Your wellbeing
in the air
Exercises
Anti DVT exercises
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Exercises - heels and toes
Whilst sitting, squeeze your knees together as tightly as possible, holding for three seconds then let
the legs go limp for three seconds. Repeat this three times, squeezing those knees together as tight
as you can.
Now with your feet flat on the floor, and your feet and knees together, place your hands against the outsides of your knees and push your knees outwards against your hands.
Allow the knees to separate by about six inches, still pushing against the hands, and hold for three seconds, now relax. Repeat this exercise
three times.These heels and toes exercises are the most important manoeuvres you can perform whilst sitting in an aircraft seat. They contract the muscles of the lower leg, between the knee and the ankle joints, helping to squeeze those veins in the lower legs to move and pump the blood upwards towards the heart.
Blood that is pumped up towards the heart, by these contracting muscles, is then freeflowing, and is at a much reduced risk of stagnating and clotting, hence reducing the risk of DVT.
Heels up
Whilst sitting in your seat, raise your heels as high as possible, keeping your toes on the floor. As you raise your heels, feel your calf muscles tightening. In fact, just feel your calf muscles with your hands, as you do this exercise - you will notice how hard they become, the higher you raise those heels. As you forcibly raise your heels, your knees should also rise, causing the calves to tighten and squeeze the veins deep inside those calf muscles.
As the heels come up, so does the blood in those leg veins. Pushing those heels up, pushes the knees up and pumps the veins, hence preventing DVT. Try to do 10 heel lifts each time, whenever you can, ideally every couple of minutes.
Whilst you're sitting there doing your heel lifts, look around and see how many of your fellow travellers are doing theirs. Not only do heel lifts tighten the calf muscles and pump the blood, but they also lift your thighs off the edge of the seat. Research indicates that pressure on the back of the thighs, where the upper legs press down on the aircraft seat, also compresses the blood vessels in the upper legs, slowing the flow of blood through those veins which might increase the risk of DVT. So the heel lifts also become thigh lifts.
Toes up
This group of exercises contracts those muscles at the front of the lower
leg, between the knee and the ankle.
These muscles are less obvious than the bulky calf-muscles, but are, nevertheless, still important at helping pump the blood up those leg veins,
to prevent DVT.
In this exercise, you should bring your toes up, as high as you can, whilst keeping your heels on the floor. Raise your toes as high as possible, causing those muscles on the outer aspect of your shinbone to become tighter and firmer. Again, as you did with the heel lifts, use your hands to
feel those muscles contracting and becoming firmer as you lift those toes as high as possible. The toe lifts could follow your heel lifts, so your in-flight leg exercises could be as simple as 10 heel lifts then
10 toe lifts, each time pushing up the heels as high as possible, and then pushing up the toes as high as possible.
If you want to vary this routine, then alternate heel lifts with toe lifts, that is heels up, toes up, heels up, toes up, etc - each time lifting up those heels and toes, as high as you can.
Think of the muscles in your lower leg (between the knee and ankle) as the pumphouses, that squeeze those veins in your lower legs, powering the blood upwards towards your heart and keeping the blood circulating to prevent any chance of the blood clotting.
In doing the heels lifts and toes lifts exercises, you are actually mimicking the action of walking, whilst sitting. So if you do these exercises regularly during your flight, you are, in effect,walking your way to your destination! Just imagine - "I walked all the way, to Ibiza!" - at least you'll get there, fit and well!
