The Small Muscles Under Your Feet That Carry More Than You Think

My Dear Reader,

There is a place I often look when someone arrives with knee pain, hip tightness, or a stubborn lower back that never quite settles.

It’s not the knee.Not the hip.Not even the back.

It’s the foot — more precisely, the small intrinsic muscles inside it.

At JANMI Soft Tissue Therapy in Marylebone, foot intrinsics are one of the most common sleepers we find in modern bodies.

What are the foot intrinsics?

Anatomically, foot intrinsic muscles are small muscles that start and end within the foot itself.They sit deep, between the bones, forming the active support system of the arch.

Their role is not to “look strong”.Their role is to:

• stabilise the foot during standing and walking

• help the arch behave like a spring

• provide precise feedback to the nervous system

When they work, movement above feels organised.When they don’t, the body compensates upward.

Why do they fall asleep in modern life?

Modern feet are heavily managed.

Shoes cushion, stabilise, elevate, and protect.Floors are flat and predictable.Movement variety is low.

Over time, the foot learns it doesn’t need to feel or adapt.

The intrinsic muscles underperform.The arch collapses passively instead of responding actively.

And another JANMI pattern appears:sleeping stabilisers + overworking guards.

Calves grip.Peroneals overwork.IT band and hips pick up the slack.The knee becomes the messenger.

Where this shows up clinically

Inhibited foot intrinsics often sit quietly behind:

• foot fatigue and “weak arches”

• plantar fascia irritation

• Achilles and calf tightness

• inward knee drift (valgus)

• hip overuse and pelvic instability

The danger is not a “flat foot”.It’s poor load communication with the ground.

The JANMI focus

At JANMI, we don’t try to force arches or prescribe generic foot exercises.

We ask better questions:

• Can the foot sense the ground?

• Can the arch respond under load?

• Does the foot cooperate with the hip and pelvis?

Only then do we reintroduce short, precise, bodyweight-based drills that gently wake the intrinsics — usually integrated into standing and walking patterns.

Not more effort.Better contact.

A note on exercises

Foot exercises are deceptively simple — and very easy to do poorly.

At JANMI, they are:

• subtle

• slow

• pain-free

• progressed carefully

A quiet closing thought

Your feet don’t need control.They need permission to work again.

And when they do, the rest of the body often sighs with relief.

Warmly,Paulius Jurasius

JANMI Soft Tissue Therapy, Marylebone