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Tips to prevent plantar fasciitis: The term plantar fasciitis is misleading. Literally translated it means inflammation of the plantar fascia. Truth be told plantar fasciitis (PF) does not involve inflammation at all, rather it is caused by repeated micro tears of the plantar fascia on your foot.Plantar fasciitis can be caused by poor ankle mobility, inappropriate shoe choice and/or poor gait mechanics.Tight Calves are a big reason for PF.When walking or running, your foot has to bend backwards towards your shin bone as your leg passes behind your body just prior to your heel leaving the ground. This action is called dorsiflexion. People need 15-20 degrees of dorsiflexion to avoid PF.Tight calves restrict dorsiflexion and force your foot to operate differently, putting excessive tension on the plantar fascia.Think of how much tension your calf can create running, and then imagine all of that tension pulling on tissue no thicker than several pieces of notebook paper. Fascia is strong, but not strong enough to withstand the excessive repetitive stress. SOLUTION: Stretch your calves 10x/day for 1 minute. SHOES: Control pronation,avoid stiff shoes! When your foot lands, there is something called the ground reaction force. Your feet need to be good shock absorbers to prevent injury.To effectively do this, upon impact, all 26 foot bones and 33 joints need to ‘unlock’ and work together to create a spring to absorb the shock.Done correctly, your arch should flatten and ‘pronate’ prior to stiffening back up to spring off. If your foot does not pronate,injury can occur. 1) Find a shoe that allows your foot to pronate.It is better to over-pronate than under-pronate. For most, this means staying away from overly supportive ‘motion control’ shoes with huge arches. 2. Find a shoe that is shaped like your foot. Avoid shoes that are narrow with arch support. 3. Minimize heel to toe drop. Some running shoe have as much as 13-15 millimeters of drop from the heel to toe. This causes tight calves and poor gait mechanics.We recommend progressing towards 4 mm drop and under over time.Let us know if you have questions by visiting our website ANCPT.com#footpain#prevention#health

A post shared by Anderson & Cattone PT (@andersoncattonept) on Sep 1, 2019 at 8:45am PDT