Plantar Fasciitis: Your Guide to Treatment, Causes and My Personal Prevention Playbook

Have you found yourself with sharp stabbing pain in your feet and you're afraid you may have plantar fasciitis? Yeah, I've had it. So first, sorry about that, but today I'm going to talk about what is plantar fasciitis, the causes, symptoms, prevention, treatment and the personal playbook I use to prevent me getting it again. Hey there, welcome to the Grace Health podcast, your source for aging strong in your physical, mental and spiritual health. My name is Amy Connell. I'm a weight neutral certified personal trainer and nutrition coach who loves walks with friends, chocolate and Jesus. Whether you're looking to grow stronger as you age, nourish your body, mind and spirit, or fit all the pieces of your health together to holistically thrive, this is the place for women over 40. I am here to guide you in the areas I can and bring on experts in the areas I'm still learning and I do still learn a lot and, of course, we cover it all in a whole lot of grace. I'm glad you're here. Okay, plantar fasciitis. So first of all, do I say that? Right? I say it like I have heard it, but I've also heard people say fasciitis, so if that's how you say it, then just go on, sister, I have experienced several bouts of plantar fasciitis and every time it is horrible. It is so painful. I finally have kind of figured out how to prevent them and I'm going to share that with you at the end. But first let's talk a bit more about what it is that causes the symptoms, prevention and treatment. So what plantar fasciitis is is basically inflammation of the plantar, which is foot fascia, and the fascia, as we have discussed with Sue Hitzman, who was on several seasons ago, is part of your connective tissue and that just goes from the top of your head down to the end of your toes and back up, and it has so many amazing purposes. So if you missed that episode that is the most downloaded episode of the Grace Health Podcast I will put the link in the show notes. But if you want to know more about connective tissue, Sue Hitzman is the expert and you can go listen to her there. Now the plantar fascia is a thick band of this connective tissue that runs along the bottom of your foot and it connects to your heel and obviously we need that connective tissue down there. We are on our feet all day long. One of the telltale signs of plantar fasciitis is you will feel it most acutely either in the morning or after inactivity. So maybe if you're in the car and you're commuting into work or you're in the car for a little bit and you get out and you'll feel it then, but if you're just kind of walking around, you may not feel it. Those specific times are often signs that it's plantar fasciitis and not something different. So what causes it? What causes this fascia to get inflamed? Well, it can be from several different things. One is just overuse of your feet. Sometimes it is exercising or walking on really hard surfaces and at the same time striking hard on your heel, which means when you come in you're landing on that heel hard rather than nice and soft. Sometimes we can have poor footwear and when, in conjunction with not landing very well on our feet, that can exacerbate the problem. And then and I hate saying this, but it's just what it is age, I know as we get older, our connective tissue isn't as pliable and so when it's not as pliable, it's going to bind up, it's going to get inflamed and it does all the things that cause us to have pain and inflammation in that connective tissue. So yeah, age can absolutely contribute to this. When I look back, I was a lot younger than I am now when I had it, but what I was doing was I was running a lot there is nothing wrong with running but I wasn't incorporating some of the things that I know now that I'll share with you here in a minute. So what are some of the symptoms? Like we talked about, it's that sharp, stabbing pain. It often will happen in the morning or after a period of rest, like you've been sitting down for a while or you've been in the car for a while or something like that. I always found it to be more sharp and acute in my heel, but it actually can be in your arch as well, and then you can just have the inflammation or the discomfort just within your arch. So it's not a real specific area, because it's not like it's a broken bone or it's not like it's a muscle that has been pulled. It's connective tissue that is fluid in our entire body, so it's not going to be in one specific place. Now there's a couple ways of preventing this. Specifically, you want to do things that stretch your calves, stretch your soleus, which is kind of that muscle underneath your gastrocnemius. So your gastrocnemius is like that big calf muscle and underneath it is your soleus, and you want to make sure that you're stretching both of those muscles. You want to work on your ankle mobility and what I'm going to do is make a video for you and I will put the link in the show notes. But it has four of my favorite ankle mobility movements that help prevent plantar fasciitis. But if you're familiar with moving, things that I recommend are just ankle rolls