For most people, the surface of the water comes to their mid-chest, and that becomes a dividing line. Everything above that line is what you’re aware of and using. Everything below has disappeared into the depths of the pool.

This lack of awareness of submerged body parts in aquatic exercise is one of the barriers to working with your feet in the pool. Undervaluing your feet’s vital role in your general health is why preventable foot conditions like bunions and plantar fasciitis are so common. You can build a stronger connection with your feet for better balance, increase your strength, and stay out of pain.

Here are six practical ways to include aqua yoga for your feet:

• Footwear is a place to start.

Anyone with neuropathy and diabetes should always wear shoes when in the pool, but for everyone else, going without shoes (on occasion or building up gradually) is an opportunity to strengthen the muscular structure of your feet while in the pool.

• Use the correct stance for your discipline.

Aqua yoga encourages keeping your feet directly under your hips because of the heavy balance demands of the program. It might feel narrow for you at first.

Aqua aerobics encourages feet under the shoulders, a wider stance for more propulsion opportunities.

An Ai Chi stance is wider than shoulder-distance apart to squat down and do a lot of pivoting.

Use the stance for the discipline to learn where your feet are in space. Then all your other body parts are placed relative to your feet. Good alignment starts with cueing from the base up.

• Use the proper foot strike when walking in the water.

When you get in the water, you tend to bob and walk around on your tiptoes. Sometimes it’s about the temperature, and you settle in, but often it’s a habit.

You will get greater benefit from walking in the water if you use the same foot strike pattern that is ideal on land. That’s landing on your heel, rolling forward onto the outside edge of the front, and lifting off from the inner ball of your foot. When walking backward, the pattern reverses.

By using your whole foot when walking, you are more likely to strengthen your back muscles, which water walking is known for.

• Value pronation over supination.

Ideally, you stand with your feet under your hips and have them placed parallel to each other. Except in the real world, because of bad habits, tight hamstrings and hips, or poorly fitting shoes, many people turn their feet out and maybe set them a bit wide. That places disproportionate pressure on the medial aspect of the knee and the first MTP joint (most common site for bunions).

Learning to stand in a stance more supportive of your anatomy will help with muscular and joint pain higher up your movement chain.

It’s easy to summarize this one by remembering, “Don’t be a duck.”

• Maintain awareness of the outer edge of your foot.

While reading this article, get just your big toe to wiggle. Now, see if you can wiggle just your little toe. You probably weren’t able to wiggle the little toe very well, right? Try the big toe again, as you do notice where you put the weight on your feet and where the muscular engagement is in your legs? Now try the pinky toe again and see where your weight is and what engages? Probably, when you lifted your big toe, your weight shifted to the outside edge of your foot, and you took some pressure off your knees. That’s the antidote to supination. It also helps to maintain the healthy function of your quadriceps muscles.

In whatever you do in the pool, keep awareness of the outer edge of your foot to maintain good foot and knee health.

• Prioritize ankle dorsiflexion over plantar flexion.

Dorsiflexion is pulling your toes back towards your nose and showing off the bottom of your foot. Plantar flexion is pointing your toes like a ballerina. Using dorsiflexion in the pool helps fire up your leg muscles, making you stronger and more stable. In aqua yoga, when you stand on one leg, ankle dorsiflexion on the raised leg will make you more stable in the water.

In aqua aerobics, when you’re kicking out underwater, your kicks will be more powerful and have more muscular engagement if you kick and emphasize striking with the heel. I tell my students to pretend they’re shoving a cardboard box away with the power of their heel kicks.

I was a farrier for ten years. In that field, we had a saying, “No foot, no horse.” As people, we really aren’t any different. When your feet aren’t working, you’re in a world of hurt and using mobility aids. Using your feet more effectively in an aquatics program will translate into more comfort and better ergonomics in your everyday life.

Here's an example of me sharing these ideas live:

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I hope you're able to apply these ideas at the pool this week and wishing you happy feet,

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