The fitness/plantar fasciitis paradox
To all you fitness enthusiasts and avid exercisers who acquired plantar fasciitis: I feel your pain. Or at least I used to.
What a maddening condition it is…the very activities which bolster your health, tone your muscles, and burn calories are often those that contribute to the arrival of plantar fasciitis. Running, hiking, walking, maybe even yardwork or other projects. And to a greater extent, working a job on your feet all day. Sound familiar? Grrr. What a deal. Proof that fairness often does not prevail.
But reality is what it is. The best first step is to decide you can and will overcome it. Don’t do anything rash, as in things involving scalpels and injections. I’ll continue to post ideas and exercises to guide plantar fasciitis sufferers through the ordeal. You’re almost certain to find a combination of actions therein that works for you and your particular injury level. Once you’ve talked to as many folks as I have when researching material for the book Injury Afoot: 30 Things You Can Do to Relieve Heel Pain and Speed Healing of Plantar Fasciitis, you realize a couple of things: almost everyone you speak with knows someone who’s acquired it, or has had it themselves. And, fortunately, a great many of those victims eventually beat it…for them it’s now just a bad (very bad) memory.
So active, productive, wholesome people are often the ones who fall under the spell of plantar fasciitis. It’s the sad truth. But those same people often overcome it and get back to an active lifestyle. Be one of them.