For all those looking to jump high and get that vertical leap of yours right, it is elementary that you work those toes out well. For an effective vertical leap, you not only require a great upper body balance, but you also need a strong lower body to support your upper body and give you the much needed thrust. Be it dancers, professional athletes or even gymnasts, everyone who needs to pull a nice vertical lift once in a while knows the importance of tuning those toes up. Your feet and toes are the last part of the body to leave contact with the ground when you are vertically lifting yourself up. Toes, therefore, should, theoretically, be the strongest part of the body. In simpler, shorter words, the momentum that your body gains while going up is directly Dependant upon the kind of strength your toes lend your body while it is leaving ground for the final time.
In this write up, we examine some exercises that are specifically meant to strengthen and tone your toes. First up, the most common and easy to do exercise for giving definition to your toes is the simple toe raise. This exercise might appear simple to do, but it is one of the most difficult and elementary exercises for those looking to enhance their balance. Stand normally, in the attention pose. Look towards the ceiling and raise your toes till you are able to stand on the tip of the toes. If you are not, however able to reach the tip, try to go the farthest you can. Lower down slowly and repeat. Please note that it is important that you do not just raise and lower down at a very high speed. This might result in injury to your toes. It is also important that you do not slow things up just a bit too much, this might also lead to extraneous strain on your toes. Just maintain a regular, easy frequency of raising and lowering your toes. You can start with 10 repetitions and increase a repetition or two with each day, till you reach 20 repetition in a week or so. It is worthless to do more than 20 repetitions per set, as it might lead you to injury.
Another variation of the workout described above is called the toe raise, using weights. Once you reach the 20 repetitions/set levels, it is time to increase the tension. You can strap some weight along your ankle or just hold it in your hands while raising and lowering your body while doing toe raises. This is a great way to heighten the resistance levels, without increasing the number of repetitions per set. Remember that this is not a body-building workout routine and therefore, small weights would suffice. Start with 5 pounds and keep increasing 2 pounds at a time when your toes start adjusting to the previous resistance levels.
There you have it, with these workout tips, be rest assured that you would have worked your toes out to the best of your abilities, thus, helping yourself in achieving your high jump targets with ease.