Just before you get out of bed in the morning, roll your ankles Like yes, it's that simple, because it gets that connective tissue moving in a lot of different directions, which will help hydrate that connective tissue and prevent it from getting stuck in one point. You can do things like downward facing dog, or down dog is the shorter way of saying it. So that's the lazy way. I guess that's how I say it. You can do a I'm calling it like a single leg kneeling Achilles stretch. Again, I'm going to explain it, but you can go watch this on YouTube. But if you go down onto your knees, if you're comfortable just being on your knees, take one foot out in front of you in about a 90 degree angle and then lean into that. So what you're trying to do is have the space between your foot and your shin at an angle, and so that way you are stretching that backside of your ankle, of your, of your soleus, your gastrocnemius, your tendon, and so that is increasing that mobility of your ankle. The other thing that I like to do is just a really deep squat to a hamstring stretch. So that's basically taking your feet out wide and for this one I like to take my toes out kind of in that duck position rather than your toes facing forward, go all the way down and then I will kind of put my elbows in between my knees and rock back and forth. Then put your hands on the ground, straighten your legs, so you're just kind of in that folding position, and straighten up your feet. When you're doing that too, this is wonderful for your ankle mobility, for stretches in your calves, and then, of course, you're getting a nice hamstring stretch, and my tie reminds you that everything is connected. So, yes, stretching your hamstrings can help the fluidity and the range of motion of your muscles, going all the way down to your feet. Again, I will do a quick video on that, I'll put it on YouTube and you can go check that. Another way to prevent it is to make sure that you are strengthening the smaller muscles in your feet, so any kind of balance work you may be doing is very helpful for this. That is going to help support your feet. So that way your feet are kind of in line in the way that they're meant to be and they're not constantly rolling in or rolling out, which is called overpronating or underpronating, but basically it keeps your feet right in line rather than doing kind of flunky things that might contribute to connective tissue binding up, which leads to the plantar fasciitis. Another way you can strengthen those smaller muscles is by going barefoot. When you work out, I encourage my clients to be barefoot or in socks. I actually have one client who is brilliant and she said well, my feet get cold so she wears Pilates socks, which. Those Pilates socks are kind of grippy, so that is a great alternative. If you were listening to this, you're like but Amy, it's freezing outside. So maybe try some Pilates socks. If you have some of those, or if you have old like socks from trampoline parks, that can work well as well because they have that little grip on the bottom. But when you are working out, that also increases your proprioception, which is just that awareness of the space that you're in, and it helps your body to learn to respond to things. Again, going back to getting your feet positioned well so they are not continually moving in directions that maybe they're not meant to or they're weak, and so that's what causes the problems. Another prevention item might be making sure that your shoes fit. I actually did an episode way back in season one Y'all were on season 20. This was season one back in 2019 at the end of it that you can go listen to, and that is where I kind of guide you with getting proper fitting shoes. How to do that? How do you know if you're, if you need new shoes, something like that? So, rather than repeating all of that, I'm going to let you go listen to that. The title is shoes, so just get in your podcast player and type in graced health shoes and it will probably come up. The final offering I have for you in preventing plantar fasciitis is being aware of how your foot is hitting the ground. I alluded to this some earlier, where, when we walk, our heel hits down first. However, we don't want to come in really hard on that heel. You kind of want to come in nice and gentle. So when we wear really big and thick shoes, then we don't have to work very hard on landing nice and soft because we have all of this cushioning. And I'll tell you what I do when I share my playbook about preventing plantar fasciitis, say that fast three times. But that can also give us a false sense of confidence of like oh, I can just go in, and then we start to walk really hard and we start to let it's called heel striking. We land really hard on our heel. Rick Olderman was on. He's a physical therapist and he talked to us some about walking. So if you want to hear a bit more about like I mean it sounds weird like how do you relearn how to walk? We're not necessarily relearning, we're just adjusting and we are having a different awareness and we're retraining our brain to walk the way really that we learn to walk when we're kids. We don't see kids walking around