How Strong Glutes Fix Flat Feet & Weak Ankles (Science-Based)

0:00 Why do people with flat feet and weak ankles hardly see lasting results—even after years of using special supportive shoes, expensive insoles, and ankle braces? Because none of these approaches actually fix the underlying problem. We need a different approach—one that addresses the root causes directly. And that’s exactly what we’re focusing on in this video. I’ll reveal the five biggest reasons your feet and ankles aren’t improving, and give you a clear, step-by-step plan to help you fix these issues for good. Let’s get started. Step 1: Strengthen Your Weak Glutes Most people just think of the glutes as the muscle responsible for extending the hips to power movements like jumping, squatting, running, or standing upright. But they have another really important function. Because the muscle fibers of your glutes run diagonally across your hips,

0:48 they’re also powerful external rotators. What that means is that when your glutes contract, they rotate your entire leg outward—creating stability from your hips all the way down to your feet. Think of your leg like a dishcloth. If your feet are flat, knees cave in, and ankles collapse inward, your leg becomes floppy and unstable—just like a loosely held dishcloth. But twist the cloth, and it instantly tightens up, becoming more stiff and stable. That’s exactly the kind of tension and stability the glutes bring to the leg when they’re active and strong. Try This Yourself: Stand naturally, and let your knees drift inward. As they do, you’ll notice your arches flatten. Now, place your hands on your glutes and squeeze them firmly.

1:33 You’ll immediately notice your knees rotate outward, your ankles stabilize, and your arches lift. But the thing is: for your glutes to perform their stabilizing role, two issues need to be fixed: The first is tight hips Since the glutes drive movement through the hips, stiff, restricted hips create friction that blocks proper glute activation—a phenomenon known as altered reciprocal inhibition. A simple way to test if this applies to you is with the kneeling hip extension test. If you can’t fully extend your hips or if you compensate by arching your spine, it’s a sign that your hips are too restricted for your glutes to fire effectively. In this case, improving your hip mobility can instantly unlock better glute function. We

2:18 actually put this to the test a few years ago. We took five participants and had them perform hip flexor stretches for 20 minutes a day over five days, measuring their glute output during goblet squats before and after the intervention. Just by focusing on hip mobility, we observed an average increase of 17.1% in glute muscle activity. 2. The second issue affecting glute function is a weak core. Your core stabilizes your pelvis—and your glutes are mounted directly onto that pelvis. If the core is weak, the pelvis becomes unstable, and your glutes lose the solid base they need to generate power. It’s like firing a cannon from a canoe: without stability underneath, force and control break down. In a 2020 study, researchers found that adding core stability training to a foot-strengthening

3:07 routine significantly improved flat, overpronated feet in just nine weeks—because stronger core muscles improve glute activation, it led to full-leg stability all the way down to the feet. How Do You Actually Train Your Glutes Properly? Once you’ve freed up your hips and built a stable core, you’re ready to start training your glutes directly. Now, there are plenty of methods and exercises—our Barefoot Strength Academy has tons of workouts and a dedicated course on this—but I’ll give you one of the methods we use: Single-leg balancing. Here’s why single-leg balancing is such a powerful way to train your glutes, core, and foot stability simultaneously: Balancing on one leg instantly forces your core muscles to activate, stabilizing your pelvis. A stable pelvis gives the glutes a

3:54 solid base to contract effectively. When the glutes are functioning well, they can externally rotate the legs, preventing the knees from collapsing inward and the foot from overpronating. With the foot in a stronger position, it can better support the body’s full weight. As a result of active glutes and stable feet, the ankles gain stability too. In fact, one study showed that a group of people with unstable ankles significantly improved after just four weeks of regular single-leg balance training—eventually matching the group who started with stable ankles. Here’s a simple single-leg balance progression you can follow: Begin by standing barefoot on one leg. Engage your core, and make sure your pelvis is level (no tilting down to one side). Aim to comfortably hold this for at least one minute.

