Anyone who has ever had plantar fasciitis can tell you that it flat out sucks.  The first step out of bed each morning can cause excrutiating pain in the underside of the foot.  Some people report that it feels like someone stabbed a knife into their foot just in front of the heel.

As you might imagine, walking can be difficult here so any type of sprints or  exercises that require putting weight on your feet (think squats and deadlifts) would be pretty much out of the picture here.  Lunges and similar exercises also tend to be terribly affected.  If you’re not adept at changing your routine to maintain a training effect while you’re injured you can start to lose progress.  Personally, I’m a big fan of working around injuries to maintain a training effect, but in the meantime we need to deal with that foot.

What is plantar fasciitis?

Simply put, the underside of the foot has a long ligament-like structure that runs the length of the foot.  This structure is called the plantar fascia.  It is very dense and fibrous and provides support to the underside of the foot.  When this structure experiences small tears it can become inflammed and pain is a result.  Each night while sleeping the fascia is allowed to shorten again and when weight is placed on the foot in the morning more tears occur in the fascia causing the pain to continue.

In the early stages, a common treatment for this condition is NSAIDS like ibuprofen (see HERE for a sneaky trick you can do with this) and ice.  This is a standard treatment for any inflammation and it generally works quite well to reduce the pain.  It is also usually recommended to stretch the plantar fascia and the calf in the morning before getting out of bed.

However, I’m going to take it one step further.  If you want your plantar fascia to clear up in record time you NEED to get yourself a Strassburg Sock.  Instead of letting the plantar fascia shorten on a daily basis and working all day to stretch it back to normal length, you need to maintain a stretch in the fascia and allow it to heal that way.

The Strassburg Sock (which is often available at stores that sell running equipment) holds the fascia in a prolonged stretch while you sleep.  Granted, most people will tell you it is quite uncomfortable to wear at first, but the results are usually much more rapid than would be expected with the usual routine of daily stretching and icing.  Within weeks the pain is usually gone or significantly reduced.

I should note here that just as there is a difference between tendonitis and tendonosis, there is also a difference between plantar fasciitis and plantar fasciosis.  After a couple weeks the acute inflammatory response to the injury on the bottom of the foot starts to go away and NSAIDS and ice cease to be terribly beneficial.  If you’ve failed to catch this early you’re probably starting to develop plantar fasciosis and the NSAIDS are probably just serving more as pain killers than anything else.

As plantar fasciosis develops the blood supply to the fascia decreases and the fibrous tissue starts to thicken.  If you’ve been experiencing this for a while, you’ll need to take the next step and roll the bottom of the foot daily with a ball of some sort.  This will help to break up the thickened tissue so it can be restored to normal length.

Personally I would suggest a massage ball such as those you can buy at some drug stores, but if you don’t have one handy you can try a tennis ball.  Some people prefer golf balls.  If this is you, remember to take it easy as you’re trying to cause healing not total destruction.  Try rolling the bottom of the foot for 1-2 minutes concentrating some of that time just in front of the heel.  I like to have people do this right before they go to bed and put on their Strassburg Sock so the tissue is less restricted and ready to be lengthened.

If your feet have been bothering you, give some of these tips a try and you’ll be back to training normally in no time.