What is all this alphabet soup?!
T-Tapp uses lots of acronymns! If you don’t already have this bookmarked, it’s worth doing so! It’s the T-Tapp Acronym list.
So what does all this mean?
“KLT” refers to “Knee Little Toe”. When you set up the T-Tapp stance, you are:
1. Toes forward. Outside edges of your feet (in your cross trainers!) parallel
2. Bend knees—deep if you can, but knees do not go past your toes.
3. Tuck buns and curl the core–pull belly button up and back to the spine.
4. Lift ribs, getting shoulders back into alignment with hips.
5. Push knees to little toes. (KLT)
Now at first, you may only have the strength to push knees towards the middle toes–that’s your max for now and that is fine. Your inner feet may come up off the floor a bit–again, that is okay!
If your ankles are bending outward, focus on middle toes until you have the ankle strength to not turn out while putting weight on the outside edges of your feet.
It is important to bend and tuck/curl the core and lift ribs before pushing out the knees, so you have full activation from ALL the muscles in the lower back, which helps protect the knees and provides better stabilization for both the knees and ankles. This helps build flexibility and strength in the medial and lateral muscle attachments at the knee.
You will not lessen the benefits of T-Tapp by “only” pushing to the middle toes vs. little toe. Each person has different levels of strength and flexibility in their feet, ankles and knees, etc. “Going to one’s max enables full fiber activation! That’s why T-Tapp works for everyone, regardless of fitness level.” (Teresa Tapp)
As you gain strength for your knees to push out, then you need to focus even more on optimal shoudler/hip/ankle linear alignment which also helps prevent the rollover of ankles. Often rollover occurs not just from having your feet too close together but also from releasing the tucked buns/core. And….as I said in an earlier post about “ribs up”–“Release of tucked buns/lumbar usually occurs when the shoulderes shift in front of hip…” It all works together! (These past two paragraphs are nearly verbatim from Teresa. Didn’t want you to think I thought all that up! 
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So we have the KLT down….now what about NBT?
No Big Toe is taught in Step Away the Inches, but for use during the standing workouts, you shouldn’t try it until strength is built up in the knee and better neurokinetic connections at the feet.
No Big Toe is a progression. Do not try doing this right away!
Technically, it is getting the weight off big toe as well as lifting the big toe. Eventually you will rebuild metatarsal strength to “lift” the arch and automatically be off big toe, without having to think so much about it.
CAUTION–if you have plantar fasciitis, do NOT do “NBT” until you have developed the strength and flexibility within the metatarsal and ankle muscle attachments. It will cause you pain!
Lastly–BBJ?
“Big Ball Joint”, meaning, lightly pressing down the Big Ball Joint behind the big toe, without pressing down big toe! Now you know why it’s a progression! 
This will also assist in “twisting out from the hips”–meaning you “push knees out” by twisting out the femur, while pressing BBJ.
Do NOT do this until you can push knees past your little toes without lifting feet off the floor. Then you know you have built the strength and flexibility in your knee, ankle, hip and metatarsal muscles and attachments.
“T-Tapp is a physical therapy approach to fitness whereby each movement has specific applications to muscle attachments rather than the belly of the muscle…”
Keeping the lats tight, knees bent deeper for a better tuck will help you keep the knees from going past your little toes–the isolated isometric contraction provides greater stabilization.
We often want to progress quickly and try all the new tips and tweaks, hoping for faster sculpting and/or inch loss. I hope through the information in this post (all credit to Teresa!) you can see the importance of “patience, grasshopper” while you rebuild strength and flexibility in your muscle attachments, for optimal inch loss, yes, but also for optimal health!
I’ll close with a wonderful quote by Teresa about all this:
“Remember there’s always a reason for each movement as well as sequence in application of T-Tapp technique. T-Tapp is not just good form/bad form…it is the PROGRESSION or ‘Journey’ to optimize form. Any time you go to your personal max you WILL get results…T-Tapp is very individualistic yet this same ability enables it to be effective and safe for all ages and fitness levels…inside and out!”
Happy Tappin’!
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