These Marbles are Not Just for Kid’s Play

If you have ever suffered any type of foot, ankle or in most of our cases, an ATR, then you know exactly what I mean when I write about marbles. You sit in a chair and you have marbles on the floor for you to pick up with your toes and place each marble in a bowl or bucket. This simple exercise activity with marbles is a vital exercise to aid in our Achilles Tendon Recovery. I remember watching this exercise on the Kobe Bryant documentary showing his comeback from an ATR and I remember thinking that this will be an easy exercise. However, now that I am fully into my therapy, I now see how difficult it was at first and now I am getting stronger and stronger with my toes and foot.

It seems like yesterday when the therapist laid out about 15 marbles for me to pick up with my toes and how difficult it was to do this. I mean my entire left leg was aching and tired later on and I just couldn’t believe that all of this came from a simple exercise with toes and marbles could do this. Now we are up to about 60 - 70 marbles and to add to the challenge, my therapist now has added some different size marbles as well as a timer to the exercise drill. There is one particular large marble that is almost the size of my foot (well not quite that large) however it does take almost all of my toes to pick it up and this is a workout!

It’s great to know that progress is being made in my recovery and I believe the same is happening with all of your recoveries as well. Going to therapy can be sometimes be time-consuming and not fun however keep in mind that what we put in is what we will get back, so let’s go in with a positive mindset and do what we can to make therapy fun and challenging at the same time. Get those toes to working and pick up those marbles!
Make it HAPPEN!!!

P. “Action” Jackson
pjackson@theactiononline.com

P.S. Here is a small gift that you can read to assist with your achilles tendon pain.

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