4:39 Once balancing feels easy, start introducing movement at the hips—like gentle hip hinging—while keeping your core stable and spine neutral. Your glutes will now work harder as the main driver of the movement. Next, add hip rotation. This challenges your glutes even more by forcing them to stabilize against movement in multiple planes. Finally, once all of that feels effortless, perform these movements on a slightly unstable surface—like a balance beam—to increase the difficulty and further train your stability. By following this straightforward approach, you’ll strengthen your glutes and significantly improve your foot and ankle stability—all at once. Moving on to Step 2. Fix Your Tight Ankles Tight ankles limit dorsiflexion—the ability of the

5:25 ankle to bend and allow the knee to move over the toes during movements like walking, running, and squatting. When this range is restricted, the body must find a workaround to complete the movement. The result is usually a compensatory pattern: the foot rotates outward, the arch collapses inward, and the midfoot begins acting like a second ankle joint. While this allows the movement to continue, it compromises the structural integrity of both the ankle and the arch—undermining the foundation of your entire body. Restricted dorsiflexion also makes the ankle itself more prone to injury. When the joint can’t move as needed, it’s more likely to deviate into compromised positions under load or during dynamic tasks.

6:10 Both of these consequences are supported by research: One study on people with flat feet found that 76.6% had ankle dorsiflexion restrictions. Another study of 1,093 army recruits found that those with the least ankle dorsiflexion had up to five times the risk of ankle sprains compared to those with average flexibility. If we want truly stable feet and ankles, we must first restore proper ankle mobility. This allows the joint to move naturally through everyday tasks, preserving foot stability and maintaining a solid foundation for the rest of the body. Here are two ways to fix tight ankles: The first is to avoid shoes with raised heels. Raised heels hold your ankle in plantar flexion, which is the opposite of dorsiflexion—the movement we’re trying to improve. When your

6:59 ankle is constantly held in this position, it shortens the calf muscles and Achilles tendon, causing them to become adaptively tight over time. Eventually, this restriction makes it almost impossible to achieve proper ankle dorsiflexion. So, we recommend switching from shoes with raised heels to flat, zero-drop shoes that don’t change the natural slope of the foot or the angle of the ankle. The second way to improve ankle dorsiflexion is by frequently moving the ankle joint through its full range of motion. One of the best exercises for this is the deep squat. If you try to squat deeply and notice your weight shifting backward onto your heels, causing you to feel off balance or lift up onto your toes as a compensation—this clearly indicates an ankle dorsiflexion restriction.

7:46 To fix your tight ankles, use the counterbalance squat: Face an upright support (like a pole or sturdy object) and grasp it firmly. Use the support to pull yourself down into a deep squat, keeping your weight forward. Focus on pushing your knees over your toes to force your ankles into maximum dorsiflexion. Make sure your feet remain straight and your knees track outward—don’t allow your feet to spin out or your arches to collapse. In our academy, members practice the counterbalance squat daily to reclaim their deep squat position and improve ankle mobility. Spending just a few consistent minutes per day over several weeks will noticeably increase your ankle range of motion, giving you the stable foundation you need. Now, onto step 3… Strengthen Your Foot Muscles Your feet have their own built-in arch support system, made up of 29 muscles in each foot, which

8:37 run in different directions. These muscles work together like tension cables supporting a tent. Just like those cables pull in opposite directions to create tension that holds the structure steady—even in strong winds—your foot muscles do the same. They pull against each other, generating balanced tension that supports your arch. This tension-based support is what allows your feet to adapt to uneven terrain, absorb impacts, and handle all the dynamic movements you make throughout the day. But here’s the problem: When the foot muscles are weak, they introduce slack into your natural arch support. It’s like having loose cables on a tent—without enough tension, the entire structure becomes unstable and can't hold its shape under stress. And without a stable foot foundation,

9:22 the ankle above it can’t achieve true stability either – making it more prone to injury and dysfunction. So, by strengthening the foot muscles, you restore the tension needed to support both the foot’s natural arches and the ankles above them. Here are the two simplest ways to strengthen the feet: The first is to pick the right shoes. Some shoes weaken your feet, while others help develop strength with every step. Stiff, rigid shoes with thick soles and heavy arch support are like having casts around your feet. A cast restricts joint movement to protect injured tissue, which is helpful in the short term. But when a limb stays in a cast too long, the muscles naturally weaken and shrink from lack of use. Shoes can have a similar effect. Many people

