Today’s podcast is with Romain Tourillon. Roman is a physiotherapist, researcher and educator carrying an emphasis on the foot-ankle complex in rehab and performance. He is engaged in a PhD thesis on the foot muscles role in sports performance, supervised by sprint research expert, JB Morin. Romain works as a clinician at the Swiss Olympic Medical Center at La Tour Hospital, and has presented at various congresses on aspects of foot and ankle performance.

The foot is a massively important, and under-studied aspect of athletic performance, and considering the way the foot is trained and integrated makes an impact in the training program.

For today’s show, Romain discusses the roles of the mid-foot and fore-foot in human movement, and gives training applications to optimize each foot section. He gets into the role of the toes in training, sensory input, intrinsic foot strength, and much more.

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Timestamps and Main Points

7:41- The Interconnectedness of Lower Limb Function

11:48- The Impact of Forefoot Strength on Athletic Performance

16:43- Evolutionary differences in foot and hand function

19:16- Improving proprioception and foot function through barefoot training

28:02- Effective Foot Activation Exercises with Dorsiflexion

38:08- Enhancing Foot and Calf Strength and Performance

45:18- Calf Muscles: Force Absorption and Propulsion

52:23- Muscle Groups for Foot Propulsion

1:05:03- Midfoot Strengthening with Tibialis Raises

Romain Tourillon Quotes

"The lower limb has to absorb and produce force. You say it's not just the foot does that, not just the hip. And so that's why you have to have this holistic push and this link between both (the foot) and every joint here." - Romain Tourillon

"I find for proprioception or like balance based exercises, it's a good sign when people are feeling that in the intrinsic foot muscle. I find people who do balance exercises and don't feel it in their foot. They feel like they're calf. Usually those are people with issues. There's a strong link there." - Joel Smith

"When you increase the (toe) dorsi-flexion, for example, during the heel raises, you increase the mid-foot moment and mid-foot force production." - Romain Tourillon

"But it's pretty good exercise in order to work on this production on the first ray on the big toe, that it's much more economic. You can produce greatest force production and it's better for everything to have this. What I say, good propulsion. I would say good propulsion picture or good propulsion function. Pushing on the first toe." - Romain Tourillon

"The first thing is to say, okay, the absorbing foot is this muscle Tibialis Anterior, Tibialis Posterior. So the two biggest. And after, if you look at the calf, it's the Soleus, which are, I would say the greatest absorber in the chunk." - Romain Tourillon

"With the long toes, you have an increase of the lever arm within the foot, between the ankle joint rotation and the tooth. So allowing you to have, if you have the, I would say, calf capacity to have a greatest lever arm to produce force on the ground." - Romain Tourillon

Show Notes

Ziani Step (Toe Dorsiflexion Strength)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GbS541xZLdA

Romain Tourillon: First Ray Calf Raise

https://www.youtube.com/shorts/jKyUeMorsLs