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Plantar Fasciitis – all it means is that the connective tissue reaching from your heel to your toes is inflamed and it could be for a variety of reasons. Some of these causes may be from extensive running, having flat feet, performing exercises that put a lot of weight on the heels, and even age and weight can all play into the severity of your plantar fasciitis.

It is one of the most common pediatric issues and is commonly identified by having pain in the first steps you take after waking up that separates it from other common foot conditions.

Lighter Relief

The first step is loosening up the fascia underneath your feet. Anyone who has experienced plantar fasciitis will know that those first steps after waking up, and possibly for a good portion of the day, will cause an almost stabbing pain from the heel to the middle of the arch.

So to address this pain directly, we want to immediately target the fascia on the bottom of our feet by rolling them out on a firm ball like a lacrosse ball, baseball, or even a golf ball. A tennis ball is too soft to get in and dig out the tight areas so I would not recommend it.

Another option that might be better suited for some people is a foot massage roller. This is a product designed for people experiencing plantar fasciitis symptoms like heel pain, arch pain, and general tension in the foot. It allows you to massage both feet at once and get deep trigger point stimulation from the built-in ridges and arc-shaped design to massage your whole foot evenly.

You can also perform a stretch that involves grabbing your toes and pulling them back towards you for a light stretch of the fascia. I have not experienced much relief from this one in particular but I’ve heard many others recommend it.

Lifestyle Adjustments

The next step is to start moving up the chain and look at the achilles tendon and the calf muscles. We are looking at these because the position of our feet throughout the day will determine how flexible these muscles are.

For most people, they are guaranteed to be tight because traditional shoes have an elevated heel which ends up shortening the length of our achilles and calf muscles because they are never used to their full length.

In addition, our feet are stuck in a plantar-flexed position through the night while we are sleeping. Plantar-flexed means the feet are pointing straight down like a ballerina.

If you think about this just like the shoe example, this is tightening the muscles yet again because they are held in such a shortened position for several hours through the night. It’s not surprising that many of us are incredibly inflexible in those lower leg muscles.

To address these two, we need to hold them in a lengthened position more often so we can slowly stretch them back to their full length. There are many ideas for achieving this and they are all just as much a solution as the next.

I personally changed my shoes from traditional gym shoes (Nike, New Balance, etc.) to minimalist shoes because there is no elevated heel and this will allow my heel to sit lower in the shoe and inevitably become more mobile over time.

Another idea is to simply stretch those muscles like we all have before. I’ve found that the common calf stretch that looks like you’re doing a lunge with your hands on the wall can be adjusted for the achilles by just slightly bending the back leg. You will feel the stretch move down from your calf to your achilles area.

One of the smartest ideas I’ve heard on so far is one that fits a busy lifestyle perfectly and is an excellent choice if you want to keep your legs stretched without thinking about it is a slant board. This is something I initially heard of from the running community as I’ve now seen many runners who rely on this product for pre- and post-run relief.

Just as it sounds, it is an adjustable slanted board that you stand on while you are focusing on something else. They are perfect for someone working at a stand up desk, watching tv, or using a computer.

The last idea for this section is a sleeping foot brace (or compression sleeve/night splint). This is a product I read about recently while (probably like you right now) I was looking for my own plantar fasciitis relief! I have yet to try it out but the idea sounds ingenious. As we talked about before, our feet are in the exact opposite position we want them to be in while we are sleeping (they are in plantar-flexed, we want dorsi-flexed).

So this brace is what holds your feet in the ideal position while you sleep through the night. Another idea that you don’t even have to think about it while you’re receiving the benefits.

Your feet will be much more receptive to 8 hours in a slightly stretched position rather than 5 minutes of intense stretching during the day because our bodies respond to consistency over intensity and this will make for a more gradual change.

Massage and Myofascial Release

After you have tried those first steps, and I do recommend that you start with those first because now we are getting into more serious territory that not everyone will need to get pain relief. We are moving into massage or myofascial release, which sounds scarier than it really is!

This is when we start digging into those tight muscles and fascia that are causing us problems and just a fair warning, this can be a little painful but nothing crazy about it.

It’s also important to know here that the pain really is the gain here. We are targeting those tight knots in our legs because we want to provide a release for them. Enough said about that!

To start, I’d recommend some kind of foam roller. The firmer the better in my opinion because that enables it to dig deeper into those tight areas while working them out.

The first thing to do is keep working on those achilles tendons and calves before we move up. Just roll those same muscles and see how it feels. If it’s already hurting, no need to go further. Just roll out what you can for now and move forward as you see fit.

You can also roll out your hamstrings and the side of your thigh or hip if you’d like. I know some people have recommended this and seen benefits from it so it’s certainly worth a try.

For a more intense roll, lay one leg over the other as you roll out just one at a time and keep your feet off the ground if you can to experience the most bodyweight pushing down on that roller for a better feeling. Focus on the tightest areas while you’re doing this as there isn’t much use in rolling out areas that feel fine; we want to eliminate those tight knots that hurt when rolled over.

Once you’ve done this and you’re feeling like you could use a deeper massage, grab the ball that you were using to roll out your feet or just use your elbow, knuckles, or fingers. We are going to do some light myofascial release.

Cross one leg over the other while sitting and find where your posterior tibial tendon runs down. It runs all along the inside of the shin bone and down to our feet in between the big ankle bone on the inside of the feet and the heel. This tendon has typically become inflamed or partially torn if someone is experiencing plantar fasciitis.

We are going to roll the ball or whatever you’re using over the entire tendon from the top of the calf to the foot and press it in as much as you can. All this is is a deep massage and again, we are targeting those tight areas because we want to roll them out and release them. This has given me the most relief in particular, and I also liked rolling out the side of my calves and achilles as well.

For maximum massage, you can roll on a very firm ball like we did with the foam roller all the way from the bottom of your calves to the hamstrings. Also, placing the ball on a chair and sitting on it so the ball is under a tight spot in your hamstrings can be very beneficial as well. Make sure to hold these tight positions for at least 30 seconds when you find them because this will give you the most progress.