Help for Your Plantar Fasciitis

How to get relief from plantar fasciitis

You step out of bed and feel a sharp pain in your heel. Maybe you brush it off, and it goes away, but then you feel that stabbing pain again later in the day when you get up from your desk. Chances are it’s plantar fasciitis you’re experiencing. This is the most common source of heel pain (it affects about one in 10 people and is most commonly amongst people between 40 and 60 years of age and afflicts more women than men). If you’re an avid runner or are overweight, you’re also more likely to experience these heel pain symptoms.

What is plantar fasciitis?

Where does the pain come from? There’s a band of tissue–the plantar fascia–that goes across the bottom of your foot that connects your heel bone to the toes. When that band of tissue is stretched or gets tiny tears in it from stress or tension, it gets inflamed, which results in the symptoms of stabbing pain.

Besides running and carrying extra weight, poor biomechanics or footwear that doesn’t provide the support for your feet in particular can contribute to developing plantar fasciitis, says Rebecca Armstrong, physiotherapist and clinic director of Myodetox in Toronto. Also, if you work in a job that calls for long periods of standing, it can make you more prone to it as well. “ Think jobs that have you on your feet all day, such as teaching or being a cashier, says Armstrong.

The good news is you can find ways to get relief–and you can eventually return to running if that’s your favourite workout. Armstrong recommends seeing a physiotherapist so that they can do a thorough assessment. “A physiotherapist can take a subjective assessment and see what your modifiable risk factors are. They’ll look at your foot mechanics and check the shoes you wear so that they can give you individualized things to fix or work on,” she says. For example, if you’ve got a very high arch to your feet, they can give you exercises that’ll create more pronation, explains Armstrong. A physiotherapist will be able to take note if tight calves or weak glutes or hips are also contributing to your heel pain and provide stretches and exercises to help offload the weight that’s causing the stress to your plantar fascia.

Stretches for plantar fasciitis

Most people do let the pain continue for a few weeks or longer and let the pain become chronic before seeking help from a physiotherapist, notes Armstrong. “Especially because it doesn’t necessarily start as a sharp pain, but just feels achy,” she says. While she recommends seeing a physiotherapist so that they can help you figure out the individual reasons you’re experiencing plantar fasciitis and provide strategies that will work best for you, there are a couple of stretches she suggests that may help relieve the heel pain you’re experiencing.

Roll with a lacrosse ball

Take a lacrosse ball (or any harder ball about the size of a lacrosse or tennis ball) and roll it under the sole of your foot. “This helps warm up the tissues and will help stretch and strengthen it,” says Armstrong. If you have a very high arch, this rolling will help lengthen; alternatively, if you have a more pronated or flat foot, the rolling will help activate and strengthen.

3D Calf Stretch

Face a wall and place both your hands on the wall. Keep your left foot back and step forward with your right leg–keep the back leg straight and your foot flat on the floor. With the left arm, rotate it across your body. “You’ll feel the stretch within that tissue in your foot,” says Armstrong. “As you’ve been overusing one part of your calf, this exercise gives you a rotational component.” Repeat for your other leg.

Don’t push through the pain of plantar fasciitis

What you definitely shouldn’t do, though, is push through the pain if you’re an avid runner experiencing plantar fasciitis. “This is not a ‘no pain, no gain’ situation. You’re just aggravating it more if you push through the pain,” says Armstrong. Instead, to get back to running, she suggests taking a gradual approach. “If you run and you’re always starting to feel the pain at around four kilometres? I recommend stopping at three kilometres as your baseline and then adding these stretches to your routine.” Once you’re feeling better, you can increase your distance gradually by adding half a kilometre as you slowly rebuild your load tolerance. While it may take several months, take solace in that most people recover from plantar fasciitis in less than a year–and the sooner you recognize and treat it, the sooner you can be heel pain-free again.