Heel Slides

one fantastic exercise - 5 options!

Heel slides - to bend or not to bend! From total knee replacements to general debility... any veteran recipient of home care physical therapy has no doubt done a few heel-slides! They seem somewhat benign and useless but let's look deeper.

Heel-slides as a strength training exercise can strengthen four muscle groups if they are taught correctly for the targeted muscle group.

A heel-slide consists of you lying on your back and sliding your heel towards your bottom (glutes) and therefore bending your knee.

For what you are trying to accomplish with this exercise, here's the inside scoop. Remember that the key here is in how you are consciously doing the exercise.

• Hip Lifting Strengthening - (stepping over the bathtub edge or climbing steps) When sliding your heel towards your glutes, think, "knee to shoulder." This will help to target the hip flexor muscle.


• Posterior thigh/knee Strengthening - (taking a step forwards in the walking pattern) When performing your heel-slide, remember to think, "heel to butt" This will help to target the hamstring muscle group.


• Bending ankle up and down strengthening (pulling your toes up when you take a step and pushing them down when you roll off the ground from that step) For strengthening toes up: pull the toes and ankle up towards your knee while doing the heel-slide and think "knee to shoulder." For strengthening toes down: point toes down and think "slide-heel to butt" while doing heel slide.


• For those info guru's out there... to strengthen the external or lateral rotators in the ankle, leg and hip, simply rotate the ankle outward while doing the heel-slide.


• To strengthen the internal or medial rotators in the ankle, leg and hip, turn the ankle inwards while doing the heel-slide!

Be sure to ask your therapist how you can tweak this popular exercise to get the results you need!