Heel Slides
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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. This exercise can be done many different ways and in a couple different positions; standing and lying on your back. Heel slides strengthen your hip flexor muscles so you can pick your leg up over the bathtub wall. They also strengthen the hamstring so you can pull your foot a bit closer and tie your shoe!
Heel-slides as a strength training exercise can strengthen four muscle groups if they are taught correctly for the targeted muscle group. When you know what you are trying to strengthen, you can tweak heel slides in ways that improve your overall function!
Lying on your back, slide your heel towards your bottom (glutes), bending your knee and your hip. Without thinking, you are strengthening everything we mentioned above. However with some conscious thought and slight repositioning, you can focus your efforts on various muscles therefore improving various daily abilities.
Here's how to tweak the heel slide to accomplish different goals. Remember that the key here is in how you are consciously doing the exercise and where you put movement emphasis.
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For some, heelslides can seem impossible due to the nature of your surgery, your pain tolerance and other factors. There is nothing wrong with helping your heel slides along by using your arms and a belt, gait belt, bathrobe belt or a pair of pants! Be gentle and don't cause your body to fight back against you. Help your heelslides for 10-20 reps, then drop the "help" and do 10 or so on your own. This helps you to strengthen into the range of motion you just gained! Works great! You can also pull gently with your arms on the belt and just hold it there for 3-5 minutes allowing the scar tissue and fascia to "melt" and give. Try the tennis ball trick to melting myofascial restrictions away - it has been incredibly effective!
Gait Belt
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Leather Belt
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Sheet, belt, rope
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Pair of jeans
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Start out doing what you can - never sacrificing quality for quantity. I would rather you do 6 perfect ones than 12 sloppy ones! Your body remembers what it does... do sloppy exercises and you'll reap sloppy results. Focus on 20 reps a couple times a day. Go at your own pace but do keep going. Some people need someone to push them, others need someone to slow them down - you know who you are. If you are seeing a home health physical therapist, be sure to ask how you can tweak this popular exercise to get the results you need!
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