exercises to get quick feet?

[Jim2109]

exercises to get quick feet?

for some reason in recent years i have gone from having fairly quick feet, to having really slow and heavy feet. i think it is part of the problem behind recurring lower leg pain when im bowling, but it is also really hurting my batting as i just cant move my feet fast enough, and i end up stuck at my crease all the time swinging at air. at best i have time to move one foot to seamers, which means either forwards or back, never sideways or corrections. which is limiting my shots. i often have to pre-meditate shots to give myself more time, and then i make mistakes.

i used to play basketball, and so spent all my time bouncing around and i was pretty light and fast on my feet. im carrying a couple of stone of fat that i could do with shifting (which i imagine doesnt help), but i just dont feel like ive got any spring in my step. my feet are planted to the floor and it takes my whole leg to move them, rather than being able to just spring off my toes like i used to.

any suggestions on exercises that might help improve this? when i played basketball a popular method to increase your jump was to stand on a step with your toes on the edge of the step, and then lower your heels down below the step and hold the position, then repeat. and i think it worked pretty well over time.

i also believe that i have very tight lower leg muscles which are behind the lower leg pain i keep getting. and i may also be flat footed but im not really sure on that. so im guessing that any exercises which help my heavy feet might also help my lower leg issues.

thanks in advance for any suggestions!

 

[TonyM]

Re: exercises to get quick feet?

I'll leave it to Liz to come up with a fuller answer but I find skipping is a useful exercise to increase foot speed, as well as balance and co-ordination. Imagine skipping like a boxer not just jumping up and down and landing with a thud - its also something that can easily be measured as you can count the number of skips in any given time period (not too long) and so can see some improvement fairly quickly

 

[Liz Ward]

Re: exercises to get quick feet?

Skipping the way Tony suggests is great, but so is boxing on its own. If you do not like contact, shadow boxing is very effective.

Fast foot exercises with ladders are great too. You do not need the ladders, if you have a piece of chalk, just draw one [or two] out. After a while, pop on some kilo ankle weights and hang on to your bat.

To improve explosive power, tie each end of an exercise band around the ankles, so the band is shorter than your front foot stride. Take position with a bat and perform the front foot shot [say] 15 times. Remove the band and perform the shot for [say] 10 seconds. Repeat 4 or 5 times.

Then do the same for the back foot stride.

Remember to keep the head still and work off the balls of your feet... do not collapse at the hips [always think 'technique'].


The stretch on the edge of the step you mentioned is great for the calf muscles and I really recommend it.


Do watch your ankles; I suspect there is a deficit in flexibility and strength in this area. You could improve this by following Boris' exercise where he stands on the toes of one leg with the other leg raised. Even better if you could do this on a stability board/agility disc.

 

[Jim2109]

Re: exercises to get quick feet?

im not a fan of skipping, ive never been able to do it properly. ive got a punch bag in the garden though and i enjoy boxing. i actually thought about this as one exercise that might be useful, but wasnt sure since it doesnt have any real resistance to it. i guess ankle weights would solve that though?

ladder exercises came up on google as suggestions. so thats something else to try, theres loads of videos on youtube on different exercises.

also, there are loads of resistance band exercises on youtube, primarily the ones i watched were basketball related, but basketball requires incredibly fast feet so i guess those would be useful too? (mostly attaching your waist to a fixed object via a length of resistance band, and then "running" around cones in specific patterns)

i like the suggestion of resistance band training whilst playing cricket shots though. i guess thats about as specific as it gets to what i want to achieve!

im also thinking of joining a local gym (£300 for the year which is pretty cheap, and they have just started a refurbishment which includes £500k of new equipment!). i want to get myself into better general shape, and the only way im likely to do that is if i have financial motivation. spending quite a bit of money on something usually encourages me to use it!!

thanks for the suggestions