Health and Fitness

What exercises can you do for foot problems?

Plantar fasciitis is a common problem of the foot in adults. The pain is commonly beneath the heel and it is even worse during the first few steps after resting, for example getting up in the morning. There are many therapies that get touted for the treatment of this problem. These range between foot supports to injections to exercise routines. There's plenty of discussion as to which will be the best remedy, there is lots of data for a lot of individual treatments, but hardly any evidence about which may be the ideal therapy or what mixture of treatments provides the best results.

A lot of suggestions is offered for exercises to assist in treating this problem. There is certainly plenty of good research which supports the using stretching with the calf muscles included in the treatment and there's also data that tight calf muscles are a risk factor for this disorder. Because of this it's a good idea to make calf muscle stretching as being a routine exercise that can help manage this problem.

Loads of advice is provided to strengthen the muscles and when you search around a lot, you can see that advice being offered as the treatment for the issue. There isn't any data that strengthening the foot muscles can help. It does not necessarily mean that it doesn’t help, it simply means there is not any data supporting strengthening, therefore any kind of strategies for foot strengthening exercises needs to be given in that framework of the absence of evidence. You can find good data that the small muscles under the foot are weakened in people with this condition, however it is not clear if the weakness is the reason behind the plantar fasciitis or if the muscles become weaker due to the pain from the problem. As the muscles are weaker, it does appear sensible that strengthening exercises be a component of the therapy plan, nevertheless it must only be a part of the program rather than touted as the treatment.

There is some recommendations that loading exercises assist in the therapy of this condition, but that's really only centered on a lot of social media hype and no robust data. A side effect with the suggested loading plans is that it may strengthen the intrinsic muscles, which as pointed out above are weaker in individuals who have plantar fasciitis, so there is nothing wrong with performing it as part of the rehab. The problem with the support of this exercise technique is the weakness of the evidence which supports it. Almost all exercises have the possibility to be beneficial and a stronger muscle may well be much better than a weaker muscle, but it shouldn't be endorsed as the key treatment.

Many of these concerns with the use of exercises for foot problems was talked about on a recent episode of PodChatLive. PodChatLive is a frequent livestream for podiatry practitioners and other health care professionals having an interest in foot disorders. Through this episode the 2 hosts talked with Talysha Reeve concerning many of the above-mentioned issues. Talysha is a podiatrist with a lot of expertise in exercise therapies and rehab of foot problems.