Running enthusiasts always try their best to follow the kind of advice about doggedness and perseverance that every athlete makes a career listening to. To anyone interested in a sport of any description, perseverance has to be the stock-in-trade they use. Run or lift weights for any period of time, and your body begins to complain with aches and pains, a different kind each day, sometimes in parts of the body that you didn’t even know you could hurt. They tell you that it’s all mental – your ability to overcome everything and power forth. Well that’s good advice for almost every day; just sometimes, it isn’t mental. It is decidedly physical, and you had better recognize it.
One bad effect of pushing yourself too much when running is getting Plantar Fasciitis. Running too hard can bring it up and millions in America – both the athletic and the sedentary, come down with it and are mostly crippled for large parts of their lives.
Fasciitis is actually a colloquial term for any kind of degenerative injury; the real name for it happens to be
Plantar Fasciosis. Think about it – your foot is made up of 26 bones and even more joints; put them through a
thousand footfalls for each mile you run, and the ligaments that hold everything together, are bound to get a
little inflamed and stressed. Each time you bend your foot to propel yourself forward, the ligaments that
construct the arch of your foot, the plantar fascia, get stretched and compressed like Play-Doh. Pretty soon, they try to cope with this abuse by growing thicker and less elastic; and when that doesn’t make things better for them, they break down altogether. Healing Plantar Fasciitis running causes isn’t easy; but it can be done. Let’s see how it’s done.
Your first area of attack, healing yourself, would be deciding to run less. You’ll need to get together with your
coach to work out a plan where your running schedule is broken down into more manageable parts. Shoes that are even 600 miles-old can be worn enough to aggravate your arches. When your pair wears out far enough, make sure that you get a new pair that’s quite stiff. Plantar Fasciitis running requires extra support for your feet. Some of my teammates who are battling this problem find that switching to softshoes causes an immediate acting up. Some doctors actually recommend custom-made orthotic shoes that had the exact kind of arch support a runner needs.
Other people choose shoes with general issue support, and it works for them too. Strengthening exercises can be really important for the plantar fasciitis running causes. Here are two moves that should get you back on your feet. Sit down in a chair, and swing one leg over your knee. Grip your toes, and bend them all upwards as far as they will go, hold it for 10 seconds, and let them go. This stretches your ligaments, and promotes healing. Other exercises that could work include making knuckles with your toes (remember the first Die Hard?), and picking up marbles with your feet. Not everything works for everyone though; you have to be on the lookout for great new ways to get your ligaments back up; they are your feet after all.
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