Get Rid Of Foot Pain And Enjoy Running Again

Sometimes I like to start my blog with ideas I think you may find helpful. This year, I’m not only writing goals, I’m doing something that was suggested by Pegine Echevarria. I’m looking back on last year and writing down as many of my successes as I can remember. Goals are the roadmap for the future, but remembering past successes lifts our confidence that we’ll be able to achieve the goals we have set.

In fact, this year I’m going to look at each day and write down a success that I’ve had that day. How wonderful it will be on New Year’s Eve to look back and read 365 successes for 2020!

I hope you are enjoying a wonderful start to 2020. Here’s to a year of adventure, joy, health, prosperity, and fulfillment of all your dreams!

Foot Pain And Plantar Fasciitis

With the new year here, lots of people have decided to get into a routine of walking, or running, to improve their health. I’ve also spoken to so many people about pain in the arch of the foot, a condition called plantar fasciitis. Most people have been told to focus their attention on the foot.

However, the muscles of your lower leg are responsible for the movements of your foot, so ignoring them and focusing on your foot is useless.

That’s like pulling your hair and then putting your focus on the pain in your head…while you’re still pulling your hair. It doesn’t work! You’re looking in the wrong place!

The vast majority of pain in your arch isn’t coming from your foot, it’s coming from your lower leg.

Stick with me, this is going to be so logical that you’ll wonder why you haven’t already heard about treatment and stretches for the real source of plantar fasciitis.

Relief From Plantar Fasciitis Pain

Let’s take a look at the muscles that move your foot. There are many tiny, intrinsic muscles but we’re not talking about them today…we’re talking about the major movers of your foot.

In case you would like to find the muscles in an anatomy book or on the internet, they are:

· Gastrocnemius: A calf muscle that merges into the Achilles tendon.

· Soleus: Under the gastrocnemius, the soleus also merges into the Achilles tendon. These two muscles pull your heel up so you can stand on your toes. When they are tight, they are pulling up on your Achilles tendon and pulling the bone up, even when you want to keep your foot flat on the ground. This causes your arch muscle to be pulled backward, causing arch pain.

· Tibialis Anterior: Primary muscle causing plantar fasciitis because it inserts into your arch. The tibialis anterior muscle is along the outside of your shin bone and inserts into the long bone on the inside of your arch. When it contracts the foot rolls toward the outside of the foot. This muscle also causes shin splints. When it is tight it is pulling hard on the bone and you feel pain in your arch.

· Peroneals: A group of two muscles inserting into the outside of your foot and arch. The peroneals originate along the length of your lower leg bone (Fibula) and insert into the bones on the outside and the inside of your arch. When they are tight, they pull the bones toward the outside of your foot, and you have arch pain.

These four muscles are pulling your arch in three different directions at the same time. This creates arch pain, but the source is in your lower leg!

Before jumping into the stretches for plantar fasciitis, I recommend first doing the self-treatments to release the tension in these muscles.

3 Self-Treatments For Plantar Fasciitis Pain

To treat your tibialis anterior, place a ball just below your knee and on the outside of your shin. Then move your leg so the ball rolls down toward your ankle.

If your arch feels like it’s going to cramp, simply roll your toes as shown in this picture.

To treat your peroneals, place a ball as shown in the picture on the right. Put your hand on your leg so you can press the muscle down into the ball. Then move your leg so the ball rolls down toward your ankle

There are several ways to treat your calf but they all use the same principle. Put the center of your calf directly on your opposite kneecap. Press your leg down so your kneecap goes deeply into your calf muscle.

Don’t slide, just rock your leg up and down, along the length of the muscle.

You can also do this treatment while sitting in a chair.

3 Stretches For Plantar Fasciitis Pain

Note: It is most beneficial to release the spasms (muscle knots) in the muscles as shown above before doing the stretches for plantar fasciitis relief. This is the case for any muscle as it “unties the knot” that has shortened the muscle allowing you to stretch without injuring the muscle fibers.

The picture on the left shows a common, runners stretch for the gastrocnemius muscle.

In order to get a proper stretch, it is important to keep your heel on the ground as you tilt your body forward.

Notice that you don’t need to be leaning forward and holding on to anything. Stand up straight.

To stretch the deeper muscle, the soleus, slowly bring your bottom back while bending the knee of the leg you are stretching.

Keep your heel firmly on the floor.

This stretch is deeper and often overlooked by runners, yet it is a key muscle for calf pain, Achilles tendonitis, heel pain, and plantar fasciitis.

You can stretch both the tibialis anterior muscle and the peroneal muscles by just a slight rotation of your ankle.

Curl your toes so the top of your toes are on the ground.

If your foot is squared so the top of your toes are flat on the ground, this stretches the tibialis anterior.

If you move slightly (as shown), this stretches the peroneal muscles.

You will feel the lengthening along your entire lower leg as you are doing an excellent series of stretches for plantar fasciitis and shin splints.

As a bonus, this is also the treatment for a sprained ankle!

BTW, all the pictures in this newsletter were taken from The Pain-Free Athlete. You can easily learn how to self-treat all of the major muscles in your body by using The Pain-Free Athlete or Treat Yourself to Pain-Free Living. These books show you how to self-treat muscles from your head to your feet, but maybe you would like to have me help you.

Just because you aren’t in Sarasota, Florida, we can still work together very successfully via the computer. I’ve worked with people all over the world, and the results are excellent! To request a consult, click here.

