The plantar fascia is like any tissue in the
body, it adapts to what you do or what you
don’t do with it; by getting stronger or weaker
depending on activity levels. Over time
tolerance to walking will drop if you don’t walk
and tolerance to running will improve if you
slowly start.
The old thinking was that plantar fasciitis is
caused by microtears causing acute healing
response. The healing response then fails.
This is regularly challenged by the science
and is thought to not be cause for plantar
fasciitis.
PF may be driven by under-stimulation of the
tendon cell due to a lack of load transmission
through the collagen fibers. On the other end
of the spectrum a sharp increase in activity
can be causative. This could be standing for
longer periods than normal, sharp changes in
exercise levels, mainly impact activity like
running, doing to much to soon before the
plantar fascia and other soft tissues have
time to adapt, also not taking good recovery
periods between exercise session. It is show
in takes a tendon 48hrs to recover post
intense exercise. Therefore a clear day
between intense exercise (relative to you) is
necessary to allow good recovery. Following
a clearly marked out exercise plan is so
important with graded increases in exercise
levels and good recovery periods.
Against popular opinion there is a weak
association to standing foot posture and
hypermobility and plantar fasciitis, in other
words it’s not due to flat feet!
The Triggers.
I has been associated with immobility in the
ankle. This is one of the biggest physically
correlations in the research. Therefore it’s very
important to work on the range of motion in the
ankle. Normal dorsi flexion should be aimed
for, however this may not be achievable and
should be done under guidance from a
physical/ physiotherapist if there is pain on this
stretch:
Measure the distance you can get your foot
away from the wall, with your heel planted aim
to get your knee to the wall. You should be
looking to achieve 8cm from toe to wall and be
able to touch with your knee, however
everyone is different and the most important
thing is that there is no different between left
and right sides.
