One of the first things you’ll often hear Teresa or T-Tapp trainers say is, “Toes forward.” Seems fairly easy and elementary, right?

Well, as in all things T-Tapp, there’s more to it than meets the eye–or ear!

Toes and feet straight forward are actually a HUGE part of setting up your T-Tapp stance–you could say it’s foundational.  

Often one or both of our feet want to “duck” out a bit.  By walking this way, with “duck feet”, you put more pressure on the knees and instep of your foot.  This in turn can cause knee or foot problems. So straight toes are the way to go!

By focusing on walking with my toes straight forward (double checked by looking at my imprints in some sand where I take my walks), I lost 3/4″ off each lower thigh in a few weeks–without changing anything else!  And my upper thighs lost some, too!

But inch loss aside, straight toes stance is also rehabilitative.  I recently put this to the test.

Last fall I hurt my knee running in crocs after a day of climbing sand dunes (not recommended!).  It slowly got better, but from time to time if I step down too hard or twist suddenly, it reminds me that it’s still there.

A few weeks ago I was stepping down out of our camper when I stepped too forcefully on my right foot, sending a little bit of a jolt up my right leg.  Yep, it’s my right knee that “talks” to me from time to time!  It wasn’t terrible but it kept me from hiking as much as I normally would have during the camping trip, due to being concerned of tweaking it while slogging through the muddy trails (recent flooding had left many of them a bit mushy).

I used magnesium gel (from Joan at Health and Wisdom) and Regeneration essential oil from Heritage Essential Oils, rubbing them on twice daily.  I took turmeric and Teresa’s Premium Blended Alfalfa (non-GMO and organic) to help with the inflammation. I also focused a LOT more on curling my core and keeping ribs up when working out with T-Tapp as well as when walking.  That helped, but I happened to notice how my right foot was ducking out a bit. Now, we could argue about whether it was ducking out due to my weaker hip and knee on that side or the ducking out caused the issues of a weaker knee and hip, but bottom line is, those toes needed to go straight!  

After focusing on straight toes while standing and walking, (and I added lots of prayer, too!), my knee is 90-95% better!  I noticed improvement with the magnesium gel/essential oil blend and turmeric and alfalfa, but it was the extra focus on straight toes that really sped the healing process.  By having proper alignment you are less likely to keep injuring the knee, which also reduces the inflammation factor.

I have personally found these T-Tapp tips essential to rehabilitating the knees:

1. Toes forward!

2. Core curled

3. Ribs up

4. Knees to little toe, or get weight off the big toe

 

“Toes forward” is so simple—yet so profound! And so helpful!  

Try it this week–in your walking, working out, shopping, just standing around chatting with friends–think to keep those toes forward and see if your knees don’t breathe a sigh of relief! 😉