Do you have foot pain? Here are the Top 3 Types of Foot Pain and the Top 3 exercises to alleviate the problem.
These are general exercises aimed at restoring mobility and strength in the foot. Please contact us for more information or set up an appointment so we can assess your specific needs and individualize the treatment accordingly.
Hi this is Dana Ranahan from Body Works Sports Physiotherapy and today I’m going to talk about foot pain. Do you have foot pain, or have you ever had foot pain? Well I’m going to tell you the top 3 sources or types of foot pain that we see in the clinic and what you can do about it, some simple tips.
Top Three Types of Foot Pain
Plantar Fasciitis
One of the main things that we see in the clinic is plantar fasciitis. I think that’s a term that a lot of you have heard. So if we look at the foot, the plantar fascia is basically, almost like a ligament that comes underneath the foot and attaches onto the heel of the foot.
This causes pain usually right in the heel, and sometimes people will get a little spur on their heel or on the bottom of their calcaneal bone or the heel bone. This can create pain. Sometimes people will just have a lot of tension in the foot, which creates that trouble. So plantar fasciitis is one of the main ones that we see.
Medial Arch Pain
One of the other pains we’ll see is medial arch pain. On the inside of the foot there are some ligaments that support your arch and keep you from collapsing your foot. People will get pain in this arch, and we see this commonly when someone has trouble controlling their foot. In these cases they collapse their foot, so it gives them pain in the mid part of the foot.
Metatarsal Pain
And thirdly, one of the things we see in the clinic is metatarsal pain or metarsalgia, which is pain on the bottom of the fore foot, and sometimes numbness and tingling. This pain is on the base of these two toes, which can refer down into the second and third toe predominantly.
Top Three Exercises for Foot Pain
Calf Tightness
There can be different causes for these things. Generally, calf tightness is very common factor with these things, so if the calf is very tight and the tension through the foot is increased, this commonly creates plantar fascia or tightness in your arch.
- Get a roller stick or rolling pin at home, and do some work rolling through the calf muscles.
- There are a number of different ways that you can roll the calf, but this is one of our favourite ones.
- You can move it around and control how much pressure you put on the calf, so you get the inside and the outside of the calf rolling it through.
- You can sometimes even roll the sole of the foot, either with a roller stick or a golf ball underneath the foot.
Rolling to release some tension in the calf first and a little bit in the sole of the foot.
Towel Curls with Toes
And secondly, one of the exercises we work on, once we’ve got some mobility in the foot, is to get some better control of your arch and how your foot moves.
- Scrunch together a little towel
- Pull the towel underneath you to try to get the toes working, getting some lift through the arch and the muscles working together
- Then we work on taking the towel back and away from our foot.
So towel curls with the toes is the second one.
Arch Doming
And the third thing we would work on is controlling your arch. If your arch tends to drop, one of the exercises we want to work on is lifting the arch.
- It’s a very subtle movement, keeping your big toe on the ground.
- A lot of us will tend to roll on the outside of the foot and that’s too much.
- We call this a doming of the arch, trying to get a lift up the inside and getting the arch lifting subtly but keeping your big toe on the ground.
Those are our top three exercises that you can work to help relieve foot pain. If you’re having a lot of pain, we would also recommend using some ice or get a water bottle full of ice and roll it underneath your foot. That can help to alleviate pain.
If these things don’t settle it down please give us a call at the clinic and we can help you sort out other roots of the cause of your problem. So check out our website or give us a call at www.body-works.ca 604-983-6616