Help With Foot Rolling

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Keep_Believing

Staff member
Cheer Parent
FBOD:LLFB
Apr 11, 2011
5,862
7,276
When my cp practices her body positions for flying (bow and arrow, heel stretch, scorpian, etc.) her foot rolls. She has a very hard time keeping her foot steady and in place. Any advice? How can she make her ankle/foot stronger and more stable?

Thanks
 
A girl on my team bought Dr. Sholls ( that not spelled correct I don't think) insterts for her shoes to help with that as well as strengthen her ankles.
 
I find doing strengthening exercises really helps to keep your balance and stay stable on your foot when in the air.
Things like standing on one leg and slowly raising up on to the ball of your foot, then back to the floor, then bending your knee then back to straight will help work all parts of the ankle. You can do this just standing up with hands in high v or on your hips, or against a wall or ballet barre. I usually do 10 reps on each side.
Also doing both legs at the same time in parallel, then with legs turned out, and then legs turned in (pigeon toed) I find have all really helped strengthen my ankle and stop it from rolling :) Hope it makes sense!
 
My flyer had this problem. I don't think it was that her ankle wasn't strong enough, she was just so focused on staying balanced. Whenever she started doing it bad, my coach would make her pull stuff on the ground and tell her to push on the ball of her foot and more to the left side of her heel. It helped my flyer a lot and made it steadier. Not sure if it would be the same problem though. Flyers should pull everything steady on the ground of course, but once she gets in the air the backspot and bases will help some, it's our job! Good luck to her, too.
 
My cp isn't a flyer, but she has had physical therapy twice to try and strengthen her ankles because she rolls them - a lot. She's gotten several sprains and even broke her foot rolling her ankle. We saw a new doctor and he said her heels were jammed. He fixed them and she hasn't rolled her ankles since then. So, that may not be your cp's problem, but might be worth looking into.

For strengthening, here are some of the things my cp has had to do:

1. Several times a day sit down and write the alphabet in the air with her toes.
2. Play catch balancing on one foot.
3. From there she progressed to playing catch on one foot while balanced on a balance ball (like half of an exercise ball mounted on a wooden disk).
4. Toe raises (one foot at a time) standing on a step.
5. Walking on her tip-toes.
 
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