Safety first!

• Stand with your back against a wall, and move your feet about one foot-​length away from the wall, so you are lean­ing against it
• Feet should be hip-​width, toes point­ing for­wards
• Put a very slight bend in your knees (“soft knees”) and pull your toes off the ground, both feet together
• Hold for a count of 5, breath­ing through­out
• Relax the toes, but as soon as they touch down, pull them up again and repeat the hold

Aim to do 10 lots of holds in one go. If this is too much and your legs start to seize up, stop and rest, remem­ber­ing how many you man­aged, so you can try the same num­ber plus one more the next time

Cannot do this at all? ? If you are find­ing this impossible, try ankle loosen­ing and con­di­tion­ing instead

Varying the exer­cise for more chal­lenge

Once you can do 10 strong lifts, you need to make the exer­cise a bit harder to con­tinue strength­en­ing your muscles. Try these pro­gres­sions

The pro­gres­sions

1. Add another set of 10 raises
Rest for about 3 minutes before you do the second set, to give your muscles time to recover

2. Do the exer­cise free-​standing

• Stand side­ways on to a chair-​back, win­dow sill, kit­chen work­top or sim­ilar sur­face
• Hold with one hand for bal­ance sup­port
• Put a very slight bend in your knees (“soft knees”) and pull your toes off the ground, both feet together
• Hold for a count of 5, breath­ing through­out
• Relax the toes down, rest briefly, then repeat

TIP
♦ This ver­sion is more of a bal­ance chal­lenge. But try to avoid simply rock­ing back­wards on to your heels, as this does not really work the shin muscles. Keep knees soft and think about pulling your toes up to the tops of your shoes

3. Heel walks

• Start at one side of a clear room (remove obstacles first!)
• Pull up your toes from the ground and, keep­ing knees soft, walk on your heels to the oppos­ite side of the room
• Turn round and repeat, keep­ing the steps con­trolled and toes pulled up the whole time.