LeCharles Bentley shows offensive linemen how to fix a too-wide foot position that strains the big toe. The fix: narrow your stance until pressure shifts to your mid-foot, around 45 degrees, which gives you a stable base for driving power without injury.
Welcome back to O-line TV. I'm LeCharles Bentley. I'm joined by Josh Hansen. He's going to be our beautiful model for the day, and I'm going to take you through this quandary that we're seeing with a lot of young athletes. The catch leg, or we call it here at OLP, the kickstand. And particularly at that foot position, we're often seeing players getting a bit too wide with that foot position. I will admit, it's pretty difficult to find that sweet spot that you're looking for because it's unorthodox and, you know, you got to just go through that process of learning what it's supposed to be. So with that said, here's a quick way, easy way for you to feel it. If you were now to take his foot, Josh, or take your foot, Josh, and open up right about towards me. And at this point, if Josh were to get a little bit of a lean to his right, and start to press into the ground or drive into the ground, he's going to feel that pressure right here in that upper toe region. So if you stand up right now, if you're looking at this on your mobile device, kind of get into your stance with this kickstand set, kind of lean and open up pretty wide and then press. You're going to feel the big toe region with the most pressure being applied. But then we move it in really far, right about there. At this point, same thing. We went from one exaggeration to another. As you press down once again, you're still going to feel it in that big toe region. Oftentimes, oftentimes— this isn't all the time, but oftentimes— we see O-line athletes with plantar fasciitis and deal with big toe problems in general, it's because of this flex position on the big toe or just that driving mat position that you're usually in. But hopefully we can kind of start to work around that. So now we get to that sweet spot. Same deal, got your phone here, set the foot about a 45 where you can feel it and start to press. And at this point Hopefully you find that area. The midfoot should be where that pressure is being felt. You feel it now? That midfoot is going to be different for everybody. But LB, you said 345s. Yeah, but it's some gray area because I'm like 6'7" when you meet me in real life. I'm for real. Only the shortest person here at OLP is Taylor Boggs and Pfft. Boy, that's a whole different issue. And then Josh is like 5'3". So with that said, I'm just towering over Josh, as you can see. But my body's built differently than his. So that means that when I say 345s, it's still going to be relative to what his anatomy is built or designed to do. But the point is this. As you use this cue of kind of playing around with it, Once you feel it in the big toe, it ain't right. If you go too far, big toe, it ain't right. But as you kind of play with it, you find that area where that midfoot starts to stick, and that's when you know you got your sweet spot for driving.
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