10:08 unknowingly wear footwear that limits the foot’s natural range of motion across all 33 joints—for years or even decades. Over time, this weakens the internal foot muscles that are meant to stabilize and support your body. Minimalist, barefoot style shoes offer a different approach. Their thin, flexible soles remove unnecessary support, which forces your internal foot muscles to engage. With every step, they allow your feet to move naturally, activating and strengthening the muscles. In fact, a 2021 study showed exactly this: participants increased their foot strength by 57.4% in just six months simply by wearing minimalist shoes during daily activities. They didn’t do any additional foot exercises—the shoes alone provided the stimulus for that strength gain.

10:54 Now, a quick word of caution: If your feet are currently very weak, jumping straight into barefoot shoes might overwhelm them. Your feet need time to adapt. That's why, in our Barefoot Strength Academy, we developed the Barefoot Shoe Transition Plan—a guided six-month program that helps your feet adapt to minimalist footwear gradually and safely. The second way to strengthen your feet is to actively train them with dedicated exercises: This is something most people completely overlook. They’ll spend countless hours building big quads or strong arms, yet neglect their feet—the literal foundation their entire body rests on. But even the strongest muscles up top won’t function optimally if the base beneath them is weak. That’s why dedicated foot-strengthening exercises are essential. Earlier, we talked about single-leg

11:42 balancing as a powerful way to build foot, ankle, and glute strength at the same time. But that’s just scratching the surface. If you want our top 4 foot-strengthening exercises, we have a video that over 800 thousand people have already benefited from, which you can find by clicking the card up here or through the link in the description. Now onto the second last step: Fix your toe alignment Your toes are naturally designed to be the widest part of your foot. This creates a stable, tripod-like foundation that supports your entire body. Good toe alignment also improves the function of the intrinsic foot muscles attached to them. This is especially important in the great toe, as it has the most intrinsic foot muscles connected to it, and is by far the strongest of the toes. And since weak intrinsic foot muscles can’t

12:28 support the arch, it’s no wonder people with bunions often have flat feet. In fact, one study examining 32 women with bunions found that every single participant also had flat feet—showing a clear connection between toe misalignment and collapsed arches. This connection intrigued me so much that I decided to measure the actual impact of toe positioning on strength in my own foot. So I went to a university sports lab and used a lab-grade dynamometer to measure the strength of my big toe in two positions: straight and neutral and angled inward, like a bunion. The difference was 2.8kg of force. That’s an almost 20% reduction in toe strength – simply from poor alignment. This experiment clearly shows how deviations in toe positions can seriously weaken your feet.

13:19 But there’s a secondary effect of toe misalignment—it also limits how far your toes can extend. In my own internal testing, misalignment reduced my big toe’s mobility by 30 degrees. That’s a problem because when you’re walking or running, the ability for you hips to fully extend rely on your toes’ ability to extend fully during push-off. So, if your big toe is restricted, your hips will be too, which directly limits how well your glutes can activate. So, toe alignment isn’t just about having strong feet; it directly affects your hips and glutes too. Are you starting to see the powerful bi-directional relationships throughout the entire body: Toe alignment affects glute activation — and glute strength, in turn, supports foot function.

14:06 The stability of the foot arch affects ankle stability – and ankle mobility affects the integrity of the foot arch. Your body isn’t just a collection of isolated parts—it’s an integrated system. So when one area breaks down, the effects ripple outward and disrupt other areas too. This is known as regional interdependency. As a sports scientist, this principle shapes how I approach movement and injury. It’s also what led us to develop the 10 functional movement tests we use in the Barefoot Strength Academy. These tests serve as a screening system for our members—not just to highlight where dysfunction shows up, but to help pinpoint the root cause. And because the body is so interconnected, resolving that root issue often improves not just the problem area, but other systems

