Acute Effects of an Elastic Toe-Tube Exercise on Intrinsic Foot Muscle Size and Reactive Strength in Healthy Young Men: A Randomized Crossover Study
Yuki Nakai, Yasufumi Takeshita, Makoto Komiya · 2026
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Description
Nakai, Takeshita, and Komiya test a simple elastic toe tube exercise against the standard short foot exercise to wake the small muscles inside the foot. Those muscles stiffen the arch and pass force during running and jumping. Their 2026 study uses a randomized crossover design in twenty young men. Each man tries the tube exercise, the short foot exercise, and rest, a week apart. Ultrasound scans of three foot muscles and rebound jump tests come before and after.
Only the tube exercise clearly worked on the day. It swelled all three muscles' cross sections by roughly six to thirteen percent. That passed the threshold for a real change, beating the short foot drill and rest. Reactive strength, a jump score that blends air time against ground time, also rose only after the tube work. The authors pitch it as a quick priming drill before sport or rehab sessions.
Catalog record
| CREATOR | Yuki Nakai, Yasufumi Takeshita, Makoto Komiya |
|---|---|
| YEAR | 2026 |
| COLLECTION | PAPERS |
| FORMAT | TXT |
| FILE SIZE | 32 KB |
| LICENSE | https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0 |
| RIGHTS | CC BY |
| SOURCE | Europe PMC |