plantar fasciitis (painfull feet)

Posted by: mrlee

plantar fasciitis (painfull feet) - 07/06/08 03:07 PM

Hi all, I train in kickboxing between 3-4 times a week, fo rthe last 9 months or so ive been suffering with bad pains in my heels, the podiartrist diagnosed me with plantar fasciitis, ive had orthotics made to stop my feet rolling inwards slightly, and while this offers some relief i still get bad pains, only way to get rid of it till the next day is icing the bottoms of my feet, taking pain killers.Im a builder by trade so being on my feet all day is pretty much the norm. I obviously dont want to give up my training as me and my wife are going for our black belts in a few months. I was wondering if any other members have had expiriance with plantar fasciitis? Of course i dont expect this to go away over night, i was told about a year is the norm
Posted by: Cord

Re: plantar fasciitis (painfull feet) - 07/06/08 04:29 PM

Sorry to hear about this, but the prognosis in regards to maintaining your current level of kickboxing is not good.

inflamation of the plantar fascia is as treatable as any other form of inflamation, but the cornerstone involves increased amounts of rest, and a decrease in activity that aggrivates the condition.

The problem with kickboxing is that you spend a lot of time on the balls of the feet- whilst the pain you have is in the heels, activities that rely on the ball of the foot actually put a lot of strain on the plantar fascia- weird but true.

You really need to implement a daily regime of stretching your achilles tendons and plantar fascia stretches. You should also have orthotics made for the training shoes you kickbox in, or use heel/foot supports if bare footed. Cut your kickboxing down to 2 times per week (talk with your instructor- they will understand), and ice your heels 10 mins on, 5 mins off, repeatedly for a couple of hours after each class.

increased rest, daily specific stretching, and post exercise ice.

Get it fixed, and then you will be able to go for your blackbelt when 100%. Your other option is to ignore the problem, make it get worse, and be forced to stop training completely while waiting for surgery when the problem gets chronic and you develop a spur.

Its a no brainer really.
Posted by: Zach_Zinn

Re: plantar fasciitis (painfull feet) - 07/06/08 05:48 PM

Yeah orthotics plus some kind of stretching usually does it normally, but it also isn't a problem that goes away quickly, kickboxing or not.

My own personal bias, but if you can find a good clinically trained massage therapist they can help, I usually have my classmates do pin and stretch work on the plantar fascia, toes, and achilles.

I have it pretty bad myself due mostly to ridiculously high arches, between the orthotics and getting regular massage, inlcuding using what I call "balls of pain" to loosen up the fascia, i've kept it under control. Of course I don't do kickboxing so I'm sure I don't beat mine up as bad in that regard.

Anyway good luck, it's a pain in the ass, or the feet in this case, but it's certainly manageable, just make sure you do someting about it now rather than later.

Anyway the "balls of pain" treatment is where you use a softish spiky toy ball and stand on it in different positions to stretch the fascia, it works really well. However I wouldn't go try it without the direction of a therapist of some sort.
Posted by: EFRAIN

Re: plantar fasciitis (painfull feet) - 07/06/08 10:30 PM

Hey man, I know exactly how u feel because I also had planta faciitis. I had for abour a year and a half... The only sure way to get better is by resting like hell man, avoid being on ur feet tooo longgg and massage and strech the feet and a muscle called tibialis anterior on the front lateral side of ur leg, basically on the right side or left side depending on which leg(shin) .. It took me 3 months to get over it... sacrifice training time man trust me its worth it cause now i havent gotten any pain since march...

Bow out with respect from a TKD/BAGUA MARTIALIST
Posted by: mrlee

Re: plantar fasciitis (painfull feet) - 07/07/08 02:25 PM

Hey thansk all for your honest and intelegent replies.

I had some orthotics made about a month and a half ago, which i wear all the time for work, the podiratist 'doctored' the insole of my addidas martial arts shoes for when im training (which i got after noticing i had developed a pain) Normaly after wearing the orthotics for an hour or so most pain goes away.

