Running with Plantar Fascitis

Do you wake up in the morning afraid to put your feet on ground knowing that you are going to experience a hot poker like feeling shooting up your Heel?

If so it is highly likely that you have Plantar Fascitis (PF) 

Plantar Fascitis is a very common injury with  people that do a lot of running, high impact activities or heavy physical sports. I.e. tennis, squash, mountain running or hiking.

When we walk or run our heel should strike the ground first then the outside of the foot and lastly the ball of the foot. This is called your Gait. (Gait is the way locomotion is achieved using human limbs)  When this happens correctly your weight is evenly dissipated throughout your body.

The foot and ankle joint should be 80% as mobile as the wrist and hand joint but with a lack of stretching and mobility in most sports and activities this percentage is greatly reduced. The body is great at compensating for weakness and tightness and when this mobility in the foot and ankle is reduced your biomechanics (Biomechanics is the science concerned with the internal and external forces acting on the human body and the effects produced by these forces) is drastically affected.

Over a period of time especially with heavy impacted activity your joints, ligament and muscles will tighten up and your mobility will decrease. This is when the compensation starts to happen, your body mechanics will change and force muscles and other soft tissue structures to over work.

The foot has a strong ligament like structure (aponeurosis) attached from the heel and runs the whole length of the foot up to the toes; on either side of this ligament the plantar muscles are located. These are the structures that are commonly diagnosed under the term Plantar Fascitis!

What I have found in my clinic is yes these structures are inflamed and quite tender to the touch but this is usually the symptoms and not the actual source of the problem. The main culprit is actually the joints of the foot, mainly the naviclar and the cuneiform bones on the front of the forefoot. These get so stuck together and bound down that there is little or no movement in them what so ever.

There is a smaller muscle called the ‘Quadratus Planate’ that causes quite a lot problems aswell and I have found this to be one of the main culprits and not the plantar fascia that is commonly diagnosed. Again that is not to say that fascia and the plantar ligament (aponeurosis) do not have symptoms of pain and discomfort.

A very unusual statistic I have found while treating this condition is that over 95% of all the clients I've treated had PF in there left foot.

I’ve had an extremely high rate of success with treating Plantar Fascitis since learning and applying these new ART techniques. While the treatment can be quite sore at the time it usually calms down quickly and improves within 2 to 4 treatment.