Flat foot

[Bascule]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]

I have a flat foot, which makes running painful. Can anyone recommend any exercises to help regain the arch?

[/ QUOTE ]

I'd be surprised if you could. I used to do a ton of running and also a lot of rope jumping and calf raises, over the course of many years, and it never did a thing to make my feet less flat. If you find anything that works for you, I'd be interested to hear it.

[/ QUOTE ]

Apologies, I should have put this in the OP.

I asked the same question of a girl at my local gym (she's one of the staff so I assume she's got a sports science degree or something). She recommended making a ball out of socks, then trying to curl the foot around the socks (curling the toes downward whilst pushing the arch of the foot into the socks). If I do this with my right, non-flat, foot, I can hold the position for about a minute before the foot gets tired and there is little pain. With the flat left foot, the first time I tried it (2 days ago) I got intense pain and had to stop after 15 seconds. Today, I can hold it for 30 seconds with little pain, so maybe there's already some improvement, assuming Tess is right about the exercise targeting the arch muscles.