbing where we want
1:24:48
to be strong, where we have to be strong.
1:24:51
And for me, it should be the same for the foot muscle.
1:24:54
It should be strong because they are built for that here.
1:25:03
Yeah. Yeah, for sure. Um, yeah, I could go on about, I was just thinking about
1:25:08
how the rock, um, you know, the people who rock climb for life and how strong
1:25:12
their fingers and tendons are.
1:25:14
Like if you are a rock climber, what does, what, uh, distinguishes the highest
1:25:19
level rock climbers is finger strength to body weight.
1:25:21
Like not even, not even grip. It's almost like pull-ups and then grip and then fingers.
1:25:26
And it's the fingers that's the elite, but that's like a lifetime of just being
1:25:30
on the wall and slow, slow build.
1:25:33
Um, and that, that makes me think about too, what you were talking about earlier
1:25:36
about the force storage through the forefoot and volume over time and those types of things.
1:25:42
And, but relative, like just, Hey, general workable forefoot intrinsic strength
1:25:47
that is going to help us get into better positions.
1:25:50
Um, you know, that, that not needing as much time to shore up,
1:25:54
which I think is important.
1:25:55
I also was thinking too, if you have it then you can go play your sport and
1:25:59
you're using it like you're every time you cut
1:26:02
You're using that improved eats that
1:26:05
you got and I think we're always very hung up on oh like this has got to be
1:26:09
in the program forever keep adding more keep adding more well what if I can
1:26:13
just do the essential to maintain what I have and isn't that the goal really
1:26:18
because we want to be able to play and you put our investment in what moves
1:26:21
the needle for our actual sports.
1:26:24
So, um, yeah, I'm fascinating stuff, Romain.
1:26:29
Um, wait, I think I've, I've actually run out of time here and I got,
1:26:32
shoot, I have like a whole, uh, page of notes crammed down and a page,
1:26:37
a half page of questions I didn't get to ask you, but I will save them for next time.
1:26:41
Uh, and just this, I love this topic. Uh, you're doing such great work and it's
1:26:45
really cool to hear about your PhD. Awesome.
1:26:48
Uh, Whenever the next research projects come out as well, my ears will be tuned
1:26:52
for when those are out. So thank you so much for your time today.
1:26:57
Thank you, Joel. Always a pleasure. And yeah, I think we answered three or four
1:27:03
questions on the 10 or 12 questions that we put on the paper.
1:27:09
But yeah, that's why I can't come back to a post for you.
1:27:16
Sounds good.