Like i said my job involves me being on my feet most of the time with heavy boots, being on ladders and roofs, being self employed resting is a rarity im afraid.

Again good advice about the icing and stretching, i use icepacks, frozen peas and also find that 'Cryogel' offers great pain relief.

As for stretching the podiratrist gave me a few excercises to stretch my calfs, of course we do them in training most times, and i do daily ones aswell.

Id be interested if anyone has any ideas for specific excersises or stretches for the calf muscles & plantar Fasciitis.

Thanks again all!!
Posted by: wiggy

Re: plantar fasciitis (painfull feet) - 07/07/08 03:49 PM

Quick questions: Did you have x-rays taken? If so, were there any indication of heel spurs? Also, where exactly is the pain? At the bottom of the heel or in the center of the bottom of the foot?
Posted by: mrlee

Re: plantar fasciitis (painfull feet) - 07/08/08 03:00 AM

Hey Wiggy, No xrays (so far) The pain as best as I can describe it runs along the bottom of my feet from heels to the instep, typical of plantar fasciitis I think. On the left foot there is a point that I can press on the inside of the heel, I can feel this most during side splits.The pain would be best described as the bone being banged by something hard, only feel this wehn its had pressure on. This did make me think it was a spur but I think it would be in the wrong place.

What ill try and do is find a pic on the net of some feet and try and mark the points on better than i can describe
Posted by: mrlee

Re: plantar fasciitis (painfull feet) - 07/08/08 03:19 AM

ok, sorry about this pic only did it quickly, and these arent my feet. The area in red, roughly, shows point of pain.
Thanks again

http://i95.photobucket.com/albums/l158/jinxyjuja/feet.jpg
Posted by: wiggy

Re: plantar fasciitis (painfull feet) - 07/08/08 01:51 PM

Mr. Lee,
Below see some links of stretches I found to be useful for plantar fasciitis. Your drawing shows exactly what plantar fasciitis pain is with the exception of the inner heel pain. I would suspect you also have a bone spur off the inside heel causing that pain. But no matter, the stretching is the same provided you are no worse as a result.

The most effective stretch I've found is here (note you can cross your legs to do this):
http://images.search.yahoo.com/images/vi...eepuh&tt=51

This is another type of stretch that can also be done with a frozen soup can or a golf ball:
http://images.search.yahoo.com/images/vi...eepuh&tt=51

Finally, here are some exercises that are basic but good ones. Just avoid the toe raise exercises:
http://images.search.yahoo.com/images/vi...eepuh&tt=51

Good luck!
Posted by: mrlee

Re: plantar fasciitis (painfull feet) - 07/08/08 04:23 PM

Hey wiggy, thanks for the reply and the links, very helpful indeed
Well I did go training tonight but ive done plenty of calf stretches and iced in the morning, before and after training an d I noticed a masssive improvement today, im going to try the frozen can next rather than a bag of peas
Thanks again
Posted by: Gavin

Re: plantar fasciitis (painfull feet) - 07/09/08 10:06 AM

Quote:

im going to try the frozen can next rather than a bag of peas




Don't use cans of soup, use beer cans. Have a ready supply of cold ones and stick one under your foot. Once it starts to warm up, crack it open, get another cold one, stick that under your foot and drink the open one. Rinse and repeat. I guarantee you that one way or t'other the pain in your foot pain will disappear!

Fascia is like a continuous web that envelopes the entire body and everything in it. Quite often the pain we feel is often a result of tension as elsewhere in the myofascial system (the muscles and fascia of the body) usually resulting from an injury, trauma or posture. Quite often people (and therapists) will just treat the "pain" or area of the pain but not always the cause. So the pain will go away for a while, but its quite common for people to have the same reoccurring injury over and over. They rest until the symptom eases and then go straight back into the pattern of disfunction. If its got to the stage whereby its affecting your training, and you can afford it, I'd definitely see a therapist that specialises in fascial work.
Posted by: mrlee

Re: plantar fasciitis (painfull feet) - 07/10/08 02:39 AM

Quote:

Don't use cans of soup, use beer cans. Have a ready supply of cold ones and stick one under your foot. Once it starts to warm up, crack it open, get another cold one, stick that under your foot and drink the open one. Rinse and repeat. I guarantee you that one way or t'other the pain in your foot pain will disappear!




