Heel Walking vs. Toe Walking: How to Train Feet Without Wrecking Balance

Don’t make this foot and ankle training mistake. A lot of times when I see people that are building foot and ankle programs, they’re like, okay, well, we need to mobilize the foot. We need to strengthen the foot. And they begin throwing a whole bunch of things into the mix without thinking higher up the chain. They also basically don’t think so much about the brain. Remember that your movement, your posture, everything is about a conversation that’s happening between your foot and your brain. So there are a couple of mistakes that I see regularly. I’m going to mention them right now. And then I’m going to show you one that, uh, while the exercises are both useful, if you give the wrong one to the wrong person can actually make them worse. All right. So the first thing I want to mention is that your foot is this huge bed of sensory information, right? So that your, your foot is supposed to be able to sense pressure and warm and cool and light touch and vibration. And it’s supposed to be relatively symmetric, hopefully. So if you are a movement professional of any kind, a doctor, a coach, a therapist, and you are not checking foot sensation on every single client, you may be missing a key piece of the puzzle for what they have going on. All right. So you have to do a sensory testing on every foot and I’m sorry, I know it’s, it’s a pain, but you got to do it because again, everything about human movement, if we were able to be bipedal, it’s all about this ongoing conversation between your foot and your brain and your foot is giving a lot of sensory information. So that’s mistake number one. Mistake number two is confusing. Um, the end goal of specific exercises. A lot of times people say, okay, you have foot issues. You need to mobilize your foot. So we’ll do, you know, ankle mobilizations. We’ll do toe mobilizations. We’ll stretch them. Those are all super positive, right? But a lot of people will opt to do more foot mobility than foot strengthening. If you don’t do foot strengthening, all the mobility work in the world probably isn’t going to be as beneficial because you’ll gain range of motion, but because your brain doesn’t know how to control that range of motion because your intrinsic foot muscles are weak or whatever, guess what? That range of motion that you just achieved is going to go away again. And that will be magnified if you wear really good shoes, right? Really, really, uh, stiff, supported, well cushioned shoes. So we have to be careful of all these different things. I get very frustrated. I watch movement professionals all the time go, Hey, here’s your foot exercises. And they don’t actually address the fact that they’re 10 minutes of foot exercises are never going to succeed in being beneficial when they spend 20 hours a day in their over-engineered athletic shoes. So again, these are common mistakes that I see. Uh, now, before I go forward into showing you kind of the exercise for the day and making sure you understand how to think about it, if you are a movement professional, you’re a doctor, a therapist, a coach, uh, you teach Pilates, yoga, tennis, soccer, martial arts, uh, basketball. If you, I don’t know, you’re an athletic trainer and you’re looking for new ways to help your athletes. If you work with movement in any way, and you have a burning interest in understanding how the brain and body work together, go to our YouTube description, click the link there, schedule a call with us. Cause we want to share more info with you. All right. So what I’m going to talk about today is a frustration that I often see, uh, in people writing programs for foot and ankle, um, you know, drills, and you will see this idea of, okay, I’m going to have you walk down the track on your heels. And then I’m going to want you to go up on your toes and you’re going to do it again. So they combine heel walking and toe walking exercises. Both of these exercises are incredibly useful, but they don’t work on the same thing, obviously from a muscular perspective, but neurologically, they also have a very different role. And in the research literature, they have a very different role. So here’s what I want you to understand. Having someone do toe walking that already has poor balance, uh, and without emphasizing heel walking may actually be one of the worst things that you can do for them. So let me explain. Whenever we’re looking at balance, we have a of key reflexive ways that we keep our balance. One is called an ankle strategy and one is called a hip strategy. So as I’m taking a step and I start to, to lose my balance, the first thing that’s going to happen hopefully is that my ankle strategy will come into play. My brain is going to try to reposition my ankle underneath my center of gravity so that I can recover my balance. As people age, guess what? Their ankle strategy capacity degrades. That often degrades because their dorsiflexion degrades, their toe extension degrades, and their big toe strength degrades. So if you’re concerned about someone’s balance, you’re concerned about someone, you know, you’re doing single leg balance work with them and they’re always falling over. You need to focus on heel walking, not toe walking. Toe walking is going to actually increase instability. It’s going to potentially potentiate, like that, potentially potentiate increased tension and activity in the gastroc soleous complex, which can actually further inhibit their ability to maintain an actual good ankle strategy. So if you’re going to use toe walking, again, as a great exercise, toe walking is very simple. I have my client stand, they go up on their toes. If you’re a coach, what you have to make sure of is they don’t go into a lumbar lordosis because what do you because that’s what typically people do to keep their balance. We want to make sure that they’re still maintaining a good stacked spine as they go up on the toes and then they begin walking down the track. If you’re going to use that, remember that toe walking increases dynamic instability. It is a more advanced training for your ankles and your feet. It should be used in people, in most cases, where you want to increase their explosiveness, the amount of elasticity in the ankles and their ability to do things that are more athletic. Obviously, because I want to take everyone that I work with from wherever they’re at to elite movement, I will probably eventually include toe walking into everyone’s program because it is a great exercise. It’s actually way harder than it looks. It looks innocuous, but getting people to do it well, maintaining proper posture, maintaining a good gait can be more challenging than it seems, but it is, in my opinion, a more advanced approach. I don’t want to use it if I’m really concerned about their balance. Instead, I’m going to focus on heel walking. This is like the level of detail that comes from understanding neurology, looking deeply into the research and understanding an ankle strategy versus the hip strategy, what muscles are involved. Again, don’t make that mistake. Don’t put them both into the same program unless you know for sure that they actually need both. That’s really what this comes down to. Again, if you are a doctor, a therapist, or coach interested in blending applied neuroscience into what you do, go to our description here on YouTube, click the link, and let’s chat.

Heel Walking vs. Toe Walking — Frequently Asked Questions

What’s the difference between heel walking and toe walking?

Heel walking trains the front of the foot to lift while the heel takes weight — strengthens the tibialis anterior and the brain’s awareness of the anterior shin. Toe walking does the opposite, loading the calf and the metatarsal heads while training the brain’s awareness of the posterior chain. They’re not interchangeable — each trains a different sensory and motor pattern, and using the wrong one for someone with a specific deficit can reinforce dysfunction rather than fix it.

Is heel walking good for your balance?

Yes, when done correctly. Heel walking improves balance by training dorsiflexion strength, the tibialis anterior, and crucially by sending strong sensory feedback to the brain about heel-position and ankle position. Better proprioceptive input from the foot = better balance overall. But if someone has poor ankle mobility or fallen arches, heel walking should be assessed and progressed individually rather than just prescribed.

How long should I heel walk for?

Start with 30 seconds to 1 minute per session, 2-3 times per day. Quality of movement and sensory awareness matter more than duration — five minutes of unfocused heel walking does less than 90 seconds of intentional, slow heel walking where you’re paying attention to foot pressure and balance corrections.

Should I do heel walking if I have flat feet or fallen arches?

Yes, but with adjustments. People with flat feet often have weak intrinsic foot muscles and poor sensory mapping. Heel walking can help, but should be combined with toe articulation, sensory work (varying textures under the foot), and intrinsic foot strengthening. A brain-based assessment is the best way to determine the right starting point for an individual.

Can heel walking help with fall prevention?

Yes — and the research supports this. Heel walking and toe walking are now used in many fall-prevention programs because they target the specific motor and sensory deficits that predict falls in older adults: poor ankle dorsiflexion, weak anterior tibialis, and degraded foot proprioception. Combined with vision and vestibular training, foot work is one of the highest-leverage interventions for fall risk.