They would include the neck, forearms and hands, and what I'm going to talk about today - the tibialis .

The tibialis is very important in ankle as well as knee function, and is a reason why many people have weak ankles and fall down easily.

A weak tibialis is also the cause of a major problem to runners - shin splints. This is because if the muscle is weak it can't absorb the force of the running and therefore your shin bones take the brunt of it.

That causes small microscopic fractures in your shins which eventually leads to loads of pain and often causes people to stop running.

Another important use for it is for those who do sprints. It helps to propel you forward as you flex your ankle and pull your feet back up to your butt as you move forward.

So a strong muscle does that faster which means your legs go in the complete circle faster - which means YOU are faster :o)

The only problem with this muscle is that it's kind of tough to train. In this e-mail I'm not going to tell you how (I will in the next), but here's a clue.

"Each end of your foot trains _______ _______"

Now go play around with your feet and see what happens! I'll give you the answer next week, just in case you couldn't figure it out.

Jeremy