super heavy on those heels. We see them kind of more floaty right. I mean obviously this is after they learn how to walk. I mean they're toppling all over the place when they're doing that, but they're a lot lighter, like look at little kids, look at, look at a three year old. They're a lot lighter in their feet than we are, because they're landing softer and the forefront of their feet rather than just landing so hard on their heels. Now if you're listening because you have plantar fasciitis and you're like this is doing me no good, I need to know what to do about it. I do have some suggestions for you. One of the things you can do for treatment is to give your feet some ice baths. This can be something as simple as putting some of your kitchen ice in a sink and just soaking your feet for I don't know five minutes or so, but ice does help to reduce the inflammation. This is not something that you can do all day, every day, clearly, but it's one of those tools to put in your tool belt of treatment for plantar fasciitis. Kind of in the same vein is you can get a frozen water bottle. So just get whatever kind of like Aquafina or whatever you drink, but a plastic water bottle sticking in the freezer, and then you can roll your feet on it. If you are afflicted more in the arch than the heel, this is going to be a bit easier, because when you roll your heel on something really hard, then it might like pop out at least that was my experience, but rolling your feet on a frozen water bottle can be helpful. One of the things I'm a big advocate for is the soft balls by melt. So sue Hitzman is the founder of melt method and these are her balls. You can find those on Amazon and then, when you have them, you can access a free foot softball treatment on YouTube and do that along with her. Now that is a wonderful 10-minute way of caring for your feet, no matter what. So if you're listening to this and you don't have plantar fasciitis but you're like, well, but my feet hurt at the end of the day, or maybe my feet are just sore or swollen or you know, I mean our feet hurt. They carry us all day. This is something that I really recommend doing. Again, the soft balls are different than anything else that I have seen, so I definitely recommend getting those from Amazon. I'll put the link to both of those in the show notes. I mentioned this earlier. But stretching stretching your calf, stretching your Achilles, that's very good. Doing those ankle mobilities, so that's kind of all in line with that. Add that to your day a couple times a day If possible. If not, just do it once. But stretching those muscles can really help with the recovery of your plantar fasciitis. If you do not have any other medications that Prohibit this, you can take some NSAID, some non-steroidal Anti-inflammatory drugs like ibuprofen or a leave. That's just up to you and if you feel comfortable doing that or not. And Then the other thing that you can do is get some orthotics or get proper shoes. So we talked about proper shoes earlier. Sometimes we have really cute sneakers. Let's be honest, like sometimes we have really cute shoes and we don't want big, bulky orthotic shoes. I'll tell you about a brand I like, use and recommend here in a second. But you can always get some inserts or insoles either one to put into your shoes. So I have a couple pair of shoes that I really like and they just don't feel like they have the support that I like. So what I do is I take the insoles out and then I insert in new Insoles and then I have the proper support and then finally this is a good time to remind you that I am not a doctor. I do not have the answers to everything and there are definitely times that we need to have help and have a professional help us. So a physical therapist is a great place to go. Another place that I like and recommend and have used is a Rosti. It's a I are our OST I. They have a very specific method of Helping your pain, so check them out if you are interested in that. Okay, so, as promised, I'm gonna give you my personal playbook. So this is the things that I have been doing for the last 10 years To prevent planar fasciitis, and if you have been with me a while, you know that I do a lot of things different than I did 10 years ago, when I kind of went from over exercising and being really really focused on a whole lot of things to finding more balance. But these are the things that I do to help plantar fasciitis. Number one is, before I get out of bed, I roll my ankles and that just is rolling one way and then rolling the other way, and then I tighten up my feet like I'm making a fist with my feet, and then I open and spread those toes as much as possible. Think about it, our toes don't get to spread out very much. So I like to say jazz hands with your feet. But those are just. That's just something I do. It takes just a few seconds and I do it before I even get out of bed. The other thing I do is add in ankle mobility. So these are things I actually will do when I do mobility and these types of movements are all in my online class called be complete, which is just a low impact compliment to however you like to move, and it's all the things that we need