How To Fix Your Plantar Fasciitis

Plantar fasciitis translates to "inflammation of the plantar fascia". Basically meaning...the plantar fascia is pissed off!

The most common cause of this injury is overuse. Think something like a sudden increase in the amount of activity or time spent on your feet. 

This could be anything from all the walking you'll do on a Disney vacation to all the running required of military recruits. 

The primary role of the plantar fascia is to support the arch of the foot. You can see in the picture below how it runs from the forefoot all the way to the heel. 

One of the tell tale signs of plantar fasciitis is bottom of the foot pain that's worse in the morning.

Traditionally, the plantar fascia itself is the target of treatment in PT including stretching, massage, and rolling the bottom of the foot with a frozen water bottle. 

There are two problems with this treatment approach...

1) stretching an already irritated structure will probably just irritate it more.

2) these treatment approaches only manage symptoms instead of fixing the problem. 

A better, more effective, treatment approach is to strengthen the muscles of the foot and ankle, specifically those that aide in supporting the arch of the foot. 

You can see a few (but not all) of these muscles in the picture below...

Think of the role of supporting the arch as a group project. If the muscles of the foot and ankle aren't doing their fair share of work, the plantar fascia will need to work harder.

It can only do this for so long before it starts to become overloaded and irritated. 

Through strengthening exercises, we can not only reduce the load on the plantar fascia and reduce pain but we can also improve the capacity of our foot to tolerate stress as we continue to increase our running or walking activity. 

Supportive footwear or shoe inserts may also be helpful in further reducing load to the arch with high volume walking or running but they should NOT replace the primary focus of strengthening the foot and ankle. 

For some ideas on ways you can improve the strength of your arch stabilizers, check out our YouTube playlists and select the playlist for plantar fasciitis.

And of course, if you ever want to take the guess work out of your rehab and have some help with figuring out the best course of action instead, click here to book your FREE phone consultation!