You Can Make Your Foot Pain Go Away

Author: Julie Donnelly

Just a couple of weeks ago I taught you how to make your hip pain go away. Today’s topic is foot pain. And, yes, you can make your foot pain go away as well. But, let’s start at the beginning.

How Does Foot Pain Get Started?

You feel it coming on gradually. Maybe your lower leg aches a bit, but you’re busy so you ignore it. After a while every time you take a step you feel a burning that spreads along the entire lower leg and into your arch. Still you ignore it. But it doesn’t go away, in fact, it gets worse.

Now your arch just doesn’t feel “right.” Then it starts to hurt, but not every time you put pressure on your foot. Again, you ignore it until finally you are experiencing foot pain all the time. Then eventually you can’t ignore it any more, it’s like a knife being jabbed into your arch. Now it’s not just hurting when you run or drive your car, your foot hurts with every step.

Almost every day you do something that causes you to lift the front of your foot while your heel is still resting on the floor. For most people it comes from straining your lower leg muscles when you are driving a car, especially if you drive often. It is even more evident if you are doing any type of city driving because you are off and on the gas and break constantly, repetitively straining all of your lower leg muscles. You just know that your foot hurts and it’s affecting your life. You must find a solution!

What is Plantar Fasciitis?

You’ve been told you have plantar fasciitis, and you may have been told you need expensive orthotics. Perhaps you’ve even tried them and while they worked for a short time, eventually the pain returned and then it started to hurt worse. Now you’re told you need to replace the orthotics, but you’ve come to realize that isn’t the answer. And it’s not the answer. The orthotics are focusing on the symptom, but totally ignoring the source of the problem.

The good news is that you can heal your plantar fasciitis naturally. Most people, including too many medical professionals, don’t realize that foot pain is frequently coming from outside the foot. The muscles of your lower leg actually are there to move your ankle and foot, not to move your lower leg (that comes from your upper leg).

The reason is simple. First let’s use an analogy that I use all the time because it’s so perfect to explain how muscles work to move a joint. If you pull your hair at the end, it hurts at your scalp. You don’t need to massage your scalp, you don’t need to take pain medications to stop the tension in your head, and you certainly don’t need brain surgery, you just need to stop pulling your hair! Now substitute the muscle for your hand, the tendon for your hair, and the joint for your scalp.

Muscles originate in one place, they merge into a tendon that crosses over a joint, and then the tendon inserts into a point on the other side of the joint. When the muscle pulls, the tendon tightens and the joint moves, but if the muscle is tight it will continue pulling on the joint even when you don’t want it to move. In the case of the lower leg muscles and the foot, the muscles are pulling your foot up from the ground, but you are pressing it down and causing the tendons to put a strain on the insertion points, which in this case are all in your arch.

How the Muscles Get Strained

Every time you take a step you are using all of the muscles of your lower leg. As you work you contract these muscles every time you step on the pedal. Lifting the front of your foot up you are using your tibialis anterior and then you press down on the pedal you are using your calf muscles. If you walk a lot, or you are a runner, you are causing a repetitive strain on the same muscle fibers. Also, while driving your car your foot is picked up in the front to go from the gas to the brake, again straining the same muscles. You do this over and over until you have strained the muscle fibers. Eventually the fibers shorten due to a phenomenon called muscle memory.

Muscle memory will hold your muscles in the shortened position even when you don’t need them contracted. This puts pressure on the insertion point, in this case, the arch.

The Result is Arch Pain

The two primary muscles that cause arch pain are the tibialis anterior and the peroneals. They originate at the top of the lower leg, merge into tendons where your ankle begins to slim, and then insert into the bottom of your foot.

The tibialis anterior goes along the outside of your shin bone, crosses over the front of your ankle and then inserts into your arch. When it contracts normally you lift up the inside of your foot so you are resting on the outside of your foot.

The peroneals originate at the top/outside of your lower leg, run down the leg and merge into a tendon that goes behind the outside of your ankle and inserts in two places; the outside of your foot, and under your arch to the inside of your foot. When it contracts normally you pull up the outside of your foot so you are resting on your big toe.

An Easy Treatment that Works

The goal with this Julstro self-treatment is to force the toxins out of the muscle fibers, drawing in blood to nourish the muscles. As the blood fills the muscle, the fibers lengthen and the strain is removed from the arch.

Begin by treating the tibialis anterior on the front of your leg.

#1 – kneel on the floor and put a ball just outside of your shin bone.

#2 – Move your leg forward so the ball rolls along the outside of your shin bone.

Then treat the peroneals on the outside of your lower leg, sit on the floor with the leg you are treating bent and resting on the floor. Put the ball on the outside of your leg (so it is actually on the floor and your leg is on top of it) and then press the outside of your leg into the ball. Move your leg so the ball starts to roll down the outside of your lower leg. Your intention is to do the same as you did for the tibialis anterior (above)

Or, sit on the floor or a bed and position your leg as shown in picture #3. While using either a dowel or a length of PVC pipe, slide the pipe from just above your ankle bone to just below your knee joint.

#3 – Using a dowel or piece of PVC pipe, put pressure on the outside of your leg and slide along the peroneals muscle from your knee to above your ankle bone.

The treatments will feel sore but that’s because you’re forcing H+ ions through the muscle fibers, and acid burns. But, it’s better to have the toxins out of the muscles and fill the fibers with blood, plus the lymphatic system will pick up the toxins and eliminate them from your body.

There are several other treatments that work to eliminate arch pain and plantar fasciitis, but I’ve found these to be the most productive, and they may be all that is necessary to eliminate the problem completely.

These statements have not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration. This information is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure or prevent any disease.