The Only Stretch You Need for Plantar Fasciitis

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As I’ve covered in a couple of my recent posts, our foot arch/plantar muscles are being held in a very poor position whenever we wear traditional footwear. Specifically, the elevated heel has our heel sitting up too high and the toe spring has our toes lifted above the ball of the foot.

You can think of it as your foot being forced into an unnatural “U” shape. Obviously, our foot wants to lay flat; heel and toes level with each other on the ground with a natural arch between them.

When the feet are forced into this unnatural “U”, the arch muscles get artificially lengthened. This causes them to become weak and dysfunctional. 

Our footwear is quite detrimental to the natural shape and function of our toes. Standard footwear has a narrow and tight toe box, leaving our toes no room to spread out and forcing our big toe to be pushed inward.

There is also the 15-20 degrees of forced dorsiflexion (the toe spring lifting our toes off the ground). This dorsiflexion, or toe spring, is artificially lengthening the plantar muscles on the bottom of the foot and shortening the extensor muscles on the top of the foot.

      Source: bodiempowerment.com

The shortening of the muscles on the top of the foot is not something that I have ever seen covered when discussing the issue of plantar fasciitis. That is, not until I came across Dr. Ray McClanahan describing what happens when we compromise the natural position of our toes.

He notes that the adductor hallucis (pictured above), a muscle on the top of the foot that attaches to the inside of the big toe, becomes short and tight from a lifetime in traditional footwear, reconfiguring where the toes naturally lay.

The tightness of the adductor hallucis pulls the big toe inward, putting a strain on the plantar fascial muscles on the inside and bottom of the foot.

When this muscle is relieved of its tightness, it also provides relief to the muscles on the inside and bottom of the foot where most people experience plantar fasciitis pain. 

So in short, we want to stretch the extensor muscles to provide relief to the plantar fascia. The plantar fascia muscles will be helped by this stretch because they are under tension from the extensor muscles on the top of the foot being too short and tight.

These muscles rely on each other to keep the natural shape of the foot in balance. When one is out of sync, the other will suffer as well. 

This stretch will help provide greater length and flexibility to the extensor tendons of the foot.

By aiming to restore the natural position of the foot through this stretch, we will be helping to get bloodflow in and out of the foot (a very common, yet under-discussed problem with plantar fasciitis).

We often experience pain in our heel and inner arch because that area is not receiving an adequate amount of bloodflow, therefore leaving the tissue dehydrated and malnourished.

So if we can restore these muscle groups back to their proper length, we will subsequently put them in a better position to receive a healthy amount of bloodflow. 

You can think of this stretch as being the counter to the negative effects of toe spring in shoes.

It’s also important to note that while this stretch is a great reactive solution, it would be wise to use a proactive solution as well.

This would involve removing our toes from the detriments of toe spring and toe-tapering with footwear that allows the toes to sit in the same position as when they are barefoot.

This is where minimalist footwear comes in, or as Dr. McClanahan calls it, natural-shaped footwear. This type of footwear offers a toe box that is wide enough to let the toes spread out and has a flat sole so the toes are level with the ball of the foot and heel.

These features are ideal for letting the toes reposition themselves and therefore restoring the foot muscles to their original length.

Traditional footwear does not offer any of these features, but rather forces our feet to change its natural shape over time, making us highly susceptible to conditions like plantar fasciitis. 

Dr. McClanahan also mentions that he does not recommend stretches that pull on the plantar fascial ligament.

So stretches that pull the toes back (dorsiflexion) are not advised as he says that our footwear has already been artificially lengthening the plantar fascia enough and more stretching will just strain it further.