Women have a higher incidence of foot pain and deformity than men according, to the American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons. High-heeled shoes and wearing shoes that are too small are leading causes of female foot pain, making it important for women to avoid additional foot problems caused by lifestyle choices such as dancing and aerobic sports. Weightlifting and bodybuilding do not involve extended periods where feet are subject to percussion and are not known to exacerbate foot injuries, and might alleviate some female foot problems.
Foot Fixations
The millennium-years-old practice of female foot binding in China was an extreme example of men's sexual fetishes about small feet. American author William Rossi wrote in his book "The Sex Life of the Foot and Shoe," that 40 percent to 50 percent of Chinese women had bound feet in the 19th century. For the upper classes, who could afford to keep women who couldn't work, the figure was almost 100 percent.
Small feet on women are still considered sexually attractive to some men, according to Jeremy Atkinson, an evolutionary psychologist at the University at Albany, New York, who presented his findings at a meeting of the Human Behavior and Evolution Society in Eugene, Oregon, in July 2010. Along with pressure to wear in vogue footwear, they predicted it will be a long time before women stop squeezing their size 9 foot into a narrow-toed size 8 heel.
Bodybuilding and Feet
Bodybuilding and most weightlifting programs involve sets of 10, performed three times, with rest in between sets, and longer rest between exercises. As the body adapts to the hypertrophy, rests can be shortened, but in the beginning a weight trainer spends more time resting than lifting.
Many exercises use machines that eliminate all foot pressure. Other exercises will cause the lifter to bear additional weight on their feet, but the feet don't move so there is no percussion which would exponentially increase the pressure on the foot bones.
Weightlifting Shoes
Lightweight boxing shoes are often used by weightlifters to allow their feet to feel the floor of mat. For instance, to engage the large muscles of the lower body in a squat, you must push on your feet as if they would go through the floor and leave you standing. A lifter is not only stronger using this technique, but runs little risk of injury to the back or neck.
Bodybuilding Is Good for the Feet
It is common for women with a history of wearing high heels to complain of numbness in their toes, and inflexibility. Bodybuilding, because it works every skeletal muscle on the body, is one of the few exercise programs that puts an emphasis on calf development. Toe raises, in which you raise your heels above your toes then lower them below your toes, helps to increase foot flexibility. Step ups, another common bodybuilding exercise, also increase flexibility and lower leg strength.
When stepping up, the lowered leg is responsible to flex and launch the step to place both feet on the same plane. If a woman has lost flexibility to launch off her toes she is going to have considerable problems getting into trucks, SUVs and buses. While bodybuilding can't resolve plantar warts, bunions and hammer toes, it can increase ankle strength and foot flexibility for many women who suffer from foot problems.