Now thats the best advice ive had so far!!

It makes sense what you are saying, my podiratist was saying that its linked to (without going too technical) calf muscles and the achililes heel, which makes sense as most of our lessons we are up on our toes. As far as i can remember back we were doing skipping, and its not something ive done a lot of after that class I thought 'wow my feet hurt today' proberly stressed my muscles too much.
Posted by: Gavin

Re: plantar fasciitis (painfull feet) - 07/10/08 04:04 AM

The calves form part of a chain of muscle and fascia that goes all the way up from the soles of your feet to the top of your skull. Here's a really good introduction article by a guy called Tom Myers who wrote a book called "Anatomy Trains" which is very good. He's a western based bodyworker who has taken a very holistic view of human physiology that is virtually identical to some of the approaches I use in Shiatsu. This article, especially if you look towards the end where it details the myofascial meridians, will give you a very good idea of how dysfunction in one part of the system can cause a referred pain elsewhere in the body. Personally I'd be very surprised if the problem is in calves, again I think that would be more of a symptom than a cause.

http://www.anatomytrains.com/uploads/rich_media/AnatomyTrainsOverview.pdf
Posted by: Gavin

Re: plantar fasciitis (painfull feet) - 07/10/08 05:06 AM

This article was posted by Ashe in his blog and discusses Plantar fascitis:

http://www.t-nation.com/readArticle.do?id=1813999
Posted by: Neko456

Re: plantar fasciitis (painfull feet) - 07/10/08 11:42 AM

Quote:

Hey man, I know exactly how u feel because I also had planta faciitis. I had for abour a year and a half... The only sure way to get better is by resting like hell man, avoid being on ur feet tooo longgg and massage and strech the feet and a muscle called tibialis anterior on the front lateral side of ur leg, basically on the right side or left side depending on which leg(shin) .. It took me 3 months to get over it... sacrifice training time man trust me its worth it cause now i havent gotten any pain since march...

Bow out with respect from a TKD/BAGUA MARTIALIST





3 MONTHS how old are you? 19-25 years old. I spoke with a former college Basketball player, now a coach and plays summer leauge (35-38 yrs old) he said it took him 2.5 years for his to completly heal. I had the same injury and it took me 18 months to heal. Accept for cold and heat treatment, massage and rehilbitaion drills there not much that could be done. 3 months man I miss being young.

OP Good luck healing, let me add one of the things that slows healing is reinjury try not to use the that foot for kicking especially the roundhouse kick on the heavy bag until it healed, even when using the shin. Air kicking or light striking pads maybe ok during the healing process but not the heavy bag or sparring.

Oh to be young again...
Posted by: Saisho

Re: plantar fasciitis (painfull feet) - 08/28/08 09:35 PM

I generally treat plantar fasciitis with ultrasound, joint mobilizations and exercise. If it is real pesky, I will use iontophoresis (medication) at the end.

Find a good PT that uses manual therapy and what I mentioned.

E-mail me if you have questions.
Posted by: WadoNovice

Re: plantar fasciitis (painfull feet) - 08/29/08 05:15 PM

I used one of those mini trampolines (rebounders) as part of my re-hab after I had Plantar fasciitis (2 years of pain! and a load of visits to a PT). I don't know the science behind it (if any) but it seemed to help.

Good luck,

C
Posted by: DaveMurphy

Re: plantar fasciitis (painfull feet) - 08/31/13 12:11 AM

There are many people suffer from Plantar Fasciitis and I know that is very painful foot problem. My friend is also suffering with Plantar Fasciitis. But now he got treatment from a professional podiatrist who is in Sydney and he feel better then his previous day of suffering.

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