to be doing as women over 40, but we don't always take the time to do so. These are all in the be complete, but the ankle mobility for things that I mentioned earlier. I incorporate those at least a couple times in my week, every week in one way or another. I also do workout barefoot. I think there's a lot of benefits to that. In fact, jen Lormand and Christina Walsh talked about the benefits of that in their episode that they did. Now, those are the tight in your tinkler girls and, believe it or not, that can help with our pelvic floor health. Again, everything is so connected. I just love it so much, but I do advocate working out barefoot when safe and appropriate. If you are walking into a big box gym, maybe not appropriate, but if you are just doing stuff at home and moving around weights or doing body weight stuff at home as much as you can take those shoes off, because it will, for all of the reasons that I mentioned earlier. Now, having said that, I also have found for me it's very helpful to have supportive footwear, and that shows up in a couple different ways for me. Number one is, like I said, I do put those inserts in my sneakers. I want cute shoes. I also want feet that feel good, and so that is a nice compromise for me. I make sure that I have walking or running shoes I walk more than I run now that fit my feet. It is so worth the time to go to a running shoe store, even if you do not run, but go there and have your feet assessed. I talk about this in the episode I mentioned earlier, so I won't beat a dead horse to death, but it is so helpful and most times it doesn't even cost anything and the people who are guiding you are kind and helpful and will just help you get good shoes on your feet. So just make sure that if you're exercising or whatever you're exercising in, that you have good shoes for that. The other thing I do is I do wear supportive shoes when I am around the house, so Vionics is the brand that I like. You may or may not be familiar with it. If you have had plantar fasciitis, probably someone has mentioned Vionics to you. They are not cheap but they are well worth the hype. I primarily use their slippers and flip flops. The flip flops are wonderful because they have arch support and it keeps my ankle in line when I'm flopping around the house and of course that's like six months out of the year where I live, so that is really helpful. I have found I don't use or find as much benefit in the sneakers and the boots and all of that, but depending on the grade of pain that you are in, that absolutely may be worth it. But in general I really do like that Vionics brand and I have no affiliation with them. I'm not getting paid for this. I don't get paid for saying anything about any of them really but I do really love Vionics. Then going kind of back to the flip side about shoes is I do have minimal to moderate, I will say walking around the house without shoes on, because I want my ankles to be stable and I want to train myself to land appropriately and if I'm always in really thick shoes then it's going to be pretty easy to land super heavy on my feet. So it's kind of one of those things that I feel like I'm talking out of both sides of my mouth, but that's just kind of what I do. So, yeah, I do work out without shoes on and I wear supportive shoes, and that is what has worked for me. For me, the final piece of this element is not being too hard on my feet, and that has really come with just me aging, with me changing how I like to work out. I do more lower impact stuff, and when I do the lower impact, I'm doing things like my B complete. I'm doing things like yoga or mobility. So I'm kind of getting several benefits out of mixing things up without running, running, running, running, running, running, running and then jump squats, which is kind of how I used to do it. And I tell you what finding the balance in my workouts has really helped my body feel more balanced as well, including not getting plantar fasciitis knock on wood for the last 10 years. So there you go. There are your causes, symptoms, prevention, treatment and my personal playbook to prevent plantar fasciitis. I hope that this episode is not applicable to you, because I wouldn't wish it on anyone, but chances are you've had it or you know someone who has had it. So I am wishing you healing and that is all for today. Go out there and have a graced day. Thanks for listening today. If this episode was valuable to you, could you do one of two things that are enormously valuable to me but super simple for you? Number one just share this with a friend Super simple. Number two provide a rating and review. Particularly if you listen in Apple podcasts, this is super valuable for me. Also, if you haven't yet subscribed to my monthly journal, why not? I send it out twice a month and it is a private, fun space for me to share some of my favorite foods and recipes, movements, books, sermons and more. You never know what you're going to get, but I promise it will add value to your day. You can sign up at gracedhealthcom slash monthly dash updates and, of course, the link is in the show notes. Thanks again for listening and I'll see you next time.