One exercise you can do to prevent Plantar Fasciitis

One thing you can do to prevent Plantar Fasciitis

Plantar Fasciitis, or strain to the Plantar fascia on the bottom of the foot, is the most common cause of heel pain, and if you have suffered from this you will know it can set you back weeks if not months, making exercise activities miserable if not impossible.

If you have had Plantar Fasciits before you will probably be wanting to know how to prevent it happening again, and if you have not had it you will probably be keen to know if you can stop it happening in the first place. So can you prevent Plantar Fasciitis happening completely?

How flexible is your ankle joint?

There are many causes of Plantar Fasciitis, but the one of the main risk factors is limited ankle dorsiflexion. What does this mean? Dorsiflexion is the movement of the foot upwards towards the leg to allow the body’s centre of mass to travel forward over the foot towards the propulsive phase of gait when walking.

Try it now. Bend your foot upwards towards you. You should be able to achieve at least 10 degrees of movement visually. More is better. If you cannot do this while walking, the foot flattens more, increasing tensile stress on the Plantar Fascia, and this repeated stress along with other factors over time can overload the Plantar Fascia, leading to a repetitive strain injury and pain in the heel.

What you can do to improve flexibility at the ankle joint

The main cause of inflexibility at the ankle joint is tightness in the calf muscles at the back of the leg, pulling the foot downwards and restricting upward movement. Tightness in the calf is common in runners and active people after exercise, in which case make sure you stretch after exercise, but more commonly due to weakness in the muscle, causing it tighten up during exercise, restricting movement. Doing some simple heel raises several times a week will strengthen the calf muscles over time, increasing muscle length and reducing tightness.
In summary then, a combination of stretching your calf muscles after exercise and strengthening the muscles on a regular basis takes very little time out of your day and will significantly reduce your risk of suffering from this unpleasant problem.

How I can help

Check out my YouTube channel for some key calf stretching and strengthening exercises to help prevent Plantar Fasciitis by clicking on the button below.

If you are still suffering from Plantar Fasciitis despite following the above advice and need more help, you can book a face to face or video consultation with me by clicking on the 'Book with me' button below.