Courtney Conley

Things like calf raises, for example.

In the book, we have different decades of life.

People should be able to do X amount of single leg calf raises.

This is power.

This is power at the foot and ankle.

So there's a lot of things you can do that I don't think people think about.

100%.

A lot of my patients come in with low back pain.

And if you think about it from a gait perspective,

When I'm walking and I go into propulsion, which is basically pushing through the ball of my foot, it's the foot and ankle that give us that propulsion.

If I don't have power there, then I have to grab it from somewhere.

So I could hyperextend my low back when I walk.

If I have poor ankle mobility, so I'm going to tie this together for you.

If I've worn high heels for X amount of years,

and I have poor ankle dorsiflexion or poor ankle mobility.

One of the compensations when we're walking, if you have poor ankle mobility, is to lean forward.

So you're using gravity to help propel you.

So that's one of the main causes of some people's low back pain is that they can't move their ankles very well.

So gait is basically watching someone walk, for example.

It's one foot on the ground, then your left foot, and then your right foot.