Heal Your Heel Pain

Winter Running

If you suffer from sore feet, be careful where you walk and run: with a few bad steps, dangerous surfaces can injure you and undo weeks of recuperation.

Icy, snowy areas represent the most evident example of a dangerous surface. With your feet slipping, sliding, gliding, and floating unpredictably in any direction, icy surfaces can inflict extra damage to your already tender feet and/or Achilles tendons. And on those flat icy areas with ice and snow chunks frozen in place, walking and running can be horrific. Don’t attempt to navigate ice-covered areas unless you absolutely have to.

Moving across any type of uneven surface will be questionable to the safety of your feet. Luckily, walking or running through such an area will feel uncomfortable, and you’d probably sense right away that it’s not good for your lower extremities. And you’d be right. The foot in the lower position is subject to undue stress, as it carries an excessive proportion of the load in this situation. The discomfort should stop you from settling into a route or area that features this type of footing and repeating it as your regular routine; note, however, that even one pass through a risky, icy area can re-injure vulnerable feet. Be careful where you travel.

Some ideas to handle navigation on icy, snowy, wintery conditions:

- Choose relatively even surfaces if you can.
- Use restraint and caution when exercising upon icy, snowy surfaces; assume that all wet, dark areas on pavements are slippery.
- Choose footwear that provides traction; shoes or boots with soles that are grooved, vs. smooth, are ideal.
- Walk and run with a short stride, keeping your center of gravity directly over your feet as much as possible. Avoid the aggressive, lunging stride. If you do this on snowy, icy surfaces, you won’t be walking or running long anyway. You’ll most likely be twirling around on the ground.
- Consider ice-gripping devices for your footwear, like YakTrax or Ice Grips; the metal “teeth” on these accessories can really bite into snow and ice, and keep you from slipping and tumbling.

During the winter in a snowy area, it’s great to keep active, but at the same time, keep safe!

Eli Manning is just one of countless athletes to acquire the dreaded malady plantar fasciitis. His injury could heal up in short order, or it could linger for the entire season, or longer. It all depends on the actions taken to rectify the condition.

I happened upon a couple of articles on Eli’s injury, and read them with interest, since his condition is the topic of my book Injury Afoot. Sure enough, just a few sentences into one of the stories, a doctor interviewed for the piece mentions injections of corticosteroid, often called cortisone, as one of the top treatment options. I cringed. Horror stories abound regarding heel pain sufferers turning to cortisone injections and experiencing side effects that make plantar fasciitis look quite tame. Yet some in the medical field keep recommending these injections. Yikes.

I’m sure Eli has a team of therapists and trainers working with him on active recovery methods such as icing, stretching and strengthening. Active recovery is what you want Eli; steer clear of the cortisone injections.

Patrick Hafner, Author, Injury Afoot: 30 Things You Can Do To Relieve Heel Pain And Speed Healing of Plantar Fasciitis.

I’m all for stretching. A stretching routine helped me heal from plantar fasciitis, and keeps my feet safe to this day. Stretching is an integral part of the book Injury Afoot: 30 Things You Can Do To Relieve Heel Pain And Speed Healing of Plantar Fasciitis, and should be put to use by anyone who suffers from plantar fasciitis.

But regarding stretching, as with most things, there is advice. Then there is questionable advice. And then there is insane advice. Case in point:

Floating about the plantar fasciitis rehab community is one very risky, aggressive, and hazardous stretching technique. It goes as follows: stand on a step, curb, or ledge of some kind, putting your weight on the ball of the foot to be stretched (Fig. 1).

Figure 1

Then, the advisors of this stretch say, lower that heel way down, letting all of your bodyweight pile on to stretch out your calf area. This is to be done on one already tender, injured foot…with your full body weight. (I couldn’t bring myself to fully demonstrate this tactic in Figure 2; I kept a little weight on my front foot to avoid a painful re-tearing. Most instances where this is recommended, however, the “expert” instructs the person to stand fully on the injured foot. Ouch!)

My oh my. I can almost feel the vulnerable tissue give way a little more, exacerbating the injury further. Nice. A forceful, brutal, impatient stretch like this is the last thing you want to do when you are recovering from plantar fasciitis. A plantar fasciitis recovery routine should be more like walking on eggshells, vs. squashing grapes into wine, if you catch my drift. Do not do the stretch as detailed above.

Figure 2

Let’s try a similar and much safer version of this stretch. As demonstrated in Fig. 3, standing next to the step or curb, place the ball of your foot to be stretched against it. Keep most of your weight on your supporting leg, not the leg to be stretched. This allows you to control the intensity of the stretch, and carry it out as all stretches should be carried out: gently.

Proceed to…

Figure 3

…lean ever so slowly into the stretch. Hold it at the point the stretch first starts, not beyond that point (Fig. 4). Hold it 15-20 seconds. Repeat this process once  or twice. Do this twice a day. You’ll realize an effective stretch which you can control, which can be done almost anywhere, and which causes you no further harm.

For a complete rundown of effective stretching and strengthening actions sure to help rid you of heel pain caused by plantar fasciitis, take a look at the book Injury Afoot: 30 Things You Can Do To Relieve Heel Pain And Speed Healing of Plantar Fasciitis. The steps detailed there are safe, can be done at home free of charge, and they work.

Figure 4

Beauty of cumulative damage? Am I crazy?? Well, maybe, but not in this case.

The plantar fasciitis condition is one which results from long-term, repeated wear and tear where you accumulate micro-injuries. In other words, cumulative damage. Not sounding too beautiful so far. So, what’s my point?

My point is, you have a fair amount of leeway when experimenting with recovery methods and the altering of your routine as you allow your feet to recover and heal. It’s hard to recuperate from plantar fasciitis while being largely inactive. Conversely, it will be far more beneficial to you and your feet if you are active, engaging regularly in strengthening, stretching, and endurance-building motions. But…you can’t overdo it either. And that’s where the beauty of cumulative damage comes in. You actually can do some trial and error, push your limits here and there, and ease back on efforts which prove to be too much. It took a long time to get to the injured state called plantar fasciitis; the body will adjust if you do a little too much now and then according to your individual physical makeup and injury severity. For example, you won’t undo months of recovery if you applied too much enthusiasm to one extra long walk or one arch strengthening session. Back off, let the soreness recede, and do a little less the next time. Make your recovery journey a learning experience as well as a comeback to a healthy state. When it comes to active recovery, proceed with confidence, not fear. Adjust as you go.

For a complete listing and description of every stretching and strengthening motion you will ever need to vanquish plantar fasciitis, consider my book Injury Afoot: 30 Things You Can Do To Relieve Heel Pain And Speed Healing of Plantar Fasciitis. The exercises are easy, painless, don’t take long, and can actually be relaxing. They are all consolidated into one brief, easy-to-read resource.  And they work.