Foot gymnastics for children: playfully strengthen the foot muscles

Prevent and correct foot misalignments with foot exercises

Foot exercises prevent foot malpositions in children and strengthen their foot muscles. Small exercises train the feet and toes – for example, when your child grabs a thick pencil with its toes or rolls its foot over a small ball. Furthermore, foot exercises can also help to compensate for flat feet, flat feet or splay feet.

Games for foot gymnastics

There are numerous playful exercises for the foot muscles. Foot gymnastics games that your child can do barefoot are particularly effective. If possible, it should do foot exercises for half an hour a day, preferably on different surfaces such as grass, sand or rough carpet:

• Grab Me: Scatter some marbles or small rocks on the ground. Now your child has to try to pick them up with their toes while standing. Both feet should be used alternately. Your child should repeat this foot gymnastics exercise until it can easily complete it.
• Pull out the towel: your child can play this foot gymnastics exercise with their siblings, a friend or by themselves. First, the two children sit opposite each other, with their hands behind them. There is a towel between them. The goal now is to get the towel. However, only the toes may be used for pulling. Tip: If your child wants to play the game alone, simply place a heavy stack of books on one end of the towel. Your child can now pull the stack with their toes like a locomotive.
• Jumping stones: Many children can take part in this game. Each child has six marbles on the floor that must be carried across a finish line. Your child picks up the marble with their toes and hops on the other foot towards the finish line. The marble must be placed behind it. With the next marble, the other foot is then taken and the winner is the first to carry all six marbles past the finish line.
• Tightrope Walker: Just lay a rope, yarn, or tape measure on the floor. Now your child has to balance over it, first by comfortably putting one foot in front of the other. Then it can raise one leg in the air to increase the difficulty. She can stretch her arms out for balance.
• Throw me: Your child sits on the floor with their hands behind them. A little way in front of him is a basket into which the marbles are to be thrown with one’s feet. When all the marbles have landed in the basket, the basket is put a little further away. This foot gymnastics exercise can also be played with several children. Whoever kicks the most marbles into the basket wins.
• What do I feel: For this game you need different surfaces. For example moss, smooth stones, sand or straw, just anything that feels comfortable. Then the children are blindfolded and have to hold each other’s shoulders. They walk in a row over the different surfaces and tell how it feels and what they think they are walking over. Tip: You can easily play this game alone at home. To do this, place a few bowls on the floor, each filled with something different, and let your blindfolded child climb into them.

Strengthen the foot muscles in everyday life

In addition to the foot gymnastics exercises, you should walk a lot with your child and incorporate regular physical activity into your everyday life. Children’s shoes often constrict your child’s feet, so they should take off their shoes at home and walk barefoot or in socks.