To heal foot pain, start with relative rest; decrease mileage by 25-75%, minimize sprinting, and avoid hill running. To maintain your cardiovascular fitness, do alternative forms of aerobic conditioning bicycling, swimming, deep water running.
When pool running, follow your usual training schedule in terms of frequency, intensity, and speed. Be sure to stretch your hamstrings afterward because you use a shortened stride length.
If with relative rest you still have plantar fascia pain, you may need to abstain from running completely and go with alternative methods of cardiovascular training only.
Ice for 5 to 10 minutes for pain relief after activity. If you use ice massage, go no more than 5 minutes.
You can ice up to 5 times per day. Icing beyond 10 minutes makes the body respond to lowered temperatures by increasing blood flow to the area, resulting in increased inflammation.
Use heel lifts or heelcups. Adhesive taping of the foot can temporarily support the arch and decrease the stress on the plantar fascia. Taping can be used for 1 to 3 weeks continuously or just with activity.
If you get good temporary relief with tape, but the pain doesn't settle down within 3 weeks when the tape is not used, this is an indication you have a mechanical problem. To tape your foot, flex your foot to 90 degrees at the ankle and tape.
In some cases, it may be necessary to use four strips crossing under the foot instead of two. As the pain subsides, begin strengthening and flexibility exercises.
Make sure you work pain free (or don't increase your pain while doing these exercises). When you no longer have pain when arising in the morning, and you have no tenderness when pressing on the plantar fascia, gradually return to running.
If you start treatment within several weeks of onset, it usually takes a minimum of 6 weeks of rest until the foot is no longer tender when pressed on, and you can then resume running. If you have had symptoms for several months and continued to train anyway, it will take at least 3 months and often 6 months for plantar fascia pain to go away.
If your plantar fasciitis is not improving after 6 weeks of the home treatments mentioned here, it is time to see your physician. Surgery may be considered as a last resort if all else has failed to provide relief.
You can prevent plantar fasciitis with good training habits, good shoes, and preventative strengthening and flexibility exercises. If you begin to develop plantar fasciitis, stop and analyze what could be causing it and make changes to return yourself to full function.
Rather than trying to run through the pain, learn to listen to your body. The longer you ignore plantar fascia pain, the worse it's going to get and the longer it will take to rehabilitate you back to your previous level of running.
The full series of these exercises should take about 10 minutes, a worthwhile investment in avoiding or recovering from plantar fasciitis. Do the exercises daily unless they are causing pain, in which case you should do fewer reps and take a day off between sessions until you can do them pain-free.
There are some stretches you can do. The gastroc stretch requires standing on the edge of a step. Rise slowly on your toes. Lower yourself slowly as far as you can until you feel a stretch in your calf.
Don't roll your foot inward or outward. Hold for 1-2 seconds. Reps:10-20 (stop before you fatigue).
Soleus stretch: Same as above, but start with your knee bent so that you feel a slight stretch in your calf or Achilles. Maintain the angle of your knee throughout the stretch.
Bicycle stretch: Lie on your side. Keeping your top leg straight, bring your knee toward your nose until you feel a slight stretch in the hamstring.
Maintaining this angle at your hip, start pretending you are pedaling a bicycle with the top leg. Make sure you feel a slight stretch each time your knee is straight. Reps: 10-30 for each leg.
If you feel any pops or clicks in your hip or back, try raising the top leg a little (making the thighs further apart) to eliminate the popping.
Author Resource:-
Jack R. Landry has worked as a podiatrist and foot surgeon for the past 14 years and written hundreds of articles about various foot conditions including plantar fasciitis.
![[Valid RSS feed]](http://www.massagebyben.com/articles/images/icon_Rss.png "XML Feed For RSS"){kind=icon}
Category Rss Feed
Print This Article
Add To Favorites 