14:56 that were affected by it as well. If you want to get this level of personalized support, visit our academy by clicking on this QR code or going to bfs.fit Right, back to the toes. So, how how do you fix toe misalignment? There are three main approaches: The first is the The Toe Spread-Out exercise, which specifically targets two key muscles: the abductor hallucis and abductor digiti minimi. These muscles not only play a crucial role in toe alignment, but together, they also directly support the medial and lateral longitudinal arches, keeping your foot strong and stable. It’s one I personally love because it goes back to the basics of early foot development. Newborns reflexively perform this same toe-spreading movement to kickstart foot

15:41 muscle activation months before they begin weight bearing—just like my girls did in these clips. That’s why it’s one of the safest and most natural ways to build intrinsic foot strength and improve toe alignment. The second approach to improving toe aligment is to temporarily use toe spacers. Research shows significant improvements in toe alignment after 12 months of consistently using silicone spacers. An added benefit we observed in our internal testing was improved glute function during exercises when these spacers were worn, further showing just how connected the feet are with the glutes. But, the most important thing we can do for toe alignment is wear shoes that actually match the natural shape of our feet— with the widest part at the forefoot. Narrow toe boxes force

16:27 the toes into a pointed shape and hold them at that unnatural angle. I tested one popular running shoe and one casual model and found that both caused a great toe deviation of 20–25°. Now imagine your toes being pushed that far out of alignment for 16 hours a day, seven days a week. And because toe positioning affects how the foot muscles work, that kind of misalignment weakens the support of the arch—and, in turn, the stability of the ankle above. If you want our recommended list of foot-shaped shoes and toe spacers, visit bfs.fit and select either the barefoot shoe finder or barefoot accessories pages. This integrated approach—combining active exercises, toe spacers, and proper footwear—is your fastest path to improving toe splay, foot function, and ankle stability.

17:15 Now, onto the last step. Enhance Your Ground Feel To have truly strong feet and stable ankles, you need to be able to feel the ground clearly beneath you. Let’s say you’re running or walking on uneven terrain. The quicker you can sense subtle changes in the ground, the faster your body can react by stabilizing your feet and ankles. This rapid feedback mechanism—scientifically known as time to stability—is crucial for injury prevention, especially ankle sprains. But how exactly does your body sense the ground? Well, the soles of your feet are loaded with specialized nerve endings, known as mechanoreceptors. These are the exact same type of sensory receptors found in your hands. Their job is to collect data from the environment

18:01 through the sense of feeling. That data tells the body how to adjust muscle tension to deal with the environment and task in real time. But there’s a catch. To fully utilize this powerful feedback loop, you can’t have thick cushioning separating your feet from the ground. Common training shoes that have thick slabs of EVA foam prevent your feet from receiving accurate sensory input. The foam dampens the signals from your mechanoreceptors, effectively turning off this natural stabilization system. Why do you think gymnasts train and compete barefoot? They depend on all the sensory data from their feet for optimal stability and bodily awareness. And what about surgeons who use thin latex gloves for their work? They would not be able to perform intricate

18:48 surgeries if their gloves were too thick. A recent study showed just how important sensory feedback is for muscle activation. Researchers compared intrinsic foot muscle activity as participants walked barefoot on hard plywood versus soft EVA foam. They found significantly reduced muscle activation on the soft foam surface, especially at the initial contact phase of walking. This directly demonstrates that a soft barrier between your foot and the ground prevents proper muscle function. And if your foot muscles aren’t adequately stimulated over time, they will weaken your natural arch support and foot stability. So, what’s the solution? You need shoes that enhance your ground feel—not block it. Minimalist, barefoot-style shoes typically have soles less than 1 cm thick,

19:37 offering just enough protection from cuts and scrapes without drastically dulling the sensory feedback your feet rely on. This heightened sensory stimulation activates your intrinsic foot muscles, helping your body naturally fine-tune its shock absorption and maintain balance as you move. Simply put, barefoot shoes let your feet do exactly what they’re designed for: sensing and responding to the environment beneath them. And that's it! Once you have these 5 steps down you’ll be well on your way to improving the strength and stability of your feet and ankles. If you have any follow up comments or questions, feel free to continue the discussion down below. See you in the next one. Cheers!