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Tom Williams | Breath & Movement Physio

@barefootbreathperformance

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🫁 Barefoot Breathing Physiotherapist
🦶Head Physiotherapist @thefootcollective
♾️ Science of movement, breathing & play

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Make Your Big Toe Better 🦶

There isn’t one drill that fixes a bunion. There’s a progression, and skipping stages is why so many people stretch a stiff big toe for months without anything actually changing.

Start with isolation. Passive banded abduction and controlled flexion and extension teach the joint to find range it’s forgotten it has, this is about the big toe relearning how to move on its own, before it’s asked to do anything else.

Then integrate that new range into real movement. A calf raise puts the big toe under load for the first time, a splay lunge asks it to work while the rest of the body is moving through space, bigger ranges, more body weight, less isolation.

Finish by asking the whole system to react. Multi-directional hops and single-leg balance work aren’t about the big toe anymore, they’re about teaching the foot, ankle, and everything above it to organise quickly, at speed, without thinking.

This is the part that gets missed. Working the big toe alone won’t change how it functions in real life, it has to be re-integrated into the whole kinetic chain, not trained as an isolated joint. A mobile big toe that the rest of the body doesn’t know how to use is still a big toe that isn’t doing its job.

There are endless ways to improve how the big toe functions. Just make sure you get the whole system working with it.

Build a better big toe, be a better athlete.

Save this and work through it in order 💾

Comment ‘SoleMate’ if you’re keen to get started 🔥

#physiotherapy #podiatrist #footballer #athletes #dancer by @barefootbreathperformance

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2 months ago

BUNIONS 🦶🫣

Your big toe has one big job, to load at push-off and give your whole gait a stable base to work from. In roughly one in five adults, it’s slowly losing that job.

Hallux valgus isn’t just a cosmetic bump. It’s progressive lateral deviation at the first MTP joint, driven by a mix of connective tissue laxity, injury, mechanical exposure over years and genetics.

Ligament integrity is largely inherited, which is why conditions like Ehlers-Danlos and Marfan’s carry notably higher rates. But it’s rare in populations that never wear shoes, showing that footwear is the modifiable piece sitting on top of whatever someone’s structurally predisposed to.

Runners load it through thousands of steps against a narrow toe box. Dancers load it through turnout and relevé, a completely different mechanism with its own dedicated research behind it. Footballers usually arrive here differently again, not through repetition but through a single hyperextension injury, turf toe, that never fully resolved.

And women carry double the risk of men. Footwear exposure compounding an existing structural tendency more than most people realise.

Once the big toe drifts, it loses its ability to push off properly, shifting load onto the second and third metatarsals, and the effects reach further up the chain than most people expect.

History and a proper structural assessment tell you far more than the angle on an X-ray alone.

Comment ‘BUNION’ to start learning about the principles for assessment and management of bunions.

#physiotherapist #podiatrist #running #dance #sportsmedicine by @barefootbreathperformance

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2 months ago

Jalen Brunson 🏆🏀

He just won the NBA Finals and Finals MVP. He is already into his offseason and he’s training barefoot.🦶

Ankle mobility, left-right coordination, midfoot pressure tolerance. All the stuff nobody posts, because it doesn’t look sexy and it doesn’t look like training.

The foundation for elite basketball play, balance and hand-eye coordination starts at the ground 🦶

He gets it. His trainer @spear_training gets its. Soon, the whole NBA will get it 🏀

#physiotherapy #strength #basketball #athlete by @barefootbreathperformance

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4 months ago

What do you see in that graph? 📈

Barefoot shoe searches are now about five times their 2021 level. The industry spent years selling cushioning and support as protection, and people are starting to ask what their shoes are actually doing for them.

But a shoe was never meant to do the work on its own. It can give your feet room to move. The strength to use that room, in your feet, calves and legs, comes from training.

Runners coming out of max-cushion shoes, this one’s especially for you.
Making the barefoot transition, or thinking about it? Save this for when you start 🔖

Comment ‘FRP’ and I’ll send you the Foot Restoration Program, a guided way to build that strength as you switch 🦶

#physiotherapy #podiatrist #runner #dancer #athlete by @barefootbreathperformance

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21 hours ago

Flexible but feel tight? 🪢

Tight doesn’t always mean short. Tightness is a sensation that everyone feels, not a shortness in the muscles.

If you’re one of the bendy ones, you’ve probably felt this tightness and been told to stretch more for most of your life. But when your ligaments give a bit more than usual, your muscles end up doing more of the holding at the ankle, the knee and the hip. That’s a lot of work, and constant work feels a lot like tightness.

It’s why stretching often feels good for an hour and doesn’t seem to change much by tomorrow.

The goal is always to build movement capacity, not just try to ‘stretch’ the problems away.

#hypermobility #flexibility #mobility #physiotherapy #podiatrist by @barefootbreathperformance

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6 days ago

HYPER-MOBILITY AND FEET 🤸🦶

You’ve probably had this client. The bendiest person in your clinic, and the first to tell you everything feels tight.
The instinct is to stretch it out, or to tell them to go easy on their joints. Both make sense on the surface. But when ligaments give less passive restraint, the muscles around the foot and ankle are thought to be doing the holding instead. That’s a load problem, not a range problem.

Save this for the next time someone shows you a Beighton of 7 and a history of rolled ankles.

Comment HYPER and I’ll send you the full framework.

#physiotherapist #podiatrist #hypermobility #dance #gymnastics by @barefootbreathperformance

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7 days ago

BRAIN TEASER BALANCE CHALLENGE 🧠

Every touch in this video happens on the opposite side of the body and standing on one leg.

That’s why the kick is the hard part. Your standing foot has to land, grip the ground and settle within a split second, then hand over to the other side before the sack comes down. In levels 3 and 4, the standing foot has even less time to organise itself, because the kicking foot is closer to the ground and the sack is too.

Most of us train balance standing still. This trains it on the move, side to side, reacting to something you can’t fully predict. Plus, it’s fun, which is usually why people keep doing it.

Grab a hacky (rolled-up socks work). What level did you get to, and which foot gave out first? 👇

#physiotherapy #podiatrist #football #athlete #balance by @barefootbreathperformance

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8 days ago

Are your toes sharing the load? 🦶🔥

Stand up, press your big toe into the floor and try to lift the other four. If they all come up together, or none of them move, your toes are working as one block.

That’s really common. Most of us spend our days in shoes that hold the toes together, so they rarely get asked to work on their own.

At push-off, your big toe and the four beside it share the load. The better each toe can press and hold on its own, the more it can contribute when you walk, run, jump or change direction. These are the same small foot muscles that help hold your balance on one leg, which you tested earlier this week with the foot fist.

These six drills start to build some of that control in order:
1️⃣ Isolate: Teach each toes to flex and work in inner
-middle range( toe fist, toe press up)
2️⃣ Integrate: Bring it into standing and loading through middle to outer range (single-leg balance, calf raises on SoleMate)
3️⃣ Invigorate: Test it at speed and with skill (lateral leap and stick, big toe stance pass-through)

Start slow. If a drill feels clumsy, stay with it for a week before moving on. That’s normal early on, and it’s where the change happens.

Save this and run it before your next session.

#physiotherapy #podiatry #runner #dancer #women by @barefootbreathperformance

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11 days ago

Your Achilles is a spring, not a muscle.

Every step, every run, every jump, it stretches, stores energy, and releases it. That’s the mechanism.

But here’s what most training programs miss: when the spring loses its capacity, other parts of your body, your knee, your hip, somewhere up the chain, have to take on that load.

So you do all the right exercises. You pass the strength test. You feel fine in slow, controlled drills.

And then you go back to running and it falls apart.

Because you trained the strength. Not the spring.

Understanding the difference changes everything about how you approach getting back to the activities you love.

Comment ‘FEET’ to learn more about Achilles Tendinopathy and other common foot conditions!

Save this if you or someone you know has struggled to return to running after an Achilles issue.

Follow for more education-first foot and movement content.

Educational content only. Not medical advice. Full disclaimer: thefootcollective.com/pages/content-disclaimer

#AchillesTendon #FootHealth #MovementScience #RunningPerformance #TendonTraining by @barefootbreathperformance

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12 days ago

Can you make a foot fist? 👊

Try it on the edge of a step before you scroll on.

A proper foot fist bends from the base knuckles, where your toes join your foot. If only the tips curl, the small muscles under your forefoot are sitting this one out, and the long toe flexors are finding another way to move.
Those small muscles help with more than the fist.

Research in older adults links toe strength to balance, so stand on one leg straight afterwards and feel your toes working to hold you.

And your ability to balance is linked to your ability to breathe. You see, your feet and your breathing share more than you’d think.

Save this and try it again tomorrow.

#physiotherapy #podiatry #athlete #runner #women by @barefootbreathperformance

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12 days ago

Plantar Plate Tears 🩹

Pain under the second toe, and it’s started lifting off the floor in standing. It’s easy to write that up as a neuroma and move on.

Look at the big toe first. When it drifts and stops taking its share at push-off, the second ray picks up the load, and the plantar plate under that joint takes it in extension, step after step. Add a long second metatarsal and that load climbs again.

Pain with a negative drawer and good purchase is a different picture from a floating toe with a positive drawer. The drawer test takes ten seconds, and one surgical cohort put its specificity at 99.8%.

Save this for your next forefoot assessment.

Comment ‘PLATE’ and I’ll send you TFC Pro, where the full forefoot assessment lives.

#physiotherapy #podiatry #women #runners #dancers by @barefootbreathperformance

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13 days ago

Your ankles are springs, and most people never train them that way. 🦶⚡

This 5-move routine builds the strength, control, and elasticity your ankles need to move well and absorb load properly.

Save this one and add it to your warm-up or cool-down. Even 10 minutes makes a difference.

👉 Drop a 🔥 in the comments if your ankles need some work.

Comment ‘SoleMate’ to learn more about our SoleMate Kits and Training Programs! 🦶

Educational content only. Not medical advice. Full disclaimer: thefootcollective.com/pages/content-disclaimer

#anklestrength #anklemobility #foothealth #ankletraining #functionaltraining by @barefootbreathperformance

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14 days ago